Obama Might Be Targeting Americans… and I’m OK With That
I am trying to work some things out in my mind, and I was hoping that I might solicit the help of a few of our thelobbyist comrades-in-arms (probably a poor idiom considering the topic at hand). Am I to assume, that police departments are not allowed (according to some) to ask for documentation pertaining to a person’s legal status in these United States; but it is imperative that our troops and commanders check the citizenship of people overseas in war-torn sections of the world before we take out a target? The specific case I am talking about has to do with an American born- Anwar al-Awlaki. “Anwar al-Awlaki is an American citizen, born in New Mexico, and now residing in Yemen, where he repeatedly issues exhortations to murder his fellow Americans,” as reported by the Washington Independent. The Obama Administration has secret intelligence, as well as overt intelligence, tying the American to Al Qaeda operating in Yemen; he ministered to the 9/11 hijackers, was the possible inspiration for the Ft. Hood shooter, and purportedly had ties to the would-be Christmas bomber. Because of this, he has been placed on a counter-terrorism ‘hit-list.’ It is important to note, that the CIA reported that he was not placed on that list until they received intelligence that would lead them to believe that the operation al-Awlaki has been working on recently has gone from the planning stages to the operational stage. Civil libertarians are upset over the fact that the Executive would use its power to summarily strip away an American’s citizenship and have that person, what they call, assassinated. I want to clear up, however, because killing someone who happens to be an American is not “assassination.” Every surreptitious murder of a fellow American would be assassination. It is the murder of a prominent political figure-head, generally for political purposes. Strategically killing someone who is fighting for the other side is not assassination,... [Read More...]
Interview With Peter Roff, Senior Fellow at Institute for Liberty
Dustin Siggins: The CBO says not doing the Obama tax increases would increase the deficit by over $3 trillion over ten years. Your response? Peter Roff: Keeping tax rates where they are under current law is the right thing to do. Allowing them to go up, as Obama intends, will further depress an economy that’s already flat on its back. Taking more money out of the private sector- which already isn’t hiring, innovating or expanding- is a recipe for disaster. DS: So should Republicans campaign on spending cuts to offset what CBO says? PR: It’s a false argument for two reasons: It’s current law- to pay for something that is current law is absurd. Under current law, you bring in X taxes. They believe that if tax rates go up, it will bring in an additional figure: Y. So when they talk about a $3.5 trillion dollar hole, what that really means is it’s X+Y-Y, Y being the hole. They are getting X now, even in a static analysis. If you leave current law where it is, they will get X next year. They expect to spend X+Y, so they want to tax at X+Y. If they spend at X+Y, and only tax at X, there will be the hole. DS: What is reasonable spending reform unrelated to the tax rates? PR: Cut off the stimulus. Repeal ObamaCare, and replace it with a patient-centered, market-oriented system. Cut the federal work force across the board, including non-military Defense Department positions (i.e. cutting civilian defense employees). The American public is concerned about federal spending in ways they have never been before. But the real issue is bringing growth back to the American economy. How do you do that? You put an end to economic uncertainty. People have to know what the cost of hiring will be and what their taxes and regulatory costs will be. And THAT’S what you have to stimulate the economy. Encourage the American people to engage in economically-productive activity, rather than punish them. Read More →
Interview With Seton Motley: President of “Less Government”
Dustin Siggins: If Republicans take back the House, how effective will they be in restraining/overturning Obama’s policies? Seton Motley: They can’t overturn, but they can defund and defang what’s been passed. DS: Do you think Republicans who target the community center/mosque are making a mistake? SM: Any issue where it’s 70-30 on your side, it’s not a mistake to make that argument. An indicator of that is when the left says it’s a distraction…it’s damaging the left, and they want you to stop doing it. DS: Mitt Romney has avoided the debate, and wrote in the Boston Globe about the economy… SM: It’s not like the mosque is going to be talked about to the exclusion of the economy. That’s absurd. What’s going to happen is that it’s another in a long series of issues where the left is flying directly in the face of the American people. The political tone-deafness of President Obama to be silent for weeks, to the point where the lines are clearly demarcated for where the American people stand on it, and then he comes out on the opposite side of it. In that way, it’s no different than the myriad spending bills; health care; and the stimulus, where they know where Americans stand but they do the opposite. The fact that Obama waited weeks, then came out against the American people, leads one to think that he might not pay any attention to what the American people say. The American people have made it clear they support extending the Bush tax cuts, and Democrats aren’t going to do that. Peter Roff did write in U.S. News that the “October Surprise” may be Democrats extending some of the cuts to attempt to minimize the damage that will be done to the Democratic Party in November. DS: How can Republicans show they are serious about spending right away, after November, especially since the deficit impact of extending the Bush tax cuts can be mitigated through simple spending cuts. SM:... [Read More...]
