Some Things I Didn't Know About the US Constitution

I was just looking at some stuff about the US Constitution on wikipedia, and learned a few interesting things.

I did not know that the most recent amendment to the Constitution, the Twenty-Seventh, was originally proposed in 1789 but only ratified and added to the Constitution in 1992, over 200 years later! Unless a time limit is specifically placed on the ratification of an Amendment, it apparently remains before the States forever. In fact, there are apparently some Amendments still technically awaiting ratification, including the Titles of Nobility Amendment (approved by Congress in 1810 which was ratified by 12 States) and the Child Labor Amendment (approved by Congress on 1924 and ratified by 28 States). Apparently, if 26 more States ratified the Titles of Nobility Amendment or 10 more the Child Labor Amendment, they would become part of the Constitution. Who knew?

The first amendment proposed to the Constitution, called the "Article the First," which wasn't adopted, set how many people a Representative in Congress could represent in his or her district. Had the Article been adopted, with the current US population, there would be around 6,000 members in the House of Representatives! People think Congress doesn't do much now, can you imagine?

Right now there's a bill stalled in the House to give the District of Columbia a vote in the House of Representatives. It's probably unconstitutional, since the Constitution doesn't allow for non-States to have voting members in Congress. What I didn't realize is that a Constitutional amendment was proposed back in the Seventies to give DC a representative, but it failed to get ratified before it expired in 1984.

The Constitution requires an Amendment to be ratified by three-fourths of the States (either by the legislature or by a constitutional convention in each State). It doesn't say anything, however, about whether a State can rescind ratification after it has ratified an Amendment. Congress has decided that they can't, and the Supreme Court has ruled that it isn't something the Courts can decide. So, as it stands, it appears that States can reject an Amendment at first but then later ratify it, but they can't rescind ratification once given. Interesting.

Just some things I didn't know.

Congress, Taxes, and the AIG Bonuses

In a rare instance, I agree with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. The plans in Congress to tax up to 90% of the bonuses AIG just gave out should not be allowed and are not, in my mind, constitutional. Now, that is not to say that it isn't obscene that a company that took billions in taxpayer money should be giving huge bonuses to its executives on the taxpayers' dime, or that it isn't obscene for people who drove our economy into the ground are being rewarded for it. But the problem is that the offender is AIG, not the people who got the bonuses, and that Congress gave away so much taxpayer money with so little control in the first place.

But to go back now and tax away the money from those bonuses, which were given out in a private transaction between a private company (since Congress didn't "nationalize" AIG when it gave AIG all that money) and private individuals, is absolutely ex post facto lawmaking and is not only tantamount to a bill of attainder but is a bill of attainder if the term is at all meaningful. The US Constitution specifically meant to keep Congress from passing laws to punish acts that weren't illegal when taken, and taking a bunch of someone's money is a punishment. The Constitution doesn't say anything about the prohibition against ex post facto lawmaking only applies to "criminal" law and doesn't say, "You can't put someone in jail retroactively, but take their shit all you want."

And the idea that a bill of attainder -- meaning a bill that essentially convicts and punishes someone without trial -- is only a bill of attainder if it applies to a small group is nonsense. Attaining everyone doesn't make it any less a bill of attainder. And bills of attainder were specifically a way of taking someone's property without them having been convicted of anything, which is what this "tax" is.

I understand the legal arguments by which a "tax" isn't a punishment, and so doesn't invoke ex post facto, and that a bill of attainder has to be more narrow than all these people who got these bonuses. But those arguments are just a way of weasling around the prohibitions that the Constitution plainly puts in force. They aren't good faith arguments; they are arguments for allowing the government to get away with something it isn't supposed to get away with.

The fact that these bonuses are unjust doesn't make them illegal, and if they aren't illegal, the government has no business trying to take them away. Do we really want a society where if there's enough furor over the money you have earned (yes, "earned" in the loosest possible sense here, but still), the government can become the tool of the mob and take your money or property away? Because that's a power that won't always be used justly, trust me. Just look at the injustices we've seen in the use of eminent domain.

Getting It Wrong...

