Thomas Jefferson says...

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare...To consider the latter phrase...as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please...Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect." ––Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on National Bank, 1791

Shocking Thoughts From The Mind of Dan

Everyone wants to cast Scott Brown's victory in terms other than what it was: the people of Massachusetts choosing the best man...errr...person to represent them in the US Senate.

Here's my prediction/analysis: the 2008 presidential election partially occurred because of President Obama's excellent get-out-the-vote effort harnessing a new pool of voters, and partly because Republicans were frustrated and demoralized and lacked leadership.

The special election in Massachusetts demonstrates the same thing on the other side of the fence. Democrats are disappointed, disillusioned, and in disarray. They are unable to muster their voters to the polls for a special election.

I don't think Brown won because a bunch of Massachusettsians suddenly decided to become Tea Party Republicans. I think Brown won because 1) the Massachusetts Tea Partiers are motivated, will get out and vote, and wanted to send a message about helath care reform and, 2) Scott Brown ran an excellent campaign and won the trust of a wide variety of people, including a whole boatload of Democrats, in a way that his opponent didn't.

Here's the exciting thing--I think we are entering an era of weakened political parties. People--and not just the centrists or whimsical--are deeply disenchanted with both major political parties. The Tea Partiers who are celebrating Scott Brown's victory aren't celebrating a Republican victory, they're celebrating a Big Government defeat on the issue of health care reform and expanded government. They're as frustrated with the Republican Party as staunch libertarians such as myself. If Massachusetts and the approval ratings of the Democratically controlled Congress and White House are any indication, we could be seeing the same disenchantment hitting the Democratic political establishment as well.

Here's why that's excellent news: it decreases the value of that "R" or "D" behind a prospective representative's name and increases the value of that person's ideas, his or her skill in executing those ideas, and his or her connection to the electorate. So Scott Brown wins because he's "Scott Brown, a trustworthy fellow with great ideas, who won the confidence and enthusiasm of the people of Massachusetts, who happens to be on the Republican ticket," not "Scott Brown, Republican, who you should vote for because you don't want the Democrats to win."

In short, when the motivating power of a party affiliation to get out the vote decreases, the quality of political representatives increases, as they are judged more on their merits as representatives and their ability to marshall otherwise frustrated voters, rather than their connection to a political party. Additionally, the value of local flavor--being in close tune to the needs and opinions of their constituency rather than the national agenda of their party--increases.

Altogether, I think that's good for our democratic republic, and I'm curious at to how a Massachusetts Republican Senator votes. It should be an interesting show!

[Edit]

"It is becoming increasingly clear the extent to which November 2008 entailed a repudiation of the George W. Bush presidency rather than an affirmation of the Democratic Party platform. In particular, the public is looking primarily for a real improvement in the economy and secondarily for a resolution of our military's involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq." --David Orentlicher
Professor, co-dir., Center for Law and Health, Ind. University Schools of Law and Medicine

The Semi-Regular Weekly Reader!

The White House quietly changes the manner in which it reports jobs saved or created by the stimulus package...thus solving the problem of the known inaccuracy of the numbers shown on it's recovery.gov website.

Some sensible talk from my favorite legal bloggers on the Harry Reid gaffe.

In the middle of forcibly devaluing his own country's currency, Hugo Chavez's Venezuelan Air Force intercepts a US Military Plane and escorts it out of Venezuelan airspace. The Venezuelans are, of course, manage this using F-16 jetfighters, the best jets money can buy...manufactured in and purchased from the United States. It must be rough, being dependent on those capitalist bastards across the pond!

More Post-Thanksgiving Thoughts

The Atlantic's Hanna Rosin examines the connection between the prosperity gospel and the Subprime Mortgage Market. Did you know that inner-city pastors were targeted by subprime lenders as gateways into subprime markets? (That story's on page 2...)

I've never been to catholicanarchy.org before, but they have an interesting take on Thanksgiving. Not sure what I think about it, but it's worth reading if it provokes some thought about Christian citizenship. Of course, I know exactly what I think about a wholesale slaughter of turkeys...mmmmmm....

Time Magazine once more reassures me over my choice of cancelling my subscription this year. "The 00's: Goodbye At Last To The Decade From Hell." I disagreed with the first sentence, violently, and continued to disagree until I stopped reading, two pages later. Some points:

a) we fought two major international wars, and are still fighting them.
b) they inflicted virtually no hardship on anyone in the States except those poor forgotten souls fighting them, those in the Twin Towers when they fell, and those directly related to the above. The rest of us were numb, happy, bickering consumers who replaced our old iPods with newer, shinier, more connected ones.
c) near death economic experience? see above, iPods. We still have 'em, we're still buying them, and now there's a droid. The poor have cable TV and the rich still have last year's luxury items. No one has starved, there have yet to be any mass migrations, and tenant farming only exists among immigrants.
d) Hurricane Katrina was the largest natural disaster in our nations history...claiming only 1500 lives. Meanwhile in Asia, 200,000 die in a tsunami. We have no knowledge of hardship in America. None. We are fat and too dumb to be happy. "Are you better off now than ten years ago?" Absolutely. I'm not dead, I have no major diseases, I secured health insurance and a steady, menial job, and I have an iPod. From the perspectives of both the rest of the world, and the rest of history, I'm still wayyyyy above average. Life is good.
e) additionally, I'm living in a time of unprecedented local growth and productivity. Indie music has made creativity mainstream and accessible, and urban gardens, community groups and co-ops are flourishing. The internet is revolutionizing the way we interact and create. People are turning away from bigger and glitzier and towards better and more interactive. And cheaper.

