perfidy

Mike and Buckethead, I don't disagree with JFK's: Catholicism; Irishness; hawkishness; tax-cutting-ness; influence; sexual potence; or Democratic nature. Hell, every couple weekends on the way to the House of Blues I walk down John F. Kennedy Street, Past the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Just a few miles from there is the Kennedy Museum and Library, not to mention Ted Kennedy, who is visible from orbit as well as from my comfortable home on the distant rocky coast.

What I'm disagreeing with is a) Mike's favorable opinion of Kennedy as a president, and b) Buckethead's assertion that we need more like him. Now, there have been worse presidents, but Kennedy is way overrated. I take a dim view of his civil rights record, war record, indecisiveness, and ham-fisted management of the various Communist-related crises of his administration. Had he been more forceful, decisive, and competent in all arenas, I think that all the things LBJ gets credit for would have come to pass several years earlier, and we wouldn't have had that Bay of Pigs/11:59:59 on the Doomsday Clock funtime twofer, either. More Hawkish, Tax Cutting, Democrats? Well, Ok. More like Kennedy, no please. Just my two cents.

As for Reagan, I think you're both right, not wrong. Reagan can rightly be credited with amazing gains in foreign policy, helping to end the cold war, bringing the USA out of the stagflation doldrums of the Ford/Carter years. But at the same time his policies, like Thatcher's in Britain, could be stunningly callous. If he didn't care about it, or understand it, it may as well have not existed. So, while he was freeing the world from Communism and such, at home great cities slid into ruin. In terms of Greatness, Reagan had it. In terms of Goodness, he's a mixed bag. My bottom five include:

• Nixon, his lapdog Agnew, and his button-man, Kissinger. He was a paranoid, self-aggrandizing career buffoon whose ambitions amounted only to making Richard Nixon powerful. Don't try to tell me that KSU was solely an Ohio problem. That same year there were incidents in New York and Birmingham AL (where ELEVEN black students were killed, before the Kent State four, but since black southern teens weren't blue-collar rust-belt northern teens, nobody seemed to care). Nixon and Agnew: mastered the litany of superiority and exclusion ("Nattering Nabobs of Negativity," "Silent Majority, " Agnew on Kent State: "the powder keg exploded, resulting in tragedy that was predictable and avoidable," Nixon: "when dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy"); utterly destroyed the last shred of Americans' trust in the Federal Government; and kept Vietnam burning. Special demerits to Nixon for allowing that ghoul Kissinger anywhere near a seat of power. A final note: If you scramble the letters in "Spiro Agnew," you get "grow a penis."
• Andrew Johnson. Rarely has history called on a person to give so much, and gotten so little in return. Presidential Reconstruction was a disaster.
• Hoover. Depression.
• Clin-ton. Also a self-aggrandizing career buffoon. History will show that our current problems, though not necessarily started by Clinton, are as bad as they are because Clinton chose to let them slide rather than risk his image in dealing with them. Also responsible for sucking the Democratic Party dry.
• James Buchanan. See Andrew Johnson above. Lacked the "vision thing," and utterly failed to understand that sectional tensions could not be papered over with words and a couple judicial appointments. Consequently, a shooting war over slavery and states' rights was made inevitable.

Senor dos Pesetas, I'm curious as to how I'm wrong about Kennedy. Point 1, "the only Irish Catholic president of this great nation of ours?" was a quote from Edward Burns' The Brothers McMullen. How's that wrong? He wasn't Irish Catholic? Contest that one. The U.S. isn't a great nation? Sure, that one is up for debate. Point 2, good taste in women. What in the hell was wrong with Marilyn Monroe? You got something against Norma Jeane? Them's fightin' words, Welshy. Jacquelyn? Okay, up for debate, but she was hot. Point 3, voracious in his carnal appetites? He had so many notches in his bedpost it was a toothpick. Please explain where I went wrong. 

By the way, if you fellas haven't figured this one out already, and I would think you have, none of today's posts, from me, are to be taken too seriously. All the president stuff is very highly subjective anyway. 
 

Pol Pot was a history teacher. But Cambodia didn't have the wonderful governmental system you were snickering at. Intellectuals should never be let near the levers of power. Many politicians, for all their faults, think of people as people (or at least voters), rather than abstractions. 

