Reagan’s Unity Principles

A draft resolution proposed for adoption by the RNC is being circulated by James Bopp, Jr., a RNC committeeman from Indiana. The draft lists ten statements styled “Reagan’s Unity Principles” and proposes that candidates subscribe to at least eight of the ten to receive RNC support. The list is intended only for the 2010 campaign season, which affects the analysis of it.

The “principles” are as follows:

(1)   We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2)   We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

(3)   We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4)   We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5)   We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6)   We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7)   We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8)   We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9)   We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10)           We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership;

First impressions: It seems obvious that the list is a reaction to the embarrassment that ensued from the congressional race in New York’s 23^rd congressional district, where the RNC gave official support, and substantial funding, to Dede Scozzafava, a candidate appointed by local officials. Ms. Scozzafava would have been much more at ease caucusing with the Democrats, as she demonstrated by endorsing the Democratic candidate when her support collapsed after Doug Hoffman, an actual conservative candidate, entered the race. The debacle cost Republicans the seat.

The first five are much too negative in tone, even for use in a single season, and the first six are not so much statements of conservative principles as a list of Obama policies that Republicans oppose. Reagan, of course, never opposed any Obama proposal, but he certainly would have if a precocious young Obama had made any while Reagan was alive. It is not enough to oppose bad policy, you must propose effective alternatives. Number six is too deferential to the military as a general proposition and most likely will not be an issue in 2010. Seven is too vague; does it mean military action? Against North Korea? We may want to consult with the residents of Seoul before we loose the cruise missiles. What is the Constitutional basis for the Defense of Marriage Act? Nine is incoherent. What does it mean to oppose health care rationing and denial of health care? As for ten, not even the NRA opposes all government restrictions on gun ownership.

In general, most of the positions taken are merely statements in opposition to specific Democrat proposals that will be moot or irrelevant in 2010.

Taking the statements in order:

(1)   We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

Of course we do, but by the summer of 2010 the “stimulus bill,” whatever that is, will be a distant memory, if it is not forgotten completely. The Democrats will be talking up “fiscal responsibility” and “lowering the deficit” and Republican adherence to this statement will simply fall on air or be seen as just another instance of Republican “me tooism.”

Instead, Republicans should emphasize cutting taxes across the board to stimulate job creation and growth, since unemployment will still be high in mid to late 2010. An emphasis on cutting taxes will draw a sharp distinction between Republicans and Democrats and provide an opportunity to remind voters of the abject failure of the Democrats massive spending sprees.

(2)   We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

By mid 2010 government-run health care will either be a fact or dead. If it failed, there is no point taking a stand against it. Interstate competition and tort reform would certainly be improvements, but the people are not clamoring for health care reform in any form. If it passed, there will be no appetite among a weary public to continue the debate until later in the decade when they have had some experience of the system’s shortcomings.

(3)   We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

It is not at all clear what “market-based energy reforms” are or what they might be intended to reform. If cap-and-trade is still an issue in 2010, it surely must be opposed, but that seems an unlikely prospect. 

Tension with Iran and Venezuela is certain to increase in the coming year, so a more coherent energy position would be to emphasize the national security implications of dependence on foreign oil and the economic catastrophe that would result from a significant interruption in energy supplies. Any aggressive action by the U.S. or Israel against Iran would almost certainly result in an embargo of oil from both Iran and Venezuela and possibly others. Shipping through the Straits of Hormuz would be interrupted for an indeterminate period of time and it is possible that even shipping through the Red Sea and Suez Canal could be interrupted.   It is absolutely imperative that we immediately open the continental shelf on all four coasts to exploration and production and immediately begin a rationalization of our nuclear power plant approval process. It would be a joke that France can build nuclear power plants in half the time we can, except it isn’t true. We can’t build them at all due to impossible regulatory hurdles.

I think this is the most serious national security threat facing our country today; imagine our energy supply suddenly and indefinitely cut in half.

(4)   We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

Of course we do, but without more this is letting SEIU set our agenda for us. 

