Presidential debates as job interview

The so-called 'foreign policy debate' with Gov. Romney and President Obama was the last of 3 Presidential and 1 Vice-Presidential debates staged for this election cycle.  Presidents and Governors are Executive level positions, spoken with the capital E for government as a branch of government, and often with a lower case E for positions that are heads of companies, institutions and charities.  What Presidents are, by and large, are the ones that need to execute on policy and run day-to-day affairs of whatever organization they are in charge of.  Being an executive is not a mandatory position, not a position one is coerced into doing but a position one must volunteer for through application for it.  For the Executive position of the United States this means going through a long cycle of party primaries and contests, lots of travel, working to form up policy positions, putting forward one's vision of how the policy of this Nation should change (or not change) for it to be successful, and then, if one is skilled and lucky enough, to then interview for the position via 'debates' with one's final opponent to see who gets the job.  Each citizen that is eligible to vote can cast a ballot (and I urge the eligible to do so) to help decide at their district and State level which candidate is to be backed.  As a representative democratic system in service to a republican form of government, this is an honor and a sacred duty to our fellow citizens as they ask it of us by this form of government.

With the final debate now passed I can only offer a few insights into it, but they are critical ones.

First off is that foreign policy is the most difficult for any challenger to accomplish unless they have held a Governorship for a State that has extensive foreign business contacts.  An incumbent President gets a head-start on this, and this should be the time to demonstrate competence, capacity and a clear foreign policy vision for the future path of our Nation amongst our brother Nations.

In theme and tenor, then, President Obama must offer a vision to show that after 4 years he understands what foreign policy is, why it works the way it does, and state quite explicitly what that vision is for the next 4 years.   The past 4 years should offer a plethora of examples of this on low (at the detailed levels) and on high (in our affairs with other Nations), and this area should be the strong point of any President seeking re-election.  Unfortunately President Obama came out to score points against his opponent, belittle his opponent, mock his opponent and then offer no clear and decisive examples of how the course of the Nation is better for having him in charge.  Indeed the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) to end hostilities in Iraq is a transition agreement to slowly withdraw Coalition forces while letting Iraqi Forces stand up.  It is a regularized turn-over and weaknesses in structure in the new Iraqi Forces can be found and examined, solutions proposed and such an agreement put on hold to allow structural weaknesses in the Iraqi government to be addressed.  After WWII this took nearly a decade in Japan, a bit shorter in Germany and in both instances the withdrawal was not a set date or year, but a set of conditions to be met for the capacity and trustworthiness of the new government to actually do its job with bunches of neophytes doing it.  Similarly, in Afghanistan, a time-table is not necessary, but an end goal of a capable Afghani set of forces that are accountable for their actions, have internal safeguards against corruption, and a means to address new problems as they arise are paramount to leaving a relatively stable government in a very rough neighborhood of Rock 3 from the star Sol.  In both cases President Obama is looking to score points (to get out of Iraq and set a time-table for Afghanistan that is rigid) and misses the concept of having an end set of accountable structures in place.  Indeed President Obama ran on getting a SOFA with Iraq and failed, utterly, to do so, which meant that any structural problems Iraqis would meet up with now must be handled on their own without any experienced outside resources to call upon.  In Afghanistan the rigid time-table that brooks no accommodation to problems, that allows for no shifting of schedule to meet unexpected weaknesses or unforeseen changes on the ground means that it is a hard, knife edge cut-off. 

Is that preferable to having forces in Germany, South Korea and other places for decades?  Perhaps, yes, but that case has not been made.  Nor has the case been made as to why continued presence in those Nations is actually to the interest of the US today.  A foreign policy would give hard and fast grounding to just how long the US can and should stay in a Nation post-war, and what the means and methodology for leaving actually are in broad overview.  Why leave hastily from Iraq after ticking off the locals and stay in Germany or South Korea?  What is the policy involved?  Why is it different in each locale?  And since the Korean war hasn't actually ended by treaty, just why is it that decades of presence without a final conclusion is acceptable?  President Barack Obama is incapable of stating his foreign policy goals for post-war systems of turn-over to local control of governments, and so you will never know why he does what he does and does not do what he does not do.

Gov. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, has less he has to put forward but all that he must put forward is in the policy arena.  For a challenger this is the time to look confident, capable, relatively fluent with the course of external events, and to tie those events together and how he would approach them into a foreign policy.  In these areas it is best when you have a general foreign policy overview that can be clearly stated and advanced.  Owing to his business experience, Gov. Mitt Romney ties foreign policy back to economics, trade and National capacity to advance prosperity so that we can be the ones who decide when and how to act, not merely re-act to events.  Whilst all Nations are equal, we understand that they differ based on size, economy and moral outlook, so that even the mightiest of Nations can be made humble before a good example and that those seeking to tear down Nations will fear a commitment to liberty and freedom backed by the local population.  By constantly and consistently tying foreign policy strongest to the economic realm, Gov. Romney brought understanding to his outlooks on foreign policy to drive out the practical implementation of it in the way of plans.  Plans, therefore, follow policy and are in service to it, not the other way around, and this is a key understanding of the role of an executive (writ large and small), which is to set out policy, formulate plans and implement said plans within the limitations of power and what can be accomplished by policy.

Beyond that a challenger must offer up continuity with the current President, that the boat will not be turned over, that changes will occur over months or years, and that good works are applauded even when they must be adjusted to fit new conditions on the ground.  Differences can be offered in the way forward, but they are built-upon what is inherited, and wholesale changes cannot happen quickly if at all with foreign policy.  In short the job of the challenger is to make a foreign policy bridge continuity with the current President and yet offer enough differences in policy so that a changed path can be seen.  During the Cold War this was mostly absent as the bi-polar world view set in and things that the US would not have stood for pre-war (coddling tyrants and dictators who were anti-Soviet if not pro-freedom) and the expediency of keeping the continuity going was done in the light of global nuclear war if one wrong decision was made.  By 1980, however, the stark differences between a US in decline and a USSR going into multiple overseas excursions could be seen and the foreign policy of President Carter could be starkly contrasted to the benefit of a challenger who seemed to have a more coherent world-view.  In this first area of policy presentation and Executive readiness, Gov. Romney needed to only state the understanding of what has gone on during President Obama's term, that some changes will be made but not quickly and always done to a different viewpoint of economic liberty in search of increased security to other Nations and our own.  An explicit foreign policy would be nice, yes, but not required at this point in time.

Secondly in the foreign policy area is tenor and style, especially when substance lacks, but tenor and style cannot be divorced from history nor past events.  A smiling, laughing Joe Biden during discussion of what a nuclear armed Iran would mean was jarring, disconcerting and actually quite horrible to behold as this individual could become President with one heart-attack or fall down a flight of stairs or slipping in the bathtub by President Obama.  There is a solemnity to these topics that are the course of the Nation in the world that must be taken seriously, because not to do so could wind up with global consequences of unseen proportion with just one misstep.  Again the sitting Executive should have this area hands-down: being Head of State and Commander in Chief of the Armies and the Navies should give this realm of tenor and style a weight far different than other realms of discussion for the President's job.

Here President Obama did a disservice to himself by trying to tear down his opponent while not properly putting his service into context.  When criticizing Gov. Romney that we don't need a Navy the size of what it was in pre-WWI times, that we have better technology and that we no longer used horses and bayonets, the President in attempting to demean his opponent actually demonstrated that he is lacking a grasp of importance of the US Navy to our own shipping overseas.  Oversight by satellites and drones is not the same as having a warship on the spot to deal with shipping problems fostered by modern Pirates which are just terrorists taken to sea.  The only way to get a sniper to take care of a hostage situation at sea is to have a Navy that is widely deployed and can offer timely assets appropriate to the threat involved.  That means that not only nuclear aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines, but surface combatants and the capacity to field remotely operated or unmanned assets to be coordinated for local sea-going operations is required.  Indeed it is mandatory if a Nation is to have independent trade capacity and not depend upon other Nations for seagoing safety and support. 

Even worse, of course, is that the military still uses horses (particularly in Afghanistan where gasoline powered vehicles must be re-supplied with gasoline) and not only does it still use bayonets but also issues knives as a supplement.  The soldier has a three level threat system that has a specific order: the rifle for long range threats, the pistol for that stuff under 50 yards, and the knife or bayonet affixed to the rifle as form of pole-arm, for that stuff that is up-close and personal.  I would dare say we have MORE knives and bayonets amongst all the services issued to our troops than we did pre-WWI.  By trying to belittle and demean a mere civil opponent, the President demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding of just how the soldier on the ground thinks and that there is no such thing as having too many knives or a bayonet mounted to the appropriate platform for it.  If we stress the knife more than the bayonet, it is due to those very technical circumstances the President brought up, not due to the lack of our soldiers needing a close-in weapon.  In attempting to 'score points' on an opponent, President Obama began removing them from his own column, instead.

Does the US Navy need more surface combatants, not just aircraft carrier battle groups and nuclear submarines?  One candidate does and the other does not, looking to replace physical capacity with remote surveillance and distant ships.  If China, say, decided to go after Taiwan and Hugo Chavez thought that seizure of Panama might help his tyrannical ends, then the US would be caught up in two Naval conflicts both requiring ships and support vessels, the full panoply of overhead assets and then be left wondering just who is guarding the Somali coast and the Straights of Hormuz.  If the Panama Canal becomes a US no-go zone and the South China Sea becomes the staging ground for an invasion outwards by China, the US is suddenly faced by having to see most of its shipping go through the Suez and Gibraltar.  Anything that put those at risk would be a crippling blow to the US and to the global economy if the US requirement for free passage cannot be asserted by military power during conflicts in which our foes were hitting at vital trade lines.

Today the modern nuclear ship force cannot be made into a 'Ghost Fleet' as the diesel ships had done to them.  When the nuclear reactor of these vessels is no longer enough to operate it and must be removed, then the entire ship is broken up to get at the reactor itself.  A few of these vessels that are from the first generation of vessels are nearing that point in time, and the end of their sustainment life is coming.  While replacements are being constructed (and some are in service) the idea that nuclear only fleet can do the task of safeguarding US commerce overseas is misguided and misapplied.  While we can make more mighty vessels (like the proposed and shelved DDX platform) the capacity to fine-tune response with firepower that is small, exacting and precise requires a human system at sea.  Be it for stop and search of cargo vessels for war materiel contraband or using a sniper to remove a few terrorists, these things cannot be done well (and sometimes not at all) by large vessels but only by small ones.  Littoral, near coastal, coastal and deep marine requirements all have their own necessities so that the modern US Navy is still covering areas from Brown Water to Blue Water, although less with gunboats and more with delivery systems for both arms and personnel, as well as lethal missiles, so that the role remains the same, the actual spatial area has remained the same or increased, and human capacity to deal with individual situations has to meet the new inputs from all these systems.  Technology has changed, yes, but the nature of the threat is so widely distributed that it cannot be dealt with by our current force mix.  This does not mean more of bigger and badder, but, like with GPS equipped munitions, often smaller, more accurate and less lethal delivered with precision.  It is very possible that a modern version of the WWII Jeep Carrier, that is a small aircraft carrier, light carrier or escort carrier, might become a platform for UAV/UCAVs or for ROVs or for VTOL systems all mixed together on one vessel.  Smaller and more versatile to cover a larger role and relieve stress off the larger battle groups means they can serve as a massive response to situations gone out of control, with the smaller forces serving to deal with localized threats from Pirates and threats that a large battle group just isn't made for.

