What Trumps Clinton and Obama?
“It appears that El Paso voters have tossed out Rep. Silvestre Reyes, ignoring the advice and endorsements of two presidents, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton,” according to the Dallas News. Maybe the voters are listening to other voices which are working to oppose incumbents who are entrenched in office. The Washington Post reports: “President Obama endorsed Reyes, and former president Bill Clinton campaigned for him. But the eight-term congressman was targeted by an anti-incumbent super PAC, the Campaign for Primary Accountability, which spent $240,000 on the race. ”
Not long ago, Reyes, a Democrat, laughed off efforts by the Campaign for Primary Responsibility to work against his candidacy in a CBS video.
The Washington Post source says “the Campaign for Primary Accountability … has had a hand in defeating four of the six House incumbents so far.” The Campaign for Primary Accountability is targeting incumbents from both parties in an effort to break Congressional Stagnation by supporting viable challengers in primaries.
Does this indicate that incumbents are now going to face stiffer challenges? Rachel Rose Hartman of ABC News doesn’t think so. She puts Reyes’ defeat down to the desire of Texas voters to support the drug legalization stance of El Paso City Councilman Beto O’Rourke.
O’Rourke, co-author of “Dealing Death and Drugs: The Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico,” supports marijuana legalization as a step towards ending the War on Drugs. The primary winner serves as a stark contrast to his opponent when it comes to this issue.
There may have been a variety of factors behind Reyes’ defeat, but it is not entirely fanciful to think that a conscious opposition to Congressional Stagnation may have played a part. The Campaign for Primary Responsibility’s message may be getting through, even past the endorsements of Presidents Clinton and Obama.
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Two thumbs “way up” for Leo Linbeck III.
Incumbents cry
You know that I
Have only you in mind
I work for you
You know it’s true
I am one of a kind
These other guys
They tell such lies
L3 and all his friends
And ‘fore you know
We all will go
And thus our freedom ends
A vote for me
And you will see
Our freedom’s flag on high
Just send me back
Not just some hack
Backed by that Linbeck guy
So-called “centrist” Democrats may want to avail themselves of Linbeck’s outfit to try to recapture their party, or at least become the major force in it again.
Supporting primary challengers on a limited criteria that has little to do with their positions raises an ethical question. Can you support the candidate whose policies you disagree with, if those positions are immoral? If you morally object to legalizing drugs, is it ok in good conscience to help the candidate who supports it get elected? What about abortion? Would that CPA strategy be the equivalent of ‘ends justifying the means’? The Catholic formulation as I understand it is that you cannot materially participate in evil, no matter the end. Does that apply in this matter? If there is an ethical structure underlying this strategy that allows support for immoral policies through funding, can it be described here at the Belmont Club? Any thoughts appreciated, I ask in good faith.
Congrats, L3! Only another 600 or so to go.
Interestingly, even the harridan at ABC News effectively agreed that Reyes was out of step with the people he supposedly represents when she dragged up the drug legalization issue. Whether Reyes rejection was the CPA or the drug issue, it is a moral victory for CPA either way.
Now look for a bipartisan response from the Criminal Class in Washington. They may mandate Photo ID for primary elections — and then add a requirement for a letter of permission to vote from your parents.
L3,
If we save this country, you should get the Medal of Freedom. If we fail, you will be an “Enemy of the State and People”. Nil Medium
It takes a man of integrity and honor to take a stand so publicly, with such a possible consequence.
Subotai Bahadur
Thanks for posting Wretch. I would have missed it.
Leo and his group are to be commended.
I am all for LL III efforts, it is a great plan, still it’s at least three to four election cycles out from having effect on Congress and by then you’re trying to unseat the ones you just helped get elected, it really is a never ending battle… really needs to be a term limit, LL III needs to focus on those that oppose a term limit amendment and leave those that would call for and support one alone, once the term limit is in they would be gone…
4. erico: It was a primary not the seat election. So the Democratic encumbent lost which means the Republican candidate is running against a unentrenched contender running on a pro-drug platform. In Texas. Sounds like a good strategy to me.
Besides, what LL3 wants is a regular changing of the guard to keep those in office in check. In that he has succeeded already.
If there is an ethical structure underlying this strategy that allows support for immoral policies through funding, can it be described here at the Belmont Club? Any thoughts appreciated, I ask in good faith.
I think the CPA tries to address “the question of who decides”. If it were the case that Democratic and Republican voters truly ‘decided’ their political fates, then each side would elect candidates which were anathema to the other side. That’s how Democracy works, with opposing points of view represented. And in the end the voters would get what they deserved.
Nothing about Democracy guarantees that the best candidates gets elected. It is only supposed to ensure that the candidates the voters choose get elected. The problem with incumbency is that there’s only one party: the party of Washington. Hence the Republicans get RINOS and the Democrats get … well I won’t speak for Democrats. But in either case the process is subverted by incumbency.
Something is needed to make the process work, to break up the logjam. Now in practice that means Republicans will elect people who Democrats hate and vice-versa. But crazy as it may seem, that’s how it is supposed to work. Each side should get to choose their candidates freely. For the Democrats it is Sivestre vs Beto. That’s their universe.
