Sovereign Domains

In examining the decision in the Obamacare decision (and I will use the pdf page numbering, not that of the Court), it is important to keep in mind what I have gone through in two prior posts about Sovereign Powers and the domains of them.  I utilize the works of Fred Saberhagen's SWORDS Series to illuminate this, and it is worth going over the functions of Swords as each of them is a Sovereign Power and that defines their Domain of power:

THE SONG OF SWORDS

Who holds Coinspinner knows good odds

Whichever move he make

But the Sword of Chance, to please the gods

Slips from him like a snake.

The Sword of Justice balances the pans

Of right and wrong, and foul and fair.

Eye for an eye, Doomgiver scans

The fate of all folk everywhere.

Dragonslicer, Dragonslicer, how d'you slay?

Reaching for the heart in behind the scales.

Dragonslicer, Dragonslicer, where do you stay?

In the belly of the giant that my blade impales.

Farslayer howls across the world

For thy heart, for thy heart, who hast wronged me!

Vengeance is his who casts the blade

Yet he will in the end no triumph see.

Whose flesh the Sword of Mercy hurts has drawn no breath;

Whose soul it heals has wandered in the night,

Has paid the summing of all debts in death

Has turned to see returning light.

The Mindsword spun in the dawn's gray light

And men and demons knelt down before.

The Mindsword flashed in the midday bright

Gods joined the dance, and the march to war.

It spun in the twilight dim as well

And gods and men marched off to hell.

I shatter Swords and splinter spears;

None stands to Shieldbreaker.

My point's the fount of orphans' tears

My edge the widowmaker.

The Sword of Stealth is given to

One lonely and despised.

Sightblinder's gifts: his eyes are keen

His nature is disguised.

The Tyrant's Blade no blood hath spilled

But doth the spirit carve

Soulcutter hath no body killed

But many left to starve.

The Sword of Siege struck a hammer's blow

With a crash, and a smash, and a tumbled wall.

Stonecutter laid a castle low

With a groan, and a roar, and a tower's fall.

Long roads the Sword of Fury makes

Hard walls it builds around the soft

The fighter who Townsaver takes

Can bid farewell to home and croft.

Who holds Wayfinder finds good roads

Its master's step is brisk.

The Sword of Wisdom lightens loads

But adds unto their risk.

(end of the song)

Federalism is a means of dividing Sovereign Power into different Domains and then placing those Domains in whole or in part in different parts of government.  The US Constitution tells which branch of government gets which power, and that power is part of the Sovereign Power: it is that Power of a Nation expressed via its State through its government.    All Nations are equal in the Sovereign Power, there is no greater or lesser amongst them as they all express that Power because they are Nations.  Like individuals some Nations are larger than others, some have greater resources than others, and some are blessed by geography while others are accursed by same.  These things, like our own natural liberty in the realm of individuals, do not matter as all Sovereign Powers are equal amongst all Nations.  Indeed the Sovereign Power is bound up with the very individuals that create the Nation as a Nation only exists where there is the basis for it and that basis does not start on high, with the Nation, but on low with marriage.

When looking at the Obamacare decision it is necessary to also remember that the Domains of the Sovereign Power to each branch of government are discrete: they are defined and exist within a defined space and are separated from each other.  In this distribution within a federalist system there are 'checks and balances' that are not only amongst the three branches of federal government but also between the federal government, the State governments and the people who are the source of the power that is being used by these governments.

For Chief Justice Roberts there is a major decision that was made in the following way in the second page of the decision:

The Anti-Injunction Act provides that “no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court by any person,” 26 U. S. C. §7421(a), so that those subject to a tax must first pay it and then sue for a refund. The present challenge seeks to restrain the collection of the shared responsibility payment from those who do not comply with the individual mandate. But Congress did not intend the payment to be treated as a “tax” for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act. The Affordable Care Act describes the payment as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” That label cannot control whether the payment is a tax for purposes of the Constitution, but it does determine the application of the Anti-Injunction Act. The Anti-Injunction Act therefore does not bar this suit. Pp. 11– 15.

There is a difference between paying a tax and paying a penalty: a tax is levied upon a transaction while a penalty can be levied upon an action alone not just a transaction.  Both are attached to doing activities, however, while the 'mandate' is levied against those doing nothing.

These topics cover two separate Domains of Power granted to Congress, which are the taxation power and the commerce regulation power.  Let us take a look at these powers in the Constitution in Article I:

Section. 7.

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

[..]

Section. 8.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

[..]

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

[..]

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

[..]

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Section. 9.

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

[..]

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken. [Amendment XVI see below]

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.

No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another; nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.

AMENDMENT XVI

Passed by Congress July 2, 1909. Ratified February 3, 1913.

Note: Article I, section 9, of the Constitution was modified by amendment 16.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Congress gets Domains of taxation and regulation of commerce and they are discrete and differentiated in that taxation (and any other revenue bills) must start in the US House of Representatives.  Penalties can be non-monetary (such as prison sentences or hard labor) and those can start in either House of Congress, but anything that requires taking money from the people or the States must start in the US House of Representatives.  Thus the labels are important as those labels that the US Congress assigns for taxation indicate that such bills that garner revenue started in the US House of Representatives, not the Senate.  It may seem a minor quibble, but the Affordable Care Act started in the US Senate, which can neither levy taxes nor have penalties with monetary revenue generation for the federal government.  If the argument is that this is a tax, then the bill should be struck down due to its lack of legitimate originating body.  Within the US Congress the people have determined that it is only the House which can originate such bills (they can be started in the Senate but then must be redone as a House bill, passed in the House, then passed in the Senate as a House bill).

As the US Constitution is a limiting power system (as the power outlays in the main body and Amendments IX and X enforce) there is a limitation in the power of taxation:  "...provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"

This is the Common Defense and General Welfare clause and it relates directly to taxes, duties, imposts and excises for generating revenue.  In referring to 'the United States' instead of 'the several States', the taxation power relates to the entirety of the Nation taken as a unit: it is not a power that allows it to be broken down to separate between individual States or amongst the people.  When Chief Justice Roberts refers to "The present challenge seeks to restrain the collection of the shared responsibility payment from those who do not comply with the individual mandate." he is trying to construe that health care insurance is something that is treated for the Nation as a whole and yet there are other ways to garner health care other than through insurance.  Health care is garnered  by and amongst individuals who live in States, and those States each have separate jurisdiction over those things not delegated to the federal government, and it can be done through any means an individual wishes which includes sole reliance on charitable institutions.

As the Common Defense and General Welfare are put together, they are considered a single object defining the taxation power.  The taxation Power Domain starts broad in Section 7, but is refined in Section 8 so that it cannot be used tyrannically.  Because both Common Defense and General Welfare of the United States relate to the Nation as a single whole, any taxation power is administered equally across all States as a single whole.  Taxes are levied upon activities and they are in a clause in Section 8 that deals with activities of trade: taxes, duties, imposts and excises.

Even further there is the forgotten part of the General Welfare clause that is added to Common Defense and General Welfare: "...to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;"  By using the word 'and' there is the direct connection of these three objects: Debts, Common Defense, General Welfare.  These are treated as a single object due to the 'and' between them: taxes, duties, imposts and excises are to be collected only for these things.  The Debt of the United States is its federal government's debt.  Similarly the running of the Common Defense for the Nation is done by the federal government.  The General Welfare of the Nation is done via external trade and assuring regularity of internal trade amongst the States which is a power granted to government.

Does healthcare fall into any of these categories?

1) It does not fall into the Debt.  It is incurred by individuals in the States, under the regulatory apparatus of the States.  Healthcare does not fall into this object category.

2) It does not fall into the Common Defense.  Healthcare is done as in internal and individual purchase for individual needs for medicine, medical examination, medical care and medical treatment.  If a pandemic requires federal intervention because it acts like an invading enemy, then the US military will deal with it.

3) It does not fall under the General Welfare.  The General Welfare deals with trade that is between Nations or between States and is attached to the regularity of imposts, duties, and excises, which are all specific taxes dealing with trade.  It is their specificity to trade, and the negative power structure of the overall Constitution that limits the federal government to these trade based forms of taxation for trade (otherwise they would just be taxes without restriction within this Domain of Power).  As healthcare is purchased locally and is not an item of inter-State trade (until such time as States wish to regularize this amongst themselves as the several States), then there is no entry point to tax it at the federal level.  If it was an item of inter-State trade it would be limited to duties, imposts and excises, not other forms of taxation.

In each category for the Domain of the Taxation Power granted Congress, health care is not seen as part of its Domain because it is not for the Nation taken as a whole or for the trade amongst States either.  In trying to set up regulatory law on health care, the Congress has created law where it has no Power Domain.  Because there is no Power Domain for Congress to exercise power, there can be no definition of a 'shared responsibility' as that responsibility is, indeed, not shared but falls to individuals and the States.