(5)   We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

That’s it? No amnesty? What about the fence? What about a guest worker program with a fine and reentry requirement? How about an accelerated path to citizenship based on a specified term of military service? Economic turmoil has turned a tide of immigration into one of emigration. Now is the time to strike with constructive ideas that mitigate the inflow that is sure to come when the economy turns and accommodate the real demand for cheap labor that sponsors the flow.

(6)   We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

Victory in Iraq has been achieved. Hopefully it will continue to hold through 2010 as Iraq’s security forces continue to improve, its people grow accustomed to the benefits of democracy and our forces continue to withdraw. Afghanistan is less developed culturally, economically, and in terms of infrastructure, but victory is still achievable there with suitably aggressive suppression of the Taliban and al Qaida accompanied by a strengthening of the Afghani army under a unified command. 

While recommendations of experienced field commanders ought to be given great weight in deliberations, a blanket statement of support for unspecified recommendations is overly deferential. Whatever you think of Obama’s decision-making capacity, we are still a nation of civilian control of the military.

(7)   We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

With the possible exceptions of Russia, China, and Venezuela, the entire world would like to see North Korea and Iran contained and their nuclear threats eliminated. The differences lie in the details of timing and methods. Climbing on that bandwagon doesn’t serve to distinguish Republicans from the Japanese, much less the Democrats.

The circumstances of Iran and North Korea are in no way comparable and it is irrational to attempt to apply the same policy to both. An attack on North Korea risks the destruction of Seoul by North Korean nuclear retaliation and the intervention of, if not outright war with, China. On the other hand, North Korea will never be able to hurt us very badly, even if it develops a nuclear-tipped ICBM, and an attack by North Korea on the U.S. or any of our Asian allies would unite the world behind us and allow us to destroy her with impunity. The proper strategy is the one we have been pursuing; continue talks in whatever format while waiting for the Dear Leader to die. Time is on our side.

Prior to the construction of a deliverable warhead and missile system, an attack on Iran poses no comparable risks. The worst Iran could manage would be scud-like attacks on Israel and a disruption of shipping in the area through her relatively limited navy, air force and shore-to-ship coastal defenses. Iran’s air force and navy could be effectively suppressed, but her shore-to-ship and ballistic missile forces would be much more difficult to eliminate and traffic in the Hormuz Straits can be disrupted by ordinary artillery fire. If, however, Iran is allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and effective delivery system, she would bring Israel under threat of virtual annihilation. Our freedom of action in the Middle East would thereafter be subject to an Iranian veto, at the peril of a hostage Israel.

Unlike the situation in Korea, time is on Iran’s side. They haggle, negotiate, propose, counter, hide, reveal, cooperate, obstruct, agree then withdraw agreement, all in an effort to stall, to buy time, while they continue to perfect the means to build a weapon. The proper strategy, therefore, is to call for immediate and draconian sanctions, with or without allied support, in the hope that the economic disruption will incite regime change. When that fails, we must be prepared to strike unless Israel beats us to it. In the interim, we must begin immediately to prepare for the inevitable consequences (See the discussion of (3) above,)

(8)   We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

As a matter of principle and sound public policy, it is important for anyone who cares about the future of our country to support the institution of monogamous heterosexual marriage. There are perfectly valid, non-religious reasons to limit marriage to one adult man and one adult woman. The principle public policy reason for marriage is the promotion of stable families. When the institution of marriage breaks down, children tend to get inadequately supervised, poorly educated, badly acculturated, and insufficiently cared for. A sad example of this in the US is in the black community where 2/3 of the babies are born out-of-wedlock and the crime and unemployment rates are horrible. The state, therefore, has a vital interest unrelated to any religious stricture in regulating marriage in a manner calculated to strengthen rather than weaken the institution.

The U.S. Constitution is silent with respect to marriage. It neither guarantees a right to marriage nor authorizes the federal government to regulate the institution. The Constitution permits, and even contemplates, that the states regulate virtually all aspects of life in ways deemed reasonable by them. Marriage is one of those aspects of life. The states get to define it and they get to regulate who may participate. In some states you can marry at 16, in others not until you are 18. The 16-year-olds in the latter state are not thereby denied their Constitutional rights.

