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Three Justices Reveal Astonishing Covid Ignorance

10 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by Nuetzel in Coronavirus, Supreme Court, Vaccinations

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Commerce Clause, Covid-19, Delta Variant, Ed Morrissey, Elena Kagan, Hospitalizations, Major Question Doctrine, Neil Gorsuch, Omicron Variant, OSHA, Phil Kerpen, Police Powers, Sonia Satamayor, Stephen Breyer, Tenth Amendment, Transmission, Twitter, Vaccine Mandate, Ventilators

Good God! What a remarkable display of ignorance we witnessed on Friday from three different Supreme Court justices. This trio dumped buckets-full of erroneous information about the current state of the COVID pandemic, all points that are easily falsifiable. The three are Sonia Satamayor, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan. The flub-fest occurred during a proceeding on challenges to OSHA’s attempt to impose a nationwide vaccine mandate on private employers having more than 100 employees. I’m sorely tempted to say these jurists must know better, but perhaps they were simply parroting what they’ve heard from “reliable” media sources.

Here’s a list of the false assertions made by the three justices at the hearing, as compiled by Michael P. Sanger, along with my own brief comments:

  • 100,000 children in critical care and on ventilators (Sotomayor) — Not even close!
  • Vaccine mandate would prevent 100% of US cases (Breyer) — Lol!
  • 750 million people tested positive last Thursday (Breyer) — That’s more than twice the U.S. population… in one day! Haha! See here.
  • COVID deaths are at an all-time high (Sotomayor) — No, they are well under half of the all-time high, and many of those “announced” deaths are Delta deaths and deaths that occurred weeks to months ago.
  • It’s “beyond settled” that vaccines and masks are the best way to stop the spread (Kagan) — Say what?
  • COVID vaccines stop transmission (Kagan) — Is that why two fully vaccinated attorneys arguing the government’s case just tested positive?
  • Federal agencies can mandate vaccines using the police powers of the federal government (Sotomayor) — Incorrect, not at their fancy. Police powers with respect to health, safety and morals are generally reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment. The Commerce Clause allows Congress to regulate these powers through federal agencies on “major questions”. Congress, however, has never acted on the question of vaccine mandates.
  • Hospitals are nearing capacity (Sotomayor) — Again, no! And see here.
  • Omicron is deadlier than Delta (Sotomayor) — Omicron may be more severe than the common cold in some cases, but all indications are that it has much lower severity than the Delta variant.
  • Hospitals are full of unvaccinated people (Breyer) — No, on two counts: 1) hospitals are not full, and 2) there are COVID hospitalizations among the vaccinated as well. Also see here.

I’ve covered most of these points on this blog at various times in the past, a few links to which are provided in the bullets above. As one wag said, it’s almost as if these justices read nothing but the New York Times, the paper that once assured the world that Joseph Stalin was actually a pretty decent fellow. With tongue firmly in cheek, Ed Morrissey asked whether Twitter would suspend Justice Sotomayor for spreading COVID misinformation.

There also followed a desperate attempt by left-wing journalists to convince themselves and their followers that Justice Neil Gorsuch had incorrectly claimed hundreds of thousands of people die from the flu every year. The actual Gorsuch quote in the transcript reads:

“Flu kills—I believe—hundreds, thousands of people every year.”

And that indeed is what can be heard clearly on the audio (short clip here). But in the fertile imaginations of the lefty commentariat, Gorsuch uttered an extra “of”. Gorsuch was clearly correcting himself mid-sentence. As noted by Phil Kerpen, the line of questioning had to do with the establishment of a limiting principle under which OSHA could conceivably have authority to impose a vaccine mandate. Naturally, Gorsuch intended to quote a number smaller than the count of COVID deaths.

Most of the justices appeared to lean against the OSHA mandate. We’ll probably get a ruling this week. However, the episode vividly illustrates the power of the leftist mainstream media and social media to manipulate beliefs, even beliefs held by individuals of formidable intellect. It also shows how fiercely people cling to falsehoods supporting their ideological mood affiliations.

