U.S. Troops in Uganda? Blame Congress, Not Obama
Last October, when our President announced that the U.S. would be sending about 100 of our troops to Uganda, I heard a lot of people asking, “What is the President thinking? How was this in U.S. interest?”
As easy as it is to find fault with our President, Obama was simply following the law. That is right! While Congress has not authorized the use of the U.S. military against Iran, Congress commanded the President to use military forces in Uganda as part of an effort to quash the Christian terrorist organization known as the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Thanks to Sen. Russ Feingold, Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry, the unanimous consent of the U.S. Senate, and an unrecorded voice vote in the U.S. House, the Congress directed the President to come up with a plan to use the U.S. military in Uganda (see the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009).
So if you have questions about why U.S. troops are in Uganda instead of Iran, I suggest that you pose those questions to your Senators, who gave unanimous agreement to this policy.
An Open Letter to Gary Johnson, Libertard for President
Mr. Johnson,
I write to explain how your quixotic presidential campaign could become consequential in American history.
To be clear, I did not support your Republican bid; I judged you to be too inexperienced. However, now that you have surrendered serious contention by running as a Libertarian, I offer some advice at the cost of you checking your premises about your potential role in this election. If you missed it, I recommend that you see or listen to C-SPAN’s recent series “The Contenders”; in which, historians discussed the long term historical impacts of failed presidential candidates.
First, I recommend that you take a page from the once almost viable Ross Perot by making the actual ending of deficit spending the focus of your campaign. To adapt Carville, the slogan would be “It’s the federal spending, Stupid!” Given popular disbelief that real spending cuts are possible in reality, you should promise to follow Jefferson’s example and appoint a modern Albert Gallatin (our nation’s longest serving Sec. of Treasury) to discipline federal spending with a focus upon eliminating programs and positions. Gallatin roots your program to historically proven debt reduction and ties it to the Revolution of 1800, a shift in national party power. A deficit focus draws in the Tea Party, the memory of the Reform movement, and deficit hawks from both parties, while giving you the opportunity to challenge bipartisan failure, out of control Congresses from both parties, and weak Presidents from both parties.
Second, following the examples of presidential contenders of consequence, you need to develop a populist message to challenge the status quo. Instead of past irrational emotionalism, I recommend that you appeal to morality and the American sense of life by naming and challenging political corruption. The term to use to brand your corrupt opponents is the “New Spoils System”, which will focus on how the major parties rob the federal Treasury to pay off their pet special interests for electoral financing and support, and how the parties use federal regulation and executive power as a protection racket for sale. I like the bipartisanship of the term as it invokes Jacksonian abuses and Garfield’s bloody shirt while modernizing the emphasis from patronage to appropriations, regulations, waivers, and an administrative process exempt from court review (see Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council).
Third, to have a significant and ongoing influence on our political discourse, you need to champion a differentiating idea that resolves the contradictions created by your opponents’ Gordian rhetoric. In the present context, that idea is the restoration of civil society in America. Americans identify the ongoing rancor in our polity, which results from 50% plus 1 attempting to impose intrusive uniform solutions by law in ever growing areas of our lives. The idea that “we” must do something has been misappropriated to mean that government must do something, which is advocated at the expense of freedom of association and civil society, the collection of non-governmental institutions and groups acting independently, freely, and organized to achieve specific shared goals. In our foreign policy, America champions the development of civil society as the cure to tyranny, but our leading parties vote and act to strangle civil society domestically.
Fourth, at the risk of sharing an idea that could help you actually win, you need to recognize the electoral support of our major parties as coalitions of conflicted interests, which is some cases champion the protection of individual rights and in others the use of government power to violate individual rights. To break the parties’ electoral stranglehold, you need to forge a new middle that focuses exclusively upon the government’s role of protecting individual rights; this not only puts you into a position to challenge for portions of their bases, but also allows you to be the beneficiary of the two major contenders’ attacks upon one another to disaffect their opponent’s base. Further, it potentially repositions your opponents as the fringe candidates by positioning them to speak in defense of the rights-violating fringe of their base (a.k.a. the religious right, the nativists, the progressives, the environmentalists). As an example of using concrete political issues to challenge for an opponent’s base, illustrate a broader theme, and influence future policy, I recommend the recent campaign of Ontario’s Freedom Party.