So the ethics of the CPA campaign are really the ethics of making the electoral system work. As to whether Beto is the right guy to elect, well there are other parts of the political system, like the public debate and the his opponent in the general election that should determine the final outcome.
But if democracy has stopped working then all the questions of ethics are in a sense obviated because the voters have no way to address them. Ultimately if there is no way to make democracy function then the Republic is substantively doomed. And that question also poses ethical challenges. That’s how I think of it anyway.
#4 erico
With all due respect, and with the caveat that while I have studied Catholicism back when the Tridentine Mass was the norm, I did not go through with the conversion; I do not think it is quite that simple.
In our current political system, turnover in the legislative branch is about what it would be under a hereditary aristocracy. Death in office, and the occasional legal scandal that is either falsely created by factions in office or is real but cannot be covered up, are responsible for more turnover in office than elections.
Once someone is incumbent for any length of time, it is like they are fortified in a bunker. It is new blood that is vulnerable to the electorate, regardless of party. Returning accountability to the electorate is the only way we are going to keep our political system from becoming too brittle to survive and prevent the Clausewitzian equation from coming into play.
We have one Political Class that takes care of its own interests with far more care than they take care of ours. Thus, we see the “Opposition” Institutional Republicans who cannot bring themselves to stand up against the evil of the Left.
We cannot defeat the Enemy, unless we can blast them out of the protection of their bunkers to where they are vulnerable to the voters. What L3 is doing is akin to a pre-attack artillery barrage, breaking the enemy fortifications; so that the hard work of defeating the Enemy in detail can begin. It, of itself, will not destroy the Political Class. But in the absence of any other alternatives that do not play to the strengths of the incumbents, it is the best tactic we have so far. And it is a necessary step, if we hope to avoid a violent Control-Alt-Delete. It is not a quick, final victory.
It is our Battle of Trenton. It is a long way yet to Redoubt #10.
L3, if I have mis-stated things, please correct me.
Subotai Bahadur
4. erico raises an interesting question. Possibly the most ethically rewarding solution is to withdraw from participating in democracy until perfect candidates are presented. But until that comes to pass the rest of us will understand the despair and angst troubling poor erico’s soul and grant a blanket forgiveness as we struggle on making the choices necessary to restore a once-great nation.
Endorsed by Obama and Clinton, and the ABC clown thinks that it is a vote for drugs. What were they smoking? If that is true then I expect Ron Paul’s legion to ride to victory.
Meanwhile on planet Earth BHO and BC, both famous for lack of coat tails and in Bill’s case lack of pants, can expect extra space around them as candidates run away. The Democrats may wake up, take a look at him, and decide that they don’t need Obama.
If I remember correctly, Linebeck’s goal is to change the relationship between the Congress {the House}and the people, not between Republicans and Democrats. And he’s trying to do it by getting rid of long term incumbents at the Primary level. It’s too late by general election time. For most long term incumbents, what really changes besides committee chairs and other perks? It’s all about POWER. The only thing that will change that is to amend the Constitution to eliminate the ability of office holders to give special favors. The Commerce clause would be a good place to start. Abolishing Cabinet departments like Education would be another.
#4 erico wrote: “If there is an ethical structure underlying this strategy that allows support for immoral policies through funding, can it be described here at the Belmont Club? Any thoughts appreciated, I ask in good faith”
Great question … One thing is clear; CPA is not concerned with the threat from Iran, even though they are seemingly approaching our “one yard line” regarding nuclear weapons acquisition.
In 2012 CPA successfully sought the defeat of Cong. Dan Burton [R] of Indiana, a senior member well known for his leadership in opposition to the present government of Iran. Also in 2012 CPA is reported to have spent more than $250,000 to support (unsuccessfully) the re-election of Cong. Dennis Kucinich (D) of Ohio, a senior member well known for his extreme leftist opposition to any rational US national security policy, including steps to damage the present government of Iran.
Burton’s leadership on this issue is not replaceable over the short term, and attempts in Congress to force the administration to resist Iran will suffer due to his absence.
Wretchard has referred to this period in world history as the “golden hour”, when it may still be possible for civilized countries to prevent a critical mass of barbarians from acquiring nuclear weapons. So what’s the priority in the last minutes of the “golden hour”? Resistance to the urgent threat from Iran or long term, possible “reform” by campaigning against candidates for no other reason than that CPA defines them as entrenched incumbents?
The Democrat’s argument for supporting Obama is, “If we dump him we lose the Black vote, and without that we can’t get elected Dog Catcher.” The GOP should counter that but not get suckered into a bidding war. The GOP should target especially Hispanics with this theme, “We offer you nothing but Respect.”
The dominant image should be of the candidate clasping the hands of mothers and fathers, especially minority mothers and fathers of Service Members and First Responders, and saying, “Thank you.”
Respect is a message that Reagan Democrats, especially those of Polish heritage today, are open to. Could Romney bring together Jews and Poles under that banner? Obama offers only division and hate.
One thing that the CPA campaign has done, by using the primaries as a leverage point, is to re-empower the voter’s will because the contests are small enough so that individual votes do matter, at least in comparison to the faceless general elections. It is not just the incumbents in Congress who are part of the structural problem, but also what one might call the ‘tyranny of talking points’. The whole idea of talking points is that it pre-tells everyone what to think. “This is what will occur to you.”