Reagan had a bad effect on Pittsburgh - perhaps. There were many other problems with American heavy industry - complacency, aging infrastructure, poor management, etc. And you can't assess the man's contribution (or bad effect) on a whole nation by what happened to one city. 

Dick Cheney is not president. Read Woodward's book if you're not sure. 

Coolidge is not, repeat not, to blame for the Great Depression. What in all likelihood would have been a cyclical downturn in the economy - a recession - was made far worse by Hoover's and the Federal Reserve's idiotic response to the stock market crash. The crash was in 29, the depression didn't really get going until 31, after hoover and his administration mucked everything up. Hoover's on my list. 

Nixon, the prototypical intelligent jackass, was not responsible for Kent State. That was the fault of Gov. Rhodes, of Ohio. 

Andy Johnson nearly lost the war after we'd lost 600,000 winning it. Kennedy was a tax cutting hawkish democrat, we could use more of those. 

The Electoral College keeps the Green party from being a force in national politics. Good enough for me. 

I know you don't like Thatcher, but she isn't in the same category. No gulags, no death camps, and she was voted out of office - which no communist or fascist has ever allowed to happen. 

At least we agree on Wilson. What a schmuck.

BH: I'll gladly take Reagan and Coolidge out of the same category as Hitler, Himmler, and Stalin for the very reasons you describe. But Thatcher stays.

I would, however, agree with your definition of greatness and infamy. I also tend to use a third category, importance. I think Wilson was a horrible president, who left the world worse than he found it. However, he is important. So, if I were to make a list of most important presidents, it might go: Washington, Lincoln, Wilson, Jefferson, FDR. Happily, we have had no truly infamous presidents - at least not by world-historical standards. Even our worst presidents rank pretty well when compared to the average run of national leaders throughout the world, throughout history. We are very lucky. Even someone like Nixon seems downright wholesome when compared to most Roman Emperors, but especially Caligula, Nero and Commodus.

Does Lloyd George not count because he is welsh, or is he welsh and doesn't count for some other reason?

Didn't say that Taft and Grant were great presidents. Just that you shouldn't pick on them. And as my friend Drew says, always be aware of when you're measuring on the "Bad" scale, which is certainly what I was doing with McKinley. You are certainly right about the Taft bloodline thinning, but really, it could hardly have done otherwise. Reports from my sources in Ohio, both Liberal and Conservative, say that the current incarnation of Taft is like number 4 in Multiplicity, a copy of a copy. While Grant's problems in office were serious, he was not coping with the Great War. (In fact, he might have done better with a war.) Greatness is a combination of ability and circumstance - as is the opposite. Grant really didn't have the opportunity to screw up that Wilson did. My mom and I have often had this discussion, so here is my top 5, with a brief indication of why they are there: 

• Washington - Founder of the Country, can't do more than that.
• Lincoln - Savior of the country - would be more important than Washington, except that without Geo., he wouldn't have had a country to save.
• Jefferson - First peaceful transfer of power between opposing parties. And he was a frickin genius.
• FDR - Arguably kept us from going completely south in the depression, and won the big game for us. Stumbled a bit at the end.
• Reagan - Won the cold war and restored American confidence after the whole Vietnam thingie. Plus, ended ridiculous things like price controls.

Honorable Mentions:

• Truman - start of the cold war, Korea
• Coolidge - 'cause he's really, really cool.
• TR - same

My list of most important would be subtly different. My bottom five, from worst to least worst, is:

• Wilson
• Nixon
• Buchanan or LBJ
• Hoover
• Clinton

I am judging by damage they did the country, rather than mere ineffectualism, incompetence, or corruption. Many presidents would score high on that basis. Added Bonus: Top Five Greatest American Generals

• Sherman
• Stonewall Jackson
• Patton
• Lee
• Andy Jackson or Nathan Bedford Forest - it's a toss up.

Before you go ripping on Ohio parsdents, remember that Garfield was assassinated before he got a chance to prove himself. And Taft was the only man in US history to be President, Speaker of the House and Supreme Court Chief Justice. And Mark Hanna, I mean McKinley, wasn't all that bad. And Grant was a decent genrul. (And his memoirs are one of the most interesting you'll ever read.) 

As a new Virginia resident, I am indeed proud of the Commonwealth's fine crop of presidents. Though to be honest, Madison really screwed the pooch on the whole declare war on Britain/get your capital burned concept. Johno is right on the lack of scintilating talent in Harrison, Taylor and Tyler, but completely missed the boat on Wilson. Wilson was a freakin' disaster, who, at every stage of America's involvement in the Great War and its aftermath, did exactly the wrong thing. 
 

