Mark Krikorian: Governments were made for executions

In the wake of the Troy Davis execution, NRO's Mark Krikorian argues that we wouldn't even have government if citizens didn't want murderers killed. (He doesn't name Davis, weirdly.) It's an odd argument.

If the state refuses, as a matter of policy, to execute murderers under any circumstances, it rejects the reason people submitted to government in the first place and underlines its own legitimacy. And this isn’t just theoretical bloviation — people sense it in their hearts, even if they don’t think about it in those terms. That was the appeal of Chuck Bronson’s Death Wish movies — when the state fails to carry out its most elementary duty, people will resort to vigilantism, i.e., they seek justice in the only way available to our ancestors in pre-political times.

It's true that one of the things that makes a government a government is that it largely has a monopoly on force. But I guess I'm hugely dubious about the idea that governments are made for the express purpose of executing people. And Krikorian's Charles Bronson example is illustrative of that. "Death Wish" came out in 1974—two years after the Supreme Court (temporarily, it turned out) ended the death penalty in the United States. But the crime wave of the 1960s and 1970s had started several years before that.  People were already fed up.

I don't think people don't find their government illegitimate when it doesn't execute murderers. But they do find government illegitimate when it can't generally keep a lid on the number of murders, and generally bring murderers to justice. Pile that on top of a whole range of other, mostly lesser crimes, and people don't feel secure in their communities. New York hasn't executed anybody since 1963; the city faced questions of governability during the crime wave—along with a financial crisis—but was reborn in the 1990s thanks to a combination of demographics and policing that had nothing whatsover to do with the death penalty. New York became safer, so people became more confident in the city as a place to work, play, live, and pay taxes.

That's where a government gets its legitimacy: Protecting and serving its citizens. Killing a few of those citizens doesn't necessarily get the job done, especially—as in the case of Troy Davis—when there are real questions of innocence. The State of Georgia in particular, and death penalty jurisprudence in general, face more doubts about their legitimacy today than they did yesterday. It's not because they refused to execute a man.

The United States and the Economic Freedom of the World

The latest Economic Freedom index report is out, and the clear talking point is that the United States dropped four spots in the rankings. What that talking point omits is that the United States is still ranked No. 10 out of 141 nations. In other words: Our economy is still incredibly free, despite the socialist designs of President Barack Obama.

Still, even if one believes the United States is trending in the wrong direction, it's interesting to contemplate the nations ahead of us on the chart. Hong Kong comes in at No. 1; Singapore comes in at No. 2. These are not nations (ahem) noted for their political and civil liberties; the former is under the control of the People's Republic of China, while the latter is, well, Singapore. Tea Partiers have spent the last couple of years suggesting that economic liberty—freedom from regulations and burdensome taxes—are, perhaps, the foundational part of personal liberty. But the Economic Freedom Index suggests the two are easily separated.

Two other countries ahead of the United States on the list: The UK and Canada. These, of course, are the tyrannic socialist hellholes we were warned against becoming if the United States adopted a healthcare system anywhere close to ones run by those countries. Apparently they're also good places to do business.

I'm trying not to be snarky, and failing. The point is that much of the political rhetoric we've heard the last two years has suggested the United States is sliding into an anti-freedom morass of taxes, regulations, and central planning. Relative to the rest of the world, however, we're extraordinarily free—both economically, and with regards to our political and civil liberties. It's good to be vigilant in defense of freedom, but a little perspective helps.

John McNesby is right about something

I mostly reference John McNesby when the FOP president is defending abuses or criminal activity by Philadelphia cops, so I should mention that I think he's right to file a grievance against City Hall for the "deplorable" facilities that many officers are working in:

Fleas are far from the only issue within the facilities, McNesby said. Cells in the 15th District station, at Harbison Avenue and Levick Street, have been closed since July because of a bedbug infestation, he said. That station and those in other districts often flood and leak when it rains, he added, and some are riddled with asbestos, lack sufficient plumbing and have heating and cooling systems that don't work.

 The city's obviously had its share of budget problems in recent years, but the kinds of problems described here don't happen overnight: They're the result of years and years of deferred maintenance and upgrades. Never a good idea, but all-too-typical of short-sighted municipal budgeting.

Max Boot cries wolf, Taiwan edition

Max Boot:

The Osama bin Laden raid notwithstanding, the Obama administration continues to project an air of weakness and irresolution on national security that will come back to haunt us. The latest example is its refusal to sell F-16s to our democratic ally Taiwan.

Taiwan is facing a growing imbalance of cross-Straits power as China continues to increase its defense budget by double-digit figures every year. This buildup is tilting the odds against the U.S. Navy in the western Pacific and making it increasingly likely Taiwan would be on its own in any crisis. That makes it all the more imperative Taiwan have the ability to defend itself.

