Because of this contrast, more than a few Paul supporters have demonized Romney as the functional equivalent of President Barack Obama, and many indicate that if Romney becomes the Republican candidate they will vote for a third party candidate or refuse to vote altogether. Quite a few Romney supporters, on the other hand, demonize Ron Paul as a crazy, conspiracy theorist whose views are simply too extreme to take seriously.

What most people don’t seem to realize is that, ideological differences aside, if you compare the details of what Ron Paul and Mitt Romney say they plan to actually do as President they are much more similar than the characterizations would lead you to think.

Here is a table of what Ron Paul would do as President, adapted from Ron Paul’s “Plan to Restore America” on his official website, side-by-side with the similar portions of Mitt Romney’s “Believe in America” plan on his official website:

As you can see, 70% of the individual measures that Paul and Romney are proposing are the same or very similar. The 70% in which they match consist of practical measures that can be implemented to shrink the size of government and improve the economy.

The 30% of measures which Paul proposes that Romney doesn’t consist primarily of the more drastic measures, many of which are appealing to some limited-government and libertarian conservatives. This 30% would need to be planned out in far more detail before they could be realistically implemented. Things like abolishing all foreign aid and eliminating whole federal agencies require practical phase-out transitional planning to win wider support, as well as cooperation from a congress that is sure to resist drastic changes.

Politics in the U.S. is all about coalition building. Ron Paul knows that his chances of becoming the Republican nominee are slim. But he’s playing the game to get as many delegates to the convention as he can so that his libertarian views will be assured a more influential place within the Republican coalition.

Romney would deliver most of the more practical measures that Paul supporters would get from a Ron Paul presidency and by sticking in the party, Paul guarantees that the Republicans will make concessions to appeal to his sizable faction. That means that a Romney Presidency would be smart to include Paul in some fashion. He might even get to audit the Fed and move the TSA closer to extinction.

I suspect that Ron Paul knows that he will accomplish a lot more in this way then he could by drawing away his supporters as a 3rd party candidate.

Unfortunately, some of Paul’s supporters don’t seem to be as wise as Ron Paul himself. They are so uncompromising that they are willing to sacrifice the chance to get 70% of what Paul would do and the chance to have their views wield more influence in the Republican party because they will refuse to vote for Romney if he is the nominee. And if that inflexibility results in four more years of a Democratic party controlled White House, that would be a tragic mistake.

Intraparty political contests are all about focusing on difference and ideology. Candidates need to distinguish themselves from their opponents in order to compete and attract supporters. But it is also valuable to counterbalance the difference with a realistic look at similarities. If we neglect the comparable and complementary and only look at the contrast we risk a distorted, unbalanced perception.

So vote for Ron Paul in the primary elections if you believe he is the best candidate, or if you want to see his positions have more influence.  But don’t refuse to vote for Romney, who may likely be the nominee, because he isn’t Ron Paul.  And if you are a Mitt Romney supporter, don’t demonize Ron Paul supporters.  They hope to accomplish many of the same things, and they make a positive contribution to supporting limited, constitutional government.

I mean seriously folks, how can you continue to debate tertiary considerations like moral character, policy position, political philosophy, consistency, trustworthiness, or experience while this primary consideration is still so hotly contested? Can we really risk the chance of having another Andrew Jackson or Martin Van Buren? I mean, whoever we pick could someday end up on our money, hair and all!

Speaking of hair, isn’t it about time we had a President with facial hair again? I mean it has been nearly 100 years since we had a president with a mustache (Taft, 1913) and almost 120 years since we had a president with a full beard (Harrison, 1893)! If the president had one, then maybe BYU would start allowing students to have them too.

Whichever candidate grows a beard before the election will get my vote. Even if it is Michelle Bachmann. That’s just how important this election is.

Nearly as important, I already have a pretty good idea of which actor would play Mitt Romney in the inevitable movie, should he win. But who would play Newt Gingrich if he wins?!

[All satire aside, isn't it scary to think that a large number of citizens choose the candidate for whom they will vote based upon criteria not so different from this. If they bother to vote at all...]

I have repeatedly found that the best scholarship and writing concerning the Constitution comes from the good folks at the Claremont Institute.

Thomas G. West and Douglas A. Jeffrey, both senior fellows at the Claremont Institute, have published a booklet entitled “The Rise and Fall of Constitutional Government in America”, which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to better understand the Constitution and the dangers presented by our modern abandonment of its principles.

It is available as a free PDF document here:

The Rise and Fall of Constitutional Government in America: A Guide to Understanding the Principles of the American Founding (PDF)

“No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles”

- Virginia Bill of Rights, June 12, 1776

The Constitution does not contain its own explanation. It says how the government should function, but it does not explain why it should function that way. To understand the Constitution we have to look at the principles invoked in the Declaration of Independence and the other writings of the founders.

West and Jeffrey manage to give an excellent explanation in just over 50 pages that is easily accessible to most adults and teens, and a great resource for teachers and parents looking for a guide to teaching children about our Constitutional Republic.

Read it today and share it with your friends and family!

I don’t have anything to say about the movie, but I was struck by how much Matthew Fox looked like current Mormmon Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney.  If  Romney is ever elected President of the United States, my money is on Fox to play Romney in whatever theatrical creation eventually results.

So what about the other current candidates or potential candidates?  If any of them were to become President, who would play them in the inevitable movie that will someday be created?

• Michele Bachmann
• Herman Cain
• Newt Gringrich
• Jon Huntsman
• Ron Paul
• Tim Pawlenty
• Rick Santorum
• John Bolton
• Rudy Giuliani
• Sarah Palin
• Rick Perry
• Paul Ryan
• Chris Christie

Who will play President Obama?  (I don’t want him to win a 2nd term, but since he has already won a first term he’s sure to get a movie.)

Make your nominations for the actor to play any of these candidates.

