What’s Wrong with Maryland?

In a November 5 editorial entitled The Two Left Coasts, the Wall Street Journal explains “Why the GOP wave didn’t wash over New York and California” on November 2. The electoral tsunami also completely missed my home state of Maryland. I will argue here that the causes for New York and California’s immunity identified in the Journal editorial apply equally well – if not better – to what I less than affectionately call the People’s Republic of Maryland.

The Journal identifies the culprit as

…the iron triangle of public employee unions, high taxes and social budgets that are larger than the economies in other states.

The fiscs in both Albany and Sacramento are perched atop a shrinking base of taxpayers, many so wealthy that they don’t care what tax rates are. The highest-earning 1% funds nearly half of the New York budget. The liberal political class then feeds these dollars to its union constituents – not least in the form of gold-plated benefits and pensions – who in turn spend mightily to protect their patrons, even as the state budgets lurch ever closer to Grecian territory.

As this agenda squeezes the middles class and drives jobs out of state, it leaves politics to a coalition of well-off knowledge professionals, public employees and lower-income workers who depend on the state for transfer payments. The well-paid elites in finance, fashion, media, tech or Hollywood tend to view environmental issues like cap and tax as enlightened social statements unrelated to economic growth.

With the exception of the comparison of the size of the social budget to the economies of other states and the reference to Hollywood, the WSJ analysis also describes the perfect storm that has made Maryland a one-party entity. The public sector unions, primarily AFSCME, are extremely powerful, well-funded and function as an arm of the Democratic Party. Together with the teachers’ unions (MSEA & AFT-Maryland, affiliates of the NEA and AFT, resp.), they are a potent force that drives much of the State’s agenda. Next, our far left Governor raised taxes substantially upon entering office and he has made no secret of his intention to repeat the process as soon as he is reelected (which, alas, he was easily last week). As for the third leg of the triad, the State has an ever expanding array of social programs, accompanied by a structural budget deficit in excess of a billion dollars – not in California’s league, but still impressive per capita.

As to the unholy alliance of knowledge professionals, public employees and lower-income workers, Maryland has no shortage. First, there are the blood-sucking lawyers and lobbyists that frequent the halls of Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis who, together with their academic accomplices at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University, as well as the cadre of scientists and tech types who populate the so-called Interstate-270 technology corridor; these comprise Maryland’s “knowledge professionals.” Second, the Federal, State and local government employees who live in the suburban areas surrounding DC and in the Baltimore region have a density that is unparalleled in the nation. And finally, both of these groups have arranged for an invasion of immigrants into the State (both legal and illegal), who comprise a healthy portion of the requisite lower-income government leeches – thus completing the trifecta.

On election night we saw the return of the electoral map that described America’s political breakdown for much of the three decades before the 2006 and 2008 elections: vast swatches of red with intense blue patches along the coasts and around major inland cities. If land mass were the determining factor, the Democratic Party would be extinct. We have a similar situation in Maryland. In a typical election, 21 of the state’s 24 counties vote Republican, but the remaining three (Baltimore city and the two counties bordering DC, i.e., Montgomery and Prince Georges) vote overwhelmingly Democratic and easily have enough population to corral any statewide election.

So what is the matter with Maryland is exactly what ails New York and California – only on a somewhat smaller scale, but with the same deleterious effects. I sometimes think that the only way to rescue the Free State is to cede Montgomery and Prince Georges counties to DC, thereby allowing the remaining Marylanders the opportunity to restore sanity in the rest of the State.
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This post also appeared in the blog of the Maryland Public Policy Inistitute
 

