A U.S. soldier admits to waterboarding his four-year-old daughter for not being able to recite the alphabet.

In his latest column at Salon.com, “The lynch-mob mentality,” Glenn Greenwald correctly discusses the utter contradiction by those who properly want to hold terrorists accountable for their criminal acts against the innocent but then embrace both a foreign policy that knowingly harms innocent people and a legal system that tramples due process by not being based on protecting the innocent:

If I had the power to have one statement of fact be universally recognized in our political discussions, it would be this one:

The fact that the Government labels Person X a “Terrorist” is not proof that Person X is, in fact, a Terrorist.

That proposition should be intrinsically understood by any American who completed sixth grade civics and was thus taught that a central prong of our political system is that government officials often abuse their power and/or err and therefore must prove accusations to be true (with tested evidence) before they’re assumed to be true and the person punished accordingly. In particular, the fact that the U.S. Government, over and over, has falsely accused numerous people of being Terrorists—only for it to turn out that they did nothing wrong—by itself should compel a recognition of this truth. But it doesn’t.

Indeed, the entire point of opposing terrorism is to say that we will not tolerate acts that harm innocent people. And the blatant hypocrisy being instead used in the “War on Terror” was bad enough under George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, but now with the Obama Democrats in power and as Greenwald correctly states, “That authoritarian mentality is stronger than ever now.” He further goes on to note:

But in fairness to the 17th Century Puritans, at least the Salem witches received pretenses of due process and even trials (albeit with coerced confessions and speculative hearsay). Even when it comes to our fellow citizens, we don’t even bother with those. For us, the mere accusation by our leaders is sufficient: Kill that American Terrorist with a drone!

The Wall Street Journal reports that as if the recent Senate election in Massachusetts never happened (or perhaps because of it?), President Barack Obama’s budgets for 2010 and 2011 will push federal government spending up to gigantic new levels:

The budget reveals that overall federal outlays will reach $3.72 trillion in fiscal 2010, and keep rising to $3.834 trillion in 2011.

As a share of the economy, outlays will reach a post-World War II record of 25.4% this year. This is a new modern spending landmark, up from 21% of GDP as recently as fiscal 2008, and far above the 40-year average of 20.7%.

In the “out years” in mid-decade, the White House promises that spending will fall all the way back to 23% of GDP. Even if you choose to believe such a political prediction, that still means Mr. Obama is proposing a new and more or less permanently higher plateau of federal spending.

And here you thought the “stimulus” was supposed to be temporary. This is also before the baby boomers retire and send Medicare and Social Security accounts soaring.

But that’s not all:

If Mr. Obama’s priorities become law, federal outlays will have grown an astonishing 29% since 2008.

As further proof, the White House proposes to convert long-standing “discretionary” spending that requires annual appropriations into permanent entitlement programs. A case in point is the Pell Grant program for college, which the budget would shift into the “mandatory” spending column at a cost of $307 billion over 10 years. The political goal here is to make a college education as much of a universal entitlement as Social Security.

And more:

But the reality is that even these still-high deficits are based on assumptions for growth and revenue gains from record tax increases starting January 1, 2011. And what a list of tax increases it is—no less than $2 trillion worth over the decade. . . . Even these tax increases won’t be enough to pay for the spending that this Administration is unleashing in its first two remarkable years.

As our Senior Fellow Robert Higgs has decisively shown, such massive tax, spending, and debt-mongering will only prolong the recession, high unemployment, and economic malaise. Please see the following:

Depression, War, and Cold War: Challenging the Myths of Conflict and Prosperity, by Robert Higgs

Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government, by Robert Higgs

Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Society, by Robert Higgs

Neither Liberty Nor Safety: Fear, Ideology, and the Growth of Government, by Robert Higgs

As with everything else, on drug policy Obama is looking a lot like his predecessor, except even more actively interventionist.

In the December 2009 National Tax Journal, which targets an academic and policymaking audience, there are several articles on international tax avoidance and evasion.  One, by Gaetan Nicodeme, who works with the European Commission, is titled “On Recent Developments in Fighting Harmful Tax Practices.”  These “harmful” tax practices, as you might guess, are policies some countries implement that allow people from other countries to lower their tax burdens.  If these tax practices are harmful, I have to ask, who is hurt by them?

Obviously, these policies benefit the taxpayers, because the policies allow taxpayers to keep more of their own money.  The implication seems to be that the harm comes from the reduction in tax revenues collected by high-tax countries.  In another article in the same issue, referring only to the United States Jane Gravelle says, “Losses may be as much as $70 billion per year.”  But it appears to me that what Gravelle calls losses are really gains: gains to taxpayers who get to keep $70 billion more of their own money.

