8 December 2009

8 December 2009

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when they close the curtain on the current Congress.

Copenhagen: Let the Games Begin! [Cato at Liberty]

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DEC 07, 2009 11:01P.M.

One Thing Greenspan Got Right and Bernanke Didn’t [Cato at Liberty]

25,000 bureaucrats, factota, hangers on, and representatives of various environmental organizations have just converged on Copehagen for the UN’s latest “Conference of the Parties (COP) to its infamous 1992 climate treaty. Expect a lot of heat, not much light, and a punt right into our next election.

DEC 07, 2009 05:18P.M.

President Obama says that the US will agree to a “politically binding” reduction of our emissions of carbon dioxide to a mere 17% of 2005 levels by 2050. This will allow the average American the carbon dioxide emission of the average citizen in 1867. Obama’s pronouncement has stepped all over the toes of the US Senate, which really doesn’t want to vote on similar legislation this election year. Jim Webb, a democrat heretofore very loyal to the President recently wrote Obama a very tersely worded note reminding him that the power to commit the nation to such a regulation lies with the Senate, not with the Commander-inChief.

While both Greenspan and Bernanke merit considerable blame for helping to inflate the housing bubble, it is worth mentioning what Greenspan did get right: bringing to the attention of Congress and the public the risk posed to our financial system from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. During Bernanke’s confirmation hearing last week, Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd criticized the Fed for not doing enough to warn Congress on systemic risks facing the economy. Given Dodd’s attendance record, both as Chair and before, he can perhaps be forgiven if he missed one of Greenspan’s many appearances before the Banking Committee.

The UN’s own climate models show that even if every nation that has obligations under the failed Kyoto Protocol (which is supposed to be replaced by the Copenhagen Protocol) did what Obama wants, that only 7% of prospective warming would be prevented by 2100. The world’s largest emitter—China—was exempt then, and won’t agree to these reductions now.

To help remind us, on Feb. 24, 2004, Greenspan told the Banking Committee: Concerns about systemic risk are appropriately focused on large, highly leveraged financial institutions such as the GSE’s…to fend off possible future system difficulties, which we assess as likely…preventive actions are required sooner rather than later.” In Greenspanspeak, that translates to “do something now.

Instead they will agree to reduce “carbon intensity”—the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit GDP—by 20% per decade. This is nothing but business as usual for a developing or robust economy. In fact, when President George W. Bush said that was our global warming policy, he was roundly booed. The Chinese announcement—already telegraphed, is being greeted with unmitigated praise by the same environmentalists who beat on Bush for the exact same policy. India has just announced that there is no way that they will agree to any emission reductions unless we pay them losta money. Obama thinks that’s a good idea, too. Polling data, anyone?

Again on April 6, 2005, Greenspan warned the Banking Committee: When these institutions were small, the potential for such risk, if any, was small. Regrettably, that is no longer the case. From now on, limiting the potential for systemic risk will require the significant strengthening of GSE regulation.

Since there’s no way that India and China will agree to large reductions, the real result of Copenhagen is that the climate can will be kicked down the road to the next COP, which begins on November 8, 2010, right down the road in Mexico City. That’s six days after our Congressional election, guaranteeing that cap-and-tax will be on the voters’ minds

These are just a few of Greenspan’s many warnings to Congress on the risks posed by Fannie and Freddie. In addition, economists at the Fed published numerous studies, during Greenspan’s tenure, on the nature of Fannie and Freddie. Sadly, upon taking over as Chair of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke

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scaled back these efforts. Gone was the published economic research on GSEs. Gone was the loud voice of authority from a Fed Chairman on GSE policy. Instead, Bernanke choose to appease the GSE’s protectors in Congress.

8 December 2009

Judge Brett Kavanaugh — whose blistering yet scholarly dissent likely prompted the Court to take up the case. And so the ruling rests, as often happens with the most interesting cases, on the shoulders of Justice Kennedy. I remain cautiously optimistic that Kennedy will decide to uphold constitutional checks and balances and strike down what has become an unholy new branch of government.

