Free Trade? Obama Doesn't Get It

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable friends:

Several months ago, we heard Sen. Barack Obama mention that he might like to renegotiate NAFTA. This caused such a panic in Canada that his campaign called to assure them that Obama was just spouting campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken seriously. Though this is disturbing enough, the topic of free trade agreements came up again at the final debate, and it sounded like the Canadians have good reason to be concerned. Obama stated:

“I believe in free trade. But I also believe that for far too long, certainly
during the course of the Bush administration with the support of Senator McCain,
the attitude has been that any trade agreement is a good trade agreement. And
NAFTA doesn't have -- did not have enforceable labor agreements and
environmental agreements.“And what I said was we should include those and make
them enforceable. In the same way that we should enforce rules against China
manipulating its currency to make our exports more expensive and their exports
to us cheaper.“And when it comes to South Korea, we've got a trade agreement up
right now, they are sending hundreds of thousands of South Korean cars into the
United States. That's all good. We can only get 4,000 to 5,000 into South Korea.
That is not free trade. We've got to have a president who is going to be
advocating on behalf of American businesses and American workers and I make no
apology for that.”

Obama should apologize. He does not believe in free trade any more than he does in domestic capitalism. The concept of free trade requires that one reduce or eliminates tariffs and other government interference from the international market to allow producers to compete so that each nation can find its own competitive advantage and the consumers benefit across the world. It does not mean that you use trade agreements as weapons with which you bully or beat any competitive advantage out of your trading partners.

Obama is upset that our regulations and taxes have made it more expensive to produce cars here in the U.S. than in Korea. Thus, rather than reducing our own costs, he favors tariffs and additional labor regulations that will increase foreign costs and remove any advantage they may have. All this does is make things more expensive for the U.S. consumer, who then cannot afford to buy as many things, causing a net loss in our economy. Removing the tariffs does give the Koreans an advantage in cars, but our gain in lower prices is greater than our loss in jobs. Americans will focus on other industries, which we can produce better here. Over and over, we have demonstrated that free trade produces huge gains in our economy, but Obama wants to replace free trade with universal overregulation and American citizens will pay the price for it.

The Worst Is Yet To Come: Blame Congress--And Obama

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable Friends,

I hope you did not get too excited by the rise in the market yesterday. Our system is nowhere near stable, and even further from recovery. We have not even begun to address the fundamental problems that have come together in this crisis. What we have heard about is a large number of bad mortgage backed securities which created a strain on credit in the banks and spurred Congress to pass the foolish $850 billion bailout. The problem has now bled into the financial paper market, though. Without the financial paper market, and the short term loans it provides institutionally, credit in this country dries up entirely. Thus, the Fed is injecting an additional $1 trillion directly into the commercial paper market to try to keep things flowing. What you have not heard, is how terrifyingly extensive the disease actually is. Just listen to Bud Burrell’s interview to get a good idea.

We now have banks that are hugely overleveraged, often at a rate of more than 40:1 debt to assets. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae actually reached levels of almost 100:1. They also became hugely tied up with bad mortgage backed securities and other credit default swaps of derivatives, as did countless others. As we know, the consequences of this sort of behavior have been severe. However, the damage is much worse than the $850 billion bailout, or even the $1 trillion Fed remedy can handle. Over $58 trillion in derivatives liabilities has already been reported—and that covers only 10% of entities who engage in such trades. We have no idea how deep the poison really goes in the remaining 90%.

On top of this, we also have naked short selling (NSS) running through our ailing market like a fatal cancer. Short selling is where someone leases a security expecting its value to fall. He then sells the security to another. At the end of the lease, he repurchases the security, hopefully at a lesser price than it sold for originally, and returns it to the owner. NSS is similar, except that the seller sells the security before he is sure he can even lease it. As a result, people may pay for a security that cannot be delivered. This practice is illegal, but has not been enforced by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This loathsome practice has contributed to the demise of Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual, IndyMac, Lehman Brothers, and AIG. Its practitioners presume to sell stock in these companies without ever obtaining that stock. They then drive down the stock price, often without ever delivering a single stock certificate. The companies collapse -- not from any balance sheet problems -- but from these phantom trades of non-existent stock. It is even happening in commodities such as gold and precious metals, where people are selling ownership certificates without ever having the gold to back it, and the buyer is none the wiser unless he tries to claim the actual gold. As these problems converge now, they have the very real potential of utterly obliterating our economy and the value of the dollar itself.

Does it surprise you that this corruption has grown so large? It should not. Congress has done nothing but encourage it. Congress repealed of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, which allowed for the sale of mortgage backed securities and blurred the line between lenders and investors. They passed Sarbanes-Oxley in 2001, along with mark to market accounting. The hastily crafted Act required hugely expensive accounting processes that did little but drive small business out of public trading while doing nothing to curtail corruption in larger institutions. Mark to market accounting also forced assets to be valued at the last sale of similar type whether or not that sale was representative of the asset in hand, thus skewing valuation. Our government then lifted the leverage rules in 2004. Previously, banks were limited to a ratio of 12:1 debts to assets. With the lifted rules, they ballooned into 40:1 ratios or higher. Next, despite Regulation SHO prohibiting naked short selling the SEC has never enforced it, and even gone so far as to falsify reports playing down the dangers of the practice. Finally, let us not forget all the inflationary tinkering the Fed did to prevent any real adjustment in the market that could have purged these problems before they became behemoths.

The real root of the mortgage problem, though, began with the Community Reinvestment Act of the Carter administration in 1977 and amplified by Clinton in 1995. This encouraged loans to people with no money down, no assets, and no income. It also created the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which has been abused to support the activities of ACORN and its fraudulent voter registration drives. Incidentally, ACORN was also Obama’s first employer. Freddie and Fannie, operating under the goals of this Act, hid their losses through massive corruption. As they cooked the books, they funneled large donations into Congress to fend off oversight and reforms attempted by Bush in 2001 and 2003, and later by McCain in 2005. The second largest recipient of those corrupt donations was Barack Obama, and after only three years in office.

As Burrell notes, the legal system the Congress has created is one ideally designed for organized crime—not free markets. It has created a perfect economic storm that threatens to engulf the whole world. Those responsible for leading us here, especially Sen. Obama, who now presumes to lead us as president, should be held accountable for their reckless and irresponsible actions.

Connecticut Supreme Court Endorses Gay Marriage-But Please Don't Call It Judicial Activism

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable friends,

The Supreme Court of Connecticut has just issued an opinion in Kerrigan v. Commissioner of Public Health, approving gay marriage in that state. I have no doubt that I will shortly be hearing a great deal about ‘judicial activism,’ given that both sides use that term whenever they disagree with a decision and neither side seems to know much about what it means. What it should refer to is the improper situation where a judge or panel of judges/justices, rules according to their own policy, independent of constitutional directives. The proper role of our judges for constitutional questions is to look at the law, match it to the constitution, and see if they fit — that is all. That is exactly what the Connecticut Supreme Court has done.

There are a few pertinent factors to keep in mind. First, Article 1 §§1& 20 of Connecticut’s constitution contains guarantees of equal protection and anti-discrimination that go well beyond the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause. The Court viewed this issue as a regulation upon sex, and spent the bulk of the opinion analyzing the treatment of Civil Unions verses Marriage under the same level of scrutiny it would use for any other type of sex or gender based legal distinction. Upon finding the legal status of sexual preference to be a sex based suspect class, it found no legitimate state interest whatsoever in granting heterosexual couples marriages while granting homosexual couples civil unions.

The Court was so thorough in this procedural analysis that the decision was downright dull. The opinion carried none of the fascinating historical analysis of marriage one finds in the Massachusetts case of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, 440 Mass. 309 (2003), nor the lively discussions of civil rights in the California case of In re Marriage Cases, 43 Cal.4th 757 (2008). The only interesting language for lay people came in a footnote:

15 As one prominent legal commentator has explained in discussing the establishment of civil unions: ‘‘Such a step reduces the discrimination, but falls far short of eliminating it. The institution of marriage is unique: it is a distinct mode of association and commitment with long traditions of historical, social, and personal meaning. It means something slightly different to each couple, no doubt. For some it is primarily a union that sanctifies sex, for others a social status, for still others a confirmation of the most profound possible commitment. But each of these meanings depends on associations that have been attached to the institution by centuries of experience. We can no more now create an alternate mode of commitment carrying a parallel intensity of meaning than we can now create a substitute for poetry or for love. The status of marriage is therefore a social resource of irreplaceable value to those to whom it is offered: it enables two people together to create value in their lives that they could not create if that institution had never existed. We know that people of the same sex often love one another with the same passion as people of different sexes do and that they want as much as heterosexuals to have the benefits and experience of the married state. If we allow a heterosexual couple access to that wonderful resource but deny it to a homosexual couple, we make it possible for one pair but not the other to realize what they both believe to be an important value in their lives.’’ R. Dworkin, ‘‘Three Questions for America,’’ N.Y. Review of Books, September 21, 2006, pp. 24, 30.

