Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Ashcroft: Archive Entry From Brad DeLong's Webjournal

As a fan of Evil, I'm devastated to learn that Ashcroft's unprecedented assault on our civil liberties is so precedented.

Posted by: Paul Zrimsek on November 29, 2002 09:57 PM

This is a bit off track but wouldn't a pay increase, or a larger pay increase actually help the economy?

In a letter addressed to congressional leaders, Bush said "full statutory civilian pay increases in 2003 would interfere with our nation's ability to pursue the war on terrorism." The letter was released last night.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55414-2002Nov29.html

Posted by: Bruce Ferguson on November 30, 2002 05:58 AM

We should be leery of handing over more power to the government. I actually encourage the hard questioning of John Ashcroft and the Bush administration. My personal political philosophy revolves around the concept that citizens should be reluctant to to relinquish power unless there is no other choice. Our motto should be: “Damn it, do we really have to give the bureaucrats more control? Can’t we find another alternative?” Yet, I don’t get the impression that most critics of Ashcroft give a darn about doing this. Instead, they are too busy blasting him as some sort of right wing extremist Puritan.

Don’t the Democrats realize why they did so poorly in the recent elections? Many of us are more than willing to give them a fair hearing, but they persist in indulging in immature name calling. How about some substance? When will a no nonsense Reinhold Niebuhr appear to lead the Liberals out of the wilderness? Are Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore truly the best they can currently come up with?

Posted by: David Thomson on November 30, 2002 08:46 AM

>> The world today is about as dangerous a place as it was back in 1997. The threat of international terrorism is of the same order of magnitude now as it was then. But Attorney General Ashcroft has turned a somersault. Why? Because now he holds executive power, of course... <<

"Of course"? How about the events of September 11, 2001?

Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on November 30, 2002 10:07 AM

'Of course"? How about the events of September 11, 2001?'

So Ashcroft didn't know about terrorism back then? That's the only nice interpretation I can come up with.....

Posted by: Jason McCullough on November 30, 2002 06:02 PM

Dr Delong

On politics, wouldn't it make more sense to hear more about the Liberal Democrats' introspection progress, and assessment why they are losing the middle class voter?

And why the complaint about the senseless wall between FBI and DOJ's sharing critical terrorist info that your adminstration put up to begin with? Seems they really handcuffed us.

Just curious.

From a fan of your productivity commentary, btw.

VBR

Posted by: Eric on December 1, 2002 08:24 AM

“As a fan of Evil, I'm devastated to learn that Ashcroft's unprecedented assault on our civil liberties is so precedented.”

Even Liberal David Rieff recently took to task those who compared John Ashcroft to the Nazis. He found this to be morally repellent. Ashcroft is not above severe questioning concerning his department’s handling of the war on terrorism. Still, there is something wrong when some people actually perceive Ashcroft as more dangerous than Osama bin Ladin.

I strongly encourage everybody to ask the hard questions of Mr. Ashcroft. You do, however, have an obligation to present us with realistic alternatives. Simply charging Ashcroft with being some sort of %#@*& scum bag isn't getting the job done.

Posted by: David Thomson on December 1, 2002 09:59 AM

"My personal political philosophy revolves around the concept that citizens should be reluctant to to relinquish power unless there is no other choice."

An interesting quote from David Thompson! Reads quite like (libertarian ;-)) Thomas Jefferson's classic line:

"In questions of power, then, let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

I agree with both Mr. Thompson (for once) and Mr. Jefferson (as usual).

Another great quote from Jefferson:

"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people' (10th Amendment). To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition."

Bring back the 10th Amendment! :-) Power to The People! :-)

Mark Bahner (classical liberal)

P.S. Source of quotes:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/5534/quote011.htm

Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 1, 2002 02:08 PM

"My personal political philosophy revolves around the concept that citizens should be reluctant to to relinquish power unless there is no other choice."

An interesting quote from David Thompson! Reads quite like (libertarian ;-)) Thomas Jefferson's classic line:

"In questions of power, then, let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

I agree with both Mr. Thompson (for once) and Mr. Jefferson (as usual).

Another great quote from Jefferson:

Bring back the 10th Amendment! :-) Power to The People! :-)

Mark Bahner (classical liberal)

P.S. Source of quotes:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/5534/quote011.htm

Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 1, 2002 02:08 PM

A word of advice pertaining to Mr. Jefferson. The man was not always logically consistent. Have we already forgotten the Louisiana Purchase? Jefferson’s political positions were all over the ideological spectrum. It’s safe to say that this Founding Father (brother) was something of a pragmatist instead of a Libertarian purist.