Yes this is a condemnation of Medicare, Medicaid and any other attempts for the federal government to have anything to do with healthcare.  That includes offering tax write-offs and subsidies via the tax code.  By having no Power Domain in this realm, Congress has not the power to act.  For the Affordable Care Act to be a tax it must have the proper starting point (the US House), the proper subject (the United States as a unitary whole), the proper object (Debt, Common Defense, General Welfare) as taxation is the activity.  This is due to the SVO sentence structure of the English Language and when reading the US Constitution the drafters were mindful of their language and the internal logic of the sentences so that they had proper Subject, Verb, Object agreement.  For the Affordable Care Act to have its implementation be the Verb of taxation it must have the proper Subject and Object to complement it.

It lacks those things as a tax.

In this I have disagreement with Chief Justice Roberts: he cannot parse out a sentence in the US Constitution.

As Chief Justice Roberts didn't reference the Commerce Clause in regarding taxation, it is worth noting that 'the several States' wouldn't cover the Affordable Care Act as there are no 'several States' seeking to implement a system of regularizing health care amongst them.  Even if there were States doing that and the federal government had any role to play, it would be limited via the explicit language in the General Welfare Clause to duties, imposts, and excises.  Thus all Clauses dealing with 'amongst the several States' do not apply to the Affordable Care Act.

Do note, however, that the regulatory part of the of the Commerce Clause would allow for penalties up front, such as trading in contraband goods.  Penalties in the Commerce Clause can go directly to non-monetary ones, while penalties in taxation are only for the non-payment of taxes: taxes are not penalties but a cost put on the activity of trade.  Taxes are the overhead of trade, in other words.  When Congress speaks of penalties, they can be applied immediately to illegal trade, while penalties for taxes are for non-payment of taxes.  This is a distinction with a difference as the penalties show up at different phases of the activity involved and have different types of consequences and severity within the limits of the separate Domains of Power.  Both Domains do cross on activity by type, yes, but they have different functions based on types of activities: it is very hard to tax illegal trade thus it requires a different set of penalties, while payment of taxes is done on legal trade and the non-payment of taxes (the inactivity of paying the tax overhead) has the stated purpose of generating revenue , first, and penalizing non-payment, second.  Thus one can garner penalties for illegal trade (or legal trade done illegally) and the other is for legal trade, done legally but not garnering the given tax overhead for that legal trade.  In the case of legal trade done illegally anyone doing that can face direct penalties for doing same and have tax non-payment liabilities also show up.  A single action can be a breach of two separate Domains of Power for different reasons.

A further restriction on the Tax Power is:  "No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken."  If the Affordable Care Act is a capitation tax that is apportioned by any other means than by Census or income (Amend. XVI) then it is not given to be within the Tax Power Domain.  The Affordable Care Act offers up this 'tax' only to those who do not purchase health insurance: it is not done by Census or income.  Therefore if the basis for the Tax Power Domain is used, then it cannot be done via this Clause, either.

On page 5 of the decision... amazing how much analysis you can pack into a single paragraph on a single page, isn't it?  This section deals with Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Breyer and Kagan:

(a) The Spending Clause grants Congress the power “to pay the Debts and provide for the . . . general Welfare of the United States.” Art. I, §8, cl. 1. Congress may use this power to establish cooperative state-federal Spending Clause programs. The legitimacy of Spending Clause legislation, however, depends on whether a State voluntarily and knowingly accepts the terms of such programs. Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 17. “[T]he Constitution simply does not give Congress the authority to require the States to regulate.” New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 178. When Congress threatens to terminate other grants as a means of pressuring the States to accept a Spending Clause program, the legislation runs counter to this Nation’s system of federalism. Cf. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U. S. 203, 211. Pp. 45–51.

Notice how the Justices left paying for the Common Defense out of the Clause?  Yes they are trying to make a point but the Object of the Clause is compound and self-reinforcing giving it added definition, thus refining the scope of the power.  And what is the view for not upholding the Medicaid changes?  Fascinating to read this taking the entire ACA into consideration "The legitimacy of Spending Clause legislation, however, depends on whether a State voluntarily and knowingly accepts the terms of such programs."

The entire ACA is attempting to force a large change in how each State operates.  If the States don't agree to it then, like in Medicaid, its legitimacy is questionable.  Mind you, this is reading the exact same programmatics which is the ACA into changes into Medicaid which is a federal to State system of money transfers with strings attached.  Just like ACA.  The ACA goes further in purporting power to the federal government to set up 'health care exchanges' in States that don't voluntarily agree to set up their own.  By the logic of the 3 Justices involved, that would be outside the bounds of the Constitution.

Do these Justices even bother to think about what they are writing and the context in which they are writing it?  Talk about compartmentalized thinking...

At that point, due to the similarity of structure and Power Domain that ACA has with Medicaid (voluntary agreement structure State-federal), then the obvious way to get a 7-2 decision to strike down the ACA is just not to agree to it at the State level.    That is because the ACA does foist off a lot of structure onto the States without trying to get the States to agree to it, per State.  That is the same structural problem with Medicaid that has just been ruled out of bounds for the federal government to do.  And the moment one State opts out of all of the ACA, then it is the federal government no longer treating the States or the people equally which then should bring down the entire structure completely.

Mind you, if the States started doing that with Medicaid, something similar might be in store for it, as well.  Really, with these three Justices on the five part of 5-4 striking down, and the other 4 wanting a complete striking down, the first case with ACA of a State just refusing it entirely should get you that 7-2 majority for the ACA, which would invalidate the entire structure due to equal application of the law and this not being something set up amongst the several States but put upon the States by the federal government.

So, by page 5 on the upholding side, there is the Chief Justice being unable to parse a sentence, and he is joined by Breyer and Kagan in being unable to see the similarly structural qualities of the ACA to Medicaid, and the result of what would happen if a State does not voluntarily accept the ACA... which is the point of the entire case brought by the States.  Hmmmmm... just how stupid are these people in black robes, anyways?

Hey, I haven't even gotten to the logical inconsistencies around page 38 of the pdf.  You don't have to go that far to find stuff that is most disturbing in this decision.

Since so many are looking at a more general preface on page 12 of the pdf, lets see what the general view of the Court is:

Our permissive reading of these powers is explained in part by a general reticence to invalidate the acts of the Nation’s elected leaders. “Proper respect for a co-ordinate branch of the government” requires that we strike down an Act of Congress only if “the lack of constitutional authority to pass [the] act in question is clearly demonstrated.” United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629, 635 (1883).Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.

May it be said that it is not the job of the Court to save the politically chosen representatives from their own inability to actually craft a law and that it is also not the job of the Court to shift the Power Domain of an act of Congress from one venue to another as the origination of that power is not that of the Court but Congress.  Trying to change those Power Domains to make a law 'work' is not the job of the Court: it is the job of the Court to make sure that the laws crafted within a given designated Power Domain of Congress or the President are Constitutional.  It is not permissive reading that is going on, but changing of Power Domains that are not given nor granted to the Court to do.

Yes those labels do have meaning and designation of which Power Domain the crafted laws is made to fall under.  The Court is no more given nor capable of doing that than is the President: only Congress can do that.  If they didn't do it right, the idea isn't to change the Domain but to send it back to Congress and tell them to do it right.

The Court cannot protect the people from our choices and they cannot shield Congress from its own incapacities and must point them out so that the Nation can get Constitutional laws drafted by the Congress in the proper Houses of Congress, properly ratified that do not seek to impose power in Domains not granted to the federal government.  When labels are changed by the Court to save the Congress from its incapacities neither the people nor the Nation are served and the Court has failed to do its job as it is given to do.  This isn't about policy but simply doing the job one has volunteered to do in the way you have agreed to do it.

Progressivism's New Man

Progressivism has been about the expansion of government authority and power into realms that it has been barred from in the United States both via Constitution and via custom.  This type of law goes back deep into the English law system as seen under Bracton (as I explored in this post), in that there were few written laws in England and many local laws of custom as explained thusly from Bracton on the Laws and Customs of England:

[010] Though in almost all lands use is made of the leges and the jus scriptum, England
[011] alone uses unwritten law and custom. There law derives from nothing written [but]
[012] from what usage has approved.4 Nevertheless, 5it will not be absurd to call English
[013] laws leges, though they are unwritten, since whatever has been rightly decided and
[014] approved with the counsel and consent of the magnates and the general agreement
[015] of the res publica,6 the authority of the king or prince having first been added
[016] thereto,7 has the force of law.8 9England has as well many local customs, varying
[017] from place to place, for the English have many things by custom which they do
[018] not have by law, as in the various counties, cities, boroughs and vills, where it will
[019] always be necessary to learn what the custom of the place is and how those who
[020] allege it use it.