Exposing Children To Risk at the Border

19 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by Nuetzel in Immigration

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Asylum, Border Control, Chy Lung v. Freeman, Commerce Clause, Coyote Smugglers, DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Flores Consent Decree, Health and Human Services, Human Rights Watch, Human Trafficking, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Kristen Nielsen, Ports of Entry, Unaccompanied Children

Unaccompanied children (UACs) will be housed in temporary quarters at the border even in the wake of President Trump’s new executive order intended to end family separations. That order began the process of reuniting children and parents that were separated under the Administration’s earlier effort to discourage the recent deluge of illegal immigrants claiming asylum. But UACs were the original subject of the so-called Flores Consent Decree in 1997, which limited the length of a minor’s stay in a holding facility to 20 days before placement with a relative, other guardian, or foster shelter. Soon after, the decree was extended to accompanied children by a federal court.

There is no doubt that all of these minors are much safer in holding facilities than during their dangerous attempts to cross the border through rough, arid country, and perhaps over the Rio Grande. That seems rather obvious, and the geography isn’t the worst of it: UAC’s are highly likely to become victims of human trafficking, which runs rampant along the U.S.-Mexican border.

UACs have already separated from their families, deliberately or otherwise, before their journey north. But a family embarking on such an odyssey is likewise exposed to tremendous danger from physical hazards and criminal predation, and the children are more likely to be young. If detained by U.S. border security, they might be about as safe or safer in custody than they’ve ever been, given the lawlessness at many points of departure in Central America.

For these and other reasons, whether children should ever be separated from parent(s), or someone claiming to be a parent(s), is not as straightforward as many have suggested. The recent outrage over the treatment of immigrant children at the border is based on a number of misapprehensions. I attempt to address some of these in the points below:

>>Prior to President Trump’s executive order last week ending family separations, 10,000 (more than 80%) of the children housed by the U.S. government at the border were actually UACs, separated from their families before their journeys ever began, not after apprehension at the border. Most but not all of these kids are teenagers delivered into the hands of smugglers, who sometimes collect a premium on their charges via misuse and sexual abuse. Here is part of a statement from Kristjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security:

“The vast, vast majority of children who are in the care of HHS right now, 10,000 of the 12,000, were sent here alone by their parents. That’s when they were separated. So somehow we’ve conflated everything but there’s two separate issues. 10,000 of those currently in custody were sent by their parents with strangers to undertake a completely dangerous and deadly travel alone.“

>>2,000 (less than 20%) of the children housed by HHS were separated from their parents when the parents claimed asylum after attempting to cross illegally. However, a consequential share of those children were not biologically related to the supposed parents after all; some UACs are used by coyotes to pose as the children of adult immigrants, and vice versa, so that they all gain more favorable treatment if apprehended.

>>The ranks of “asylum seekers” have swollen by attempts to migrate for economic reasons. A preference for an illegal crossing is presumptive evidence that this is the case. Here is more from Nielsen:

“… in the last three months we’ve seen illegal immigration on our southern border exceed 50,000 people each month, multiples over each month last year. Since this time last year, there has been a 325 percent increase in unaccompanied alien children and a 435 percent increase in family units entering the country illegally. …Over the last ten years, there has been a 1700 percent increase in asylum claims, resulting in asylum backlog of 600,000 cases.“

>>Enforcing the Flores Consent Decree makes it almost impossible to meet the goals of 1) properly adjudicating an asylum claim by a parent detained after an illegal crossing, and 2) keeping the family together. As a result, before April of this year, prior to the Trump Administration’s effort to discourage frivolous claims, the reality was that most “credible fear” asylum claims at the border resulted in the immediate release of families.

>>Many of the separated children arrived with single parents, including female children with fathers. In fact, most illegal immigrants are male and mostly unaccompanied by children. Ensuring the safety of children is a challenge in any detention environment. Here is what Human Rights Watch‘s 1999 Report on Children’s Rights had to say on the matter:

“Despite the directive of Article 37(c) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that “every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child’s best interest not to do so,” children continued to be held with adults in many parts of the world. Human Rights Watch opposed the commingling of children and adults in detention because contact with adults was almost never in the children’s best interest. Children in adult facilities rarely received educational and vocational training appropriate to their needs. detention because contact with adults was almost never in the children’s best interest. Children in adult facilities rarely received educational and vocational training appropriate to their needs.”

