Month: August 2018

When the most recent recession was in full swing, the outgoing and incoming presidential administrations decided it was time to use an emergency situation to spend a combined $1.5 trillion of debt-borne money in their efforts to “help” the problem.

This was as ill-advised as it was unnecessary.

A major component of Bush’s and Obama’s combined fraud was the notion the federal government could more wisely pick-and-choose how to distribute and award a combined $1.5 trillion than the people of the United States of America.

Let’s say for the sake of argument I agreed with the Washington brain-trust that the T.A.R.P. legislation and American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (the so-called stimulus) were absolutely necessary to prevent economic armageddon nine and ten years ago. A much smarter approach would have been to take that $1.5 trillion and evenly disburse it to every household which was under mortgage at that time.

In the late months of 2008 that would have been roughly 50 million homes. So, with my plan, almost 50 million households would have received a U.S. Department of Treasury check for roughly $30,000 each.

Common sense dictates that in light of the urgent nature of the situation for both the U.S. economy and international markets, the vast majority of those recipients would have done the right thing with that money and paid enough to their respective lenders to at least get current with their mortgages. Most, I’m inclined to believe, would have used enough sense to even pay-off several additional months’-worth of mortgage payments – which would have helped those homeowners knock-down the principle for those debts, thus significantly reducing their debt burden.

For some, $30,000 would have been enough to pay their remaining balances in full and rid themselves of that form of debt.

At the very least, this activity would have led to a flood of (let’s say) about $1 trillion into the American financial sector as the people at-large began feverishly making payments to save their homes.

So, this would have left about half-a-trillion dollars still to be used. Common sense (again) dictates many of the recipients would have opted to buy a new car – thus eliminating the need for the automotive bailouts. Unspent portions beyond that would have led to a surge of cash flow in domestic retail markets and created a potentially more legitimate recovery from the recession nightmare.

A small percentage, of course, would have gone into savings and other retirement/”rainy day” accounts. But even that option would have had positive benefits as still just $10-to-20 billion (just… sigh) out of all that would have shored-up the liquidity of banks nationwide and boosted confidence in financial markets.

And then, there is the largely unexamined positive consequence of tackling the 2008 crisis in the manner described above.

Over the course of 2008 through 2010, a total of roughly 8 million homes were foreclosed-upon (that doesn’t include the 1.3 million in 2007, when the housing bubble burst began to really get rolling). For the purpose of simpler math (and due to the absence of the hard data on this) let’s assume roughly one-quarter of those mortgages had two (or even more) signatures (spouses, co-signing parents, etc.) on them.

As a result of bypassing the homeowners and lending $700 billion directly to the banks and other financial sector entities in the manner the Bush Administration did, nearly 10 million people during that time had to endure having a foreclosure hanging like an enormous dark cloud over their credit histories. If you believe in a borrow-and-spend-on-credit economy much like so many advocate today, this meant as many as 10 million adults were completely taken out of that portion of the economy. Their credit ratings fell far too deep into disrepair for any of them to be able to establish credit again for the remainder of this decade.

That ongoing complication to the American economic picture played about as significant of a role in hampering recovery as any other factor.

And no one was talking about this.

The primary downside to everything laid-out above is if anyone in the capitol actually had taken a moment to think things through in the waning months of 2008 and handled the bailout intelligently – as opposed to the money carousel that played-out – it would have served, unfortunately, to cement in the minds of the general public the terribly misguided notion all the solutions to society’s ills can be found in government action.

Also, whether $1.5 trillion was squandered via the Bush and Obama plans or put to use more intelligently, recovery still was going to be hamstrung by the resultant inflation caused by rapidly flooding the domestic and world economies with that much additional currency. This was another aspect of bailouts and stimulus that was irresponsibly underreported.

So, the stable of critics of libertarian ideology obsessively trot-out their observation that Libertarians seem to be singularly focused on legalizing cannabis.

Here is the long explanation why putting an end to the so-called War on Drugs (more than simply pushing cannabis legalization) becomes such a priority for so many Libertarians.

First, there is the billions of dollars spent in this country just on the prohibition effort: from street-level enforcement, to putting people through the courts, and then incarceration.

The well-intended point of cannabis prohibition is to keep it off the streets and away from America’s neighborhoods. To state the obvious, we’re spending billions on an ongoing policy that is not yielding the desired results.

Given that one of the pillars of modern conservatism is identifying and eliminating public policies that don’t deliver the intended results in light of their enormous expense, there is nothing conservative about cannabis prohibition (or, the wider War on Drugs for that matter – estimates have that costing roughly $100 billion per year).