That is the sort of analysis a Commander in Chief and Head of State must perform so as to clearly state just what the role, size and needs of our military are and should be in the future, not passing off what we have as 'good enough' just because it is relatively modern.  The people doing the threatening are using speed boats, semi-submersibles, cheap drones, and boarding ships with AK-47s, which is an entirely different threat matrix than dealing with Russia or China, say.  Yet the US Navy is required to deal with ALL OF IT.  Does a smaller navy relying on heavier vessels sound 'modern' at all in this context?  If so, then President Obama needs to make the case for that, which he did not do.

The Third major area, and the one that consumed the most time, was economics, but this concentrated more on domestic situations than our foreign trade.  Trade amongst Nations and how our Nation participates in such trade is a thing that the President gets much oversight and needs to foster agreement in the Senate to put trade agreements forward.  In this realm Gov. Romney performed well, as he put forward a clear vision of trade between the US and S. American Nations that would seek to build up their economic capacity and liberalize their trade, which would bolster them and the US, both.  Trade is something that can be 'win-win' for both sides when it is mutual and beneficial to both to have such trade.  This has been stated clearly as far back as 1776 by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations, and continues to be true to this very day.  Gov. Romney later tied this to the expansion of small business in the US to participate vigorously in foreign trade and to set an example by doing so.  One of the greatest differences between President Obama and Gov. Romney is in this realm and President Obama was unprepared to offer up ideas on expanding trade in S. America at all, and only on an extremely limited basis in Asia, while Gov. Romney put forward that better trade relations lessen tensions between Nations and requires less military worries than poor or lacking trade relations.  On the flip side trade is to be between Nations that respect the sovereignty of other Nations and do not export Piracy in the form of terrorism to advance National goals by terrorizing the innocent.

In the non-military part of dealing with Iran, for example, Gov. Romney deployed something close to the unused but thoroughly Constitutional and tested framework of laws regarding Piracy in the US Code which I have handled multiple times, but is most clearly seen by me in this post.  A President gets wide latitude in dealing with Piracy as it is a threat not just to the US but to the system of Nation States, and those performing it are a threat to all mankind.  Gov. Romney put forward that more than just sanctions, and yet far less than war, can be done to the Iranian government by going after those that trade with them, and bringing those companies to heel via vigorous prosecution of them.  This requires that a President is fluent in the treaties the US has with various flag Nations and their vessels, and then be able to cite where their activities are contrary to their treaty agreements in regards to safeguarding trade and not trading with rogue Nations.  By dovetailing both trade and accountability for trade, Gov. Romney put forward a framework far deeper than anything President Obama has ever stated in this realm.  It is well and good of talking about treaties, but they are contracts between Nations and other Nations must be held accountable to what they have agreed to in this process.  In this area of foreign policy, the one that ties Nations together most intimately via trade, the President must be not only fluent but have a coherent outlook on it.  By having no response in general, and by not being able to deploy anything constructive to his foreign policy, President Obama lost not just stylistically (by trying to import that Gov. Romney is a warmonger) but also in substance by not even understanding the scope and depth of this Presidential suite of powers.

Now to the bits and pieces.

One of the stunning bits I learned from President Obama was just how unready he was for the Presidency.  I'm using the CNN transcript for this:

OBAMA: Governor - here - here's - here's one thing...

(CROSSTALK)

OBAMA: ...here's one thing I've learned as commander in chief.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHIEFFER: Let him answer...

OBAMA: You've got to be clear, both to our allies and our enemies, about where you stand and what you mean. You just gave a speech a few weeks ago in which you said we should still have troops in Iraq. That is not a recipe for making sure that we are taking advantage of the opportunities and meeting the challenges of the Middle East.

Now I thought that this was something that ANYONE who ran for President would know right up-front, at the start and not have to do OJT for it.  This is something embedded in the American culture: the US President is clear, precise and tells you just what he expects so as not to befuddle our allies and embolden our enemies.  No one, and I do mean no one, needs to learn this as it as a thoroughly ingrained expectation of the office and has been since President Washington who set the standard for it.

The nation building trope from President Obama is a tired talking point:

But what I think the American people recognize is after a decade of war it's time to do some nation building here at home. And what we can now do is free up some resources, to, for example, put Americans back to work, especially our veterans, rebuilding our roads, our bridges, our schools, making sure that, you know, our veterans are getting the care that they need when it comes to post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, making sure that the certifications that they need for good jobs of the future are in place.

We, as a Nation, do nation building abroad with Nations that have lost at war with us where the civil population is seen as innocent actors to a malignant government.  Are we war torn at home?  And even if we are, the role of the government is to stand aside and let the American People rebuild the Nation to our desires, not to the ones set out by our government.  Government is to follow the people, not lead the people in this.  Plus aren't the roads and bridges supposed to be FIXED by now due to the awesome power of the STIMULUS?  If not, why aren't they?  And who is being prosecuted for screwing this up so badly?

If the President wishes for the VA to act better, he could get on their case about processing claims in a timely fashion and not allow the backlogs to grow and the time to get something done to expand.

The only way that we can 'free up some resources' is by having government not taking them from the people to run the wars, and that happens once the war funding ends.  The money taken to run the wars is not money normally due to the federal government, and acting as if it IS then becomes an desire to keep spending levels at war time levels but without war time needs.  If America needs to be rebuilt, then it best happens at the local level which is the hardest pressed by war funding.  If the President wishes for things to get better, all he needs to do is stop the spending and not ask for higher taxes to keep spending at war time levels.

A scary-smart thing from Gov. Romney is his knowledge of Pakistan, which is something that President Obama (like South/Latin America) couldn't address properly:

ROMNEY: No, it's not time to divorce a nation on Earth that has 100 nuclear weapons and is on the way to double that at some point, a nation that has serious threats from terrorist groups within its nation, as I indicated before, the Taliban, Haqqani Network.

It's a nation that's not like - like others and it does not have a civilian leadership that is calling the shots there. You have the ISI, their intelligence organization, is probably the most powerful of the - of three branches there. Then you have the military and then you have the civilian government.

This is a nation, which, if it falls apart, if it - if it becomes a failed state, there are nuclear weapons there and you've got - you've got terrorists there who could grab their - their hands onto those nuclear weapons.

ROMNEY: This is - this is an important part of the world for us. Pakistan is - is technically an ally, and they're not acting very much like an ally right now. But we have some work to do. And I - I don't blame the administration for the fact that the relationship with Pakistan is strained. We - we had to go into Pakistan. We had to go in there to get Osama bin Laden. That was the right thing to do. And - and that upset them, but obviously there was a great deal of anger even before that. But we're going to have to work with the - with the people in Pakistan to try and help them move to a more responsible course than the one that they're on. And it's important for them. It's important for the nuclear weapons.

It's important for the success of Afghanistan. Because inside Pakistan, you have a - a large group of Pashtun that are - that are Taliban. They're going to come rushing back in to Afghanistan when we go. And that's one of the reasons the Afghan Security Forces have so much work to do to be able to fight against that. But it's important for us to recognize that we can't just walk away from Pakistan. But we do need to make sure that as we - as we send support for them, that this is tied to them making progress on - on matters that would lead them to becoming a civil society.

If there was a Leftist critique of Afghanistan post-USSR, it was that the US just cut and run from it, to leave the Islamists to fight for control of the place.  Remember that the Taliban were not all that nice towards women, not allowing them to go to school and even executing those who disagreed with the regime publicly in a soccer stadium.  That criticism of not staying behind to help get a better result in Afghanistan was harped upon by the Left, until just after 9/11, where it became the 'vital war' and is now just seen as a place to run away from and Pakistan with it.  Thus repeating the same mistake with Afghanistan they decried, but with a nuclear armed State.

Even though there was material that Gov. Romney 'left on the table' that he could have attacked President Obama with, there was plenty of material he also left on the table that President Obama couldn't address in trade, foreign relations, and military size and scope.  Not every attack needs to be answered in a foreign policy forum, and one can choose to leave attack points aside while putting out statements for which an opponent has no answer.

To try and pick a 'winner' on 'points' for this realm of information is, perhaps, misguided: it isn't about points but continuity of the Nation overseas and putting a clearly defined set of goals in place that people can understand.

Neither candidate did that well, to be sure, but a President should be able to do it fluently, easily and even disdain from attacking his opponent in the one area where continuity is paramount no matter how deep the disagreements.  President Obama would have been well served by having the cool, aloof Obama show up tonight, the one who kept to himself and just played it straight without attacking Gov. Romney.

In this series of debates it is clear that one candidate has a job, but doesn't really know how to interview for it a second time, while the other has interviewed for a few such positions in the past and understands what the role of an executive is.  

That set of characteristics of what makes an executive on small and on large was demonstrated during this 'debate'.  Experience does matter and what you have to learn also matters, as well, and the question of who is better prepared to learn is left up to the individual to decide.  Because you are the one who receives the interview material and must make the hiring decision.  Even if you are outvoted, you must make the best choice of who is to be an executive that will govern in the way you think is more clearly suited to not just yourself but to the Nation as a whole.

Consider Westphalia

In 1648 the 30 Years War was ended with the Treaty of Westphalia, also known as the Great Peace of Westphalia, which changed the order of how Nation States were viewed.  The older order of States revolved around the Imperial State or the Monarchical State, which was ordered from the top downwards by an over-arching authority.  Prior to the Imperial State or that of the Monarchy there were other Nation State forms: the City State and the Republican State, with varieties of cooperation types for both (federations, confederations, oligopolies, etc.).  Additionally for internal ruling the variances within States were wide, from authoritarian sole leaders with a cadre of sub-leaders to rule over the State to representative democracies to direct democracies to indirect representational democracies to theocratic non-elected.  Imperial States gathered in multiple other States and imposed a uniform rule from the top, usually via acquisition (purchase or military) of the smaller State units.  For the larger part of man's history, since the beginning of the written record, there has been an Imperial or top-down form of rule over mankind for that period which goes to Ancient Sumer, Babylon, Egypt and the smaller entities in China and India as well as in North and South America, all the way to the present day with China, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, Burma and other Nation States imposing authoritarian or totalitarian rule from the top.

In Europe the Treaty of Westphalia would set a clear dividing line between the Imperial State and the Sovereign Nation State as entities, and exclude the latter from being acceptable to creating a peaceful civilization.  This was done to separate the religion of the rulers of Nation States from the religion of the people in those States.  During the 30 Years War many Principalities and even Nations changed sides, switched religions and then forced obedience to the new religious form or forced exile or execution upon those who would not conform.  This was done under sub-types of Christianity: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism.  The State's religious stance was separated from interfering with the religious stance of the people of the State and would, via that disconnection, allow freedom of worship amongst those three religious sub-types in the signatory States.  This is not 'separation of church and state' but an individual freedom from the State's religion and freedom of worship is recognized as an individual liberty to exercise your right to worship as you choose.