None of this is easy. It is arguably prudent and in a child’s best interest to keep them housed separately from adults. The unfortunate reality is that the recent surge of illegal entrants cited by HSA Secretary Nielsen has placed a strain on existing facilities. However, assuming that family relationships can be verified, the designation of facilities for families-only would offer an alternative that has been lacking.

>>Ultimately, the border control separated detained “parents” from children at the volition of the parents. The parents were offered the opportunity to take their children back across the border, where they could head to an official port-of-entry to claim asylum. Of course, an asylum claim after an illegal crossing involves a lengthy delay. (And an attempt to re-enter illegally is a felony, which would all but guarantee separation.) Under Trump’s policy, if the parents refused to go back in the first instance, claiming asylum immediately, they were separated from their children until their cases were adjudicated. But after 20 days, the children must be transferred to a foster shelter, relative, or family friend in the U.S.

>>Legitimate asylum-seekers have alternatives to risky illegal crossings. They should go to a port of entry to claim asylum, not expose their children to a long, hazardous slog through the marchland. And many do, as this article makes clear. There are 50 ports-of-entry along the U.S. Mexican border.

>>The claim that UACs and children separated from their apparent guardians were mistreated has been accepted uncritically by the media. The shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are not Auschitz, but you’d ever know it from listening to many news sources. The immigrants are provided with food, medical care and sanitary conditions far better than they may have ever experienced. References to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust are so shockingly off-base as to constitute a denial of the seriousness of the Holocaust.

>>The U.S. government is within its powers to regulate immigration, according to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Chy Lung v. Freeman (1875). That decision turned on the Article 1 Commerce Clause, which gives Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations. The Court ruled that this applies to immigration, a practical solution to the conflicting and sometimes highly restrictive state regulations on immigration in place at the time.

My position is that U.S. citizens hold the right to freedom of association, which includes the right to exclude. In that sense, citizenship is a “club good”. Yes, such legal exclusions are binding on citizens who disagree, like most other laws, unless they emigrate, but such a policy does not prohibit travel abroad, foreign travelers, and guest workers. Immigration controls should be calibrated such that inflows meet the country’s economic needs and do not place an undue burden on public finances. I also support generous allowances for legitimate asylum seekers, subject to vetting. As for the surge in the number of immigrant families detained by border control, more facilities that are specifically designed to house families may be required. Finally, Congress must find a compromise to the issues of Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA), border security, and eliminating the Flores Decree. There are avenues for a compromise solution, but raw political motives seem to be keeping Democrats away from the table.

Benefit Mandates Bar Interstate Competition

30 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by Nuetzel in competition, Health Care

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Benefit Mandates, Cherry-Picking, Commerce Clause, Federalism, Foundation for Economic Education, Health Insurance, Interstate Competition, John Seiler, Legacy Carriers, McCarran-Ferguson Act, Restraint of Trade, Robert Laszewski, Steve Esack, Teresa Miller

The lack of interstate competition in health insurance does not benefit consumers, but promoting that kind of competition requires steps that are not widely appreciated. Most of those steps must take place at the state level. In fact, it is not well known that it is already legal for states to jointly create interstate “compacts” under Obamacare, though none have done so.

The chief problem is that states regulate insurance carriers and the policies they offer in a variety of ways. Coverage mandates vary from state to state, as do rules governing the coverage of pre-existing conditions, renewability, dependents, costs, and risk rating. John Seiler, writing at the Foundation for Economic Education, offers a great perspective on the fractured character of state regulations. Incumbent insurers within a state have natural advantages due to their existing relationships with local providers. Between the difficulty of forming a new network and the costs of customizing policies and obtaining approval in multiple states, there are significant barriers to entry at state lines.

