Firstly, my apologies for not writing more frequently. I’m in the midst of a major career transition and blogging has not been a major priority. With that out of the way, I’d like to draw the attention of all three of my readers (my father, my wife, and my buddy from work) to something that occurred to my friend and I as we were working out a few weeks ago.

My friend, who is passionately liberal, and not of the classical variety, observed that part of my concern over Democratic efforts to curb gun rights through “common sense” legislation is that I view any and all gun control efforts as part of a larger, long-term campaign to ban firearms and re-write the Second Amendment. There’s nothing particularly shocking about that idea, but we both noted that there is an interesting parallel between the deep skepticism of the right regarding gun control and the left’s view of policies/laws that restrict abortion.

The left rightly sees initiatives in states to force pregnant women to have ultrasounds or to suffer through a waiting period before having an abortion as designed to stifle women as they attempt to exercise their legal right to have an abortion.

Although I am morally opposed to abortion, I do not support policies designed to discourage the practice. If a person has a natural or legal right to do something, it isn’t the place of the state to think of ways to frustrate those who would exercise it. In the world of gun policy you can point to innumerable examples of state and local governments attempting to use fees, restrictions on carry, and bureaucratic red tape to discourage gun ownership.

Of course, such measures do nothing to discourage criminal access to firearms, but this isn’t a significant down-side for core elements of the anti-gun movement since their fundamental objective is universal civilian disarmament, not public safety. Guns offend progressives at a fundamental, visceral level. Logic and lofty considerations of civil liberties have nothing to do with their thinking on the issue of gun control.

The reason I bring this up now is that I read an interesting Reason article that reminded me of the odd parallel between abortion policy and gun rights. From the article:

“Because they cannot ban abortion outright, conservative politicians have tried to discourage it in heavy-handed and sometimes humiliating ways. Thirty-four states impose regulations specific to abortion providers; 35 require counseling, and 26 impose waiting periods. Eight states, including Virginia, now require women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound. Last year lawmakers in the Old Dominion drew national scorn by proposing a law that would have mandated an invasive transvaginal ultrasound.”

Does the first sentence from the above paragraph sound familiar?

A company called Law Enforcement Targets, Inc. (LET) has made the news with a line of disturbing targets depicting “non-traditional threats,” such as pregnant women, old ladies, old men with double barrel shotguns (citizens who took Joe Biden’s home defense advice), and small children. What is even more disconcerting is that the Department of Homeland Security is a regular customer of LET, as is the Department of Justice. Whether DHS officials are practicing failure to neutralize drills (two shots to the body and one to the head) on images of pregnant women and old men is unclear, although the idea of any cop using such targets is nauseating.

As to the public reaction, the mainstream press hasn’t pushed the story, so there is likely little public awareness. That said, I did see some discussion on social media that surprised me a bit. Ryman Tactical, a small firearms instruction business, condemned LET for producing the targets and vowed to stop purchasing other targets from them. The reaction on their Facebook page was mixed, with some people vigorously defending the targets as a useful training tool. Indeed, one poster noted that “hesitation will get you killed.”

Hmmm… I would argue that hesitation in a lethal force situation, particularly when your moral intuition is screaming for you to hold your fire, is a good thing. Cops and federal agents are paid to take chances, not to just protect themselves. The easiest way for federal agents and cops to deal with any potentially violent encounter is to go in guns blazing. Or better yet, just hit the location with a HELLFIRE missile and call it a day. Fortunately, we hold law enforcement to a higher standard than body count.

I’ll make one final observation about the LET targets, some of them clearly depict armed citizens in their homes. Given the tendency of the police to conduct wrong door raids and the possibility of responding to a breaking and entering call and confronting an armed home owner, you would think the LET targets would be used to condition to think before they shoot. But they’re not. Instead, the order of the day is don’t hesitate, just shoot. Creepy.

As I waited for my train home today I started thinking about the understanding of American history that is at the core of the liberty movement and the common attack from the left that conservatives have misappropriated and/or misrepresented American historical symbols and personalities to advance a political agenda. Sometimes the accusation is simply one of collective stupidity,oohing commentators is missing guile as an explanation in favor of simple historical illiteracy.