The way it works is some spin doctor creates a meme and people are manipulated into getting excited about it, without any effective means of dissent because they don’t want to be left behind by the latest fad. Consider the latest liberal campaign to get Arizona to certify that Romney isn’t a Unicorn.
It’s an example of top-down meme making. “Left Action” decides to start a bandwagon and has the juice to get it on the front pages for a long time. It’s designed to generate buzz. In the past, people got carried along and that was that.
For too long people were told what to think, what to snicker at, what was cool and what was uncool. The media provided the laugh-track of political life. People laughed even when they didn’t know why like those sit-coms where you know its funny even if you didn’t hear the joke. Even if the joke turned out to be on you.
Compare that to the CPA. CPA treats you like a sentient being. There’s no effort to push Republican or Democrat. It is entirely “what do you think?” As a Democrat, as a Republican. What do you think?
By contrast, the Left Action treat people like they needed this stage with a comedian on it, spouting unicorn jokes and how that will make everyone think its funny.
Well maybe it isn’t funny. For starters Romney’s publicists didn’t spend 17 years claiming he was a unicorn, nor did Romney express his unicorn heritage when it gave him advantage. So just perhaps some of these “birthers” and “tea baggers” are earnest in their questioning of credentials. That’s what buyers are supposed to do, isn’t it? Look under the hood?
But that would be too simple. The meme is that some people are so stupid they want to look under the hood. They’re not smart enough to take the word of the MSM. What maroons! In fact the entire Unicorn campaign is predicated on the idea that giggling is an effective riposte to almost anything.
Now people have the right go giggle. It’s the cue part that is objectionable. And that I think, is why process reforms, governance questions are so important. You can’t ask “what is the right policy” until you answer “who decides”, or who gets to choose what you giggle at.
So which will win in the end? The process which treats you as a man or the process which treats you as a sap? Well, we’re about to find out, maybe not in this election cycle but over the next several.
15. MarcH: With respect, you are looking at this from a either/or prospect. It is ridiculous to imply that Dan Burton is the only person between a nuclear armed Iran and the opposite. LL3 has found a cause he believes in and is working very hard to make a change. I think it is appropriate to ask: What are you doing to make things better other than complaining?
And I say that not to insult you but to make a distinction between action and talk.
You go LLIII.
You expose the incumbents and you expose the trolls.
MarcH @ 15: “… the “golden hour”, when it may still be possible for civilized countries to prevent a critical mass of barbarians from acquiring nuclear weapons”
Personally, I don’t think it would make any difference to Iranian policy whether or not Rep. Burton was in the room. This is fundamentally similiar to what (I think) Erico @ 4 was asking — is it justifiable to accept the Bad in order to get a specific Good? To which the practical answer has to be — it depends how bad the Bad is, and how good the Good.
Rep. Burton is not much good. He has had years to bring sense to US and western involvement with Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It looks like he has failed. The worst that happens is we replace one failing politician with another.
More broadly, we should not buy into the Leftist line that nuclear weapons are somehow more dreadful than other weapons. The supposed negative long-term effects of radiation come from the same Leftist school of thought that has brought us catastrophic Anthropologic Global Warming, and the fears are just as solid scientifically. (Hiroshima & Nagaskai are flourishing; Chernobyl has become a veritable nature park).
No, nuclear weapons are simply a bigger bang. A very expensive bigger bang, which means that Iran will not be able to afford many of them. The danger with Iran is that the Obaminoids have repeatedly failed to make clear to Iran’s government and the Iranian people that any nuclear explosion anywhere in the US or Israel will be followed 20 minutes later by the complete destruction of every city in Iran. The rubble will bounce! Until the Iranians voluntarily do a Ghaddafi and turn over their nuclear program to the West, the automatic assumption of US policy should be that the Iranians are responsible for any nuclear blasts anywhere. SAD — Solitary Assured Destruction.
The question of whether a particular policy — Iran — is so important that a vote in the right direction cannot be threatened is an interesting and potentially valid point. There can sometimes be situations where the tactical situation trumps the overall strategic one.
But that the question of exceptions is a separate issue from whether the strategy itself is sound.
Forgive please for OT post but…..
Headlines on Drudge:
Greece’s biggest bank posts $666 million loss…
Spanish borrowing cost soars — to 6.66%…
And the number of the beast was…..?
4. erico
If the choice for you is the lesser of two evils and you believe it is wrong to vote for that, then I would say don’t do it; don’t vote in that primary. I don’t think you need to agonize over it. It’s your conscience.
If I were able to vote in that primary, I would be saying “an uncomfortable, insecure politician is a good thing”. So my conscience would say “vote against the incumbent”. But that’s my conscience.
We make our own choices.
e @ 4: I too have raised that kind of question, in past discussions here.
In the abstract, it is fighting evil with – chaos.
But I have to say – in the real world, so far, so good.
It is after all a less than perfect world, and perhaps that gives a positive bias (regression to the mean) to such randomizing strategies.
So congrats again, L3.
I see the CPA as being primarily a way of saying to incumbents, “Hey! Idiot! You were elected to that position! Wake thell up!” Presumably for every one incumbent you take down there will be 10 others who go “Oh, geeze!” and 100 special interest group representatives who will go “Oh, crap!”