Voters Now Trust Republicans Most
This has nothing to do with what’s going on at AFP, sort of–but it now appears as though voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on all ten of the key issues Rasmussen Reports tracks. Click on the link to see the full breakdown. Not every lead is statistically significant, but it should give us hope nonetheless!* From the article: Incumbent members of Congress don’t exactly get a vote of confidence from their constituents. Just 27% of voters think their representative in Congress is the best possible person for the job, down six points from November of last year. Only 37% believe their local congressional representative deserves reelection, compared to 42% who felt that way way last fall. Sixty percent (60%) of voters say most members of Congress don’t care what their constituents think. Most voters continue to believe it would be better for the country if the majority of Congress is thrown out this November, but they also remain unconvinced that a Republican takeover will make a noticeable difference. Now we can all just cross our fingers and hope that the 60% of voters who think their Congressman doesn’t care actually vote out their dud Congressman come November. *I swear I’m not a fan of the Republican Party–but I think we can mostly agree that the Republican Party is better than the alternative. Allie Winegar Duzett is the author of How to Save America: A Tactical Guide for Practical Patriots. Find her on Twitter for livetweeting of the event. Crossposting today at Rightosphere and Conservatives4Congress. Read More →
Immigration VII: The Externalities of Immigration
Sometimes immigration critics will make a watered-down version of the prudential argument. Instead of claiming that an increase in immigration will destroy the country outright, they object that immigrants inflict unnecessarily painful costs on their host nation. These costs can be roughly divided into two categories – welfare costs and crime costs. If our nation cannot afford to give immigrants access to welfare, then the solution is simple. We should stop giving immigrants access to welfare. It does immigrants no favor to deny them both welfare and their right to immigrate. The evidence that immigrants commit more crimes seems shaky to me. But even if it were true, it would not follow that America should restrict immigration. Immigrant groups historically cluster together in the same neighborhoods. Immigrants will bear the brunt of their own supposed costs in crime. Although we may weep for them, if we shut our eyes to the suffering they would have experienced in their native country, we are only shedding crocodile tears. It is best to let them make their own choice between living in a high-crime neighborhood in the US and a possibly higher-crime one in their home country. I haven’t put too much effort into rebutting the externality argument for two reasons. First, many of the stronger “externality” arguments are variations on the “prudential” arguments discussed before. Second, I find it difficult to care. The mere suspicion of externalities is not a justification for denying central human rights. We could not legitimately throw poor Americans in prison just because we hoped this would reduce crime or the burden on the welfare state. Nor could we deport them to Mexico. Nor should we be able to deport poor Mexican immigrants. Read More →
Are you a Chamberlin or a Churchill, Mr. Cameron?
The annals of English history shall record you in one light or the other. You have snatched back a rudderless country out of the hands of directionless leftists – and for this, we across the Atlantic are thankful. But don’t light your cigar just yet, sir. You have failed your first test of fortitude. Prime Minister Cameron took a step toward a Chamberlainian philosophy this last week. In a chilling statement, the PM denounced the Jewish state and embraced an anti-Semitic agenda propagated by the terrorist organization and ruling Palestinian power, Hamas. Not only did Cameron condemn Israel’s completely legal blockade of an extremist funded flotilla, but he also had the audacity to liken Gaza to a prison camp. In all due respect Mr. Cameron, the Jewish people are all too aware of what a prison camp is, particularly the few surviving with numbers tattooed on their arms. Would they not concur that a real prison camp has no access to 4 star restaurants, resorts and air-conditioned multi-level shopping centres? Where has our ally gone? Since when does such blistering condemnation come from the historically supportive (or at least compliant) United Kingdom? A well-placed Westminster informer had this to say about the Gaza remark: “Whatever Cameron may be from day to day, he is always and foremost a pragmatist. He does not make mistakes. So we must assume that his “prison camp” comments were deliberate, and, given that, we must therefore assume that the effects of the comments would have been predicted. Israel furious, Israel’s critics temporarily appeased. A speech like that would have gone through the Foreign Office, Downing Street, the National Security Council, and countless policy advisors. In other words, Cameron knew that what he was saying was going to hit the headlines. So there must be a bigger agenda at play here. Turkey’s entry to the EU? Winning support in the left-wing press? Appeasing his Liberal coalition partners?... [Read More...]
Immigration VI: The Prudential Argument
The strongest argument that conservatives make against open immigration is the prudential argument. This is the only uniquely conservative argument (applied to any topic) that I ever find particularly compelling. Civilization, conservatives like to argue, is a mysterious, fragile thing. Arguments about rights and utility are nice, but they presuppose a stable society whose roots we can never fully understand. This implies cautious prudence. Traditions and culture have evolved to safeguard civilization in ways we may not realize. A massive influx of foreigners who do not share the American love of freedom and its self-reliant ethic could undermine our democracy. If dominant American western traditions are diluted too suddenly, the cultural prerequisites for social cohesion may disappear, and America will be mired either in race wars or European style social democracy, depending on the doomsayer. This has the form of a valid theoretical argument. But none of its specific premises are particularly plausible. For one, civilization is not as mysterious as conservatives like to argue. When conservatives used this prudential argument to attack socialism, for example, they were missing the point. The failure of socialist systems might have been mysterious to the socialists, but economists and classical liberal theorists from Adam Smith to Ludwig von Mises had already given tangible reasons why planned societies would fail to match the dynamism of the free market. What is mysterious to me is that conservatives believe America possesses a unique culture of liberty and self-reliance. This view, inspired by a romanticized vision of the American past, is simultaneously blind to the American present. As I see it, the United States is a run-of-the-mill bloated social democracy with all of the welfare state’s hallmarks – progressive income taxes, managed social insurance for the elderly and poor, heavily regulated public utilities, free public schooling through high... [Read More...]