While many Ancient States might recognize an individual as having such rights and liberties, the Treaty of Westphalia set this religious freedom and respect of it as a touchstone of civilization: without such recognition of individual rights and liberties the State would be free to force a moral order upon individuals without their consent.  This would set up a type of State rarely seen before, and put in place the order between Nation States that would then come from that Treaty: the Secular State.  The Secular State can function with a religion, that is not prohibited.  The Secular State is to respect the religious beliefs of the people of the State and is to function in a way that is neutral to them by not imposing religious requirements, mandates and teachings into their churches.  Thus laws must be compatible with the religious beliefs of the people of the State and not impose a religious moral order within their churches nor mandate adherence to the State's religion.

From this the Sovereign Nation State is seen as having rule over the temporal territory on Earth, with its own religious outlook, but takes the civil means to make laws that are amenable to all citizens and infringe on the religious beliefs of none of them.  Prior to this much of the outlook of Imperial States or Monarchical States, and even some Republics, was that the State was all-powerful in the temporal domain of life.  This is the beginning of the disentanglement of the State as sovereign entity from being an all-powerful temporal construct and to it being a limited construct that must be fully in accord with the personal rights and liberties of its people.  The Ancients had started this work, of course, but through the Dark Ages (not only of Rome but of Greece before it) the meaning of that understanding had become side-lined, even though it was an intrinsic part of daily life for all mankind.  If Westphalia is the first major instantiation that codifies this limitation by Treaty, then it is the ability for Nations to sign Treaties and have them be respected that points to the underlying understanding that pre-existed it.

Humans, when we form into a cooperative group called a 'family' creates the first bonds of civilization which are those of self-restraint.  Nature gives all creatures abilities and as part of Natural Law all creatures have the entire suite of positive and negative rights and liberties given to them.  The rights are absolute and cannot be taken from any creature, and all have those rights from the smallest to the largest, to exercise as their will.  Liberty, that utilization of rights, is voluntary and must be put forward as an active proposition so that the right can be exercised.  When one is free to use all of their rights they are an animal and exist in the savage state of Nature and under Natural Law.  When we choose not to use our Natural Rights so as to protect others from our own savage nature, we create civil activity, civil understanding and create the basis for the Nation. 

While each creature is a sovereign animal it is in community, in consciously putting some Natural Rights aside for the safety of our fellows that allows us to create the sovereign nation as an entity in our cooperative understanding of the society we have created.  From this we build government to house our negative Natural Liberties and utilize them on our behalf under our common watch as they are too dangerous for society for each of us to exercise on our own.  As these negative Natural Liberties accumulate, the power of our agreement for them to be used on our behalf creates a structure that would also allow it to be used against us as these are negative Natural Liberties, after all, not positive ones.  We create a positive moral climate in our agreement not to use these Natural Rights, as individuals, government does not create any positive moral climate and, in its function can only be a punisher of crimes upon those who seek to destroy or corrode that morality: government upholds no morality, but punishes the immorality of individuals.  As such government is a necessary evil as allowing ourselves to become savages in our activities is no good at all, but it in no way is an instrument of perfecting our selves, it is only good in that it protects us from others.

As this moves up in the size of governments, we get to the size where one government is in contact with another, and these are sovereign entities designed to protect us by holding our negative Natural Liberties in common.  In the creation of this entity of government to hold our animal attached negative Natural Liberties, we do a task that is common to all peoples of earth and, indeed, any who are civilized.  From this we can see that civilization has universal requirements on the formation of a civil society via the individuals within it agreeing not to wield their full suite of positive and negative Natural Rights and only utilize their positive Natural Liberties for the benefit of themselves, their family, their society and their Nation.  When two created holders of our negative Natural Liberties meet there can be a wide array of interactions: they can be agreeable to each other, they can be disagreeable to each other as their societies are different, they can fight each other by utilizing the negative Natural Liberty of war and empowering citizens to form up in war against this other sovereign Nation.  At the end of this contact there will be final agreement, no matter if it is peaceful cooperation, agreed-upon indifference, or the final cessation of hostilities by victory, defeat or stalemate.  How these Nations get along must be available to all of those we call citizens in both Nations and this is done through this thing we call a Treaty.  Each and every Treaty done by a sovereign nation commits the individuals within that society to that Treaty, and yet the people can enjoin their government to dissolve such Treaties when they are injurious to society or contrary to the positive moral climate of the nation.

There is no written law about how these things work, and yet it is common to all mankind that forms society at the lowest of levels.  From the Ancients we came to realize that this unwritten law could be defined, its outlines given and how Nations worked circumscribed and delineated.  This magnum work of Nations and how they come about and work is call the Law of Nations and it covers all Nations from the very earliest created to the most modern as the creation of Nations is for the same function across all time.  This is a Universal Law that is unwritten.  It is created by creatures seeking to consciously put aside their use of negative Natural Liberties to create a civil atmosphere and society, thus it is not pre-ordained in any way save by that common urge for community.  From this we can say that all creatures, indeed all beings, who seek to create civil society are beholden to the unwritten Law of Nations as it is the result of creation for a given end: it is the means to an end and the only way to construct civil society is via this means.

If our Nation is created via our ability to self-govern and withhold our use of our negative Natural Rights, then Westphalia is the first instance in which a non-martial agreement to withhold the use of the negative Natural Liberty invested in the Nation is performed: the negative Natural Liberty to impose religion by force against one's own people is held in abeyance by those Nations and all individuals in those Nations coming under that Treaty.  This destructive negative Natural Liberty is agreed upon, by Treaty, amongst Nations as being too awful to utilize in any way, shape or form upon any citizen within their territories.  This formulation of Treaty is also universal to its holders and timeless: once you sign up for it, then it holds to all parts of your territory unless the action is taken to walk away from it and in any event once you fall under it you will continue to be under it until the end of your days.  Nothing like it has been seen before or since it was created.  It has been expanded upon to a concept of the universal recognition of the necessity for individuals to choose their own religion, beyond those three sects within Christianity, but that is only done in those Nations that put that forward for their own people.  Westphalia endures via the function of religious tolerance by the Nation State and the people within it who uphold the Treaty in their daily lives.

Attempts to found other human rights via Treaty have not fared as well, as nothing is as primal as one's own spiritual belief and their view of how they fit in creation and Nature.  Even those who disdain a belief in the Divine are coming to terms with that in their own way, and in those Nations where this most civil of concepts rules, they are given that leeway for good and ill because to do otherwise is now recognized as injurious and uncivilized.  We can still witness the brutal repression of those Nations that enforce a single religion or doctrine upon their people, be it deistic or communistic, and there is no good at all to be had via that route and it is a signal point of human suffering when it is performed.  This does not mean that religion is divorced from the secular Nation, quite the contrary as a common agreement on what must be punished in the way of actions must be upheld widely across a Nation so that laws can be made to protect the moral climate. 

These laws do not create a moral climate, for if they did we would have easily gotten one by this point in our history if they had the power to do so as the immoral would recognize their punishment and change their ways.  Quite the contrary happens as laws punish those seeking to degrade the common morality, thus laws are a punitive function, not a positive function of society.  The positive function, that of atonement, is not given to the punisher, but to those willing to work with the punished to show them a better way for their lives to work in harmony with their fellow man in society.  That is why outreach programs by religious institutions have shown success in helping those who wish to reform to do so, and even in convincing those who have not thought through their actions to do so and then seek a better life.  Secular institutions have some success in the former, little in the latter, as they cannot assert a positive moral climate as that is not their function.  Helping those seeking to atone to do so is relatively easy, asking those who have not examined their lives requires far more than punitive capacity or directing the willing to suitable help: it requires showing, demonstrating and living in a positive moral way that then shows how a good life can be had without threatening one's fellow man.

Thusly a treaty that posits self-restraint for a Nation and for oneself can only operate if the moral climate is such that it is a demonstrable necessity to do so.  With as much as 20% of Europe dead just due to the 30 Years War, not including plagues and such, the proof was available for all to see: religious authority vested in the secular Nation came to no good end at all.  The self-restraint of governments to agree to not do this had to have a firm foundation in the peoples they represented, and that was available only after the horror of the 30 Years War.  Even the Second World War did not see such a high percentage of a regional population dead, and that is counting the gas chambers, civil prison work camps, starvation due to loss of agriculture, mass bombings, nuclear devices, destruction of cities by airpower and ground power, and even having to draft children to fight for one of the Nations involved: none of that was equivalent to the religious wars in the form of pure loss of life from the totality of local populations across so many Nations.  The 'never again' at the end of WWII against genocide did not stop Mao or Pol Pot or Stalin from slaughtering millions more of their own people after the war.  Nor did it stop even small actors like Saddam Hussein from doing so. 

Indeed the post-war institutions of the 20th century can be seen as serial failures when compared to the enduring success of the Great Peace of Westphalia.  Apparently our revulsion of genocide of minority populations was not enough to stem the tide of hatred that sets man against man due to differences in ethnicity, society, culture, and wealth.  And for those societies outside of Westphalia the practice of religious intolerance and religious slaughter continues to this day.  As we are no longer taught the meaning of Westphalia we lose sight of its purpose and the positive value for creation that is self-restraint.  Since we cannot teach religious tolerance and respect, we are now losing it, yet again, and no laws by government can uphold a faltering positive moral climate when the people of the Nation no longer uphold it themselves.  No amount of rules, no amount of punishment can do that.  Only individuals can do that.

Civilization starts with you.

Trade, agriculture and Wealth of Nations

After looking at the problem in Mexico due to NAFTA, namely that Mexico has seen its traditional bottom rungs of the economic ladder removed first by the exposure to highly automated US agricultural goods, then to the industrialization/de-industrialization happening on the US/Mexican border as US companies first stood up industries in that corridor and then shifted production to even lower cost China and the Far East, and then getting the final whammy of skyrocketing corn prices as US ethanol production began to surge.  To be considered a stalwart friend and ally, these are not things a nation should encourage its industries to do, nor should treaties be signed to target the very poorest of a Nation.  Free trade has its limits, and while the long-term may be somewhat brighter, the immediate short-term indicates a rising criminal insurgency as those organizations able to exploit low cost labor do so:  organized crime.  This is not the traditional Mexican organized crime cartels, as they have been liquidated by the rising drug gangs first along the border and then deeper into Mexico.  These gangs are fueled by multiple sources, as I cited in the last article:  FARC, S. American drug kingpins and gangs, Red Mafia groups, and a small but troubling presence of Islamic terrorist organizations like HAMAS, Hezbollah and al Qaeda.  This is not their order of danger, however, as that would be relatively reversed, and it is not their order of financial ability to back an insurgency, where the Red Mafia would be supreme.

