The Threshold of Transformation

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

A few weeks ago I posted about the Middle East and about the historical era that may be unfolding. As the weeks have gone by, and as we’ve watched events unfold in Washington, Madison, and across the Middle East—and when you think about these events in the context of events over the last few years—I believe we are definitely seeing fundamental changes in the way people here, and around the world, perceive the role of government in their lives.

Although these events raise many questions about America’s future role in the world, they also bring one domestic question to the forefront: do we still have the courage and the wisdom to face our own problems and get our own house in order? In fact, our failure to answer this question correctly may doom any chance we have to guide events in the Middle East to a positive end.

For a generation American Conservatives have argued that there is a better way to organize and use our government to meet the needs of our citizens. Though we’ve agreed with liberals that we want a society in which each of us has an equal opportunity to seek and obtain a better life for ourselves and our children, we’ve disagreed on how and whether to use our governments at the national, state, and local levels as tools to accomplish that goal. To put it simply, Conservatives believed that the proper blueprint always existed in the contents of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and it didn’t need to be re-invented through centralized government.

As we’ve argued over this fundamental issue, the momentum of action has continued its 100-year trajectory toward concentrating more and more resources and responsibility in the hands of government bureaucracies at all levels of government, and we’ve gotten fewer positive results from that shift in money and power. That momentum has continued because Conservatives have tended to take two divergent approaches: on the one hand, we’ve argued for a system of limited government and individual responsibility that was gradually disappearing; while, on the other hand, we’ve enabled the continued centralization of government power and responsibility by simply adjusting and limiting the budgets and policies presented by progressives, instead of actually presenting and promoting policies consistent with a limited government. In essence, we’ve been trying to save the Titanic from the iceberg by re-arranging the deck chairs, rather than by taking control of the helm.

In the meantime, we’ve bankrupted society. Yes, I said “bankrupted”. I know that even the mention of “bankruptcy” or “insolvency” leads our elected officials and public bondholders to look for the “Exit” signs—as well it should. It would be imprudent for them to discuss this issue candidly and publicly unless and until they have a plan to address it. But you and I must face it and discuss it, so that we can help our elected officials develop the plans they will need to address the issue.

In the past, I’ve used the term “re-organize” to talk about what our lawmakers will need to do to transfer resources and responsibilities back to individuals, the private sector and local governments, so that we

• regain the liberty prior generations fought to preserve;

• address the needs of our citizens more economically and effectively; and

• dissolve the organizational structure that has created this mess.

I chose the term “re-organize” on purpose, because many of the problems we face are structural within the governments we’ve enlarged over the last 100 years, and because it is a term-of-art used in Bankruptcy proceedings.

To be candid, if an organizational consultant were hired to address the budgetary problems faced by the public sector of this country, and if that consultant honestly applied the same principles he or she would use to evaluate a private-sector business, that consultant would recommend a liquidation of our public sector in something like a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy proceeding. We are simply too insolvent to continue as a “going concern”—the only way we are continuing to operate is with a combination of incurring more debt at every level of government and by printing more money at the federal level. This approach is economically, morally and political unsustainable.

And we can’t raise taxes to get out of this mess. Even if you could overcome the predictable political revolt, raising taxes is not a viable economic solution for many reasons. For instance, taxpayers now carry too much private debt to be able to pay the exorbitant amount that would be needed to bring current and future government spending into balance. Moreover, any significant increase in tax collections would deprive the economy of the private capital it needs for recovery and re-investment.

So, yes, as a society we are broke, and our imaginary consultant would have to acknowledge it. However, because you can’t “liquidate” a society or government, our consultant would be forced to recommend re-organizing our governments under a procedure like that provided under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. This re-organization would be structural, but would be made according to the blueprint of the Constitution; it would not require, and I would never advocate for, a Constitutional Convention as some now are advocating, because the whole goal is to re-establish a limited government within the guidelines provided by the Constitution (and the constitutions and charters at the state and local levels). In essence, this hole was dug by decades of legislative, judicial and administrative action, not by the Constitution; and it will take a combination of legislative, judicial and administrative action at every level of government to get us out of this hole.

Although local governments actually can declare bankruptcy and re-organize under the Bankruptcy Code (and I believe many cities and counties across the country may have to do so eventually), States currently have no such authority; and, even if they did obtain such authority, States would have to address the probability that the Constitution prohibits them from abrogating current contractual obligations (like pensions for current and retired employees). As for the federal government, it can’t really go bankrupt because of its power to print money—though the havoc printing more money would reek could make the Weimar Republic look like paradise.

No matter how we choose to approach the structural re-organization, we will have to begin by removing the impediments to such re-organization. In fact, that is precisely what Governor Walker of Wisconsin is trying to do. Most of the structural impediments to re-organization arise from what generally can be called “Unfunded Mandates,” which take many forms. Typically, they are the fine print in the grand schemes created by the federal or state governments. These mandates shift the responsibility and cost for administration of the schemes to lower levels of government (states, counties, cities or school districts), without providing the necessary funds to pay for the administration.

These Unfunded Mandates can arise in many forms. For instance, they can arise from referendums that restrict taxes, mandate expenditures, or restrict expenditures from certain taxes, like those referendums adopted in California over the last generation; or they can arise from restrictions included in legislation, or collective bargaining agreements, pertaining to the terms of public-sector employment, working conditions, compensation, and benefits. Because every state is organized differently, the nature and impact of federal Unfunded Mandates on each State, and of Unfunded Mandates between State and local governments or school districts, differ across the country. Governor Walker’s bold proposal to limit collective bargaining was an attempt to remove an impediment to the structural re-organization at the county, city and school district levels of government in Wisconsin.

