Category Archives: Politics – General

The Cease-Fire that is long overdue

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No more drug warAmerica’s dubious policy of drug prohibition has been a frequent topic on this blog, so I was pleased to see this Mary Anastasia O’Grady/WSJ column (previous posts on O’Grady’s work are here) yesterday on the Global Commission on Drug Policy’s statement last week calling for a “paradigm shift in global drug policy.”

O’Grady’s column is particularly noteworthy because of her citing of this fine Angelo Codevilla’s/Claremont Institute piece that explains how one of the unintended consequences of the failed War on Drugs is the increasing militarization of America’s borders. As Codevilla notes:

A friendly border is like oxygen: when you’ve got it, you don’t think about it. Only when you lose it does its importance seize you. But by then it is difficult to remember the fundamental truth: if borders are friendly, you don’t have to secure them; and if they are unfriendly, you must pay dearly for every bit of partial security, because ever harsher measures produce ever greater hostility.
Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War gives us what may be history’s most poignant description of how a hostile border proved disastrous to a great power. In the war’s 19th year, Sparta put a small garrison in Decelea, in their enemy’s backyard, which, Thucydides tells us, "was one of the principal causes of [the Athenians’] ruin." "[I]nstead of a city, [Athens] became a fortress," with "two wars at once," and in a few years was "worn out by having to keep guard on the fortifications." Having lost a friendly border, Athens turned itself inside out trying to secure an unfriendly one.

For an excellent overview of why America’s drug prohibition policy should be scuttled, check out this Milton Friedman argument. And if you are interested in how a regulatory structure for recreational drug usage could be devised, the University of Chicago’s James Leitzel’s TEDxUChicago presentation below provides a great starting point:

Who should pay for obesity surgery?

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obesity-risk-factorsSo, the NY Times reports that a company that makes lap band devices used in bariatric lap band surgery has applied to the FDA to lower the obesity threshold at which surgery can be performed. If successful, the application would double the number of obese people who would qualify for bariatric lap band surgery.

Some of the obese people who would become eligible for the surgery have health complications that make it difficult for them to lose weight without the surgery. But most of the consumers covered by the new threshold could lose weight and not require the surgery by educating themselves and following healthy nutrition regimens. With third party insurers footing most of the cost of surgery at the point that obesity becomes life-threatening, why bother wasting time learning about — and adjusting a lifestyle to follow — proper nutrition?

Bariatric lap band surgery is expensive. Should consumers who make the effort to control their weight and follow healthy nutrition protocols contribute a part of their health insurance premiums to subsidize surgery for consumers who choose not to do so?

If consumers elect to take the risk of health problems from being obese, then shouldn’t they bear the cost of damages resulting from that risk? And shouldn’t insurers be free to elect not to cover consumers who engage in such risky behavior? Doesn’t shifting the cost of that risk to insurers (who pass it along to the all insureds) simply encourage the obese consumers to consume more health care and avoid confronting their unhealthy lifestyle?

As the late Milton Friedman was fond of saying, consumers will consume as much health care as they can so long as someone else is paying for it.

Defending John Edwards

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john_edwards-.jpg

Longtime readers of this blog know that I’m no fan of John Edwards. He represented much of what is bad about American political leadership.

However, it occurs to me that any federal indictment that is premised on the allegation that “[a] centerpiece of the Edwards’ candidacy was his public image as a devoted family man” should not be a criminal matter.

The fact that Edwards is an easy target should make no difference. While it is clear that Bunny Mellon and Fred Baron financed the cover-up of Edwards’ mistress and love child, it’s far from clear – and simply not provable beyond a reasonable doubt – that this financing constituted illegal political contributions rather than simply payment of Edwards’ personal expenses that would have been made regardless of whether he was a candidate.

The bottom line on all of this is that the financing of a cover-up to save Edwards’ marriage and preserve his public image is not a crime.

If the Federal Election Commission wanted to make an issue out of this, then it should have brought a civil action against Edwards.

But this has no business being a criminal case.

Even for someone like John Edwards.

Geithner as matinee idol

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TimGeithnerAs regular readers know, I have long thought that Timothy Geithner is in over his head as Treasury Secretary.

So, it stands to reason that many people continue to listen carefully to what he says, this time at the opening of the new HBO film based on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book about the most recent financial crisis, Too Big to Fail.

“You can’t prevent people from making mistakes,” observed Geithner philosophically. “Taking too much risk and making stupid mistakes may not be a crime.”

Yeah, right. Try to persuade Jeff Skilling of that.

The reality is that there isn’t much difference between the way in which Geithner and Skilling reacted to their respective crisis. Yet one remains in one of the most powerful positions in government, while the other wastes away in a prison cell.

There is simply no rational basis for the disparate treatment of these two men.

“In Prison Reform, Money Trumps Civil Rights”

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PD*29534905That’s the title of this important NY Times op-ed by Michelle Alexander, who who is the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New Press 2010). The entire op-ed is essential reading, but this excerpt focuses on one of the reasons why reforming the policy of overcriminalization has become politically difficult:

Those who believe that righteous indignation and protest politics were appropriate in the struggle to end Jim Crow, but that something less will do as we seek to dismantle mass incarceration, fail to appreciate the magnitude of the challenge.  If our nation were to return to the rates of incarceration we had in the 1970s, we would have to release 4 out of 5 people behind bars.  A million people employed by the criminal justice system could lose their jobs . Private prison companies would see their profits vanish. This system is now so deeply rooted in our social, political and economic structures that it is not going to fade away without a major shift in public consciousness.

