In Response To Matthew

Matthew Whipple posted an excellent comment to my previous post (Learning From Horror), so good in fact that it inspired this post in response. I've broken out his post into what I felt were key quotes and written a response that follows it. Of course, Matt, if you disagree with my editorial decisions or my response feel free to clarify.

So without further ado...

[O]ne of the few tasks specifically enumerated in the Constitution is to "provide for the common defense," and, I might add, to "ensure domestic tranquility."... it seems to me that a perfectly reasonable construction of the Constitution would allow the government to protect from terrorists by providing security in airports...

Both "common defense" and "domestic tranquility" are listed as reasons for having a federal government. It is reasonable to interpret that the government has the authority to provide for these, but it is limited in its means to provide them. For example, no one can be forced to house soldiers.
My primary opposition to airport security is simply one of practicality. The TSA has failed numerous tests (weapons have been snuck through security in audits) while simultaneously inconveniencing every air traveler. The bureaucratic squeamishness towards racial profiling has brought about random checks rather than focused checks. An organization that is more concerned with the political implications of their policies than the real world results will not effectively enhance security.

I might also point out that... the militias were essentially worthless in the Revolutionary War... People certainly have the right to own guns, but untrained fighters can't adequately protect themselves, let alone a country... So the idea that we "protect ourselves" on anything but the most basic level (i.e. shooting a robber) doesn't really work...

I absolutely agree, nor would I suggest that our primary national defense take the form of militias. However the government has not treated the threat of terrorism as a military matter, rather it is treated as a criminal manner (hence the involvement of the FBI rather than the Pentagon). The current administration has, in my opinion, been wise to label this the "Global War on Terror" as a clear statement of military involvement. Unfortunately it still appears to be treated primarily as a criminal matter. I'll save the discussion of a paradigm for dealing with terrorism for another post (as I've planned), but treating terrorism as criminal reinforces the necessity of self-protection.
Interestingly (to me anyhow) the role of militias at the founding of our nation has come up in the current debate surrounding the Second Amendment. Glenn Reynolds brings is up here. I find this interesting because I have argued since Junior High that an armed populace is a fourth branch of the government with regard to checks and balances.

It's perhaps true that government does not have the same incentives as the private sector, but that's not to say the government has NO incentives. Private corporations incentives are making profit, and that profit may best be found in China or Iraq. They don't care about national interests, they care about their interests. Democratically elected government officials, however, are directly accountable to the interests of the nation...at least, in the abstract...

Democratically elected officials ought to be accountable to the interests of the nation, however the incentives that are presently in place do not make them so. Our elected officials have incentives to get reelected. This is especially true for career politicians. When the interest of the nation align with their interests in getting reelected, they will work in favor of the interests of the nation. When they conflict, most will work in favor of their interests in getting reelected.
That said, a private corporations interest are in profit. Depending on the industry that profit may be maximized by producing in China. However at the end of the day a company has to sell its product to the consumer in order to profit. If the consumer doesn't like what is being sold or if he feels the price of the item outweighs the benefit, he won't buy.
In the specific example of airlines, getting groped by TSA officials is too high a price to pay for the benefit of getting from Cincinnati to St. Louis for many customers. In this case, the customer will choose an alternative, like driving. Were the airline responsible for its own security, it would see the lost sale and have the power to modify its security protocols to retain or reacquire future sales. An airplane being used as a guided missle also tends to deter customers, giving them an incentive to enhance security. The tension between these two requirements is where the innovation available to private business has its greatest benefit. Here also is the role for competition. Different airlines will have slightly different security protocols. Customers who are more tolerant to searches, or are less risk averse, will choose an airline with tighter security. Customers who don't want a stranger's hands on themselves will choose an airline with looser security. Also, there will likely be price differences between the various airlines.
There may be a role for government in setting minimum standards, but those would most likely be unnecessary. If an airline were constantly getting hijacked, who would fly it?

