Clear and Present Dangers 14

I finished M. Stanton Evans' 1975 book, Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government.  In my latest reading, Evans proposed conservative solutions to our country's problems.  He acknowledged that he supports solutions that would go much further than what is politically feasible, but he's open to meeting people halfway and taking half a loaf rather than none at all.  For example, Evans supports abolishing the minimum wage, but he'd be open merely to exempting teenagers from it.

There were two items in my latest reading that especially stood out to me.  First, on page 395, Evans proposes that residents of the inner-city be allowed to vote on whether or not urban renewal will take place in their area.  Evans says that this "would give the otherwise voiceless citizens (usually blacks) in the central cities a say-so in their own affairs."  That sounds rather populist!  I like it!  Evans also referred favorably to a proposal to "eliminate taxes on structural improvements on property", thereby encouraging inner-city buildings to be upgraded and made more liveable, as well as a proposal to reform zoning ordinances that inhibit "new construction" in the inner-city, thereby addressing housing.  Evans does not go into much detail on ways to improve the inner-cities, but I appreciate that he not only said what he thought was wrong with the government policy of that time regarding the inner-cities but also demonstrated his willingness to consider alternative approaches.

Second, in his discussion on pornography, Evans affirms that the matter should be left to the states, but then he goes on to say that the pornography industry has suffered, even though states have avoided a repressive policy.  Evans says that states should have the authority to set their own policy regarding pornography, yet he himself seems to prefer a more libertarian approach.  I'd say that he was overly optimistic about the demise of pornography, however, for television, movies, and the Internet these days show plenty of sexually-explicit images.

Overall, I thought this was a good book, even though I'm not much of a conservative nowadays.  I admire Evans for challenging the liberal consensus of his day, and I thought that he made a good point when he argued that legal limits on government authority should be consistently followed, lest the state get out of control.  I feel that the Tenth Amendment (at least as conservatives understand it) is too rigid of a limit, for I have problems with hindering the government from doing good, especially in situations where people cannot really help themselves.  But I understand why limits are important.  One problem that I have, though, is with Evans' insistence that the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply the Bill of Rights to the states.  So we should fear the federal government becoming a tyranny, but we shouldn't mind if the states suppress the rights listed in the Bill of Rights?  What sense does that make?  Isn't tyranny bad, whether it occurs at the federal, state, or local level?

I thought that Evans made valuable points about certain government policies causing more harm than good.  That's certainly plausible!  I was a little skeptical, however, when he sought to downplay the extent of the problems that the government was trying to solve.  Moreover, my hunch is that laissez-faire would create its own set of problems.  I think that one should seek to reform how the government does things, rather than rolling back government involvement and expecting for problems to go away as a result of that.  What's interesting is that President Barack Obama, specifically Obamacare, has sought to tackle some of the health care problems that Evans discusses, such as subsidies to hospitals that increase the cost of health care.

I have to admire Evans for the extent of his documentation.  I did not fact-check everything he said, for I did not have the time or the energy, considering the vast wealth of information that is in Evans' book.  Surprisingly, I found fact-checking Newt Gingrich's works and Mitt Romney's book to be a more manageable task than fact-checking Evans would probably be.

Evans' book was definitely worth reading.  In a couple of days, I'll be starting my Year (or More) of Nixon, so I'll play by ear what I post in the two days before then.  One of my posts will probably introduce my Year (or More) of Nixon, defining what it will be and my reason for it!

Clear and Present Dangers 13

For my write-up today on Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government (copyright 1975), I'll comment on something that M. Stanton Evans says on pages 362-363:

"...the liberal urge to absorb and deploy power will continue to its logical conclusion----which is the authoritarian state...In the chapter immediately preceding, we have observed the most alarming symptom of this development----a growing indifference toward the value of human life.  As liberalism has drifted further and further away from our traditional conceptions of human worth and individuality, we find a growing hostility not only to personal freedom but to the very concept of life itself."

Evans has in mind here abortion and euthanasia.

I don't think that holding certain liberal positions is inconsistent with believing in the value of individual human beings.  Why do liberals support anti-poverty programs and efforts to eliminate hunger and malnutrition among poor children?  Why are they for a health care policy that they believe ensures that more Americans will receive adequate health care?  Why are they against the death penalty?  Why do they oppose pollutants that they think are damaging to people's health and life?  Why are there extreme leftists who criticize capitalism for dehumanizing people and treating them as means to an end?  I realize that Evans would argue that liberal policies don't work, but, in my opinion, a number of liberals hold their positions out of respect for the value of life and of the human individual.

Evans looks at the history of American liberalism and notes the influence of John Stuart Mill and utilitarianism----the belief that we should pursue the greatest good for the greatest number, a notion that, according to many conservatives, compromises the rights and dignity of the individual.  But I doubt that a number of people who hold liberal positions would see themselves as part of the stream of utilitarian thought, assuming that they even know much about John Stuart Mill.  My hunch is that they'd say that they support liberal policies out of compassion.

That's not to say that I think Evans is completely wrong.  There have been authoritarian states that championed compassion for the poor and the working people, but they were despotic and killed people they thought stood in the way of the revolution.  I think of a number of communist governments.  But not every government that pursues compassionate policies is like that: consider European social democracies that don't even have a death penalty.  What keeps them from becoming despotic regimes that take life with cavalier indifference?  Could their commitment to compassion be a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem?

Clear and Present Dangers 12: Abortion and the Living, Breathing Constitution

In my latest reading of Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government (copyright 1975), M. Stanton Evans defended his objections to marijuana, pornography, abortion, and euthanasia.  On pornography, Evans believes that local communities have the right to set their own anti-obscenity standards.  But doesn't that violate the First Amendment?  Evans did not specifically address this question, but you may recall from my previous write-ups on this book that Evans does not believe that the Fourteenth Amendment applies the Bill of Rights to the states.

But I want to focus in this post on the abortion issue.  Regarding Roe vs. Wade, Evans says on page 350, "The legal reasoning was that the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment didn't believe the child in embryo was a 'person' and didn't intend to confer its protection on the fetus----and far be it from the court to enlarge upon the purposes of the drafters."

I get the irony: Evans is probably saying that liberal judges ordinarily believe in a living Constitution as opposed to sticking with the original intent behind the document, yet in Roe vs. Wade they suddenly decide to go with the original intent!  But is Evans guilty of doing the opposite: ordinarily supporting original intent while regarding the Constitution as a living document when it comes to the abortion issue? 
I can only guess.  If Evans believes that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the unborn, then the answer is probably "yes".  If, however, Evans merely thinks that state governments under the Tenth Amendment should have the authority to restrict abortion as they wish instead of seeing their laws struck down by judges according to a definition of a right to privacy that (according to him) is not in the Constitution, then the answer is "no", for in that case he'd be going with his own understanding of the original intent behind the Constitution. 

