Form and function

Following the class on Early Modern England of the Tudor and Stewart from Yale online HIST 251: Early Modern England which covers the time period of the late 16th century to the early 18th century and is presented by Professor Keith E. Wrightson offers a look at the problems of the mid- to late-16th century, the time covering Henry VIII, Edward VI, Jane Gray, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I.  This period saw an increase in the population of England, which had been stable since at least the 13th or 14th century.  The records are not good but sizes of villages, towns and cities indicate that coming into the 16th century there were between 2.2 and 2.4 million people in England and by the end of the century that had grown to 3.1 to 3.3 million people.  There was no great advance in public sanitation, medicine or improvement in diet or climate that can be pointed to for this phenomena.  It is possible that the closing of the Monestaries and Nunneries by Henry VIII contributed to this (approx. 25 to 28% of society had been involved with the Church prior to this) which may influence the number of marriages and children being born.  That would be a contributing factor but unlikely to be the driving one.

What happened due to this is classical economic: productivity didn't increase, the land still produced only so much in the way of crops and trade could not increase significantly to off-set shortfalls in food.  Thus with more people and more demand for all goods and limited production basis for goods to be sold and traded, prices rose.  With that poverty increased and a stable work system from the prior century, where individuals worked within 20 miles of where they were born, began to break up.  It was seen, at the time, as a moral problem and that by putting the Crown at the head of the Church of England, that this was some form of moral lack which was being visited upon the Nation as a whole.  That moral view of poverty is one that understood that there were different types of poor.

First there were those who were poor by circumstances.  Widows and those that fell gravely ill and could not work fell into this category.  These people were poor through no fault of their own and it was a moral duty to care for such individuals by families and through charity both through the Church and by civic means through holding special Ales and meals so that the poor could be cared for.  These poor will always be with us: the poor of circumstance.

Second are those who are poor because they lack will to work.  These poor could do something about their problems and deserved perhaps a bit of a charitable hand up at a civil level to at least pay their keep until they could get regular work.  Continuing not to work, after that, was a moral lack of the individual involved.

Those without work in that era faced an economy that would have to expand to employ more people, yet that was not happening.  Thus the poor who lacked work and actively searched for it meant that the old system of working jobs in and around where one was born began to erode, and there were soon people wandering far outside their local environs in the search of work.

In modern times we have added an additional category that has two aspects to this: the cyclical poor.

Cyclical poverty was something seen by those migrant laborers who moved from job to job seasonally, usually with harvest or catch at fisheries.  These individuals were not poor by circumstance or moral character, but by job type and this required different strategies of saving and planning one's life.

The other aspect of this is the rags to riches to rags or shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves phenomena where someone may start poor and find a way to 'make good' then spend their wealth until they are poor again.  This can take generations or it can be with just one individual in a single lifetime.

The forms of poverty in the Early Modern period of England meant hardship, hunger and often rootless wandering in search of work and being able to find a spouse and create a household as I went over in a prior post on this.  Without enough work to sustain a larger family basis and without enough positions available to allow enough work for those willing to do it the economy shifted in ways unknown to prior generations.  The hardship on the poor had effects on the Yeoman and Gentry classes which utilized the necessity for implementing higher land use fees and custom, shortened lease terms and then used funds to buy up lands that the Crown made available as it sold of prior Church land to fund overseas adventures.  The amount of land necessary to rise into the landed Gentry class expanded and number of Yeomen became minor Gentry via consolidating land holdings.

Elizabeth I when she came to power had seen the effects of these changes and took some pages from prior Monarchs in England who had to quell problems in the land that were problematical to the Nation.  Straight out of Henry I she took the idea of revaluing the coinage, which meant that there would be a stable currency with a value that everyone understood.  This is no minor feat during inflationary cycles when the suspicion of adulterated or shaved coinage means the currency value is not respected.  She also took advice to implement the first patent system so that inventors of devices would have a limited term of being sole producers so that some new forms of work could come about to employ more people to the profit of the inventor.  Within the Mercantile Capitalist system this would mean that competition could take place on ingenuity and such law would foster advancement of new ways of doing business to increase the number of people employed in new endeavors.  And for those without enough money to actually invest in creating something new she also put forward a grant system wherein those with good ideas could come to the Crown, outline them and seek to get a minor grant to start up their venture. 

Finally, to deal with foreign affairs, particularly the wars and support for Catholic monarchs by Spain, she had to modernize the Navy while, at the same time, downsizing its utilization of resources which led to lighter, faster and deadlier ships that were hard to target and yet packed a punch above their normal weight class.  There would be some foreign expeditions, yes, and they would be ones that would not have an extremely high overhead and would seek to further support for Protestantism and require Spain to expend resources at a distance which is always a high cost affair.

Of the things that most attracted the Vikings to England during the time of the Danelaw, then under Canute and later under William the Conqueror was that the English people were enormously productive beyond their numbers.  For a period of time between the 7th and 9th century the city of York was the second largest city in Europe, right after Constantinople, which is no mean feat.  Canute left England alone as its vast prosperity was something he did not want to disturb, and he generally left areas under his control to local rule and imposed only a new leadership when it was necessary to assure fealty to him.  Elizabeth I is such a compelling figure in so many ways, perhaps the most intelligent of all the Monarchs of England or at least since Henry I, that it is easy to overlook her understanding of the role of the Monarch in the economy of the Nation as a whole.  She is so appreciated for her enigmatic stances on religion, both re-instituting a Protestant form of Christianity but keeping many of the trappings and forms of Roman Catholicism, that her deep and abiding trust in her own people is often overlooked in the realm of economics.

What she did was to bolster the ability of individuals to be prosperous by their own hand and only put forth limited funds (as they were limited after all the trials and tribulations from the time of her father's divorce to her accession to the throne) to reinforce the economy and shift the Navy from a relatively high overhead affair to one of somewhat lesser overhead.  The Crown could not make the realm prosperous and Elizabeth I put her trust in the people of England to work through inflationary times and use the support she instituted to become far more prosperous which would mean more jobs and productivity for the entire economy.  Before the era of economics she put forth a basic understanding that an economy flows up from its people, not down from the Crown, which was a hard thing to think of coming after the Late Medieval Period.  Plus by taking these measures she would shift the moral case away from the Crown and back to the people, so that they could figure out the best and most moral way to deal with their concerns.

Her wisdom on these matters elude many modern economists who take a very primitive and class oriented view of a Nation and do not understand that a government can only foster prosperity, not institute it.  If her government lacked funds for many things, which it did, by concentrating on the basics of defending the Nation, ensuring the value of the currency, and allowing people to utilize their ingenuity to create businesses and jobs, were in many ways extraordinary and show a keen insight into the basis of a Nation's economy which the majority of modern or modernistic politicians seem unable to grasp.  Her father had, in effect, redistributed the wealth of the Church to fund his Crown ventures and the result was inflation and a slow disintegration of a stable way of life.  With the money spent, the land in the hands of the Gentry and Yeomanry, the Crown could not spend as it did under Henry VIII and, instead, had to find a new way to do much with very little.  In doing this Elizabeth I draws us in on this level as well and demonstrates what an extraordinary woman and Queen she was who placed her faith not in government but in the people of England.  She figured she could handle the government on her own and beguile it and later generations no end, which she accomplished.

We could learn much of how a government that keeps to its knitting and lets the people be free to innovate and protects such innovation for limited duration can help change the economic aspects of the people and the Nation to the benefit of all.  Sadly such advanced learning is overlooked in a more primitive redistribution of wealth and an impoverishing of all to the benefit of the very, very few.  For so much supposed learning of the current crop of Elites, they sure aren't that advanced in their thinking.

Congressional software design

The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was a piece of legislation that did far more than just try to transform the medical care and delivery sector of the economy and also brought in such things as Student Loans under its heading in a separate section of the bill.  Be that as it may the bulk of the bill dealt with a series of mandates and payments to government (taxes and penalties), and within those the requirement of health insurance companies to provide certain types of care for 'free', plus hand out individual 'subsidies' meant that there had to be a large-scale interplay between private insurers and the public purse.  To facilitate that a series of 'exchanges' were to be set up either by the State governments or, if they opted out of Obamacare, the federal government.  Thus there are a whole list of exceptions, exemptions, requirements and so forth that differ per State that the entire system must provide for, and these vary from State to State, as well.

In the previous part of my life before ill-health befell me, I worked for the federal government on the DoD civil side for an Agency that had some actual things to produce for the military.  As I was technically astute and able to deal with large scale bureaucracies (my prior university experience gave me that) I was able to shift from production work, which I enjoyed, to process improvement (or one of its synonymous variations over time) and then to new system procurement.  Thus I got to learn the government side of contracting, specifications and requirements: the whole series of hoops to go through to show that what you wanted would work, it had a set cost and it would have a series of set functions while interacting with previous work systems.  This required a whole set of understanding from the system level architecture to data file types and their metadata, library storage of digital work, shifting work from physical media to digital media and back again...plus all the network architecture for a closed system, software specifications to do particular types of work, and the equipment that would be required to proof and make press ready printing plates.  I became a one-man band of specialists and held a number of specialist hats for the agency as well as the Contracting Officer Technical Representative (COTR) hat for the project.

In that era of the late 1990's the federal government was shifting from the old procurement systems of detailed specifications and looking to utilize Commercial Off The Shelf technology (COTS) and go from a 'low bidder always wins' to 'best value can win' paradigm.  That last meant that if a contractor actually exceeded minimum specifications and offered more value for the dollar than the lowest bidder, it was possible to seek a change in funding levels with a justification for it.  I got to experience that and a firm from the old 'sole source' days trying to leverage its contacts to win with a lowball and then up the price through a series of Request For Changes (RFCs).  In contracting parlance the RFC can start to add to the cost of the contract if accepted by both sides, although either side can propose one.  The US Navy is infamous for their massive cost over-runs due to the number of RFCs on ship construction... luckily I was working on a simple IT project, but knew the RFC dance from my time in the agency.

