Gold into Lead

The concept of Law of Nations is descriptive in form, no proscriptive in type, which is to say it describes the powers of a Nation and which domains they fall under.  Law of Nations does not tell of how to make a Nation, it does not decree what a Nation shall and shall not have as powers, and, instead, merely describes the powers that all Nations have by being a Nation.  From this comes the concept of 'sovereign powers', which are those powers that accrue to a Nation's government and are those things which all citizens agree are necessary to have as the formulation of that government.

A republican government is one of distributed and de-centralized powers within a Nation State, and any Nation utilizing a republican form of government can determine which bodies within a government get which powers and how they are assembled.  In general this has meant executive powers (those things like external relations with other governments, running the government bureaucracy, and administering law) has been placed into a branch separated from legislative powers (drafting internal laws, by and large) and judicial powers (the review of cases to determine them in fact and in law).  These are in no way 'co-equal' powers as they each have their own domain in which they are sovereign exercises of a Nation via Law of Nations. 

The Treaty of Westphalia came about to end the 30 Years War, which had been pitting Catholic Nations against Protestant Nations to the tune of 15% to 20% of the population in those areas ravaged by war being killed, and that is outside the plagues and other artifacts that attend war when it destroys infrastructure and leaves famine in its wake.  During the 30 Years War Nations would change sides due to the religious affiliation of their leaders as those changed from generation to generation and the religious beliefs of the population were expected to change to that of the sole sovereign.  The end of the 30 Years War saw the general agreement that amongst the three main sects of Christianity (Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism) that there would be tolerance at the Nation State level for these sects and no attempts to change the existing religious beliefs of individuals due to a change at the top of the power structure.  Church was not separated from State by this, but the State agreed that to have a civil population that is not put at strife nor forced migration to the deep sorrow of all, there must be the removal of religious bias by the Nation State for its own people amongst the three sects of Christianity.  Post-Westphalian Law of Nations reads with that firmly in place, and by the time of the Founding of the United States this conceptual doctrine had undergone expansion to all believers in the realm of the citizenry.  The National government could not dictate which church or sect one should belong and held power to ensure that all laws would be administered equally and without bias to all religious communities.

The United States, itself, started out the Revolutionary War under the Articles of Confederation which is a form of republican government.  By forming from British Colonies the United States gains the Treaty of Westphalia due to the Restoration of the Monarchy as that family was covered under the Great Peace by name and all are to continue on its establishment forever after as part of the Eternal Treaty.  Thus these new States that formed under the Articles of Confederation are Westphalian States and they exercise powers as part of a joint agreement of association under the Articles of Confederation.  States are, thusly, the powers behind the United States under the Articles, and keep that Confederal government under a tight leash as it has only a narrow range of diplomatic and trade powers assigned to it by the States.  The Confederal government had no broad taxation powers to pay off the Revolutionary War debt and no military organization held separately from the States.  What it could do was assign a portion of the National Debt to each State to figure out how to pay off, and that it did by population.  This meant that the Southern States, rich with trade and agriculture, were able to handle their debt burden while the Northeastern States, without bountiful trade, were finding that the taxes were rising on the population and impoverishing the very farmers that should be the fount of agricultural trade.  This came to a boiling point as a Revolutionary slogan of 'no taxation without representation' was now finding that highly populated cities like Boston and Hartford could administer higher taxes on rural settlements to the benefit of the larger trading houses in those cities.  By 1786 this had come to a boiling point in MA where ex-Revolutionary War soldiers were not getting their benefits for having served in the war, had not gotten back pay, and were now finding their farms being taxed into non-existence. From this the Shayesites manifested as one in a long string of local uprisings and was the closest to getting to the arms and supplies of a local State arsenal and turning into a second Revolutionary War.

There are many reasons for having a federal government that has powers to tax member States and centralize debt burdens with the foremost being that a Confederal System wasn't working.  Many proposals for redrafting the Articles had happened and the Annapolis Convention in 1786 recommended another Convention for 1787 to try and iron out these problems.  What was needed was a system that got larger State buy-in for a National government, with powers of taxation across all States.  Any stronger and more centralized government is a threat to individual liberty and freedom and to keep this new federal government from overstepping its bounds there must be a system of checks and balances of that government.  This is achieved in multiple ways via a system of sovereign power checks and balances within the government and, more importantly, it puts the taxation and budgetary power in a part of a bicameral legislative body and it is that part which is directly tied to the Revolutionary goals of being represented for taxation.  The States are the bodies that must sign off on this new form of government and they are given a say in the other part of the bicameral legislative body as a form of check and balance within the legislative branch, itself. 

While the internal checks and balances are most lauded by schoolteachers, the external checks and balances held by the States and the people are often overlooked or omitted entirely.  The States were given the tax collection power for the federal government because of the good reason that they had some veto in legislation coming from the House and could seek a politically satisfactory revenue stream that met National obligations without impoverishing local communities.  Further the people had a say through their representatives of what should and should not be in a federal government under the Constitutional form agreed to by their States. 

The primary mover of the sovereign powers is that they are enumerated and restricted in scope via a charter of negative powers derived from individual negative liberties.  By enumerating these powers they are, at the same time, restricted to that enumeration just by being put in place.  This schema is bolstered by the Amendments IX and X, which puts all other rights, liberties and powers to the States and the people as the people are the source of all such things and the creators of society and its organ called government.  There are other checks on federal tyranny, such as the freedom of speech, assembly and utilization of arms which are also upheld under the Bill of Rights, which forms along the older tradition of the Magna Carta as absolute guarantees beyond all other statements and verbiage, laws and decisions: the Bill of Rights exactingly tells that the enumerated powers are restricted and that it is the people that hold all the power in this Nation.

This concept of following the actual text of the Constitution to find out how it works in multiple places is structuralism.  I have gone over this conception put forward by Nicholas Rosenkranz in two prior posts centering on the subjects and objects of the Constitution.  English as a language has an SVO system which is: Subject, Verb, Object.  Objects are acted upon by Subjects and that action is the Verb in the sentence.  Structuralism is not Original Intent doctrine nor is it Strict Constructionism doctrine, as the first looks outside the Constitution for intent and the latter examines power outlays, checks and balances.  Strict Constructionism, coming first, does not rely on the utilization of English sentence structure nor does it seek the reinforcing language within the Constitution that clearly defines words and their meanings contextually.  If there is primary intent for the Constitution it must be reflected in the actual sentences and clauses within the document, and if there is a construction to those outlays then that derives from the actual structural integrity of the written sentences and clauses.  By knowing Law of Nations, English Common Law and having a good biblical foundation for individuals being directly granted rights and liberty, the US Constitution reflects a deep rooted understanding in human nature and the things that humans do on this Earth.