What has fueled this is the notion that 'free trade' as it applies to agriculture is a 'boon' to all involved.  And the typical first citation for free trade comes from those on the Right who point to Adam Smith and his work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, available at Project Gutenberg, normally addressed as Wealth of Nations (WoN).  This is the first of the great economic inquiries into why and how industrial production of the individual function allotted to an individual in a production schema yields higher output for the entire system.  As such it is groundbreaking and highly insightful into what would become the production line and is an essential blueprint for it.  Further the recognition of the absolutely key factor of overseas trade as a lynchpin for increased economic activity is as applicable to today's world as it was to Smith's world.  Indeed, the entire description of distributed and specialized production described in WoN, almost perfectly, today's computer industry where parts from Ireland, Germany, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, China, Japan and the US allow for the PC platform, as a whole, to be driven downwards in price and upwards in capacity at a truly awe inspiring rate.  These technologies, in turn, are transforming societies across the globe and establishing a new and distributed form of thinking and approaching technology and trade.

WoN is one of many seminal works that came from the latter part of the 18th century, and is the same lineage as the work by Emmerich de Vattel on The Law of Nations, available at constitution.org).  These two works, taken as a whole, describes a system of nation states that is the full and foundational basis for the modern world: without these two works and the seminal understandings of nations and economies, there would be no founding for the entire set of discussions that would happen thereafter to better create, regulate and regularize that system of nations and trade between nations.  On the more amusing flip-side, that same system, without description or backing by rational discourse and understanding would *still* come about, although it would be necessary to describe it and then derive LoN and WoN to accurately understand what was going on and *why* it was happening.

The only thing that could be seen as lacking from that era, was an understanding that the derived products of that described system would form a feed-back loop into the entire economic cycle from top to bottom.  The only place that Adam Smith would fall down is the one we are now living with as it was a trifling oversight at the time, and yet has extreme ramifications for our modern era.  Now if any writer beyond myself needed a copy editor it is Adam Smith who, perhaps, wrote with a density of ideas that made the normal paragraph wither in its draftiness, so I will need to try and break out ideas from within longer paragraphs, which will do some violence to the overall host paragraph, but I will do my best to address that as I go along.

When looking at the nature of industrial piecework, that is the subdivision of a job into many smaller job functions, each performed by a dedicated individual, the first problem that strikes the modern eye is this, from Chapter I, Part I, and this is an *excerpt*:

The nature of agriculture, indeed, does not admit of so many subdivisions of labour, nor of so complete a separation of one business from another, as manufactures. It is impossible to separate so entirely the business of the grazier from that of the corn-farmer, as the trade of the carpenter is commonly separated from that of the smith. The spinner is almost always a distinct person from the, weaver; but the ploughman, the harrower, the sower of the seed, and the reaper of the corn, are often the same. The occasions for those different sorts of labour returning with the different seasons of the year, it is impossible that one man should be constantly employed in any one of them. This impossibility of making so complete and entire a separation of all the different branches of labour employed in agriculture, is perhaps the reason why the improvement of the productive powers of labour, in this art, does not always keep pace with their improvement in manufactures. The most opulent nations, indeed, generally excel all their neighbours in agriculture as well as in manufactures; but they are commonly more distinguished by their superiority in the latter than in the former. Their lands are in general better cultivated, and having more labour and expense bestowed upon them, produce more in proportion to the extent and natural fertility of the ground. But this superiority of produce is seldom much more than in proportion to the superiority of labour and expense. In agriculture, the labour of the rich country is not always much more productive than that of the poor; or, at least, it is never so much more productive, as it commonly is in manufactures. The corn of the rich country, therefore, will not always, in the same degree of goodness, come cheaper to market than that of the poor. The corn of Poland, in the same degree of goodness, is as cheap as that of France, notwithstanding the superior opulence and improvement of the latter country. The corn of France is, in the corn-provinces, fully as good, and in most years nearly about the same price with the corn of England, though, in opulence and improvement, France is perhaps inferior to England. The corn-lands of England, however, are better cultivated than those of France, and the corn-lands of France are said to be much better cultivated than those of Poland. But though the poor country, notwithstanding the inferiority of its cultivation, can, in some measure, rival the rich in the cheapness and goodness of its corn, it can pretend to no such competition in its manufactures, at least if those manufactures suit the soil, climate, and situation, of the rich country. The silks of France are better and cheaper than those of England, because the silk manufacture, at least under the present high duties upon the importation of raw silk, does not so well suit the climate of England as that of France. But the hardware and the coarse woollens of England are beyond all comparison superior to those of France, and much cheaper, too, in the same degree of goodness. In Poland there are said to be scarce any manufactures of any kind, a few of those coarser household manufactures excepted, without which no country can well subsist.

Here the main ideas are as follows: agriculture is not easily labor divisible due to seasonal timing and instancing of labor types, and, increased cultivation does not necessarily mean increase in bounty of harvest or to a better product, overall.  The major inventions up to that point in time, in agriculture were ones that seemed incredibly stable for production of farm goods.  The plough, first seen in 4000 BC, had caused the first and greatest upheaval of mankind as one individual could now produce more food goods than were required for himself or his family.  What that did was attach individuals to a plot of land to attend to, and would cause the rise of towns and trade centers.  Soon afterwards the use of animal and human waste as fertilizer and irrigation, would spur on agriculture in the fertile crescent while the Nile would provide a similar boon to Egypt.  Adam Smith does a splendid job recounting these changes across a diverse set of areas from Egypt to India in looking at the basis for agriculture as he knew it.  WoN is a deeply historical work, drawing on historical knowledge and precedents to offer insight into modern reasoning on economics, which also makes it a fantastic history text for economics.

By the time of the 18th century, the oxen or horse pulled plough, use of canals for transport and the need to put permanent buildings down for agriculture is centuries old.  While the iron and steel plough would replace wooden and copper ones, the actual business of farming remained unchanged.  And, until the start of larger cultivators drawn by animals and the first animal drawn combines in the early 19th century, the ability to see any end to this basic system of agriculture  was not apparent.  Even to this day, the modern farm often has a farmer of workman doing many unrelated tasks during a working day, that are not amenable to piecework.  But even this is changing as the entire business of agriculture is seeing the first prototype Robofarm being set up in California that requires a grand total of one individual to run it.  In less than 250 years modern technology has transformed agriculture like no other business on the planet, allowing far fewer individuals to produce more goods than ever before.

In the US the stand-down of the need for a large agricultural workforce and the need for a growing industrial workforce went in tandem.  The demographic shift from the first steam driven combines dovetailed neatly at the end of the 19th century with the stand-up of the factories to produce the raw materials for a new and industrialized nation.  In less than 50 years from the end of the 19th century to 1940, the US went from a majority agricultural labor force to a majority manufacturing labor force, and yet farm production grew because of this.  To accomplish this, however, agriculture went from humans performing many disparate tasks to machines doing that and then, as the name implies, combining multiple tasks into one machine and now having multi-purpose, multi-task machines that can change tasks as needed.

Adam Smith was cognizant of these things, however, and addressed them:

The establishment of any new manufacture, of any new branch of commerce, or of any new practice in agriculture, is always a speculation from which the projector promises himself extraordinary profits. These profits sometimes are very great, and sometimes, more frequently, perhaps, they are quite otherwise; but, in general, they bear no regular proportion to those of other old trades in the neighbourhood. If the project succeeds, they are commonly at first very high. When the trade or practice becomes thoroughly established and well known, the competition reduces them to the level of other trades.

Secondly, this equality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock, can take place only in the ordinary, or what may be called the natural state of those employments.

Which brings us to the Third World, poor capital investment and the inability of poor nations to get regularized, liberal economies that actually are of benefit to the greater society of those nations.  Part of the problem of the modern day world is that all nations do not adapt nor cope equally to change, nor have societies that see a need to adopt new and better methods of employment, manufacturing or agriculture.  Those who press 'free trade' as the universal panacea and then take up the view 'well their societies will adjust over decades' take a very patronizing view of this most reasonable view on the efficacy of trade and increased manufacturing as a result of it.  Even worse, in not recognizing that the underpinnings at the lowest level of the 'free trade' argument are based upon a relatively fixed view of the lowest and most needful type of work, that of agriculture,  the profession of 'free trade' to economies where large percentages of the population are *still* in subsistence agriculture means an uprooting of a vast swath of the population as older and less efficient means of agricultural production are exposed to the most modern and capital intensive forms of agribusiness the planet has to offer.

This is, in many respects, a Faustian bargain, where the supposed greater good of removing trade barriers for agriculture means that social unrest on a vast scale is not only likely but probable.  And it is this bargain that runs straight into the other work, Law of Nations.  In Book I, starting at paragraph 12, the object of a nation is its own preservation and perfection, that is to render government to the ends of civil society and to have government that will achieve accord with the society that it is beholden to.  That societal view is summed up in this paragraph:

§ 15. What is the end of civil society.

The end or object of civil society is to procure for the citizens whatever they stand in need of for the necessities, the conveniences, the accommodation of life, and, in general, whatever constitutes happiness, — with the peaceful possession of property, a method of obtaining justice with security, and, finally, a mutual defence against all external violence.

It is now easy to form a just idea of the perfection of a state or nation: — every thing in it must conspire to promote the ends we have pointed out.

Nothing overly complex in overview, and echoed years later as 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'... you didn't think that was original with Jefferson, did you?  Vattel then goes through, piece by piece on constitutions (or lack of same) civil law, and onwards to the responsibility of the sovereign (or ruling organization) of a nation.  Starting at Chapter VI, looking at good government... you do know that there is an actual, real, definition of good government that pre-exists the US, right?... there is this most wonderful of juxtapositions that ties two things together:

§ 72. The object of society points out the duties of the sovereign.

AFTER these observations on the constitution of the state, let us now proceed to the principal objects of a good government. We have seen above (§§ 41 and 42) that the prince, on his being invested with the sovereign authority, is charged with the duties of the nation in relation to government. In treating of the principal objects of a wise administration, we at once show the duties of a nation towards itself, and those of the sovereign towards his people.

A wise conductor of the state will find in the objects of civil society the general rule and indication of his duties. The society is established with the view of procuring, to those who are its members, the necessaries, conveniences, and even pleasures of life, and, in general, every thing necessary to their happiness, — of enabling each individual peaceably to enjoy his own property, and to obtain justice with safety and certainty, — and, finally, of defending themselves in a body against all external violence (§ 15). The nation, or its conductor, should first apply to the business of providing for all the wants of the people, and producing a happy plenty of all the necessaries of life, with its conveniences and innocent and laudable enjoyments. (25). As an easy life without luxury contributes to the happiness of men, it likewise enables them to labour with greater safety and success after their own perfection, which is their grand and principal duty, and one of the ends they ought to have in view when they unite in society,

§ 73. To take care that there be a sufficient number of workmen.

To succeed in procuring this abundance of every thing, it is necessary to take care that there be a sufficient number of able workmen in every useful or necessary profession. (26) An attentive application on the part of government, wise regulations, and assistance properly granted, will produce this effect without using constraint, which is always fatal to industry.

§ 74. To prevent the emigration of those that are useful.