While the Federal Reserve does not maintain primary regulatory authority over Fannie and Freddie, the Fed has long been viewed as the most credible voice in Washington on issues of systemic risk. When faced with the choice of protecting the Fed, or protecting the financial system, by raising the pressure on GSE reform, Bernanke punted. How he can be trusted to find the courage to taken on the next “Fannie Mae”

Two curious notes from the argument: 1. Petitioners’ counsel Michael Carvin referenced Cato’s brief in discussing PCAOB’s overreach internationally — seeking to regulate even foreign accounting standards – without oversight from the State Department or the SEC, let alone the president; 2. PCAOB brought its own lawyer to argue alongside the solicitor general, begging the question: if PCAOB is subservient to the SEC and/or the president, why does it need its own counsel to represent

is beyond me.

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its own views?

Big Out-of-Control Government Has Had Better Days at the Supreme Court [Cato at Liberty]

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All the News That’s Fit to Subsidize [Cato at Liberty]

DEC 07, 2009 04:36P.M. This morning at the Supreme Court, the federal government argued for the continued existence of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB, pronounced peek-a-boo) — and by extension the nefarious financial regulatory scheme known as Sarbanes-Oxley. Cato filed a brief supporting a free market advocacy group and an accounting firm, who sued PCAOB for violating both the Appointments Clause and general constitutional separation-of-powers principles.

DEC 07, 2009 04:17P.M. Today, Politico Arena asks: NPR v. Fox News? My post:

Passed with scant deliberation in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 established PCAOB to oversee the accounting practices of the nation’s public companies. As my piece with Cato legal associate Travis Cushman details today, PCAOB enjoys the rare authority to make its own laws, collect taxes, inspect records, prosecute infractions, make judgments, and impose sanctions.

Do I sense a bit of chutzpa in Politico’s report today that NPR executives have asked their top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her appearances on Fox News because of what the executives perceive as the network’s political bias? The request would be impertinent if NPR itself were beyond reproach, ideologically, but “fair and balanced” it is not. It’s a playpen for the left, subsidized by the American taxpayer, exceeded in its biases only by Pacifica Radio, another tax subsidized playpen straight out of the late ’60s.

Traditionally, independent agencies that serve such executive functions must be accountable to the president. PCAOB members, however, may only be removed “for cause” by members of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who in turn may only be removed “for cause” by the president. I previously blogged about the case, Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB, here, here, and here.

There’s nothing wrong with a news organization tilting left or right, of course: let the public then decide, as the Fox News numbers show the public is doing. (And that, plainly, is what’s behind the White House efforts to marginalize the one network that’s had the audacity to criticize it systematically.) There is something deeply wrong, however, with asking the public to subsidize that tilt. NPR and its listeners would be screaming, and rightly so, if the taxpayers were subsidizing Fox News. Is it any different in their case? And please don’t say that NPR’s news is “news” — we’re all adults here. There’s a reason conservatives, mostly, and libertarians want to reduce the reach of government. It’s because so much of life — from news to education, religion, health care, the arts, and so much more — is fraught with values about which reasonable people can have reasonable differences. For that, there is only one

As far as how the argument went, I think the forces of limited constitutional government have eked out a 5-4 victory. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor were extremely hostile to the challengers’ argument, while the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia and Alito were supportive. (Scalia at one point joked that he had no less power than the president — meaning not very much — to influence PCAOB.) Justice Stevens only spoke up once but seemed to show a leaning towards the government position. Justice Thomas, while remaining silent, can be expected to support the view of D.C. Circuit

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answer: freedom, including freedom, as Jefferson put it, from having to

8 December 2009

smoothly. There is little reason to believe it will.

subsidize views one finds abhorrent. In the end, the strategy aimed at defeating the Taliban and securing Afghanistan will never be perfect. Instead, a strategy of narrowly defined objectives that center on our original mission in entering the country—disrupting al Qaeda—is the only policy that is acceptable given

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the costs that the U.S. will incur.

