Investors Business Daily has a pro-Hatch propaganda piece up that deserves a few tweaks.

First, the headline says that republicans must gain control of Congress for the economy to recover. Do we really need to remind everyone that Republicans had almost uninterrupted control of Congress from 1995 to 2007. Had Republicans retained control of Congress beyond 2007 does anyone really believe the economy would not still have gone into the great recession?

Second, IBD claims that re-electing Orrin Hatch is crucial if Republicans regain control because “Orrin Hatch will be the first genuine free-market conservative to {become chairman of the Senate Finance Committee}.” Yes, the same Orrin Hatch who cosponsored PIPA until it was politically untenable and wanted to blow up the computers of anyone with pirated software while his own website was powered by an unlicensed copy of software is now “a genuine free-market conservative.” The author, Ernest Christian, claims that all the prior chairmen of the committee whom he had worked with were either liberals or moderates. I’ll take him at his word on that but his description of moderates as “too often … unwilling to make a clear-cut choice between the free-market principles of conservatives and the big-government desires of liberals” is perfectly descriptive of Hatch. The fact that Mr. Christian has been working with every SFC chair since 1970 shows what is really going on here – it’s one old political dog going to bat for another.

For those who want to see the economy truly recover there is only one answer – we need a new generation of conservatives in Washington and we need enough of them there to change the way the rest of the Republicans act in office. As soon as we say “new generation” you know that Orrin Hatch will never fit that bill – he’s as entrenched an incumbent as you’ll ever find.

The other day I was sitting on a bus with time to let my mind wander. I was thinking about our presidential campaign season and the ideas being promoted by our current candidates – including our current president – when I found myself considering what kind of a president I think our nation needs – specifically I began to formulate what ideas he would offer in seeking the presidency. I decided to write up the platform ideas that came to mind. I’d love to hear what others think of this. I have written this in the first person not because I claim to be this candidate but because I would expect a candidate to articulate the platform from a first-person perspective.

1. Any budget proposal that I submit will not exceed actual tax revenues for the previous year. Any budget bill that I sign will be paid for, either because Congress has passed a budget that does not exceed the tax revenues for the previous year or because they have clearly raised the necessary taxes as part of the bill to pay for any spending over the amount of taxes collected in the preceding fiscal year.
2. I will not attempt to expand the powers of the presidency. I will stick to my constitutional duties. I will refrain from using the extra-constitutional powers that have previously been granted to the president, such as the ability to indefinitely detain American citizens without trial, and request that Congress officially revoke those powers from me and future presidents.
3. I will insist that Congress fulfill their constitutional duties. One major part of Congress fulfilling their duties is that I will order all regulatory agencies to enforce only those things that Congress has passed into law and not to enforce regulations created by regulatory agencies based laws passed by congress where those regulations were not specified in the bill. I will not sign bills in which Congress leaves the authority to specify particular regulations to other bodies such as regulatory agencies.
4. I will not sign any bill into law, nor allow any bill to become law without my signature, unless it has been made available for public review and comment for a total of no less than seven days prior to becoming law. The seven days counts only the time after the final version of the bill is made available. That time may include any combination of time before the bill is passed by Congress and time after the bill has been passed by Congress. In other words, Congress may choose to pass bills without allowing seven days for public input but the only way I would act on a bill without seven days of public input would be to veto the bill. I will also not sign any bill into law unless I have had time to read the bill in full.
5. As commander-in-chief of our military I will seek to maximize our national defense. The emphasis there is on the words “national” and “defense” – all military spending and activity will be focused on defending our nation in the most effective ways possible. We will seek to improve our defensive abilities wherever possible. If the use of military force ever becomes necessary under my watch I will act decisively with the intent to end the conflict as quickly and effectively as possible.
6. I will not run a campaign for a second term. I will simply do my job as President. My campaigning will not exceed participation in scheduled debates and defending myself against any false accusations that are made by those who hope to replace me. If that is not enough to win me a second term then I do not deserve a second term.

As I considered the ideas that I wrote I asked myself whether any of the current candidates would ever articulate a platform like this. My conclusion was that none of them would. I suspect that some Ron Paul supporters would argue that Dr. Paul runs a platform not unlike this. I’ll admit that he comes the closest but I am still not sure that what he would do fully correlates to what I think we need in a president – which may indicate that I have not fully fleshed it out above. Either way – I’d love to hear thoughts on the platform I have outlined.