Posted by: David Thomson on December 1, 2002 04:36 PM

As regards David Thomson’s post (9:59am), true enough, brandishing ugly comparisons won’t get us very far in protecting our liberties or our selves. I do have to wonder whether, in the longer term, Ashcroft isn’t more dangerous to what we (I, anyway) value than bin Laden. This has less to do with who Ashcroft is than with the fact that he is one of our leaders, so can take actions and set precedents that will have lasting implications. Bin Laden is an outsider. He won’t change our society as much as we do. He sets things in motion, but our response is our own. Taking a course that narrows our freedoms unnecessarily, that puts power in the hands of our leaders that they don’t need in order to protect us, but may use to oppress us, is the wrong path. We make that choice, not bin Laden.

It is a numbers problem, as well as a power problem. Bin Laden has managed to kill many people. Terrible though that is, what we now must assess is what is to come. Bin Laden and other terrorists have to be selective, secretive, opportunistic. Hunting them and heightening our security efforts makes their job harder, so the number of people they can harm goes down. That’s good, but there are a lot of ways to hunt them and improve our own security and we ought to be scrupulous in our choices. The number of people that our government can harm is very large, even if the harm in most cases is slight. There is no need to see Ashcroft as evil in order to see him as more dangerous, to our freedoms, our culture and our political life, than bin Laden is. Ashcroft is, of course, just the point man. Choices of war and peace, diplomatic relations, friend and foe made by other parts of our government will surely put more people, over time, at risk of harm and of death than anything bin Laden will do. The notion that bin Laden is the greater danger allows us to forgive policies and actions by our leaders that we ought not to forgive, or to tolerate.

As regards DT's 4:36pm post: A pragmatist rather than a Libertarian (or any other kind of) purist? Good for Jefferson!

Posted by: on December 2, 2002 05:50 AM

That's me at 5:50 am. Brad, fix your clock.

Posted by: K Harris on December 2, 2002 05:52 AM

By the way, there is a parallel with Dick Cheney's assesment of whether invading Irak is a good idea given the context of the Middle East. When Bush I stoped short from doing it, Cheney explained thoroughly why it is crazy to intervene in the Middle-East mosaic (the Shias, the Kurds, Turkey, etc...) He must believe today that the Middle-East has greatly simplified since he began working for Bush II...

Posted by: Jean-Philippe Stijns on December 2, 2002 09:15 AM

I can't say much about Cheney's positions, Jean-Phillipe, but there is an alternative, and more plausible, reason for the two conflicting positions you write about. The earlier posiion is held by those who think that maintaining the status quo was tenable; that the risk of large slaughter of American citizens was reasonably small if region was left unchanged, or changed slowly. The latter position is held by those who, while acknowledging that forcibly, rapidly, changing the status quo is fraught with potential pitfalls, some quite disastrous, any attempt to maintain the status quo, or to change it slowly, comes with a near-certain guarantee of catastrophic failure. Thus, the preference is to force rapid change, despite the complexity and danger. Now, if this Administration has no other plans for the region than simply toppling Iraq's mass murderer, then indeed thay have fallen well short in the development of strategy, which must be evaluated seperately from the implementation of strategy, in that sometimes the competing alternatives are both so poor in chances of success that even the best designed plans will likely fail. If this Administration, however, sees toppling Saddam as but one piece, although the one that is attracting the most public attention, in the essential process of rapidly changing the status quo, then the strategy may be very sound indeed, although still fraught with risk. Since successful prosecution of strategy necessarily involves a great deal deception, it is very difficult for any outside a fairly small circle of knowledge to evaluate what strategy does or does not exist. Interesting times ain't easy to live in.

Posted by: Will Allen on December 2, 2002 01:10 PM

"A word of advice pertaining to Mr. Jefferson. The man was not always logically consistent."

Very few people are. Witness G.W. Bush's signing of the Campaign Finance Reform bill, after saying he thought it violated the First Amendment (which any fool could see it does).

"Have we already forgotten the Louisiana Purchase?"

I haven't. But I also recall that he wrote THIS draft Constitutional amendment to make the Louisiana Purchase "kosher":

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mtj1&fileName=mtj1page003.db&recNum=0041

So he didn't completely ignore the Constitution when making the Purchase. I guess he just couldn't wait to close the deal. He definitely should have waited. Just as G.W. Bush should have waited until the First Amendment officially voided, before he signed Campaign Finance Reform.

"Jefferson’s political positions were all over the ideological spectrum."

Absolutely untrue. He was about close to a modern Libertarian as one could get for those times. (His main failing being, of course, slavery. Even then, he knew it was wrong. He just couldn't bring himself to personally act on that knowledge. He lied to himself, by rationalizing that blacks were inferior...even though he knew from experience that they weren't.)

"It’s safe to say that this Founding Father..."

