Category: Government

Robert Putnam received a hail of criticism when he released his book Bowling Alone.  Some of it, in my opinion, is justified, but there is a grain of truth in there somewhere.  I do not think that there’s been any great decline in America’s social capital.  The type of community we have here online is a great example of how social networking can change to adapt to changing technology. It’s perhaps a testament to my generation that I don’t know my next door neighbors nearly as well as I know many of you.  But I tend to agree with Putnam that our civil society is in trouble. One major criticism I would make of Generation X and Y, is that we’re probably the most civically disengaged generation in American history.

I don’t think that’s because we’re selfish, spend too much time on the Internet, or play too many video games.  New technology has been distracting people for a long time.  No doubt thousands of years ago, tribe elders expressed concern that Og was more interesting in spending all his time painting up the cave by this newfangled fire, and wasn’t showing any interest in participating the fish cleaning committee.  Putnam was quick to blame technology for the problem, but I don’t think it’s that at all.

When it comes to civic engagement, what has failed our generation is not technology, but government.  High taxes have ensured that people have less free time to spend on civic activity.  Big government has fostered a culture of “let the professionals take care of it” that strongly discourages citizen involvement and participation.  Our public schools, colleges, and universities no longer teach civics and government, and are more interested in turning out people who can fill jobs than they are turning out people who can think, and who can participate in civil society.  We care about issues, we have energy, but because of the lack of understanding of how civil society functions, it gets send in random and unproductive directions much of the time.

I don’t think this was an accident.  Those in positions of power benefit greatly from a passive citizenry.  Politicians like Barack Obama want to force the schools to make us civically engage, and tax us even more.  This is only going to make the problem worse, not better.  Politicians like Obama recognize the problem, but will never accept their philosophy on government is the problem.  The solution is always more government.  It’s always more guys like him either telling people what to do, or even more damaging, taking care of people so they don’t have to take care of themselves.  You will never hear the Barack Obamas of the world talk about tapping the resources and ingenuity of the American people, getting the federal government the hell off their backs, and let people self-organize and self-govern in order to solve problems.  It always has to be experts. It always has to be bureaucrats.  To suggest otherwise would be to suggest that we don’t need them, and their egos and ambitions won’t allow for that.

In Part II, I’ll talk about how I think this kind of civic disengagement is affecting the gun rights movement.

Rachel Lucas talks about an English woman who was prosecuted for assault because she dealt with some hooligans who had been vandalizing a war memorial.  In the United States, I doubt, given the circumstances in the UK in regards to crime, you could find a jury who would be willing to convict this woman of anything.  This is why juries are important to any proper system of justice.

Many people may be technically guilty of a crime, but the rule of law itself is undermined if it’s applications don’t reflect the attitudes and values of the community it’s supposed to be protecting.

Tam points out that half of our Heller dissenters were put on the bench by Republicans.  By any measure, shifting the federal courts more toward the center has actually been one of the Republican party’s most stellar achievement, and even here, the best we can really say is “Well, Republicans tend to get it right about half the time.”  Really, the federal judiciary should be owned by conservatives right now, but it isn’t.  Yet moving the court rightward has been an accomplishment.

Republicans: even doing our best work, we’re still pretty damned incompetent.

GunPundit points to a picture I’ve seen making the rounds through forums and what not.  It shows an Iowa police officer holding a gun on a driver.  I’ve variously seen this attributed to police enforcing a checkpoint with excessive force.  Didn’t blog about it when I first saw it, because we had no context.   Well, here’s the context:

After being denied re-entry to a flooded neighborhood, Rick Blazek, 53, returned to his vehicle as a state trooper used his police vehicle to block the checkpoint, according to the news release.

“Blazek drove his vehicle toward the state trooper and struck the state trooper three times with his vehicle,” the release said.

Police told Blazek to get out of his vehicle, and when he refused, “the driver’s window was broken out because the doors were locked and Blazek was removed from his vehicle,” according to the release.

The trooper was not injured. Blazek, who was arrested and charged with assault on a peace officer with a deadly weapon, could not be immediately reached for comment.