And the incumbent loss is being attributed by some to Sara Palin’s endorsement of the alternative
In other news of the day, I just heard the US rep to the U.N., Ambassador Rice, say “We should not additionally militarize Syria by arming the opposition forces.” That’s the ticket! Stop the cycle of violence! It works so well in the U.S. ghetto that it ought to work great in Syria.
L3 will go far. He’s an American with a good idea. Full stop.
More news from this front: Artur Davis voluntarily Left congress to run for Gov. Got whipped(Figuratively). He represented the 7th CD the heart of the black belt.
Now he says the Dems are more than he can stand: http://www.officialarturdavis.com/2012/05/a-response-to-political-rumors/
I can only offer comments from this side of the line wretchard called living the life beyond societal norms. In that position is my inferiority vis a vis others here but also an integrity. All comments in reply to my question were serious and taken as such, even #12, though I think that one is off the mark. Ethics are legitimate and required for any invidual acting in a social organization, so let’s think them through. That is why the commenters here at BC replied. But I take the comment more to mean that ethics have to be grounded in experience and a context and not some sandbox play-nice ideal. I’m with you in that.
The point of my post was not to sideline the CPA by having it navel gaze, though that may be a tactic of an opposition group. The point is to reach ethical action, so I can live with myself once I cross that line. People here seem fairly sober and comfortable with their positions.
New related topic: Subsidiarity is a principal that social and political issues should be handled at as local a level as possible. The point in the current discussion is to return control and funds from Federal to state government wherever possible. The number of representatives deciding issues balloons from 435 to 5,000 plus. A much more reasonable ratio of representative to citizen, representative to dollar amount they control, that arguably would be more responsive, with less large scale corruption and more local contention for projects and funds. Gingrich seems to have some sense of this based on the flier I got in the mail.
e @ 27: Subsidiarity is a principal that social and political issues should be handled at as local a level as possible. The point in the current discussion is to return control and funds from Federal to state government wherever possible. The number of representatives deciding issues balloons from 435 to 5,000 plus.
Yes, but on the other hand the amount of work to be done ballons by 50x as well. In fact, insofar as the 50 states may want to consider each other’s work, a new workload of 50!x is introduced. That’s a lot of work, and helps explain why people look to simplify by factoring things out to a national level. However, we know that that can be TOO limiting. So the question is, what sort of moderate in-between approaches can we find?
I think that L3 is renewing the definition of a Christian Gentleman.
Kinuachdrach nailed it.
we should not buy into the Leftist line that nuclear weapons are somehow more dreadful than other weapons.
66,000 people died in the Hiroshima explosion. Dreadful toll from dreadful nuclear weapon.
800,000 people died in Rwanda, killed by traditional hand craftsmanship inflicted by machete and inspired by radio broadcast.
Leftists only abhor nuclear weapons because the United States has developed more and better ones than anyone else. The nuclear death toll cannot hold a candle to the Rwandans, nor to the uncountable millions slaughtered in setting up Leftist-ruled empires.
When Leftists begin a campaign against the horrors of machetes or commissar-directed machine guns, we might take them seriously. But any death toll they publicly decry means nothing beside their own forests of bones, and is purely for public bamboozlement.
Here in East Texas there was a little race that I enjoyed immensely! I don’t know if it made Linbeck’s radar, but it was for the local seat in the State house, held by Leo Berman for the last 7 terms. Some in Texas may recognize the name as the man nominated by the Texas Monthly last year for being the WORST legislator in the entire state.
Now Leo has been saying that just proves what a good “conservative” he is, but I’ve met the man, and all I can say is that if you could look up “Jackass” in the universal dictionary, Leo Berman’s picture would be there. I won’t go on about his incessant douchebaggery, although I could, because yesterday we TOSSED him out! A good, much younger conservative, Iraq war vet Matt Schaefer beat him, and it wasn’t even close!
Finally! It does me good to see these entitled old fossils tossed out on their bums. btw – example of Leo’s aforementioned douchebaggery: he was going to retire before this election, and Mr. Schaefer visited him just to get his endorsement, to pay a courtesy call. Suddenly Leo announced that he was running again because Matt wasn’t properly “deferential” to him. My guess is that Leo demanded a payoff and Matt refused, but Matt’s too good a guy to talk about actually happened. Doesn’t matter, he’s in now and Leo is OUT!
good riddance to old rubbish.
But of course every scalp CPA has a hand in taking this cycle can be blamed on something else, some other weakness with the incumbent, because L3 has explicitly decided to target vulnerable incumbents, pols who were already disliked by their consituents but who kept on getting re-elected anyway.
Except, now they aren’t getting re-elected anyway, they’re getting replaced.
As to the Iran thing, I still believe – nuclear weapons included – that no external threat is as big a danger to us as the internal ones. Internal threats create their own damange and prevent us from responding effectively to external threats. Iran’s nuclear program is as far along as it is because our internal politics have been dsyfunction, in part because of incumbocrats who treat elected office as a personal opportunity and not a civic responsibility. If the Scoop Jackson Democrats hadn’t been replaced by the Shelia Jackson-Lee Democrats, Iran would not be pursuing nuclear weapons.
