Upside to austerity?

Britain and the US, close allies who are both victims of the debt crisis, will today agree to scale down their military capability and back away from the kind of armed intervention they have enthusiastically supported in recent decades.

That will be the clear message from the first meeting between Philip Hammond, the UK's new defence secretary, and Leon Panetta, his opposite number in the Pentagon, officials say. The Washington meeting will also be the first opportunity for Hammond to confront the US over particular British concerns, notably the availability and soaring cost of the US-made joint strike fighters destined for Britain's new aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales.

As the US plans to withdraw more troops from Europe in what is building up to be a turning point in transatlantic relations, Hammond will also lambast European members of Nato for not pulling their weight.

With Panetta expected to announce sweeping cuts in his defence budget, Hammond will point to similarities in the US and UK economic situations, according to officials. "Without strong economies and stable public finances it is impossible to build and sustain, in the long-term, the military capability required to project power and maintain defence," he is expected to tell the Atlantic Council thinktank.

via guardian.co.uk

There may be some overlap between "projecting power" and "maintaining defense." But they aren't necessarily the same thing. Maybe there's an upside to austerity.

Today in inequality reading: Horatio Algier moved to Denmark

At least five large studies in recent years have found the United States to be less mobile than comparable nations. A project led by Markus Jantti, an economist at a Swedish university, found that 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults. That shows a level of persistent disadvantage much higher than in Denmark (25 percent) and Britain (30 percent) — a country famous for its class constraints.

Meanwhile, just 8 percent of American men at the bottom rose to the top fifth. That compares with 12 percent of the British and 14 percent of the Danes.

Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, about 62 percent of Americans (male and female) raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths, according to research by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Similarly, 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths.

By emphasizing the influence of family background, the studies not only challenge American identity but speak to the debate about inequality. While liberals often complain that the United States has unusually large income gaps, many conservatives have argued that the system is fair because mobility is especially high, too: everyone can climb the ladder. Now the evidence suggests that America is not only less equal, but also less mobile.

via nytimes.com

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Ron Paul is the new Louis Farrakhan

As surely as Ron Paul speaks to a real issue--the state's broad use of violence and surveillance--which the America's political leadership has failed to address, Farrakhan spoke to something real, something unsullied, which black America's political leadership failed to address, Both Paul and Farrakhan, in their glamour, inspired the young, the disaffected, the disillusioned. 

To those who dimly perceived something wrong, something that could not be put on a placard, or could not move the party machine, men such as this become something more than political operators, they become symbols. Substantive charges against them, no matter the reasons, are dismissed. The movement they represent means more. But as sure as the followers of Farrakhan deserved more than UFOs, anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories, those of us who oppose the drug-war, who oppose the Patriot Act deserve better than Ron Paul 

via theatlantic.com

I will defend to the death your right to burn the American flag

...but seriously, Occupy Charlotte people, you convince exactly nobody of the rightness of your cause when you do so. That's not effective dissent; it's masturbatory radicalism: It might make you feel good, but other people think it's icky and it's completely unproductive. Yeesh.

What about Ron Paul?

A libertarian friend of mine is very disappointed in me for semi-endorsing Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination over Ron Paul. After all, he points out, Paul's anti-imperialistic views of the presidency—both in war-making and in executive power, generally—are closer to my own than any other GOP candidate. Heck, on those two areas, I like his views better than President Obama.

So why can't I support Paul for the GOP nomination? Easy. I think he'd be a disaster for the country.

Put aside his dubious explanations for the racist newsletters. Put aside the fact that he'd have nearly zero support for his agenda in Congress. Let's look at the agenda itself. (I take all the following statements from his website.)

He'd cut $1 trillion in government spending in the first year of his presidency, on the way to a balanced budget by Year Three. The debt is a problem, I agree, but I believe yanking so much money out of the economy would probably deepen our the Great Recession into something more of a Depression.

