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Why Obama’s ‘Julia’ campaign will be a success

Posted by Connor on May 4th, 2012

The following is an op-ed I had published at The Daily Caller today.

On Thursday, Barack Obama’s re-election campaign released an advertising campaign titled “The Life of Julia,” in which 12 snapshots of a fictional woman’s life are used to demonstrate how Obama’s policies would help her, and how Mitt Romney’s policies would hurt her.

At age 3, “Julia” enrolls in Head Start, which Obama has expanded but Romney wants to scale back. At age 18, she qualifies for up to $10,000 under Obama’s American Opportunity Tax Credit, which Romney wants to let expire. As she ages, she takes advantage of Obama’s preferred health care plan, capped student loan payments, free birth control and medical screenings, government business loans and welfare programs — all things that Obama claims Romney either wants to reduce or eliminate.

In short, Julia is an irresponsible woman dependent upon an increasingly large nanny state, and how dare anybody prevent her from getting the money and services she thinks she deserves. Obama’s campaign messaging, then, celebrates the entitlement society the president is helping to foment. Sadly, that message may be enough to win him the support he needs.

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The Confidence of Men and Constitutional Chains

Posted by Connor on April 17th, 2012

At last night’s debate amongst Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Orrin Hatch (and to which he is seeking re-election for a seventh term), a question was asked of the three candidates present regarding the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012.

In his remarks, Senator Hatch dismissed any concern that the powers purportedly granted to the President under that bill were unconstitutional and worrisome. “Habeas corpus hasn’t been done away with,” he said. “And I have to say, some of the worries that some of the far right conservatives have are misplaced. I assure you, nobody’s going to be mistreated under the NDAA.” Just seconds later he restated his point once more to emphasize his position: “I can assure you that habeas corpus is not done away with—that’s a constitutional principle we have abided by.”

This position is not an uncommon one; many of the NDAA’s supporters have offered a justification for their vote that amounts to little more than “trust me!” Mitt Romney, who has endorsed Senator Hatch for re-election, essentially said that very thing when asked in a recent debate about whether he would have signed the bill into law as President. After noting that he would have signed it, Romney emphasized the importance of having this type of tool available—the indefinite detention of anyone suspected of being or supporting a terrorist in any capacity. To apparently ameliorate the concerns of the critics, Romney offered this response:

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Immorality and Irresponsibility: A Justification for Statism?

Posted by Connor on April 14th, 2012

Christian conservatives and constitutionalists alike employ a variety of arguments to defend their support for the state. While many of these defenses are misguided and easily rebutted, others are more popular and persist despite any attempts to point out their flaws. One such argument claims that because people are unrighteous, the government must do for them what they will not do for themselves.

Those who advance this argument often point to some common examples to support their claim. Because people do not give enough to charity, the welfare system is needed to take care of those unable to provide for themselves. Because children whose families are poor or who live in remote areas would otherwise not have access to a school, a public education system must be financed by taxpayers to provide education for all. Because drug use is prevalent, regulations and prohibitions are needed to criminalize the production and consumption of these illicit substances. The list is lengthy, and each justification is based on the core idea behind this argument: widespread immorality and irresponsibility implicitly authorizes the government’s attempts to enforce a standard of morality that people would otherwise abandon.

The diagnosis made by these individuals is not inaccurate; morality and responsibility have been in decline over the past several decades, and now are either ignored or routinely denigrated in the public square. But is their proposed remedy worthy of support? Does the decline in morality and responsibility justify the government’s intervention as a last-ditch effort to counteract society’s moral decay?

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Foreign Policy and the Golden Rule

Posted by Connor on April 9th, 2012

What Would Jesus Do?

It’s an important question that’s been reduced to an acronym, WWJD, presumably in order to popularize its message. That message urges each of Christ’s followers to ask themselves how he might respond in any given situation, and act likewise.

What would Jesus have done if he were in the audience at the January debate between GOP presidential contenders in South Carolina? Surrounded by a group comprised heavily of evangelical Christians, the candidates fielded questions on foreign policy. All but Ron Paul advocated increased military intervention. Newt Gingrich suggested that the approach to those he labeled “America’s enemies” was, simply: “kill them.”

Mitt Romney doubled down on the comment. “Of course you take out our enemies, wherever they are,” he said. “These people declared war on us. They’ve killed Americans. We go anywhere they are, and we kill them.”

