Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Explosive Devices Found; Bound for U.S. Synagogues

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President Barack Obama (D) announced this afternoon that the United States fell under a ‘credible terrorist threat’ over the last 24 hours and officials have intercepted at least two packages containing explosive material. The packages were sent from Yemen via U.S. shipping companies, and were addressed to Jewish synagogues in Chicago, IL.

One package intercepted in London contained a modified printer/copier toner cartridge and explosive material. Another intercepted in Dubai, United Arab Emirates also contained explosives. Cargo aircraft have been inspected in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Newark, New Jersey, and a truck has been inspected in New York, NY. Also, Emirates Airlines flight 201 was escorted by fighter jets into John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and landed safely. No explosives have been found in any of these aircraft or trucks.

Chicago synagogues have been asked to increase their security as a result of this threat, and the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security issued a statement on increased security precautions at U.S. airports. Additionally, FedEx has temporarily suspended all shipments from Yemen to the United States.

Several media outlets are reporting (without clear attribution) that this is likely either a terror plot or ‘dry-run’ orchestrated by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), an Islamic terrorist group loosely associated with al-Qaeda that operates in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Ford: No Bailout Required

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I have long hoped for a resurgence of the American auto industry. All the way back in July 2007, I wrote an epic analysis of the state of the ‘big three’ American car companies and what I thought they needed to do to save themselves. I revisited the piece in June of this year to check-up on how they were doing—Chrysler and General Motors (GM) bankrupt, but Ford doing surprisingly well.

Of course, in the middle of all this Chrysler and GM were recipients of massive, pointless, unconstitutional public ‘investment.’ In the aftermath, there have been reports that both companies are now profitable—reports that are actually completely misleading and false. Supposedly, GM made a 865 million dollars in the first quarter of 2010 and $1.3 billion in the second. Chrysler, meanwhile, reported making 183 million dollars in the second quarter. These numbers are mostly fiction, since they include federal money and do not include the outstanding liabilities of the pre-bankruptcy versions of the two companies, now named Motors Liquidation Company (‘bad’ GM) and Old Carco LLC (‘bad’ Chrysler).

So after being handed billions of dollars of your and my money, GM and Chrysler have managed to each separate themselves into two companies and convince us that these quarterly profits of their newly-formed doppelgangers are something to be proud of. Congratulations to them; a lot of people fell for it.

But what about the other 1/3 of the old ‘big three’ U.S. automakers?

Ford Motor Company didn’t take a single cent of taxpayer bailout dollars. They never went bankrupt. They never split themselves into two companies to try and fake us out and hide their debts and liabilities. They shared the same competitive disadvantages—particularly the over-paid unionized workforce—of their two American cousins against the Japanese and Korean automakers. Despite all of this, Ford is turning record profits even in the midst of a serious economic downturn.

If we were going to spend tax money on car companies, maybe we should have let GM and Chrysler go under and invest in the one that seems to have leadership, great product, and a future . . . just a thought.

Marijuana and the Feds

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Newsweek wonders what the federal government can do about about California’s Proposition 19. The proper answer, if you care what the U.S. Constitution has to say, is nothing. Prop. 19 is a referendum being presented to the people of California in November that would, essentially, legalize the recreational use of marijuana in the state. California is one of a few states that already allow the medicinal use of cannabis, despite its being prohibited under federal law, and several other states are currently considering loosening their pot laws as well.

I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but the U.S. Constitution enumerates certain powers that fall in the federal purview and explicitly states that everything else is state or individual business (see the Tenth Amendment). The federal government has the authority to regulate or prohibit interstate or international trade in marijuana, since interstate and international commerce matters rightly fall under their authority, but it has no authority whatsoever to outlaw the drug’s use (or, for that matter, the use of any other drug). I don’t see ‘regulate the recreational use of drugs’ on the list of enumerated powers.

