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Archive for category US Politics

Heller and the Founders Part One: Scalia

Aug 9

Posted by R. Stanton Scott in Constitution and Constitutional Law, Gun Rights, Second Amendment, Thoughts of the Founders, US Politics

In the first comment to this post, Bob S. cites the Heller decision in support of a claim that the Founders intended to protect an individual right to self-defense with the Second Amendment:

“Why are you still trying to peddle the hogwash that the Writers of the Constitution didn’t include the idea of self defense as part of the 2nd Amendment?

Did you read the decision in Heller? Did you see the laid out facts, quotes, and historical evidence that shows you are completely wrong??”

Bob goes on to quote a section of Scalia’s opinion citing Georgia and Louisiana Supreme Court decisions from 1846 and 1850 respectively.  He apparently believes that the majority opinion in the Heller case, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, depends on the intent of the “writers of the Constitution” for its analysis and legitimacy.  But the sources cited in Scalia’s opinion show no such thing.  Instead, they depend on interpretations of contemporary dictionaries, State Constitutions, and later interpretations of these documents, along with Scalia’s interpretation of the interpretations.  But let’s take a closer look at the Heller decision as a whole and see which side actually relied on evidence of the Founders’ intent.  In this post, I will look at Scalia’s opinion affirming the judgment of the Court of Appeals; after that I will turn to the dissenting ones. Read the rest of this entry »

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In Extremis

Jul 21

Posted by R. Stanton Scott in Capitalism, Failed States, Government, Gun Rights, Norms, Reactionaries, Second Amendment, Supreme Court, US Military, US Politics

Many of the gun rights advocates I come across in my readings make a claim that an armed citizenry places a check on oppressive government.  Public officials, they say, including the police, should fear the population, and worry that armed insurrection is possible.  They especially like the Hitler Used Gun Control to Keep Power myth, though the 1938 Waffengesetz arguably loosened gun laws in Germany and facilitated gun ownership.  Government, they suggest, is not an agent of a citizenry acting as a principal and controlling it through participatory democracy.  It instead has its own agency, independent of the will of the people, with interests opposing that of the people.  In this formulation, the purpose of the Second Amendment, is to ensure that citizens have the tools needed to perpetuate this threat, and to carry it out in the event government becomes oppressive, since citizen participation in democratic institutions is not sufficient to direct government action. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Nutty Professor Reads the Polls

Feb 13

Posted by R. Stanton Scott in Economy, Polls and Surveys, President Obama, Public Policy, US Politics, Whack Jobs

Donald Douglas writes at American Power that the latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows “disastrous” numbers for Democrats.  To make his case, he cites two results which indicate a preference for smaller government, and a third showing more concern over the economy and jobs than health care.  Douglas then points out that a bare plurality has more faith in Republicans to “ensure a strong economy” and a bare majority who don’t think the President has offered reasonable solutions to the economic problems faced by their families.

Not so fast.  These cherry-picked results don’t tell the whole story, and “it doesn’t take a statistician” to see that this grossly exaggerates the bad news in the poll for the President and Democrats.  That’s a good thing, because for a political science professor, Douglas isn’t much of one if that’s what he gets from this poll.

Now on the face of it, this looks like a solid argument: Americans care about the economy, they think the GOP could fix it, and they think Obama doesn’t have his eye on the ball.  If all of this is so, perhaps The Nutty Professor™ is right.

Not so fast.  Douglas’ analysis ignores other results from the poll, not to mention the behavior or real life politicians.  For starters, the same poll shows a 47-34 plurality approving Obama’s handling of terrorism, and a 55-34 majority approval of his foreign policy, suggesting that not all has gone south for the Administration.  Moreover, only seven percent each say they blame the President for the current state of the economy or federal budget deficits, which suggests that even those who don’t think he’s found the right solution yet may not be prepared to turn to someone else in a search for it.  And the respondents were evenly split on whether or not the stimulus package will make the economy better–suggesting that the American popular jury is still out on whether they think it was a mistake by an overactive government.  Finally, though somewhat more respondents said that they think the GOP would be more likely to ensure a strong economy, the same group had more faith in Democrats when it comes to creating jobs or fixing health care.  It is not clear from these contradictory results that the President or his Party are in trouble.

Douglas’ claim that this poll shows an American preference for smaller government also stands on less solid ground than he thinks.  Respondents said they thing government should spend to create jobs, 47-45%, and 62% think Congress should let the Bush tax cuts expire, even though this would raise taxes on high earners.  Fifty-six percent would like to see more regulation of banks and financial institutions, and 52% think the President should do more to fix the economy.  Half say they would change Senate rules to make legislation easier to pass, and 58% think that Obama has expanded government “the right amount” or “not enough.”  It looks like Americans worry less about the size of government than they do its effectiveness–they want more policy that works and less that doesn’t.

