Obama Recording Oval Office Conversations, Presidential Taping Continues

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Jim

Like Nixon, LBJ, and Kennedy before him, President Obama has been recording Oval Office conversations.  In my judgment, this is a good practice and a credit to the President.

Mark Bowden (author of Black Hawk Down  and The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden) disclosed this fact during a 12/12/2012 speech at the Pritzker Military Library  (go to about 33:00 in event audio for relevant anecdote).

Bowden interviewed President Obama in the Oval Office for writing his book on the killing of bin Laden.  Unfortunately, Bowden’s tape recorder malfunctioned so the interview appeared to be at least partially lost.  While leaving the Oval Office, Bowden lamented the malfunction and was told by Ben Rhodes (probably a reference to the Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication) not to worry because “We record everything in here.”  Subsequently, Rhodes provided Bowden a full transcript of his interview with the President.

The only negative I see in Bowden’s account is that the White House is recording these conversations without disclosure to all the participants.  So consider yourself warned, when you speak with President Obama, you are speaking to all American citizens, both present and future.

Give that the risks of security and records preservation have been addressed, the resumption of presidential taping in the Oval Office and White House has three principle benefits, beyond day to day operational efficiencies.

Accountability

The President and members of the White House staff and executive branch are accountable to current and future American citizens for their conduct in office; see the example of Nixon’s resignation.

Further, those that speak with the Presient are accountable to current and future American citizens for their counsel; hear the Southern Governors speaking to the President regarding the outbreak of civil disorder during the civil rights movement.

History

In retrospect, audio records inform the documentation of history.  The cold black-and-white of bullet points are enlivened by the tone and natural language of the verbal discussion.  The significance of individuals are displayed by their participation in policy discussions and their being the subject of discussions; hear the LBJ tapes for this theme.

Presidency in Reality

Audio recordings bring issues in a raw perceptual form.  What was actually said and discussed is the antidote to unsubstantiated conspiracies about presidential motivations.  Further, the nuts and bolts of daily problem solving debunk the media echoed myth behind the cult of the presidency, and the President as the Great Legislator, in the Rousseau sense.

Personally, I hope in future to find through these recordings that President Obama is thoughtful and informed, which would be a valuable contrast to the ignorant fool that he presents himself to be in public.

Overall, President Obama recording Oval Office conversations is a value to this country and he deserves credit for that.  It is unlikely that such tapes will be used during his second term to clarify reported scandals that are subject to congressional oversight.  However, in the fullness of time, such recordings can correct history about whether President Obama or his detractors were misleading the American people about what President Obama knew and when did he know it.

Extra Point:  The Miller Center at the University of Virginia offers a presidential recordings program.

Posted in History, President | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Top 10 Selfish Reads for 2012

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Jim

The following are the top 10 books for 2012 as identified by the readers of Selfish Citizenship.

  1. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States) by James M. McPherson
  2. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
  3. The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else  by Hernando De Soto
  4. John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty by C. Bradley Thompson
  5. For the New Intellectual by Ayn Rand
  6. James Madison: A Biography by Ralph Ketcham
  7. The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies by Murray N. Rothbard
  8. James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity by Harry Ammon
  9. Washington by Douglas Southall Freeman
  10. The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America by Leonard Peikoff

What are you reading? Tell us in a comment.

The top 10 posts on Selfish Citizenship in 2012 were:

  1. Open Letter to Gary Johnson
  2. On Foreign Policy, American Founders vs. Ron Paul
  3. 6 Causes of India’s Mega-Blackout, Lessons for US
  4. Bipartisan Deal – Status Quo Continuing Resolution for FY 2013
  5. Top Three Reasons to Vote Obama for President
  6. Top Three Reasons to Vote Romney for President
  7. Angry Libertarians
  8. Cannibal Culture
  9. Not an Emergency, but a Suicide Attempt
  10. The Last Goode Democrat
Posted in Political Discussions | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Legislative Resolutions, Top 7 Legislative Priorities for 2013

Posted on January 1, 2013 by Jim

Given President Obama’s abdication in presenting select priorities to the Congress, Selfish Citizenship will take the initiative to spell out the top seven legislative priorities for 2013.

