Archive for the 'Legislation' category

Odd Priorities

Oct 22 2007 Published by under Craziness, Crime, Legislation, Miscellany

So I’m trying to wrap my hands around something… We, as a people, have some really screwy barometer of what’s important. We are developing systems to track my dog with a GPS locator.

Also, you have no doubt heard in the news about special micro chips that can be embedded directly in an animal’s skin that can help track a missing pet. While some serve as mere computer-based identifiers so that someone who finds your missing pet can be sure it is yours, others get fairly sophisticated.

Some companies are experimenting with global positioning satellite or GPS tracking that can be affixed to a collar or implanted subcutaneously. Unfortunately, the more sophisticated the process, the more you will pay, often both in one-time setup and then in monthly fees. Yet, if you have the money, it may be worth the price for your overall peace of mind as well as the safety of your beloved pet.

At the same time, we write off the possibilities this would afford us in tracking lost children.

A child of a certain age, for example, should know how to get home or at least be able to offer information to others to help them get back. Yet few pets speak; they need us to employ the very best ways to find a lost pet if they have any hope to make it home again.

All this despite the fact that almost one million people go rogue each year, and of those 85% to 90% are juveniles.

That means that 2,100 times per day parents or primary care givers felt the disappearance was serious enough to call law enforcement. 152,265 of the persons reported missing in 2000 were categorized as either endangered or involuntary. The number of missing persons reported to law enforcement has increased from 154, 341 in 1982 to 876,213 in 2000. That is an increase of 468%.

Despite all of this, California is busy making it illegal to protect your kids using the same technology you use to protect your dog.

This bill would prohibit a person from requiring, coercing, or compelling any other individual to undergo the subcutaneous implanting of an identification device, as defined.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love my dog, and if he disappeared, I’d be pretty broken up. However, if some friggin’ whack job pedophile snatched my kid when I had my back turned, and I had no way of locating him simply because some ACLU lawyer thought it was a violation of his rights, I’d hunt down the guy that took him and the ACLU lawyer and dispatch them both.

We fear technology because we’re incredibly short sighted in our thinking. Just think of all the Amber Alerts that could be resolved within minutes or hours if we could pull up a grid and see the location of the missing child. Imagine the hundreds of thousands of parents crippled by the grief of a lost child who could have had their children returned safely if we hadn’t acted in fear.

Legislation like this ignores the possibilities of science, and places more value on the family pet than the family member. That’s just sick and sad.

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A Fundamental Debate: Which Came First, Federalism or Religion?

Sep 20 2007 Published by under Candidates, Congress, Government, Legislation, Politics, Republicans, The President

I have argued for some time now that the Republican Party was coming to a point of conflict between the factions that comprise her.

In one corner we have the libertarian wing – the get government off my back and out of my life crowd. They want nothing more than an exceedingly limited federal government with the bulk of important decisions made by the branch of government closest to them.

In the other corner, we have the religious wing of the party. They claim the title “conservative” but there is nothing restrained in their pursuit of public policy based on their theology. They say they want government out of their lives, but then they use the power of the fed in an attempt to legislate everything from government mandated a la carte television to right to die issues dragged up from lower courts simply because the original verdict offended some religious sensibility.

These two factions have been clashing of late because the former holds the latter somewhat to blame for the party’s losses in 2006. The rabid pursuit of a gay marriage amendment and the circus that was the Terri Schiavo case, the argument goes, drew negative attention to the party in a way unseen since Pat Buchanan’s bigoted speech at the 1992 convention. Not in 14 years had the religious right done so much to harm the GOP.

The religious wing fires back that it was the heathens among the GOP (Mark Foley being one) that cost us the election. They believe (despite polling to the contrary) that the country yearns for the same sort of theologically pure government not seen since the Taliban was routed in 2001.

Now the debate is playing out in the politics of the Presidential contest. This morning, Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost took aim at Fred Thompson for his support of Federalism.

Now I’m not so certain. His views of the federal marriage amendment, the Schiavo case, and his general position on federalism are troubling. For me, conservatism trumps federalism, while the position Thompson endorses seem to reverse that order…

Federalism also can disappoint those who believe that justice trumps ideological concerns. One of the most disheartening and shameful scenes of the last decade was to see so-called conservatives claim that the Terri Schiavo case should have been left solely to the state of Florida. The charitable view is to assume that had they known that a woman was being killed by the state without due process of law, they would have sided with justice over judicially mandated involuntary euthanasia. The less generous opinion is that they simply haven’t considered how federalism relates to conservative principles.

For if conservatives are willing to give the state the power to kill an innocent woman, willing to let adherence to procedure trump our dedication to justice, willing to put the rights of the government ahead of the rights of the individual, then we have lost all sense of what it means to be conservatives.

Federalism can be useful in drawing legitimate lines of Constitutional authority. But when it is allowed to transfer power to the states from other societal spheres, the philosophy merely creates 50 separate laboratories of liberalism.

A Fundamental Question

Carter makes an argument that Federalism is not a conservative position. It raises an interesting topic of debate. He gets into theoretical discussions about various interpretations of the ideologies that shape society, but suffice it to say he does not adopt a Federalist viewpoint. The basics of his argument are the government of Massachusetts could, if it wanted, assume a totalitarian position and define all aspects of society. They could enforce not only their own views of religion, definitions of marriage, etc, but they could prohibit all others.

Well, yes. Exactly. That’s essentially the theory of Federalism. If the majority of the people of Massachusetts, who elect the governing bodies of the state, felt that was acceptable, they could do just that. His argument is rather simplistic as he describes a more dictatorial regime, and seems to ignore that Federalism still begins and ends with the role of the people being governed in setting the course of their life. If you include that, he’s pretty much right on. People can, if they choose, set their own rules and live by them.

So which is the conservative position? Should Conservatives resist the encroachment of the Federal Government into the most private decisions of our lives?

To explore that, let’s return to the Schiavo case. What we see in her situation is exactly that. A state, based on the laws enacted by the duly elected representatives and the adjudication performed by its judiciary, made a decision to let a woman die. States do this routinely. States choose not to admit evidence in cases that could exonerate innocent people wrongly convicted and slowly dying in an 8×8 metal cage. We acknowledge the injustice, but there it is. The fact is the rule of law, for all its power to manage society, is an imperfect machine that is occasionally greased with the blood of the innocent.

Does that justify the federal government forcing its nose into the tent and demanding a different set of laws (laws of its choosing) be applied because the citizens of California, Washington, DC, or Illinois were bothered by the rules set forth in Florida? Does it justify the expansion of the federal government’s role to interfere with the laws of a state?

Occasionally, we see a murder case where the outcome of the trial is so horrific it appalls us as a people. Take a look at O.J. The overwhelming majority of this nation was horrified that these two lives were taken. The country watched in shock as the joke that is the California judicial system let the killer walk free.

Yet nobody demanded that the federal government intercede on behalf of “the innocent”. Nobody staged protests to demand that the rights of Nicole and Ron be heard and the murderer be dragged to Washington for justice. We understood that there was an imperfect trial, in a flawed court system, and a travesty occurred.

If you really want to see this argument on display, suggest to someone who is pro-life that a Constitutional amendment banning abortion is completely contrary to Conservative beliefs. Abortion is murder! They will claim. We need to protect life at the federal level!

But this ignores the fact that murder is tried as a local crime. It is left to the local courts to determine whether a murder was premeditated or a crime of passion. It is left to the states to decide which homicides can be justified and which cannot. It is left to the states to decide what level of punishment is applied to a crime. Why then, is abortion, or right to die not afforded the same level of local discretion?

Federalism and Marriage

Now I can jump on my other favorite “federalist” soapbox, again. If you consider yourself Conservative, the idea of a federal amendment “protecting” marriage should make your skin crawl.

The debate over marriage, as I have often been known to rant about, is not about the “definition” of marriage. It is not a question of whether marriage is one man and one woman, two men, two women, or a human being and a goat. The real debate over this issue must, and I believe eventually will, come down to what is the basis for marriage.

Is marriage a contract between two people and God? Or is a marriage a contract between two people and the state? In computer security terms, who, in this arrangement, is the certificate authority? Who ultimately sanctions the marriage?

If marriage is a contract between the united and their God, then the government has absolutely nothing to say about it. The Constitution is quite specific on that point. Churches, then, should be the ultimate arbiters of what “defines” marriage for their parishioners.

If marriage is a document legally binding two parties for the purpose of legal assets and legal protections, then the contract should be gender neutral as is every other contract drawn between consenting parties. I can sell my car to a man or a woman. Homosexuals can trade real estate under the same rules that govern such transactions for heterosexuals. Marriage, if it is a contract with the state, should be no different.

It is that debate, and that question, that must ultimately be decided before any law to define marriage can be written.

So Who Is Conservative?

Now I have been called a “squishy” Republican because I pursue the principles of my party before the principles of my faith. I have had my conservatism challenged by those, like Carter, who ignore the very meaning of Conservatism. Conservatives adhere to tradition and the continuance of trusted methods. The very word conservative implies that change to the existing structure of society should be measured and tempered.

By comparison, liberal ideology stresses the rapid adoption of new laws and the imposition of the federal government’s authority to address any perceived situation. Think there might someday be a problem with discrimination on the Internet? Legislate the solution before you have ever seen a problem. That’s the liberal way.

I am terrified because it seems, increasingly, to be the way adopted by the religious wing of the GOP. It is a disturbing trend, and one that threatens to rip the very fabric of the GOP coalition. If religious conservatives abandon the detente that exists with fiscal conservatives in pursuit of their ideology, they are threatening the ability of either of us to be successful.

However, a rift between the two factions of the GOP could be a good thing. It may bring about a fundamental realignment of electoral politics. The religious right and the tax-and-spend liberal left would unite in pursuit of a federal government that not only mandated the “right” way to live (be it through edicts on smoking or worship), but they could enforce it through taxation.

On the other side, the fiscally conservative Democrats, the libertarians in the GOP, and the moderate centrists, fearful of an all-powerful government and distrustful that it’s one-size-fits-all solutions would be either cost-effective or successful, would stand in opposition.

If anyone thinks that a Federal government empowered to weigh in on religious decisions will always weigh in on the side of the religious, they are sorely mistaken. If anyone believes that a government big enough to tell you what to do with your womb, your choice of mate, or your right to die will practice restraint in telling you what to do with your wallet, you’re high as a kite.

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FCC Commissioner Weighs In On Broadband Deployment

Jul 24 2007 Published by under Broadband Policy, Congress, Government, Legislation, Technology, The Economy, The Internet, The Law

Commissioner Robert McDowell has jumped into the broadband access debate neck deep today with a brilliant piece in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required, but I’ll post the highlights). McDowell’s op-ed challenges the entire basis for the “sky is falling” crowds constant hand wringing – the OECD numbers on broadband penetration.

The OECD’s methodology is seriously flawed, however. According to an analysis by the Phoenix Center, if all OECD countries including the U.S. enjoyed 100% broadband penetration — with all homes and businesses being connected — our rank would fall to 20th. The U.S. would be deemed a relative failure because the OECD methodology measures broadband connections per capita, putting countries with larger household sizes at a statistical disadvantage.

What’s that? If every man woman and child on the planet had broadband, we’d still be ranked 20th? How can that be? We’re currently 12th, and a segment of our population are constantly stressed out about it. What if we dropped to 20th? My god, the hospitals would overflow with heart attack patients.

The OECD also overlooks that the U.S. is the largest broadband market in the world, with over 65 million subscribers — more than twice the number of America’s closest competitor. We got there because of our superior household adoption rates. According to several recent surveys, the average percentage of U.S. households taking broadband is about 42%; the EU average is 23%.

Furthermore, the OECD does not weigh a country’s geographic size relative to its population density, which matters because more consumers may live farther from the pipes. Only one country above the U.S. on the OECD list (Canada) stretches from one end of a continent to another like we do. Only one country above us on this list is at least 75% rural, like the U.S. In fact, 13 of the 14 countries that the OECD ranks higher are significantly smaller than the U.S.

Well, that reflects something I have been pointing out for two years now – it costs much less to wire a population that lives in a very small area than to wire, oh… I don’t know, let’s say Montana.

And if we compare many of our states individually with some countries that are allegedly beating us in the broadband race, we are actually winning. Forty-three American states have a higher household broadband adoption rate than all but five EU countries. Even large rural western states such as Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and both Dakotas exhibit much stronger household broadband adoption rates than France or Britain. Even if we use the OECD’s flawed methodology, New Jersey has a higher penetration rate than fourth-ranked Korea. Alaska is more broadband-saturated than France.