In the 13th century England had local laws (leges which were unwritten) as well as a modicum of National laws from the Monarchy and Ecclesiastical law from the Church.  Thus, as a whole, those who sat as judges in England had to be able to differentiate between what issues were to be decided and which venue they belonged in and how to then interpret the law so as to come to a consistent and just ruling.  What Bracton called for was the institution of written legal rulings so as to build a body of work that would allow for future judges to see how past decisions were made and attempt to create some regularity in the judicial system so that there would be a regularity in social understanding of the law and its three domains.  This is the concept that would prove to be a foundational one in the English Common Law and the US law systems (Civil, Military and the Civil/Admiralty) for criminal and non-criminal cases that would also add layers of State and Local law to federal law.

The United States has as part of its make-up not just a multi-tier code system in the federal realm, but a multi-layered multi-tiered system when the States and localities are added into the mix.  Indeed one can break local law while not breaking State nor federal law, which means that accountability to the legal code must be understood at all levels of legality.  This also forms a multi-layered and multi-tiered judiciary with recourse to higher levels of authority up to the level of the State and to the federal at the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).  The federalist doctrine embedded in the US Constitution is to put as much power (and thus law making) into the hands of the States and the people by restricting the scope and breadth of the federal system.  The rationale for this is that the finer grained the power structure at its basis, the less that coarser grained systems need to interfere and that problems are best solved at the personal and local level, not at the federal and Nation State level.

What the Progressive Era sought to do was to start shifting this power pyramid so as to put the National level into more control over individuals and States via multiple means.  One of the major ones is direct taxation on income, something that was expressly forbidden by the Constitution as it can be used as a punitive system against those who are merely out of political favor.  Another method is to expand the scope and power of the federal government to intervene on things like international drug trafficking via items like the Shanghai Treaty and through the use of internal tax stamps where stamps would never be issued and, thusly, no one could actually obtain the goods without the stamp nor safely acquire a stamp for such goods in the first place.  From these modest beginnings of corruption the US tax code has grown over the decades to become a behemoth of rules that were put in place due to political favoritism and punishment for the disfavored.  Likewise regulations to safeguard food and medicines (arguably a part of assured inter-State trade so that citizens could know what was in the products they were getting from other States) were layered over with laws against medications of various sorts to usurp local jurisdictions for such goods.  Instead of merely assuring such goods had a measurable purity and that they would have National safeguard in transport through districts that banned the sale of them, the inverted idea was to 'regularize' the patchworks into a whole: regulation had changed its meaning from assuring movement of goods through hostile jurisdictions to prohibiting their sale Nationally.  'Regulation' had gained a new meaning in federal trade realms that was far different than the old 'regularizing' and harmonizing of codes between States and became one of imposing laws on trade between States at the federal level.

This inverted pyramid of power, that is one where law flows from the top-down, is not new nor Progressive in nature as it has been the lot of mankind to have such inverted power structures for thousands of years.  Indeed the first records of governments in all societies, no matter what their geographic location or ethnicity, is that of this form of top-down government.  They have typical names to them of: dictatorship, monarchy, oligarchy, and empire.  These Nations are ruled by a State apparatus that concentrates power in the few and distant, not recognizing that transactions and administration is all local and distributed.  To early civilizations there is a form of order that comes from these centralized authoritarian States in that they put down a regularized form of law.  The negatives are that such law systems often tread on local custom, they are not amenable to localized input from those not affiliated with the regime, they are brittle to change and they are tyrannical because of these artifacts.  Wherever you hear the new or Progressive meaning of 'regulation' you are hearing the old word of tyranny.

Modern 'regulatory' States governing Nations have been tried in various guises called Communist and Fascist, along with variants of the Anarcho-Syndicalist and National Socialist types, and all are socialistic in their scope.  The generalized vision is that society is reformulated to be governed by a centralized body composed of Party Elites that then tell what everyone else should do.  These systems can have differences, say in the 'worker's councils' of the Anarcho-Syndicalist variety, but they all culminate in a central organized body running the government and the economy, and thus society, by a given doctrine.  It is, in short, a deeply religious form of government as it tolerates no other doctrinal views nor variation of anything which makes it totalitarian in scope.  Progressivism comes from this formulaic background in America (and partakes in great part in founding Anarcho-Syndicalism in Spain and Italy) and asserts that Marx's revolutionary goal will be achieved by evolutionary means.  These means include the slow erosion of capitalist economies, culture, and States through the methodology of applying socialized doctrine to regulate segments of the economy and increase control of the Nation State government over society in that doing.  It is fascinating to see that socialism and Socialists see capitalism and Capitalists as corrupt, but the only way they can get a corrupt system is by corrupting it themselves as Socialists in the name of socialism.  Which does beg the question: if capitalism is so corrupted, then why do you need to corrupt it further via socialist methods?  Those from the First International would actually criticize these Socialists on these grounds and that anything done to 'soften' or 'humanize' capitalism would draw out the agony of the capitalist States and that the greatest good that Socialists can do is to reinforce capitalism, push it to its few good ends (which even Marx enumerated) so as to get to the great socialist change faster.  An evolutionary approach was seen as making things worse for a longer period of time and could wind up with an even worse system which was State Capitalism which removed the minimal benefits of private capitalism and put in place a tyrannical system of State control that had no socialist goals.

Be that as it may, the Progressive system of socializing segments of the economy which directly impacted individuals (banking via the Federal Reserve, retirement via Social Security, medicine via Medicare and Medicaid, residential housing via Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae with the last to destroy the local lending market) was started in the 1910's and carried out all the way to President Bush (43) and Medicare Part D and President Obama's multi-pronged attack on the medical system via private insurers, student loans and shifting regulatory regimes from merely restrictional to those seeking to destroy large sections of the energy sector of the economy via 'green' energy and jobs.  The tax code was already blossoming, but further regulation of industry was needed via acts on labor, occupational safety and health, the 'environment' and taxation on specific goods and services (usually by rubrics of pre-existing regulatory regimes).

Many have stated that the end result is that at any given moment you are violating a host of regulations, laws and other rules at multiple levels of government who see fit to try and manage you via such laws.  As these law formulations are dense, complex and not well stated to the point of being incomprehensible to the common man, the lawyer has been elevated to a position of high status to just try and figure this stuff out.  Ditto the tax preparer.  This is a state of being that has a sociological description to it:

Environmental questions on how crime is enacted are perhaps regularly asked in criminology, but elaborated theories that explain behavioral variations are rare. Sometimes, routine activities theory (Cohen and Felson 1979) is used to answer such questions. According to this theory, crime arises from patterns of ordinary legal activities. When these patterns lead to motivated perpetrators and unprotected targets being present in the same place at the same time, the necessary and sufficient conditions for criminality are fulfilled, and crimes will occur. By this theory, crime is thus a question of “systematic coincidence.” An objection to this approach is that it does not take the goal-oriented behavior of many perpetrators sufficiently into account. For many of them, committing crimes is an everyday routine. Moreover, many criminals do not merely encounter unprotected targets by accident but consciously go in search of them, as is shown by the findings of many ethnographic studies (e.g., Wright and Decker 1997, 1994). Rational choice theory (Cornish and Clarke 1986) is also frequently used to answer environmental questions on crime. This theory is not concerned with criminal motivation either, but in this case because it assumes that every person is in principle prepared to commit crime. Rational choice theory regards every form of behavior as a goal-oriented choice directed toward accomplishing objectives. The point of departure is that, after weighing the advantages and disadvantages of various alternatives, a choice is made which is optimal given the aim (benefit maximization). Rational choice theory itself is abstract and requires supplementary empirical content through specification of the relevant aims and choice situations. To be able to apply rational choice theory to questions of how crime is enacted, a supplemental theory is therefore often necessary with respect to the choice situations with which individuals are confronted as they make decisions about when, where, how and against what target an offense will be committed.

When regulations so overwhelm good sense and regular trade, when they intrude upon the smallest of activities in daily life, then the natural instinct is to seek the unprotected means around such regulations and to consciously seek them out.  Progressivism, and all totalitarian regime types, seek to control so much of the human interactive environment that the object of actually just living day-to-day requires criminal outlook and intent: the authoritarian system creates criminals. What that creates, as described above by Wim Bernasco, is Homo Criminalis: Criminal Man.

The centralization of power and authority does not get an enlightened State but one that becomes more barbaric over time.  Regulations at the highest level of the Nation are the hardest to overturn due to the power of the State's ability to gather income resting behind the enforcement of such regulations and laws.  No matter what the stated set of goals for such laws and regulations are (be they to 'help the poor' or 'clean up the environment' or 'regulate banking') their end result is a profusion of rules and penalties that become denser, more complex and harder to avoid breaking with each and every page added to the mass of the regulatory code.   At each point of government below the Nation State level, there is less income and backing for such laws until you get to the local level of representative government (when you can get representative government and apparatchiks aren't merely appointed from the State).  At the lowest level is your self-governance which is the point of making the plethora of rules, laws and so forth.  Your personal self-governance is to adhere to that of the Nation State's dictates, and you are to have very few choices in your life at all.  For you to survive in such circumstances the rational viewpoint on a day to day basis is to work around the regulations, rules, codes and laws, and circumvent them just to be able to feed yourself and your family.