Chapter 3 of the book of 3rd Nephi in the Book of Mormon is interesting in that it is one of the few sections of the text which purports to give us a glimpse of how the Gadianton Robbers viewed themselves, rather than how they were viewed by Mormon and his Nephite protagonists. Verses 2 through 10 are the record of an epistle written to the governor of the Nephites, Lachoneus, from the leader of the Gadianton Robbers, Giddianhi:

“2. Lachoneus, most noble and chief governor of the land, behold, I write this epistle unto you, and do give unto you exceedingly great praise because of your firmness, and also the firmness of your people, in maintaining that which ye suppose to be your right and liberty; yea, ye do stand well, as if ye were supported by the hand of a god, in the defence of your liberty, and your property, and your country, or that which ye do call so.

“3. And it seemeth a pity unto me, most noble Lachoneus, that ye should be so foolish and vain as to suppose that ye can stand against so many brave men who are at my command, who do now at this time stand in their arms, and do await with great anxiety for the word—Go down upon the Nephites and destroy them.

“4. And I, knowing of their unconquerable spirit, having proved them in the field of battle, and knowing of their everlasting hatred towards you because of the many wrongs which ye have done unto them, therefore if they should come down against you they would visit you with utter destruction.

“5. Therefore I have written this epistle, sealing it with mine own hand, feeling for your welfare, because of your firmness in that which ye believe to be right, and your noble spirit in the field of battle.

“6. Therefore I write unto you, desiring that ye would yield up unto this my people, your cities, your lands, and your possessions, rather than that they should visit you with the sword and that destruction should come upon you.

“7. Or in other words, yield yourselves up unto us, and unite with us and become acquainted with our secret works, and become our brethren that ye may be like unto us—not our slaves, but our brethren and partners of all our substance.

“8. And behold, I swear unto you, if ye will do this, with an oath, ye shall not be destroyed; but if ye will not do this, I swear unto you with an oath, that on the morrow month I will command that my armies shall come down against you, and they shall not stay their hand and shall spare not, but shall slay you, and shall let fall the sword upon you even until ye shall become extinct.

“9. And behold, I am Giddianhi; and I am the governor of this the secret society of Gadianton; which society and the works thereof I know to be good; and they are of ancient date and they have been handed down unto us.

“10. And I write this epistle unto you, Lachoneus, and I hope that ye will deliver up your lands and your possessions, without the shedding of blood, that this my people may recover their rights and government, who have dissented away from you because of your wickedness in retaining from them their rights of government, and except ye do this, I will avenge their wrongs. I am Giddianhi.”

I hadn’t noticed this until recently, but it is remarkable how much Giddianhi sounds like a Marxist Revolutionary:

The works of the Gadiantons are “good.” They have been alienated by the wickedness of the Nephites who have withheld from them their rights, their rights of government, and done many wrongs to them. Significantly, in order to recover those rights they demand that the Nephites relinquish all their properties (“cities”, “lands”, “possessions”). They invite the Nephites to join them and become partners in all of their collective substance. If they refuse, they will be violently destroyed, with the implication that their possessions will be taken into the collective by force anyway, but that they will be killed instead of being able to enjoy them collectively.

Over the last few years there has been an effort among some liberal Mormons to legitimize the view that Socialism is compatible with the Restored Gospel. They sometimes cite Book of Mormon and other scriptural descriptions of an ideal, Zion society in which the people have “all things in common” and “no poor among them” as well as injunctions to care for the poor and needy, and condemnations of the “love of money” and those who “covet their own property.”

When the ancient scriptures describe Zion societies, with all things in common and no poor, they are curiously silent about the specifics. They describe the ends, but do not explain the means other than that it has to do with the righteousness of the people.

But Giddianhi’s epistle illustrates that not every society in which the participants are equal partners and have all property in common is a Zion Society, even if they do use the rhetoric of rights and justice. Sometimes those who propose to share all substance in common really are just robbers, even if in their own minds they think they are justified by the wickedness of others.

Some LDS advocates for Socialism cite the ends as if that alone were sufficient argument for the political means they propose to achieve them. And when someone disagrees, rather than defend the means they propose, they insinuate that those who disagree do so because they are opposed to the ends. But it is the means by which Socialists propose to create such a society that are the sticky point.

Are the means moral and compatible with the principles of the Restored Gospel?

Are the means capable of really accomplishing the ends they claim?

Do the means have unintended consequences that undermine their ends?

Do the means achieve the spiritual and moral objectives associated with the ends or just a superficial physical, material equality?

Do they create a Zion in the hearts of the people which then flows outward into society or do they create an artificial outward appearance of Zion, externally imposed on still covetous, wicked hearts?

Does it create a society of “shared substance” like the Gadianton Robbers or a Zion society of “all things in common”?

Before you get worked up about this, and I’m not saying that you shouldn’t, it’s important to identify exactly what has changed so that you don’t end up fighting the wrong battles.

First of all, the decision only applies to Section 3 of DOMA, which is the part that establishes a federal definition of marriage that overrides individual state definitions as far as national government policy and laws are concerned.  It does not apply to Section 2 which exempts states from having to recognize any same-sex marriages enacted by other states.  The DOJ will continue to defend the constitutionality of Section 2.

Secondly, the decision means that the DoJ will no longer defend the constitutionality of Section 3 in court but the Obama administration is still constitutionally obligated to continue enforcing the law (including Section 3) until it is either declared unconstitutional in court or Congress repeals it, and there is no indication that they wont continue to do so.

Third, while it does deviate from a long-standing tradition in which the DoJ defends the constitutionality of laws properly enacted until they are declared unconstitutional by the judicial branch, there is nothing directly unconstitutional about President Obama’s decision. He is breaking with tradition, but not violating the constitution.

