Still Radical

Benjamin Martin: May I sit with you?
Charlotte Selton: It's a free country. Or at least it will be.
--The Patriot

Two hundred and forty-six years after our nation's first law, its founding principle of liberty remains radical. From his early days of social existence, man has been tempted to surrender liberty to earthly rulers. As God warned Samuel, doing so invites despotism.

In 1776, the United States startled the world when it chose to 'throw off' that despotism in pursuit of self-determination. Since then, the authoritarians have been seeking to extinguish that flame of liberty and reclaim their power.

Events of the past few years suggest to some that the tyrants have made progress.

Personally, I prefer to believe that the opposite is happening. People tend to wake up when their freedoms are being stolen. 

Nearly a quarter of a millennium ago, we learned that when enough people wake up, they--the true radicals--have the capacity to push back.

Pendleton Act

"You guys think you're above the law. Well, you ain't above mine."
--Nico Toscani (Above the Law)

In July of 1881, President James Garfield was shot and killed by an attorney who was furious that the president did not give him a job in the new administration. Operating on the theory that it had to eliminate the system of patronage in government if it was to prevent future assassinations, Congress passed the Pendleton Act.

Signed into law by Chester A. Arthur in 1883, the Pendleton Act created a permanent civil service that could not be undone each election cycle. The administrative, or 'deep,' state was born.

The Constitution does not provide for a permanent class of bureaucrats that possess authority outside of the three branches of government. The Pendleton Act created a layer of statist imposition that the democratic process cannot control.

Perhaps the original intent was to make the civil service class apolitical, but it has become anything but. Indeed, any political party worth its salt would endeavor to place operatives inside the administrative state so that agendas could be advanced regardless of who is in office.

We have seen this in the spades over the past few years as partisans installed at the highest levels of agencies such as the CDC, EPA, DOJ, Federal Reserve, FBI, and CIA render decisions that favor particular political agendas.

I don't know whether the constitutionality of the Pendleton Act has ever been challenged in court. If not, then it should be. This week's West Virginia v. EPA SCOTUS ruling moves in that direction.

Meanwhile, people must continue to wake up to the reality that there is currently a fourth branch of the federal government, one that arguably possesses more power than the other three branches, that essentially operates at its own discretion, and that is largely untouchable by the ballot box.

War Fatigue

Armchair warriors often fail
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
--Don Henley

Governments wanting to engage in war with foreign entities must win consent of the citizenry to do so. If they view the war as illegitimate, the people have capacity to shut the war down via several avenues, including voting officials out of office, withholding funds for military resources, or even overthrowing the regime prosecuting illegitimate war.

Consequently, governments must convince people that their war is just. They must do so at the outset of the conflict, and then continue to do so. Because war requires ongoing sacrifice in order to fund the war effort, it is possible that enthusiasm for war will wane as people increasingly regret what they must forfeit as conflict drags on.

It appears that support for US involvement in the Ukraine conflict is already waning. Surveys suggest that the American public is increasingly wary of US efforts to harm Russia in manners that hurt the domestic economy.

That, of course, is precisely what sanctions do. Any effort to restrict production and trade with entities abroad damages standard of living at home.

As more Americans realize that sanctions are not unilateral, this administration loses its public grant of legitimacy for engaging the country in war.

Speech and the Despot Franchise

"You can break a man's skull. You can arrest him. You can throw him into a dungeon. But how do you control what's up here? How do you fight an idea?"
--Sextus (Ben-Hur)

Escalating pushback against free speech reminds us once more of just how radical the notion of liberty is. The history of the world has been dominated by those who desire to dominate. Authoritarians who seek to control others through use of force.

Our founding ancestors developed a constitutional framework that proposed otherwise. At the top of the list was speak and write with no government interference.

Authoritarians despise this freedom to no end. They understand that minds exposed to alternative viewpoints threaten the despot franchise.

As current events demonstrate, statists will stop at nothing to silence dissent.

Supplying War

War, children
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
--The Rolling Stones

Country A is at war with Country B. Country C's government begins supplying A with military resources (e.g., firearms, military vehicles).

Country C is no longer 'neutral.' It is now at war with B.

