Jujitsui Generis

Abortion: A Federalist Solution

Here's Radley Balko arguing for a federalist solution to the abortion debate:

While it's unlikely that the Founding Fathers anticipated the abortion debate, they did give us a framework around which to govern on issues just like it — highly emotional, high-stakes issues that go to the core of one's personal values and beliefs. They rightly recognized that the federal government is far too unwieldy and clumsy to deal with such delicate matters. These issues are best legislated by the states — or, better, by cities or counties. We can then choose to live under laws that most reflect our values. We vote with our feet...

The best solution is robust federalism. Forgo Roe, and let each state set its own policies on abortion. Those for whom abortion is an important fundamental right can live in areas where abortions are widely available. Those adamantly opposed to any and all abortions can live in jurisdictions that ban the procedure. People like me could live in communities where our tax dollars won't be funding abortions.

I think Balko is on to something.  If the last few decades have shown us anything, it's just how intractable the whole debate is, particularly since it is most passionately debated by the 'true believers' of both sides.  Here's Balko again:

Perhaps the most pertinent criticism of the federalist solution is that people with strong beliefs about an issue like abortion aren't content with applying those beliefs only to themselves and their immediate communities. Pro-lifers want it inscribed into federal law that life begins at conception, with no exceptions. Abortion-rights advocates want federal tax dollars to pay for abortions for the poor, despite the fact that some of those tax dollars come from citizens with moral objections to the procedure.

True believers, then, would never accept a federalist solution on a volatile issue like abortion. They'd rather impose their own values on everyone else. But after three decades of poisonous abortion politics, perhaps it's time the rest of us considered it.

Fashion Statement: Support Tyranny

The Harvard Institute of Politics has found that about half of U.S. university students claim to be politically active, though that activism manifests itself in mostly passive ways.  Seventy-nine percent reflect their political choices by the clothing, namely T-shirts, they wear.

That's sad.  As those of you who have spent long hours involved in local politics know, wearing a T-shirt or wrist band is a long way from the down and dirty work of grassroots political organizing.  Real politics is rarely fashionable - unless one qualifies the shirts that have become all the rage on college campuses.  I refer, of course, to the Che shirts.  They are as ubiquitous on campus as the M.C. Escher poster or the syncopated rhythms of any Bob Marley hit streaming from a dorm room window. 

One has to wonder if most of the students wearing the faddish Che shirts even know what they are wearing.  What kind of 'revolutionary hero' do they think he was?  Here's Catallarchy on the actual murderous legacy of Che Guevara - a legacy our Hollywood stars (hat tip: The Agitator), along with a depressing number of students, apparently find quite admirable.

I guess we should count ourselves lucky that so few students find much time for genuine political activity.

Rewriting History

Here's President Bush last week:

Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war.

These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.

They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein.

They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions, citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: "When I vote to give the president of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat and a grave threat to our security."

That's why more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.

And earlier in the same speech:

As president and commander in chief, I accept the responsibilities and the criticisms and the consequences that come with such a solemn decision.

While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began.

Norman Podhoretz supplements Bush's speech in the latest issue of Commentary by arguing that our conviction that Hussein had WMDs was a conviction shared by all - from the UN, to the State Department, to the CIA, to the Germans, to the French, to the British, to Bill and Hillary Clinton, to Sandy Berger, to Madeline Albright, to Bob Graham, to Al Gore, even John Kerry.  The list goes on and on.

Democrat's are now peddling the idea that Bush 'misled' the country into war.  But as Podhoretz argues in his detailed recounting of our intelligence in the run up to the war, that idea is the biggest lie of all.

Mudwrestling

Determined to foment even more cynicism with the political process, candidates in New Jersey and Virginia are slinging mud as hard as they can.  One Virgina candidate is attacking his opponent's death penalty stance by claiming that "Tim Kaine says Adolf Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty."  In New Jersey, Democratic Senator Jon Corzine is running an ad featuring a 19 year old wrestler, who lost the use of his limbs, stating that, "Doug Forrester doesn't support embryonic stem cell research, therefore, I don't think he supports people like me."

Such mean-spirited attack ads reveal a new low in domestic politics.  Both sides are fighting hard to avoid issues of relevance and focus on cheap, lowest-common denominator jabs.  But those sort of tactics reveal much more about the candidates employing them than they do their opponents; they reveal a depressing cynicism in their regard for the voting public.  It doesn't get much slimier, which is why voters are showing little interest in either race...or the candidates.

Stronger Than Expected

Some good news: Despite the destruction of Katrina and higher energy prices, the nation's economy remained stronger than expected and grew at a rate of 3.8% for the 3rd quarter.

What The %@$&?