The dissenting opinions did not limit their most interesting prose to footnotes, but spoke eloquently of the tradition of marriage having long been between a man and a woman. They also mentioned that only heterosexual unions can produce children, and argued that the state has an interest in that procreative function. I know that many laypeople feel very strongly about both of these arguments. Unfortunately for them, as the majority pointed out, neither argument carries any legal weight.

Though traditions are often cherished, as the majority points out, they carry no weight in their existence alone. If they did, we would still have laws forbidding interracial marriages and wives would still be regarded as property interests of their husbands. In order for tradition to hold up under law, it must have a valid reason for its existence beyond the religious convictions of some faiths. As the Court could not find any such reason, they could not uphold tradition for its own sake alone. However, keep in mind that we are talking only about civil marriages; all Churches and faiths remain free to define sacramental marriage as they see fit.

The argument regarding procreation likewise fails. In this country, though marriage itself is ancient, our concept of it has changed frequently over the years. Over time, our courts have decided that valid civil marriages do not require procreation, or sexual intercourse, or even cohabitation. It is well settled that civil marriages exist primarily to facilitate personal companionship — and our right to define the nature of that companionship on an individual level has been declared as fundamental by our courts — the state merely provides a bundle of rights which accompany the status.

After reading the opinion, I am convinced the decision fits squarely with the extraordinarily broad guarantees of the state constitution, and is not a product of judicial activism. Indeed, because it is so heavily focused on procedural analysis under sex discrimination, it may be the least judicially active gay marriage case we have seen.

Getting the Government We Deserve: What The Government Should Do And Which Candidate Will Do It

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable friends,

Yesterday, I was chatting about the state of our nation with a friend of mine serving as an Army Captain in Iraq. When I asked how he thought the elections would turn out, he made an ominous statement: "People generally get the government they deserve." Goodness help us if that is true. Just look at what our government is doing right now!

To perhaps no one's surprise save Congress and the Fed, the market sank still further yesterday and today. The Fed has begun to authorize up to $1 trillion to be used to help 'stabilize' the commercial paper markets and short term loans. Money Morning's Shah Gilani has a good explanation of this problem. He also has a bit to say on why the new rate cut won't be effective. Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now trying to push another $150 billion dollar 'stimulus' spending package. This bailout, she says, would be sent to help individual taxpayers. Do not expect it to stop there, though. AIG has already spent its way through almost all of its bailout money, and as we have already pointed out, the latest $850 billion bailout was nowhere near enough to cover all the bad debt sitting on the market, so we can expect another massive bailout package, this time probably including a citizen's stimulus check, sometime shortly after the elections. Much as the Speaker, Congress, and the President seem to think this is helpful, though, nothing could be further from the truth.

After my last few posts deriding the bailout, I received several letters asking what I thought the government should be doing to help. After all, these problems are severe and the collapse of the commercial paper market sounds especially dangerous. Isn't it good that the government is propping it up as a last resort? No, and it won't work. As I have stated before, this massive spending, none of which we actually have, just drives up inflation and devalues the dollar. It also massively increases our debt. That debt is already so large, though, that it is becoming clear that the only way we can pay it off may be to inflate it away. That reality is weighing heavily on our lenders, and they are far less willing to lend to us at all. Of course, that means inflation (money printing) is the only alternative we have to pay for these expenditures.

We are already dangerously close to collapsing the value of the dollar through inflation. Lower interest rates much more and that is exactly what will happen. Raise interest rates, though, and we will cripple the financial markets as the costs of doing business climb. Yet, we have to do one of the two in order to continue making these bailouts and propping up failed institutions. Of course, that also continues to lock up our capital in poisonous systems. By pouring money into these institutions, we prolong their existence and prevent their assets from being sold off, allowing them, over time, to slowly try to remove the poisonous assets (derivatives and other bad mortgage backed securities) from their books. Naturally, that means we often have to wait years, and continue to spend trillions, to facilitate that unnatural process. We then have to spend more years recovering from the inflationary damage we have done. There is an alternative though.

The government could do nothing at all. Faced with the unpleasant choice above, the government could simply stand back and let the market play out. Would there be widespread financial hardship as the market contracted? Absolutely. The failing entities would be torn apart, their good assets would be sold off to other, more stable and better run institutions while their bad assets were purged from the market. I stated in a prior post that money would be pulled back into savings and increase domestic capital. After some initial shocks and job losses, the market would readjust and begin to function far more healthily than it was before such a jolt. Best of all, this process could take as little as a few months. Thus, our economic recession could actually be reduced in duration and severity simply by doing nothing at all. The process of these recession and depression cycles, and what we can learn from them, are analyzed in depth by Murray N. Rothbard at the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Austrian School (free market) economics. Having seen how government actions actually worsened the crises in the Great Depression and other times of financial hardship, one would think Congress might start heeding the warnings of the Austrian School Economists. So far, though, they do not seem to be paying attention.

Our presidential candidates are not much better. However, there is some hope with McCain. According to Austrian School economics, if government wants to do anything at these tough times, it should work to reduce inflation, cut spending, and lower taxes to increase economic incentives for investment. McCain's proposals match those recommendations fairly well. He has called for a freeze on all unessential government spending. Though it is unlikely he will be able to classify much as 'unessential,' any success he has will be helpful. He has also called for an end to earmark spending, and would lower taxes across the board. This would also be helpful.

Obama's plans stand in stark contrast. He has called for spending for several new or expanded social programs, not one of which he has been willing to cut or drop. He voted against a bill prohibiting earmark spending during this last term in the senate. As for his tax plan, while he would lower taxes for most individuals, his hugely increased taxes (50%) on any business taking in over $250,000 per year in revenue (not profit) would be extraordinarily harmful to the economy as it would include more than 70% of all business. Compare the plans yourself at the Tax Policy Center.

Despite problems on both sides that leave me with little faith that either candidate would do much to actually help the economy, it is fairly clear to see which candidate would do the most damage to it. Barack Obama's commitment to increased spending and higher taxes, not to mention his dangerous rhetoric attacking free trade, makes him an economic nightmare for the United States. John McCain, on the other hand, by cutting spending and lowering taxes, may succeed in sparing us from a prolonged depression.

I know there are many who disagree, who would like to believe in Barack Obama's fine rhetoric and who feel that he is as inspiring as my recommendations are austere and dismal. I was told just yesterday that for the government to do nothing would be heartless, and that the people need to feel that their government is involved to protect them. Thus, to conclude, I quote Ayn Rand once more on the dangers of ignoring economic reality for what feels good:

"[W]hen we'll see men dying of starvation around us, your heart won't be of any earthly use to save them. And I'm heartless enough to say that when you'll scream, 'but I didn't know it!' - you will not be forgiven." Atlas Shrugged (New York: Signet, 1985), 385.

As my friend said, "People generally get the government they deserve."

The Prophecy Of Ayn Rand From The Gods Of Rudyard Kipling

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable friends,

My ballot arrived in the mail today and I greeted it as I would a poisonous viper. As I considered which candidates would be least ill-equipped to deal with the situation we are beset with today, my mind continually turns toward a strange encounter I had this morning at the courthouse. Passing through the lobby, I paused to eavesdrop on a political debate between a few young people regarding the relative merits of McCain and Obama. I am always interested to learn how others view the political landscape, but was disappointed upon hearing only echoes of the populist nonsense the campaigns have been spewing about how their own brands of massive government intervention will save the economy-and all of us - from disaster. After a moment, though, my attention was drawn to an elderly lady sitting alone on a bench; she seemed to be silently crying.

