Federalist 23-29: Freedom, and the national security state

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There's a conservative narrative of the last 100 years or so that goes something like this: America started to become a little less free -- a little less tethered to its Constitution -- about the time that Franklin D. Roosevelt took power during the Great Depression and started creating the welfare state. Every new entitlement -- "ObamaCare," say -- and every slight tax increase represents a near-tyrannical intrusion of the state into realms that should be private. Every time a Medicare check goes out, then, freedom dies a little more and somewhere in the great beyond, Friedrich Hayek sheds a tear. Or maybe Ayn Rand.

There's an alternative narrative -- one that doesn't get as much attention -- and in the last year it's been most famously advanced by onetime conservative author Garry Wills. In this reading of history, it was indeed Franklin D. Roosevelt who expanded the state at the expense of the individual -- but it wasn't Social Security that represented tyranny: It was the explosive growth of the national security state, which since World War II has granted the president ever greater -- and, seemingly, ever-more-uncheckable -- power, all in the name of protecting America from her enemies.

Which brings us back to 200 years ago, and the adoption of the Constitution. Its passage, it seems, was no sure thing, and the central issue in the debate between Federalists and Antifederalists, it seems, was freedom: What form of government would be effective, yet still allow men -- and it was men who had the freedom -- the latitude to live their lives as they pleased?

There's not much in either the Federalist or the Antifederalist papers to suggest that the welfare state was a concern in the debate over freedom. To be fair, partisans on both sides probably hadn't conceived of it. Instead, they clashed over a controversial power of the new goverment: The power to raise a standing army.

"Brutus" writing in Antifederalist 24, made the case plain:

. . . . Standing armies are dangerous to the liberties of a people. . . . [If] necessary, the truth of the position might be confirmed by the history of almost every nation in the world. A cloud of the most illustrious patriots of every age and country, where freedom has been enjoyed, might be adduced as witnesses in support of the sentiment. But I presume it would be useless, to enter into a labored argument, to prove to the people of America, a position which has so long and so generally been received by them as a kind of axiom.

This, it seems, was an argument the Federalists took seriously. Alexander Hamilton spent all of Federalist 23 through 29 defending the government's prerogative to raise a standing army. And he made some decent arguments -- pointing out, not unreasonably, that most state governments at the time were empowered to raise armies, and that furthermore the "Western frontier" of the United States, still confined to those early 13 coast-hugging colonies, was in need of defense. If an invasion came,it would already be too late to form an army to repel the attack. And in Federalist 25, he even makes the odd argument that it's safe to let the federal government raise a standing army precisely because Americans would be suspicious of infringement on their liberties:

As far as an army may be considered as a dangerous weapon of power, it had better be in those hands of which the people are most likely to be jealous than in those of which they are least likely to be jealous. For it is a truth, which the experience of ages has attested, that the people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.

Hamilton's strongest argument against a standing army being used to usurp American liberties, though, comes from the structure of the government itself. The chief executive might be willing to use the army for nefarious purposes, he says, but then he'd have to contend with Congress!

Federalist 24:

the whole power of raising armies was lodged in the legislature, not in the executive; that this legislature was to be a popular body, consisting of the representatives of the people periodically elected; and that instead of the provision he had supposed in favor of standing armies, there was to be found, in respect to this object, an important qualification even of the legislative discretion, in that clause which forbids the appropriation of money for the support of an army for any longer period than two years a precaution which, upon a nearer view of it, will appear to be a great and real security against the keeping up of troops without evident necessity.

From this, we can gather a few things:

* That Hamilton didn't really forsee that the executive branch -- despite the division of powers enumerated in the Constitution -- would claim for itself practically unlimited and unilateral power over national security.

* Nor did he forsee that Congress would generally defer to the executive's assertion of authority.

* Then again, none of the folks involved really foresaw the explosive growth of a national security state that involves hundreds of thousands of people collecting snooping and spying on, well, pretty much all electronic communication on Planet Earth. Concerns about a "standing army" seem almost quaint, don't they.

One wonders what Brutus or Alexander Hamilton would've made of today's lead story in the Washington Post, and these findings:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

There are reasons for all of this, of course. We want to be kept safe from the threats the world aims at us. The result is that we have a huge -- and, because it is so huge, virtually unchecked -- national security establishment that operates in the shadows, out of the public's sight. Alexander Hamilton promised us that Congress would keep the leviathan in check. It hasn't. Do you feel any more free?