For a contract Request For Proposal I had a tight set of specifications, workstation requirements, networking requirements, library storage system requirements, software requirements... an entire system specified for with minimal performance levels to it.  That went about 20% over on final award, but we got way more for that money in the way of reliability and software backing than the lowball bidder could ever provide.  I had spent years working with everyone from every system that would be impacted by this project not just the output groups but those on the input and library storage realm, as well as making the system Continuation Of Operations Plan compliant in case any single site were totally destroyed, so that we could at least get data to a printer with digital systems and get product.

Because I had been through the process improvement dances by attending seminars and inter-governmental meetings and just reading a lot on the subject, I was fluent on things like the Mythical Man-Month and the concept of a Death March development project.  In prior times my agency had a large scale project that suffered from the mythical man-month problem of program management, and it was a Death March as well: it was an IT system specified for in the 1980's, getting first deliverables in the mid-1990's and had a Y2K bug that would kill it.  Some items were delivered mere weeks before Y2K.

When you are specifying for how many people you need to do a project you do it in man hours or man months (or man years depending on the scale of it).  It is a generalized way of estimating how many people you need to do tasks on a project and useful for scaling personnel for a project or program.  So many people to work so many hours on X task gets you so man man hours.  Burden that by 20% and you get a realistic ballpark figure of how many actual people you need.  The burdening is to add in such things as sick time, unexpected delays, bureaucracy, etc.  Unfortunately when you have a project that has had only a few people on it and it is behind on its schedule, you start to try and throw more people at the problem.  These people are not up to speed on the project, may not know all the work that has gone on, and may or may not have the necessary skill sets to do the work.  As a program manager you need those man hours or man months of work in, however, and when you are late you do throw people at the project to burn those man hours up.  What happens, however, is that the delays get longer as the new people do take time to get familiarized with the system and when they make mistakes they have to be caught and then work re-done.  The less familiar people are with the project the more likely they are to commit mistakes which actually begins to set meeting the deadline further back.  Of course to avoid that you add more people to the project!

Ed Yourdon who wrote the Death March book (I read it in 1st edition back in the day) followed through on this mentality to see how modern program managers dealt with the problems of the mythical man-month.  Mostly they hadn't.  But a new phenomena had cropped up and it wasn't just in the Info. Tech. world, either, and that was the problem of changing customer specifications and unrealistic milestone schedules.  A death march project suffers from poor specifications for a system from the start and I read books to try and deal with just that problem as part of my job, too.  With poor specifications and milestone schedules what happens is that a project gets started with one set of specifications that then get changed in whole or in part, and prior work which was accepted now no longer advances the program to its milestones and must be abandoned.  On the IT side, however, some of that is in software code modules which may still have absolutely valid functions to help meet the schedule, so that software is kept for those functions.  New software is build around it for other functions but, when debugging must occur, problems can crop up between that older module and newer work if all the data structures haven't been well defined: old code may start to work on other parts of data passed to it due to the way it was sent to the module.  Even worse there may be dependencies in the module for information from other modules which weren't developed and that will hang up the entire development for that function to de-conflict these problems.  This eats up time.  It can invite the mythical man-month problem, and does, but also has feedback to the customer as the code structure may now need to be changed based on the newer specifications so as to avoid older software.  In theory you want to just rebuild modules from scratch, but as they have already been accepted you are stuck with them as a developer. Plus de novo work costs more, which wasn't budgeted for.

In a death march a project has a moving set of specification goal posts and the mythical man-month personnel problem plays into the problem as individuals begin to identify the project as one that actually can't reach its goals.  Yet because the customer wants results and money is available the project continues and begins a process of cycling through people within it, so that the people who started the death march project may be gone within a few months as the first set of changes come in and they see either a program manager unable to get the idea of hard set specifications or a customer unwilling to provide them.  Because money flows the project continues, and the personnel begin to flow as well so that the second group have not just the mythical man-month problem of not knowing the project fully, but also have already completed code that may not be well documented to deal with.  Without impeccable program documentation both outside and inside the computer code, new personnel face the daunting task of having to deal with changed functions and not fully understanding what has been done before them.  Of course the first set of changes brings problems and may break prior functions, thus requiring code rework... fine and dandy if it ended there, but a death march will see requirements and functions change yet again due to changes in management, possibly, or changes in customer specifications and requirements as they process through what the prior set of changes actually are.  The morale of a death march project is abysmal, and yet it happens often enough to have its own set of criteria adorning it and its own category of failure.

Obamacare came in with Congress setting some pretty broad but ill-conceived specifications for what would be a software project.  Plus there are hard legal deadlines set by Congress that met political realities but have no real parallel for a large scale software project.  In other words the federal customer shopped around a project with ill-defined goals and expectations and an unknown number of variables for which organizations and systems it would have to interact with.  Each State that didn't want to do an 'exchange' then changed the federal system as it must cover that State with all of its legal requirements, as well, which generate up new system requirements and interactions with previously designed code.  The number of States that refused was high, when it was expected to be only a couple of States, and that meant more had to be picked up by the federal system.  Yet that system now had to interact with insurance groups in different States each having their own data requirements.

The SCOTUS decision also gave States leeway on other parts of the law which also affected the 'exchanges' and because States took different routes on that, each of them that went away from the original template then brought with it changes to the system.

What Congress created was an ever changing set of functional variables within the system that would not allow the overall interaction to be a known quantity until a date perhaps as little as six months and no more than a year before the deliverable was required, by statute, to be in place.  In the modern age such laws that have so many parts to them become, effectively, IT projects.  They are designed by a committee.  They are carried out by an entirely different branch of government that must deal with its complexities, and yet the activation date is set to political realities not actual realities of software design and roll-out.  This latter problem is one that is well known: large scale systems fail more often than they succeed in all realms of business and government.

By not taking these realities into account the law is bad law, and is worse as a software design and integration project.  Any complex system requiring interactions between a set of knowns (federal agencies) has problems within the federal government.  The FBI tried twice in the 1990's to create a single sign on system for its agents to get access to all the databases the agency held.  It failed both times because the systems each had their own data standards, hardware and software, and some had human interaction requirements because they were never dreamt of being fully automated in the first place.  DoD attempted to revamp its pay system in the '90s, as well, and failed to replace multiple separate pay and leave systems with a single, unified one.  Another part of the DoD attempted a large scale system roll out for gathering map data and the RFC database became nearly as large as the project, itself.  And any ship the Navy has built for it will have a huge file behind it of changes done with a frequency that is mindboggling.  The federal government has problems within each of its departments and agencies, and working across them in an automated way is problematical due to the complexity of existing IT infrastructure.  When the States, private insurance companies and all the individuals in the US are added to this, along with federal and State laws that are at variance for each State, is it any wonder that this system is failing like we see it failing today?

Each of the three branches of the federal government has changed the specifications for the system: the legislative by the law itself, the executive in trying to prioritize functions, and the judicial by changing the interpretation of the law in a way unknown from all prior rulings.  Each of these entities can change the parameters, functions and deliverables of the system in an instant.  And yet the already accepted code is just that: accepted.  It is there be it functional, semi-functional or zombie waiting for some errant function to bring it back to life once more.  It is the far-reaching scope of the law that is a failure because no federal entity can deal with so much complexity.  The software is on a death march because of the inability of any of the three branches of the federal government to grasp that they are writing deliverable code requirements with variable function parameters.  Yet even if this was done by hand on paper it wouldn't work because of the rate of change to parameters of each part of the system: State, three branches of federal, insurance systems and advances in medical technology shifting the entire basis for treatments and medications.

That last is at peril with Obamacare as it puts a high price on new treatments and attempts to create a static system to deal with what already exists in the way of medicine.  Yet, with the entire genome now available for study, we are getting some of the first treatments to long-standing diseases which have the opportunity to alter what we see as medicine and health care.  You and I can adapt to that quite readily.  A large, hide-bound bureaucracy with hard coded imperatives and functions in its software will not.  Our freedom and liberty make it possible to change the entire idea of what health care actually is, and the idea of 'insurance' may get replaced by other systems of delivering health care that have little to do with doctors or pharmacies, and yet costs less and is more widely  distributed.  We are heading into an era of miniaturized labs on a chip that can do more complete work than an actual lab employing tens or hundreds of people per lab.  Similarly with stem cells that can come from each individual and be differentiated to organ based cells, these cells can be printed into a 3D matrix to be put into the body without fears of rejection factors.  Telemedicine and automated systems for analysis aren't just on the horizon with the former being here for nearly a decade and the latter now available interactively via web sites.  Incorporate these with labs on a chip and miniaturized sensors and you have something very close to Larry Niven's Autodoc: a machine capable of doing a complete bio-analysis of an individual to find systemic problems and even treat certain conditions, as well as do simple things like set bones, and call on specialized individuals or emergency personnel. 

Just take a look at the last century of medicine and compress the number of changes coming down to half or one-quarter of that time.  What sort of fit is a One Size Fits All Fits None Well system of paying for health care for what is coming?

Obamacare train wreck and you

Commentary I left at Hot Air on Harry Reid suddenly realizing that the Obamacare system he helped to connive into being isn't solvent, needs way more cash and won't do what it was purported as its actual points of being... but it is a sinkhole of cash that is vast and black in the budget.  Just like SSA and the M&Ms and other entitlements.  The question is: what to do about it.

The answer is simple and I've repeated it often in many ways, but here it is, again for this question:

Same answer to Obamacare as to the rest of the federal government:

Start in the House… fund by agency… don’t fund some agencies fully or use funding towards other programs and leave Obamacare high and dry.

There are a ton of programs you can kill by not funding them.

Just because a prior Congress wants it doesn’t mean a current Congress is obliged to fund it. There is no law against not funding these things, none at all. This requires a wholesale change of the R party in the House, particularly the sclerotic leadership. Obama can’t stop the House from not funding items, only keep on sending the bills back TO fund parts of agencies. If he wants to kill off some government agencies by killing their funding: LET HIM DO IT VIA THE VETO.

And then THANK HIM to rub salt in the wounds.

Would he really not want to sign off on a downsized IRS? And to put the IRS FIRST to set the tone. Then HHS. Then FDA.

