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Senator Santorum, you have labeled yourself the only true conservative in the race. We are in Arizona, the birthplace of Barry Goldwater, who was known as “Mr. Conservative.” Senator Goldwater’s opinion toward the religious right was well-known. It can be summed up by this quote:
“I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in “A,” “B,” “C” and “D.” Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?”
How would you respond to “Mr. Conservative,” Barry Goldwater, here in his home state tonight?
David Steiner, in his Colorado Voices column today, makes a common statement that bears some thought. ( See “Take a tip from fourth-graders“).
Steiner was a judge for an American Legion speech contest for high school students. The topic was the United States Constitution. “The high school students talked about … how long it had taken for blacks to be counted as more than three-fifths of a person,” among other topics, he said.
It has been my experience that most refer to that provision of the Constitution as an example of the racism that existed at the time. I find that curious, since the existence of slavery is a much better example. The “Three-Fifths Compromise” is found in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution. It reads:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
What does that mean in modern English? It means that when counting the population of a state for purposes of determining the size of that state’s Congressional delegation, slaves would be counted as 3/5 of a person.
The problem was not this compromise, the problem was slavery. I find it disproportionate to cite this compromise as evidence of racism when it pales in comparison to the actual bondage of human beings. It is as if someone says, “yeah, there was slavery in Colonial America and people were owned like common chattel, but the real injustice was that they were only counted as 3/5 of a person when it came time to determine congressional representation!” In that light, it is absurd.
If asked, I bet most think it was the slave-owning southern states that did not want to count slaves as full people. After all, slaves were just property. But, no, that was not the case. It was the northern states that did not want to count slaves at all. Upon reflection, this makes sense. If slaves were counted in full, the south would have had a larger voice in Congress.
Therefore, the pro-slavery contingent wanted to count slaves as full people, but the anti-slavery contingent did not want to count them at all. This juxtaposition demonstrates the folly of citing the Three-Fifths Compromise as an example of racism.
The compromise is historically important, but not as important as the institution of slavery itself.
The executive director of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, my friend Dede de Percin, does her best to sell us on the benefits of Obamacare in the “Perspective” section of today’s Denver Post. ( See “Why Obamacare is good for America.“)
I quote some of her statements, then respond underneath:
“Over the past few decades, America’s health care system has been hurtling toward a crisis. Almost one-third of Coloradans — 1.5 million — either have health care coverage that is inadequate or have none at all. The primary reason is skyrocketing costs, which have priced out businesses and individuals alike.”
Why the skyrocketing costs? Because of government mandated coverage, government regulation, and the inability to sell insurance across state lines, among other things.
“Decisions about our health care are too personal and important to be left to insurance companies.”
But not too personal and important to be left to the United States Congress and state run exchange boards, apparently.
“Obamacare is starting to hold insurance companies accountable, controlling the runaway costs that prevent Coloradans from access to health care. For example, insurers must now justify premium rate hikes.”
These rate rikes must be justified to a government board. I hope the inherent downside to government approval of prices is self-evident. Alas, I know it is not. See “The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics” entry on “Price Controls” for an in depth discussion.
“Essential preventive care is now considered a basic benefit for those with insurance and is available without co-pays or other cost-sharing because it keeps people healthier.”
Keeping everyone healthier is a great goal. Pretending it can be done for free is a fantasy. The preventative care may not cost the consumer anything directly out of pocket, but the cost exists and it is paid by everyone. It is the ultimate in cost-sharing. Further, when a service has no marginal cost to the consumer, the demand for the service is virtually unlimited. With higher demand, prices necessarily rise for someone if not to the consumer directly. Costs exist. No legislation can abolish them.
“A major cost-containment initiative of Obamacare is the exchange. In 2014, Coloradans will be able to purchase affordable insurance in the Colorado Health Benefits Exchange, a statewide nonprofit organization. Intended to be a competitive, online marketplace similar to Travelocity…”
Wait… Travelocity was formed by government mandate? No? It was done by a private company in the free market? How is that possible? I thought only the government could make this happen. Perhaps not.
And this nonprofit state exchange plans on paying four executives $165,000 a year or more. It is amazing how political appointees always end up doing well in these state created nonprofits. It is pure corporatism. Nonprofit corporatism, but nonetheless corporatism. Some prefer to call it crony-capitalism (which, of course, is not capitalism at all).
“Since decisions about health care are too important to leave to others, the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative and consumer-focused organizations are helping Coloradans make their voices heard by exchange board members.”
Wait… health care decisions are too important to leave to others, so the exchange board members will make those decisions? Aren’t they “others?” I am afraid I just do not follow that reasoning. (Not an uncommon occurrence for me, I realize).
I know de Percin means well. She wants to help those without health insurance coverage. She wants everyone to get the medical services they need.
But another layer of government bureaucracy will not achieve that admirable goal. Government, indeed, has a role, a very important one: policing fraud and enforcing benefits contractually promised to insureds in exchange for premiums. When government starts doing much beyond that, costs go up and coverage goes down.