Q: Look at this list of Presidents born in Ohio. What do you notice?

• Garfield, James Abram
• Grant, Ulysses Simpson
• Warren G. Harding
• Benjamin Harrison
• William Henry Harrison
• Rutherford B. Hayes
• William McKinley
• William Howard Taft

A: They suck. It seems that Ohio goes for quantity rather than quality. That's EIGHT Ohisian parsdents so far, and not a one among them was worth a damn. Now, look at this list of Presidents from Virginia:

• George Washington
• Thomas Jefferson
• James Madison
• James Monroe
• William Henry Harrison
• John Tyler
• Zachary Taylor
• Woodrow Wilson

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about! Four of the first five Presidents, and Wilson to boot! Granted, Taylor, Tyler and Harrison aren't much to be proud of, but that's fairly impressive. 

Q: If Ohio's going to go for nine, is Kucinich really the guy?? 

A: No. 
 

Buckethead, WELL SAID. Very, very nice. 

Speechifying 

Mike (and Bucket), both NPR and HBO are within their rights to do what they did, no matter how odius either action may be. The airing of an Oliver Stone documentary is not a free speech issue-- Stone is perfectly free to take his insane ravings to the corner of Hollywood and Vine, if he so chooses. HBO, like NPR, made an editorial decision. The First Amendment only comes in to play when someone is being barred from expressing their views in a public forum. NPR, supported as they may be by donations, still don't make the grade. I wish they hadn't fired the guy, but what more do you expect from NPR? Private companies are very different from public spaces, and the First Amendment does not apply in the same way-- just look at ol' Hootie Johnson and his Constitutionally protected right to yammer like a jackass about how the women-folk would ruin his eighteen-hole old folks' home forever. 
 

Of course one of the reasons that we no longer worry about things like faction, and other concerns of the writers of the Federalist papers (and the anti-federalists, and other founding fathers) is that their solutions to these problems rendered them moot. The Federalist Papers (arguably the most insightful discussion of politics, ever) explains why certain things were included in the new constitution, and why others were not - and reveals the depth of thought that went into the creation of our system of government. These short term solutions are the things that operate in the background, things that are so obvious that to mention them seems almost banal. But at the time, they were revolutionary, in every sense of that word. So, in a very real way, they are very long term - they are so embedded in our conception of how governments should work, that we cannot imagine a legitimate government not having them. 

The Constitution, the condensed political wisdom of the founding fathers, banished (for us) an entire array of political problems that had vexed humanity for all of history. We no longer have to worry over these things. Instead, we began to worry over the details that hovered at the fringes. Naturally, some of these were still very important. For example, once you decide that all people, in principle, are created equal, and deserve all the protection of Constitution and Bill of Rights, you are bound to have the arguments that led to the Civil War. But the essential declaration had already been made, and the Civil War, and then the Civil Rights movement merely (heh) brought the reality in line with the principle. If anything, the original Federalists rendered us silly; as we move toward (slowly, staggering drunkenly) that more perfect union, many of the things we argue about seem increasingly, well, trivial. And this is good, because it means that many of the harder issues have already been solved. 
 

From Baseball Crank (via Volokh) comes this article about "Federalism's Edge." From the article:

. . .when you mention "federalism," many on the Left and Right alike assume that you mean only "States Rights," defined as local autonomy in opposition to federal power. But in recent times, the greater threat to political diversity and responsiveness in self-government has come instead from states overstepping their boundaries to the point that they make policies for the whole Union. That is what I define as Federalism’s Edge: the point at which an exercise of state power (by a state or group of states) infringes on the right to self-government of the citizens of the other states. If a national government is overweening, intrusive and unresponsive when it is housed inside the Beltway, it is no less so -- in fact, even more so -- if it sits in a legislature in Sacramento, a jury room in a small town in Alabama, or a law office in Hartford. After all, at least the average citizen sometimes gets to vote in a contested election for representatives in Washington.

Very interesting, not to mention timely! Thanks, Mr. Crank! 
 

One of my big disadvantages as a writer, and one of the intrinsic perils of blogging, is that I often make lazy assertions. This means that I spend a lot of time getting my ass fact-checked, and you know how long the waits are down at the free ass-fact clinic. 