In reality, the gains are larger than that, because taxes discourage economic activity.  If “harmful” tax policies allow taxpayers to keep more of the money they earn, that will promote entrepreneurship and investment, and will generate economic growth.  The economy is better off because some enterprising individuals have found ways to keep more of what they earn.

One might debate whether this additional economic activity adds up to $70 billion, but regardless, with the bloated government budgets in the US, the EU, and the rest of the developed world, it would be hard to argue that we ought to be channeling even more money into the public sector.

Indeed, another name for “harmful tax practices,” although not mentioned in these National Tax Journal articles, is international tax competition.  That tax competition helps to keep the taxes going to already excessive governments from growing even larger, and in fact, these “harmful” tax practices are really helpful.  We would be better off if we would join in that international tax competition, rather than trying to keep our government’s competitors from offering their services to overburdened taxpayers.

Taxpayers can easily see that keeping more of their incomes from the tax man is a benefit, not a harm.  But it is interesting to see how academics and government officials have a different view on things.

Here’s the inaugural release of the Kauffman Economic Outlook, based on a survey of distinguished economics bloggers (including Yours Truly). “America’s top economics bloggers represent a diverse group of writers with wide-ranging intellectual and political vantage points on one of the most important issues of the day — the economy. As independent thinkers who are immersed in discourse through the innovation of blogging, these economics writers have a unique voice and perspective, and potentially profound influence.” Take that, Old Media!

Lots of interesting charts. And who says economists don’t agree?

Despite being a balanced panel in terms of political alignment (16 percent Republican, 19 percent Democratic, 47 percent independent, and roughly 18 percent libertarian/other), there is a strong consensus around many policy recommendations. Seventy-one percent of economics bloggers think the U.S. government is “too involved in the economy,” with only 17 percent calling for greater involvement. When asked what the government should be doing, the only policies with more than 50 percent support are: 1) to increase high-skill immigration (63 percent), and 2) to increase legal immigration at all skill levels (57 percent). Two policies stood out sharply with near-unanimous opposition: increasing business regulation (9 percent) and increasing tariffs (4 percent). . . .

According to economics bloggers, the top three variables that policymakers should emphasize in a model of economic growth are human capital, innovation, and economic freedom. In a related question, bloggers were asked to rate the beneficial importance of numerous key players in the U.S. economy. One hundred percent of the panel rate entrepreneurs as “important” or “very important,” and innovation also had unanimous support. Only slightly less important are free trade and education, with nearly all respondents rating them as “important” or “very important.” In contrast, only 30 percent of economics bloggers think labor unions are important, and nearly 70 percent rate them as “unimportant” (numbers may not add to 100 due to non-responses and rounding). Opinion is decidedly mixed on manufacturing, while there is mild support for the importance of big business.

[Cross posted at Organizations and Markets]

The remarkable and haunting, independent, 2009, science fiction short film, 2081: Everyone Will Finally Be Equal, is based on the Kurt Vonnegut short story, “Harrison Bergeron,” from his book, Welcome to the Monkey House (directed by Chandler Tuttle and produced by Thor Halvorssen), and is now available on DVD. Vonnegut’s powerful and incisive story critiques egalitarian statism in which “equality” is the only legal standard and all individual liberty, personal responsibility, and the rule of law are eliminated. Government “social control” is used to collectivize and penalize anyone who may in some way be more intelligent, healthy, beautiful, etc., creating an incoherent, dysfunctional, totalitarian nightmare. As the film’s website notes:

2081 depicts a dystopian future in which, thanks to the 212th Amendment to the Constitution and the unceasing vigilance of the United States Handicapper General, everyone is “finally equal….” The strong wear weights, the beautiful wear masks and the intelligent wear earpieces that fire off loud noises to keep them from taking unfair advantage of their brains. It is a poetic tale of triumph and tragedy about a broken family, a brutal government, and an act of defiance that changes everything.

Featuring an original score performed by the world-renowned Kronos Quartet (Requiem for a Dream) and narration by Academy Award Nominee Patricia Clarkson (Far From Heaven, Goodnight and Good Luck), 2081 stars James Cosmo (Braveheart, Trainspotting), Julie Hagerty (Airplane!, What About Bob?) and Armie Hammer (The Social Network).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtJTRip2tsM

Vonnegut is among the precious, few, modern writers who have adequately explored egalitarian tyranny. Another is C.S. Lewis, whose similar insights are found repeatedly throughout both his fiction and nonfiction. For example, in his essay “Equality” (from his book, Present Concerns), Lewis notes the following:

A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people—all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumours. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.