As a specific example of applying this tactic in this campaign by targeting a core of the Democrats’ new electoral coalition: “President Obama, a confessed user of illegal drugs, asks the young of this country for their votes while simultaneously acceding to federal policy to criminalize these franchised citizens drinking a beer. If this is your first election and you agree that you should be prosecuted and your future encumbered by sanctions for drinking a beer, then vote for President Obama. If you reject federal paternalism in your life choices, then vote for me.” Framed so that he cannot have it both ways, who is Obama going to throw under the bus, MADD or the youth vote? If he attempts to use his office to change the policy, then your campaign has directed the policy agenda.
Finally, while previous influential presidential contenders shaped the direction of their party and its agenda, you do not have a real party to influence. Thus, the focus of your influence should be shifting the positions of congressional candidates from both parties. One reason for using Perot’s deficit elimination as a core issue to your campaign is that he was able to attract a significant enough portion of the vote to influence the outcomes of congressional elections. To win, congressional candidates should be put into a position to require your supporters, in addition to those of their party’s standard bearer. In order to attract your supporters, they will need to take strong positions for restoring civil society, and against deficit spending and corruption, while running to the middle and away from the fringe factions of their party. Congress, and not the President, will set the path for reform or further decay after the next election; should that be a Congress guided by the values outlined above? Should the next President (one of your opponents), winning a plurality instead of a majority, be positioned to become a catalyst for these changes so as to avoid becoming an instant lame duck?
While you will not win the office, through the conduct of your campaign, you could still set the policy agenda and win the future for our American republic.
Sincerely,
Jim Woods
Gingrich Pledges to Violate Constitution as President
- “It is time to insist on judges who understand the history and meaning of America as a country endowed by God.” –Newt Gingrich, Winning the Future, p. 45
This statement goes far to exemplify a critical aspect of Newt Gingrich that makes him unfit to be an American leader.
On its face and without being isolated for focus, this statement is easy to gloss over and neglect the radical nature of his idea, which is to violate a core principle of our original and existing U.S. Constitution. Consider:
- “…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” U.S. Constitution, Article VI
If you read the whole sentence from the Constitution, it includes the charge that a President Gingrich would have to swear an oath to support the Constitution.
Does Newt Gingrich support the Constitution or not? His own words impeach him and invalidate his candidacy.
Cross Posted from Conceding the Future
Draft: Description for Discussion of The Foreign Policy of Self-Interest
Join us for a discussion of America’s interests in foreign policy. The book is The Foreign Policy of Self-Interest: A Moral Ideal for America by Peter Schwartz; only 61 pages to chew and savor.
The content of this ARI publication will be supplemented and contrasted with two brief official government statements on America’s interest, which are found in: (1) A National Security Strategy for a Global Age (White House, December 2000; pp. 4-5), and (2) Leading Through Civilian Power: The First Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) (U.S. State Dept., 2010, pp. 9-10).
Objectivists, Democrats, and Republicans all agree that our foreign policy should be rooted in America’s interests, but we do not agree on what American interests and values are.
A recent example of different definitions for the same concepts subverting a public discussion on foreign policy would be the recent US involvement in Libya. According the official articulation of America’s interests found in the QDDR, American intervention in Libya was consistent with American interests, even if President Obama failed to articulate why that was the case.
In the discussion, we will examine:
1) Schwartz’s articulation of self-interest as the basis for understanding America’s interests.
2) How does Schwartz’s position compare to the bipartisan understanding of America’s interest as found in the 2000 National Security Strategy with its hierarchy of vital, important, and other/humanitarian interests?
3) How does Schwartz’s position compare to the Obama Administration’s four fundamental American interests as found in the QDDR?
4) Does the Obama Administration’s four fundamental American interests represent a substantially different understanding of America interests when compared to the bipartisan hierarchy?
5) How could the Objectivist understanding of self-interest influence foreign policy discussions in the presidential election?
6) Is there an opportunity to influence future American foreign policy by correcting the official statement of America’s interests during the development of the 2nd QDDR, to be published in 2014?
DCOS member Jim Woods will be leading the discussion.
Previously savored copies of Schwartz’s The Foreign Policy of Self-Interest may be found on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0962533661/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&qid=1325380951&sr=8-1&condition=used
New copies of Schwarz are available at the Ayn Rand Bookstore:
http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/prodinfo.asp?number=HS25B
A National Security Strategy for a Global Age (see section entitled “Guiding Principles of Engagement”) is available for free on-line at:
http://osdhistory.defense.gov/docs/nss2000.pdf
The QDDR is available for free on-line at:
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/153142.pdf
The Heath Shuler Rule
I heard today from a commentator on TV that Redskins’ Coach Mike Shanahan was looking forward to turning their bad record into getting “his” QB in the draft next year. Although TV commentators are often full of it, I still need to throw a flag on that call by invoking the memory of Heath Shuler, a mistake that has haunted the franchise.
