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To Trade or Not to Trade…

Posted on March 2, 2017 by Joe Benning

Economic Nationalism and the Trump Trade Agenda

According to Steve Bannon, the second prong of the Trump Administration’s policy focus is “Economic Nationalism”. The obvious first question is: what, exactly, does Bannon have in mind when he refers to Economic Nationalism? An important subsidiary question is whether the Trump Administration considers Economic Nationalism to be a distinct area of policy focus, or does the Administration consider it to be an integral part of an integrated policy agenda.
Steve Bannon

The term Economic Nationalism is certain to provoke well-deserved eye rolling among the vast majority of professional economists. The term sounds like one of those focus group inventions that sounds good to the untutored, but is actually bereft of substantive economic meaning. Proof of the pudding is Obama’s use of similar rhetoric, as when he referred to “Economic Patriotism” and attacked what he called corporate “deserters”.

Barrack Obama

That said, this type of thing has to be taken seriously for a few reasons. First, terms like Economic Nationalism have a distinctly unpleasant historical odor, one might say stench, about them, as the terms are associated with the likes of Juan Peron and Hugo Chavez, not to mention Adolf Hitler. (Fans of this bunch need to read no further, they are all pretty much beyond saving). Secondly, leaving aside its linguistic associations, Economic Nationalism is often (correctly) seen as a form a mercantilism, which though noxious, doesn’t reach the depravity of fascism or totalitarianism. But mercantilism is no day at the beach either. It (incorrectly) sees trade as a zero-sum game and can easily lead to resource wars and empire building, as it did in the past.

Third, to the extent that Economic Nationalism represents some kind of resurgent mercantilism, protectionism or isolationism, it is bad economic policy whose imposition would almost certainly harm economic growth in the United States and abroad leading to economic misery. Ironically enough, the bulk of the economic harms would fall mostly on the people who seem to be most enthusiastic about it.

Finally, Trump seems to mean what he says, and he and strategist Bannon seem to be on the same page.
Donald Trump

No matter how you slice it, it is hard to see how Bannon / Trumpian Economic Nationalism is different from old-fashioned protectionism.

Trade and Protectionism

It is important to understand what free trade is and what free trade agreements like NAFTA actually do. In a nutshell, free trade refers to the free exchange of goods and services across national borders. Free trade agreements make this possible by removing trade barriers between people and companies residing in different countries. The trade barriers that are removed or reduced are typically tariffs and regulatory schemes designed to give the importing country’s home producers an advantage over foreign rivals. Consumers pay for all this through higher prices.

Discussions about free trade and trade agreements are often phrased in language that obscures more than it reveals. For example, when speaking of trade, it is typical to hear someone say something like this. “The U.S. bought $10 billion worth of goods from Mexico, but only sold Mexico $6 billion worth of goods in return. Therefore the U.S. has a trade deficit of $4 billion with Mexico. Moreover, that’s $4 billion worth of goods that American workers could have made. Therefore trading with Mexico cost Americans to lose jobs.”

Let’s take this one piece at a time. It is true but misleading to say that America bought $10 billion worth of Mexican goods, as if America is an undifferentiated whole. It is more accurate to say that millions of individual Americans in the aggregate bought $10 billion worth of stuff that came from Mexico and that millions of Mexicans bought $6 billion worth of stuff made in the U.S. The reason that Americans bought the $10 billion worth of stuff (and vice versa) is that they got a better deal buying the Mexican goods, whether in quality, price or both. In short, American consumers are better off because they can buy better quality and / or lower priced goods made in Mexico and shipped to the U.S.

It is not in any meaningful sense true that Mexico “stole” American jobs through trade. The first reason is that apart from a small number of political jobs that require U.S. citizenship, there is no such thing as an American job. There are jobs that Americans do, just as there are jobs that Frenchman do. But there is no particular reason to think of any job as American, or French or Mexican.

Second, it is without doubt the case that some jobs that were formerly performed in America are now performed in other countries resulting in the temporary displacement of some American workers. But American consumers are better off because more goods and services are available at lower cost and better quality than were available previously.

When it comes to Americans who lose jobs as a result of foreign competition, it really doesn’t matter that the competition comes from abroad or the next town over. It could come from anywhere. Eastman Kodak, for example, did not ultimately fail because of foreign competition. It failed because it resisted innovation and the advent of digital photography and was competed out of business. The lesson here is that to survive and thrive, workers and businesses need to remain dynamic and competitive.

By encouraging—or at least not impeding—the free flow of labor and capital across national boundaries, free trade facilitates the spread of knowledge, innovation and economic dynamism. It correctly treats trade as a plus sum game of shared gains. In so doing free trade allows resources to be matched to their highest and best uses, thereby promoting economic efficiency and wealth creation.

Opposition to free trade is often rhetorically disguised. One of the more popular dodges is to be for “fair trade” as opposed to free trade. Politicians routinely claim they are in favor of trade, but that it has to be “fair”. But what could be fairer than two counterparties exchanging goods and services for a freely negotiated price? And what could be less unfair than a transaction in which the police power of the State (in the form of tariffs and regulations) is used to tip the scales to favor one side?

We often hear that trade is unfair because a foreign producer’s government subsidizes them, or that their currency is being manipulated to lower prices below the market level. And in some cases this is undoubtedly correct.

So what?

If a government wants to subsidize a domestic producer directly or through currency manipulation, that government is taxing its own citizens to benefit the citizens of the importing country. Let them do it all day long. It is simply self-defeating. To see this, let’s do a thought experiment.

Suppose Korea, in an effort to guaranty large exports of Korean cars, decided to subsidize the manufacture of Hyundai and Kia cars such that the companies could sell their cars in the U.S. for a mere $1 dollar apiece. We would soon see lots of Hyundai and Kia cars on the road. And sales of other brands would dive. But American consumers would be richer and Korean taxpayers poorer because Korea would be effectively shipping products over to the U.S. and getting almost nothing in return.

Obviously, that wouldn’t last long because it would be so costly to Korean taxpayers that they would revolt. They would revolt because the favoritism (and corruption) of the arrangement is so transparent. But in principle there isn’t any real difference between the example given in this thought experiment and real world subsides and trade barriers. The only difference is that the thought experiment is clear and real world arrangements are opaque.

The Trump Trade Agenda

The Trump Trade agenda gives every indication of being old-fashioned protectionism implemented through tariffs and regulation, and gussied up as “Economic Nationalism”. The Trump argument is that it will increase employment and wages in America. Except that it won’t.

To the extent that people in protected industries keep jobs they do so at the price of higher costs and lower quality for consumers. It necessarily means that inefficiency is being subsidized, which in turn means that the dollars being shoveled into inefficient enterprises are being denied to innovative and efficient businesses that represent the growth of the future.

The path to increased economic growth and with it, higher wages, is one that recognizes the importance of achieving productivity gains through innovation and Schumpeterian creative destruction. It does not come through subsidizing failure; nor does it come by taxing consumers to privilege the industries with the best lobbying efforts.

Trumpian protectionism does not just fail to make the case in its own right; it is also undermines his stated intention to roll back the Regulatory, or Administrative State. Any serious effort to impose trade protectionism would entail massive increase in the power of the Administrative State. How are we to distinguish what is and is not an “American” product. How far back do we have to follow the supply chain to see whether a car manufactured in South Carolina counts as American or foreign. Are BMWs made in South Carolina foreign or American? How about Volvos? And who makes that determination and how?