As was pointed out to me on Free Republic, Jefferson was not a Founding Father. "Founding Father" is reserved for the men who were at the Constitutional Convention. Jefferson was invited to the Convention, but was in France at the time.

"...was something of a pragmatist instead of a Libertarian purist."

Once again, except for slavery, he was about as close to a modern Libertarian as those times produced. (Oh, public education...that too.)

The overwhelming philosophies of his life were: 1) that governments were made to serve The People, rather than the other way around, and 2) the purpose of government is to ensure rights. There is absolutely NO doubt in my mind, that if Jefferson were alive today, he would be a Libertarian. (He would absolutely despise both the Democratic and Republican parties; he'd be livid that Democrats have the gall to have a "Jefferson/Jackson" dinner.

Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 3, 2002 03:36 PM

K. Harris writes, "Bin Laden is an outsider. He won’t change our society as much as we do. He sets things in motion, but our response is our own. Taking a course that narrows our freedoms unnecessarily, that puts power in the hands of our leaders that they don’t need in order to protect us, but may use to oppress us, is the wrong path. We make that choice, not bin Laden."

To paraphrase an absolutely classic Mel Gibson line:

"Bin Laden may take our lives, but he will never take our freedom!" (Some witness add: "But Ashcroft can, and already has.")

Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 3, 2002 03:41 PM

'Absolutely untrue. He was about close to a modern Libertarian as one could get for those times.'

I doubt it.

The management of commerce is a function best left to individuals, but the regulation of commerce in the public interest, to the extent provided by the Constitution, is the business of Congress. Whereas the pursuits of agriculture are most conducive to virtue and happiness, manufacturing is necessary to preservation of the union, and to peace and independence in a contentious world.

Conflicts with: anti-regulation stance of modern libertarians.

Loading up the nation with debt and leaving it for the following generations to pay is morally irresponsible. Excessive debt is a means by which governments oppress the people and waste their substance. No nation has a right to contract debt for periods longer than the majority contracting it can expect to live.

Conflicts with: starvation-through-deficits plan of modern libertarians.

Jefferson developed an elaborate plan for making education available to every citizen, and for providing a complete education through university for talented youths who were unable to afford it. He considered his most important accomplishment, after Author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute for Religious Freedom, to have been the Father of the University of Virginia.

Conflicts with: libertarian plans for completely privatizing education. Doesn't conflict with vouchers, though.

The following all conflict with the libertarian leave-me-alone attitude pretty strongly:

What duty does a citizen owe to the government that secures the society in which he lives? What can it expect and rightly demand of him in support of itself? A nation that rests on the will of the people must also depend on individuals to support its institutions in whatever ways are appropriate if it is to flourish. Persons qualified for public office should feel some obligation to make that contribution. If not, public service will be left to those of lesser qualification, and the government may more easily become corrupted.

"There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1796. ME 9:354

I acknowledge that such a debt [of service to my fellow-citizens] exists, that a tour of duty in whatever line he can be most useful to his country, is due from every individual. It is not easy perhaps to say of what length exactly that tour should be, but we may safely say of what length it should not be. Not of our whole life, for instance, for that would be to be born a slave--not even of a very large portion of it." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1793. ME 9:118

Attempting to shoehorn figures of the past into modern political parties is a suckers game, but to my reading Jefferson would have serious, probably fatal, disagreements with libertarianism. He'd almost certainly be an ACLU member, though.

Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 6, 2002 12:47 PM

Jason McCollough doubts that Thomas Jefferson was as "close to a Libertarian as one could get for those times."

He then provides a handful of quotes purporting to show why Jefferson's views were incompatible with Libertarian views.

He concludes with this doozy: "Attempting to shoehorn figures of the past into modern political parties is a suckers game, but to my reading Jefferson would have serious, probably fatal, disagreements with libertarianism. He'd almost certainly be an ACLU member, though."

Heh, heh, heh! As usual, Mr. McCullough does a great job of marshalling support for completely untenable positions. :-) (I'm thinking of his opposition to my statement that it was clear that less U.S. government spending would produce more economic growth. He fretted about various lag times. Then, when shown that no lag time would support his opposition to my position, he switched to contemplating median income, rather than economic growth.) (Which was bizarre...a much more tenable position would be to focus on the income of the lowest decile or quintile.)

Anyway, to address Mr. McCullough's points:

1) Mr. McCullough either failed to note, or deliberately ignored, Jefferson's support of federal regulation of commerce, "...to the extent provided by the Constitution..." I don't think it's at all unreasonable to think that Jefferson would utterly despise the current federal abuse of the "commerce clause."

It is quite clear, from history, that giving the federal government power to "regulate commerce" was intended to REMOVE IMPEDIMENTS to commerce erected by the states, as part of the Articles of Confederation.