Tony Blair’s Israel Problem

I have long admired Tony Blair for his courage in standing by the US in the matter of the Iraq War, for his tenacity in not allowing Labor to undue most of the wise economic policies initiated by Margaret Thatcher, and for his grace in not abandoning his religious beliefs at the door of 10 Downing Street. But those stellar qualities were not enough to prevent him from making a morally obtuse comment in his column in November 9’s Wall Street Journal (‘Making Muslin Integration Work’ — go to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303362404575580700415413596.html?KEYWORDS=tony+blair
if you are a WSJ subscriber). He bemoans the tendency of Muslims to conflate unjustifiable sentiments against the West with ‘justifiable sentiments [such as] anxiety about injustice to Palestinians, dissent over military action in Afghanistan or Iraq, anger about Kashmir or Chechnya,…’ Thus, according to Mr. Blair, the prime legitimate beef that Muslims have with the West is the ‘Palestinian problem.’ Unspoken, but self-evident, is that Israel — a Western outpost — is the main source of Muslim discontent. So, more than the American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, more than the fact that in science, the arts, business, and just about any other major human endeavor, the West’s accomplishments have dwarfed any Muslim contribution to the world, more than any of those irritants, the fact that a few Jews have set up shop on a tiny portion of ‘Muslim lands’ is the main source of unhappiness of Blair’s poor Muslims. I don’t know which is worse — Tony’s reflexive anti-Israel position or his obsequious deference to Muslim sensitivities. And he is supposed to be an honest broker between Israel and her Muslim enemies? Fat chance!

Repairing a Flaw in the Constitution

The recent book Nullification: How to resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. attempts to resuscitate the idea of State nullification of Federal laws. The idea arose almost immediately after the establishment of the US as a constitutional republic. It was proposed originally in the Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799. The proximate cause of these resolutions was the Alien & Sedition Acts passed by Congress and signed by President John Adams in 1798. The nullification cause was taken up again by Connecticut’s Governor and Legislature in 1809, championed by John C. Calhoun (most famously in his Fort Hill Address in 1831) and resurrected by the Wisconsin Legislature in 1859. But its death knell was sounded by Lincoln and the Civil War, and Woods’ well-written book is unlikely to revive it.

The idea is that if the Federal Government behaves in a manner inappropriate to its authority under the Constitution, then the States – as the sovereign entities that agreed to the compact embodied in the Constitution and therefore as the parties that founded the Federal Government – have the right and the duty to protect the Constitution by pointing out said bad behavior and refusing to abide by the offending law or regulation. It is a perfectly logical argument. If a group agrees to establish a special committee to administer some joint interests of the group, and if the committee oversteps the jurisdiction of its charter, then the members of the group are free to annul the offending action and even to suspend the charter of the committee if the group deems it appropriate to do so.

However, the principle of State sovereignty trumping Federal law envisioned in an individual State declaring a Federal law or regulation unconstitutional, and therefore void, is not coming to fruition in these United States – for at least three reasons:

  • The issue has been settled for 150, and maybe 200 years. The people have not bought into the idea of nullification. It would require a revolution for that to change.
  • As discussed in Woods’ book, Federal supremacy over the States has been justified by three clauses in the Constitution – the general welfare clause, the interstate commerce clause and the supremacy clause. The people have accepted these interpretations and there is no hint of any change of attitude – at least not until recently.
  • Nullification is unworkable. Which States will nullify which Federal laws? What if one State nullifies a law, but another does not? What if States start nullifying numerous laws? Or parts of laws? Chaos might ensue. We would be back to the situation under the Articles of Confederation.

Nevertheless, although nullification is not going to happen, that does not mean that its proponents are not attempting to address a serious flaw in the Constitution. The idea that the entity, i.e., the Federal Government, set up in the compact into which the States entered when they ratified the Constitution, might overstep its bounds was certainly anticipated by some of the Founders. Alas, they made no concrete provision for dealing with the possibility. Moreover, soon after the Alien & Sedition Acts were passed, John Marshall arrogated to the US Supreme Court the ultimate authority to decide such issues. That authority has been accepted by the American people for more than 200 years. But this mechanism is also seriously flawed. The Supreme Court is an integral part of the Federal Government established by the States’ compact. Therefore, by vesting such an authority in the Court, the people have empowered the Federal Government to effectively police itself and its relationship to the States which established it. This is certainly a prescription for unwarranted (according to the Constitution) power accreting to the Federal Government – which is exactly what has happened. The Federal Government has grown enormously in size, power, budget, complexity, influence and also in arrogance. It runs roughshod over the States and has reached a point where many believe it is destroying the historical character of the nation. It willfully ignores the Constitution – the compact that established it. If this situation persists, the Republic as we have known it, and as it was conceived, is certainly doomed.