It’s no secret that politicians–even conservative, small government politicians–don’t behave as if their constituents want smaller government.  Indeed, according to the Washington Times, over a dozen Republicans wrote letters to one agency alone seeking money from the stimulus package, even though they had voted against it and claimed it had no effect (except in letters like Kit Bond’s request from the USDA for stimulus money for a project in his state on the grounds that it would “create jobs and ultimately spur economic opportunities.”  Even Republicans know that Americans want more government action to solve problems on the ground.

Donald Douglas is not a very good political scientist and an even worse poll analyst, based on this example of his work.  He pulled a few results that support his preconceived notion of the state of American public opinion from a long survey while ignoring data points which might refute his claim.  This poll contains nothing particularly disastrous for Democrats or President Obama.  If Douglas cared about good analysis, he would have pointed this out.


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Ask or Don’t Ask. Tell or Don’t Tell. Just Do Your J-O-B.

Feb 11

Posted by R. Stanton Scott in Gays in the Military, Morality, Religion, Religious Conservatives, Sexuality and Sex, US Military, US Politics

It’s a little hard to know what to make of this piece at the US Naval Institute Blog on repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, which opened military service to homosexuals as long as they keep their sexual preferences secret and remain celibate.  For the record, neither US law nor military policy place restrictions like this on heterosexuals–they may openly express their lust for the opposite sex, and play as they will.  The blogger, a reserve Marine LTC using the nom de plume “UltimaRatioRegis,” opens with a set of notional “amplifying instructions” guiding implementation of DADT repeal, ostensibly from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

The content of this invented document comes in a snarky tone, and includes the sort of instructions that no military officer would ever issue: direction to revise passages in the Bible which he reads as banning homosexual behavior, add pro-gay instruction to curricula at DOD Dependent Schools, and a statement that “failure to agree with my views on this subject will be considered an integrity violation and subject to administrative or disciplinary action.”  Just to be clear, the good colonel thinks that military leaders repress dissent–or they should.  He should know that regulations do not prohibit public disagreement with superior officers.  The rules ban doing so in uniform, but the do not limit individual self expression on political issues or military doctrine.

Mr. Regis then writes that Admiral Mullen should in fact issue such instructions, and complains about dismissal of objections to the repeal of DADT as “the rantings of intolerant and hateful bigots.”  He further whines about the “marginalization” of people who object to homosexuality on religious or moral grounds because of their faith and their views.  Finally, he lists related issues which have “not gotten serious discussion,” including whether or not the “diversity industry” (whatever that means) will force command sponsored gay pride days, whether others would accept openly serving gays as they have the current secret ones, and of course the old slippery slope “what about transexuals” crap. Read the rest of this entry »

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Be Careful What you Ask For…

Jan 22

Posted by R. Stanton Scott in Campaign Finance, ConLaw, Corporations, Freedom of Speech, Globalization, US Politics

I was disappointed to hear on the radio yesterday that the Supreme Court had ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that Congress cannot limit “electioneering communications” by corporations and unions.  On its face, this seems logical on free speech grounds: “no law abridging the freedom of speech” seems pretty clear, and the campaign finance laws struck down by the Court did limit speech.

Still, this ruling troubles me on a couple of grounds.  First, I more or less agree with the sentiment that “If money is speech, then speech is not free,” so the equation of speech with money makes me uncomfortable.  Treating the spending of money on purchasing message ads as free speech which cannot be regulated gives an amplified voice to the wealthy.  Large, very profitable corporations will now have a much louder voice than individual citizens, and that’s bad enough.

But some conservatives may have reached a “be careful what you ask for” moment, since they will also have the resources to drown out others in the commercial sector, and this ruling will probably have quite a large distorting effect on markets.  Wal Mart, for example, will now have much more freedom to work for the defeat of local politicians wishing to protect local business culture and flavor against the homogenization of retail in a region.  This new freedom for corporations will probably mean the end of small businesses who share this new freedom, but not the resources to exercise it.

Of course, since the assertion of rights depends on access to court systems, and we manage this access itself as a market, all of our rights claims have always been subject to possession of the necessary financial wherewithal. Wealthy people, whether acting in groups or individually, have far more power to make justice claims than the poor.  This fact, by the way, helps to show that we hold our “rights” only with respect to social relations–they have no intrinsic value separate from our interactions with others, including financial ones.  If they did, we would not organize our adjudication of justice claims around market transactions.

Perhaps more problematic is the deeper placement of corporations in social relationships as the equivalent of citizens.  We treat these collectives in law and rights discussions as individuals, and this begs the question: How long until discourse creates an understanding of corporations as possessing rights besides free speech?  Should corporations have the right to vote?  If the First Amendment protects their speech, does the Second protect their right to keep and bear arms?