No matter how 'fair' the tax system is purported to be, it withdraws productive wealth from the private economy and puts it in the unproductive hands of bureaucrats who seek to expand their sphere of influence and power not out of malice but out of bureaucratic necessity to justify their job and those that help to expand the power of the bureaucracy are elevated. This is best described by Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy (from Jerry Pournelle):

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

Whenever we hear of cuts that are to be done at the most local of levels, who's jobs are threatened?  Why, at every turn it is the jobs of teachers, policemen, firefighters, and librarians.  Never is it the job of the line supervisor, the secretary, the back office staff, the functionaries, the paper-pushers or those who have entrenched themselves in useless jobs in the bureaucracy.  Not only is the Progressive State tyrannical, but those working in the State apparatus have a vested interest in increasing the power of the State via that very apparatus.  Thus the Progressive State is pernicious not only for the nominal expansion of government power and control mechanisms, but the control mechanisms themselves begin to become the point of the State.  For the USSR the saying was that they had replaced the Czar with the Commissar:  the tyranny of the King for the tyranny of the Bureaucrat and Apparatchik.  And as any level of bureaucracy sees the need to add more layers to itself via various reasons (to increase 'compliance', to increase 'efficiency', to increase 'productivity) what happens, instead, is that additional layers of bureaucracy are created to entrench power and isolate it from scrutiny via not just the public but by the State as well.  Thus those who create the monstrous bureaucracy will, in time, become its victims although the progenitors do not live to become direct victims, their children or great-grandchildren do, and their society becomes a direct victim immediately.

What those is the bureaucracy do not comprehend is that they become as much Homo Criminalis in regards to other parts of the bureaucracy, and they are subjected to the same problems that they inflict on others.  Those who seek more power and authority, more backing for their control systems are, themselves, ground down by it and their very humanity and civilized patina starts to rub thin.

This is not an advanced or modern State of being, but one more akin to the Celestial Emperors of China where the bureaucracy controlled the Nation and the nominal King was more a figurehead and had very little power over the bureaucrats who decided who would be amongst their number and who would not.  While China had many great technologies, the rule of stability that was part and parcel of a wide-ranging bureaucratic State saw technological advances as threatening to the stability of the overall system.  In theory the King or Emperor had absolute power, but the fact on the ground was at the local level the delegated power was used to reinforce the stability of the Empire and actually hinder technological change.  Military technology would still change due to advances by adversaries, but these then became heavily regulated by the bureaucracy in turn.  Yet when thousands, if not tens of thousands of soldiers are cut down due to new technology the very existence of the Empire required advancement.  Even when the top or ruling class was overturned or the Empire invaded successfully, the system of powerful bureaucrats tended to remain as the new rulers also wanted stability.  Until, of course, a radically different culture with highly advanced technology appears that has not the top but the middle in its sights, and then the very guarantors of stability become the victims of that very stable system.

That is the end state of being for such systems: decay, stagnation, a feeling of inward looking support, and a stultification of society so that a very few arts become lauded because nothing dangerous can be created from them.  In the USSR the various factions were a bit more aggressive at the sub-State level, but they all lacked excellence in production, excellence in engineering and excellence in productivity because they did not reward those things but, instead, merely making quotas with whatever quality of goods would pass muster.  Mao in China could kill millions to get compliance and thought he could end the opium trade by just killing everyone in it and their families... and their friends... and yet that trade continues to this day.  China under Mao had a terrorized populace who were forced into absurd schemes of backyard industry (which failed) and then put into factories when he changed his mind.  It is one of the few Nations that has consciously sought to change its demographics via a 'one child policy' and is on the road to demographic suicide in less than a century after implementing such policy.

The tell-tale sign of an overly bureaucratic State appear at the low end, not the high, however, with the Black Market.  The Black Market isn't just men selling dubious goods in back alleys or fake Rolex watches on a blanket on the sidewalk in New York City, but encompasses a wide range of activities from legal, semi-legal to illegal in nature.  Wait, a legal Black Market?  Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

No, a legal Black Market is a way to utilize the rules so as to avoid other parts of them, such is the case with tax evasion.  Tax evasion skews the tempers of Progressives in a twist because it is people using rational means to analyze the system to 'game' it to their advantage while going against the very things the system is purported to do.  I looked at this from the Petty corruption of tyranny and in that I found an article by Pierre Lemieux from the Globe and Mail in Canada in 1994 on the subject of their VAT in Canada called a Goods & Service Tax:

As budget day nears, politicians of all stripes warn us that tax evasion is rampant in Canada. Before he started talking about tax increases, Finance Minister Paul Martin had declared that "hundreds of thousands of otherwise honest people ... have withdrawn their consent to be governed" by escaping in the underground economy.

The problem is that the politicians do not seem to draw the right conclusions. Pressed for money -- actually, nearly bankrupt --, the federal government, as well as some provincial governments, has decided to clamp down on the underground economy. Revenue Minister David Anderson has declared a war on tax evaders.

After shopkeepers defied the law by openly selling smuggled cigarettes in Saint-Eustache, Qué., Bloc Québécois leader Lucien Bouchard came out against what he sees as a new state-cheating culture. He apparently thinks that citizens should always obey the rulers. Indeed, the governing class shows a rare unanimity in bringing the Canadians back under the government's rod of iron.

Yes, we hear similar problems whenever governments choose to spend unwisely, and their answer is always the same:

First, how did tax evasion develop among so docile a people as the Canadians? The answer lies, of course, in the tax burden they have to shoulder. Tobacco, on which federal tax rates have increased by 150% over the last five years, is only the tip of the iceberg. The total tax take by all levels of government now amounts to nearly 40% of the Canadian gross domestic product. If we include the deficits, which are just future taxes, government takes close to one half of what people produce and earn in this country. In two words, tax evasion is a response to tax invasion.

[..]

Galloping regulations are another factor. Some of them come with taxes: Small businesses now have to perform time-consuming GST accounting, and prepare a complex quarterly report. I don't know if we ever were a nation of shopkeepers, but we are certainly becoming one of tax collectors and accountants. Other forms of regulation -- labor regulations, for instance -- make it much more simpler and cheaper to go underground, for consumers and suppliers alike.

The second question is, How could we ever accept such a tax burden in the first place? One hundred or 200 years ago, the great Western thinkers to whom we owe whatever liberty we have left would never have thought this could happen in a free country.

[..]

The third question relates to the state's reaction. Politicians argue that the individuals who do not pay their "fair share" thereby increase the tax burden of other citizens. The main thrust of the coming federal and provincial budgets may well be to increase the effective tax burden under the guise of "fair shares."

This is a naïve cliché which assumes that political and bureaucratic processes naturally lead to the optimal amount of taxes required to finance unanimously demanded public services. What actually happens (at least if we agree with the Public Choice approach in economics) is that the government will take as much as it can, it will charge what the traffic will bear. Governments satisfy minority pressure groups and buy votes through spending. If Canadians in the underground economy were to start paying their "fair" taxes, government revenues and expenses would just increase by the amount of the new taxes. In this perspective, the underground economy is a useful restraint on Leviathan, and a benefit to all taxpayers.

Taxed Enough Already?

Art Laffer indicated that up to a certain level of taxation governments will get increased revenue, but after that point revenue actually decreases per increase in taxation.  Taxes are avoided.  From personal experience I can say that I was welcomed as an outsider by various small businesses in Canada when I visited there during this period as they did not have to pay a tax when foreigners purchased from them.  Taxes were avoided via every legal means possible and the more loopholes the politicians put into the system, the more taxes were avoided by the exploitation of those loopholes beyond just the expected favored class involved.  Germany has seen other artifacts, like people taking their money to foreign banks so as not to face taxation for it in Germany, and Germany got pretty irate about that but could do nothing about it as other regulations were preventing such tracking not just inside Germany but in other Nations, as well.  That fellow that scored a crate of fake Rolex watches and selling them on the streets is nothing compared to the weekly income that can be shipped out of a Nation to avoid taxes in those Nations with onerous tax policies.  One gets you red in the face politicians who feel cheated by a system they created, the other gets a small time operator in the slammer for a few months.

Every Nation has a Black Market, which is to say every Nation has goods they wish to restrict and don't want their people to purchase.  Even worse is that most Nations have internal taxation to try and put a penalty on purchasing certain items (liquor, cigarettes) that has a tax stamp on it, and when that happens there are those willing to fake, forge or forget the tax stamp to sell you the good in question and just slightly undercut the fully taxed cost of the good in question.  Hezbollah ran a cigarette smuggling ring from its quarters in Toronto, going to North Carolina to purchase untaxed cigarettes and then sell them in Detroit for a net profit of $10m/yr. remitted to Hezbollah, until they got caught, of course.  The behavior that drives this is rational avoidance of taxes to get a desired good, and when the taxes become high enough, less than legal to illegal means that can deliver that good at a lower price then become something sought after by normal people who consider themselves as not doing a truly illegal activity, just avoiding taxes.

