Impossible Scissors

After years of gun control debate, the US Supreme Court has finally upheld the right to private ownership of firearms under the second amendment. In the opinion of the 5-4 majority, Justice Antonin Scalia used hunting and self-defense as the justifications for private ownership of handguns.

The ambiguity of the Second Amendment has always rested on the words "well-regulated militia." In the modern era, this has been interpreted as the National Guard. But the definition of militia was much more broad during the age of America's founding. It was expected that military-aged men would be able to rise to their nation's defense, particularly at a time when white settlers and Native Americans frequently came into conflict. As recently as 1903, the Dick Act defined the "unorganized militia" as all men aged 17-45 and not part of the "Organized Militia." While this aspect of the Dick Act has not been enforced in modern times, the law has not been repealed or superseded.

The mentality of the founding fathers should leave no doubt about their true intentions regarding the second amendment. Gun control laws are examples of "negative laws," which reward people for breaking them and punish people for following them. For the men who had fought a revolution against tyranny, the idea of trusting the government with a monopoly on firearms would be appalling. Thomas Jefferson, an advocate of periodic revolutions, would undoubtedly recoil at the thought.

As much as the NRA and other advocacy groups use hunting and self-defense as justifications for gun rights, the underlying motivation behind the founding fathers was to ensure that the government could not disarm its populace and subject them to Draconian rule. Even if they didn't share in Jefferson's radical belief of periodic revolution, the original patriots understood that the citizens should be prepared to fight back against their government if the circumstances warranted. The idea of a successful uprising against the US military and local police forces may seem preposterous on the surface, but it's little different than the effectiveness that disorganized groups of insurgents have achieved in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I've started to contemplate the increasingly-likely situation that Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States. When the Dems came to power in the 2006 midterm elections, I held out hope that they could try to find common ground and govern through compromise and consensus. I wasn't very optimistic that could be the case, and the dour prediction came to fruition. And while I can hope that Barack Obama can be "a uniter, not a divider," recent history gives me no reason to be so enthusiastic.

The reality of an Obama presidency is that he would come to power with both houses of Congress under decisive Democrat majorities. Even the Supreme Court would be leaning Obama's way, when looking at the recent voting record of the court's last swing vote, Anthony Kennedy. With all three branches of government under Democrat control or sympathetic to modern liberalism, Barack Obama would have a carte blanche to implement his agenda. Universal pre-school, socialized medicine, protectionist trade policies, windfall profits taxes, and capital gains taxes would all be back in play.

There is a great danger when any single party has hegemony over the executive branch and both houses of Congress. The Republican party of 2003-2006 became mired in corruption and abandoned its previous commitment to fiscal discipline. That same stagnation cursed the Democrats in 1993-4, causing their momentous defeat in November 1994. Divided government is slow and frustrating, but it often results in compromise and consensus. There's no better example of this than the battles of 1995-2000, when President Clinton and the Republican Congress were finally able to balance the budget and pass meaningful welfare reform.

The current election is reminding me more and more of the election of 1932. Herbert Hoover, largely blamed for the Great Depression, gets steamrolled by the populist Franklin Roosevelt and the hordes of voters hungry for the vaguely-defined notion of "change." While the Roosevelt administration would implement some measures that helped ease the Depression, they would implement others (inconsistent monetary policy, higher taxes and prosecutions of corporate leaders, for starters) which would only prolong the suffering of the American people during that trying time. Nevertheless, the American people were largely kept content by Roosevelt's opiate of "hope," and re-elected him three times in spite of the New Deal's inability to fully restore the prosperity of the 20's.

While I view Barack Obama's economic policies as destructive and counter-productive in this time of imminent recession, I think he has what it takes to be a popular president. He can exaggerate people's discontent and then offer himself as an optimistic alternative. Just as the American people continued re-electing FDR, Barack Obama can drug the people on the opiate of populism. He could stay popular as president, even if the economy tanks. He just needs to find the correct scapegoats, just as Franklin Roosevelt railed against the wealthy.

It is often said that Americans get whom they elect, and they often elect who they deserve. If the American people are so ignorant of economics and so ignorant of the stakes in Iraq that they elect Barack Obama, they will have to deal with the consequences: greater federal spending, less re-investment in the economy, further reliance on imported petroleum as a result of the windfall profits tax, ever-increasing fuel prices (or fuel shortages,) and an unstable Iraq that can become a haven for terrorists plotting to strike at America. Perhaps Americans need to have a failed Obama presidency in order to relegate his re-hashed McGovern and Carter policies to the ash-heap of history. At the same time, Barack Obama could walk on water as FDR did, and give people hope that transcends the policies of failure.

Barack Obama and John McCain are sparring again over "September 10th Mentalities," treating terrorism as a law enforcement problem, and domestic trials for the world's most wicked terrorists. The issues essentially boil down to an attack on, or a defense of, the Bush legacy.

John Kerry hurt himself in 2004 by saying that terrorism is primarily a "law enforcement issue." At the same time, I think that the absence of a major terrorist attack on American soil since Fall 2001 speaks to the effectiveness of domestic anti-terrorism measures in the US. While Democrats are quick to claim that victory over terrorism is achieved at home (rather than abroad,) they are loathe to credit the Bush administration for any of the thwarted terror attacks, or even for a general deterrence of a major attack through heightened security, law enforcement, and public awareness. The defenders of "terrorism as a law enforcement problem" view the Patriot Act as an enemy of civil liberties rather than an effective tool for law enforcement to hunt down domestic terrorists. While both points of view are valid, I think it's safe to say that civil liberties of law-abiding Americans are best protected through checks-and-balances rather than by a blanket repeal of an important counter-terrorism measure.

As important as domestic anti-terrorism is in the overall fight to protect our nation, a "Fortress America" mentality leaves us blind to the problems of international terrorism. The jihad knows no borders. And while it's important for all nations with effective governments to practice robust anti-terrorism measures at home, it leaves unresolved the problems of terrorism inside failed states. The example of Afghanistan is telling of the problem as a whole. The failed Afghan state became a vacuum for al Qaeda to fill, and it could always revert to that failed state if America and its allies fail in their long-commitment to Afghanistan. And Iraq, once feared for its totalitarian leadership, now teeters on the precipice of becoming a failed state with the potential to attract the world's jihadists.

The balance between domestic anti-terrorism and military action overseas should bring attention to another thorny problem: how does the criminal justice system deal with battlefield detainees? Some of the world's most dangerous terrorists now sit in Guantanamo Bay, facing possible military tribunals for their crimes against humanity. If we turn them over to the criminal justice system in the US, as Richard Clarke, Barack Obama and John Kerry suggest, can we guarantee that they will end up behind bars where they belong? The US military does not abide by Miranda Rights or search warrants when taking prisoners. Under such conditions, it may be impossible to build a legally-admissible prosecution against the top al Qaeda leaders. To compare the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to the trials of the 1993 WTC bombers, as Richard Clarke has, is disingenuous. Most of the WTC bombers were arrested by civil authorities in the US, and none were captured by the US military. The prosecutors didn't have to deal with the legally-gray area of military detention as "illegal combatants" and didn't have to fight allegations of coercion and torture when the evidence was disputed.

I am not opposed to civil trials for terrorists, as long as it's assured that the prosecution can bring all possible evidence to bear. At the same time, I think there is adequate legal precedent for holding Illegal Combatants before a military tribunal. After all, the last military tribunal in the US was authorized by the hero of modern liberalism, Franklin Roosevelt.

It's hard to imagine such an outcry over the rights of people whose stated goal is to indiscriminately kill as many Americans as possible. At the same time, it's a reflection of the very American principle of protecting the rights of all, even the accused. The balance between freedom and security is one that should be taken patiently and civilly, and hopefully a workable balance can be achieved between both ends.

Early into the 2008 general election, the partisan battle cries have already been confirmed. Democrats complain that John McCain is four more years of "failed Bush policy." For Republicans, the retort is that they'd rather have a third term of George Bush than a second term of Jimmy Carter.

The Obama-Carter comparison leaves many casual observers scratching their heads. It's been 28 years since the dark days of stagflation and "malaise forever." Jimmy Carter governed in a different era, but an astute political junkie can see some valid comparisons with the contemporary Democrat candidate.

Perhaps the best Carter-Obama comparison is the schizophrenia in the arena of foreign policy. For Jimmy Carter, the White House years were characterized between constant internal conflict. The most prominent examples were the clashes between pacifist Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and the realistic, somewhat-hawkish National Security Advisor, Zbignew Brzezinski. While it's uncertain which Obama advisors are advocating which aspects of his foreign policy, there's no ideological consistency to it. He's a pacifist on both Iraq and Iran, a non-interventionist on Darfur, and downright hawkish on Pakistan. An Obama presidency has the potential to make claims of "failed Bush policy" in Iraq a self-fulfilling prophecy, while simultaneously collapsing the fragile Musharraf regime in Pakistan as he sends American forces over the border to find Osama bin Laden.