Tea Party Beats GOP on 3-Way Generic Ballot [The Club for Growth]

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Adding Free Speech Insult to Property Rights Injury [Cato at Liberty]

DEC 07, 2009 04:07P.M. This poll is generating a lot of buzz online. From Rasmussen Reports: In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP. [...]For this survey, the respondents were asked to assume that the Tea Party movement organized as a new political party. In practical terms, it is unlikely that a true third-party option would perform as well as the

DEC 07, 2009 03:02P.M. My friend and former law firm colleague Mark Sigmon — who coauthored Cato’s brief in the New Haven firefighters case — is representing a man facing daily fines for displaying a large political message on his house. David Bowden was upset about the way he had been treated by the town of Cary, NC, regarding damage to his property during a road-widening project. This past July, Bowden hired someone to paint “Screwed By The Town of Cary” on the front of his house. A few weeks ago, the town gave Bowden seven days to remove the sign or face daily fines — $100 for the first day, $250 for the second, $500 for each subsequent day – for violating a local sign ordinance. That’s when Mark, who’s affiliated with the ACLU of North Carolina, filed a lawsuit on Bowden’s behalf. The complaint alleges that the town violated Bowden’s rights to free speech and to petition his government under the First Amendment and similar provisions of North Carolina’s constitution.

polling data indicates.

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Afghanistan Withdrawal in July 2011? Don’t Bet on It [Cato at Liberty] DEC 07, 2009 03:56P.M.

While the facts of this case are a bit colorful – and I’m sure Mark is enjoying the notoriety (here’s his appearance on Fox & Friends) — this is no laughing matter. The town appears to be compounding the damage it did to a resident’s property rights by now violating his rights to speech and political expression. At least now the town has agreed to refrain from enforcing its ordinance and levying fines until the case is resolved — which is essentially a capitulation to Bowden’s request for a preliminary injunction.

Secretary Gates and Secretary Clinton, among other administration officials, indicated this weekend that the July 2011 date for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan should not be interpreted as an exit strategy, but as a “ramp rather than a cliff.” It now appears the president will not be obligated to adhere to any withdrawal date and can adjust as he deems fit. President Obama’s decision to include a withdrawal date in his speech sends a mixed message to allies and enemies about America’s commitment to the region. It is a misguided effort to placate the American public’s waning support for the mission. Obama should instead be looking for ways to leave Afghanistan, not excuses to dig us in deeper.

For more news on this story go here, here, and here. And you can read the ACLU’s press release and access all the legal pleadings in the case here.

Essentially, the strategy is to apply the Iraq model to Afghanistan: a rapid infusion of troops followed by a painfully slow withdrawal. Of course, that strategy is premised on the hope that everything will run

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8 December 2009

information (about the relative warmth of certain areas of the house) that might have been obtained by ordinary observation from the exterior of the house. No great theoretical problem, says Kerr: That only shows that the inside/outside line will sometimes be difficult to draw in novel circumstances. Online, for instance, we may be unsure whether to regard the URL of a specific Web page as mere “addressing” information or as “content”—first, because it typically makes it trivial to learn the content of what a user has read, and second, because URLs often contain the search terms manually entered by users. A similar issue arose with email subject lines, which now seem by general consensus to be regarded as “content” even though they are transmitted in the “header” of an email.

The Virtual Fourth Amendment [Cato at Liberty] DEC 07, 2009 01:32P.M. I’ve just gotten around to reading Orin Kerr’s fine paper “Applying the Fourth Amendment to the Internet: A General Approach.” Like most everything he writes on the topic of technology and privacy, it is thoughtful and worth reading. Here, from the abstract, are the main conclusions: First, the traditional physical distinction between inside and outside should be replaced with the online distinction between content and non-content information. Second, courts should require a search warrant that is particularized to individuals rather than Internet accounts to collect the contents of protected Internet communications. These two principles point the way to a technology-neutral translation of the Fourth Amendment from physical space to cyberspace.

