Do You C What I C?

The Tea Party apparently did well in Missouri during the mid-term primaries this week. They (or someone) managed to stage contests for most Republican candidates, while most Democrats ran unopposed in our state. Why might anyone do this? Proposition C. This piece of "legislation" is an arguably unconstitutional attempt to stop Health Care Reform by claiming States Rights against an unpopular provision in the Obama plan: Mandatory Health Insurance. Universal insurance is an attempt to pay for the impending regulation doing away with preexisting condition coverage denials. If everyone is covered, then there will be no preexisting conditions. But if everyone can sign up only when they need it and insurers cannot deny coverage, then insurers will go bankrupt and the Federal Government will have to completely take over. This is what they want? But Missourians voted overwhelmingly in favor of denying the Federal Government the right to enforce this provision necessary to interstate commerce. But if you look at detailed election results, you'll see that the vote on Proposition C is proportional to the ratio of Republicans to others who bothered to vote. In a state that was razor-close in November 2008, three Republicans showed up for each Democrat to vote in this primary. Here is another view of this Proposition: What the passage of Proposition C in Missouri means, and what it does not mean. In brief, it is grandstanding. Given the likely turnout at the polls, and given the correct wording, it was an unsinkable piece of "voter mandate" with no actual significance. But it looks good as a jab-in-the-eye to an embattled administration. Unless you actually read about the issue. But the point was to pick one unpopular clause of the 2,500 page law, and publicly display how "the people" are against the whole thing. I'm curious to see how the Tea Party will stack the November election. Will other states be so dumb?

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JFK on transparency in a time of war

I found this speech of JFK's to be tremendously powerful, and the applicability to today's situation should be obvious. Kennedy was speaking to the American Newspaper Publisher's Association on April 27th, 1961. The whole speech is worth reading, but I wanted to highlight a few key excerpts, especially in the context of Wikileaks' release of war documents from the Afghanistan theater. Kennedy simultaneously pleads for a more well-informed public, while arguing that the press ought to be mindful of national security issues in choosing which stories to publish. You can almost imagine him talking about the danger posed by terrorists in the present day, rather than the danger of Communism in the Cold-war 1960s:

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.

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It’s lonely at the top

Pity Tony Hayward, erstwhile boss of BP. He's really had it rough. He's been "demonized and vilified", to use his own words. The poor CEO was so busy dealing with the massive oil spill perpetrated by his company that he almost missed watching his yacht race in a very important race! Almost, but he was able to watch the race anyway. Because, you know, someone else was probably working on cleaning up the oil fouling the Gulf of Mexico. It's not really the CEO's job, you see. It's more of a job for the "small people" of the world. "Life isn't fair. Sometimes you step off the pavement and get hit by a bus," Hayward said recently. Yes, that's true. And sometimes, you end up the CEO of one of the most powerful oil companies in the world. A company that has a long history of criminal and ethical violations that should make them unfit to operate a lemonade stand, much less a major multinational corporation with power to contaminate the entire Gulf of Mexico-- and perhaps, Beyond!

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Mark Tiedemann wraps up

Over the past few days, I've been publishing sections of an engaging discussion with Mark Tiedemann that I videotaped about a year ago. I only recently got around to cutting the session up into individual videos, but the delay allowed me to enjoy the discussion anew, and it also allowed me to appreciate more than ever that the topics that draw Mark's attention tend to be relatively timeless. As you can probably see, this discussion was spontaneous. I went to Mark's house with a video camera and a few general topics scribbled down, no specific agenda. We both allowed the conversation go where it wanted to go. In these final two videos from last year's discussion, the topics are VI) The importance of knowing history and VII) Church and State. I hope you've enjoyed getting to know Mark as much as I have. If you'd like to know more about Mark's way of viewing and analyzing the world, he has already posted almost 200 articles at DI, all of them readily available.

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Debtors’ Prison Still A Reality?

According to a recent article by Chris Serres at the Minnesota Star Tribune, courts still order debtors to go to jail when they can't afford to pay a judgment. Not only are the national media largely unaware of this phenomenon, but The New Yorker published an article last April that characterizes debtors' prisons as a pre-20th Century institution, and describes the America as a refuge for debtors.

As many as two out of every three Europeans who came to the American colonies were debtors on arrival. Some colonies were, basically, debtors’ asylums. By the seventeen-sixties, sympathy for debtors had attached itself to the patriot cause.

Jill Lepore of The New Yorker goes on to describe how American treatment of debt has evolved to allow bankruptcy and why this is a good thing.

Debtors’ prison was abolished, and bankruptcy law was liberalized, because Americans came to see that most people who fall into debt are victims of the business cycle, and not of fate or divine retribution.

Even Wikipedia describes debtors' prisons as a thing of the past, or at least an unconstitutional one, according to this 2009 New York Times editorial, "The New Debtors' Prisons."

20th Century Debtors' Prison

Times have changed. To be sure, most Americans who are deep in credit card debt do not have bench warrants issued for their arrest. However, in Illinois, Indiana and other states, a person who's gotten a judgment entered against them can miss a court date and find themselves being hounded by the police.

What about the argument that defendants may owe the money they are being sued for, and should have gone to court? Perhaps the threat of jail is the only way to make them appear in court.

Reporters from The New York Times and The Federal Trade Commission have found that the collection industry is in dire need of repair, and cited numerous, ubiquitous problems. Some of these problems are startling. To wit:

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