If the object is to protect marriage, as it should be, rather than to suppress gay behavior, we have by far the better argument. Every reason I have ever heard offered in favor of homosexual marriage is disingenuous. Gays have a right to pursue happiness. Good, go, be happy. But no one has a right to do just as he pleases to be happy. I might find joy in robbing banks, but they won't let me anyway. Gays want to live together. Well, they live together now. Gays want to express their eternal love and commitment. Fine, do so. Write poems to one another; exchange golden chains; get matching tattoos. Gays want to own property in common. Nothing could be simpler. You merely have to both sign the car title or the deed. Gays want to control each other's medical treatment. Just give each other a medical power of attorney, or better yet, prepare a living will; you should do that anyway, it’s a lot cheaper than getting married and much more exact and likely to be honored than simply showing up in an emergency and saying you are married.

There is a wealth of sociological information demonstrating that children raised in a stable, heterosexual marriage are much more likely to be healthy, well-adjusted, well-educated, happy, productive adults. Drawing the marriage line at that point makes tremendous secular sense. Once that line is gone, there is no principled reason to redraw it anywhere. Marriage would not be expanded to include gays, it would be destroyed as an institution.

There is no principled reason to stop at homosexual marriage, once the monogamous, heterosexual line is broken.  If marriage between two men is OK, why not three men? Three women?  Two men and one woman?  One man and 27 women.  Two men, a girl and a goat?  One man, three women and all their children (as sexual partners, not merely as a family)?  Don't they all have a right to be happy, to express their undying love and commitment to one another?  Should we permit our moral insecurities to interfere with that quest?

What non-religious argument would limit marriage to just couples? There are, in fact, religious arguments for polygamy. Mormons and Muslims both believe, for religious reasons, that polygamy is a good thing. Why not polyandry? Why not pedophilia? Arranged married? Why not bestiality?

(9)   We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion;

Government funding of abortion ought to be opposed as a matter of conscience. As long as demand exceeds supply, however, it is impossible to avoid health care rationing or denial of health care. There are, for example, far more people who need liver transplants than there are livers available for transplant. When a suitable organ becomes available, someone or some system must decide who gets it and who has to wait, and maybe die waiting. Rationing in such circumstances, and in many similar situations, is inevitable, and no amount of opposition will change that.  You might as well oppose flooding and tornados.

(10)           We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership;

Not even the NRA opposes all government restrictions on gun ownership.  Convicted felons and those with certain psychological disorders, for example, are rightly not permitted to own guns.  The proper question is whether it is constitutionally permissible to deny law-abiding citizens the means to exercise their right of self defense.

An important omission from the list is any statement regarding education.  

RNC members should reject the resolution, for the reasons given above.

 

Technically, it was not terrorism. It was not perpetrated against civilians to demoralize or intimidate as a political weapon or policy. It was not an episode of the newly-minted-for-the-occasion second-hand post traumatic stress syndrome, either. It was not random; nor was it directed against anyone toward whom he felt a personal grievance. He did not storm into a civilian office to shoot an ex-girlfriend or ex-wife. He did not shoot a superior officer for giving him a bad review, or for scheduling him for deployment to Afghanistan, or for denying him early resignation from his commission.

What it indisputably was was a devout Muslim who believed that the War on Terror was a war on Islam; who believed that a suicidal attack on those who might kill his Muslim brothers was an act of heroism, akin to jumping on a grenade to save your comrades; and who believed that killing those who might kill his Muslim brothers was equivalent to saving the lives of his Muslim brothers. It was done in a processing center, where soldiers were assembled, but not just any soldiers, soldiers being prepared for imminent departure for Afghanistan to join in the fight against his fellow believers. It was done to his own cries of “Allahu Akbar! (God is Great!)” signifying the religious, devotional nature of his act. 

It was done by a self-proclaimed Jihadist, who designated himself a Soldier of Allah on his business card.  (The notion of a “card-carrying Jihadist” would be laughable to those of us of a certain generation, were it not embedded in such tragic circumstances.) 