That's about where I stopped. Maybe I'll finish reading later. Self-pity and whining--the mark of the spoiled. Grrrrrrrrrrrr....

Turkey-Leftover Reading:

Interesting approval ratings: Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama. (LA Times). Of course, it's much easier to be popular when all you have to do is talk.

Wild Boar Population Exploding in Germany. I wonder if Boar Bacon is as amazing as it sounds? Organic, free-range meat that raises itself...is there anything better?Boar hunting is a pretty intense experience, I hear. This guy died hunting boar recently. Too bad he didn't have access to modern semiautomatic high capacity hunting rifles, maybe he would have survived...but that's European Gun Control for ya.

Speaking of Pork, Can Islamic Militant Groups Be Compared To The Protestant Reformation?

Also in Pork, Another look at Health Care reform, from an incremental perspective, by a dude with a really sweet name. And, conservatives are crying foul over "hidden" doulbe digit deficit predictions (as a percentage of GDP).

Finally, Today I am thankful for Civil Liberties. "The Russian authorities retaliated with a $17.4m tax case against Hermitage and arrested Mr Magnitsky, who had uncovered evidence of fraud and implicated the policemen who arrested him. In jail he developed a severe medical condition but was left without treatment, a fact that he meticulously documented in his diary. Investigators seem to have denied him help in an effort to extract a confession. On November 16th he died of an abdominal rupture...Mr Magnitsky’s death was shocking, but hardly unusual: many people die in pre-trial detention across Russia, and even more in prison."

Stuff to Read

Maersk Alabama attacked again by pirates. This time, however, they didn't tie up the Navy in an unneccesarily costly and hazardous rescue attempt. Somebody had enough brains to bring real self-defense weaponry to troubled waters.

In other news, the USA PATRIOT act is up for renewal and being debated in the Senate. "In a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department said the administration might consider “modifications” to the act in order to protect civil liberties. 'The administration is willing to consider such ideas, provided that they do not undermine the effectiveness of these important authorities,' Ronald Weich, assistant attorney general." Now that's the hope and change we were looking forward to...

Sen. Wyden of Oregon (D) believes the USA PATRIOT renewal is being rushed.

"Bipartisanship"

"Mr. Speaker, this rule is an affront to the democratic process...At 1 a.m. this morning, with absolutely no meaningful opportunity to review the almost 700-page prescription drug legislation, the Committee on Rules met to consider the resolution now before us. By now I should be used to it, but we cannot tolerate these continual attacks on democracy. When you refuse to allow half this House to speak and to give their amendments, you are cutting out half the population of the United States from any participation in the legislation that goes on here. It defies reason and it defies common sense that political expediency and newspaper headlines could force this monumental legislation, probably the most monumental that any of us will do in our tenure in the Congress of the United States, to force it through the Chamber with little more than cursory consideration."

--Louise Slaughter, Democrat Representative from New York, protesting the use of "special rules" for consideration of the Prescription Drug/Medicare Benefits Bill of 2003.

Today, you can hear this exact same quote, almost word-for-word, from House Republicans who have been ignored and marginalized during the debate over Healthcare Reform in the House.

Under Special Rules, the majority party of the House (in 2003, the Republicans) can restrict debate and amending privileges on a bill after is passes committee. In this case, Representatives were given several hours to debate, and no amendments were allowed. The bill was formed in Republican committees and amended post-committee without any Democrats being invited to the table. The bill passed the House 216-215, after the Republican Speaker held the 15-minute voting period open for a full hour in order to give his party whips time to persuade two Representatives to change their votes, in return for promises to amend the legislation later, in conference between the House and Senate.

As long as committee processes and House rules are subject to simple-majority control, there will be no bipartisanship, cooperation, or moderation in policy proceeding from the House. Unless Representatives are institutionally encouraged to think for themselves and their constituents--and a 2/3 majority vote of the entire House is required for amending the House rules--the majority party in the House will simply be able to ignore and walk roughshod over the minority party. In 2003, it was the Republicans steamrolling Medicare reform, and in 2009 it is the Democrats steamrolling healthcare reform in general.

Allowing a majority to trample the rights of a minority is wrong no matter what policy you are pursuing. It's not American, it's does not serve the long-term interest of the republic, it destroys the public trust and deepens the divide between citizens, and it's just plain not right.

The Daily Read

Health Care--With a 69% Capital Gains Hike

...And Encouragement for More Medical Lawsuits

Long Island Recreational Fishermen Fight For Local Sovreignty On the Basis of a 331-year-old Colonial Charter.

And finally, Sometimes Being Grumpy Is Good

Oh, and in the vein of "You Can Buy It But You Don't Own It," Microsoft Bans Users Who Have Modified Their XBox360s From Playing Online. Corporate Orwellianism?

Dual Interest: Traditional Islamic Social Charity At Work Is A Good Thing...but 40,000 People A Day Getting Free Food in Karachi? Those Numbers Cannot Be A Good Thing For Political Stability.

Oh, Why Not: Tea Party Protestors Made Look Like Peaceful Hippies Compared To Iranian Street Demonstrators. "They seem to be chanting an old revolutionary poem. It says: 'You killed the youth of my country, God is great, Death to you'." Ahhh, gotta love the Iranians, they know how to phrase a protest.