In Poland under the Soviet Bloc the academics and researchers found they could piece together an IBM PC that would do more than their Soviet supercomputer for only a few thousand dollars and a few trips to West Berlin to buy components, not a full computer.  Within 6 months they had a full IBM PC and used the Soviet system to heat their room.   Goods get smuggled in via familial associations, via forms of smuggling, via Black Market money exchanges on the street that give a much better deal in local currency than the State shops do.  Saudi Arabia has smugglers smuggling guns out to terrorists and then finds the same smugglers are smuggling prohibited video cellphones back into the Kingdom for the teenagers who want to know what each other look like before arranging a date.    Similar happens in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Russia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico (although there it is more of smuggling worthwhile goods out to get Black Market arms), the US and Canada.  As seen under Mao you can even make the penalty that of death, not mere taxation and criminal prosecution, and you still can't get rid of the Black Market.

Any Black Market is a warning to the government and the people of the State involved: you are treading on thin ice.  To get public morality requires more than just punishment but the putting forth of a positive moral view and ideology that tells why such morals are positive, what their effects are and how they can be utilized to better society.  Punishment of individuals is a necessary means to protect society, but it is not the creation of a positive public moral environment and, when used to gain that environment, starts to unravel the very public morality it is meant to uphold by creating rational actors seeking prohibited goods at a low cost.  The sales point of such public laws that enforce a moral good via the negative powers granted government is that they lead to a better functioning society.  Like the Laffer Curve that is true, up to a point, and then you get diminishing returns for each new law passing itself off as supporting a positive moral good.  The hard case to make is that something should be legal to purchase, taxed normally, and that you agree to work with your fellow man to create organizations to help others see the problems of using such goods or services, and to reinforce society so that those goods and services become less popular, gains fewer users and slowly dies out.

That is the unwritten law, the leges, and Americans no longer do that as we have come to believe that the written law is all.  And yet all of society, all of civilization, is formed on the leges and common morality and decency, espoused by the majority working towards more people so as to lessen the effects of immoral behavior and consumption of goods leading to immorality.  You can legislate for morality all you want, yet you do not get a moral society from it and, instead, you get bureaucrats.  Really, do you want morality enforced by bureaucrats?  It is so cheap and easy to say 'there ought to be a law' instead of doing something yourself to address the wrongs of society, and that is what Progressives want: your non-involvement in society.  Then they can make up all the rules you have to follow, no thought required from you, until they stop you from doing the necessary things in your life.

Then you become just what they want: Homo Criminalis.

Stop asking government to do the things you should be doing.

These things aren't done because they are easy, they must be done because they are hard and you are the best person to do them.  Only you can create a positive moral environment for yourself and society.  And no law ever passed can stop you from doing that, even if it threatens to kill you... and then you know the State really does see doing moral good as an evil, and it has become, itself, a pure evil in that doing.

First thoughts

On the SCOTUS decision today I only have a few thoughts.   The decision is here, and I did a quick scan of it to see what the actual decision was... again this was a comment at Hot Air and for now that is it.  I'm seeing what others have to say, of course, and take my own council not that of fear.

With no other fanfare -

= = =

From p.32 of the decision:

Under the mandate, if an individual does not maintain health insurance, the only consequence is that he must make an additional payment to the IRS when he pays his taxes. See §5000A(b). That, according to the Government,means the mandate can be regarded as establishing a condition—not owning health insurance—that triggers a tax—the required payment to the IRS. Under that theory, the mandate is not a legal command to buy insurance.Rather, it makes going without insurance just another thing the Government taxes, like buying gasoline or earning income. And if the mandate is in effect just a tax hike on certain taxpayers who do not have health insurance, it may be within Congress’s constitutional power to tax.

It MAY be within Congress’s power. MAY?

Oh, and you must take a positive action to purchase said goods he uses as examples. You do not pay a penalty for not purchasing gasoline, or for earning no income. Although if he is making THAT connection then welcome to the mandated penalty for gasoline purchase and to the penalty for not earning income. Won’t those be swell brand, spanking new taxes in the future?

And then this following:

The question is not whether that is the most natural interpretation of the mandate, but only whether it is a “fairly possible” one. Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932). As we have explained, “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality.” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657 (1895). The Government asks us to interpret the mandate as imposing a tax, if it would otherwise violate the Constitution. Granting the Act the full measure of deference owed to federal statutes, it can be so read, for the reasons set forth below.

Roberts then repeats this pattern at each instance showing that there is a similarity between a power to tax purchases and the power to tax inactivity.

He looks at the Child Labor Collection Tax which is a tax on those using child labor. An activity. For licensing taxes that is a fee given to those asking for the license to do certain regulated business. It is an activity. Nuclear waste surcharges is for an activity of shipping nuclear waste.

He then goes on to those tax incentives used to encourage conduct, and yet there is a stark difference between conducting such conduct to get a tax break, and not doing something and getting penalized for it. In the former if you do not purchase a home you are not penalized for it, you just do not get the incentives… but I’m sure that under some future Congress not owning a home can be assessed as a tax, so all you renters out there can look forward to that in the future. He also cites taxes on cigarettes, but you pay no taxes on them if you do not purchase them, so I guess we can all start to pony up for cigarettes we don’t buy as future Congress can do that, as well. Won’t that be swell?

By p. 40 we come to this lovely passage looking at the arguments against the tax:

A tax on going without health insurance does not fall within any recognized category of direct tax. It is not a capitation. Capitations are taxes paid by every person, “without regard to property, profession, or any other circumstance.” Hylton, supra, at 175 (opinion of Chase, J.) (emphasis altered). The whole point of the shared responsibility payment is that it is triggered by specific circumstances—earning a certain amount of income but not obtaining health insurance. The payment is also plainly not a tax on the ownership of land or personal property. The shared responsibility payment is thus not a direct tax that must be apportioned among the several States.
There may, however, be a more fundamental objection to a tax on those who lack health insurance. Even if only a tax, the payment under §5000A(b) remains a burden that the Federal Government imposes for an omission, not an act. If it is troubling to interpret the Commerce Clause as authorizing Congress to regulate those who abstain from commerce, perhaps it should be similarly troubling to permit Congress to impose a tax for not doing something.

And now you want to know WHY Congress can do this? This follows the above:

Three considerations allay this concern. First, and most importantly, it is abundantly clear the Constitution does not guarantee that individuals may avoid taxation through inactivity. A capitation, after all, is a tax that everyone must pay simply for existing, and capitations are expressly contemplated by the Constitution. The Court today holds that our Constitution protects us from federal regulation under the Commerce Clause so long as we abstain from the regulated activity. But from its creation, the Constitution has made no such promise with respect to taxes. See Letter from Benjamin Franklin to M. Le Roy (Nov. 13, 1789) (“Our new Constitution is now established . . . but in this world nothing can be said to be certain,except death and taxes”).

Is this a direct power GRANTED to the United States government by its people? If not it is in Amendments IX and X. Nice job on forgetting that little bit of the Constitution while doing contortions on tax powers to let Congress tax an inactivity that the Chief Justice cannot find a precedent for. Not one thing he cites is a tax power over inactivity and there is no cost for inactivity in any other tax by the federal government.

Don’t let that stop you from inventing one.

ajacksonian on June 28, 2012 at 12:03 PM

= = =

So limiting the Commerce Clause and the  Necessary and Proper Clause.

What was put in its place is the wide-open field of giving Congress the ability to tax ANYTHING YOU DO including doing NOTHING.

Don't earn any income?  They can tax you for that.

Don't have a Volt? They can tax you for that.

No home? They can tax you for that.

Say! No firearms?  They can tax you for that.

This is the power of tyrannical, compulsory taxation and this decision just gave the green light for that.

The state of World War IV

WWI – 1914 to 1918

WWII – 1931 to 1945

WWIII – 1946 to 1991

WWIV – 2010 to ????

There were some premonitions of WWI before 1914, in that era of the Imperial Powers painting as much of the map their color until the tensions in Europe grew so great as to create a tinderbox waiting for a spark.  That spark could have come from nearly anywhere, but was at Sarajevo with Arch-Duke Ferdinand.

WWII properly starts with Imperial Japan seeking to extend its power into Manchuria from the holdings it had garnered from previous conflicts with Russia.  That invasion and subsequent warfare is not considered by those in the West to have been part of WWII until Pearl Harbor, yet Japan had set its goals to hold off the USSR, capture foreign held overseas territories of other powers (UK, France, Holland) and generally expand its power in that region. That started in Manchuria in 1931 and would only end with the defeat of Japan in 1945.