Those workmen that are useful ought to be retained in the state; to succeed in retaining them, the public authority has certainly a right to use constraint, if necessary. (27) Every citizen owes his personal services to his country; and a mechanic, in particular, who has been reared, educated, and instructed in its bosom, cannot lawfully leave it, and carry to a foreign land that industry which he acquired at home, unless his country has no occasion for him, (27) or he cannot there obtain the just fruit of his labour and abilities. Employment must then be procured for him; and, if, while able to obtain a decent livelihood in his own country, he would without reason abandon it, the state has a right to detain him. (28) But a very moderate use ought to be made of this right, and only in important or necessary cases. Liberty is the soul of abilities and industry: frequently a mechanic or an artist, after having long travelled abroad, is attracted home to his native soil by a natural affection, and returns more expert and better qualified to render his country useful services. If certain extraordinary cases be excepted, it is best in this affair to practise the mild methods of protection, encouragement, &c., and to leave the rest to that natural love felt by all men for the places of their birth.

§ 75. Emissaries who entice them away.

As to those emissaries who come into a country to entice away useful subjects, the sovereign has a right to punish them severely, and has just cause of complaint against the power by whom they are employed.

In another place, we shall treat more particularly of the general question, whether a citizen be permited to quit the society of which he is a member. The particular reasons concerning useful workmen are sufficient here.

§ 76. Labour and industry must be encouraged.

The state ought to encourage labour, to animate industry, (29) to excite abilities, to propose honours, rewards, privileges, and so to order matters that every one may live by his industry. In this particular, England deserves to be held up as an example. The parliament incessantly attends to these important affairs, in which neither care nor expense is spared. (30) And do we not even see a society of excellent citizens formed with this view, and devoting considerable sums to this use? Premiums are also distributed in Ireland to the mechanics who most distinguish themselves in their profession. Can such a state fail of being powerful and happy?

Where 'free trade' runs into the LoN, it is nations that govern, not the beauty of trade.  We can speak of the lack of wisdom of other governments that do not seek the prosperity of trade or that prevent it outright, but an enticement to more and better trade must be done within the bounds of what is good and right for the nations involved.  Indeed, in LoN an entire chapter is devoted to Commerce (Ch. VIII) and this is the context of trade in which Adam Smith is talking about, starting from the beginning of Ch. VIII in LoN:

§ 83. Of home and foreign trade.

IT is commerce that enables individuals and whole nations to procure those commodities which they stand in need of, but cannot find at home. Commerce is divided into home and foreign trade. (34) The former is that carried on in the state between the several inhabitants; the latter is carried on with foreign nations.

§ 84. Utility of the home trade.

The home trade of a nation is of great use; it furnishes all the citizens with the means of procuring whatever they want, as either necessary, useful, or agreeable; it causes a circulation of money, excites industry, animates labour, and, by affording subsistence to a great number of people, contributes to increase the population and power of the state.

§ 85. Utility of foreign trade.

The same reasons show the use of foreign trade, which is moreover attended with these two advantages: — 1. By trading with foreigners, a nation procures such things as neither nature nor art can furnish in the country it occupies. And secondly, if its foreign trade be properly directed, it increases the riches of the nation, and may become the source of wealth and plenty. Of this the example of the Carthaginians among the ancients, and that of the English and Dutch among the moderns, afford remarkable proofs. Carthage, by her riches, counterbalanced the fortune, courage, and greatness of Rome. Holland has amassed immense sums in her marshes; a company of her merchants possesses whole kingdoms in the East, and the governor of Batavia exercises command over the monarchs of India. To what a degree of power and glory has England arrived! Formerly her warlike princes and inhabitants made glorious conquests, which they afterwards lost by those reverses of fortune so frequent in war; at present, it is chiefly commerce that places in her hand the balance of Europe.

§ 86. Obligation to cultivate the home trade.

Nations are obliged to cultivate the home trade, — first, because it is clearly demonstrated from the law of nature, that mankind ought mutually to assist each other, and, as far as in their power, contribute to the perfection and happiness of their fellow-creatures: whence arises, after the introduction of private property, the obligation to resign to others, at a fair price, those things which they have occasion for, and which we do not destine for our own use. Secondly, society being established with a view that each may procure whatever things are necessary to his own perfection and happiness — and a home trade being the means of obtaining them — the obligations to carry on and improve this trade are derived from the very compact on which the society was formed. Finally, being advantageous to the nation, it is a duty the people owe to themselves, to make this commerce flourish.

§ 87. Obligation to carry on foreign trade.

For the same reason, drawn from the welfare of the state, and also to procure for the citizens every thing they want, a nation is obliged to promote and carry on a foreign trade. Of all the modern states, England is most distinguished in this respect. The parliament have their eyes constantly fixed on this important object; they effectually protect the navigation of the merchants, and, by considerable bounties, favour the exportation of superfluous commodities and merchandises. In a very sensible product,¹ may be seen the valuable advantages that kingdom has derived from such judicious regulations.

This is the framework of trade that a sovereign government must attend to.  Foreign trade is not done for the benefit of the other nation involved, it is done for the benefit of one's own nation.  That is the theory, at least, but the object of dangling impossible to get at riches to societies that cannot support the means to acquire the money to trade for them is, perhaps, not the wisest of all routes to take when exciting trade with foreign nations.  In theory all nations need to look after their own welfare and it is THAT which the US should be cultivating abroad FIRST and FOREMOST, not trade agreements.  This is our understanding of the world as passed down through us and is a reasonable view to have based on nation states, from which this is a natural outgrowth. 

This is not only an attack on wealthy industries and individual using government to get trade agreements, for those who decry this offer NOTHING to put in its place to explain *why* trade *alone* is a dangerous thing to promulgate without the necessary understanding of how it operates as an underpinning.  That is old style liberalism of the school of Smith, Vattel, Grotius, Jefferson, Washington and a host of others.  Liberal trade agreements means that other nations must first understand what it is that nations do and why they do them.  And when the US presses 'free trade' agreements dangling riches out that *might* result from it, and then utilizes other agreements to leave those nations poorer, may I suggest that is a very, very illiberal thing to do?

After addressing the rights of buying and selling, and the need to support such rights and liberty, Vattel moves to this exact topic:

§ 90. Prohibition of foreign merchandise.

Every state has consequently a right to prohibit the entrance of foreign merchandises; and the nations that are affected by such prohibition have no right to complain of it, as if they had been refused an office of humanity.(37) Their complaints would be ridiculous, since their only ground of complaint would be, that a profit is refused to them by that nation who does not choose they should make it at her expense, It is, however, true, that if a nation was very certain that the prohibition of her merchandises was not founded on any reason drawn from the welfare of the state that prohibited them, site would have cause to consider this conduct as a mark of ill-will shown in this instance, and to complain of it on that fooling. But it would be very difficult for the excluded nation to judge with certainty that the state had no solid or apparent reason for making such a prohibition.

§ 91. Nature of the right of buying,

By the manner in which we have shown a nation's right to buy of another what it wants, it is easy to see that this right is not one of those called perfect, and that are accompanied with a right to use constraint. Let us now distinctly explain the nature of a right which may give room for disputes of a very serious nature. You have a right to buy of others such things as you want, and of which they themselves have no need; you make application to me: I am not obliged to sell them to you, if I myself have any occasion for them. In virtue of the natural liberty which belongs to all men, it is I who am to judge whether I have occasion for them myself, or can conveniently sell them to you; and you have no right to determine whether I judge well, or ill, because you have no authority over me. If I, improperly, and without any good reason, refuse to sell you at a fair price what you want, I offend against my duty: you may complain of this, but you must submit to it: and you cannot attempt to force me, without violating my natural right, and doing me an injury. The right of buying the things we want is then only an imperfect right, like that of a poor man to receive alms of the rich man; if the latter refuses to bestow it, the poor man may justly complain: but he has no right to take it by force.

If it be asked, what a nation has a right to do in case of extreme necessity, — this question will be answered in its proper place in the following book, Chap. IX.

§ 92. Every nation is to choose how far it will engage in commerce.

Since then a nation cannot have a natural right to sell her merchandises to another that is unwilling to purchase them, since she has only an imperfect right to buy what she wants of others, since it belongs only to these last to judge whether it be proper for them to sell or not; and finally, since commerce consists in mutually buying and selling all sorts of commodities, it is evident that it depends on the will of any nation to carry on commerce with another, or to let it alone. If she be willing to allow this to one, it depends on the nation to permit it under such conditions as she shall think proper. For in permitting another nation to trade with her, she grants that other a right; and every one is at liberty to affix what conditions he pleases to a right which he grants of his own accord.(38)

§ 93. How a nation acquires a perfect right to a foreign trade.

Men and sovereign states may, by their promises, enter into a perfect obligation with respect to each other, in things where nature has imposed only an imperfect obligation. A nation, not having naturally a perfect right to carry on a commerce with another, may procure it by an agreement or treaty. This right is then acquired only by treaties, and relates to that branch of the law of nations termed conventional (Prelim. § 24). The treaty that gives the right of commerce, is the measure and rule of that right.

§ 94. Of the simple permission of commerce.

A simple permission to carry on commerce with a nation gives no perfect right to that commerce. For if I merely and simply permit you to do any thing, I do not give you any right to do it afterwards in spite of me: — you may make use of my condescension as long as it lasts; but nothing prevents me from changing my will. As then every nation has a right to choose whether she will or will not trade with another, and on what conditions she is willing to do it (§ 92), if one nation has for a time permitted another to come and trade in the country, she is at liberty, whenever she thinks proper, to prohibit that commerce — to restrain it — to subject it to certain regulations; and the people who before carried it on cannot complain of injustice.

Let us only observe, that nations, as well as individuals, are obliged to trade together for the common benefit of the human race, because mankind stand in need of each other's assistance (Prelim. §§ 10, 11, and Book I. § 88): still, however, each nation remains at liberty to consider, in particular cases, whether it be convenient for her to encourage or permit commerce; and as our duty to ourselves is paramount to our duty to others, if one nation finds herself in such circumstances that she thinks foreign commerce dangerous to the state, she may renounce and prohibit it. This the Chinese have done for a long time together. But, again, it is only for very serious and important reasons that her duty to herself should dictate such a reserve; otherwise, she could not refuse to comply with the general duties of humanity.