As we can see from the protests and counter-protests across the Midwest (as well as from the cowardly retreats of Democratic legislators to that Mecca of good governance, Illinois), removing these structural impediments will be difficult because the interest in maintaining the status quo is pervasive and strong. Even though virtually everyone agrees that we are on an unsustainable course, the commitment to the 100-year trajectory of the role of government runs very deep, and the Democratic Party and its labor union allies are committed to maintaining the structure they have created. So, though they call themselves “progressive,” they actually are the forces of the status quo in this country. And they’ve dug-in their heels pretty deep against any attempt to re-organize.

Wisconsin is a lesson for all of us who see the need to re-organize and re-establish a limited government. It will take more than good intentions and bold talk to overcome the status quo to which the Democrats and fellow progressives are committed. It will take more than simply cutting programs and dollars from budgets—more than re-arranging those deck chairs.

It will take a transformation: a transformation about the expectations we have of ourselves, our neighbors, our communities, our schools, and our governments; an actual concept for the transformation, which can be adapted not only to the federal government, but to the unique experiences, needs and structures each state and locality; and a sustained commitment to implement that concept with concrete policies. And this transformation will require leaders and leadership to pursue—now and for years to come. If it took 100 years to get us to this point, we must be willing to devote many years to this effort; and we must be willing to make progress one step at a time, while occasionally taking advantage of opportunities to make bold leaps.

The good news is that I think we’ve recently crossed the threshold of that transformation, and there is no going back. Indeed, I believe the next few months present an opportunity for some bold leaps that the public will accept.

At the federal level, I think the public is ready not just to stop raising the debt ceiling, but they are ready to discuss the consequences of not incurring more debt. They are ready not only to change the way we spend discretionary funds, but also to look at how the vast majority of tax revenues are spent. Specifically, they are ready to consider ways to restructure the way we spend our dollars on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and on the Unfunded Mandates associated with Medicare and Medicaid; and to consider how to re-structure our Defense and Homeland Security Departments to cost-effectively defend the country against the threats we face now, and against those threats we will face over the next generation. If you listen closely, the only people talking about shutting-down the government are the forces of the status quo among Democrats and their allies, who are seeking to preserve the current system at all costs—that should speak volumes to all of us about the challenges we face.

At the State and local levels (including counties, cities, and school districts), our neighbors are ready to take back control of their families, their neighborhoods and their schools and make them more effective vehicles for addressing the needs of their communities. In essence, they are ready to rekindle the bonds of the American neighborhood, which de Tocqueville found so unique and effective in providing a social safety net. To do that our neighbors are ready to discuss the hard choices to be made within government, within the private sector, and within their own families, to accomplish the needed shift in responsibility; and to make the painful decisions related to public-sector organization and employment that will be needed to implement those hard choices. Again, for those who are watching closely, the only people trying to avoid these discussions and decisions are those who are so vested in the status quo that they were willing to abandon their responsibilities in the legislature and the class rooms in order to retain the current system.

Regardless of how the stalemate in Wisconsin ends (and I hope it ends in favor of Governor Walker’s proposals), the Wisconsin debate has done us all a favor by forcing us to cross a threshold—a threshold away from merely adjusting numbers in a budget and toward the transformation we desperately need.

The Journey Home

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

It’s funny how our minds work sometimes. As I’ve watched news coverage of the public union members protesting in Wisconsin over the last few days, what came to my mind was one of the last scenes from The Wizard of Oz.

I am sure you remember the scene. After the balloon takes off and leaves Dorothy stranded, Glenda reappears and tells Dorothy that she had always had the power to go back home to Kansas. Glenda then asks if Dorothy has learned anything from her experience in Oz. Dorothy explains that she now realizes that it wasn’t enough to just want to go back home; instead, she had to learn that what she had been searching for had been back home in Kansas all along. With that, Glenda tells her to click the heels of her slippers and she can go back home.

In many ways what Conservatives have been wanting over the last few years is to return to that “Kansas” that mankind found so exceptional when it looked to America over these last few centuries: to a government and society based on the principles of real liberty, where we are free from the control of our lives and choices by a government or elite class, and where we address the needs of our families and neighbors together through our communities, our churches, and, if need be, our local governments. In essence, we’ve wanted to journey home to the country our Settlers and our Founders hoped we would inherit, strengthen and secure.

As the scenes from Wisconsin show, we aren’t in Kansas anymore—and we haven’t been there for a long time. Toward the end of the 19th Century, as our cities were bulging with immigrants and workers from the countryside, who came to work in the great industries of the day, activists and churches established what they always had formed—organizations and facilities to help these newcomers assimilate and survive in the new environment. Neighborhoods formed, and new institutions, like Hull House in Chicago, helped individuals and families navigate in the new industrial society.

But then, the activists became impatient. They studied the welfare-state and socialist movements in Europe (which were familiar to many of the new immigrants, too), and they believed that the power of government could be used to meet the needs of the new industrial society better than the old model inherited from the Settlers and Founders—an old model that these impatient activists themselves had, until then, been adapting to the urban environment. As a result, our 100-year odyssey in the progressive land of Oz began.