Though this is not an entirely unusual event at a courthouse, it concerned me enough that I approached her to inquire whether she was well. She turned her careworn face to me and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief before managing an embarrassed smile. She explained that she had also been listening to the youthful debate and had become distraught by what she had heard. It seems that she was born in Germany and is old enough to remember Hitler's rise as the nation descended into fascism. People spoke in just the same way, she informed me. Times were hard enough that when the government promised it could fix everything if it just had a few less restrictions and a little more control, the people believed them because they wanted to. She said never thought she would see America making those same mistakes: trusting government to solve all our problems and giving it unfettered access to our economy and our liberty to do it. She told me she knows where that road leads and despairing at the idea of getting any closer ever again.

I never did hear why this lady was at the courthouse, but I thought about what she said for quite a while afterward. Lately, as the Fed spins out of control and Congress and the President lurch from one irrational move to another, many of us have been warning about the failed economic controls attempted in the Great Depression and in communist and socialist economies which just serve to cripple markets and make bad situations worse. What we have not focused on, though, and what she is right to point out, is that massive government control of our economy has consequences that reach much further than just economics. Do any of you recall what Ayn Rand said of the doom of rotted civilizations in Atlas Shrugged?

Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that
money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self sacrifice - you may know that your
society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an
arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: 'Account
overdrawn.' (New York: Signet, 1985. 383-384).

As I listen to the hum of the Fed printing presses, and watch as our government nationalizes our financial system and squanders the wealth of our nation on bailouts that should never have happened, I cannot help but think Ayn Rand may be correct.

The candidates this year all have a decidedly poor understanding of money and economics, and we have heard them make many promises of even more massive government intervention into the economy sweetened with populist rhetoric. Though John McCain, and Republicans in general, are less likely to balloon our government into the fascist, socialist nightmare Rand foretells, they have done little to earn anything close to our full confidence. We should all be putting a great deal of pressure on our Republican candidates in these last few days of the election to commit to solidly free market principles, and the reduction of government spending and power, or risk losing our votes. There has never been a better time to force a promise out of desperate politicians.

Should we fail to educate our politicians, unfortunately they will not be the only ones to suffer for their ignorance. Rudyard Kipling's Gods of the Copybook Headings are even now descending in wrath to forcibly remind us of the economic realities we have tried so hard to deny for so long. Martin Hutchinson has a few good suggestions for appeasing these particular gods, all of which the candidates should probably study if they want to get us back on track to healthy free markets.

Will Barack Obama Defend Israel? He Is Keeping His Options Open

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable Friends,

I do not think the latest presidential debate was terribly enlightening for anyone who has been paying any attention over the past few months. However, it did contain one terrible surprise for me: Sen. Obama is not committed to the defense of Israel.

The question from retired Navy Chief Petty Officer Terry Shirey was simple, "If, despite your best diplomatic efforts, Iran attacks Israel, would you be willing to commit U.S. troops in support and defense of Israel? Or would you wait on approval from the U.N. Security Council?"

Both candidates rejected the idea of submitting to U.N. rule. Both candidates talked about attempting to use diplomacy, sanctions, and the combined pressure we can exert with our allies to prevent such an attack in the first place. "But, at the end of the day," Sen. McCain concluded, "I have to tell you again, and you know what it's like to serve, and you know what it's like to sacrifice, but we can never allow a second Holocaust to take place."

Sen. Obama's answer was neither as clear, nor as committed. "Now, it is true, though," he stated, "that I believe that we should have direct talks -- not just with our friends, but also with our enemies," particularly with Iran in such a situation. So as the president of the United States of America, he would be willing to legitimize the tyrant leader and clerics of Iran with the dignity of his office, but what of actually defending Israel -- one of our strongest allies? Of that, he says only that he is, "not taking military options off the table." In short, he would consider defending them as an option.

This comes from the same man who cannot say enough about how much more our allies need to be doing to help us with our efforts in Afghanistan and other places around the world. He expects them to help us, but seems to think defending them when they come under attack is optional. Last time I checked, mutual defense was the primary purpose of an alliance, and Israel's very existence is almost wholly dependent upon the solid and total commitment of the U.S. to that basic principle.

Sen. Obama's answer here was astonishing in its incompetence. Israel cannot survive such equivocation and hesitancy. Our allies can neither depend upon, nor trust, such inconstancy. Our own country cannot afford such ineptitude. We cannot afford to elect Barak Obama as our next president.

* * * * * * * * * *

P.S. The post debate media analysis alerted me to the astounding fact that some Democrats think Sen. McCain's obsequious use of the term, "my friends," is patronizing. Presumably, they think the same of my customary greetings at the start of every post. If so, I am sorry to cause offense. People may be interested to know that such phrases are fairly standard forms of polite address used in both Congress and the British parliament for centuries. Every student of Political Science will recognize the "honorable friend," of Edmund Burke echoing in the halls of Congress and Parliament to this day. To hear people disparage this ancient custom of civility and respect as patronizing is truly tragic. Personally, I think our politicians, and people in general, need to be more attentive to matters of civility -- not less.

2008 Colorado Ballot Guide

By Julian Dunraven J.D., M.P.A.

Dear friends,

This year, the Colorado ballot will be especially long. Already, I have received many calls asking me to briefly explain the various amendments and referenda issues from people who have neither the time nor the inclination to do the political research themselves. For those of you who are dreading the process of plowing through the lengthy ballot though, I hope this helps lessen that burden somewhat.

Also, for those of you who are wary of trusting a conservative curmudgeon on his word alone, you can find the philosophical principles I used to come to these decisions at the end of this post. If you read them you will know that you have become a true political nerd.

Finally, before we begin, I should explain that all the amendments, whether to the state constitution or to the Colorado Revised statutes, are brought by issue groups through the ballot initiative process. The referenda questions, on the other hand, are referred to the people by the state legislature. Without further ado, here are Colorado’s ballot questions for the 2008 election (Questions 53, 55, 56, and 57 will not be counted).

Amendment 46: Yes
This amendment to the Colorado constitution would end all state based affirmative action programs, as California has done. Merit would then be the only standard for public employment, public education, and public contracting. Private institutions would be unaffected. This is as it should be. Discrimination or preference granting on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin should have no place in the modern world, where all people should be treated equally.

Amendment 47: Yes
The Colorado Right to Work Amendment to the Colorado constitution would prohibit any employer or organization from requiring an employee to join a labor union. While unions serve many good purposes, no one should be required to join one against their will.

Amendment 48: No
This amendment to the Colorado constitution would define the term “person” to include any human being from the moment of fertilization. The purpose of doing so is to find a back door method of outlawing abortion. Even if one is pro-life, though, this amendment is ill conceived as it would bring an aborted fetus under the purview of our murder laws and otherwise attempt to bring to a fetus into the same rights enjoyed by all other “persons.” By doing so, it would wreak havoc with our legal system, at great expense to the taxpayers, while doing absolutely nothing to change the constitutionality of abortion under the U.S. Constitution—as the Colorado Catholic Bishops have wisely pointed out. If people really want to end abortion through law, then they need to work on passing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, not the Colorado constitution.

Amendment 49: Yes
This amendment to the Colorado constitution would end the practice whereby the government collects union dues from public employees directly out of their paychecks. There is no reason that our government should be using taxpayer money to collect dues for a private organization— much less one that carries out lobbying activities. That creates an ethical nightmare. Any private organization should be responsible for collecting its own dues.

Amendment 50: Yes
This amendment to the Colorado constitution would allow local communities to extend casino hours of operation, as well as raise the limit on any single bet to $100. This amendment does three things I like: it increases freedom for the local communities; it increases tax revenue for the state through longer hours of operation and higher betting limits; and it improves safety on the roads through longer hours of operation, so that the casinos are not all emptying out at the same time. For those of you who oppose gambling in general, I submit that you should still support this amendment for those last two reasons. Gambling will remain in the state whether this amendment passes or not. However, this amendment will generate more revenue for the state, and ensure that a practice you may consider dangerous or objectionable, is carried out in a safer manner.