Should we consider iPhones to be American products? There are about 750 or so parts suppliers, of which 69 are in the U.S. About 85% of the “rare earth” elements in the iPhone come from China. But the intellectual property of the iPhone has its home in Steve Jobs from California. And, by the way, Jobs’s biological father was a Syrian immigrant to the United States.

The Politics of Trade

Unfortunately, the current political environment does not favor trade. Trump has bought into the illiberal if not bizarre idea that Americans need to be protected from the freedom to trade. Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren have been there all along. Free traders dominate the Republican Congressional leadership, so perhaps they can limit the damage that Trump seems intent on inflicting in concert with Democratic Progressives. Trump has already moderated on some things; perhaps Paul Ryan will talk some sense into him and provide a fig leaf for a decorous retreat.

Paul Ryan
One can only hope.

JFB

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Mr. Bannon Goes to CPAC

Posted on February 26, 2017 by Joe Benning

In a fascinating address given at the CPAC annual convention, Trump political strategist Steve Bannon explicitly articulated the framework for the Trump Presidency over the next four years—and possibly beyond. His speech to the convention made it clear that the Trump Administration was not at all interested in tinkering around the edges. They mean to achieve structural reforms that, if enacted, will have profound effects on public administration for generations. (A video of his short speech is below.)

Bannon laid out what he referred to as three verticals that delineate policy areas that are the focus of the Trump Administration. They are:

National Security

Economic Nationalism

Deconstruction of the Administrative State

Bannon may call these policy areas as “verticals” but they are not isolated from one another; in fact they are inextricably intertwined. In some important ways they are at war with each other. It is for instance, flatly impossible to simultaneously deconstruct the Administrative State and implement a program of “Economic Nationalism”. That is because a program of Economic Nationalism is indistinguishable from a national Industrial Policy, which would ultimately be implemented by the bureaucracy. And it would face the usual problems of rent-seeking and regulatory capture.

Each of these three prongs will be addressed over time. Today, the focus will be on the idea of deconstructing the Administrative State, which lies at the heart of the agenda.

The Rise of the Administrative State

Excluding political junkies, public administration scholars, and specialists in administrative law, very few people are aware of how the modern Administrative State actually works in practice. The public thinks that policy is made when Congress passes legislation that becomes law upon being signed by the President. In reality, Congress does not pass “laws” as conventionally understood. Congress passes aspirations, e.g.—The Clean Water Act—and then as part of the law, instructs the relevant Agencies to promulgate rules to effectuate the law’s intent.

That’s where the trouble begins.

The devil is in the details, as they say, and the details are in the rules the Agency issues. After a comment period, the rules, possibly with adjustments, are then published in the Federal Register, at which point they have the force of law. This is where policy is actually made—in the rule making process. For example, to continue on with the Clean Water example, it makes a great deal of difference whether water is considered legally “clean” when it contains x quantity of pollutants per unit or y quantity of pollutants per unit. That type of decision is usually part of the rule-making process.

Unless Congress explicitly sets the standard when it passes a law, the regulatory Agency determines the standard. And according to current legal practice, Courts are supposed to show deference to Agency interpretation of the language of the law, even to the point where Courts are required to overturn their own interpretations of a law when it conflicts with Agency interpretation. This is known as the Chevron Doctrine, named after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Council (1984).

The Chevron ruling supercharged the growth of the Administrative State by increasing the power of the Agencies vis-à-vis the Courts and the Congress. Agencies clearly have an incentive to get the first shot at issuing an interpretation of a statute that enhances the Agency’s power, particularly if the Courts are supposed to show it deference. Moreover the Executive branch has an incentive to get an Agency to issue friendly interpretations of a statute before it is contested in a civil Court, because doing so would strengthen its case in the event of a subsequent lawsuit. The Obama Administration was famous for this, although the Courts did slap down the attempt to circumvent the law by obvious and deliberate Agency misinterpretations of it.

That said we now live in a society in which every facet of modern life is subject to direct or indirect regulatory review. Not only do the regulatory Agencies have an iron clad grip on the process, they are largely impervious to outside oversight. It is virtually impossible to effectively discipline, must less terminate, an incompetent civil servant. Moreover, some Agencies have investigative powers. Some have enforcement powers. Some have criminal enforcement powers, some civil. Agencies also have their own administrative courts—where the judges are selected by the Agency and the judges are employees of the Agency. In effect, some Agencies have the power to act as judge, jury and prosecutor.

The growth of the Administrative State means that policy formation and governance is left largely to an unaccountable bureaucracy with its own agenda. More accurately it represents a set of sometimes competing, sometimes-aligned interests and agendas operating far from pubic view. To the extent that an Agency is captured by an outside interest (often the case) it represents that interest rather than the public interest. The EPA for instance acts like a branch office of the Sierra Club. The Export-Import bank is an important source of subsidies for Boeing. And the weapons procurement bureaucracy at the Pentagon is in a league of its own.

It is clear, or ought to be, that the tremendous growth of the bureaucracy and its subsequent rule-making has stunted innovation, raised the cost of doing business, and has acted as a brake on competition by protecting existing businesses at the expense of potential new entrants into the marketplace. But that is not the worst of it. The worst of it is that it has upended the system of checks and balances that fosters healthy debate and forces compromise among competing interests. It has allowed Congress to pass aspirations instead of laws while leaving the heavy lifting for the bureaucracy. If things turn out well, Congress takes credit. If not, it’s obviously the fault of bureaucrats.

Deconstructing the Administrative State

Deconstructing the Administrative State is a project that virtually all libertarians can support. It is a project that will take years, if not decades to complete. Where to begin?

Executive Orders that overturn prior Executive Orders on matters that should have been decided by Congress are a good place to start. Not only does this teach the lesson that, in general, policy ought to be made by Congress, it reinforces the notion that truly durable policy ought to be formed in the give and take of democratic politics.

There is legislation before Congress right now that would require Congress to approve regulations that impose costs of $100 million or more. The House passed the REINS Act of 2017 on January 5, 2017. It would require a joint resolution of Congress approving all major rules until they can go into effect. That would force Congress to put its fingerprints on regulations that matter, thus forcing democratic accountability on Congress. It would also push the bureaucracy to be more accountable to Congress, thus restoring some of the checks and balances that have been lost over the years.

Another step the Congress should take is to pass legislation that overrules Chevron v. Natural Resources Council. There is no good reason why the Courts should show deference to an unaccountable (to the public) bureaucracy. Such deference is not only profoundly undemocratic; it invites abuse, and empowers the bureaucracy at the expense of the people’s elected representatives.

These three actions are a good place to start. But it is only a start. There is still a long way to go after that.

The Politics of Deconstruction

The political challenge of deconstructing the Administrative State is immense. Bureaucracies are quite adept at developing coalitions to protect them and their budgets. As a result, the inevitable failures of the bureaucracy are inevitably followed with perverse cries for more money—and they get it. Failure is rewarded, not punished. Remember the VA scandals of a few years back? Guess whether the VA budget today is larger or smaller. Hint: the correct answer isn’t smaller.

But the problem is a lot deeper than mere bureaucratic incompetence and perverse incentives. The problem is that regulatory Agencies are a means to an end desired by Progressives. That end is government by bureaucratic experts. More precisely it is government of, for, and by experts rather than elected representatives. It is profoundly undemocratic, inherently unaccountable and structurally incompatible with the U.S. constitutional order.

The U.S. constitution is designed “to secure the blessings of liberty” as the Declaration of Independence puts it. It does so by strictly limiting what government may legally do, leaving the pursuit of happiness to individuals, whose freedom is protected by government. That freedom inheres to the individual; it is a product of natural law, and is therefore pre-political.

