Friday, June 28, 2002
VOUCHERS: CONSTITUTIONAL AND GOOD POLICY
Well, not only has the Supreme Court ruled vouchers constitutional, the editorial pages of both the Des Moines Register and New York Times are giving themselves fits. What a great vacation I’m having!
If one needs any more proof that the Des Moines Register editorial writers emote rather than think before they put pen to paper, only read the following line:
Thursday’s ruling goes the Full Monty: states are now free to use tax dollars for full tuition at schools run by churches where religious instruction is suffused throughout the curriculum.
Actually, states are not free to do that. They are free to give vouchers to parents. It is parents who then have the freedom to choose a religious school if they so desire. States do not have the ability to spend money directly on parochial school tuition. It must be the parents who choose, not the government. That the Register gets that simple detail wrong is further evidence of how careless the editorial page is.
The New York Times continues in this vein, albeit in a slightly more careful manner.
The majority argues that the Cleveland program does not, as a technical matter, violate the First Amendment because it is parents, not the government, who are choosing where the money goes. But given the reality of education in Cleveland, parents do not have the wealth of options that would make their selection of religious schools meaningful. And in any case, the money ultimately comes from taxpayers, and therefore should not be directed — by whatever route — to finance religious training.
The underlying premise of this argument is that if someone receives tax money from the government, he or she cannot use that money for religious purposes. Is the Times really serious about making that argument? If so, it would mean that Social Security recipients can’t use their checks to donate to their church or buy a Bible. Actually, that might be okay with the Times. (It certainly would be with the Register). But the Times might want to consider the can of worms they are about to open before they go down that road.
After unsuccessfully arguing that vouchers are a violation of the Constitution, the Times runs down the usual litany of supposed damages that vouchers do to public schools:
1. A common argument for vouchers is that they improve public schools by forcing them to compete for students.
It is more than a “common argument.” There is evidence to back it up. For example, Professor Caroline Hoxby finds that choice experiments in Milwaukee, Arizona and Michigan resulted in higher achievement among students in public schools. Further, Jay Greene found similar results in Florida under the A+ Plan. (For a compendium of school choice research, see www.schoolchoice.org)
2. What is holding the public schools back, however, is not lack of competitive drive but the resources to succeed.
Question: What do New York City, Washington D.C., and Cleveland all have in common? Their school districts each spend more than $6,000 per pupil, among the highest in the nation. What else do they have in common? Their public schools are abysmal. The Times’ insistence that the problem of public schools is not enough money is the epitome of hard-core denial.
3. Voucher programs like Cleveland's siphon off public dollars, leaving struggling urban systems with less money for skilled teachers, textbooks and computers.
Loss of resources, however, is only a problem if it is not accompanied by a proportionate reduction in costs. It is true that public schools lose resources when a voucher is given to the parents of a school child. But it is also true that the public schools will no longer have to teach that particular child, thereby reducing the cost to the public schools. In fact, the public schools may be slightly better off, since vouchers are usually less than per-pupil expenditures at public schools. Let’s use a hypothetical example. Suppose School District A spends $5,000 per pupil. Also suppose that their students have the option of a voucher, in the amount of $3,000, to attend a private school. If the parents of a child at a school in District A decide to exercise that option, District A is now better off. It has an extra $2,000 to educate a population of school children that has just been reduced by one. The New York Times should see an opportunity for the public schools, not a problem.
4. They also skim off some of the best-performing students, and the most informed and involved parents, from public schools that badly need their expertise and energy.
Caroline Hoxby also looked at the skimming problem in the paper linked above. She states that the effect of the school choice “programs on public school students all suggest that the efficiency response to competition swaps cream-skimming effects (if any) that choice introduces.” So far, cream skimming is not a problem.
Despite what the Times and Register editorial writers think, school vouchers are constitutional and good public policy. Fortunately, the Supreme Court made the right decision.
. . .
THE DEEPER MEANING OF THE PLEDGE CASE
Thomas Sowell has a column about what the 9th Circuit Court really implies for our society.
. . .
PADILLA CASE MERITS DEBATE, NOT HYSTERIA
Let me begin by thanking Eric Olsen for the compliments. I appreciate them, because I was not sure that my piece on Padilla was a very good blog. Eric’s blog, on the other hand, was put together very well and provides excellent food for thought.
First, let me be clear about something that I was not in my previous blog: I do not think that the government should hold the likes of Padilla indefinitely. Ultimately, he deserves some form of due process. The government should be able to hold him for sufficient time to get what information it can from him. Of course, “sufficient time” is a vague term. At this point I’m not going to address what sufficient time would be. I merely want to point out that the government needs the time to interrogate him, but that at some point it must give Padilla access to a lawyer, bring charges, and set a date for a trial.