§ 95. Whether the laws relating to commerce are subject to prescription. (39)

We have seen what are the rights that nations derive from nature with regard to commerce, and how they may acquire others by treaties: let us now examine whether they can found any on long custom. To determine this question in a solid manner, it is necessary first to observe, that there are rights which consist in a simple power: they are called in Latin, jura meræ facultatis, rights of mere ability. They are such in their own nature that he who possesses them may use them or not, as he thinks proper — being absolutely free from all restraint in this respect; so that the actions that relate to the exercise of these rights are acts of mere free will, that may be done or not done, according to pleasure. It is manifest that rights of this kind cannot be lost by prescription, on account of their not being used, since prescription is only founded on consent legitimately presumed; and that, if I possess a right which is of such a nature that I may or may not use it, as I think proper, without any person having a right to prescribe to me on the subject, it cannot be presumed, from my having long forborne to use it, that I therefore intend to abandon it. This right is then imprescriptible, unless I have been forbidden or hindered from making use of it, and have obeyed with sufficient marks of consent. Let us suppose, for instance, that I am entirely at liberty to grind my corn at any mill I please, and that during a very considerable time, a century if you please, I have made use of the same mill: as I have done in this respect what I thought proper, it is not to be presumed, from this long-continued use of the same mill, that I meant to deprive myself of the right of grinding at any other; and, consequently, my right cannot be lost by prescription. But now suppose, that, on my resolving to make use of another mill, the owner of the former opposes it, and announces to me a prohibition; if I obey his prohibition without necessity, and without opposition, though I have it in my power to defend myself, and know my right, this right is lost, because my conduct affords grounds for a legitimate presumption that I chose to abandon it. — Let us apply these principles. — Since it depends on the will of each nation to carry on commerce with another, or not to carry it on, and to regulate the manner in which it chooses to carry it on (§ 92), the right of commerce is evidently a right of mere ability (jus merae facultatis), a simple power, and consequently is imprescriptible. Thus, although two nations have treated together, without interruption, during a century, this long usage does not give any right to either of them; nor is the one obliged on this account to suffer the other to come and sell its merchandises, or to buy others: — they both preserve the double right of prohibiting the entrance of foreign merchandise, and of selling their own wherever people are willing to buy them. Although the English have from time immemorial been accustomed to get wine from Portugal, they are not on that account obliged to continue the trade, and have not lost the liberty of purchasing their wines elsewhere. (40) Although they have, in the same manner, been long accustomed to sell their cloth in that kingdom, they have, nevertheless, a right to transfer that trade to any other country: and the Portuguese, on their part, are not obliged by this long custom, either to sell their wines to the English, or to purchase their cloths. If a nation desires any right of commerce which shall no longer depend on the will of another, she must acquire it by treaty. (40)

§ 96. Imprescriptibility of rights founded on treaty.

What has been just said may be applied to the rights of commerce acquired by treaties. If a nation has by this method procured the liberty of selling certain merchandises to another, she does not lose her right, though a great number of years are suffered to elapse without its being used; because this right is a simple power, jus merae facultatis, which she is at liberty to use or not, whenever she pleases.

Certain circumstances, however, may render a different decision necessary, because they imply a change in the nature of the right in question. For instance, if it appears evident, that the nation granting this right granted it only with a view of procuring a species of merchandise of which she stands in need, and if the nation which obtained the right of selling neglects to furnish those merchandises, and another offers to bring them regularly, on condition of having an exclusive privilege, — it appears certain that the privilege may be granted to the latter. Thus the nation that had the right of selling would lose it, because she had not fulfilled the tacit condition.

This is plain and solid understanding of the nature of foreign trade as happening ONLY under treaty for it to be legal.

[A further note to the Law of the Seat Treaty folks:  jura meræ facultatis rules for nations in this area, and just because a power is not exercised does not mean that it does not exist.  Just because the US does not exercise her Privateering power does not mean it 'goes away', as it is an intrinsic part of the nation to have it.  Nations, unlike the mere civil or ordinary laws, do not have powers die from not being used.  Nor, indeed, do individuals nor society, and the militia power of individuals within society to adhere to the laws and yet still exercise together to form a militia to protect their State does not die over time, either, as Iraq has demonstrated.  Letting any body outside of a nation determine the use of the sea for that nation is contrary to the inherent rights of nations.  It cannot be given away by treaty, nor any other organization allowed to rule upon it for any nation.]

Of all the things heard about 'free trade', that it is the best way to do things, that it enriches all involved, that it cures poor government and creates liberty, this is perhaps the most messianic part of it:  that it is somehow a right outside of treaties and of the obligation of nations to their own people to decide this for themselves via their government.  If one complains about a nation NOT wanting that, as Vattel said, the complaint is ridiculous.  If a nation does not want a 'free trade' treaty with us and says so, then so be it.  To complain otherwise, and that 'free trade' is the best, etc., etc. is to turn economics and trade into a religion.  Trade and commerce are simple things governed by treaties put in place by nations for the benefit of their nations and, with a bit of luck, that is a non-zero sum game and it is mutually beneficial.

Heading into Ch. VI of WoN, Adam Smith starts with this:

When a nation binds itself by treaty, either to permit the entry of certain goods from one foreign country which it prohibits from all others, or to exempt the goods of one country from duties to which it subjects those of all others, the country, or at least the merchants and manufacturers of the country, whose commerce is so favoured, must necessarily derive great advantage from the treaty. Those merchants and manufacturers enjoy a sort of monopoly in the country which is so indulgent to them. That country becomes a market, both more extensive and more advantageous for their goods: more extensive, because the goods of other nations being either excluded or subjected to heavier duties, it takes off a greater quantity of theirs; more advantageous, because the merchants of the favoured country, enjoying a sort of monopoly there, will often sell their goods for a better price than if exposed to the free competition of all other nations.

Such treaties, however, though they may be advantageous to the merchants and manufacturers of the favoured, are necessarily disadvantageous to those of the favouring country. A monopoly is thus granted against them to a foreign nation; and they must frequently buy the foreign goods they have occasion for, dearer than if the free competition of other nations was admitted. That part of its own produce with which such a nation purchases foreign goods, must consequently be sold cheaper; because, when two things are exchanged for one another, the cheapness of the one is a necessary consequence, or rather is the same thing, with the dearness of the other. The exchangeable value of its annual produce, therefore, is likely to be diminished by every such treaty. This diminution, however, can scarce amount to any positive loss, but only to a lessening of the gain which it might otherwise make. Though it sells its goods cheaper than it otherwise might do, it will not probably sell them for less than they cost; nor, as in the case of bounties, for a price which will not replace the capital employed in bringing them to market, together with the ordinary profits of stock. The trade could not go on long if it did. Even the favouring country, therefore, may still gain by the trade, though less than if there was a free competition.

The very first thing that Adam Smith looks at is not 'free trade' but gaining a MONOPOLY on trade of an item or set of goods or entirely for a nation and then points out why it is bad.  That said he does not deal with why it may be necessary for nations to impose restrictions for vital national interests.  The general concept is good, but, when founded on differentials between nations that have adopted modern means of production and those that have not, the idea that the less modern nation may want to take time in adjusting its trade practices so as to keep its people employed and happy even with a slow dislocation over time is something that should not be talked against at treaty negotiations.  Openness of markets is not a good thing if it causes large scale social upheaval and dislocations of individuals and families due to resultant poverty and lack of having an economic basis for support of their family.  To continually press wanting 'free trade' when other nations have indicated that the boon of trade leads to the bane of societal upheaval, the answer from the US should not be: well, free trade will take care of that.  It should be:  we agree that your concerns are vital and respect them, and shall not speak of this again until your nation feels ready to address it.

This has a word in social parlance.

Courtesy.

When the US promises the boon of trade and increased industrial commitment to a foreign nation via a treaty, and then allows its industry to make purely temporary gains and then shift elsewhere leaving societal unrest and upheaval on OUR BORDERS may it be suggested that the US has been disingenuous on how it has treated our neighbor to the south and that, if we have commitment to helping their nation via the grand benefits of trade, that we then put in place legislation that DOES THAT?  And if Mexico is unable to adhere to a treaty because its government signed it unwisely and our national sovereignty is being threatened by a criminal and terrorist insurgency that is taking lives on a scale equivalent to that of Iraq these days, that we may have to address this issue before the next deployment for US COIN capability is just over the southern border?

Or do we not mean to back our words and treaties with our money and skills?

Because if we don't do that, it is the blood of our sons and daughters that will pay for 'free trade' that just hasn't worked out to the lovely ideals put forward for it.

This is not a question of 'leaving NAFTA', although that is bound up with it: it is a question of honoring our agreements and commitments via treaty and then expecting the EXACT, SAME, THING from our treaty partners.  Because if we aren't going to do that, then NAFTA and every other single treaty the US ever signs is *worthless* because we do not mean what we say and will not back that up with our actions.

And there is no national honor in that, from any part of the political spectrum.

Left in the desert of his own creation

As so many like to point to Sen. John McCain's American Conservative Union ratings, I decided to take a look at them!  It gives a good idea of what they see as important and how members of Congress voted on those items.

Thus starting in Mr. McCain's House time, and votes contrary to what the ACU supported are listed (Year - ACU percent - comments), all ratings from the ACU Ratings site and I am doing my best to de-conflict the votes for on a proposal against and such [note that non-votes are on ACU cited votes, not of all votes taken].  This list is representative of their views which are biased and I do disagree with a number of their takes and backing, but it is a fair view from a given biased perspective of how to grade Congresscritters:

1983 -  96 - Voted for a pork barrel spending bill that the ACU opposed.

1984 -  86 - Voted for a Public Health bill that the ACU describes as 'budget busting' and for the Civil Rights Act of 1984 which the ACU characterizes as 'absurdly expanding federal power'.

1985 - 81 -  Voted for a Clean Water Bill, for sanctions against South Africa, for textile import quotas, and for expanding the Superfund program.

1986 - 73 -  Voted against an amendment to freeze the Community Services Block Grant Program, against an amendment to delete funds from the Legal Services Corp., for minority set-asides in DoD contracting, voted to over-ride President Reagan's veto of the South African Sanctions bill, and voted to adopt more money for the Superfund program.

Now on to his time in the Senate:

1987 - 91 -  Voted to over-ride President Reagan's veto of the Clean Water Act re-authorization which the ACU describes as 'budget busting' and voted to continue the support of the Legal Services Corp. which was 'controversial' in its outlook and services.  Did not vote on: a $1.06 billion bill that federalizes 'the homeless' by creating new government bureaucracy, the Line-Item Veto, and Congressional salary increases.

1988 - 80 -  Voted to over-ride President Reagan's veto of a bill to extend coverage of civil rights laws (Grove City) so that if one part of an institution receives federal funds all parts are subject to those controls, voted to ratify the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (which the ACU opposed), voted for a 60-day plant closing bill to warn workers if their plant is closing no matter what the circumstances are, voted to reject the amendment to decrease funding to the LSC.

1989 - 91 - Voted for the Americans with Disabilities act (which ACU opposed), voted for a motion to table an amendment calling for the ouster of Manuel Noriega.

1990 - 87 - Voted for a bill to overhaul the Hatch Act to bar federal employees from engaging in political activities (ACU opposed the bill), voted for an HHS bill $11.5 billion larger than the President requested, voted for the Clean Air Act which increased federal regulation capability on manufacturing, energy, and increased the cost of those things to consumers.

1991 - 86 - Voted against aid to help promote free market policies in Latin American countries, voted to continue funding of LSC that helps fund 'special interest litigation', voted for a Quota Bill to reverse a SCOTUS decision and put the burden of proof on businesses to demonstrate that they had met quotas for hiring.

1992 - 85 - Voted for a report supporting public money for campaigns, voted to support bilingual balloting for certain language minority populations, voted to over-ride President Bush's veto of the Parental Leave bill and a second bill to re-regulate the cable business which President Bush had vetoed.