I'm not familiar with any of Yuval Levin's other work nor "Commentary" magazine which he apparently writes for, but (via Volokh) this article on Sarah Palin's legacy ensures I will be unlikely to read either again. The wrongness just oozes from his article and his analysis is inaccurate on almost every level.

Before her elevation, Palin had not been known as a combatant in the cultural battles of recent years... She was a good-government reformer with social conservative leanings, not the other way around.

Yes, yes, of course. That is very true. In fantasy land. Let's take a look at her actual record. According to Time, in this September article, Palin:

Palin was a highly polarizing political figure who brought partisan politics and hot-button social issues like abortion and gun control into a mayoral race that had traditionally been contested like a friendly intramural contest among neighbors... While Palin often describes that race as having been a fight against the old boys' club, Stein [the mayor of Wasilla Palin unseated] says she made sure the campaign hinged on issues like gun owners' rights and her opposition to abortion (Stein is pro-choice). "It got to the extent that — I don't remember who it was now — but some national antiabortion outfit sent little pink cards to voters in Wasilla endorsing her," he says.

and...

Vicki Naegele was the managing editor of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman at the
time. "[Stein] figured he was just going to run your average, friendly small-town race," she recalls, "but it turned into something much different than that." Naegele held the same conservative Christian beliefs as Palin but didn't think they had any place in local politics.

"I just thought, That's ridiculous, she should concentrate on roads, not abortion," says Naegele.

And, as we now know, she tried to have Wasilla's librarian fired because the librarian opposed Palin's attempts to ban books that didn't conform to Palin's Christian views. She also stopped paying for rape kits, a move which clearly put her on the front lines of "cultural battles." It's as if Levin wasn't paying any attention at all during the campaign. Or perhaps he wants to ignore things that don't comport with his premise.

And to the idea that she was a "good-government" reformer? She was under investigation for ethics violations for conduct as Governor of Alaska at the very moment she agreed to be McCain's running mate! She was accused of trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from his job as a State Trooper, and then firing the Public Safety director when he refused. We now know these allegations were true. Using one's office to settle personal scores does not make one much of a "reformer." That, in fact, is exactly the kind of thing that "reformers" oppose.

We were told that Palin was opposed to contraception, advocated teaching creationism in schools, and was inclined to ban books she disagreed with. She was described as a religious zealot, an anti-abortion extremist, a blind champion of abstinence-only sex education. She was said to have sought to make rape victims pay for their own medical exams, to have Alaska secede from the Union, and to get Pat Buchanan elected President. She was reported to believe that the Iraq war was mandated by God, that the end-times prophesied in the Book of Revelation were nearing and only Alaska would survive, and that global warming was purely a myth. None of this was true.

"None of this was true," Levin blithely asserts, to make his point. Except for the part that it was true. She did try to ban books, did support abstinence-only education, did make rape victims pay for their own rape kits (perhaps Levin is trying to pull a fast one by distinguising "medical exam" from "rape kit" here). Perhaps she didn't actually try "to have Alaska secede from the Union" but she and her husband were, in fact, affiliated with a political party who wanted to do just that. She did deny global warming and the church she attended for years in Wasilla did preach end-times prophecy.

Levin offers no evidence to contradict any of these facts. That's because he's lying.

There was a strong case to be made in her defense. Palin had as much foreign-policy experience as most governors do... And while Palin seemed out of her depth in several television interviews, she was extraordinarily effective on the stump, was a quick study, and proved to be at least an even match for Joe Biden, a six-term senator, in the vice-presidential debate.

Er... where to begin? First off, Palin's lack of foreign-policy experience became a center of controversy for two basic reasons that Levin is choosing to ignore. One, McCain had made Obama's foreign-policy inexperience a centerpiece of his campaign, so it naturally became a focus of criticism when McCain chose a running mate with even less. It created the legitimate question of why it was important for Obama to have foreign-policy experience but not the VP pick of a 70+-year-old candidate with past cancer problems? And, two, because Palin's argument in response to questions about her foreign-policy experience was to make stupid claims like the fact that Alaska is close to Russia makes her a foreign-policy expert. Her defense of her foreign-policy credentials was ludicrous and exposed how woefully unprepared she was to deal with foreign policy.