Amendment 51: No
This amendment to the Colorado Revised Statutes would increase state sales taxes in order to assist long-term care for people with developmental disabilities. I oppose this for three reasons. First, I am generally against any tax increases unless absolutely necessary. Second, it places undue restrictions on the ability of the legislature to regulate the budget. Colorado's laws already unduly encumber the state legislature’s ability to set and regulate the budget. We should not make it any more cumbersome. Finally, if there is truly need for this, it should be discussed and voted upon in the legislature. The legislature is best equipped to analyze our tax system and revenues. It also provides a forum for all interested parties to be heard, and to tailor the proposal accordingly. The people simply do not have access to all the information the legislature has, nor can they hear from all interested parties in order to make the best and most educated decision. If, after considering all the facts, the legislature determines a tax increase may be necessary to protect and care for the developmentally disabled, then it can ask the people to support a tax increase through a referendum.

Amendment 52: No
This amendment to the Colorado constitution governs the allocation of revenues from the Colorado state severance tax imposed on minerals and mineral fuels. Allocation of revenue from a severance tax is something that should properly be left the legislature for the same reasons I gave regarding Amendment 51. In any case it should certainly be done via statute, and not enshrined in the Colorado constitution. Our constitution is muddled enough without locking in yet another regulation on our revenues.

Amendment 53: No
This amendment to the Colorado Revised Statutes extends criminal liability of a business entity to its executive officials. I object to this for two reasons. First, the reason we do business through corporations is precisely because there is little to no personal liability involved. This encourages people not only to invest but become involved with business and promotes a good and healthy economy. As most people realize that no single individual can ever be responsible for everything a corporation does, to impose individual criminal liability on business executives discourages investment and involvement and dampens the economy. Next, because this amendment conditions liability on whether or not the executive in question knowingly failed to meet a duty imposed by law, the amendment actually encourages executives to be ignorant of the law and its obligations. That is not something our legal system should be fostering.

Amendment 54: No
This amendment to the Colorado constitution is yet another vain attempt to remove money from politics. In this case, it is trying to prevent any company or person with contracts from the government from making political contributions to a party or candidate, provided that those contracts were awarded without competitive bidding. The prohibitions would remain in place through the duration of the contract, and for two years thereafter. Our campaign finance regulations are already quite thorough. Records of campaign contributions are available for anyone who is interested. If, after inspecting those records, anyone is displeased by a candidate’s behavior concerning its donors, then he or she is free to vote against that candidate. Both businesses and people have a constitutional right to petition their government. In the interest of preventing corruption we may regulate that right somewhat, and indeed, our campaign finance laws have done so. However, we should certainly not eliminate that right altogether –especially not for two entire years because of an irrational fear that all money is corrupting. We will never remove money from politics altogether. The best we can do is to ensure transparency—and we have done so. This amendment attempts to go well beyond that, and succeeds only in trampling the right of people and business to petition the government.

Amendment 55: No
This amendment to the Colorado constitution would require that any employer establish just cause before dismissing or suspending any employee. This would effectively subject all business in Colorado to the same employment standards used by the Federal government. Thus, before a McDonalds could fire even a 16 year old worker who refused to show up to work on time—if at all, treated customers poorly, and consistently “miscounted” the money he or she took in, the company would have to document all of these behaviors over time so as to be able to prove them to a court in a civil suit. This process can often take months or even a year to complete. Managers and public policy experts already call for a reform of this inefficient system in the federal government. Our economy should not be so restrained, and would suffer greatly under such stifling and inefficient regulation—as would the liberty of private entrepreneurs. Perhaps even more alarming, the costs and burden this would place on our courts would be astronomical, and would quickly require large tax increases to pay for the huge number of new courtrooms and judicial staff that would be required to deal with the volume of new employment litigation cases.

Amendment 56: No
This amendment to the Colorado constitution would require all employers with more than 20 employees to provide health insurance coverage to their employees. If it passes, Colorado will become the most hostile state in the union for business and entrepreneurship. It will kill all incentive to invest in the state, and all current business will flee to other states. In short, it is a virtual guarantee of economic ruin for the state of Colorado.

Amendment 57: No
This amendment to the Colorado Revised Statutes would require employers to provide a safe and healthy workplace for all of their employees. While sounding fairly pleasant, the law is so vaguely worded as to have little or no actual meaning. This amendment would serve little purpose save to encourage frivolous litigation.

Amendment 58: No
This amendment to the Colorado Revised Statutes would eliminate the severance tax credit for oil and gas extraction. It would also, then, dictate how the increased revenue should be spent. As I have stated earlier, these sorts of questions regarding taxation and how revenue should be spent should properly be decided by the legislature, where all arguments can be heard and compromises can be made appropriately. After deliberating upon the options, if the legislature wishes to submit a referenda item to the people to approve or disapprove of a tax increase, it is free to do so. Without that prior work, debate, and analysis, the people are ill equipped to decide whether repealing this tax credit is necessary. We are even more ill equipped to decide how the increased revenues from that tax should be spent. We simply do not have access to all the information or interested parties. Thus, until this question can be properly debated by the legislature, I oppose any change in the law.

Amendment 59: No
Currently in Colorado, if the state collects surplus revenue in taxes, those excess taxes are refunded to the people under the Taxpayer’s Bill Of Rights if (TABOR). Under Amendment 59 to the Colorado constitution, though, those refunds would no longer occur. Instead, any surplus revenue generated by taxes would be put into a slush fund for K-12 public education. This amendment eviscerates TABOR, and creates an unlimited slush fund for one of the most inefficient and badly run systems in our government: the public school system. At a time when everyone is talking about how best to reform the public school system, it would be very unwise to give them a blank check. I certainly do not want to sacrifice TABOR to do so.

Referendum L: Yes
In this referendum, the state legislature asks if the Colorado constitution should be amended to permit any person, twenty one years or older, to serve in the Colorado General Assembly. Currently, the minimum age is set at 25 years. Given that all other rights confer upon people at the age of 21, it make sense that the right to serve in the legislature should as well. True, most 21 year olds do not have the wisdom to serve in the legislature and inspire little confidence. However, there are a few exceptional 21 year olds who might be ideally suited to the position. I would hate to prevent such an exceptional individual from serving the people in public office simply because of an age requirement, and I have every confidence that our people would never vote for someone they considered unqualified for office. Thus, this amendment can do no harm, but could do a great deal of good.

Referendum M: Yes
In this referendum, the state legislature asks if the Colorado constitution should be amended to remove obsolete provisions. The constitution should never be cluttered with regulations that can become obsolete. Removing such provisions is always a good thing, and trimming down law is usually a good thing.

Referendum N: Yes
This referendum likewise asks to remove other obsolete provisions from the state constitution.

Referendum O: Yes
In this referendum, the state legislature asks whether the state constitution should be amended so that it will be more difficult to amend in the future. Currently, it is just as easy to bring a ballot initiative to amend the state constitution as it is to amend the state statutes. Thus, almost all ballot initiatives attempt to amend the state constitution rather than the statutes so that the state legislature cannot change anything. This has led to an incredibly cluttered constitution, full of conflicting provisions which frequently impose such stringent financial obligations as to leave the state unable to adjust in times of hardship. This should not be. The constitution should be limited to the most fundamental expression of rights and government structures; it should not be a legislative depot for every issue group in the state. Thus, by making the constitution slightly harder to amend, we will encourage issue groups to bring ballot initiatives which amend the state statutes instead of the constitution. Thus, if they turn out to have unfortunate and unintended consequences, we can easily change them rather than suffer through a constitutionally created budget crisis such as spurred the need for Referenda C a few years ago. And yes, the state statutes will remain quite easy to amend through the ballot initiative process, so you fans of direct democracy have no need to fear.

Governing Philosophy:
For those of you who might wonder how I came to these decisions, I have a simple legislative philosophy. First, I do not believe the state constitution should be amended save to express guaranteed rights of our citizenry or to give fundamental structure to government entities. The constitution is no place for simple policy or tax plans, which may need to change drastically over time. Those should be limited to the Colorado Revised Statutes, which can be changed as needed by the legislature.

Second, I do not believe the people should be amending even the statutes lightly. The legislature exists to provide a forum for all interested parties to debate and express their opinions about policy. Through that forum, the senators and representatives can consider all available information and modify legislation based on that insight. The people do not have that advantage. In any ballot initiative, the only opinions we hear are from groups well funded enough to advertise extensively. Also, the people cannot modify or amend a ballot initiative as the legislature can with a bill. This means we must simply accept or reject what is offered to us on the basis of what is often limited or faulty information. As such, ballot initiatives should be used only to express clear, broad policy. Anything else, such as specific tax or revenue plans, should be left to the legislature. If our vote is needed, they can ask us for it through the referenda process. This is why we believe in a representative government rather than direct democracy in the first place. If you are concerned about such things, write your district senator or representative. At the state level, they ALWAYS have time to meet with you in person about it if you wish.

