Mimsy Were the Borogoves

“In states far from the spotlight, politics still attracts normal people. You lead a normal life. Then suddenly you get the call from Washington. You know it’ll mean Secret Service, speechwriters, and minders vetting your wardrobe. But nobody said it would mean a mainstream network comedy host doing statutory rape gags about your 14-year old daughter. If you like Wasilla and hunting and snowmachining and moose stew and politics, is the last worth giving up everything else in the hopes that one day David Letterman and Maureen Dowd might decide Trig and Bristol and the rest are sufficiently non-risible to enable you to prosper in their world? Would you really like to be the person you’d have to turn into under that scenario? National office will dwindle down to the unhealthily singleminded (Clinton, Obama), the timeserving emirs of Incumbistan (Biden, McCain) and dynastic heirs (Bush). Our loss.”

“True change isn’t easy. It involves risk. It involves sticking your neck out, not for what is popular, but for what is right! It takes putting principle ahead of popularity. This woman has a history of doing that!”

“I think though much of it for the kids had to do with recently seeing their baby brother Trig mocked and ridiculed by some pretty mean-spirited adults.”

“The world needs more Trigs, not fewer.”

“That’s where our public resources should be. Not on this superficial, wasteful, political bloodsport.”

“We can all learn from our selfless, selfless troops. They’re bold and they don’t give up and they take a stand and they know that life is short so they choose not to waste time. They choose to be productive and to serve something greater than self and to build up their families and their states and our great country. These troops, in their important missions now, there is where truly the worthy causes are in this world and that’s where our public resources should be, our public priority. We have time and resources spent on that, not on this superficial, wasteful, political bloodsport.”

“I do not want to disappoint anyone with my decision; all I can ask is that you TRUST me with this decision—but it’s no more ‘politics as usual’.”

“Take your powder, take your gun, report to General Washington.” Yes, it’s true, son. In the seventies we taught our children revolution. With weapons and everything, snuck between episodes of Scooby Doo and the Houndcats. As usual, when it comes to freedom the people were ahead of the government—even the new one, which only got it together on July 4, 1776, over a year after the war actually started.

In January, before President Obama took office, I wrote:

If there’s any one policy I hope the Obama administration carries over from the Bush administration, it is that we not return to the realpolitik habit of propping up dictators in other countries. We can choose to completely disengage and leave the people of those countries to their own affairs, or we can choose to intervene in favor of democracy, but we should never again choose short-term stability over long-term freedom.

It didn’t seem like too much to ask for of a Democratic President who campaigned against interventionism. It’s why I’ve been mostly passive-aggressively tweeting how other presidents have responded to tyranny, and not posted any diatribes against Obama’s ignoring Iran. I disagree with that policy, but his policy of disengagement is arguably better than actively supporting the Iranian dictatorship.

We don’t know whether the Iranian government would have killed protestors such as Neda Agha-Soltan and Ashkan Sohrabi if the United States had taken a firmer stand against dictatorial violence in Iran; nor whether they would still have resorted to savage beatings, and hanging Mousavi supporters; it is probable they would have been more circumspect if the president of the United States had been more firm.

But as much as President Obama’s statements do sometimes appear to “choose short-term stability over long-term freedom”, we are at least not supplying the dictator with planes, tanks, and aid money as we might have done in twentieth century.

But his Honduras policy appears completely unsupportable. The president of Honduras was trying to set himself up as a permanent president, in a country with constitutional term limits. Their Supreme Court said no; their legislature said no. He continued his efforts by securing foreign assistance to distribute illegal ballots, so the courts and the legislature removed him from office, apparently all legally.

I twittered a while back that food stamps are a voucher program that work so well, we forget they’re even a voucher program. But imagine if we ran food stamps like we run schools or like the Democrats want to run health care.

First, there wouldn’t be any food stamps. Governments in every community would set up food courts to give away packaged foods. Anybody who wanted food could just go to the food court and get government food for free. Their taxes would be increased to pay for this free food, of course.

Proponents would argue that they aren’t taking away the option of buying private food, but in the face of competition for “free” food paid for by increased taxes, most grocery stores and private bakeries will go out of business. Because their incomes are reduced by increased taxes to pay for free food, most people won’t be able to justify paying for better food.

As private food sources go out of business, those that remain will have to increase their prices. Soon, most people will only be able to afford government food. Some people will home-grow their food, and they’ll be ridiculed for not taking part in the community. They might even be arrested for not taking care of themselves properly, where “properly” is circularly defined as eating government-approved food. Some religions will start their own food courts, because the government food courts encourage their kids to eat “non-kosher” food.

Only the wealthy will buy private food, because private food will be more expensive. There will be far fewer places to go for private food, because they have fewer customers. And because government food courts have practically unlimited budgets, most foodmakers that remain in business will concentrate on supplying the government food, not on selling to individuals.

Bakers and chefs will find it best to vie for employment in the new food courts. Cooking schools will organize themselves around government food courts. Most private food sources that remain will model themselves on the government food courts. It’s easier that way, because that's what everyone’s familiar with: customers, employees, and suppliers.

The entire market will cater, not to people eating food, but to government administrators running the food courts. And once the entire market is based on servicing government food courts, food court partisans will argue that “private food courts” are more inefficient than “government food courts”.

Whenever studies are released showing that food quality is down, food court administrators will lobby for more money to pay for new administrative programs. The government will be happy to provide it: it isn’t their money.

Two cases came down from the Supreme Court recently that were less about the law than about papering over bad laws so that they’re less obviously bad. In District Attorney’s Office for the Third Judicial District et al. v. Osborne, the court ruled that people don’t have a right to re-examine DNA evidence after conviction. In Safford Unified School District #1 et al. v. Redding, the court ruled that strip-searching a 13-year old for Advil is unconstitutional.

Justice Thomas is getting a lot of flak for his Safford dissent, but it’s important to remember that Thomas was on the right side of Gonzales v. Raich. The rest of the court—including Justice Stevens—upheld putting dying people in jail for using medicine that their doctors say will help them and that is less dangerous than Advil. Is the Raich ruling any less egregious than Thomas’s dissent here?

In this latest case, Thomas wrote, “The majority’s decision in this regard also departs from another basic principle of the Fourth Amendment: that law enforcement officials can enforce with the same vigor all rules and regulations irrespective of the perceived importance of any of those rules.”

Now, Thomas also appears to agree with these particular ‘rules’, but he’s been consistent even when he doesn’t. What he’s writing for is a fair application of the law to everyone. We will not get fairness if we let bad laws stand by papering over individual outrages while letting the outrageous laws themselves stand. Sometimes what looks like the kind thing to do is unkind. I wrote earlier about the misguided desire to kill people, in order to end suffering—granting a “right to die”—when the real problem is that we’ve made effective pain-killers illegal.

When we pass bad laws, and then carve out exemptions when the bad laws result in bad policy and the bad policy results in bad behavior, and the bad behavior is directed towards personable victims, we’re not fixing anything by saying that the bad behavior against photogenic victims is off-limits. Especially when we also say that the perpetrators aren’t liable for engaging in that behavior, as the court did in Safford.