This Sunday, in Lancaster, there’s going to be a gun exhibit on display “The Golden Age of an American Art Form: The Lancaster Long Rifle.” It’s going to be a yearlong exhibit. You can follow through for a slide show of pictures. I may have to go see this.
Category: Politics
Oh, Shit. It’s Going to be Mitt
By the sheer force of the man’s will to not lose, it seems it will be happening for Mitt Romney. I’ll be honest with you all, I was more willing to accept McCain, and heading into the silly season with McCain as the headliner was hard enough. My only comfort is that the alternative is Rick Santorum. Like I said previously, I’ll take the guy with no convictions over the guy with Rick Santorum’s convictions, or Obama’s convictions.
Clayton Cramer took part in the Idaho caucuses. I am not at all meaning to demean Clayton’s choice here, because we all ultimately have to make our compromises. If Santorum was the nominee, I’d vote for him over Obama. I wouldn’t like it, but Santorum would put nominees on the court who would strengthen Heller and McDonald. That’ll give me what I want right now, and I can leave the rest for future generations.
I think the caucus system has something going for it, because only the motivated are going to participate. It ultimately enforces compromises. I’d ideally like to see more caucuses going into the wee hours. This is a very personal, and local form of politics our country probably needs to see more of. In some ways I find it preferable than the political parties hijacking the election apparatus of the state, and giving any fool with a voter registration a say.
How do you feel about the not-so-super Tuesday results? How do you feel that this sorry lot is the best we can throw against the sorry lot of the Obama Administration, after people put so much hope in the tea party movement? Is this 1996 all over again? I don’t actually think so, because there’s a fundamental truth that the country is running out of other people’s money. What I’m not sure of, is whether this end result is going to be disaster.
The Shocking News for Super Tuesday
It’s not the fact that Mitt took Ohio. It’s not the fact that Dennis Kucinich finally lost his seat. It’s that in a Democratic primary with no serious challengers, Oklahoma Democrats made clear that they are not too fond of the President right now.
President Barack Obama collected the most votes in the Oklahoma Democratic primary, but lost in 15 counties.
With more than 90 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday, Obama won 55 percent of the vote. Four other candidates combined for 45 percent of the vote… (emphasis added)
In fact, this will result in the first non-Obama delegate to the Democratic convention awarded this year.
Let’s look at that again. These are Democrats. Nearly half of them wanted to vote for random dudes who got on the ballot for kicks than wanted to vote for the incumbent Democratic president. I love my home state. Even Sebastian said, “Yay Oklahoma!”
Ultimately, Obama’s team will ignore this since he will never have a shot at winning Oklahoma in the general. It’s the only state that went more red in 2008 because they didn’t like the guy with no real record back then, either. But, it does say something about the trouble a 50-state strategy could be for Obama this year.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the swing states this year. In 2008, the “excitement” had a damper put on it when Democratic canvassers from New York ripped out and tore up signs for any GOP candidates they recognized in our neighborhood. Considering 2010 drove people who never previously had signs out for elections to post really big signs for Republicans, our neighborhood could require a lot more time to “walk” for those folks.
Why Libertarians Get No Play
An ongoing debate happening over at Tam’s on the two parties being relatively the same. A commenter noted:
If that were true, it would be nice. Unfortunately, in America, one party believes in governmental regulation and government solutions to problems, and the other believes in governmental regulation and government solutions to problems. The only difference between the parties is which problems they want government to solve.
This is pretty much true. I lean GOP not because they are the party of liberty, but because, on balance, the places they want to take government which I don’t approve of have more Constitutional protections than where the Democrats would like to take the country. For instance, there’s more protection for abortion rights in this country than gun rights, and I think all but the most conservative courts would be wary of upsetting that apple cart.
So why don’t small government, libertarian ideas get any real play in the GOP? I think there’s a few reasons for that. One of the biggest is the fact that people with libertarian inclinations are generally horrified by the idea of running for office. Most prefer to make an honest living. I don’t mean that to be a joke about politicians, but I really do think that’s  prime reasons a lot of libertarian leaning people don’t want to run. Politicians tend to come from political families, and tend to start in lower political offices before making a run for higher office. How many libertarianism people do you know who’d be interested in running for dog catcher? Or Mayor? Or State Representative? Let’s get more concrete. How many of them are going to be comfortable doing the meat and potatoes of politics? Sticking your hand out and getting people to donate to help elect you? Attending rallies with lots of people cheering your name? Generally speaking, you need a bit of a narcissistic streak, and few libertarian types have that. Even if you found a candidate that did, a lot of others would be turned off by it.