One example is the criticism that the “Join, or Die!” cartoon originally drawn by Benjamin Franklin to encourage colonial unity in supporting Britain’s war against France and its Indian allies is more rightly a cartoon calling for stronger central authority, a decidedly anti-Tea Party message. The problem with is analysis is that it assumes political iconography is static in its meaning. The “Join, or Die” cartoon is a good example of how the meaning of powerful historical symbols can evolve and be appropriated for new causes. By 1775 the cartoon had become a symbol of the need for colonial unity in resisting British tyranny. During the Civil War Franklin’s cartoon was used by both sides for their own purposes. And now in 21st century the cartoon has once again surfaced; this time as a call for unity against those who would undermine individual liberty.

The point is that symbols are malleable and subjective. The good ones are claimed by all sides to bolster legitimacy and to add to the mythology underpinning their agenda. I don’t mean mythology in a pejorative sense. Every political movement has its heroes, its villains, and its iconography, which is fine and dandy. Because in the end, historical analyses are not going to claim the day for left or right. It will be the appeal of each sides’ contemporary message that matters most. So much the better though if we Jefferson agreed with us.

Republicans love to talk about morals and how their disappearance from our society is leading to its downfall. We’re a modern-day Rome, a once mighty civilization that abandoned its ethics in favor of an anything-goes hedonism that is slowly destroying the American nation from within. Conservative politicians and pundits have been preaching this message as long as I’ve been alive and will likely continue doing so long after I’m gone and my infant son is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Whether you are Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, or Ted Nugent moral decline is at the heart of some of America’s most pressing problems.

Where has all this GOP moralizing gotten us? No where we want to be. Abortion-on-demand isn’t going anywhere and talking about the breakdown of the family is likely to get you nothing more than a quizzical or condescending look from people outside the political right.

Part of the problem is that the conservative moral message itself isn’t articulated in a way that makes sense to people outside religious circles or under the age of 65. In other words, if you go to church every week and/or think dinner should occur by 2 o’clock then the GOP message that the Visigoths are just over the hill probably resonates. If you are outside that group? Not so much.

Republicans are too quick to link morality and God in ways that make secularly minded people uncomfortable. Religion smacks of irrationality and superstition to many people and when blended with politics it brings to mind debates about teaching intelligent design in places like Kansas and the Scopes Monkey Trial.

Is this fair? Not really. Even as an agnostic I see religion in general and Christianity in particular as being unfairly targeted for derision. That said, as a political message the conservative moral argument is less than inclusive and not even correct to the extent it presupposes that theism and morality go hand-in-hand. Plenty of non-religious people live moral lives and conservative leaders would do well to embrace that reality.

Another drawback to the way the conservative leaders articulate their moral message is that it seems they are advocating government intervention in areas of life that should be the province of individual choice. The small-government crowd, particularly libertarian-leaning Republicans, naturally have a problem with politicians pushing a religiously-inspired moral message on the rest of the country. Whether the GOP establishment likes it or not, Ayn Rand quoting, gun-toting, Ron Paul-loving libertarians who may never have seen the inside of a church are going to play an important role in their party, through such groups as the Tea Party and the Republican Liberty Caucus.

The once mighty “religious right” is still important, but it is not the force it once was. That should have been evident last year. Republicans reluctantly embraced religious conservative Rick Santorum near the end of the primary process, but his moment in the sun came only after the Tea Party darlings had burned up in the political atmosphere. People supported Romney because he was “electable.” They supported Cain and Bachman because they liked them and believed in their message. They briefly supported Santorum, because he was the last option before selecting the Politibot 2000—aka Romney.

So why do Republicans keep talking about God even though it does little to help them with the national electorate and could be alienating potential allies? Two reasons: they believe what they are saying and they are afraid of alienating a traditionally important constituency—i.e. evangelical Christians. The sense that God is missing in our society because we have forced Him out and that His departure is producing serious social woes constitutes a sincerely held belief among many Republicans. But even those who are perhaps less religiously inclined still feel compelled to talk the talk on God and moral decline for political reasons.