Frederick Jackson Turner, the famous University of Wisconsin and Harvard University History Professor, observed this process throughout his academic career. He gave a famous keynote speech at the Columbia Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, in which he noted that the frontier was gone, and that we would be faced with the challenge of addressing problems that we could no longer “go West” to avoid. Almost thirty years later, Turner noted

Western democracy through the whole of its earlier period tended to the production of a society of which the most distinctive fact was the freedom of the individual to rise under conditions of social mobility, and whose ambition was the liberty and well-being of the masses. The conception has vitalized all American democracy, and has brought it into sharp contrasts with the democracies of history, and with those modern efforts of Europe to create an artificial democratic order by legislation. The problem of the United States is not to create democracy, but to conserve democratic institutions and ideals.

Turner understood that, in trying to cope with the effects of the Industrial Revolution, Europe had tried to change the social dynamic of class and monarchy, and of the emerging urban class distinctions, through laws designed to give the common man more direct say in the government, and to give government more responsibility over the welfare of the common man. What Turner noted was that America already had created a working system whereby citizens’ liberties were protected—they didn’t need to legislate it into existence, but they did need to preserve it.

But by 1920, our century-long adventure in the Oz of centralized national government, and national and state government involvement in most facets of our lives and decisions, had begun. Though it would be slowed during the 1920s, and again during the 1980s, the march toward the Europeanization of our society has continued unabated—until now.

Over the last few years, a lot of us have awakened to the fact that we aren’t where we wanted to be: that what those activists 100 years ago had been looking for—more liberty, more economic prosperity, more security, and more "social justice"—wasn’t in Oz after all. Instead, we’ve built a mirage of an Emerald City based on money we never really had, and we’ve depleted the reserves of the grand Shining City on a Hill. We know now that the answers were always in the principles of the Settlers and the Founders, and in the society and governments they created; and we understand it’s time to go home to those principles, and to rebuild that society and government, to meet the challenges of a new century.

Unfortunately, a great many of our neighbors who still receive the benefits of the Oz we created, and who never really learned about, or lived in the Kansas of our country’s youth—like the union protesters in Madison—haven’t figured this out yet. In fact, they like Oz, and they want to cling to it as long as they can.

So, it’s for the rest of us to start the journey home, because we know that the Oz we’ve created can not last—it is unsustainable. However, the transformation that will be needed to travel from the Oz of today to the Kansas of tomorrow—to re-establish a limited government, and a strong, interdependent society of free people, based on our Settlers’ and Founders’ principles—won’t be as easy as closing our eyes and tapping our heels. If any of us ever thought that the journey would be short and painless, the pictures from Wisconsin this week should snap us out of that delusion.

As we make this journey, we need to make sure that those who want to lead us understand the difficulty, as well as the necessity of the journey ahead. Thankfully, we are learning that some do. For example, take a look at the CPAC speech given by Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana (speech text - video). Over the months and years ahead, let’s make sure that all of our leaders understand what we need to do to get back to Kansas.

Purity v. Principle

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

One of the burning issues of the first two years of the Carter Administration was the wisdom of the proposed treaty to transfer sovereignty and control of the Panama Canal to Panama. It not only divided the political parties, but it also deeply divided Republicans and prominent conservatives. For instance, John Wayne, a public supporter of the treaty, vehemently and publicly disagreed with his old friend, Ronald Reagan, who was the most vocal opponent of the treaty. Another Reagan friend, William F. Buckley, Jr., strongly supported the treaty and challenged Reagan to a televised debate on a special two-hour edition of Buckley’s show, Firing Line, before the Senate ratification debate.

Anyone who watched that debate on TV, or listened to it on radio, in January, 1978, has a vivid memory of one of the greatest public debates of our lifetime. Not only was Buckley pitted against Reagan in an impressive debate when the oratorical skills of both were at their zenith, but their seconds were impressive, too: including George Will, Pat Buchanan, James Burnham, and Admirals Elmo Zumwalt and John McCain, Jr. (the father of Senator McCain). The moderator was Sam Ervin, who just a few years before had chaired the Senate investigation of the Watergate scandal. (As an aside, it amazed me during the 1980 campaign how many people believed either John Anderson or Jimmy Carter would beat Reagan in a debate, and how many people were shocked when he won both debates—I guess they either hadn’t seen, or had forgotten, his performance against Buckley.)

Though the Firing Line debate arguably ended in a masterful draw, the Senate ratified the treaty, and Reagan seemed to be defeated on the national stage for the second time in two years. As Buckley later wryly noted, however:

Reagan was, as a prophet, simply mistaken. And I, for my part, did not go on to be president.

In the meantime, they both remained the closest of friends—personally and politically—for the rest of their lives.

And that is the point of telling this story.

We Republicans—we conservatives—have become a rather schizophrenic lot over these last 33 years since Buckley and Reagan debated: we revere and promote principles of individualism and liberty for our country and for mankind; and yet, we demand a form of orthodox purity from each other on every conceivably important political issue. I don’t think we can have it both ways and still remain political friends and allies, let alone form a long-term, effective governing majority party.

Over the last few years, as I’ve taken public stands on issues and ruffled some feathers, I’ve been derided as a libertarian, a moderate, a Christian conservative, a RINO, a Tea Partier, a liberal, a social conservative, an economic conservative, a neo-conservative, a limited-government conservative, even a Democrat (just to list a few of the labels that are clean enough to post on this website)—and these labels came from fellow Republicans. My wife and I would always laugh about all of this, because what it really reflected was the independence of my spirit, and how hard it is for some Republicans now to deal with someone like me.

So, let me be clear—for the umpteenth time—what I am, and what I always have been, is a Republican. Because of my independence of mind and judgment, I, like you, think through each issue based on my core conservative principles and come to positions that I then strongly support. I, like you, care about some issues more than others. My pet issues are education and national defense, and my concern for these different issues leads me to want strong and effective local leadership to address education while wanting strong and effective national leadership to address our national defense. To some my desire for strong and effective government locally and nationally at the same time is inconsistent, but I can complete this circle because of my understanding of the Founders’ idea of federalism and the different spheres of responsibility for each level of government.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we all share commitments to different pet issues, and we all come to positions that, to others, might seem politically inconsistent. Over time, some of us have gotten our pet issues written into our party platforms at the state and national level. That’s not a problem; in fact, it’s a good thing, because the aggregate contained in these platforms reflects the broad consensus within the party at any given time on the issues of the day. It is important to document this consensus so our elected officials and candidates have guidance as to that consensus; and it is important to remind our elected officials and candidates that they should heed that guidance or explain pretty clearly to us what conservative principles they are using to deviate from it.

The problem comes when we try to read the planks of a platform, or impose fidelity to our own pet issues, as if they are the political equivalent of verses of scripture—like an inerrant political Word. As I’ve said in other posts over the years, Republicans aren’t sheep and we aren’t jackasses—that's the other party. Instead, we’re pretty ornery and independent-minded elephants, who are proud and stable beings who care for our herd, but who don’t want someone else’s political litmus test or pet issue imposed like a yoke upon us.

So, why do so many of us want to impose such rigid purity of thought on our fellow Republicans? Think about this—if each of our own pet issues and ideas must be considered as the scripture for the party that must be followed literally without deviation, can we ever really form a lasting and strong political party with those who disagree with some of our verses? Instead, aren’t we going to break-apart into smaller and smaller units with narrower and narrower agendas, until we can not elect anyone who will have the political support to make the fundamental and innovative changes we so desperately need? Isn’t this drive toward purity what is really behind the effort to label every Republican we disagree with as a RINO? If we are all RINOs to each other, are there any Republicans left?

To bring this post back full circle, will our future Buckleys and Reagans be allowed to hold opposing positions on the important issues of the day and still remain friends and allies, let alone be called “conservative” or "Republican"? Heck, will we even attract future Buckleys and Reagans to our party if we continue down this road?

The problem I am discussing is a problem Reagan and his generation foresaw, and it’s why they embraced principles, rather than orthodoxies or ideologies.

So, as our newly-elected representatives in Austin and Washington debate the issues before them, and as we start evaluating candidates for 2012, let’s not impose on them our own litmus tests, and let’s not call them “traitors” or threaten them with retaliation if they deviate from a platform plank. Instead, let’s tell them that it is alright to debate and disagree on how to use our conservative principles to solve the problems we face, and then let’s encourage them to debate the potential answers on immigration, the budget, ballot security, national security, the wars, foreign affairs, and many other issues guided by our platforms, but governed by our principles.

If we follow that path, I believe we eventually will get some great and innovative solutions based on our conservative principles—just like the solutions Buckley and Reagan worked together to give us a generation ago.

Renew the PATRIOT Act—all of it, now

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

Although many Americans are understandably weary of war after over 9 years of armed conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and against terrorist cells here at home and throughout the world, we need to remember that those of us, who have not served in combat (or who have not had loved ones serving in combat) during these years since we were attacked on 9/11, have had to sacrifice relatively little—other than inconveniences when we travel by air.

We haven’t been subject to a draft. We haven’t had to buy war bonds or pay a surtax to fund the war. We haven’t had to serve on local draft boards or civil defense teams. We haven’t been asked to turn our homes into boarding houses for soldiers and sailors awaiting deployment. We haven’t had tires, gasoline or groceries rationed, or had to turn in metal for industrial use. We haven’t been subject to movies and radio programs that were required to carry pro-war content in every film or broadcast. We haven’t been subject to blackouts, curfews, or air-raid drills. We haven’t been threatened with arrest for speaking against the war, or against either the Bush or Obama Administrations. We haven’t had our civil liberties suspended. We haven’t been gathered and placed in detention camps because our last names sounded Arabic.

In short, we’ve had it pretty easy while our country has been defended these last 9 years, compared to the sacrifices imposed on earlier generations of Americans during wartime. In the meantime, the defense and intelligence apparatus that we built with our tax dollars after World War II has worked night and day to keep us safe against an army that wore no uniform and knew no boundary. Added to that defense after 9/11 were additional authorizations to conduct wartime surveillance and searches, which were contained in a statute known as the PATRIOT Act.

Thankfully, a solid majority of the U.S. House of Representatives understood that we are still at war, and that there is still a need to conduct the wartime surveillance and searches authorized by that act. Those representatives voted yesterday to fully reauthorize the PATRIOT Act. Unfortunately, a surprising number of Republicans voted against reauthorization, so now the bill will have to come before the House under rules that will allow for amendments, and many Republicans intend to offer or support amendments that will dilute or remove key provisions of the Act.

Although the implementation of such authority to wiretap or search personal conversations and conduct carries the risk of making mistakes that could embarrass or harass innocent individuals—and I am sure mistakes have been made—it is a testament to the professional work of the men and women in our defense, intelligence and homeland security establishment, that few if any of us have been, or know anyone who has been, subject to surveillance or search under this Act. In fact, the lawsuits that have been brought against the Act have been brought by people who thought they could have been, or could be searched or wiretapped, but who had no proof that they had been. This is a far different experience from those who, during past conflicts, really had their liberties trampled through arrests, mass suspension of civil liberties, or mass detentions.

However, there are those who say that it doesn’t matter how professionally the authority has been exercised, because any compromise of liberty—no matter how theoretical or attenuated, and regardless of the existence of a war—is indefensible. These people then love to spout the following quote in support of their position that the Founders would never agree to such limits on their liberties:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Those who use this quote in this way are just plain wrong. In fact, the circumstances that led to the making of that statement show it was never intended to address this type of issue.

This quote appeared in the preface to a work published in London by Benjamin Franklin in 1759, for the purpose of educating members of Parliament and other political leaders about the need to support the defense of the colonies against the French and their Native American allies during the Seven Years’ War (what we often refer to as “the French and Indian War”). Although the quote is often attributed to Franklin, its actual authorship is unclear, because it comes from a letter prepared in 1755 by the colonial Assembly of Pennsylvania and addressed to the colonial Governor.

In 1755, the colonists that had settled western Pennsylvania had come under constant attack from French forces, and the local tribes aligned with the French. The colonists' situation had become dire, so they asked for money from the colonial government to fund the purchase of arms for themselves, or to pay for arming local tribes that were loyal to the British, in order to defend their homes and settlements against further attack. The Assembly did not have the resources for such an expenditure, so it prepared the letter to the Governor, in which the Assembly asked the Governor to obtain funding from the Penn family for the defensive arms.

Remember that Pennsylvania contained a large number of Quakers and others who opposed armed conflict. Among these groups, opposition to such funding quickly arose. They advocated that peace could be achieved through negotiation and trade with the Native American tribes loyal to the French, rather than through armed aggression.

The sentence contained in the Assembly’s letter was meant as a derisive response to the pacifist. It was intended to challenge the notion that the survival of the liberty of the colonists could be allowed to hinge on the success of appeasing the enemy tribes. In fact, the proper way to read the quote would be to reconstruct it as follows:

Those who would buy temporary safety, and avoid defending their liberty, by appeasing the enemy, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Understood in this way, the statement by the Assembly is a declaration for the essential right or “liberty” of self-defense—individually and collectively—in a time of war. It is consistent with the position taken by Lincoln, FDR, and George W. Bush when our country has come under attack. Moreover, it is consistent with the swift, if not more extreme measures the Washington and Adams Administrations took in the face of potential civil war and war with France—and they were Founding Fathers. The statement does not defend neutering the ability of the country to defend itself, so some of us can rest at night believing that our phone calls to Europe, or our public library accounts, are secure from government surveillance to stop a wartime attack.

Just as I’ve said in prior posts that we need to grow-up and take responsibility for our selves and our communities if we are ever to dig ourselves out of the domestic whole we are in, we need to grow-up and realize that we are still at war. War requires sacrifice and a commitment to defend yourself, your neighbor and your country. That sacrifice and commitment means that sometimes you will need to take actions that would not be necessary or tolerated in peace time. If you are not willing to defend yourself, your neighbor or your nation in this way, then you deserve neither the liberty nor the safety you crave.

To those Representatives who voted to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act, and to those who support them, I say “thank you, and keep up the fight.” To those who oppose reauthorization to protect an international phone call or library check-out you might make someday, I say “grow-up, and thank your lucky stars that our parents and grandparents weren’t this selfish.”

Climate Change—What if the environmentalists are wrong?

This post originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

Yesterday, our EPA Administrator attempted, yet again, to justify the “science” of “man-made climate change,” and the need for regulations to protect us all from its consequences.

I’ve been concerned for some time about one question related to this issue:

What if the environmentalists are just fundamentally wrong?

I think we all need to take a deep breath and look at everything that is in motion and think about this issue, before we go so far down the path that the environmentalists are promoting that we can’t find our way back.

A generation ago our lakes were so foul that dead fish regularly washed-up on beaches, and at least one of the Great Lakes actually caught fire. The air in some cities was so dirty that skylines were shrouded from view. I don’t think anyone who remembers those conditions can seriously disagree with the fact that the environmental laws from the 1970’s, which were designed to reduce pollution in our water and air, have worked. The questions now are

• “Is there really a problem justifying the proposed regulation?”

• “Is the problem really within the competence of government to address?” and

• “How much, if any, more regulation is needed?”

Unfortunately, there has always been a tendency toward exaggeration among environmentalists—and some of the exaggerations have had disastrous results. For example, the lauded Rachel Carson talked about the dangers of an imminent “silent spring” caused by pesticides, such as DDT. The sensation caused by her report led to the banning of DDT use throughout the world. The problem is that, not only was the danger overblown, but DDT was the only effective killer of the mosquito that bred malaria. Literally millions of children died in Africa, and other Equatorial regions, over the last 40 years because of the DDT ban.

Now, the current debate has changed from cleaning our water and air, and keeping them clean, to protecting the entire planet from man. To be fair, the environmentalists aren’t the first people who’ve argued that man is going to destroy himself and the planet if he isn’t brought to heel, as promoters of Malthusian calculations, Eugenics, and anti-natilism have argued over the last two centuries that the growth of the human population was squeezing the life out of the planet. It’s just that the environmentalists seem to have been embraced by the mainstream of our society in a way that the other loony movements never were.

The current argument goes something like this: the cumulative effect of decades of burning fossil fuels has led to an environmental “tipping point” (ah, another “tipping point”), and further fossil-fuel emissions are leading to drastic changes in the climate that will hasten a new “hot” age when the ice caps melt, the oceans rise, and life on our planet as we know it will disappear. In fact, proponents of this theory argue that their computer models show that these changes have been occurring since the middle of the 1800s, coinciding with the increase burning of fossil-fuels as the Industrial Revolution exploded across the Northern Hemisphere.

Of course many of these same researchers, or their mentors, argued in the late 1970s that fossil fuels were causing “global cooling” evidenced then by very harsh winters, and they recently have been caught discussing in emails how they have to continue manipulating the data to advance their cause. Moreover, they seem to ignore the possibility that the planet is still in the early stages of a natural warming period following several “cold” centuries that ended in the mid-1800s. But, we are supposed to forget all of that now (and ignore the colder winters we've been having lately in the Northern Hemisphere) and embrace the idea of “global warming” or “man-made climate change,” and all of the taxes, bureaucracies, and costs that will come with national and international regulations from the elites who are going to save us—whether we like it or not. I am sorry, but the skeptic in me has to ask: “Does anyone hear Chicken Little chirping?”

Unfortunately, the current rush toward regulations like “cap and trade” started when the Supreme Court added legitimacy to this nonsense a few years ago. In a 5-4 opinion, the Court ruled that the EPA must revisit its decision not to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases. Let’s just look at what the Supreme Court did and the evidence it relied upon, and I think it will become obvious that a review of the “evidence” discussed by the Court’s majority raises more questions than it answers.

To explain an opinion like this is always to oversimplify, but it is important to understand the general reasoning the Court used in order to understand the potential impact of this decision on future regulations. To get to its decision, the majority found that

• the EPA was provided with sufficient evidence of a probability that the theory of global warming is correct (which, by the way, is a lower threshold of probability required for the admission of scientific evidence in a court of law—but that’s a “whole ‘nother” issue);

• there was sufficient evidence of a probability that man-made CO2 emitted in car exhaust contributes to the cause of global warming; and

• a state (in this case, Massachusetts) could sue the EPA to require it to regulate car-emitted CO2 because that state’s coastline could be altered in the future if there is global warming.

The majority then construed the statutory definition of “air pollutants” to include greenhouse gases (which include CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and hydro fluorocarbons). The dissenters filed two dissents: Chief Justice Roberts challenged the state’s right to sue the federal government based on a hypothetical chance that its coastline could someday be lost; while Justice Scalia challenged the merits of the Court’s reasoning.

Three general propositions of the global warming theory were significant to the Court’s majority:

• CO2 is released from the surface and lower atmosphere faster than it is released from the upper atmosphere into space;

• as a result, CO2 accumulates in the upper atmosphere in greater quantities than the amounts being produced in the lower atmosphere at any given time; and

• the present rate of accumulation in the upper atmosphere adversely affects surface climate.

Now, before I go further, let me digress for a moment to discuss the upper atmosphere at issue. It is important to remember that the lower atmosphere is where you and I live, and it contains the air that we breathe. Meanwhile, the upper atmosphere at issue—specifically, the Thermosphere—is the portion of our atmosphere between 60 to 400 miles from the surface of our planet where our satellites and the Space Station orbit the Earth. It is the Thermosphere that traps greenhouse gases, naturally, in order to properly regulate our surface temperature and shield us from the sun’s ultraviolet rays and radiation. The density of the Thermosphere is affected by both its CO2 levels and solar activity, and there appears to be a relationship between those two variables.

Alright…back to the Court’s opinion. Based on the general propositions, the majority considered evidence of increasing levels of CO2 in the upper atmosphere measured since 1959 at an observatory in Hawaii, in comparison with samples of “ancient air” in the lower atmosphere taken from ice core samples in the Antarctic. Although measurements of CO2 in the lower atmosphere, including “ancient air,” had remained “fairly consistent” over time, a comparison of the highest of those measurements ever recorded to recent measurements of the Thermosphere from Hawaii showed that the recent measurements from the Thermosphere were greater than the highest measurements from the “ancient air” on the surface. Relying on this comparison of CO2 measurements, in conjunction with recorded surface temperature changes, the majority found that there was sufficient scientific evidence on which the EPA could determine that a causal link existed between CO2 increases in the upper atmosphere and increases in surface temperatures, so as to require it to regulate car-emitted CO2 as an air pollutant.

Does anybody else see any problems here?

If CO2 emissions have been increasing from cars and industry (and the respiration from an exploding human population has been increasing), than, all things being equal, the measurements in the lower atmosphere should have increased steadily over the last two centuries—rather than remain “fairly consistent”.

Based on the general propositions underlying the theory, how can “fairly consistent” measurements of CO2 on the surface cause an increased accumulation of CO2 in the Thermosphere?

If CO2 in the lower atmosphere has been “fairly consistent” while it has risen in the Thermosphere, the cause of any rise in the Thermosphere could be attributable to factors other than CO2 emissions from Earth, and such potential causes are not being properly addressed by the government scientists or agencies. For example, several organizations and universities in the U.S. and Europe are studying the apparent relationship between increased solar activity, the occurrence of the El Nino Southern Oscillation, and the increase in CO2 in the Thermosphere (which have tended to correlate closely over the last several decades--even more closely than the rise in industrial emissions), but the EPA appears not to be interested in addressing these other potential causes in its regulatory decision-making process. (Moreover, some scientists in the U.S. and Europe, believe that the climate issue is largely irrelevant, and are looking at whether the rising level of CO2 in the Thermosphere is changing the density of that atmosphere to the extent that the ability of our satellites and the Space Station to remain in their controlled orbits is being impacted.)