One of the main problems that causes government incompetence is the beauracracy that is not accountable to the voter. These people occupy the worst of all possible worlds -- no electoral accountability and no private sector competition. The problem isn't that government, as a first principle, isn't capable of certain functions (like defense). It's that, as structured, it fails. In many instances, the private sector is superior. But not in the case of the common defense, where national interests cannot be sacrificed. I'll certainly grant there are inefficiencies and downright idiocy in many places, but those problems can be improved...

Here again, I don't suggest we abandon our military in favor of private security contractors (as some have). The military is key to our common defense, but it works best against clearly defined enemies. Our military is adapting well to insurgent warfare; this can be clearly seen in Iraq. Because the sole purpose of the military is to be concerned with national defense it has the incentives necessary to adapt to changing threats. There are two problems, however, with relying on a military solution to the problem of terrorism as we face it today:

1. While the military adapts its structure and strategy to better confront the threats we face as a nation it does so slowly. Even today our military structure is best equipped to fight other nations, not nongovernmental/transnational amoeba-like organizations like al-Quida.
2. Our government treats terrorism as a criminal matter rather than a military matter. In doing so it rules out military intervention.

In my previous post, I concluded that lesson #1 was that government is incapable of effectively protecting us. I stand by that conclusion. At present, our military is organized to provide defense against invasion from foreign nations but the threat we face is from a decentralized entity. In response to this threat, the government has deployed bureaucracies to deal with our enemies as criminals.

Behind my conclusion is a first principle of self-reliance. This is a trait that has been pushed out of the forefront of American life, but historically was a distinctive trait. Americans looked first to themselves and their families, then to their neighbors but last to their government. Nothing could be further from reality today.
When disaster strikes today we hear cries for more government intervention. The individuals are still there to help; indeed they flocked in droves to the Gulf coast following Katrina. All our media and loud-mouthed politicians could see was insufficient government. Political point-scoring aside they missed the real show.
Thankfully individual initiative isn't dead yet. I'd like to see some more of it.

Learning from Horror

On September 11, 2001 I awoke expecting the usual antics of the WEBN "Dawn Patrol." Instead I heard a somber voice saying "Hey guys, it looks like a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center." I forewent my usual morning routine of hitting the snooze button and went to check the news. There, to my horror, I watched as a second plane flew into the other tower of the World Trade Center.
Four cross-country flights were hijacked simultaneously to be used as guided, suicide missiles. Three struck their targets (both towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon) and the fourth was brought down in Pennsylvania. The message could not be clearer: "America, you are not safe." The widespread response was also crystal clear: "Fuck you."

It has been over six years now and loud voices are obscuring the clear response we had on that day, but its still there. But what, if anything, have we learned in these six years?

Every event affects the world in uncountable ways. The events of 9/11 have had an impact on foreign policy, air-travel security, mail screening, political discourse, news reporting and who can say how much else. As much as some try to pretend that nothing has changed, things have.

It seems to me that the most important lesson has gone unlearned, however; and that is that the government is incapable of providing 100% protection, 100% of the time.

Full Coverage

Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution gives Congress the power to finance a common defense. Nothing in our Constitution guarantees that our Federal government will succeed in protecting us, nor that they are required to do so. 9/11 showed the nation and the world that it is impossible to provide perfect protection.
For years air travelers have been subjected to baggage screening. Our bags were X-rayed and our persons metal-detected. All because fanatical Muslims in the 1980's decided that blowing up airplanes was a good statement. Now the screening is even tighter. Because another group of fanatical Muslims decided to turn airplanes into missiles we are now not permitted to carry even finger-nail clippers on airplanes. This is supposed to protect us.
The insanity of airport security is well documented, so I will not repeat it here. I am concerned now with the question of "why?" Why is this process so asinine?
The answer is simply because the government is involved. Bureaucracies are inherently stupid. This is a feature, not a bug. Bureaucracies are designed to prevent change. There is no appropriate interface for innovation. Bureaucracies are also insulated from normal incentives. Bureaucrats are not accountable to customers, they're accountable to other bureaucrats. This, ostensibly, allows them to do what is right free of popular pressure or the base drive for profits. What it actually does is create an incentive structure to encourage personal benefit at the expense of others. Bureaucrats are not rewarded for helping the customer; on the contrary they are normally rewarded for things like cutting a budget. There is often little reward for hard work or long hours, creating a perverse incentive to slack. These are the people responsible for airport and airline security.
Security threats, whatever form they take, develop quickly and change rapidly. The modern terrorist network is decentralized. As anyone familiar with the Internet knows, decentralized networks can change rapidly. There are fewer dependencies to hold them back. How can an organization whose primary feature is change-resistance hope to adapt to such threats?
Our military faces similar challenges, but they seem to be adapting accordingly. The incentive structure of the military is beyond the scope of my understanding, so I will defer to those who are more familiar with it, but from a home observer of the Iraq war the counterinsurgancy strategy works. A noble and brilliant man put his legacy on the line and it has paid of marvelously. But I digress...

9/11 Lesson #1: The government is incapable of effectively protecting us.

Who then protects us? The answer is obvious, and encoded in both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution: we protect ourselves. We are responsible for ourselves; the government is not responsible for looking after us. That is why our founding documents mention things like militia and why the Second Amendment guarantees our right to bear arms. Stripped of these we are incapable of self-defense.
Movies, books, internet rumors, conspiracy theories all portray the government as all powerful and all knowing. That is dumb. Our government cannot, with great certainty, even tell us how much we owe in taxes, yet we are to believe that they are sufficiently powerful and intelligent to concoct and accomplish the most brilliant and diabolical schemes imaginable.
That is, in a word, retarded. The government's powers are vast (too vast) but they cannot control or see everything.
From this we all must learn to protect ourselves. We face a fanatical enemy and it has infiltrated our nation. Many teachings of the Koran are being used to encourage large and small scale violence against innocents. Protecting ourselves from this systematic violence is daunting. How do we love our neighbors, yet mistrust those of Middle Eastern descent? I don't have the answer to that question.
I suspect the answer comes when we engage our neighbors. We cannot love our neighbors from a distance; we cannot know their needs if we never make contact with them. In the parable of The Good Samaritan those whom the crowd expected to help avoided the ambushed man. It was the undesirable who helped. We cannot do likewise, as Jesus instructed, if we are distant from our neighbors. How can we aid them if we know not their needs?
The willingness to embrace and influence our neighbors is a great weapon that we have left unfired. We have built our homes into fortresses to keep the world at bay, our island of civilization, but in doing so we have abandoned the battlefield. We need to gird ourselves for battle, open the draw bridge and venture into battle.

Future Topics

If ever someone devises a means by which one can package and sell time, he will be rich. As it stands, time is a commodity in short supply in my life. However, I have a number of topics on which I intend to post:

• The lessons of 9/11
• A paradigm for considering terrorism as it occurs today
• Effective counter-terrorism
• Waging war against an NGO

The astute out there will have already noticed a theme. September 11, 2001 was a pivotal day in history. Lee Harris refers to it as a world-historical event in his book Civilization and Its Enemies. Much has been said about that day and its effects, but what have we learned? And what do we need to remember? Perhaps most importantly, what do we do now?
In the past six years I've thought a great deal about these things, so I hope that my conclusions are helpful. Some of these topics will require more research, so there could be a significant delay before anything appears about them; and with an election coming up there is a good chance current events will intrude on my musings on the past and future.
I am, of course, open to suggestions for other topics. Feel free to comment thusly. I won't promise to post on anything else, but if a topic ignites an interest I may be unable to stop myself. You have been warned.

Punctuation catastrophe

I had to change my blog title. The apostrophe was screwing up the subject line for my post notification emails. Actually, that wouldn't have been so bad, but after said apostrophe gets replaced with an ampersand field code (ask an HTML monkey, he/she'll explain it) I can't filter on the indicator in gmail. Apparently searching on "&" is a no go and it was quicker to change my Blog title than figure out how to search for "&".

One Ring to Rule Them All...

With apologies to Christopher Tolkien (and many heart-felt thanks to his father, J. R. R. Tolkien), I followed my train of thought from my email to Hannity a little further. The Lord of the Rings was not written as an allegory; Tolkien did not force a single interpretation on his readers. But its story can be seen as a metaphor for many situations. I believe we are living through one such situation.

Half a century ago, certain politicians forged the Federal Government into the One Ring. Continuing to this day, our elected officials continue to concentrate more and more power in this Ring and its strength is now vast. And now there are great contests to obtain and wield this power.
Those on the political Left have long taken a great interest in this Ring; it was they who first forged it among the ashes of the Great Depression (I'm well aware that this is a simplification, however many of the powers that the Federal Government now wields were consolidated and expanded under the Roosevelt administration with the New Deal). Later more power was added to the Ring with the "Great Society" so that Johnson could wage an endless "War on Poverty."
Sauron and his minions on the Left continue to demand more and more of our productivity through taxes to enthrall larger and larger segments of the population under the Ring's sway. They promise hand outs, not unlike the Seven rings given to the Dwarves and the Nine rings given to Men. Of course the result is the same: a part of the One Ring's power to wield over their fellow man in exchange for lifelong (and longer) servitude.
Eventually, those on the political Right caught on and began to resist. Ronald Regan came to power amidst great hope of liberty but even under his administration entitlement spending grew, and with it the power of the Ring. In the 1990's, when it seemed all hope was lost (as government controlled health care loomed) the Contract With America was forged and hope shone anew.
But hope soon faded. Rather than destroy the Ring, the Republican Congress slowly fell under its spell. They dressed it up with phrases like "Compassionate Conservatism," but it meant more spending and less liberty. Some (derisively referred to as RINOs) took the path of Saruman and are often indistinguishable from Sauron's other minions.

And so we stand today, in 2007. 2008 will see the election of a new president, new Representatives and Senators. The Ring is more powerful today than ever before, and it sits as a prize.

The Ring has not fallen, by happy chance, to a humble Hobbit. It is there for the taking. But this Ring, as with Tolkien's, should not be used. It should be destroyed.

We have Dr. James Dobson taking the role of Denethor, advising us to take hold of the Ring and wield it as a weapon for our devices. There are many who, as Boromir, would heed that advice. They would use the Ring to smite Sauron and his minions and as the master of the Ring bring goodness and wholesomeness to our nation.
Have they not seen what this Ring does to those who wield it? It is not a weapon that brings Liberty, but serfdom. By using the Ring, they would add yet more power to the Federal Government. Certainly it would be the power to do what THEY want, but what happens when they no longer control the Ring?

Many roles in this metaphor are not yet revealed. Who has the wisdom to guard us on the journey? Who will cut wasteful spending, and stand to oppose further entitlement expansion? Who will secure the borders of our nation? Who is Gandalf?
Who has the strength, wisdom, and authority to lead us and to take the throne? Who can challenge Sauron, in secret to wrench the Palantir from his control and openly in battle? Who is Aragorn?
Most importantly, who will take the Ring to Mordor? Who will dismantle the entitlement programs that have grown like ivy? Who is Frodo?

In the end, the Ring must be destroyed. The Federal Government has grown far too large. The programs that promised to lift the poor from their poverty have failed, and now they steal our productivity and our prosperity.

Those, like Dr. Dobson, who would throw their influence behind a third-party candidate who would wield the Ring for their purposes would divide what remaining strength the Right has. In the end, they will yield the Ring to Sauron.
This country cannot afford four years of any of the Democratic candidates, much less eight years. At this moment in history we need a leader who is committed to the destruction of the Ring, not one who promises to wield it for good.
Third-party candidates have a critical role to play in this: they must guard the path. Congressional Republicans are deserving of shame for their role in out-of-control spending and entitlement expansion. They rob us of our Liberty and our prosperity. They have betrayed us to the Ring, and usurped our Power.

The American People want to live in peace. We do not want our paychecks, estates, and inheritance plundered by the Federal Government. We want our Liberty back.

Much like the Council of Elrond, the Republican Party has long been a coalition party. There are many competing interests, but many long thought there was a common bond to reduce the size of the Federal Government. When we chose our Aragorn, we must preserve that coalition. But those in Congress who have betrayed our common bond must be dealt with. Those Representatives and Senators who will stand for fiscal restraint, limited government, and defending our nation must be supported. Those who stand in the way of these principles must be thrust aside.

This means no more earmarked spending. No more entitlements. And no more Federal control over State and local matters. Who can answer this call?

"I will take the Ring to Mordor... though I do not know the way."

Inspiration

It has been years since I've posted anything on the Internet, but today I was inspired.
My inspiration came while listening to the Sean Hannity show. A fellow Cincinnatian (named Sarah) called in to support Dr. James Dobson's advocacy of a third-party presidential candidate should either Rudy Guilliani, Fred Thompson, or John McCain get the Republican nomination. As a HUGE believer in Federalism and a supporter of Fred Thompson I... disagree. This inspired me to send the following email to Sean's show.

Sean,
For the past few years I've become very concerned about the state of conservatism in this country. It seems that, more and more, those who label themselves "conservative" have taken to nationalizing issues over which the federal government has no legitimate authority. Many among us have forgotten about the Separation of Powers, not among the three branches of government but between the States, the People and the Federal government. Where has the principle of Federalism gone?
The candidate I have heard most clearly state and most visibly demonstrate his commitment to Federalism is Senator Fred Thompson. While I disagree with some of the positions he has taken (specifically campaign finance reform and tort reform) I have no doubt of his commitment to stripping the power that the Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court has absconded from the States over the decades.
I have had great respect for Dr. James Dobson for many years. His writing was of great help to me through adolescence and into college. But his present demand to "win" on issues such as abortion and homosexual marriage at the national level further cements our path towards centralized power. I find it no exaggeration to say that this will end only in tyranny.
In taking this stand Dr. Dobson is fighting the good fight in the worst way. Those who would call themselves "conservative" would aid their cause best by fighting to restore these issues to the States. The more we, as conservatives, fight to "win" nationally the easier it is to accept Federal control in other areas, like health care. And the more liberty we lose to the Congress and the Federal beauracracy.
Christians especially should take care not to create a Leviathan to "defeat" their enemies nationally. Do we truly believe that we can maintain control of such a beast? We cannot, and we will not. Once created, how long will it be until the Leviathan is turned on us in the name of "diversity" or "tolerance"? We've fought these things on a small scale and out of fear we try to control the beast for our favor. We must slay the beast, and to do that we need leaders who have demonstrated that they will fight against the beast.
Dr. Dobson and those of like mind want to control the beast for the good of this nation. As you have stated on air, the polls show that by supporting a third-party control of the beast will pass to the Democratic Party.
The American people are weary of this beast of a Federal government we have. While Dr. Dobson searches for a candidate to weild the beast as a great weapon, I have found in Senator Thompson a candidate who can slay the beast. I can only hope and pray that Dr. Dobson sees the folly in his pursuit of a fabled hero to tame the beast and joins the fight to slay it.

I do hope that you will share these thoughts on air, as I think the American people (particularly your listeners) need to hear them. For too long the right has fought for control when it should have fought to dismantle. It is time to tear down the huge Federal ediface we have constructed and return the Power to the People (to borrow Laura Ingrahm's line).

Mitch Oliver