1993 - 83 - Voted for the Family and Medical Leave Act, voted for the Campaign Finance bill to provide for public financing of congressional campaigns and put spending limits on races, voted against an amendment that would prohibit support of US troops put under UN command, voted for the Brady Bill.  Failed to vote in the confirmation of lesbian activist Roberta Achtenberg to Assistant Secretary of HUD.

1994 - 96 -  Voted to invoke cloture on a campaign finance bill to provide public funding for congressional campaigns and finance limits.  Did not vote on a bill to kill an amendment to mandate that US loans to the former USSR require collateral and the Goals 2000 education 'voluntary'  standards providing 'opportunity to learn' norms to be established by federal boards.

1995 - 91 - Voted for the Ryan White Reauthorization with Kassebaum amendment that stripped out the Helms language preventing funds to be used in promotion of homosexuality or IV drug use, voted to stop a bill prohibiting open-ended support in Bosnia without Congressional authorization of the mission.

1996 - 95 -  Voted to invoke cloture on the Welfare for Politicians S 1219 Campaign Finance Reform which would set voluntary spending limits and provide taxpayer subsidies for postage and discounted rates for broadcast time.

1997 - 80 -  Voted for the Chemical Weapons Treaty even though it mandated unconstitutional search and seizures and ceded national sovereignty to international agencies, voted for the establishment of National Assessment Governing Board with exclusive authority over voluntary testing in national tests in 4th grade for English and 8th grade for math, voted against a requirement that the American Heritage Rivers Initiative be approved by Congress and end the encroachment of property rights by environmentalists, voted to approve Free Speech Limits in campaigns and change SCOTUS meaning to restrict first amendment rights of issue advocacy groups.

1998 - 68 -  Voted to invoke cloture on the Satcher nomination to be US Surgeon General *and* Assistant Secretary for Health in HHS, voted to revise financing for federal campaigns (McCain Amendment) banning soft money, limit candidate self-financing and put restrictions on issue advertising,  then voted to ensure the amendment was not tabled, then voted to table an amendment by Olympia Snowe that would replace language defining 'express advocacy' (as seen in the SCOTUS ruling), increase disclosure requirements, and prohibit use of labor or corporate money to broadcast campaign ads shortly before an election.  Voted to increase tobacco taxes, then voted for cloture on a bill that would allow the FDA to regulate nicotine and force the industry to pay for anti-smoking advertising.  Voted on the McCain amendment to allow US troops to remain in Bosnia without express approval of both Houses of Congress.

1999 - 77 -  Voted against an amendment to prohibit courts from issuing orders on civil cases regarding prison condition and that such orders would require prisoners to be released from prison or not admitted to prison if incarcerated for a felony or violating parole, voted against the Tax Cut Package, voted against an amendment ending federal campaign contribution limits, ending public financing and requiring national parties to record amounts sent to candidate and disclose that, voted to continue Overseas Private Investment Corporation that supports loan guarantees overseas.  I take an 'A' in the column for votes to be other than positive or negative to the ACU and thus not voting, in which there are 8 instances of this: Local Government Census Review allowing local governments to review census data before it is finalized for housing units and vacancies (this is a Federal not State or Local power), a Tax Limitation Amendment requiring 2/3 majority in House and Senate for a Constitutional Amendment to require a 2/3 majority for any but trivial tax increases (the Amendment failed by 57 votes total, House and Senate), Ground Troops in Bosnia bill requiring that no more funds be authorized unless war is declared, Y2K liability limitations,  payment increase to the UN, UN World Heritage Series endangered monuments bill, Physician-Assisted Suicide.

2000 - 81 -  Voted for an amendment to delete all tax cuts in the Congressional Budget, voted against limiting troop deployment in Kosovo, voted against Bradley Smith to the FEC (Smith is opposed to federal control of politics), voted to continue IRS requirements to disclose membership in political and policy organizations.  Did not vote in 3 matters: Property Rights, S. 625 (killing an amendment allowing federal over-ride of local owner-tenant laws), Educational Savings Accounts, and 2001 Budget Resolution including tax cuts.

2001 - 68 -  Voted on his amendment to end the requirement that unions and corporations obtain permission from dues paying members or shareholders before spending money on political activities, also against an amendment requiring a detailed listing by unions and corporations of their political expenditures,  and another amendment to lift the ban on soft money and disclosure requirements for issue-based advertising (found unconstitutional).  Voted against accelerated removal of the 'marriage penalty' tax, against a temporary reduction in the capital gains tax,  and against the Tax Cut bill containing the previous two items plus a phase-out of the federal estate tax.  Voted against a Sense of the Senate motion on wishing to remove restrictions on the Medical Savings Account demonstration program. Voted against an amendment that would allow lower health care costs by allowing providers to have participants sign a waiver agreeing not to sue.

2002 - 78 -  Voted against a bill to allow States to clear their voter lists every four years so as to remove voters who have not voted in two or more consecutive federal elections, voted against an amendment that would forbid the national government from setting fuel efficiency standards for SUVs and light trucks, voted to pass a bill limiting contributions to national political parties to $2,000 and limit rights of groups and individuals to participate, voted against making the repeal of the Death Tax permanent.  Did not vote on 2 items: Democratic Stimulus and Spending Bill and Government Discrimination in Farm Regulations amendment.

2003 - 80 -  Voted against the Senate final spending and revenue targets for 2004, voted against phasing out taxes on investments and dividend income, voted against an 11 year tax cut reduction package, voted to enforce US compliance with the Kyoto global warming treaty.

2004 - 72 -  Voted against an omnibus spending bill that contained a provision for vouchers to cover tuition at private schools in DC, voted for an amendment to require the States to demonstrate 90% seat buckle use, voted for an amendment prohibiting the sale of handguns without a secure gun storage or safety device, voted for an additional 13 weeks of unemployment benefits, voted for an amendment to make it more difficult to cut taxes, voted for an increase and an attempt to make mandatory federal funding for programs educating the disabled, voted against legislation moving class action lawsuits of >100 people or $5 million into the federal court system.

2005 - 80 -  Voted against an amendment protecting tax cuts, voted for requiring businesses to meet year 2000 'greenhouse gas' emission levels, voted for a joint resolution applying emission standards to existing electrical generation facilities, voted to retain restraints on oil and gas leasing in ANWR, voted for an amendment to raise taxes oil and gas development.

2006 - 65 - Voted for an amendment that would require a 60-vote majority in the Senate to cut taxes, voted against an amendment that would bar illegal immigrants from claiming Social Security credits for work done in years before they had a valid SSN, voted for a bill giving a 'path to citizenship' for illegal aliens, voted against a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, voted for a bill to allow native Hawaiians to set-up 'self-determination' and government to have government-to-government relationships with the US, voted against sanctions on Iran, voted against border fencing, voted for embryonic stem cell research.  Did not vote in two instances: Asbestos Trust fund, and the Medical Malpractice motion limiting liability in malpractice cases.

 

So, over the years John McCain has voted consistently against tax cuts and for making them harder, for unlimited 'peace keeping' operations without Congressional oversight, increasing the size and scope of government in multiple areas (education, air quality emissions, greenhouse gases, quota systems, and regulation of all federal election spending), ignored Constitutional provisions for free speech in campaigns, expanding money to questionable legal services organizations backing advocacy litigation, and would vote even against President Reagan's vetoes... that latter making him that venerable 'maverick' one assumes.

He has voted on many good things, but the instances where he votes to limit the rights of individuals in the areas of basic freedoms (first and second amendments), marginalize State's rights to autonomy within the Union and even vote to factionalize one State government (Hawaii) points to a form of Identity Politics at work... and Nannystate, come to that.

While John McCain has an ACU lifetime of 82.3 (average)...well, I come up with a bit different at 82.1 for the mean, 81 for the median (or center number of the range) with a range of 65 to 96.  Graphically it looks something like this:

This is, perhaps, not the graph of a reliable conservative, but an individual who has some conservative values and some others that are not in tune with conservatives at large.

I have, however, enough views outside the 'conservative' realm that are at variance with the general 'conservative' concept in at least two of the three brands (social and fiscal) and only moderate agreement with the third (security) that I am more than likely to have problems with *any* conservative running for High Office.  For Sen. McCain, however, I do have other problems with him beyond that of the ACU or the other conservative folks, by and large, and have clearly stated so multiple times.

One of the first was in this piece where, for me, John McCain had hit bottom and was continuing to dig hard and furiously downwards.  Some of my concerns are reflected in the ACU view and others are not.  For me Sen. McCain's political life is something that bears examination, even while giving him high regard for his time in the armed forces and as POW, that does not gain a Teflon coating and to my view he has never, ever properly explained himself in many areas going all the way back to the Keating Five scandal.  In trying to make up for that scandal by 'campaign finance reform', Sen. McCain has lost sight of what it was that needed to be addressed: campaign money influencing actual votes in High Office.  The extremely simple route of disclosing all corporate and private source political donors and then not allowing them to author or vote on issues that are of concern to their industries has, somehow, never graced the brow of any of the high-minded 'reformers'.  If you accept money from, say, a corporate or union group, then you should be barred from authoring or voting on legislation regarding those groups.  That does not take a federal mandate or law and could be set up as a set of rules in the House and Senate Chambers done by the members themselves as they are ALLOWED TO DO.  Any union or industry or political lobbyist group or activist organization would be donating so as to get good politicians into office.  And campaigns could *refuse* funds from same JUST LIKE THEY CAN DO TODAY.

For all the worries about 'corrupting influence of funding in politics' this extremely simple answer has, somehow, never been put forward by the 'maverick' or any other of the Congresscritters bleating upon the Hill.

Then there is the atrocious ideas that came forward to *try* and regulate free speech on the campaign trail.

 

Yes the 'I'm the Budweiser Donkey and I approved this message' bit!  Gotta love that, no?  With 'issue ads' suddenly appearing all over the place because, in the attempt to *restrict money* so that it would not *buy votes* it gave us semi-anonymous groups we would never hear from that served as front organizations to get a message out that, in theory, was 'informative' while, in fact, it was just another form of candidacy advertising done by rich individuals, corporations, and groups.  That tag line of being this or that individual/group/corporation and approving the message is all fine and dandy... and hadn't seen the light of day until the idea of 'restricting' donations popped into place.  The question of the utility of such thinly disguised 'issue ads' is one that can be considered by the public at large, and that route may have opened in any event, with the modern mass media proving such a heavy sway in politics. 

Instead of getting forthright organizations that proudly put forward their donor lists to demonstrate that they really, and for true, stand behind their message, we get, instead, organizations funded by front groups for billionaires, overseas interests and second or third level intermediaries between corporations and unions to politics.  That does sound like one other organization that has done this to a fare-thee-well in another realm:  the mafia.

Perhaps limiting downstream funding and demonstrating that only a first level organization directly and openly tied to those pushing a message should be allowed?  And if those involved want to fund a different message group they can do so *directly* and not through an intermediary.  I am, actually, perfectly fine with such advertising and marketing when it is straightforward, above-board and makes no attempt to hide who is actually funding the damned stuff.  Make that a felony where a company gets discorporated (yes un-incorporated but the finality sounds better) and that should remove *that* from the lovely idea of political obfuscation: one strike and you are *out*.  And some hefty prison terms for those that authorized such things, to boot.