So even Montana is better off? Hmm…

The OECD conclusions really unravel when we look at wireless services, especially Wi-Fi. One-third of the world’s Wi-Fi hot spots are in the U.S., but Wi-Fi is not included in the OECD study unless it is used in a so-called “fixed wireless” setting. I can’t recall ever seeing any fixed wireless users cemented into a coffee shop, airport or college campus. Most American Wi-Fi users do so with personal portable devices. It is difficult to determine how many wireless broadband users are online at any given moment, since they may not qualify as “subscribers” to anyone’s service.

In short, the OECD data do not include all of the ways Americans can make high-speed connections to the Internet, therefore omitting millions of American broadband users. Europe, with its more regulatory approach, may actually end up being the laggard because of latent weaknesses in its broadband market. It lacks adequate competition among alternative broadband platforms to spur the faster speeds that consumers and an ever-expanding Internet will require.

So we’re not even counting Wi-Fi when every street corner has a Starbuck’s and every Starbuck’s has a Wi-Fi hot spot? I can hook up via wi-fi for $30 a month throug Starbuck’s. Surely the problem must be the cable/telco duopoly, right? They’re holding us back, right? Hardly.

In the U.S., cable is available to 94% of all households. Also, the U.S. is home to the world’s fastest fiber-to-home market, with a 99% annual growth rate in subscribers compared with a relatively anemic 13% growth rate in Europe.

In fact, the European Competitive Telecommunications Association reported last fall that Europe is experiencing a significant slowdown in the annual growth rate of broadband subscriptions, falling to 14% from 23% annual growth. Growth stalled in a number of countries, including Denmark and Belgium (4% in each country). And France — a relative star — exhibited just 10% growth. Yet all of these nations are “ahead” of us on the much-talked-about OECD chart.

Here in the U.S., the country that is allegedly “falling behind,”

broadband adoption is accelerating. Government studies confirm that America’s broadband growth rate has jumped from 32% per year to 52%.

With new numbers expected shortly, we anticipate a continued positive trend. Criticisms of our definition of “broadband” being too lax are already irrelevant as over 50 million subscribers are in the 1.5 to 3.0 megabits-per-second “fast lane.”

So cable covers 94% of American households. Tack on the telephone companies and you’re covering 98%. With FTTH installs growing at 99% per year, and cable dramatically increasing speeds on their existing infrastructure, our problem isn’t deployment. It’s also not speed. Our problem is, simply put, one of adoption.

As hard as this is for the “enlightened” technologists to understand, some people just don’t see the advantage to having a high speed connection. For many, a night out at a movie with a family of four ($51 – $36 for tickets, and let’s say $15 for popcorn and cokes) is worth more than that high-speed connection ($40).

You can argue the relative value of the Internet in people’s lives, but unless the buyer sees the value, you’ll never make the sale.

I imagine when electricity was new – and a lot of people were wiring up their homes, and touting the great things you could do with lights on-demand – there were still some who didn’t get it. “Why spend the money on electricity?” they asked. “I have candles, why would I need to pay someone for electric lights?”

That mentality still exists. There will always be late adopters. There will always be hold-outs. However, empowering the federal government to solve yet another problem (Immigration reform? Hurricane Katrina? Waco? Ruby Ridge?) is never a good idea. Having them pick winners and losers in technology is a sure-fire way to be sure you end up with nothing but losers.

If government must get involved in trying to spur broadband adoption, they should give tax credits for broadband, or incentivize companies who provide broadband services to expand their offering or engage in R&D to find new, faster methods of connection.

Address the problem, not the hysteria.

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We Win, They Lose

May 03 2007 Published by under Congress, Government, Legislation, Terrorism, War

Ronald Reagan once described his foreign policy with regard to the Cold War in fairly simple terms – we win, they lose. It’s a simple message that is easy to understand and makes clear our commitment to the outcome.

To be perfectly clear, the Administration has truly bungled a great number of things. The war in Iraq is just one item in a long list that includes the Katrina response, the ongoing mess that is the Justice Department, the Myers nomination, social security reform, immigration, etc., etc. That said, the one thing they have gotten consistently right is their belief that the outcome in Iraq cannot be a withdrawal and surrender of the nation to extremists.