Finally, I think any legislation must pass a three part test before I will support it:
(1) The proposed law must address an issue of instability in society;
(2) The proposed law must be narrowly tailored so as to achieve its purpose while still promoting individual liberty to the greatest extent possible; and
(3) The proposed law must be enforceable so as to prevent arbitrary and capricious government actions which result in instability (back to step 1).
If any piece of legislation fails to meet a single part of this test, then it should not become law.

I believe that if you go back over the ballot initiatives with these standards in mind, you will come to the same conclusions I have. Thank you for your indulgence. I hope that this may be of some help to you in deciding how to vote in a few weeks.

The Senate’s Arrogant Ignorance

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Dear friends,

Last night, I made the mistake of watching C-SPAN as the Senate voted for the woe begotten bailout plan. I find it amazing that we did not conduct a second American Revolution after C-SPAN was created and enabled Americans to see the staggering ignorance and incompetence of their elected officials on a daily basis. Senator Kay Baily Hutchison of Texas, unbelievably a Republican -- if that has any real meaning anymore, gave a speech saying that she and all her colleagues heard overwhelming opposition to the bailout plan from the people. However, she went on to say that she didn't think the people understood all the improvements the Senate added to the bill and how vital it really was. What patronizingly insipid bloody rubbish! The U.S. Senate may have a difficult time understanding basic economics, but the people seem to be doing just fine.

The people understand that bailout plan remains extremely immoral and totally unworkable, no matter how many frivolities the Senate used to decorate it. Money Morning has an excellent analysis of just why the Senate touchups won't come anywhere close to solving the problem, and actually make it far more difficult for us to recover.

Despite its alterations though, did the Senate change anything fundamental that the people would have difficulty understanding? No. The people still know that giving $700 billion of tax money we do not have to bail out the failures of private industry is immoral and stupid. Those who have been paying close attention also know that it is not nearly enough to even cover the bad mortgage debts, much less the countless other risky derivatives of unknown value, which are sitting out there on corporate books like ticking time bombs.

The people might be interested to know that this bill also allows the government to bail out not only our own banks and corporations, but also foreign firms. Apparently, Europe is no longer responsible for its own well being-they can wait for the American taxpayer to save them. After all, we have been printing more money so fast so often, it is probably easier for us to just keep the presses rolling.

Another thing that the people understand, but the Senate seems to have forgotten, is that controlled economies (i.e. communism and socialism) have proven to be astounding failures. Yet, now we hear senators saying that, while free markets are good in theory, we have to deal with reality right now. It seems that in the perverse world of the Senate, dealing with reality means falling back on known failures. The Financial Post has a good deal to say about that particular idiocy.

In a capitalist system, though, our markets are designed to quickly deal with failures. It allows us to purge ourselves of unworkable or poisoned assets and quickly refocus on good assets. If a company cannot do that effectively it will fail, and the viable parts of the market it formerly occupied will be quickly taken over by other, better run companies. This is what should happen. Indeed, as the Ludwig Von Mises Institute points out, this is exactly what has happened with the failure of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. There was no market catastrophe, there was simple readjustment. The Senate has failed miserably to understand these fundamentals. Worse, in their ignorance they have presumed to set themselves above the will and knowledge of the people. We should all remember that on election day-and we should be reminding the House members of that before they vote on this again on Friday.

We Won the Bailout Battle—But the War Continues

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Dear friends,

In my last column, "Stop the Bailout!" I said that we all needed to contact our Congress people and demand that they vote against the $700 billion bailout plan. Thanks to all of you, and millions of other people who did just that, we were successful in pushing Congress to kill that ghastly legislation. Congratulations! Nonetheless, we must remain vigilant.

The bailout bill was dreadful. My last column already referred to some of its problems, such as massively increasing our national debt, starting us on the road to hyperinflation, swiftly devaluing the dollar to the point of collapse, and entangling the Federal government in our economy to an extent never before seen. The final version Congress put out, though, also contained no meaningful restrictions on the spending or the price. It contained several arguably unconstitutional provisions, and fretted endlessly about executive compensation packages, which are almost irrelevant given the enormous scope of this bailout. In demanding that the companies involved repay the government in five years, it also failed to remove these bad debts from the market and created unrealistic expectations which serve to discourage outside investment and virtually guarantees that we will be saddled with these ailing companies for many years to come. Everyone agrees that it was a bad bill. Everyone also agrees that it was the only bill Secretary Paulson would approve. Fortunately, the secretary does not run this country. Nonetheless, though we won the battle, the war has only just begun.

Even now, the leadership in Congress is preparing to resubmit the bailout plan. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to think she can get the votes she needs if the new package includes language that would ease bankruptcy laws to allow debtors to keep more of their assets, thus making it much easier to file for bankruptcy. Making it easier for people to default on their debts is not a cure for our economy. This would not make the bill better; it would make it far worse.

Unfortunately, our esteemed presidential candidates are not helping matters either. Those of you who watched the first presidential debate saw the deer-in-the-headlights looks they gave, and heard their obfuscating answers when they were asked about the economic issues we are facing. Neither of them has a good understanding of what is happening in our economy. The fact that they both supported the bailout is proof enough of that. They both have made the mistake of listening to Bernanke and Paulson, and maintain that Congress simply MUST do something or the consequences will be dire.

Not so. Though the market will undoubtedly go through some painful readjustments as it purges itself of these poisoned assets and failed companies, its recovery, if left alone, has the potential to provide good, strong investment opportunities. With low stock prices and increased savings, Money Morning predicts that U.S. domestic capital will actually increase, reducing outsourcing and improving our deficit of payments--a good thing. This will leave us in a much stronger economic position to face the real threats coming quickly at us, such as Peak Oil and the liquid fuels crisis. However, this may not be possible if Congress and our presidential candidates keep trying to drive us into a depression with their hasty and ill conceived plans. Thus, it remains incumbent upon us to show them what they need to be doing. Here is what you can do right now to help:

1. Educate yourself. If you have not done so already, find reliable people who have been predicting these problems for a long time (that rules out Benanke and Paulson). Listen to what they have to say about what caused the problems and what we have to do to solve them. For a start, I strongly recommend Financial Sense. It has many useful articles and the Financial Sense Newshour (3rd Hour with Jim Puplava and John Loeffler) is a wonderful weekly broadcast that will keep you abreast of everything you need to know in terms that are easily understood to laypeople.

2. Keep pressure on Congress. Keep writing and calling your Congress members-and maybe even the leadership. Tell them not to pass this bailout--in any form. If they never get any support from the people, they won't act, and they won't ruin our country. If we slack off, though, they are likely to pass some new horror that will be even worse than the last one. A dismantling of our bankruptcy laws would be just that.

3. If you want to tell Congress what it should be doing, you might suggest that they repeal some of the bad government programs that got us here in the first place such as the Community Reinvestment Act, which actually encouraged giving loans to high risk borrowers as a social engineering project. After that, they should think about reining in the Federal Reserve and its fast and loose monetary policy which has left us with terrible inflation, forced business into high risk investments just to get a decent rate of return given our piteously low interest rates, and left the dollar on the verge of collapse. After that, they need to think about eliminating certain corporate and capital gains taxes to encourage investment.

4. Protect yourself and your family. I am not a financial advisor, so I cannot tell you what would be best for you and your family. I can say, however, that there are plenty of opportunities to be had if you are paying attention. Gold, silver, and other precious metals are very good security again failure of the currency. In an economy where energy is increasingly becoming an issue, oil and other energy investments look good. Do not have too much faith in government, its programs, or its bonds, however. We are all seeing, right now, the dangerous actions our government has been willing to take with regard to our financial systems. We were able to stop the bailout, but there is no guarantee we will stop future idiocy. If the government's foolishness manages to utterly debase the currency, you do not want to be depending on that same government for your financial security.