Fortunately, there is a way for Republicans of all stripes to have their cake and eat it too. There is a compelling case for acknowledging the role of ethical decline in undermining the stability and wealth of our society. Virtually all of the key policy questions of our time have a moral component—whether it be wealth redistribution or Internet freedom. There is always a moral dimension to the problem. That’s because these issues can be boiled down to fundamental philosophical questions about fairness and the appropriateness of coercion (nearly all government action is to some degree coercive and therefore the subject of moral dispute) in achieving political, social, and economic goals.

Even the breakdown of the family, a favorite Republican concern, can be discussed without bringing religious elements to bear on the problem. Is it not commonsense that two incomes are better than one? Are not broken homes more likely to produce children with behavioral problems?

And what about the solutions to these problems? Do they necessitate us all going to church. No, but they do indicate a need for a serious conversation about how the disintegration of how government policy might be encouraging the breakdown of the family unit—e.g. Have welfare programs enabled family collapse while simultaneously creating a culture of dependence and victimhood?

Abortion is another issue where conservatives could easily secularize their argument, possibly winning over a few new supporters. Instead of talking about God and souls we can place our emphasis on the secular philosophical question of what gives human life unique value. A powerful case can be made that abortion is not a morally defensible policy because it relies on arbitrary cutoff points for the procedure and a definition of human life that is illogical (viability outside the womb as a standard for when a fetus has rights suggests that anyone on life support could be arbitrarily killed).

Conservative and classical liberal thinkers have given us the arguments we need to shift the Debate away from rhetoric that alienates potential allies without abandoning the principles we cherish. We should make more use of them.

Pressed for time this morning, but I felt obliged to offer a few thoughts on the GOP and Tea Party rebuttals to Obama’s State of the Union Address.

Neither was as powerful as Obama’s in the force of its delivery or as eloquent. This is partially or even largely an artifact of how the speeches are delivered. SOTU is given before a large, stately audience. If you’ve ever given a speech you know it is sometimes harder to do it in front of a mirror than in front of an audience. As a speaker you can draw on the emotions and energy of the crowd, in a way that you can’t sitting in front of a TelePrompter in an empty room. Also, crowd reactions help to give a speech force. Obama was interrupted at critical points by raucous applause, something that not only fires a speaker up, but also gives them a moment to catch their breath.

So with that noted I can say in terms of delivery senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul did well given the format they were given. That said, in my view Rand Paul did better. He misspoke a couple of times, but quickly regained his flow. Rubio spoke well, but apparently someone needed to turn the heat down in the Speaker’s conference Room, because he seemed to be battling sweat droplets on the side of his head and face. He also seemed to be struggling with dry mouth, which led to an awkward drink of water in the middle of the speech. These minor things are the sorts of silly things the left will try to draw attention to distract people from Rubio’s message.

As far as his substance goes, his points were OK in my view, but not spectacular. He hit the familiar GOP points and added elements of his own inspiring immigrant story to leaven the material. Unfortunately, he brought to bear the old cliché of protecting middle class interests, which always feels more like a worn out slogan, rather than the core of a real objective. He also talked briefly about moral decay, in a way that struck me as unlikely to win many head nods in TV land. The problem with the speech is that there wasn’t much new there in style or substance.

Paul’s speech was better and was a real win for him and the Tea Party. He came across as sensible and serious. He used stats to elucidate a couple of key points, but stopped short of going full-on Romney-Ryan. He delivered a broadside to the President on the sequester issue, noting that only in Washington could a seven trillion dollar increase in spending be considered a cut. He noted the need for both parties to stop protecting their sacred cows (defense for GOP and entitlement programs or Dems) to arrive at a real bipartisan consensus. He talked up the need for a balanced budget amendment and to consider limiting terms or lawmakers. Both left me with the sense that Paul cares about the national interest more than the Beltway consensus.

Finally, he hit upon the need for immigration reform. His message was compassionate and common sense. Hopefully it will help to dispel the notion that the Tea Party is anti-immigrant. That’s all for now!

Unfortunately, I’m traveling for work this week, so I don’t have time to offer up a detailed analysis of the President’s State of the Union Address (SOTU). Although an honest excuse, it is nonetheless a convenient one, since I really have no desire to spend more than a few moments contemplating the pretty words and political theater that is the SOTU. Nonetheless, her are a few thoughts…

The speech was nothing if not typical Obama. It was as eloquent as it was vacuous and disingenuous. The President continued his pattern of dressing up a fundamentally hard line negotiating posture in the rhetoric of bipartisanship.

