When you win, say nothing.
When you lose, say less.
Paul Brown
Bizarre Blog Stats
I actually thought yesterday's post was one of my better ones, with an interesting background commentary on why libertarians favor persuasion over force, preferring less activist intrusive policies on domestic and foreign matters. I have mentioned that I would publish posts regardless of readership, but I'm disappointed because I pulled together some interesting sources and essays/excerpts which explains the conceptual background beyond, say, a political slogan.
California Engaging in Worker Stings: Big Professions Using Law Enforcement To Bust Competition
Some Comments on a Cato Event:
Unprecedented: The Constitutional Challenge to Obamacare
Some of these Cato Institute events focus on a new book with a few invited discussants. In this case, Josh Blackman has written a behind-the-scenes story of the legal challenges leading to Chief Justice Roberts' quixotic decision that saved that piece of legislative excrement named Obamacare, otherwise known by its oxymoronic name, the Affordable Care Act.
The reason I'm mentioning this event deals more with the polite but very differing perspectives of Randy Barnett, the "intellectual godfather" of the Obamacare opposition, and Jeffrey Rosen, the President of the National Constitution Center, whom publicly called for the Court to validate the people's legislation as part of the separation of powers.
I'm not going to review the event in detail; Rosen realized that he was not in friendly territory and took a humorous approach, mocking any attempt to suggest his perspective had any material impact on the SCOTUS decision and Chief Justice Roberts in particular. Of particular interest to me are the brief rebuttals by Barnett and Rosen, and I thought Barnett's basically owned Rosen, one of the best rebuttals I've ever heard.
But I want to single out a few points of discussion. First, Rosen's attempt to argue this odious corrupt Senate partisan sausage making is the will of the people is divorced from reality; it did not originate in the House, which is particularly objectionable given the Constitutional requirement that revenue making measures must originate in the House. Many, if not most of the House Democrats wanted a public option, if not outright single-payer; not only did the measure fail to win a single GOP vote, but it was forced on the House "as is" because Scott Brown had been elected as filibuster-sustaining #41 US Senator, which meant differing House and Senate bills would have to go through reconciliation and a possible filibuster. Obama knew that he would lose dozens of Dems in swing districts and engaged in negotiations with enough pro-life House Dems to clinch a bare majority. Rosen doesn't mention delegated rule-making by unaccountable bureaucrats, thousands of pages not read by a single Democrat voting for it, and plays scant attention to clear majority opposition to the bill, which continues to this day, if not even worse. Obamacare was perhaps the leading reason why the Dems lost control of the House in the subsequent mid-terms, and in fact, the Dems did NOT win the 2008 election based on a radical reform of healthcare; the vast majority of insured households (including union households) preferred their existing healthcare as is. (Some benefits like putting adult children on family policies and excluding preexisting conditions are popular--until you point out there's no free lunch; costs have to be subsidized by taxpayers or other policyholders.)
Rosen at one point tries to argue that he is not ideological, pointing out an implicit criticism of Roe v. Wade for usurping state regulation. But in fact the centralization of healthcare policy is a de facto violation of traditional state regulation of health and welfare.
I also have zero tolerance for Rosen turning his head away when Obama attacked SCOTUS over Citizens United or jawboned them over Obamacare; all it took was an illegitimate attempt from FDR to pack SCOTUS to intimidate them into acquiescing broad federal expansion at the expense of individuals and states. I'm not going to list each idiotic Supreme Court decision, but a particularly odious one was Wickard v. Filburn. For fellow non-lawyers. Filburn, an Ohio farmer during the Depression, had produced more wheat than the federal government allowed under the economically illiterate Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. I won't go into the madness of the government trying to manipulate markets; in this case, recall the bugaboo of low prices during the Depression; the government thought it could maintain artificially high prices for crops by enforcing quotas. Filburn wasn't even selling his above-quota production--he was consuming/using his surplus on his own property. This did not constitute interstate commerce; first, there was no transaction; second, whatever the event was, it was local and subject to state/local laws, not federal law. The government sophists argued that the farmer's own consumption was a fungible transaction under interstate commerce.
In fact, I think the whole purpose of regulating interstate commerce was to promote a free market among states, not to micromanage the economy. (This is clear because the Constitution reserves the right of tariffs to the Feds, no interstate levies.) For example, the Feds should facilitate competition by allowing insurance companies or banks to operate across state lines.
Finally, I do think when Chief Justice Roberts basically argues for constitutionality based on some disingenuous extension of the government's tax authority not even argued by any principal in the case, he basically undermines the integrity of the Court. There are a potentially infinite number of non-actions (beyond not buying qualified insurance) that could be penalized/taxed. So even as he denies--correctly--that the Commerce Clause is not some "progressive" wildcard, let's face it--this penalty is not intended as a means to generate revenue for the government; in fact, full compliance would result in no federal revenue.
New JOTY Nominee: Congressman Chris Van Hollen
I think Van Hollen was on Fox News Sunday, and Van Hollen was trying to spin Putin's jumping on Kerry's hypothetical offer of not pursuing a military attack if Syria gives up its chemical weapons as an Obama masterstroke chess move; Putin fell into Obama's trap; Obama never intended to pursue a military response in the first place. I know that Van Hollen is trying to put lipstick on the pig of Obama's amateurish foreign policy, but Obama should never have put a red line for American intervention in the first place. Spin is one thing; departure from reality is another thing.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Gary Varvel and Townhall |
The Jackson 5, "ABC"