Senators are in an uproar over the increase in on the air foul language and are determined to curb the cuss words by imposing stiffer fines on the networks.  But some evidence indicates that the use of such offensive and taboo words may be hard-wired into our behavior:

Yet researchers who study the evolution of language and the psychology of swearing say that they have no idea what mystic model of linguistic gentility the critics might have in mind. Cursing, they say, is a human universal. Every language, dialect or patois ever studied, whether living or dead, spoken by millions or by a single small tribe, turns out to have its share of forbidden speech, some variant on comedian George Carlin's famous list of the seven dirty words that are not supposed to be uttered on radio or television.

And so too may be the reaction to them:

Other investigators have examined the physiology of cursing, how our senses and reflexes react to the sound or sight of an obscene word. They have determined that hearing a curse elicits a literal rise out of people. When electrodermal wires are placed on people to study their skin conductance patterns and the subjects then hear a few obscenities spoken clearly and firmly, participants show signs of instant arousal. Their skin conductance patterns spike, the hairs on their arms rise, their pulse quickens, and their breathing becomes shallow.

Interestingly, said Kate Burridge, a professor of linguistics at Monash University in Australia, a similar reaction occurs among university students and others who pride themselves on being educated when they listen to bad grammar or slang expressions that they regard as irritating, illiterate or declasse.

"People can feel very passionate about language," she said, "as though it were a cherished artifact that must be protected at all cost against the depravities of barbarians and lexical aliens."

Whatever the case, our Senators surely have more with which to concern themselves than the four letter words that offend their sensibilities.

The Jobs Scam

Good new for those opposed to state's ill-advised to schemes to offer various incentives to the businesses of their choice.  In a case with far-reaching consequences, the Supreme Court has agreed to decide the constitutionality of a state offering incentives to specific companies.

Bringing Out The Libertarian In All Of Us

My own take on the Katrina disaster has been that the task of evacuation, the maintenance of law and order, the necessary communication infrastructure, and the preparation for emergency shelters all fall to the state and local authorities.  There's no conceivable way the federal government could manage these preparations at the micro level without grossly overstepping its bounds.  The massive failures to plan and prepare for the storm and its aftermath - given this had been predicted since 1917 - falls squarely on the shoulders of Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco.  Admittedly, FEMA bears responsibility for not acting sooner.  The stunning display of ineptitude was evident soon after Katrina passed over and the bureaucrats at FEMA must fall on the sword for not stepping in where the local and state government had obviously failed.

But I recognize too that all the bickering back and forth over who must assume the lion's share of the blame is seen in a different light by everyday citizens, and that it has possibly created another point of view entirely:

Reported examples: The city of New Orleans left hundreds of school buses sitting in parking lots while the estimated 100,000 car-less citizens in the city were left to fend for themselves in evacuating. The suburban city of Gretna's police closed a bridge that provided a way out of New Orleans while the city itself was flooding. The Louisiana State Homeland Security Department refused the Red Cross permission to take food and water to the Superdome before the hurricane struck because they did not want to "encourage people to go there." FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, early in the disaster turned away Wal-Mart trucks delivering supplies, including bottled water.

These are not examples of inefficiency and ineffectiveness; these are examples of inanity and inhumanity. These are not examples of our tax dollars being wasted but being used against us.

Listening to talk radio makes it seem as if Katrina is making the reds redder and the blues bluer. It's doing both to me: turning me purple, and into a libertarian. I want disaster relief outsourced to a coalition of the Red Cross, Wal-mart and Lowe's. I want emergency housing given to the interfaith shelters and long-term housing to Habitat for Humanity. And I want a whole bunch of elected officials, Republican and Democrat alike, kicked out of office.

Economic Development Incentives: There's A Line Forming

This story should come as no shock.  If a government is going to make a habit of offering 'incentives' to every outstretched hand, then it should not be surprised when a queue forms around the block.  More proof that the Economic Development game is hopelessly corrupted and politicized. And is likely to go on for quite some time.

With Gifts For Everyone

Here's President Bush channeling FDR - proving depressingly eager to extinguish any faint hope that he would turn out to be a fiscal conservative at heart:

Highways just don't happen," Bush said. "People have got to show up and do the work to refit a highway or build a bridge, and they need new equipment to do so. So the bill I'm signing is going to help give hundreds of thousands of Americans good-paying jobs." (italics added)

And with that Bush signed a bill to push a massive $286 billion dollars into transportation projects.

Critics said the 1,000-page transportation bill was weighed down with pet projects to benefit nearly every member of Congress. The bill's price tag over six years was $30 billion more than Bush had recommended, but he said he was proud to sign it. (italics added)

Yes, given his recent record, I'm sure he was glad to sign it, which is another reason for fiscal conservatives of both parties to shake their heads in disgust.