The Denver Post headline reads, “ Family: System failed child.”
It is a horrific story of an abused four year-old boy, now dead, allegedly at the hands of his maternal grandmother. The grandmother had been awarded custody of the boy’s two older sisters. The boy was living under her care, as well. The boy’s name was Gabriel.
Gabriel’s paternal grandmother had called the county Human Services department multiple times over her concerns about the boy’s treatment. The State will now investigate the circumstances of the boy’s death and the county’s response to the previous complaints. That investigation may or may not find problems with the county.
Ultimately, however, Gabriel’s death is not a failure on the part of the government, although it may have played a part in not preventing it. Ultimately, the system did not fail this child.
Ultimately, his family failed him. The article makes no mention of his parents. Where are they? Perhaps they have passed away and the boy is an orphan. If not, where are they? Gabriel was not under the legal custody of his maternal grandmother, only his sisters Where were other family members ready to take care of the boy? Where was the church?
This tragedy underscores the futility of looking to the government for protection. No one in the Department of Human Services was Gabriel’s blood. No one in that department was Gabriel’s mother. No one in that department was this Gabriel’s father. No one in that department was Gabriel’s family. No one in that department was Gabriel’s pastor.
No government agent can ever – ever – care about a child like his own blood. No government agent can ever have the compassion for that child like a man – or woman – of God.
If we, as society, looked to ourselves as individuals to help Gabriel, Gabriel would still be alive. Instead, we, as a society, have abdicated our personal duty as individuals and given it to the government, as a collective, to look out for children like this poor boy.
The collective works a 40 hour week. The collective goes home at 5:00. The collective punches a clock. A caring person -as an individual – never clocks out. Let us stop shirking our personal responsibilities onto the backs of a soulless collective.
Arguing for more state power over neglected and abused children is not compassionate. It exacerbates the problem.
No government agent is ever ultimately responsible for a child – his family, and by extension his church famiily – is responsible.
The 2012 campaign for the GOP presidential nomination should, once and for all, end the myth that the GOP is the party of limited government, free markets and personal liberty. I submit it is instructive to look at the records of the three remaining GOP candidates not named “Paul.”
The following bullet points were excerpted verbatim from Reason.com’s candidate profiles. Yes, I have cherry picked items inconsistent with limited government, free markets and personal liberty. Yes, these same profiles mention positions of each candidate that are consistent with limited government, free markets and personal liberty.
The point of this post, however, is to show that none of these three candidates believe, as a first principle, in limited government, free markets and personal liberty. They each are more than willing to make exceptions when expedient. Therefore, any claim that they believe in limited government, free markets or personal liberty must be prefaced by the qualifier “when convenient.”
Mitt Romney:
- Defends the mandate-and-regulate approach to health care he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts
- He favors strong government surveillance powers to combat terrorism, and has praised the PATRIOT Act as a useful information gathering tool.
- previously backed … No Child Left Behind.
- He’s conveniently in favor of subsidies for corn-based ethanol.
Newt Gingrich:
- Opposes Obamacare but in 2005 joined Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) in “appearing to endorse proposals to require all individuals to have some form of health coverage.”
- Gingrich joined Obama’s “Race to the Top” in 2009, calling Education Secretary Arne Duncan “a serious innovator.”
- Gingrich likes ethanol subsidies and has accused “big cities” and “big urban newspapers” of trying to hurt the farmers who benefit from them. Also likes fossil fuel subsidies and said in 2010 that “a low-cost energy regime is essential to our country.” Supported cap and trade in 2007,
Rick Santorum:
- While he was in office … his record was, in the Club for Growth’s words, “plagued by the big-spending habits that Republicans adopted during the Bush years of 2001-2006.” He was a strong supporter of dairy subsidies, voted for Medicare Part D and the 2005 highway bill
- Sen. Santorum voted for the Sarbanes-Oxley law that he now wants to repeal. He also backed steel tariffs and was a player in the GOP’s corporatist K Street Project. After initial opposition to the program, he became a big AmeriCorps booster.
- “This idea that people should be able to go and do whatever they want and it doesn’t really matter as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody, that’s not our founders’ view of freedom.”
- He joined Hillary Clinton’s crusade against violent video games, used campaign finance regulations to threaten critics’ freedom of speech, and favors a porn crackdown.
- … he has warned against “the 10th amendment run amok.”
- He also has a history of supporting national schooling standards. He voted for the No Child Left Behind bill in 2001.
- … he has an on-again, off-again history of support for energy subsidies as well. In 2008 he called for Washington to “mandate that all cars sold in the United States…be ‘flex-fuel vehicles’—that is, they should be able to run on a blend that is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.”
Can we quit pretending? The GOP loves government programs. One might be able to make the case that the GOP loves government programs less than Democrats, but that is damning with faint praise.
Words have meanings, people.
There are many legitimate criticisms of Ron Paul, but calling him “isolationist” is simply a misuse of the word. It is either done purposefully to misrepresent and impugn him or out of ignorance. From Merriam-Webster:
Isolationism - a policy of national isolation by abstention from alliances and other international political and economic relations.