The trooper in question was fully justified in drawing his pistol on the driver as they took him into custody.  Cars are deadly weapons.  Whether or not the police were justified in keeping a man from his home isn’t material.  You’re allowed to use force to overcome an unlawful restraint (different from kidnapping), but not deadly force.

Whether or not one can be kept from one’s home is a matter of emergency powers provisions under the Iowa Code, which seem to allow for “Control ingress and egress to and from a disaster area, the movement of persons within the area, and the occupancy of premises in such area.” and “A peace officer, when in full and distinctive uniform or displaying a badge or other insignia of authority, may arrest without a warrant any person violating or attempting to violate in such officer’s presence any order or rule, made pursuant to this chapter. This authority shall be limited to those rules which affect the public generally.”

So under the Iowa Code, the governor can prevent persons from entering a declare disaster area, and the police are empowered to enforce edicts issued under the Governor’s disaster powers.

Judge Kozinski’s wife responds to the latest incident of yellow journalism on the part of the LA Times.  Unfortunately, the lie is already halfway around the world.  I agree with Kevin.

Kevin Baker talks again about the “reset” button.  I’ve said previously, any pressing of said button will have to be instigated by a state government, rather than through actions of individuals or groups of individuals.  That gets hard when states basically suckle at the federal teat, but I don’t see any other way to stand up to the federal government that won’t end badly.  We already have some examples of states willing to make token gestures.  The big problem is, we’re not losing our freedom by the guillotine, but by death of a thousand cuts.  It’s hard to convince other people that “This encroachment has to be it.  The line has been crossed.”

Personally, I don’t think we’re there yet, but I think it’s not unwise to whip up some resentment of federal meddling in matters they have no business in, within state legislatures.  What Oklahoma has done is a start.

UPDATE: Maybe we don’t have it so bad.

Through Ricketyclick, I found this interesting civics literacy quiz.   Go see how you compare to most of the college freshman and seniors today.  I missed 4 questions, for an A.  I missed 19, 27, 36, and 58.   It’s a sixty question test.  I sometimes wish you had a pass a basic civics test to vote, but there’s probably no way to do that without it getting abused.

Joe tells the story.

It’s called security theater.  It shows the guy inside that the police are serious, that he can’t win, and that he should just give up.  It’s also very very fun to get decked out in surplus military gear and take the surplus M113 the feds gave you as part of their homeland security program for a ride.  I mean, they gave it to the department right?  Might as well use it!

Over at Volokh, Jonathan Adler highlights the slow place the senate is taking on judicial nominations.  One thing stands out to me:

By comparison, a Republican Senate confirmed eight of President Clinton’s appellate nominees during his last year in office. Since January 2007, the Senate has confirmed eight appellate nominees, whereas a Republican Senate confirmed fifteen during President Clinton’s last two year.

Adler believes that judicial appointments need to be depoliticized, and I tend to agree (though, as I said, I’m glad the Democrats defeated Bork), but I’m reminded of something Dave Hardy said a while ago in a comment at The Bitch Girls:

Liberals as a general rule see government as a tool to solve problems. They thus are skilled at using it (albeit to create more problems than they solve). Their “best and brightest” go in for government work. When in power, they work to create a government system that will continue to work as they want it to.

Conservatives… well, the social conservatives believe in regulating morality, the libertarian ones don’t believe much in government at all. Their best and brightest stay far away from it. When in power, they at most use their appointments to pay off political favors (pay for work they really don’t want done) and maybe to try, largely in vain, to prevent further encroachments in the short time frame. The political appointments vanish when they lose an election, and there is no lasting imprint. They can’t create a career cadre that will respect liberty, because they have no interest in careerists who would waste their lives working for the government.

The Republicans did what they thought was fair, and the Democrats are doing what they think will win.  After all the judiciary is getting way too conservative for them already, I’m sure.  The Judiciary is one area I actually think conservatives have been able to make some reasonable inroads against Leviathan, but Democrats are starting to wise up, and do what they do best; use government effectively.