There is no external threat that justifies keeping a rotted-in-place incumbocrat in office. The incumbocrat will simply always be a bigger danger.
#27 erico
Allow me to add another argument for Subsidiarity and reducing issues to local control. I live in Colorado. I always know my State Rep. Back in the ’90′s when my then-State Rep. was Speaker of the House, I still knew her address, home phone number, and home fax. And not because I am any sort of high muckety-muck. And I, or any constituent could call when they were not in session in Denver, and say that you needed to meet her for coffee and a talk. And within a week, you would be sitting with her pondering what kind of pie to have with the coffee and discussion.
Same with my state senator, although he is watching his weight and probably would forego the pie. They know that if they do something stupid, they will hear about it; up close and personal. And if they keep doing stupid things, they know that they will be back here looking for a job.
I would add to the moving of national issues down to a local level, an increase in the number of Congress-critters. At least double the number of Congress-critters and reduce the size of districts. We have had 435 Representatives since 1913 when we had a population of roughly 90 million [app. 207,000/Rep.]. We have 313,000,000 today [app. 720,000/Rep]. It is pretty easy to gerrymander with that large a district, and also pretty easy to ignore anyone who is not paying you off.
Subotai Bahadur
4. erico, morality is one of those slippery slope issues. First there is the difference between personal and social morality. Personal morality is what ever you think it is an applies to you. Social morality is whatever society agrees upon and is applied to you.
Confuse the two and guys with guns and badges will show up to ‘unconfuse’ you.
Look at the drug issue. I don’t do drugs but that is only because of the guys with badges and guns. I don’t see anything immoral about them. Never seen any real evidence that drugs do as much harm as the law against them. That doesn’t change the facts that way back then, when alcohol was made legal, some extremely nasty people stood to lose billions when Prohibition was ended. Those criminals needed a replacement for alcohol. So they used the politicians they had bought to make many types of drugs illegal.
This time they were smarter and created a multi billion dollar industry around keeping those drugs illegal. So they stay illegal, despite a majority of Americans flouting those laws.
LL3 needs a bigger gun. That is so he will have room for more notches on the handle.
Since on one has done it yet here is our obligatory song lyric for this post.
Artist: Queen
Title: Another One Bites The Dust
Released: 1980
Steve walks warily down the street,
with his brim pulled way down low
Ain’t no sound but the sound of his feet,
machine guns ready to go
Are you ready, Are you ready for this
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I’m gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
How do you think I’m going to get along,
without you, when you’re gone
You took me for everything that I had,
and kicked me out on my own
Are you happy, are you satisfied
How long can you stand the heat
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I’m gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
There are plenty of ways you can hurt a man
And bring him to the ground
You can beat him
You can cheat him
You can treat him bad and leave him
When he’s down
But I’m ready, yes I’m ready for you
I’m standing on my own two feet
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
repeating the sound of the beat
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I’m gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
Considering the ratio of representation has gone from 1 representative for every 40,000 people in 1787, to about 1 per 700,000 today, and that there hasn’t been a legally fixed ratio since 1911… whatever avatar serves as a barely-invested abstraction of real citizens makes the whole exercise seem tedious.
On the positive side, black men have gained an impressive 2/5th personhood, and women an astounding 5/5th from complete nonexistence prior to 1918. Although there are a handful of attitudes here that truly resent the latter achievement, this is good news nonetheless.
There are theistic arguments that creating a false, more convenient image of anything is evil. Idolatry is the simplest example, but this can be extended to anything created by God (androids displacing we humans, for instance). One may wonder if this is what cultists had in mind when they conceived the republic. All representation is innately “off” – whether it’s a stereotype, a Kennedy fronting for citizens, or the media shaping our views with plain lies.
This essentially eliminates all design and drama from acceptable human behavior. Nation-building particularly becomes sinful. (But then, if one can build a house, why not a public forum?) I’m not sure what to make of these notions, but I know how Hollywood feels about them. Perhaps our founders felt the same way.
Regarding subsidiarity, Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 describe his idea of the division of powers between the Feds and the States in the U.S. It seems to me that the Kentucky resolutions are always a good reference point.
At the risk of being off topic, the 1867 British North America Act (Canadian Constitution) specifically lists the division of powers between Canada and the Provinces (States). Most of the time the Province is more important in the daily lives of Canadians than is Canada. There are periodic bunfights between Canada and the Provinces but it works for us most of the time.
Key Powers held by Canada
The Public Debt and Property.
The Regulation of Trade and Commerce.
The Raising of Money by any Mode or System of Taxation.
Postal Service.
Militia, Military and Naval Service, and Defence.
Navigation and Shipping.
Currency and Coinage.
Banking, Incorporation of Banks, and the Issue of Paper Money.
Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians.
Naturalization and Aliens.
Marriage and Divorce.
The Criminal Law.
Key Powers Held by the Provinces (States)
Direct Taxation within the Province in order to the raising of a Revenue for Provincial Purposes.
The Management and Sale of the Public Lands belonging to the Province and of the Timber and Wood thereon.
The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Hospitals, Asylums, Charities.
Shop, Saloon, Tavern, Auctioneer, and other Licences in order to the raising of a Revenue for Provincial, Local, or Municipal Purposes.
Local Works and Undertakings.
The Solemnization of Marriage in the Province.