Focus on this familiar (if thorny) line drawing problem, however, misses what is important about the Kyllo case, and the larger problem it presents for Kerr’s dichotomy: Both the majority and the dissent seemed to agree that a more sophisticated scanner capable of detecting, say, the movements of persons within the house, would have constituted a Fourth Amendment search. But reflect, for a moment, on what this means given the way thermal imaging scanners operate. Infrared radiation emitted by objects within the house unambiguously ends up “outside” the house: A person standing on the public street cannot help but absorb some of it. What all the justices appeared to agree on, then, is that the collection and processing of information that is unambiguously outside the house, and is conducted entirely outside the house, may nevertheless amount to a search because it is surveillance of and yields information about the inside of the house. This means that there is a distinction between the space where information is acquired and the space about which it is acquired.

I’ll let folks read the full arguments to these conclusions in Orin’s own words, but I want to suggest a clarification and a tentative objection. The clarification is that, while I think the right level of particularity is, broadly speaking, the person rather than the account, search warrants should have to specify in advance either the accounts covered (a list of email addresses) or the method of determining which accounts are covered (”such accounts as the ISP identifies as belonging to the target,” for instance). Since there’s often substantial uncertainty about who is actually behind a particular online identity, the discretion of the investigator in making that link should be constrained to the maximum practicable extent.

This matters for Kerr’s proposed content/non-content distinction, because in very much the same way, sophisticated measurement and analysis of non-content information may well yield information about content. A few examples may help to make this clear. Secure Shell (SSH) is an encrypted protocol for secure communications. In its interactive mode, SSH transmits each keystroke as a distinct packet—and this packet transmission information is non-content information of the sort that might be obtained, say, using a so-called pen/trap order, issued using a standard of mere “relevance” to an investigation, rather than the “probable cause” required for a full Fourth Amendment search—the same standard Kerr agrees should apply to communications. Yet there are strong and regular patterns in the way human beings type different words on a standard keyboard, such that the content of what is typed—under SSH or any realtime chat protocol that transmits each keystroke as a packet—may be deducible from the non-content packet transmission data given sufficiently advanced analytic algorithms. The analogy to the measurement and analysis of infrared radiation in Kyllo is, I think, quite strong.

The objection is that there’s an important ambiguity in the physicalspace “inside/outside” distinction, and how one interprets it matters a great deal for what the online content/non-content distinction amounts to. The crux of it is this: Several cases suggest that surveillance conducted “outside” a protected space can nevertheless be surveillance of the “inside” of that space. The grandaddy in this line is, of course, Katz v. United States, which held that wiretaps and listening devices may constitute a “search” though they do not involve physical intrusion on private property. Kerr can accomodate this by noting that while this is surveillance “outside” physical space, it captures the “inside” of communication contents. But a greater difficulty is presented by another important case, Kyllo v. United States, with which Kerr deals rather too cursorily. In Kyllo, the majority—led, perhaps surprisingly, by Justice Scalia!—found that the use without a warrant of a thermal imaging scanner to detect the use of marijuana growing lights in a private residence violated the Fourth Amendment. As Kerr observes, the crux of the disagreement between the majority and the dissent had to do with whether the scanner should be considered to be gathering private information about the interior of the house, or whether it only gathered

It is not hard to come up with a plethora of similar examples. By federal statute, records of the movies a person rents enjoy substantial privacy protection, and the standard for law enforcement to obtain them—probable cause showing of “relevance” and prior notice to the consumer—is higher than required for a mere pen/trap. Yet precise analysis of the size of a file transmitted from a service like Netflix or

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8 December 2009

iTunes could easily reveal either the specific movie or program downloaded, or at the least narrow it down to a reasonably small field of possibilities. Logs of the content-sensitive advertising served by a service like Gmail to a particular user may reveal general information about the contents of user e-mails. Sophisticated social network analysis based on calling or e-mailing patterns of multiple users may reveal, not specific communications contents, but information about the membership and internal structure of various groups and organizations. That amounts to revealing the “contents” of group membership lists, which could have profound First Amendment implications in light of a string of Supreme Court precedents making it clear that state compelled disclosure of such lists may impermissibly burden the freedom of expressive association even when it does not run afoul of Fourth Amendment privacy protections. And running back to Kyllo, especially as “smart” appliances and ubiquitous networked computing become more pervasive, analysis of non-content network traffic may reveal enormous amounts of information about the movements and activities of people within private homes.