When understood in a structuralist context, the power grants contained in the Constitution are pretty clear on what they do in this complex system because of the way they are stated.

Article I, Section 8, US Constitution, the 'Commerce Clause':

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

That seems pretty simple, right?  Look at the entities involved and you see a continuity: foreign Nations, the several States and Indian Tribes.  This is a clause that deals with sovereign entities and it is not differentiating between foreign Nations, the several States and Indian Tribes, thus the power domain is the same for all three of them.  Do 'the several States' mean the entire Nation, as a whole?  Utilizing structuralism it is necessary to find out how the States are dealt with elsewhere in the Constitution and what the meaning of those clauses and phrases are in regards to their approach to States and in the type of qualifications being applied.

The United States is in the Preamble and it applies to all of the States in the Nation as a whole, without regard to any State or sub-set of States.  Thus the United States is a whole entity, indivisible and complete made up of all of the States that are United together.

In Article I, Section 1 this is also how Congress is labeled: Congress of the United States.

The first appearance of 'the several States' is in Article I, Section 2 with regards to the House:

Section. 2.

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

Here there is a recognition that each State has a different form of government (albeit republican in form) and that there are variations between States in how their legislative bodies work.  In this 'the several States' refers to the differences between States and among States and such differences are recognized and respected.  Further in Section 2 there is addressing of representation and taxation, and do note that the language of the first sentence is changed by following Amendment(s):

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

Here there is recognition that 'the several States' are of those in the Union, but does not include Indians who are not taxed nor 3/5ths of all other people.  The latter portion refers to non-free people and the former to Indians living in tribal territories recognized later as having sovereign domains within any State.  Indians living within State domains would not fall under that auspice and would be held in the enumeration to be represented as part of the population of the State, not of some other entity.

At this point there is a difference between the United States as a whole entity and the several States, which recognizes the individual States as separate entities within the larger Union.  Is this applied elsewhere with other powers?  Going back to Article I, Section 8 and before the 'Commerce Clause' is the first clause which is the 'General Welfare Clause':

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;

Here are two instances that bolster the Preamble and Article I Sections 1 and 2, in which the United States is treated as a whole.  Most particularly telling is that the second part of the clause specifically enumerates that Duties, Imposts and Excises are uniform throughout the United States.  There is no exception in that, no mention of 'the several States,' and no power grant for the federal government to differentiate between the States with this power.  From that the United States must mean the entire Nation, as a whole, not as divisions nor parts and this power cannot be subdivided beneath the level of the entire Nation, as a whole.

The next clause again follows in the structural framework already laid out:

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

This is where our National Debt comes from: the federal government borrowing in the name of the entire Nation.

After that is the Commerce Clause which is then followed by this clause:

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

Here is where those wishing to emigrate to the United States are regulated by sovereign power delegated to Congress for external affairs.  For sovereign power over Bankruptcies, that is set at the National level by Congress and is applied to the United States as a whole, equally.  In one clause two forms of sovereign power under Law of Nations are delegated to Congress.

Now skipping down a bit, there is in Article I, Section 9, another and different look at the States:

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.

That first clause is interesting as it is a passive voice clause, which is to say it is not specifically enumerating a power (the Congress shall have power to...) or restricting a part of any government from doing something (like in Amendment I, Congress shall pass no law...).  Because it is passive and has no direct indication of who it is being applied to, the examination is then one of who gets the positive powers of duties and taxation?  In the federal government that is Congress which gets the positive power for this, thus the restriction is on the States and that branch of State government that normally applies taxes and duties.  Thus this a prohibition on the States from imposing a duty or tax upon goods exported from other States.  This is carried through in the next clause, which also prohibits the free movement of vessels between States and is a further stoppage of getting payment to enter a State from another State.  As payments are usually a function of an executive power, this is a prohibition on the exercise of a power which is in addition to the prior prohibition which is usually from a legislative branch.  In these two clauses are prohibitions of State power both on both legislative and executive branches of government, although those powers may end up anywhere and these clauses stop all use of them by the States.

This is the third way that the Constitution address States, and that is in powers States cede to the federal government or are prohibited from exercising on their own in regards to other States.

Now what is very interesting is that the power restrictions have relaxation points to them, which is to say areas in which they can be utilized given certain conditions.  Article 10 establishes those conditions and they are the 'escape hatches' of the power restrictions:

No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

Escape hatch one is for things that cannot be foreseen, like Gypsy Moth or Med Fly spread in which pests that are harmful to the agricultural system of a State need to be eradicated and re-importation of such pests stopped.  Also this covers such things as inspection of vehicles for safety reasons, or to establish the amount of wear and tear on infrastructure so that certain vehicles must pay for special passage: that money goes not to the State but the federal government.

The third clause of Article I, Section 10 is one that I think of as the State Self-Preservation Clause in that all the normal martial restrictions and foreign policy restrictions laid upon the powers of a State are removed for invasion or imminent Danger which will not admit delay.  Got an invasion by a foreign power via sneak attack?  The States do not have to wait for the federal government to respond.  Have an insurrection that is threatening the tranquility of the State?  Again the State is not barred from action by having to wait for the federal government to respond.  Have an earthquake, pirates rampaging through the streets, or UFO's landing to mutilate livestock and abduct citizens?  Hey!  That is the sort of thing that cannot be written into a Constitution, so the States get wide leeway in dealing with sudden threats to their very existence: they do NOT have to wait for permission to act as the State IS a sovereign power that is RESTRICTED by the Constitution ONLY.  The US Constitution is not a suicide pact, in other words.

From this the third addressing of the States is one that also is qualified and recognizes the sovereign nature of the States.  Without such restrictions, the States would have those powers if the State constitution allowed it to the government of that State.

Yet another way the States are addressed is as single States.  This is seen in Article I, Section 8 dealing with areas under direct Congressional authority for lawmaking:

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;

Individual States are addressed in the granting of land to the federal government for the District and for other forts, magazines, etc. dealing with necessary functions of the federal government in particular the military.  Note that Congress must ask for such land and the Legislature of the State must grant the federal government use of that land.  These are not permanent land grants, however, as the retrocession of the part of DC in VA and the various returning of old bases and such to States have happened, as well.  The grant of the use of land is a voluntary one and EITHER side may pull out of that grant, which also recognizes that the power over the land in question belongs to the States, not the federal government.