Immigration V – The Utilitarian Argument
Some people reject arguments about rights and freedom. To these people, natural rights arguments ignore the fundamental importance of results. Humans don’t fundamentally care about means, they care about ends. That’s why they are called ends, Milton Friedman would say. What are the results of immigration? In a capitalist society, people specialize in a certain profession and then trade their labor for the goods and services of other people. When an immigrant enters a profession, they compete with the people currently in that profession. If they provide a service at a lower cost, then people who purchase that service will have more money left over to purchase other goods and services. The total sum of human production will increase. These gains from immigration are equivalent to the aggregate gains from international trade. Some utilitarians adopt a skewed view of utility. They value not increased productivity in general, but the increased income of the poor in particular. If immigrants enter the labor market, they may increase the total income of all Americans together, but competitive forces may decrease the incomes of the specific (poor) Americans that are most competing with immigrants. These concentrated losses are equivalent to the industry specific losses caused by international trade. But immigrants moving into low wage industries in America are almost certainly moving out of even lower wage industries in other countries. Why else would they immigrate? A utilitarian ethic that supported immigration restrictions would value the well-being of poor Americans while ignoring the well-being of even poorer foreigners. This would be an obviously evil utilitarian ethic. It may be inevitable for democratic processes to discount utilitarian gains to poor foreigners. But there is no reason for any individual utilitarian thinker to adopt the utilitarian constraints of their nation’s politics. Neither should a natural rights thinker accept... [Read More...]
Immigration IV – National Security
Perhaps it would be nice if we could let foreigners exercise their natural liberty. But in an era of terrorism, America needs to keep its citizens safe from violent Islamist extremists. If we open up our borders, we risk another terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 or worse. This is the deeply irrelevant national security argument. It fails almost any conceivable test as a justification for the immigration legislative status quo (or most feasible restrictive alternatives to it). The 9/11 terrorists, of course, entered the country legally, mostly on temporary visas. If immigration restrictions do not prevent terrorist attacks, then the need to prevent terrorist attacks cannot be a legitimate reason for restricting immigration. The main immigration restrictions have nothing to do with national security. Instead, current law functions something like a lottery. A fraction of applicants to various categories of residency are admitted by an arbitrary bureaucratic review, or through an actual lottery. These quotas make life miserable for immigrants waiting to live or work in the United States, but they do nothing to prevent actual terrorists from entering the country on temporary or student visas. In any event, American immigration is predominantly a Latin American phenomenon. Whatever prejudices Americans have about Mexicans, they are rarely suspected of wanting to wage Jihad or establish a new caliphate on American soil. Hysterical Islamophobia is not a reason to keep out Christian Latinos (or Indian Hindus, or Asian Buddhists). The government would be morally justified in screening out specific people that it reasonably suspected of ties to terrorist organizations. I believe that even this is probably a fool’s errand. The government is not an all-seeing oracle. It is clumsy, inefficient, and operates without any proper incentives. This is one reason why, for example, it is unable to enforce our current immigration restrictions. Conservatives... [Read More...]
Immigration III – The Rule of Law
Illegal immigrants violate American immigration laws. America is a society based on the rule of law. If we change American laws to accommodate criminal immigrants, we will be rewarding them. We will be encouraging them to break the law in the future and to scoff at the authority of law in the present. We must resist law-breaking criminals even if their crimes never end. After all, people may never stop committing theft or murder, but that isn’t a reason to stop punishing those crimes. Or so the argument goes. First some specificity. Granting amnesty (residency) to illegal immigrants does not incentivize people to immigrate, or to break laws. Immigrants do not break immigration laws merely because they rejoice in criminality. They break the laws because they want to immigrate, and the laws make it too hard to do so legally. The opportunities available to immigrants in America are their own incentive. Immigration amnesty simply decreases the disincentives to illegal immigration. Amnesty does not make it easier to commit murder, theft, or any non-immigration crime (one might say “real crimes”). The right question is, should we enforce our current immigration laws? Yes, say immigration opponents, because they are the law. This argument boils down to legal positivism – the unthinkingly amoral idea that what is right is what the law says. Under the doctrine of legal positivism, it was wrong for the American Colonies to revolt against British rule in the 1770s, wrong for black slaves to flee the plantation in the 1850s, wrong for Americans to drink alcohol in the 1920s – and it is wrong for immigrants to ignore immigration laws today. The solution to bad laws or unjust regimes is to end them. Laws that conflict with our basic moral intuitions will never be made legitimate by brute enforcement. Enforcing unjust laws will make people cynically resent, not respect, the power of law. As I resent it today. As, I would... [Read More...]