I have no doubt that the idea that the federal government could, for example, make the possession or sale of drugs (even INTRAstate sale of drugs) illegal, under the commerce clause, would have infuriated Jefferson.

2) Mr. McCullough quotes Jefferson, "
Loading up the nation with debt and leaving it for the following generations to pay is morally irresponsible. Excessive debt is a means by which governments oppress the people and waste their substance. No nation has a right to contract debt for periods longer than the majority contracting it can expect to live."

Mr. McCullough claims that this "Conflicts with: starvation-through-deficits plan of modern libertarians."

But this "plan" would be news to most libertarians! (And especially Libertarians.)

I trust that Mr. McCullough would concede that Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute is a "modern libertarian." Here's what Mr. Moore said in Congressional testimony:

"The centerpiece of any budget reform quite clearly should be an amendment to the Constitution outlawing deficit spending. Most members of this committee are keenly aware of the need for a balanced-budget requirement, so I will not dwell on it."

Mr. Moore goes even further: "Deficit spending is an unconscionable form of fiscal child abuse. There are hundreds of groups in Washington that pretend to speak for the interests of children. But who in Washington, among the thousands of powerful special-interest lobbyists and self-proclaimed do-gooders, speaks for the children who are going to have to pay off our irresponsible debts? The single most pro-child policy that any of us can pursue in Washington today is to reduce the crushing burden of debt our government is now preparing to place on the next generation's backs."

http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v18n4-1.html

Jefferson's "morally irresponsible" and Moore's "unconsciable form of fiscal child abuse" are virtually identical in sentiment.

Now, let's look at what the Libertarian Party--again, presumably part of the "modern libertarian movement"--wrote about the 2002 elections:

"That’s why the only thing that happened on Tuesday is that a few tax-and-spend Democrats were replaced by borrow-and-spend Republicans."

http://www.lp.org/press/archive.php?function=view&record=619

Again, there is no hint of approval of running deficits to "starve" the government of money.

3) Mr. McCullough discusses Jefferson's support for public spending on education. I will concede that that's not compatible with pure libertarianism...as long as Mr. McCullough will acknowledge that Jefferson would almost certainly oppose FEDERAL spending on education. (Jefferson couldn't possibly have supported FEDERAL spending on education, if Jefferson also thought that the 10th amendment was the most important amendment of the Bill of Rights...and in fact, the most important part of the Constitution.

4) Mr. McCullough choses 3 quotes on public service. The first completely compatible with libertarianism: "Persons qualified for public office should feel some obligation to make that contribution." "Should feel some obligation..." Yes, of course! There's no mention of forcing people to do anything!

I'll freely concede that the other 2 quotes contain (vague) ideas that are incompatible with modern libertarianism. Especially the phrases, "tour of duty" and "debt of service." But we must remember that Jefferson supported--or certainly failed to oppose--complete slavery.

Mr. McCullough's big finish was especially amusing:

"Attempting to shoehorn figures of the past into modern political parties is a suckers game,..."

Only because there is NO WAY IN H@LL that Mr. McCullough could claim Jefferson to fit into the modern Democratic or Green parties! ROTFL!

"...but to my reading Jefferson would have serious, probably fatal, disagreements with libertarianism."

Here, the hilarious use of the word "libertarianism," rather than the proper use of Libertarian Party. The only even possible "serious" disagreement *I* can see between Jefferson and the Libertarian Party would be his support for public education. (And I'm sure he would agree with the Libertarian Party's position that FEDERAL spending on education is wrong.)

OK, I'll concede that Jefferson might be opposed to the Libertarian Party's position on education at the state level. One issue, compared to the literally hundreds of issues (and trillions of dollars) that he would be opposed to the Democratic and Republican parties!

As I wrote before, there's really no doubt: Jefferson, if alive today, would be a Libertarian. (And he would despise the Democratic Party...especially for having to gall to use his name in one of their functions.)

"He'd almost certainly be an ACLU member, though."

Bwahahahaha! He'd almost certainly be an ACLU member, just like other members of the Libertarian Party are "almost certainly" ACLU members!

The ACLU was closely aligned with the COMMUNIST Party at its founding. Once again, Jefferson wrote:

The ACLU, to my knowledge has NEVER pursued any litigation on 10th amemdment grounds! (Or 2nd amendment grounds, for that matter.)

The ACLU are to be admired for their generally vigorous support of SOME of the Bill of Rights. But the fact that they haven't at all supported the 10th amendment is why Jefferson--and most Libertarians--probably wouldn't be a member. Why be a member of a group that only supports SOME of the Bill of Rights, when one can be a member of a group that supports them all?

Posted by: Mark Bahner on December 9, 2002 03:29 PM