I don’t pretend to know more than any of these scientists, and I admit that the climate scientists could be right and that all my questions are either irrelevant or based on a misreading of the evidence. In fact, some people I know and trust believe that there is a significant link between man-made CO2 and climate change, especially as CO2 relates to the increase of water vapor in the atmosphere. Moreover, it does make some anecdotal sense that urbanization including the expansion of the footprint of concrete and steel over the surface of the earth over the last century, could have increased the earth’s temperature—at least in urban areas. Our inclination to believe such anecdotal evidence is reinforced by the physical changes to the icecaps, the sea levels, and the land masses, that are consistent with a process of planetary change. But the more I look at this evidence, the more skeptical I get that man is the root cause of the changes we are observing.

Because of this skepticism, I want to raise this issue—we need to all stop and think with some humility about what will happen over the next few decades if the environmentalists are wrong. What if the sky is not falling? What if the Earth is simply in the midst of a general warming period that will last for several centuries?

Here are the potential problems I see:

• We are expanding the role of a federal agency beyond its original statutory mandate, and the government’s competence to regulate.

• We are expanding the role of government exponentially, which could radically change our lives over the next few decades.

• We are increasing significantly and artificially the cost of living, which could significantly lower or slow the standard of living throughout the world over the next century.

• While we focus on regulating all activity creating CO2, what issues won’t we be addressing—like energy independence, national security, and protection of future generations and coastal areas from real long-term climate changes?

But from an even broader perspective, the havoc we may wreak upon the future won’t be just economic, legal, or political—mankind has survived those "dark ages" before. What I am most concerned about is the ultimate “unintended consequence”--we could damage the very planet we think we are saving:

• What if the release of these greenhouse gases periodically has to increase, in order to keep the life-sustaining capacity of the planet in balance as it orbits the sun, and as the shape of that orbit changes over centuries and millennia?

• What if the “consistency” in CO2 measurements while man-made CO2 has increased is actually evidence that man-made production has moderated an otherwise more significant decline in natural CO2 production over the last century?

• How will we know what the proper amount of each gas should be at any given time to keep the planet in some desired, long-term balance?

• How will we ever know when to stop regulating, so that we don’t deprive the atmosphere of enough gas to protect us from the sun?

• Do we really trust man with the power to make these types of decisions?

Man has never displayed the type of wisdom necessary to acquire or properly use this type of information. Won’t man try to keep the Earth in a type of temperate moderation—or in a suspended state as he now knows it—which will make his life happy, rather than allow the natural environmental changes that the planet needs to sustain life?

Could we now be giving in to our deepest vanity--to think we have damaged the world, and now we must correct it by controlling its very essence?

At the very least, with so much going on across the world right now, let’s think this issue through very carefully before we take actions for which our children will pay dearly if we are wrong.

The Middle East—What can we do?

This post originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

I am convinced that our lives inhabit three dimensions of history at the same time: the dimension of our daily lives and decisions; the dimension of the lives of our community, nation and world during the time in which we live; and the dimension of history that started long before we were born and will continue long after we pass. Once in a while, all three dimensions reach a crossroad or tipping point at the same time, and with such force, that literally the entire course of history is susceptible of changing.

With everything we’ve been through over the last few years, it sure seems that we may be careening toward one of those rare moments when everything could change.

For instance, when I saw the news coming from the Middle East over the last few weeks—first, Tunisia, then Lebanon, then Yemen, then Egypt, and now, possibly, Jordan—I began to think that we may (and I stress the word “may”) be seeing a glimpse of a true moment in history when everything is changing: the way we live our daily lives; the structure of our communities, nation and world; and the forces of history that have slowly moved for decades, if not centuries.

If this is happening, how do we make sense of what has started in the Middle East? I don’t pretend to be an expert in this area, and talking heads abound on cable and the internet who are, but I want to share some very general guide-posts with you about how us novices can process what we are seeing and be informed when our politicians and the experts talk about what American policy should be going forward.

Let’s start with the basics—what is the “Middle East”? In many ways we use the term “Middle East” to describe the area of the world containing those nations where the state religion or the culture of the society is dominated by the practice of Islam—with one key exception, Israel. If we use the term “Middle East” in this way, it covers a contiguous region of the Earth running from the Atlantic side of Africa, around the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and across the Indian Ocean to the end of the land masses of Asia and Australia. It is virtually self-contained between the Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude) going east to the International Date line (with the sole exception of Morocco, which lies to the west of the Prime Meridian), and between 15 degrees latitude south of the Equator to 45 degrees latitude north of the Equator.

Ethnically, the region can be divided into a Western region, which is dominated by Arab peoples, but which also includes Kurds, Turks, and some non-Arab African peoples; and an Eastern region, which is made up of many different ethnicities, including Persians, and the many indigenous peoples of Afghanistan, Pakistan, the former Soviet Republics that border those countries, Northern India, Western China, and Indonesia.

Religiously, except for Israel, the nations that comprise this “Middle East” recognize Islam as either a state religion, or as the dominant religion practiced by its people. Many of these nations have adopted Islamic or “Sharia” law, generally or specifically, as the law of the state.