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The Supreme Court Should Uphold Obamacare

Posted by Connor on March 27th, 2012

The following is an op-ed I had published at The Daily Caller today.

Oral arguments over the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will wrap up Wednesday. The Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling in June. In the meantime, conservatives, constitutionalists and libertarians will anxiously await the Supreme Court’s decision, hoping that the justices find the mandate unconstitutional. They should be hoping for the opposite.

To be clear, the mandate is absolutely unconstitutional. The commerce clause was never intended to allow the federal government to micromanage every aspect of commerce (it was intended to allow Congress to “make regular” commerce between the states by prohibiting tariff wars between them), and the power to tax does not carry with it the power to compel a purchase that otherwise would not have occurred.

Constitutionally minded individuals generally agree with that argument, and therefore want the Supreme Court to rule against the mandate. This is understandable, and a nearly universal opinion amongst this group. But in the long run, the goal of upholding the Constitution and promoting conservatism or libertarianism would actually be better served by the court declaring that the mandate is constitutional.

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Being Pro-Life Means Being Anti-War

Posted by Connor on March 21st, 2012

photo credit: sfPhotocraft

Double standards are found everywhere in the words and actions of the political class. One of the most striking examples comes from the religious right which likes to claim that it is “pro-life” while usually also being in favor of war. This hypocritical position renders meaningless their claim to supporting life—you cannot be pro-life without also opposing war.

One of the GOP’s most ardent advocates of military might is Senator John McCain, who in an attempt to frame himself as a pro-life candidate declared on the campaign trail of his 2008 presidential bid that “for 24 years, I’ve fought for the rights of the unborn.” Rick Santorum’s spokesman says that the former Senator “was always a solid pro-life vote, wrote and passed pro-life legislation, and consistently received the highest rankings from pro-life groups.” These and many other supporters of military intervention abroad claim to be among the most ardent defenders of life.

George Bush, his father before him, Mitt Romney (the current version, not the Massachusetts one), Jim DeMint, and any other rising or current star in the conservative Republican field adopts the rhetoric that the supposedly pro-life ideology requires. One of this group’s leading figures, Ronald Reagan, summarized the entire pro-life message this way: “We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life—the unborn—without diminishing the value of all human life.”

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Joseph Smith, Habeas Corpus, Mitt Romney, and the 2012 NDAA

Posted by Connor on March 19th, 2012

In the wake of a massive scandal rocking the young LDS Church and the city of Nauvoo its members largely inhabited, John C. Bennett resigned his position as Mayor (and was excommunicated from the Church). At a city council meeting two days later, the prophet Joseph Smith was overwhelmingly elected by the council to replace Bennett.

Just three days into his tenure as Mayor, Joseph read an article in the Quincy Whig announcing an assassination attempt on the life of former Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs. Based on mere rumor alone, the paper speculated that the Mormons, and specifically Joseph, may have been instrumental in the shooting. Joseph vehemently denied involvement, yet realized that his enemies would take advantage of such a situation to try and thwart God’s work.

Just over a week later, on July 5, 1842, in anticipation of such enemies seeking to arrest and extradite Joseph to another city or state (where those unfriendly to the Mormons would eagerly convict him), the Nauvoo city council passed an ordinance to protect him. Titled “An Ordinance In Relation to Writs of Habeas Corpus,” the council’s newly-adopted ordinance stated that “no citizen of this city shall be taken out of the city by writs without the privilege of investigation before the municipal court.” In other words, the officers of Nauvoo were pre-emptively nullifying any attempt to impose “justice” on Joseph or others elsewhere without first being reviewed by them, giving all their citizens “the right of trial in this city.” Mayor Joseph Smith quickly signed the ordinance which says the following in full:

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Federal Farmers, Then and Now

Posted by Connor on March 8th, 2012

Here’s my latest op-ed, published at the Davis Clipper.

Once the U.S. Constitution was signed and sent to the various states for consideration in 1787, a passionate and sometimes heated debate immediately began. Writing together under the pseudonym “Publius,” the arguments advanced by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay were widely published and later compiled into “The Federalist.” This group is well known, especially since their opinions ultimately carried the day, and their writings are considered by many to be an indispensable exposition of the Constitution.