I’m a big fan of the CATO Institute and their perspective on constitutional government but no matter how much I may generally agree with them, that cannot give them a free pass to use use absolutely terrible logic to promote a position. You’ll have to take my word for it that I would dislike the use of terrible logic to promote a position I agree with but in this case Robert Levy uses this terrible logic in support of one of the worst ideas ever promoted in this nation (in my opinion – I recognize that is very subjective). With that introduction – lets break down the flawed logic in Marriage equality: religious freedom, federalism, and judicial activism.

Levy addresses what he calls “three jurisprudential issues that are central to the debate over same-sex marriage: religious freedom, federalism, and judicial activism.” Unfortunately those three jurisprudential issues are not the core of the debate over same-sex marriage. They are one step removed from the core of the debate but they are the focus of the legal wrangling because the proponents of same-sex marriage have declared the debate of the core issue, namely whether same-sex marriage is beneficial for society, to be resolved in the affirmative. This is a critical re-framing of the issue because if that core issue were truly resolved in the affirmative it becomes much easier to make the arguments in these satellite issues and thus produce the intended legal outcome for proponents.

In addressing the issue of religious freedom Levy makes his first major logical mistake with his statement that “the right to same-sex marriage is not a constraint on religious beliefs or practices.” The mistake is that this statement assumes that there is a right to same-sex marriage – an assumption that he has never even attempted to justify. The logically correct statement, in the absence of a justification for the assumption, would have been “a right to same-sex marriage would not be a constraint on religious beliefs or practices.” That statement is logically correct and would make the rest of his argument stand (waiting for some valid proof that such a right actually exists). It is true that a right to same-sex marriage need not constrain religious belief or practices but just because that is true does not provide evidence that such a right actually exists. He makes the same mistake again in his final statement that “Proposition 8, because it violates the Equal Protection Clause, cannot be allowed to stand regardless how large the majority that voted in favor.” Proposition 8 only violates the Equal Protection Clause if there is a fundamental right to marriage – which he obviously believes. The fact is that there is no right to same-sex marriage. In fact there is no right to heterosexual marriage. The fact that government recognizes any marriages is strictly extra-Constitutional. It could be argued that government should not recognize any marriages just as well as it could be argued that government should recognize any form of marriage, but it cannot be argued that there is a fundamental right to marriage.

Levy’s next logical mistake is in his argument on federalism. He correctly states that “States may not discriminate, without justification, by recognizing heterosexual but not homosexual marriages.” When he then attempts to prove that  they have no justification for this discrimination between heterosexual and homosexual relationships he makes the mistake of arguing based on the margins of the statistical norms.

No justification has been shown.  How about procreation?  No.  Infertile persons are permitted to marry even though they cannot procreate.  Child rearing?  No.  Studies show that children do just as well when raised by same-sex parents.  Promoting traditional marriage?  No.  Allowing gay marriages does not deter heterosexual marriages.  Conserving government resources?  No.  The Congressional Budget Office found that recognizing same-sex marriages would save money.  We’ll have fewer children in state institutions, lower divorce rates, and less promiscuity.

All of those statements sound true. Of course we do recognize the marriages of those who are infertile but it masks a fundamental difference between heterosexual and homosexual unions. I don’t have the statistics but I would be surprised if anything less than 80% of heterosexual unions included the raising of children as a central facet of the relationship at one time or another. Either they are raising children, or they have, or they intend to. Few heterosexual couples choose to get married unless they expect to raise children together as part of that relationship On the other hand, I would be even more surprised if more than 5% of homosexual couples ever expect that raising children will be a central feature of their relationship.

The unnamed studies he refers to showing that children raised by homosexual couples do just as well necessarily have a very small sample size and can hardly be considered a sound basis for making widespread social alterations through public policy.

While it is theoretically true that allowing same-sex marriages does not deter heterosexual marriages there are studies showing that the marriage rate in societies that allow homosexual marriage fall much further than the marriage rates in societies that recognize only heterosexual marriages.

Finally, the argument that “{t}he Congressional Budget Office found that recognizing same-sex marriages would save money.  We’ll have fewer children in state institutions, lower divorce rates, and less promiscuity” is complete hot air. Not that the Congressional Budget Office has no such finding – I have no doubt that they have exactly such a finding. The problem is again that there is no reasonable sample size to draw such a conclusion. The conclusion is based on assumptions which are nothing more than conjecture and, like some of the critical assumptions under-girding the apocalyptic fantasies that are promoted by global warming evangelists, those assumptions would doubtless prove fatally flawed if truly tested in the laboratory of reality.

The central questions are what reason we have to recognize and support marriage in society and whether recognizing same-sex marriage would be similarly beneficial to society. If recognizing marriages is only a matter of convention then it should be done away. If there are benefits then the only reason that we should provide any recognition or support for same-sex unions is if they provide like benefits to society. If we really want to lean on the Equal Protection Clause here the way to do it would be to remove benefits or add penalties for those who claim marriage (heterosexual or otherwise) and then avoid those aspects of marriage that we have deemed beneficial. For example, if we deem stability to be one of the benefits of marriage that deserve government support we could penalize those who seek divorce within a specified time frame. That would be a good step backward.

Those who worry about eroding heterosexual marriage recognize that what passes for marriage today is only a shadow of the institution that has formed the foundation of civil society for all of recorded history. Those who have done their homework generally recognize that the erosion of marriage to today’s 50% divorce rates really took off when we removed the barriers to the dissolution of marriages. If proponents of same-sex marriage would like to use sound logic, or would like to argue in favor of granting benefits to same-sex couples that do participate in the benefits (such as social stability and child-rearing) that give us reason to support heterosexual marriage, or even if they would like to argue in favor of penalizing heterosexual married couples who do not provide any benefits more than the average same-sex couple we should be happy to entertain their perspectives and try to ensure that all citizens are treated equally before the law. So long as they insist on trying to change the law simply because there are some exceptions, or simply because we have already badly damaged the institution of marriage there is no reason to budge from our unequivocal support for only the union of man and woman.

I’ve been thinking about the massive disconnect between the abysmal ratings that Congress enjoys (8% approval I recently read) and the virtual invincibility of Congressional incumbents (incumbents consistently win 90% of the elections where they seek reelection).

I realized that the apparent disconnect was not as stark as it first appeared (11 out of 12 disapproving of Congress while 9 of 10 chose to reelect their Congressional representatives). The reality is that eleven out of twelve people people disapprove of Congress but only five out of twelve vote for someone new when given their current member of Congress as an option.

The fact that six out of twelve voters disapprove of Congress and yet they consistently vote the same people back to represent them over and over again is evidence of a colossal failure on the part of the voters of this nation. They fail to recognize that Congress is working exactly as designed given the input they provide at the polls in November of each even year.

photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Two years into his bid for re-election (yes, he has already been in obvious campaign mode for two years), in a recent tweet Orrin Hatch invited people to let him know if he was on the right track. My tweet length response was that he could not get on the right track unless he were to publicly admit to the errors in his past voting record. Upon further reflection I have a very non-tweet-length reply as I realized that, at least for me personally, that may not be enough.

Anyone who has been in office for 34 years will have votes in that time which should have been different. Anyone who has been alive for 34 years will have grown and changed within the last 34 years of their life. In other words, I would not expect a pristine record from anyone in Hatch’s position. I don’t consider seniority to be an insurmountable obstacle any more than I consider it sufficient reason to grant him another six years. To mitigate such a long tenure, I will only consider Hatch’s last two terms and pretend that his first 24 years in office were impeccable.

The first part of Hatch’s insurmountable obstacle is based on the consideration of how many of the problems our nation currently faces either originated during his last two terms or have grown substantially in his last two terms. The answer is, virtually all of them. That means that he must be able to account for what he has been able to do to mitigate any of the current issues while he was in office and they were growing. Worse than that, for one of those two terms his party had control of the executive branch and both houses of Congress. He would need to demonstrate how he opposed the choices they made which have contributed to our current predicament. Unfortunately for him, he hasn’t got a leg to stand on here. In all that time he spent his energy trying to convince anyone who was concerned with the direction of the country that what the federal government was doing was the right thing. Hatch’s record showed no signs of improvement when Democrats took control of the House in 2006. It has shown some hint of improvement after Obama became president but how are we to trust that his opposition to ill-advised policies of the new president were based on principle rather than on the fact of the president being in the opposing party?

This first part of his problem would be somewhat mitigated if Hatch were to do as I suggested in my tweeted response and publicly admit to the glaring mistakes in his voting record and say unequivocally that given the opportunity he would vote differently if he could do it over again. The best I would expect to see from candidate Hatch would be for him to duck and cover like Bennett did by claiming that they did the best they could with the information at hand at the time.