Finally, there may have been some people who voted for Obama partially because they were under the impression that he was against same-sex marriage who now feel like Obama has changed positions.  But he hasn’t changed positions.  Even while campaigning for the presidency, Obama was the most pro-same-sex-marriage candidate ever from either of the two major parties. Throughout his campaign Obama gave different groups of potential voters different impressions of his position on same-sex marriage and let them believe he was saying what they wanted him to be saying.  Personally, he believes that marriage is between a man and a woman.  But he has always explicitly said that he intended to work for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and that he opposed Proposition 8 in California.  I wrote about this during his campaign (See: LDS Church vs Barack Obama on Same-Sex Marriage, Neglected VP Debate Issue: Obama’s Same-Sex Marriage Policy ).  So if you thought that you were voting for someone who was going to defend traditional marriage, you weren’t paying close enough attention.  But don’t blame yourself too much, Obama wanted you to come away with that impression. Be more careful in the future.

Anyhow, armed with proper information, you can now get outraged and go out and do what you can to oppose Obama’s efforts to undermine and eventually repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

Hi. This is Regina work. Sort of. I’m calling to set the record straight about my friend Mike Lee. The truth is the bikes the key part of all the clear waste out of Utah we work together. I’ve got her husband’s Council. He stopped it from being transferred across our highways ad for big story, it does West desert. You may not know but my ex father. Rex week passed away from cancer related to be there with her. So, if you might expect. Mike, please record his commitment to keeping you talk to say from high level nuclear waste a second not anybody who tells you otherwise. If it’s a resort. It’s a last minute mislead attack ads for the role personal game. That’s the truth. Again, I’m not sure of the calling to set the record straight, and I encourage you to join me support likely the upcoming primary election. Thank you. Goodbye just calling to pay for. I found it and I agree.

That’s right, the primary elections are here in Utah once again! Tuesday June 22 is election day so make sure you take the time to vote.  If you are registered to vote, you can find out the location where you should vote at the Utah State website.  The site will also tell you what party you are currently registered with and let you see samples of both the Ballot for your party and the non-partisan elections for your area.  Also check out Abigail Adams Project – UTAH for information about the candidates.

If the erroneously transcribed voice mail above was complete nonsense to you, then don’t worry, a lot of the information that has been published during this campaign has been just as messed up even when properly transcribed.

I’ve been participating in local Utah elections actively for the last six years, and every time the dirty politics, acrimony, and enmity is thoroughly discouraging.  For example, last Saturday I received the two campaign fliers in the mail from the Bridgewater campaign.  Here’s a photo:

The first flier reads (more or less):

No wonder D. C. Lawyer Mike Lee is running a negative, D. C. Style Campaign.  Mike Lee has distorted businessman Tim Bridgewater’s record.  Here are the facts about Time Bridgewater:

Tim Has A Plan.

Blah blah blah…

Tim Is A Proven Fighter.

Blah blah blah…

Tim is a solid Fiscal Conservative

Blah blah blah

A campaign based on issues, not negative attacks

Blah blah blah

Paid for by Bridgewater for Senate

The second flier reads

Do we really want to be the world’s dumping ground?

You should know D. C. Lawyer Mike Lee is directly tied to the nuclear waste industry…

[On the back it makes several statements about how Mike Lee is really a puppet of Energy Solutions and wants to dump nuclear waste in Utah]

Paid for by Bridgewater for Senate

Now the accusations here are not really that important.  It’s the irony, the cliché, and the pettiness. “Hey! I’m negatively attacking my opponent by pointing out his negative attacks!  So vote for me because I’m campaigning on the issues and not negative attacks….P.S. See the photo of my opponent looking angry?  I told you he was negative.  P.P.S. Did you notice that I’m not wearing a tie and have a blue shirt?  I’m cool like that. I’m anti-establishment. P.P.P.S. Did you know that my opponent is part of a conspiracy run by an evil organization owned by radioactive SATAN? So freak out and vote for me instead.”

Nice.

Mike Lee’s campaign hasn’t been much better when it comes to magnifying to distortion some of Bridgewater’s background. Here’s Bridgewater’s response to some of the Lee campaign’s claims.  Others have responded to Bridgewater’s Energy Solutions accusations against Lee.

And then there is the whole “fake flier that appears to be from Mike Lee but is really from an anonymous group against Mike Lee that was intended to trash his campaign by making it look as if Lee was leveraging religion to trash his opponents when he really wasn’t, which was facilitated by a former long-time Senator Bennett staffer.”  If that seems incomprehensibly convoluted to you that’s because it is.  It’s a reverse-psychology dirty-trick you see.

Does your brain hurt yet?

The sad thing is that both of these men would probably be good, solidly conservative senators, probably.

Mike Lee knows the Constitution inside and out, and he is very consistent in his support for following the Constitution, even when it means taking the side of Energy Solutions when it comes to international contracts because international contracts fall under the constitutional authority of the National and not the State governments.  He is a real constitutional scholar with practical experience in applying the constitution to real-world situations.

Tim Bridgewater is an experienced businessman who truly believes in the free market, and understands the real-world consequences of National interference in the economy, taxes, and health-insurance.  He truly believes in limited government and is a real fiscal conservative with practical experience.

I’ll be voting for Mike Lee.  Why?  Here are my reasons:

1. Outgoing Senator Bob Bennett endorsed Bridgewater.  I was against Bennett before the convention because I want to replace Establishment Republicans with new, conservative outsiders who are focused on the Constitution.  By endorsing Bridgewater, Bennett essentially gave the Establishment Stamp of Approval to Bridgewater.  Establishment endorsement  = vote for the other guy.

2. The reverse-psychology dirty trick mentioned above really makes me angry.  Using those kinds of tactics to defeat a candidate makes me think that he must be a threat to the establishment.  And the fact that it was facilitated by a middle-man who was a D.C. staffer for Senator Bennett for many years reinforces that perception.  Dirty tricks by Establishment Republicans = vote for their target

3. Bridgewater’s ironic “my campaign is based on issues not negative attacks…Mike Lee is an evil, radioactive corporate pawn” fliers were craptastic.  Good bye moral high ground.  I first heard the Energy Solutions/Nuclear Waste attack against Lee in my caucus meeting from people who were big Bob Bennett supporters. Contradictory moralizing = fail!