Burying Liberty...Again

"Why should I trade one tyrant 3000 miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away? An elected legislature can trample a man's rights as easily as a king can."

--Benjamin Martin (The Patriot)

Judge Nap rails against the unconstitutional seizing of Russian property, the freezing of Russian bank accounts, and the barring of contractual trade with Russian partners--all done under the guise of sanctions imposed after the Ukraine invasion. These sanctions violate both the Fourth Amendment, which requires warrants specific to place and person before property can be detained, and the Fifth Amendment, which requires due process before property can be expropriated.

A common response to charges such as these is that the Constitution only protects US citizens and not foreigners. This is wrong. The wrongheadedness of this line of thought is revealed by considering the Constitution's conceptual basis.

The formation of the United States is grounded in natural law. Natural law posits that all men are created equal at birth, meaning that we all have equal rights to life, to the freedom to pursue our interests as long as we do not forcibly intrude on the pursuits of others, and to the property that our pursuits might generate.

These natural rights are granted to each of us by our creator and as a condition of our humanity. They are unalienable, meaning that we are free to exercise our natural rights unencumbered by government interference. This is the founding principle of liberty. 

Government's sole just purpose is to protect our natural rights. It can only interfere in an individual's pursuits when it is suspected that a person has forcibly compromised the natural rights of someone else. However, government must carefully follow just legal processes including those specified by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

If the natural law basis of the Constitution is to be upheld, then it makes no sense to limit its application citizens of the United States. Americans were not the only people born to the 'self-evident' truth that all men were created equal. All have been endowed with the same set of natural rights. When government tramples on the natural rights of any individual, it has done wrong.

As the Judge notes at the end of his column: "War is the health of the state and the graveyard of liberty." Actions of the US government taken under the auspices of the Ukraine conflict demonstrate once again America's lack of leadership in championing the very principles upon which our nation was founded.

War finds the United States burying liberty once again.

One for Two

I'm falling down a spiral
Destination unknown
Double crossed messenger
All alone
--Golden Earring

Yesterday the Supreme Court blocked the federal government's vaccine mandate for large employers while upholding the mandate for health care organizations receiving federal funding.

The judges were one for two.

Private employers, i.e., those with no strings attached to government, should be able to set the terms for using their property. If those terms include a requirement for employees to be vaccinated against a particular pathogen, then private employers are within their rights as property owners to do so. 

Stated differently, employers should be allowed to discriminate as to how their property is utilized. They can discriminate between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals--just as they should be able to peacefully discriminate on any other factor--including race and skin color. If this discrimination is ill-advised, then markets will punish their poor decision-making.

It is, of course, completely within worker rights to discriminate as well. Individuals can discriminate against producers with vaccine mandates by not seeking work with these employers, or by resigning when their employers pass distasteful policies. 

While private enterprises can establish their own internal health care mandates, the state has no standing to forcibly impose its own mandates or interfere with the rules governing private labor market transactions. 

Of course, it is questionable whether many 'private' enterprises are truly private anymore. When businesses receive resources from government (e.g., government contracts or subsidies), or are subject to favorable regulatory treatment, then they are by definition receiving government support or sponsorship. The more beholden organizations are to government, the more likely they are to do the bidding of government in exchange for political favor.  

This brings us to the second part of yesterday's ruling. The high court declared that health care facilities that receive federal funding must comply with federal vaccine mandates. Health care organizations that receive federal funding are poster children for organizations that are beholden to the feds.

Because of their dependence on federal government resources, health care organizations are extensions of the federal government acting as de facto government agencies. 

The Bill of Rights gives such federal agencies far less leeway to discriminate compared to private entities. Whereas a private employer can justly create policies that favor particular groups, federal government entities cannot. Doing so would violate individual rights to religion, speech, assembly, association, privacy, et al--all of which are expressly protected from federal government interference under the Constitution.

Thus, a federal mandate that requires vaccination for employees of organizations beholden to the federal government is blatantly illegal and unjust, regardless of what six high court justices claim.

Angels and Agency

And when I think that I'm alone
It seems there's more of us at home
It's a multitude of angels
And they're playing with my heart
--Eurythmics

In Federalist 51, James Madison famously introduces his 'angels' analogy when considering the agency problem inherent to government.