Federalism is a principle I often support, but state benefit mandates and other regulations are perverse examples because they restrict the otherwise voluntary and victimless choices available to a state’s consumers. Well, victimless except perhaps for in-state monopolists and their cronyist protectors in state government. Many powers are reserved to states under the Constitution, while the powers of the federal government are strictly limited. That’s well and good unless state governments infringe on the rights of individuals protected by the Constitution. In particular, the Commerce Clause prohibits state governments from obstructing the flow of interstate commerce.

Here is a bit of history surrounding the evolution of state versus federal control over insurance markets, as told by Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Teresa Miller (as quoted by reporter Steve Esack):

“Since the 1800s, the U.S. Supreme Court held individual states, not Congress, had the power to regulate insurance companies. The high court overturned that precedent, however, in a 1944 ruling, United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters, that said insurance sales constituted interstate trade and Congress could regulate insurance under the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause.

But states cried foul. In response, Congress passed and President Harry S. Truman in 1945 signed the McCarran-Ferguson Act to grant a limited anti-trust provision so states could keep regulating insurance carriers. The law does not preclude cross-border sales. It means insurance companies must abide by different sets of rules and regulations and laws in 50 states.“

Congress obviously recognized that state regulation of health insurance would create monopoly power and restrain trade, even if states place bridles on insurers and impose ostensible consumer protections. The solution was to exempt health insurers from broad federal regulation and anti-trust prosecution by the Department of Justice.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would repeal McCarran-Ferguson for health insurers. However, that would do little to encourage cross-border competition as long as the tangle of state mandates and other regulations remain in place. The regulatory landscape would have to change under this kind of federal legislation, but how that would happen is an open question. Could court challenges be brought against state regulators and coverage mandates as anti-competitive? Would anti-trust actions be brought against incumbent carriers?

Robert Laszewski has strong objections to any new law that would allow interstate sales of health insurance as long as state benefit mandates remain in place for “local legacy” carriers. In particular, he believes it would encourage “cherry picking” of the best risks by market entrants who would be free of the mandates. Many of the healthiest individuals would jump at the chance to purchase stripped down, catastrophic coverage. That would leave the legacy carriers under the burden of mandates and deteriorating risk pools. Would states do this to their incumbent insurers without prodding by the courts? Would they simply drop the mandates? I doubt it.

No matter the end-state, there is likely to be a contentious transition. Promoting interstate competition in the health insurance market is a laudable goal, but it is not as simple as some health-care reformers would have us believe. Real competition requires action by states to eliminate or liberalize regulations on benefit mandates, risk-rating and pre-existing conditions. Ultimately, the cost of coverage for high-risk individuals might have to be subsidized, whether means-tested or not, through a combination of support from the states, the federal government, and private charities. And of course, interstate competition really does requires repeal of the health insurance provisions of McCarran-Ferguson.

Governments at any level can act against the well-being of consumers, despite the acknowledged benefits of decentralized governance over central control. Benefit mandates, whether imposed at the federal or state levels, are inimical to consumer choice, competition, efficient pricing, and often to the very concept of insurance. Those aren’t the sort of purposes federalism was intended to serve.

Hamilton, Jefferson & Miranda’s Propaganda

12 Sunday Jun 2016

Posted by Nuetzel in Constitution, Slavery

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

13th Amendment, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, Bank of the United States, Ben Affleck, Central Bank, Charles Kessler, Commerce Clause, Corwin Amendment, Declaration of Independence, Hamilton on Broadway, James Madison, James Monroe, King George, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Manumission, Maria Reynolds, Michelle DuRoss, Necessary and Proper Clause, Raymond Burr, Ron Chernow, Spencer Kornhaber, State's Rights, The Atlantic, The Federalist Papers, Thomas Jefferson, Three-Fifths Compromise, Warren Meyer, Yeoman Farmer

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I know too well to take any history I get from the theatre with a grain of salt! Nevertheless, I’d really like to see Hamilton on Broadway. It’s a hugely successful musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda about the life of Alexander Hamilton, one of our nation’s founding fathers, inspired by the book Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. I’ve heard much of the show’s music, infused with R&B and rap/hip-hop; it’s more appealing to me than I’d ever have expected of rap. The show has been nominated for a record 16 Tony Awards (the ceremony is tonight), and of course it’s a very hot ticket. The last time I checked, the cheapest seats available were about $650 each for the last row in the house, and that was about 45 days out! With a party of four, that’s a cool $2,600 for an evening of theatre. I think we’ll wait for the touring production to roll through the midwest next year.

