Category: Government

SayUncle doesn’t think the Government that snoops ought to have much to complain about when the tables get turned. When it comes to leaking government malfeasance, even if those documents are technically classified, I agree. I’m a lot less sympathetic to someone who dumps reams of diplomatically sensitive classified information online with the sole purpose of embarrassing the US government and destroying its capacity to engage in diplomacy worldwide. In a world where you have a nuclear armed North Korea itching to start a war, and your documents contain sensitive information about plans to reunify the Korean Peninsula, that kind of crap can get millions of people killed. As far as I’m concerned, Assange (and you can’t spell “Assange” without “Ass”) ought to be charged with espionage (I’ve heard talk of Treason. Treason is when you betray your own country). It looks like the Swedes already want him for rape.

But we’re increasingly living in a transparent society. None of us will have any privacy, but that’s going to be true of the government as well. The only effective ways to keep secrets in a world as interconnected as ours is to keep the number of people who know the secrets down to as small a number as possible. If more than a few dozen people have access to your secrets, chances are one of them will be a malcontent, and your secret is no longer.

Even in a transparent world, the governments still have legitimate reasons to keep secrets, but for better or worse that’s going to become more difficult if not impossible. On the balance, I think that will be a good thing rather than a bad thing.

Hat tip to this British MEP for telling it like it is:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyq7WRr_GPg[/youtube]

The House of Commons has always seemed more rowdy, confrontational, and less congenial than our Congress. Glad to see some of that being taken to the anti-democratic European Parliament. Even in our federal system, a key concept is that the the states entered the Union with their sovereignty intact. The idea that the federal government could tell a state that it couldn’t or shouldn’t have elections is unthinkable. We’d burn down Washington if they tried to thwart elections. Apparently dual sovereignty isn’t a concept European lawmakers understand.

Obama says Americans are ungovernable. I think he’s might be right, and I hope it shall always remain that way. Apparently Obama’s talking with folks to see if they can pass immigration reform in lame duck. I’m really not seeing this guy pulling a Clinton after 1994 and just declaring it’ll be balanced budgets and blow jobs from here on out. I’m also not seeing how he’s going to get much done in lame duck. There plenty of Dems who lost their seats and think Obama and Pelosi share a big part of the blame for twisting their arms. I can’t imagine they’ll be in the mood to incur more fury in their home districts on behalf of the White House. I could be wrong though.

Todd Zywicki argues against an article by David Gans who points out the problems that were meant to be solved by the 17th Amendment:

[T]he system led to rampant and blatant corruption, letting corporations and other moneyed interests effectively buy U.S. Senators, and tied state legislatures up in numerous, lengthy deadlocks over whom to send to Washington, leaving those bodies with far less time to devote to the job of enacting the laws their states needed for the welfare of the people. These ills made the case for bringing the election of Senators in line with the Constitution’s fundamental values of protecting democracy and securing the right to vote to all Americans a very strong one.

Deadlocked state legislatures? You say that like it’s a bad thing. And I’d suggest we could use a more business friendly Senate these days anyway. And what’s this about the Constitution protecting democracy? I want the Constitution to protect rights. I could give a rat’s behind about democracy. Democracy hasn’t done so wonderfully for getting politicians to but their noises out of where it doesn’t belong. Truth is, I’m skeptical of the claim that repealing the 17th Amendment is going to make things any better, but if deadlocked state legislatures, fighting over who to send to Washington is a possible result, maybe I ought to get on board the repeal train.

Clayton Cramer looks at how the USDA program to promote cheese has used our tax dollars to help make bad pizza worse. We’re not gifted with much in the Philly area, but we were fortunate enough to develop a decent local pizza culture. Pizza here is New York style. Chicago pizza is an abomination in the eyes of God. In our area, there is definitely some mighty bad local pizza, but they don’t measure up to the chains in terms of horribleness. Papa John’s and Dominoes are blah. In fact, they are bad pizza, really. Pizza Hut is the worst. If you’re looking for a good chain pizza, this one is my favorite, and beats much of my local selection. I particularly recommend the Margherita pizza.

I am happy to hear my tax dollars have been contributing to the ruining of pizza across this great country. It gives me one more reason to hate the government.

Generally speaking, I’m skeptical of  folks who sell easy fixes to complex problems. For example, there are some who argue that if we just repealed the 17th Amendment (direct election of Senators) then we’d restore the checks and balances necessary to get a smaller government outcome. I’m skeptical of that claim, and tend to be of any solution that just seems too easy.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t look for magic bullets myself. One conclusion I’ve come to is that we honestly make it way too easy for people to vote. That sounds kind of crazy on the surface, because we revere the act of voting in our country. I wouldn’t argue for a return to the days when only wealthy landowners voted, or we denied the franchise to people based on gender or race. But I would argue that people who want better and smaller government should generally resist efforts to get more people voting.

This weekend I was calling mostly soft Republicans and Independents, meaning they tend not to vote in primaries, and often skip elections. These are usually people campaigns ignore, but this year the hard Republicans are fired up, and the federal campaigns are going to do a better job of making sure they turn out. While I was encouraged at the level of support we had among these soft voters, I was surprised that a week out from election day how many people did not know the candidates, hadn’t made up their mind, and had no issues that the could name that they were concerned about.