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Here’s one way to describe the problem here: The combination of digital technology and increasingly sophisticated analytic methods have complicated the intuitive link between what is directly observed or acquired and what is ultimately subject to surveillance in a broader sense. The natural move here is to try to draw a distinction between what is directly “acquired” and what is learned by mere “inference” from the information acquired. I doubt such a distinction will hold up. It takes a lot of sophisticated processing to turn ambient infrared radiation into an image of the interior of a home; the majority in Kyllo was not sympathetic to the argument that this was mere “inference.” Strictly speaking, after all, the data pulled off an Internet connection is nothing but a string of ones and zeroes. It is only a certain kind of processing that renders it as the text of an e-mail or an IM transcript. If a different sort of processing can derive the same transcript—or at least a fair chunk of it—from the string of ones and zeroes representing packet transmission timing, should we presume there’s a deep constitutional difference?

norm rather than the exception.

Climategate and Development Economics [Cato at Liberty] DEC 07, 2009 01:30P.M. As the Copenhagen summit on global warming opens today, development economist Bill Easterly laments the intellectual corruption affecting climate science and compares it to the state of affairs in the field of development economics: The analogy that got me interested in Climategate is of course with social science in development, where the problem is vastly worse. Advocacy on global poverty distorts everything from the data to the econometrics, as this blog frequently complains, so that credibility of development social scientists is sinking to dangerously low levels. It’s so bad that there is never a “Povertygate” scandal, because “Povertygate” is the

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Here We Go Again [Cato at Liberty] DEC 07, 2009 01:29P.M. In the early 1990s, two Federal Reserve studies on mortgage lending were held up by proponents of interventionist government as proof that banks were discriminating against minorities. The government swung into action with lawsuits against allegedly discriminatory lenders, HUD started pressuring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to target the “underserved,” and the Community Reinvestment Act was enhanced to pressure lenders into lowering their lending standards. A decade later, the housing bubble, which was fueled by short-sighted government policies, burst and the financial well-being of many minority families crumbled along with it.

That is not to say there’s anything wrong with Kerr’s underyling intuition. But it does, I think, suggest that new technologies will increasingly demand that privacy analysis not merely look at what is acquired but at what is done with it. In a way, the law’s hyperfocus on the moment of acquisition as the unique locus of Fourth Amendment blessing or damnation is the shadow of the myopically property-centric jurisprudence the Court finally found to be inadequate in Katz. As Kerr intimates in his paper, shaking off the digital echoes of that legacy—with its convenient bright lines—is apt to make things fiendishly complex, at

In a bad case of déjà vu, it’s being reported that “regulators will be bringing pressure on banks to make greater efforts to serve poorer communities after an FDIC survey showed that more than a quarter of U.S. households have little or no financial activity through banks.” This language is eerily similar to language employed in the 1990s that fueled liberal housing loan practices we now know were downright foolish. The recent news report continues:

least in the initial stages. But I doubt it can be avoided much longer.

The survey, conducted through the Census Bureau, found that 25.6 percent of the nation’s households – representing some 60 million adults – are ‘unbanked’ or ‘underbanked’… minorities, particularly African Americans, are disproportionately part of this group. More than half the black households fell into the two categories.

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‘Access to an account at a federally insured institution provides households with an important first step toward achieving financial security – the opportunity to conduct basic financial transactions, save for emergency and longterm security needs, and access credit on affordable terms,’ FDIC chairman Sheila Bair said in a statement.

8 December 2009

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On Tonight’s Kudlow Report [Larry Kudlow’s Money Politic$]

It used to be the “undeserved” in the housing market who supposedly needed the government’s help. Now it’s the “underbanked.” We were told that government involvement was necessary to make housing more “affordable.” Now the government is saying access to credit needs to be more affordable.

DEC 07, 2009 12:03P.M.

A lot of establishment analysts oppose term limits on Congress because they claim that we need experienced leaders to deal with today’s complex policy problems. But government officials stubbornly refuse to learn from their own mistakes, as we’ve seen over and over since the housing bust.

This evening at 7pm ET: SHOULD TARP GO BACK TO TAXPAYERS? Sen. John Thune (R-SD), chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, will join us.

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Monday’s Daily News [The Club for Growth]

TARP DEBATE Should we steal this money & put it into more welfare projects or give it back to the taxpayers?

DEC 07, 2009 12:20P.M.

On to debate:

In case you missed it, the Washington Times has a piece out today called, t make enough money.

*Jimmy Pethokoukis, Reuters Money & Politics Columnist *David Goodfriend, Fmr. Clinton W.H. Official; “Left Jab” Co-Host; Air America Co-Founder

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Also aboard… Vince Reinhart, American Enterprise Institute Resident Scholar; Fmr Dir of the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of Monetary Affairs

The Climate-Gate Controversy [Larry Kudlow’s Money Politic$]

We’ll also debate the economic tradeoff of attempting to curb global warming.

DEC 07, 2009 12:07P.M.

Please join us. The Kudlow Report. 7pm ET. CNBC.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) recently joined me on the Kudlow Report to discuss whether global warming is a real issue and how Congress ought to handle environmental policy.

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8 December 2009

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Hentoff: ObamaCare May Kill You [The Club for Growth]

Club for Growth Wields Outsized Influence [The Club for Growth]

DEC 07, 2009 11:43A.M. Nat Hentoff lives for being too costly. As usualy with Hentoff, read the

DEC 07, 2009 08:48A.M.

whole thing. The Washington Times Mr. Chocola said.

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Monday Links [Cato at Liberty]

How Michigan Could Save $3.5 Billion a Year [Cato at Liberty]

DEC 07, 2009 11:28A.M. • How the European Union can bring peace to the Middle East.

DEC 07, 2009 08:39A.M. • Nat Hentoff on the health care debate: “We do not elect the president and Congress to decide how short our lives will be. That decision is way above their pay grades.”

Michigan is facing a projected $2.8 billion state budget shortfall. As a result, Governor Granholm has cut $212 million from state public school spending — rousing the ire of parents and education officials around the state. But if Michigan merely converted all its conventional public schools to charters, without altering current funding formulas, it would save $3.5 billion.

• Video: What can autism teach us about economics? • Cato’s Malou Innocent debates the troop build up in Afghanistan. • Over at Cato Unbound, experts discuss the positive and negative outcomes of modernity.

Here’s how: the average Michigan charter school spends $2,200 less per pupil than the average district school — counting only the state and local dollars. Put another way, Michigan school districts spend 25 percent more state and local dollars per pupil, on average, than charter schools. Sum up the savings to Michigan taxpayers from a mass district-tocharter exodus and it comes to $3.5 billion.

• Podcast: Driverless cars? They aren’t as far away as you think.

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Anyone who wants to check that calculation can download the Msft Excel 2007 spreadsheet file I used to compute it. It contains both the raw data from the relevant NCES Common Core of Data files, and all the calculations. Among other things, it shows total per pupil spending and the pupil teacher ratio for every charter school and every public school district in the state. (Unlike certain climatologists, some of us researchers not only keep our data around, we’re actually happy to share them).

Social Security posts sixth straight monthly deficit [The Club for Growth] DEC 07, 2009 10:51A.M. Chuck Blahous at the must-read economics daily roundup E21 has all the wonky goodness here. This is the first time Social Security has faced this situation over the entire time period, dating back through 1987, for which SSA posts the monthly data online. Good thing all those decades

Journalists who have questions about this file are welcome to get in touch. Note that it is also viewable, I believe, with the free OpenOffice spreadsheet program, though I haven’t tested that.

of surpluses were locked away in that iron clad trust fund!

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8 December 2009

of circumstances. I see the same desire in my nephew, who is currently training to be a SEAL.

Let Us Hope (and Pray) for Peace [Cato at Liberty]

Yet war always should be a last resort, a horrid necessity to protect life and liberty within civilian society. The latter may seem boring in a sense, but it embodies the highest values, the ones for which we sometimes must risk everything. Thus, we should hope and pray that there won’t be anything “left for” Brian Meese to do in the Army. Although war can showcase the sublimest of values, such as heroism and self-sacrifice, it more often serves the worst of humanity, spreading death and destruction with wild abandon.

DEC 07, 2009 08:37A.M. There is something immensely moving about young men and women willing to sacrifice their lives for their country. Indeed, patriotism mixed with a desire for action can be a fearsome thing. This combination was on display at West Point after President Barack Obama’s speech on Afghanistan.

Alas, Mike Meese undoubtedly will be proved right. There is more than enough evil to go around. Indeed, there is no reason to believe that evil will ever disappear. Which is a good reason why the objective of the U.S. government should not be to combat evil, but to protect the lives and freedoms of the American people. Only the latter goal is realistic, let alone consistent with the principles of individual liberty and limited government. Unfortunately, the president’s plan to expand America’s military role in Afghanistan seems more directed at the former.

The Washington Post reported on a phone call between Academy professor Mike Meese and his son, an Academy sophomore: Said Col. Mike Meese, chairman of West Point’s social studies department: “There has been an incredible intensity here ever since 9/11. The cadets have a strong belief that this is the defining struggle of their lifetime. Every one of them elected to come here because they want to be a part of it.”

But until the lion lies down with the lamb, the world will remain a dangerous place. Which means we will continue to need the services of brave young men and women like Brian Meese and my nephew. I can only hope that when their time for action comes (as seems certain, given present policies), they will be better served by their political leaders than have been so many equally brave American military personnel in the

Not long after the speech, Meese received a call from his son, Brian, in his second year at West Point, who watched Obama from the second-to-back row with a solemn face. Brian had spoken with his friends on the walk back from the auditorium to their barracks, and none of them could stop obsessing over one number Obama had highlighted in his speech: 18 months. The deployment of 30,000 additional troops was something they had expected — it was the future for which they had prepared. But why had Obama so forcefully emphasized that he would begin a drawdown of troops in 18 months? What if the war was over by the time they graduated?

past.

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Korea’s New ‘Berlin Wall’ [Cato at Liberty‘Berlin Wall’]

Brian Meese, the latest aspiring officer in a family with three generations of service, had prepared to fight in a war ever since he was 12. He had accompanied his father to almost a dozen military funerals, and each one strengthened his resolve. At West Point, he studied Arabic instead of Spanish, judging it more practical for a soldier destined for the Middle East.

DEC 07, 2009 08:35A.M. Between 1961 and 1989 East Germany distinguished itself by routinely killing people seeking freedom. Roughly one thousand people died trying to get over the Berlin Wall and similar barriers along the rest of the border between the two Germanies.

“Now I might not get to go,” Brian told his father over the phone this week, his voice betraying disappointment.

North Korea is following suit. With anger apparently running high after a currency swap seemingly designed to seize what little wealth people had accumulated privately, the government of Kim Jong-il has instructed its border guards to shoot anyone attempting to flee what amounts to one giant prison camp.

“I think you will still have your chance,” his father said. “All of the evil in the world is not going to be defeated by the summer of 2011.”

Reports the Associated Press: “You’re taking care of Iraq. You’re taking care of Afghanistan,” Brian told his father. “What’s going to be left for me?”

North Korea has ordered its border guards to open fire on anyone who crosses its border without permission, in what could be an attempt to thwart defections by people disgruntled over its recent currency reform, a news report

I can’t help but admire Brian Meese’s desire “to go,” almost irrespective

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

said Saturday. The National Defense Commission — the top government body headed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il — recently instructed soldiers to kill unauthorized border crossers on the spot, South Korea’s mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper said, citing unidentified sources inside the North. It said the order could be an attempt by the communist government to stop members of North Korea’s middle class who are angry over suddenly being deprived of their money from leaving the country. This horrid system can’t end soon enough.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

The Rising Tide - Unintended Consequences of the Luxury Tax [Reason TV] DEC 07, 2009 12:00A.M. See what happened to Viking Yachts when the 1990 luxury tax was imposed http://www.therisingtide.info

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8 December 2009