Property and Civil Rights within the Province.
The Administration of Justice in the Province.
Education.
Generally all Matters of a merely local or private Nature in the Province.
In 1982, the BNA act was renamed the Constitution Act 1867.
You may notice that religion isn’t mentioned anywhere.
Subotai #32:
That’s all true and there is a related factor that is even more important, based on my DC experience.
The reason the Teachers Union and so many other special (self) interest groups have gained so much power is that they have bypassed the local level and gone direct to DC. That’s so much easier than making your case at the local, city, county, state, and finally the national levels.
Now everybody wants to do that. I had representatives from private companies coming to DC to try to get me to direct the field units to buy their products. I had USAF O-3′s calling me wanting me to direct their bosses that their pet project get $100K. And I was only an O-5. Everybody wants to do it that way, one stop shopping.
And I had, of course, people coming to DC and convincing their Congressman to float some millions their way, which I had to then execute – even when it was illegal.
There is a symbiotic relationship here. These people want more Big Government because bigger government can do more for them.
By going to the local level, we shut off so much of that. Generally speaking, ask a local voter if he wants his taxes hiked to service some special group he’ll tell you where to stick it.
Thanks to all for the support and kind words.
The questions that erico raises are really, really important questions. I can’t claim any sort of special knowledge on matters of morality. Like everyone, I struggle with these questions every day and am far from perfection. The practical application of a system of morality to real life is damn hard. (Oops, another damn imperfection. And another. Damn. Oops.)
Most human actions have more than one effect. I pick up my kids’ Legos and it has both the effect of making the house tidier but also encouraging my kids’ habit of sloppiness. Sometimes I choose the former (my intention being to make our family room more pleasing to my wife), sometime the latter (my intention being to help them develop good habits). If I can do both, I try to do so. But sometimes I just have to pick up the Legos because when momma’s not happy, nobody’s happy.
Double-effects are always tricky when one effect is good and the other bad. MarcH and I had a running debate about Dan Burton, for instance. He believes that retiring Dan Burton had a bad effect (he was a strong voice on dealing with Iran). Let’s grant him this claim for argument’s sake. How should we evaluate the act of “helping” him retire?
The classic Thomistic framework for evaluating the morality of an action with two effects is a four-fold test:
1. The nature of the act is good, or at least morally neutral.
2. The actor intends the good effect and not the bad (either as a means to a good or as an end in itself).
3. The good effect outweighs the bad effect in circumstances sufficiently grave to justify causing the bad effect.
4. The agent exercises due diligence to minimize the harm.
So, I’ll try to apply this test to my own decision-making on going after Burton:
1. I believe that making the election system work to hold entrenched incumbents accountable is a good thing. A system of representative democracy, our democratic republic, is undermined by elections that are heavily stacked in favor of incumbents. If we can defeat an entrenched incumbent who is unpopular in his district (as Burton was), without any intention of getting something in return, that is a good thing. It is making representatives accountable to their constituents.
2. The intention was the good effect, to defeat an entrenched incumbent. The bad effect – hurting the US policy on Iran – was not the intention of the act. It is not the means to a good (we were not trying to weaken US policy on Iran for some good reason like making to make it harder for Sunni Arabs to dominate the Middle East) or as an end in itself. The bad effect was simply a by-product of achieving the intended good effect.
3. The fixing of our Congressional accountability system, I believe, outweighs the risk that Dan Burton’s absence will cause a material worsening of US policy on Iran that would not otherwise occur. YMMV – it’s a prudential call. And I believe the circumstances facing our nation – it’s debt, it’s profligate federal spending, it’s growing regulatory kudzu, it’s rapacious elites, it’s cancerous centralization of power – are very grave. More grave than a potential change in our Iran policy due to the early retirement of Dan Burton? I think so, but again that’s a judgment call.
4. Not sure what steps we could take to mitigate the harm associated with the loss of Dan Burton’s expertise on Iran. We certainly didn’t say that the voters did not like his Iran policy, or that Burton’s departure now opens up the potential for a change in policy on Iran. Again, this harm doesn’t seem that great to me relative to the utter corrosion of our system of government’s reliance on the consent of the governed, which has been lost in no small part because of the lack of electoral accountability of Congress.
Anyway, sorry for being obtuse here, but I hope this makes sense. Lemme try a shorter, snappier version:
-> If I was only prepared to do things that had zero chance of bad, unintended side effects, I would never do anything – and that would be worse.
This harkens back to the BC discussion months back of the OODA loop. The point of having a tight OODA loop is that when the bad effects happen, you find out quickly and can weigh whether to adjust your future actions. It doesn’t avoid the bad effects; rather, it acknowledges that they can, maybe even will happen. But you find out quickly, and can adjust.
That links back into the other question raised above: subsidiarity. The design of complex human organizations requires a continuous application of this principle. The centralization of power – the creation of a centrocracy – is a violation of this principle. It leads to corruption, stasis, and disengagement by the citizenry. It is the single biggest threat to our future, as it transforms us from a self-governing, sustainable republic into an autocratic, bureaucratic, oppressive police state. Such transformations do not end well.