On the issue of deficit reduction the President all but claimed victory arguing that he has presided over a $2.5 trillion reduction in the deficit through a combination of budget cuts and tax increases on the wealthy. Of course the reality is that our deficit is still growing and that the President’s claims are at best dubious since they refer in large part to money that was never going to be spent in the first place as opposed to cuts in actual programs. As for the $800 billion in new tax revenue that is projected to come in over the nest decade, that amounts to $80 billion a year. Our deficit is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to be $845 billion this year. Moreover, it will INCREASE in the future due to rising healthcare cots for seniors on Medicare.

Although tax increases on the wealthy will have almost no impact on the budget long-term, the President still emphasized the need to go after the rich. And why not? It plays well with most voters; it distracts people from looking at our spending problem; and perhaps most importantly, it makes the GOP appear to be the defenders of the privilege in America.

He talked about the need for tax reform, which is good, but once again he framed the issue in class polarizing terms—emphasizing the need to go after billionaires and help the little guy. Blah blah…

In keeping with the theme that the US government needs to lift the world (that’s right, not just the poor in America, but around the world) out of poverty, the President made an impassioned plea for raising the minimum wage to nine dollars an hour, or better yet, pegging it to the cost of living. Hmmm… What exactly do minimum wage laws accomplish again? Oh yeah, they depress the hiring of low-skill labor (young people are hit hardest) and encourage inflation that leaves the poor no better off in the long-run.

The cherry on top of the speech was the President’s demand for a vote on universal background checks on gun purchases and an assault weapons ban. The points were familiar, but that made them no less insufferable. Two quick examples include the President’s emotional telling of the story of the 15 year old Chicago girl who was gunned down in her city a few weeks after performing in the Obama’s coronation inauguration.

Of course, it wouldn’t have helped the President’s cause to point out that Chicago, with it’s absurdly tight gun laws and high crime, is a great example of how ineffective gun control has been in the American context.

The President also noted—as he recently did in Minneapolis—that our Nation’s cops are tired of being “outgunned.” What can I say about this assertion other than that it is a total fantasy. The trend for over a decade has been the militarization of America’s police. In addition to their service pistol, many cops now ride around with an M4 carbine in the trunk of their car. SWAT teams are used to serve warrants on even non-violent offenders. America’s cops are many things, but outgunned isn’t one of them.

All in all, the President’s speech was what it was. And what was that you ask? Crap.

That wonderful piece of legislation that was intended to make us all healthier and wealthier is still not quite working out the way proponents claimed it would. From The Washington Post:

RICHMOND, Va. — State agencies are reducing part-time employees’ hours until officials figure out how to comply with federal health insurance requirements regarding those who work more than 30 hours each week. Gov. Bob McDonnell ordered agencies to cut back part-time employees to no more than 29 hours each week to avoid triggering a provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires health insurance coverage be provided to those who work more hours.

Large businesses, particularly restaurants, have been cutting hours and adjusting prices for months, along with some local governments and universities. State governments are only following the well-trod path of these other entities.

Of course, if you’re on the left this whole business of hard-working people being forced into part-time status is a combination of rightist propaganda and fat-cat opportunism:

As it turns out, the number of American workers who have been forced into “part time” status by their respective companies has been on the rise since 2006, well before ObamaCare — or even Obama himself — was ever a factor. In 2006, the onset of the recession had just begun, which created a less-than great business environment, especially for the fast food industry. This, in turn, caused businesses to cut back on hours for their employees in order to minimize costs. Meanwhile, profits for the fast food industry have actually gone up since the recession. Approximately 92% of the fast food industry turned a profit in 2012; roughly 78% have been profitable for the last three years; and 75% have higher revenues now than before the recession (source).