The second reason is, for any movement to be successful, you need people who are fanatical and passionate about it beyond all reason. You need people who are willing to go deep into the game. You also need a lot of people who are more moderate, and less engaged with the issue, but are nonetheless sympathetic, who are willing to go along with the fanatics. Gun owners have that. The religious right has that. Libertarians do not. Libertarians spend quite a lot of time arguing over what is and what isn’t a libertarian, and defining people out of the movement if they are insufficiently ideologically sound. Theya re not about building coalitions of mostly likeminded people. This is a big reason that libertarian ideology tops out in the single digits of voters. The vast majority of voters, even ones with libertarian ideological sympathies, are not going to have a philosophically coherent set of beliefs, and you have to carry those people if you want to be a player in coalition politics, and at least see some of your ideas adopted.
Neither party are monolithic entities. There aren’t smoked filled rooms where candidates are picked anymore. Candidates are voted on by the members of the party (in closed primary and caucus states) and by the people at large (in open primary states). They are made up of coalitions of interests, and the candidates who come out of the process are a result of struggles between the coalitions. Mitt Romney is currently the front runner, in my opinion, because he’s a good fundraiser and doesn’t generally scare anyone that much, even if no one’s really excited about him. The best libertarians have been able to push to the top is Ron Paul, who’s gotten to the top, not because he’s a good candidate, but because he’s the only libertarian that’s ever been elected to federal office. He’s not going to win because he can’t bring moderate libertarians, or anyone else in the coalition, along for the ride; he’s got one too many kooky, quirky things about him. If libertarians are going to get any play, they are going to have to start fronting candidates who can carry that ideology, and surrender the notion that if the person isn’t ideologically pure, he’s not worth getting behind. I’m not saying that has to be someone like Romney, because Romney is far from ideal, but I’ll get behind Romney if he’s the nominee, because I think he’ll take the country to hell in a handbasket slower than Obama will, and might even help with a few things here and there. But the idea is to slow things down enough to give politics time to change, hopefully in our favor. Will they? Probably not, but I don’t think libertarians will have too many factors to blame other than themselves. With some polls showing libertarian leaning individuals representing about 1/3rd of the voting population, a winning coalition that includes libertarians should be possible.
Enabling Leviathan
There are always a lot of ideas floating around out there, as to how to rein in an out of control government. You’ll hear solutions, like going back to Senators being appointed by state legislatures, rather than being elected, which I’m not sure would really fix much. But I think the enablement of the modern state really boils down to only a few things.
One of the big issues is the Courts moving to very loosely interpret the non-delegation doctrine. Non-delegation essentially means that Congress can’t assign its legislative responsibility to other bodies. For instance, in a post I did this weekend, I mentioned how Obama could turn a lot of gun owners into criminals overnight. Under a strict interpretation of non-delegation, this wouldn’t be possible. The realm in which administrative law could operate would be very narrow, and laws which only ambiguously described powers of an agency wouldn’t be unconstitutional. I think many liberty-minded people tend to overlook the importance of the non-delegation doctrine in beating back the leviathan state.
The second area is more familiar, in that the courts have granted Congress a very broad power under the Necessary and Proper clause. For instance, in Raich, the medical marijuana case, the court ruled that it was within Congress’ power to prohibit marijuana in the stream of interstate commerce, and that it was also necessary and proper, in order to preserve Congress’ regulation of the national market, to reach into strictly intrastate activity.  It’s always seemed to me the courts pay a lot of attention to the “Necessary” components of “Necessary and Proper,” and not a whole lot of attention to the latter. I think to re-invigorate  liberty, it might be necessary, and proper, I might add, for the courts to say that Congressional actions may be necessary, but it surely isn’t proper. This could be interesting as the Court examines Obamacare.
I think if you could reform both these doctrines, it would go quite a long ways to getting the federal government out of every sphere of public, and sometimes private life. There are certainly many other constitutional insults one could mention, but if I had to pick two, these would be my choices. I think that could be important, if sympathetic individuals decide that amending the Constitution is the only way to achieve this. I’m starting to believe that folks who love liberty shouldn’t be afraid to use the amendment process. The progressives certainly were not afraid of it, and achieved much through the process.
Primary Day
We’re watching the results from Michigan come in, and Mitt or Rick, I can’t say it matters either way. I dislike both of them for different reasons, but to be honest, if it comes down to a race between Santorum and Romney, I’m going with Romney. At this point there’s not anyone I really like in the race, and I’ll take someone with no convictions over someone with the wrong convictions (like sticking your nose into everyone’s bedrooms).
In other news, if Tim Pawlenty isn’t kicking himself for dropping out, he ought to be. If he’s not, I’ll be happy to kick him. He’s is not perfect either, but he’s a sight better than either of these two. Bitter got to speak with Governor Pawlenty at the kickoff for Sportsmen for McCain back in 2008, and was impressed with him. Start speaking to a lot of politicians about our issues, and you get platitudes like this, because they don’t really care about, or understand the issue, except that they don’t want to anger gun owners, and would like their votes. They just know the basic 2A talking points, and hope that’s all you know too. Pawlenty knew the issue well, and could speak favorably on a number of topics important to gun owners, including carry rights. But no use concerning ourselves about what could have been… back to reality.