Stop The Bailout! It Is Time To Demand Inaction

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Dear friends,

We are facing economic calamity. We stand upon the very brink of destruction yet, even now, we have the capacity to save ourselves from utter ruin and escape to heal our wounds. We must act quickly though, for the U.S. Congress, in its unerring stupidity, is poised to push us into the gaping maw of doom in a matter of days. It is now incumbent upon every citizen to defend this country by contacting their congress people and begging them NOT to pass this ghastly bailout.

Our choice is simple. We can choose not to pass this bailout, in which case the market will stumble a bit before correcting itself. Some companies will fail, jobs will be lost, and times will be hard. Then the good companies, who have managed to run themselves well, will begin to fill in the gaps left by the failures. Other, dynamic businesses will also grow into the market space, and we will recover.

The other option is to pass this bailout. Thus, we spend more than $700 billion we do not have for a result that is not guaranteed. In doing so, we prop up failed enterprises and create an unending dependence on the government that may require many billions of dollars more to sustain. We have none of this money. To do this, we either need to borrow more money and virtually double our national debt or print more money. Either way, inflation will skyrocket and the value of the dollar will be obliterated. What was a bad economic situation will become full economic ruin. In this case, the whole of the world's economy will face depression and we will not recover for a very long time.

Thus, we can restrain ourselves now, suffer through our hardships and recover as quickly as we can, or congress can pass this bailout and we can suffer terribly for a very long time in full economic ruin.

That is our choice. Congress does not see it because they are too busy looking at elections and think they must be seen to do something--something they do not understand. They are more afraid of losing an election than losing the country. In this case, though, they must do nothing. Only if they refrain from acting will we be saved. We all must write to our congress people immediately, before it is too late, and demand that they do not do this thing--that they do not sacrifice this nation to their ambitions-- and that they do not pass this bailout! Time is running out.

P.S. Ron Paul has issued a similar call you may read here.

Sarah Palin: A Change More Profound than Giving Speeches

By Julian Dunraven

If this election is really all about change, then November will offer voters a choice between candidates who like to talk about change, and candidates who live for change.

On the left, we have Sen. Barak Obama who, in his extremely short tenure in the U.S. Senate, has never once broken with his party's agenda to champion needed reforms. For his running mate, he has chosen Sen. Joe Biden, a bastion of the liberal establishment for the last 35 years.

On the right, we have Sen. John McCain, who has made a career of going against anyone he thought was wrong--even if that occasionally includes members of his own party. As his running mate, he has chosen Gov. Sarah Palin, who has already proven that she is a consummate and principled reformer. She took on some of the most powerful members of her own party--including Sen. Ted Stevens--to fight corruption and bring ethics and accountability back to government. She slashed budgets, cut taxes and even sold the governor's private jet on E-Bay to bring fiscal responsibility back to government. And unlike so many modern politicians who like to talk about values but rarely live by them, Gov. Palin doesn't just say she is pro life and pro-family--she chose to have her youngest baby even though she knew he would have Down Syndrome, and she has been incredibly supportive of her daughter, who is also choosing to have her baby--despite the difficulties of young motherhood.

Gov. Sarah Palin is a remarkable woman who somehow manages to impress both fiscal and social conservatives at the same time. I can't remember the last time Dr. James Dobson and I agreed on anything but the quality of the weather, yet we are both excited about Gov. Palin and I think the reasons for that are clear: she represents what the Republican Party, at its best, used to be, what it should be, and what it will be again.

Change is coming, but not with Obamamania. Long after that fever breaks and passes, the true reformers, John McCain and Sarah Palin, will be hard at work restoring the glory of this country which Congress and Bush have so badly tarnished.

Supreme Court Unleashes Legal Beast To Trouble Colorado's 2nd District

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

I have never liked campaign finance reform laws. The notion that one can take the influence of money completely out of politics seems, at best, woefully naive and, at worst, ridiculously absurd. Nonetheless, in so many ways our lawmakers and activists continue to try. After they finish attempting to put all sorts of fetters on the evil beast of our political system, the Supreme Court inevitably comes by and proceeds to cut about half the restraints. Of course, this simply creates a very angry beast that has to lurch clumsily about using only one leg and one arm. And people wonder why campaign regulations are always such a disaster. Well, the Supreme Court has, yet again, taken its judicial scissors to the latest Congressional fetter: the Millionaire Amendment of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). And yes, the beast is already crashing about angrily.

Let me try to sum up the bizarre laws at issue in very brief terms. Between the meddling of Congress and the stilted reasoning of the Court, the government may impose limits on how much money people may contribute to any given campaign, but not on how much money the campaigns can spend. Also, there is no limit to how much an individual candidate can contribute to his campaign. The reason for this is that money is speech. Contributions may be limited because they still express the message of support for a candidate but, in being limited, also prevent corruption or the appearance thereof. However, the candidate is free to use as much of his own speech/money to promote his cause as he wants. To limit that would be to limit his speech too directly.

Naturally, this creates an advantage for rich candidates. They can spend their own money without limit while a poorer candidate, who may have rich friends, cannot get as much money out of those friends because of the campaign contribution limits. Thus, Congress passed the so called Millionaire Amendment so that if a rich candidate used enough of his own money, the contribution limits for the poorer candidate would be near tripled while the contribution limits for the richer candidate would remain the same. This would continue until the two candidates had eliminated the financial difference between them.

Now, though, Justice Alito, writing for the majority, has declared in Davis v. Federal Election Commission that this balancing scheme is unconstitutional. Apparently, this imbalance does not directly limit speech, but creates a substantial penalty for a rich candidate who chooses to exercise his right to speech robustly (i.e. spend a lot of his own money and trigger the provisions of the amendment). Thus, the Court has declared that the law must go.

Naturally, the government has objected that this means that rich candidates will once again have a huge advantage in elections given the contribution limits. The Court is aware of this. However, Justice Alito reminds us all that it was Congress who created this problem in the first place with its bizarre attempts to regulate campaign contributions. Congress also has the power to fix this situation. He recommends:

If the normally applicable limits on individual contributions and coordi­nated party contributions are seriously distorting the electoral process, if they are feeding a "public perception that wealthy people can buy seats in Congress," Brief for Appellee 34, and if those limits are not needed in order to combat corruption, then the obvious remedy is to raise or eliminate those limits. But the unprecedented step of imposing different contribution and coordinated party expenditure limits on candidates vying for the same seat is antithetical to the First Amendment.
In my own humble opinion, Congress would be well advised to adopt Justice Kennedy's recommendations from his dissenting opinion in Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U.S. 377 (2000). He pointed out that all of these attempts to limit the flow of money just serve to create problems or push it underground where there is virtually no accountability or transparency (such as 527 groups). Thus, he suggests that, rather than limiting contributions or expenditures, Congress should simply require that all contributions be reported and made public. Certainly, the internet is more than capable of providing instant access to this information for anyone who wants to know. In that way, the public could judge for themselves whether a candidate was too beholden to any particular donor or interest group and vote accordingly. Now there is a novel thought: trusting the voters to make decisions themselves.

For those of you interested in what the dissent had to say, Justice Stevens seems to think there is nothing at all wrong with this imbalanced scheme. Indeed, he goes so far as to contend that Congress should limit both contributions and expenditures. It seems he feels that if the campaigns were forced to spend less, then the quality of their message would be forced to improve and he would not have to ensure watching so many of these annoying and repetitious political advertisements on television any longer. It is rare that a Justice so plainly expresses his personal opinions and tastes as a matter of law. Preventing the Court from being populated by others who feel at liberty to do so may be the single most important reason to elect John McCain as our next president-despite the fact that he is partially responsible for saddling us with these nightmarish campaign laws in the first place.

In the meantime, we shall watch the beast of our current system flail about in the 2nd Congressional district where the millionaire idiot author of Colorado's ethics debacle, Jared Polis, just triggered the now unconstitutional amendment and his opponents, Joan Fitz-Gerald and Will Shafroth, are left without the benefit of the increased contribution limits it would have provided them.

On Heller

By Julian Dunraven

Today, virtually every newspaper and broadcaster across the nation has been trumpeting the news that we have a newly expressed fundamental freedom: an individual right to keep and bear arms, courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in The District of Columbia v. Heller. If you woke up this morning breathing a bit easier and feeling a little more free, that is why. What every article and story will tell you is that the Court struck down the D.C. handgun ban. However, most stories seem to be missing two important points: the opinion was quite funny, and it went a lot further than people seem to be grasping.