(emphasis added).
Any statement that Paul wants the U.S. to refuse to trade with or engage in economic relations with other countries is nonsense. He is the furthest possible thing from a mercantilist. He is more of a free-trader than any of the other three remaining Republican presidential candidates.
Paul’s position is clear: “Free trade with all and entangling alliances with none has always been the best policy in dealing with other countries on the world stage.” This belief is a rarity in modern politics. Criticize it as dangerous if you wish. Call it foolish. Call it naive. Call it something accurate, but don’t call it “isolationist.”
You may think him an unelectable dogmatic kook. That is an opinion and you can have it. But when you describe actual policy, try not to make yourself look foolish. Use the actual meanings of words.
The notion that the U.S. Constitution only protects U.S. citizens is palpably false. It is an indictment of our education system that any American could think such an outrageous thing.
The drafters of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were educated men. They chose their words carefully. They debated over precise word choice. One can assume every word they chose was done with a purpose.
The Constitution and the first ten amendments distinguish between the concept of “people/persons” and the concept of “citizen.” For example, Article I, Section 3, says “No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States…”.
A “person” is therefore different from a “citizen.” Everyone is a person, but only some are citizens.
This distinction is seen again in Article II, Section 1: “No Person except a natural born Citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.” Again, you may be a person, but you can’t be President unless you are also a citizen. The drafters of the Constitution knew when they wanted it to apply to people and when they wanted it to apply only to citizens.
The first two paragraphs of Article IV, Section 2, clearly distinguish between “citizen” and “person.” It reads:
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.
Therefore, only citizens are entitled to “privileges and immunities” but all persons charged with a crime who then cross state lines shall “be delivered up.” It does not matter if you are a citizen or not if you are a fugitive. Of course that makes sense.
The point, however, is that the Constitution and its Amendments clearly distinguish between “citizen” and “persons.” “Citizen” means those either born in the United States (and subject to the jurisdiction thereof) or naturalized. “Persons” and “people” mean everyone.
For instance, the First Amendment states that ”Congress shall make no law … abridging … the right of the people peaceably to assemble…”. The First Amendment therefore grants to all people the same protection against certain congressional action, regardless of citizenship status.
The Fourth Amendment, likewise, applies to the “people,” and not just citizens. It reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated …”.
Likewish, the Fifth Amendment:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, … nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
And the Sixth Amendment:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused [not just citizens] shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
The notion that the U.S. Constitution does not apply to non-citizens is incorrect. It even applies to those in the country illegally. For instance, the government cannot keep an illegal alien locked up indefinitely. An undocumented worker will still get an attorney appointed to him if charged with a crime. I hope this little blog post helps alleviate that misconception.
In light of the War on Terror, the Patriot Act and the recently passed NDAA, among other legislation, it appears the Constitution doesn’t even apply to citizens any longer.
And that is sad.
I am confused. (Not an unusual state for me, I realize). In today’s Denver Post, Allison Sherry has an article on the potential for Colorado farmers to lose direct payments from the federal government. (See “Farms warm to subsidy cuts“). She writes:
Colorado farmers stand to lose millions of dollars a year in direct subsidy payments for corn, wheat and soybean crops as part of agriculture reform heading to the U.S. Senate in a couple of months.
…
Colorado received more than $4 billion in subsidies, including direct payments, from 1995 to 2010.
Why are payments to farmers “subsidies” and payments to solar energy companies “grants?” It’s so hard to keep up with the changes in Newspeak.
They are both direct payments from the federal government to private entities. Of course, the federal government does not actually have this money. They borrow it. Sooner or later, the debt will be paid – one way or another.
No matter what you call it, this government borrowing to give money to preferred groups will come from the pockets of future generations. It is intergenerational theft.
It is time we call it what it really is: immoral.
Ron Paul’s success in the Republican nomination process has very little to do with Ron Paul the candidate. It has everything to do with ideas. It has everything to do with a mission. After wandering in the big government political wilderness for over a century, Paul is leading us to the land of freedom promised in the Constitution. He probably won’t make it there himself, but like Moses, he’ll show it to us across the river. (OK, the Moses comparison is a bit much. I got carried away. Sue me.)
Paul would never be picked by central casting for the role of political leader. He’s old. He’s short. He’s far from charismatic. He’s far from perfect.
But those imperfections are of the man, not of the ideas. People are starting to realize that government, indeed, is not the answer. Free markets and voluntary action is the answer. Less government is a start. Unfortunately, neither half of the two-party duopoly has ever – ever! – made the federal government smaller.
Voting for the same-ol’ same-ol’ results in ….. more of the same. At the very least, Ron Paul is not more of the same. A libertarian philosophy may never win over a majority of voters. That makes it no less correct. But without someone spreading the message – even a flawed, short old man – we know for certain the philosophy will never win over a majority of voters.
And what if those that understand and believe in a constitutionally limited government actually vote for it? They might actually get it.
You want to throw away a vote? Keep voting like you have, America. |
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