Central to the McCain/Palin campaign's rhetoric lately has been the allegation that Barack Obama is a socialist (which, sadly, is something of a four-letter word). Their evidence: Obama's encounter with the now famous "Joe the Plumber," wherein Obama explained to Joe that the point of his economic plan, and by extension the progressive tax and the liberal welfare state, was to help bring up those "behind" Joe. Obama's misstep was using the (honest) phrase, "spread the wealth around." McCain has used this soundbite to justify labeling Obama with the scarlet letter 'S.'

Yet John McCain embraces the same "socialist" principle:

Here is the relevant soundbite:

When you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more.

If John McCain believes Barack Obama is a socialist, then he too is a socialist — it's the very same principle. (For the record, I don't believe either is a socialist. And I believe soundbite politics insults our intelligence.)

I tip my hat to Daniel Miessler for posting about this.

That to secure these rights [of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness], Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Just saying[1].

Notes

1. Okay, yes, totally dramatic.

Dear elected representatives,

I write you as a voting constituent outraged by the possibility of Congress passing the so-called "bailout bill" put forward by Messrs. Bush, Bernanke, and Paulson.  I implore you, as my representative, to weigh carefully the options before you.

A vote to pass this bill is a vote of confidence in the George W. Bush administration and future administrations, whomever they may be.

It is a vote that abdicates Congress's constitutional duty to oversee the acts of the executive branch and provide checks against imbalances and abuses of power.

One cannot honestly decry the actions of the Bush administration, as Democrats have for nearly eight years, and then hand them the keys to the economy — not to mention $700B of hard-earned taxpayer money — merely because it is politically expedient.  There are greater ills than inaction.

Passages such as the following are reason enough to reject this plan outright.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

This is a constitutional travesty.

The plan itself is a shot in the dark; Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke themselves testified that it may or may not work, and that the $700B amount is just an estimate.  They may in fact need to appropriate yet more taxpayer money to bail out corrupt and incompetent investors.  With language like the above, Congress may be powerless to stop them, and by their own hand no less.  Most worrying is that when Congress lacks the power, so does the citizenry.

If Congress passes this bill and grants the executive branch the powers described within, the American people will have no legal recourse to stop the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve from squandering their wealth.

I urge you, sirs and madams, to vote against any plan that would strip Congress of its oversight responsibility.  For this is your constitutional duty and is a key mechanism by which our republic functions.  When this duty is removed from the legislative branch, members of whom are elected directly by the people and serve at our pleasure, the government ceases to function as it was intended.

I cannot in good conscience support any member of Congress who would break his oath to support and defend the Constitution, and I, like most Americans, do vote my conscience.

P.S. Sorry for all the bold.

I have been meaning to write up some of my thoughts from the Revolution March and Rally and more generally on my evolving impression of the phenomenon that is the "Ron Paul Revolution," with which I have been involved to some small extent and fascinated to a larger extent.  I don't have the time or clarity for that just this moment.  But one of the things on my mind, spurred in part by Tom Woods's speech at the Rally and his new book, "Who Killed the Constitution?", is the tension that sometimes exists between "doing the right thing" and following the law as it was meant to be interpreted.

Reflecting on the constitutional transgressions of the executive and the judicial and the legislative branches, of the Democrats and the Republicans and the Whigs, I wonder what is the right action to take when the aims of justice are counter to those of moral rectitude.  Contrary to public opinion, the United States of America is not a democracy; we are a democratic federal republic, a constitutional republic, the operative word being "republic."  We ought not to bow to the whims of the masses, as in democracy — which, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, may be defined as "two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch."  Rather, we are subject to the rule of law, and the Constitution is the supreme law of the United States.  Whereas the Declaration of Independence breathed life into the union, the Constitution (and Bill of Rights) provided its skeleton and its life-blood.

What recourse do we have, then, when the Constitution prevents legislators, the judiciary, and the executive from doing what they, or the masses, deem "the right thing?"  Does the end, some morally sound outcome, justify the means even when the means involves sidestepping constitutional restraints?

We have a number of philosophical frameworks available to us to evaluate this issue — various theories of rights, justice, and morality — and I flit from one to the next with regularity.  If nothing else, I hope it enables me to see the many sides and nuances of the argument.  For instance, I might think that ending slavery was a moral necessity, that Brown v. Board of Ed. was a net win, that putting an end to the Nazi regime and liberating the concentration camps was the right thing to do.

But I'm also uncomfortable with the federal government's repeated stepping on the Constitution, its disregard for states' rights, and increasingly activist roles in excessively powerful executive and judicial branches. There are numerous examples,  many of which are in Woods's book: Adams's Alien and Sedition Acts, Lincoln's war against the secessionists, Wilson's Espionage and Sedition Acts, Truman's grab of the steel industry, the SCOTUS interpretation of the Equal Protection clause in favor of Brown v. Board, the examples go on and on.

When the framework for our very government is the Constitution, that which the government it was meant to restrain so openly flouts, I am taken to believe that we flirt with tyranny the more we side with rectitude over justice.  (I am playing a bit fast and loose as my time to write draws to a close by referring to the strict Constitutionalist perspective as that of "justice.")  I don't meant to hint here that the government ought not to have ended slavery, or kept the union together, and so forth, but that there were other, perhaps more difficult, ways of achieving these same ends within the bounds of the law as it was written.  When the government acts as though it is above the law, it establishes a very dangerous precedent.  The greater the amount of power in the government's hands, the less liberty in the people's — isn't this the tyranny our Constitution was supposed to protect us against?