In Hamilton, all of the founding fathers are cast as people of color, a controversial decision that led to a recent uproar over a casting notice encouraging non-white performers to audition for leads. The casting of the founding fathers is an interesting artistic decision. One writer, Spencer Kornhaber in The Atlantic,  says that the “colorblind” casting:

“… is part of the play’s message that Alexander Hamilton’s journey from destitute immigrant to influential statesman is universal and replicable….“

That’s admirable, as far as it goes. I believe Kornhaber comes closer to Miranda’s  true motivation for the casting decision a paragraph later:

“… movements like Black Lives Matter, and renewed calls for the consideration of reparations, are built on the idea that ‘all’ remains an unfulfilled promise—and that fulfillment can only come by focusing on helping the specific populations that suffer greatest from America’s many inequalities rooted in oppression. … While Hamilton does not explicitly take a side, the simple fact of its casting suggests which way it probably leans.“

In broad strokes, the following is true about the drafting of the U.S. Constitution and arguments over its adoption: Alexander Hamilton favored provisions that tipped power in favor of the central government at the expense of the states, while Thomas Jefferson favored more stringent limits on central powers and strong states’ rights, or federalism as it is commonly known. It’s also true that over the years, Hamilton’s constitutional legacy tended to receive little emphasis in historical narratives relative to Jefferson’s. In the musical, Hamilton is portrayed as a hero to those who would benefit from a powerful and benevolent central government, particularly slaves, while Jefferson is portrayed in less flattering terms. Miranda’s casting implies that the relative emphasis on federal power versus states rights would surely have been reversed had the founding fathers been people of color.

A friend of mine saw the show before it became quite so hot. His kids are “theatre kids”, as mine were up to a certain age. I have great respect for my friend’s intellect and I am sympathetic to his political orientation, which I’d describe as libertarian with strong Randian influences. Here is his brief review of Hamilton:

“I loved Hamilton — it was a great night of theater. I even like the music — which is rap/hip-hop style that I haven’t found enjoyable, at least until now. My biggest concern about the play is its portrayal of Jefferson and Madison, who don’t come off well. Jefferson is a party boy more interested in partying in Paris than in seriously running a new nation. Both are portrayed as instigators in digging up dirt on Hamilton to use against him politically. Yes, they would have benefited from Hamilton’s womanizing scandals, but did they actively seek out that kind of trash? The play says yes…

And of course the play takes the position, I’d argue, that nothing Jefferson writes or says can be taken seriously because he is a slaveholder….the Bank of the U.S. is regarded by the play as a wonderful creation, thanks to Hamilton.“

I’ve read a number of accounts confirming Miranda’s treatment of Jefferson in the show, and the influence it apparently has on viewers without much background in political thought, American history, and the U.S. Constitution. I’ve lost the link, but one writer quoted his teenage daughter as saying “That Jefferson, he’s the WORST!”

There are a number of historical inaccuracies in Miranda’s book of Hamilton. An important fact contradicting the show’s vilification of Jefferson is that he, Madison and Aaron Burr:

“…did not approach Hamilton about his affair [as represented in the show], it was actually James Monroe and Frederick Muhlenberg in 1792. Monroe was a close friend of Jefferson’s and shared the information of Hamilton’s affair with him. In 1796, journalist James Callendar broke the story of Hamilton’s infidelity. Hamilton blamed Monroe, and the altercation nearly ended in a duel. “

In no way did Chernow implicate Jefferson as a participant in blackmail against Hamilton over the affair with an “emotionally unstable” Maria Reynolds. That is entirely Miranda’s invention. His fictionalized Jefferson is a conniving devil, a disgraceful misrepresentation.

