What’s Wrong with the World

Jeff, I knew it was you before I even finished reading the first paragraph and got down to who posted it. :)

The Elephant

Am I that predictable? Don't answer that. :-)

I'm a little disappointed by the Great Seal.

Titus, yes, the Great Seal leaves something to be desired as a work of art. But it gets the point across. When I'm elected governor I'll commission a new seal. Suggestions welcome.

An outbreak of common sense! Who would have guessed it?

Query: until the state of Jefferson is in place, are these sheriffs in danger of being prosecuted for silly things like "obstruction of justice" or something like that?

Tony, I don't know enough about the details, but my sense is that they are taking on some risk by making such a public stand. I have a feeling that we'll have our answer soon enough!

I'm trying to get up to speed kind of quickly, so forgive my laziness:

1) After a quick google search, do I understand this "travel management plan" business correctly? Previously, it was legal to travel off the beaten track in state and national forests, but now they're going to try to restrict travel only to highly specific, designed paths. Is that right? Weird. And slightly creepy. If you're a woodsy person, you should be able to go into a national forest and set up your tent. Or that's how I always pictured it.

2) Jeff, if it isn't too much trouble, can you give a few examples of the new environmental regulations that are threatening the region's economic lifeblood? (Reminds me of the spotted owl vs. loggers issue in the 90's.)

Lydia, I think you've got the gist of the "travel management plan". There is also the issue of road closures and grazing access. But I'm not up on the details either. Most of this is happening 100+ miles north of here.

One major, major issue is that of dam removals and the halting of irrigation water - supposedly for the sake of saving Coho salmon - which threatens the livelihoods of thousands. See this website and the issues in the left sidebar: http://www.defendruralamerica.com/DRA/News.SiskiyouCounty.html

Here's Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) explaining the dam closures to the House: http://www.klamathbasincrisis.org/mcclintock/housefloorspeechKlamathDams092211.htm

Wow, Rep. McClintock is speaking my language in that speech! I loved his reductio: Let's see how many government jobs we could create by tearing down Duluth. And his point that this shows the stunningly bad economic judgement of the administration is the kind of thing that cannot be said too often. Some people are _far worse_ than clueless about economics and should never be entrusted with power over policy. They literally think the broken window fallacy isn't a fallacy. I hope he's right that the House can stop that particular bit of madness.

McClintock's a good egg. Too bad he didn't win the gubernatorial primary when he ran against Schwarzenegger. It's hard to believe that the Obama administration (or anyone) could be that economically clueless. More likely that they just care more about "nature" than they do people.

Well, yes, the administration's "argument" that tearing down working hydroelectric dams is a form of job creation probably was made in bad faith. In that case, it's just an insult to the American people that they tried such nonsense out on them.

Well, actually, I should admit that this is a little unlike you. Normally you're the monarchist guy, but here you're striking a blow for independence. I like that. :)

The Elephant

We need a running countdown until Al appears to accuse these sheriffs of treason the Jeffersonians of sedition.

Better yet, how about a Fake Al comment contest?

The real problem here (aside from the insurrectionist politics of the reactionary Right) is the manipulation of local grievances by plutocrats, and the cowardice of the kept media and corporate Democrats in responding to it.

What I like about the folks at Defend Rural America is that they have a vivid sense of what happens in concrete terms when the environmentalists have the reins of power. Kudos to them for all the info. This should give anyone pause when considering endorsing environmentalism in some sort of general terms.

"..but now they're going to try to restrict travel only to highly specific, designed paths. Is that right? Weird. And slightly creepy."

So folks should just be able to go wherever their vehicles can take them regardless of the damage they cause? Testosterone and alcohol charged fools with their toys have made chunks of the West look like the Russian Army passed through. Randomly going off road creates ruts that can blow out when it rains. Breaking surface crust in the desert leaves the surface vulnerable to wind erosion. Some "roads" were done for logging, aren't maintained, and can't stand up to much use. Jeff, have you actually seen some of these areas? Lydia, do you really believe it's "creepy" to set some limits on where people can take vehicles? If you want more routes, elect a Congress that will properly fund the Forest Service and BLM.