The ruling leaves other questions equally unclear.  How, for example, do we define the citizenship of a multinational corporation?  Since our current understanding of “inalienable rights” makes them in fact quite “alienable”–that is, our Constitution does not protect the “natural” rights of non-citizens–this question will come up, and soon.

This may shake out in the “free market of ideas” way libertarians and other conservatives expect.  But many may find that giving corporations the same free speech rights as individual citizens will have unintended consequences they regret, even if it gets more conservative politicians elected.  Be careful what you ask for–you might get it.

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Rules for Whack Jobs

Sep 9

Posted by R. Stanton Scott in Capitalism, Conservatism, Economy, Government, Health Care, President Obama, Reactionaries, US Politics, Whack Jobs, Wingnuts, Wingnuttia

Roy Edroso does everyone a public service by wading through the mud of the right-wing-nutjob attack on President Obama’s speech to school kids.  I’m almost sorry I clicked through to any of the blogs he cites: the stupid, it burns.

It is difficult to overstate the amount of ignorance permeating the discussions and essays on these blogs.  The discussions of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, for example, suggest that few have actually read the book.  Click over from WikiPedia to Amazon, folks, and order it.  Read it.

James Lewis, who may be an American but is not much of a thinker (he thinks socialists are “deeply committed” to the “Internationalist Ruling Class!”), asserts that Alinsky’s prescription to “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it” has something to do with scapegoating groups:

“That slogan defines mob scapegoating, of course. It is an exact prescription for whipping up mobs — by race, by gender, by ethnicity, by religion.”

This makes, of course, very little sense.  Personalizing and polarizing the target is about putting an individual, and preferably evil, face on class oppression, not about blaming rich white mortgage lenders for the problems caused by all those lazy poor people who bought houses they couldn’t pay for.

But what about Alinsky?  Lewis wants to paint him as a dangerous radical who means to bring down capitalism and the American way of life with the help of his protege, President Obama.  Capitalism has, of course, quite effectively begun the process of destroying itself without Alinsky’s help, thank you very much.

Lewis is bent out of shape because President Obama is scapegoating the “capitalists who run General Motors and Wall Street,” and some B-list comedienne thinks the tea partiers are racist, don’t you see.  Never mind that the executives who brought down our economy by mismanaging both its industrial and financial sectors sort of brought the blame upon themselves.

Saul Alinsky wrote Rules to show the politically weak how they could effect social change despite the efforts of the powerful to hold their priveleged economic and political positions.  He compared the book to The Prince:

What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.

Alinsky suggested that organizers identify privileged individuals and personalize social injustice–that is, show exactly who benefits from the perceived class differences they had organized to fight.  Lewis does not support his claim that the President has decided to use this technique to demonize groups rather than individuals except by assertion: he just knows they are doing this, because this is what the Dixiecrats did to blacks, don’t you see.  But the evidence suggests that people who wish to curb the excesses of Capitalism and capitalists have followed Alinsky’s lead by targeting the individual executives who made corporate decisions on things like bonuses.

This article, for example, targets Edward Liddy, the CEO of AiG, not capitalists in general.  Other discussion of Wall Street bonuses challenge them on capitalist grounds by making the credible claim that the poor performance of financial wizards should preclude bonuses–they should not be rewarded for destroying their companies.

“These bonuses should be zero,” wrote one poster on the firedoglake.com blog. “Not down 44%. Zero. These banks should be using their profits to reinvest in the shoring up of their capital reserves, so that they [can] start underwriting and lending again, not paying discretionary bonuses. It’s not about keeping the “best and the brightest”…if they were that sharp, we wouldn’t be in this mess, would we now?”

Janeane Garafalo’s assertion that racism pervades the Tea Party movement also has merit–at least StormFront thinks so.  They have asked members to join the Tea Parties, and along with other white supremacist groups believe they would find a fertile recruiting ground at such meetings.

In no sense can anyone characterize either as scapegoating.  Neither Wall Street bonus babies nor teabaggers are taking blame for others.  To the extent liberals use Alinsky’s methods to effect social change, they target the actual malefactors of wealth and privelege–along with the rubes who support an unjust system.  They do not blame innocent individuals or groups for the sins of others.

Indeed, it is arguably the right that favors Alinsky’s techniques.  They make a din that creates the impression of a larger movement at boisiterous town hall forums.  They force rules of civil conduct on liberals even while violating them.  They bully and ridicule, and attract activists who enjoy using these methods.  They use any event as a reason to attack, and offer no constructive alternatives.  And they picked, froze, personalized, and polarized Obama.