4. I was attracted to Lee early on because of his firm understanding of the Constitution.  However, I was honestly worried about his positions because of some of the more radical conservatives who were rabidly supporting him and even linked to his campaign.  I contacted the campaign with my concerns.  I received a personal call from Mr. Lee and he chatted with me about his views, and those of some of his supporters for a good half an hour.  He and I don’t agree on everything, but he isn’t a Birther, or a 9/11 Truther, or any other kind of crazy.  Serious constitutional conservative – the crazy = my vote.

5. While I find Bridgewater’s business experience appealing, Free Market principles and practical experience alone are not going to be enough to get us out of the mess we are in.  We need someone with a solid, comprehensive, personal understanding of constitutional principles.  Bridgewater may not like D.C. Lawyers, but since his experience is in business not constitutional law, he’s going to have to hire a bunch of them to advise him if he wins anyway.  I’d rather have a candidate with an expert knowledge of the Constitution himself, and experience in applying it.  Outsourced constitutional knowledge = Fail! (If Bridgewater does win, I hope he’ll hire Mike Lee to advise him and vise-versa. Lincoln-style Appointing rivals = Win!)

6. The Mike Lee Campaign’s Google Voice Transcribed Voice Message is AWESOME!  I needed a laugh.

Anyhow, visit the candidate’s websites and vote for whomever you think would be best.

Utah County Candidates

I also feel strongly that we need some changes in the Alpine School District.  Consider voting for the following candidates:

A1-Lehi/Saratoga Springs/Eagle Mountain

Paula Hill (http://paulahill4u.wordpress.com/)

Casey Voeks (http://www.caseyvoeks.com/)

A2-Highland/Alpine/Cedar Hills/Small segment of Northeast Lehi

Wendy Hart (http://wendyhart2010.com)

Zonda Perry (http://www.zonda.org)

A3-American Fork

Incumbent-Tim Osborn (http://www.electtimosborn.com/)

A5-Southwest Orem

Scott Bell (http://www.BELLforSchoolBoard.com)

Brad Thompson

…Hi, this is J. Max Wilson. Sort of. I found it and I agree.

———————————-

Dear delegates,

Thanks for reaching out to ask for my opinion and for all your work to represent us at the state convention.

You might remember me from our neighborhood caucus meeting.  I also ran to be a state delegate with the intention of replacing Mr.Bennett.  I realize that in our precinct, most of you expressed support for Mr.Bennett, and that professor Frederickson, in particular, is a personal friend for his (though she did emphasize, to her credit, that just because she is a friend does not mean that she agrees with him).  I hope you realize that I do not think he is a bad person.  He has done what he thinks is right, and that is admirable.  I do think, however, that what Mr. Bennett thinks is right and what I think is right are no longer aligned.

Yes, it is true that working within the current system Mr. Bennett would be able to leverage his seniority to direct federal monies to Utah, and to Orem.  At our caucus meeting, Mayor Billings repeatedly emphasized that Mr. Bennett had been instrumental in getting the funding for several programs that have greatly benefited our city.  And if our goal were to continue to work within the current scheme of things then Mr. Bennett would clearly be the right man for the job.  But our goal isn’t to get the most out of the current scheme.  We aren’t just looking to get the most advantage out of the status quo.  The system is broken. Federal monies come with federal strings attached which are used to wield undue influence well beyond the constitutional roles of the national government. We are tired of selling our independence in exchange for federal money earmarked for our state and city.  We don’t want to get the most out of the current scheme, we want to overhaul the scheme to return it to the principles of liberty, limited government, and individual natural rights.

Mr. Bennett is part of the era of Big Government Republicanism with which we have all become so disillusioned.  No matter how good his intentions, he has been in Washington too long and as a consequence his views of how government should work have become mired in the status quo. The kind of changes we need to make in Washington require fresh, energetic, even revolutionary thinking to re-found our nation on the principles of good government identified by the original founders.  Under our constitutional republic, revolutions are fought with ballots instead of bullets. We want a revolution at the ballot box. We want a new senator that represents the principles of our revolution.  That is why Mr. Bennett will not be reelected.

I encourage you to reject the current scheme of things in Washington and embrace the need for new representation by voting for Mike Lee or Cherilyn Eager for Senator at the Utah State Republican Convention on May 8th.

Thank you for considering my point of view,

J. Max Wilson
http://www.sixteensmallstones.org

Up front let me say, as I have before, that the current health care system is the pits, unsustainable, and that insurance companies are corrupt. That insurance coverage is intertwined with your specific employer, that it is so much more expensive for individuals, that people are denied coverage because of preexisting conditions, and that we pay for routine care through insurance claims (which is like paying for gas for your car through auto insurance claims), are all terrible, illogical aspects of what we currently have. It needs to be overhauled.

That said, a benevolent king could easily use his sweeping powers to fix the system and provide health care for all in the most efficient and timely manner. But the dangers of establishing a monarchy would far outweigh the advantage of the universal health care he could provide. That is why in overhauling health care we need to make sure that it happens in a way that is consistent with the constitution and correct principles of just government.

The Constitution enumerates limited realms over which the National government has power. There are explicit powers in the constitution, and then there are implied powers which are accepted because without them the national government wouldn’t be able to exercise the stated powers.

A law or action by the national government is constitutional if it is within these enumerated or implied powers. If it oversteps those powers, then the law should be invalidated by the supreme court.

The health care law mandates that all people in the nation purchase insurance whether they want it or not. Supporters often point to mandatory automobile insurance laws as a parallel example.

Automobile insurance is NOT required by national law. It is the individual states who require automobile insurance, and the requirements vary widely from state to state. That is a crucial distinction. If the national government tried to require auto insurance, that too would be unconstitutional. Additionally even at the state level they also do not require all citizens to buy auto insurance. It is only a requirement if you want to get a driver’s license. Driving is a privilege and not a right. Those who do not want to drive are not required to have insurance. If a state required all citizens to buy insurance, whether they drive a car or not, that could arguably be unconstitutional too.