It is often said that America is a grand social experiment, and I find myself agreeing.  Is the experiment predicated on America being a nation that strives to do right at all costs?  Or is it more about the lofty principles enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and codified in our Constitution, and how well our republic stands up to the natural progression towards empire, and towards tyranny?  I believe very strongly that the American Revolution is not bound in time but that it continues to this very day, and that the Constitution, and adherence thereto, is the very best chance we have to protect us from the base instincts of humanity and sustain a system of government that instead appeals to "the better angels of our nature," as Honest Abe would have put it.

20 I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.

21 This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

22 The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

23 Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

George Washington, our first president, whom his peers wished to elevate to king, warns of the dangers of a party system in his farewell address.  It is widely known that Washington opposed the creation of parties — and that he was the last president not to be affiliated with one — but his words here are nonetheless powerful.

Seeing the stranglehold that the Democrats and Republicans have on power in the union makes me wonder if we haven't failed in this grand experiment by ignoring the wisdom of its founders and gradually abdicating our responsibility for its care, and our own liberty, like sheep who would ask wolves to babysit their lambs.

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. — Thomas Payne, The American Crisis

Rest in peace, GOP. You had a good run, but in the end, loyalty to a broken system weighed down the time-tested principles of the party that Lincoln built. Now you are grand only in name.

I remain hopeful that the enthusiasm of the Ron Paul Revolutionaries sustains their efforts to transform the Republican party, from the ground up, back to the party of non-interventionism and small government (even while my own energy to stay involved has waned). I do believe there is a place for (small l) libertarian ideals in American political debate and that place is not out along the fringe. And though I am a lifelong progressive, I will continue to play whatever small part I might in nudging the GOP away from neo-conservatism, which I see as a highly dangerous ideology.

It is looking more and more likely that I will have no better option than to vote for Barack Obama (EDIT: or Hillary since she did not bomb in last night's primaries) in the 2008 election. The Democrats are no less the party of American Empire than the Republicans and I am troubled that the only two viable options in our electoral system are both agents of big government and imperialism. I have long supported the Democratic party despite their being a ship of fools, more concerned with the fringe than with the core, despite rampant political correctness, despite turning their backs on the anti-federalist principles upon which they were founded. I won't feel at home among their ranks, but I will very likely be supporting their candidate against the war-mongering John McCain.

Cynicism and idealism are battling within me, and I fear it's only a matter of time before cynicism once again wins the day.

Yes, I'm being dramatic. Maybe I'm overreacting a bit. But damn it, am I bummed.

I woke up this morning wanting to do something special, something patriotic. Until I come up with something better, I'm blogging. Yes, that might itself be a sad commentary, but there you go.

Amidst all the fireworks, barbecues, and (at times mechanical) flag-waving, I like to put the significance of today into perspective. How do I do that? I read the Declaration of Independence.

We have seen these words a million times before, but I read them closely trying to avoid the clichéd meanings that soundbite culture has ascribed to them. It helps to put the document into context; I think about the courage and vision of those who wrote these words. I think about the thousands who embraced the upstart revolution and forsook the old order to take up arms against old allies. I think about the millions who have sacrificed their lives and livelihood throughout the history of our nation, despite any feelings about the justifications and conditions of the wars and conflicts we have fought. I think about the American Revolution which continues to this very day as we struggle against our own weaknesses and challenges from abroad to keep the dream alive. This paragraph, perhaps more than any, encapsulates that dream:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

It's a powerful document and though it is not legally binding, it is the very spirit of our nation, this grand social experiment. It is also a beautiful piece of prose and a landmark exposition of the principles of classical liberalism. It's as close to a Bible as I have, and I revere it.

Happy Independence Day, folks. (And enjoy the fireworks, barbecues, and flag-waving.)

P.S. Cat macro representations of feeds should not be this funny. My favorites: Yawn, Want to work at Princeton?, and RESTful Fedora?

I decided a while back that I would use this space exclusively for library- and technology-related bits, that I should not clutter it with more personal or political matters. That decision has probably saved me a lot of embarrassment. But it's also kept me from updating more often than I would like, and forced filters upon me that give a one-dimensional view of what I'm about. Underlying the decision was a certain trepidation and strange sense of professional propriety — what would colleagues and potential employers think of me if I just spilled my guts out here?

I'm starting to question that decision. Other well-known biblio-bloggers do it — I'm looking at Dorothea and Karen — though I'm in the league below the bush league compared to them. But sometimes, dammit, I just want to be me.

I'd like to add to the left-leaning echo chamber by reminding folks that Jerry Falwell was a lunatic. People come out of the woodwork to spout ebullient praise about the recently deceased, whether they were actually good people or not, and the posthumous Falwell spin has begun with numerous smiley glad-hands lauding his life and deeds. But let's not forget what kind of guy ol' Jerry was.

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped [the terrorist attacks on 9/11] happen'.

I'm not so crass as to celebrate the death of someone who has arguably done some good during his long lifetime, but I couldn't help but think "good riddance to bad rubbish" when I heard of his passing.

I am sure there will be dozens of doomsayers scrambling to take his place in the Pantheon of Evangelical Kooks. I can see it now: And lo, I woke up this morning and my toilet was running. SURELY THIS IS A SIGN OF THE SECOND COMING.