My feeling is our Republic would be better off if we made these people go through a little extra effort to be able to vote, in the hopes that the casual, uninformed voter won’t bother. Even if they do end up getting to the polls and punching the ballot for our guys, I’m not comforted by the fact that I’m pretty sure their voting choices are going to be made by something not much more rigorous than a coin toss. I if the corrupting influence of money in elections is something you worry about, consider that the vast sums of money campaigns spend for expensive media buys are aimed at these voters.

But that’s not to say I have much in the way of specific proposals. One thing I thought of is that if you miss more than two general elections, you get automatically purged from the voter rolls, and have to renew your registration. That would certainly make the jobs of volunteers easier, because casual voters generally get more angry about being called or visited by campaigns vying for their votes, whereas regular voters are usually more polite, and more interested in talking about issues.

So how would this help liberty? Well, I’m not sure it’s any more of a magic bullet than repealing the 17th Amendment, to be honest, but a big component of electoral politics involves political activists manipulating the casual voters to come out for their guys. Given that liberty generally doesn’t bring activism to the table in any tangible way (at least not before the Tea Party movement), having a voter pool that’s more engaged and less prone to manipulation would hopefully hamper those pushing for big government than it would pushing for smaller government. Think about soft voters as the “soundbite voters,” and decide whether you agree with me that liberty would be better served if we made these people jump through a few more hoops to be able to cast their ballots?

UPDATE: I should make it clear, everyone would have to jump through the same hoops. The idea is that motivated and informed voters will.

Man wins, at least against the snake. Pit viper bites can be really nasty, and it sounds like Dave got hit by a big one. Rattlesnake venom is hemotoxic, meaning it destroys tissue. This makes a bite from a members of the pit viper family extremely painful, and visibly damaging to the surrounding area. In high enough doses it’s lethal. It looks like reasonably prompt treatment with antivenin managed to save his life. While I think we all can agree getting bitten by a snake is a remarkably bad run of luck, the specific type of snake here, the pit viper, is responsible for enough bites of man and beast each year to create a viable market for antivenin, and overcome the hurdles the FDA throws at people making the stuff.

To understand that, you have to understand a bit about antivenin. What is generally done is to inject snake venom into a horse, which causes the horse to produce antibodies against the venom. Those antibodies can be separated from the horse’s blood, purified, preserved, and eventually injected into the victim of a snake bite. The horse antibodies then go to work neutralizing the venom. It sounds great, and it is. The only problem is, there are a significant number of people who are allergic to equine proteins, and who will go into anaphylactic shock as a result of the treatments, never mind the snake bite.

So clearly if you’re dying of a snakebite, we can’t take the risk that you might be allergic to the antivenin. Better that you die of the snake bite, lest anyone blame an FDA bureaucrat for approving it. Fortunately for Dave, the FDA has approved an antivenin for pit viper bites that’s sourced from sheep, rather than horses, which fewer people are allergic to. Enough people and animals get bitten by pit vipers each year to make it economical. But what if you get bit by something else?

Something else, like a Coral Snake. Coral Snake have a venom is a neurotoxic, meaning it attacks the nervous system. The victim of a Coral Snake bite might not feel much in the way of pain, not have limbs bloody and blow up like balloons. In that sense, a bite from the Coral Snake is not as dramatic as bites from species that produce hemotoxic venom. But the victim does stand a very good chance, untreated, of dropping dead a few hours later from respiratory and cardiac arrest, as the venom goes to work on the central nervous system. If you happen to be unlucky enough to get bitten by a Coral Snake, which fortunately are rare, since they are not an aggressive species, you’re pretty much shit out of luck. Why? Well, the last US stocks of existing equine derived Coral Snake antivenin are scheduled to expire, right about now actually. The market for antivenin for that species is too small for there to be an incentive for a pharmaceutical maker to get it approved by the FDA. There are stocks in other countries, like Mexico, but they aren’t of a variety that is approved by the FDA, and no one wants to pay for the studies to prove it’s safe. Like I said, better to let you die of the snake bite.

So there you have it. If you get bit by a snake, make sure it’s from a species our government protectors have deemed we may be saved from, or get bit in Mexico. This chapter in government regulation was brought to you by the letter “H” and “C.”

You’d think that if a company self-reported a potential problem and then found out that they didn’t, in fact, break any rules, that the department responsible for regulating that industry would be happy to find out there were no problems and they could go on about their merry little way. But, it’s government, so you know that’s just not going to happen.

Common sense seems to have been banned from the building at the Department of Transportation according to Cranky Flier.

There have been plenty of questionable decisions coming from the Department of Transportation lately, but none more insane than the decision to fine United for accidentally reporting tarmac delays. That’s right. United was overly cautious and now owes at least $6,000 (and another $6,000 if they do it again). I am now asking the DOT for proof that a monkey isn’t running that organization, because I can’t imagine a human making such an absurd ruling.

When I first heard this, I thought it was a joke. But no, it’s not. In May, the first month when the tarmac delay rule was in force, United reported four flights that had exceeded the three hour ground time permitted. They were included in the DOT monthly report but later retracted. See, United made a mistake and was overly cautious, so in exchange, the airline has been slapped with a fine.

I would like to see this decision overturned. What’s more, I’d like to see the offending bureaucrat’s salary have a $6,000 fine removed. I suspect if the punishment for supremely stupid decisions had an impact on the take home pay of said bureaucrats, we’d see a little sanity return to the department.