To move from one equilibrium to another requires motion, which requires the application of pressure. What we’re trying to do with CPA is to increase the pressure on Congress to move them from the current equilibrium (a Bismarckian procedural republic) to a new equilibrium (an American self-governing republic). I guess you could describe it as an experiment in applied subsidiarity.
It is painful, expensive, and (to those who enjoy the status quo), terrifying.
Those are the bad effects. But the good effect, especially when it works, is oooooh soooo good.
L3
Erico @ 27: “Subsidiarity is a principal that social and political issues should be handled at as local a level as possible.”
Some people at Wretchard’s site have heard this before — but it bears repeating, since language is important. That is why Leftists spend so much time corrupting & twisting the language. It’s George Orwell’s point — we can’t think the politically incorrect thought if we no longer have the vocabulary to express that thought.
‘Subsidiarity’ is the word promoted by EUnuchs and other Big Intrusive Government types. While ‘Subsidiarity’ implies the issue should be handled at as local a level as possible, it also implies that the ultimate control resides in the center, where the Big Intrusive Government types rule in perpetuity. The local level is a mere subsidiary of the real government at the center. The BIG guys get to decide what the local level is allowed to handle. And the BIG guys can over-rule the locals anytime they wish.
Subsidiarity is the mirror image of what we really need — Federalism. In Federalism, the power of the center is strictly circumscribed. Certain responsibilities are delegated from the local level to the center, but the local level retains the right to withdraw that delegation at any time. That is the check & balance which can keep the BIG guys within bounds.
The US Constitution started with Federalism, but over the years it has degenerated in practice to vile Subsidiarity. This is a large part of the explanation for the dysfunctional nature of modern US government.
k @ 40: ‘Subsidiarity’ is the word promoted by EUnuchs and other Big Intrusive Government types. While ‘Subsidiarity’ implies the issue should be handled at as local a level as possible, it also implies that the ultimate control resides in the center, where the Big Intrusive Government types rule in perpetuity.
+1
Same problem I have with the “Museum of Tolerance”.
Just who do you think YOU are, to “tolerate” me?
“8. CharlesWhite
I am all for LL III efforts, it is a great plan, still it’s at least three to four election cycles out from having effect on Congress and by then you’re trying to unseat the ones you just helped get elected, it really is a never ending battle… really needs to be a term limit, LL III needs to focus on those that oppose a term limit amendment and leave those that would call for and support one alone, once the term limit is in they would be gone…”
I don’t think term limits are the panacea that many supporters of the proposal claim. They are certainly no substitute for an informed and participating electorate. If you are lazy enough to rely on term limits to give you good government then why not just go all the way and select all congresspeople for 1 term only using a system resembling jury duty and have done with it (this has the added advantage of destroying all possibility for political parties as well).
If efforts like Leo’s take 3-4 election cycles to have an effect thats fine by me. The incumbents are like a roman legion facing decimation. You only excecute 1 in 10 … but you end up getting the attention of the other 9.
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15. MarcH
” … Also in 2012 CPA is reported to have spent more than $250,000 to support (unsuccessfully) the re-election of Cong. Dennis Kucinich (D)… ”
Link please … anyone?
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31. JMH
“But of course every scalp CPA has a hand in taking this cycle can be blamed on something else, some other weakness with the incumbent, because L3 has explicitly decided to target vulnerable incumbents, pols who were already disliked by their consituents but who kept on getting re-elected anyway.
Except, now they aren’t getting re-elected anyway, they’re getting replaced.”
I’m with you here. The proper way to frame the question is not “what else could have explained the incumbent losing?” but rather, “given the rarity of an incumbent losing in a primary how many incumbents lost primary races in this election cycle; and of those races how many had CPA involvement?”
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35. Baobo
“… black men have gained an impressive 2/5th personhood …”
Maintain your context friend.
The so-called 3/5ths compromise was to reduce the federal representation (ie. political power) of states permitting humans to be kept in involuntary seritude. It was not an effort to disenfranchise anyone based on race. Look it up… the slave holding states wanted slaves to be counted as whole persons without giving them any votes. effectively using the presence of the slaves in their states to inflate the number of representative that the slave masters could send to washington.
Whereas the abolitionists (ie those advocating the liberation of africans brought to this continent involuntarily, presumably the slaves “best friends” politically) wanted the slaves not to be counted as persons at all when determining representation since the slaves interests weren’t actually going to be “represented” by the representatives that the slave masters elected (except paternalistically of course, if you go in for that sort of thing).
So who were the good guys and who were the bad guys on that issue? You decide.
It was never about “personhood” in the sense that you suggest. But you knew that.
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40. Kinuachdrach
” … we really need — Federalism. In Federalism, the power of the center is strictly circumscribed. Certain responsibilities are delegated from the local level to the center, but the local level retains the right to withdraw that delegation at any time. That is the check & balance which can keep the BIG guys within bounds.”
Yup!
I dunno, Kinuachdrach. Yes, the EU’s adherents trot their governmental system out as a model of subsidiarity, but this is a gross perversion of the term. The term originates from the Catholic Church, specifically from Pope Leo’s _Rerum Novarum_ encyclical, one of the Church’s most important, and that’s a document that was formed as a countervaling response to socialism and the rise of the modern state. The term subsidiarity was meant to describe exactly that element of federalism that favored local rights over central. The classical conception of subsidiarity held strong primacy of local rights and laws, and it was the role of the central power to be a ‘subsidary’ in the few and limited areas beyond the local purview. Subsidiarity was a concept warm to the hearts of classical liberals who stood in opposition to progressive socialists and their statist aims.