Second, I think that the Bush Administration’s curtailment of liberty has to be limited to people who are engaged in war-like activity against the United States. It cannot extend to ordinary citizens. Nor would it be proper for the Administration to engage in large round-ups of suspect groups—presumably Muslims—in our society. (For a defense of this approach, see Thomas Sowell’s recent column.) In short, the Bush Administration’s curtailment of liberty has gone just about as far as it can properly go, in my opinion.
That said, let me address two points in Eric’s blog. According to Eric, the crux of the matter is whether it is “appropriate to make ours ‘a teensy-weensy bit closer to a less free society’ to detain Padilla indefinitely without charges.” I’ve already stressed that “indefinitely” is not an option as far as I’m concerned, so let me take the liberty of restating Olsen’s argument to say “detaining Padilla for an extended period of time without due process.” That is definitely worth bringing us a bit closer to a less free society.
Basically, we are confronted with two options here. We can let a democratically-elected government in the form of the Bush Administration (please don’t give me any of that Florida election crap!), a government we can toss out of office in 2004 if we so choose, bring us a little further down the path to tyranny. Or we can give al Qaeda and other Islamofascists a better chance at dragging us kicking and screaming toward a Taliban type of regime. We are at war with an enemy whose avowed objective is to either destroy us or put us under the yoke of a brutal form of tyranny. Each time al Qaeda successfully executes a terrorist attack against the United States, it brings us much closer to tyranny than does the Bush Administration’s actions toward Padilla. Given that Bush Administration’s actions are intended to prevent further al Qaeda attacks, it is well worth sacrificing a tiny bit of liberty.
On a slight digression, I think this is why Eugene Volokh has it backwards:
Alternatively (or perhaps supplementally), we might conclude that (1) certain rights (for instance, the right to a prompt trial, and to the aid of a lawyer at trial and before trial) should be broadly retained, even in cases where the defendant is accused of being an enemy combatant, but (2) other rights -- the right not to be interrogated after the subject says "no" or "I want a lawyer," or the right not to be interrogated at all post-arraignment when a lawyer is present -- should have an exception carved out for people who are credibly accused of being enemy combatants.
In order to successfully interrogate Padilla, rights like access to a lawyer and a prompt trial must come after the interrogation, not before. Respecting those rights before Padilla has been interrogated makes it more difficult to extract useful, and possibly life-saving, information out of him. (I admit, I’m uneasy taking on Volokk, an experienced legal scholar, over a legal matter. I feel like I’m trying to keep up with Tiger Woods on the front nine. And I don’t play golf!)
The second point is that a small bit of hysteria does seep into Eric’s blog. For example, there is this quote for Gary Solis:
If Padilla and Hamdi may be held in isolation in the name of terrorism, with no opportunity to defend themselves, who else might be subject to similar treatment? If "enemy combatant" is an undefined criminal category invoked by government officials free of judicial scrutiny, who else might be so nominated?
and this one from Robert Levy:
When the executive, legislative, and judicial branches agree on the framework, the potential for abuse is significantly diminished. When only the executive has acted, the foundation of a free society can too easily erode.
With all due respect to Robert Levy, no it can’t. The forces that will coalesce in response to any further Bush Administration violations of civil liberties are numerous and formidable. First, look at the response of pundits to the actions toward Padilla. Even some conservative pundits are opposed to these actions, let alone the liberal ones. Further actions will only bring more denouncements from the punidtocracy. Second, the civil liberties lobby—most notably the ACLU—would kick into high gear, filing lawsuits and mounting vigorous PR and lobbying campaigns. It wouldn’t take long before the outcry would reach such proportions that the Courts and, most importantly, Congress would have to take some action to circumscribe the Bush Administration. In short, if the Bush Administration is looking down the “road to tyranny,” it probably sees a massive roadblock only a short distance away.
Indeed, I think the Bush Administration does see such a roadblock. This is reflected in their efforts to limit the violations of liberty to a few select cases. It is also reflected in how many hairs they have split trying to defend such violations: citizens vs. prisoners of war vs. enemy combatants vs. unlawful combatants. The Bush Administration, I think, realizes it can’t go much further down this path.
To sum up, we are correct to debate the merits of the government treatment of the likes of Padilla. We are right to be concerned about even the tiniest curtailment of liberty. But the argument that the Padilla case amounts to a one-way ticket to tyranny-ville is overblown. It isn’t true, and it distracts from the really important aspects of this case that must be discussed.
. . .