The Progressive view, that the Constitution is a “living, breathing document” is fundamentally in conflict with the natural law interpretation. Where the natural law interpretation assumes men have rights by birth, the Progressive view is that rights come from the State. The natural law view sees property and contract rights as fundamental to men’s freedom and the pursuit of happiness. The Progressive view sees the pursuit of happiness in terms of entitlements. We are to be free from fear; we have a right to be well clothed, well housed and well fed.

While the natural law interpretation seeks to restrain government so as to allow maximum individual freedom, the Progressive view seeks to throw off restraints on government so that it can deliver the good life that men cannot achieve on their own. The mechanism to deliver the Progressive promise is the bureaucracy of the Administrative State. The Madisonian separation of powers in the U.S. constitution, designed to protect freedom, is an anathema to Progressives because it stands in the way of the Wilsonian goal of efficiency in administration.

And so when Steve Bannon said that the deconstruction of the Administrative State was a key policy goal of the Trump Administration he threw down the gauntlet. Deconstructing the Administrative State robs the Progressive movement of its prime tool, which is the bureaucracy. Deconstruction of the Administrative State leaves it an empty, powerless shell. Deconstructing the Administrative State and restricting government to its core legitimate functions would re-invigorate individual freedom and effort, leading to an explosion in economic growth and well-being, and a reduction in dependency.

The public policy question is, as always: markets or collectivism? The natural law viewpoint embedded in the constitution favors markets and individual freedom. The Progressive movement favors collectivism and central planning. The bureaucracy is its indispensable tool for command and control. Progressives and leftists of all stripes, trapped in the jejune utopianism of the 1960s, will fight with everything they have to squeeze a 21^st century economy into a 1930s bureaucratic structure and the stasis that goes with it.

Because the stakes are so high, the political battle will be fierce. Winning the battle will be a long and difficult process. But the choice is clear: freedom and dynamism or collectivism and stasis.

JFB

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Chaos

Posted on February 14, 2017 by Joe Benning

“Can’t anyone here play this game?” – Casey Stengel addressing the Mets.

Well, that was quick. After serving something like 3 weeks in the Trump Administration, General Mike Flynn was forced out as National Security Advisor. The proximate cause of the ouster was that Flynn misled Vice President Pence about his contacts with the Russian Ambassador in December after the election, but prior to President Trump’s inauguration. According to the New York Times, the Justice Department advised the White House that Flynn had not been “fully forthright” about his conversations with the ambassador.

The FBI had been examining Flynn’s phone calls as more questions were raised about his dealings with Russian officials. The FBI apparently decided that Flynn was subject to blackmail for covering his tracks with respect to what he told the White House. It also turns out that the Army has been investigating whether Flynn took money from the Russian government in a trip to Moscow in 2015. That could be a violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

For his part, General Flynn, in his resignation letter, implausibly claimed that he had inadvertently briefed then Vice-President elect Pence with “incomplete information” because of “the fast pace of events”.

Needless to say there are lots of calls for a Congressional Investigation. And predictably enough Democrats are asking what did the president know and when did he know it? Plenty of Republicans are wondering as well. According to Sean Spicer,
Trump knew for weeks that Flynn was lying and that after evaluating the situation, Trump asked for Flynn’s resignation. If that is true, it leaves open the question of why a replacement was not already waiting in the wings.

Let’s unpack what is going on here.

For starters, General Flynn was incredibly foolish. He had to know that his contacts with Russian officials were being monitored. (Whether they should have been is another matter entirely.) If it is in fact true that he lied to Pence, he had to go. And if the Director of National Security can’t remember the substance of his conversations with Russian officials, that’s a reason for dismissal as well.

Importantly, we do not know whether Flynn’s behavior was sanctioned by Trump, or whether he went off the reservation, and if so, why.

Leaving aside the apparent violation of protocol (imagine that, a Trump official violates protocol) let’s not kid ourselves about what is going on with the Army’s investigation of Flynn’s financial dealings with the Russian Government. It is a potential test case for the Emoluments Clause, which the Democrats intend to use when they get around to impeaching Trump in 2019 if they take control of Congress in the mid-term elections. Trump being Trump, he seems determined to give them plenty of ammunition.

But let’s not get carried away. Sloppy transitions are not all that unusual. George Stephanopoulos didn’t last very long in the White House briefing room before that responsibility was turned over to Dee Dee Myers, who also didn’t last very long. Mike McCurry finally took over. It took the first Clinton Administration 2 failed attempts to get an Attorney General before settling on Janet Reno. Remember Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood? And that was when the same party controlled the White House and Congress.

Clinton’s first chief of staff, Mack McLarty a childhood friend was appointed in January 1993 only to be replaced by Leon Panetta in July 1994. Then there was the nomination of Bobby Inman as Secretary of Defense in January of 1994 to take over from Les Aspin after the fiasco in Mogadishu that was the subject of the book and later the film “Black Hawk Down”. Inman subsequently withdrew a few days later after a rambling speech on national television in which he attacked imagined enemies. William Perry later took the job.

Once again with the Trump Administration it is worth remembering Napoleon’s aphorism never to ascribe to malice that which is easily explainable by incompetence. Now would be a good time to get a few adults in the White House the way Clinton eventually did when he hired people like David Gergen and Leon Panetta. Otherwise, Trump, who is rapidly being schooled in the ways of the Beltway, stands a not-insignificant chance of being impeached down the road.

JFB

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A Win for School Choice

Posted on February 7, 2017 by Joe Benning

The Teacher’s Unions launched an all-out blitz against Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Education. In the end she was confirmed, but just barely. After 2 Republicans and all Democratic Senators voted against her, it took the vote of Vice President Mike Pence to break the tie and put her over the top 51 – 50.

The hysteria over the DeVos nomination was evident in the Senate debate in the opening statement made by Senator Patty Murray (Washington, D) Ranking Member of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Senator Murray rose as she put it “to strongly oppose Betsy DeVos and her plan to privatize public schools and destroy public education in America.” That gem, Trumpian in its subtlety and nuance, can be seen at about 17 seconds into her opening statement, shown in the video below.

Senator Murray probably didn’t come up with that one all by herself. Her puppet masters, the Teachers Unions did. Listen to Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers. She said that “In nominating DeVos Trump makes it loud and clear that his education policy will focus on privatizing, defunding and destroying public education in America”.

What Senator Murray is actually complaining about is the fact that Betsy DeVos is an ardent champion of charter schools and using vouchers to give parents the power of choice in the education marketplace. Not only that, she has actually spent her own money to promote the idea. But Senator Murray, who attended St. Brendan’s Catholic School and who routinely describes herself as “pro-choice” is bound and determined to prevent parents from exercising choice in their children’s education.

Let’s understand the politics here. There is a furious battle to define the issue because (leaving aside vested interests) polling data indicate that while the public (and especially minorities) tends to look favorably on school choice, the support is soft, and often dependent on how polling questions are worded. That said, there is a reason why reactionary liberals, of which Murray is one, resist any and all efforts to reform public schools. For them it has nothing to do with students. Public schools are a jobs program for a special interest group that showers them with campaign money and campaign workers.

And so at all costs, they resist experimentation and defend failure. Statistics published by the OECD and the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) show the abysmal results coming out of the public school system. Among the 34 countries of the OECD the U.S. is about average in reading. But in mathematics, it ranks 27th while spending more than most. The OECD found that “Students in the United States have a particular weakness in performing mathematics tasks with higher cognitive demands, such as taking real-world situations, translating them into mathematical terms, and interpreting mathematical aspects in real-world problems.” But, “Students in the U.S. are largely satisfied with their school and view teacher-student relations positively”. In other words they are perfectly happy to be mediocre at best.