I guess Step2 was right, a conservative utopia is desolation beside a frozen lake.

Jeff, I went to the county page. Now that's creepy. What in the world do these cow counties need SWAT teams for? A waste of tax money (or asset forfeiture?) just to stoke the fantasies of a bunch of yahoos. A militarized police force headed by some clown with an IQ barely into three digits who managed to get a few hundred or a few thousand folks with double digit IQs to vote for him is going to decide what the Constitution says. Nothing could go wrong there.

(Way harsh, you say? Well go read some of the stuff on that "Defend Rural America" site.)

Counties are an arbitrary subdivision of the state - check out the Government Code (23000 ff). Seeing them as more then that is to indulge in the same mindset as an urban gangbanger "defending" his few precious blocks.

Those Klamath dams were a mistake - rip them out. They are a relic of a time when "development" meant some pretty stupid decisions - rain follows the plow, etc. The area is more valuable as part of the Pacific Flyway (fields around here are currently populated by thousands of Canadian geese). Trashing all those Salmon runs has cost thousands of jobs. I live on the coast and I want my salmon. Dams have a lifespan anyway and some simply aren't justified.

BTW, being economic clueless means not understanding that when one is in a liquidity trap with interest rates at or near 0%, the "broken windows fallacy" isn't a fallacy.

"The real problem here (aside from the insurrectionist politics of the reactionary Right)..."

http://coreyrobin.com/

"...is the manipulation of local grievances by plutocrats,.."

Check out the contributors to some of these wingnut groups.

"...and the cowardice of the kept media..."

You left out stupidity.

I assume you're really my friend Paul C, You seem to understand the problem and yet you resist the solution. Go left young man, go left.

being economic clueless means not understanding that when one is in a liquidity trap with interest rates at or near 0%, the "broken windows fallacy" isn't a fallacy.

He said it; I didn't.

Wow, Al, you outdid yourself here, and all through the comment. "Al satire" is dead.

Lydia, that's why I used quotes. Perhaps you would care to explain how the "BWF" holds in a liquidity trap with interest rates that are at or even below 0% when we have a central bank and are no longer afflicted with commodity money? Do you even understand the question (you might start by pondering WWII)?

Oops, typed too fast, meant "is", still, that was obvious and your hanging your hat on an obvious typo makes my point. The BWF is irrelevant to ripping out the dams. In fact, ripping them out and then rebuilding them would also be economically useful.

I also have to note that you and Jeff have failed to answer a simple question: Should anyone, with any kind of vehicle, be able to go wherever and whenever they wish on public land?

Anyone not blinded by right-wing mythology and zombie lies can see that the solution is a bigger stimulus that puts all the unemployed loggers and truckers to work in government agencies. Fine middle class living. If Paul Krugman had been appointed Treasury Secretary, as I recommended, we'd have borrowed over $2 trillion at dirt cheap rates and fixed this economy.

Instead we get a bunch of yahoos who would regard Ronald Reagan as a socialist.

The sheriffs are talking about police brutality and defending their citizens? Good. I seem to remember (can't find the source) some of the more libertarian commentators on the Rawesome case saying that only the county sheriff can allow access to your land, which is why Sheriff deputies always show up at a DEA drug raid or an FDA milk-pouring competition. If these sheriffs start making it difficult for the various bureaucracies, we might actually get somewhere.

It is a beautiful thing when the checks and balances in our system actually work. But it also makes you realize how many people in government absolutely ignore our rights. From high level secretaries of whatever to the individual TSA agents who touch innocent Americans inappropriately. The number of people who could say, "No" but don't is staggering.

Jeff, I went to the county page. Now that's creepy. What in the world do these cow counties need SWAT teams for?

You can't possibly be that ignorant. What a piece of work.

A militarized police force headed by some clown with an IQ barely into three digits who managed to get a few hundred or a few thousand folks with double digit IQs to vote for him is going to decide what the Constitution says. Nothing could go wrong there.

Thanks for a perfect illustration of the total contempt your kind has for the residents of California's "cow counties". No hard feelings, though. I assume you'll be happy to be rid of us, no?

Counties are an arbitrary subdivision of the state - check out the Government Code (23000 ff). Seeing them as more then that is to indulge in the same mindset as an urban gangbanger "defending" his few precious blocks.

Borders are never arbitrary. A political jurisdiction of any kind ought to have people within its borders who have enough in common to be governable without creating a lot of dissension.

Those Klamath dams were a mistake - rip them out. They are a relic of a time when "development" meant some pretty stupid decisions - rain follows the plow, etc.

More of that charming coastal contempt. Next time try a little harder to conceal your humanity.

You're dead wrong about the dams, which are already paid for. They make these communities possible and pose no threat to anyone. Even your precious Coho salmon are produced by the millions in Klamath hatcheries. But nevermind that. Why should anyone around here listen to a man with zero respect for ordinary people who have a reasonable desire to remain on their own ancestral lands and in their own homes and communities? You don't even see the existence of these communities as a positive good.

Should anyone, with any kind of vehicle, be able to go wherever and whenever they wish on public land?

No, of course not. But the question is a red herring. I know it's hard, but try to imagine the good sheriff's remarks about "public lands" as having a specific context.

"No, of course not. But the question is a red herring. I know it's hard, but try to imagine the good sheriff's remarks about "public lands" as having a specific context."

Then relate the context, besides I was reacting to Lydia's take as well as yours which displayed neither context nor nuance.

Dams and irrigation systems require maintenance. At some point it may be reasonable to pull the plug.

"You can't possibly be that ignorant. What a piece of work."

How about actually defending the militarizing of these domestic police agencies if you think it a good idea. Waiting.

"Borders are never arbitrary."

Of course they are. Counties are wholly creatures of the state. They possess no sovereignty and never have. Los Angeles County once included parts of or the entire areas of Kern, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Orange Counties. The boundaries of California counties are spelled out in detail in the California Government Code not the California Constitution. Again i point out that this right wing fascination with counties and sheriffs is nothing but urban gangbangers meet Robin Hood.

It would save us some money. If you all were a state, you'd be Mississippi; if we could make you a nation, you all would be a Cascadian Bangladesh. If I have the time after Saturday's pour I'll check out the numbers.

To be sure i was somewhat hyperbolic (tying rebar does that to me) but the site you referenced had a paean to Sheriff Joe Arpaio who is a corrupt thug and hardly a respecter of the Constitution. Couple that with nonsense like the BWF (if we had growth at 4% and unemployment at 5%, someone referencing the BWF would be a joke, its use as policy in our present situation has really harmed folks - of course, I understand that those folks are already born and not yet at "natural death" so they don't matter to some of you all) and over the top exaggerations like this,

"I hadn't been in Yreka long before someone related a popular joke: A federal agent shows up at a farm and demands to check out the property. The farmer says OK, but tells him not to go over to one pasture. Then the agent arrogantly tells him he has a badge from the federal Environmental Protection Agency and can go wherever he darn well pleases. The farmer says OK. A few minutes later, the agent is running for his life from a bull. The agent calls for help, so the farmer goes to the fence and yells: 'Show him your badge.'"

and I'm going to take some liberties.

Anyway, the rural West has been losing folks and towns for over a century. That isn't going to change.

"Instead we get a bunch of yahoos who would regard Ronald Reagan as a socialist."

Hi Paul? Do you really believe a former governor who raised taxes, wanted to ban nuclear weapons, and signed a very liberal abortion bill would fare well in the current Republican primary?

"If Paul Krugman had been appointed Treasury Secretary, as I recommended, we'd have borrowed over $2 trillion at dirt cheap rates and fixed this economy."

Krugman wouldn't be a good bureaucrat. Better Diamond or Stiglitz. Whoever you are, care to explain the downside of borrowing at negative rates? Or have we yet another macroeconomically challenged conservative?

BTW, Michigan has a law that the state can arbitrarily depose locally elected governments (Act 4). Why haven't we heard about that? Guess no one who cares about the abuse of government power lives in Michigan.

At the zero bound, of course, we could surely make productive middle class work for men by asking them to saw down trees and then put them back up. Let the loggers get their kicks, and the lumber industry its materials, while experts protect the important forests and manage the rest. Who knows, maybe even some of you mountain hicks would shape up under the tutelage of wise bureaucrats managing vocational achievement.

One thing that no economically literate person in America concerns himself with is the scale of our public obligations. That we can fund obligations right now at such cheap rates means that we will be able to fund them forever, and with greater abundance. Thus only a economic poseur and moral cretin is hesitant to borrow and spend more on welfare right now.

While the right indulges pitiful Robin Hood fantasy, what we really need, as the clusters of efficient economic agents in US city streets accused by a brought and kept media of being "dirty hippies" have instructed us, what we really need is a Robin Hood Tax. Pick your side, normal folks or plutocrats. You troglodytes have heard that it's only $3 on $10,000, right?

If we could shut down overnight repo markets, the freezing of a multi-trillion dollar capital market would instantly generate multi-trillions for doing the things for people that normal social contracts call for. Then instead of demonizing the most productive sector of the American economy, public welfare, we could get on with what life is all about.

BTW Jeff, this graph was in the Register article.

"I could pick nits. For all the complaining about the feds, Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko had just been quoted in the newspaper praising the Obama administration for its crackdown on medical-marijuana clinics, even though California law clearly allows them. One's either for state control or not. I'm tired of conservatives who claim to be for states' rights when it suits them, but against states' rights on issues such as the drug war. Still, it was clear whose side the sheriffs were on regarding a battle that goes beyond the sparsely populated northern regions."

It sees that our sheriffs pick and choose their respect for rights. Maybe the DEA sharing the proceeds of asset forfeiture has something to do with it?

Paul, when the problem is a lack of demand, one wouldn't pay folks to cut down trees; one would inject the cash somewhat downstream and things would take care of themselves.

"..while experts protect the important forests and manage the rest..."

Indeed, Mr. Lincoln was a fool to create all those land grant colleges. Ag book learning is a waste of time - one can learn all one needs to know from the Farmers' Almanac. And don't forget, "rain follows the plow"!

Paul, all you are demonstrating is that you either have no scruples about misrepresenting your opponents or that you don't understand their case at all. As I pointed out above, conservative ignorance would be humorous if it wasn't harming so many folks who find themselves in that inconvenient place between birth and "natural" death.

How's that Eu and British rejection of Keynes working out?

Jeff, I went to the county page. Now that's creepy. What in the world do these cow counties need SWAT teams for? A waste of tax money (or asset forfeiture?) just to stoke the fantasies of a bunch of yahoos. A militarized police force headed by some clown with an IQ barely into three digits who managed to get a few hundred or a few thousand folks with double digit IQs to vote for him is going to decide what the Constitution says. Nothing could go wrong there.

No local jurisdiction in the US needs a dedicated SWAT. A single active duty unit at company strength of National Guardsmen drilled regularly in urban combat would be enough to cover an entire region like the North East or West Coast for the actual situations where a militarized unit could be needed. If you peek at the cases of SWAT (mis)use, you will find that the problem is universal. One of the most egregious examples of abuse happened in the most liberal area of Arizona where Jose Guerena was gunned down.

All local SWAT is a waste of money and asking for trouble. They're not even legal under the US Constitution as their armaments, training and organization are literally military across the board and the US Constitution specifically requires Congress to grant a locality or state permission to raise a "standing army" (ie not militia) of any size, even if it's just one man.

Counties are an arbitrary subdivision of the state - check out the Government Code (23000 ff).

Of course they are. Counties are wholly creatures of the state. They possess no sovereignty and never have.

Al, once again you start looking at the picture without taking the full reality into account. Counties are "wholly creatures of the state" only because the state insists on completely running roughshod over the rights and needs of smaller entities, both in law and practice. In point of fact, counties as visible entities and communities often have pre-existed the state. Certainly in my locale there was a community larger than the town that was operating before the state was a state. The fact that the state abrogated subsidiarity in claiming not only the higher sovereignty but total and absolute sovereignty on all matters merely means that the state is out of line. To support the state in this is to say that subsidiarity is a complete irrelevancy even in theory.

As a result of the Civil War, the 13 northern western counties of Virginia decided that they didn't want to be Virginia anymore. And they made it stick. Now, admittedly they made it stick only because of the exigencies of the Civil War. But based on Al's theory, they would never have had a shred of ground on which to make anything stick at all, the only thing they were during the process was a bunch of Virginians who were in the wrong altogether, in revolt against their own state.

Me, I don't know whether the "Jeffersonian" counties and sheriffs have the right of it in these matters. I do know that the federal gov. has been overstepping its boundaries. For one thing, the "federal lands" should never have been granted such a status to begin with. At least by the time that a state was formed, that land should have been "state" land not federal. I put "state" in quotes because even there, the land should have been available to people OF the state not by purchase but by settlement: it is not by proclaiming a government has rule over a territory that the territory becomes owned in its proper sense. The land should never have been treated as "owned" by government at all.

Counties are wholly creatures of the state. They possess no sovereignty and never have.

It's worth adding that the same could have very rightly been said of the colonies before the grueling but successful Revolution.

That sovereignty, never previously possessed, was gained the usual way: vindication by force. The really unique thing was the grant of that sovereignty, gained by force, over to a regime designed to pass it on by consent and deliberation.

In any case, since on Al's logic the revolt against English sovereignty by the colonists was mere treason, we Americans are hardly in any position to gainsay a bunch of local sheriffs striking out on their own -- so long as they can vindicate it by force. Ruby Ridge or Bunker Hill; there's no difference. The logic drives us to a condition reminiscent of Hobbes' war of all on all: each assertion of sovereignty by a people can only be met with ruthless force by those who hitherto possessed the now contested sovereignty. Since there are can no appeal to higher law, no notion of obligation independent of necessity, we can never adjudicate these disputes morally; the brute necessity of force will always adjudicate.

Political revolt is always, from the posture of established order, a treasonous conspiracy. Unless there is a possible appeal to natural or higher law, there can only be breach of positive law, subject to punishment.

In a word, Al can supply us no reason why the natural lawyer Lincoln was right and the legal positivist Calhoun was wrong.

Al: "How about actually defending the militarizing of these domestic police agencies if you think it a good idea."

Mike T: "All local SWAT is a waste of money and asking for trouble."

Interesting alliance here. You both seem blissfully unaware of the extent to which drug gangs and related criminals depend upon remote, rural areas for their operations. They are sophisticated and frequently armed to the teeth: Andy and Barney aren't going to make a lot of progress against them. When Americans decide to get serious about the drug war then perhaps we can go back to Mayberry-style sheriff's departments.

I am well aware of the abuses and have reported on them myself. The answer is to eliminate bad policies rather than deprive law enforcement of necessary tools. And from what I have read and heard, the sheriffs of Jefferson are moving in exactly that direction.

For one thing, the "federal lands" should never have been granted such a status to begin with. At least by the time that a state was formed, that land should have been "state" land not federal. I put "state" in quotes because even there, the land should have been available to people OF the state not by purchase but by settlement: it is not by proclaiming a government has rule over a territory that the territory becomes owned in its proper sense. The land should never have been treated as "owned" by government at all.

Absolutely right, Tony, with the exception of lands devoted to national security. Federal lands, especially in the west, need to be radically downsized. By the looks of this map the California side of Jefferson appears to be 75%-80% federal owned! http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/pdf/fedlands/CA.pdf

"When Americans decide to get serious about the drug war then perhaps we can go back to Mayberry-style sheriff's departments."

Getting serious about the drug war means ending it. Jeff, the way we are dealing with drugs provides incentives to law enforcement to make the "war" eternal because its a profit center for these agencies.

Al, you may be right about that, but I suspect that if you are it is accidental. Do you have actual evidence that police departments actually set policy in such a way as to intentionally prolong the drug war for profit? I have never heard of such, but then I haven't searched for it either, evidence may be out there that I am unaware of.

When Americans decide to get serious about the drug war then perhaps we can go back to Mayberry-style sheriff's departments.

http://articles.boston.com/2011-01-16/bostonglobe/29337991_1_drug-czar-illicit-drugs-casal-ventoso

Just saw this by way of Krugman,

http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/press/budapest-experiences-a-new-wave-of-hate/

Liking ones neighbors and loving this or that place is sort of normal (at least the place thing) but making too much of it is really dangerous.

Step2, I have never been wedded to the idea of a "drug war" in general, and I could get behind decriminalization under certain circumstances. For example, I would probably be happy with this trade-off: drugs available at the drug store for anyone over the age of 30 who pays full cost for them, and the death penalty for anyone caught providing them to kids (under the same status as a torturer - i.e. someone who takes away the free will of a victim by imposing something the force of which the person cannot withstand).

On the other hand, I would definitely be happy with a war on the gangs that surround the drug trade. They would give our military some practice. But I don't mean a "war", I mean a _war_.

I meant to come back to Al's claim that Ronald Reagan would be anathema to current-day Republicans because (among other things) he "signed a very liberal abortion bill" as Governor of California.

First, this "very liberal" bill, it turns out, was so restrictive that it would not even rise to constitutional muster, according to the current diktat of the Supreme Court. Anyone in today's climate who endorsed a bill comparable to the one Reagan signed would be described as pro-life. The bill approximates the position on abortion of a politician like George W. Bush -- abortion legal only under very rare medical circumstances or when the pregnancy is the result of sexual crime (a provision permitting abortion in the case of "deformaton" of the child was removed at Reagan's insistence.)

Moreover, Reagan almost immediately regretted his decision (into which he felt pushed, more by Republicans among his own staff than Democrats or liberals in the California legislature.)

Here's a quotation from Lou Cannon:

In his heart, Reagan agreed with Cardinal McIntyre, not Dr. Davis, and he really wanted to veto the Therapeutic Abortion Act. Instead, he subordinated his personal feelings to the commitment he had made to Republican legislators to sign the bill. He wasn't happy about it. "Those were awful weeks," Reagan told me a year later. He added that he would never have signed the bill if he had been more experienced as governor, the only time as governor or President that Reagan acknowledged a mistake on major legislation.

In a word, Al is heckling us with transparent sophistries again.

"In a word, Al is heckling us with transparent sophistries again."

Golly, you folks really have problems with categories. I did a simple thought experiment based, in part on Republican postmodern standards regarding truth in campaigns and in part on the emotional, and therefore often irrational, hold abortion has for the Republican base.

The California law was liberal for the time. Do you have any doubts how Michelle Bachman, et al would spin this?

Would the base show forgiveness on this matter as it has on matters of marital infidelity?

A fair question and one I considered. I came down on the "no" side as spouses are well beyond birth and not yet at the point where "natural death" comes into play (Newt does push the margin on that consideration but no one died so I applied the "no harm, no foul" standard) so they are in the "doesn't really count" stage of "life".

Given those considerations as well as the tax increases and the willingness to work with the opposition, I see RR as being crucified in a contemporary Republican campaign. Your mileage may vary but you need to do a little more work than simply crying "sophistry".

I did a simple thought experiment based, in part on Republican postmodern standards regarding truth in campaigns and in part on the emotional, and therefore often irrational, hold abortion has for the Republican base.

No, you slyly endeavored to dragoon Ronald Reagan into service for your polemical purposes. I find it as contemptible as the Left-libertarian types who pull together a bunch of Lincoln snippets to "prove" that he was actually a miserable racist no better than the Confederates; that way they can go on treating the Civil War as an act of Lincolnian aggression.

Curiously, Al shares this sophistical treatment of Reagan's history as governor with none other than Mitt Romney, whose flip-flopping on the subject of abortion has induced him to repeat the lie that Reagan was "adamantly pro-choice." It's nonsense on stilts whether advanced by an ambitious politician or a heckling commenter.

Paul, I'm not attempting to do anything other than point out that which is clearly problematic to the long term survival of the republic (now arguably in its eleventh year of hiatus) - the drift of ideological conservatism and the Republican Party into territory last navigated in the mid 19th century.

Your obvious scorn for Romney sort of makes my point. Do you honestly believe that given Reagan's record on abortion and taxation, he wouldn't be attacked to good effect by any opponents?

Sorry my counterfactual is causing you such angst.

Your Lincoln point is sort of pointless as I've never done that and find such efforts a waste of time. However, since you bring up the CW these sentiments may be of interest,

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2012/02/why-do-so-few-blacks-study-the-civil-war/8831/

Reagan was attacked, repeatedly, within his own party, for reasons as varied as the birds of the air or the flowers of the field. Being attacked (harshly and often unfairly) by one's own party is a feature not a bug of the primary system. It's a matter of indifference to me and I only addressed this point to correct your misrepresentation of Reagan's abortion record.

If it makes you feel any better, I have scorn for every last GOP candidate on offer right now. But I'll put it to you straight: the fact that there are so many people on the other side who think like you do (that is, whose primary burden of political discourse is to smuggle in very strident moral premises without ever feeling a need to defend them) leaves me with no choice, despite all the very real downsides, but to vote for whichever midget the GOP nominates.

The reason why I keep bringing up Lincoln and the Civil War is evident enough from a perusal of this thread. Far from pointless, it gets back to a challenge I have made repeatedly which you have declined to answer.

"Being attacked (harshly and often unfairly) by one's own party is a feature not a bug of the primary system."

This is interesting "unfairly" (which seems as far as you are willing to go, given today's standards of campaigning on the right, "bald face lying" would be a better description. One of the ironic features of this season is Newt getting creamed with the tactics he pioneered in modern American politics)

Paul wrote,

"But I'll put it to you straight: the fact that there are so many people on the other side who think like you do (that is, whose primary burden of political discourse is to smuggle in very strident moral premises without ever feeling a need to defend them) leaves me with no choice, despite all the very real downsides, but to vote for whichever midget the GOP nominates."

Now, in the context of the above, I submit the following from the weekend:

"SCHIEFFER: One of the things you say is that if you don’t like what a court has done, that Congress should subpoena the judge and bring him before Congress and hold a congressional hearing … how would you enforce that? Would you send the Capitol Police down to arrest him?"

"GINGRICH: Sure. If you had to. Or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send a U.S. Marshal."

Which put in a yet larger context:

Terrible things are happening in Hungary and yet they also putting things Paul would likely approve of in their new constitution.

"The new constitution also accepts conservative Christian social doctrine as state policy, in a country where only 21% of the population attends any religious services at all. The fetus is protected from the moment of conception. Marriage is only legal if between a man and a woman. The constitution “recognize(s) the role of Christianity in preserving nationhood” and holds that “the family and the nation constitute the principal framework of our coexistence.” While these religious beliefs are hard-wired into the constitution, a new law on the status of religion cut the number of state-recognized churches to only fourteen, deregistering 348 other churches."

read the whole thing

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/hungarys-constitutional-revolution/#more-27489

Now, from your statement above ( we'll ignore the lipstick-on-a-mirror-"stop-me-before-I-kill-again" tone) we learn that you are willing to vote to advance plutocratic encroachment in the hope of a "pro-life" boon. Now, does that still include Mr. Gingrich? Bonus question - would you be backing the Fidesz Party if you were Hungarian?

The problem with your questions is that they are beside the point. Calhoun the positivist (granted for the sake of argument) was as wrong then as Clarence Thomas and Robbie George the natural legalists are wrong today. It seems ones underlying philosophical approach doesn't count for much (all Old Hickory needed was a good rope:)).

Seeing that your approach leads you to support the usurers you rail against, why don't we start with you telling us just why we need the elaborate defense you demand (hint - my Sweet Home keeps the house nice and toasty but to touch it wouldn't be a good idea. How elaborate needs be that calculus - and yes, at present, it's that simple)?

(There's a follow up post on Hungary on Krugman's blog that all should read. The all too human instinct to hunker down and shift to the right when facing hard times can have unexpected consequences as the Hungarians are now learning and as the Germans learned awhile back (if you are unemployed, you are about to learn it.)