Progressives are famous linguistic ‘appropriators’ and practioners of sleight-of-hand. I guess your position is to cede the term subsidiarity to them, to allow them to make their perversion of it their own (just as they did with the term ‘liberal’). I’m rather in the mood to push them back on it, to call them on it. I’m about fed up with their lies!
‘It was never about “personhood” in the sense that it is thought of today. But you knew that.’
It wasn’t People’s Daily that misinformed me – likely something in New York that shames all humanity for fun and profit. Thank you for the clarification.
Cowboy @ 43: “The classical conception of subsidiarity held strong primacy of local rights and laws, and it was the role of the central power to be a ‘subsidary’ in the few and limited areas beyond the local purview.”
Thanks for that history, Cowboy. I had not come across the word ‘subsidiarity’ until a few years ago, when EUrophiliacs started to use it in the context of the superiority of the EU’s system of government.
At first glance, it is a little difficult to reconcile the doctrine of Papal Infallibility with the idea of the primacy of local rights. Individuals voluntarily join the Roman Catholic Church and – of their own free will – submit to the supremacy of the Lord and his shepherd on Earth; that is a bit different from the relationship between a citizen and his government.
Except for some anarchists and extreme libertarians, most of us agree that some level of government is necessary. The challenge is how to keep government and the political class within those bounds. At the end of the day, the question is — do the people serve the government, or does the government serve the people? And it looks like the language is getting too confused even to be able to describe those alternatives.
Good occasion to go to the CPA website and make another contribution.
Mr. Linbeck, is THIS the correct LINK ?
(“http://www.campaign4primaryaccountability.org”)
“What trumps Clintoon and Obama?”
The People and L3
Now if you could get rid of Joe Barton.
As Belmont Club follower and local to Houston, I have had the pleasure and honor of meeting L3 and Mrs L3 a couple of times. I am impressed with his ideals and even more impressed with how he has implemented them.
Keep it up!
I’ve been finding comments from long-time participants in the spam filter and am liberating them as discovered.
re: subsidiarity. Is like the word liberal. It means something different today than its classical meaning. So we have to use more words to describe what the Swiss have (and what the U.S. had before Wilson). i.e. near-sovereign Cantons with anywhere from 15K to 1.5M citizens, all duplicating each other’s work and not thinking of it as unnecessary duplication or inefficient, but the price of freedom and peace – they each write their own laws, collect their own taxes, pay the bills and manage everything in their domain from infrastructure, education, healthcare, and welfare to the aged, indigent and criminal. The autonomy of the Cantons put an end to regional strife – the French were no longer forced to adopt German (language) customs and laws when the German’s were in power, and vice versa. To say nothing of both looking down on the Italians and Romansh.
And it’s amazing what software can do.. sadly the larger the unit of government, the more likely it is still living with the processes, mechanisms and hierarchical command-and-control (non self-service) structures of the 1800’s Industrial Age. We can see it in difference in the U.S. in some of the new exurban enclaves and how they run their “business.” Duplicate that 1,000 times and it wouldn’t approach 1/10th the size of the federal government. Which is arguably much closer to what the U.S. founders envisioned then what we have today.
Granted, the Swiss can’t build a national highway of consistent quality end-to-end because there’s no federal ability to “take” (or to dictate much) – but that’s a small price to pay to keep their federal government in its place – a servant and not a master. Though individual Cantons can be overbearing – like finding yourself in a neighborhood association with covenants from hell.
Once-upon-a-time I had a fantasy of reorganizing elections and bicameral legislatures (local, state, federal) to recreate the Founder’s intent. The new House(s) would be one-citizen-one-vote. The new Senate(s) would be one-dollar-of-tax-paid one vote (citizen and not) in the taxing jurisdiction. And citizens would also be encouraged to concur (and not) on any law or regulation that had an effect on them based on a distance/impact metric. Call it a form of (super-majority) voter initiative veto of legislative and regulatory actions that is continuous within a sliding window – say three months. Yet another iPhone and/or Facebook app. Where a vote is scaled relative to impact and distance. So if, say, the Amish want to dictate certain behaviors within their political unit, it would be difficult to impossible for the majority of the citizens in the country to override the local votes of the Amish. Especially on social issues – like religion in the public square (which suggests at times there will be no recourse to the tyranny of a local majority save to vote with your feet).
A dream, I know.
Yes, any congress critter found to be working more for themselves and less for “the people” needs to be shown the door back to the private sector. PAC induced term limits are fine with me.
Keep up the great work Mr. L.
14. <- I am deeply depressed that Reagan, Bush the elder and Bush the younger, none of them did the CTRL/ALT/DELETE thing to the Dept of Ed., that Carter era payoff to the NEA. What one executive branch signing created, another executive branch signing should do the kibosh too. As a veteran, I would not be averse to the Dept of VA Affairs being reduced to it's former status as the Veteran's Administration, as well. Frankly, and may I call you Frank? I would not be averse to at the very least returning to the cabinet of Washington. The bureaucracy is running amok.