The Cold War was global in scope, had many small wars contained within its context (Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan) and would eat up much in the way of productivity from the US and USSR that, while not all-out total war, was one of an earlier age of proxy wars.  These proxy fights were in all hemispheres and nearly every continent and would move the world from nuclear weapons delivered by aircraft to thermonuclear devices delivered by missiles to tactical nuclear devices delivered on foot with, thankfully, none of those devices being used as anything other than status symbols.  No one can rightly tally the death toll of all the proxy conflicts, those egged on by the two sides, and those taking advantage of Super Power stalemates to inflict their own brand of horror that no one would stop lest it turn into a mass conflagration.

World War IV starts out with a rising of tensions between Nations, mostly via 'terrorism' or the rise of Private War returning on land and at sea.  Unlike WWII we see no movement of armies to conflict for resources but, instead, see Private organizations using non-National systems to attack Nation States.  That is the fallout of the Super Powers doing nothing to stem the rise of such organizations and even fostering them for their own political reasons.  This has started the wholesale change-over of governments in North Africa spreading across venues in the region in what was called the 'Arab Spring' , starting with Tunisia.  From there came Egypt overthrowing its dictator and protests spreading to such places as Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Oman and Lebanon. 

The private organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood had been around since after WWI and had gained support in the post-WWII era from Saudi Arabia.  As an organization the Muslim Brotherhood espouses a radical form of Islam that is very repressive and does not respect civil rights as known in the West.  Over their time they have spun off multiple terrorist organizations like HAMAS and al Qaeda from its membership, and HAMAS is directly tied to the Muslim Brotherhood via their charter.  From that time when Super Powers ignored terrorist organizations, unless they backed them, of course, the earliest organizations were the PLO, FARC and HAMAS.  Of these the PLO is now nearly gone as it has turned into a kleptocratic organization in the Palestinian Territories, FARC has long since stopped being about spreading Marxism and is now just a large narco-terrorist organization that is being reduced year on year and forced out of its home base in Colombia, and it is only HAMAS that has been able to adhere strictly to their blood-drenched ways as they have firm ideological backing from members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Iran changing from a Cold War satellite Nation to an Islamic one was of little benefit to the USSR when it happened but a global body blow to the US, the Super Power Iran was aligned with.  Iran has spawned its own terrorist organizations, the best known of which is Hezbollah, which acts as a puppet overseas para-military force for it, helping to spread its own version of Islamic fundamentalism in the doing.  Iran has allies in its conflict with the West and they include Syria and now the semi-Communist Venezuela.  They are aided, to a degree at least, by Russia and China who see Iran as a foil to the US but may not really be enamored of the idea of an Iran with nuclear tipped ballistic missiles.  It is thought that Iran may have gotten its hands on an old USSR era nuclear warhead but lacks the necessary codes to use it and, thusly, examine its technology.  Of course the blueprints for a nuclear device can be had on the black market courtesy of Pakistan's A.Q. Khan the 'Father of the Islamic Bomb'.

Military venues are not the only ones for this conflict which is global.  Other venues include economics, sociology and criminal corruption.  These play out in the now imploding Western Socialist regimes that put into place taxation and power schemes that now have bankrupted Nations (Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland), are leading others into societal collapse (France, UK, Germany), both of which foster the spread of virulent Islam via the importation of radicalized workers from overseas and speed the decay of the local societies as they offer no incentives to be self-reliant and breed State dependence.  The question is which is collapsing faster: the societies or the States?  In truth they go hand-in-hand as dependence based social structures do not reward innovation, do not reward ingenuity and, instead, reward leisure time and pointless non-productive activities.  If the Roman Empire had debauchery to go with its Breads & Circuses, modern Europe has self-indulgence to go with its socialized medicine and retirements.

Other Nations in Africa, South America, Asia as well as large parts of the US and Canada see versions of this.  Russia has a lack of birth rate, relatively low productivity and an economy controlled by Oligarchs who are not bolstering the infrastructure of the Nation or its society but looking out for themselves.  In China an authoritarian regime imposes a non-economical birth rate, no controls over pollution, backwards agrarian systems and exploitation of its mobile youth (now growing older) to create vacant cities, vast power projects and gets rampant inflation, unrest and and internal social decohesion as its rewards.  No one will live in the make-work cities and if a few more bad years of Dust Bowl crop years hit, that will couple with a dying out agrarian culture and lead to mass upheaval within China, itself.  Marxism in South America is applauded until an economic crisis puts the currency and population at risk as happened decades before in Argentina, this is being done in Venezuela and Brazil can only stop this with its massive oil production until the Marxists there, too, decide to grab the golden ring and find that it is Fool's Gold only.

This societal collapse of Enlightened Western Ideology to the Marxist form of ideology has been an ongoing attack on the Enlightenment for nearly 150 years and more if the French Revolution is included  as a predecessor to it.  If this form of societal attack is included in the World War IV timeline, then the measurement of the start of WW IV gets pushed back a few years further to the 2007-08 global economic crisis.  That crisis was a culmination of decades of Progressive and Marxist policies pushing unsustainable 'entitlements' out of government's doors and onto populations.  This form of attack is a slow one, attacking not just the economy of a Nation but the moral support for the work ethic and achievement of individuals.  The greatest boom and expansion of liberty by the removal of manual toil happened with the Industrial Revolution and in the over 250 years since it began the greatest expansion of wealth, health and movement away from back crushing work has been witnessed.  Marxism offers all of the rewards, none of the pain and offers no way to sustain an economy to gain such ends: it is as much a religion as it is an ideology, as it only has a basis in faith within its environs of thought not with the actual world around it.

There has been some speculation of an economic Pearl Harbor on the US in the 2007-08 timeframe, that could only have happened with a highly centralized set of government programs in the housing industry.  Those programs set up the removal of local oversight of loan guarantees via the creation of GNMA, and that allowed government programs to go through quasi-governmental organizations (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) via such things as the Community Reinvestment Act and its follow-ons.  This produced a 'bubble' in the US economy that would only be the first to show up due to government intervention in areas where governments have little understanding, knowledge or capacity to learn.  The 'Housing Crisis' of the 2007-08 timeframe brought on extra-constitutional measures to combat it, in the form of bailouts that were misrepresented when asked for, and direct payments to failing banks that had been forced into giving ever larger loans for houses that had very little extra real value to them.  Those nasty gears to ruin the economy are still in place in the US, but it is only the first and smallest of bubbles coming along through the economy.  It is to be followed by a higher education bubble that already is seen and dwarfs the housing bubble, and then a medical and retirement set of bubbles that have been decades in the making.  The shock of each of these on the US economy will be  huge, the ripples throughout the globe will be catastrophic.  It didn't really take a genius to stage an economic Pearl Harbor in the US as it was already headed for a major banking disaster due to government policy: it may have come a few months sooner due to outside actors wishing ill intent, but they could only precipitate what was going to happen, not cause it in the first place.

From the size, scope and scale of the events in WW IV, we can discern that this is a war without borders, without boundaries, where there is no respect for the non-violent nor the neutral, and everyone is at risk from those wishing to exert power over others.  It did not start with vast armies, navies and air forces attacking factories and then cities because the weapons being utilized play on something far more powerful than any bomb, any weapon: human nature.

The target is Nations but only in the understood context of what the basis for the Nation actually is.  A Nation is not a State, per se, although once it gets to a certain size it gains such apparatus.  The State is just the way to run a Nation, but the Nation basis goes further back than that in depth.  A Nation is only society when writ large, amongst multiple communities, but they are not needed to actual create that society as society begins further back and down than merely a collection of neighborhoods or cities.  A Nation is not any single city nor town, either, nor just a neighborhood although one gets closer to the actual scale with that last part, it is also a larger structure built upon something smaller.  Once one breaks a neighborhood down, street by street and block by block, we get to individual structures and within them reside families.  Pushing down to the family we get to see the beginning of the Nation State and, as said before, the State is only the apparatus to run a Nation.  Thus the Nation begins with marriage and those first bonds upon which we agree to set aside our negative liberties with respect to each other and not exercise them to the detriment of either.  With that bond the Nation is formed and it is a necessary prerequisite to the family and it is here that the attacks of World War IV are aimed.

It is aimed at you and your loved ones.

It is aimed to get you to act in an uncivilized manner towards your fellow man at all levels, to remove the patina of civilization from your spirit and put you back into a barbaric, animalistic state of being.  This is outlined in al Qaeda's playbook The Management of Savagery, which I looked at a bit previously a few years ago.  It is a system of wide-ranging attacks ranging from terrorism to internal societal corrosion to allow al Qaeda to influence the direction of that society toward decay and into a state of savagery which would then leave it open to control.  This is what worried the 18th and 19th century Great Powers and caused them to foreswear using Privateers because of the risk of them going Pirate.  In the 20th century that foreswearing meant going directly to funding Pirates, which we call 'terrorists' who were extra-National actors with no controls upon them whatsoever.  It turns out the worries of the old Great Powers was correct, but that the 'cure' turned out to allow a worse disease by going directly to unaccountable actors in the first place.  Perhaps a bit neater in its directivity, yes, but far, far worse in long-term results.