He'd eliminate the income, capital gains, and inheritance taxes on his way to keeping the government in its strict Constitutional limits. (Also, to make it easier for you to buy silver and gold coins: His website actually uses that as a rationale for eliminating the capital gains tax.) Maybe that would be replaced by a single flat tax, but mostly he'd eliminate. I'm not really sure how we'd pay for the government that is left.

He'd repeal the gasoline tax. How would we pay for roads?

He'd make it harder for unions to organize.

He'd "abolish the welfare state."

He'd make it impossible to rationally deal with the illegal immigrants present in the United States. (UPDATE: Specifically, he wants "no amnesty" for such immigrants. Which sounds fine, I guess, except the U.S. isn't going to deport the 11-12 million such folks who are here. Combine that with the abolishment of birthright citizenship, below, and Paul's policy would create a permanent underclass of non-citizens doing our menial work without the protections or responsibilities of citizenship. Yuck.)

He'd abolish birthright citizenship for the sons and daughters of immigrants.

So I generally—but warily—agree with Paul's instinct to be restrained in the use of American force abroad. But my impression of his overall agenda is that it would produce a crumbling country, meaner and more Darwinian. I'm not a libertarian, even though I have those instincts in certain areas. Some of what I've described above sound like features to my libertarian friend, I'm sure; it sounds like bugs to me.

If effective, Ron Paul would be a disaster. But given the unlikelihood of cooperation with Congress, I think he'd be merely ineffectual. Either way, why would I support him?

The government can be sued for warrantless wiretapping. The telecom companies can't.

LA Times:

Residential telephone customers can sue the government for allegedly eavesdropping on their private communications in a warrantless "dragnet of ordinary Americans," a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, however, upheld dismissal of other cases that sought to hold the telecommunications companies liable, citing Congress' decision to grant them retroactive immunity.

I'm kinda-sorta OK with this outcome. The telecom companies facilitated the eavesdropping at the government's behest; targeting the companies for their participation was always a way of trying to hold somebody accountable for the government's illegal actions. I'm no fan of big corporations, but if the government that has regulatory power over you prompts you to do something illegal in the name of preventing terrorist attacks—well, I imagine that prompt would be pretty difficult to ignore. The government's responsible here; let's hold the government accountable.

That said, remember: Then-Senator Obama voted to give the telecoms immunity. It was an early indication that maybe he wasn't quite as committed to the civil liberties cause as we hoped.

The Charlie Savage survey: Treaties are law

The New York Times' Charlie Savage is an essential reporter on issues of presidential power. He does us all a great service today by surveying the presidential candidates about their views of such power. (President Obama—who answered Savage's 2008 survey, declined to answer; so did Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann.) I'll be dipping in and out of the questions today with an observation or two.

Like this one. Savage asked: "Under what circumstances, if any, is the president, when operating overseas as commander-in-chief, free to disregard treaties to which the United States is a party?"

There are some bullshit evasions. (Rick Perry: “'Disregard' is a vague and subjective term.") Outside of Ron Paul—who will get his own blog post on this matter—Mitt Romney offers the most cogent answer:

The president’s most important obligation is to protect the United States in a manner consistent with the Constitution and U.S. law. The president should also heed binding international agreements, so long as those agreements do not impinge upon the president’s constitutional duties or authorities granted by applicable statute.

The suggestion here is that the United States' international treaties are subordinate to domestic law. Which sounds reasonable, except for one thing: The United States treaties are binding law.

That's what the Constitution says, in Article VI:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Treaties aren't lesser-than, under the Constitution: They're the "supreme law of the land." It's possible for both laws to conflict, or to be un-Constitutional. But for a president to disregard a treaty means that he's ignoring the judgement of (probably) both a predecessor president and two-thirds of the Senate that the treaty was constitutional and appropriate. To quietly ignore a treaty—as the Bush Administration did when it tortured terrorist suspects—is to quietly break the law. Romney's answer elides that important truth.