December 22, 2004
Dislike?
Pat at San Diego Politics links to what looks like an interesting article from TNR about the difference between Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia's dissents in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. I don't have a subscription so I've not been able to read the entire piece yet but the reference did get me reading the actual opinions of O'Connor, Scalia, and Thomas. I'll need to give them much more time to digest all that's in them but at first glance it's clear all are well written and thoroughly researched arguments.
What really stood out about Pat's post though was the title, which was: "Why I Dislike Thomas".
Wouldn't a more appropriate title be "Why I Disagree with Thomas", "Why Thomas' Opinions are Wrong", or "Why I Would Never Want Thomas as our Chief Justice"?
People and their ideas are two separate entities. Part of the problem with politics today is that people will personally attack good people, simply because they have different opinions or belong to a different political party. Conversely, others will defend despicable individuals because they share the same ideas or are members of the same political party.
I don't know if Pat has had a chance yet to watch the video I originally linked to but Thomas briefly addresses this point. In a response to a question regarding his struggles with Civil Rights leaders he replies:
“Look, I have my own opinions and my ideas. They’re mine. You have ideas. Their yours, right? Now what if I told you something was wrong with you because you don't agree with me. Well that’s what is being told to me. That doesn't make any sense. Right?”
No, it doesn't. Disagreement is a wonderful thing for it helps us discover the best way to progress in all aspects of life. Personal hatred is quite another, especially when it stems from this necessary process.
Update: I have fixed the Thomas quote above as there was originally an error in my transcription.
Posted by Peter Mork at 7:58 PM | Comments | TrackBack
December 20, 2004
Judging Thomas
I've got a post up at Freespace on Clarence Thomas and Senator Reid. Go over and give it a read.
Posted by Peter Mork at 10:13 PM | Comments | TrackBack
November 22, 2004
Ban The Electoral College?
A letter to the editor of the WSJ today makes an interesting observation regarding federalism and the U.S. Senate:
I always find it remarkable that so many people call for ending the "unfairness" of the Electoral College but you almost never hear these same people calling for the abolition of the U.S. Senate. If the Electoral College is "unfair" when California gets 55 electoral votes and Delaware gets three, isn't the Senate far worse, where California gets two votes and so does Delaware? Is it "fair" that in the last election one candidate won a Senate seat by getting 121,000 votes, while another lost despite getting 3.5 million? But that's federalism for you.Thomas F. Harrison
Cambridge, Mass.
Posted by Peter Mork at 6:42 AM | Comments | TrackBack
October 15, 2004
10,000 Germans Can't Be Wrong
In a debate that was supposed to cover domestic policy this week, the two candidates still found ample time to talk about the war in Iraq. Throughout the three debates, when the subject turned towards Iraq, Bush and Kerry often sparred over whether or not we had a proper coalition prior to invading the country. For instance, in the first debate Kerry said:
We know that he promised America that he was going to build this coalition. I just described the coalition. It is not the kind of coalition we were described when we were talking about voting for this.
Bush in the same debate stated:
My opponent says we didn't have any allies in this war. What's he say to Tony Blair? What's he say to Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland?
How does one define a proper coalition in the first place? More importantly, can a proper coalition (if defined) justify going to war? Perhaps it is clearer if we pose the questions in a different manner:
The point is a standard of right and wrong, not popular support, must be used to evaluate something as serious as a war.
To put this in the context of Iraq, it seems Kerry's main concern is that we went to war without the support of our Western European allies Germany and France. Yes Russia and China, members of the U.N. Security Council, opposed the Iraqi war as well. But one should note that these two countries also failed to support using military force against Yugoslavia in 1999, a war Sen. John Kerry supported.
So if Germany, for instance, had supported the war in Iraq this would seem to diminish Kerry's stance that we did not compile a proper coalition. As such, the war would be justified in the eyes of many.
Such a situation was less than 10,000 German votes away.
In 2002, as the world debated the use of military force against Iraq, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany was in an extremely tight election race with challenger Edmund Stoiber. Stoiber made clear he would back the U.S. on Iraq and even went so far as to say that Schroeder's opposition to the war reflected "isolationism". As I stated above, this election was decided by 10,000 votes. Did this slim margin determine whether it was right or wrong to send U.S. troops into harm's way?