And I like how Levin breezes past how badly she performed in television interviews and how that, as much as anything, exposed her incompetence and invited criticism. Even conservatives were saying she should step aside after she showed that she had no freakin' idea what the hell she was talking about. It was not just "the Left" that was shocked that a candidate for major office was so unprepared to even discuss the issues of the time, it was everyone but the most ideologically bent crazies on the right. Her failures in those interviews weren't just a blip that wasn't important, to be easily overshadowed by her stump speeches (which were effective mainly when she was lying and distorting Obama's relationship with Ayers and his supposedly being a secret Muslim).

And I'm not sure what world Levin lives on when he says Palin was "at least an even match for Joe Biden." Wha? I seem to recall that Palin was roundly considered to have lost that debate, even by conservatives. She certainly didn't perform well enough to counter the negatives coming from those interviews.

The reaction to Palin revealed a deep and intense cultural paranoia on the Left: an inclination to see retrograde reaction around every corner, and to respond to it with vile anger. A confident, happy, and politically effective woman who was also a social conservative was evidently too much to bear.

Yes, yes, that was "the Left's" (note the capitalization) problem with her. Not that she lied right off the bat in her introduction to the nation, when she claimed she'd said "Thanks, but no thanks" to the "bridge to nowhere" when, in fact, she'd pushed for it, along with tons of other earmarks from the Federal government. Not that she shit all over the hard work people are doing on the groung all over the country when she made fun of community organizers. Not that she portrayed herself as a reformer even as she was being investigated for misusing her office to settle a personal score. No, none of that was the reason the "the Left" became angry. Not at all. It was because she was "confident" and "politically effective." Because, you know, "confident," "effective" politicians spend all their time complaining about how eeeevil Katie Couric is as an excuse for why she couldn't answer tough questions like "what do you read?"

In fact, as Levin himself notes, Palin "She spent the bulk of her time at Republican rallies assailing the cultural radicalism of Barack Obama and his latte-sipping followers, who, she occasionally suggested, were not part of the 'the real America' she saw in the adoring throngs standing before her." Perhaps stupid, wrong generalizations of anybody who reads the news being a "latte-sipping" person who isn't a "real American" is the reason "the Left" didn't like Palin, not her being "confident" and "happy." Do you think?

Palin never actually boasted of ignorance or explicitly scorned learning or ideas. Rather, the implicit charge was that Palin’s failure to speak the language and to share the common points of reference of the educated upper tier of American society essentially rendered her unfit for high office.

Ah, that's it! It was her "failure to speak the language" of the elites that was the problem. Yes! Because only elitists read the goddamned newspaper to stay apprised of world events. It's so "elitist" to think a person who wants to run the most powerful nation in the world, whose reach spans the globe, would have interest in knowing what the hell is going on in the world. Yeah. She didn't speak the high-flying rhetoric with the command of, say, Joe Biden. Uh-huh. Biden doesn't exactly speak like the professor from "The Paper Chase" either. It wasn't that Palin didn't "speak the language" of the elite that was the problem. It was that she didn't even speak the language of a normal person. She spoke the language of a goddamned idiot and said things that didn't even make a tiny bit of sense. That is what "rendered her unfit for high office." The fact that she was a freakin' moron.

Although the intellectual elite is deeply shaped by our leading institutions of higher learning, belonging to it is more the result of shared assumptions and attitudes. It is more cultural than academic, more NPR than PhD. In Washington, many politicians who have not risen through the best of universities work hard for years to master the language and the suppositions of this upper tier, and to live carefully within the bounds prescribed by its view of the world.

No, the problem wasn't that Palin hadn't worked "hard for years to master the language... of [the] upper tier," it was that she hadn't mastered language, full stop. She spoke in word salad. It wasn't that she wasn't saying the right things "within the bounds prescribed" by the elites' "view of the world," it is that her language and suppositions were fucking incoherent.

Applied to politics, the worldview of the intellectual elite begins from an unstated assumption that governing is fundamentally an exercise of the mind: an application of the proper mix of theory, expertise, and intellectual distance that calls for knowledge and verbal fluency more than for prudence born of life’s hard lessons.