Which accords more with Evans' belief?  One the one hand, one could make the case that Evans has the latter approach (states' rights) to the abortion issue, for he says on page 347 that states have the authority to ban contraception (whether or not they should do so), and so it's conceivable that he'd say that states have the constitutional authority to restrict abortion.

On the other hand, perhaps Evans thinks that the federal government should recognize the fetus as a human being with rights.  On page 355, Evans appeals to court decisions (Bonbrest v. Katz in 1946, Kelly v. Gregory in 1953, and Paul v. Milwaukee Automobile Association in 1959) that, according to him, acknowledge that the fetus has rights as an entity separate from its mother.  Evans states on this same page that these decisions differ from certain earlier court decisions: "Prior to recent medical discoveries concerning the reality of fetal life, it had been assumed in some court decisions that the unborn child was indeed a 'part of the mother's body.  But it is noteworthy that the trend of twentieth century jurisprudence had been moving away from this notion as the scientific evidence unfolded."  Is Evans supporting the concept of a living, breathing Constitution here: that our interpretation of the Constitution should be influenced, not just by original intent and what the text literally says, but also by recent scientific advancements?  Would Evans, therefore, argue that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the unborn, even though the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly defines as U.S. citizens those who are born or naturalized in the U.S.?  Or would Evans conclude that the Constitution as it currently stands is not sufficient to protect the unborn, and thus there should be a Constitutional Amendment banning abortion?

(UPDATE: On page 403, Evans supports Congress passing a human life amendment.)

Clear and Present Dangers 11: Crime

In my latest reading of M. Stanton Evans' Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government (copyright 1975), I finished the chapter "Freedom and Foreign Policy" and read the chapter on crime.

I'll focus on Evans' chapter on crime.  Evans' arguments are that poverty does not cause crime because crime was lower during the Great Depression than in the prosperous 1960's, that rehabilitation programs have not worked, and that the murder rate was going down before the Supreme Court banned the death penalty, after which time it went up.

There may be something to Evans' argument.  But I was disappointed in two areas.  First, Evans criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court decisions that (in my mind) sought to protect the rights of the accused under the Bill of Rights, such as Gideon (the right to counsel), Mapp (evidence obtained through "unreasonable searches and seizes", to use the language of the Fourth Amendment, cannot be used in state courts), and Miranda (the right for people to be informed when arrested that they don't have to incriminate themselves).  According to Evans, "to the extent [that these decisions] simply deployed a procedural mine-field that hindered proper law enforcement and permitted larger numbers of the guilty to get free again, they were...allowing criminals to strike repeatedly at law-abiding individuals" (page 324).  Evans laments later in the book that the U.S. Government is infringing on the authority of the states in the field of "criminal procedure" (page 348).

I think that Evans should have provided a more rigorous discussion about the Bill of Rights.  Evans earlier in the book disagrees with the notion that the Fourteenth Amendment applies the Bill of Rights to the states, appealing the sentiments of Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter.  That raises questions in my mind: How can we really have rights under the Bill of Rights if the Bill of Rights does not apply to the states?  Why would it be so wrong to apply to the state courts the rules protecting the rights of the accused in the federal courts?  While Evans believes that the Warren Court's decisions on criminal procedure hamper law enforcement, obviously the Framers were concerned about the rights of the accused, since amendments about that are in the Bill of Rights.

How would Evans interpret the Fourteenth Amendment's stipulation that a state cannot deprive citizens of their rights to life, liberty, and property, without due process?  Does not "liberty" include the rights under the Bill of Rights?  And, since Evans criticizes the Left's interpretation and application of the Second Amendment (which talks about the militia and the right to keep and bear arms), would he favor courts striking down state and local gun control regulations on the basis of the Second Amendment?  Or is the Second Amendment the only one that applies to the states?

Second, while Evans raised good points about the death penalty being a deterrent, he failed (at least in the book that I'm reading) to address crucial issues, such as the number of innocent people who have been executed, as well as the costliness of capital punishment to the state.

Clear and Present Dangers 10: Civil Liberties and the Constitution

In my latest reading of M. Stanton Evans' Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government (copyright 1975), I finished the chapter on civil liberties, read the chapter "How to Silence Dissent", and started the chapter on foreign policy.  In this post, I'll focus on civil liberties and Evans' discussion of government suppression of dissent.

Evans' point in his chapter on civil liberties is that the Left interprets so much of the U.S. Constitution loosely, while being strict on freedom of speech.  According to Evans, this is because the Left regards freedom of speech as a good idea because it allows for a marketplace of ideas, but it does not support free speech specifically because it is mandated by the Bill of Rights.  Otherwise, it wouldn't play so fast-and-loose with the Second and the Tenth Amendments!  Evans is also critical of conservatives who interpret the First Amendment loosely by claiming that times are different now, but Evans believes that conservatives in that case are following liberal methodology when it comes to interpreting the Constitution.

Recently, I read and blogged through Sheila Suess Kennedy's What's a Nice Republican Girl Like Me Doing in the ACLU?  Kennedy was a conservative Republican (though some would disagree with characterizing her as such) who headed the Indiana branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).  How are her beliefs similar to and different from those of M. Stanton Evans in Clear and Present Dangers?

One area in which they are similar is that they both believe in the rule of law rather than rule by the whims of human beings.  Kennedy believes that free speech should be protected because it's in the Bill of Rights, and, if we don't obey the Bill of Rights, we are subject to the whims of whomever may be in power, which is potentially dangerous.  Evans has a similar concern about the powers of government being limited by law.  But I think that there are differences between him and Kennedy.  First of all, Kennedy does not address the Tenth Amendment in her book.  Whereas Evans would probably dismiss Medicare as unconstitutional (or at least he'd probably do so in 1975, and I'm not sure what he'd say about Medicare today), Kennedy is a critic of Paul Ryan's plan for Medicare and appears to be open to aspects of Obamacare (see here and here).  My impression is that Kennedy supports a limited government in the economic sphere because she thinks it's a good idea (due to her support for fiscal responsibility, encouraging people to work, and freedom), but she's not an absolutist who believes that the federal government can only do what is explicitly stated in the U.S. Constitution.  Evans, however, appears to think that the federal government should be limited because it's a good idea and also because it is constitutionally-mandated.