Rights and wrongs are not defined by the majority. There are plenty of reasons to oppose the preemptive use of military force. However, if one uses the lack of international support as the foundation of their argument, it gives them almost no ground to stand on when the pendulum swings the other way. As history has shown this can often happen quicker than you think.
Posted by Peter Mork at 5:41 PM | Comments | TrackBack
October 13, 2004
Moore in San Diego
Michael Moore spoke at the Del Mar Fairgrounds last night. It was an alternative venue after the president of Cal State San Marcos disinvited him from speaking at their campus. This decision was made as the school was supposedly prohibited from spending funds on partisan political activity.
Another school, George Mason University, also disinvited Moore for similar reasons. Prof. Don Boudreaux, who teaches at GMU, had this post on the subject at Cafe Hayek:
But I cringed whenever I heard or read the objections to his appearance at GMU. A Republican member of Virginia’s House of Delegates, Rep. Dick Black, wrote to GMU President Alan Merten that “Profligate spending for liberal speakers sets a tone for slipshod financial practices permeating the university system. Tax money is being spent poorly, and for partisan purposes." See this news story.
What a narrow-minded objection! Is “profligate spending” for conservative or libertarian speakers okay? If GMU agreed to pay, say, Thomas Sowell or Rush Limbaugh $35,000 to speak on campus, would such an agreement set “a tone for slipshod financial practices” at the University?
Hat Tip: Patrick Finucane (for the Union Tribune article)
Posted by Peter Mork at 6:44 PM | Comments | TrackBack
October 12, 2004
The Nobel Prize and Politics
According to Nobelpreisborse, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman had a decent shot at winning the Nobel Prize this year in economics. This obviously would have been ammunition for the Kerry/Edwards ticket as he has been a harsh critic of Bush's fiscal policies, especially his tax cuts. As it turns out, it looks like the shoe might be on the other foot. Edward Prescott, along with Finn Kydland, was awarded the Nobel Prize yesterday and he had this to say about the Bush tax cuts:
What Bush has done has been not very big, it's pretty small," Prescott told CNBC financial news television.
"Tax rates were not cut enough," he said.
Lower tax rates provided an incentive to work, Prescott said.
The American analyst, who is a professor at Arizona State University and a researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said a large tax cut in 1986 had lowered rates while collecting the same revenue.
But "in the early '90s the economy was depressed by the tax increase in '93 by about four percent, and it's right at that level now," Prescott said.
Posted by Peter Mork at 8:07 AM | Comments | TrackBack
September 20, 2004
Neo-Republicans
In today's OpinionJournal's Political Diary (sub. req.) Holman Jenkins takes a look at Republican Jack Orchulli's chances of unseating U.S. Senator Chris Dodd. In his analysis titled Fashionable Republican Jenkins points out:
Mr. Orchulli, 57, takes pride in presenting himself as "socially liberal, fiscally conservative," reputedly the sweet spot in the electorate today (though somehow voters frequently fail to confirm this wisdom by their behavior when they actually vote).
Voters "frequently fail to confirm this behavior when they actually vote"!?!? I beg to differ.
Jenkins need look no further than the state in which Orchulli is running: Connecticut. Republican Governor Jodi Rell, who fits the "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" label, was elected as Lieutenant Governor in 1994, then reelected to the post in 1998 and 2002. She replaced John Rowland (another pro-choice Republican) as Governor on July 1st of this year after he stepped down from the office. These Republicans are getting elected in a state where Bush only received 38.4% of the vote in 2000.
It is also hard to ignore two states whose all important electoral votes are a lock for Kerry: California and New York. Here again, despite the fact that Democrat voters solidly outnumber their Republican counterparts, the electorate has put into the Governor's office two Republicans. And again, Schwarzenegger and Pataki both describe themselves as socially liberal and fiscally conservative.
I know there are areas of the country this libertarian leaning political message would not fly. Yet it is hard to overlook the fact that in states that Democrats will no doubt win in their quest to regain the White House, the message put forth by these socially liberal Republicans seems to be resonating.