Consider the draft selection position of the Redskin QBs who started after 6th rounder Mark Rypien led the Redskins to Super Bowl victory. There are a number of early picks there that brought no trophies to the Redskins. While there are some early picks who led other teams to Super Bowls before becoming Redskins, there are just as many later round picks that led other teams to Super Bowls after leaving the Redskins.
** Subsequent Failed Redskin QBs (round/overall choice)**
Jeff George 1/1
Donovan McNabb 1/2
Heath Shuler 1/3
Rex Grossman 1/22
Jason Campbell 1/25
Patrick Ramsey 1/32
John Beck 2/40
Tony Banks 2/42
Todd Collins 2/45
Jeff Hostetler 3/59
Cary Conklin 4/86
Rich Gannon 4/98
Danny Wuerffel 4/99
Mark Brunell 5/118
John Friesz 6/138
Gus Frerotte 7/197
Trent Green 8/222
Brad Johnson 9/227
Tim Hasselbeck Undrafted
Shane Mattews Undrafted
Meanwhile, consider the Redskin’s Super Bowl winning QBs.
** Super Bowl Winning Redskin QBs (round/overall choice)**
Mark Rypien 6/146 [drafted by Skins]
Doug Williams 1/17 [drafted by Bucs, free agent to Skins]
Joe Theisman 4/99 [drafted by Dolphins, acquired from CFL]
Regarding the coach, CBS Sportsline chronicled Shanahan’s QB acquisitions. Beyond bringing McNabb, Grossman, and Beck to the Redskins, he acquired former Redskins Gus “I hit the wall with my head” Frerotte for Denver and Jay Schroeder to the Raiders. The most notable QB’s Shanahan acquired into his system were Steve Beuerlin, Bubby Brister, Brian Griese, Jake Plummer, and Jay Culter. That list does not inspire confidence in his drafting a panacea QB early next year.
The Redskins focus for the next draft should not be replacing their current experienced QBs with an inexperienced one; instead, the Redskins should focus on positions where the Cowboys and Eagles have been able to exploit them (while 2-3 in division is an improvement, it needs to be better to see the offseason).
The Prometheus Inquiry Concept
The following is a draft for an elevator speech. At 3.5 minutes, it is probably too long:
Education in this country sucks; it wastes time and money without really adding proportional value.
Schools are in a repetitive and unsuccessful loop of reform, yet: college students require remedial classes, the problems of drop outs and illiteracy have been unresolved, ineffective public school education traps the poor in poverty, and unchallenged students complain that lessons are not relevant to real life.
Students and parents should have better options available; especially those stuck in public schools, which should be called “welfare schools.”
Yet technology today provides the means to overcome constraints.
Great teachers and curriculum exist, but they DO NOT scale. Most students suffer under the direction of inferior teachers and methods, when better exists and could be available to them with the click of a mouse.
The path to enhanced compensation to the best teachers is not merit pay in the public schools, but greater productivity…teaching more students by scaling through technology.
Truly today, a student’s ability to learn is limited by the time wasted on public school assignments and the parental wealth destroyed through taxation. But that limited time and those limited funds available could be leveraged to bring enhanced results; like a flywheel, slowly building momentum to ever increasing learning.
Having worked in postsecondary education finance, I am aware that no honest partnership is possible between a private company and public education; as the public will parasitically drain the capital from the private company. Unfortunately, most private education ventures seek to leverage the public schools as their market; in the long run, that will diminish the shareholders for the sake of the “stakeholders”.
Therefore, the foundation the Prometheus Inquiry proof of concept is to start by creating on-line courseware to supplement the education of students wherever they may be. By using the correct conceptual approach to education, students and parents can access on-line courseware to remediate, maintain, and enhance the students’ educational development at a fraction of the present cost in time and funds. Contrary to the Japanese model of rote and memorization, the Prometheus Inquiry scales by leveraging the student’s ability to think conceptually and independently instead of them becoming a parrot or automaton. Starting with supplemental education for children and adults, this bootstrapped enterprise will expand to provide multiple educational solution channels at multiple price points, including eventually brick and mortar classrooms, focused upon enhancing the ability of individual students (children and adults) based upon the resources available for student time and private financing.
Re-posted from The Prometheus Inquiry.
The Occupation Issue and the Middle East
Let us get serious for a moment and discuss the Occupation that is destabilizing the Middle East. Since 1925, the House of Saud has been occupying the Hijaz, which is the region that includes the Islamic holy sites in Mecca and Medina.
The Saudis follow and propagate a deviate form of Islam (a reactionary form of Salafiyyah, and more specifically Wahhabism), which might be more generously labeled as heterodoxy. Consequently, Abul-Aziz ibn Saud’s violent conquest of the Hashemite ruler of the Hijaz has been controversial amongst Muslims. Thus, the conqueror (a religious crusader) and his sons, who subsequently ruled the kingdom, have attempted to legitimize their violent invasion and continued occupation of the Hijaz. Using the wealth created by western oil development, the Saudis have attempted to propagate their religious heterodoxy against modern Muslims, who seek improvement in the individual lives of themselves and their children in actual reality through western technology and values.
The militant lust for killing other Muslims of Abul-Aziz included unsuccessful invasions of Jordan and Yemen; however, there may be others that escape my memory. The new generation of leaders of small states in the Arabian Gulf allied themselves with the United States in the war against Saddam’s Iraq seeking a great power protection against the Saudi’s lust for their domains and the designs of Persian mullahs willing to kill Muslim Arabs in order to gain greater geopolitical power through state control of oil reserves.
As a distraction from this Muslim upon Muslim murder and violence, the House of Saud has deceived Muslims with a faux conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. While Israel seeks peace and statehood for the Palestinians, the Saudis and other ignorant Muslim depots, whom the Saudis have duped, fund a Palestinian leadership that undermines peace and Palestinian statehood in their every effort. Given the forbearance demonstrated by the Israelis, the casualties in that persistent televised conflict are exceeded by the Muslim upon Muslim violence in Algeria. Absent the financing of Palestinian extremists by the Saudis and their dupes (such as the Bush and Obama Administrations), a modern life embracing individual rights and the pursuit of happiness would be available to the Palestinians in trade with Israel and the West.
So while the despotic Muslim rulers and demagogues of the Middle East suggest that terrorism and other Muslim violence can only be solved by negotiations between their violent (Muslim killing) Palestinian stooges and the Israelis, let me suggest another occupation that the United States could focus upon in its diplomacy…the Saudi occupation of the Hijaz.
The Panic of 1819 and Rothbard
My readings the biographies of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe sparked an interest in the Panic of 1819, America’s first depression following the adoption of our Constitution. This panic had parallels to our present economic problems in that it was caused by credit policies of the Second Bank of the United States, federal credit policies related to the sale of western land, and changes in world trade resulting from the end of the Napoleonic wars.
Searching for a book on the event, only one kept popped up: The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies by Murray N. Rothbard. Frankly, this set off my crap detector. I have never read any Rothbard, but reference to his name left a bad taste in my mouth. Doing a quick Google search to investigate my reaction, I found the he had something to do with Libertarianism and was a critic of Objectivism. Not a ringing endorsement for his judgment and knowledge.
Thus, I decided to find an alternate reference by reviewing the sources and footnotes of Dumas, Ketcham, and Ammon from the biographies of the above referenced Presidents. I was surprised to find that, in addition to volumes of primary sources, both Dumas and Ammon cited Rothbard’s book. Further, Ammon praised it in a footnote by saying, “See the excellent study by Murray N. Rothbard…” As potential alternative sources, Ammon lamented the lack of a scholarly biography of Sec. of Treasury William H. Crawford, which I understand to still be true; and, he suggested Smith’s Economic Aspects of the Second Bank of the United States (Harvard Press, 1953) as a source on the public sector operations of the bank.
Lacking a better focused and concise alternative, I purchased and will read Rothbard’s book. If I can critically read authors as vile as Marx, Foucault, and Fanon, then sorting the Rothbard errors from the facts should not be too difficult of a task. I understand that this book is founded in his dissertation, so perhaps there was sufficient oversight to prevent biased analysis and omission of relevant facts. Plus, I will be able to assess Rothbard’s cited sources, if need be. I plan future posts related to the book as I read it.
Note to self: perhaps the Miller Center at UVa should organize a panel on the Panic of 1819, as it has interesting impacts upon our Presidents: Jefferson and Madison as former Presidents, and Monroe as the acting President; I suspect the same to be true of John Q. Adams as Sec. of State plus later President and legislator, and the subsequent presidencies of Jackson and Van Buren, who served during the Panic of 1837. I cannot recall any discussion associating Jackson’s veto of the Bank of the United States and the Panic of 1819, which seems like missing the elephant in the room; perhaps Remini’s trilogy on Jackson will offer me some information on that point.
Obama Kills an American Traitor
In addition to just praise for the CIA and our military, President Obama deserves praise for today’s killing of traitor Anwar al-Awlaki. Anyone who disputes the justice of this killing is evading the facts from reality. However, there is a separate point that is worthy of discussion: Does the process for targeting Americans turned traitorous terrorists overseas offer adequate protection for the target’s individual and constitutional rights?