It was, therefore, an act of war made by an officer of the United States Army against the United States in the person of soldiers of the United States Army. 

Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States provides: “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

    When I was in law school at the University of Texas in the late seventies, the school had an intramural flag football league.  The dominant team, year after year, was coached by one of the most senior and powerful professors at the school.  They had sponsors.  They had access.  They had discipline.  They had continuity and tradition.  They actively recruited the best athletes in the school.  They practiced in secret so no one could see their plays.  They were called the Legal Eagles.  They won every year.

    A group of us decided to take them on and put together a team of second and third rate players--the best we could find from among those passed over by the Legal Eagles.  We had a couple of great players and a lot of good ones.  The Legal Eagles had a lot of great players.  We knew we couldn’t win.  We didn’t have the speed, we didn’t have the size and we didn’t have the playbook.  But we were good enough to get to the finals and we made a good game of it, even leading at one point.

    When we were organizing the team and attempting to make a realistic assessment of our prospects, it came time to pick a name for the enterprise.  Since I was young and still somewhat witty, I suggested the “Saline Abortions,” Roe v. Wade still being a relatively recent event, as an accurate reflection of our chances.  There may have been beer involved.  I was outvoted and we chose some other name that I do not remember now, likely something deeply meaningful like the “Appellate Briefs” or “Defensive Motion,” or some such.  But the point is, the Fighting Ducks aside, people do not choose self-denigrating names for their sports teams.  Even in jest.  Even in an enterprise as hopelessly meaningless as an intramural football league at a law school.

     Only a form of deep delusion, bordering on psychosis, could induce an outfit like the NCAA to conclude that schools choose demeaning names for their sports teams and mascots.  The slightest contact with reality would inform even a casual observer that sports teams choose nicknames and mascots that they believe reflect positive attributes they either have or aspire to.  Names evoking power, aggression, endurance, perseverance, pride, intelligence and teamwork are common.  Among teams choosing animal mascots you see such names as Eagles, Bears, Cougars, Lions, Wildcats, Owls, Dolphins, Wolverines, and Marlins, but not Vultures, Buzzards, Snakes, Leeches, Opossums, Sparrows, and Bunnies.  Not that there is anything wrong with sparrows and bunnies, but they do not evoke the desired image.

    Consequently, when teams choose human groups for their namesakes, they look for the same virtuous attributes: strength, cunning, courage, etc.  So we see Spartans, Saints, Celtics, Fighting Irish, Volunteers, Buccaneers, Pirates, Ragin’ Cajuns, Vikings, Cowboys, and, yes, Indians, Braves, Chiefs, Warriors, and the names of various Indian tribes and tribal groups such as Chippewas, Choctaws, Utes, Seminoles, Fighting Sioux, and Illini.  But we do not see the Nazis, Mongols, Vandals, Fascists, Cowards, Bums, or the Venal Sycophants.

    Sports teams do not choose names associated with American Indians in order to compliment or insult Native Americans any more than calling a team the Eagles is intended to honor or dishonor a bird, but rather they are attempting to borrow some of the virtue already associated with the chosen symbol.  In the case of Indians, that virtue derives in part from the myth of the Noble Savage--stoic, courageous, spiritual, deeply in tune with nature.  But it also derives from our actual experience with various Indian tribes during the past three centuries.  Even tribes that had developed some form of agriculture and permanent settlements were very much closer to a transition from hunter-gatherer societies than the Europeans with whom they made contact, and, of necessity, very much more aware of and in tune with the environments in which they lived.  In the west, after only 200 years of exposure to the horse, certain tribes became, in the words of one opponent of European descent, “the finest light cavalry in the world.”  In war, Indians from New England to Florida, from the Great Lakes to the Dakotas to the deserts of the Southwest, were known and feared as courageous, cunning, skillful fighters.  Braves were aptly named.

    Most Indians who have given the matter any thought recognize that the use of their image keeps alive positive associations in the minds of average American sports fans.  It is a good thing.  The attitude adopted by the NCAA--that calling someone an “Indian” or a “Brave” is an insult--is about as racist as it is possible to get.  The title “Brave” was considered an honor by the tribes that adopted it.  The NCAA considers it “hostile or abusive.”