The health care law, unlike the auto insurance laws, is a national law and it requires everyone to buy insurance whether they want it or not.

So with health care we have to ask where in the constitution the national government derives its power to regulate health care and to force citizens to buy health insurance even if they don’t want it?

Supporters point to the ‘General Welfare” clause of the constitution.

The “General Welfare” clause is part of the preamble of the constitution, not the enumerated powers. The preamble states the objectives that they intend to accomplish through the powers and structures that follow. It does not grant any powers itself. The objectives are:

To form a more perfect union
To establish justice
To insure domestic tranquility
To provide for the common defense
To promote the general welfare
To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity

Each of these objectives is balanced and circumscribed by the others. The objective to promote general welfare does not trump the objective of securing our liberty and that of our posterity. The specific verbs used are also important. One objective is to “provide” common defense. Another is to “secure” liberty. But it does not say “provide” or “secure” the general welfare. It says “promote” the general welfare.

After the preamble, the articles of the constitution establish a system that the authors believed would correctly balance and accomplish these objectives. Has it worked perfectly? No. But it provided a process by which the structure could be amended when it wasn’t working correctly. If the constitution is not working, it should be amended. Otherwise, the government must operate within its parameters.

So the health care bill cannot be reasonably justified by the General Welfare clause.

So how else might it be constitutional?

Originally the Bill of Rights only applied to the national and not the state governments, but the courts have used the due process clause of the 14th amendment to allow the national government to invalidate state laws in order to protect individual natural rights and penumbral rights implied by those natural rights. So if health care is a right, then the national government might be able to justify the health care bill through the 14th amendment. However, that health care is a “right” is highly debatable in general, and completely inconsistent with the understanding of rights employed by the founders. See Is Health Care A Right? . If it is a right then the constitution should have to be amended to include it since under the current formulation it is not. So it is highly unlikely that it is constitutional through the 14th amendment.

Finally, the constitution allows the national government to regulate interstate commerce. It already uses that power to prohibit the sale of Health Insurance across state lines, even though it allows other forms of insurance to be sold.

But it is quite a logical leap to get from regulating interstate commerce to mandating individual purchase of insurance, especially since by national statute health insurance purchases do not cross state lines. Plus, there is no historical precedent that would imply that regulating commerce can be interpreted to mean forcing commerce (since that would conflict with the objective of liberty).

So that is why the health care law is likely unconstitutional. The reason why it is scary is that if the law is upheld as constitutional through any of the above constitutional clauses, then our interpretation of the language of the constitution has become so broad that the national government can do anything it wants and call it constitutional. And if that is the case, then our constitution has no inherent meaning and can no longer be counted upon to constrain government to accomplish any of its stated objectives.

I hope that helps explain why we believe the health care law to be unconstitutional and why we fear it.

UPDATE 3/26/2010 Correction

The General Welfare clause I discuss above  is in the preamble.  This is the clause that most people are familiar with and so they assume that when people talk about the General Welfare clause, they are referring to the preamble.  Case law upholds the explanation I have given.  Jacobson vs Massachusetts (1905):

“Although that Preamble indicates the general purposes for which the people ordained and established the Constitution, it has never been regarded as the source of any substantive power conferred on the Government of the United States or on any of its Departments.”

It has been brought to my attention, however, that there are actually two references to general Welfare in the constitution.  The second is in the Taxing and Spending clause of Article I Section 8.  This is the general welfare clause that could be cited to justify national action.  It says:

“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;”

The interpretation of this general welfare clause has been hotly debated since the very beginning of the republic.  Much of the most contentious political battles between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans revolved around how expansively this general welfare clause could be interpreted. The triumph of Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1800 represented a repudiation of the expansive interpretation of the Federalists.   This narrow interpretation was the norm until 1936 when the Supreme Court overturned it in the case of United States v. Butler and then in subsequent cases about the constitutionality of the New Deal laws of the Franklin Roosevelt administration.  However, even though United States v. Butler did overturn the traditional interpretation of this General Welfare clause, it also struck down the New Deal law that imposed a tax on processors of farm products and then used the revenue to be paid to farmers who would reduce their area and crops because it violated the 10th Amendment which reserved powers not enumerated to the States or the People.

Most of the expanding power of the national government since FDR’s New Deal have been justified under this new interpretive approach.  The new health care law could potentially be upheld under that same framework, but the fact that it actually forces consumers to purchase a product contrary to their own preference is unprecedented and would represent a new innovation in constitutional interpretation well beyond anything ever done by New Deal laws.

However, I thought it was super funny that the service that they have chosen to use to publish the visitor log data on the web, Socrata, has a button right at the top of the display that says “Socialize This.”  Almost every other service in the world uses the word “Share” on their links and buttons for posting information to social networks like twitter or facebook.

It’s a Freudian slip from the collective administration subconscious.

That is all.

UPDATE: 4:00pm – Since I took the screenshot they have hidden the button under a menu selection, and in the menu it says “Socialize this Dataset” but if you view it full screen you will still see the “Socialize This” button.

You think that state run insurance is a good idea.  You’ve seen in work well a fistful of countries.  You want to see it happen in the U.S..  Please consider and provide answers to the following questions:

1. The countries that you cite (France, Germany, Australia, Canada) as examples of successful state run health insurance have at most a population 1/4 the size of the United States. What makes you think that their systems can scale to the population of the U.S.?  Might there be cultural or governmental structure differences between the U.S. and these countries that would prevent their systems from translating correctly to a U.S. system?  Why or why not?

2. Why must state run health insurance be implemented at a national level instead of allowing individual states within the union to implement it at the state level if their own citizens want it?  Why must it be all states or none?  Massachusetts implemented mandatory health insurance with a state funded option for those who could not afford it under Governor Mitt Romney. Why not let it prove itself in state level laboratories? Why must it be national?