You should not be surprised to see increased federal gun control legislation absent from this prioritized list.

It is assumed that Congress will be attending to passing appropriations for FY 2013 and FY 2014, plus extending the federal debt limit.  While those are not included in these listed priorities per se, the listed items do contribute to addressing fiscal problems of spending and revenue.

#1 Reduce Regulations

While spending and taxing are given high priority in partisan rhetoric, federal regulation of business has led to Obama’s retarded economy; although in fairness, this is a problem created by Congress over decades.

The stacks of federal regulations infringing upon our freedom to contract, trade, and associate plus the locust of lawyers associated with them need to be removed from the backs of American businessmen.  Job flight overseas is more a consequence of regulatory compliance costs than high wages.

Cutting regulations will reduce spending on enforcement, reduce private waste on compliance, increase revenue by freeing trade within our country, and increase employment opportunities for Americans.

#2 Block Grant Funds to States

The Congress has infringed upon the states’ police powers by giving the states federal money with strings attached.  This is the method by which Congress has exceeded the limits of its constitutional authority.  To restore the federalist principle, the Congress should change all funding of state and local programs into block grants to the states without any strings attached.

As an example of the arbitrary power the executive wields as a result of the current process, see the efforts of states to get waivers from the Obama Administration related to the failed No Child Left Behind law.

This change will reduce federal spending by eliminating oversight and compliance expenses; however, federal civil rights enforcement should continue.  Over time, five to ten years, the value of block grants to states should be regularly diminished to zero as the states transition from these federal mandated programs.  These programs include Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and education funding.

#3 Eliminate Small Programs

The federal government funds many small programs unrelated to its core function as a federal government.  While it has been argued such programs are too small to worry about, candidate Romney had a good point, “Should the government be borrowing money to fund these programs?”

These programs should be eliminated, not just cut.  It is essential that, as a means to establish the principle, the federal government eliminate such programs.  Further, these should be examined for opportunities to transition such efforts to private entities in civil society as a proof of concept for larger programs that should no longer be within the domain of the federal government.

Such small programs would include funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, and funding to support racial segregation in higher education (a.k.a. HBCUs through the Higher Education Act).

#4 Sell Federal Assets

The federal government should increase its sale of federal assets, such as land.  Such revenue should be directed to paying federal bonds held in the Social Security Trust fund, which will reduce the size of the federal debt by paying off old bonds without borrowing new funds for those obligations.

To get fair value for these assets, the federal government will need to repeal statutes and regulations that diminish the value of such assets.  For example, consider the sale of Amtrak and the train car full of government interventions that devalue that asset.

#5 Tax Reform

I recall Rep. Frank Wolf saying that tax reform is an issue that requires presidential leadership.  While the zero in the White House lacks the gravitas, there are two principles that the Congress can follow to start reform of our current tax system.

First, taxes should not be punitive.  Under Obamacare, the Supreme Court approved of using the tax code to punish citizens; Congress should reject that power.  When Laffer’s curve is discussed related to the diminish revenue from higher tax rates, the cause is missed…those higher rates were punitive, punishing the successful for the crime of being successful.  Related to the power of this principle, see how the lowering of punitive capital gains tax rates led to eliminating the budget deficit in the 1990s.

Second, tax provisions should be exclusively for revenue and not an end around to exceed limits on congressional powers.  Over time, Congress as elected to use tax breaks and deductions to control citizens’ behavior in ways that are not permitted otherwise.  Imagine a law that ordered you to have a new child; yet the government actually punishes you with higher taxes for not creating that child.

If you see a person or company doing something stupid or wasteful, the likely cause is a federal tax incentive.

The elimination of punitive taxes and taxation as regulation is known by the euphemism tax simplification.

#6 Oversight

Congress has utterly failed in its oversight of the executive branch.

Often this is because of partisan blindness to the maladministration of a President from the majority’s party.

However, to a substantial degree, legislators have been co-opted into becoming blind cheerleaders for the federal programs they are charged with overseeing.  This is not a particularly new phenomenon; see discussions of the Iron Triangle in Hedrick Smith’s The Power Game.

The result is failed programs that do not get eliminated.