You want this to happen? Then the House Republican ‘we have to fund everything other Congresses started’ contingent MUST GO. There is no law that says they MUST DO THAT. One Congress cannot bind another Congress via legislation and since the House holds the purse strings, it is there that fiscal rectitude must start. Not the Senate. Not the POTUS. Not the SCOTUS. You want to get a smaller government? Start at the US House of Representatives. Want to blame someone for the deficit? Also the US House. And the Debt as well. Surely for $3.2 trillion you can run a minimal government… if the debt service payments don’t EAT IT ALL UP, of course.

That is the Obama goal to collapsing the Nation: create a debt so vast that even current revenue can’t support minimal payments.

Your Nation goes under, your currency becomes worthless, your savings disappear and no amount of POWER from DC can make that better because it CAN’T BE FUNDED ANYMORE. If we are very lucky there are two elections left before that happens. If we are unlucky there is only one. If our luck has run out, you have seen our last election as a free people.

Change doesn’t start in DC: it starts with you, holding DC accountable and telling them to ‘stop the spending’. Yes they aren’t listening there or on the compliant and submissive Left… they want a tyrant, a dictator, a despot… their freedom isn’t in question. Yours is. Act like a free man who expects government to be beholden to the people, live like a free man who expects to be held accountable for his misdeeds, and praise virtue whenever and wherever it appears and support it. You carry through the actions and you just might be able to protect your liberty and join with those who think like you to ensure them.

There is a cost to this, of course.

Your money: gone.

Your savings: gone.

Your property: ravaged and destroyed.

You: free to start over or die trying.

Remember I’m the guy in poor health who won’t survive for long if the system goes south. Yet I’m preparing for those losses as best as I can. Because my freedom is priceless beyond any value, and I am more than prepared to be impoverished to remove this system of petty tyranny of rules above law and those who think they are above any law making the rules for themselves. You can start now by pestering your Congresscritters. It won’t change them, but it will change you.

ajacksonian on May 3, 2013 at 7:11 AM

This isn't about Obamacare.

This isn't about our dysfunctional government of Progressive Elites.

It is all about you and how you live your life.

Want a better government?  Make sure you are a prepared to be a better person, first.  And help society to recover from the insane beliefs fostered by Marx and the Left for over a century about government being the source of your liberty.  It isn't.

Government is instituted amongst men.

Government does not exist first and creates man... sorry that isn't how it works.

And the best government is self-government.

Once you got that figured out, you begin to resent all these other governments trying to tell you how to live your life.  Then your choices start to become obvious and your path, simple.

Sen. Paul's filibuster and the question

Congratulations to Sen. Rand Paul for utilizing the filibuster on a question that he has been asking for nearly a month and asked of the head of DoJ, Eric Holder, and the White House during that period: in their opinion does the President have the power to order a drone attack against an American on American soil without due process of law procedures?

This is not the question: can the President order someone stopped when they are in the process of attacking the United States?  That is an in-process question where someone is armed, known, dangerous, affiliated with an organization that has already attacked the United States or has otherwise made clear their intention to attack the United States on their own or in affiliation with others.

That, incidentally, is called Treason and has its own due process procedure set by the US Constitution.

And a single penalty after trial and being found guilty of same.

The White House, Eric Holder and Mr. Brennan, the man who's nomination for head of CIA has caused all of this to come out, have all given a big, hearty waffle on this question.  Do note that if this was the previous Administration that the Left, the MFM and all sorts of others would be denouncing that President and calling attention to this question.  Their complicity in partisan, tyrannical ends is demonstrated by their lack of doing anything.  Save Code Pink and the ACLU, I will grant those organizations and any others that have stood up to join with Sen. Paul and his fellow Senators that assisted on this that they have followed on an ethical and moral line of reasoning.  No matter how much you may not like what some of these organizations do, and how insane their motivations may be at times, they are consistent in their insanity.

As for me the question should be self-evident: no, the President does not have that power nor authority to go outside due process.  Going after those actually wielding weapons, planting bombs or hacking into the infrastructure of, say, a major sewage system to put its contents into the drinking water of millions of people, those people should be stopped with whatever force is necessary short of an indiscriminant missile attack.  Anything that has a warhead measured in pounds of explosives, launched from any platform including a shoulder fired weapon from an individual, is a bit much to go after an individual who is not in a tank, not in an APC, not in a hijacked aircraft about to hit a building or other infrastructure component, or in a known and designated bunker or other fortified area.  The potential for the innocent getting hurt or killed in a non-war zone is far too high to be using explosives outside of a testing range  or other designated safe facility utilized for the training of same.

And as to the question of being on a 'kill list', I have addressed that previously as something that has a lack of stated doctrine and procedure with legal framework attached to it.  The Congress can and should play a part in this using their Article I, Section 8 powers under the Letters language as that is the power that is granted to Congress to address and deal with the Private Enemies of the United States and the language allowing Congress the power to set the means by which the military forces of the US operate.  This would allow Congress to name specific groups that have attacked the United States as Private Enemies of the Nation, and that joining such a group is treasonous as it is one that has waged Private War on the US as defined in the Law of Nations.  Further it could tell the President that individuals of that organization, foreign and domestic, are to be publicly put on a list of those individuals to be brought in by any means necessary, apprehended when feasible overseas, and that these individuals are admonished to turn themselves in to any US Embassy or any US military base or organization for proper tribunal or trial.  Congress could place the general activities of 'terrorism' as those of 'piracy' and put forward, via legislation, that all such individuals are engaged in Piracy when they attack the US on their own and not as part of a Nation.  This would actually allow the removal of the cumbersome terrorist statutes and embrace the pre-existing framework of Piracy trials which are also a known part of the international framework of understanding between Nations.

These things would then set a basis for doctrine of apprehension for the Executive Branch and also define when private individuals who are actively part of an organization attacking the US may be attacked, and that other individuals or organizations, public or private, that are aiding and abetting such hostile groups or individuals are to be put on a separate list so that proper legal proceedings can go forward to freeze their assets whenever possible and seize them once proper legal recognition and status is done via trial.

Thus I applaud Sen. Rand Paul's filibuster.

I also humbly suggest that he start legislation to finally get a hard and fast set of legal understandings put forward to properly define and scope out just what a President can and cannot do with drones and other unarmed vehicles in the pursuit of 'terror' groups overseas.  Congressional input and designation of groups is necessary, and the President will then have to ask Congress to add or remove organizations to such a list as this is a WAR POWER of the Congress at work.  That would then set a methodology that is public and well understood on who is on such a list, and what recourse they have to turn themselves in for proper legal procedures be they citizens or foreigners, at home or abroad.  This would then involve all three branches of government and could even set up an initial tribunal system to find out just who is and is not a 'combatant', with the military running such under the Geneva Conventions and defining that 'terrorism' falls under the 'Saboteurs and Espionage' trials for military affairs.  Those trials are well known and understood, and have a single outcome when guilty, and it is immediate and summary in nature.  That would also clear out Gitmo and allow the US to shut it down once the last of the detainees are processed.

These things are things that can be done by a Senator or Representative and work with others to put legislation forward and move it through Congress.

That is how the entire thing is supposed to work.

Best to remind everyone of that while there is still time.

Lack of doctrine, secrecy and the "kill list"

For a rarity the NY Times actually has a piece that will stimulate some discussion and it involves the "kill list" of President Obama.  This is the list of overseas terrorists that deserve to get attacked by our UCAVs (or drones in less precise terminology) and to get sudden death out of the skies.  This list was criticized by the Left during the term of President Bush (43) and then dropped off of the grievance list for the Left with the election of Obama.  Thus it is indicative of being a purely political grievance based who is in office and what their party affiliation is.

The way that President Obama makes this "kill list" up is that he is presented with baseball card sized pictures of individuals and their terror resume on the back and he gives a yea or nay on each one.  This is done in secret, so the actual methodology may vary, but that is the gist of it.  There is discussion about how much power a President has as Executive and what Constitutional protections one gets as a citizen working with terrorists while overseas.  Will Cain, talking on Real News from The Blaze (on GBTV) worried about the powers of a President in a war on terror that has no definitive end point to it (aka 'perpetual war' is the idea).

What has been missed is not is this doctrine effective (or short term effective but long term counter-productive as Buck Sexton puts it), which is to say is the 'targeted killing' doing 'the job', but is that a proper doctrine or just a tactic in this war?  Again as the Left loves to point out 'terrorism is just a tactic and you can't wage war on a tactic'.  That is, however, incorrect as terrorism is a methodology in search of founding principle and it is different than war fought with some terror techniques used by accountable actors: terrorists who fight under no flag are not accountable.  Will Cain has problems with al Qaeda in Yemen morphing into some anti-regime force that even has ideas of putting together some sort of government, and is it right to go after them in this process?

Thus we have a doctrine that may be a tactic, a tactic which is a methodology and soldiers who aren't.

This is what you get after a century of twisting words and concepts around to fit political expediency: duckspeak.

From this you get the idea that both the Left and the Right have not one bit of a clue as to what they are talking about.

I cannot set matters straight on a large scale but can discuss what the actual principles are behind all of this (not the political twisting which is pure Progressivism/Liberalism/Socialism/Communism at work, and plain to see) but these matters of soldiers, war, methodology and tactics.  Those are dead simple to figure out, if you bother to study warfare.  What I will lay out is just practice of what I've written about before and following the path of what Nations are and what war is, and how it is waged, one can also discern powers granted to Nations via their citizens to conduct Public War both against Public and Private enemies of the Nation.

Lets start with the enemies since they are the simplest part to tease out.  Public Enemies to a Nation are other Nations and those working for them with the assent of that Nation.  They aren't gangsters roaming around with Tommyguns, by and large, although if they are funded by another Nation to do so, then they are Public Enemies.  Criminals are an enemy to the private peace by disrespecting internal law and may be a threat to the public writ small, not the Nation writ large, and are thusly civil criminals.  A Public Enemy is a Nation that is waging war against our Nation and a Private Enemy is a citizen or group of citizens who act on their own accord against one Nation which is a threat to all Nations by trying to overturn the order of Nations.  Public Enemies you can make a peace treaty with and expect to have that respected.  Private Enemies you can deprive of property and their lives, no peace can be made with them as they respect no international law amongst Nations nor do they abide by the most primal of civilized behavior to set aside our ability to make Private War to have society and a Nation.