3. One astute technologist has observed: “any engineer knows that making large wholesale changes to complex open-loop dynamic systems (like the health care system) is a sure way to take a broken system and make it worse. If you’re a programmer, you’d never program like that. We don’t have to make public policy like that either. Refactoring 18% of the economy with one large bill is just plain nuts.”  Why must the changes to the health care system be implemented all at once right now?  Why not take an incremental approach?

4. Many of the same people who support a state run health insurance system also believe that big oil and other companies manipulated the national government during the Bush Administration to increase their profits by going to war. If big business can manipulate corrupt government in this way, what makes you think that if we give power to the government to control the medical industry that it wont be manipulated as well?  Your preferred party will not be in power forever.  Would you really want the party you disagree with to have the power you are granting?

5. Proponents of a national system often cite the supposed fact that 45 or more millions of people in the U.S. do not have health insurance.  However, a closer look at the numbers show that of those 45 million, there is a 6.4 million under-count of people who failed to report that they were on medicaid, 4.3 million who are eligible for medicaid or SCHIP but have not applied, 9.3 million who are not citizens of the U.S., and 5 million are single and young married adults without kids who choose to be uninsured.   If you believe that the Bush Administration “lied” about weapons of mass destruction in order to get us into the Iraq War, how is claiming 45 million uninsured in order to get us into a national health insurance system not a similar lie?  Are you okay with that?  Why or Why not?

6. Provided that you think that the system will scale, that it must be implemented on a national level and not a state level, that it must be implemented whole-hog and not incrementally,  that it will not be manipulated by corruption to unintended purposes, and that it is not being pushed using desceptive statistics– Upon what constitutional grounds does the national government claim power to run a state controlled insurance system that forces people to have insurance?  Interstate commerce clause? Preamble’s “general welfare” ?  How do you reconcile a national health insurance system with the 10th amendment?  Are there any existing national laws that force someone to purchase a product or service against their will?  What are the chances that the system will be found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court?

7. In order to get around the constraints imposed by the Constitution, a national health insurance program will likely have to be technically implemented by the states anyway with the threat of withheld funds from the national government. Many state Governors oppose the plan because they know that they will be the ones who have to implement it by national mandate. This hides some of the real cost by pushing off onto the states to keep it out of the national budget.  Are you okay with that?  Why?

8. Obama points to states where a single company has a complete monopoly on the health insurance industry, but he does not mention that companies are forbidden from competing across state lines by national law.  Would you be in favor of opening up health insurance competition across state lines as a way to bring costs down?  Why or why not?

9. In order to regulate health insurance on a national level, the government is going to have unprecedented access to your health care records and expenditures.  If you were against the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping because of Constitutional privacy concerns, why do you not have similar concerns about the national governments invasion of private health information and profiling?

10.  The IRS will probably be the entity to audit health expenditure information on a national basis.  Considering the existing bureaucratic nightmare that is paying taxes, why do you trust the IRS to manage your health information?

11.  Part of the problem with the current system is that insurance plans do not move with the individual from job to job, or across state lines.  These are restrictions imposed or encouraged by the federal government.  Would you be in favor of eliminating these restrictions?  Why or why not?

I’m going to be out of the country for the next 12 days and wont have time to respond to comments during that time.  Take your time to consider the questions and provide some detailed answers and I will see what you have to say when I get back.

To set things up, let me share my personal experience with the economic crisis.

Depression

In January 2009 I found myself sitting in a conference room of the company I had worked for during the last four years listening to the chairman of the board of directors explain that the company was running out of money and that they were replacing the company founder and president with a new, hand-picked CEO.

Only six months earlier the company had been on top of the world: honored with prestigious awards and accolades and a three-year sales growth of 620 percent.

As if the mood wasn’t somber enough, the chairman then went on to explain that the economy was in a very bad way, and that it wasn’t just a cyclical recession, but it was going to be a depression.  He expected that many, many companies would fail but that those companies that survived the depression would be wildly successful afterward.

Now, from any board chairman this kind of talk would be alarming, but from our chairman, Mark H. Willes, it was downright horrifying.  You see, Willes had been president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1977 to 1980.  He had been President and CEO of of General Mills, Inc., President and CEO of The Times Mirror Company, director of Black and Decker, and a somewhat controversial publisher of the L.A. Times.

In other words, he was very, very well connected to insiders across a large number of industries. He had been involved with recessions from various angles for nearly four decades.  He said that neither he nor his associates had never seen anything like what was happening in the economy in their lives.

Within a month or two of our meeting, Mark was named as the new President and CEO of the Deseret Management Corporation by the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Deseret Management Corporation oversees all of the church’s for-profit commercial enterprises.

Within three months of the depressing company meeting with Willes, my award winning company had dwindled from layoffs and resignations.  I was fortunate to find employment with a more stable company.

Now, experts will certainly argue with Willes about whether the current economic crisis actually constitutes a depression.  In fact, a good number believe that the economy is already well on its way to recovery from a severe recession. Others disagree and are predicting that the supposed recovery is superficial and will not last.

I have no idea who is right.  Though, as I watch increasing numbers of friends lose their jobs, I am not very optimistic.  But regardless of whether this is an actual depression, everyone seems to agree that it is among the worst economic crises we’ve had in a very long time.

The Causes of the Economic Crisis

In order to draw my analogy, it is important to first look at how this economic crisis came about.  As usual, even experts disagree about some of the roots of the crisis, and like the Great Depression, I am sure that they will be arguing about them for decades to come.  However, most of the explanations I have seen point to the Housing Market Bubble , Subprime Mortgages and Mortgage Backed Securities as the crux of the crisis.

Perhaps the most layman-accessible explanation I have seen is an 12 minute video entitled “The Crisis of Credit Visualized” by Jonathan Jarvis.

I encourage you to watch the video.

Now, one thing that I should point out is that the video puts the blame for subprime mortgages squarely on the lenders and investors without mentioning that government programs intended to promote home ownership among lower income, minority families as a form of social engineering created artificial incentives for lenders to lend to subprime applicants.