Four ways to address the States: as part of the whole of the US, in the several as sovereign entities making up the US, in the restriction of power by these sovereign entities with exemptions, and as single States for the use of land.

Now fast-forward to the present day.

What is the US federal government in that it is not given to be in?

Land and property via the FHA, Fannie, Freddie and Ginnie: the federal government should have no say over the mortgage system of the United States, as a whole, nor amongst the several States as land is not part of inter-State commerce.  The federal government 'created' a 'national market' through GNMA via the bundling and securitizing of loans (which is to say the US government determined if loans were good or not) and allowed cross-State banks to go into residential and other property systems.  To be clear the federal government in picking up the backing of loans is not starting such loans... that is done by applying regulations to the banking industry via things like the Community Reinvestment Act... and utilizes intermediaries which wanted into this new 'market' and put the government on the hook for the 'secured' value of those loans.

This is how the FHA builds up control over a portfolio of property: by being the backer of organizations that hold them.  As a 'quasi-governmental agency', Fannie and Freddie are the conduits for this FHA control, and yet nowhere is any federal involvement in holding State lands granted save by permission of the State involved for each and every property as passed by Legislative acts.  For 'quasi-governmental agencies' Fannie and Freddie have open pipelines into the Treasury and that other 'quasi-governmental agency' the Federal Reserve.  The Federal Reserve acts as the intermediary for US borrowing and holds a good portion of the US debt.  It was created and designed by the banks, themselves, and pushed through Congress and put into power and given shielding from oversight by Congress.  To this day it is hard to say exactly which banks are in the Federal Reserve Board and how they conduct their operations.

How has this worked out?  First it killed the S&Ls, and that was by design, not bad luck.  Savings & Loans had restricted, local portfolios which gave them insight into the local community and how it works.  S&L's worked to foster local businesses, make sure families had stable employers and generally had a pretty low return on investment and pretty high overhead.  Yet they were extremely conservative on lending so that bad loans did not flow out into their communities as these institutions rested on local solvency.  Larger, national banks could under-cut and outperform these institutions, which they did, to the detriment of local economies but to the great benefit of inter-State banking regulation at the federal level which now had a say in local property transactions.  The S&L was something that grew up within States for local markets and were regulated as such and given protection from national banking and lending institutions that catered more towards commercial and industrial lending.  When that guarantee of a local market was broken by federal law, the structure that allowed the S&L structure to exist for low profit and conservative lending and borrowing practices went with it.

Yet the federal government is granted no power in this sector.

The Commerce Clause recognizes the States as separate entities and the ones that are the backers of the federal government. To regulate banking amongst the several States the federal government must actually work with the individual States to set up such an arrangement that would then be run by the States.  The role of the federal government in the Commerce Clause is to regularize commerce amongst the several States and to help States put organizations in place via assent between them as the federal government does via Treaties with foreign Nations and Indian tribes.

It does not get this power from the coinage and currency power, either:

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

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

Coinage and regulation of value is linked to the value of foreign Coin and to a fixed set of standards to measure them by.  It is not creating a fiat currency but one that has measured value that can be affixed to coins which are traditionally of a metal.  Yes paper currency is a nice and handy way to move value around, and when it is backed by measured and standards of metal with value then it represents that value and can be exchanged for it.  Do note that it is only after the establishment of the Federal Reserve by the Wilson Administration that the sequestration of valuable metals by the FDR Administration then move the Nation from a coinage and paper currency with value to one with only representative value that you couldn't get.  With the Nixon Administration that final link is broken and the coin of the United States is now fixed only to relative value, not absolute value.  Yet the power of the Coin, the Commerce Clause and the General Welfare Clause, taken together, do not allow the creation of the Federal Reserve, the outlawing of holding precious metals, nor the creation of an entity or entities to go into the local markets of States and 'regulate' them.

What that took was the Wickard v. Filburn case of 1942 in which a farmer grew beyond the quota of grain to feed cattle on his farm and otherwise utilize home grown foodstuffs.  That was seen by the SCOTUS as involving a 'national market' as the farmer didn't have to buy grain and that grain was sold on commodity exchanges as part of a national market.  By not participating in a market the farmer had a negative impact on the market by not taking part in commerce in it.  The idea of a 'national market' for such regulation had already been started with the Federal Reserve, Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission, and yet each of those rested on the shaky ground of the federal government getting oversight of 'national markets'.  To do that both the Commerce Clause and General Welfare Clause were deployed, and yet each has specific ways of addressing the States that are at odds with each other.

The General Welfare Clause addresses the whole of the United States which is all the States and all the parts of the United States as a unitary whole.  That is the way 'the United States' is utilize throughout the rest of the Constitution and it has a specific and structural meaning to it: the whole of the United States as a Nation.

The Commerce Clause addresses the several States and recognizes their sovereignty by addressing them in that way.  This is how 'the several States' is used elsewhere in the Constitution and it has a specific meaning: the States as sovereign actors as part of the United States with independent authority within the Nation.

Neither of these Clauses actually allows for rationing of wheat or being able to tell farmers how much they can and cannot grow, and the FDR Administration was doing that work even before the onset of WWII.  None of the clauses actually allows for a Federal Reserve to act as the intermediary for US debt nor to regulate its currency as that is a direct function of the federal government and cannot be passed off to any other organization but one directly controlled by the federal government.  Only by intentionally expanding federal power by misconstruing the actual words can the federal power expand and it does so at the expense of the sovereignty of the States and the rights of the people.

The Wickard case allowed for the navigation of waterways to become yet another 'National market' in the sense that navigable waterways are a necessity to the States and that all States are effected by them.  Yet the Clean Air and Water Act moves far beyond that, and the navigable airways, and puts federal power in where it does not have such power.  Setting navigation standards for the air and waterways is one thing, seeing them as part of an larger 'environment' that requires protection is something else again and not handed to the federal government as the unitary whole power does not grant authority over the several States where actual navigation, work, mining, and industry takes place.  Again if the federal government felt there was a need for such work the way to get that organized is not in the federal government, which doesn't have the sovereign power over these things, but to get the States to work out a system to yield cleaner air and water as implemented by each State as part of that framework.

That is how it is addressed for the vital functions of elections, so one would think that minor process procedures which are also addressed in the exact, same way should be handled that way as well.

Moving on to the 'entitlements': you aren't entitled to them because Congress isn't given the power to make them.