Justice Scalia wrote for the majority. To read his opinion is to be transported back to grade school, listening to your teacher patiently instruct you on basic grammar. If you ever wondered what use it was to learn all those annoying rules governing punctuation, Scalia will be happy to explain how one of your basic rights rests upon the use of three commas in the Second Amendment.

The amendment reads: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Throughout, the opinion, Scalia expounds on the use of those commas, the differences between prefatory and operative clauses, and even goes so far as to dissect and rearrange the Amendment as a grammar school teacher might demonstrate to his students while diagramming sentences. Remember those sentence diagrams? He then instructs us as to the differences between singular and plural, the use of verbs and their objects, modifiers, prepositions, and idiomatic usage. English teachers everywhere should be rejoicing.

In the footnotes, scattered throughout, one can imagine that Teacher Scalia has just been interrupted during lecture by a question from a student-a particularly annoying little boy who bears a strong resemblance to a miniature Justice Stevens. Scalia, like any good teacher, generally responds by patiently explaining why his pupil's assumptions are mistaken. Occasionally though, like all good teachers driven to distraction by particularly annoying students, Scalia offers a sharp rebuke, openly speculating as to whether Justice Stevens might have leapt through the looking glass to study law with the Mad Hatter. He also describes Stevens' grasp of the English language as "dead wrong," "an absurdity," and "grotesque." Judging from Scalia's remarks, by the time I got to the dissent I was expecting to find near illiterate ravings.

For example, here is a small sample of the opinion as Scalia responded to Stevens' contention that "bear arms" did not just mean "to carry weapons or armor" but "to carry weapons in a military context."

In any event, the meaning of "bear arms" that petitioners and JUSTICE STEVENS propose is not even the (sometimes) idiomatic meaning. Rather, they manufacture a hybrid definition, whereby "bear arms" connotes the actual carrying of arms (and therefore is not really an idiom) but only in the service of an organized militia. No dictionary has ever adopted that definition, and we have been apprised of no source that indicates that it carried that meaning at the time of the founding. But it is easy to see why petitioners and the dissent are driven to the hybrid definition. Giving "bear Arms" its idiomatic meaning would cause the protected right to consist of the right to be a soldier or to wage war--an absurdity that no commentator has ever endorsed. See L. Levy, Origins of the
Bill of Rights 135 (1999). Worse still, the phrase "keep and bear Arms" would be incoherent. The word "Arms" would have two different meanings at once: "weapons" (as the object of "keep") and (as the object of "bear") one-half of an idiom. It would be rather like saying "He filled and kicked the bucket" to mean "He filled the bucket and died." Grotesque.

He also remarks that:

A purposive qualifying phrase that contradicts the word or phrase it modifies is unknown this side of the looking glass (except, apparently, in some courses on Linguistics). If "bear arms" means, as we think, simply the carrying of arms, a modifier can limit the purpose of the carriage ("for the purpose of selfdefense" or "to make war against the King"). But if "bear arms" means, as the petitioners and the dissent think, the carrying of arms only for military purposes, one simply cannot add "for the purpose of killing game." The right "to carry arms in the militia for the purpose of killing game" is worthy of the mad hatter.

In any case, Scalia manages to save the English language from being tortured and ravaged by Justice Stevens. As a result, we now have a solidly expressed individual right to keep and bear arms defined by a most amusing opinion. We have quite a bit more than that too.

Most articles are reporting that Scalia's opinion preserves gun control laws regarding schools, certain public places, and bans on automatic weapons. This is not precisely true. The opinion simply states that those items were not at issue before the Court and will therefore be presumed to be valid until specifically contested. Yet the Court just issued a very broad embrace of an individual right to keep and bear arms, especially in the interest of self defense. Moreover, it also adopted, as a standard for protected weaponry, that which is "in common use at the time." The only limit the Court articulated was to say that, "that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes."

In the dicta, Scalia acknowledged that, as standard issue for our infantry, M-16s might be protected. However, as they are not commonly used by the citizenry, they might not be protected. As he points out toward the end of the opinion, the Court only expressed a fundamental individual right to keep and bear arms. He openly invites further lawsuits to help determine just how far that right may go-much to the chagrin of the dissenting Justices who rightly see a flurry of litigation coming and the probable overturning of a good number of longstanding regulations.

This is an exciting time, the first formal expression of a right we have had for 200 years. I look forward to seeing how we develop this right. In the meantime, teachers, you now have solid evidence which to prove to your truculent students that good grammar can lead to greater freedom.

Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Climate Change Blasphemy Must Be Prosecuted Says NASA Scientist

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

It always amazes me to see how people view the legal system. Dr. James Hansen, vaguely referred to by The Guardian as one of the world's leading climate scientists (presumably due to the fact that he becomes hysterical more swiftly than the others), now thinks we should prosecute oil company executives for, "high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming."

Last time I checked, expressing doubt as to any theory, and then trying to disprove that theory, was part of the scientific method--not a violation of the criminal code. But never mind that, we have important criminal accusations to consider.

So, what are crimes against humanity and nature anyway? Article 7 § 1 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines crimes against humanity as:

any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or
systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of
the attack:

(a) Murder;
(b) Extermination;
(c) Enslavement;
(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in
violation of fundamental rules of international law;
(f) Torture;
(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced
sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on
political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in
paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible
under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this
paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;
(j) The crime of apartheid;
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great
suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

Strangely, it says nothing about climate at all. Even if it did, Global Warming might be widespread, but could hardly be called a systematic attack upon any civilian population by oil company executives from the lawful operation of their businesses.

That leaves crimes against nature. Crimes against nature are not international crimes at all. They are generally part of state law. They forbid things like masturbation, oral sex, and sodomy. After the Supreme Court’s opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), most of the so called crimes against nature are unconstitutional as they violate our fundamental right to privacy. Of course, bestiality and necrophilia are both still forbidden, but Global Warming just does not seem to fit into this category does it? Then again, perhaps it does.

It seems the oil companies have violated neither international nor domestic law with their pernicious doubts about Global Warming. Of course, this is not the real problem here. The particular criminal charge does not matter so long as we can find one that will work to silence these doubters once and for all.

Generally speaking, true scientists want a lot of doubt expressed about their theories. They want the whole scientific community to have a go at them, and, if they still stand up, undamaged, at the end of the day the whole world is likely to embrace them. Such is not the case with Global Warming, though. Almost any rational person can manage to find considerable holes in the Global Warming theories. A scientist would say this means it requires more research and study.

Dr. Hansen and his ilk, however, remind us that this is about more than just science or law: it is about moral goodness. More research and more study takes time. Persuading lawmakers to act takes even longer. But we know what is evil now. Global Warming is evil. Those who doubt it are evil. There are many of them out there—doubting—and they are getting away with it!

There was once a time when our legal system would have accommodated such thinking. Indeed, both Church and State tried for a long while to prosecute irritating “doubters” for insufficient belief. Back then, though, we did not use those words. Instead, we used words like Inquisition, heretics, and blasphemy. The system had a splendid effect upon morality, but apparently science lagged a bit. We called that time the Dark Ages. Ironically, today, any government that tried to manage belief in such a way would be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. See supra, Article 7 § 1(h).

Vote No– The Government Says So

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable Friends:

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has decided Colorado citizens need assistance from the federal government in deciding how to vote this November. Specifically, the DEA doesn’t want mere citizens getting confused about what’s good for them and voting to legalize something as terrible as possessing an ounce of marijuana. Thus, the federal government is condescending to inject itself into our state ballot process and campaign against this initiative. “DEA raises cash to fight pot issue.” Already, the DEA has $10,000 to spend on its campaigning efforts.

The agency tells us we shouldn’t worry about this, though, and that their efforts are completely legal. Given that the applicable law was designed to prevent the executive agencies from partisan campaigning, and did not contemplate non-partisan ballot initiatives, the DEA may in fact be correct that it is acting within the technical bounds of law, if not its spirit. Still, it is rather telling that the DEA’s campaign fund comes from private donations and not tax dollars, despite the DEA’s contention its actions are proper. Surely, if the agency directors are avoiding the use of tax money, it must occur to them on some level that their actions are wrong.