The second part of Hatch’s insurmountable problem is even more damning to his chances for re-election than the first part. Even if he were to admit to being part of the problem as our nation’s challenges were increasing over his two most recent terms in office he would then have to convince me (and other voters) that not only had he come to see the light now but that there was some safeguard in place that would give us some assurance that he would not bend to the political winds of the day the next time the Republican party got drastically off course. That’s a very real concern because I don’t believe that the party is on course particularly right now. I think they see how the political winds are blowing against much of what they have been doing and are riding the fact that those winds are also blowing against the actions of Democrats who currently wield the bulk of political power. Once the power is back in their hands as a party I see no assurance that the Republicans as a party would not step right back into their “anyone who disagrees with us is un-American” mindset of the recent past.

Heading into this 2012 election cycle I have no doubt that Hatch’s voting record and rhetoric will be even better than it was throughout the 2010 election cycle when he was not up for re-election but could already see the political tides against him. Regardless of how good his voting record is leading up to November 2012 I see very little chance that he could assuage my concerns relating to his lack of reliability in supporting principles of liberty. That leaves the extremely slim possibility of his not being challenged for the Republican nomination as his best hope for re-election in 2012

Laura and I have been talking about what we can do in response to the horrendous new TSA procedures. Inspired by Connor and Jesse I took a first step by sending this letter:

To Whom It May Concern,

I have been appalled at the new security procedures being implemented by the TSA. I don’t consider myself a particularly frequent flyer but I have personally flown twelve times in the last nine years (usually with at least one family member flying with me) and I was planning flights to New York and Orlando next year for both personal and business purposes but after these latest changes in procedure I have determined that I will not take any further flights for any reason. I will avoid business travel that cannot be done on the ground and I see no reason to spend my money so that myself, my wife, or any of my children can be subjected to the full body image machines or the enhanced pat-downs that are now standard procedure by the TSA.

These new “security procedures” are all the more outrageous and intollerable because as far as I am aware passenger screenings have never stopped a single incident of someone trying to interfere with the normal operations of a flight. All such incidents have either been stopped before the would-be criminals approached the passenger screening area or else after they had successfully navigated the passenger screening procedures and boarded the plane.

I refuse to teach my children that nothing we have taught them regarding the sacredness of personal space – especially with regards to strangers – applies when they are inside an airport or when the stranger in question is wearing a uniform. Although others travel much more than I do, I will avoid all public air travel wherever possible and teach my six children to do the same so long as such degrading and unreasonable procedures are in place.

David Miller
Bountiful, Utah

While we will pass on your concerns to the TSA in our routine discussions, we suggest that you also comment directly to TSA – they have a moderated blog on these very subjects, which can be found at:

Enhanced Pat Down: http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/11/new-tsa-pat-down-procedures.html

?Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) Scanner: http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/11/white-house-blog-backscatter-back-story.html

photo credit: melanzane1013

Lately I have been studying the Old Testament more closely than I ever have before and finding some hidden gems there. I am currently in Leviticus which I had remembered as nothing but heave offerings, wave offerings, burnt offerings, sin offerings, and instructions on where to burn “the fat that is above the caul.”

In Leviticus 19 I was surprised to find the answer to the one area of immigration policy over which my mind was not already completely settled – namely the issue of what approach we should take with regard to illegal immigrants who, aside from their immigration status, are decent members of society (which is almost certainly the majority of them). It is an issue that did not seem particularly important to me until some people began to try using immigration as a stumbling block for the LDS church by suggesting that local church leaders should be turning in members who they knew were living in the United States illegally.

Anyone reading the title of this post might have first assumed that the old testament approach to illegal immigration would be stoning – they would be wrong.

The Israelites are told directly in Leviticus 19:33-34 that “if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex (or oppress) him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself.”

As I had been reading that chapter the persistent thought in my mind had been, “How is this applicable in our times?” When I read verse 33 it was easy to conclude that we should treat immigrants decently even if they were here illegally. Of course we should prosecute them for real crimes against others (as we should for all people regardless of their legal status here) but simply being here illegally does not constitute such a crime.

Some will argue that illegal immigrants inherently steal resources from legal residents but in making that argument they always admit to breaking one of two other instructions from this chapter. Sometimes the argument is that we have left no resources whereby they can subsist throught their own labor as the Lord commands in verse 9 that we should not reap the corners or glean our fields but rather leave these for the poor and the stranger.