Okay, I'll bite. Which of the "hard lessons" of Palin's life would have prepared her to deal with the banking crisis we're facing, for instance? Did she get burned on a credit default swap? Did she hold a bunch of mortgate-backed securities that she now couldn't figure out a proper value for? Which "hard lessons" taught her whether a macroeconomy like the US will best be served and kept from depression by tax cuts or government spending?



Let's reword Levin's idiotic claim here and we will see how dumb it really is. Who would agree with this claim?

Applied to medicine, the worldview of the intellectual elite begins from an unstated assumption that surgery is fundamentally an exercise of the mind: an application of the proper mix of theory, expertise, and intellectual distance that calls for knowledge and medical fluency more than for prudence born of life’s hard lessons.

I'd be very interested to see if Levin thinks that the "prudence" Palin gained from "life's hard lessons" will be sufficient for her to safely remove his gall bladder. If not, then I would submit he doesn't really believe the bullshit he is spouting, because there is no way in hell being President, which requires one to make decisions in a wide range of areas, is so much less difficult than being a surgeon that anyone, no matter how unprepared, can just "jump in."



And let me make this supposedly "unstated" assumption a stated proposition: yes, governing does require a great deal of "knowledge" and "expertise," and if Levin is seriously suggesting otherwise, then I wonder why he bothers to write articles at all, since if the Presidency doesn't require those things nothing does, and why, then, would anyone care to about anything Levin writes anyway?

This is why Palin was seen as anti-intellectual when, properly speaking, she was simply non-intellectual. What she lacked was not intelligence—she is, clearly, highly intelligent—but rather the particular set of assumptions, references, and attitudes inculcated by America’s top twenty universities and transmitted by the nation’s elite cultural organs.

She isn't "clearly, highly intelligent." If it were so clear, it wouldn't be such a contested premise. Which it is, whether Levin admits it or not. She's a goddamned moron, which even many conservatives ended up having to admit.



Levin ends his piece by making the claim that the real problem wasn't Palin's: it was that the McCain campaign didn't have anything to say. Well, that, indeed, was a problem, for both Palin and McCain. But using that as an excuse to ignore Palin's other significant faults is to be willfully blind.

As Levin clearly has chosen to be.

Reasonable Criticism

On "All Things Considered" on NPR yesterday, they interviewed South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint and asked him about the withdrawal of Daschle and Killefer from their nominations and if it was an embarrasment for the Obama administration. He was actually very fair in his assessment and, contra Limbaugh, he expressed support for what the administration is trying to do.

DeMint could have been full of it, just playing politics, but since I am so critical of Republicans I think it is only fair to point out when they are reasonable and fair in the criticisms and don't act like huge douche bags. DeMint's interview yesterday was an example of reasoned and fair political discourse and it should be applauded.

I don't know if you can hear it online, but it was on the 2/3/2009 episode.

Lobbyists and Ethics

I'm a bit disappointed by how the Obama administration is handling its policy on lobbyists. They've already given a waiver to a guy who lobbied for Raytheon to be a Deputy Secretary of Defense, another for a guy to be the Assistant Press Secretary (I believe), and, of course, as is now big news, Tom Daschle, the pick for Secretary of Health & Human Services, was essentially a lobbyist since his ouster from the Senate.

I've heard a lot of commentators on NPR note that "You don't want to pass up the right person just because they were a lobbyist. Your rules can't be so inflexible," or something to that effect.

Wrong.

Here's the problem with what that line of thinking, which is the one the administration is taking. The problem is that if you give waivers to former lobbyists because they are "the right people," then you take away the disincentive for those people to become lobbyists even if they want to serve in government in the future. And then you won't really be keeping lobbyists out of government because everyone you want will have been a lobbyist and you'll still end up waivering them. Only by taking it on the chin, and being willing to sacrifice in having to give up some of the people you want, and not hire any lobbyists can you actually change the revolving door of lobbyists in government. Because then you have created a true disincentive for people who want to serve in the future from taking lobbying jobs, and then you won't have to waiver people all the time and moot your anti-lobbyist policy. Because the "right people" won't have been lobbyists.