This introduces a view of equality rather different from that in which we have been trained. I do not think that equality is one of those things (like wisdom or happiness) which are good simply in themselves and for their own sakes. I think it is in the same class as medicine, which is good because we are ill, or clothes which are good because we are no longer innocent, I don’t think the old authority in kings, priests, husbands, or fathers, and the old obedience in subjects, laymen, wives, and sons, was in itself a degrading or evil thing at all. I think it was intrinsically as good and beautiful as the nakedness of Adam and Eve. It was rightly taken away because men became bad and abused it. . . .

But medicine is not good. There is no spiritual sustenance in flat equality. It is a dim recognition of this fact which makes much of our political propaganda sound so thin. We are trying to be enraptured by something which is merely the negative condition of the good life. And that is why the imagination of people is so easily captured by appeals to the craving for inequality, whether in a romantic form of films about loyal courtiers or in the brutal form of Nazi ideology. The tempter always works on some real weakness in our own system of values: offers food to some need which we have starved.

When equality is treated not as a medicine or a safety-gadget but as an ideal we begin to breed that stunted and envious sort of mind which hates all superiority. That mind is the special disease of democracy, as cruelty and servility are the special diseases of privileged societies. It will kill us all if it grows unchecked.

And in “Membership” (from his book, The Weight of Glory), Lewis states that:

I believe in political equality. But there are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows.

That I believe to be the true ground of democracy. I do not believe that God created an egalitarian world. I believe the authority of parent over child, husband over wife, learned over simple to have been as much a part of the original plan as the authority of man over beast. I believe that if we had not fallen, Filmer would be right, and patriarchal monarchy would be the sole lawful government. But since we have learned sin, we have found, as Lord Acton says, that “all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The only remedy has been to take away the powers and substitute a legal fiction of equality. The authority of father and husband has been rightly abolished on the legal plane, not because this authority is in itself bad (on the contrary, it is, I hold, divine in origin), but because fathers and husbands are bad. Theocracy has been rightly abolished not because it is bad that learned priests should govern ignorant laymen, but because priests are wicked men like the rest of us. Even the authority of man over beast has had to be interfered with because it is constantly abused. . . .

Do not misunderstand me. I am not in the least belittling the value of this egalitarian fiction which is our only defence against one another’s cruelty. I should view with the strongest disapproval any proposal to abolish manhood suffrage, or the Married Women’s Property Act. But the function of equality is purely protective. It is medicine, not food. By treating human person (in judicious defiance of the observed facts) as if they were all the same kind of thing, we avoid innumerable evils. But it is not on this that we were made to live. It is idle to say that men are of equal value. If value is taken in a worldly sense—if we mean that all men are equally useful or beautiful or good or entertaining—then it is nonsense. If it means that all are of equal value as immortal souls, then I think it conceals a dangerous error.

HT: John Fraim

I’ve commented before on the explicitly liberal (in the contemporary sense of the word) turn that Newsweek magazine has recently taken.  While I’ve always viewed the magazine as having a liberal bias, until recently it came across as liberal reporters attempting to present the facts.  Now they’ve quit reporting the news (because it’s so readily available elsewhere) to focus on liberal commentary on the news.

The February 1st edition runs two columns criticizing the recent Supreme Court decision dropping limits on corporate spending on political speech.  Jonathan Alter says, “In a devastating decision, the high court cleared the way for one of those corporate takeovers you read about, only much bigger.”  Stuart Taylor, Jr. says the ruling unleashes “… corporate executives to pour unlimited amounts of stockholders’ money—without their consent—into adds supporting or attacking federal candidates.  Indeed the 5-4 decision would allow any big company to spend a fortune attacking candidates whom many, or even most, of its stockholders would rather support.”

First, let me say that I agree with Alter’s and Taylor’s implication that most politicians are sleazebags whose votes can be bought, and who can’t be trusted to act in the public interest, even if they have an idea of what that is.  I also agree with their implication that a major motivation of politicians is getting elected and re-elected, and that they will stoop pretty low to enhance their electoral chances.