Let’s get one other thing out of the way: it is not reasonable to condemn individuals or their actions of 220 years ago outside the context of general attitudes and practices of that period. That’s not to condone those attitudes and practices, however. Last year, I quoted Warren Meyer on this point:

“Meyer mentions the recent incident involving Ben Affleck, who asked the host of a PBS documentary to omit any mention of a slave-owning Affleck ancestor:

‘So an ancestor held opinions about slavery we all would find horrifying today. But given the times, I can bet that pretty much every relative of Affleck’s of that era, slaveholder or no, held opinions (say about women) that we would likely find offensive today.’“

By all accounts, Chernow’s book about Hamilton is an excellent biography, but not without its faults. Charles Kessler states that Chernow relies on other biographies rather than original source material, and that Chernow misrepresents the attitudes of Jefferson and James Madison on commerce; like Hamilton, they viewed it as a “civilizing influence of the highest order“. I’m the first to vouch for the importance of well-functioning capital markets, but apparently Chernow is under the mistaken impression that capitalism itself is intricately tied to powerful banks, particularly central banks like the Federal Reserve! And Chernow exaggerates the difference in the views of Jefferson and Hamilton on the Constitution itself. Here is Kessler:

“A huge gulf remains between Hamilton’s loyalty to what he called a ‘limited Constitution’ and today’s ‘living Constitution,’ which seems capable of justifying virtually any activity that the federal government sees fit to undertake.“

Both Jefferson and Hamilton recognized that abolition would have represented a huge obstacle to forming a new nation. And there was the related problem, recognized by both men, of whether and how to compensate slave owners in the event of abolition. It should go without saying that a failure to reach an agreement between the colonies at the Constitutional Convention would not have led to abolition of slavery by other means. The contrary is implicit in any argument that the constitutional compromise was wholly unjust. It might have been hoped that forming a union would establish a framework within which dialogue on the issue could continue, though ultimately, a fractured union and a war was necessary to finally  emancipate the slaves.

Yes, Jefferson held slaves and had a strong economic interest in keeping them. In his circle of wealthy landowners, slavery was considered a normal part of life. However, Jefferson also publicly advocated various plans to free slaves, one as early as 1779. Here is a clause from Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, before it was revised by other members of the Committee of Five and by Congress, in reference to “his present majesty”, King George:

“he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of [the] Christian king of Great Britain, determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce ….“

While the clause was explicitly critical of trade in slaves, as distinct from ownership, it reveals the thinking of a man who was very progressive for his time. As for outright abolition, it is easy today to be critical of Jefferson’s proposals, which called for gradualism and, later, even deportation of freed slaves to Santo Domingo. Those proposals were based in part on fear shared by many authorities of an economic crisis and civil disorder if slaves were freed en masse. Jefferson certainly did not view slaves as equals to white men, but that was not unusual in those times; he did call for training them in certain skills as a condition of granting them freedom.

Hamilton’s record on slavery is not quite as heroic as Miranda’s musical would have you believe. He was highly ambitious and something of a social climber, so he was reluctant to air his views publicly regarding abolition. He married into a prominent New York slaveholding family, and there are records of his role in returning slaves captured by the British to their previous owners. From historian Michelle DuRoss (linked above):

“… when the issue of slavery came into conflict with his personal ambitions, his belief in property rights, or his belief of what would promote America’s interests, Hamilton chose those goals over opposing slavery. In the instances where Hamilton supported granting freedom to blacks, his primary motive was based more on practical concerns rather than an ideological view of slavery as immoral.“

Hamilton’s is known to have advocated manumission: freeing slaves who agreed to serve in the fight against the British. That position was a practical matter, as it would help in the war effort, and it might have played on the patriotic instincts of slaveowners who would otherwise insist on compensation. His mentor, George Washington, himself a reluctant slave owner, undoubtedly saw the practical value of manumission.

Hamilton’s real constitutional legacy came in two parts: first was his strong support for the Constitution during the ratification process and his (anonymous) contributions to The Federalist Papers. Later came his relatively broad interpretation of provisions granting certain powers to the federal government: the power to issue currency, the commerce clause and the “necessary and proper clause”. He also proposed a few ideas that were never adopted, such as lifetime terms in office for the president and members of the Senate. He did not propose any constitutional provision for the abolition of slavery or for granting full constitutional rights to slaves.

Hamilton was a major proponent of establishing a so-called national bank, known as the Bank of the United States when it was chartered in 1793. This allowed the new country to issue currency and was used as a way to eliminate war debts that were, by then, greatly diminished in value. Hamilton’s central bank meant great rewards to any investor who held the debt, especially those who had purchased the debt at a steep discount. Unfortunately, this was tantamount to monetizing government debt, or paying off debt by imposing an inflation tax (which reached 72% in the bank’s first five years of operation). The establishment of the bank also removed a major restraint on the growth of the federal government. Moreover, Hamilton was a protectionist, advocating tariffs on foreign goods and subsidies to domestic producers. It is little wonder that some have called him the “father of crony capitalism”.

Jefferson was quite possibly a bon vibrant in the best sense of the term, as opposed to the “party boy” depicted by Miranda. He was a man of great intellect, capable and actively conversant in philosophy, science and the practical arts. He wrote the Declaration of Independence, itself a forceful testimonial to natural rights. His constitutional legacy was powerful if indirect: he was a mentor to James Madison, who wrote the first draft of the Constitution. Jefferson was an advocate of majoritarian rule but also sought to protect individual rights against a tyranny of the majority. To that end, he advocated government limited in function to the protection of rights. In short, he was a classical liberal.

There were certainly contradictions between Jefferson’s philosophy and actions. Slaveholding was one, as already noted, but that was not unusual among southern aristocrats of the time, and Jefferson at least recognized the ethical dilemma and publicly offered policy solutions. But as a slaveholder, he made an odd spokesperson for the interests of the “yeoman farmer”, an agrarian individualist in the popular mind and a myth that persists to this day. Jefferson also advocated protectionist policies, such as an embargo on U.S. exports starting in 1807.

Yes, there were abolitionists at the time of our nation’s founding. Both Hamilton and Jefferson were quite sympathetic to the principle of abolition, but both recognized the practical difficulty of pushing it forward without endangering the founding of the nation, and both had personal and probably selfish reasons to avoid fighting that battle. The musical Hamilton glosses over this reality in the case of Hamilton himself, and at the same time condemns Jefferson. Miranda might just as well condemn Abraham Lincoln for his initial support of the original 13th (Corwin) Amendment in the early 1860s, which was never ratified. Ultimately, in 1865, a different 13th Amendment was ratified, accomplishing what would have been evident from the original text of the Constitution but for the so-called “three-fifths compromise”. That provision essentially counted a slave as 3/5s of a “free person” for purposes of apportioning representation and taxes, an idea originally proposed by Madison and revived by Alexander Hamilton himself!

I will still see the musical Hamilton when I get an opportunity. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a man of great talent, but he has misrepresented crucial facts about the Founders of the nation. Those interested in the truth, including those who teach our children, should not take it seriously as an account of history.

Labeling Exemptions Subvert Law’s Phobic Intent

26 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by Nuetzel in Uncategorized

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Tags

AAAS, Colorado, Commerce Clause, Compliance Costs, Denver Post, Farmer's Daughter, GMO food, GMO labeling law, Oregon, Oregonian, sworn statement, Unintended Consequences, Vermont

Sierra Exif JPEG

Predictably, Vermont’s new GMO labeling law is proving to be another classic failure of big government, as noted by The Farmer’s Daughter. Her post provides some of the gory details, including specific exceptions written into the drafted rules and “sworn statement” exemptions, both of which mean it will be of much less value to the public as a informational mechanism.

“The statement requires the signer to swear the food was not made from genetically engineered seeds and it was not co-mingled with any other GMO food. As you can imagine, such a system creates an odd set of regulations. On the one hand, a farmer has to keep all the GMO and GMO-free food separate, fill out these statements for each product, hope that nothing got mixed up, and risk perjury if it did. Alternatively, the grocery store has to keep the food separate, keep track of which sworn statement goes with which product (will they keep them in the display?), and hope that customers don’t mix up the products in the display.”