That is the actual rendering of Social Security via the SCOTUS as I went over previously, as two cases establish that you do not have an 'account' with the federal government.  You have, from the Helvering v. Davis decision in 1937, a tax imposed by Congress and such funds are not earmarked in any way for anything, but put into the general funds.  Congress does fun things with bonds and funding the government to give appearances that there was a 'lock box' but even by the Johnson Administration getting ability to openly raid SSA it was pretty well known that SSA tax funds weren't, actually, directed at SSA.  Johnson ended the charade, not change what was actually going on.  On the outward side you have whatever Congress wishes to pay out, you have no 'account' to draw upon, no actual property in the US government.  That was ruled on in the Flemming v. Nestor case in 1960.

Congress did the same with Medicare and got the States on the hook for some fund matching with Medicaid.  Neither are an 'entitlement', both are paid out of current revenue and there is no 'account' set up for you with any value in it.  Any value you perceive is in political wishing, the actual value is the cost of postage, paper and ink to get that paper to you to give you a warm and fuzzy feeling that the federal government can actually 'help'.  Currently these three entitlements are in the red, and for SSA it is so far in the red that it is cashing out future securities and adding to the current debt by doing so.  They had to be paid sometime and that sometime started a couple of years ago.  In the realm of private businesses this condition is known as 'bankrupt' and 'insolvent', and for SSA it is liquidating solvent assets to gain liquidity as a temporary holding measure.

Yet in no place in the US Constitution is giving 'entitlements' actually allowed to the federal government via its enumerated powers.  Again the General Welfare Clause addresses the United States as a unitary whole and that is the clause most often addressed for handing out these goodies.  If the federal government wanted to address the poor and needy, the sick and infirm, the method is to work with the several States to create ways so that they can manage such problems if they want to and do so in a regularized way that is suited to each State.  And if the States didn't want to form up such a thing, then it wouldn't be formed.  If a few wanted to do it and could find a way to do so that was agreeable to them and didn't infringe on the commerce of other States, then they would be welcome to do so.

So much current federal power rests upon the Wickard case that it isn't funny any more.  The absolute expenditure of money to fund 'good things', which means taking money from taxpayers to assuage the consciences of those who do not like finding themselves as the center of providing charity which is part and parcel of our responsibilities for our positivee and negative liberties, starts a corrosive effect on the general population in morals and ethics.  When our governmental institutions, which are only organs of society, take power from society itself in the positive realm of building ties and private institutions to care for the sick and needy, society as a whole (not in its parts) is lessened.  Each individual has liberty robbed from them in both the taking of such 'entitlements' because you have the obligation to care for yourself and sustain yourself with your fellow man removed from you as an individual, and from those who are on the giving end, which are the taxpayers, as the government is the least efficient, most authoritarian way to provide any service ever devised by man.  That sort of system is wonderful for protecting borders, sustaining a military and protecting commerce from pirates, but is less well suited, indeed generally ill-suited, to doing such things as providing health care or even 'managing' energy on a National scale.

A purposeful intent that can be read from the structure of the US Constitution is that the people are to be left to their own resources outside of the few and necessary functions of government so as to provide for themselves, each other and create a diverse and robust system amongst themselves.  The people are capable, government is seen as a negative weight on individuals, society and the Nation which makes it only a necessary evil that can serve a few useful functions.  To get a strong and diverse energy sector or health care sector, say, requires no government intervention at all at the federal level not just because it isn't granted power to do so, but because it is a centralized system that is then a single point of failure.  When an individual fails in their duties to their fellow man, that is a minor happening and the individual can right his or her ways to do better.  When government fails in carrying out its powers it puts the wealth of the Nation, the rights of the citizenry and, indeed, the very existence of the Nation at risk.  This doesn't just go to not enforcing our borders and seeing international scofflaws go unaccountable, but goes to the root of deficit spending which now threatens to impoverish ourselves, our posterity and snuff out the light of liberty on Earth, possibly forever.

When the Framers put the Constitution together they were mindful of past successful Nations and their fate in history: they turned into Empires, became decadent and then debauched (in turn) and then either imploded or were invaded to lose the cultural identity that had been present before the Empire existed.  Not so bad for the 'Great Man Empires' of Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great as their lives demarcated the extent of the cultural effect they had and while you can still hear about Alexander's exploits sung about in Afghanistani villages today, they are not speaking Greek when they do so.  Rome, on the other hand, lost its republican structure years if not decades before Julius Caesar and it was only at the end of his life that Octavian realized that his debauched life had proven to be the final corruption to kill republican spirit in the population once and for all.  Clearly large scale republics have problems, and ours is one of them.  Yet ours rests on a foundation of not just republicanism but in the understanding that our self-evident and unalienable rights to act upon this Earth are held by each of us.  It is this understanding that is hard to corrupt and snuff out that offers the promise of renewal, rebirth and a final conquering of authoritarian and totalitarian ideas of government as being useful or even good ways to govern amongst men.

Yet we have a class of politicians and elites in the world who still think they know how to run your life better than you do.

They wish to transmute the gold of our understanding into lead, and then into iron chains with chaos, blood and ruin.

You cannot depend on government to stop this for you, that lesson is drawn by seeing how far restricted government can turn evil in a mere three generations.  No matter what the intent of those who started this process of spinning the anti-alchemical dream into being, that process is now running its course and now comes back to you.  Only you can be a positive actor in creating society, and government only be a useful function by removing those that would be toxic to such society from society and when government fails at that prime task the task of renewal begins not at the top, but the bottom.

Always remember the credo of The Prisoner, played by Patrick McGoohan:

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed or numbered.  I am not a number, I am a FREE MAN."

When the time comes will you be numbered amongst the free or merely numbered?

Are you willing to spin gold, with all the difficulties of that, or accept lead attached to your limbs?

Can you tell the difference between who is spinning gold and who is turning gold into lead?

Would you dare to spin gold when lead is all around you?

Because it all comes down to you.

Executive Order on Natural Resources Preparedness

The text of this is seen at so many places and linked by them that it is almost superfluous to link to it, but here is the link from the White House. My basic take is similar to that of Glenn Reynolds, which is in part:

OKAY, PEOPLE KEEP WRITING ME ABOUT THIS EXECUTIVE ORDER ON “NATURAL RESOURCES PREPAREDNESS.” It’s not some sort of new Obama power grab. Instead, it’s just an update of an old power grab.