Setting that aside (because my intention here isn’t to bash politicians), if Alter and Taylor believe we should limit the political speech of corporations, why not start with the Washington Post Company, the owner of Newsweek?  Why should they be free to spout their liberal ideology, while muzzling other corporations?  The same question applies to News Corp, the owner of the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and other media outlets.

Taylor has an answer for that: “The First Amendment explicitly protects freedom ‘of the press’ as well as of speech.”  But that doesn’t seem like much of an answer to me.  All that says is, “We’re a media company, so we shouldn’t be limited in what we say, but other corporations shouldn’t have the same rights we do.”  Is there any logic in that?  Why should some corporations have an unlimited right to political speech while others are limited?

I see this in politics all the time: people argue that certain rules should be applied to everyone else but them, because for some reason they are different and deserve the exception.  If the Washington Post Company is protected by the First Amendment, why would other corporations not be entitled to the same protection?

Last night, I suffered through Obama’s speech. I noticed the overarching theme was: in 2010, the administration will finally getting around to all it promised for 2009, as well as a whole other year worth of miracles.

He begins by taking credit for saving the economy from a second Great Depression. “[W]e acted, immediately and aggressively. And one year later, the worst of the storm has passed.” Except for the massive unemployment, which he notes in his next breath. Wasn’t the worst of the storm the pain of the American people? Or was it the so-called credit freeze that Obama seems to imply is still happening: “[W]hen you talk to small-business owners in places like Allentown, Pennsylvania, or Elyria, Ohio, you find out that even though banks on Wall Street are lending again, they’re mostly lending to bigger companies. Financing remains difficult for small-business owners across the country, even though they’re making a profit.”

Here’s another thing that doesn’t add up for me. Obama says, with some validity: “By the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.”

This is a decent point. Bush racked up the deficit with two off-budget wars, a bloated expansion of Medicare and tax cuts that did not correspond to any cuts in spending. And so what’s Obama propose to halt the deficit from spiraling yet more out of control?

We are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected, but all other discretionary government programs will.

Let me get this straight. Medicare and war profligacy brought on the crisis, and so we will “freeze” spending, except for Medicare and war—and also except for Social Security and Medicaid? Huh?

Yes, there is also the point that Bush cut taxes without cutting spending. But this is another thing Obama is prepared to do:

“[We] passed 25 different tax cuts.”

“[W]e’ll extend our middle-class tax cuts.”

“[L]et’s also eliminate all capital gains taxes on small-business investment and provide a tax incentive for all large businesses and all small businesses to invest in new plants and equipment.”

One can argue over whether Bush’s tax cuts or Obama’s tax cuts are more fair, more sensible, more substantive, or whatever. But the fact remains, from a fiscal responsibility perspective, both Bush’s and Obama’s tax cuts could be criticized for being political gimmicks amid a cascade of deficit spending.

On banking regulation, the president says he will not seek to “punish” the banks but will stand up to them. Not much mention here on the revolving door between Wall Street and the big banks and Washington, which Obama has only sought to widen.

Obama touts his escalation of war in Afghanistan, a war the U.S. should have never waged and should have in any event ended some time in 2001 or 2002, once it was clear Osama bin Laden had escaped. This war, of course, is being vastly expanded beyond what Bush indicated he would do with it, and it’s just as much a fiscal nightmare as Bush’s warmaking. As for Iraq, Obama is sticking by his promise to adhere to the time table set by the Status of Forces Agreement acceded to by Bush in late 2008. No sign of change there. And by avoiding the issues of contractors, the permanent military bases, what exactly non-combat soldiers are supposed to be doing there, he is taking credit for the status quo that he inherited.

Mr. Nobel Peace Prize champions his plan to combat nuclear proliferation. I’m all for governments disarming their nuclear stockpiles, and if the U.S. reduces its arsenal, that is good. But the way he has always played this issue is identical to the way others have: The U.S. will reduce its arsenal by a token amount, and forbid nations unapproved by the U.S. and other major powers from having such weapons at all, using sanctions and war as a means to stop other countries from getting the weapons they seek primarily to defend them against the U.S. empire. The promise of nuclear non-proliferation has already become an excuse to tighten sanctions on Iran, which the evidence indicates has no nuclear weapons program, and whose nuclear energy program is being heavily monitored by the IAEA. Consider the Bushian implications of this statement:

That’s why the international community is more united and the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated. And as Iran’s leaders continue to ignore their obligations, there should be no doubt: They, too, will face growing consequences. That is a promise.