It also neglects the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act passed by the Republican controlled 106th Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1999 which repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 which had prohibited individual institutions from acting as both an investment bank and commercial bank, or as both a bank and an insurer; prohibitions that had been enacted specifically to prevent the kind of circumstance they believed led to the Great Depression.

The key point here is that the the credit crisis was incubating for a long time before it actually hit.  Laws and policies enacted nearly a decade ago, if not more, did not bear fruit until this last year.

A decade ago  I was newly married and worried more about school, work, and family problems than obscure shifts in banking law and social initiatives being made by the Clinton administration and my Republican representatives in Congress.  I would have never believed that the bad subprime lending practices of lenders and the greed of investment bankers far away from my simple, honest attempt to make a living could damage my own job and threaten the value of my home.

And that is why the subprime credit crisis provides a good analogy for the potential dangers of redefining marriage.

An Analogy

Over and over again I hear supporters of same-sex marriage ask derisively how a same-sex marriage could possibly destroy anyone else’s marriage.  More recently they point to Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage has been legal since May 2004, and declare triumphantly that the societal meltdown prophesied by opponents has not materialized.

But as the subprime mortgage crisis demonstrates, in complex systems seemingly small policy changes, and millions of individual decisions, can over a longer time-scale cause disastrous results for even those who were not involved in the bad decisions, even if things look peachy in the interim.  Five years ago we might have asked derisivly “How can my neighbor’s subprime mortgage hurt my mortagage?”  And now we know how.

Redefining marriage to include same-sex couples is analogous to redefining lending guidelines to offer mortgages to applicants who under previous definitions would not qualify.  We are creating subprime marriages.

The motivation for changing the definition is also similar.  Home ownership is a stabilizing institution.  Government programs sought to lower the standards for mortgage qualifications in order to encourage the stabilizing influence of home ownership among lower-income families and minorities.  Plus everyone wants the benefits of home ownership, and the government and businesses wanted the increased revenue by lending and taxing people who were previously not eligible.

But by lowering the standards they set up a system that in the long term destabilized the entire housing market.

Likewise, marriage is a stabilizing institution.  Some same-sex marriage proponents argue that by allowing homosexuals to marry they will stabilize relationships that are at the present notoriously unstable.  They want the benefits of marriage. Who doesn’t?  But just like home ownership, but even more so, marriage is a long term investment.  It is an investment in the next generation of citizens consisting of the children raised by marriages, and by proxy an investment in society.  By redefining marriage, we potentially destabilize the entire system in the long term, even if things look peachy in the interim.

Of course, same-sex marriage is only one type of subprime marriage.  For decades now we have been investing in other forms of subprime marriages as we grow increasingly tollerant of pornography, infidelity, abuse, and divorce.  In many ways same-sex marriage is as much a result of these existing subprime marriages.

To look at five years of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts and declare triumphantly that there are no deleterious consequences is like declaring in 2005, at the height of the housing bubble, that extending homeownership to people who were previously inelligibe and breaking down the barriers to banking, the whole country has benefitted across the board.  It’s short term thinking.

The possible effects of subprime marriage may not be felt for decades, or even two or three generations.

While I empathize a great deal with same-sex couples and their desire to redefine marriage and claim its benefits, like subprime mortgages, in the long run investing in subprime marriage is a bad investment with the potential to be amplified through the complexity of society with disasterous long-term results that affect everyone.

This is a unbelievably devastating blow to our constitutional government.

The Troubled Assets Relief Program was dishonestly sold to the American people as an investment program.  We were told that the plan was that the national government would buy subprime mortgage backed securities from failing finance institutions.  These mortgages were attached to real properties and so they had inherent value, even though the irrationality of the market was causing them to be treated as if they had no value at all.   Having bought them, the government would then hold onto them until the market became rational again, and then resell them at a profit.  The profit would then be used to pay down the national debt.  They argued that because the properties would be resold at a profit, it was not a bailout, but an investment that would rescue the financial industry and potentially help pay down the national debt.

The whole plan was suspect, but warning that a failure to pass the bill would result in economic armageddon, the bill was hurried through Congress.

But when the $700 billion TARP funds became available, the funds were not to used to buy subprime mortgages.  President Bush and the Department of the Treasury pulled a bait and switch and only 14 days after the bill passed, restructured the program to use the first $250 billion to buy equity stakes in banking instiutions.  So instead of buying the troubled mortgages, the government was now a part owner of the financial institutions, with the potential to profit if the banks became profitable again.

This month, when the auto industry came asking for a bailout of its own, Congress failed to pass an new bill to do so.  So what does President Bush do?  He authorizes, by executive decree, $17.4 billion of the TARP funds as a loan to the automobile industry.

Wait a minute!  Can he do that?

Um.  No. It’s illegal or unconstitutional.

If Congress fails to pass the bill, the President cannot simply go ahead and reinterpret “financial institution” to mean “automobile company” and essentially legislate by an emperor’s decree.  But that is exactly what just happened.

We live in truly dire times.  I pray that we are not yet ripe for destruction.  We must fervently pray to God Almighty that he will frustrate the designs of those who would ruin our nation and that he will raise up wise, honest men and inspire them with the means to save us from economic ruin while still preserving our Constitutional Republic.

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Barack Obama has attempted to targeted this impulse for positive change with his rhetoric of “hope.” I have a number of friends and family members for whom this message is reasonably attractive. Obama has painted himself as a proponent of “new politics,” rising above the partisanship of the past.

I firmly believe, however, that this post-partisan visage is demonstrably a hypocritical mask, calculated to play upon the righteous sentiments of the people in a way to win votes, but offered completely insincerely. The mainstream media have been complicit in perpetuating this lie.

As part of this false post-partisan persona, Barack Obama has tried to paint his primary opponent as merely a continuation of the Bush administration, pointing out that John McCain has voted in-line with the Republican Party 95% of the time. But, according to non-partisan sources, Barack Obama has voted in line with his party 96% of the time (see this analysis from FactCheck.org)

For me, this fact is central to the presidential decision. While the slogan of voting for the man, not the party is a noble idea, it is ultimately a naive one. The reality is that, because of the way national politics works, when you vote for a man you are also voting for the party to which he is inextricably bound. Regardless of his post-partisan mantra, Obama has voted 96% of the time with his party. He has never taken a strong, public stand against his own party on any meaningful issue. He is a democratic partisan through and through. To believe otherwise is gullible in the extreme.