The NAEP statistics, some of which are summarized in the Table below, are in some respects even more appalling. Of 8th graders in America, only 33% are at or above proficiency in mathematics. In reading it is only 35%. The black / white gap in mathematics is stunning. Some 43% of white 8th graders are at or above proficiency, but only 13% of black students are. The only group that scores well is that of Asian and Pacific Islanders. In math and reading, they score at or above proficiency at 59% and 52% respectively.

Let’s cut to the chase. Does anybody seriously think that the public schools are serving minority students well when only 13% of black 8th graders are at or above proficiency in mathematics? And without the rigors of competition to replace union rules why would anyone expect this unconscionable state of affairs to change? The answer is, it won’t.

Upper class and upper middle class parents regardless of race do not face the same problem getting an education for their kids. They have the wherewithal to send their kids to private schools. As a result, public schools in well-to-do districts actually face real competition, which is one, but only one reason why schools in wealthy areas perform better. In addition, good schools are capitalized into housing prices, putting those schools out of reach for low-income families who can’t afford to buy homes in wealthy neighborhoods. They are effectively trapped in failing schools without a way out.

This tendency, and its racial effects, was recently emphasized in a study published by the New School in New York’s Greenwich Village. The study found that more than half of the city’s public schools are more than 90% black and Latino. The study’s authors attribute this level of segregation to the tendency of wealthy parents to “vote with their feet”. Rather than risk sending their kids to a neighborhood school with a history of low test scores, they opt to send their kids to private and charter schools. So conventional public schools are abandoned and wind up being islands of academic failure, largely for poor and minority kids.

Educational opportunity ought to be the Civil Rights battle of the early 21st century. But it, like just about everything else, seems to have become a partisan issue, although it remains true that people from across the ideological spectrum have favored different forms of school choice. Milton Friedman the famous libertarian economist was an ardent proponent of school vouchers. Eva Moskowitz, a liberal Democrat, is a strong proponent of Charter Schools. Governor Andrew Cuomo has sided with Moskowitz against Mayor Bill DeBlasio in Charter School political battles.

School choice is not a panacea. There are no panaceas. But there is evidence that strongly suggests that well-run charter and private schools produce results that are measurably better than public schools at statistically significant levels in poor areas. What is beyond serious dispute is that public schools, in poor areas without effective competition, have produced failure. And there is no incentive for them to improve. It is unconscionable that is allowed to continue and that politicians go on protect failing schools by resisting experimentation and innovation.

On June 11, 1963, George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, stood in the school house door at Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama to try to block the entry of two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood. Wallace’s was a forlorn attempt to keep his campaign pledge of “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”.

Intentions aside, Patty Murray and her colleagues are slamming the door on minority and disadvantaged students no less forcefully than George Wallace tried to do in 1963. The saddest part of all is that up until this point, Murray and her colleagues have been more effective than Wallace.

Perhaps that is about to end.

JFB

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Neil Gorsuch On Deck

Posted on February 5, 2017 by Joe Benning

Donald Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court is something that should cheer libertarians during a time when their hasn’t been much to cheer about. Judge Gorsuch has often been described as coming from the same mold as Antonin Scalia. But while both Scalia and Gorsuch have described themselves as originalists, Gorsuch’s sensibilities appear to be be far more libertarian than Scalia’s, whose sympathies tended to have a more of a majoritarian bent. Moreover, Gorsuch appears to part company with Scalia in an important area of Administrative law, namely the Chevron doctrine. More about Chevron later.

The hysteria generated by the nomination is impressive if for no other reason than the way it exposed left-wing gullibility. For example Salon managed to make Rolling Stone’s reporting look meticulously researched by comparison when they published and then retracted a claim that Gorsuch founded and led an organization named “Fascists Forever” while he attended an elite Jesuit prep school. The fact that the charge was taken with an ounce of seriousness, though obviously preposterous on its face, simply points to the credulousness of reporters who were only writing about fake news a couple of days ago.

It is understandable that Progressives are dismayed by the choice of Gorsuch to replace Scalia on the Court, because Gorsuch’s jurisprudence is a dagger pointed at the heart of the 100 year old Progressive Project. The underlying theory of that project is that government, staffed by the best and brightest, knows what’s best. And because government knows best, it will adopt the role of Plato’s Philosopher King and manage the lives of its citizens by controlling and limiting their choices through the regulatory mechanisms of the Administrative State.

It was then-Professor Woodrow Wilson (at Bryn Mawr 1887) who articulated the rationale for the bureaucracy that would grow into today’s beast. He argued that the complexities of modern life (remember this is in 1887) required a government by experts with large powers and unhampered discretion. The separation of powers that Madison devised to protect freedom by constraining government, was something to be scorned. It was simply an impediment to efficiency.

The huge, unaccountable and often coercive bureaucracy of the modern Administrative State is the result. Virtually every aspect of citizens’ lives is regulated various levels of bureaucracy. Obamacare, for instance, requires citizens to buy health insurance. The EPA determines how much water should be used each time a toilet is flushed. It is virtually impossible to build a bridge, road or pipeline anywhere without running into a wall of regulatory resistance. Couples without children are forced to buy health care insurance for the children they don’t have. Entry and exit into virtually every business in the country, from banking to nail salons to flower shops requires some sort of licensing by some government agency. Regulators have even shut down the occasional front-yard lemonade stand for reasons of non-compliance with some regulation.

One of the best measures of the growth of Administrative State is the size Federal Register, which contains proposed regulations from agencies, finalized rules, notices, corrections and presidential documents. The Federal Register was 2,620 pages long in 1936. By the end of 2015 it had topped 80,000 pages.

Pages in Federal Register

The National Association of Manufacturers estimated that the annual cost of regulations at about $2 trillion. Using a similar methodology, the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimated the annual cost at about $1.88 trillion. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University estimates that regulations that distort investment decisions have reduced average annual growth in the U.S. by 0.8% from 1977 to 2012.

These regulations are almost always marketed as regulations on businesses, but the reality is that the costs are almost always borne by consumers. Not only that, the well-connected are also accomplished at extracting economic rents through the strategic use of regulations, including the imposition of regulatory costs on their competitors. For their part, regulators are only too willing to play this game of regulatory capture because they travel back and forth between the bureaucracy and the businesses they oversee, supposedly on behalf of the people.

To make sure that the game goes on the Administrative Agencies have their own administrative courts, with the judges appointed by Agency heads. So the Agencies get to play judge, jury and prosecutor. And the (non-agency) courts have traditionally shown deference to Agency interpretations of regulations, thus closing the loop on citizens who naively believe that law-making should be done by the legislature and that the laws should mean what they say, rather than what some bureaucrat wants them to say.

That is where Judge Neil Gorsuch comes in. He has challenged the idea that the courts should show deference to government Agencies, a standard known as the Chevron doctrine, named after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Council (1984). In Chevron the Court ruled that courts must defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute that it administers. By 2005 that ruling had been broadened extended in NCTA v. Brand X Internet Services. In that case the Court held that courts must overrule their own interpretations about the meanings of existing laws in favor of later agency interpretations that satisfy Chevron.

Then in Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch (2016) a unanimous panel granted an illegal alien’s petition for a review of a Board of Immigration Appeals order that denied his eligibility to apply for lawful residency. In a concurring opinion Gorsuch wrote that the Chevron standard “[permitted] executive bureaucracies to swallow huge amounts of core judicial and legislative power and concentrate federal power in a way that seems more than a little difficult to square with the Constitution of the framers’ design”. He went on to call for the Supreme Court to reconsider the soundness of the Chevron doctrine. (See Ed Whelan in National Review for more detail on these and other relevant cases).