Pirates, terrorists, brigands and those who just seize power and consider themselves accountable to no one and to be a law unto themselves, those are Private Enemies and they make Private War.  What they cause is terror, and they are terrorists, and that is a part of what they are, not just what they do: it isn't a tactic but is a characteristic trait of waging Private War that is unaccountable.  These ones are not soldiers as soldiers are part of an accountable military that has a structure, that has published codes and laws they adhere to and can be punished under, they wear uniforms, they do not wantonly attack civilians and other non-combatants and they adhere to standards set by a government of some sort.

The preceding paragraph answers the question of those who espouse wanting to overthrow a Nation: they can say as they wish, but do they actually put forth the accountability system by uniform, published codes and laws, people who publicly run them to be held accountable... that sort of thing makes them soldiers to a government that is trying to gain power by force of arms in a civil war.  They must do all of those things to get that status.  Even further their nascent government must be recognized as legitimate somewhere not just inside their country but by another Nation: they are seen as a legitimate brother Nation by some existing and established Nation.  Without these things you can talk about overthrowing regimes as much as you like, but you aren't a soldier, just one causing terror on their own with no accountability, no cause and nothing you will adhere to so as to justify your activities.

As a recent example, the rebels in Libya at least managed to hint at putting some sort of governing board together along with some written rules, and even tried to form up into semi-discernable ranks.  They actually failed miserably at doing any of these things, but it was enough to garner support from other Nations (mostly in Europe) who were willing to back their cause (which they couldn't figure out beyond 'kill Gaddaffy').  In a place like Syria, say, the population that has been going through an uprising really hasn't gotten its act together, mostly because they have been killed by the regime, threatened by both al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and generally are coming to realize that this major struggle for power between these terror organizations is just getting a lot of people killed.  If you want to go after Asad for his murderous directions, then do not miss the other actors also doing a bit of murdering of civilians on their own in the coercive direction.  As one local in Homs said to the leaving Blue Helmets: while you are here no one is fighting.  Getting Asad is not really an end goal if you want to stop the fighting, as the terror organizations will then be left to do as they will in the power vacuum.  With no one to support there, you will get chaos and a possibly fracturing Nation State along ethnic and religious lines (which could become a reality if the Kurds decide to secede and join their cousins in Iraq and petition for that).  If you want to save the civil population in that scenario, then you are chasing a fairy tale unless you are looking at a major declaration of war against Syria for... no real reason at all as it is only a murderous regime without much in the way of natural resources beyond those phosphate mines that provide it with the basis for chem/bio/nuclear devices.

OK, maybe that is a good reason.  But someone at the National level must make it, tell why it is important and then be willing to send a few tens of thousands of troops in.  Russia already has a few thousand boots on the ground and they are doing doodly there.  Guess they go into the 'well armed non-combatant category': cowards with guns.  Lots of threats, no action.  Loverly.

Now to get back on course, it would seem, on its face, that President Obama is acting in a kinda-sorta terrorist way with those "kill list" things he plays solitaire with.  Should Deuce of Clubs Ahmed 'The Weasel' Mohammed be put on it?  *flip* Oooooo... Ace of Spades 'Killer' Karzawi shows up, so 'The Weasel' gets saved by bigger fish!  Perhaps it is done in a game of poker with each chip representing a UCAV and the ten spots being Hellfires.  I'm sure they have some logical way to do this involving a high degree of chance and waffling.  Be that as it may, the President is the head of a Nation and, thusly, accountable internally and externally to other Nations for his actions.  The people he is going after are terrorists making Private War (not that Public sort) and fall within the Executive power to defend the Nation (all enemies foreign an domestic).  Should American Citizens helping terrorists be put on cards to play with?  Maybe the next round will be Pinochle....

What the card game represents is not doctrine, but methodology and piss poor methodology at that.  A doctrine is a stated and set way of doing things to reach an objective, and drone strikes are just a means to that end, not an end in and of itself.  Apparently we have had a couple of Presidents treating it as an end in itself that churns out dead terrorists.  That isn't good because you have no idea what it takes to make the card list.  And because no doctrine has been set by the President, the decision falls into his lap.  He shouldn't have to figure it out on a case by case basis, just have the one or two iffy decisions cross his desk.  In other words: doctrine is the means to delegate authority and set up the goals and objectives and the objective qualifications for making the "kill list".  Without a set criteria you are just playing cards.

This card playing isn't disturbing because it is done in secret, per se, but that it has to be done at all by the President.  If there was a set doctrine with criteria that gets you on the list, then that would be PUBLIC and you wouldn't need the secret card game.  Period.

That is what a President is supposed to do.

Are there objective things that can be cited that can get you on the "kill list"?

There sure are!

The State Dept. has a list of known terrorists.  Let them know they are all on the list and can be vaporized without notice any time, any where, by anyone the United States authorizes to do so.  That doesn't matter if you are eating humus at your local falafel shop, spelunking in outer Uzbekistan, doing the disco in on vacay in Juarez.  You are a Private Enemy of the United States, you have caused us harm to get on that list and if we can get you we will.  Even better as you have caused monetary harm, we will seize your property as it is forfeit to the damages you have caused and since you aren't going to pay up, your stuff will be taken to help defray the cost of damages you have inflicted upon the Nation.  That is called 'taking' and Congress can authorize that to civilians to do for it, or the President can have soldiers seize it from those we are at Private War with.

Who are those individuals?

They are on the Terror Watch List.

You make the list, your stuff can start vanishing around you.  Hope you didn't like that BMW too much... its been airlifted to a US run chop-shop in LA.  Or Bengal, or wherever we want to run it.  Or it was sold at auction to the highest bidder in Moscow.  Good luck getting it back from the Red Mafia, you know?  Or do you want to be in debt to them?  Sucks being a terrorist, huh?  You could always turn yourself in, you know?

That last part is important as it helps to define just what other sort of people get to make that list.  Anyone who makes Private War on the United States, citizen or non-citizen.  You are no longer abiding by the Law of Nations, you are no longer considering yourself to be under any law, you are waging war on your lonesome and you only get Constitutional protection when you turn yourself in to the proper authorities.

There, that is two ways to do things and get the President less involved and the people who are much (much, much, much) better at making decisions into the loop.  These are called 'subordinates'.  You delegate duty to them.  You give them well defined and set orders and they snap to attention and carry them out... sort of like what Valerie Jarrett expects of the Obamas.

To make it perfectly clear: it doesn't matter where you come from, the moment you decide to wage war on your lonesome against the Nation, you have declared yourself to be its enemy.  Want your name cleared?  Turn yourself in.  Mind you where you end up next is under a court martial, not a civil trial, so the military can determine if you are a legal or illegal combatant or a civilian (that is the grand Choice #3 that they get in case you aren't actually a bomb throwing nut, and by deciding that your chance of a civil trial is essentially nil).  Too bad that President Obama was so hot on closing Gitmo that he forgot (or never learned) that military law is its own beast and quite something different from civil law.  Sucks when you are a Progressive/Socialist/New Party/Democrat who can't be bothered to learn the Constitution or history, isn't it?

What is even better about such things defining a "kill list"?  You can put those who give material aid to terrorists on it, as well.  Or at least their material aid and point out that if good old Ahmed 'The Weasel' is having roast goat and rice over at your house, you can be summarily vaporized with him.  Oh, if he is going for a spin in Rolls Royce, it could also disappear into some lovely auction house in Singapore, too.  Sucks that.  Maybe you can authorize someone to get that sweet Beemer in Moscow for you, huh?

Such a list is self-delimiting: it has a limiting principle to it and requires next to no Presidential overhead beyond thinking up the criteria for the "kill list".  Even that can be delegated to someone who knows what the hell they are doing... I would NOT suggest Eric Holder, as he is clueless and playing far too Fast & Loose with Fast & Furious.  Get someone who actually knows the Constitution and a bit of military history, who isn't politicized to hell and gone, you know like the JCS, to do that thinking up for you.  Sign off on it.  Then you get an extra round of golf in every few weeks!  What a sweet deal!  You would get Transparency and the appearance of semi-competence or at least the ability to sign your name on a couple of things here and there and far less overhead to boot.  Boy, wouldn't it be grand to have a semi-competent President?  I'm not holding my breath for one, btw.

Setting doctrine is public.

The decisions get delegated to competent subordinates.

They do their duty knowing they have a good and objective "kill list" and are allowed to go after targets of opportunity.

The troops can do a bit of taking, get it signed off and get a few sweet cars to drive around and maybe a villa or two to sell off.  Along with those crates of AKs and RPG rounds.  The $300 Nikes are just gravy.

See, all those dusty tomes and tracts I've gone on about, de Vattel, Grotius, Pufendorf, those guys we can't bother to read any more, they actually told you what to do, why to do it, when to do it and how to do it, and left up methodology to operational concerns as they would vary over time.  What you do to get those put against you, that is invariant as it is all about human nature.  That hasn't changed any from the beginning of time.  Remembering that it hasn't... that's the hard part.

The current candidates and their alignments

I will be using the break-out of factions within the Republican Party that I posted here to do some analysis of the current crop of Presidential aspirants within that party.  As this is the party that has been targeted for take-over by the Tea Party post-2010, any instant analysis gives only a snapshot on a much longer series of events that have been ongoing since that election cycle.  Do note that the elections at the State level in many States (WI, VA, NJ, FL as examples but this is a much larger phenomena than in just a few States) are trendline indicators on this analysis, which is to say they serve as reference points in 2009 and 2011 which cannot be ignored to show power shifts within the Republican Party.  What is happening is going beyond just the fiscal conservatism of the Tea Party as that is finding its historical and intellectual roots in not just fiscal reality but a form of morality that is now beginning to take hold elsewhere within the party and the Nation.