Some States have resisted. How have they done so? Generally, by suing the Feds in Federal Court. But by pursuing this course of action, the people are still asking the Federal Government to adjudicate a dispute to which it is a party. It’s not a fair fight. So how else might the States reassert their sovereignty – assuming that they still have any? That is not a frivolous comment. Who indeed is the Sovereign, the US or the States themselves? In 1787, the 13 States were individually sovereign, but via the Constitution, they delegated certain authority (in foreign affairs and in regulating affairs between the States) to the Federal Government. To a foreigner, the US is the Sovereign, but to the people of Maryland say, it is Maryland that was supposed to be the sovereign to which they owed allegiance as citizens. I doubt we can revive that understanding. But we can restore a modicum of State sovereignty at this point in the evolution of our nation with an alteration to the terms of the original contract – that is, with a Constitutional Amendment. Here is the content of a proposed Amendment that would do the job and which I believe would command broad support.

If two-thirds of the States declare a Federal law or regulation to be unconstitutional, then said law or regulation is null and void. A State declares a federal statute or regulation to be unconstitutional when one of the two following eventualities occurs:

·        Either two-thirds of the State Legislators (meaning, for each State, the totality of State Delegates and Senators) vote in session – with a simple majority —  to that effect; or

·        One half of the State legislators (with the same meaning as in the previous clause) vote in session – with a simple majority – to that effect, and one of the following obtains

o   The Governor of the State declares his agreement with the intent of the Legislators, or

o   A majority of the State Supreme Court’s members declare their agreement with the intent of the Legislators.

The Supreme Court would continue to rule on cases exactly as it does now. But its rulings would be trumped by the States declaring a Federal act unconstitutional and therefore null.

One further point: this Amendment presumes that an entire statute would be declared null, not pieces of same. An entire law or regulation would be nullified, even if only part of it was deemed the real offender. This would motivate Congress and the Executive branch to do a better job of writing their laws and regulations, and not to commingle unrelated issues in the same statute or regulation.
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This article also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative at
 

Missile Defense: Success and Failure

There is a remarkable article in the October issue of The American Spectator by John Train entitled At Sea on an Aegis Destroyer. In it, Train gives a very upbeat assessment of the status of American capabilities at sea-based ballistic missile defense. What I find remarkable is, on the one hand, the detailed content of the piece and, on the other, an unfortunate consequence that Train might not have foreseen.

The details that Train supplies on the specs of a recently deployed US anti-ballistic missile destroyer, as well as the underlying strategies that govern its behavior, are surprisingly explicit:

It all happens so fast that the decisions – detecting the attacking missile’s launch, calculating its trajectory, generating the firing solution, and launching the shipboard SM-3 missile to intercept – are made at lightning speed by computers, not by the destroyer’s commander, who could not possible decide fast enough So you put the necessary general instructions and specific intelligence into the vast “SPY 1B” radar system and the SM-3 program, and then sit back and watch things unfold. These days the real-life SM-3 almost invariably hits an incoming missile.

A BMD [ballistic missile destroyer] ship’s main duty is thus shooting down ballistic missiles with the interception missiles it has on board. There are 61 of them, about 33 feet long, stored in 20 square-topped vertical “cells” under the foredeck and 61 under the afterdeck. (An Aegis cruiser, somewhat larger than a destroyer, has the same radar and missile system, … [also] with 61 cells under the foredeck and 61 more aft. It also has two five-inch guns rather than the destroyer’s one.)

The missile component of the Aegis system – the SM-3 – is entering service in improved versions as testing and research evolve under a 10-year “Phased Adoptive Approach.” There are 30-some at sea already, including the entire Arleigh-Burke class of destroyers and three Ticonderoga-class cruisers.

The theory of ballistic missile defense is not to provide a perfect shield, but to degrade an attack to the point where it becomes unprofitable, as our riposte will unfailingly ruin the attacking country.

I have seen little if any of this assessment discussed heretofore in the press. Actually, it is very inspiring and satisfying to learn that Ronald Reagan’s vision of ballistic missile defense capabilities has come close to fruition. But, as I said, the number and specificity of the details on the nature of our system that is revealed in the article are striking. One wonders why at least some of the material was not classified. Why did the military provide the author easy access to these facts and more importantly, why did they give permission to divulge them? The only rational thought – other than incompetence — that comes to mind is that the US Government wants those who might contemplate a missile strike on the US to be aware of the advanced state of our missile defense capabilities. A natural line of reasoning is that armed with that knowledge, and knowing already of our offensive capabilities, our enemies would therefore be induced to refrain from such an attack, fearing that it would not succeed and that our response would be devastating.