Second, Kennedy interprets the Establishment Clause strictly, and she believes that states under the Fourteenth Amendment cannot support a religion, and that's why states cannot sponsor prayer in public schools.  And, although she critiques a strict originalist approach to reading the Constitution, she argues that her interpretation of the Establishment Clause is consistent with what certain founding fathers believed.  Evans, by contrast, appeals to a statement by Justice Felix Frankfurter in speaking against the notion that the Fourteenth Amendment "incorporates the Bill of Rights and applies it to the states under the stewardship of Federal judges" (page 273), and he does not believe that prayer in public schools is constitutionally problematic.  Moreover, in this speech, Evans manifests an interesting view on originalism.  In seeking to understand the intent behind the Establishment Clause, Evans argues, we should not look so much at James Madison's strict views on church-state separation, but rather at the states that accepted the Bill of Rights, some of which explicitly established a religion in their own constitutions.  For Evans, the Establishment Clause was not intended to prevent the states from sanctioning religion.

For this third point about Kennedy and Evans, I won't be contrasting them, but rather I'll talk about an issue that Kennedy brought up that I thought about after reading Evans one day: the issue of the relevance of previous drafts of constitutional amendments.  Kennedy argues that the Establishment Clause was not merely intended to ban the government from supporting a specific church, but rather that its aim was to prevent the government from supporting a religion, period.  Her reason is that a previous draft of the First Amendment that banned the federal government from supporting specific churches was rejected.  This stood out to me because I recalled reading a religious right publication that make the opposite sort of argument: that we can tell what the original intent of the Establishment Clause was by looking at previous drafts, and since a preceding draft referred to churches rather than religion, we can conclude that the Framers meant churches when they prohibited the establishment of a religion.  My impression is that Kennedy was arguing that the Framers repudiated the concept of the previous draft, whereas the religious right publication held that they were simply rejecting the phrasing and were looking for another way to phrase the same concept.

Regarding Evans, Evans' discussion of the Tenth Amendment made me wonder how liberals interpret it, and why the Supreme Court in 1941 called it a "truism".  I haven't found a satisfying answer to my quest, but wikipedia's article on the Tenth Amendment (which refers to a University of Chicago article) states the following: "After the Constitution was ratified, some wanted to add a similar amendment limiting the federal government to powers 'expressly' delegated, which would have denied implied powers. However, the word 'expressly' ultimately did not appear in the Tenth Amendment as ratified, and therefore the Tenth Amendment did not reject the powers implied by the Necessary and Proper Clause."  Some argue on the basis of the absence of the word 'expressly' in the Tenth Amendment that the Amendment was not intended to limit the federal government's responsibilities to what is explicitly enumerated in the U.S. Constitution (see here).  Like Kennedy's argument regarding the previous version of the Establishment Clause that was rejected, the idea here seems to be that, because the word "expressly" was rejected in the writing of the Tenth Amendment, the Amendment was not intended to be a rigid limitation of the federal government to the tasks expressly defined in the Constitution.

Where do I stand on these issues?  Regarding the application of the Bill of Rights to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment, I fail to see how we can have rights if only the federal government is forbidden to infringe upon them, whereas the state and local governments can.  On the Tenth Amendment, I have much to learn about that.  I think that the intent was to limit the federal government's powers to what the Constitution enumerated, otherwise why would the Constitution take the trouble to enumerate the powers in the first place?  At the same time, I believe that there were framers who desired some degree of flexibility, which is why there is a Necessary and Proper Clause that allows the federal government to use whatever powers it deems necessary to do what the Constitution stipulates.  It comes back to what the Constitution permits the federal government to do, but there is some flexibility----and my guess is that this flexibility is somewhere in-between the interpretation of the Amendment by strict conservatives and liberals.

I'd like to turn now to another issue that Evans raises: how government power to control property can open the door to government suppression of free speech.  Evans critiques the Fairness Doctrine, which required stations to provide free air-time to an opposing point-of-view if a program made a controversial political statement.  The result, Evans argues, is that many stations chose to avoid controversial programming altogether rather than to assume the cost and hassle of giving free air time to another side!  This often affected right-wing programs, and Evans notes an example in which oil companies were not able to respond to the media's attack on them because stations were afraid of showing controversial programming.  Evans also goes into how people influencing the Kennedy Administration desired for the means of government (i.e., the IRS) to be used to suppress right-wing spokespersons, a practice that Richard Nixon was criticized for doing when it came to his own political enemies.  Evans' point is that, when the government has more power over property, the government can use that power to suppress dissent. 

Evans may have a valid point.  And yet, I recall how Michael Moore's Sicko made the point that, in parts of Europe, which many conservatives would characterize as socialist, the government is afraid of the people and is sensitive to their demands.  In my opinion, social democracy is not necessarily incompatible with freedom of speech.

Clear and Present Dangers 9: The Environment and Energy

In my latest reading of M. Stanton Evans' Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government (copyright 1975), I finished the chapter on the environment, read the chapter on the energy crisis, and started the chapter on civil liberties.  I have two items, and I will focus in this post on the environment and energy.

1.  This first item is about the environment, but it will also refer to information that's in the chapter on the energy crisis.  Yesterday, I said that Evans expressed apprehension about the types of substances that could replace lead in gasoline, fearing that those substances could be more hazardous than lead.  In my latest reading, Evans elaborates on this.  On page 240, Evans says that the catalytic converters that are supported by the Environmental Protection Agency change sulfur into sulfates, which "are potentially quite dangerous to people with respiratory ailments----as lead, for example, is not."  Evans later discusses a similar scenario, in which the federal government recommended that detergent manufacturers replace phosphates with a substance known as NTA, on the ground that phosphates have negative environmental affects in that they cause algae to proliferate in lakes (actually, in this sentence, I'm combining what Evans says with what this article says).  According to Evans, NTA itself was problematic because it "caused birth defects in rats" and was believed by a former Surgeon General (Jesse Steinfeld) to possibly cause cancer (page 241).  Moreover, Evans states that certain non-phosphates that were "marketed in place of phosphates" could "cause damage if splashed in the eyes or swallowed", and some "destroyed the flame-retardant qualities of infants' clothes" (page 241).  In contrast, Evans states, phosphates had a "rather wholesome record" in that they were not known to harm anyone (page 241).

On DDT, Evans argues that banning it has resulted in more malaria-related deaths.

Regarding where Evans' discussion of the environment intersects with his comments on the energy crisis, Evans on page 255 refers to a 1972 report by the Office of Science and Technology estimating that environmental regulations and environmental protection equipment will be costly for businesses, and that there are many areas in the country in which such equipment is unnecessary.  According to Evans, the report also says that pressuring businesses with time-limits hinders them from developing better technology that is good for the environment.

On page 253, Evans argues that government regulations have resulted in gas-guzzling cars, which are inappropriate when the country supposedly has an energy crisis.  Evans says that EPA-mandated emission-control equipment reduces gas mileage and that the push to remove lead from gasoline "meant that fuel for efficient high-compression engines became appreciably more expensive."