This is a formula for war conducted by the U.S., a government whose policy is that “nothing is off the table”—i.e., we reserve the right to use nukes—to stop countries like Iran from getting nukes, even though there is no credible evidence they are even pursuing nukes. In the name of stopping nukes, the U.S. is essentially threatening, as a supposed last resort, nuclear war.

When Obama condemns “those nations that insist on violating international agreements in pursuit of nuclear weapons,” we can also assume he does not mean to include Israel, which is not a signatory of the non-proliferation treaty, and which everyone with a pulse knows has nukes.

He doesn’t seem to want to talk much at all about one of his broken promises—the closing of Guantánamo and restoring of habeas corpus rights to America’s detainees. His indefinite detention policy is a monstrosity, one of the most important features of his presidency in terms of the policies actually implemented that have long-term consequences for the American system. After claiming deference to the “separation of powers”—although I can’t find this in the prepared transcripts—Obama attacked the Supreme Court for having “reversed a century of law” with its decision against campaign finance restrictions. But he doesn’t mention his own, and much more unambiguously disastrous, attacks on precedent and the rule of law—his invocation of “state secrets” and “sovereign immunity” to protect government wiretapping, his efforts to subvert the Freedom of Information Act to keep government torture under wraps. Instead of focusing on these concrete accomplishments of his, he simply promises another year-worth of government solutions.

Indeed, Obama promises everything else he’s always promised, almost all of it bad—a tough climate change treaty, more banking regulation, Obamacare at last, repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, subsidies for community colleges, more Veterans benefits, more national standards for education, more “public works” projects and government subsidies for green jobs. He offers “a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college,” which will only drive up the cost of tuition, and ominously proposes a way to get people even more oriented toward working for the state:

Let’s tell another 1 million students that, when they graduate, they will be required to pay only 10 percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after 20 years, and forgiven after 10 years if they choose a career in public service.

This will only increase the cost of education and lure people into working for the ever-growing government sector, which is bloated enough, while neglecting the American private sector that the president himself says is and always will be “the true engine of job creation in this country.”

None of it adds up. More promises. More spending. More war. More politically motivated tinkering of the tax code. It is true he has brought change to Washington. He is not Bush. He is Bush on steroids.

In the fallout from Climategate, the Times of London reports that Great Britain’s chief scientific adviser John Beddington has now become highly critical of the dismissive and disreputable tactics and exaggerated claims of climate alarmists within the scientific community.

Professor Beddington said that climate scientists should be less hostile to sceptics who questioned man-made global warming. He condemned scientists who refused to publish the data underpinning their reports.

He said that public confidence in climate science would be improved if there were more openness about its uncertainties, even if that meant admitting that sceptics had been right on some hotly-disputed issues.

He said: “I don’t think it’s healthy to dismiss proper scepticism. Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can’t be changed.”

He said that the false claim in the IPCC’s 2007 report that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 had exposed a wider problem with the way that some evidence was presented.

. . . .

Professor Beddington said that particular caution was needed when communicating predictions about climate change made with the help of computer models.

. . . .

“When you get into large-scale climate modelling there are quite substantial uncertainties. On the rate of change and the local effects, there are uncertainties both in terms of empirical evidence and the climate models themselves.”

He said that it was wrong for scientists to refuse to disclose their data to their critics: “I think, wherever possible, we should try to ensure there is openness and that source material is available for the whole scientific community.”

He added: “There is a danger that people can manipulate the data, but the benefits from being open far outweigh that danger.”

Phil Jones, the director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and a contributor to the IPCC’s reports, has been forced to stand down while an investigation takes place into leaked e-mails allegedly showing that he attempted to conceal data.

In response to one request for data Professor Jones wrote: “We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

Mike Hulme, Professor of Climate Change at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) in the University of East Anglia, where many of the Climategate documents originated, has further noted the following regarding the IPCC’s exaggerated claims in the IPCC’s 2007 report on glaciers:

“Climate scientists get kudos from working on an issue in the public eye but with that kudos comes responsibility. Being open with data is part of that responsibility.”

He criticised Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, for his dismissive response last November to research suggesting that the UN body had overstated the threat to the glaciers. Mr Pachauri described it as “voodoo science”.

Professor Hulme said: “Pachauri’s choice of words has not been good. The question of whether he is the right person to lead the IPCC is for the 193 countries who make up its governing body. It’s a political decision.”

The Times article ends by summing up some of the climate alarmists’ exaggerated and erroneous claims (pertaining to glaciers, sea levels, polar sea ice, and global temperatures), all of which are disputed by the actual scientific findings.