Arrested without Evidence over Accusation of Gun Ownership
There’s a story out of Canada about a guy who was arrested and told by officers that he was being charged with possession of a firearm. Normally, you would expect this to happen after they found someone in possession of a firearm.
He was given an attorney who was informed of the charges and even had a date set with a judge for a bail hearing for this charge. At no point did he ever possess a firearm, but they kept him locked up and moved forward with the charges.
With his wife hauled down to the station and his children taken in for questioning by the relevant agency for possible endangerment issues, he signed a document that allowed police to search his home. They did and there was still no firearm found in his possession. Finally, they let him go free.
The evidence seems to come from a he said/she said scenario because his 4-year-old daughter drew a picture of a firearm and said the guy holding it was her daddy who would fight off bad guys and monsters. Yes, a child who thinks monsters are real was used as evidence for the arrest instead of, you know, actual possession of a firearm.
Sebastian and I were talking about this, and it’s not actually that easy to pinpoint where things broke down beyond what seems to be an irrational fear of firearms and the mandate to report everything to authorities before anyone stops to ask logical questions.
Blame the police? They definitely take the blame for actually arresting the guy without question, but I don’t know the standards of arresting people in Canada.
Blame the social services workers who called police? They have to report it to them if they think a crime may have happened. What if they were told the little girl was drawing graphic scenes of her father killing “bad guys” that came along with a story of how he does this around her? If they didn’t see the drawing yet or actually overhear the interaction with the teacher, then that can sound pretty damn bad and very criminal in nature.
Blame the principal who called the social services workers who were then required to call police? What if she was told something similar to what I outline for the social services worker? Or, maybe it is her fault for misrepresenting what the teacher told her?
Ultimately, I do think that someone should have stopped the process and really inquired just what the hell actually happened in regards to the drawing and how the teacher asked questions about it. However, depending on how stories are passed along, concerns about a potential crime could continue to be blown way out of proportion. Ever played a game of telephone? Yeah, same thing, only with real lives on the line.
But, when we have a bunch of bureaucrats who believe they are there to do good no matter what impact it might have on innocent people and who fear not following an exact protocol that makes no accommodation for stopping to ask questions, then things like this will happen more often regardless of the country. At some point, we have to demand accountability from those who allow these things to get out of hand. Unfortunately, that’s not something that’s easy to do, especially with many protections in place for staff in these various jobs.
Not Something You See Every Day
Some Greek Entrepreneurs look upon the FDA as a model of efficiency, after trying to set up an olive business in Greece. Their government wanted chest X-rays and stool samples from all the company shareholders.
No wonder the country is broke and no one works.
Red Jersey?
Well, it’s really looking more purplish, but hey, this is New Jersey:
But thanks to the new map, the [Democratic] party will likely lose its current edge in the House delegation. Unless Democrats can pick off a seat, the new makeup will likely be six Republicans and six Democrats in 2013.
A split delegation for New Jersey? Wow. This is good for the state. If anyone wants to see the end result of continuous, long-running one party dominance, one need look no further than California. New Jersey has at least made it past the first stage of the compulsive spender, which is accepting there is a problem. California is still in denial.
h/t Instapundit
The PA Legislative Strategy
Following up on the last post, I think the real importance of HB1523, which will give real teeth to preemption in Pennsylvania, is that it shuts down one avenue MAIG can use to attack us, namely creating momentum for gun control by getting cities and towns to buck preemption. MAIG has been very smart strategically, or at the least very lucky in how they chose to approach the problem.
MAIG’s strategy is actually somewhat of a trap. It would spread NRA very thin to have to get involved in tens of thousands of local races, in order to make a serious effort to get rid of MAIG mayors. NRA has tried some cheap, half-hearted efforts to urge members to get their mayors to quit, but have, so far, and wisely in my opinion, resisted full blown and expensive campaigns against them. The smart counter-strategy to MAIG is to play whack-a-mole with the Mayors; when they run for higher office, swing the mallet on their political ambitions; make MAIG membership a liability for higher office. When MAIG mayors come into the arena where NRA knows how to play the game well, that’s when we whack the mole.
But using small towns and Mayors as pawns in the chess game MAIG is playing was a brilliant calculation, and if it was a deliberate decision on the part of Mayor Bloomberg, I have to hand it to him for the evil genius of it. That strategy also enabled pushing gun control from the local communities up, as long as there wasn’t any consequence to bucking preemption. But NRA, able to wield significant power in most state houses, can counter MAIGs strategy by shutting down this avenue to Bloomberg.
This is the 10,000 foot view of why I think HB1523 needs to be the top legislative priority we have this year. As much as we might like to see some other things as gun owners, from a strategic point of view, HB1523 will counter a major components of MAIG’s strategy, and prevent them from growing as a threat to the Second Amendment.