Indeed, Clarence Otis, the CEO of Darden Restaurants, received compensation of $8.4 million dollars in 2011. The year before that he received compensation of $7.7 million dollars. Andrew Madsen, the COO of Darden Restaurants, received compensation of $5 million dollars in 2011. Brad Richmond, the CFO of Darden Restaurants, received compensation of $2.5 million dollars in 2011. John Schnatter, the CEO of Papa John’s Pizza, received compensation of $2.7 million dollars in 2011. Greg Creed, the CEO of Taco Bell, received compensation of $3.3 million dollars in 2011. Emil Brolick, the CEO of Wendy’s, received compensation of $4.6 million in 2011. Julia Stewart, the CEO of Applebee’s, received compensation of $5.4 million dollars in 2011. In other words, the heads of all of these “financially burdened” restaurants are all millionaires. Meanwhile, their industry — the fast food industry — remains the lowest-paying industry in America, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In other words, it isn’t Obama’s fault (funny how nothing is ever his fault). It was happening anyway because of corporate greed. The above text represents a beautiful Gordian knot of bullshit. Let’s cut through it.

1) While it is still too early to tell how many full-time jobs will be converted to part-time because of Obamacare, it is clear that the spike in part-time employment since 2007 has not been the result of corporate greed. On the contrary, it was the result of a fiscal crisis brought on by government policies encouraging the growth of a massive credit bubble that resulted in the loss of millions of private-sector jobs. The crisis forced more people into the part-time job market to make ends meet and more companies to favor part-timers for increased flexibility in an uncertain economic environment.

2) What exactly is the appropriate pay level for someone who’s job consists of warming buns and thawing meat? This is not a knock on fast food workers. I’ve slung grease in a fast-food hellhole and I remember how hard the work could be. That said, I also remember that anyone who wasn’t brain-dead or handicapped could do the job. Our economy rewards scarcity. A gifted doctor, engineer, scientist, or athlete can expect to do well because their skills are rare and valued. Just like “Fast” Eddie Felson said, “If you’ve got an area of excellence – you’re good at something; you’re the best at something; Anything; Then, rich can be arranged. I mean rich can come fairly easy.”

Of course people on the left don’t believe we should compensate each person based on their worth, they believe even today in Marx’s dictum “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” In other words, it doesn’t matter that the guy flipping burgers behind the grill is performing a mindless job that anyone can do. It certainly doesn’t matter that the CEO running the company worked his ass off to earn his job or that his leadership is responsible for the overall health of the company. What matters is that the guy working the grill needs more money and more benefits, so the CEO should give them to him, bottom-line be damned.

3) The growth of part-time employment in this country certainly predates the Obama presidency, so the question then is how has the Administration responded to this issue? A good president would probably have pursued policies designed to mitigate the problem. Our president did the opposite. He rammed an ill-conceived, unpopular piece of legislation down the country’s throat that further encouraged employers to downsize or shift employees to part-time status. Oddly enough, even people on the left are acknowledging that the incentives are all wrong.

In closing, I want to offer one final observation. All this crap should serve as a cautionary tale for those on the left and right who would advocate for massive social engineering projects. Think about what has happened here for a moment. People in low-wage jobs are having their hours cut as a direct result of government policy. The only question is how many will suffer. We’re not talking about a midnight college bull session, we’re talking about measures that can and do harm people.

Sadly, even the most conscientious members of the left seem to think this sort of collateral damage is acceptable, as if an anointed few in Washington should be allowed to pick winners and losers in the game of life—”Your hours are being cut and now you have to go on welfare? So sorry. We decided it was more important for this other guy to get subsidized health insurance. Enjoy the being on the dole or working two jobs!”

This is an inherent problem with grand federal legislative projects. Our society and economy are too complex for a cadre of political science majors and lawyers in Washington to try and screw with it. Environmentalists like to talk about our ecosystem as a fragile, complex thing that can be damaged by even well-meaning interference. Are our economy and society so different?

The New York Times ran an interesting article entitled “Young, Liberal and Open to Big Government” on trends in the political views and allegiances of young voters, profiling the liberal enclave of Missoula, MT. Montana is a deep red state that is starting to show a few flecks of blue. The state now has two Democratic senators and a Democratic governor, although Romney still won it easily in November.

The article focuses on a development we’ve noted in past seen polling—i.e. the growing tendency of youth voters to support an expansive government role in our society.