To give a thumbnail sketch of the factions is, of course, a very glossy over-view as there are numerous individuals who can fit between factions at this point, with the Tea Party members becoming one of the major parts of this concept.  Yet the basic breakout will help to give a lay of the current and future political landscape, thus a snapshot of candidates is a window into the factional movements going on.  Thus the brief sketch of the factions and major portions of them are necessary.

1) SecCons - Security Conservatives - This is the traditional anti-Communist, Cold War group that have supported a robust military build-up post-WWII to confront the USSR.  They put the confrontation of Communism at an international level as a high priority and put FiCons and SoCons off to the side and often had Progressive internal policies while having anti-Communist external ones.  These were added to post-1999 by outcasts from the Democratic Party in the way of NeoCons who had an aggressive agenda for military use post-Cold War but would often overlook things like border security.  SecCons should be at the forefront of border security and immigration issues as well as anti-terrorism issues, but they have yet to fuse the public morality of a strong defense with strong Nation State boundaries as a quintessential element of being a SecCon.  Many do, yes, and that is a plus and in the future expect to see SecCons take a Fusionist page and begin to incorporate public morality into SecCon ideals.  To date that has not happened and the NeoCons are finding that they cannot make a case for external confrontation of terrorism or a 'freedom agenda' and have any credibility without addressing the closer to home border issues.  The NeoCons (socially Progressive, fiscally blind and Security moderates) are an odd fit with the changing nature of the Republican Party as they cannot seem to grasp the necessary social and fiscal elements to become Fusionist.  Many NeoCons have been Libertarians because of the expansive agenda of the NeoCons for human liberty, but cannot reconcile themselves to the actual means to achieve this.  Thus the NeoCons are foundering on the basis for their agenda, and without that they cannot make a lasting statement on the affairs of the party or the Nation.  In fact they may start to die out as a faction as members must search for a deeper set of foundations for their beliefs.

2) FiCons break out into two sub-factions.

a) Rockefeller Republicans - The home of the 'Establishment Republicans' is squarely here, with some of the older cohorts in the SecCon Cold War group having added to them up until 2010.  Money, power and longevity of having been in the top spots in the party infrastructure allowed the RR FiCons to mould the party to something they liked to the point of creating an alliance with the MSM that would favor candidates backed by the party hierarchy through the RNC and the two Congressional PACs that would send money not just to incumbents but to favored candidates in Primaries.  This system has allowed a lower level of feedback from the party base into the infrastructure of the party and it is the target of the Tea Partiers to start changing this system from the precinct level through the State level all the way to the National level.  If the RR FiCons lose planks at the National Convention to Tea Party backed State level groups, then the turn-over point will have been reached as the ability to gain a voting say to guide the party will begin to marginalize this group.  This group used to be Fiscally Conservative back when it started but are now Fiscally Moderate to Progressive and Socially Moderate to Progressive.  As the party changes beneath their feet and old line establishment figures are replaced by the other sub-faction members, this group will start to face the problem of the NeoCons.  An adjunct to this sub-faction are the Libertarians who have somewhat Moderate fiscal backgrounds but who are Libertines in the social realm.  This form of Libertarianism is joining the RR FiCons in being marginalized and slowly dying out.

b) Tea Party Republicans - Here is where the Tea Party first makes its mark and is still the home to the largest organization of Tea Party members.  TP Republicans are not just in the FiCon realms and are making arguments about fiscal concerns and Nation State solvency that cross both SoCon and SecCon lines and these are the Fusionists.  To concentrate on the TP FiCons for a moment, these are the people with the simple message of  being taxed enough already and stop the spending.  Any Nation should be able to run on a $2 trillion budget at the National level and not go over-budget.  That the US federal government cannot do that demonstrates that it is not being run well, wisely or competently and that it is promising more than it can deliver.  This means that, at some point, the promises will stop or the Nation will implode and the TP FiCons are for stopping the spending and living within the means that the economy can deliver via taxation without going over budget.  It is a fiscal 'back to basics' movement of spending no more than you take in and not promising what you cannot deliver without going into debt.  This set of simple, limited government ideals resonate deeply with any family or anyone living on a budget and seeing thrift as a way to have a better life.  As this is the majority of the Nation and a Nation of Paupers and Moochers are ones that will lose all their liberty, the moral foundations for this form of fiscal conservatism runs deep and outside the industrial RR FiCon comfort zone.  Libertarians who are fiscally conservative in the way of the TP FiCons join up to it but have problems understanding the Fusionist nature of the TP FiCon movment.  Being socially Moderate to Progressive or Libertine means that the categorization of financial freedom and liberty is not founded in the deeper understanding of human nature and the requirement that fiscal conservatism have roots greater than the liberty of man as individual alone.  Still they help to cement this faction in place even when they cannot or will not join in the larger social system that the TP FiCons are bringing to the table.  This sub-faction is now ascendant  in the Republican Party.

3) SoCons also break down into two sub-factions.

a) Christian Conservatives - This faction has held the line on abortion and has been fighting back on the encroaching of government on religious faith.  While holding to those moral beliefs they have also been courted by those wanting to make government the purveyor of those beliefs via social policy, which should be an anathema to this sub-faction, but has had numerous candidates over the years touting just this line.  Thus while socially conservative this sub-faction has elements of Progressive views in it and tends to not see the financial cost of providing a social 'good', which adds to a fiscally Moderate to Progressive basis for it.  Security concerns tend to divide this faction as well, between a Progressive view of 'open borders' and the slow dissolving of the Nation State and those that hold closer to the Traditionalist view of the Nation State being the guardian of our positive liberties and rights (not the granter of them).  The last decade has seen a slow reconciliation on social concerns within this group, although those with less than conservative views on finances and security can still play well in many areas of the Nation.  On the whole these are the people who drew a line in the sand based on the sanctity of life and did not realize that this must be true across the board, not just at conception but for the entire life of the individual which includes Security and Financial realms, as well.  As this sub-faction comes together across theological lines it will be attractive to more members of all faiths to stand up to the encroachment of government becoming a religious doctrine tyrant.

b) Traditionalist Conservatives - This faction runs a gamut of names from Federalists to Constitutional Conservative to Old School Liberal.  If the CC SoCons are the faction of faiths at the church or synagogue, the Traditionalists are the faith of the hearth and home where the basics of everyday life resonate deepest and most clearly.  These are the Settlers in US parlance, not necessarily the trailblazers and openers (the Jacksonians) but those that followed on to hew the rough shape of the land to make it fit for human habitation.  The Old Democratic Jacksonian contingent has the most affiliation with this sub-faction but tends to be Independent of persuasion, and when they do join the Republican Party they fit most closely into the Traditionalist sub-faction.  By teaching traditional budgeting and self-defense as the necessary guarantors of self-government and liberty, this sub-faction is one that will quickly join the Tea Partiers and become part of the Fusionists.  In this sub-faction practical budgeting is seen as a way of life and they haven't been too happy with their spendthrift compatriots in the party across other factions for decades.  Basic Federalist and Constitutional principles have, by the light of those living the closest to home and traditional ways, been trampled upon through the last century and instead of marching they have done the practical thing of leading good and solvent lives and not taking part in the slow erosion of the culture of the US by Progressivism.  It is not 'survivalism' but endurance and steadfastness that this sub-faction adheres to and the motto that 'God helps them who help themselves' means not taking a hand out but making your own way forward with your own work.  It is this sub-faction that Teddy Roosevelt railed against in the 1890's through the 1910's and it has endured no matter what the enticement, the scorn or derision has been that has been cast their way.  Libertarians who are not Libertines find themselves drawn to Traditionalism but have problems with the foundations of it in the basis of God granting liberty, individuals having granted liberty and exercising it, and then putting that into the social framework of the necessary evil of government to safeguard moral good, not promulgate it.

4) Fusionists - In brief these are the TP FiCons that are looking to dissolve and absorb those parts of the SecCons that still see National Sovereignty as a prime mover in human affairs and also understand that being fiscally insolvent is a danger to the Nation, and to the SoCons who understand that the basis for limited government is that it is our negative powers we grant it to protect us so we may use our positive liberties to build a strong culture and Nation.  It is very likely that the Third Great Awakening of America will allow the SoCons (all of them) to come to this conclusion and give the deep historical and theological background to the TP FiCon argument that will cement it in place.  This is the most overlooked, hardest to define and yet definite mover within the Republican Party as the TP FiCons continue to argue the basics and find that they come from traditional moral and ethical tenets that are deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian theology and philosophy.  This faction only started after 2010, properly, and is now growing as seen through the prism of the candidates.

Now with all that, it is time to look at the candidates with this prism in place.  I'm going last name, alphabetically.

Newt Gingrich - Speaker Gingrich falls into two sub-factions and one faction.  The main faction he came from are the SecCons, the anti-Communist wing of the Republican Party, although he was brought up with RR FiCon foundations and a limited set of CC SoCon outlooks.  Put together Newt Gingrich's political life has been one of a Progressive on the concept of government being used to push a social agenda of CC SoCons while spending money to confront Communism.  His attack on welfare in the 1990's didn't end the concept of government welfare, but removed a few programs that were running harshly in the red and allowed for a temporary balancing of the budget based on the dot Com bubble and TeleCom bubble.  He did nothing to roll back government power in the social arena and 'welfare' has been rebuilt, bit by bit, by George W. Bush and Barack Obama plus both Republican and Democratic led Congresses.  It is because of his RR FiCon roots that Speaker Gingrich gets dubbed an Establishment Republican and to a large degree this is true, although he has led a career that makes him uncomfortable to the Establishment in that his affiliations, positions and income, post-government, points out the corruptness in the Establishment position.  As an individual he is gifted in oratory and immediate wit while he ascends but has a grating and petulant tone while in downturns.  His historical knowledge allows him to argue both sides of any argument passionately and then dismiss his prior passion when changing sides on an argument, thus making him a good tactical politician but one with a low trust factor to him.  With his conversion to Roman Catholicism comes the recognition within himself of being a flawed individual and that he seeks reconciliation with his Creator for that.  This must be recognized and his sins of the past remembered, even when forgiven, so that his new path can be compared to the one he had before his conversion.  If most politicians have a few skeletons in their closet, Speaker Gingrich has a vast army of skeletons which is a two-fold condition: they can be used to show up his problems but he can skillfully turn them back on those who bring up the dead, as well.  It must be remembered that it is he who put those skeletons in place and he appears to be very good at dealing with undead issues.

