So I was reminded today that a few weeks ago I conducted a little poll here at ECM which asked my three-plus loyal readers to select one or more topics for a future essay. Climate change, nee global warming, came out the surprise winner. Compounding my astonishment at receiving more votes than I have readers, the "control" response concerning a request for instructions at having dropped a pencil received but a single vote. No matter my other preferences among the poll options, I would have voted for that myself. And although more than half the traffic here is generated from Star Wars-themed searches that turn up my recent foray into film criticism, nary a weary traveler selected the More Star Wars option. So go figure.
So climate change has seized the fancy of my several loyal readers, and I myself am somewhat curious as to what I'll uncover (see? objective inquiry without presumption of the outcome!). I've read a bit on the subject but a quick update or refresher on the latest writing on the subject won't hurt. It will likely be early summer before everything comes together and the long-awaited essay appears on the subject, but the waiting and the investment of additional time will make it only more delicious when it appears. And the whole climate change movement isn't likely to go away by then anyway, and if it does, then there's probably no need for me to write about it in the first place.
Besides, for the moment I sense an unexpected weakening of the Leninite BHO agenda in Washington. It's a long way from having been thwarted, and after all a tremendous amount of damage already has been done, but I'm hearing rumbles about slipping poll numbers and reluctance in the Congress to take on cap-and-trade, and that the $650B that was to provide in revenue (and politburo-type economic control) is now expected not to be available, calling into question the possibility of enacting the nakedly vote-buying Making Work Pay tax credit. If a touch of heretofore unsuspected democratic righteousness causes not one but two awful proposed programs to vanish at once, this can only be described as a good thing. But the reluctance to take up cap-and-trade pushes climate change a touch down the list of my priorities for the moment (leaving aside that my opinion of most of the political elements of the climate change movement, leaving aside the actual science, were actually a double-bluff XK-Red-27 technique to impose an otherwise obviously undesirable Bolshevik command-and-control apparatus which would be ultimately no less bloodthirsty than the original for its apparent love of the proletariat).
So for the moment my biggest concern is in matters economic. In that spirit I call attention to today's invaluable essay from Mark Steyn, entitled False Choice. It's wonderful enough to be worth quoting at length:
I think matters have reached a point where the legislative branch of the federal government has become nothing but a bunch of corrupt, unaccountable, self-dealing petty-tyrants-for-life. And I think what we need is a comprehensive framework of ideas--or one big idea--to restore accountability to the people in the manner of Newt Gingrich's 1994 Contract With America, which for all its faults mainly delivered on its promises and was ultimately betrayed because of the corrupting power of power itself. The elephants of the middle 'aughts lost their way, their principles, and all sense of restraint or accountability after a decade in power. It's taken the donkey two months to replicate that feat.
The problems with reform are that we trust in a group of men to govern us instead of the system. A favorite accounting aphorism is "let the system be the solution." When everything is ad hoc and the operators exercises maximum control to evaluate treatment of each item before it is recorded, the system inevitably fails because of the fallibility of its operators. When a system of rules, carefully adhered to, governs outcomes instead of individual judgments performed a thousand times over, results are better and more consistent, and errors made systematically are more easily detected and corrected than those which are introduced by hand at each of a million decision junctures.
The relevance here is that the donkey and the elephant have both proven themselves incapable of running a limited government when put in charge of a system which is essentially the rule of men instead of the rule of law (though, to be sure, I think the donkey's errors are more destructive and enervating). It is time we return to a system of the rule of law, not the rule of men, even if a constitutional amendment is required to pry the reins of power from their hands.
Quoth Madison in Federalist 51:
I am assembling my thoughts on this into an essay which will end up taking precedence over the one about climate change. In the meantime, I welcome your thoughts as to what one single constitutional amendment would do the most good to permanently restrict the type of behavior emitting from the congress these days.
So climate change has seized the fancy of my several loyal readers, and I myself am somewhat curious as to what I'll uncover (see? objective inquiry without presumption of the outcome!). I've read a bit on the subject but a quick update or refresher on the latest writing on the subject won't hurt. It will likely be early summer before everything comes together and the long-awaited essay appears on the subject, but the waiting and the investment of additional time will make it only more delicious when it appears. And the whole climate change movement isn't likely to go away by then anyway, and if it does, then there's probably no need for me to write about it in the first place.
Besides, for the moment I sense an unexpected weakening of the Leninite BHO agenda in Washington. It's a long way from having been thwarted, and after all a tremendous amount of damage already has been done, but I'm hearing rumbles about slipping poll numbers and reluctance in the Congress to take on cap-and-trade, and that the $650B that was to provide in revenue (and politburo-type economic control) is now expected not to be available, calling into question the possibility of enacting the nakedly vote-buying Making Work Pay tax credit. If a touch of heretofore unsuspected democratic righteousness causes not one but two awful proposed programs to vanish at once, this can only be described as a good thing. But the reluctance to take up cap-and-trade pushes climate change a touch down the list of my priorities for the moment (leaving aside that my opinion of most of the political elements of the climate change movement, leaving aside the actual science, were actually a double-bluff XK-Red-27 technique to impose an otherwise obviously undesirable Bolshevik command-and-control apparatus which would be ultimately no less bloodthirsty than the original for its apparent love of the proletariat).
