October 8, 2018, 11:25 am
I try to read an equal number of blogs from the Left and Right. Now, I am not a masochist so I try to choose the more intelligent folks on both sides (if true dedication to avoiding an echo chamber were to rely on reading both Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Maxine Waters each day, then I just can't do it).
So let me tell all you partisans out there from both the Coke and the Pepsi team something I see every day: Both your sides believe and say the exact same things about the other side. Seriously, almost word for word, I could write a book where we just show side by side quotes. In particular, every partisan fervently believes that their party is too nice and milquetoast and well-behaved to win all the battles it should against the other party, which is devious and bare-knuckles and unconstrained by any ethics.
In the past, the majority of each party seemed willing to accept this lamentable state of affairs and claim the high ground, even when that might amount to a Pyrrhic victory (e.g. Michelle Obama: "The go low, we go high" or many of the Republican never-Trumpers).
The problem is that when this desire for the high ground breaks down, then all that is left is an ugly realpolitik arms race to the bottom. It has taken me a long time to really digest the surprising (at least for me) Trump victory. I have friends that are hard-core partisans for both parties (yes, I know this dates me as failing to pre-screen my friends for political orthodoxy seems a sin nowadays). I see the same attitude in my Republican friends -- yes we find Trump distasteful in a number of ways, but he is the first national Republican we have seen who will fight down and dirty with Democrats and win political victories. You see this same attitude on Twitter with Republicans metaphorically carrying Lindsey Graham (!!) around on their shoulders in celebration this week.
Politics are like the NFL -- people emulate what seems to be winning. Bill Walsh won with the West Coast Offense, and soon there were 30 teams running the West Coast Offense. The Democrats are going to be looking for the Trumps as well. I don't know how it doesn't get ugly.
May 20, 2015, 9:39 am
So you think that "hate speech" or speech that makes someone uncomfortable or mocks someone or criticizes some particular group should not be protected under the First Amendment. For those on the Left (who seem to disproportionately hold this opinion), I ask you to define anti-hate-speech laws in a way that you will be entirely comfortable if, say, President Lindsey Graham (God forbid) were to inherit the power to enforce them.
A President Graham might consider speech mocking Christianity or Jesus to be hate speech. And if mocking Christianity is hate speech, wouldn't support for gay marriage or abortion be as well? What about mocking the military, or police -- isn't that hate speech?
If you ban some speech but not other speech, someone has to be in charge of what is in the "ban" category. When most people advocate for such a ban, they presume that "their guys" are going to be in charge of enforcing it, but outside of places like Detroit and Baltimore, sustained one-party rule in this country just does not happen. That is why most calls for speech restriction are so short-sited -- they assume that people of a like mind will always be in charge of wielding these restrictions, and that is a terribly historical assumption.
February 16, 2010, 8:42 pm
On the day of Obama's inauguration, I wr0te:
I will be suitably thrilled if the Obama administration renounces some of the creeping executive power grabs of the last 16 years, but he has been oddly silent about this. It seems that creeping executive power is a lot more worrisome when someone else is in power.
I want to highlight two recent stories. First, via Popehat:
The White House is considering endorsing a law that would allow the indefinite detention of some alleged terrorists without trial as part of efforts to break a logjam with Congress over President Barack Obama's plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday.
Last summer, White House officials said they had ruled out seeking a "preventive detention" statute as a way to deal with anti-terror detainees, saying the administration would hold any Guantanamo prisoners brought to the U.S. in criminal courts or under the general "law of war" principles permitting detention of enemy combatants.
However, speaking at a news conference in Greenville, S.C., Monday, Graham said the White House now seems open to a new law to lay out the standards for open-ended imprisonment of those alleged to be members of or fighters for Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
That is a really, really bad idea. What would J Edgar Hoover had done with such a law? Would Martin Luther King have been declared a terrorist. And speaking of King, who the FBI kept under illegally deep surveillance for years, we have a second related story via Disloyal Opposition:
Last Friday, federal attorneys told the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals that government officials should be able to track the location of Americans by following their cell phone transmissions -- without having to get a warrant. While the FBI and state and local officials have already obtained logs from mobile phone companies that reveal the locations of customers' telephones, the practice has never formally been endorsed by the courts. The latest federal arguments -- and rebuttals by civil liberties organizations -- give the courts the opportunity to either support or repudiate federal claims that Americans have no "reasonable expectation of privacy" so long as they carry cell phones.
Yes, I blame Bush for getting the ball rolling on both these fronts, but wtf did we elect Obama for? Many libertarians held their nose at his interventionist economics in order to try to thwart what they saw as a scary trajectory for executive power and civil liberties. If we had wanted populist economic machinations combined with limitations on individual liberties, we could have voted for Pat Buchanon.
October 31, 2005, 9:43 am
Apparently not daunted by the how the Senate embarrassed itself in overturning his first amendment, Coburn is doggedly trying again:
Dr. Coburn, joined by Senators Sam Brownback, Jim DeMint, John
Ensign, Lindsey Graham, John McCain and John Sununu, proposed the
following actions to offset hurricane relief spending:
"¢ A freeze on cost-of-living adjustments for federal employees,
including members of Congress, with the exception of law enforcement
and military personnel.
"¢ A two-year delay in implementation of the Medicare prescription
drug benefit except for low-income seniors who would receive $1,200 in
assistance with their drug discount cards.
"¢ A requirement that those with higher incomes pay higher Medicare
Part B premiums in 2006, rather than in 2007 as currently scheduled.
"¢ Eliminate $24 billion in special project spending in the recently passed highway bill.
"¢ A cut of 5% to all federal spending programs except those which
impact national security, with 1% set aside for funding of essential
programs.
The package of offsets proposed today could save the American taxpayers nearly $130 billion over two years.
Arizona is the only state who had both its Senators support the first Coburn amendment, but I am never-the-less writing both to encourage them to hold tough.