Whether one agrees with Amendment 44 or not, the actions of the DEA should worry us all. The executive branch of government is designed to enforce the laws. Yet, the executive branch has become so large, that Congress cannot possibly have time to deal with all the issues that arise as each executive department carries out its mandate. Thus, executive agencies have the power to create administrative policies and regulations in their spheres of influence that are every bit as binding as legislatively made law. Thus, they have taken on a good deal of legislative power as well as executive. Moreover, many federal agencies have their own administrative courts to oversee disputes arising from their actions, thus assuming judicial power. This is a huge collection of power in the executive branch. Now, the executive branch seeks even to assert itself into citizen law making processes by telling people how to vote. This is simply too much. We must restrain this behemoth, many headed monster that is the U.S. executive branch.

Now, to be fair, I do not doubt that the input of the DEA might be useful in debating Amendment 44. However, that input should be solicited by citizen opponents of the amendment. It is those independent citizens who should then be raising money to campaign against the amendment, and they who should decide how to use the DEA’s information in that campaign. The DEA and the executive branch of the federal government should not be intervening in our state elections to tell our people how it thinks we should vote. Last I checked, that sort of behavior was expected of Communist and Socialist regimes. In this country, the people are supposed to be telling the administration what to do—not the other way around.

We have grown used to a sort of nanny state in this country. We have decided that we want our government to provide certain programs as safeguards against our own stupidity. So be it. If, however, we now truly desire a state that eliminates even the need to think for ourselves, a state all to happy to tell us what our opinion should be, then we have no business calling ourselves a free country. We should simply shut up about those annoying things called civil liberties, take our state issued pacifiers, and let the government do whatever it thinks best. As I am not quite ready for permanent mental infancy, I think it would behoove Congress to amend the Hatch Act, and prevent the executive branch from campaigning period.

Judge Rules Against Bush for Wiretapping Without Warrants: Triumph or Tragedy?

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable Friends:

All day long, I have listened to the shrieking of my conservative friends as they denounce the ‘terrible’ decision by a U.S. district court judge to end the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. ACLU v. NSA. It seems they think the honorable judge has put all of national security at risk with the naive notion that we can fight terrorism according to the same rules we use to fight common criminals. Knowing the miserable quality of reporting the major media sources continually exhibit on questions of law, I understand why they hold such a dismal opinion of this case. However, having read the honorable judge’s opinion myself, I am thoroughly convinced that she has actually strengthened national security, and that conservatives would be the last people to take issue with this decision if they only took the time to read it. It is based soundly in traditional conservative principles. Let me see if I can condense it here.

First, no state secrets were ever at risk. The court considered the legality of the wiretapping program based on statements the Bush administration has already made public: (1) The wiretapping program exists. (2) The Bush administration monitors communication between U.S. citizens and people overseas suspected of having some connection, to a terrorist organization. (3) The monitoring is conducted without warrants.

In considering these facts, the court looked to our history. It pointed out that searches and seizures without warrant were among the offenses committed by King George III against the American colonists prior to the Revolutionary War. These searches terrified the people and chilled any speech or publication that might criticize the King for fear of being labeled seditious. After the American Revolution, the Founders enshrined two amendments into the Constitution in order to prevent such abuses from ever occurring again. We now know these as the First and Fourth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.--U.S. CONST. Amend. I.

The right the of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, andeffects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, andno Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath oraffirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.--U.S. CONST. Amend. IV.

These two amendments work together to protect some of the most basic liberties we hold so dear. However, Congress is mindful, too, that when it comes to national security, the obligations of these amendments might be too cumbersome to carry out in the ordinary course of business. Thus, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as, “the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance of foreign intelligence communications may be conducted.” 18 U.S.C. §2511(2)(f). This act sets up a special and secret court to grant surveillance warrants to the administration. Acknowledging the need to act quickly in matters of national security, it even gives the administration up to 72 hours after already beginning surveillance to seek a warrant. And so Congress has wisely provided for the administration to see to the needs of national security, while still permitting to judiciary to ensure the protection of civil liberties.

The Bush administration, however, has argued this is insufficient. It claims the President, as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces under Article II of the U.S. Constitution, should have the right to see to matters of national security as he sees fit, independent of the laws of Congress and the warrant reviews of the judiciary. As one of the great Founders, James Madison, wrote in the Federalist Papers, though, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” THE FEDERALIST NO. 47. The court refused to allow President Bush to usurp both the Legislative and Judicial branches of government, and reminded the President that he is sworn to uphold and abide by the entire Constitution, not just Article II.

“He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation .”-- The Declaration of Independence

Thomas Jefferson wrote those words over 200 years ago describing a few of the offenses committed by King George III against the American colonists. Today, they could as easily apply to the warrantless wiretapping program of President George Bush II—or they would had the court not stuck it down. In this case, the court defended the U.S. Constitution and the liberties it enshrines, protected the separation of powers from dissolving into tyranny, and provided legitimate means for the defense of this country—all principles long cherished by conservatives. In the end, the court managed to strengthen our national security, both against the terrorists that seek to destroy us from outside our borders, and the possibility of tyranny that could destroy us from within.

As the court noted in its conclusion, “Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution. As Justice Warren wrote in U.S. v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258 (1967):

Implicit in the term ‘national defense’ is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart. . . . It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of . . . those liberties . . . which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile. Id. at 264.”

Justice, Privacy, and JonBenet Ramsey

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable Friends,

What is your favorite freedom this year? That is the question one of my dear friends asks my salon every 4th of July. It is interesting to listen to the answers. In 2003, my favorite freedom was privacy, and the right given to all people, both heterosexual and homosexual, to develop their most intimate relationships free from government intrusion. Lawrence v. Texas, 539 US 558 (2003). This year, only a month removed from Independence Day, I again think privacy is one of my favorite freedoms—but I no longer see government as the only mortal threat to it.

Tonight, my salon again considered the importance of privacy as we learned of the latest developments in the JonBenet Ramsey Case. One honorable gentleman argued quite passionately that the entire media system owes the Ramsey family a very good apology. It is hard to argue with that. The news media overtly accused the entire Ramsey family of murder, and splashed their morbid theories across the front pages of nearly every paper in the country for weeks. Meanwhile, countless books flooded the presses, excoriating one Ramsey after another. Yet, there was never any trial of justice. No court of law or rules of evidence ever governed the accusations hurled at the Ramseys by the media. Now, it seems the Ramseys may finally be vindicated. My honorable friend is correct to say that the media has done this family a horrible injustice to add to their terrible loss.

Yet, if the media acted villainously, it did so only because such behavior was selling papers—and books and magazines, and all manner of tripe. Offering readers a window into the glamorous lives of the wealthy, all the intrigue and deception of a mystery novel, and the self satisfying illusion of moral superiority to the rich, the JonBenet story appealed to the basest voyeurism that has been one of this country’s most disgusting vices for more than a century.

Not so long ago, the media would publish intimate details and itineraries of celebrity figures. The population loved it—and so did assassins. They used the timelines to target Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy, F. Roosevelt and Reagan, as well as notables such as George Wallace, Robert Kennedy, and John Lennon. Most recently, their intrusive tactics have directly cased the death of Lady Diana, Princess of Wales. Though these tragedies have finally convinced at least the U.S. media to stop publishing celebrity itineraries, the media seems to have found new ways to ruin lives. I speak of the life dissecting trial by press, which indulges in the most gruesome and appalling speculations no court of law would ever allow, and Justice herself would recoil in horror. My honorable friend has called this most frightfully un-Christian, and yet this mostly Christian population cannot seem to get enough of it. “Love your neighbor’s misery as yourself,” seems to be the new Golden Rule.

The great political heroine, Alice Roosevelt, daughter of Teddy Roosevelt and icon of the Republican Party, dedicated much of her life to the cause of privacy and ending these invasive and life threatening practices. She set a marvelous example. It would be so nice to hear politicians trumpet that cause once again. And yet, when it comes to matters of privacy, it is Alice’s own party—the Republican Party-- that betrays the cause most terribly. It is the Republican Party--the devoutly Christian Republican Party—that stands most ready to comment on the private lives of others and to overtly condemn the constitutional right to privacy. For the sake of Justice, for the sake of decency, and for the sake of liberty, the Republican Party—my party—needs to honor the memory of its great mistress and make privacy one of its favorite freedoms too.