It is no secret that young voters tilt left on social issues like immigration and gay rights. But these students, and dozens of other young people interviewed here last week, give voice to a trend that is surprising pollsters and jangling the nerves of Republicans. On a central philosophical question of the day — the size and scope of the federal government — a clear majority of young people embraces President Obama’s notion that it can be a constructive force, a point he intends to make in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

But aside from offering up an interesting vignette on the growth of leftist influence in a Republican stronghold, the piece makes an important point about how small-government activists are off target with their messaging:

So as Republican leaders focus on trying to attract more Hispanics and women, Ms. Anderson is urging them to develop a message that will appeal to the under-30 crowd by emphasizing nongovernmental alternatives to solving problems, as opposed to just limiting government.

“When you ask young voters what caused the recession, this whole idea that there wasn’t enough regulation, or it was George W. Bush’s fault, is present,” she said. “When conservatives make the argument, ‘Hey, the government needs to get out of the way and let you make decisions for yourself,’ a lot of young people don’t have this idea of the government as a boogeyman. So it makes the conservative message less resonant.”

I find the above passage interesting because it points to a flawed assumption underlying much of the Right’s rhetoric. We often assume that even if the average person disagrees with specific policy recommendations from our side that they will still share our sentiment that most people want to be left alone to pursue their lives free of government molestation. Unfortunately, we often overstate the current universality of our perspective. Most people, including many who might agree with us in theory, do not want real freedom. What they want is to be led, to be selectively controlled, and to see their social and political vision forced on the rest of the country.

One implication of this is that we can’t make any assumptions about the resonance of the small government message, particularly with the generation of voters who reached maturity during the Great Recession and who expect magnanimous Uncle Sugar to be their ultimate benefactor. The Times is correct that we need to address real-world problems, with real-wold solutions. In other words, in reaching young voters what matters is how our principles can be operationalized to achieve an objective, rather than the appeal of the principles themselves. This means showing how nongovernmental solutions can actually provide better outcomes

Fortunately, minds can be changed and perspectives altered over time. The Times notes:

There is, of course, no guarantee that millennials will hold onto their current liberal tendencies. Studies show that voters are heavily influenced by the president with whom they came of age; the Franklin D. Roosevelt generation, for instance, stayed Democratic for decades, while many in the Reagan generation remained Republican.

But views can evolve; baby boomers, who supported big government in their 20s and 30s, have become more conservative over time, the Pew center has found. While today’s young voters are more likely to identify as Democrats than Republicans or independents, their ideas and philosophies are not quite fixed yet, said John Della Volpe, the polling director at Harvard’s Institute of Politics.

If you needed proof that head injuries sustained after a long football career can led to cognitive impairment take a moment to watch Mayor Bloomberg’s latest anti-gun commercial featuring several NFL Hall of Famers:

http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-nfl-stars-gun-control-video-20130209,0,5019815.story

We should all demand a plan for these fine players to get a CAT scan.

As noted in my earlier post, most gun dealers and ammo sellers are jacking up there prices to exploit the current political situation. A select few are not. Georgia Arms and Brownell’s are great examples of companies taking the high road. But are the other guys actually doing something wrong?

I think that depends in part on your perspective. Clearly there is nothing wrong with people adjusting their prices to reflect market conditions. We are talking about business people, after all. Their job is to make money for themselves and their families. Their stock is their property. I have no right to demand they sell it to me at a price I deem reasonable.The whole point of a free-market is to allow competition to control prices.

That said, for many of us, there is more to firearms than making money, or in the case of the consumer, simply getting a good deal. For some of us, bearing arms is a way of life and gun ownership is an affirmation of our status as free men and women.

While I agree with the Randian sentiment (Ayn Rand, not Rand Paul) that the sign of the all-mighty dollar is a symbol of freedom and the market, free of outside manipulation and childish sentiment, can be a powerful force for human progress, I’m not enough of an objectivist to accept the view that market purity should trump all.

The people at Georgia Arms presumably share our belief in the value of an armed society and recognize that guns and ammunition are not only for those successful enough to afford them. Our firearms community includes many people of modest means who still love the sport of shooting and, more importantly, share our conception of human freedom and liberty. By supplying them with affordable ammunition, Georgia Arms is doing something that benefits all of us.

So in the end, I will never argue that companies like Cheaper Than Dirt are acting immorally, because they have every right to charge whatever they want for their products. However, Georgia Arms not only has my money now, they also have my appreciation, which will keep me coming back for more.