By the confluence of stupidity that allowed such non-National actors to rise up during the Cold War, by seeking to corrode societies via Marxist pay-off schemes, and through insane allocation of local power to the most distant form of government (that of the Nation State) the results upon individuals is one that requires much in the way of moral fiber and certitude to even stand up against this torrent of abuse.  The decay of civilized norms as seen in neglecting to address 'terrorists' in the Cold War or WW III, was just an artifact of the larger 'Politically Correct' movement in the West by Leftists.  This is coupled with the Leftist 'march through the institutions' of education, unions and government (if they were not already compromised to begin with) to consolidate a repressive mode of approaching speech, determining what topics were 'sensitive' (and thus to be avoided or papered over with a form of Newspeak), and determining who was and was not 'fit' for society.  In the institution of the press, the Left has wielded inordinate power by acting as a gatekeeper for decades on news, commentary and in those individuals they hold up for applause and those they just never mentioned.  Taken together, PC speech codes have infested multiple societies and have acted to repress freedom to discuss topics as wide ranging as 'how do we confront terrorism?' to 'how many teachers does it require to teach a class?' to  the use of the term 'racism' when it is applied to non-racially defined groups and organizations (like Hispanics or Muslims).  By conflating ethnicity with race, the modern Left has done a grave disservice to Western society and has acted as an internally corrosive force that has set aside topics of vital interest to the citizenry that cannot even be mentioned lest one be seen as 'racist'.  In fact doing that dilutes the term of 'racism' when it is applied to multiracial ethnic groups, which also dilutes the power of its use when further conflations are included with it: the Left not only destroys the language of their opposition but also the one of their own making.

Standing up against such PC concepts which bombard you on a constant basis, and often is used in the absence of ever talking about a subject, means that the general citizenry is left unprepared for the problems that they as individuals and members of society will have to face.  It doesn't take a direct attack on religion or marriage to do this, although those are signposts on this road of disestablishing cultural norms, just simply making topics of wide ranging concern being beyond the pale to talk about in any meaningful way.  As Orwell pointed out, the end of Newspeak is Duckspeak, and if much of the repetition of magical phrases deploying racism, sexism, class warfare and other such items to denigrate anyone speaking about problems in those realms start to sound like quacking, it is because that is what it is.  Quacking.  Not coherent speech but the attempt to stop others from speaking coherently on a topic.  This, too, is a part of WW IV being waged upon you.

Attacks upon citizenry used to happen by foreign governments waging war upon Nations, this is now being done by governments upon the governed or by private organizations centered around tyrannical ends upon everyone.  Together the Left and Islamic organizations (Nation and non-Nation) seek a downfall of the Enlightenment Western Ideology based on Christianity and Individualism, and the attack is quite direct and blatant in these opening years of WW IV.  With that said those who are non-Western and non-Christian are also targets in a more active way as seen in places like Syria, Iran, Egypt, and India.

While this all sounds very bleak, I have also pointed out that the countervailing, indeed civilization enhancing forces, are already in play as seen in Dawn of a New Era.  That you are reading this is done due to multiple parts of this countervailing set of forces that are, in themselves, neutral tools but have civilization enhancing effects.  Moore's Law and Metcalfe's Law both push power up in scale for the individual via the cost per circuit on a printed circuit board and the power scaling of networks and intnernetworking. The proportion of civilized and skilled users of these tools tend to drive them in a certain direction, while those using them for ill and with malicious outlook are few.  Yet these tools of computer and network technology can be directly targeted via manmade weapons that cause an EMP and by natural sources like a CME.  The former would move WW IV into the 'bombs and guns of Nations' phase which would tend to be thermonuclear and swift, while the latter would level all of civilization on a rather deep basis.  The former would yield mere hundreds of millions dead within a year or two, while the latter would yield billions dead and perhaps as much as 2/3 of humanity in a year.  Hostile forces, in going after the infrastructure of modern civilization can bring modern civilization crashing down with rather serious effects upon those doing the acting.  Nature can do that to all with no malice at all.  Those waging such war do not think through its effects or may feel immune to it due to magical thinking processes dealing with religion and faith.

By using these tools, however, a number of effects are noticed, some of which appear to pre-date the widespread use of computers and networks and were built upon older and more centralized systems.  Concepts of Accelerating Change, Feiler Faster Theses and Disintermediation all started in the pre-Internet era and were noticed of effects of mass communication and dissemination of knowledge.  In a cumulative fashion they are representative of another concept I examined in Persuasion and Marketing called the Noosphere.  This was presented by by Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin as the 'sphere of human thought' and it bears a striking resemblance to the World Wide Web save that it is something that has no physical existence.  The World Wide Web and Internet can be seen, conversely, as a physical manifestation of the Noosphere, not the cause of it. 

As an individual you take part in the Noosphere by being human and alive and the Noosphere serves as a non-substantial repository of human process knowledge available to all mankind.  It does have physical manifestations in such things as learning new tasks or in how fast you, as an individual, have adapted to a constantly ON information stream by processing information to knowledge faster than you did just a year ago.  The amount of information you can process through to end conclusions is, today, a huge factor more than you could a decade ago due to the nature of the medium involved and its interconnectivity.  If you were relegated to just a limited means of processing it, however, you would be swamped with information and be unable to make heads or tails of it.  Instead you have changed how you think very rapidly in the past decade and now conceptualize change of information in a very different way than a decade ago or just a bit before that in the hardcopy only era.  No one taught you how to do this.  No one gave you the set of mental tools to do this.  You found them on your own and did so faster than the group just before you did.

You would think that Progressives would laud such rapidly evolving and changing increase in capacity to understand the world around you and yet, instead, they do their best to utilize older means and methods of thinking that are not well adapted or even suited to the modern era.  And while Islamists do utilize this media and set of systems, adapting a rigid ideology and religious viewpoint to it... just like their Marxist and Progressive counterparts.  If they adapted they would lose their rigidity, their assurance of superiority and be required to rethink their approach to the world.  You do that constantly as it is a part of your natural born liberty and freedom to do so and you embrace it to partake of this rapidly expanding body of knowledge and process thought.  To do that requires a sense that tyranny isn't something that solely comes from outside of yourself, but from inside, as well.  Those who seek to utilize this new set of media and thinking process to ill ends find themselves confronted faster and deeper by those rejecting such tyrannical thinking modes and preferring, quite openly, freedom and liberty for mankind.

Because that is the path to victory.

Moral assurance within yourself when coupled with a highly ethical set of self-restraints upon your negative liberties then garners you the freedom to create a Nation and, within that, a greater society for all.  Nations and individualism do not go away in this, as the Progressives and Radical Islamists seek via their ancient negative bent,  but we come to a greater understanding of each other and then refuse to paper over the differences, avoid the hard topics and, most importantly, seek to live within our means while still offering charity to all in need.  If this is, indeed, a war being waged for your very spirit, your very soul, across all levels of culture, society, technology and governance, then it is you who must wield those might tools of liberty that are born within you.  While bombs, bullets, and tyrannically asinine ideologies are involved, they are the reactionaries to liberty and freedom seeking to crush your spirit and, when they can't do that, to take your life, instead.  This is a form of total war that doesn't involve mass production of war materiel, nor vast armies sent across the landscape to deal with enemies but is, instead, centered on you and your ability to adapt and renew your spirit constantly.  As your enemies are grimly remorseless in their backwards views, so you must be the smiling beacon of remorseless freedom and liberty and confront the clenched fist with an open hand.

While I am frustrated with these enemies at all levels, I do not hate them as they are so close-minded that they refuse to think that others can govern themselves.  In that doing they show themselves to be the ones lacking self-governance and want to hide that through power over others.  Some of these enemies are horrible, yes, but all of them are pitiful and to be pitied for their lack of civilized understanding that no government can make men good and that no religion can force you to be moral.  By seeing the world in those ways these enemies of mankind show themselves again for what they are: barbarians, tyrants and despots.  They seek your fear.  They seek your submission in silence.  I give them pity and openly for they could be much better people if only they learned how to control themselves and saw that this is the greatest way to create the greatest good for all mankind.

This World War will have an end date.

Either with the end of mankind.

Or with our venture beyond our home into that unforgiving wilderness that requires you to be civilized or it kills you most quickly.

I will be the good soldier in this war and defend myself so I can help others with an open hand.  The racking of the bolt is to remind the uncivilized that there are penalties to be paid, and it is best not to incur them in the first place.