Say, here is the challenge the U.S. Navy faces:

The Chinese navy's first aircraft carrier has begun its sea trials, the state-run Xinhua news agency has said.

The BBC's Michael Bristow in Beijing says China is years away from being able to deploy this carrier as a potent military tool. Even so, the country's neighbours will be worried.

I'd say the United States Navy is still in good shape. Despite the fact that we spend as much on our military as the rest of the world combined, Max Boot would have you believe were always on the verge of losing our ability to dominate ... other continents that aren't our own.

As far as the F-16s go, NYT points out that the Bush Administration wouldn't sell them either:

“The notion that is being bandied about that this a capitulation to China, given the unprecedented magnitude of sales in the first two and a half years of the administration, and that F-16’s were never authorized by the Bush administration, suggests that these attacks are partisan rather than security-based,” said Jeffrey A. Bader, a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Yup.

Andrew Breitbart fantasizes about killing liberals. He is not kidding.

Ever since the Giffords shooting, my conservative friends have been quick to hop on every violent metaphor that comes from the mouth or pen of any reasonably liberal person in America. "So much for the new tone," they harp, because—hey, everybody does it. Right?

 My problem was never with violent metaphors, so much, though I'm not such a fan. My problem was the ideology that suggested that armed rebellion was an appropriate response to tyranny—and a clear consistent message that the Obama Presidency was a tyranny which, perhaps, merited that response. It wasn't the metaphors that bothered me; it was the underlying—though likely idle—threat of actual violence. In this, large swaths of the conservative movement can sometimes be that guy at the end of the bar who threatens to kick your ass and never does. You don't expect trouble, but it wouldn't really surprise you if trouble happened, either.

 All this is prelude to Andrew Breitbart's latest fantasy:

Ranting Weiner fetishist and far-right blog mogul Andrew Breitbart is so tired of "vicious" Twitter leftists and liberals calling him gay—which they do for no reason—that sometimes, during "unclear moments" of addled thinking and high emotions, he thinks about how cool it would be if America had another civil war. Then he might finallyfulfill his promise of taking down America's Left, and also end his own victimization. "Major-named" people in the military has his back on this! 

Breitbart's war fantasy pits Janeane Garofalo, SEIU, and "public sector union thugs" vs. him and America's gun-owning anti-liberals. "They can only win a rhetorical or propaganda war," he told a gathering of Tea Partiers in Boston. "We outnumber them and we have the guns." When the gatherers laugh, he reiterates: "I'm not kidding."

"I'm not kidding."

"I'm not kidding."

"I'm not kidding."

I'd like to think that Breitbart is, you know, actually kidding. But Breitbart isn't nobody in the conservative movement; he's not a fringe figure. And I'm pretty sure my conservative friends aren't going to tut-tut knowingly about the "new tone" this time. They'll keep silent, or offer up a feeble excuse, then jump on the next words said by a union leader. Whatever.

About the 'soft socialism' of Big Defense Spending

Some of my conservative friends have taken issue with my use of the term "soft socialism" to describe how defense spending is used not just for defense purposes, but to prop up the economy and provide jobs. Defense, they point out, is an enumerated power of the government under the Constitution. And so it is! But so is the establishment of post offices. And I doubt very much that my conservative friends would describe that as a capitalist enterprise: Just because the Founders thought of something doesn't mean it was market-oriented. In any case, defense is an enumerated power—but the military we have today, with bases and ships around the world, is also light years away from what the Founders conceived. That never comes up.

Max Boot sounds just like Paul Krugman

Conservative military analyst Max Boot has never met a defense spending cut he likes, but his latest argument against cuts is ... interesting:

The defense secretary estimates trimming $1 trillion from the defense budget during the next decade–as could occur this fall–would add one percent to the unemployment rate. Given that unemployment is now at 9.1 percent, that’s a further hit that our economy simply can’t afford.

Now, Boot doesn't really write or advocate on economics. But it's interesting that his argument here very like Paul Krugman: We shouldn't be cutting big chunks from government right now because that austerity withdraws money from the economy and thus deepens the Great Recession.

But of course, mainstream conservative Republicans—whatever their fiscal rhetoric—have long favored the soft socialism of big defense spending. It's masked because the money goes to private defense contractors, so the guy in Wichita who makes a widget that goes on a helicopter doesn't really see himself as being on the government dole. The idea of using the government to prop up economic demand works when it comes to the defense sector, apparently, but for everybody else it's free markets, Ayn Rand, and gruel.