Ron Paul - Rep. Paul is a double edged sword when it comes to the factions in the Republican Party.  He is an 'open borders' and free travel SecCon which goes against the rationale for a Nation State put forward not just by the Founders but since Westphalia.  He also has a strong small government streak and small military outlook which should put him in favor with the TP FiCons but the recognition of George Washington's understanding that a strong military is necessary to safeguard a Nation is one that puts many TP FiCons ill at ease.  His hatred but signing off on earmarks, even when he doesn't put them in a bill is troubling for TP FiCons as well.  Amongst SoCons his religious background is a plus, his identification with the Framers and early Presidents also a strong point, both of which make him appealing.  With that said not having a thorough grounding in those early Presidents and what they did and why they did them makes Rep. Paul a difficult man to understand as such things as confronting Islamic radicals didn't start in the 20th century but dates back to Colonials and early citizens being taken by Barbary Pirates all the way back to the 18th century.  'Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute' should be something that Rep. Paul understands and yet just the opposite is the case.  He makes a weak case for Privateering which should be a strong case if he understood Law of Nations or the works of Grotius, both of which the Framers and early Presidents well understood.  For SoCons he cannot explain his newsletters which is part of the 'moral responsibility' for having them published under one's name.  If you cannot explain your executive position in publishing questionable parts in lucrative newsletters, then how can one be trusted at higher executive authority?  Being an executive means understanding process and procedures, and that means not only 'moral responsibility' but an analysis of how such things get to publication and what was done to remedy a process that was out of whack. In personal tone and tenor in relaxed settings he can do well but in ones in which he is unprepared for answers he tends to wander in his approach which is off-putting to many.  Rep. Paul's lack of traction outside of his delimited base of supporters is due, in part, to the incoherence of his message and inability  to trace amongst the beliefs that are presented to show how they are internally self-consistent and have a high functional capability with the external world.  If one supports a Hayekian interpretation of Wealth of Nations just say so and then be willing to back that up with other works to show how they go together.  Similarly the Austrian School of Economics is rather esoteric to most individuals and needs grounding in Foundational concepts and a better  and broader backing to its implementation to a republic via Law of Nations.  It is not enough to claim internal consistency and point to years of newsletters that do not distill down to anything quickly.  It is not necessary to be glib but it is necessary to pull out key ideas and relate them quickly to other concepts that resonate with the American experience.  In these things Ron Paul lacks and has lacked for years.

Willard 'Mitt' Romney - Gov. Romney sits firmly in the RR FiCon world of the Northeastern US both fiscally and socially as the Northeastern US is where RR FiCons came from, by and large.  The region of NY-NJ up to ME is the locus of the Old Establishment Republicans and one does not need to be in DC to be part of that Establishment, but in the proper class and group of individuals who have a nodding understanding amongst them about wealth and its purposes within the party.  Thus the concepts of being socially Moderate to Progressive is acceptable within those confines and that regional affiliation is used to make a somewhat weak case that Gov. Romney ran and governed like a Northeastern RR FiCon, which he did, but being a Northeastern FiCon is not, necessarily, a thoroughgoing form of conservatism.  He continues to stand by Romneycare even when the criticisms are that no government, at any level, should mandate purchase or penalties for lack of purchase of a good or service.  That includes local government, State government or the National government, and yet he stands by the State level argument which, in this form, is neither Federalist nor conservative as no government should be granted such power over a free people.  The duty of a Governor is not to make bad legislation tolerable, but to safeguard the rights and liberties of those they govern and if another level of government has placed an inordinate burden that is bankrupting the State, then the proper redress is against the larger institution for doing something it doesn't have the power to do and breaking its faith as a body made by these lower levels of government.  And as the fiscal power of a State government should be limited to the State, then accepting federal monies for a State program should be seen as not only contrary to the separation of powers amongst the States and federal government, but an outright attempt to render States into vassals of the federal government and no longer as the holders of the charter of that government.  Gov. Romney's abiding faith in a Christian variant is one that should be relatively appealing to SoCons and, to a degree, it is.  Practicing a peaceful faith that upholds human liberty as coming from God should be a key to Gov. Romney's appeal and yet it hits some residual bigotry against the variant (Mormonism) due to the history of that religion until recent times.  Provisioning of a social 'good' should be appealing, much in the way Newt Gingrich is appealing, and yet that falls flat with SoCons when it is coming from Gov. Romney.  A background and pioneering appeal to at least the T SoCons should be an obvious tactic and overarching theme given the Federalist argument and Mormon background, but this is not the case due to the ways that State government was run by Gov. Romney so that even in the NE US his views are not acceptable to the T SoCons.  He does get some limited traction on hearth and home religious concepts, but that has been the greatest extent of his inroads with SoCons.  With SecCons there is limited appeal by Gov. Romney both on anti-terrorism and secure borders advocacy, due to his time as Governor of MA.  Because MA is seen as socially Moderate to Liberal if not by and large Progressive (outside of some western venues) the ability of Romney as Governor to actually put himself into the security spotlight were delimited and that now limits appeals to SecCons.  Outside of that Gov. Romney has a moderate likeability factor that is tempered by his rather slick political approach.  His campaign style is reminiscent of the 1960's to late 1970's in style and while the packaging is late 1990's that is reflective of the candidate himself.  Gov. Romney fits in the late 20th century very well, but the early 21st is changing very rapidly and looking for something that a Governor of a Northeastern State just can't bring to the table unless they brought major and substantial rollbacks in government power and spending with them... which hasn't happened anywhere in the NE US.  If he had this background in 2000, say, he would have been a very strong contender, but by 2012 the last century is now being seen as antiquated in views, policy and process and Gov. Romney is not stepping up to the modern plate of conservatism or even of where moderates stand.  He has great appeal to a somewhat older demographic based on packaging and styling which goes with the RR FiCon demographic.  To date he has no break-out past the limited base he has come with to this process and that is proving a major stumbling block to him as the very establishment he appeals from is being undercut and slowly liquidated.

Rick Santorum - Sen. Santorum has a deep SoCon affiliation that is amongst the CC SoCons and only somewhat to T SoCons.  He has signed on to bills that expand government programs and utilized the somewhat Progressive view of pushing social values via government programs to do so.  His loss in PA was part of a general sweep against Republicans and took place before the redistricting of the State and major changes that happened there in 2011 at the State level.  Coming from PA he has a natural affinity to both the old Rust Belt and Midwestern US, which are favorable to him and his SoCon views.  While he may not be palatable to all the Bible Belt, he has backing that should allow him to do well inside that region, as well.  Beyond that Sen. Santorum has problems appealing to FiCons due to his spending record in the Senate.  He has worked hard to ameliorate this with TP FiCons, and speaks a somewhat different language post 2010 than he did prior to it, about tying fiscal concerns with social values.  In this he is a proto-Fusionist Republican, not fully founded in TP FiCon or their Fusionist outreach within the party, he is the first to really represent that outreach group even if his record and background are stumbling blocks for it.  Being a virtual unknown and from the Senate, he has had problems talking about the ties between small government conservatism and social values of the SoCons.  This does not mean that his views follow those of the TP FiCons and his lack of policy directives (actually they all lack policy directives but it is telling on outreach to TP FiCons) for the size, scope and power of the federal government means that he has limited ability to expound upon them.  For SecCons he is a bit of an enigma, as well, although upholding traditional alliances and needing to repair them post-Obama is a major selling point.  His message on National Sovereignty issues based on border security and debt have not been highlighted, and that limits his comfort zone with SecCons as well.  Taken together Sen. Santorum is not sitting exactly where he was expected to sit within the CC SoCon confines, which makes him a tough nut to understand amongst the other factions within the Republican Party.  He has an amiable outreach, if a bit shrill at times, but also has a likeability factor that reaches not just to CC SoCons but to other factions as well.  If there is a candidate with a doormat out saying WELCOME on it, it is Sen. Santorum and while he is willing to listen he is also willing to hold a dialogue with both critics and supporters which is a very, very hard thing to find amongst the other candidates.  What Sen. Santorum lacks in clarity (as in Ron Paul) he makes up for in willingness to hear others out and uphold his traditional beliefs and talk about how they work in the modern world.  If he is the first of the Fusionists then he is putting down a few major marker points on openness and willingness to listen, not just talk and expound, which makes for an interesting dynamic for future Fusionists to examine.  He is not right on all issues and has problems of appeal outside of his origination point within the CC SoCons and still has not found the necessary expansive underpinnings for a wide-ranging set of policies and conversation points amongst the American people.  With that said, if he does these things he will find himself amongst a growing set of the Republican Party that crosses all prior factional boundaries that is fully within the 21st century of US politics.  He isn't there at this point but the possibilities to be at that point of confluence are indicated.

That is my personal view of the candidates within the Republican field vying for the nomination.

YMMV.

So what are the 'entitlements'?

An important misdirection on 'entitlements', especially Social Security, is that you are 'paying' into an 'account' that is a lockbox.

Unfortunately, that has never been true.