Writing in National Review, Ed Whalen summarizes these cases and goes on to argue that the Chevron rule of judicial deference is ideologically neutral. It depends, he writes, on who is running a given Agency at a given time.

I disagree with that part of his analysis.

The entire Progressive project requires a massive bureaucracy vested with substantial power and discretion to manage the Administrative State, and through it the lives of the citizens. Moreover, the Administrative State will necessarily struggle for dominance over those institutions of civil society that protect citizens’ individual freedoms. That is because the goal is efficiency in the Public Administration, not the protection of liberty that the Madisonian architecture of government demands. In the Administrative State freedom is neither real nor inherent; it is merely instrumental. Hence the hysteria by the left over Citizen’s United.

Free markets provide free choices for consumers, but they are an anathema to the command-and-control mentality of the Administrative State. Freedom of speech and assembly, and the right to the free exercise of religion means that citizens have an inherent right to those activities; those rights pre-exist government. It is the government’s responsibility to secure those rights. Legitimate government authority is limited to its enumerated powers in the Constitution. But religious institutions have a claim to a higher authority, which is why religious freedom is so important for individual freedom. It is why, for instance, government may not legally force a priest to testify about what he heard in the Confessional.

This does not sit well with secular progressives. Which is why there is on ongoing campaign to weaken religious institutions and diminish their authority by bending them to the will of the State. It is why, for instance, the Obama administration attempted to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to provide contraceptives and abortafacients against their religious objections. It is why John Podesta, as revealed in his leaked e-mails, was looking for a way to undermine the Catholic Church so as to make it a political instrument of progressives. And let’s not forget that it was Obama who dismissively referred to people who “cling to their guns and religion.”

Nor is government a neutral observer in the culture wars. It actively promotes a progressive agenda through the bureaucracy. That is why it forces bakers and photographers to participate in same sex wedding ceremonies rather than to carve out religious exceptions. Anyone who doubts this should ask why it was otherwise OK for pop singers, fashion designers and movie stars to refuse to participate in Trump’s inauguration ceremonies, but a photographer can be forced against his religious beliefs to participate in a wedding ceremony. Or, for that matter, why locker room use has become the current obsession of the left.

Anyway, back to Neil Gorsuch. In his writings he has challenged the Chevron doctrine. That doctrine has supercharged the growth of the Administrative State and the vast bureaucracy it depends on to rule. Moreover, he has made clear the importance he places on the free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the First amendment. For instance he ruled in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor and Hobby Lobby. (A brief summary of his record on religious liberty cases is available here.) In a clash between government power and the free exercise clause, it is pretty clear where Gorsuch stands.

The modern progressive State needs a vast bureaucracy to rule. And this modern progressive bureaucracy is at war with the Constitution as it was originally written. The progressive dream (more like a nightmare to the community of the sane) of an efficient central bureaucracy to manage the country cannot be squared with the separation of powers embedded in the structure of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution is the mechanism designed to secure the blessings of liberty promised in the Declaration of Independence. It is designed to constrain, not empower government, so that individuals can have maximum freedom to live their own lives as they see fit.

Judge Gorsuch’s defense of religious liberty, freedom of speech, for that matter the entire Bill of Rights, and his challenge to the Chevron doctrine and therefore the primacy of the bureaucracy over liberty make him a deadly threat to the progressive project. Which is why, despite his having graduated from Columbia, Harvard Law, and Oxford (for his D.Phil.), progressives will pretend that he is “out of the mainstream” and therefore not qualified to be an Associate Justice. The irony is that Judge Gorsuch is precisely the type of judge who gives every indication that he will not hesitate to rule against the Trump Administration as it seeks to increase executive power. Liberals ought to think about that; Progressives are probably too far gone.

Judge Gorsuch will become the next Associate Justice. The only question is whether or not the Democrats try to filibuster. If they do, Mitch McConnell will go for the nuclear option, using Harry Reid’s destructive precedent, and Gorsuch will be confirmed with less than 60 votes. Plenty of Republicans would like to see it happen this way, because it will make the (possible) second nomination that much easier.

While Libertarians ought to be pleased about the choice of Gorsuch, they ought to be wary of another procedural blocking point—the filibuster—falling by the wayside. We can add that possibility to the long list of destructive consequences arising from the work of Harry Reid.

JFB

P.S. The video below, well worth watching, is a discussion of Gorsuch’s nomination by Randy Barnett, the libertarian law professor from Georgetown.

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Donald J Trump: Unleashed and Unhinged

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Joe Benning

A lot of conservatives have been scouring Donald Trump’s inaugural address in search of some encouraging signs. They are going to be looking for a long time. Not once did Trump utter the words Freedom or Liberty. Nor did he even intimate that he would attempt to reduce the size and power of an already bloated government. On the contrary, he promised to expand its use of coercion to redirect trade and investment.

“From this day forward” Mr. Trump said, “it’s going to be only America first, America first.” He went on “We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our product (sic), stealing our companies and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to a great prosperity and strength”. If it does, it will be the first time in history.

The nonsense jam-packed into Trump’s remarks is testament to invincible ignorance, even by Trumpian standards. It is simply undeniable that global trade agreements in combination with free capital markets have enabled enormous gains in economic efficiency, making the world far richer today than it has ever been before. Economic illiterates aside, free trade has lifted billions of people out of horrific poverty. And it has greatly benefitted American consumers; particularly lower income consumers, by reducing prices for tradable goods.

It is clear that Trump sees the world as a zero-sum game. My gain is your loss. But in the real world, trade is a mutually beneficial and voluntary exchange of value that leaves both sides better off. That’s why the counterparties trade. However, in the zero-sum world of Trump, mutually beneficial trade is not possible. One side has to win and one has to lose. Which of course means that there is no such thing as free trade, or any real freedom at all. There is only power and coercion.

This Hobbesian conception of the world is the one subscribed to by Trump. It is is one in which life is nasty, brutish and short. It is a world of self-help where the strong coerce the weak. Behavioral norms do not matter. Peace is merely the interval between wars. This is the worldview that serves as a reference point for Donald Trump, the self-described counter-puncher. It is also how Vladimir Putin sees the world.

In International Relations theory this Hobbesian view is the foundation of the school of thought known as political Realism. It is distinct from Smithian Liberalism and Kantian cosmopolitanism. (Note—Realism is a term of art. American politicians who call themselves foreign policy “realists” typically misuse the term.)

The political, economic and security architecture of the post war era is based on Smithian Liberalism. In this world, the nation-state is the primary organizational unit of world politics. Governments of nation-states exist to protect the rights of citizens. But while nation-states are sovereign over their own territory, the global system suffers from structural anarchy.

Smithian Liberalism recognizes the structural anarchy of world politics, and so it builds multi-lateral institutions to mitigate its harmful effects. That is why we have NATO, the World Bank, the IMF, the United Nations, free trade agreements and international policy regimes. The Liberal states that created these institutions embrace and protect the rule of law, property rights, individual rights and market economics. Note: these institutions are not supra-national organizations, possessing their own sovereignty. They remain instruments of states, whose behavior is guided by power, self-interest, international norms and policy values.

From the end of World War II until the present, this is the world we have lived in, with the framework implicitly guaranteed by the United States. It is without doubt the case that this Pax Americana has led to unprecedented gains in well being in the West and around the world.

Donald Trump threw a wrecking ball at all this in his inaugural address.