But if you start off, right off the bat, not taking a hard line and making exceptions, then no one is going to take the new policy seriously, no one will be deterred from becoming a lobbyist, and nothing in Washington culture changes. A radical policy change like this won't work unless, at least at first, you really stick to it, to the letter. If you are wishy-washy, then everyone knows you're not serious and that when push comes to shove, you're going to do what everyone else does and pick the person you want regardless.

Some people are saying that Obama is now "being confronted with the reality" and seeing that he can't really do what he said he would in his high-flying campaign rhetoric. But that doesn't make any sense at all. Anyone could have seen that putting a 'no lobbyist' policy into effect and actually sticking to it would have a cost. There would be some pain. I knew it. Obama should have known it. And he shouldn't have said he would keep lobbyists out of his administration if he hadn't already weighed the cost and decided to pay it. The "reality" here isn't a surprise and should have been easily foreseen and considered.

Of course, there's always the possibility that, in fact, Obama did make that calculation and then changed his mind after he won. I wouldn't be happy if that were the case, and I doubt we will ever know, but it wouldn't be surprising, either. It's a well-known and common psychological phenomena that you truly believe one thing at one time, say, when you are in a campaign to become President, that just doesn't seem as important anymore once you aren't worried about winning and losing. Because, as someone who isn't President, you of course look askance at the President hiring lobbyists, and worry if that will create conflicts of interest. But once you are President, you know (you feel) that, of course, that's true for other people who become President and hire lobbyists, but that your own motives are pure, so it's okay for you to do it.

But, of course, that's what every President thinks, what everyone thinks when it's them and not someone else. Everyone thinks everything is different when it's themselves. When you are in charge of the Home Owner's Association (HOA), of course you think the HOA works impartially and anyone who complains about their treatment is a whiner. But when someone else in charge of it, suddenly you realize that HOA has too much power and that the fine they just gave you wasn't fair...

But I do give Obama credit for admitting that he "screwed up" and taking responsibility for the poor choices he made in some of his choices for appointments. Conservatives are crowing all over the internet right now about it and acting as if somehow this is a bad thing. But it isn't. Conservatives seem to forget that one of things that most frustrated liberals during Bush's regime was that he never took responsibility and never admitted he was wrong. Which meant there was no chance of him changing failed policies. Obama admitting he "screwed up" doesn't mean Obama is a hypocrite and that liberals were taken by him. It means he realizes he fell short of what he said he would do and knows it. Hopefully he will do better. But, if nothing else, at least we know he knows he made a mistake. That's pretty earth-shattering at this point after the last eight years.

Still, I think he should reassess these waivers. Sure, some people say that now we need the best people and can't afford to turn people away, but there will always be a reason to say that. Crises are the best times to change things, and I think Obama may regret squandering this opportunity to make lasting change.

Batman Eats Sushi?

I had heard from some guys from Virginia who I have done costume events with that it is illegal for adults to wear masks in public except on Halloween. That seemed like a crazy law to me and I wondered about its constitutionality and how often it was enforced.

Well, it appears there is such a law in Florida, and it is, indeed, enforced. A guy dressed as Batman was arrested in Tampa while eating sushi sitting on a curb. Apparently the law, which dates back to 1951, had its origins in wanting to keep the KKK from wearing their hoods. From the article: "The law is part of a section of Florida Statutes relating to criminal anarchy, treason and other crimes against public order."

In what sense is the wearing of a mask, and masks are, after all, terribly comfortable,* "criminal anarchy" (whatever the hell that is), treason, or a "crime against public order?" By simply hiding one's face one creates lawlessness? One gives aid and comfort to one's country's enemies? One somehow creates chaos? Just because someone chooses to cover his or her face?

The modern argument, voiced elsewhere, is that people can commit crimes wearing a mask and not be identifiable on video. So, I guess, anonymity is bad because someone could commit crimes and be difficult to identify, so therefore, despite the absence of criminal intent on the part of any particular person choosing to wear a mask, the wearing itself must be criminalized. How, exactly, is that different than prior restraint in terms of freedom of speech? It may be more difficult to catch someone wearing a mask if he or she commits a crime, but how is it consistent with freedom to then forbid anyone from wearing a mask, just in case?