Obama’s partisanship is revealed in his scant record:

1. Barack Obama wants to recind the Defense of Marriage Act, which is what prevents states from being forced to recognize same-sex marriages enacted in other states. His position on same-sex marriage has been purposefully obscured to attract supporters from both sides.

2. Obama repeatedly voted against laws designed to protect babies born in botched late-term, partial birth abortions from being killed or left to die because the laws might be used to restrict other kinds of abortions. Truly disgusting.

3. Obama is a ruthless partisan who won his seat in the Illinois senate by hiring a team of lawyers to crawl through the paperwork of his opponents and get every one of them thrown off the ballot on technicalities , so that he was the only choice. Is this a “new kind of politics?”

4. Obama has had long standing relationships with radical progressives and has systematically tried to white-wash his past to make himself more palatable to Americans, only distancing himself as it became prudent to win the election.

5. Obama purposefully obscures his socialist tax-credit system by falsely describing them as “tax-cuts.” The top 25% richest Americans already pay 83.88% of all the taxes. The lower 50% only pay 3%. That’s an even more progressive, socialist tax system than many European nations. And Obama wants to be even more socialist than that . We need less socialism, not more.

6. Obama has tried to blame the Bush Administration for the economic collapse caused by the housing and credit crisis. While it is true that Republicans repealed laws set up after the great depression to protect the country from another banking disaster, that repeal happened back in the late 90s’ and was signed into law by President Clinton. The problem was then exacerbated by affirmative-action style mortgage lending policies promoted by the Democrats . When the Republican’s proposed stronger controls on the industry to prevent the crisis, the Democrats blocked them. Worst of all, in only 4 years in the Senate, Barack Obama accepted more money from corrupt Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac than all but one other senator had in the last 20 years. See also: Planting Seeds of Disaster

7. Obama’s defeatism and opposition to the Surge in Iraq, which was not only an increase in troops, but a radical change in strategy, is unacceptable. Losing the war in Iraq is not an option. Retreating would have emboldened our enemies and lead to increased terrorist conflict. Contrary to Obama’s statements, the Surge has worked. Obama has no foreign policy experience and it shows. Even the President of France described his approach to foreign affairs as utterly immature . What do you do when you don’t have experience? You fall back on the party line, and that is what we can expect from Obama.

8. Obama has purposefully turned off security protections on his website donation pages so that he can accept illegal contributions from foreigners, people posting under fake names, and people using untraceable gift cards. This is a calculated move that some people estimate may account for close to 181 million dollars of his record breaking donations. This is down and dirty politics, not hope and change.

While it is true that the Bush Administration has an abysmal approval record, the current congress has been controlled mostly by democrats for the last two years, and in that time the approval rating of the congress has plummeted to the lowest in history.

And then there is the important concern for the Supreme Court. Four or eight years of Obama would be nothing, really, compared to the next 50 years of whatever liberal Supreme Court Justices he is sure to appoint. I have had enough of the “living-constitution” approach to the constitution, and while I am well aware of the problems with originalism, I want more conservative judicial review. (My favorite Justice is Clarance Thomas).

So, if what you are looking for is a post-partisan, moderate outsider, 96%-Democrat Obama is an ignis fatuus, a will-o’-the-whisp that will dazzle you as you follow him through the darkness, down unfamiliar paths to the edge of a partisan precipice where the illusion will vanish.

I cannot endorse such two-facedness. And while I empathize with the democratic impulse toward helping the poor and needy, and protecting the weak from calculating, predatory businesses , as a conservative I cannot support methods that the democratic party advocates to address these issues, nor can I support the the pro-abortion, pro-same-sex-marriage, anti-religious, big-government, socialist, fascist tendencies of the progressive movement.

I recommend that you vote against Barack Obama for president.

For more, check out this Comprehensive Argument Against Barack Obama .

But who do I endorse?

That is a harder question. There are many things I dislike about John McCain. And the Republicans in general appear in many instances to have abandoned principles for power. Personally, the things on which I have disagreed with the Bush administration have been in those matters when they have acted more like Big Government Democrats instead of Limited-Government Conservatives.

LDS Author, Orson Scott Card makes a pretty good case for voting for McCain and against Obama. Card is a conservative-leaning democrat.

To a certain extent, a quote from Tolkien’s the Lord of the Rings communicates my feelings on this decision. When the hobbits meet Aragorn, he seems an unruly, disagreeable type. When Merry asks why they should trust him, Frodo responds “I think a servant of the Enemy would look fairer, and feel fouler.”

There are many aspects of John McCain that look foul.

I voted against McCain not only in this election’s primaries, but also back in 2000. He has never been an appealing candidate for me. I dislike a number of his positions as well as parts of his personality and personal life.

But even though I disagree with him, I do believe that he is sincere in doing what he believes is right. I don’t believe he is fake. He is certainly a politician and plays the game. He can be temperamental and even downright nasty. But he does have a real record of bi-partisanship, and that says something. I think he knows that his party has been a poor steward and that he is sincere about trying to do things differently. I think he is what he says he is, even if I don’t like everything about what he is.

McCain looks foul and feels fair to me—well, at least fairer to me. Obama, on the other hand looks fair and feels foul.

So, I reluctantly endorse John McCain for president.

However, for those friends who cannot bring themselves to vote for McCain, either because they refuse to vote for a Republican this year out of protest, because of his policies and record, or because of his personal life, I recommend that you vote for a third party candidate that best matches the principles you believe in:

Consider:

Chuck Baldwin for the Constitution Party
Bob Barr for the Libertarian Party

Or write in Mitt Romney. Seriously.

But don’t vote for Obama. What you see is not what you will get.