Obviously, the law will impose substantial compliance costs on farmers and grocers, and it will create barriers to trade across Vermont’s state lines that might ultimately meet a challenge under the Commerce Clause.

Meanwhile, debates over GMO labeling rage in a few other states, such as Oregon and Colorado, with measures on their ballots this November. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (publisher of Science magazine) is opposed to the Oregon’s initiative, as is the Oregonian newspaper, which published this editorial:

“Choice, in fact, is one reason to support the status quo, which provides organic and voluntarily labeled non-GE products for anyone who cares to buy them, usually at a higher price. The poor are protected, meanwhile, because, as the Washington report notes, ‘Volunteer labeling concentrates the costs on the target group able and willing to pay more for GMO-free products’ while ‘mandatory labeling imposes costs on everyone and not just those that desire GMO-free goods.’”

Here’s the Denver Post’s opinion on the Colorado measure:

“Colorado’s sugar beet growers could be seriously undermined. They grow genetically modified beets, so sugar from them would have GMO labels. Yet the beet growers argue that the end product is indistinguishable from other sugar because the GMO protein in the beets is removed in processing.

The same is true of vegetable oils from corn or canola seed that come from GMO plants.“

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  • Oh To Squeeze Fiscal Discipline From a Debt Limit Turnip
  • Conformity and Suppression: How Science Is Not “Done”
  • Grow Or Collapse: Stasis Is Not a Long-Term Option
  • Cassandras Feel An Urgent Need To Crush Your Lifestyle
  • Containing An Online Viper Pit of Antisemites

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Blogs I Follow

  • Ominous The Spirit
  • Passive Income Kickstart
  • onlyfinance.net/
  • TLC Cholesterol
  • Nintil
  • kendunning.net
  • DCWhispers.com
  • Hoong-Wai in the UK
  • Marginal REVOLUTION
  • Stlouis
  • Watts Up With That?
  • Aussie Nationalist Blog
  • American Elephants
  • The View from Alexandria
  • The Gymnasium
  • A Force for Good
  • Notes On Liberty
  • troymo
  • SUNDAY BLOG Stephanie Sievers
  • Miss Lou Acquiring Lore
  • Your Well Wisher Program
  • Objectivism In Depth
  • RobotEnomics
  • Orderstatistic
  • Paradigm Library

Blog at WordPress.com.

Ominous The Spirit

Ominous The Spirit is an artist that makes music, paints, and creates photography. He donates 100% of profits to charity.

Passive Income Kickstart

onlyfinance.net/

TLC Cholesterol

Nintil

To estimate, compare, distinguish, discuss, and trace to its principal sources everything

kendunning.net

The future is ours to create.

DCWhispers.com

Hoong-Wai in the UK

A Commonwealth immigrant's perspective on the UK's public arena.

Marginal REVOLUTION

Small Steps Toward A Much Better World

Stlouis

Watts Up With That?

The world's most viewed site on global warming and climate change

Aussie Nationalist Blog

Commentary from a Paleoconservative and Nationalist perspective

American Elephants

Defending Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

The View from Alexandria

In advanced civilizations the period loosely called Alexandrian is usually associated with flexible morals, perfunctory religion, populist standards and cosmopolitan tastes, feminism, exotic cults, and the rapid turnover of high and low fads---in short, a falling away (which is all that decadence means) from the strictness of traditional rules, embodied in character and inforced from within. -- Jacques Barzun

The Gymnasium

A place for reason, politics, economics, and faith steeped in the classical liberal tradition

A Force for Good

How economics, morality, and markets combine

Notes On Liberty

Spontaneous thoughts on a humble creed

troymo

SUNDAY BLOG Stephanie Sievers

Escaping the everyday life with photographs from my travels

Miss Lou Acquiring Lore

Gallery of Life...

Your Well Wisher Program

Attempt to solve commonly known problems…

Objectivism In Depth

Exploring Ayn Rand's revolutionary philosophy.

RobotEnomics

(A)n (I)ntelligent Future

Orderstatistic

Economics, chess and anything else on my mind.

Paradigm Library

OODA Looping

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