Evans may have legitimate arguments on the environment.  I don't know enough to comment one way or the other.  I will say, though, that my impression has been that liberals tend to support fuel-efficient cars, whereas there are a number of conservatives and Republicans who glorify gas-guzzling SUVs and believe that stringent fuel-efficiency standards hurt the economy.  But was that always the case?

2.  Regarding the energy crisis, Evans advances a variety of arguments.  He argues that government price-controls on natural gas has discouraged development and contributed to demand outstripping supply (page 250), yet he also contends that they have hurt the coal industry, which cannot effectively compete against the low price of natural gas (page 251).  Is this contradictory, or can both be true?

Pages 256-259 had some interesting discussions.  Evans says that the U.S. produces 75 percent of its own energy needs, while getting only 8.1 percent from Middle Eastern and North African imports (Evans refers to the October 29, 1973 U.S. News and World Report); that domestic production increased since the protectionist policies of Eisenhower; and that oil profits have been modest compared with other industries.  Evans is arguing against the narrative that oil companies are deliberately creating shortages in order to boost profits.  Evans is open to the notion that oil companies are "shipping oil to foreign nations" and are "holding back supplies to wait for better prices" (page 257), but he believes that lifting government price controls could ameliorate this situation, as the lifting of price controls on meat resulted in more meat being brought to the market and thereby a reduction in meat prices.

On page 260, Evans refers to Chase Manhattan's insight that taxes have inhibited oil companies from keeping up with their capital needs, and so it's no surprise that petroleum is "in short supply" (Chase Manhattan's words).

The thing about the last observation, though, is that an energy bill passed during President George W. Bush's Presidency gave energy companies tax credits, and yet the price of gasoline remains high.

Clear and Present Dangers 8

In my latest reading of M. Stanton Evans' Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government (copyright 1975), I finished the chapter on health care, read the chapter on "The Population Scare", and started the chapter on the environment.  Here are three items:

1.  On page 211, Evans quotes economist Herbert Klarman, who said that Medicare and Medicaid's reimbursement of hospitals was based in part on the hospital's cost of operation, and that discouraged hospitals from keeping down costs because having a higher cost of operation could get them more money from the government.  Klarman states: "The hospital administrator can no longer deny requests for higher wages or more supplies on the ground that money is lacking; to get money, he need only spend more."  According to Evans, government intervention has increased the cost of health care.  Evans is critical, however, of government attempts to solve this problem, since it entails government bureaucrats snooping through medical records to see that doctors are behaving themselves and imposes high fines if the government concludes that they are not.

Evans may have a point that government intervention has increased the cost of health care.  At the same time, I doubt that health care prices were especially low before the government stepped in, which was why the government stepped in in the first place: the poor were having problems paying for health care, and many private health insurance companies were reluctant to cover the elderly because there was more illness among that particular population.  Consequently, I don't favor getting the government out of health care, for I believe that this would leave many people vulnerable.  But I do support reforms.  If Obamacare, for example, is living up to its claim to control costs, then I support it.

Evans also critiques federal drug regulations.  I don't know if he's for eliminating them, but he does believe that the rigor with which the government practices such regulation hinders the supply of potentially life-saving medication.  Evans is often a critic of the European health care systems, but he notes that a number of new drugs are appearing in Europe, but few have made it to the U.S.  Evans doubts that even penicillin would have passed the FDA's "'safe and effective' meter'", for it has caused "unfavorable reactions in some people [and] is less effective in certain cases than in others", even though it has saved many people's lives (Evans' words on page 215).

I do know people in the health food industry who had to put up with the FDA and its rules regarding vitamins and supplements, but, when it comes to pharmaceuticals, the complaint among many today is that the pharmaceutical industry has too much power.  It's interesting that Evans notes that new drugs were appearing in Europe, which many conservatives regard as socialistic in its health care policies, for conservatives often have argued that the U.S. system's stress on the profit-motive provides incentives for the development of new drugs in the U.S.  Since Evans in the 1970's appeared to lament that new medications were not sufficiently making their way into the U.S., I wonder if Evans would support the importation of cheap prescription drugs, something that a number of Republicans have opposed.

2.  Evans does not buy into the population scare, the notion that the number of people is rapidly increasing even as space and resources are limited.  For one, Evans notes that the birth rate is decreasing in the U.S., even as there is a lot of space in the country.  While Evans is not into scare tactics regarding population, he does appear to be concerned about the decline of the birth rate, for that would result in a smaller workforce, which would not be able to adequately sustain the Social Security system.  Second, even in the Third World, Evans argues, people having children may be helpful because it could result in more human-power and thus increased productivity.  For Evans, productivity is important because that entails that there is more food to go around.  Evans notes on page 220 that Malthus wrote "before the full effects of industrialization became apparent", and that "it is precisely this neglected factor that makes all the difference."

I first heard about the population crisis when I was in seventh-grade social studies, which was in 1989-1990.  And, in the 1970's, there was a lot of concern about over-population, as was evident in such movies as Soylent Green (which is made of people!).  I don't hear much about the population crisis nowadays, though I do think that there is a belief that overpopulation is a problem in the Third World, and thus we should encourage contraception there.  And yet, it seems to me that contemporary discussions about contraception revolve more around women's rights than over-population.  

3.  I started the chapter on the environment.  I've encountered some of Evans' arguments in other conservative and libertarian writings that I have read: that businesses pollute public lands that nobody owns, and thus privatization of parks and beaches can reduce pollution; that DDT is not a danger to humans, for too much of it was pumped into animals when it was tested on them and it had ill-effects; that nature causes more pollution than human beings do (and Evans documented this claim better than Ronald Reagan did when Reagan claimed that Mount St. Helens caused more pollution than cars, or that trees cause pollution, for Evans refers to a team of Harvard researchers), etc.  Evans also made arguments that I had not read as much before: that human-caused pollution was decreasing prior to the onset of federal anti-pollution legislation, that there is no evidence that leaded gasoline harms human beings (Evans quotes Dr. Robert Kehoe of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and a 1972 National Academy of Sciences Report), and that there is a potential danger that oil refineries could substitute something more hazardous than lead (Evans quotes E.P.A. Administrator William Ruckelshaus).

Evans may make some good points, here.  But there's probably more to the story than what he presents.  While Evans may be correct that pollution declined prior to the onset of federal anti-pollution legislation, and this was probably due to improved technology, I've still heard stories about how smog was at one time a problem in major cities.  Moreover, if businesses would do a good job by themselves in keeping the air clean, why would they have a problem with federal mandates for air quality?  Granted, they may feel that there are better ways to keep the air clean than what the government is prescribing, but I wouldn't be surprised if, on some level, companies think that pollution is an unavoidable side-effect of the services that they provide.  On DDT, I'm somewhat skeptical that scientists wouldn't have recognized that there is a difference between animal and human ability to absorb DDT and that the quantity of DDT injected into the animals is important, and that the scientists didn't take that into consideration in their studies.  On privatization, I wonder if that would hinder businesses, since businesses would be restricted in terms of where they could log or drill or dump their waste.  Wouldn't that lead to higher costs for consumers?