It’s not that such powers are necessarily a good idea, but they’re not new. That reminds me of what I wrote back during the Bush Administration: “Some of the backlash against things that the Bush Administration has been doing probably stems from a lack of understanding of just how bad the law has always been in many areas, leading to a false impression that things represent shocking new departures from the Constitution when they really represent . . . er, . . well-settled departures from the Constitution. Search, seizure, and privacy law, of course, was already seriously damaged by the Drug War long before Bush ever took office, something that tends to be forgotten in discussions of FISA or the Patriot Act. But it goes beyond that sort of thing. Sweeping Executive authority, for example, is nothing new.”

To reiterate: these are old Korean War ideas that later became part of the US government's continuity of government plan or, as I came to know it in my area, the Continuation Of Operations Plan (COOP) which was the DoD terminology at the time.  The COOP is part of the larger continuity plan that the Executive Branch runs in case of a National Emergency.

There are some key concepts that were put forward 73 years ago, during the Korean War which, itself, was part of the larger Cold War, and that was the idea that a sudden nuclear first strike by the USSR demanded a response and then some ability to find out just what was left after such a first strike.  This concept grew out of the post-WWII experience in trying to stand up the economies of West Germany and Japan, as well as giving a boost to France, Italy and a few other Nations that had bombed out infrastructure and needed a boost to get back on their feet to feed people.  This was due to the idea of Total War done at the Nation State level having reached the conclusion that military machines are just representative of the true power of a Nation which is its manufacturing base.  A long-term military organization can't survive in the field by scavenging and must have an industrial base to support it, which is an outcome of technological growth in capacity, output and efficiency.  To efficiently neutralize a Nation's war making capability, then, you target its industrial and natural resources base so that it can't make war any more, and the best way to do that is with single devices delivered with assurance to such industrial targets.  Hence nuclear tipped ballistic missiles become the prime devices for Total War.

On the aftermath side of Total War, experienced by the soldiers put in charge of getting reconstruction going in Nations torn by war and lacking an industrial base, some of the basics of organization and regimentation that is part and parcel of military doctrine comes to the forefront, as the very organization that is made to destroy capacity is also an organizing system for rebuilding.  Or so it says here in fine print at the bottom of the last page...

The major problem is that this only works with societies used to having a regimented system of authority over the civilian population which, to a large degree, describes Germany, Japan and to a lesser degree Italy and France.  The post-WWII era and early Cold War were shaped by this experience, the ability of the US military to accomplish a lot in a little amount of time, and with the looming nuclear threat the idea of a fast ramp-up to rebuilding led by the military controlled by a civilian government seemed like a good idea at the time.  And the President, as Commander of the Armies and the Navies, gets the job of doing all that organizing.

See how that works?

Now, fast forward to the era in which I was involved in minor ways at a sub-agency level in the COOP and our directives were to find ways to continue operations under various threat scenarios which included loss of one or both of our production sites.  Because of the way that procurement went in the 1980's and the proprietary nature of the information we dealt with (which is industrial proprietary, not secret or anything) the conclusion was that we would have to go to a pre-automated mode to continue operations.  In other words get things done by hand.  Yes we made provisions to have duplicate equipment (which had the Y2K problem and was thus going to be obsolete by the time we finished with the COOP) but the realization was that once the knowledge base of living personnel was lost, there was no way we were going to do more than just limp along until new people were trained and since some of the skills necessary were process skills (done while making the information) getting that set of skills back would take longer than some of the analytical skills as it is highly specialized in the manual field.

Throughout the COOP we kept concepts of terror attacks in mind either those that had spill-over to our agency or those directed at our agency, or those directed at leadership command and control centers.  The determination was to defend our data in-depth at the agency level and keep a final work product back-up with DoD safe sites which made for a five-tiered data storage system.  It was the best we could think of at the time as no one was putting known and speculated asymmetrical threats into the system for drafting the COOP.

Looking back from 2012 the flaws in the entire continuation of government to utilize the military to rebuild the Nation has obvious flaws which are absolutely striking today.

First is that we are not a people with a highly regimented society.  Take a look at any disaster in US history and tell me which one depended on a centralized recovery system for it.  Good luck on that!  Never happens, even with Katrina by the time the federal government got off its but it was OBE at the local level.  In fact people in FL who had multiple hurricanes run through the State five years BEFORE Katrina were STILL waiting for federal help when Katrina struck NOLA.  This is not just true of the present-day America but can be seen in such things as the 1903 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the burning down of Chicago, the Great Molasses Disaster in Boston, the Great Winter of NYC... from tornadoes to black outs to earthquakes to floods the first place Americans turn to?  Each other.  To churches and civic groups. To Americans coming out of the disaster zone to help people pick up the pieces, get through the hardship, mourn the dead and rebuild their lives.  America, for all of those who want freebies and goodies and handouts, still does this, but the requirement is that unless your body is broken that you get up and help your fellow man.  Government comes in as an after-thought, and usually a burden by the time it gets to any disaster.

Second is the spread of useless bureaucracy over time.  This adheres to Jerry Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:

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.

This law was not written in 1959, but the effect of it was obvious to anyone who studied bureaucracy of any sort at any point in mankind's history.  China had used this under the Sun Kings so as to keep a smoothly running State apparatus during times of problems for the King and ruling class.  Over time they became a hidebound reactionary force to inhibit invention and promulgation of ideas and sequestered power into the hands of the State.  At that point wars became rather nasty as minor technological innovations could prove out to be a major problem, sometimes one in which superior manpower was not a sure solution.  You can start out with a nice organization with, say, a nice 15% overhead of management rate (which is to say 15% of the organization is managers) and in three generations this will increase and while there is no set amount of percentage change, the one thing that can be predicted is that 15% will seem like a dream of efficiency in three generations as new internal edicts, internal compliance and other internal bureaucracy eat up more of an organization all in the name of 'efficiency'.  When I tell people that the most efficient parts of the US government have a 35% overhead in terms of cost, they don't seem to get it until I point out that a typical industrial set-up has a 15-20% overhead rate, and most charities hit in the 10% range with (outliers up and down, of course).  At the time I was in the US government the worst parts had a 65% overhead, which meant they spent more time in internal management than they did in doing a job.