They also scapegoat amorphous groups–the liberal media, academic or Hollywood elites, unions,  socialists, communists,  and all those welfare mothers who think rich people owe them a Cadillac.

We should of course expect reactionaries–capitalists, corporatists, and religious leaders who see their base of political and economic power crumbling before changing social norms, demographics, and economic and scientific realities–to protect the foundations of their power.  They have to demonize cultural, political, economic and demographic changes as socialist in order to hold the support of uninformed masses who fear out groups, “socialism,” “secularism,” and “liberal elites” more than they fear losing everything when some corporation sends their job overseas or refuses to pay for the cancer treatment because they had acne ten years ago.  This is how they preserve the every-man-for-himself system that allows a small group of wealthy patriarchs to control the vast majority of US wealth.  But they have no stronger a claim to America, and what it means to be an American, than liberals who believe that we can improve society by acting collectively.

And if they believe that socialism is about commitment to the “International Ruling Class,” they come to the intellectual gun fight without a good understanding of what bullets are.

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School Daze

Sep 4

Posted by R. Stanton Scott in Cognitive Dissonance, Conservatism, Culture Wars, President Obama, Reactionaries, US Politics

It is hard to imagine a more conservative message for kids than “your education is your responsibility–work hard.”  So the right-wing-nutjob reaction to President Obama’s plan for an inspirational online chat with school kids must have another explanation.

Conservative leaders have figured out that their base, as well as non-trivial numbers of independents, are susceptible to propaganda about liberal leaders and policies.  They know they can lie about what a particular bill contains, or about the policy preferences of Democratic politicians and other leaders.  This is partly a cognitive dissonance problem–whack-jobs simply disregard facts if they don’t support their beliefs.  It also depends on a general failure to pay attention, leaving the field to the loudest most obnoxious voices, whether or not they truthfully describe events.

Conservatives also understand that given their performance over the last few years, anything that resembles successful liberal leadership or policy could leave them in the political wilderness for decades.  It could also degrade the utility of their strongest argument: that government cannot competently solve social problems.

So Republican leaders and conservative activists have to stop any policy change contemplated by the Democrats or President Obama.  Anything the liberals implement might work, and indeed simply making necessary changes makes them look effective, whether or not the policies themselves improve the lives of Americans.  This explains the GOP recalcitrance on health care reform.  They cannot allow anything at all to pass, since this will look like a political victory just because something got through, and whatever passes will likely improve the system we have now.

It also explains the conservative attack on the President as a “socialist,” and their comparison of him to Hitler and Stalin.  They have to mischaracterize his policies, and one way to do that is to paint them with a broad brush–they know the base will fear the worst, and many others will accept the signal as sent without investigating its veracity.  This is the only way they can build opposition to policies that most Americans have said they support in the past.

To win in a political, social, and demographic climate that increasingly favors liberals, the Republicans must mischaracterize both their own leaders and policies and that of their opponents.  Nothing else explains their rejection of the most conservative message possible: take responsibility for yourself.  Further proof that Democrats are the real conservatives.  Conservatives are simply reactionaries (more on that later).

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Little Tent Conservatives

Apr 29

Posted by R. Stanton Scott in Government, US Politics, US Senate, Wingnuts, Wingnuttia

On the way back from a business meeting yesterday, I had the dubious luck of hearing the local conservative radio talk show host rant about Arlen Specter’s defection to the Democratic Party.  Besides repeating the wingnut talking point that Specter switched parties because he knew  former Congressman Pat Toomey would beat him in a Republican Primary, he also went on for about ten minutes about all the other RINOs he thinks should switch–guys like Chuck Hagel.  He is not alone.

As Professor Sabato pointed out, conservatives are shooting themselves in the foot.  Of course, some part of Senator Specter’s calculation included his own political self-interest and his slim chances of winning a primary against Toomey.  But conservatives who care about the direction of public policy in the US should quietly applaud Specter’s move. 

Toomey cannot win a general election in Pennsylvania.  The state is trending liberal, and Toomey is a Club for Growth conservative with all the standard right-wing/corporatist/social conservative positions on taxation, collective action, abortion, bankruptcy, crime, gay marriage, and other issues.  This means that without a Specter switch, Pennsylvania would probably elect a more liberal senator next year.  As it happens, Specter will probably win a Democratic primary and defeat Toomey in the general election, keeping the state’s Senate members to the  right of the median Senator.

Conservatives like Doc Thomspon and Limbaugh apparently think that shrinking the party will make it stronger.  But making it more ideologically homogenous will not help the GOP’s election chances, except in places with strong conservative majorities.  Crazy rants and strident ideology do not attract new supporters.  So keep preaching to the choir, Doc, and the GOP will keep losing.

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