THE MIKE TYSON OF THE BLOGOSPHERE IS AT IT AGAIN
Well, Paul Kurgman just can’t help himself. In today’s column he pens this concluding paragraph that I’m sure the Blogosphere will have field day with, if it hasn’t already:
Six months ago, in a widely denounced column, I suggested that in the end the Enron scandal would mark a bigger turning point for America's perception of itself than Sept. 11 did. Does that sound so implausible today?
No, Paul, the only thing that doesn’t seem implausible is at some point in the near future you will blame the Bush Administration for the Martha Stewart Scandal. In fact, that seems very plausible.
UPDATE: As usual, Caruso has already nailed it.
. . .
AND MORE….
Lisa Snell at Education Weak has more on the Supreme Court Voucher decision.
. . .
GREAT DAY IN THE MORNING!!!!
Supreme Court affirms school voucher program
. . .
Wednesday, June 26, 2002
VACATION TIME
Blogging will be sporadic for the next ten days. I’m off to California for a vacation, to visit the folks, and to play in some poker tournaments at Casino San Pablo. I will keep an eye on the blather that passes for opinion at the Des Moines Register while I’m away, plus give a description of Pac Bell Park. I’ll also post my poker results, if they’re not too embarrassing. But my parents have a computer that is a few years old—kind of like my parents. So no promises on how much blogging I’ll do. Normal operations will resume June 8.
. . .
Tuesday, June 25, 2002
WHASSUP WITH THE GIANTS?
Tomorrow I’m heading to Northern California to visit the folks. On Thursday my dear ol’ dad and I are headed for the Giants game at Pac Bell Park. This will be my first visit to Pac Bell. I’m eager to see how it compares to other parks I’ve visited. Hmm, let’s see here….that would include Shea, Yankee, Turner, Camden, Fenway, Wrigley, New Comiskey, Busch, Kauffman, and of course, the Oakland Coliseum. (I don’t count Candlestick Park—or, in the immortal words of ESPN, “Commercial Stick Park”—since it is no longer used for baseball.) Anyway, I’ll give a report on my site after the visit. You know, I’d also like to see Bank One Ballpark and Jacobs Field. Maybe I can get both Ed and Eric to invite me for a visit someday.
On other matters, the Giants are not playing up to expectations this year. They’ve had two serious win streaks this year, a six-game streak at the beginning of the season, and seven-game one at the beginning of May. At present, they are ten games above .500. This means that without the two winning streaks, they are 3 games below .500.
The problem, though, is not where it has been the last few seasons. The starting pitching this year has been quite good. Russ Ortiz, Kirk Rueter, and Jason Schmidt all have ERAs under 3.50. Until recently, Livan Hernandez and Ryan Jensen had ERAs under 4.00. However, their combined record is 28-25. Clearly, they are not getting run support, which means that the Giants' problem is offense.
With the exception of Barry, Jeff Kent and perhaps Benito Santiago, the Giants are struggling offensively. Rich Aurilia is having an off year due to injuries. Other than that, there are few excuses. Reggie Sanders has turned out to be a dud, J.T. Snow is about to get a one-way ticket to utility-player land, and in centerfield Shinjo has been Shi*jo. And don’t even get me started about the Giants on-going problems at third base. Thus, the Giants are getting little to no offense out of rightfield, centerfield, first-base, and third-base. Perhaps they are lucky to be even ten games over .500
What to do? I’ll save that for a later blog.
. . .
WOW! WHAT AN ACCOMPLISHMENT!
This article in the Burlington Hawkeye reports on Tom Dachle’s visit to Iowa to support Governor Tom Vilsack. The most eye-opening thing about the article was one of things Vilsack to credit for as Governor:
On economic development, Vilsack noted that during his term, the number of ethanol plants has doubled.
Whoopee! A product that wouldn’t exist without a federal tax break. That’s definitely something to be proud of.
. . .
IOWA GUBERNATORIAL RACE
Mike Glove of the AP has this good analysis of the Iowa gubernatorial race.
. . .
HYPOCRISY ON THE RAILS AND IN THE SKIES
The Cedar Rapids Gazette argues that the government should bail out Amtrak. This seems to be the crux of the argument:
Maybe this is an opportunity to force change to the national Amtrak network. But if members of Congress fail to provide help to Amtrak out of love for the free market, they need to talk some more about why they bailed out the airline industry last fall.
Yes, it would be hypocritical for the Congress to help the airline industry but turn its back on Amtrak. It would be hypocrisy well worth it. Amtrak is a wasteful joke and should be abandoned. Certainly, the bailout of the airlines was a bad idea. But we should not compound one bad idea by submitting to another.