But, when I do pull my fishbelly-white corpulescense off the chair and go check stuff out, I find out a whole slew of fascinating facts, and as you know, facts can be used to prove anything that's even remotely true! Federalism is silly? How silly! 

I've actually gone back to read the Federalist Papers, in recent weeks. I had power-skimmed them in the past, but only for specific purposes like understanding the mind of Richard Hofstadter (The Master). This return to smarty-pants reading is partly because, now that I have an advanced degree in history, I'm finally getting serious about the study of history. The other part is, I don't know stuff about things, and I need to know junk like that so can ensmarten myself.

So, I'd like to re-address that issue, and retract my assertion of silliness. Sort of. 

First: Mike, although your characterizations of Federalism are accurate as far as they go, they are not the whole picture. To take an example from our recent discussions, it's as if we were talking about Stalinism, and you wanted to only discuss the internal politics of the Kremlin. Relevant, and somewhat complete, but misleading. 

Second: Buckethead, I did say that Federalism as originally conceived has been rendered silly by the passage of time, and that's a poor choice of words that deserves some splaining. What I really should say is that the bugbears of Hamilton and Madison (let's leave John Jay out of it) are no longer scary to us today, and those aspects of Federalism most carefully designed to combat them seem urgent out of all proportion with how we today perceive the same issue. 

Example. Hamilton spends thousands of words thrashing at the dead horse of "faction." By faction he did not mean political parties such as were beginning to form at the time, and which took greater shape in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. He meant a Party in the crazy rest-of-the-world sense, like the Roundheads, or more recently the Nazis, Communists, and Ba'ath Party-- organizations with their own army/security force, an absolutist ideology, and a mandate to wipe out the competition. Faction in that sense is a dead issue in the US today. Other examples exist: the big questions of states' power versus federal power were settled in 1865, with clarification continually going on. Checks and balances work. Tyranny of state over state has not arisen. Tyranny of the federal government over the states is on the rise, and should be combatted, a counter-example of how Federalism remains relevant. 

So, what I should have written was, "I still think a national bank is and was a good idea, but the rest of Federalism's big concerns have been thankfully rendered silly and mostly irrelevant by the passage of time." This is truer and only partly wrong. The wrong part I now disavow: feh! ptui! ptui! 

The spirit of Federalism as conceived by the framers consists in retrospect of two types of propositions: short-run ideas like described above intended to combat the immediate challenges of the 1790s, and long-range plans intended to ensure the nation's survival. The latter of these are always very relevant-- things like providing for the interests of individuals against the state, clarifying the ways in which it is appropriate for the branches of government to use its power, ensuring that civil war is never around the corner (except that once, which I covered yesterday), etc. 

"Federalism" in the parlance of our time is used as a synonym for everything from Republicanism to Libertarianism. That's a big house. It's so big because the tenets of Federalist thought have infused the whole game of indigenous American politics. And mostly, in a thoroughly modern, perhaps armchair, sense, I dig it. 

Insofar as Federalism was intended to minimize friction between the separate states, and keep out of those states' internal affairs, it gets a big yes from me. That's in the Constitution. Insofar as Federalism was intended to uphold the rights of individual citizens (even though Madison and Hamilton were sometimes kind of fuzzy on how that would work, exactly), that's also in the Constitution, and very nifty. Insofar as Federalism was designed to mediate between the disadvantages of a direct democracy and those of an autocratic state, it works, and I'm happy. I'm a big fan of efficient, purpose-built central government counterposed with strong local governments, and treasure the dialogue that continues between these two poles. A lot of the original aims of Federalism may have fallen into irrelevancy and become, yes, silly. But the rest has been transformed by use and remains deeply relevant today, even if not to the letter as originally written. 

In case you are wondering, strict constructionists make me crazy. CRAZY. Hence my animus against the brilliant, acerbic, and dangerously originalist Justice Scalia.

Mike, I am puzzled. You keep talking about the pure, received faith in Marx as prophesied by his disciple Engels (and very interesting that you should use such religious imagery, btw.) and how basically almost no one over the last hundred plus years has ever gotten it right. Now, I am more than willing to believe that you are correct and every leftist/Marxist over the last century was completely wrong. Most people are idiots. However, your description seems completely different from the way almost every leftist/Marxist/environmentalist/Commie in the world thinks of themselves.