Further, if the argument is true that gun-control opponents regularly make about guns, that if we make guns illegal criminals only law-abiding citizens will obey the law and criminals will end up being the only ones with guns, then why doesn't that logic apply here? After all, criminals won't leave the mask at home when committing crimes because of this law, so the only people who won't be able to wear masks are law-abiding citizens. Only criminals will have masks. But I wonder how many NRA supporters would be willing to defend the right to wear a mask, even though the principle is no different.

I mean, heck, we might as well go whole-hog, right? Not wearing your name and address barcoded on your forehead might make it hard to catch you if you commit a crime, so why not require that? Or a chip implanted in your butt cheek that radios your location to the police 24/7 in case you do something wrong? If we're all possible criminals whenever the police don't know exactly who we are and what we're doing, then why not? Why not require everyone to wear a sandwich board with their name on it in neon letters? Or just put a 24/7 webcam on every single person so that the police can know who you are and what you are doing in case you do something wrong.

This guy should tell the court that Batmanism is his religion and he has to wear the Batman suit as part of it. That'd make it more difficult for them to nail him on this stupid law. I doubt police would arrest a Muslim woman with her face covered and I'm pretty sure no court would rule that you can arrest a woman just because she covered her face in public for religious reasons.

And no, BTW, I don't know why this guy was wearing a Batman suit in the middle of the day to eat sushi on the curb. And yes, it is weird, but weird and criminal are not (and should not) be the same thing. What kind of freedom do we really have, seriously, if you can't wear a stupid Batman costume when you want? Jeesh.

* In The Princess Bride, when Fezzik asks Wesley, wearing his Dread Pirate Roberts outfit, why Wesley is wearing a mask, Wesley replies, "They're terribly comfortable. I think soon everyone will be wearing them."

Oh, the Irony...

Kurt Warner, "born again" Christian, doesn't believe in "superstition."

Because, of course, as every sane person knows, the number 13 isn't unlucky, but failing to believe that a Bronze Age Jew is your personal savior and the son of an omnipotent, unseen god will lead your soul to be damned to eternal torment after you die.

Uh huh.

Again With the Faith-Based Initiatives...

Posting over at Volokh Conspiracy about the topic reminded me that I hadn't mentioned here that I am really pissed off that Obama has decided to continue the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. I condemned the whole idea when Bush proposed and implemented it, and it's still bad policy under the Obama administration.

It's been a while, so just as an update, I oppose government support of faith-based initiatives because the whole idea inherently involves government choosing to support one religious group over another, thereby endorsing some religions over others. Does anyone doubt that Christian groups, and, to a lesser extent, Jewish groups, will get most (if not all) the grants? Does anyone doubt that, say, Wiccan groups will have much if any chance of getting any of these grants? What if a Satanist group applied? Of course, no matter how good the proposal, Satanists will never get any of these grants. Supplying money to religious groups cannot but end up in government endorsing some religions over others.

Further, without an enormous amount of meddlesome oversight, there is no way to ensure that religious groups don't use these funds for proselytizing, or to ensure they don't proselytize those who avail themselves of government-funded faith-based programs. And, in fact, since these programs started, investigations show that, indeed, this is exactly what happens.

Besides, it's a bizarre entanglement of government and religion for government to be trying to monitor whether religious groups are proselytizing or not anyway. Religious groups should be free to proselytize all they want, and only because of the lure of government money are they even in a position where they are expected not to do so. It's like the government is bribing religious organizations not to do what they exist to do in the first place.

Let me note here that I do not think that all faith-based programs, when privately funded, are bad. Catholic Charities, for instance, does excellent work, and if any religious group deserved government support, it does. In my work with them when I was with the American Red Cross, I not only found their programs well-run and filling an important need, I saw no evidence they used the charity to push a religious agenda and I never once saw or heard of them proselytizing clients (at least locally).

But it is still an impermissible entanglement of government and religion for the government to fund Catholic Charities, no matter what I think of their work. It's a violation of both the letter and spirit of the First Amendment, and should be done away with.