Which brings me to the second remarkable feature of the article – the lack of any mention of a possible unintended consequence of the advanced state of our missile defense capability. One of the features of MAD that accounted for its success in preventing a nuclear exchange during the Cold War was each side’s absolute certainty that a ballistic missile attack would elicit a response in kind. It seems to me that a successful anti-ballistic defense system might remove that certainty. For example, with the Prophet Obama at the helm, it is entirely plausible that should Iran attempt a missile strike against the US and should we successfully deflect it, then the Anointed One might very likely refrain from initiating the devastating response (even if were restricted to only military targets) that the Iranian regime and its complicit people would so richly deserve.

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This post also appeared in The American Thinker blog under the title, The Unintended Consequences of Missile Defense; see http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/10/the_unintended_consequences_of.html
 

What’s in a Name: On Hayek’s ‘Why I am Not a Conservative’

Sixty six years after its original publication, Friedrich Hayek’s masterpiece, The Road to Serfdom, continues to inspire legions of both mature and aspiring devotees of individual liberty, free markets and limited government. Hayek’s explanations of why collectivist planning must inevitably lead to tyranny are simple and logical, yet also profound and thoroughly convincing.

Hayek’s grand tome, The Constitution of Liberty, published 16 years later, contains more brilliant reasoning and forehead-slapping insights – this time more from a “political/sociological” point of view than via the “economic” slant in The Road to Serfdom. But the Constitution of Liberty ends with a special Postscript entitled Why I am Not a Conservative. This short but devastating critique of American conservatism – as Hayek saw it in 1960 – has had a demoralizing effect on the conservative movement.

Seen from today’s perspective, it is as if the Founders had put a postscript on the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution asserting that all who subscribe to the underlying philosophy therein were flawed, wrong and hopelessly incapable of administering a regime dedicated to those documents’ principles. When conservatives read Hayek’s works they find almost nothing with which to disagree. His words on the dangers of central planning and enhanced government and how they invariably lead to loss of freedom could come from the lips of Paul Ryan or Jim DeMint. How can it be that Hayek scorns the label by which these devoted students of the right identify themselves?

Hayek agonizes in the Postscript as to how to label himself. He argues convincingly that he is a classic eighteenth/nineteenth century liberal in the mold of Burke, Gladstone, Macaulay, de Tocqueville and Lord Acton. But he acknowledges that the word ‘liberal’ has been hijacked by the progressives and so its original meaning is thoroughly corrupted. He professes to dislike libertarian (“I find it singularly unattractive. For my taste it carries too much of the flavor of a manufactured term…”) and instead settles on Whig. But as he admits this term is too dead and buried to be resuscitated; and talk about ‘singularly unattractive.’

Other writers, in similar examinations, have suggested constitutionalist, traditionalist or neoliberal. In fact, in today’s understanding of the terms, Hayek would definitely be considered a libertarian. Now there is an enormous overlap between conservative and libertarian philosophy, but the two camps differ significantly on two crucial points.

Morals. There is a libertine streak in libertarianism that is missing from the conservative repertoire. I believe that this traces to the representative camps’ understanding of morals. Many conservatives tend to base their morals on religious grounds. But even among conservatives whose morals derive from a more rationalistic basis, there is a belief in an irreducible, unchangeable core to their moral structure, an immutable understanding of the difference between good and evil, which does not evolve.

A libertarian takes his devotion to individual liberty more literally. While libertarians also believe that sound morals must govern individuals and their society, and must move them more toward good than evil, they also accept that morals set by the community are susceptible to change. Individuals, exercising their right to liberty, might over time come to new and better moral understandings. Thus libertarians do not decry sexual permissiveness, drug use and certain ‘life’ issues, which conservatives see as violations of fundamental moral laws. In particular, conservatives and libertarians tend to wind up on opposite sides of issues like drug prosecution, public homosexuality and abortion. This difference in perspective between conservatives and libertarians is fundamental and there is no minimizing it.

America’s Role. The other fundamental difference between conservatives and libertarians is in the understanding of America’s role in history. While both groups are intensely patriotic and believe that America represents a tremendous step forward in human history, conservatives believe in an Old Testament type philosophy – America as a light unto the nations, a concept that libertarians reject.