By threatening trade wars through an “America First” policy he threatens to tear apart the Liberal architecture of the post war era that has delivered unprecedented peace and prosperity to so many people around the world. And because of the structural anarchy of world politics, Liberal institutions rely on trust and norms. Trashing those norms is destructive, even if “only” to stake out a negotiating position.

The irony is that for all of Trump’s blather about getting rid of regulations, he is threatening to embark on one of the greatest expansions of the regulatory state in history, not to mention the use of the bully pulpit to browbeat citizens whose rights he has sworn to protect. For instance His Majesty announced he was entering the decree issuing business. HRH Trump, (note the use of the royal “We”) said, “We…are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital and in every hall of power.” He went on to say, “We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American.”

Where does he think he gets the authority to command citizens to “buy American”? Let’s think about that for a moment. Then let’s think about the magnitude and absurdity of the edict and what implementing it would actually entail.

U.S. GDP is about $18 trillion, which is about 17% of Gross World Product (GWP). Trade (the sum of exports and imports) accounts for about $5 trillion in the U.S., or 28% of U.S. GDP. How, exactly, does His Royal Highness propose to go about quashing $5 trillion worth of trade, equal to about 28% of GDP without a huge increase in the power of the regulatory state? Does he seriously intend to place large tariffs on imported goods, thereby imposing a new tax on American consumers? Does he intend to give the IRS even more regulatory enforcement powers? Does he not think—to the extent he thinks at all—that foreign governments will respond in kind? How exactly is all this supposed to help?

The answer is that it won’t help anybody. The only question is how much damage these policies would do if enacted and implemented.

Donald Trump and his supporters have provided an object lesson in the dangers of combining ignorance and enthusiasm. Let us hope that the remaining adults on Capital Hill will recognize the danger and reassert Congress’s powers under the Constitution as a co-equal branch of government. At which point they should begin to dismantle the worst excesses of the regulatory state and block Donald Trump rather than acquiesce as he attempts to expand it.

Otherwise it’s going to be a long four years.

JFB

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The Permanent Government Strikes Back

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Joe Benning

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell, 1984.

As we approach inauguration day the Lefty meltdown has morphed into a strategy that Orwell would recognize. It is to embed in the psyche of the body politic the narrative that the election of Donald Trump as the 45^th President of the U.S. was so deeply flawed as to make his impending Presidency illegitimate. Civil Rights icon John Lewis was explicit on the point. He said: “I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president. I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. ”

That is the type of casuistry that politicians routinely, if dishonorably, employ. However it is unusual in the United States to take it to the point of questioning the legitimacy of a Presidential election. And so Mr. Lewis should be prepared to answer a few questions. For instance: Who, if not Donald Trump, is the legitimate President? And if not Donald Trump, are his actions ipso facto illegal? If not, why not? Should citizens feel free to ignore any regulatory rules promulgated and implemented under a Trump Administration? If not, why not?

I doubt that the Congressman will consider, much less address, these points.

The Intelligence Community

The intelligence community—really the intelligence bureaucracy—is in the middle of the scrimmage. They are, after all, the source of most of the leaks about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election cycle. And they continue to pretend to be surprised about Russia’s behavior. The critical question is: What possible motivation could the intelligence bureaucracy have in leaking all this stuff?

The answer is that the intelligence bureaucracy, like all bureaucracies, is a bureaucracy that is first and foremost interested in protecting its hide. And the President-elect has made his disdain for the intelligence services clear. He has a point in his criticism. The intelligence bureaucracy has been caught flat-footed on key national security events more than once, to put it mildly. What better way to protect the bureaucracy than to change the subject by attacking the messenger?

A History of Missed Signals

The CIA’s history of screw-ups is long and colorful. For instance, there were the comic opera attempts to assassinate Castro, not to mention the disastrous invasion at the Bay of Pigs, led by the CIA. The Berlin wall came down in 1989 catching the CIA in its usual position—asleep at the switch. Likewise the intelligence services did not have a clue that Saddam was going to invade Kuwait until he was at the doorstep.

In 1983 terrorists bombed a Marine barracks in Beirut killing 241 American Marines. In 1996 terrorists blew up Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, which was being used by coalition forces who were enforcing a no-fly zone in Southern Iraq. In 1998 U.S. embassies were simultaneously bombed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. There is no evidence that the CIA was even vaguely aware of an imminent threat. And obviously, the terrorist plots succeeded.

The intelligence community was surprised by the nuclear tests conducted by Pakistan in May 1998 code named Chagai-1. And on the subject of nukes, CIA chief George Tenet famously declared it a “slam dunk” that Iraq had nukes. Most famously, the U.S. was blindsided by both World Trade Center bombings—the one in 1993 and 9/11. Students of the game will remember that immediately after the attack, the CIA went it CYA mode, proclaiming the method of attack to be unprecedented and therefore unpredictable. Which conveniently enough, let the CIA off the hook.

But the CIA claim was a lie. Back in 1996, Robin Wright, an expert on Islam and Middle East politics published a book on Islamic militancy called Sacred Rage. Note the date. (An updated version was re-published in 2001, but the original was published in 1996). In the book Wright recounted the story of an unusual style of civilian jet take off at an airport in the Middle East not too far from an American base. That incident started a scramble by the Americans because officials at the time were afraid that the plane might be used as a weapon to attack them. So the U.S. government was well aware as early as 1996 that civilian jets could be hijacked and used as weapons against U.S. targets.

Beyond Incompetence

The observation “Never ascribe to malice that which is easily explained by incompetence” is usually and probably incorrectly attributed to Napoleon. Rather than malice in the case of the intelligence agencies, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that self-interest has played a part in their piling on Trump. Consider the role of Mike Morrell, former acting CIA Director.

Over the summer of 2016 Morrell (having already stepped down as acting CIA Director) penned an op-ed, published by the New York Times, in which he endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. Having a top former CIA executive, one who is privy to the secrets, come out as a political partisan is extraordinary. What he said is even more astonishing. He wrote: “In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

As it turns out, that is the same Mike Morrell who was accused by six Republican Senators of lying under oath in testimony to Congress over his role in the Benghazi affair. Two of the topics that drew interest according to the Weekly Standard were: (1) Morrell (according to the Senators) obfuscated his role in rewriting Benghazi talking points, and (2)he falsely claimed that the talking points were provided to the White House as a heads-up, not for co-ordination purposes.

Mike Morrell is now a Senior Counselor at Beacon Global Strategies, a firm close to Hillary Clinton whose founders include Philippe Reines, who also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under Hillary Clinton from 2009—2013. Prior to that he served as Senator Clinton’s Senior Advisor and Press Secretary from 2002 – 2009. So let’s dispense with the idea that Michael Morrell is like Jimmy Stewart, speaking truth to power in a modern day Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

Michael Morrell is hardly alone in his characterization of Trump. Michael Hayden, director of the NSA from 1999 to 2005, and Director of the CIA from 2006 to 2009 said, in the Washington Post,
that the term he prefers to describe Trump is “polezni durak, [which refers to a] useful fool, some naïf, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited.”

John Brennan, the outgoing CIA Director, saw fit to give Trump a public lecture on the dangers posed by the Soviet Union on the Sunday talkies. He said, among other things, that Trump lacked a full understanding of the threats Moscow poses to the U.S.

Then there is the Buzz Feed story about the “dossier” containing all sorts of unverified accusations against Trump. At this stage of the game you have to wonder what anybody could have that would make any difference anyway. Be that as it may, reputable news organizations have had copies of this dossier, which originated as Republican oppo research, for months. They didn’t publish it, because they couldn’t verify it. But in the wake of the Buzz Feed story, somehow or other the story got out that President-elect Trump would be briefed on its contents. That made it front-page news, an utterly predictable event, that any leaker would have to know.