Personally, though, I'm a person who hopes that we can have our cake and eat it, too: that there are ways that we can have cleaner air and cleaner water, without harming the economy.  I hope that technology, both existent and developing, can make this possible, and there are many who argue that it indeed can.

Clear and Present Dangers 7

In my latest reading of M. Stanton Evans' Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government (copyright 1975), I read the chapters on education and inflation, and I started the chapter on health care.  I have three items.

1.  In the chapter on education, Evans disagrees with the liberal view that more government spending on education will improve educational quality, and he also argues against school busing.  In this item, I'll focus more on the busing issue.  Evans discusses the work of a scholar, James Coleman, who contended that African-American students would do better academically if they were removed from their own impoverished community and put around white people, and that became the rationale for busing African-American children for long distances to public schools that are largely white.  When I read that, I thought about Robert Reich's argument in I'll Be Short that students who are around other students who don't plan to go to college will probably themselves lack the aspiration to go to college (see here).  Reich there was not arguing in favor of busing, nor was he suggesting that it's awful for African-Americans to be in their own communities.  But I was reminded of Reich because both he and Coleman (as Evans describes him) make the point that one's social environment can affect one's educational achievement and aspirations.

Evans contends that school busing has failed, for it has not resulted in higher academic achievement among African-Americans, and it has exasperated rather than improved race relations.  Evans also quotes the 1964 Civil Rights Act in arguing that busing is a violation of that law.

Evans may have a legitimate point that school busing was problematic.  As I mentioned in my post here, I once talked with an African-American woman who said that busing was a bad idea because it removed African-American children from their neighborhoods.  Prior to busing, she said, an African-American doctor could mentor an African-American child in his neighborhood who wanted to be a doctor.  With busing, however, this was less likely to occur because African-American children were removed from their communities for long periods of time each day.

Where I differ from Evans, however, is that he does not seem to think that unequal schools were much of a problem.  Evans appeals to "a compilation of papers derived from a Harvard seminar on the Coleman Report, edited by Frederick Mosteller and Daniel P. Moynihan" (page 179), and he says that scholars in this study found that "in many respects the level of spending on Negro schools is higher than that for schools that are chiefly white, and that where discrepancies exist in favor of whites they are less discernible in the South, not more", and also that "variation in school facilities has little to do with variation in achievement" (Evans' words on page 180).  I don't have the time or the energy right now to read the Coleman Report or to do a research project to refute what Evans is saying----but see here for wikipedia's documented description of the Coleman Report.  I will say this, though: I'm sure that there are a number of scholars who have arrived at conclusions different from what Evans is arguing.  Moreover, I should note that even Republicans, such as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, argued that there was an achievement gap between whites and minorities, which (according to them) No Child Left Behind helped to close.

2.  In the chapter on inflation, Evans argues that the wage and price controls of the 1970's did not work because they resulted in shortages, for they discouraged people from making products because the price controls would inhibit them from charging enough to make the profit that they desired.  Evans locates the problem of inflation in the increase in the money supply, and he contends that deficit spending makes this problem worse because the government prints money in an attempt to satisfy the growing government budget, while avoiding increases in interest rates and the tax burden.

I'm sure that there's something to Evans' arguments.  At the same time, I wonder: How have inflation rates managed to be low, when government spending continues to rise?  See here.

3.  I started the chapter on health care.  Evans argues that there is not much of a health care crisis in the U.S., for the U.S. has reduced infant mortality, plus there are more doctors per patient in the U.S. than exist in a number of other countries, and Evans argues that there are long lines to receive medical care in Great Britain.  But Evans acknowledges that the cost of health care is rising, and he believes that Medicare and Medicaid are contributing to that, for treating people for free requires higher costs for the people who pay.  In a sense, Medicare and Medicaid patients are not treated for free, for their care receives a reimbursement from the government.  But there have been concerns that the reimbursement is not adequate, and so a number of physicians either choose not to see Medicaid patients, or they pass costs on to others.

I think that Evans' critique of the Swedish system is worth quoting.  On page 207, Evans states: "Since nobody [in Sweden] has any incentives to control costs, patients come to hospitals for the most minor or imaginary ills and hospital stays are protracted.  Private practice of medicine on an outpatient basis has been discouraged, although steps are afoot to alter this.  In addition, the Swedish system has discouraged entry into medicine by new physicians, and it is noteworthy that the doctor-patient ratio is considerably lower than in the much more populous United States."

I don't think that a person should be afraid to see a doctor, for even "minor or imaginary ills" may indicate that something is seriously wrong with the patient.  At the same time, there should be efforts to control costs----to ensure that doctors are not ordering unnecessary tests to get more money, to focus on results, to value preventative care as a way to prevent more expensive emergency care from being necessary down the road, and to seek cost-effective ways to meet patients' needs.  In my opinion, Obamacare either does these things, or is moving the health care system in the direction of doing these things.

I agree with Evans that the doctor-per-patient ratio is important, for a greater supply of health care facilities can result in lower prices.  Otherwise, you probably would have long lines to receive medical care!  In my opinion, newer physicians should be encouraged to enter the field rather than discouraged.  Regarding how the U.S. compares with other nations on this, there are countries that have the sort of system that Evans opposes----a single-payer national health insurance system----that have better doctor-per-patient ratios than the U.S., and there are countries with a single-payer system (such as Canada) that have worse ratios than the U.S. does.  See here.  In my opinion, a single-payer system is compatible with a decent ratio of doctors to patients. 

There has been concern, however, that Obamacare is scaring people from the medical profession or is encouraging doctors to leave the profession early.  I think that the government should take steps to encourage people to enter the medical field.  One professor I had suggested that people who decide to enter medicine should receive their college education for free.  Maybe that would be costly, but it could also bring down the cost of health care.

Clear and Present Dangers 6: Government Makes Matters Worse

In my latest reading of Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of American Government (copyright 1975), M. Stanton Evans argues essentially that government intervention makes problems worse.  According to Evans, increasing the minimum wage discourages businesses from hiring African-American teenagers, thereby depriving them of opportunities to develop job skills.  Government mortgage insurance, super-highways, and zoning have encouraged the construction of homes in the suburbs rather than the inner-cities.  Government subsidies for part of the mortgages of lower-income people have inhibited the lower-income from being able to negotiate a lower price for their home.  Urban renewal, an attempt by the government to refurbish cities, has resulted in the demolition of poor people's homes, as people with higher incomes move into the area.  Labor and other regulations have resulted in railroads that sit idle, and regulations have encouraged higher prices for airlines while inhibiting potential competitors from entering the airline and taxi market.