The issue of gas prices, near and dear to the hearts of all Americans, is another place where Jimmy Carter's specter is visible. The Carter administration adopted populist methods of controlling gas prices. The result was cheap gas, but only on the days of the week when gas was available. Barack Obama now seeks a windfall profits tax on the petroleum industry. While such a tax may sooth the desires of populist class envy, the tax will ultimately be passed to consumers and will only exacerbate this nation's economic woes.

The most contemporary reason why the Obama-Carter comparison has legs is the stance the two men have recently taken on Hamas. It's the reason why President Bush could denounce appeasement and claim that it was a condemnation of Jimmy Carter, while simultaneously inciting screeds from Sen. Obama and Rep. Pelosi. While Barack Obama has vowed to never negotiate with Hamas as Jimmy Carter did, Americans should be asking why Hamas would feel compelled to endorse the Illinois Senator. Do they feel that his pacifism on Iraq and Iran will extend towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Perhaps they feel that a softer American approach to their sponsors like Iran and Syria will give them a freer hand to continue their jihad.

The 2008 campaign will be characterized as a proxy war, with Democrats beating up on George Bush and Republicans, to a lesser degree, taking their shots on The Man From Plains. In the case of the Bush-McCain link, it's more accurate to say that George Bush has acted like John McCain over the past year, rather than vice-versa. And it takes willful ignorance to denounce policies like lower taxes or The Surge as failures. As for the Carter-Obama link, it has the potential to be a repeat of discredited populist economic policies and inconsistent foreign policy that will lead to economic stagflation and foreign policy malaise.

In closing, the proxy war prompts me to ask whether a President Obama would continue to blame the George Bush bogeyman if the economy continues to tank during his term, or if terrorists launch a major attack on US soil. It goes without saying that scapegoating is not leadership. If Barack Obama becomes president, he will need to learn that the buck stops with him.

Of all the issues which will define the current election, perhaps none has the immediate personal impact that rising fuel costs possess over all Americans. The presidential race, and many congressional races, may be defined solely by this hot-button issue.

For the deliverers of Democrat talking points, the root cause of high fuel is the war in Iraq. There can be no doubt that violence in that country has been a major reason why speculators have been able to drive crude prices up to over $130 per barrel. But like the Iraq issue on the whole, can America have any assurances that the situation can improve by simply walking away from the problem? Will Iraq's oil infrastructure be more secure being guarded solely by Iraq's fledgling army? Will it receive long-overdue upgrades with only the financial assistance of Iraq's cash-strapped government? Will it be ably administered by Iraq's corrupt oil ministry? Pulling out of Iraq might diminish the motivations of some saboteurs, but it ultimately will prove to be a bane for those who expect crude prices to fall.

The price of fuel hinges on two factors which Democrats too willingly ignore: supply and demand. For years we've heard environmentalists and leftists tell us that we should "conserve our way to energy independence." I don't disagree with conservation, and there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Americans are changing their driving habits in response to high fuel costs. GM is closing four plants for production of trucks and SUV's based on sluggish sales forecasts, for instance.

If Americans are starting to reduce demand, we should apply an equal effort into increasing supply both domestically and in friendly trading partners. For decades, the environmental movement has deterred the United States from domestic oil exploration and production of additional refineries. This opposition has ossified in the years since the release of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and the growing trendiness of environmental awareness. But there will come a price point where Americans will throw environmentalism out the window if it will guarantee reasonable fuel costs. Extracting petroleum from the Canadian tar sands is currently prohibited under the most recent energy bill, passed primarily by Congressional Democrats. But the pressure to repeal this controversial provision will build as public outrage at the price of gasoline grows. The same can be said about drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, or lifting the regulatory hurdles towards building more refineries to meet the increased demand since the last domestic refinery was built in the 70's.

The most frightening aspect to rising fuel costs is that there appears to be no end in sight. Even if relief comes in the form of alternative fuels or increased domestic production, it will be several years away. It makes President CLinton's 1995 veto of ANWR drilling seem painful in hindsight, but history has repeatedly shown that Americans would rather react to challenges than pre-empt them. The best we can hope for is that public outrage during this election cycle will result in action that will curb the rising fuel costs (and their ripple effect through the entire economy) several years down the line.