Obama should close the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. He is wrong not to do so.

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes...

What is it with all these bigwigs not paying their taxes? Tim Geithner blamed TurboTax for his failure to pay his taxes when he was working for the IMF, Daschle somehow didn't pay $120,000 in taxes... What, exactly, is the problem? If the problem is the tax code is too difficult, then these are the people in a position to do something about it, right? Daschle was in Congress, after all, and Geithner will be in charge of the IRS.

Just like all this business with every nominee seeming to have a housekeeper or nanny who is an illegal immigrant. If the politicians who make the laws can't keep them straight, then maybe there's a problem with the law, no? Maybe they'd want to do something about it?

Truth is, though, important and rich people don't worry about these things because they know, outside of a confirmation process, they'll never be called to account for them. The IRS spends almost all its time auditing lower class and lower middle class tax returns because it's easier to squeeze money out of people who can't afford a lawyer and don't know how to fight the system. They don't audit people like Geithner and Daschle. It's too much of a hassle.

It's another example of how the laws really only apply to the little people.

Well, unless you screw up so big they finally don't have any choice but to act. See: Bernie Madoff.

Better Not Go There...

Apparently, in addition to poker being illegal in South Carolina, so is every card game but whist and any game that uses dice. Wow. That's most of the games I play. I mean, I expect poker to be illegal most places, but D&D, Family Business, Guillotine, Uno, Monopoly, Risk? No Warhammer 40K, no Battletech, no Advanced Squad Leader, no Rail Baron? No Star Fleet Battles?*

No collectible card games, obviously... No Magic, Pokemon... I think Mage Knight (apparently now defunct, according to wikipedia, which I didn't know) and Hero Clix would be okay.

Just about all roleplaying games but Amber, Nobilis, and live-action games where you use rock-paper-scissors would be illegal. Most (but not all) boardgames too, depending on how you interpret whether a games is a "game with cards," as the statue reads. That would eliminate a lot of games where there aren't any dice and aren't cards in the traditional sense, as in cards you play. That is to say, games where, say, your character is described on a card but you don't "play" the card, for instance. I know there are good examples of such games, but of course I'm not coming up with one...

Well, not a board game, but the game of Mafia (also called, apparently, 'Werewolf' or 'Assassin') is one. The players are each given a card to secretly tell them what side they are on (the game is about trying to eliminate the other team, but only the smaller team members know who is on their team, the other other side is guessing). The only point of the cards is to randomly (and secretly) assign teams. It can be played without cards, with slips of paper, for instance, instead, which I doubt anyone would construe as "cards," but if you buy the commercially available version of the game, it uses cards.

So, is Mafia illegal if you buy the game and use the cards, but not if you use slips of paper? The cards aren't "played" in the traditional sense, in that you don't take tricks with them or anything like that, but it still, technically, if you buy the commercial version of the game and play it, you would be playing a "game with cards," wouldn't you?

Civilization! That's it, right? No dice, as I recall. But it has card decks for random events and such. Technically illegal, I guess, even though it isn't a "game with cards" in the traditional sense. Someone over at Volokh suggested Carcassone, but I've only played it once years ago, so I don't remember. (I, and the other guys I played it with, thought it suuuuuuuucked). Kremlin! I think Kremlin is a good example as well.

So let's see. Stratego, I think, would be okay. No cards. Unless it runs afoul of another clause in the law about the board being a "gaming table." Connect Four. Toss-Across. Hmmm... Battleship? It doesn't have any cards, does it?

Craziness. I presume that police in SC aren't on constant stakeouts outside gaming stores down there (I presume they have some gaming stores, right?), so I doubt the law is being enforced outside of poker and gambling, but man! Stay away if you're a gamer. I mean, you never know when the local DA and sheriff will be guys who really hated nerds in high school...

* And here I didn't even know I was a teenage criminal. But apparently I was, because I played Star Fleet Battles in South Carolina on a number of occasions when I was a teenager visiting my friend Paul down in York, SC...

Bipartisanship?