Third is the growth of bureaucracy over time.  This is guided by Parkinson's law:

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

When a bureaucracy increases internal workload via Pournelle's Iron Law, the work time does not come out evenly and, when one has to adjust for workforce numbers (which is to say warm bodies in the job pool) extra personnel are added to cover for partial shortfalls in meeting work time estimate requirements.  These individuals then require additional work to do and those most ready to give them work are those running the internal bureaucracy of an organization.  For government agencies this is an increase on burden rate and an increase in non-productive time versus the marginal increase in productive time.  No bureaucracy ever asks for fewer people and resources (indeed the US Congress punishes agencies that don't spend all their money) and so the impetus is to spend freely, quickly and expand organizational requirements to meet any increase in budget and then add that increase rate of change into future budgets.  What starts out with efficiency in mind gets co-opted by the internal systems that run the bureaucracy to marginalize actual work and increase non-productive work.  When more work is required the added personnel have, as part of their workload, the internal bureaucratic overhead of the organization itself which is leveraged on the individual, so that there is less return per person in actual work.

Fourth is bureaucratic mission creep which Pranay Gupte and Bonner R. Cohen described in Forbes magazine on 20 OCT 1997 as the following:

Mission creep is to a taxpayer-supported organization what new markets are to a business organization. It involves a gradual, sometimes authorized, sometimes not, broadening of a bureaucracy's original mission. It is a way to accrete money and power beyond what Congress originally approved when it funded an agency.

This works in conjunction with Pournelle's Iron Law and Parkinson's law as any bureaucracy seeks to not only justify their expansion via internal bureaucratic motivation, but to expand their work area so as to reward those who gain their agency or department extra funds via mission creep.  Thus mission creep works to bolster the bureaucracy via expanding work areas (be it legal or not to do so) as the incremental amount of work must then be supported by more staff and funding.  This isn't only an external power directive, but an internal one that may actually be larger than the external mission expansion which is used as a pretext to garner more funds and power to any bureaucratic organization.  This at once both expands the power of a bureaucracy (by mission expansion) and makes it less able to carry out its expanded role (by Pournelle's Iron Law), thus requiring the bureaucracy to be bigger so as to meet its new mission goals (by Parkinson's law).  The result is an authoritarian bureaucracy that caters more to its internal bureaucracy than its external mission and does worse, over time, at its mission (both original and expanded) while becoming less efficient due to that expansion.  This has been done by the EPA, for example, which has changed areas of dry lands into 'wetlands' by claiming that their periodic inundation or high ground water amounts makes an impact to navigable waterways (the original mission).  Thus their mission can expand to any puddle of water, anywhere, by claiming that while there is water present it is part of the navigable waterways.  Places that are known as un-navigable swamps for commercial use can and do, via mission creep, fall into navigable waterways because they happen to drain into such waterways.  Mind you, all water in a drainage basin drains into waterways, so the actual justification for the 'wetlands' expansion can then be a pretext to further expansion to cover such things as rainwater.  Once you accept the premise, then the room for expansion is nearly infinite.  And since you are mostly water, the navigable waterways expansion for mission creep will mean the EPA can regulate all the water in your body, as well.  These things do not happen at one large jump, but in pieces, thus an original set of directives for the Cold War drafted during the Korean conflict (under a cease fire at this point in time) can and will expand over decades as the Executive power, itself, is prone to the laws of bureaucracy.

Fifth is technology change over time and it is important due to the drafting date of the original set of emergency procedures that were set-up under bureaucratic guidance.  To put it simply, the world of the late 1950's while not as technologically advanced as our current technology base, was actually more robust in many ways.  The main way was the use of vacuum tube technology which is resistant to Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attacks.  While one of the Bikini Atoll tests did cause lights to flicker and burn out a transformer in Hawaii, it was not seen (in that era) as the major part of nuclear device destructiveness.  It wasn't a well understood effect, either, and once there was an above ground ban on nuclear testing the ability to garner data on an EMP was slim, to say the least.  Once the effect of a low yield nuclear device at high altitude could finally be understood and modeled properly, the entire technology base had moved from a resistant one to one that was susceptible to the effects of EMP.  Even with that, only the military hardened its infrastructure and the civilian uses of more complex electronics was done without any capability to resist an EMP or have safe back-ups that were not susceptible to EMP.  Much of the COOP I worked on had assumptions on surviving industrial capacity even if our main sites were taken out: our back-up data would be put to use at other facilities to at least get old (but very useful data) out to the military. 

Unfortunately if an EMP attack happened our agency would be able to continue on some operations due to robust systems and back-ups in safe locations, but the ability to actually get information out would be limited, severely.  And as our industrial surge capacity would be gone, completely, there would be no way to actually expand output.  At this point in time it is fine and dandy that the military could continue on for, say, a year (maybe) with its internal resources after an EMP, but the situation outside of those dots of light on a dark map would soon engulf the points.  There is no industrial build-out capacity of a government, none at all.  All the lovely assumptions about what to do with certain kinds of attack leaves the entire infrastructure of the US vulnerable outside of a few hardened data centers.  Take out modern and timely transportation, modern agriculture, modern high tech, and the amount of food on the shelves that you have is IT.  There are reserves held by the government, yes, but they are measured in months and their transportation depends on the refining and shipment capacity of the civilian infrastructure.

A harder hit can (and at some point will) be done by our sun via a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME).  A CME on the equator of the sun that is directed at Earth will have an initial effect like an EMP but also put impingement waves into the Earth's magnetic field which will set up long wave electromagnetic waves that will propagate over conductors of their wavelength.  This will mean a power overload on the long-line power cables that get power from transmission stations to sub-stations across the continent.  Any continent.  A CME does this globally, so it is actually worse than an EMP attack which is only within a few thousand miles of a nuclear high altitude explosion.  Such a CME event would also take out the few, critical transformers for the high energy production areas and, as no one makes them any more, the ability of the US to recover would be measured in decades if not a century or more.  Even Nations that make such transformers (China, say) will be faced with mass starvation and a huge population die-off due to the lack of agricultural capacity or the capacity to import food.  The US government might hold together for a bit after an EMP, but a CME will be a multi-day to multi-week affair that renders all but the most resistant or protected of electronics inoperable.

Do note that if there was a 'power grab' during such a time of a CME, it wouldn't amount to much as the very same long line copper that is required for safe transmission of data also gets effected.  Satellites are very hard hit by a CME and there is some question of survivability for any but the most robust of military satellites and with the amount of static during the CME, they still aren't useful for comms or control.  Because of the lack of a robust system infrastructure on a global scale, a CME may not end civilization, but it will put the one we have out of business for a long, long period of time.