Second, there is the impact on the protections enumerated in the Bill of Rights – particularly the Fourth and Fifth amendments.

The effort to enforce cannabis prohibition has generated all manner of legal gymnastics designed to empower law enforcement with circumventing and bypassing Constitutional requirements for:

1. court authorization to conduct searches and seizures (Fourth Amendment);
2. respecting due process as opposed to the pursuit of rampant civil asset forfeiture (Fifth Amendment).

Any such erosion of constitutional protections opens the door to the erosion of them all. If you need me to elaborate further…

Another issue that would see improvement/relief should cannabis be legalized is immigration.

What too many people debating various issues from a right-wing bent either fail to see or refuse to acknowledge: the issues of immigration and the illicit drug trade are heavily intertwined.

If we end the war on drugs and work with the other countries in the Western Hemisphere to follow suit, whether or not we have open borders with immigration would become moot…

…as we would for the most part end the policies that are turning the countries to our south into war zones – thus motivating their citizens to flee our direction.
 

Let’s be honest: the reason most citizens of Latin American countries immigrate to the U.S. isn’t in pursuit of welfare benefits or to take our jobs (I’ll acknowledge that these are undeniably incentives to stay after they have entered and gotten somewhat acclimated to life in America).

The vast majority of Latin American immigrants cross our border to flee the war zones their home counties have become. Those countries have become war zones as a result of the War on Drugs here in the United States and our government’s efforts to drag the rest of the western hemisphere into it with us.

Just as with alcohol prohibition when the 18th Amendment was ratified, this new round of prohibition has created ridiculously wealthy drug cartels in the exact same manner as the organized crime operations that profited off of bootlegging and rum-running.

Legalizing cannabis would dramatically slow the flow of cash to the drug lords south of our border and, thus, gradually give those countries relief in their respective efforts to get the absurd rates of violent crime under control.

Essentially, the overwhelming majority of so-called illegal immigrants really are refugees trying to flee the unintended consequences of the War on Drugs.

More people need to acknowledge this particular unintended consequence of America’s drug war.

Finally, there is the relief to be seen within our outlandishly congested court systems. Along with conducting expedient trials for actual criminals, our courts also should be used to arbitrate disputes over property, contracts, and the bulk of operations that are hyper-regulated by government.

However, prosecuting cases of simple possession have our courts so log-jammed that finding justice in matters of real crimes and settling civil disputes so as to render the regulatory state unnecessary are virtually impossible.

So, let’s summarize… legalizing cannabis would:

1. alleviate the budget-busting expense of a policy that is not bearing any real fruit other than to make do-gooders feel good about themselves and their good intentions.
2. set in motion restoration of constitutional protections enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
3. give significant relief to the stress on our country’s border enforcement efforts.
4. open-up the courts to tackle other matters better-suited for them.

Would it be a panacea for these issues or any others? Of course not.

However, given the absence of any actual benefits of modern prohibition vs. the relief on at least these four issues which legalization would provide, this one heavily advocated action is a perfectly logical priority.

But, please feel free to continue making this all about wanting to get high. Perhaps watching “Reefer Madness” for the 57th time is in order.

I have had my fill with the argumentation being used in recent years by both the Republican right and the Democrat left when the topic of immigration comes-up.

Anymore, the Right asserts that if you’re not lining-up with Trump on the immigration debate you must be for open borders.

Likewise, the Left endlessly insinuates that if you’re not for open borders you’re automatically all-in with Trump on the immigration issue.

That is a false dichotomy: pure and simple. The solution lies in the middle between those two perspectives.

Just as with so many other political and public policy discussions, this is not a black-and-white issue where conditions have to be to one extreme or the other.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) as well as Customs & Border Protection (CBP) are able to operate under legislation that authorizes them to engage in heavy-handed border enforcement operations as far as 100 miles from any physical U.S. border.

Reports from communities in the Rio Grande valley detail how agents from both Department of Justice entities have been demonstrating complete disregard for Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure and even setting-up operations on private property without concern for consent from property owners – a mind-boggling violation of the Third Amendment.

In my youth, when I was learning about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, if you would have told me in the 21st century our government would begin skirting the Third Amendment, I would have laughed in your face…

…This is no laughing matter.

Perhaps the most important nugget of truth residents in the northern span of Ohio need to bear in mind: the precedents set at our southern border can all-too-easily be applied to our northern border – and impact almost one-third of Ohio.

It bears noting that I do not favor open borders. One of the legitimate functions of government (and, it is a short list) is to establish and maintain secure borders. As a nation, we have every right to know who seeks entry into the United States (as well as observe who seeks to exit in order to stop fugitives fleeing justice). That is not unreasonable.

At the same time, “Building the Wall” also will not solve anything. To the tune of well over $25 billion, all that will do is motivate those who profit off the border crossing black market to innovate new ways to defeat it. Our government helped spawn that black market situation with this notion of overzealous border enforcement.

To further skew any conversation, the American Right will even go so far as to liken today’s state of immigration to an “invasion.” Rejecting this rhetoric on its face is easy. The use of such a term is nothing more than conservatives taking a page out of the Progressive Left’s playbook: inject as many fear-oriented/emotionally-charged terms into the discussion as deemed necessary.

Ultimately, what we have going at present is absurdly restrictive and diametrically opposed to historical American values. Even before President Donald Trump embraced “zero tolerance” at our southern border, that observation held true.

Moreover, it was not even President Trump who established the Zero Tolerance policy being carried-out by I.C.E. – it has been only in the last year this policy finally began grabbing headlines in the manner it has.

The uncomfortable truth for the vast majority of Trump’s opposition is that during President Barack Obama’s administration I.C.E. was separating children from their parents at the border at double the pace of his successor. However, no one in Washington, D.C., or America’s leading news media outlets seemed concerned enough about it to make any noise during that eight-year span. At the end of the day, the Democratic Party has absolutely no moral high ground on this issue.

To reiterate, the tighter the restrictions imposed by the U.S. government on legally entering this country, the greater the black market environment it has created. Loosen the criteria and you alleviate the incentive to cross “illegally.”

Just as important, the majority of those who have been slipping across the southern U.S. border for years should be acknowledged for what they are: refugees from the War on Drugs. Since the Controlled Substances Act was enacted in 1970, our federal government hasn’t just created a mess here in our own country, it has expended a great deal of energy pushing the remainder of the Western Hemisphere to follow-suit.

That has been a primary driver in causing the conditions in Mexico and across Central America that have been prompting citizens in those countries to flee northward.

We shaped this mess as a country. To tell victims of our failed policies, “Sorry for your luck,” is crap.

I would like to offer one more additional point for consideration.

You don’t have to favor open borders to recognize that the “zero tolerance” approach to breaking-apart every single family crossing the border is draconian and in complete contravention to everything for which America once stood.

Ponder this: beginning in 1993, after President Bill Clinton took office, the popular mantra the Republican right began to advance in earnest was “the family is under attack”…

…Now, fast-forward 25 years and that same political camp demands we all accept the idea maintaining a secure border necessitates I.C.E. and CBP attacking families as a deterrent to illegal border crossings.

Brilliant. Positively brilliant.

The issue of Life vs. Choice just is not the black-and-white subject so many would have us all believe. There are competing truths on both sides that require equal consideration.

At this point, it is safe to say the majority of people who read this will hate my stance on abortion.

I believe that life begins at conception.

Furthermore, I find the rate at which medical abortions are performed to be deeply troubling.

The first uncomfortable truth, however, standing in the way of any effort to ban the practice of abortion is that prohibition never works.

How many forms of prohibition in American history have ever delivered the results which were promised – and without all manner of unintended consequences that proved to be worse than the original problem?

It is a predictably very short list.

Another uncomfortable truth is that while the unborn child is truly alive and in their most vulnerable position of any stage of human life, any decision whether to continue with pregnancy or end it invariably concerns the body of the woman who is carrying and her right to decide what happens with her body.

One last point that I am surprised to have never heard anyone else address during any such discussion of Life vs. Choice is that conception and pregnancy do not (and cannot) come with a guarantee of carrying to term and live birth.

The constitutional conundrum

Any effort to end abortion in America will require codifying – via a constitutional amendment – that life begins at conception.

This is when unintended consequences become the real issue.

Of course, such an amendment to the Constitution will conclude with a section stating, “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

Given that conception and pregnancy have no guarantee the unborn child will be carried to term and survive during childbirth, we must reflect on what manner of situations will arise when an expectant mother miscarries.

Logically, given that whenever a young child loses his or her life unexpectedly there inevitably is an investigation into the cause of death, under the auspices of such a constitutional amendment the sudden loss of an unborn child would necessarily have to be addressed in the same manner.

Thus, the pitfall of codifying when life begins is that – as a result – Congress will amass the power to craft legislation governing human reproduction. I would like to know who out there is legitimately comfortable resting that kind of authority in the hands of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Lindsey Graham (among others).

If nothing else, I find the notion that government can retain for itself the authority and privilege to define anything whose existence predates the existence of government completely absurd.