Not as well known are the opposing arguments of the loosely connected group known as the “Anti-Federalists,” who similarly penned essays to persuade the public, but in opposition to the proposed Constitution. Despite having not achieved their goal, they are often given much credit and praise for having demanded the Bill of Rights that was passed soon after the Constitution’s ratification.

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Joseph Kony: A Monster to Destroy?

Posted by Connor on March 7th, 2012

photo credit: Invisible Children

In just three days, the half-hour video produced by Invisible Children to highlight a Ugandan warmonger oppressing little kids has reached over 12 million people. (Edit: in less than a week, it has been viewed 70 million times.)

Many of those millions are now loudly parroting the message advanced by the video’s creators: the federal government is needed to intervene and help take out this monster once and for all. The narrator claims that in order to find Joseph Kony, the ring leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, “the Ugandan army needs the technology and training” which must be offered by the United States government.

Due in large part to the activism of this same organization, Barack Obama deployed 100 combat-equipped soldiers in 2010 to help regional forces capture or kill Kony and senior leaders of the band of rebels. In a letter explaining his action, Obama stated that “deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa.”

While it is laughable to claim that killing a bad guy half a world away who poses absolutely no threat to America would further the “national security interests” of the United States of America, one thing the intervention certainly does is further America’s “foreign policy” which has for decades entailed one intervention after another.

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Whose Land Is It?

Posted by Connor on March 7th, 2012

The following is an op-ed I had published at The Daily Caller today.

Has the federal government become so arrogant as to claim ownership of the land over which it has jurisdiction? Put differently, does the United States of America exist to protect and defend the property of each individual living within its borders, or to own and control that property itself?

This is not a theoretical question reserved for intellectual banter. It is a real question pondered often, especially by those in western states, where the majority of land is owned and regulated by the federal government. Although the federal government owns less than 10% of almost every eastern state, it owns large swaths of the West: 65% of the land in Utah, 83% of Nevada, 63% of Idaho, 45% of Arizona, 44% of California and similar percentages of the surrounding western states.

That may soon change if the efforts of the Utah legislature are successful. The legislature has passed a package of bills that demands that the federal government give up its claim to huge sections of “public” land. One of the bills includes a demand that nearly 30 million acres be handed over to the state — nearly 50% of the land in Utah — by 2014.

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An Open Letter to Glenn Beck

Posted by Connor on February 29th, 2012

photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Glenn,

You are a complicated man, you know that?

I know many people who think you are the embodiment of deception, seeking to lead an otherwise truth-seeking people off a cliff. To such people, I often stand up for you, noting that you do say some great things from time to time, and have, for example, referred many people to read good books by men far smarter than you or I. You’re not all bad, I say, though emphatically emphasizing that I disagree with you on many things.

Many things.

I try and give you the benefit of the doubt. As you often say, you’re learning as you go along, and progressing towards a libertarian viewpoint. Just the other day, as you have in the past, you told one of your guests that you consider yourself libertarian. So I think to myself: “okay, he’s slowly waking up, maybe he’ll continue to improve over time.”

But good heavens, Glenn. You’re so inconsistent! For example, you’ve recognized that Ron Paul is the closest thing we’ve got to the founding fathers, and then you encourage people not to support him. Then you about-face and suggest he’s what we need, only to then attack him a few days later.

Flip-flopping Mitt Romney? He’s got nothing on you.

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What do young voters want?

Posted by Connor on February 21st, 2012

The following is an op-ed I had published at The Daily Caller today.

Political scientists often analyze the youth vote in order to spot possible future political trends. Having very recently aged out of this 18- to 29-year-old demographic (“millennial voters,” as they’re called), I believe I understand fairly well how many in the rising generation feel, and why they vote the way they do.

Of course, when speaking of millions of people in this way, one can only draw general conclusions that are riddled with exceptions. Still, trends do exist and point to underlying motives for why so many youth support a certain candidate or issue.

Four years ago, this voting segment overwhelming chose Obama over McCain in the general election, flocking to a candidate who railed against the secrecy, torture, tyranny, and moral bankruptcy of the Bush administration’s foreign policy and attacks on civil liberties. They were offered “change” and bought into it, recognizing that McCain was openly advocating a continuation of Bush’s policies, and not foreseeing that Obama would basically do the same once in office.

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