In keeping with his promises of bipartisanship and working with Republicans instead of against them, President Obama met with GOP leaders in the House and Senate this week to get their opinions on the proposed stimulus package. Though the media spent a lot of time reporting how Obama had ended discussion on one point by saying, "I won," the meetings were apparently very cordial and productive, even according to GOP leaders. The bill was even amended to be more to Congressional Republicans' liking.

In return, House Republicans repaid the President's attempt to reach out to them by voting against the President's stimulus package unanimously yesterday, in a move John Boehner, apparently not ironically, called "bipartisan." I don't think that word means what Boehner thinks it means. That aside, the question now is whether Obama was foolish to try to include Republicans in the first place, and whether he should now seek to return the bill to its original form and take out the concessions put in to appease the House GOP members.

But first, let's consider the reasons why this may have happened. On Morning Joe this morning, NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd noted that one of the reasons this may have happened is because most of the moderate Republican House members aren't in the House anymore, having been defeated by Democratic rivals. The remaining House GOP members tend to be from very conservative districts and, according to Todd, and thus the most ideological. If this is true, and I suspect it probably is, then the sweep of the Democratic victory in last fall's elections, on the coattails of President Obama, may have ironically had unintential effect of making it very difficult for Democrats to work in a bipartisan manner with Republicans.

There's a good parallel, I think, between this situation and what has been happening in the medical world with antibiotics the past sixty years. Antibiotics, when used improperly, will destroy all the easily-killed bacteria and leave the bacteria most resistant, which is how we get antibiotic-resistant strains that antibiotics then can't cure. The Democrats, in the last election, essentially did the work of the antibiotic -- they "killed" off the moderate Republicans, the ones that they could have worked with, and left behind only the far right Republicans who won't work with the Democrats. The Democrats basically created, as an unintended consequence of victory, a GOP House caucus that will actually be more difficult to work with and less interested in compromise than before the elections, despite the election resoundingly showing broad support for a change in policy away from what the ideological Republicans advocate.

So, on his way to the White House, Obama promises bipartisanship, leading to Democratic victories sweeping moderate House Republicans out of office, and thereby creating a House GOP caucus uninterested in bipartisanship. Unintended consequences indeed. So, where from here?

I don't think Obama made a mistake in reaching out to House Republicans, even though he got slapped in the face in return. Obama promised bipartisanship and, I think, genuinely wants to govern with bipartisan support. I think making the attempt to bring the House Republicans in was worthwhile, in that it will be easier for the administration to deal with the crises facing the nation if the Republicans are working with the administration instead of against it, contributing to policy instead of obstructing it. There was a risk involved with reaching out, obviously, the risk that exactly what happened would happen, that the Republicans would slap the hand Obama reached out to them and then disingenuously try to spin the administration's attempts at compromise as "partisanship." But, on balance, I think the risk was worth the potential reward, even though it didn't work out.

I think, however, that Obama almost certainly has to take back the compromises he made with the House Republicans now that they have unanimously voted against the bill. He can't afford to let his desire for bipartisanship be construed by the House GOP members as weakness, and can't afford to let them get what they want at no cost, since the whole point of voting against the stimulus package is to be able to blame the Democrats if it doesn't work or work well. He has to make the point clear that compromises are given in return for support, not for free. Obama may want a new era of bipartisanship, but there can't be bipartisanship unless both sides are willing. He can't enable the Republicans by letting stunts like this work in the name of bipartisanship, or else he'll just encourage the House GOP not to work with the administration in the future. Bipartisanship comes from mutual respect, not capitulation. And I fear leaving the compromises to stand despite the GOP's actions would be tantamount to just that.

Especially in light of the more ideologically polarized House GOP caucus now in the Congress. The remaining House GOP members are the ones who will do things like the stunt they just pulled, who will leap upon perceived weakness, and who will try to spin whatever Obama does in terms of their ideological battle. They're a virulent group and they can't be allowed to fester or Obama will spend the next four years battling over and over with them, when a firm response now might make the Republicans think twice about becoming the permanent minority party and decide to take advantage of what the Democrats didn't have for the past eight years: a President in power who isn't actively thumbing his nose at them at every possible opportunity.