Looking at this concrete example, we see that this was not a case of the executive branch going off reservation and freelancing. Serious consideration has given to understanding and assessing statutes passed by the legislature and rulings by the judiciary to ensure that the procedural rights found in our Constitution and statutes were adhered to (see Washington Post article). Further, in this particular case, the judicial branch ruled that the Obama administration was acting within the executive’s political discretion.
However, in these types of cases, are our current statutes adequate for instituting procedural rights and controls to protect the individual rights of American citizens evidently involved in terrorism and rebellion against the United States? I think that is a question worthy of congressional investigation and possibly additional legislation. For example, are the procedural rights and controls to protect Americans from having their phones tapped more than those of the President ordering their killing?
This is a case in which Rep. Ron Paul, the Republican candidate, demonstrates his utter failure in his current position, which demonstrates why he should not be President at the risk of him attempting to rule by decree. MSNBC reports that Paul condemned the killing of al-Awlaki as essentially the murder of an American by his own government. Yet, Rep. Paul was a member of Congress during a period of time that everybody knew that President Obama had ordered the killing of al-Awlaki; as a congressman, what did Paul do to spark congressional action to implement procedural rights and controls by statute? As a congressman, his job is more than voting no against almost every bill on the House floor; is the extra-judicial premeditated killing of an American citizen not sufficiently important to spark Rep. Paul to action instead of hollow rhetoric?
Further, in the case of Rep. Paul, in that MSNBC piece, he is quoted as saying that “Al-Awlaki nobody ever suggested that he was participant in 9/11.” Contrary to the point of the ignorant Paul, Awlaki has been tied to giving aid to and having direct contact with 9/11 hijackers in San Diego. Given that these facts were reported by the 9/11 commission, it is shocking that Rep. Paul, a candidate for President, should appear to be ignorant of them.
Shifting to the statement of another Republican candidate, former Gov. Gary Johnson said that the case raised serious questions about whether al-Awlaki’s constitutional due process rights had been violated. As a presidential candidate, Johnson should be better informed and speak beyond platitudes to addressing specific policy issues. Frankly, he missed a good opportunity to either be informed on an issue or shut up when he is not.
What should candidate Johnson have said, informed by my prior observations?
Al-Awlaki was a vile traitor and today he received justice. I praise the CIA, our military, and President Obama for this action to protect the individual rights of all Americans.
However, I have to be honest and point out that President Johnson would have handled this situation differently; although, it would have had the same net result. When presented with this plan to kill an American turned traitor and terrorist, I would have asked for more diligence in protecting due process rights of an American citizen. It should not be the President alone without direction from the legislature and review by the courts to decide that a traitorous American should be killed by our government. I am not suggesting that a criminal conviction is required; however, if the executive branch requires court review to listen to his phone calls, then there should be some judicial protection when the President signs an unconvicted American’s death warrant.
While the courts have ruled upon al-Awlaki’s case and validated this death sentence of a traitor and terrorist, and the executive branch acted to fully consider the constitutional protections of Al-Awlaki, I think that the Congress has fallen down on this issue of establishing protections for Americans’ rights. Given the foreknowledge of this action, I question some of my fellow Republicans also running for our party’s presidential nomination: “As current legislators, what have you done to insure that statutes were enacted to protect the rights of Americans targeted for killing based upon allegations of being traitorous terrorists?”
As President, I would have started by doing as President Obama did; however, I would have done more to spark the Congress to act so as to protect the rights of Americans subject to such allegations and penalties.
Taxing Congress
While listening to Senator Lindsey Graham’s recent talk at the Council on Foreign Relations, I heard him mention cutting congressional pay by 10% as part of a revised deficit reduction package.
As an alternative, I have a modest proposal to evade the 27th Amendment and achieve an immediate financial penalty upon Congress. In the spirit of Jonathan Swift, I suggest that Congress pass a special tax that would apply only to their salary. The rate of such a tax would be calculated based upon the size of the federal deficit; for example, if the federal deficit were 43% of revenue, then our Representatives would pay an additional 43% tax, which we could call an Incompetence Tax.
This tax would embrace erroneous principles currently in fashion with our legislators. First, it would be a use of the tax code to do what is prohibited to Congress by the Constitution. Second, like ancient Athenian democracy, the majority can target a tax upon a specific unpopular individual or group for expropriation of their wealth; is anyone less popular than Congress? Third, it uses the taxing authority not to raise revenue but as a punitive instrument.