Don't worry, you won't get that from Congress, either.  Way, way too simple when you can, instead, infringe upon the average individual's first amendment rights to speech...

I also have problems with Sen. McCain's views and votes on 'the tobacco deal' and Sen. McCain's view about worrying on the influence of tobacco money in Congress could *easily* have been addressed by simple and up-front disclosure by Congresscritters on campaign and lobbyist donations.

Plus making their appointment calendars PUBLIC.  It would be handy to know who they meet with while in office, no?  They are your representatives in the federal government, but heaven forbid if you find out who they actually MEET WITH.  The Media Reformer and Real Reformer hasn't done a thing to actually do any of this 'reforming' and has now formed into something totally other than a 'reformer'.

That, too, will never be seen from the 'maverick' or the other bleating masses of gelatin Upon the Hill: they lack spines.

A prime area of concern for a President is this thing known as 'foreign policy'.  Actually, Sen. McCain had a taste of that already with the idea of limiting Nations that we have Treaties with on their activities.  Which ones?  The Indian Tribes that tried to put up casinos in Arizona.  If John McCain can't figure out Treaties with Native Americans, and that they can, indeed, offer things like gambling and tax-free gasoline and cigarettes, and make some money off of the gambling vice, then perhaps he might rethink this idea of actually being able to know what to do with something a bit more complex like Pakistan with at least two major ethnic groups looking for autonomy (or more) and multiple tribes taking sides on different fronts, along with radical Islamic views percolating through it... and nuclear weapons as the big prize behind the National door.  If he can't figure out Indian Tribes in Arizona, then I have a hard time seeing how he will deal with Pakistan or Kenya or Indonesia.

For me this idea of 'defending the Nation' starts right at the borders: every other Nation thinks that and we are the only ones asinine enough to not believe that, save Europe which appears to be dissolving internally for the want of 'unity' while allowing in so many disparate ethnic groups that the idea of 'the Balkans' may soon have to include Londonistan and Sweden.  And Greenland, come to that.  That is why the 2006 and 2007 immigration views are asinine: it is not about race, it is about national security and national sovereignty.  With Chinese 'Snakeheads' importing near slave labor into the US for 'closed factories', the idea that there is a single 'ethnic problem' is ludicrous.  It is global in scope with folks in the Middle East being able to pay a couple of thousand dollars to get smuggled across the border.  And don't mind the jackets with insignia of groups allied to al Qaeda being found in the desert in the US... I'm sure they were a complete mistake.  As we have started to see in Oklahoma and elsewhere - if we enforce the laws, the majority of illegals will 'self-deport' back home and we are then left with the intractable criminal (and terrorist) problem which, today, we have ZERO handle on due being lost in the noise of so many here illegally.  And *rewarding* those here illegally will NOT STOP THE FLOW.  To stop the flow one must, in actuality, stop the flow.

Walls make damned good neighbors.  Sensor arrays are cheap.  So are those lovely close-in weapons systems the British have reworked for anti-small ship work from their original anti-missile work.  Wall, sensors and NORTHCOM, so the border patrol can ensure that those coming through the actual and legal ports of entry are who they say they are.  That is cheaper than building a nuclear aircraft carrier *hull*.  And even if we are, in the long term, wrong-headed for doing so, it then leaves us with a monument to our utter folly... one that we can enjoy because we did stand up to have a Nation with borders and enforce not only the rule of law but the Law of Nations.

And since I have mentioned *that*, what is it with Sen. McCain and the rest of the wool covered, gelatinous, bleating masses Upon the Hill bleating about having difficulties with *terrorism*?  Their Article I, Section 8 powers specifically mention one tract of information and one particular text known as the Law of Nations (not the lower case assumed law of nations, but the uppercase Title and particular citation sitting right there in the US Constitution where we all ignore it).  This is a generalized society level problem, however, as we are too advanced to remember what Nations are about and what their duties and responsibilities are not only between Nations and within Nations, but citizens within Nations to other Nations.  In our lovely multi-culti 'hug everyone, criticize no one' world of Sen. McCain views, where Americans won't pick lettuce of $50/hour... and even if he *meant* $15/hour it is a slur and insult to the American working population... in that world where nice folks only out of desperation because they are too incompetent to stage a revolution to get rid of inept or dictatorial government at home come to the US to be incompetent, the idea is that Nations *matter* and you do *not* get to break the agreements set up by your Nation with other Nations.  International lawlessness starts, at home, with the individual and then is held accountable by other Nations in their laws when individuals break the Law of Nations.  In that act, even if it is not one done in violence, there is violence done to the concept of Nations by those individuals willing to break down international law to 'find a job'.  To each and every individual who points to such things as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: it applies to Nations and the Nationals within them and those foreigners there legally.  It does not and cannot apply to those who break international law by their actions as they are left up to the Nation they affect to deal with as that Nation sees fit. 

Terrorism is something that, under the Art. I, Sec. 8 powers, Congress can deal with on the 'civil side' of things:  it is given for Congress to put laws against Private War as it is a contravention of the Law of Nations.  While the explicit immigration and Naturalization language is given to Congress, that would also be kept under the more general Law of Nations penalties, so that illegal aliens could be dealt with via either means.  So, too, is the lawlessness of Private War given to Congress on the 'civil side' as it is not Public War in which it can make military rules about.  Just as Piracy had to be dealt with via either the apprehension or killing of those outlaws, so, too, are terrorists in that same category as they both fit under the umbrella of Private War.  Sen. McCain is used to Public War against Nations as are all of our contemporaries: even though we feel the lash and pain of Private War we can no longer name it for the outlawry that it IS.  And, as with Piracy, 'civil law' covers those that are either captured by civil society (police, bounty hunters, etc.) and then put to civil justice so that they get one, and only one, opportunity to demonstrate that they are not part of an organization waging Private War.  That was done with Piracy so that those falsely accused could *clear their names* and the reason we remember Captain Morgan who was branded Pirate for a land based attack is that he went back to London, stood trial and *cleared his name*.  Got Knighted to boot.  On the military side, however, as these are not civil enemies, but enemies against all society, it is left to the military commander to promulgate what should be done with such miscreants.  One President has clearly and unequivocally put forward that as Commander of the Armies and the Navies, that those waging Private War are considered Pirates.  That President offers the most succinct view of how to deal with military targets that are *captured* waging Private War against the Union and it is not a President we would expect it from:  Abraham Lincoln.

If Sen. McCain (R-AZ) cannot abide by the way the Nation was set up and the military view of Private War prosecuted against the US to be handled by the President as something outside the Public War arena, then he will try to muddle that clarity given to the United States by one of the greatest Republicans and a founder of the Republican Party.  Terrorists put themselves into the Outlaw position: not mere criminality but outside the protection of civil law and reverting to the law of nature.  Those that wage Private War, of all stripes, are an abomination to civilization and President Lincoln gave battlefield soldiers the ability to do summary justice based on finding them as they were.  If Sen. McCain thinks that those breaking international law during wartime by abusing prisoners in Vietnam are bad, then terrorists who threaten all the Nations of mankind by declaring war against them are something far worse than mere treaty violators: they repudiate civilization itself.

I can, have and *do* blame both parties and, indeed, most of the modern era for wanting to give up the fabric of civilization in an ephemeral quest to have a lovely transnational world where everyone has the exact same freedoms of the Chinese, the wealth of Namibians and the health of whatever the State decides to give you.  By looking to higher taxes, expanded government and less National Sovereignty, Sen. John McCain has demonstrated by his votes and outlook over more than two decades that this is actually what he supports.  When the Congress of 1986 promised, from the seat of power Upon the Hill, to actually do something to secure the borders and 20 years later we have Sen. McCain trotting out an *amnesty* plan because that hasn't been done, the very best that I can call all those who have sat that long and done nothing is "Seatwarmers".  And trotting it out *again* makes them Incompetent Seatwarmers for they cannot even do their jobs to establish justice and ensure that it is done.  That includes each and every Congresscritter who has matriculated through Congress since 1986 and applies multifold to those who were IN that Congress and had that Congress make a pledge to the American People that they would do their JOBS.  Not that Sen. McCain can actually remember what that job *is* most days as he is a bit too busy being high minded about how he can raise taxes and increase spending to actually worry about the rest of the job description that he and the rest of Congress gets. 

And when Sen. McCain trots out his views on COIN, I take that with a hefty sack of salt as he puts forward something that could not be done with the forces of the Union at that time because conditions were changing rapidly and we did not have the manpower to actually have more forces in the field.  And it was the self-same Sen. McCain that was so hot for a 'peace dividend' that he was willing to cut more than the President wanted from the budget and claim to be a 'conservative' because he wouldn't cut as much as the D party wanted to!  While a 'conservative' realizes that a studied view of what the proper force size should be is done *first* and then the forces adjusted to fit those views, not the other way around.  That left the US with two entire Army Divisions, one of which was the 10MD , so badly hung out to dry in Bosnia for so long because Sen. McCain didn't want to keep President Clinton accountable.  Thus his votes to reduce the force size and readiness along with the impact of long-term 'peace keeping' that Congress would not actually put any oversight upon, meant that when 9/11 rolled around, the foremost Army division for Mountain Warfare was *still* recovering from the abuse it had suffered to put it at the lowest readiness status ever seen since Vietnam.  If he stood true to not wanting to ever repeat that experience for the Armed Forces of the Union, then he should have held President Clinton accountable and *not* allowed the US Army to be hung out to dry by a neglectful CinC and a Congress that didn't want to pay for that neglect... a Congress that he sat in as a Senator.

I will not be voting for Sen. McCain for *anything* and that goes for the rest of the Congresscritters Upon the Hill.  They have all reached the end of the Peter Principle and their incompetence is vast and unwieldy as it stands, thus they are at the pinnacle of their careers.  Like Sen. Clinton, however, Sen. McCain gets especial view, but in his case it is not for being a sociopath, but for being deceitful and seeking to increase the size, scope and power of government over the common man while gesturing as a 'hawk' and then wielding the knife in the background, and then claiming none of the problems he has helped cause have any accountability to him.  In using first illegal alien amnesty and then the armed forces as political footballs in the 1990's, we have reaped a Nation that has porous borders and stood less than ready to respond to Private War brought hard to our shores one bright September morn.  What a difference a single Mountain Division could have made in Afghanistan sent quickly and efficiently to deal with dangers only it could be prepared to know.  By doing this we have seen erosion of the rule of law and such lessened respect for the US that those seeking to attack us felt they could do so with impunity.  And the worse part is that those connections between Charles Keating and BCCI continue to echo throughout the enemies of the Nation and the support given by one Senator who was never held to account for his part in it.  Many of the greatest foes of the US took part in BCCI... and because of those high level connections in government we may never know the full extent of how easily our enemies traded for the means to go after liberty and freedom on a regional and global basis.  And I am sure that is *just* the way Sen. McCain likes it... he has 'reformed' since then.

And it is a form I do not like in the slightest.