More often the argument is that through our social safety net we have shown undue favoritism to the poor whereby they can subsist off the labor of others without relying on their own efforts in direct violation of the instruction in verse 15.

Perhaps it would be better to say that this is the case for tellling “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” After months and months of watching the various arguments for and against Proposition 8 in California – which would define marriage as being between a man and a woman – I finally spoke up. I could no longer sit silent while people on both sides of the debate obscured the truth of what was to be decided.

The way this is the case for telling the truth is that one side received all the benefit as both sides argued about related obscurities that were all false to one degree or another. Those opposing Prop. 8 claim that the measure was designed to institutionalize discrimination. They benefit from this because of the emotional reaction that good people have to the idea of discrimination. When the proponents of Prop. 8 focus their arguments on the secondary effects of legalizing gay marriage, using fear as their tool in place of truth the opponents can easily counter with the idea that the repurcussions of this action will not have a ripple effect citing the fact that gay marriage has already been legal for months (and naturally within those few months we would already be seeing the side effects of such a monumental social change as redefining the primary unit of society).

If the advocates for Prop. 8 would stick to publishing the truth of their position and defending themselves accurately against the false claims of discrimination their opponents would not be able to obscure the real issue as effectively as they have been able to do. The voters would be left to decide on the issue of whether marriage is a construct of man or something more eternal in nature. If the issue were decided based on the real argument then it would almost not matter the outcome of the vote – the people would be declaring where they stand on the issue and the debate would serve as an opportunity to teach the truth.

As it stands, the debate has circled around the central issue and been hijacked by half-truths and high emotions. The people of California will decide the issues based on viceral reactions rather than honest or clear belief. Many will make a choice that they honestly do not understand and cannot be fully held accountable for that choice which means the issue will undoubtedly be revisited without the benefit of so many people already understanding what it being decided.

Now that both running mates have been announced I can share my reactions. In both cases I think that the candidate made a good pick for their individual positions. I have previously written positively about both of the running mates. I said that Sarah Palin, with a record of standing up to politics as usual, was the kind of candidate I would like to back (even though she was not among the presidential candidates). I said that Joe Biden had proposals that showed pragmatism and promise of rational thought.

Biden offers an image of experience for Obama. Palin offers an image of youth and augments the faded image of independent thinking that McCain once had. Some people complain that Palin is too inexperienced to be in line to succeed an aging president – that line of reasoning backfires on the Democrats since Biden is not at the top of their ticket.

The fact is that Obama and Biden appear to be well suited to each other and to complement each other in their individual strengths. Likewise, McCain and Palin appear to be well suited to each other and to fill the gaps in their respective resumes. Truthfully, by June of next year both the President and the Vice President (whoever they are) will have more experience in foreign policy than any of the candidates do now.

I agree with what some analysts have said – that the VP selection is more important in this election than in most – but even so I don’t vote for the vice president unless I can support the president.

If Obama becomes president I will measure his presidency against his own words – starting with his acceptance speech. (I will measure a McCain presidency against his own words as well.) I caught parts of the speech while I was driving a moving truck last night and though I did not hear every word, there were a couple of parts that were noteworthy.

What — what is that American promise? It’s a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It’s a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours — ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology. (p. 3)

Businesses have the responsibility to play by the rules of the road – what he left unsaid is that he believes that government has the right/responsibility to define the rules of the road. While there may be some rules that government should define, most of the rules of the road should be left to the market.

Perhaps more disturbing to me is that third paragraph which starts promisingly with the admission that “government cannot solve all our problems,” and that it should stick to doing things that we cannot do for ourselves. I’d like to know why we cannot “{keep} our toys safe, invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology.” In the short term and on specific projects it may make sense for the government to make those investments, but we do ourselves a disservice if we learn to expect that government should be respoonsible for all those things that we can do for ourselves.

If Obama becomes President I will weigh what he does against these words:

And, Democrats, Democrats, we must also admit that fulfilling America’s promise will require more than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us . . . each of us must do our part . . .

Yes, we must provide more ladders to success . . . But we must also admit that programs alone can’t replace parents, that government can’t turn off the television and make a child do her homework, that fathers must take more responsibility to provide love and guidance to their children.

Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility, that’s the essence of America’s promise. (p. 4 to p. 5)

Those are wonderful and true words but if his policies do not support that requirement for individual responsibility his will be a failed presidency – regardless of his popularity. (I’m confident that the mutual responsibility aspect will not be ignored under Democratic leadership.)