Is Evans, therefore, for no government intervention?  There are times when he seems to lean in that direction, as when he says that the marketplace can handle the housing issue and questions Congress setting wages.  At other times, however, he appears to be open to some government intervention.  For example, he says that the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) should be eliminated and safety functions should be transmitted to the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), which indicates that he is for safety regulation, on some level.  And Evans also seems open to the idea of exempting teenagers from the minimum wage, while still allowing others to receive it.  This idea may have its strengths, but my concern is that such a policy would encourage businesses to hire teenagers rather than people offering to work a minimum-wage job to support their families, since teenagers would be cheaper to employ.

I don't know a great deal about housing and transportation, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were legitimacy to many of Evans' arguments, for government becoming involved in the economy can easily privilege businesses that are able to work the system.  I'd be hesitant to go the laissez-faire route, though, for I doubt that the private marketplace would solve all problems.  In my opinion, even if government intervention made some problems worse in certain respects, the problems were around before the government interfered, which was why the government interfered in the first place.

But I am open to the government reforming how it intervenes.  I once had an economics teacher who was a moderate rather than right-wing, and he said in class that deregulation of the airline industry worked (and this particular deregulation occurred during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter), whereas it did not work in a number of other fields.  Actually, according to this article, under the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act, "The Civil Aeronautics Board's powers of regulation were phased out, eventually allowing passengers to be exposed to market forces in the airline industry", but "The Act...did not remove or diminish the regulatory powers of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over all aspects of air safety."  That's what M. Stanton Evans proposed in 1975!

Clear and Present Dangers 5

In my latest reading of Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government (copyright 1975), M. Stanton Evans critiques the notion that big government helps the little guy while afflicting the better-off.

Well, sort of.  Evans also says that the better-off already pay a lot of taxes, and he doubts that soaking them even more will generate enough revenue to support a huge and growing government.  But he does attack the liberal narrative that big government helps the little guy while afflicting the better-off.  For one, there are a number of cases in which the government is actually on the side of the better-off.  As Evans notes, large corporations have been beneficiaries of government dollars that go to anti-poverty, housing, and other programs.  Plus, there are many public school teachers who have quite a decent standard of living.  Second, there are cases in which the better-off are supported at the expense of the lower-income.  For example, the sales tax that raises money to alleviate the cost of higher education benefits students who are largely middle-income, the ones who attend universities, but it hurts lower-income people who have to pay more when they go to the store.

Evans also talks about progressive and regressive taxes.  Evans argues that taxes are a burden even on those who are not upper-income, for there are regressive taxes, such as the sales tax and the Social Security tax, and even the middle-income are affected by the tax on capital gains.  Moreover, corporations pass on the cost of their taxes to consumers, resulting in higher prices for the middle and lower-income.  Evans does not appear to think that rearranging the tax burden is the solution, but rather he argues that high taxes are the result of high and increasing government spending.

Another point that Evans makes is that, were we to equally divide up the money that the government spends on anti-poverty programs among the poor, that would lift the poor out of their poverty.  I'm not sure if Evans supports doing this, but that is an interesting thought!

Do I agree with Evans, as someone who lives in the year 2012?  (Evans does too, but this book was published in 1975.)  First, I'd say that he's right that government is allied with corporations, for that occurs both when Democrats are in power, and also when Republicans are in charge.  Sometimes this makes a degree of sense, for wouldn't it be wiser for the government to outsource (say) the building of homes for the low-income to businesses that have experience in building, rather than for it to build those homes itself?  And yet, there have been plenty of times when the cooperative relationship between big government and big business has resulted in corruption, the suppression of competition, and businesses over-billing the government.

Second, is it necessarily a bad thing for the government to create jobs that give people a decent standard of living, such as teachers?  Teachers then spend the money that they make, and that helps the economy.  Or does it if, as Evans argues, lower or middle-income people are paying more in taxes (whether they be property taxes, or from another source)?  I'm not sure how to answer that question.

Third, do public universities primarily benefit the middle-income today?  I wouldn't be surprised if they primarily serve the middle-income, but perhaps affirmative action, scholarships, grants, and loans have helped more people from lower-income families to attend college, too.  I hope so.

Fourth, is the tax situation still as grim as when Evans wrote this book in the 1970's?  I'd say that Ronald Reagan made some things better.  There's the Earned Income Tax Credit, for example.  But there are still a number of regressive taxes that hit the lower and middle-income.  This occurs at the state and local level, but it's also the case with federal payroll taxes.

Clear and Present Dangers 4

I have two items for my write-up today on M. Stanton Evans' Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government (copyright 1975).

1.  A significant point in my reading of Evans' book thus far has been that the Left has not been consistent in its stances on the distribution of power within the U.S. Government.  Prior to President Richard Nixon, prominent leftists supported a strong Presidency and a weak Congress, for they believed that the President should have the leeway to enact reforms, whereas they regarded Congress as slow and too tied to the status quo.  What's more, a number of liberals applauded Executive Privilege when the Eisenhower Administration used it to keep information from Senator Joseph McCarthy!  And, even during Nixon's Presidency, there were leftists who supported giving the President broad powers, such as the authority to implement wage and price controls.  And yet, with Watergate and other scandals in the Nixon Administration, many on the Left were bemoaning that the Presidency had become too strong and abusive of power, and they expressed support for greater congressional oversight.

Evans narrates that, during the 1930's, there were leftists who were critics of judicial review, since judges had overturned key aspects of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.  With the Warren Court, however, the Left was singing a different tune, and courts were even legislating from the bench, going so far as to mandate school bussing in certain regions of the U.S.

Evans' problem with the Left is that it supports a government of human beings rather than a government of law.  For Evans, the Left doesn't care which branch of the government has more power: it's just interested in its agenda getting passed!  Evans acknowledges that conservatives, too, have been inconsistent on the distribution of power within the U.S. Government, and he believes that the government's authority should be limited by laws.  According to Evans, if government authority rests on the whims of human beings rather than law, disaster can result, for what if the human being wielding power chooses to abuse it?

I wrestled some with this issue in my second post about Evans' book, so I won't do so here.  I'd like to ask a question, though: Where would (or did) Evans stand on the nuclear option during George W. Bush's Presidency?  Remember when Democrats in the Senate were hindering the confirmation of some of Bush's judicial appointments, and Republicans were calling for a nuclear option that would eliminate a filibuster and thus expedite the confirmation process?  What did Evans think about that?  On the one hand, Evans appeared to support a congressional filibuster in Clear and Present Dangers.  On the other hand, Evans on page 104 expresses concerns about judicial activism, in which the court sets policy rather than simply negating laws, and he states that "the Congress and the Presidency should have at their disposal means for limiting the court if, in extremis, such limits are required."