. . .
CUT AND PASTE
A number of letters to the editor discouraging a war on Iraq have appeared recently in various newspapers around the nation. Bill Quick at Daily Pundit has noticed an eerie similarity in them. (Thanks to Indepundit for the link.)
. . .
IS AL QAEDA ON THE ROPES?
The Indepundit makes a persuasive case that the U.S. is winning the War on Terrorism, and al Qaeda may be in its final days. Go read a very uplifting argument.
. . .
LIBERAL BIAS IN THE PRESS AND WELFARE REFORM
Let me warn you at the beginning that this post deals with liberal bias in the press. Specifically, it deals how I think that myself and the place I work for, Public Interest Institute, were on the receiving end of such bias. So, get your grains of salt ready. Heck, if you live in farm country, and some of you do, go to the barn and get the salt lick. You may need it.
It has now been just over two weeks since Public Interest Institute released my policy study on welfare, titled "The Decline in Welfare Caseloads in the United States and Iowa: Reform or the Economy?" I am very thankful for the attention it received on the Blogosphere. Instapundit blogged it, and the hits to my site took off. Also of note are Ed Boyd of Zonitics and Eric Olsen of Tres Producers, who wrote very nice comments on the study.
Here in Iowa, however, the only interest was from radio. Radio One and WHO in Des Moines called to get a brief interview with me. Other than that, nothing. Not a single call or email from the print media. Yet the print media did run stories on a different welfare policy study that came out the following day. The Des Moines Register, the Ottumwa Courier, and the Burlington Hawkeye carried articles on it, although the Courier and Hawkeye articles are no longer online.
Before I explain why I think there is some liberal bias here, let me first examine some other reasons why my policy study was ignored and the other received attention. Certainly, bad timing is one factor. My study came out only one day before Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. released its comprehensive study (and I do mean comprehensive: 314 pages!) on welfare reform in Iowa. Mathematica is the organization contracted by the state of Iowa to conduct analysis of welfare reform in Iowa. The media is naturally going to pay a lot of attention to the "official" comprehensive welfare study at the expense of other studies. Perhaps if my study had come out a week earlier, the print media in Iowa would have given it some coverage.
Another factor is controversy. That is, the Mathematica study had a far more controversial finding than my study. Specifically, it found a small but statistically significant increase in domestic abuse under welfare reform. Naturally, that is going to generate more buzz in the press than a finding that the economy had nothing to do with the drop in welfare caseloads.
These are good reasons why the print media in Iowa gave much attention to the Mathematica study. Yet they do not fully explain why they ignored my study. Indeed, there are some good reasons why they should have given it at least a bit of coverage. My study did address one very important aspect of the welfare debate, namely the question of whether the caseload decline in the 1990s was due to welfare reform or the booming economy. It is an important question to the Des Moines Register editorial page, and prominent liberals like Bob Kuttner continue to insist that the decline was largely the result of the economy. Given that my study addresses this question, and provides some original research on the matter, I think it would merit at least a few lines in the articles on the Mathematica study, if not a small article of its own.
So, why didn't it get such treatment? First, my study had primarily positive news about welfare reform, that it has proved effective at moving people off welfare and into work. I think liberals in the press would rather not see good news about welfare reform. They would rather print bad news about it because that comports with their view that conservatives did a terrible thing when they passed welfare reform in 1996. This is evident not only in their treatment of my study, but also in their coverage of the Mathetmatica study. The articles in the Des Moines Register, Ottumwa Courier and Burlington Hawkeye emphasize the negative findings of the Mathematica study, like the increase in domestic abuse, a decline in the marriage rate, and a decline in income for new welfare recipients. At the same time, they ignore some of the positive ones, such as increases in employment and earnings for ongoing cases, a decline in the use of Food Stamps, and increased participation in the Promise Jobs Program. Apparently, good news about welfare reform isn't fit to print. (To see the summary of some of the Mathematica findings, see pages 27, 51-52, and 79 of the study. To see a similar “bad news” story by the Register, click here.)
The other reason my study was ignored is that it challenged the belief among liberals in the press that the decline in caseloads was primarily an economic phenomenon. Worse, it contends that the economy had nothing to do with it. The press, though, would rather persist with the view that welfare reform had limited to no effect. One of the Des Moines Register editorials I quoted in the study stated "benefits and reduced numbers are likely due to a booming economy in the 1990s rather than the effects of legislative." The article in the Register about the Mathematica study used a modified version of this: "Helped by a booming economy, the state's welfare rolls have dropped from 40,000 to fewer than 20,000." Hence, it appears that any comment that marginalizes the impact of welfare reform on caseloads and boosts the role of the economy is suitable for press attention. But a study that uses rigorous statistical methods and finds that welfare reform had a strong impact while the economy had none is to be ignored.
As I urged at the beginning of this blog, I hope that readers view my arguments here with a sizeable dose of skepticism. Part of this is no doubt fueled by some resentment I feel at working hard on a project only to have it ignored by a significant segment of the Iowa media. Nevertheless, I think my charge of liberal bias has merit. I'd like to know what readers think: Am I correct, or am I just whining? Please post a comment or send an email.
. . .
WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THE RODEO FIRE?
Ed Boyd has an interesting blog on the Rodeo fire in Northeast Arizona. Some prominent Arizona politicians, including you-know-who, are laying the blame at the feet of environmentalists.
. . .
CONDIT SURE IS GENEROUS
Thanks to Croooow Blog for the link to this article in Roll Call. Apparently, Gary Condit gave some of his staffers huge pay raises in the wake of the Chandra Levy scandal.
Also, congrats to Croooow for making this list in the Right Wing News.
. . .
CARUSO ON KRUGMAN
As usual, Jay Caruso at the Daily Rant has an excellent analysis of Krugman’s latest piece in the New York Times. The one sentence that stood out to me in Krugman’s piece was
An attack by lightly armed terrorist infiltrators was an opportunity to push for lots of heavy weapons and a missile defense system, just in case Al Qaeda makes a frontal assault with tank divisions or fires an ICBM next time.
After lines like that, I can’t help but wonder if the Mike Tyson of the Blogosphere has take a few too many shots to the head.
. . .
ARE THEY EATING ALPO TOO?
As Congress prepares to consider a prescription drug benefit, the Des Moines Register has trotted out the usual sob story in the guise of an editorial to persuade its readers this is a good idea.
The editorial quickly dispenses with the statistics:
Statistics tell a faceless story. For example, 80 percent of Iowa seniors pay for their prescription drugs with no help from insurance or government programs. Two-thirds of those pay anywhere from $612 to $3,600 a year.
Gee, those stats don’t paint a very bleak picture. So let’s get on with pulling the heart strings:
But it's the real people who give statistics a face. Larry and Velma VanDerVeer are celebrating their 47th wedding anniversary today…..The VanDerVeers pay about $390 a month for their medications. That's out of their own pocket. In addition to that, Medicare premiums cost more than $100, and a supplemental insurance plan adds another $260 to their monthly health bill.
Ah, that’s better. Nothing like a sad story to divert attention away from important questions. First, why should working people, who are often less affluent than the elderly, pay for old folks’ prescription drugs? What gives the elderly a legitimate claim to the income of others? But we don’t have those debates anymore. It is automatically assumed that we need such a program, and the taxpayers have to pick up the bill.
The lack of such a debate results in other important questions being ignored. What about working people who also use prescription drugs? For example, I have a prescription that costs me about $800 a year. Is it fair that I, who makes an income in the mid-30s, should pick up the tab for others as well? The Register doesn’t address such questions. Big surprise. Rather, the Register prefers to focus on more sob stores: "Some [seniors] choose between food and drugs."
Furthermore, the current plan before Congress isn’t enough. The Register wants the taxpayers to pay for even more. Imagine, for a moment, that this was not a prescription drug program, but a tax cut. The Register would likely bemoan the "cost" to government. They would give us projections as to what that cost would be in this decade and the next. The numbers would be huge. But there is none of that in this case. What makes it all the more irritating is, unlike a tax cut, a prescription drug benefit is a true "cost" in the sense that it takes resources from one group and gives them to another. A tax cut merely gives money back to those people it belongs to in the first place. A drug benefit takes it from taxpayers and gives it to seniors. But the Register doesn’t consider any of that.
And they really don’t have to. Seniors vote more than any other group in our society. Democrats can use this issue to demagogue Republicans. Republicans will go running for cover. Thus, if the majority of seniors want such a program, sooner or later, they will get it. No questions asked.
. . .
A LOOK AT TITLE IX
Mike Hlas has a good piece on Title IX in yesterday’s Cedar Rapids Gazette. A good examination of both sides of the debate.
. . .
Monday, June 24, 2002
HELP!! THE CONSTITUTION IS GOING RIGHT DOWN THE CRAPPER!!
Or so some liberal commentators in Iowa would have you believe. Both Ben Godar of the Ames Tribune and the editorial board of the Iowa State Daily penned hysterical rants last week about America’s headlong descent into tyranny, as exemplified by the case of Jose Padilla.