Sentencing expert Doug Berman comments insightfully:

However, I strongly believe that liberty, not fairness, needs to be the guiding principle in this major shift.  After all, one big aspect of the modern mass incarceration movement has been an affinity for structured guideline reforms and the elimination of parole all in order to have greater fairness and consistency at sentence. 

What we have really achieved is less liberty as much, if not more, than less fairness.

 

No more exaggerated fish stories?

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freshwater-fly-fishing-b06So, you mean to tell me that now even exaggerated fishing stories are criminal?

That’s what the Texas Tribune is reporting (H/T Scott Henson):

Fraudulent fishermen better reel it in. The Senate passed a bill today to make cheating in a fishing tournament up to a third-degree felony, sending the measure on to the governor.

HB 1806 expands existing law to all fishing tournaments, from fresh to salt water. It would make it an offense for contestants to give, take, offer or accept a fish not caught as part of the tournament. It would also be an offense to misrepresent a fish.

“I’ve never altered the length of a fish,” says Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, the Senate sponsor of the bill. But he’s been told fishermen will cut the tail off a fish so it will fit the minimum length requirement. That way, they can add more fish to their bucket.

For minor tournaments, cheaters could be charged with a Class A misdemeanor and face up to a year in jail or a maximum $4,000 fine. But if the prize is more than $10,000, contestants could be charged with a third-degree felony, spend two to 10 years in prison and pay up to a $10,000 fine. 

As Henson observes, Senator Hegar and the Texas Legislature apparently have not noticed the onerous overcriminalization that they and other legislative bodies have been imposed on U.S. citizens:

Texas had 2,383  felonies when the session started. No telling yet how many new ones the Lege will pass this year, but Grits’ pre-session prediction was 55. Nobody really tallies them all comprehensively until the parole board must assign new felonies risk categories later this year. But there are a bunch of them. You’d never know the Lege is broke because they seem to think more incarceration can solve any and every social problem: Even dishonest, exaggerating fishermen.

A truly civil society would find a better way.

The train wreck of entitlements growth

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Another lucid presentation from Jeff Miron, this time on the inevitable insolvency that will result from current levels of entitlement spending:

Bruce Schneier on security theater

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National Security Wisdom from the Joker

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Security TheaterCato’s Julian Sanchez brilliantly sums up the logic behind the national security policy that leads our government to impose this kind of absurd abuse on its citizens:

Batman’s archnemesis the Joker–played memorably by Heath Ledger in 2008‚Ä≤s blockbuster The Dark Knight–might seem like an improbable font of political wisdom, but it’s lately occurred to me that one of his more memorable lines from the film is surprisingly relevant to our national security policy:

“You know what I’ve noticed? Nobody panics when things go ‘according to plan.’ Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all ‘part of the plan.'”

There are, one hopes, limits. The latest in a string of videos from airport security to provoke online outrage shows a six-year-old girl being subjected to an invasive Transportation Security Administration pat down–including an agent feeling around in the waistband of the girl’s pants. I’m somewhat reassured that people don’t appear to be greatly mollified by TSA’s response:

“A video taken of one of our officers patting down a six year-old has attracted quite a bit of attention. Some folks are asking if the proper procedures were followed. Yes. TSA has reviewed the incident and the security officer in the video followed the current standard operating procedures.”

While I suppose it would be disturbing if individual agents were just improvising groping protocol on the fly (so to speak), the response suggests that TSA thinks our concerns should be assuaged once we’ve been reassured that everything is being done by the book–even if the book is horrifying. But in a sense, that’s the underlying idea behind all security theater: Show people that there’s a Plan, that procedures are in place, whether or not there’s any good evidence that the Plan actually makes us safer.

And this is not all about civil liberties, either. As David Henderson points out, citizens who throw up their hands in disgust with the TSA’s security theater and elect to drive rather than take a short-haul flight risk a fatality rate that is 80 times higher per mile than travelers on a commercial airliner face.

In short, the TSA is killing people.

As with the overcriminalization of American life, the TSA is an ominous reflection of a federal government and major political parties that are increasingly remote and unresponsive to citizens.

Is it too late to change? That would be a good question for someone to ask President Obama, who was famously elected on the slogan of “change we can believe in.”

 

The joke that is the budget compromise

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budget compromiseDon Boudreaux sums up perfectly why the budget compromise that was reached late last week is a joke:

Suppose that in a mere three years your family’s spending – spending, mind you, not income – jumps from $80,000 to $101,600.  You’re now understandably worried about the debt you’re piling up as a result of this 27 percent hike in spending.

So mom and dad, with much drama and angst and finger-pointing about each other’s irresponsibility and insensitivity, stage marathon sessions of dinner-table talks to solve the problem.  They finally agree to reduce the family’s annual spending from $101,600 to $100,584.

For this 1 percent cut in their spending, mom and dad congratulate each other.  And to emphasize that this spending cut shows that they are responsible stewards of the family’s assets, they approvingly quote Sen. Harry Reid, who was party to similar negotiations that concluded last night on Capitol Hill – negotiations in which Congress agreed to cut 1 percent from a budget that rose 27 percent in just the past three years.  Said Sen. Reid: “Both sides have had to make tough choices.  But tough choices is what this job’s all about.”

What a joke.

Which reminds me of what H.L. Mencken observed about the primary talent of successful politicians:

“Their power to impress and enchant the intellectually underprivileged.”