Although the dominance of Islam unites all of the nations of this region (again, except for Israel), no one state has ever governed the entire area at the same time. However, as late as World War I, much of this region was ruled by the Ottoman Empire under a Caliphate, which could be described roughly as the Islamic equivalent of both a feudal King and a Pope. Most of the modern political nation states of this region were created by four events in the 20th Century: the break-up of the Ottoman Empire and the abolition of the Caliphate as part of the negotiated settlement of World War I; the creation of the State of Israel, and the partition of India in the late 1940s; and the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Politically, most of the territory (other than certain non-Arab African states) can be described as being split among the following groups: The secular governments of Turkey, Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo; and the remaining monarchies that were created by the settlement of World War I; those governments run by pan-Arab, nationalist, or Islamist movements, which overthrew some of the monarchies created after World War I; and the governments that arose in Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the former Soviet Republics.

It appears that what we are witnessing is an attempt to dismantle the remnants of the monarchies created after World War I, and the authoritarian regimes that formed the first-generation of nationalist movements after World War II. To put this into perspective, let me digress for a moment.

About 70 years ago, during the early months of our country’s involvement in World War II, FDR sent Wendell Willkie, the 1940 Republican Presidential nominee, on a fact-finding tour of the Britain, the Middle East, Russia and China. After that tour, Willkie wrote an account of his tour and his observations about the current situation and the post-war challenges America would face, entitled One World. In his chapter about his Middle East tour, Willkie discussed the growing discontent with the monarchies that had been imposed on the region and with the continued outside supervision by the European powers, which also led to a leeriness of embracing the U.S. because of its close ties to the occupying European powers. He also discussed the emerging nationalist sentiments that were driving many people opposed to the monarchies and continued British and French occupation to support Germany. Toward the end of the chapter, he made the following observation:

…these newly awakened people will be followers of some extremist leader in this generation if their new hunger for education and opportunity for a release from old restrictive religious and governmental practice is not met by their own rulers and their foreign overlords. The veil, the fez, the sickness, the filth, the lack of education and modern industrial development, the arbitrariness of government, all commingled in their minds to represent a past imposed upon them by a combination of forces within their own society and the self-interest of foreign domination.

The question that Willkie kept hearing was “which side will Americans take when the people finally seek change: the side of the foreign and domestic overlords; or the side of the people?” He foresaw that the consequence of inaction or the wrong choice would be a rise of extremist leaders that would continue to impede the progress of the people of the region.

Alas, what Willkie foresaw came to pass. Either the monarchies continued with our support, or they were overthrown by extremists. The first wave of extremists were pan-Arabists in Egypt, Syria and Iraq, whose leaders had been aligned with Germany during World War II. Mubarak is the third leader from Nasser’s pan-Arab movement, which has controlled Egypt since it overthrew the monarchy in 1952. In Jordan, where protests have just led to the dismissal of the Cabinet, the King is one of the last monarchs left from the monarchies imposed after World War I.

So, what appears to be happening now is an attempt to overthrow remnants of either the monarchies, or the first wave of pan-Arab extremists who succeeded them. Unfortunately for our interests, though, the only indigenous organizations capable of assuming political power appear to be the second wave of extremists who have been waiting in the wings. This second wave of extremists are the Sunni and Shiite Islamists that have terrorized the region since the late 1970s, and which now control all or some of Iran, Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their strength also is reflected by the moves that the first-wave extremists in Syria (the Baathists) have made to survive by forging an alliance with Iran.

Now engraft on to this whole mess the geopolitical social issues of

• Oil;
• the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians;
• the proliferation of nuclear technology and weapons in the region;
• international terrorism spawned from failed nation states and non-state organizations in the region;
• our continued military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan;
• our debt being held, in part, by sovereign funds of some of the remaining monarchies in the region; and
• the growing use of the cable TV, internet and social media;

and we can see that the U.S. has very few good choices that it can make that will directly lead to a future for the people of this region free of extremist leaders, who will continue to impede freedom, education and opportunity.

But, we have to start somewhere, sometime to heed the advice that Wendell Willkie gave to America 70 years ago—we need to find a way to be on the side of the dreams of people of this region for freedom, education, and opportunity, rather than being perceived as siding with their monarchs or their extremists. We can not impose freedom, education, and opportunity like we tried in Iraq, and like foreign powers tried, to one degree or another, for centuries. Instead, we need to find a way through a mixture of trade, engagement, and security to help the people of that region build their own future.

I don’t know what the mix of right choices should be for this country right now, but I do know that if we are looking at one of those rare moments in history when everything changes and we make the wrong choices, the happiness and security of generations could be in peril.

On that note, I’ll end this post with a quote from John Adams that has kept me awake at night at times over the last 10 years.

Not long after September 11th, 2001, I was reading my self to sleep one night with David McCullough’s John Adams, when I started a short passage about the Barbary Pirates. McCullough recounted an episode that occurred shortly after Adams became Ambassador to Great Britain in 1785. At that time American shipping was being harassed by the pirates loyal to the Barbary States, and Adams was instructed to negotiate with their representatives. Adams engaged in discussions with the envoy of the Sultan of Tripoli, including a visit to the envoy’s home one evening in London. During their fireside discussion, the Sultan’s envoy told Adams that a state of war existed between America and Tripoli. This assertion took Adams by surprise, asking “how this could be, given there had been no injury, insult, or provocation of either side.” The next day the envoy visited Adams and told him that if a treaty were delayed, “a war between Christian and Christian was mild, prisoners were treated with humanity; but, warned His Excellency, a war between Muslim and Christian could be horrible.” In 1787, the United States signed a treaty with Morocco and paid protection money to the Barbary States to avert war, for, as Adams told Jefferson at the time, “[w]e ought not fight them at all, unless we determine to fight them forever.”

Whatever choices we make, we can not bequeath to our children a perpetual war with the Middle East.