I worked with hardcore environmentalists for years, and I can assure you that they all believed in Marx. They had copies of the Communist manifesto. They spouted communist doctrine, hated capitalism, the works. They laughed at the watermelon joke (green on the outside, red on the inside.) Marx' picture was on walls throughout those murderous states that were founded by faux communists. But it is curious that as soon as someone gets power and begins murdering people, oh wait, he's not a communist. Can we ever know what a communist government is like? We know what democratic, monarchical, republican, totalitarian and oligarchical governments are like, because we have seen them. It seems that your communist prophecy is completely unverifiable, in that it ceases to be communist as soon as it gains power.

Given the statements in the last paragraph of "Speaking of phony leftism," do you believe that it ever will be verified, that an actual communist government will ever exist - by your definition of communism? If not, why does anyone bother being communist, when the only result is either a) frustrated fringe dwelling in affluent societies or b) rampant murder, terror, and poverty if a communist ever gains power anywhere else? Looking at the wreckage of states whose leadership fervently believed (despite disagreeing with you) that they were communists, and were the followers of Marx, and looking at the stagnant economies in nations that have adopted large scale socialist programs (Sweden, France, Germany) where before there was rising prosperity, I have a hard time swallowing the whole left/Marxist/socialist package on a pragmatic basis. Of course, my classical liberal ideals give me other reasons not to like it. But is there anywhere in the world where this has worked? Not that I've ever heard of.

I was referring to the anti war protestors. You explicitly deny that you protest. Therefore my attack on filthy hippies does not apply to you. I think that if we got back to the ideals of 1776 and 1787 and 1865, we'd be a lot better off. For one thing, it would mean that we'd jettisoned all the bonehead Marxist economics that are provably unworkable. And postmodernism would be gone. But, it would mean that we could keep the cool computers and rockets and stuff. 

I never said that our course of action was historically inevitable. Justifiable in terms of a pursuit of liberty or justice, but not inevitable. One important thing to remember, that many don't, is that liberty applies to individuals, not nations. Saddam denies liberty to his subjects. The Iraqi government does not have any right of liberty, that we can never interfere. I don't think that this war is outside the "American Way of Doing Things" - we used similar justifications for the Spanish American War, WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam. 

And yes, your fashion sense is empeccable. You're right, "To Hitler" should be a verb. 

On Trees: thank you very much. I should hope to be in that company. But, speaking of that tree, and of the value of sacrifice, I was moved to think this: (Mike can correct me on the details) The Marxist formulation of value is that only things that labor is the only source of value. Or something close to that. If you work, that produces value, no matter what it was. It seems to ignore a lot of things that truly have value, like liberty, that we should be ready to sacrifice for. Lives are worth that. Both ours, and the enemy's. 

Mike avoided calling a Bush a Hitler, but only by doing it to Cheney and Rumsfeld. Sheesh. Saddam hitlered the Baath party, then hitlered the Iraqi people, then hitlered Kuwait. He may have Goeringed, in both senses, but I'm not sure. But I would argue that he is getting Churchilled right now, just like Hitler did. (More properly Roosevelted, I guess, but I like the sound of Churchilled better.) 

Mike, Federalism nowadays is not exactly like the party platform of our first two presidents. It is a euphemism for states rights (sullied by the unfortunate association with slavery, Jim Crow, etc.) with a bit of limited governmentism. You can be a hardcore modern Federalist without accepting any of those ideas - in fact, some of them are rather incompatible with modern federalism. However, #3 is a bit overstated, #4 is backwards, and Hamilton never aimed at Burr, so we never got to find out how dangerous dueling with a Federalist is. 

Johno, the rest of federalism is rendered silly? I should beat you over the head with my annotated Federalist papers. 

Hundreds Slaughtered: The only people around this sad little planet ending things like that over the last fifty years has been the United States. Too bad we couldn't help everyone. The UN is a useless sack of shit. 

The Rave act falls under the same category as Patriot II. Biden is also a useless sack of shit. 

We got 82% of Den Beste's average monthly output? Not bad at all, considering we all have jobs. 

Taliban and Afghanistan - it's a problem, but I think that they are a leetle too backward to easily make the jump to a sane government. Afghanistan has always been more of a geographical abstraction than a nation. Hopefully, though, we can get some more assistance to them. 

To Buckethead, on space exploration - perhaps I could have saved everyone some time and said that it's expensive, and the only way that will change is if it becomes less expensive. 

To Mike on cultural differences: this may all be true, but when a Marine hears someone say, "Allah bless George Bush," it probably means he's happy to see the Marine. 

To Johno on Jeffersonbait: The reason was that, despite posting some rather lengthy pieces, I haven't actually read the page for over a week.

Because I haven't commented on anyone else's posts for far too long, here are some thoughts, replies and comments on youse guys posts over the last couple weeks. 

To Mike's counterpoint to Mark Steyn: 

No one suggests that we should be giddy simply because civilian casualties are light. But, we should be happy that we can remove an evil dictator at so light a cost to his victims. Every death is a tragedy, but it is good that there are so few of them. Also, there is proof that there is a connection between Al Quaida and Iraq. Al Quaida operatives were given refuge in Iraq, and we have found (and destroyed) several large terror training camps. Also, the fact that the Baathists are secular and the Al Quaida fundamentalist is no barrier to their cooperation. Remember, Saddam's government has paid 35 million dollars to the families of suicide bombers in the West Bank, many of whom were members of the very fundamentalist group Islamic Jihad. It is, after all, an old Islamic proverb, that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Although it is too early to tell at this point, it doesn't look like we are radicalizing the Iraqi citizenry, who seem quite glad to have us there, and Saddam gone. 

Again on WCM: 

De Genova's comments were reprehensible, indeed. And kudos to Foner for actually calling him on it. But the whole thing made me think - this is an anti-war movement, but not a peace movement. They are against American involvement, but willing to countenance the brutality of the Saddam's regime. There was a German resistance movement in WWII, but could it have liberated the German people from Hitler's regime without outside help? Mike is certainly right that comments like those piss people off. Wishing for the deaths of Americans certainly makes his anti war stance seem rather less credible, as well. 

But is nothing served by death, anywhere? Are not some things worthy of sacrifice? Freedom is certainly worth sacrifice. Nothing of value is without cost. We have to always be deeply aware of the cost, and remember who paid. Freedom is one of those things. Many have and will continue to give cynical motives for our war in Iraq, but the real benefit will be to the Iraqis, who free of Saddam might be able to live ordinary lives, in liberty. 

To Johnny, on increasing dovishness: 

How do you feel now, now that we have found chemical weapons and terror training camps? And remember, Bush has been talking about regime change for over a year - regime change was only ever the means to eliminate the threat of terror, and WMD. 

To Johnny, on the "as in not funny" nature of the press: 

The media is a collection of old women, who flutter and shriek at the slightest change in temperature, conditions, or movement. So of course they would rave about the justthatbuilding bomb, and then the MOAB. And rave about blinding advances, then twenty minutes later cry "quagmire." Also, the reason you're gotten no firm news is because the military pulled the biggest snow job in military history. The embeds are like headlights to the media deer. Immediacy, vivid images, and "you're right there" reporting consume the media's attention, while the army is able to move whole divisions without anyone in the media noticing. Suckers - gotta hand to the military for cleverness on that one. 

To Johnny, on the media polls: 

Reminds me of a something that happened during a political discussion with our friend Burton. We was advocating some risky liberal scheme, one that would give decision making powers from the general citizenry and vest it in some government agency. His basic justification was, "75% of people are idiots." I argued with his plan, and Burton got the idea that I disagreed with assessment of the intelligence of the American populace. A day later, I was complaining to Mike about Washington drivers, and he expressed surprise - "Well, you disagreed with my 75% - why complain now?" I said, "Mike, if anything, I think the percentage is higher, but they still have the right to be stupid however they want. That's what liberty means." Hardesty's corollary to Voltaire's observation: the true test of someone's commitment to liberty is how stupid or offensive someone has to be before you want to start regulating their behavior. 

From everything I'm hearing, Patriot II is gonna be a nightmare. But then, I'm still complaining about RICO statutes and civil forfeiture. 

To Johnny on AA: 

The United States, as a whole, should never be color blind. The U.S. government, and the law, should. The only way to end discrimination is to well, end discrimination. The quote you added hits it right on the head - these are cultural and moral issues, not legal ones. Therefore, stop the legal wrangling so that we can deal with these issues where they should be dealt with. 

Patriot II needs to be killed dead. Here's something the liberals could actually be useful on - rather than waving puppetheads and smelling funny in public. Republicans are often too willing to sacrifice freedom for security in this realm. Economically, of course, it's the other way around. 

This is where limited government should really, really come into play. What part of the constitution, and I'd like an exact quote, does this bill get its authorization from? 

To Johnny on Forests and Trees: 

I would argue that the military plan we used did take the political goal into account. However, just like the military plan, you can't publish the political plan in advance, for fear of rendering it useless. n.b. I think this classifies as a world class cakewalk. 

To Mike on Patriot II: 

Like many conservatives (as opposed to mere Republicans) I worry a lot about civil liberties. I think the Drug War has been a civil liberties disaster. The erosion of our constitutional rights has been scary. This threatens further erosions. Like Franklin said, those who trade liberty for security will soon have neither. I would like to have our representatives see that it is our freedom and liberty that is the best defense against these threats (at least internally - the U.S. Army and Navy are better for overseas.) Perhaps the best example was the passengers on flight 93. While I might be safe under this administration, as time goes on, we would all be targets. How long would I last if Gore became president? We could have adjoining cells. 

To Johnny on RIAA: 

I think it falls into the same category as Patriot II. 

I have to pee. More later.

The good news: Congress has approved the Amber Alert Bill package.

The bad news: The RAVE Act, the tapeworm in the Amber Alert Bill's system, passed as an amendment to said bill.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Patriot II, if it ever becomes a bill, will be the work of John Ashcroft and his team. Some of the statutes may have lived before in worst-case scenarios and blue-sky Justice pipe dreams, but I can't find any reference to them having appeared before in bill form. I welcome corrective evidence if it exists.

Orin Kerr of the Volokh Conspiracy has just published a very interesting working paper on internet surveillance titled "Internet Surveillance Law After the USA-PATRIOT Act: The Big Brother That Isn't". It's an enlightening read. You can get your copy from SSRN here. Please do. Kerr's previous job (before summer '01) was in the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property division of the USDoJ, so I'm willing to stipulate that he knows his stuff. A lot. 

The upshot of Kerr's argument is that the alarm over the U-P Act's sections on internet surveillance is overwrought and founded in wrong principles. He argues that this section of the Act simply took a disparate patchwork of existing statutes, combined and rationalized them, and made internet surveillance work as telephone and mail surveillance do. As there were no prior statutes specifically governing internet surveillance, the U-P Act actually makes privacy abuses less likely by codifying how it's to be done. Therefore, on this issue at least, the U-P Act actually could strengthen privacy. He also argues that the flap over Carnivore is similarly grounded in wrong assumptions. 

If all this is true, and I have no reason to doubt Kerr substantially on this, then that is a good thing for 4th Amendment Chicken Littles like myself. At the very least, it makes me less totally pessimistic as regards privacy issues and the Patriot Act. 

Moreover, the article is a decent primer in privacy and the law, explaining such things as pen register statutes, the difference between envelope information and content information, and the evolution of privacy rights in intrapersonal communications. This is very handy, indeed, as it covers a lot of the vocabulary commonly used in electronic privacy legislation. Be aware, though, that Kerr confines his argument solely to the aspects of the U-P Act relating to Internet surveillance and privacy-- you can still find a lot not to like in it, if that's your inclination. 

Proving that you should always read the footnotes and expository paragraphs in any paper, Kerr puts some of the best bits in his. First among these is a fact that has become obscured in the current fashion for Ashcroft-bashing (not that he doesn't deserve some of that). Let me put this as simply as possible, and highlight it for you. 

Many elements of the USA-PATRIOT Act are a legacy of the Clinton administration, not of John Ashcroft. 

Granted, it was polished, tweaked, pulled together, revised, negotiated, and compromised before passage, and bears the name of AG Viet Dinh (who works under Ashcroft), but we presumably have the Clinton and Reno teams to thank for its origins, good bits and bad bits alike. 

This is an interesting train of thought which bears further investigation. Verrry interesting, yes indeedy. I shall dig on.

Instapundit is reporting that Sen. Biden has snuck language from the "RAVE" Act into the National AMBER Alert Bill. Asshole. The AMBER alert system aids in the recovery of lost children. The "RAVE" Act would, to not stretch the truth too far, make it a crime for me to suck down bottled water in a quiet room at a party.

Full coverage of Biden, RAVE, and the current flapdoodle here. Read the disappointing saga.

If one of your senators is on the AMBER bill committee, write him or her. I did.