So for the moment my biggest concern is in matters economic. In that spirit I call attention to today's invaluable essay from Mark Steyn, entitled False Choice. It's wonderful enough to be worth quoting at length:
Writing in the Chicago Tribune last week, President Obama fell back on one of his favorite rhetorical tics: “But I also know,” he wrote, “that we need not choose between a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism and an oppressive government-run economy. That is a false choice that will not serve our people or any people.”As they say, read the whole thing.
Really? For the moment, it’s a “false choice” mainly in the sense that he’s not offering it: “a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism” is not on the menu, which leaves “an oppressive government-run economy” as pretty much the only game in town. How oppressive is yet to be determined: To be sure, the official position remains that only “the richest five percent” will have taxes increased. But you’ll be surprised at the percentage of Americans who wind up in the richest five percent. This year federal government spending will rise to 28.5 per cent of GDP, the highest level ever, with the exception of the peak of the Second World War. The 44th president is proposing to add more to the national debt than the first 43 presidents combined, doubling it in the next six years, and tripling it within the decade. But to talk about it in percentages of this and trillions of that misses the point. It’s not about bookkeeping, it’s about government annexation of the economy, and thus of life: government supervision, government regulation, government control. No matter how small your small business is — plumbing, hairdressing, maple sugaring — the state will be burdening you with more permits, more paperwork, more bureaucracy.
And don’t plan on moving. Ahead of this week’s G20 summit in London, Timothy Geithner, America’s beloved Toxic Asset, called for “global regulation.” “Our hope,” said Toxic Tim, “is that we can work with Europe on a global framework, a global infrastructure which has appropriate global oversight . . . ”
“Global oversight:” Hmm. There’s a phrase to savor.
“We can’t,” he continued, “allow institutions to cherry pick among competing regulators and ship risk to where it faces the lowest standards and weakest constraints . . . ”
Just as a matter of interest, why not? If you don’t want to be subject to the punitive “oversight” of economically illiterate, demagogic legislators-for-life like Barney Frank, why shouldn’t you be “allowed” to move your business to some jurisdiction with a lighter regulatory touch?
[...]
Unfortunately, all of it costs money he doesn’t have. So he has to borrow it, in your name. Where does the world’s hyperpower go to borrow more dough than anyone’s ever borrowed in human history? More to the point, given that, partly at the behest of Obama and Geithner, almost every other western government is ramping up national debt to cover massive bank bailouts and other phony-baloney “stimuli,” is there enough money out there to buy up the debt that’s already been run up? Last week, at the official British Treasury auction, investors failed to buy the full complement of so-called “gilt-edged” 40-year bonds. Two such auctions have already failed in Germany. The U.S. Treasury, facing similar investor reluctance to snap up $34 billion of five-year notes, was forced to increase the interest it will pay on them. The Chinese and the Saudis have long taken the view that it’s to their advantage to own as much of the western world as they can snaffle up, but it’s unclear whether even they have pockets deep enough for what America and the many Bailoutistans of Europe are proposing to spend.
In their first two months, Obama and Geithner have done nothing but vaporize your wealth, and your children’s future. What began as an economic crisis is now principally a political usurpation. And, to return to the president’s “false choice,” that “chaotic and unforgiving capitalism” is exactly what we need right now. It’s the quickest, cheapest, fairest, most-efficient route to economic stabilization and renewal. A regimented and eternally forgiving global command economy with no moral hazard will destroy us all.
I think matters have reached a point where the legislative branch of the federal government has become nothing but a bunch of corrupt, unaccountable, self-dealing petty-tyrants-for-life. And I think what we need is a comprehensive framework of ideas--or one big idea--to restore accountability to the people in the manner of Newt Gingrich's 1994 Contract With America, which for all its faults mainly delivered on its promises and was ultimately betrayed because of the corrupting power of power itself. The elephants of the middle 'aughts lost their way, their principles, and all sense of restraint or accountability after a decade in power. It's taken the donkey two months to replicate that feat.
The problems with reform are that we trust in a group of men to govern us instead of the system. A favorite accounting aphorism is "let the system be the solution." When everything is ad hoc and the operators exercises maximum control to evaluate treatment of each item before it is recorded, the system inevitably fails because of the fallibility of its operators. When a system of rules, carefully adhered to, governs outcomes instead of individual judgments performed a thousand times over, results are better and more consistent, and errors made systematically are more easily detected and corrected than those which are introduced by hand at each of a million decision junctures.
The relevance here is that the donkey and the elephant have both proven themselves incapable of running a limited government when put in charge of a system which is essentially the rule of men instead of the rule of law (though, to be sure, I think the donkey's errors are more destructive and enervating). It is time we return to a system of the rule of law, not the rule of men, even if a constitutional amendment is required to pry the reins of power from their hands.
Quoth Madison in Federalist 51:
In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit. It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions. (Emphasis mine.)It is unfortunate, however unapologetically undemocratic it is to point out, that one of the essential checks on the tyranny of the legislature has been undone by the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which reduced the separation between the houses of the congress by rendering similar their modes of election. Since undoing that seems unlikely and any such plan would in all likelihood be falsely accused of racism by some convenient demagogue, perhaps it is time to consider some of Madison's "still further precautions" against the dangerous encroachments of the outlaw federal congress.
I am assembling my thoughts on this into an essay which will end up taking precedence over the one about climate change. In the meantime, I welcome your thoughts as to what one single constitutional amendment would do the most good to permanently restrict the type of behavior emitting from the congress these days.
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