Identity Politics Calculus

President Obama has put Identity Politics on display with his attempt to put forward an immigration policy (and having that being questioned by Neil Munro from the Daily Caller) that would selectively not enforce immigration law upon certain categories of illegal aliens.  Unfortunately as Congress has already debated and not passed versions of such laws, President Obama has forgotten that his duty is to uphold the laws set by Congress as this is an Article I power given to Congress and not delegated as a policy issue to the President.  Presidents can have 'feelings' about laws, but the job of the President is to enforce the laws of Congress and to let Congress know when he thinks such laws have problems and work with Congress to get such laws amended.  That is the job of President as Head of Government: execute the laws set by Congress.

Now, beyond the fact there is no Constitutional standing for a President to set such a policy, this move can also be seen in the Identity Politics prism as a crass play (and one known by President Obama as not being able to stand a legal challenge, but that would take time) to pander to Hispanic voters.  When playing the Identity Politics game, however, an action to try and get support from one group can often show insight into how a politician views other groups within his or her support domain.  In other words, such a policy direction will give an insight into how other groups that traditionally support the Democratic Party are being viewed by President Obama.

A few groups come to mind for this:

1) Big Labor – In theory the Labor Unions would love to have new, young Hispanics as part of the dues paying membership.  Unfortunately the timing of events is such that with the defeat of the Big Labor led recall vote in WI of Gov. Scott Walker, and by the direction of Public Employee Unions (and general labor law) amongst other States such as IN, IL, NY, CA... note that these are not typical 'Red' States... and having asked for and not gotten President Obama to show up on their behalf in WI, Big Labor is getting a message from President Obama: Nice knowing you, send cash!

Unfortunately no matter how many new, young Hispanics come in, the general tenor of the population towards Unionization (not just PEUs but all Unions) is in the decline and in the modern era of being able to compare job offers, individuals can often find a better job without Union overhead than one with Union overhead.  Putting in a raft of new, young illegal aliens and helping them to find work in preference to Citizens also means that these individuals will tend to be at the lowest end of the pay scale and not readily amenable to Unionization.  Plus in shops where low skills and low costs are needed, these individuals will be in direct competition with Unionized labor.  While there are pipe dreams from Big Labor on getting a perennial raft of new union members, the fact is that unions are being side-lined to a very small part of the work force over the last 5 decades and are now in single digits for percentage of the overall workforce.

2) Hispanics – Even with a naked pander, this is something that if the Democratic Party wanted to get done in 2009-2010 it could have done so as it had majorities in both Houses of Congress.  Any promises made by Democrats are, thusly, coming with a built-in discount on future expectations: if you can't pass this as law when you have both Houses and the Presidency, then what good are you?  Naked pandering can back-fire if it is seen as an insult to the intelligence of those being pandered to, and that is the risk of this piece of political calculus by President Obama.

The other factor that plays into the identity politics game is that Hispanics are in the majority Roman Catholic.  In passing Obamacare and then setting it up as part of a 'War on Women' on mandatory payment for contraceptive services, the process of Obamacare is running straight into a 1st Amendment clash with religious organizations that provide health care, and the main point on this pushback is... the Roman Catholic Church.  It is a piece of political calculus to try and bring religious implementation of moral doctrine into secular domains, against all the protections against such in the US Constitution, and by taking on the RCC the Obama Administration also ends up taking on Hispanics.  As this is an ongoing set of legal battles, they do not fade from the view of the devout, and President Obama can be seen as giving the back of his hand to religious moral teachings while trying to offer a carrot on immigration policy.  Being coerced and cajoled to just 'play along with the man' is not a good recipe for success especially when you have railed about the excesses of the power structure when out of office.  By taking up such means beyond what is given as law, President Obama also then brings into play another splinter of Identity Politics.

3) Legal Immigrants – Play by the rules and uphold the systems.  Those who apply to become citizens, learn civics and then demonstrate what they know to get citizenship are having their hard work demeaned by President Obama who is offering goodies to those who refuse (for whatever reason) to join the legal system and play by the rules.  It doesn't matter how long they have been in the US, who brought them, or any other thing: once they are adults they are given adult decisions to make and must act as a good citizen of their Nation of origin.  Legal immigrants do this, they uphold the Law of Nations and domestic law by doing this.  Illegal aliens do not do this and erode the Law of Nations and domestic law of the US and any Nation that has treaty obligations with the US on immigration.  No matter how 'nice' someone is, there is a difference between upholding the law and not upholding it, and special favors are not to be given to those who do not uphold the law as a matter of policy.

Since a large number of Hispanic families are first or second generation of legal immigrants, they have a large stake in upholding the legal process and are demeaned by being told that now they shouldn't have done the right thing and followed the law and that those not following the law will be granted special protection from the law by not having it applied equally to them.  If a President is short of funds and personnel to uphold the laws set by Congress he needs to say so and send the ball back into Congress' court to either find more funds, amend the law or change the enforcement of it to fit the will of Congress.

4) Poor Working Citizens – If you are poor and still have a job in this economic climate, you are in a select class of people that are doing the hard scrabble work of providing for your family to keep their heads above water.  Now with a change of enforcement policy, you will be competing against illegal aliens who can undercut your pay (albeit under the table, but that is a problem of getting employers to follow the law) and take your job while being protected from deportation by the federal government.  The working poor are on the front lines of this problem and if citizenship is demeaned for them, and special favors and protections are given to those who do not follow the system, then those putting such policy in place can only be seen as hostile to the working poor.

This is a demographic that votes in preponderance for Democrats historically, although some of that has been eroding the last 20 years.  The Democratic Party was once the standard bearer for the poor in America: the citizens who vote who have been given support by Democratic politicians and institutions to continue voting in the goodies from government.  Government is, however, now broke, by and large, due to the giveaways and wealth transfer from working rich to working and non-working poor.  When nearly half of the population pays no income taxes (yes they do pay into SSA, but that is not investment, just a tax) and when half of all households get some form of government support (local, State, federal) then there is a class that is expected to show gratitude by voting for those giving them the handouts.  Those handouts are not economically based and breaking apart the budget of not just the US, but all of Europe and other Nations that have embarked on this foolhardy scheme of over-taxing the rich to give goodies to the poor.  Now the door of participation in the economy can be seen only as being undermined by protecting illegal aliens and the working poor American Citizen is being told that they will be forever in the working poor to non-working poor by government fiat of unconstitutional policy.  You aren't just being told the game is rigged against you, those doing that telling are now doing the rigging right before your very eyes and they want to shut the door on the pathway towards the middle class and achievement... as the goodies system collapses and soon won't be there for you, your children or any other of your friends who are also part of the poor in America.

5) Black Americans – This demographic represents 10% of the electorate (give or take and it varies by State) and voted in the 90% range for President Obama.  President Obama has done nothing to help out African-Americans in the US and is actively trying to hurt the working poor Black American Citizen who partake of being part of the working poor Citizenry.  All of the problems seen for the working poor, in general, are double for the Black community which has had its once coherent neighborhoods broken up through 'Urban Renewal' (started by President Truman), and then put into government supplied housing (as part of the 'Great Society' under Johnson): all large scale policies meant to impoverish Black Americans, take them out of being home owners, and then break up the multi-generational culture by putting housing in place that barely catered to a two parent family.  Putting in 'activists' and race baiters, and then adding in goodies through the CRA for home loans (after destroying the community based S&L system via 'securitization' ushered in by Nixon), the Black community has been pushed around, broken up and had its once vibrant culture eroded and corroded to the point where being young and black in America corresponds to being unemployed, single and often with a rap sheet added on.

At some point the African-American community will start to walk away from identity politics as it has now made the poor, poorer and the rich aren't even being brought down into the middle class, and yet the government coffers are running on red ink and soon won't be able to provide any support that was promised to the neediest by politicians.  If the Democratically backed 'Jim Crow' laws of the South weren't just plain awful, then the plight of Black America would be seen as the true tragedy it really is.  In many ways those who did the abusing of Black America under 'Jim Crow' then changed over to the goodie providing culture that did even worse than just killing you: it impoverished you, took your property under legal fiat, densified your population into government housing that would have made the USSR cringe, cut off pathways to excellence by degrading Public School performance by softening the rigor of education (this is the tragedy of lowered expectations), and now seeks to lock a large percentage of the Black Community into poverty by depriving yet another generation of opportunity by protecting another identity politics splinter: Hispanics.  This is pitting the legal poor against the illegal alien, and raising tensions between Black and Hispanic communities.

All in one policy presentation.

This is the problem with 'identity politics': no one is just one thing.  And when you promise new goodies and protections at the expense of other parts of the splinters that are at the root of 'identity politics', the end state is not a coherent group voting for you and, in fact, the likelihood of chaos increases no end as faction is set against faction on the most personal of scales possible: within families and communities.  At that point government is seen as the causer of the problem, not the upholder of equality of application of the law.  Chaos is what happens when you don't apply the law equally to all: it makes the system one of favors, not of process.

That is why we have a Constitution guaranteeing equal application of the law and protecting the rights of all Citizens.

When you announce you are no longer doing that, you are announcing that your will is above that of the elected representatives of the People.

That never ends well.

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.