Perhaps, Senators with presidential ambitions should take note of the role legislative oversight played in the political rise of Truman and LBJ.

#7 Defund ObamaCare

With a Democratic Senate and President, ObamaCare will not be repealed soon.  Unfortunately, its taxes will start hurts the pockets of Americans in 2013, which has resulted in remorse from lazy Democratic legislators who failed to be attentive to the negative consequences of that disastrous legislation.  Meanwhile, individual states are refusing to participate in the law.

An alternative strategy to repeal is defunding.  Congress has a history of passing laws that it refuses to fund after the fact.  Through the haggling over FY 2013 and FY 2014 appropriations, the House should be able to singlehandedly block funding for executive efforts to implement the legislation.

This does not solve the destructive influence that ObamaCare will have over our private medical system.  Given that the current Congress will not repeal as it should, this at least is a half measure that follows the congressional history of hiding from the consequences it has created with bad legislation.

In summary, Congress needs to take the lead in fixing the problems created by prior Congresses.  All of these man-made problems were the predictable consequence of choices made in the Congress.  Now is the time for Congress to choose differently and these seven New Year’s Resolutions for Congress are a solid start.

Posted in Congress, Holiday | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

John Allison, Capitalist of the Year 2012

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Jim

Selfish Citizenship recognizes John Allison as the Capitalist of the Year.  As an individual, he has made a significant contribution to advancing capitalism in politics.

John Allison had been the successful head of BB&T, who has stood against the financing of eminent domain projects, and protected BB&T’s shareholders and clients from the bad investments encouraged by destructive federal interventions into the economy.  Also, he has lead investments in ethics education in college business instruction.

This year, he organized businessmen against government policies attacking our rights to contract, free association, and property.  He personally spoke around the country for individual rights, freedom, and economic liberty.  Further, he took the helm at the Cato Institute to reform that organization.

His most significant new contribution to the advancement of capitalism is his recent book:  The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why Pure Capitalism is the World Economy’s Only Hope.  Correcting the misinformation from government, politicians, and the media, Allison proved that the catalyst of our economic downturn was government interventions in the economy, but that the cause of this crisis is the ideas behind those policies.  Further, he makes the case that the cure is the ideas that lead to liberty by protecting individual rights.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s analysis of this crisis amounts to a feckless identification of concrete correlations; and, the celebrated Peter Schiff achieves at best the identification of manifestly evident integrations.  In contrast, Allison’s root cause analysis drills down to the underlying ideas that have caused many political failures while he maintains a fully integrated context that allows him to identify the correct solution, which is consistent with man’s nature as a rational being of volitional consciousness who survives by the products of his mind and acts of virtue.

While Mr. Allison has identified the cause and the solution, it is up to each of us individually in the conduct of our lives to choose the selfish path to improve our own lives.  In today’s context, where productivity too often is legally dependent upon government permission, in an act of self-defense, part of our energy will be diverted to political issues, even if we would prefer that it be otherwise.

Where to start? Following Allison’s example, here are some actions that you could take in the new year:

  1. object to destructive government policies that impact you personally,
  2. speak up affirmatively for individual rights, justice, and freedom in the face of collectivism, and
  3. affiliate with other individuals who share your values.

Well done Mr. Allison; may the virtue that you have demonstrated be rewarded with the success that it merits.

Posted in Political Discussions | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Question #5: Are compulsory juries moral?

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Jim

I have encountered the following questions many times; writing about it is an old old old to do task on my correct-the-naughty list.  As it has come up again recently, from yet another otherwise reasonable person, let me bang this one out for your edification.

Question:  “Are compulsory juries moral?  Is it necessary and/or proper to compel citizens to serve on a jury?”

This is an invalid question, which demonstrates that it is important to qualify a question before answering it.

The question does not say when or where this problem exists, so it implies here and now.  Note that when others answer this question negatively, they commit the error of accepting an arbitrary attack on our current system of jury service.  It is arbitrary in that there is no evidence to support the assertion.

Further, note that neither the questioner nor the typical negative responders refer to this as a hypothetical case, as in not related to facts in reality.  Yet, it has as much to do with reality as asserting that one opposes keeping dinosaurs as pets.

