Holiday Weekend Slackery

It’s a holiday weekend, so probably not too much blogging will get done until Tuesday.

Try not to break the country while I’m gone, OK?

Why Do Libertarians Operate Within the Republican Party?

Inquiring minds want to know:

And once again I have to ask, why do they all choose the Republican party? There isn’t even one civil liberties, anti-war elected official in the Party and barely any GOP voters who agree with them on those issues. There are a handful of elected Democrats and tons of voters on the left who do. And even if Democrats are guilty of the same sins as Republicans, meaning that they would not end wars any sooner, why assume they wouldn’t be happy to shrink government and cut taxes? There are many more Dems who are on the austerity bandwagon than there are Republicans who want to cut military spending. 

I think we know the answer. They have prioritized their concerns and they believe Republicans are more likely to follow through on their primary issues, which are low taxes and small government. The foreign policy piece is simply less important. It must be. Nobody would join the Republican Party if shrinking America’s military empire was what they really cared about. The Democrats may be warmongers too, but it’s definitional in the modern GOP. You have as much chance of changing that as you would have declaring the US is a Muslim nation.

It’s an interesting theory. I have a feeling it may be correct, at least to an extent. There is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong with prioritizing economic issues over foreign policy issues, I’ve just never heard it outlined in this way. Anyone have any thoughts / other theories as to why libertarians largely operate within the GOP? Is Digby correct here? Or is it more of an accident, since Ron Paul operates within the GOP and so that’s just the world his folks are used to? I don’t know that I really have an answer.

The Tyranny of the Majority

Nebraska has recently been passing some city-wide ordinances that outlaw discrimination against people on the basis of sexual orientation. The governor now says that those ordinances should be subject to a public vote. Ari Kohen gets it exactly right on this issue in particular, and on holding minority rights to a majority vote generally, here:

Governor Heineman claims that he’s just repeating an opinion from the AG’s office … but in reality what he’s doing is disguising his own position against extending anti-discrimination protection to gays and lesbians. That position, ultimately, is that questions about whether it’s acceptable to discriminate should be decided by a majority of the populace.

I understand that some people don’t like lgbtq individuals; they don’t want them to get married, adopt children, live near them, work in their offices, or look at them on the street. They think they’re icky. They might not feel the same way about Latinos, or African-Americans, or Asians, or Jews, or Mormons, or Catholics, or whomever … but they also might.

And the position of Nebraska’s governor is that a) this is perfectly fine and b) if enough people feel this way, then discrimination against minorities groups is not only acceptable but also the right course of action.

In other words, he seems content to say that whether or not it’s acceptable to discriminate against some group or other should be determined by 51% of the people who turn up to vote. But, frankly, I find it hard to believe that Governor Heineman would agree to this statement if we were talking about discrimination toward any other group of people.

Nobody’s rights should be subject to popular vote. Equal protection under the law.

The “Private Sector” Goes to Space

The exciting news this week is that a private company, SpaceX, has successfully orbited an unmanned ship that will attempt to dock with the International Space Station. This is all very cool, but I’d like to preemptively make a point here.

This project (if it continues to be successful) will undoubtedly be hailed as a huge victory for the private sector (and rightly so) but also by some as evidence that the private sector is better than the public sector, and thus we should stop funding NASA because the private sector can do it. But this project was not produced in the private sector alone. Rather, this was a partnership between SpaceX and NASA. The rocket that carried Dragon into orbit was launched from an Air Force Base. The whole operation is partially funded by NASA, and if successful the company will rely on a NASA contract for it’s revenue. 

I don’t point any of this out to demonize the private sector, or to say that NASA should have done this on their own. To the contrary, I think public-private partnerships like this are great. I’d just like to point out that this was a partnership. It is not proof, as some on the right will undoubtedly have you believe, of the grand magic wonderfulness of the private sector over the bloated, worthless public sector.

Failure to Raise the Debt Ceiling is Not Fiscally Responsible

It just isn’t.

With the latest hostage crisis possibly brewing, that point cannot be made enough. Raising the debt ceiling does not authorize new spending, only authorizing new spending does that. Raising the debt ceiling just authorizes payment.

Look at it like this: John Boehner, Mitch Mcconnell, and Harry Reid walk into a bar (so many ways this could go!). They decide to run up a big bar tab, lots of bourbon. At the end of the night, the bar tender wants to close out their tab. But they bought too much bourbon, and will have to put the tab on their credit card, so they do. When the credit bill comes at the end of the month, they choose not to pay it.

In our (admittedly imperfect) analogy, the bar tab is the federal budget. The bourbon can be cruise missiles. Deciding not to pay the credit bill is not increasing the debt ceiling. Failure to raise the ceiling is not fiscally responsible, its a vote not to pay the bills. Now we can argue over how much bourbon we should be buying, but once we drink it, we have to pay for it, regardless.

It is just not responsible to fail to pay our bills. Again, we can debate whether or not we should run up these bills in the first place, but paying them is not optional.

That Should Not Be Legal

Arizona’s Secretary of State, Ken Bennett, has been asking Hawaii to verify Obama’s citizenship, stating he would not allow Obama onto the presidential ballot without such verification. Hawaii initially threw the crazy back in his face, telling him he had to verify that he was who he said he was before they would provide him the information. They have since verified the president’s birth, and it sounds like the whole thing is settled.

But here’s the part that gets me. The Secretary of State is the top election official in a given state. Secretary Bennett is in charge of running the presidential election in Arizona. Secretary Bennett is also a Romney campaign co-chair. He says there’s nothing wrong with this because everyone is entitled to their own personal opinions. I agree that were all entitled to our opinions, but a personal opinion would be “I like Mitt Romney!”, and not “I’m going to run his campaign!” I find it to be hugely inappropriate that the head election official works for a campaign, especially given the ability of a Secretary of State to alter the outcome of a close election (yes, Katherine Harris, I’m looking at you). The person running the election should be impartial, at least officially. Obviously anyone will have an opinion as to their preferred candidate and that’s fine. But it is not appropriate for the Secretary of State to go anywhere beyond a personal opinion. And it shouldn’t be legal.

Let’s make a baseball analogy. Let’s say the Phillies make it to the series this year (I know, I know). Should Charlie Manuel (he’s the manager) be allowed to be the head umpire, and have the final say on any calls made during the game? Of course not.

Is Private Equity In Bounds?

If you have a pulse and some eyeballs (perhaps an ear), you are probably aware that Newark mayor Booker sparked a bit of a controversy, perhaps even a kerfuffle, by suggesting that the Obama campaign’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s time at Bain are “nauseating”. The implication is of course that Bain is not relevant to the election.

Well let me toss in my .02 and say that it is relevant, and for the following reason.

Mitt Romney has made his time at Bain Capital central to his case for the presidency. Romney is a former governor, but you don’t hear him running on that. Rather, he talks about his success in the private sector. That’s fine if that’s what he wants to run on, but if he does so, then scrutiny of that case is to be expected. Rather than being nauseating, as Booker suggests, it is in fact crucial.

The flip side of this would be Obama folks suggesting that reviewing Obama’s record as POTUS was out of bounds, perhaps suggesting that we should all ignore the unemployment rate. This would be preposterous, as Obama is running on his legacy in office.

Bain matters, because Mitt Romney himself says it should.