That was our approach to Somalia, and 15 years later it is still a disaster cranking out militant ideology. That was our approach to Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew and we paid the price in the form of the Taliban and its support for terrorism.

Whether there were terrorists in Iraq prior to our military action there, the fact is there are certainly terrorists there today. Handing them the country as we head out the door is not a viable option from a military standpoint or for the sake of the world my kids will inherit.

Despite my misgivings about much this Administration has done, I stand firmly in the belief that we must not surrender Iraq, we must not allow Congress to usurp the power of the Commander in Chief, and we must not set arbitrary deadlines for a withdrawal simply because “the people” don’t like the way things are going. “The people” look at the world as they see it today. We hire the President and Congress to move us toward a future world. For their jobs, they owe us more than retreat and defeat.

As a result, I am signing onto the petition created at WeWinTheyLose.com. If you would like to join as well, the petition and a simple form to complete are provided below for your use.

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Why Fred Thompson Will Win If He Runs

Apr 24 2007 Published by under Bloggers, Candidates, Congress, Government, Legislation, Politics, Republicans, The President

Thompson’s post on RedState, in response to a Ponnuru post attacking two of his votes, is right on the money.

The first case involves the issue of ‚Äúpreemption.‚Äù Congress routinely passes laws and resulting regulations which are in conflict with state laws and regulations. These federal laws do not state whether or not they are intended to preempt the state regulations. Clearly, members of Congress don‚Äôt want their constituents back home asking why their state authority has been stripped. But Congress can have it both ways. They leave the legislation ambiguous, knowing that the federal courts will more often than not interpret the statute as preempting state law, allowing elected officials in Washington ‚Äúthe federal court did it, I didn‚Äôt‚Äù excuse. This allows for no debate on the issue in Congress, just a decision by that source of so much conservative affection: the federal judiciary…

Not only was [the principle of federalism] what our founding fathers created – a federal government with limited, enumerated powers with respect for other levels of government, it also provided a basis for a proper analysis of most issues: “Is this something government should be doing? If so, at what level of government?”

As I understood it, states were supposed to be laboratories that would compete with each other, conducting civic experiments according to the wishes of their citizens. The model for federal welfare reform was the result of that process. States also allow for of diverse viewpoints that exist across the country. There is no reason that Tennesseans and New Yorkers should have to agree on everything (and they don’t).

Those who are in charge of applying the conservative litmus test should wonder why some of their brethren continue to try to federalize more things ‚Äì especially at a time of embarrassing federal mismanagement and a growing federal bureaucracy. I am afraid that such a test is often based more upon who is favored between two self-serving litigants than upon legal and constitutional principles…

Adhering to the principles of Federalism is not easy… However, if conservatives abandon this valued principle that limits the federal government, or if we selectively use it as a tool with which to reward our friends and strike our enemies, then we will be doing a disservice to our country as well as the cause of conservatism.

Answers like that, and adherence to his principles, will carry Thompson far if he decides to run. Ponnuru, in a subsequent post, argues their differences are largely definitional with contrary ideas on the extent to which the Commerce clause can be applied.

I believe that the Founders‚Äô design requires the federal government to keep states from interfering with interstate commerce… Large areas of federal law ‚Äî see, for instance, telecom, securities, health insurance, and airline law are devoted precisely to this purpose. On Senator Thompson‚Äôs professed principles, however, we should have dueling state regulations to govern these industries and called it ‚Äúfederalism.‚Äù

Extending Ponnuru’s argument, those same industries (specifically telecom, airlines, and securities) increasingly have global, rather than state and local implications. Should we, in the cause of expediency, implement global solutions and allow the UN to regulate such industries? I assume Ponnuru would say no. However, to argue that the cause of commerce is impeded because different governmental jurisdictions apply different legal frameworks is laughable if you say that doesn’t hold true at a higher level as well. Why can different nations apply different rules to those industries with no adverse impact?

Thompson is right. Conservatives have, for far too long, conceded the value of federalism in the pursuit of political and economic expediency. We have sold our soul for a fast buck, or a fleeting political victory. If Thompson runs, maybe he can begin the process of helping us reclaim it.

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