"But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controuls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to controul the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to controul itself. A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary controul on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."

Madison's solution to the agency problem was a government design that separated powers between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches as well as diversifying the source and timing of choosing government officials in order to make consensus difficult.

Fine ideas to be sure. However, unlike the anti-federalists, Madison clearly did not foresee the extent to which the non-angels would seek to circumvent the framers' design to achieve their interests. 

Great Reset

V: To whom, might I ask, am I speaking?
Eve Hammond: I'm Evey.
V: Evey? E-V. Of course you are.
Eve Hammond: What does that mean?
V: It means that I, like God, do not play with dice and do not believe in coincidence.
--V for Vendetta

Last summer we discussed the 'Great Reset' as a grand motivator behind the pandemic madness. Since then, the Build Back Better motto associated with the Great Reset concept has become mainstream terminology and a label for the current administration's spending proposals.

This piece provides a nice chronology of the Great Reset's conceptual development. The centrality of Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum (WEF) in advancing the concept is unmistakable.

The article also offers further support for the hypothesis that the WEF played a central, premeditated role in engineering Great Reset-oriented policy responses to the CV19 pandemic. In 2018 and 2019, the WEF co-sponsored two simulations of pandemic policy responses. The 2018 CLADE X exercise simulated a breakout of a novel parainfluenza virus in the US. The 2019 Event 201 exercise, conducted two months before the CV19 pandemic began, considered a worldwide outbreak of a novel coronavirus.

Supreme coincidence? Doubtful.

Both simulations anticipated nearly all policy responses and consequences that we have unfortunately become all-too-familiar with. Large-scale lockdowns. Widespread business collapse. Adoption of biometric surveillance technologies. Emphasis on social media censorship to combat 'misinformation.' Mass unemployment.

All of this works toward achievement of Great Reset goals. Reduction of fragmented markets and free enterprise and increase in concentrated, corporatist-state dyads (read fascism). Fear-based compliance with government mandates. Supply chain disruptions and shortages. Reduction of production activities in the name of climate control. Reduced localized government in favor of global rule. Et al.

Further reduces doubt that what is going has been orchestrated from the beginning.

Last Stand

Is this the value of our existence
Should we proclaim with such persistance
Our destiny relies on conscience
Red or blue, what's the difference
--The Fixx

Great snippet from a 1964 speech by Ronald Reagan. He noted that the US was the 'last stand' for those seeking freedom and liberty. It is still true today.

He also suggests that the choice is not left or right, it is up or down. Up toward the dream of liberty and self-governance, or down toward totalitarianism. The latter would amount to abandoning the idea of liberty and settling for a band of 'intellectual elites' planning and determining how all should live.

"And regardless of their sincerity and their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course."

Still so very true.

Institutional Environments

Art Thomas: How old are you Mister, uh, Mister...
Brantley Foster: Whitfield.
Art Thomas: Yes.
Brantley Foster: Twenty-four.
Art Thomas: Well, I think you should keep quiet until you're at least 25.
Davis: If I may, I don't think Mr. Whitfield's age should be an issue here.
Art Thomas: No one is interested in your opinion, Davis.
--The Secret of My Success

The institutional environment can be seen as the rules and norms that define acceptable behavior in a particular society along with the structures that shape and transmit those rules and norms to societal members.

In some societies, institutional environments are strong and exert significant 'isomorphic' pressure on its members for conformance and sameness. In other societies, institutional environments exert little influence on people's behavior, with individuals consequently 'doing their own thing.'

At least two factors affect the strength of institutional environments. One is preference among individuals for legitimacy. Legitimacy in this sense is viewed as social recognition or acceptance. Those with a high preference for legitimacy seek a 'permission slip' of sorts from others in society to engage in behavior that is broadly condoned, or to shun behavior that is broadly discouraged. Those with a low preference for legitimacy don't care what others think and, instead, act on their own accord.

All else equal, the higher the preference for legitimacy among societal members, the more influential an institutional environment will be.