James Clapper, who has acknowledged he lied under oath to Congress, assures us that he doesn’t believe that the Intelligence Community leaked the story. In discussing a recent meeting with Trump, Clapper said “We also discussed the private security company document, which was widely circulated in recent months among the media, members of Congress, and Congressional staff even before the [Intelligence Community] became aware of it. I emphasized that this document is not a U.S. Intelligence Community product and that I do not believe the leaks came from within the IC”.

Great. So we have a spy telling us that he doesn’t think any of his agencies leaked a particular document. Well that settles that.

The Upshot

It is entirely possible, in fact it is probable, that assessments by former and soon-to-be former intelligence officials about Trump’s understanding of world politics are entirely accurate if not understated. Trump continues to act like a belligerant adolescent when challenged. He has yet to demonstrate any sense of nuance, much less intellectual curiosity. Whether it’s all just an act is anybody’s guess. That aside, it is way beyond the pale for the intelligence agencies to be acting the way they are acting. They are supposed to be independent providers of information to elected officials and certain appointees. They are not supposed to be policy advocates, much less in public.

Keep in mind that this sort of public hand wringing by intelligence officials was nowhere to be seen when Obama got caught on an open mike telling Putin that he could be more accommodative after the 2012 election. Nor were the alarmists anywhere to be found when Obama derided Romney during the 2012 election cycle when Romney pointed to Russia as our greatest geo-political threat. All of which suggests that the motives here are less than pure.

It ought to be crystal clear that there is an ongoing attempt to delegitimize the 2016 election, and its results. A bitter opposition party is in denial of its loss—not just of the White House, but also both Houses of Congress, and a majority of governorships and state legislatures. And it is working hard to convince its base that the election was stolen by Trump with the help of Russia. Recent polling data suggests that fully half of Hillary Clinton voters believe that Russia’s hacking changed votes on Election Day. For that matter something like 60% of Trump voters are convinced that millions of illegal votes were cast. There is zero evidence of either proposition.

It isn’t just elected opposition officials who are trying to gin this up. The permanent bureaucracy is threatened by the election result and is in semi-open revolt. The intelligence agencies are leading the pack, egged on by the elected opposition. The intelligence agencies have set about undermining the incoming Administration, by sowing doubt about the election result—which, by the way, is exactly what they were accusing Vladimir Putin of doing when they assumed Hillary Clinton would win.

Count on other agencies with their own agendas to do the same thing when they can.

It is especially disturbing, but not surprising, to see the permanent government, which is to say, the bureaucracy, at war with elected officials. It is an unmistakable sign that the bureaucracy’s first priority is self-protection. And it is a telling indication of how arrogant and dangerously unaccountable the permanent government has become. Note too that it is Progressives who are working with, and providing cover for, the permanent bureaucracy in order to achieve political goals.

A thorough housecleaning is in order. The sooner the better.

JFB

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“Silence” by Martin Scorsese

Posted on January 14, 2017 by Joe Benning

Martin Scorsese’s Silence is a complicated film. Based on a novel of the same name by Shusaku Endo, it tells the story of 2 Jesuit priests in the 17^th century who set out for Japan to find their mentor, Father Ferreira (played by Liam Nelson). Father Ferreira has gone missing and is rumored to have renounced his Christian faith.

The mission of the two priests, Father Rodgrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Garupe (Adam Driver) is especially hazardous because Japan is in the midst of a brutal persecution of Christian missionaries and converts in an attempt to rid the island country of Christianity once and for all. The persecution tries to get Christians to renounce their faith, most especially by forcing them to violate symbols of the faith by, among other things, publicly spitting on a crucifix.

Scorsese pulls no punches in depicting the savagery of the persecution. There are burnings at the stake; beheadings and crucifixions galore that are designed to maximize suffering before death finally come as a relief. But it isn’t sadism for sadism’s sake. It has a point, and that point is to dissuade would be converts, and then to persuade the already converted, and especially the missionaries, to renounce their faith. The obvious analogy is to ISIS.

The priests, who are caught relatively early on, pray for guidance and courage as they face their persecutors. But as time goes by they fear there is no answer for their prayers. They hear silence. And so at a most basic level the film is a story of the struggle for belief and meaning in a cold and pitiless world gone mad. And, as Scorsese makes clear, it isn’t just any belief or Religion that will do. It is Christian religious belief.

Scorsese presents the struggle on several levels. The first is with respect to the priests as they try to cope with the predicament they find themselves in after they are captured. Is it permissible for them to act strategically and to pretend to renounce their faith to save others? Are the priests really acting like Christians if they hold out, but others must suffer in their place as a result?

At another level he presents the problem of defining just authority. The priests who smuggle themselves into Japan make claims to universalism. Their beliefs are religious, not political. But Japanese political authorities see the world very differently. They view Christianity as a mortal threat. In fact, they see the Christian claim to universalism as the heart of the threat.

Claims to universalism, the inherent dignity of the individual and free will are theologically indispensable to Christianity, as is the view that human nature is essentially fixed, not infinitely malleable. These ideas are now, and always have been, threatening to Kings, Queens, dictators, authoritarians and totalitarians as well as utopians of all varieties. For they look at the Church in purely secular terms, as a competitor for power and influence.

To wall off the dangers posed by the West and Christianity, Japanese political authorities decided to keep Japan isolated. For example, only the Dutch were permitted to send their ships to trade with Japan, and the sailors were not permitted to bring religious objects like medals, crucifixes and rosaries on land with them. Here the allegory to the Middle East is unmistakable. In Saudi Arabia for instance, churches are not permitted, nor is it permissible to possess religious items from faiths other than Islam, even for Western guest workers.

The analogy to the Middle East is not the only one on display. There is another, albeit a subtler one. The Grand Inquisitor, who manages the Japanese persecution, is not all that interested in simply killing off peasants who profess Christian belief. To prevent Christianity from taking root, he means to publicly break the priests to the yoke of the State. Once he does that, the priests are no longer a threat. They are worse than neutered; they are transformed into instruments of the regime. It is a profound betrayal on the order of Winston’s in George Orwell’s novel 1984.

In 1984, Winston was finally broken by Big Brother when he screamed for his torturers to “do it to Julia” (his lover) so he could be relieved of the agony of his worst nightmare. His betrayal signaled his brokenness. Once broken, the State could proceed to execute him. When they did so Orwell describes Winston as content and happy as the executioner’s bullet entered his brain.

But there are differences in the two cases. Winston betrayed a person, his lover. Once broken, Winston was no longer useful to the State and could be killed. In Silence, the priests are meant to be useful to the State, and so are turned into instruments of the State. The State means to use them to control what people believe as well as how they behave.

Which of course brings us to the case of Little Sisters of the Poor vs. Burwell (2016). In that case the Obama Administration, through the Affordable Care Act, tried to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to provide or finance coverage for contraceptives including abortafacients, despite their well-established religious objection to doing so. After the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the Little Sisters, the Obama Administration admitted that it could achieve its goals in ways that did not require the contraceptive mandate. Which means that the point of the exercise was to break the Little Sisters to the yoke of the State.

There are lessons and analogies in Silence everywhere you look. It is in every respect a thinking man’s movie. It presents excruciatingly difficult dilemmas for which there are no easy answers, and it doesn’t pretend there are easy answers. There is sufficient ambiguity right up to and including the end of the film, so that the questions and conflicts raised still linger after the final credits roll.