Eric Cantor's piddly YouCut site proves Republicans aren't serious about cutting the deficit

Via Twitter, Peter Suderman points out that Republicans plan on campaigning this fall against the federal deficit, but have no plans to actually do anything about it if they take Congress. See Sunday's "Meet The Press" for confirmation. In response to such complaints, National Review's Robert Costa points to Eric Cantor's YouCut website, which he describes:

Cantor debuted YouCut [in May]. Its premise is simple: Each week, Americans can vote for their favorite of five potential spending cuts on the web (or via text message to 68398). Cantor works to bring the winner to the House floor. With one click, you can help to shape the House GOP agenda.

“It allows us to focus on out-of-control federal spending, the number-one issue for millions of Americans,” Cantor says. “For us, it is an unprecedented online project.”

Unprecedented? Whatever. It's also incredibly piddly and lame. Look at the current options YouCut offers for a vote.

* Eliminating unnecessary Congressional spending: Potential savings of $35 million over 10 years.

* Eliminate the "Dodd Earmark" from "ObamaCare:" Savings of $100 million over 10 years.

* Prohibiting first class subsidies on Amtrak: Potential savings of $1.2 billion over 10 years.

* Reform the Energy Star program: $655 million over 10 years.

* Prevent energy assistance payments to dead people: "Hundreds of millions of dollars" over 10 years.

Notice a common attribute? All these options are piddly rounding errors in the gargantuan federal budget, eliminating -- at most -- $120 million a year out of a $3.55 trillion budget! It's simply not a serious attempt to address budget fears; it looks a lot more like feeble, ineffective pandering. Real austerity is going to force people to give up stuff they want or like getting from government. And not just the poor, "unproductive" people. Hard, politically unpopular choices will have to be made. Republicans have never shown the ability to make those choices. Eric Cantor's "unprecedented" web site proves the point.

Today in Judeo-Christian justification: Immigration

Late in the New York Times' story about how evangelical leaders are teaming up with President Obama to reform immigration law -- including a sort of amnesty for illegal immigrants already on American soil -- we hear from Bryan Fischer of the conservative American Family Association.

Bryan Fischer, director of issue analysis for the American Family Association, a national conservative Christian organization in Tupelo, Miss., said, “What my evangelical friends are arguing is that illegal aliens should essentially be rewarded for breaking the law.

“I think it’s extremely problematic from a Judeo-Christian standpoint to grant citizenship to people whose first act on American soil was to break an American law,” said Mr. Fischer, who hosts a daily radio show on which immigration is a frequent topic.

Well, sure. It's not as though the core doctrine of Christianity involves redemption and forgiveness for a lifetime of sins. It's certainly not like Jesus told his human followers to offer forgiveness for sins "not seven times, but seventy-seven times."

Now, I'm not saying that illegal immigrants should be offered amnesty. (Although I think it makes sense, but that's not the point here.) But even though I'm agnostic these days, I have a long background in the church. And I hate to see people blithely invoke "Judeo-Christian" tradition to justify their policy preferences -- particularly when their invocation actually contradicts the religion they use as justification.

George Will's silly plan for Republican outreach to Latinos

George Will thinks the GOP can capture some of the Latino vote by ... making Puerto Rico a state. He uses his Sunday column to profile Luis Fortuno, the Republican governor of Puerto Rico:

Conservatives need a strategy for addressing the immigration issue without alienating America's largest and most rapidly growing minority. Conservatives believe the southern border must be secured before there can be "comprehensive" immigration reform that resolves the status of the 11 million illegal immigrants. But this policy risks making Republicans seem hostile to Hispanics.

Fortuno wants Republicans to couple insistence on border enforcement with support for Puerto Rican statehood. This, he says, would resonate deeply among Hispanics nationwide.

But why would that be the case? Latinos aren't abandoning the Republican Party over concerns about the citizenship of other Latinos 1,000 miles away from U.S. shores. They're abandoning the GOP because they don't like how Republicans are treating them right here in the lower 48 states. The Arizona immigration-enforcement law, as has been much noted, makes it likely that U.S. citizens and legal immigrants of Latino descent will have to go the extra mile to literally prove themselves to police -- all by virtue of their race.

Making Puerto Rico a state doesn't address those concerns. Using the rationale offered by Will and Fortuno, it frankly smacks of a "some of my best friends are Latinos" tokenism -- we're happy to bring a majority Latino state into the union, it seems, as long as that state can only be reached by plane or boat. Such factors would probably exacerbate the GOP's image problem among Hispanics, and probably deservedly so.

Bag O' Books: "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman

Despite being very, very, very nerdy, I've never been much of a reader of fantasy books. I've got friends who are all up in Robert Jordan's house, and I feel like I should be there with them. But I'm not.

I occasionally -- thanks to the influence of my wife -- make an exception for the books of Terry Pratchett. He's an English fantasy writer, creator of the "Discworld" series of books that tell fantasy stories filtered through the lens of British humor. It works for me. And a few years ago, I greatly enjoyed "Good Omens," a novelistic collaboration about the Apocalypse from Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, who's probably better-known for his graphic novel work.

Which is why I picked up Gaiman's "American Gods" a few weeks ago. And I wish I'd enjoyed it more than I did. Which, ok, I did enjoy it a little bit. But it wasn't really absorbing. Without Pratchett's collaboration, Gaiman comes across as a very, very smart guy who's more interested in ideas than in storytelling. The end result is something cool, a bit didactic, somewhat entertaining, but never fully gripping.

Short synopsis: Our protagonist, Shadow, finishes a stint in prison only to go to work for a mysterious figure named "Wednesday." Wednesday, it turns out, is the American version of the Norse god Odin, who is rounding up all the other ancient gods brought to these shores by ancient cultures from around the world to mount a final all-consuming battle against the new gods who are displacing them in American culture -- the gods of debt, technology, credit cards and cable TV, among others.

Which gives you a taste of where "American Gods" is coming from -- a wry critique on the culture, which creates its gods in living, breathing form through the act of worship. The end battle, when it comes, doesn't really offer us insight about the critique -- it's there to round the story out. The result is a "novel of ideas" -- a term that usually describes books that are overly preachy -- that doesn't really commit to being a novel or to its own ideas.

But maybe I'm expecting too much. "American Gods" is reasonably diverting, so long as Neil Gaiman's reputation hasn't been oversold to you. And better an novel of incomplete ideas than no ideas at all.

Arizona will stop enforcing a controversial law

No, not that law:

At the first tick of the clock Friday, an array of automated cameras on Arizona freeways aimed at catching speeders were to stop clicking.

There is no glitch. The state, the first to adopt such cameras on its highways in October 2008, has become the first to pull the plug, bowing to the wishes of a vocal band of conservative activists who complained that photo enforcement intruded on privacy and was mainly designed to raise money.

It was a tumultuous, impassioned run here. A man wearing a monkey mask racked up dozens of tickets, fighting them in court, to protest the system.

Some of the loudest critics were conservatives, who organized protest groups and prodded legislators to impose restrictions on their use, arguing the cameras amounted to, as one put it, the “government spying on its citizens.”

The data suggested that the system led to a 19-percent drop in fatal collisions. But it's good that Arizona officials see the wisdom of backing away from an intrusive law that seems likely to catch and penalize a fair number of innocent people in its sweep. If only that logic were applied more widely.

It all depends on whose ox is being gored, I guess.

Once again, Andy McCarthy wants Iraqis to be grateful for being invaded

There's not a lot I'm going to say about Andy McCarthy's latest column in National Review, except that I want to note -- again -- the amazing and repugnant way he characterizes Iraqis:

When the WMD did not materialize, the result of “look forward, not back” was to portray nation-building — a goal the public never agreed to — as the dominant purpose of our prohibitively costly presence in Iraq, an ungrateful Muslim country that generally despises Americans. 

This isn't the first time that McCarthy has called Iraqis "ingrates" -- and really, there's a (can't get around this word) imperialist presumption to his attitude that's quite simply breathtaking. "You'll take our invasion -- and the years of bloody violence it unleashes -- and you'll like it!"

As McCarthy notes, we didn't actually invade Iraq in order to bestow the blessings of freedom -- even in the anger that permeated America after 9/11, there probably wouldn't have been much stomach to go nation-building for the pure and simple pleasure of nation-building. We invaded Iraq to protect ourselves. And it turns out that we were mistaken in doing so. Most folks aren't grateful to you, though, when you act in your own interests.

Don't get me wrong (it must always be said): Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. But let's try a little empathy exercise: If you were an Iraqi and had your life under a vile dictator usurped by outsiders -- who gave you years of bloody and explosive violence and public infrastructure problems, only to end up with an apparent strongman leader with ties to Iran -- how grateful would you be feeling? McCarthy, like too many of his ilk, is so proud of the efforts and sacrifices of U.S. servicemen and women that he can't even imagine why Iraqis wouldn't see it the same way. The problem isn't really one of Iraqi non-gratitude. The real problem is Andy McCarthy's chauvinism.