In other words the proposed bureaucratic means to deal with a military threat that was boosted by technology now has a technology base that, itself, is at risk and puts forward no warnings, means nor methods to deal with the sudden absence of it.  The old society that had first sanctioned the limited bureaucratic powers for a known (and quite awful threat) are now facing a huge bureaucracy that can't deal with the changes that have happened.  Bureaucratic power and expansion of same, with the internal bureaucratic rules and external 'regulations' are now the primary threat to dealing with the underlying problems: the continuation of government concept no longer works due to the nature of the vulnerability of the civilian and domestic systems.

All of this is made worse by...

Sixth is what I call The Process, which is the methodology to accumulate unconstitutional powers via the agglomeration of powers that are distinct in the federalist and republican concepts of government under which this Nation is chartered.  Bureaucracy has expanded by not just internal methodology (bad enough) but has been aided by an incompetent legislative branch that sees a bureaucratic 'fix' to every ill.  The 'fix' usually consists of inventing new agencies to address problems that should have been addressed elsewhere (really, what is the TSA but a cover for an incapable FAA which, in turn, is rendered obsolete by technology) or that will be 'fixed' by blurring lines between distinct organizations by creating larger ones with diffuse boundaries (DHS and DNI come to mind, as does HHS).  By removing 'walls', which are to say distinct boundaries put in to keep any single agency's reach from becoming over-broad, the resultant larger agency then breaches the restrictions that the smaller sub-parts had by the larger, and more inclusive charter.  The driver behind this is the strange belief that more regulations to address a 'problem' (like a terrorist event) after it happens will magically prevent future occurrences of such events. 

Further when the government moves in to establish power and regulations, it removes necessary accountability from private and commercial entities and actually begins a process of shielding them to the benefit of the bureaucracy.  This does not lead to an environment that addresses problems proactively (because of the threat of negligence) but protects negligence via government 'oversight' and 'regulation' thus making for a cost and burden shifting from private entities to public ones.  This increases the cost of the oversight bureaucracy (due to the regulation enforcement system and the procedures and protocols to carry it out) while giving only the appearance of dealing with a 'problem' while leaving wide swaths of new problems the ability to crop up and get lax or tardy accountability, if accountability happens AT ALL.

This process makes for a more authoritarian government that is very good at enforcing its aims on the law abiding and yet, at the same time, becomes an incapable actor in enforcing the actual authority on those crossing it.  At each turn that government is used to enforce a positive moral good via restriction, the actual addressing of the positive morality is no longer done by the population as a whole and becomes a lost art amongst the population.  One does not do good just not doing evil, and if one cannot identify evil (or good) then one is no longer a moral actor in life.  The problem of enforcing morality (instead of punishing crimes that restrict liberty and freedom to do good) is that it doesn't work.  Punishment of those depriving their fellow man of liberty and freedom is a proper use of negative liberty in that it is restricted to those who seek to harm society by harming other citizens.  The State can (and does) make suicide illegal, and if that was enough to stop it from happening (creating a moral good) then we would no longer have suicides.  Similarly if removing alcohol by government power is enough to create a moral good, then we would have been rid of the abuse of alcohol in the 1920's.

When this procedural concept is stepped up to the entire Nation, as a whole, where government takes a positive stance to create anything it is removing the responsibility for the creation from citizens.  The positive good of creating a just and worthwhile society to live in are handed off to the punisher of crimes, not retained by the creators of value.  By thinking that the continuity of government is a worthwhile object, it misses the point of relieving the citizenry the goal and objective of having a government that is worth continuing.  When this happens you not only get a government not worth having, but you also have a citizenry that see no value in having such a government because they cannot conceive of creating a good society to sustain a government any more.

This era is now ending.

Those seeking to reshape the world are finding that the world has changed to the point that it can no longer be guided by elites, no longer sees value in elites, and has no faith in government by elites.  By making people dependent on government by elites those very same elites are spelling their own doom because any government with enough power to be so broadly authoritarian can no longer wield that authority competently, well or even enough to protect the elites at the top.  Those who saw power coming to an end in the old Communist Bloc Nations had a choice of stepping down peacefully, or to be shot in the streets like common gangsters.  Rich gangsters, yes, but still gangsters.  That is what the West is now facing as well as China and to a certain degree every Nation that has bought into the over-broad reach of government that has been promulgated for over 100 years.  It is a bankrupt system living on borrowed time and money and both are just about ready to run out.

You decide what comes next.

To be civilized one must be free and self-governing.

The elites fear that, just as they fear civilization and they do not seem to realize that without civilization their life spans are not very long, at all.  In a global realm you can run, but there is no longer anywhere to hide and power becomes a target not to take, but to remove.

Fusionism

When I had originally written about Fusionist Republicans or, more correctly, Fusionist Conservatism I had used it as a term to describe the fundamental alignment that happens with SoCons and TP FiCons, and only to a lesser extent with Libertarians.  I described it like this:

Fiscal Conservatism has deep roots in not only societal good but the teachings from the Judeo-Christian heritage about duty to God and one's fellow man.  Unlike libertarians the Fusionists recognize that not all of man's liberties and rights are positive, as Nature gives us both equally (although not in equal amounts), so that the necessity of society to generate organs to watch over and stop the exercise of negative liberties and rights within society requires government.  Man is not wholly good nor evil, but has positive and negative rights and liberties which we can bias via moral teachings to curb the negative rights and liberties and enshrine the positive ones worthy of protection.  Government is to recognize that these positive liberties and rights are to be protected, not infringed upon, and the case for this comes not from legal proceedings but from moral teachings, upholding society, and holding government accountable for the negative powers we grant it to safeguard society and the individual.  This is a deeply libertarian approach, yes, but it is not made by modern libertarian channels but through ones of religious observance, religious teachings and understanding man's duty to God and his fellow man.  Fusionist Conservatism is, at once, deeply conservative and extremely expansive in this day and age as it is the naturally recognized antidote to tyrannical or despotic government.

When I had been asked, many times, why I was not a Libertarian, I put forward that the main reason is the lack of the concept of Honor beyond mere agreements in the Libertarian lexicon.  Personal honor is something that has a foundation on the understanding that one is not only to follow through on agreements, but to state them explicitly and back them up.  Honor extends past mere commercial and personal liberty realms and is a responsibility system that one must take upon themselves to limit their negative Natural rights and liberties added to the upholding of the positive ones in full for oneself.

The substance of Fusionism is that deeply moral roots of personal behavior see that man is invested with his Natural rights by God (Moral Law), that our nature in this Natural world is unchanging in that we get both the positive and negative aspects of our Natural rights (Natural Law), and through the conscious decisions to marry and protect our families we create the foundation for society (Law of Nations) which must be administered via common agreement amongst our fellow man so as to restrict those liberties that would harm all of us if exercised by any of us (Civil Law).  Moral Law informs us what is good and bad behavior so as to create a stronger society, and what administrative functions must be put in place so as to punish the exercise of those liberties and rights that put individuals and society at peril via their exercise.  We exercise our honor in respecting the Moral Law when exercising our positive Natural rights and liberties, and also acknowledge that the function of our society is to create a government that has acceptable laws to all members of society and imposes penalties upon those who wish to transgress those boundaries and that those boundaries are respected in our actions.

This concept of Fusionism was one I hadn't researched nor examined, but just stated.

I am surprised that not only the content but name of the idea is in use for this, but then the self-evident is the self-evident in the way of things.  In reading Instapundit he linked to an article on 05 MAR 2012 by Dan Mitchell - How to Reconcile Liberty, Morality, Conservatism and Libertarianism.  In his discussion he reveals that his view was sparked by Timothy P. Carney at the Washington Examiner on 04 MAR 2012 entitled Santorum, liberty, morality and the culture wars.  The key part that Mr. Mitchell picks out from Mr. Carney is this one:

When liberals cry that conservatives are trying to legislate morality, that's typically projection and misdirection from liberal attempts to legislate morality -- they say we're trying to outlaw buying contraception because we oppose their efforts to mandate buying contraception. Santorum is the most frequent target of the bogus "condom police" arguments, even though he has repeatedly stated and written that he doesn't think government at any level should outlaw contraception. But the confusion is not totally unfounded, considering how often Santorum does try to legislate morality.
St. Augustine wisely asked "what does it really matter to a man whose days are numbered what government he must obey, so long as he is not compelled to act against God or his conscience?" This ought to be the Right's threshold in the culture wars. More often than not, in the United States these days, it's the secular Left imposing its morality on the religious Right.

Don't want to photograph a gay wedding? You're fined. Don't want to sell the morning-after pill at your pharmacy? You're driven out of your job. Don't want to pay for your employees' sterilization? You're a criminal. Don't want to subsidize Planned Parenthood with your tax dollars? Tough, pay up.

An alliance between libertarians and conservatives is natural and right today. But Santorum has not only behaved as if he wants to drive the libertarians away, he has openly stated so -- repeatedly.

The legislation of morality, as such, is done via stopping the exercise of negative rights and liberties by individuals that will harm other individuals and society as a whole.  Government is an organ of society that does just this, and that is its role and purpose.  In addition the Nation State gets duties to perform (via Law of Nations) and a population grants negative powers to do so (via Civil Law).  When government seeks to promote positive liberty via its actions, it infringes upon the positive rights and liberties of individuals and society and, thusly, lessen them.  From the perspective of the political left, the necessity of an 'activist' government that does 'more' for people has required the 'finding' of 'new' rights by government and putting forward that those rights need to be 'supported' by government 'regulation'.

The word for this is: tyranny.

Imposing positive rights by government is neither the function nor role of government, and each and every single time any government has gone on this path it has collapsed itself because it has collapsed the society beneath it.  There is the story of Augustus Caesar who, in his old age, looked at the rapidly decaying Roman society and realized that his laws and edicts had removed the final vestiges of the old Roman Republic, and spent his last years trying to legislate positive morality back into existence when it no longer had any to uphold it actively in society and government.  It does not matter if the government is that of the bloody French Revolution, the Soviet Revolution, the ascension of Mussolini into totalitarian rule, the advance of Mao via his bloody rise and even more bloody rule, Pol Pot and the Killing Fields, or the wonderful kingdom of the Kim's in NoKo when the end is pure and total government power, then society degrades and diminishes and only the continued lashing of the subservient can keep anything running.  Some of these societies started out in a high state of decay, in fact most did, while others had never tasted freedom or liberty before and would not do so through their revolutions.  In each case these governments see fit to be totalitarian, that is taking up the totality of all powers positive and negative, and then finds that government is only a tool to stop the exercise of the negative.

It is very strange that this needs to be enshrined as Carney's Law - The moral law should guide our personal actions and individual liberty should guide our personal decisions.

Why strange?

Anyone who has read my review of Pufendorf's On the Duty of Man and Citizen, would see that this has already been described in 1673 (and just a bit prior to that in the much longer, multi-volume work by Pufendorf on the subject).

With that said the thought is in the air and while Rick Santorum is a flawed, human vessel, perhaps unable to unite these trends that are beginning to come together, the idea that they will come together and reunite and fuse into a coherent whole is the direction that our society is taking.  The main trend of trying to break society apart by isolating Moral Law, Natural Law, Law of Nations and Civil Law is one that has reached its zenith some decades ago.  The century and more of Progressivism, Socialism, Communism and Leftism from Bismarck's Statism as an attempt to stop Socialism and, thusly, mimicking it, all the way to the idea that health care is a 'right' and not an exercise of liberty, that arc has reached its end and has trashed societies across the world.

Yet the self-evident, no matter its source, is self-evident: all rights and liberties are born within you and you are the moral actor in this world, and it is your duty to uphold those positive aspects of common agreement as well as support the punishment of those who wish to destroy society via the exercise of negative rights and liberty on their own.  From this concept, born from many places and guided by Moral Law, does man, of necessity, rule himself, first.  Instead of ushering in a great age of plenty, those who have supported taking over the positive liberties and rights from individuals are now finding them faced with the Abyss of Tyranny.  Those seeking Tyranny are attempting to push their fellow man into that Abyss.  Joining in our understanding to step back will be painful for us, and a joy to our children and a blessing to those who follow us.

Fusionism is coming as part of the Third Great Awakening and no longer will we believe we must give up the stars to spend on the poor and, instead, let all mankind know that nothing can fix the poverty of the soul of those wishing to take our dreams from us.  This will not be done because it is easy, no, that is not the case.  It will be done because it is worth the sacrifice of our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to each other to have a future of freedom and turn one last time from tyranny and leave it in our dust.

Forever.

RIP Andrew Breitbart

RIP Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

Collapsed walking near his home, survived by a wife and four young children.

My condolences to the family, friends, co-workers and those who loved this Happy Warrior.

That, my son, THAT was a man.

The current candidates and their alignments

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

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

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

2) FiCons break out into two sub-factions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

YMMV.