Silence cost $50 million to make and is projected to make just 2 to 3 million dollars its first weekend. That is unfortunate, but not altogether surprising. At 2 hours and 39 minutes, the movie is relatively long. It is decidedly adult. The actors are not the politically correct comic book super heroes that are all the rage these days, and the dialogue is often subtle and nuanced. It is well worth seeing.

JFB

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Hacking, Shmacking

Posted on January 5, 2017 by Joe Benning

As the controversy over Russian hacking swirls around the capital, it is well worth remembering Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s admonition that Intelligence should never be confused with intelligence. Consider this when listening to National Intelligence Director James Clapper’s testimony before Congress, especially when he said this: “I don’t think that we have ever encountered a more aggressive or direct campaign to interfere in our electoral process.” He then went on to say that the Russian hacking efforts “did not change the vote tallies” in the election. In fact, no one has credibly asserted that the Russians (or anyone else outside of Cook County) even attempted to tamper with voting machines.
James Clapper

What it comes down to is this. The CIA has determined that the Russians probably tried to influence the results by planting unflattering stories about the Democrats in general and Hillary Clinton in particular. Well, you don’t say. Perhaps the real story is that James Clapper seems to think that Russia’s behavior constitutes the most aggressive campaign they (read the KGB) have ever launched to influence U.S. politics.

It’s pretty hard to understand why Clapper thinks this is so aggressive compared to past behavior. The KGB organized and financed huge demonstrations and all kinds of agitprop to try to prevent the U.S. from deploying Pershing missiles in Europe during the early 1980s. Just like they financed and helped to organize Peace groups in the 1960s in the U.S. and Europe. Including the more violent ones like the Red Brigades and the Bader Meinhof gang.

Then there was the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981, ordered by Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party in Russia. Prior to this assassination attempt, Andropov ran the KGB just like Putin. And while we are on this trip down memory lane, let’s not forget about the Weather Underground, an offshoot of the Weatherman, which in turn was an offshoot of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

It turns out that some Members of the Weather Underground collaborated on and published a manifesto advocating the violent overthrow of the U.S. government in order to build socialism and create a Dictatorship of the Proletariat. I wonder where they got that idea? And is there any question where at least some of their support was coming from?

Anyway, here is what the manifesto said (in part). “The only path to the final defeat of imperialism and the building of socialism is revolutionary war … Socialism is the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the eradication of the social system based on profit … Revolutionary war will be complicated and protracted … It includes mass struggle and clandestine struggle, peaceful and violent, political and economic, cultural and military, where all forms are developed in harmony with the armed struggle. Without mass struggle there can be no revolution. Without armed struggle there can be no victory.”

The authors of this gem include Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who as it happens are friends of none other than Barrack Obama. And it’s not like this was just idle chitchat. The Weather Underground and their ilk were responsible for multiple murders on top of a wave of rioting, bank robberies, bombings and other crimes.

Which brings us back to James Clapper. How can anyone, much less the Director of National Intelligence, profess to be in the least bit surprised that Vladimir Putin tried to influence U.S. elections for his strategic advantage. How can anyone look at the history and think that this go around comes close to some of the worst episodes in the past?

Which is why we need to bear in mind Patrick Moynihan’s distinction between Intelligence and intelligence.

JFB

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Fake News

Posted on January 3, 2017 by Joe Benning

The latest battle cry being test marketed by enemies of free speech is “Fake News”. It is the perfect bumper sticker slogan because the phrase is entirely devoid of substantive meaning, and it is sure to get partisan blood boiling. Like all propaganda campaigns, this one starts off with an ostensibly reasonable premise, namely that “fake news” is a problem. After all, who could be in favor of simply making stuff up?

Now is the time to state the obvious: people make stuff up all the time, and have done so forever. Politicians and advertisers have strong incentives to do so, which may be why they are so adept at it. That isn’t the issue. The real issue revolves around how to protect freedom of speech while still protecting citizens against libel and defamation.

Libel is not, and has never been, constitutionally protected. To be sure there are different standards for pursuing a libel case. For example, an ordinary citizen has a lower threshold to meet for pursuing a libel suit than does a public figure. In the landmark 1964 case New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court held that in order for a public official to successfully sue a news organization for libel, the official had to demonstrate that the news organization acted with malice, knowing that its reporting was false, or that it acted with malice with reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of its reporting.

But the fake news sloganeers are not interested in that, or in providing a remedy for libel. They are enemies of free speech and mean to shut down the speech of people with whom they disagree. They have tried to do so with campaign finance laws. Thankfully they were stopped in their tracks by the Citizens United case in a 5- 4 vote. They have promised to overturn Citizens United, but they are unlikely to succeed. With that avenue apparently closed down, the next gambit will be some attempt to regulate speech, i.e.—news, on the basis of its “accuracy”. The point of the fake news campaign is to soften the beaches for the next assault on the first amendment which will probably take the form of “recommendations” and “guidelines” for what constitutes news, how it should be reported, and by whom.

It will be instructive to see who falls in line as the campaign continues. His Majesty Donald the 1^st of 5^th Avenue has already suggested he wants to loosen libel laws to make it easier for politicians to sue the press. Charles Schumer attempted to amend the 1^st amendment to allow legislatures to regulate political speech around election times. And now we have hedge fund manager Ray Dalio weighing in, proving once again Lenin’s prescience when he said that capitalists would sell communists the rope they would use to hang them.

In complaining about how that noted anti-capitalist newspaper the Wall Street Journal covered him, Dalio reportedly said the following.

“The failure to rectify this [fake news] problem is due to there not being any systemic checks on the news media’s quality,” he said. “The news media is unique in being the only industry that operates without quality controls or checks on its power. It has so much unchecked power that even the most powerful people and companies are afraid to speak out against it for fear of recrimination. In fact, I presume that I will be widely attacked in the media for what I am saying here.”

The ignorance embedded in that remark is nothing short of astonishing. Here we have a major Wall Street player, naively complaining that there are not any “systemic checks on the news media’s quality.” So would Mr. Dalio prefer to have a bureaucratic mechanism installed to replace the market? Perhaps a Ministry of News to do quality checks, meaning accuracy checks? That should send a chill down the spine of any sensible person.

Dalio, who is apparently unaware that news organizations compete, appears to believe the news media is a monolith. That would come as a surprise to Fox News and CNN, or to The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. But, Dalio says, “The news media is unique in being the only industry that operates without quality controls or checks on its power”. Seriously? No quality controls? What does he think fact checkers and editors do? No checks on their power? How is it that these supremely powerful news organizations, particularly newspapers, are under such intense financial pressure? Why, if they are so powerful, are newspapers going out of business everywhere you look? And why, if they are so persuasive, is trust in news organizations at an all-time low? And how did Trump get elected when virtually all the major media outlets except Fox News opposed him?

Undaunted by the evidence colliding with his hypothesis, Dalio soldiers on. Those who disagree with him must be misinformed. He flat out says, misinformation prevents the public from comprehending the truth, “which will threaten our society’s well-being.” Here is where he gives the game away. Ray Dalio and Co. are the high priests Who Know the Truth. In the blink of an eye “Fake news” becomes “misinformation” which blocks Truth. And it’s information that “the public” can’t comprehend, unless the great and the good are there to explain it to them. The perfect expression of bureaucratic paternalism.

All pretty amusing when you consider that Bridgewater Associates, Dalio’s firm, predicted that markets would tank all around the world if Trump won. Which leads to the question: When is the Ministry of Truth going to visit Westport Connecticut to explain things to the folks at Bridgewater Associates?

JFB

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