Serendipity

Serendipity is running across something good that you weren't looking for.  For those of us whose political perspective tends to be conservative or libertarian, who would have thought that that would describe the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, with the election at the same time of a House of Representatives that is overwhelmingly Democrat, and followed (since the election of Senator Al Franken was delayed for so long) with a filibuster-proof Senate majority?  As it turns out, it seems like the far left of the Democratic party has been unwittingly hanging themselves and the American voters had been furnishing them the rope to do it with.  A couple of months ago, Glenn Beck drew heat for remarking that it may have been a good thing for Barack Obama to be elected because the sudden lurch to the left woke Americans up as the slower drift to the left by electing John McCain would not have.  Now it appears that the substantial majorities that the Democrats had in both houses of Congress under the leftist leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid has had a similar effect.  Both houses of Congress passed health care reform legislation that came within a hair's breadth of being foisted upon an American public that for the most part didn't really want it.  Even the voters of Massachusetts (hardly the most conservative lot in the country) woke up to what was happening and effectively killed the health care reform legislation by given a convincing victory to Scott Brown as their newest Senator in a special election to fill the seat held so long by Ted Kennedy.  That was a sign that the American public has heard the wakeup call.

Think about what would have happened if Al Franken had not been elected to give the Democrats their 60th vote in the Senate.  Obama, Pelosi, and Reid would still be determined to pass health care reform that slanted as far left as they could get away with.  However, lacking the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster in the Senate, they would have had to compromise to get a bipartisan bill and instead of having an atrocious bill that failed to become law, they would have had one nearly as bad that did become law.  The Democrats would also not have had to take complete ownership of terrible legislation and could share the blame.  As it turns out (for the period before Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts) by getting what they wanted from the voters, the left wing of the Democratic Party failed to get what it needed.  For everyone else, serendipity.

We Are Becoming Lawless Because of Too Many Laws

 Over 2300 years ago, Plato pointed out that not only are societies that have no laws lawless, but societies in which there are no limits on the laws that a government can establish are also lawless. In other words, a constitution that limits the government from passing arbitrary laws is necessary to prevent a country from degenerating into chaos or tyranny. The purpose of law is to punish behavior that a society considers bad and sometimes to reward good behavior. For law to be effective, citizens need to be able to understand what the law is. That is only possible if the law is relatively simple, slow to change, and any changes that occur are based on principles that are widely known and reasonably predictable. To the extent that laws are many, complex, subject to rapid change, and changes are arbitrary and unpredictable, it becomes more and more difficult to obey the law. What real difference is there between a society that is lawless because there are no laws to obey and a society that is lawless because the laws have become too arbitrary, unpredictable, complicated, and subject to rapid change to obey?

The economy suffers under either kind of lawlessness. Businesses will not invest and will not hire new workers when the future is impossible to predict. I think the fact that laws have become unpredictable is a major reason why the economy of the United States is as bad as it is today. Businesses both large and small are in shock and don't know what the future holds because many things that could not have predicted have happened in a very short period of time. Who could have predicted a couple of years ago that the government would own a controlling interest in two of the three American automobile companies? Who could have predicted that the government would ignore the bankruptcy laws that give bondholders preference when companies go bankrupt, as it did in the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler? Who would want to buy corporate bonds or extend credit to companies when the government treats creditors as if they have no rights? The health care reform bill that may or may not soon be passed by Congress and signed by the President may have a substantial effect on how much it costs to hire a worker and provide health benefits. The cap and trade bill, which also may or not pass, could dramatically affect energy costs. Businesses need to know what their costs are. I predict that if it becomes clear that either the the health care reform bill or the cap and trade bill will not pass, the stock market indices will go up and the unemployment rate will go down, at least temporarily. That much is obvious, but I also predict that the stock market indices will go up and the unemployment rate will go down if either the health care reform bill or the cap and trade bill pass. Businesses may not like bad news, but they can handle it. What they can't handle is uncertainty. They are used to taking calculated risks, but when they can't calculate the risks, then they don't want to take them.

We and the people who represent us in the Congress and in state legislatures make the mistake of thinking of legislators as law makers. That means that they focus only on making new laws, which adds to the complexity of the laws and makes understanding the law almost impossible. They give very little attention to the laws that have already been passed. They need to be thought of not only as makers of new laws but as maintainers of a code of laws. In addition to making new laws, they should be repealing or modifying laws that have outlived their usefulness or never worked to begin with. They need to follow up on laws after they have been passed to see if the actual consequences of the laws match their intent. We need to understand what there role should be and try to encourage them to simplify things instead of making them more complicated. Since this Congress seriously considers passing laws that are over a thousand or two thousand pages long, it is obvious that they have not gotten that message. They need to avoid passing laws that can't be enforced because that promotes disrespect for the law, and they need to realize that the only law that enforces itself is the law of unintended consequences.

Reactivating blog

Much has happened since the last year that convinces me that the United States of America is being transformed into something its founders would not recognize and that its current citizens may not recognize in a couple of decades.  For one thing, the levels of spending and debt are on an unsustainable course, as can been seen by examining the "debt clock at http://usdebtclock.org.  What is really scary is not only the absolute debt, but how much debt there is per person.  The unfunded liabilities are even bigger than the official debt.  They represent the promises (such as for Social Security payments and Medicare coverage) that the government has made to spend money in the future that it has not collected money for.  This course cannot be sustained; something has to give.  I am worried about the future of our children and grandchildren who will be asked to pay for all the spending and borrowing and may not be able to.  I am also worried about the liberties that are being lost that citizens used to be able to take for granted.  There will be more about that in future posts.  What I hope to accomplish with this blog is to stimulate discussion about whether the United States can be saved and, if not, how to pick up the pieces and start again once the house of cards comes crashing down.  I am worried that the Constitution of the United States is losing its effectiveness because all three branches of government have been showing it little respect and because most American citizens are unaware of its contents and its importance.

Although readers of this post are encouraged to comment, the comments will not show up immediately because I have the blog set up so that comments are posted only after I moderate them.  I have set the blog up this way because of a prior experience in which inappropriate material appeared in a comment.  I will not bar a comment because the commenter disagrees with me, but I will bar it if is obscene, disrespectful, or otherwise inappropriate.