In Helvering v. Davis (1937) the Supreme Court determined that the 'payments' into SSA were simple taxes. Here is a review of Title VIII that puts SSA into place:

Title VIII, as we have said, lays two different types of tax, an "income tax on employees" and "an excise tax on employers." The income tax on employees is measured by wages paid during the calendar year. ' 801. The excise tax on the employer is to be paid "with respect to having individuals in his employ," and, like the tax on employees, is measured by wages. ' 804. Neither tax is applicable to certain types of employment, such as agricultural labor, domestic service, service for the national or state governments, and service performed by persons who have attained the age of 65 years. ' 811(b). The two taxes are at the same rate. '' 801, 804. For the years 1937 to 1939, inclusive, the rate for each tax is fixed at one percent. Thereafter the rate increases 1/2 of 1 percent every three years, until, after December 31, 1948, the rate for each tax reaches 3 percent. Ibid. In the computation of wages, all remuneration is to be included except so much as is in excess of $3,000 during the calendar year affected. ' 811(a). The income tax on employees is to be collected by the employer, who is to deduct the amount from the wages "as and when paid." ' 80a(a). He is indemnified against claims and demands of any person by reason of such payment. Ibid. The proceeds of both taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like internal revenue taxes generally, and are not earmarked in any way. ' 807(a). There are penalties for nonpayment. ' 807(c).

There is the nub of it: what you pay are simple taxes that are not earmarked in any way.  You do NOT pay money into a 'lockbox' and Congress stopped the procedure of having SSA funds go to SSA and, instead, they go into the general funds with Treasury notes going to SSA with promises of repayment of those notes.  Basically the 'trust fund' set up in the 1930's was abolished by a later Congress.

Congresses get to do that, you know?

But you still had an 'account', right?

Unfortunately, that has never been the case.

In Flemming v. Nestor (1960), the Supreme Court ruled against any contractual obligation put forward by the US government in SSA.  Nestor challenged that he had a 'right' to SSA because it was 'owed' to him by the US government which had pulled his benefits due to him being a Communist Party member.

The SCOTUS ruled that the 'account' was not property and was not covered by Constitutional protections.  Indeed it is a payment made by the will of Congress.

So those slips of paper you get when you pay into SSA saying how much you 'have' in an 'account'?

Meaningless.

You pay taxes and you get promises of future support.  No promise made by the US government is binding in any way, shape or form.  WE BIND government via the Constitution, and within those limits the power we grant is Sovereign in nature.

And that 1960 case brings up one very important point.

Lets say that you were an ideologue who had gotten to the Presidency and needed a useful tool to punish those that weren't supporting you in a re-election campaign.  Key or 'swing' districts might see threats of having the individuals getting SSA have their payments reduced or even their 'accounts' severed completely.  If they didn't vote the 'right way'.  Perhaps start with missing payments due to 'timing difficulties' and then, if that didn't convince recipients to 'change their mind' then start cutting them off from those payments on a more frequent basis.

Now here is the important thing to keep in mind:  ANY President of EITHER party could do this.

SSA, then, would be used as a tool against the people of the United States if they did not agree with the politics of their 'betters' in government.

Legally, too.

Be a shame to have those 'entitlements' cut off, wouldn't it?

And the thing is that the government holds this capability on ANY contract it signs up to.  It is called 'Termination for the Convenience of the Government' or T4C in contracting parlance.  Now for all of those out there who railed and impugned Halliburton and other companies do remember that ANY President can stop contracts with those companies and that if they have no real competitors then the US would be without those functions provided by that company.  Which is why, for all of the Left railing against 'cronyism' for Halliburton, President Obama has done nothing about their contracts: their services are unique and necessary to critical missions.

And that is for the military.  Of course such a move to remove vital services might get a President thrown out of office via impeachment or the ballot box.

Unless he did it late in a political campaign so as to politicize the topic and rouse his 'base'.

Or punish the 'base' of the 'other side' via threats and intimidation.

Not just with SSA, Medicare/Medicaid but with ANY contract held with the US government in ANY district for ANY reason or NONE AT ALL.

Remember when Thomas Paine called government a 'necessary evil' way back in Common Sense?  That is for when government just does the few things it MUST do.  When it starts to hand out goodies, then the Evil becomes Pure.

Which is why anyone, with any mental capacity to understand that 1 + 1 = 2, and not 3 for large values of 1, understands why you want a highly limited, restricted government starved of any treats and kept on a damn short leash.  This beast has grown so that it is now demanding not just its food, but ours as well, and is near to threatening to bite off the hand that feeds it.  I would suggest looking for a large stick and saying 'good doggie' until it can be beaten back to its proper place.

Your liberty and freedom depend on it.

So does your life, if you do the math.

Thinking off the cuff

After the so-called Presidential debates last night, the question of what to do with SSA came up.  I mean, the system is broke, broken and a Ponzi Scheme that exists on taxes.  So what to do?  I took 10 minutes as I was writing to think up a simple plan... I don't claim it to be good, but it does put together a lot of disparate ideas floating around, which at least makes it something different and, hopefully, a start to something better.

Thus at Hot Air I replied thusly and this will be the end of the post:

Doing away with SSA also means doing away with FICA.

We can design a better system that puts all on SSA currently into a budget area where the bonds held by the fund are used and Congress can kick in any amount it can afford to help supplement that. There would be no new recipients coming into that system and the SSA card would be used only for those recipients who wish to stay in the system.

For everyone else you can set up an account to put in money before taxes of not more than 10% of your earned income so as to reduce your tax liability, and put it into an account where, in 30 years, you can take money out tax free for any reason or no reason at all. Children can either have accounts started by their parents, or are allowed to start one with general back-dating for initiation at age 18 or at any time thereafter.

A proviso for those starting an account with an SSA card is that the account has its timer started from the day you got your SSA card: it is considered back-dated to that day. If that is more than 30 years ago you now have a way to shelter income and have a tax free way to recover that income immediately, tax free.

Another proviso is that money must go into an account in any amount annually for it to continue its status. One red cent will do it. There is no requirement for where the funds MUST come from only that funds are PUT IN to the account annually.

This ends the idea of having to hold an investment because what everyone talks about is an ‘account’ that reaches some maturity date – it isn’t the way you invest, that can be in anything, but how long you’ve had the account. And as the retirement age is abolished this gives a good way for those who are older and have a higher general income to put away a bit more of that as they grow older. They can roll other investments into that account so that any with required amounts to take out (the current IRAs) can then go directly into the new account. The old IRAs are allowed to go in tax free and the money comes out, tax free.

All fund vehicles inside the account are considered untaxable, period. While companies and diversified holding organizations do have to pay taxes for any transactions, all benefits put into the personal account are secured from further taxation as income, capital gains or any other income source. Yes you still have to pay sales taxes and other forms of taxation, but that is on the spending side, not the income side.

This does some immediate things.

- First it allows those who whine and complain about an account TODAY to get to make a REAL ACCOUNT that might actually be better and more flexible than SSA because they have held an SSA card for a long time. You don’t get ‘benefits’ from the government, but can shelter a portion of current income from taxation and if you’ve had the card longer than 30 years, you can start spending it. That isn’t wise, of course, but the account remains open as long as you have funds in it.

- Second is that those who wish to leave SSA as recipients and go back to work can then utilize this account to do the same as any other long-term SSA card holder. If you can get a job that pays more, net, than SSA you will then have away to reduce its tax burden to you. This can be ‘means tested’ so that there is a fraction of SSA going to you, based on your earned income and the year that you get more in net income from your work than you do from SSA, your SSA access ends. You have become a full and independent older adult who no longer needs the help of Uncle Sam. Thank you.

- Third is that parents can put money into a child’s account and when that child grows older he or she will have something with a date certain of when they can get to the funds. If started at birth, then you can do that at 30 years old just when that first real house starts to become a necessity. If done at 18, then at 48 you gain access to the account for medical expenditures, advanced schooling for children or other needs. This is actually far better than SSA/Medicare/Medicaid will ever be.

No one can mandate that you put money into such an account, but it is available to you as a citizen. After SSA is removed your account can be started by your parents at any time from your birth day onwards, or by you at 18 if your parents are unable to do so.

And if you start to think that this is a way to get money out of the taxable reaches of government, then you are getting the point to the account. If we mean what we say about having a sustainable economy via investment then this is just the sort of thing you want as it can hold any investment vehicle, cash, or even an entire estate which can then be rolled over without any taxation to children or other account holders. This will put all governments on a short spending leash, yes, and any who wish to expose their earnings to the ravages of legislators can do so. This will cheese of anyone who thinks that anything should be liable for taxes to pay for ‘good things’… and says to them: responsible citizens who can pay their own way should have the risks and benefits of doing so. These people are not a ‘burden’ to the system because their investment and spending will create a new system very different from today’s and a direct pipeline of funds and investment vehicles into a tax shelter for even the poorest of citizens will allow all citizens to learn to take care of themselves.

Don’t just replace SSA and other entitlements.

Make something better that the government can’t ravage to its spendthrift ends.

This took all of 10 minutes to think up.

I am sure you can do better.

ajacksonian on September 8, 2011 at 7:12 AM

Belief in America or Just the Bureaucracy

This is a quick take on the plan put forth by Mitt Romney for what he would do as President: Believe In America.

He has the 5 Bills for Day 1... mind you Congress makes and drafts bills, so he is asking Congress to do this for him.  Even if his proposal is just wrapped into a bill, it still has to go through normal vetting in both Houses.  Of course most Congresses dealing with a new President like to give him something early on, and that will usually be the last of it for what a President gets easily.  On to the proposals.

First – Cut corporate income tax rates to 25%.  This is becoming a theme amongst the Republican candidates with John Huntsman proposing something similar.

Second – Implement the negotiated free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.  That is a good thing and requires Senate approval, which would go relatively easily with this President who can still take this one away with a sign of his pen and handing it to Harry Reid.  That he hasn't has shown President Obama's lack of skill at foreign policy, diplomacy and the treaty ratification process which starts with the President and ends in the Senate.

Third - The Domestic Energy Act, and I will give you its talking point directly:

• Directs the Department of the Interior to undertake a comprehensive
survey of American energy reserves in partnership with exploration
companies and initiates leasing in all areas currently approved
for exploration

Notice that this talking point does not look at the role of the EPA and Dept. of Interior or if they should even exist at this point.  If the point had read 'Seeks to disband the EPA, Dept. of Energy, and end the regulatory authority of the Dept. of the Interior on energy concerns and return those to the States' he might have something.  As it is he is still working to keep the regulatory bodies around after they have proven toxic to the Nation's economy via over-reach.  That these agencies can have such power under ANY President is the problem: if we are depending on good nature and kindness from the Oval Office resident, then human nature will leave these powers open to abuse.  The problem lies not with the not granting of leasing permits, but in the US government having any power over them at all.  This is odd because of the next point.