Conservatives see America as a seminal Constitutional Republic, a beacon of freedom and a fount of liberty, and that Americans – like the ancient Israelites or even like some parts of modern Jewry – have accepted the mantle of specialness with the obligation to play a singular role in bringing freedom to the world. Conservatives describe this as American exceptionalism and believe that we as a people have accepted the consequent burdens this role puts on our shoulders.

Libertarians believe on the other hand that good luck and good decisions led to our exceptional society. But other societies are free to make the same decisions; we have no special obligation to lead them there. This discrepancy leads to huge differences in opinion on foreign policy, defense spending and the role that America is supposed to play in the world. As with the previous basic difference, this one is sharp and its effect should not be trivialized.

Hayek recognizes both points and takes the libertarian position on each. But these are far from his most severe criticisms of conservatives. Hayek also charges that conservatives are:

·        worshippers of old ideas and ideals – not because they are cherished or invaluable, but simply because they are old;

·        wedded to ironclad first principles (of economics, politics and culture) and do not trust the uncontrolled, random, invisible hand type forces that lead society to the best outcomes in a free market – and by that he means a free market not only in business, but also in political and cultural ideas;

·        too comfortable with authority;

·        too inclined toward an aristocracy as the correct form of societal organization;

·        partial toward protectionist economic policies; and

·        basically not Whigs, but Tories.

Some or all of this might have been accurate in the 1950s when Senator Robert Taft was “Mr. Conservative.” But none of it is on the mark today. If Hayek could reappear at a Tea Party event, he would certainly repudiate most of what he wrote in ‘Why I am Not a Conservative.’ The two fundamental differences described above remain and they would continue to identify Hayek as a libertarian, but all of his criticisms in the bulleted list no longer apply.

Judging by their known affiliations and self-identification, the vast majority of rightward leaning people in the US come down on the other side from Hayek on the two fundamental principles upon which conservatives and libertarians differ. If there is any hope of reestablishing America as a Constitutional Republic dedicated to individual liberty, then it is conservatives who shall play the main role, not libertarians.

But the latter group does have a key role to play in the unfolding conservative revolution in America. It may be explained via an analogy. Orthodox, or strictly observant Jews see their role in the world as living a pious, holy life according to the strict commandments of God and that by doing so, they constitute a light unto the nations. They seek to create a model example by which the vast number of Gentiles in the world will set their compasses, thereby “fixing the world” and bringing mankind to harmony, justice and peace.

Whether the model is good or not, it turns out that the commandments are so incredibly strict that it is virtually impossible for any, beyond an extraordinarily dedicated few, to observe them. Most fall away. But among those are many who are imbued with the spirit and blessing of God and they proceed to enrich and improve mankind, often without realizing that is their deep Jewish roots which provide the seeds of their great strength, talent and leadership capabilities. Examples are copious: Einstein, Freud, Herzl, Salk, Sabin, Disraeli, Spinoza, Koufax, Kissinger, Brin, Berlin, perhaps even Jesus of Nazareth. It is the vastly greater number of secular Jews and their associated and converted offspring, offshoots of the rigid and impossibly demanding Orthodox tradition, which provide the light unto the nations and thereby fix the world. (I confess that this theory by which Orthodox Jews fix the world via their “failed” descendants originates with a mentor, Dr. Jacob Goldhaber.)

In the analogy, the libertarians are the Orthodox Jews and conservatives are their “assimilated offspring.” A dogmatic, fiercely rigid, sometimes self-defeating and blind devotion to the purest form of libertarianism gives rise to a somewhat less pure, but more successful offshoot (conservatives). The latter are in a position to deploy the fundamentals of the “parent religion” without being crippled by the extremely pure version to which a widespread conversion is not in the offing. In both versions there remains an irreducible core that is preserved. But it is the “less pure” version that has the greatest chance of “fixing the world.”

In modern terms, I believe that Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Adams and Franklin would be classified as conservatives, not libertarians. Paine was a libertarian and I’m not so sure about Jefferson. With all due respect to the genius of Frederick Hayek (which genius I described in depth in the previous post below, I believe that conservatives, not libertarians, will lead us to the promised land.
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This article appeared both in the American Thinker and in The Intellectual Conservative: