The Good, the Bad, and the Really Awful

America is a very diverse country, not in the fatuous, superficial, racial sense of present day political correctness but in terms of the habits, lifestyles, opinions, and weltanschauungen  of its people.  Millions of Americans hold beliefs that millions of other Americans find questionable, false, detestable, or idiotic. Millions of Americans conduct their lives in ways and engage in activities that millions of other Americans see as wrong, counterproductive, immoral, despicable, or even evil. Some differences are ephemeral and reconcilable,  but many are deep, lasting, and intractable. This is nothing new. Nostalgic  references to a time  - whether the turn of the 20^th Century, the Eisenhower years,  or some other good old days  – when things were completely  harmonious and homogeneous  do not  hold up in light of history.  However there are times when the differences lead to more contention, rancor, and conflict than others. We are in one of those times now. 

Libertarians offer a good solution for this. Leave each other alone and allow every person to lead his life as he wishes so long as he commits no crimes against the life or property of anyone else.  In a free society  many people  still would have no use for the beliefs or actions of some of their fellow citizens, but they would not be able to get officials to harm or punish them on account of it. Approval would be optional, but tolerance would be unavoidable.   

This was the principle  the Founding Fathers followed  in separating religion and government.   Jefferson wrote, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God.” Likewise it does me no injury  if my neighbors have sex with one woman, two men, or no one at all, eat kale or Big Macs,  dress  as men, as women, or alternate according to mood,  read porn or devotionals,  save money or spend foolishly,   drink, smoke, consume drugs, or abstain,  like John Wayne, Meryl Streep, both, or neither, own a dozen guns or none, stay in shape or get fat, are hunters  or vegans, drive  F250s or  Priuses,  or like me or decline  to associate or do business with  me with so long as they do  not attempt to have their ways forced others.  If enough people realized that and acted accordingly, our differences and  mutual dislikes would not be the problem and danger they are. (There would still be hard cases, gray areas, and controversies – many about public areas and property.  But we would have a better basis for a civil and liberal society.)

However there is not much evidence these days that a libertarian solution is a likely one, at least in the short term. So it is worth looking at other less desirable ways in which the situation could play out. Perhaps  the worst likely outcome would be for the present condition  to continue or worsen with disparate groups and coalitions struggling to gain control of the federal government to impose their wishes on the entire population,  and either one faction gaining long term control or the abusive power rotating and  the people being yo-yoed  by changes of administration and political fashion.   It is easy to see how continuing on the present trend in either way could produce worse sectionalism, bitterness, and hostility than we have today. In the extreme case of a group in power grossly overstepping,  it could lead to dissolution of the union  or even guerrilla civil war.

Several people have proposed a renewal of federalism as a palliative to ease tensions and  reduce  present day conflicts. In their proposals  the power to decide many contentious political issues would move from the federal government to state or local governments.   If officials in California, New York, Portland, or  Philadelphia wanted to ban guns that look scary to them, dictate what information job seekers could put in resumes, mandate seminars on transitioning  gender for third graders in the public schools, prohibit showering with hot water, or punish people for throwing the residue of an unappetizing dinner in the trash, they could with impunity but  without any possible effect on those outside their jurisdiction.  If officials in Texas, North Carolina, Oklahoma City, or Pensacola wanted to require drilling for oil in city parks, prohibit cross dressing men from using women’s restrooms,  mandate pro-abstinence indoctrination in the public schools, or impose fines on any  able bodied citizens not having adequate  means of self-defense in their homes, they could with impunity but without any possible effect on those outside their jurisdiction. 

This idea has some merit. However it is important to remember that it is still a bad outcome.  Being pushed around by state and local politicians  and bureaucrats  is not intrinsically better  than being pushed around by federal ones. But at least a person could move away.  And it might lower the pressure and help keep the lid from blowing off, at least for a while.

Reactions to "America First"

Several in the traditional media have decried Trump’s use of the phrase “America first”, tying it to the America First Committee which opposed America’s entering World War II in the months before Pearl Harbor and even claiming  that through such a connection Trump is being anti-Semitic and “dark”. There are several things wrong with this  - the most  obvious being the fact that there is no evidence Trump cares about or  intended to associate himself with that anti-war group of over seventy five years ago.

Beyond that there is some convenient forgetfulness on the left about political situations and activities in this country in the time between September 1939 and December 1941. President Roosevelt’s efforts to support Britain and prepare this country for the trouble ahead faced opposition from a variety of sources.  The noninterventionists were a politically diverse bunch.  Norman Thomas, the leader and frequent presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, was both an anti-interventionist and a friendly associate of members of the America First Committee as were other prominent people who were far from conservatives.   During the period of the nonaggression pact when the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were de facto allies, American communists and their fellow travelers mainly followed Stalin’s directions and opposed intervention in what they called Britain’s imperialistic war.  (This changed overnight after June 22, 1941 when  the party line became one of demanding action against Stalin’s new enemy.) 

I would guess the  real objections are less to Trump's use of the slogan than to the notion behind it of a foreign policy based on this country’s national security interests. Many on the left have a fairly automatic hostility to actions advancing those interests and often to the interests themselves. 