Fourth - The Retraining Reform Act, and again direct verbiage:

• Consolidates the sprawl of federal retraining programs and returns
funding and responsibility for these programs to the states

If this is such a great idea for 'retraining programs' then how about for determination of energy exploration?  Or why, indeed, does the federal government get involved not only with 'retraining' but 'education' as a whole?  For pointed projects for military affairs there should be some funding to support research, but the entire federal array of spending in this realm is something that belongs at the State level.  Again, why not abolish the Dept. of Education, end all 'retraining' initiatives and then just cut the budget?  The message from 2010 was Stop The Spending, and to this point it hasn't been stopped.

Fifth – A 5% across the board cut to discretionary programs, yielding $20 Billion.  Why not abolish the Dept. of Agriculture and get nearly 4x that amount?  Toss in EPA, Education, Energy, Labor, choice parts of Interior... that would be a massive re-scope in federal power, of course.  That is not what is being proposed.

 

There are also five Executive Orders that would go out on Day One and those are next.

First – Tell HHS to yield as much authority back to the States for health insurance and prepare to end Obamacare.  Say, why isn't that in a bill on Day One?

Second – Rescind all Obama regulations and cap regulation growth to $0 as to impact on the economy.  Of course if you got rid of the regulatory agencies which have over-reached you could not only get to $0 growth but get some cash back by selling off the property, furnishings and such of the regulatory agencies involved.  That is something a businessman would do – get rid of failing parts of a business and yield any revenue from their remains that he can get.  Oh, sorry!  I though Romney was a businessman...

Third -  An Order to Boost Domestic Energy Production and direct verbiage, again, boldface is mine wherever seen:

• Directs the Department of the Interior to implement a process for rapid
issuance of drilling permits to developers with established safety records
seeking to use pre-approved techniques in pre-approved areas

The federal government has proven to be the PROBLEM in issuing permits, particularly Interior and EPA.  How about just asking for those powers and regulatory organizations to be abolished and let the States figure it out for themselves as they have a good set of procedures for near shore drilling and the ability to craft good policy for their State and its concerns?  But that would be federalism at work.  Can't have that!

Fourth – A Romney hobby-horse is China and seeking sanctions against it for violating our trade agreements with it.  He could, of course, just rip up the agreement and be done with it.  Mind you, this is a guy who's company (or one of the arms of Bain) was in bed with Huawei which was seeking to muscle in on encryption technology.  Yes, his hand-picked man was running the company, but Mr. Romney was the owner of it, so that makes things look a bit interesting as to his beef with China.  He could propose a three tier system of Free Trade with Nations that are our friends and that offer protections of the rights of their citizens from abusive government, normal trade relations with any government that is neither hostile nor friendly and offers at least some protections to their citizens, and no trade for those Nations that are hostile to us and seek to abuse the rights of their own people.  You know, something simple that makes the position of the US clear and understandable with regards to Free Trade and human rights?

Fifth – And then there is this one, An Order to Empower American Businesses and Workers, and verbiage:

• Reverses the executive orders issued by President Obama that tilt the
playing field in favor of organized labor, including the one encouraging
the use of union labor on major government construction projects

Great as far as it goes.  Note that the Dept. of Labor and NLRB isn't addressed in this.  He will address one of them later in the additional back-up material.  On p.4 he has a Labor Policy area and I'll give that one to start looking at the underpinnings of how Gov. Romney thinks government should be run:

LABOR POLICY
Mitt Romney will protect the worker rights and employer flexibility crucial to innovation, economic growth, and job creation. As president, Romney’s first step in improving labor policy will be to ensure that our labor laws create a stable and level playing field on which businesses can operate. This means he will appoint to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) experienced individuals with a respect for the law and an even-handed approach to labor relations. Rather than seek to impose his own vision for the future of labor law via executive fiat and bureaucratic subterfuge, Romney will take the conservative approach and work with Congress to amend the outdated portions of the existing statutory framework, setting it on a stronger footing appropriate to contemporary conditions.

Specifically, Romney will seek amendments to the National Labor Relations Act that protect free enterprise, free choice, and free speech. The Act must be amended to ensure that it does not allow the NLRB to constrain companies in their investment decisions, as the NLRB is attempting to do in the Boeing case. It must also be amended to guarantee workers the right to receive full information about the pros and cons of unionization and then express their own preference in the privacy of the voting booth. And it must put an end to the undemocratic practice of allowing unions to deduct money directly from worker paychecks and spend it on political causes with which the workers may disagree.

How about just abolishing the damned thing?  Not just the NLRB but the Dept. of Labor, both, as the States were dealing with things pretty well before these things were created.  And if you want to protect Constitutional rights, then you take the abusers to court, which means States have to make sure that everyone is treated equally, and the federal government has a lovely Congress to make sure that it can be constrained so as not to utilize any discretion when awarding contracts.  Wouldn't that be a novel idea?  Get rid of abusive agencies, hand power back to the States and then seek to have discretion removed by Congress so that abuse on the part of a President or an Agency can be taken to court.  Why, that is almost novel!  Do note, that is not what Mitt Romney is proposing.  He trusts the power and authority of the bureaucracy and thinks that all it takes is electing good people to the position of President because, you know, we would never elect someone who would abuse that power.

Right?

Oh, wait a sec... that is exactly what his proposal is addressing and he is not dealing with the root of the problem but, instead, trimming the noxious weed back a bit but leaving it in place.  If you are noticing a decided lack of distrust of bureaucracies and how they work at the federal level, then you are starting to get a feel for Mitt Romney's proposal.

Let's take a look at the part on 'human capital' right next to the labor policy area:

HUMAN CAPITAL POLICY
Mitt Romney sees two important objectives that America can pursue immediately to build on the extraordinary traditional strengths of its workforce. The first is to retrain American workers to ensure that they have the education and skills to match the jobs of today’s economy. The second is to attract the best and brightest from around the world. As president, Romney will focus retraining efforts on a partnership that brings together the states and the private sector. He will consolidate federal programs and then block grant major funding streams to states. Federal policy will be structured to encourage the use of Personal Reemployment Accounts that empower workers to put retraining funds to efficient use and that encourage employers to provide on-the-job training.

Romney will also press for an immigration policy that maximizes America’s economic potential. The United States needs to attract and retain job creators from wherever they come. Romney will raise the ceiling on the number of visas issued to holders of advanced degrees in math, science, and engineering who have job offers in those fields from U.S. companies. Romney will also work to establish a policy that staples a green card to the diploma of every eligible student visa holder who graduates from an American university with an advanced degree in math, science, or engineering.

I have some bad news for Mitt Romney: the job of President of the United States is NOT about bringing States and the private sector together.  Sorry, that is up to the States to decide.  But as he is the one in control of the cash stream via Block Grants, why, he gets to do that!  Isn't government wonderful?  Hand cash over to people and then get to tell them how to utilize it!  Why its so... Progressive!  And then he will help make individual accounts to make sure the federal government can 'help' individuals.  Gee, isn't that swell of him?

I'm all for the part of attracting the best & brightest.  Make sure they don't feel as if they are going to get shafted by having to go through all the legwork while illegals get offered some sweet amnesty, ok?  And Gov. Romney might want to take a look at closing the borders to the undocumented, illegal workers coming into the US so that Americans don't have to compete at the low end against them.

Now to back up to energy policy on p.3:

ENERGY POLICY
Mitt Romney will pursue an energy policy that puts conservative principles into action: significant regulatory reform, support for increased production, and a government that focuses on funding basic research instead of chasing fads and picking winners. Romney will streamline federal regulation of energy exploration and development so that the government acts as a facilitator of those activities instead of as an obstacle to them. He will create one-stop shops and impose fixed timelines for standard permits and approvals, and he will accelerate the process for companies with established safety records seeking to employ approved practices in approved areas.

Under this robust and efficient regulatory framework, Romney will significantly expand the areas available for energy development—including in the Gulf of Mexico, the Outer Continental Shelf, Western lands, and Alaska. He will also strengthen partnerships with Canada and Mexico to expand opportunities for American companies in the development of those nations’ resources. And he will encourage continued development of unconventional reserves like shale gas and oil that hold enormous promise for expanding the base of U.S. reserves.

You know all of that could be significantly accomplished by getting rid of federal 'oversight' in these areas.  And to make things even sweeter he could divest the US government of the land it has grabbed in energy rich areas and hand those back to the States, as well, so that some States can see some active revenue coming from their land via land taxation.  And that would mean less cost to Interior as it wouldn't have so much land under its belt to 'administer'.  Plus get rid of any potential abuse by an future President to do fun things with manipulating the energy supply of the Nation and put that back in the hands of the States where it belongs.

What I see here in this lovely plan, is a misplaced trust in government power and bureaucracies to do 'good'.  The role of the federal government is to apply equal application of the law, not tilt it towards Unions or towards business, but to apply it equally and fairly to all Americans so that any taken to court get a level playing field there.  That would mean recognizing that things done locally be it training, education, energy production, anything not handed in the Constitution to the federal government, belongs with the States and the people.  That we not only trust in God, but we then place trust in ourselves to hold our government accountable at the most local of levels where our power as citizens is at its strongest.  Not with the national government where it is at its weakest.

This plan is written so as to leave the abusive power structure largely in place and continue its drain on the federal government which, in case it hasn't been noticed, is broke.  Not just broken, but running so deep in the red that $20 billion out of $1.6 trillion is not just a bad joke but a mockery of fiscal sanity.

Gov. Romney needs to join the 21st century, as these 20th century style 'solutions' are the sort of thing that got us into this mess to begin with.  And he does not seem to recognize that these powers are misplaced and open to future abuse if the bureaucracies are left intact.  Which they are.  These are not 'solutions' of helping the American people by reducing the size, scope and power of government, but of papering over the massive defects of the government and hoping that a little bit of prosperity will lull people back to sleep about the massive problems our government has with its power.