The states have the sole authority to regulate the use of drugs, and the states have the sole authority to regulate the production of drugs within their borders. Federal authority only comes in when the drugs are crossing state or international lines. If the people of California wish to legalize cannabis for recreational purposes, that is completely their choice to make. Drugs produced, distributed, and consumed within the state’s borders never fall under federal jurisdiction. The federal government has no right whatsoever to raid marijuana production facilities in states where their existence is legal, as long as those facilities are not intentionally shipping their product outside of the state in violation of [legitimate] federal law. Period.

I’m indifferent on the California proposition itself. I am not convinced that cannabis is any more or less dangerous than alcohol, and I see no sufficient justification for its prohibition. Harder drugs (cocaine, heroin, LSD, meth, etc.) are a different issue. In either case, federal drug laws are largely unconstitutional and these matters are properly left to the states.

The 2010 ‘Midterm’ Elections (With Predictions)

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Overview

I hate to say “I told you so,” but, well, I told you so. On November 5, 2008, immediately after the American voters elected then Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) to the presidency and gave the Democratic Party strong majorities in the House and Senate, I warned them to “not characterize this Democratic blowout as a stinging rebuke of conservative principles,” and to “refrain from interpreting his comfortable win as a mandate for big-government spending programs or liberal social principles.”

You see, the 2008 election was a reflection of an electorate angry with the mad deficit spending and misguided economic policies in the waning days of George W. Bush’s (R) presidency. The last thing they wanted was an acceleration of the bailouts and spending, but that’s what they got. The last thing they wanted was more government intrusion in their personal economic decisions, but that’s what they got. The last thing they wanted in the middle of a recession was a six-month debate on how to inject the destabilizing hand of the federal government into our health care system, but that’s what they got.

The Democratic Party leadership did exactly what I (and many other political observers) helpfully tried to warn them not to do with their new-found executive and legislative juggernaut, and by January 2010—after only one full year in power—it was painfully clear that they had made a terrible political miscalculation. In record time, the Democrats had squandered the huge political capital they had earned in the 2008 election. In the off-year 2009 general elections and special elections around the country, Republicans made surprising gains by taking the governors’ offices in Virginia and New Jersey, and even the U.S. Senate seat held for decades by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA).

Read more . . .

On ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

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Let me be perfectly clear: governments, in general, have no right to police private morality. There are certain exceptions—most notably that governments have a clear and valid responsibility to protect the lives and liberty of all human beings, including the unborn (who have unique human DNA just like you and me). But outside of protecting the basic rights of others, government must stay out of people’s private moral decisions.

I am a conservative Christian (Catholic, specifically). There are things I consider morally reprehensible, but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily any business of the government. I believe that extra-marital sexual relations are immoral, and people who engage in such acts should repent and get right with God, but consensual sex between adults should never be treated as a criminal act in a free society. Morally wrong? Yes. Criminal? No.

Many of my fellow conservatives have problems with this because they lack important perspective. In a ‘majority rules’ democratic republic where the government is granted authority over private moral decisions, it’s not hard to imagine a world where our conservative Christian morality is the outlawed minority opinion. Those of us on the ‘right’ who would have the government outlaw extra-marital sex, or homosexual sex, would be inviting a government that would soon feel it had the moral authority to outlaw churches that won’t marry homosexual couples or won’t endorse extra-marital sex or cohabitation. I’m not wishing for a government that enforces morality; I’m deathly afraid of one.

While I would characterize my personal moral beliefs as ‘conservative,’ my political views are generally more ‘libertarian.’ I think, more often than not, government should keep it’s grubby paws off everything. The libertarian mindset is one that eschews government interference in the economy, and also eschews government interference in people’s private lives. I think homosexual activity (like other extra-marital sexual activity) is a mortal sin, which requires repentance and penance (that’s all a discussion for another day), but I would reject any government effort to outlaw it. Government does not belong in people’s bedrooms legislating the relations between consenting adults. Period. If government has the authority to legislate this kind of private morality, it’s only a matter of time before they’re legislating the wrong morality at our expense.

Read more . . .

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.