The other factor that governs the strength of institutional environments also involves the notion of legitimacy, but in this case pertains to the legitimacy accorded institutions themselves. To what extent do societal members recognize the validity of rule-making entities and processes? For instance, norms that have been around for long periods of time tend to be seen as more legitimate than newer ones. 

All else equal, the greater the perceived legitimacy of institutions and institutional structures in a society, the more influential an institutional environment will be.

What 'subfactors' shape these forms of legitimacy? We'll discuss in a future post.

Overton Window

"A toast...to high treason. That's what these men were committing when they signed the Declaration. Had we lost the war, they would have been hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered, and--my personal favorite, had their entrails cut out and BURNED!"
--Benjamin Franklin Gates (National Treasure)

The Overton Window conceptualizes the range of politically acceptable policies at a given time. Developed by policy analyst Joseph Overton, the model can be seen as representing the window of opportunity of sorts for politicians. 

In the model, all possible government policies fall along a single vertical scale. Toward the upper end of the scale are policies that reduce government regulation and expand personal freedom. Toward the lower end of the scale are policies that increase government regulation and restrict personal freedom.

At any given time, only a subset of these possibilities is widely seen as legitimate. This subset constitutes the Overton Window. Politicians are likely to pursue policies inside the window. If they stray outside the window to champion other ideas, then politicians are likely to be viewed as too radical or extreme to gain or keep public office.

An interesting and perhaps counterintuitive feature of the theory is its premise that politicians are able to detect the boundaries of acceptability defined by the window but possess limited capacity for altering those boundaries. Instead, intellectuals, social movements, advocacy groups, and other shapers of popular opinion are more likely to alter the window. 

An exception might lie in charismatic political leaders who behave in manners that capture the hearts and minds of the people.

Because the battle between force and freedom is as old as society itself, the boundaries of the Overton Window are in a constant state of flux. As such, politicians who operate near the edges of the window risk public opinion turning against them if the window moves away from the policies that they promote.

End Zone View

"Crazy. I mean, like so many positive waves, maybe we can't lose."
--Oddball (Kelly's Heroes)

Optimistic piece by Alex Berenson that CV19 madness may be coming to an end. He bases his thesis on seven pillars:

1) Daily death counts are no longer a focus.

2) The percentage of kids aged 5-11 yrs old appears to already have peaked at 15%--only a month or so after kid jabs were approved.

3) Political movements for childhood vax mandates have ground to halt.

4) Federal district courts have all ruled Biden's vaccine mandates unconstitutional.

5) Speculation that the Supreme Court will rule the same.

6) Widespread suspension of vaccine mandates in the corporate world.

7) Lack of public support for public health complex (which includes mainstream media) attempts to rewrite history to read that vaccine boosters were planned all along.

He also shares a headline from a recent Atlantic piece observing that many Americans, outside of major metropolitan areas inhabited by professional classes, are already behaving like the pandemic is over.

Fitting piece for this Season of Hope.

Speaking of Ghosts

"Well, this is nice. Where are we? Trump Tower?"
--Frank Cross (Scrooged)

Some representatives appear warm to the idea of Donald Trump becoming Speaker of the House should the GOP regain control of the chamber in next year's midterm elections. 

Honestly, I had no idea that the speaker did not have to be a member of Congress. It has never happened before in US history. But the mere prospect is interesting to consider.

This season, I can think of few Ghosts of Christmas Future that would haunt leftists, and RINOs, more than the spectre of Donald Trump being installed as Speaker of the House.

Sunny Side Up

Little darling
The smiles returning to the faces
Little darling
It feels like years since it's been here
--The Beatles

Florida has been one of the few bright spots (!) w.r.t. state CV19 response. Despite having an age demographic that is vulnerable to the virus, Florida has maintained mortality figures far lower than most states--particularly when data are adjusted for age.

Much of the credit goes to Governor Ron DeSantis for his leadership in responses grounded in reason and true science as well as in principles of limited government and constitutional liberty.

Now the state has cranked up a website focused on prevention (e.g., exercise, healthy eating, supplements). It also discusses various early treatment strategies (e.g., monoclonal antibodies).

Hopefully other states will follow.