2.  Chapter 6 is entitled "The Growth of Government".  Evans argues that government spending is increasing massively and is becoming a burden on taxpayers, and not just the wealthy ones.  Evans will talk later about the issue of progressive and regressive taxation, and I'll discuss that tomorrow.  In my latest reading, however, Evans challenges a liberal argument that defense spending is the main problem in the federal budget, and that there would be more money to go around (for the poor and others) if the defense budget were cut.

Evans acknowledges that the defense budget has waste, but he does not believe that the defense budget is the main problem, for U.S. government spending on defense is rising at a slower pace than domestic spending, plus domestic spending takes up more of the federal budget.  Evans may have a point there.  You can see here a chart on U.S. Government spending for Fiscal Year 2010, and the defense budget makes up 20 percent (though the article raises other considerations, sometimes documenting its claims, and sometimes not).

Quite a few times, I've heard people on the Left say that welfare does not make up much of the federal budget, for, in terms of the federal budget as a whole, not a whole lot of money has been spent on Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) or Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF).  That is true, but there is more to federal domestic spending than that, for federal domestic spending includes health care, education, public housing, job training programs, and the list goes on.  I would not propose abolishing these programs, mind you, but I tend to agree with Evans that, if we are concerned about the growth and the amount of U.S. government spending, then we cannot just expect for cuts in the defense budget to suffice.  In my reading thus far, Evans primarily focuses on how more government spending leads to a greater tax burden, but many of us can think of other problems that accompany more government spending: deficits, a higher national debt, etc.  I wouldn't revert to being a conservative over these issues, however, for I think that one can reconcile a leftist political orientation with fiscal responsibility.  After all, countries that have national health insurance spend less on health care than the U.S. does!  I don't have to support an inactive federal government to believe that the federal government should spend money wisely.

I liked something that Evans said on pages 110-111: "All of us stand in two different relationships to government spending: On the one hand we are, in some fashion or other, beneficiaries of what government is doing----if not in the form of subsidy, then in the enjoyment of some protection or service we consider essential.  On the other hand, we are all in a sense victims of the system, in that we must pay the bills through taxes or inflation or submit to other social costs imposed by the enlargement of government powers.  Politically speaking, the crucial question is which of these capacities is uppermost in our minds.  If most people view themselves as beneficiaries of what the government is doing, then it is reasonable to expect them to favor increased spending and official intervention.  If most people view themselves as victims of what the government is doing, then it is reasonable to expect them to favor less spending and official intervention.  The subjectively onerous tax level is that which causes the second perception to replace the first."

Evans goes on to argue that many Americans are seeing themselves as victims rather than as beneficiaries of government.  My guess is that there are good and bad factors behind that: there are many who feel overtaxed because, well, they are overtaxed, but there are also some who don't want to pay taxes to support the common good: public schools, parks, etc. I'm not talking so much about those who believe that there is a lot of government waste that taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for, but rather those who don't care about public schools because their kids are not in public schools (to use an example).

But I can see Evans point: for people to support government spending, they have to believe that it helps them somehow----at the very least by making their society a better place.  A while back, I referred to economist Bruce Bartlett's statement that, in Europe, people don't mind higher taxes as much because they get what they're paying for, in terms of benefits (see here).  Similarly, I once heard a Canadian say that, even though he paid more taxes in Canada, he didn't mind that because at least he didn't have to worry about his medical needs there.  In my opinion, the U.S. Government has to work on taxpayers getting their money's worth, by ensuring that money is spent wisely and efficiently.  One reason that I like President Barack Obama is that he supports the government helping people, but he also has expressed a desire to eliminate governmental inefficiencies and waste, and in some cases he has done so (I think of Medicare).

Clear and Present Dangers 3: Regulations

For my write-up today on Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government (copyright 1975), I'll use as my starting-point something that M. Stanton Evans says on page 76, in a footnote:

"A principal horror story in this department has been written by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration----OSHA for short.  This agency has been given sweeping powers to fine businesses and in some cases shut them down for every kind of alleged violation concerning toilet seats, guard rails, stairways, ladders, garbage cans, window shades, doorways, furnaces, air conditioners, and countless other items.  Employers are subject to surprise visits by compliance officers and may be heavily fined for alleged violations by their employe[e]s, even if these violations are concededly beyond the power of the employer to control.  In pursuit of these objections, OSHA one day in 1971 published 375,000 words of rules and regulations in the Federal Register----laws that small businesses all over America, most of whom have never heard of the Register, are supposed to know and adhere to on pain of instant punishment."

I've heard and read similar stories.  I myself support the existence of government regulations, for I think that there is a temptation among businesses to cut corners for financial gain.  Yes, employers probably recognize that an unsafe business environment could result in financial harm for the business, since a person getting injured on the job would cost the business time and money in terms of retraining the injured worker's replacement as well as workman's comp.  That's why there are libertarians who believe that regulation is not necessary: they think that businesses will police themselves because the businesses have a financial motive (and other motives, such as public relations) to keep their work-environments safe.  But is that realization enough to keep businesses on the straight and narrow?  There are still businesses that try to cut corners, and this is so even though there are regulations.  Why do they do so?  Perhaps it's because they want the short-term financial gains that come from disregarding regulations, and they don't take seriously the possibility that an accident can occur.

But, although I believe that government regulations are necessary, I wonder if there can be a way to reform them.  If, say, a toilet seat works fine for a business and has resulted in no injuries, yet it does not accord perfectly with OSHA regulations, is it really necessary to fine that business?  And is there a way to educate small businesses about regulations?

Flexibility may have downsides, though.  After all, it's probably easier for OSHA to define what constitutes a safe toilet seat, than it is for OSHA to tolerate a number of conceptions of what constitutes a safe toilet seat.  My hunch is that the former is more easily enforceable.  But is there a way to fashion regulations that are not as oppressive?

(UPDATE: On my blogger blog, my friend Davey left informative links to web sites that defend OSHA or stipulate what certain OSHA regulations actually are: see here and here.)

Clear and Present Dangers 2

In my latest reading of Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government, M. Stanton Evans discusses and is critical of liberal justifications for expanding the role of the federal government, even though the Tenth Amendment limits the federal government's powers to those enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.

These liberal justifications include the following: the argument that small government made sense in the Founders' time but since then we have learned that small government doesn't work because it leads to unfettered capitalism and thus the inequality of wealth, plus we live in a more advanced time; a liberal application of Article I, Section 8, which includes the Commerce Clause allowing the federal government to regulate interstate commerce, the stipulation that the legislative branch of the federal government can collect taxes for the general welfare, and the Necessary and Proper Clause permitting the U.S. Congress to enact whatever laws it deems necessary to carry out its enumerated powers; the Fourteenth Amendment, which Evans says has been abused to justify many examples of federal intervention in state and local affairs; and the notion that the U.S. Constitution is a living document.