I don’t know what Trump’s policy of  “America first” will  mean in practice. I expect there will be things to support and things to oppose.Much of what he as said about trade is just wrong.  We’ll have to wait and see. However I  have no  objection to the notion in principle.  No one expects the foreign policies of the  governments of France, Germany, Britain, or any other foreign country to fail to put their national security interests first.  Our government should do the same and especially should avoid wars and military interventions in places and situations in the Middle East where those interests are not threatened.

Conservatives Gaining Power

“Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. That is the supreme test.”  - Robert Ingersoll, essay on Lincoln.  

Conservatives are about to face just that sort of test. After eight years of suffering through Obama’s presidency and opposing his and his administration’s actions and policies, they will have a  Republican congress and a pugnacious Republican president who claims to side with them (and who really may do so, based on people he has nominated for executive-level jobs).  It will be interesting to see how they handle things. 

Besides opposing Obama on many particular issues, many conservatives claimed to oppose him in general and  on principle  - the principles of limited government  and legal and constitutional constraints on the powers and actions of presidents.  The question for them now is whether they really meant what they said and will remember and act on those principles with their man in the White House. (Libertarians favor these principles as well, but we aren’t going to have any power and so won’t face any such tests.)   I am afraid most of them will temporize and dissemble and find excuses to accept policies and tactics coming from Trump that they would have fought coming from a Democrat. There are already examples of this in regard to international trade.  We may see evidence, as in the administrations of both Bushes, that too many Republicans and conservatives are less opposed to a too powerful government  as such than opposed to a too powerful government only when  controlled by someone besides them.  Whether my guess is right or wrong, it will be a telling experiment.  

Back to Work

Many people, including many who did not support Trump, have been enjoying a few weeks of euphoria over an election which spared the nation from Hillary Clinton and a continuation of Obama’s policies. That is completely understandable and appropriate. Churchill’s comment about the exhilaration of being shot  at with no result applies pretty well here. However nearly two months of that are enough.   Now it is time for people who care about liberty and liberal values to get down to the business of opposing  the bad parts of Trump’s plans and agenda (while of course supporting the good ones as one would with anyone else).

Two obvious places to start are his threats of tariffs and trade wars and the scheme to deport all illegal aliens. There are things in some agreements on international trade which could stand improvements and there are certainly things done by some  foreign governments  in regard to industrial espionage, subsidies, cartels,  and theft of intellectual property which are egregious. There are some types of manufacturing which  have largely or completely disappeared from this country and not always for purely economic reasons. To that extent Trump has a point.  However, the notion that international trade is intrinsically harmful  is dangerously wrong. (Trump’s  claim that America manufactures little or nothing anymore is completely  false as anyone could learn easily by looking at statistics from, for example, the FRED  web site of the St. Louis Federal Reserve.  Total American real manufacturing output has almost doubled in the last forty years,  though it has only recently regained  the levels reached before large  declines in 2008-2009.)  If Trump wants to aid the competitiveness of potential American manufacturers  in areas where production has moved to foreign countries without harming American consumers in the process, he should consider easing burdens of taxation and regulatory costs, rather than going to  thirty five percent tariffs or bullying individual companies into making economic decisions for political reasons.  It is not only that protectionism makes little or no economic sense.  It also makes little or no ethical sense. In the absence of coercion from criminals or governments, a  trade happens only when all parties  to it believe they benefit from it. People should be free to make such choices. Foreigners are people too and have the same right  to  offer their goods and services to willing American buyers as American citizens do.

Many people have concluded  that deporting ten or so million people is impractical.  It strikes me as also a bad idea, irrespective of its impracticality.  For many years governments run by both Democrats and Republicans have at least tacitly accepted and often welcomed illegal immigrants – granting them a sort of implicit amnesty.  Many illegal aliens have lived in the Unites States for years as productive members of society.  A large percentage of them have children who are American citizens. Trump is right about gaining control of the borders and stopping  illegal immigration. This country cannot absorb all the people who would be better off here than where they are living. The economists who warn  that open borders and free immigration,  while good ideas in fully free economies,  are incompatible with welfare states make a good point.  Illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes should be deported after serving their time in jail. None of that justifies sending cops in to hunt down and deport  millions of people who have done nothing intrinsically  wrong and have broken only the immigration laws.   I can see reasons to deny citizenship since illegal aliens have not followed the laws concerning acquiring it, but granting some sort of permanent resident alien status in most cases seems a good idea and a compromise that would work.

One can also be concerned about  the so-called war on police.  Conservatives are right in claiming officials in Obama’s administration were prejudiced against  local police and tended to blame cops first and announce findings of racial prejudice on often shaky or spurious  evidence.  Excusing calls to kill police and burn down cities was disgraceful. Trump was right to say law and order mattered. The danger is  that a Trump administration may go too far in supporting your local police.  Cops have a lot of power, and some of them abuse it.  The federal government should be vigorous in preventing  and punishing violations of people’s rights by local authorities. 

Besides any particular issues  we have had a harmful  expansion of presidential power and authority in the last fifteen years from Bush and especially  Obama. Trump should use executive and bureaucratic orders to cancel or reverse Obama’s and his administration’s harmful or inappropriate decrees. He should not use them to enact his own agenda.  We need fewer not more attempts to  govern by pen, phone, bureaucratic declaration, and executive order and more respect for the legal and constitutional limits on the power of the executive branch.  Congress should pass laws restraining the powers of agencies and the president  to operate by fiat. If Trump appreciates the need for such restraint, he has pretty well kept it to himself.   He will probably need to be held in check.