More Government, Less Peace

There will be no isolation
In our secret separation
--The Fixx

Most people view themselves as peaceful. They claim that they detest violence. 

However, many of those same people are proponents of a strong state. The core competence of the state is force. When people contract with the strong arm of government to get something that they want, they are not acting peacefully. They are principals of violence, collaborating with agents to act aggressively against others.

Truly peaceful people seek to influence others through persuasion. They don't coerce.

A valid gauge to the innate peacefulness of a society is the size of its government. The larger the government, the less peaceful the citizenry. 

Further, because government is viewed institutionally, the larger the government, the more violence has been legitimized. 

Christ the King

"I think that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos."
--Sir Thomas More (A Man for All Seasons)

Today Catholics celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King. Celebrated on the last Sunday of the liturgical year, the solemnity was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 in response to growing secularism which, in the holy father's view, was attempting to "thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law" out of public life, thus fueling discord among people and nations.

He was right, of course. Nearly one hundred years after his encyclical, it is difficult to argue that Pius was right, and that godless rule among men continues to divide.

The solemnity reminds the faithful that Christ reigns supreme as king of the world--regardless of the perceptions of earthly rulers and their minions who seem to believe otherwise.

Voter ID

"Define irony."

--Garland Greene (Con Air)

Liberty-minded people are naturally wary of government-mandated ID requirements. Mandatory identification cards, tags, numbers, implants, retinal scans, fingerprints, etc. invite government tracking which threatens individuals' constitutional right to privacy. When it cannot identify and monitor behavior, the state loses much of its power for meddling in the affairs of the citizenry. 

It would seem that the lower the requirement for state-sponsored ID in a society, the greater the individual liberty in that society.

However, this proposition poses a dilemma when it comes to voting. Free societies are usually grounded in republican forms of government. In republican forms of government, representatives are commonly elected by the citizenry through some form of popular vote. 

A few rules are typically imposed on the voters. They must be of a minimum age. They can cast only one ballot. They cannot vote in proxy for someone else. Finally, they must be recognized citizens of the geographic domain for which votes are to be cast. 

It follows, then, that there needs to be a process for verifying that voters have adhered to the rules. It is also difficult to see how such a process does not include a reliable form of voter identification. Information on the ID enables verification of a prospective voter's eligibility and that voters have been true to the 'one person, one vote' requirement.

Wouldn't mandatory voter ID increase risk of government mischief? Oh yeah. The classic precedent is the Social Security number. When the Social Security program was enacted in the late 1930s, the number was said to be simple mechanism for tracking accounts in the Social Security system. Since then, of course, the SSN has become a principal identifier for individuals within the US.

But perhaps the risk can be intelligently managed. After all, absent voter ID, election integrity seems impossible to verify. Corruption is encouraged. Individual voting franchises are degraded. Electors are illegitimate. (Sound familiar?)

Consequently, governments may be installed that threaten the very liberty that free people seek to protect by remaining anonymous and untrackable. 

Quite the irony.

National Police

When I'm in the shower
I'm afraid to wash my hair
'Cause I might open my eyes
And find someone standing there
--Rockwell

Under the reign of J Edgar Hoover, the FBI developed a reputation for blacklisting and gathering 'intelligence' on so-called enemies of the state. Today, the Feds are no longer merely dirt gatherers, they are perpetrators of crime in the name of the state.

This became all too apparent during the Trump administration. Efforts to keep Trump out of office and then take down his administration involved more than a few 'rogue agents.' It snaked through the hierarchy to the director level.

Federal police actions are escalating under Biden. Door knock down raids, false flag ops, frameups. 

After all, you can't have a police state without national police.

Noble Lies

Col Nathan R. Jessep: You want answers?
Lt Daniel Kaffey: I want the truth!
Col Nathan R. Jessep: You can't handle the truth!
--A Few Good Men

Victor Davis Hanson discusses Plato's notion of the 'noble lie', i.e., belief that it is acceptable for public officials to lie to citizens when it is for the common good, in the context of the myriad examples we have witnessed recently.

We know that, to politicians, honesty is rarely considered best policy. But it is a folly of rationalization to believe that lying is in the public interest.