In terms of Evans' critique of these liberal justifications, I'll only mention three points that Evans made:
First, Evans says on page 45 that conservative judges in the early 1900's deserve some blame for the abuse of the Fourteenth Amendment, for they appealed to that amendment to overturn "industrial regulations enacted by the states."  My guess is that, because the Fourteenth Amendment says that states cannot deprive people of life, liberty, and property, conservative judges maintained that states cannot impose industrial regulations, which (in their minds) undermined liberty and property.

Second, Evans critiques the notion that the U.S. Constitution is a living document by noting that it lays out a formal process for it to be amended, which (according to Evans) would be strange if its Framers believed that the U.S. Constitution was living and breathing and could be "changed from age to age merely by interpretation" (page 47). 

Third, Evans says on page 44 that "Most favored by the centralizing interest from the time of Hamilton on has been the phraseology in Article I, Section 8..."  This intrigued me because Evans was acknowledging that a liberal interpretation of Article I, Section 8 went back to the early days of the United States, as far back as the time of Hamilton.  Would that call into question the argument that some liberals have used that small government worked in the early days of America but has since become outdated, since there were some who did not care for small government even in the early days of the United States?

I started Evans' chapter entitled "The Power of the President".  In this chapter, Evans argues that, while a number of liberals have criticized President Richard Nixon for making the Presidency more powerful, liberals themselves----including some of the liberals who were criticizing Nixon----spoke highly of a strong Presidency when it came to Presidents prior to Nixon.  It's easy for ideologues to be inconsistent, to think that a strong Presidency is all right when it serves their ends, but not when it does not. Even today, there are people who criticize President George W. Bush for circumventing the legislative branch at times, even though President Barack Obama has done the same thing.

But, if the Presidency is given the power to do good, would it also have the power to do evil?  I think that this is a significant reason that libertarians support limited government.  Personally, I'd hope that the election process would keep leaders in check.  The danger there, however, would be that the majority could become a tyranny, which could potentially stomp on the rights of the minority.  Should there not be limits on government power, even if the majority wants for the government to have power that exceeds those limits?  I wrestle with this question.  I do think that a reason that government exists is to enact policies that promote the general welfare as well to stop wrongdoing that harms people.  Consequently, I have a hard time saying that it's an abuse of power for the government (say) to require everyone to have health insurance, and to stop health insurance companies from dropping people who get sick.  Are we on a slippery slope when we give the government the right to make those decisions, though?  Wouldn't we be on a slippery slope if we gave the government any power?  And yet, libertarians could then argue that this is why the government should respect the Constitution: it legally sets limits on government power by telling the government what it can and cannot do.

I'll stop here.

Clear and Present Dangers 1

I started M. Stanton Evans' 1975 book, Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government.  You can read more about Evans here.  The reason that I am reading this book right now is that it will set the stage for my "Year (or More) of Nixon", in which I will blog through books by and about Richard Nixon throughout 2013, which is the one-hundredth year after Nixon's birth in 1913.

Why would blogging through Evans' book set the stage for my "Year (or More) of Nixon"?  For one, this book by Evans dates to 1975, which was soon after the Presidency of Richard Nixon.  Second, Evans had definite opinions about Richard Nixon: Evans didn't care much for Nixon's foreign policy or domestic policy, but he started to like Nixon when Watergate happened!  It will be interesting, therefore, to see how Evans addresses Nixon's Presidency.  And, third, I bought this book because it appeared to me to criticize the expansion of the Presidency's power and the decline of Congress, and that reminded me of a book by John Dean that criticized George W. Bush's Administration for expanding Presidential power.  It's interesting that what is considered right-wing and what is considered left-wing can vary with time.  You'd expect for conservatives, who claim to believe in less-government, to oppose a more powerful Presidency, but that's not always the case!

In my latest reading of Evans' book, at least four things stood out to me.  First, Evans says that he is challenging the liberal consensus that few in that day were challenging.  That intrigued me because, nowadays, a significant number of people challenge liberalism.  Back in Evans' day, however, that was probably not the case, at least not as much. Although I am rather left-wing, I happen to admire contrarians----those who challenge conventional wisdom.  That's probably why I played that role for so many years, even though people may not have thought that I was intelligent when I did so.

Second, Evans argues that the American system (the ideas of equality, limited government, opposition to tyranny, the value of the individual, etc.) is based on biblical rather than Greek values, and that liberals have tended to accept moral values while detaching them from their theistic roots.  Evans may have a point when he says that biblical values influenced the development of the American system.  At the same time, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the American system is entirely consistent with biblical ideas, for the Bible in some places is quite supportive of monarchy, stomping on the religious freedom of idolaters, and the fusion of religion with government (whereas Evans says on page 10 that the state in the Hebrew Bible is merely a "peace-keeping agency", not a "compact religious-political institution").  Conversely, there are liberals who root their liberalism in the Bible and religious beliefs, so I think that Evans is wrong to characterize liberals as people who detach ethics from religion.  Even if Evans can make a solid case that prominent liberals have done this, such a characterization disregards the many liberals who have not.

Third, Evans wrestles with the apparent inconsistency of liberals in supporting an active state that subordinates the individual to the common good, while maintaining an almost absolutist regard for certain rights, such as free speech.  Evans believes that there is a thread that ties all of this together, but, at the moment, I'm unsure what exactly he believes that thread is.  It will be interesting to see how he handles conservatism's inconsistency in supporting economic freedom but also restrictions in the social and cultural sphere.

Fourth, Evans talks about federalism and the Tenth Amendment.  I'll have to admit that the Tenth Amendment is a challenge to my liberal support for an active federal government, for Evans is probably correct to note that a number of Founding Fathers sought to limit the federal government's authority to certain enumerated powers, while reserving other powers to the states and the people.  I guess that the question then would be what powers the U.S. Constitution enumerates for the federal government.  Many liberals interpret the Commerce Clause in the U.S. Constitution quite expansively, which means that they believe that the federal government can regulate, not just interstate commerce, but also whatever affects it (see here).  The Commerce Clause may have originally been intended to allow the U.S. government to regulate trade between the states, but liberals have a more expansive application of it.  Is this wrong?  Perhaps, in the Founders' time, what went on in an individual state primarily affected the state itself, and the Constitution granted the U.S. Government the power to step in when one state impacted another through commerce.  Nowadays, however, what goes on in one state can arguably impact the entire country.  Would that not necessitate a broader interpretation of the Commerce Clause?