First, the small stuff. The editorial in the Daily claims that Jose Padilla "was more than once on the receiving end of the U.S. criminal justice system." Ah yes, Padilla was the victim—on the "receiving end"—of the justice system. Not that he actually did anything to warrant the attention of the authorities.
Okay, now the serious stuff. The crux of Godar’s argument is that Padilla is nothing more than a criminal; thus, his denial of civil liberties represents a grave threat to all civil liberties. First, Godar states that "The term ‘unlawful combatant’ is pretty vague." No, it isn’t. As Michael Dorf notes in this column, "an unlawful combatant is a fighter who does not play by the accepted rules of war, and therefore does not qualify for the Convention's protections," the accepted rules being the ones laid down by the 1949 Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention sets out the guidelines for "Prisoner of War" (see article 4). Needless to say, Padilla doesn’t fit the definition.
Next, Godar states that "it’s a cornerstone of American justice that the government can't arrest you now and then start digging for something to charge you with later." Actually, it is also well established under American law that unlawful combatants do not have to be treated like ordinary citizens. As Julian Epstein, a former Democratic chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, argued in the Washington Post last week:
Pursuant to the Geneva conventions and ample precedent in U.S. law, the Bush administration is well within its rights to detain those properly determined to be lawful or unlawful combatants until the conclusion of the armed conflict, and only then to try them in a properly constituted military tribunal, a military court or in civilian courts. The apparent supervision of Padilla by a federal judge since his detention as a material witness and the availability of federal habeas petitions, should help check against arbitrary or pretextual determinations about his combatant status.
Godar’s misunderstanding of the Padilla case also leads him to play the race card:
Lindh, who was captured in a foreign country apparently fighting against the United States military, is currently being tried in a U.S. criminal court.
Padilla, who was arrested in the United States on suspicion of being part of a terrorist plot, was held in secret for five months by the military, and now is still unable to communicate with counsel.
The term "unlawful combatant" is pretty vague, and both of these men deserve a public trial, but if either one warranted consideration as a war criminal, wouldn't it seem to be Lindh?
Instead, the white American has his day in court while the Hispanic American pushes half a year in prison with no charges against him. Not only are there no charges, Ashcroft and friends haven't even presented any evidence to support their allegations.
Nice try, but race has nothing to do with it. Lindh was allowed to be tried in a civilian court because the government determined that he had no valuable information about al Qaeda. If he did, he no doubt would have been treated as an unlawful combatant. Padilla, on the other hand, appears to be part of a terrorist plot. He may have information about that could prevent another 9/11. Thus, he must be treated exactly as an enemy captured during a war, because he is.
The hysteria really begins when these two opinion pieces contemplate the broader implications of the Padilla case.
According to Godar, the Padilla case amounts to "alarming violations of fundamental rights," and if we stay on this path "we are on the road to militarizing the entire justice system."
The headline of the Daily editorial says it all: Unconstitutional detention scarier than dirty bomb
In addition:
Even with the appalling events of last September, nothing has changed so drastically that the same legal system that was able to bring these terrorists to justice should now be rendered obsolete. Apparently no one told this to the Bush administration, which has systematically overlooked some of the oldest and most basic rights enjoyed by citizens and those in this country in a zealous but misplaced effort to protect the freedoms we cherish….
If the most despised do not receive Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights, the rest of us are endangered not by the alleged wrongdoing, but by the annihilation of our basic freedoms.
The threat presented by the dirty bomb, however serious, is temporary. Our government’s reaction to the threat could be a permanent one to freedom.
Apparently the United States is fast approaching dictatorship. Freedom? Swirling the bowl. The Constitution? That sound you hear is Ashcroft crumpling it before he tosses it into the waste basket.
Jonah Golberg had a fascinating bit on this in the National Review Online last week. He argued that when people are young, they often view a minor incident as the greatest outrage in the history of mankind. The problem is that
some of us don't grow out of this tendency. Some people spend their whole lives seeing molehills as mountains. And, among this group, there are people living perfectly happy and normal lives who for some reason also believe that we are a hair's-breadth from tyranny.
Indeed, Godar and the editorialists at the Daily can’t distinguish between the Padilla case and a full-scale imposition of martial law. The fact of the matter is that no one is seriously considering dumping civil liberties for American citizens. And contraty to what the Daily says the Bush Administration has been very careful when considering these matters. The only debate is over how to treat terrorists, not the average Joe walking down the street. But none of that matters. The authors think that we will soon be America, Land of the Un-Free.
As Goldberg puts it:
I can totally understand how people can disagree with me. What I'm at a loss to understand is their granite-like conviction that if we deprive Jose Padilla of his right to trial by jury, we'll become a totalitarian regime. Sure, I can see how it might bring us a teensy-weensy bit closer to a less free society. But the distance between us and the Third Reich or the Soviet Union is hundreds of miles and we are arguing over inches.
Godar, however, invokes a different regime:
The precedent established by the case would give the government the ability to detain any citizen by simply asserting that they are part of some terrorist plot. If you don't think a government would do something like that, talk to Nelson Mandela.
No, we are also a hundred miles away from apartheid, North Korea, Cuba or any other brutal regime you can think of. And Godar’s inability to make distinctions shows in another way too:
Padilla didn't commit an act of terror - the allegation is only that he plotted to do so. If proven true, this certainly warrants prosecution, but as of now the line between Padilla and a mere political dissident is very thin.
That last remark is so stupid that it signals to me to stop wasting time on this matter.
. . .
HERE WE GO, PART II
The Burlington Hawkeye has a picture of Governor Vilsack with this caption:
Gov. Tom Vilsack, left, waves a dollar bill Sunday at the Vilsack–Pederson Family Picnic on the Old Threshers grounds in Mount Pleasant. Vilsack used the dollar bill to emphasize the point that he has made his tax records public information, yet his opponent, Republican candidate Doug Gross, has not. Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson, middle, and U.S. Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, right, special guest at the picnic, looked on during Vilsack's speech.
Earlier I suggested that Gross needs to get the skeletons out of his closet now, while it is still early. He can’t keep things like his tax returns secret forever. Vilsack’ staff will uncover anything damaging. Time is running short, Mr. Gross.
. . .
DEBI DURHAM A GOOD PICK?
This column by Kate Thompson in the Sioux City Journal suggests that Doug Gross made a good decision in choosing Debi Durham as his running mate. Well worth a read.
. . .
ANOTHER INDICATION THAT EDUCATION IS NOT SUBJECT TO MARKET FORCES
This letter to the editor in the Daily Nonpareil is concise. It also hits the nail on the head.
. . .
AUTOGRAPH SIGNING
Jay at the Daily Rant has this interesting post from Sunday about athletes and autograph signing. It notes the jerks and some of the good guys. As a I noted in the comments, though, pitcher Warren Spahn was not listed among the good guys. From what I hear, he is one of the best at signing autographs.
. . .
A RESPONSE TO A THOUGHTFUL ANTI-WAR PUNDIT
USS Clueless has this lengthy essay in response to the musings of lefty blogger Demosthenes. Thanks to Croooow Blog for the link.
. . .
TAKE YOUR AMENDMENT AND....
One of the bigger brouhahas at the Iowa GOP convention concerned a so-called “Ethics Amendment” to the GOP state constitution. Gary Geipel, the vice president of the Hudson Institute in Indiana, penned a defense of the amendment for Saturday’s Cedar Rapids Gazette. (Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear on the Gazette website.) Geipel began by quoting the amendment:
No member of the Republican State Central Committee shall receive remuneration of any kind from a political campaign, or candidate-oriented “political action committee,” and no member of the Republican State Central Committee shall publicly endorse a candidate in a contested primary, or caucus campaign.
Mr. Geipel continues:
The intent is clear. The small group of people chosen to lead the state Republican Party (only 17 men and women on the State Central Committee) must not allow their judgment to be tainted by payoffs from individual candidates.
How did such common-sense ethics become controversial? The answer is bound up with Iowa’s status as the first proving ground for U.S. presidential candidates.
This strongly suggests that Mr. Geipel paid attention only to the first half of the amendment, and ignored the second half. The reason it became controversial is because it attempted to muzzle the members of the State Central Committee—i.e. stifle their freedom of speech. If the “intent” was the prevention of “payoffs,” why was the second part of the amendment necessary? Its inclusion hints that the real intent was to shut up the members of the Central Committee, not eliminate any corruption.
Like most activists who aim at cleaning up corruption in politics, the proponents of the Ethics Amendment couldn’t avoid trampling on others' speech rights. Fortunately, the vast majority of delegates at the convention realized this. When the amendment was put to a voice vote, it crashed and burned.
. . .
Sunday, June 23, 2002
IOWA GOP STATE CONVENTION
Below are some interviews I made and my observations about the Iowa GOP convention today. A few general observations. The mood at the convention seemed upbeat, although not jubilant. My guess is that this comes from a mixed feeling that Republicans in general will do well this November, but also reservations about the Iowa GOP candidates for governor and senator. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of an interview when senatorial candidate Greg Ganske gave his speech, so I don’t know what the general reaction to his speech was. The reaction to gubernatorial candidate Doug Gross’s speech was positive, but not ecstatic, matching the general mood of the convention.
Gross’s speech was big on sentimentality and nostalgia. It focused on his roots as an Iowan, how special Iowa is to him, and so forth. Certainly the makings of a good stump speech. It also attacked Governor Vilsack’s lack of leadership. This next part, I must admit, almost made me giddy. He quoted two statistics that I developed for the Public Interest Institute: that under Vilsack’s Administration state spending has increased at more than twice the rate of inflation, and more than twenty times the rate of population growth. Gross has used another Institute statistic , previously, at the last GOP primary debate. That was the one developed by my colleague, Steven Garrison, that the average state employee is paid 46% more that the average private sector employee.
Nevertheless, Gross’s speech was short on substance, especially on policy proposals. He said almost nothing about what he would do as governor. It is not sufficient to give people a reason to not vote for Vilsack; he must also give them a reason to vote for Gross. Nothing about tax cuts, education choice, or reforming state health care. Gross needs an agenda. If the speech he gave is any indication, he does not yet have one. He won’t win in November without it.
I was unable to track Gross down to ask him about this. I also did not interview Greg Ganske, although that was largely my own fault. He was pressing the flesh among the delegates, and had I pushed a bit, he might have answered some questions. Oh well; I’ll be more aggressive next time. I did speak briefly with his daughter, Ingrid. She has just graduated from Princeton with a degree in architecture. Very nice young woman.
Congressman Tom Latham was nice enough to grant me a brief interview. I asked him about possible spending cuts since he is on the House Appropriations Committee. He didn’t mention any particular programs, but he did state that entitlement programs might face some reform to make them more efficient. He suggested that younger people should have some ownership over the money they contribute to Social Security, although he did not go so far as to advocate privatization.
I also had a very brief interview with Senator Charles Grassley. I asked him what he thought would happen to the marriage penalty now that such a bill has made its way to the Senate. He felt the chances were much better than the estate tax. He said that it is much easier for the Democrats to defeat the estate tax since they can claim that "only 2%" pay it. They won’t be able to do that on the vote to end the marriage penalty. Thus, it seems likely to overcome a filibuster.
Among other people I interviewed were GOP candidates for State Treasurer, Matt Whitaker, and Secretary of Agriculture, John Askew. Whitaker is an up and comer. Too bad he is running for State Treasurer. His speaking talent is wasted on that. If he doesn’t win this race, hopefully he will run for something else in the future.
John Askew has the potential to be an up and comer. While speaking to him, he rightly criticized the current Secretary of Agriculture, Patty Judge, for furloughing Department of Agriculture employees—i.e., meat inspectors—on some of the biggest restaurants days of the year. But the rest of his talk seemed too policy wonkish. It was clear that he had an excellent grasp of agricultural issues. But he needs to drop some of the extreme policy details. This will bore the average voter in the long run.
Mike Hartwig is the GOP candidate for Secretary of State. He criticized the current Secretary of State, Chet Culver, for not foreseeing a recent need by forty-six Iowa counties to hire that state to help manage their databases. Apparently this cost the state about $100,000. His speaking style seemed direct and frank. He, too, would seem to have a good political future ahead of him.
The person I was most impressed with was Stan Thompson, the GOP candidate for the 3rd House District. He will be facing incumbent Democrat Leonard Boswell. In my talk with Thompson he hit most of the standard conservative concerns including tax relief, free trade, local control of schools, medical savings accounts. He also seemed genuinely confident that he could beat Boswell in November. He noted the third district race is considered to be one of the more competitive ones in the nation this year. I’m not sure about that, but it is certainly worth looking into. Even if Thompson doesn’t win, he should consider a run for Congress down the road.
Last, I spoke to Bill Salier. This was the first time I’d spoke with him at length. It is not hard to see why he generated such grassroots enthusiasm in the primary. He speaks well, is full of energy, and isn’t afraid to tell you what he thinks. He did clear up for me his position on free trade. He is in favor of free trade in general, just opposed to NAFTA and GATT in particular. He worries that NAFTA and GATT give too much power to foreign companies in America. While I’m not sure that free trade is possible without imperfect measures like NAFTA, Salier’s is a reasonable point. However, when future reporters ask him about something like NAFTA, he should first emphasize that he is in favor of free trade, and then explain what bothers him about particular trade measures. Otherwise, we’ll get confusing articles like this one that leave the impression that Salier is opposed to free trade.
One last thought on Salier. This time he got 41% of the primary vote with a good organization but little money. It will be interesting see what he can do when he has both. Keep an eye on him.
. . .
|
. . .
|