If you take seriously even the most moderate global warming predictions, you have a moral obligation to oppose spending more money trying to redevelop New Orleans’ lowlands and a moral obligation to oppose those trying to coax low income families into moving back there.

Most of the Earth’s surface is below sea level and, in fact, is covered by ocean. Only 30 percent of the Earth’s surface is dry land. On the dry portion, there are several areas that actually lie below the level of the ocean. These low-lying areas remain dry land only because they are separated from the ocean by higher elevations. Three of the more famous of these areas are the Dead Sea, Death Valley, and New Orleans. Of those three, only New Orleans is adjacent to the ocean. A large portion of New Orleans is below sea level. That area is part of New Orleans and not part of the seabed only by virtue of massive levees built and maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at a cost of billions of federal taxpayer dollars. The levees are designed to withstand up to a Category 3 hurricane; they could be improved to resist up to a Category 4 or even a Category 5 hurricane, but at the cost of additional billions of dollars and only after decades of effort. Key words in the foregoing description are “up to”; Hurricane Katrina, which caused so much damage in 2005, had weakened to a Category 3 hurricane by the time it made landfall on the Gulf Coast, the level “up to” which the levees were designed to withstand, but the levees broke anyway.

A modest rise in sea level of only one or two feet, as predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, would virtually guarantee that another Category 3 hurricane will overwhelm the New Orleans levee system and flood the sunken areas again.

In addition to being an increasingly and inevitably ineffective barrier to reinvasion by the sea, the levee system creates two additional problems. The first should be of grave concern to anyone who cares about the environment in general and the ecology of the central Gulf Coast in particular. The levees interfere with the flow and, consequently, with the silt and nutrient transport system of the Mississippi River. Prior to the construction of the levees, the river had built up an extensive delta consisting of an enormous system of wetlands extending from New Orleans to the sea and for hundreds of miles along the Gulf Coast on either side. With the flow disrupted by the levees, deprived of the sediment and materials needed for maintenance and growth, the wetlands are shrinking and subsiding, actually sinking into the sea. This process is exacerbated and accelerated by any rise in sea level.

Not only are these disappearing wetlands ecologically valuable in their own right as rich havens of biological diversity for marine, terrestrial, and arboreal life, they also serve as natural barriers to storm surges all along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts. Thus, the wetlands help protect not only New Orleans, but scores of communities along the Gulf Coast. These communities rely on the wetlands to dissipate storm surges along the coast—they are not protected by the extravagant levees surrounding New Orleans. As the wetlands subside and the sea rises, this protective barrier disappears. Thus, the futile attempt to save a portion of New Orleans dooms dozens of communities and thousands of mostly poor people along the Gulf Coast.

If that were not bad enough, there is an even more insidious, more morally reprehensible consequence caused by the levee system and the development it is meant to facilitate. No rational person who had a choice in the matter would voluntarily live below sea level in proximity to the ocean, levee or no levee. It is Russian roulette, Atlantian style. But the real estate is understandably cheap. Accordingly, low income families are herded into government housing and shotgun shacks in the high-risk areas. That is as cynical, as immoral, as racist a policy as could be devised in modern America. It effectively barters the lives of New Orleans’ poor, i.e., black, population for tax dollars and federal subsidies.

Virtually all of those displaced from New Orleans have moved to places like Houston, Dallas, and Baton Rouge—places with larger and more vibrant, more dynamic economies than New Orleans had at its peak. Better jobs, better schools, better housing, less crime, and better neighborhoods are available at their new homes. Many of them lost much of their personal possessions, but in terms of their living conditions, they are much better off—returning to New Orleans will not restore their possessions. Call it the Moses Red Sea Plan: lure undesirables into an area below sea level and let nature take its course. It works great, unless, of course, you are the Egyptians. When the consequences of an action are predictably disastrous, good intentions are irrelevant. We may wish to help those who survived Hurricane Katrina, but placing them back into harm’s way is the antithesis of the help they need.