Many may disagree with me on this point, because they persist in error.  To them I ask for evidence, give me a specific case; for example, “in 2012, Jane Doe of Liberty Square Iowa did not want to be juror and was forced to serve against her expressed will.”  A little investigation into such a case would demonstrate that that Jane Doe was either lazy, ignorant, or mute, because an individual can be excused from jury service with cause.  Further, how did the attorneys allow this potentially biased juror through voir dire?  Or, in the case of a conviction, wouldn’t the case be subject to being overturned on appeal as depriving the defendant of his right to a fair trial?

To be clear (unlike President Obama), I am speaking from the US context; if you live in some backwards country that that does not allow for an individual to be excused from jury service with cause, then please out that barbaric cargo-cultist country in the comments.

The bar for establishing cause is very low.  I was able to be excused from jury service by simply factually saying that I was too busy at that immediate time on a project at work, but would be happy to serve when that project was complete.  For someone ignorant of legal process, a simple Google search would bring to light this cause based option for the individual potential juror.  Further, an ignorant person could simply contact the court with their conflict and they would be given their options to be excused from a jury summons.

However, a person cannot arbitrarily and without a cause opt out of jury duty.  Aside from an attack on jury duty per se, for some, this question can also be a ploy to defend the arbitrary and causeless motivation as valid which is a further attack on justice in this context.

Without referents in reality, the proposed problem to be solved of compulsory jury service is actually an attack on jury service, the right to trial by jury, and on government.  Anarchists and libertarians, but I repeat myself, inventively assert the bugbear of compulsion in jury service where it does not exist so as to defame government even in its legitimate court functions.

As there are not facts in reality that support the idea of compulsory jury service as a problem, how do the proponents support this myth?  They use hypotheticals as if their musings were evidence.  The best reply is to press them for actual facts and real people to be examined in the full context, including cause based jury service deferrals.

Next, while either ignorant or evading facts, the believer in the myth of compelled jury service will propose reasonable fixes that could correct our current “damnably rights violating” jury system.  For example, a pregnant woman should be allowed to decline jury service when she is 9 months pregnant and ready to pop.  The problem with such reasonable “fixes” is that they in fact already exist and the person making the proposal evades, or does not know enough about the subject.

After this demonstration of “reasonableness”, the myth proponent proposes much more radical revisions to our current system as solutions to what is in fact a non-existent problem.  As before, this involves dropping essential context.  Why is the current system the way it is?  That would be a good question for them, especially as their modest proposals could result in axe murderers and child molesters being released from prison based upon a successful appeal of a conviction.  Understanding why would require looking at facts instead of musing detached from reality and context.  For example, see Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522 (1975) for a Supreme Court case directing how the state’s should select a jury pool so as to avoid a jury bias that would overturn a conviction.  In the present day context, it could be argued that an alternative method could be used that would not result in race or sex bias in the jury; however, that is not an issue that myth proponents address, because they drop context.

Finally, the myth adherent will contradict their straw man attack on our current jury system by asserting that they support jury service, just not “compulsory”.  Given the contradiction and the divergence of the myth from reality, this statement of support is as convincing as a Republican claiming that they support free enterprise in a speech full of calls for regulating business.

This case has some important lessons for selfish citizens so that they do not fall prey to ideologues (either statists or anti-government lemmings) that peddle falsehoods:

  1. Qualify the question; what are the facts of reality to which it refers?
  2. As evidence, accept facts, but not hypotheticals.
  3. Validate asserted facts, such as the lack of reasonable exceptions, to see if they are true or not.
  4. When sold change as a panacea, give serious consideration as to why the current man made facts were chosen so that relevant context is not dropped.
  5. Don’t hang on to a favorable statement made by a proponent, and ignore or discount all the other contradicting statements that they made.

Extra Point: Thinking about this post brought to mind something that Robert Metz and Robert Vaughn had recently discussed about the English language…words have multiple meanings.  Consequently, disagreements can result because disputants use the same word in different senses; thus, defining terms can clarify which meaning is being used.  In the above question, the second part makes clear the used definition of compulsory, and also demonstrates a dishonest word trick by shifting the context with an inapplicable definition selection.

Posted in The Courts | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments