My Beauty Best Teacher

Africa has long been saddled with poor,even malevolent, leadership: predatory kleptocrats, military-installed autocrats,economic illiterates, and puffed-up posturers. By far the most egregious examples come from Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zimbabwe—countries that have been run into the ground despite their abundant natural resources. But these cases are by no means unrepresentative: by some measures, 90 percent of sub-Saharan African nations have experienced despotic rule in the last three decades. Such leaders use power as an end in itself, rather than for the public good; they are indifferent to the progress of their citizens (although anxious to receive their adulation); they are unswayed by reason and employ poisonous social or racial ideologies; and they are hypocrites, always shifting blame for their countries’ distress. Under the stewardship of these leaders,infrastructure in many African countries has fallen into disrepair, currencies have depreciated, and real prices have inflated dramatically, while job availability,health care, education standards, and life expectancy have declined. Ordinary life has become beleaguered: general security has deteriorated, crime and corruption have increased, much-needed public funds have flowed into hidden bank accounts, and offcially sanctioned ethnic discrimination—sometimes resulting in civil war—has become prevalent. This depressing picture is brought into even sharper relief by the few but striking examples of effective African leadership in recent decades. These leaders stand out because of their strength of character, their adherence to the principles of participatory democracy, and their ability to overcome deep-rooted challenges. The government of Mozambique, for example, brought about economic growth rates of more than ten percent between 1996 and 2003, following the economic catastrophe wrought by that country’s civil war (which ended in 1992). And in Kenya, President Mwai Kibaki has strengthened civil society, invested in education, and removed barriers to economic entrepreneurship instated during the repressive rule of Daniel arap Moi.The best example of good leadership in Africa is Botswana. Long before diamonds were discovered there, this former desert protectorate, which was neglected by the British under colonialism, demonstrated a knack for participatory democracy, integrity, tolerance, entrepreneurship, and the rule of law. The country has remained democratic in spirit as well as form continuously since its independence in 1966—an unmatched record in Africa. It has also defended human rights, encouraged civil liberties, and actively promoted its citizens’ social and economic development.
GOOD APPLES
What has enabled Botswana to succeed where so many other African nations have failed? Some observers point to the relative linguistic homogeneity of the country. But Somalia, which remains unstable despite a similar uniformity, shows that this factor is far from sufficient.Others point to the century-old teachings of the congregational London Missionary Society—the peaceful, pragmatic outlook that is inextricably bound up in the country’s political culture. But this explanation also fails to explain why the same positive effects have not been witnessed in other countries with a history of Christian teaching, such as in neighboring Zambia. Nor are Botswana’s plentiful diamond reserves responsible:Angola, Gabon, and Nigeria all have abundant natural resources, but none has seen comparable returns for its people.It is Botswana’s history of visionary leadership, especially in the years following independence, that best explains its success. Sir Seretse Khama, Botswana’s founding president, came from a family of Bamangwato chiefs well regarded for their benevolence and integrity.
When Khama founded the Botswana Democratic Party in 1961 and led his country to independence, he was already dedicated to the principles of deliberative democracy and market economy that would allow his young country to flourish. Modest, unostentatious as a leader, and a genuine believer in popular rule, Khama forged a participatory and law-respecting political culture that has endured under his successors, Sir Ketumile Masire and Festus Mogae. Although operating in very differerent circumstances, Mauritius’ first leader,Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, held to the same leadership codes as Khama.Ramgoolam gave Mauritius a robust democratic beginning, which has been sustained by a series of wise successors from different backgrounds and parties.Both Khama and Ramgoolam could have emulated many of their contemporaries by establishing strong, single-man, kleptocratic regimes. But they refused to do so.Effective leadership has proved the decisive factor in South Africa, too: without Nelson Mandela’s inclusive and visionary leadership, his adherence to the rule of law, his insistence on broadening the delivery of essential services, and his emphasis on moving from a commandeconomy toward a market-driven one, South Africa would probably have emerged from apartheid as a far more fractured and autocratic state than it did.Too few African leaders have followed the examples of Mandela, Khama, and foreign affairs . Ramgoolam. Ghana, Lesotho, Mali, and Senegal are all showing promise. But in many other African countries,leaders have begun their presidential careers as democrats only to end up, a term or two later, as corrupt autocrats: Bakili Muluzi of Malawi, Moi of Kenya,and, most dramatically of all, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Other leaders, such as Sam Nujoma of Namibia and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, may be heading in the same direction.
A BOLD INITIATIVE
To build on the positive leadership examples, a select group of prominent past and present African leaders who met over the last year decided to confront the continent’s pathology of poor leadership with deeds as well as words. At the conclusion of a series of private meetings(the final one of which was held in Mombasa, Kenya), they established the African Leadership Council, promulgated a Code of African Leadership with 23 commandments, issued a Mombasa Declaration promoting better leadership,and proposed a series of courses to train their political successors in the art of good government.Members of the council believe that absolute standards of leadership are both appropriate and attainable. Good leaders deliver security of the state and of the person, the rule of law, good education and health services, and a framework conducive to economic growth. They ensure effective arteries of commerce and enshrine personal and human freedoms. They empower civil society and protect the environmental commons. Crucially, good leaders also provide their citizens with a sense of belonging to a national enterprise. Conscious that Africa’s poor are getting poorer and that good governance is essential for successful economic development, the council sees itself at
the vanguard of fundamental reform in the continent. Its approach certainly goes far beyond the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (nepad) and proposals for the African Union. The Code of African Leadership, for example, says in its first commandment that leaders should “offer a coherent vision of individual growth and national advancement with justice and dignity for all,” implying that most leaders today do not. Other commandments demand that African leaders encourage “broad participation,” adhere to the letter and spirit of their national constitutions (especially term limits), encourage dissent and disagreement, respect human rights and civil liberties, strengthen the rule of law, promote policies that eradicate poverty and improve the wellbeing of their citizens, ensure a strong code of ethics, refuse to use their offices
for personal gain, oppose corruption, and bolster essential personal freedoms. This uncommonly bold agenda seeks to avoid renewed patrimonial leadership debacles, such as those presided over by Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Moi in Kenya, Idi Amin in Uganda, and Jean-Bedel Bokassa in the Central African Republic. The council is highly conscious,too, of the hijacking of Zimbabwe’s government by Mugabe, which has resulted in starvation and drastically reduced living standards.The council is chaired by former President Sir Ketumile Masire of Botswana and includes former Nigerian head of state General Yakubu Gowon,Vice President Moody Awori of Kenya, former Prime Minister Hage Geingob of Namibia, and a dozen other present and former prime ministers and cabinet ministers from Sierra Leone to Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda. All are regarded throughout Africa as men of unusual personal probity and esteem and as accomplished proponents of good governance. The council intends to recruit additional members from the ranks of Africa’s outstanding democratic leaders, Francophone and Anglophone, female and male. Together they will serve the continent by advising international organizations, individual countries, and donor agencies on how to improve leadership. The group stands ready to assist civil societies in countries undergoing serious leadership crises. It will also urge greedy national leaders to attack corrupt practices and adhere to term limits (the current presidents of Gabon, Malawi, Namibia,Uganda, and Zambia, for example, have all had pangs of desire for illegal third terms). Next year(2005), it expects to begin holding special seminars for cabinet ministers and others. The council’s curriculum emphasizes constitutionalism, the rule of law, ethics, accountability,diversity, good fiscal management, coalition building, and the fundamentals of modern micro- and macroeconomics. Training courses will soon be launched.Whether the efforts of the African Leadership Council will reduce bloodshed,diminish corruption, and encourage more prosperity for citizens across Africa is by no means certain. But as a unique African response to the continent’s immense needs, this innovative endeavor is a promising, dramatic step forward.

By
Robert I. Rotberg

Reprinted with permission
Copyrighted 2004 Council on Foreign relations Inc. All Rights Reserved

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Michael McConnell asserts that President Obama's pay czar is unconstitutional and that all of his acts and activities are in the violation of the rule of law in our nation. McConnell is a smart guy- professor at Stanford University Law School, director of its Constitutional Law Center, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a former federal judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals- so he kind of knows his stuff.

Obama's "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg recently called up top executives at private companies that work in the United States and told them that he had decided to slash their pay in half. Where does he get the just and legitimate power to do this?

As part of the hastily enacted and seldom-read legislation establishing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Congress authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to "require each TARP recipient to meet appropriate standards for executive compensation." To carry out this task, last June the Treasury promulgated an emergency "Interim Final Rule," waiving ordinary requirements for a public comment period.

As part of this emergency rule, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner created the office of "Special Master" for compensation, delegated his TARP authority to set compensation standards to this officer, and appointed Mr. Feinberg (a lawyer and mediator) to this position, without obtaining Senate confirmation.

This is the government that will soon be deciding what is 'appropriate' energy use, 'appropriate' spending on healthcare, and 'appropriate' content for radio. Read the language of the kind of bills that Democrats are working to pass as laws in our nation- they are putting in unelected, unconfirmed bureaucrats who will run our lives for us. This is not protecting our freedom and property better- this is tyranny.

Therein lies the problem. The Appointments clause of the Constitution, Article II, section 2, provides that all "Officers of the United States" must be appointed by the president "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate." This means subject to confirmation, except that "the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment" of "inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments."

There is no doubt that Mr. Feinberg is an "officer" of the United States. The Supreme Court has defined this term (Buckley v. Valeo, 1976) as "any appointee exercising significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States." Mr. Feinberg signed last week's orders setting pay levels for executives at Bank of America, AIG, Chrysler Financial, Citigroup, GMAC, General Motors and Chrysler. They have the force of law and are surely an exercise of "significant authority" pursuant to an Act of Congress. He is not a mere "employee," acting at the direction of a superior. That means his office is subject to the requirements of the Appointments Clause.

While somewhat more disputable, Mr. Feinberg's is probably an "inferior" officer, defined as one subject to supervision and removal by a member of the cabinet. Although he has substantial discretion and independence, Mr. Feinberg reports to the secretary of the Treasury, who can fire him any time for any reason. This means that Congress could, if it wished, vest the appointment of the pay czar in the secretary, without any need for Senate confirmation.

But Congress has not done so. On the contrary, it vested the authority to implement TARP's compensation provision in the secretary of the Treasury. The secretary may sub-delegate that power to someone else—but that someone must be an "officer" properly appointed "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate."

In other words, the pay czar in unconstitutional.

The power to set compensation at large American businesses is especially subject to potential abuse, favoritism, arbitrariness, or political manipulation. It is no reflection on Kenneth Feinberg, who has a sterling reputation and who appears to have approached these sensitive duties with a spirit of commendable integrity, to say that the checks and balances of the Constitution should be scrupulously observed. They were not. Because he is not a properly appointed officer of the United States, Mr. Feinberg's executive compensation decisions were unconstitutional.

You vote Democrat, you get a government that supports the violation of our constitution and a government that takes away liberty, property, and life. You get a tyrannical government, the kind that our founding fathers faught against.

America is an exceptional nation- a nation that was founded and built on traditions and ideas in a way that no nation had previously tried and no other nation has since duplicated. The ideas are put forth in our Declaration of Independence- all men are created equal, no man is better than you at deciding how you run your life, government is created for very limited purposes, and that these mainly are to protect your freedom of choice, to protect your life, and to protect your property which was the product of your hard work and labor. As I have written about many times, these ideas are under daily attack by those unexceptional nations who would drag us back into their petty jealousies, and by those who support these nations out of belief that America has something to apologize for or that the monarchs and empires of the past are to be admired and emulated.

Traditionally, our nation has been a nation of immigrants who come here expecting nothing other than to be rewarded for their hard work and not be judged based on their race or class, and traditionally our nation has been a nation built on rule of law, not rule of strong men ruling by decree. These traditions are also under attack by those who immigrated here expecting others to work hard for their benefit, and rule of law is slipping badly in our nation.

One other great tradition that America was firmly built on is Christianity. This Christian spirit animated our nation and our nation's leaders from the beginning to today, and is firmly a part of our character. While other Christian nations around the world have had slipping church attendance and little vigorous debate on the nature of God and God's Word, in our nation many still go to church and healthy and moral debates continue to be engaged on the nature of God.

This traditional Christian character of our nation is an important part of our tradition, and has been enshrined in our Pledge of Allegiance, which we all know and say from birth as:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

But this tradition is under attack as well, by well meaning individuals who believe that out nation will be improved or strengthened in some manner if God is driven underground and killed. They object to saying the pledge, usually by hiding behind nameless others who might possibly be offended by saying that the United States of America was founded and remains as one nation under God. They seek to remove the words 'under God', believing that it is possible to pick and choose what parts of America they like and support. Today they remove the phrase 'under God', but it has always been my fear that once that phrase is permitted to be removed, others will soon follow, and our traditions will be torn asunder and our foundations as a nation will shatter and we will fail.

Sadly, this is what is now happening. The election of Barack Obama was a bad gamble that our nation took, a leap of faith on someone who did not earn it, and the empowering of the liberal wing of his party, a Democratic Party that has moved far away from most people, further took our nation down a path of failed ideas and rejection of traditions. On Sunday, while many people sat down on a great Father's Day to watch the U.S. Open Golf Championship, they saw how far our nation has gone down this path when one of the major networks altered our nation's Pledge.

NBC on Sunday decided to cut the words "under God" from the reading of the Pledge of Allegiance that accompanied the beginning of its coverage of the U.S. Open Golf Championship. Seconds after that, there was another reading of the Pledge, and this time, in addition to cutting out the words 'under God', NBC went further and cut out the words 'one nation' as well, dishonoring all of the thousands of dead who fought to keep our nation one nation during the US Civil War. Watch the video yourself.

NBC later issued an apology, but I wonder, what is next for the liberals who run NBC, who support Barack Obama, and support the liberal radical left of the modern day Democratic Party? Will they next drop out the words 'with liberty', since they don't believe that I truly have the liberty to run my own life however I want and need to be ruled over by elites in Washington? Will they drop out 'to the republic', or maybe alter it 'to the democracy', thereby changing our nation from a nation of laws into one where strong men can do what they do and the rest of us must suffer under their tyranny? What is next for our nation, if the traditions of our nations can be so casually rejected by a major network?

For your classroom, think about getting one of these posters- I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag of the USA - Classroom Motivational Poster or I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America - Classroom Motivational Poster.

The Roman Republic was the period of time when Rome was governed by a complex constitution, which centred on the principles of a separation of powers and checks and balances and established a republican form of government. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy in 509 BC and lasted 482 years until its subversion in 27 BC into an Imperial form of government. A very interesting phase though is the last two generations of the Roman Republic, when it was falling apart and collapsing, and it is to this phase that I direct my comments today.

Towards the end of the Roman Republic, there were several Roman civil wars. Part of the reason for these civil wars was the increasing disregard of the Roman constitution and the breakdowns in separation of powers and checks and balances, combined with increasing militarism, rising debt, rising welfare policies, and increasing centralization of control in the executive offices in the capital of Rome.

This civil war period began with the Social War (91–88 BC), continued with wars between various top politicians and generals who pretended to want to restore the republic (Sulla's first civil war (88–87 BC), Sertorius' revolt in Hispania (83–72 BC), and Sulla's second civil war (82–81 BC)), then had a phase where people stopped pretending it was a republic anymore (Lepidus' rebellion (77 BC) and the Catiline Conspiracy (63–62 BC)), and ended with a series of wars over who would be the new dictator (Caesar's civil war (49–45 BC), Post-Caesarian civil war (44 BC), Liberators' civil war (44–42 BC), Sicilian revolt (44–36 BC), Fulvia's civil war (41–40 BC), and the Final war of the Roman Republic (32–30 BC)). I'm most fascinated by the Catiline Conspiracy, because it was at that point that I think people knew that the Republic was dead.

Catailine was a Roman politician and general who attempted to overthrow the Republic in 63-62 BC. His desire to do so lay mostly in ambition for power, but he and his followers appear to have been driven by a sense that they were being denied power that was due to them (their comments have a vague sense of entitlement to them) and it also appears that he and his followers had accrued massive amounts of debt that they wanted to cancel or wipe away in the fall of the government. He had multiple plots and schemes going, involving slave revolts, raising of various armies, and a plot to assassinate Senators in Rome, but before those schemes could come to fruition, he was exposed, fought valiantly, killed, and the plot collapsed. But the damage had been done- people had seen that the republic was dead, that the rule of law didn't exist any more, and that the age of rule of men had started. Even though he was unsuccessful, he demonstrated the template that one could follow to dictatorship, and soon the Republic was dead.

Jonah Goldberg began a recent article When Did the Rules Change? with the line "When Rome was “falling,” did it feel like it?". His article is about how the rules of the game are changing, how liberalism is dying and how are nation will once again be a conservative nation of rule of law, separation of powers, checks and balances, etc. I'm not as hopeful though.

Increasingly, I feel like the damage has been done by the Obama and the Democrats, damage that is too great and too traumatic for America to overcome. I'm still hopeful that it can be done, but the damage that they have inflicted in so many ways both big and small will take a generation to repair, if that generation has the intelligence and willpower to do so.

Although Obama might only be a one-term President and although the Democrats might lose power, they'll be back, sooner rather than later. They have seen how easy it is to get anyone elected President, even someone with no intelligence and terrorist friends who may not even like America. They have seen how easily it is to fool people into giving them large majorities, where they then jam through massive complicated bills changing the very fabric of our nation without even reading them. They'll fight a ferocious and tough rear-guard action to keep these in place, and eventually voters will get stupid again and put them back in power. Although we may have dodged a dictatorship this time, it is my great fear that the damage is done, and that after a couple Republican Presidents (Romney's two terms and Palin's one) we'll put a Caesar in power and that will be the end of great American experiment in republic.

From the WSJ comes this impressive and timely post about how we USED to deal with the pirate issue compared to how we deal with it now, and it once again shows that as we try to be more politically correct and more fair, we create a world that is both more unfair and less right. With some editing, here is the article (try this link too), by Bret Stephens:

Year-to-date, Somalia-based pirates have attacked more than 90 ships, seized more than 35, and currently hold 17. Some 280 crew members are being held hostage, and two have been killed. Billions of dollars worth of cargo have been seized; millions have been paid in ransom. A multinational naval force has attempted to secure a corridor in the Gulf of Aden, through which 12% of the total volume of seaborne oil passes, and U.S., British and Indian naval ships have engaged the pirates by force. Yet the number of attacks keeps rising. Why?

The view of senior U.S. military officials seems to be, in effect, that there is no controlling legal authority. Title 18, Chapter 81 of the United States Code establishes a sentence of life in prison for foreigners captured in the act of piracy. But, crucially, the law is only enforceable against pirates who attack U.S.-flagged vessels, of which today there are few.

What about international law? Article 110 of the U.N.'s Law of the Sea Convention -- ratified by most nations, but not by the U.S. -- enjoins naval ships from simply firing on suspected pirates. Instead, they are required first to send over a boarding party to inquire of the pirates whether they are, in fact, pirates. A recent U.N. Security Council resolution allows foreign navies to pursue pirates into Somali waters -- provided Somalia's tottering government agrees -- but the resolution expires next week.

As for the idea of laying waste, Stephen Decatur-like, to the pirate's prospering capital port city of Eyl, this too would require U.N. authorization. Yesterday, a shippers' organization asked NATO to blockade the Somali coast. NATO promptly declined.

Then there is the problem of what to do with captured pirates. No international body similar to the old Admiralty Courts is currently empowered to try pirates and imprison them. The British foreign office recently produced a legal opinion warning Royal Navy ships not to take pirates captive, lest they seek asylum in the U.K. or otherwise face repatriation in jurisdictions where they might be dealt with harshly, in violation of the British Human Rights Act.

In March 2006, the U.S. Navy took 11 pirates prisoner, six of whom were injured. Not wanting to set a precedent for trying pirates in U.S. courts, the State Department turned to Kenya to do the job. The injured spent weeks aboard the USS Nassau, enjoying First World medical care.

All this legal exquisiteness stands in contrast to what was once a more robust attitude. Pirates, said Cicero, were hostis humani generis -- enemies of the human race -- to be dealt with accordingly by their captors. Tellingly, Cicero's notion of piracy vanished in the Middle Ages; its recovery traces the recovery of the West itself.

By the 18th century, pirates knew exactly where they stood in relation to the law. A legal dictionary of the day spelled it out: "A piracy attempted on the Ocean, if the Pirates are overcome, the Takers may immediately inflict a Punishment by hanging them up at the Main-yard End; though this is understood where no legal judgment may be obtained." Severe as the penalty may now seem (albeit necessary, since captured pirates were too dangerous to keep aboard on lengthy sea voyages), it succeeded in mostly eliminating piracy by the late 19th century -- a civilizational achievement no less great than the elimination of smallpox a century later.

Today, by contrast, a Navy captain who takes captured pirates aboard his state-of-the-art warship will have a brig in which to keep them securely detained, and instantaneous communications through which he can obtain higher guidance and observe the rule of law.

Yet what ought to be a triumph for both justice and security has turned out closer to the opposite. Instead of greater security, we get the deteriorating situation described above. And in pursuit of a better form of justice -- chiefly defined nowadays as keeping a clear conscience -- we get (at best) a Kenyan jail. "We're humane warriors," says one U.S. Navy officer. "When the pirates put down their RPGs and raise their hands, we take them alive. And that's a lot tougher than taking bodies."

Piracy, of course, is hardly the only form of barbarism at work today: There are the suicide bombers on Israeli buses, the stonings of Iranian women, and so on. But piracy is certainly the most primordial of them, and our collective inability to deal with it says much about how far we've regressed in the pursuit of what is mistakenly thought of as a more humane policy. A society that erases the memory of how it overcame barbarism in the past inevitably loses sight of the meaning of civilization, and the means of sustaining it.

This is a pretty good article, and matches my thoughts on it. I really do think that what we need is an awesome pirate war to clear out all that bothers us- a good old fashioned butt-whooping of real bad guys. Let's see the liberals spin that as a bad thing! As Commodore Decatur declared "We shall offer them liberal and enlightened terms, dictated at the mouths of our cannons." That's how we should take care of this problem. Here is what a liberal is going to say- we're being mean terrorists. William Eaton, commander of the Marines' march to Tripoli, said this about dealing with real terrorists: "There is but one language that can be held to these people, and this is terror." Chew on that.

The recent decision by the Obama administration to ask the Supreme Court to rule on Obamacare is the kind of high-risk action that only a desperate political man would make.

The New York Times:

The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to hear a case concerning the 2010 health care overhaul law. The development, which came unexpectedly fast, makes it all but certain that the court will soon agree to hear one or more cases involving challenges to the law, with arguments by the spring and a decision by June, in time to land in the middle of the 2012 presidential campaign.

The Justice Department said the justices should hear its appeal of a decision by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, that struck down the centerpiece of the law by a 2-to-1 vote....

...The three federal courts of appeal that have issued decisions on the law so far have all reached different conclusions, with one upholding it, a second — the 11th Circuit— striking it down in part, and a third saying that threshold legal issues barred an immediate ruling. A fourth challenge to the law was heard last week by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit....

....The petition from the 26 states and a second one, from the National Federation of Independent Business and two individuals, sought review on the issues they had lost in the 11th Circuit. The administration’s brief and those of the plaintiffs mostly addressed different questions and talked past one another. Each side now has a chance to respond and tell the court its views about whether the issues identified by its adversaries warrant review.

But almost all of the usual signs indicate that the court will agree to hear at least one challenge to the law: a federal appeals court has struck down a major piece of federal legislation, the lower courts are divided about its constitutionality, and all sides, including the federal government itself, agree that review is warranted....

If Obama had waited for the legal process to play out, it may well have been 2013 or 2014 before the Supreme Court weighed in on his signature piece of legislation, and in the meantime he could continue to claim that he passed a major law that addressed a key policy issue and tout all the benefits of the law (especially since all the benefits kick in immediately and all considerable and nation-crippling drawbacks kick in later and really start to destroy our nation the longer it is law). Oh, there would be Republicans and Tea Party people upset that he passed it into law- but they are going to be upset that he passed it into law, whether it stands or is overturned. The very confusion of it legality is the very sort of thing that a Saul Alinsky acolyte like Obama should be able to use to his advantage- he thrives on the sort of division, confusion, and double-speak that you can hear every day on left-wing talk show stations.

But Obama has decided that his Presidency is such trouble that the only way he can win re-election is if the Supreme Court swoops in and validates his signature law, and then he uses that to trumpet that he is right, because the man has no humility and loves nothing more than to trumpet himself (don't believe me- read his books).

Legal Insurrection has the following analysis, which I largely concur to:

From a purely political viewpoint, it is more important that the Supreme Court hear and decide the case prior to the 2012 election than it is which way the Court rules.

While of course throwing the mandate out is my strong (overwhelming) preference, politically for Republicans I don’t think it makes a huge difference which way the Court decides the case, as long as it decides the case prior to the 2012 election.

If the Supreme Court finds the mandate to be unconstitutional, it will deflate Obama’s presidency. In one fell swoop, the entirety of Obama’s agenda will come crashing down. It will be a political and personal humiliation.

If the Supreme Court upholds the mandate, Obama will be able to crow a little, but such a decision will leave the majority of people who hate the law with but one alternative: Throw Obama and Senate Democrats out in November 2012.

A pro-Obamacare ruling prior to the election will motivate the Republican base like nothing else, and will bring the independents along. If you thought the summer of 2009 was hot, just wait until the summer of 2012 if the only way for the nation to get out from under Obamacare is at the ballot box in November.

Legally, Republicans can lose in the Supreme Court on the Obamacare mandate. Policitally, Republicans cannot lose, so long as a decision is issued prior to the November 2012 election.

The only way that this doesn't become a winning play for the GOP is if they go with Romney, in which case the advantage may be negated whichever way the Court rules because Obama can successfully compare his plan to Romney's plan (although Romney's plan is legal and is the kind of experimentation that one expects from states, whereas Obama's plan has to be illegal and is the kind of overbearing tyranny one expects from dictators).

Regardless, the actions of Obama are to be applauded today- we'll now know sooner rather than later if the federal government has the right that I buy a shiny red ball, if it has the power to make me buy a GM car because it wants to support the union, we'll know if the government can stick a gun to my head and force me to buy solar panels or wind turbines, and we'll know if the government really has the power to take part of my salary that I work for and labor for to do whatever it tyrannically wants to do. Obama has made a gutsy call, because he is terrified that people are finally starting to see that the Emperor has no clothes, and actually our nation is better for him doing that.

Of course, no holiday in my family could be complete without long discussions on nerdy topics such as who really legally owned the One Ring of Power from the Lord of the Rings. Via The Volokh Conspiracy:

Property Acquisition in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings

Literary critics have unaccountably ignored the fact that J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy classic The Lord of the Rings was written for the purpose of explicating the different modes of property acquisition under the common law. Nonetheless, a close examination of the work demonstrates that nearly all the different methods of acquisition are described in detail, and their ethical implications examined. During the course of the story, a variety of characters acquire possession of the Ring of Power using every conceivable legal device.

I. Acquisition by Creation.
The Dark Lord Sauron forges the Ring of Power with the help of knowledge gained from the elven smiths of Eregion. His right to the Ring is thereby based on creation. The claim may be tenuous because it is not clear whether he made illegal use of the elves’ patented production processes (the suspicion of illegality is strengthened by the fact that Sauron made every effort to keep the elves from finding out what he was doing).

II. Acquisition by Conquest.
The Last Alliance of Elves and Men defeats Sauron in battle. The human King Isildur cuts the Ring off of Sauron’s finger (along with the finger itself), thereby acquiring it by right of conquest. Even assuming that the conquest was legitimate, it is not clear whether the law would support an exclusive claim of ownership by Isildur, without any rights simultaneously vesting in the elves (who played an equal role in winning the battle).

III. Acquisition by Find.
On his way home from the war, Isildur is ambushed and killed by orcs. The Ring is lost. Centuries later, it is accidentally found by the hobbit Deagol and his brother Smeagol (AKA Gollum). Deagol claims a property right based on his status as finder.

IV. Acquisition by Adverse Possession.
Gollum kills Deagol and takes possession of the Ring, which he retains for many years. Over time, he comes to think of himself as the real finder of the Ring, and he is strengthened in this opinion by the passage of an enormous length of time. Because Gollum’s possession of the Ring is open and notorious, under a claim of right, and for an extremely lengthy duration far beyond the statutory time period, he may have a claim based on adverse possession. However, Gollum’s claim is defective because a claim of adverse possession cannot succeed if it resulted from a criminal act by the claimant. In addition, adverse possession cannot normally establish title to personal as opposed to real property.

V. Acquisition by Agreement.
Gollum loses the Ring to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins in a riddle contest in which the Ring was a mutually agreed stake.

VI. Acquisition by Gift.
Bilbo gives the Ring to his nephew Frodo Baggins. His intention to give Frodo the ring is clear (though he waivers initially), and he hands the ring over in person, thereby effecting proper delivery.

VII. Temporary Acquisition by Necessity.
While Frodo lies unconscious, his servant Sam Gamgee temporarily takes possession of the Ring in order to save both of their lives from imminent danger.

VIII. Attempted Reacquisition by Self-help.
After Frodo regains the Ring from Sam, he plans to destroy it by throwing it into the fires of Mt. Doom. Both Sauron (who believes that he is the rightful owner) and Gollum (ditto) attempt to get the Ring back before Frodo can destroy it. They both resort to illegal self-help remedies rather than bringing the appropriate common law action and a preliminary injunction against destruction of the Ring before the case can be heard. Gollum succeeds in regaining the Ring from Frodo, but falls into the fire, destroying both the Ring and himself.

Moral of the Story
Much trouble could have been avoided if only the parties to this extended property dispute had properly followed the law of acquisition

Based on my own readings of property law and some guesses on other laws, I would rule that the One Ring of Power belongs to the elven smiths of nation of Eregion, who used patented processes to create the One Ring, and thereafter had an employee (Sauren) use those processes on his own to create in secret his own product. It is unclear who legally inherited the property and rights of the nation of Eregion when it was destroyed, but its survivors and descendants went to Rivendell, Blue Havens, and Lothlórien, who are ruled by Elrond, Círdan, and Galadriel, and so it is my ruling that the One Ring properly and legally belonged to one of those three elves. The claim on the One Ring was never abandoned by them- after learning of its whereabouts, they always sought to recover it. And all subsequent actions thereafter were merely the trading of stolen property.

Yet two of those three had an opportunity to reclaim the ring- indeed, it was offered to them and they turned it down and stated that the ring was indeed Frodo's. Based on this reasoning, I would rule that Frodo did indeed have legal ownership of the ring after that until its destruction. So in reality, the Lord of the Rings was simply a story of a disgruntled employee who took company property and refused to give it back until said property was destroyed.

For more information on the history of the One Ring, see The Lord of the Rings: 50th Anniversary, One Vol. Edition, The Annotated Hobbit, and The Silmarillion.

Often overlooked on this blog and others is foreign policy. Those who follow the War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan usually only do so as a reflection on US domestic policy. Events in North Korea or Georgia serve only to give citizens of the United States a chance to test responses by political actors. Few really truly appreciate that importance of foreign policy, but it was foreign affairs that dragged our nation into the War on Terror, the Cold War, Vietnam, Korea, WWII, WWI, etc. It was foreign policy that led to crisis in the Balkans, Rwanda, Somalia, etc. It was foreign policy that opened up markets to our products.

Walter Russell Mead never losses sight of foreign policy and its importance and today put together an excellent article that surveys the major challenges facing the world. Here are some highlights from his article Things Fall Apart, via The American Interest:

...There are times when the ideas of the world’s rulers and the institutions through which they govern are adequate to the needs of the era, and there are times–like the present–when they are not. It is not just the Obama administration that seems mentally and even culturally unprepared to understand much less to guide the events now sweeping through the world. In Brussels, Beijing, Moscow, Tokyo and Delhi — to say nothing of Washington – leaders seem equally clueless, equally committed to outmoded, inaccurate approaches to the issues of our time...

Europe

...The European Union is perhaps the most feckless of the world’s power centers. Its currency is built on a foundation of hopeful assumptions that haven’t panned out: for example that countries as disparate in culture and situation as Greece, Germany, Finland, Ireland and Italy can all live happily under a common currency. There has been no shortage of warning signs for the last decade: there was no secret about the housing bubbles in Ireland and Spain. The falsity of Greek statistics was well known, as were the imprudent habits of its governments and the dysfunctional nature of its economic culture....

...Meanwhile, Europe continues its relentless failure to manage urgent challenges at home and abroad. The Europeans are unwilling (and in some cases, unable) to make the investments that would keep NATO strong; the continuing refusal to take Turkey’s application for EU membership seriously further and decisively marginalizes Europe in the Middle East. Wishful thinking cannot substitute for policy when it comes to the question of immigration, and Europe’s deepening demographic crisis ensures not only a future of population decline but of economic decline and welfare state bankruptcy as well...

China

...Europe is not the only place where leaders don’t measure up to the problems. Although China is not as democratically governed as Europe, on the whole the technocrats of Beijing have handled the last twenty years better than the bureaucrats of the EU. Nevertheless Beijing is confronting a confluence of economic, environmental and social challenges that pose problems which even China’s leadership is unlikely to overcome. Arguments about China’s currency undervaluation, while real, miss the main point: Whether China revalues the renminbi or not, its model of rapid growth based on manufactured exports is reaching fundamental limits... Rising raw material prices combined with consumer fatigue in the malls is squeezing the profitability of Chinese industry just as workers are demanding higher wages. Meanwhile, food price inflation in China is triggering mass anxiety and the financial system appears vulnerable to the kind of bubbles that have wreaked such havoc in the West....

China’s problems go beyond economics. Chinese public opinion, smarting from what it sees as two centuries of humiliation, and now elated by (overblown) press reports of China’s rise, wants its government to follow a more assertive and even aggressive foreign policy. Disputes with Japan, Korea and Vietnam over offshore islands stir deep currents of emotion, and public opinion judges the Chinese government by its ability to prevail in these disputes.

...Looming environmental disasters threaten China’s future, with issues of water, air quality and the usual environmental devastation that accompanies communist governance on a massive scale already taking a toll. The consequences of the one-child policy threaten a demographic disaster as an aging Chinese population will place a growing burden on a society not yet affluent enough to support it...

Russia

Emerging from the sordid shadows of the Soviet Union, Russia faced four great challenges. It needed to come to terms with the horrors and failures of the past, recognizing the enormous evil that Russia both suffered and inflicted during the Soviet period... It has failed, and Russian life and culture remain poisoned by the residue of unrepented horrors and uncomprehended crimes.

...Second, Russia needed to build a modern and competent state that in turn could provide the framework for a new economy and a new society... but with every passing year the critical failure of the Putin presidency to build the stable institutions and solidify the rule of law that a genuinely strong Russian state would require becomes more clear — and more costly....

...The third task, of building the kind of capitalist economy that could provide its citizens with dignity and affluence, has also been left undone. There is no one who thinks that the rule of law is secure in Russia, or that investors (foreign or domestic) have any real security for their investments....

...The fourth task, of finding a suitable world role for a new Russia, has also been decisively botched. Russia has no real friends anywhere in the world; there are those it can bully and those (a much greater number) that it can’t...

Mead also touches on Japan ("a pale shadow of its former self"), India (scandals, poverty, political chaos), Israel, Turkey, etc. His conclusion is one that I also echo:

I hope and pray that the generations of today will not know the sick despair of September 1939; if we are to avoid that kind of fate under even uglier circumstances, we need to start demanding more of our leaders — and of ourselves.

For those interested, check out some books by Walter Russell Mead such as Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World, God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World (Vintage), or Walter Russell Mead.

This nation now follows the rule of men, not the rule of law. The conservative history of our nation, that preserved the traditions of the Greeks and Romans, has been abandoned to the liberal ideals of the barbarians beyond the frontiers of civilization. The new animating principle of the great American experiment is a return to the world that was governed by the whims of kings and dukes.

The new rule is arbitrary government power. The rules are now changed and are no longer clear, and empathy is now more important that equality between the powerful and the weak. In our nation we need to fleece lenders to pay off politically powerful interests and use the power of the government to threaten businesses if they don't toe the political line.

Now our nation puts in place laws to favor those who borrow money that they have no intention of ever replaying. Bankruptcy is merely a means to shed promises and abandon the trust of lending. Secured creditors, those entitled to first priority payment under the "absolute priority rule" are browbeaten by a sitting American president in order for him to reward those who he favors more.

The government's threats and bare-knuckle tactics set an ominous precedent for the treatment of those considered insufficiently responsive to its desires. You better be careful- we are entering a world where if you don't jump high enough when the government says so, you may be in trouble. Don't believe me? Just go ask Chrysler.

Thank you to the Wall Street Journal for inspiring this.

Mired in grinding poverty and social destitution, Africa cries for help. A cacophonous galaxy of rock stars, anti-poverty activists, and heads of state are calling on the G-8 countries to cancel Africa’s $350 billion crippling foreign debt and double aid to the continent. British Prime Minister Tony Blair will make aid to Africa the centerpiece in Britain's presidency of the G-8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland in July. Live 8 is planned for July 2. After meeting with President Bush on June 10, modalities are being worked out to cancel at least $34 billion in debt of 27 of the world’s poorest nations, mostly African. Will this African Marshall Aid Plan work?

Africa’s plight follows a ten-year attention deficit cycle. Every decade or so, mega-plans are drawn up and rock concerts held to whip up international rescue mission for Africa. Acrimonious wrangling over financing modalities ensues. Years slip by, then a decade later, another grand Africa initiative is unveiled. Back in 1985, there was Live Aid and a “Special Session on Africa” held by the United Nations to boost aid to Africa. Then in March 1996, the U.N. launched a $25 billion Special Initiative for Africa. In September 2005, the plight of Africa will again take center-stage at a U.N. conference with clockwork precision. Expect another major initiative for Africa in 2015.

Helping Africa of course is noble but has now become a theater of the absurd – the blind leading the clueless. A recent IMF study estimated that Africans in the diaspora remit $32 billion annually back to Africa, with the main destinations being Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya. About $7 billion is sent to southern Africa (Ghana News Agency, Accra, May 31, 2005). The amount Africans abroad remit back exceeds the $25 billion Tony Blair seeks to raise.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo says corrupt African leaders have stolen at least $140 billion (£95 billion) from their people since independence. The World Bank estimates that 40 per cent of wealth created in Africa is invested outside the continent. Even the African Union, in a stunning report last August, claimed that Africa loses an estimated $148 billion annually to corruption – or 25 percent of the continent's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Rather than plug the huge hemorrhage, African leaders prefer to badger the West for more money. And the West, blinded by its own racial over-sensitivity and guilt over the iniquities of the slave trade and colonialism, obliges. This is the real tragedy of Africa.

Between 1960 and 1997, the West pumped more than $450 billion in foreign aid – the equivalent of four Marshall Aid Plans – into Africa with nothing to show for it. Contrary to popular misconception, foreign aid is not free but a soft loan. Outright debt relief and massive inflow of aid without any conditionalities, safeguards or monitoring mechanisms is absurd. It is akin to writing off the credit card debt of a drunken sailor and allowing him to keep the same credit cards. No African government has been called upon to give a full public accounting of who took what loan and for what purpose since many of Africa’s foreign loans taken in the past were misused and squandered. No government official has been held accountable; instead, irresponsible past borrowing behavior is being rewarded.

More distressing, much of the new aid money will flow directly into an African government budget – a huge black maze of vanishing tax receipts, extra-budgetary expenditure items, perks and off-budget “presidential privy accounts,” redolent with graft, patronage and waste. Over the past few decades, African budgets have careened out of control. State bureaucracies have swollen, packed with political supporters. Back in 1996, 20 percent of Ghana's public sector workforce was declared redundant by the Secretary of Finance and Guinea’s 50,000 civil servants were consuming 51 percent of the nation's wealth. In Kenya, civil service salaries take up half the budget; in Uganda, it is 40 percent. Zimbabwe has 54 ministers; Uganda with a population of 35 million has 70, while Ghana, with a population of 22 million, has 88 ministers and deputy ministers. With bloated bureaucracies, soaring expenditures and narrow tax bases, budget deficits have soared.

They are covered with World Bank loans and foreign aid (Ghana’s budget is 50 percent aid-financed and Uganda’s is 60 percent). If the aid is insufficient, the rest of the budget shortfall is financed by printing money. Even when is aid available for “budgetary support”, there is no guarantee that it will be used productively to generate a return to repay the soft loan. It could well be “consumed” when it pays for the salaries of civil servants. Writing off Uganda’s debt does not eliminate the aid dependency. In fact, when the World Bank canceled $650 million of Uganda’s debt in 1999, the first item President Yoweri Museveni purchased was a new presidential jet!


British Prime Minister thinks he can cajole or browbeat African leaders into curbing corruption and ensuring that resources released by debt relief are put to some good use – such as increased spending on education and health care. But the push for good governance and reform must come from within – from African civil society groups, organizations and the people. However, in country after country, chastened by diabolical restrictions, these groups have no freedom or political space to operate.

Carlos Cardoso, an investigative journalist, was murdered in November 2000 for uncovering a bank scandal in which about $14 million was looted from Mozambique's largest bank, BCM, on the eve of its privatization. The official in charge of banking supervision, Antonio Siba Siba, was also murdered while investigating the banking scandals. Such was also the fate of Norbert Zongo, a popular journalist in Burkina Faso, who was gunned down on Dec 13, 1998, while investigating official corruption. In September 2001, President Isaias Afwerki closed down all the independent media and arrested its staff, quashing calls for democratic reforms. In all, the government shut down eight private newspapers and arrested its journalists, picking them up in their newsrooms and homes and from the streets. They were held in a central jail until April, 2002, when they threatened to begin a hunger strike to protest their detention. They were then transferred to an undisclosed location.

In neighboring Ethiopia, President Meles Zenawi, a member of Tony Blair’s Africa Commission, just held fraudulent elections. Anticipating public outrage, he banned street demonstrations for one month and assumed full control of the country’s security forces. When the opposition rallied to protest the results dribbling in, the police opened fire, killing 26; opposition leaders have been placed under house arrest. Witness the election machinations in Egypt.

The paucity of good leadership has left a garish stain on the continent. Worse, the caliber of leadership has distressingly deteriorated over the decades to execrable depths. The likes of Charles Taylor of Liberia and Sani Abacha of Nigeria even make Mobutu Sese Seko of formerly Zaire look like a saint. In an unusual editorial, The Independent newspaper in Ghana wrote: "Most of the leaders in Africa are power-loving politicians, who in uniform or out of uniform, represent no good for the welfare of our people. These are harsh words to use on men and women who may mean well but lack the necessary vision and direction to uplift the status of their people (The Independent, Ghana, July 20, 2000; p.2).

The crisis in leadership remains a major obstacle to poverty reduction and has many manifestations. It is characterized, among others, by the following dispositions and failings: The "Big Man" syndrome, subordination of national interests to personal aggrandizement, super-inflated egos, misplaced priorities, poor judgment, reluctance to take responsibility for personal failures, and total lack of vision and understanding of even such basic and elementary concepts as "democracy," "fairness," "rule of law," "accountability," and "freedom" -- among other deficiencies. In some instances, the leadership is given to vituperative utterances, outright buffoonery, stubborn refusal to learn from past mistakes, and complete absence of cognitive pragmatism.

Believing that their countries belong to them and only them only, they cling to power at all costs. Their promises are worth less than Al Cappone’s. They stipulate constitutional term limits and then break them: Angola, Chad, Gabon, Guinea, and Uganda. African leaders themselves drew up a New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in 2001, in which they inserted a Peer Review Mechanism (PRM), by which they were to evaluate the performance of fellow African leaders in terms of democratic governance. What happened? To be fair, they acted in reversing the “military coup” in Togo in February but went on vacation when elections were stolen in Zimbabwe and Togo.

Ask them to cut bloated state bureaucracies or government spending and they will set up a “Ministry of Less Government Spending.” Then there is the “Ministry of Good Governance” (Tanzania). They set up “Anti-Corruption Commissions” with no teeth and then sack the Commissioner if he gets too close to the fat cats (Kenya) or issue a Government White Paper to exonerate corrupt ministers (Ghana in 1996). To be sure, multi-party elections have been held in recent years in many African countries but the electoral process was so contumaciously manipulated to return incumbents to power. Four such “coconut elections” have so far been held this year: Zimbabwe, Togo, Congo (Brazzaville), and Ethiopia.

Ask them to place more reliance on the private sector and they will create a Ministry of Private Enterprise (Ghana). Ask them to privatize inefficient state-owned enterprises and they will sell them off at fire-sale prices to their cronies (Uganda). Or ask them to move a foot and they will demand foreign aid in order to do so. In 2003, some 30,000 ghost names were discovered on the payroll of the Ministry of Education, costing the government $1.2 million a month in salaries heisted by living workers. When Ghana demanded foreign aid to purge the payroll of these ghost names, Japan coughed up $5 million.

The reform process has stalled through vexatious chicanery, willful deception, and vaunted acrobatics. Only 16 out of the 54 African countries are democratic, fewer than 8 are “economic success stories,” only 8 have a free and independent media.

No amount of debt relief and increased aid will help Africa until Africa cleans up its own house. But the leadership is not interested in reform. Thus, without new leadership and genuine reform, debt relief and increased aid would compound Africa’s problems and more African countries will implode. The continent is stuck in a veritable conundrum. What can Western donors do?

Smart aid would do one of two things. One, bypass the vampire state and target the people, who produce Africa’s real wealth. An African economy consists of three sectors: the traditional, informal, and the modern sector. The people who produce Africa’s real wealth – cash crops, diamonds, gold and other minerals – live in the traditional and informal sectors. Meaningful development and poverty reduction cannot occur by ignoring these two sectors. But in the 1960s and 1970s, much Western development aid was channeled into the modern sector or the urban area, the abode of the parasitic elite minority. Industrialization was the rage and the two other sectors – especially agriculture – were neglected. Huge foreign loans were contracted to set up a dizzying array of state enterprises, which became towering edifices of gross inefficiency, waste and graft. Economic crises emerged in the 1980s and billions in foreign aid money were spent in an attempt to reform the dysfunctional modern sector. Between 1981 and 1994, for example, the World Bank spent more than $25 billion in Structural Adjustment loans to reform Africa’s dilapidated statist economic system. Only 6 out of the 29 “adjusting” African countries were adjudged to be “economic success stories” in 1994. Even then, the success list was phantasmagoric. Ghana, declared a “success story” in 1994, is now on HIPC life-support system.

At some point, even the most recklessly optimistic donor must come to terms with the law of diminishing returns: That pouring in more money to reform the modern sector is futile. Greater returns can be achieved elsewhere – by focusing on the traditional and informal sectors.

Second, smart aid would empower the African people (African civil society groups) to monitor how the aid money is being spent and to instigate reform from within. Empowerment requires arming the African people with information, the freedom and the institutional means to unchain themselves from the vicious grip of poverty and oppression.

Africa already has its own Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights (the 1981 Banjul Charter), which recognizes the right to liberty and to the security of his person (Article 6); to receive information, to express and disseminate his opinions (Article 9); to free association (Article 10); to assemble freely with others (Article 11); and to participate freely in the government of his country, either directly or through freely chosen representatives in accordance with the provisions of the law (Article 13). Though the Charter enjoins African states to recognize these rights, few do so. When President Thabo Mbeki called on June 3, President Bush should have handed him a signed copy of this Charter to be delivered to President Robert Mugabe of ‘Zimbabwe.

The institutional tools Africans need are an independent central bank (to assure monetary stability and stanch capital flight), an independent judiciary (for the rule of law), a free and independent media (to ensure free flow of information), an independent Electoral Commission, an efficient and professional civil service, and a neutral and professional armed and security forces.

Recent events in Ukraine (November), Ghana (December), Zimbabwe (March), Lebanon (April), and Togo (April) unerringly underscore the critical importance of these institutions. Without them, President Bush’s plan to spread democracy may stall. Democracies are not built in a vacuum but in a “political space” in which the people can air their opinion, petition their government without being fired on by security forces and can choose who should rule them in elections that are rigged by electoral commissions packed with government goons.

On May 13, thousands of Egyptian judges, frustrated by government control over the judiciary, agitated for full independence from the executive in their oversight of the electoral process. “The institutions are presenting Mr. Mubarak with an unexpected challenge from within, one that will be difficult to dismiss. The fact is, major changes in this country are going to come out of those institutions, not from the streets," said Abdel Monem Said, director of the Ahram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo.

In the past 24 years, Egypt has received more than $55 billion in U.S. aid in direct government-to-government transfers. Smart aid would assist civil society in instigating institutional reform. Since this approach carries some risks, the same objective can be achieved by funneling aid through diaspora Africans and their organizations, as was the case with Soviet dissidents during the Cold War.

Africa’s long term growth prospects do not lie in rock concerts and increased dependency on Western aid but on the ability of the African people or civil society groups to instigate reform from within. Assistance to such groups – both at home and abroad – constitutes much smarter aid to Africa than all the LIVE AID concerts Bob Geldof can organize.
______________

The writer, a native of Ghana, is a Distinguished Economist at American University and President of the Free Africa Foundation. His new book is Africa Unchained (Palgrave/MacMillan). This article is culled from his May 10 testimony before the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate of Canada.

Although I have written several times about what is going on with the auto companies (Government Motors, Obama the CEO, on SNL, Obama Forces Private Businessman Out of Job), I'm not a lawyer, and so I don't have the correct grasp on language that some real lawyers do. I mean, I know intuitively that what is going on is not right (What does a Political Economy look like? and Michigan Businesses Battle Government Regulations ...), but I can't describe what is going on in the US as well as the guys over at Power Line can. This is a great post (read it here):

The Chrysler reorganization is shaping up as another milestone in the decline of the rule of law under Barack Obama. We've said for quite a while that bankruptcy is the only viable option for Chrysler and General Motors, not--as Obama claims--because they don't know how to make the right kinds of vehicles, but because their unsustainable union contracts make it impossible for them to be profitable. That reality has now been turned on its head, as the administration has tried to bully Chrysler's secured creditors into going away, while the United Auto Workers Union, solely on the basis of political clout, would be paid at an implied rate of 50 percent and would emerge owning 55 percent of the company, with the government also holding a stake.

This is banana republic capitalism at its worst. Political influence, rather than the law, dictates the rights of the parties. When some of the secured creditors refused to be intimidated, Obama libeled them in the press, saying, outrageously, "I don't stand with those who held out when everyone else is making sacrifices." Actually, under Obama's plan the politically favored parties, principally the UAW, will benefit--will steal money, to put it crudely--from the parties who held out. Those parties call themselves the "non-TARP lenders."

This highlights the government's conflict of interest in this transaction, as in so many others now underway. Some of Chrysler's secured creditors are banks who received TARP money. As the New York Times put it, those lenders are "beholden to Washington" and "defying the administration was never a serious option."

It remains to be seen what will happen in bankruptcy court. Already one key player, Perella Weinberg Partners, "under intense pressure from the White House," has caved in and agreed to accept Obama's terms. Whatever the ultimate result, this episode will have consequences. The Wall Street Journal notes:If the current plan is pushed through, then good luck to any unionized firm trying to raise secured debt on decent terms in the future.

For Chrysler, the administration's plan spells disaster. It is inconceivable that the UAW, the principal source of Chrysler's problems, will manage the company back to profitability. More likely, Chrysler will become a vehicle through which the federal government provides uneconomic subsidies to unionized auto workers and retirees.

Barack Obama's conduct in this affair has been disgraceful. Our bankruptcy laws are well developed and are fairly implemented by experienced bankruptcy judges. Priority among creditors is established according to legal rules and precedents. The process is transparent and subject to appellate review. But in this case, the law did not favor the parties who have the most influence with the White House--notably, the United Auto Workers--so Obama substituted political threats and bullying for due process. Il Duce would have approved.

I would also suggest you check out this article in the Detroit News- here are a couple good parts:

They are being demagogued as "speculators" by President Barack Obama and as "vultures" by Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Oakland County Congressman Gary Peters.

They are the smaller bondholders who have refused to bow to the pressure of the Obama administration and accept a minuscule number of pennies on the dollar as repayment for their loans to Chrysler.

This confrontation could have been avoided if the Obama administration had treated the bondholders as equitably as the United Auto Workers, which gets far more money for the dollar.

The good-faith loans from the bondholders provided the operating capital for which Chrysler pledged its assets as collateral, an important role that the Obama administration wants to ignore as part of its forced restructuring program that favors the politically connected UAW.

The heavy-handed tactics of the Obama administration represent another government intrusion into the private sector and attempt to victimize a constituency that does not have the political clout of the unions.

The noncompliant bondholders are going to take their chances on winning back a bigger share of their shareholder investments in bankruptcy court, where the independent role of the judiciary will be expected to fairly judge their claims.

One hopes the Obama administration will not try to bully the courts the way it has private businesses.

It already will be tough to raise desperately needed money in the market for Chrysler to make its future vehicles after Obama's intervention and scapegoating of investors as "speculators." Government intimidation would represent an even greater danger to the country and obstacle to Chrysler's future

A smart man would bet money that the bankruptcy process will not be impartial and free from undue influence by government- rule of law has already be disregarded by the President, who wants to run America as he personally sees fit, and so I don't doubt for a second that he will personally pressure judicial appointments to decide the way he wants them to decide. America is dying, and our President is going to stop at nothing to loot the carcass for the benefit of himself and his friends.

UPDATE: Powerlineblog follows up with another good post to read-Banana Republic, Part II

In several earlier posts I have been critical of Obamacare because it attacks life, liberty, and property and because it represents the growing tyranny of the federal government. But somehow I missed an important reason why we should oppose giving the national government more control over our healthcare system- power should not be concentrated in the hands of government and government officials because when this happens it increases by considerable amounts the chances that this power will be used in a corrupt manner. And we're seeing that under President Barack Obama (Democrat) and a Congress that was run by Nancy Pelosi (Democrat), legislation like Obamacare was passed into law that is now leading to considerable amounts of corruption in our system.

Corruption takes makes many forms, but in this case, we have to consider whether or not Democrats, led by President Obama and Democrats in Congress, passed legislation that allows and encourages more corruption in our nation and also whether or not these same Democrats continue to be encouraging and supporting of corruption. Corruption is seen usually in several ways- trading in influence, patronage, cronyism, electoral fraud, and kickbacks.

It was my suspicion several months ago that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was a corrupt piece of legislation designed to transfer property and choice from those who have it to those who want it. There would be those who would not want to be part of this process who would then ask for waivers, and it was my suspicion that these waivers would be given out based on political considerations- in other words, they would be given to groups that support the Democratic Party, Obama in particular, or to companies who had access and connections to those Democratic party officials who were making the decisions on the waivers, likely because of their campaign donations. So I started to do some research on the issue- as I stated, the research was by no means an exhaustive list of evidence but did end up being some pretty fair anecdotal evidence that those who are receiving waivers from Obamacare are those who donated large amounts of money to Barack Obama. Check out the post for my little bit of research on this issue. Usually where there is lots of smoke there is a fire, and it turns out the smoke I saw is now being seen by others.

The Daily Caller is reporting that:

Of the 204 new Obamacare waivers President Barack Obama’s administration approved in April, 38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district. That’s in addition to the 27 new waivers for health care or drug companies and the 31 new union waivers Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services approved.

Pelosi’s district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of waivers nationwide, and the companies that won them didn’t have much in common with companies throughout the rest of the country that have received Obamacare waivers. Other common waiver recipients were labor union chapters, large corporations, financial firms and local governments.

This is not shocking news to me- Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker of the House and Barack Obama is still our President, and both are Democrats, and of course the kick-backs will be going primarily to areas that supported them, whether they be in Pelosi's district or union allies or local government units that vote overwhelmingly Democrat.

I think Mona Charen from RealClearPolitics really understands the nature of Obamacare- it is designed to move us away from a nation built on equality and laws to a nation built on power and men:

....There are rumblings of suspicion that HHS has shown favoritism -- labor unions have received some 26 percent of waivers while comprising only 12 percent of workers. As Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee remarked, "What does it say about the feasibility of the health care law when the administration needs to exempt over 1,000 health plans from its own law?"

A few wags have suggested that the HHS grant the rest of the country a waiver and be done with it. But the implications of what Professor Richard Epstein has called "government by waiver" aren't funny. As Congress has ceded more and more power to regulatory agencies, the opportunities for abuse of power multiply. Writing in National Affairs, Epstein notes that among the companies and entities that successfully sought waivers from Obamacare's provisions were PepsiCo, Foot Locker, the Pew Charitable Trusts, many local chapters of the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers union, and numerous public-employee unions.

But, asks Epstein, "(W)hat about employers who do not have the resources to navigate the waiver process? What about those lacking the political connections to make their concerns heard in Washington? And what happens when the one-year waivers run out? Will they be renewed? Under what conditions? And what rights will insurers have to waive then in order to avoid going out of business?"

The world of Obamacare is no place for the little guy.

The danger of waiver power is that it will be used differentially, giving one private entity a competitive advantage over another. The company denied a waiver can bring suit -- but litigation is expensive and slow....

....Because there are so few avenues of recourse when we live under a government by waiver, we are forced, as Epstein warns, to trust in the good judgment of bureaucrats and elected officials: "The fate of our rights and liberties is left to the wisdom and discretion of individuals; we are therefore governed by men, not by laws."

In Marbury v. Madison, Justice Marshall wrote: "The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right." It will also cease to deserve that "high appellation" if we submit to the unreviewable discretion of agencies.

There really are two visions of the future of America being pushed for by the two parties in our nation- one vision pushes for a nation built on laws (although you might disagree with some of those laws) and another vision pushes for a nation built on the rule of powerful men (although you might agree with some of the rules these men establish). It's a tough choice for many- side with the strongman who promises a better future, or side with the lawman who promises a nation built on law. Many will be seduced, and our nation will be less because of it.

Someone once told me a story about how they had a professor in law school who taught trial practice, and he would tell the same story to his students every year. The professor would say "When the facts are on your side, you hammer the facts to the jury. When the law is on your side, then you hammer the law to the jury. And if you have neither the facts nor the law on your side... that's when you put your opponent on trial."

This election, the facts are that over the last two years, a lot of stuff went on in Congress. Legislation was passed and your legislator, be in Congressman or Senator, voted on that legislation (or pulled an Obama and just voted present). Our President appointed czars and issued executive orders, and virtually no oversight or due diligence was performed by Congress, and your Congressman was either party to that or not. Our economy continued to collapse and the foundations of our nation continued to crumble, and your legislator either tried everything to reverse that or focused their attention on other issues. The facts are there, available for everyone to see and read about.

The laws of our country are written down, supremely in the form of the Constitution of the United States of America. Either your Congressman believes in that document and believes in that social contract and believes in the principles and beliefs which it enshrines, or they don't. The laws of our nation have been toiled over for many years, and after great efforts and pains laws have been created to govern ethics, bankruptcy, fraud, pay, and many other issues, and your Congressman either respects the law in our nation, or he respects the rule of men and personal power and supported or encouraged the eroding of laws in our nation and the rise in gangster government that we have witnessed.

But if the facts are not on your side, and the law is not on your side, then you are likely a Democrat, and this election you will probably stoop to just attacking your opponent, making them defend themselves from your various charges, while you are free from the facts, the law, the truth, or human decency. If you are a Democrat in this election, the name of the game is make stuff up, use the massive amounts of campaign funding that you are getting from connected political groups in society to run commercial after commercial with your made up garbage, and then once it is proven false or without merit, you move on to yet another attack of similar nature. The American people may very well be fooled by this sort of games, and you may just fool them long enough to win another term of office, and then continue your quest to destroy our great nation.

Suggested book to read related to this post: Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Lies: Issue by Issue Responses to the Most Common Claims of the Left from A to Z

A sovereign is the supreme lawmaking authority within its jurisdiction. When the Pilgrims left England and came to America, in their hearts they didn't recognize as their sovereign lord the King of England, realizing that anyone who could make it wrong to practice your religion could not truly be the real authority over your actions. The Pilgrims didn't recognize themselves as sovereign lords over themselves, able to determine what was right and wrong for themselves, knowing that this sort of selfishness and vanity would lead away from morality and create an absence of law. When the Pilgrims came to America, they didn't recognize 'no one' as sovereign, realizing that someone had to be responsible for their actions and had to provide law over them or else their community would dissolve into anarchy.

When the Pilgrims arrived in America, they knew in their hearts who their sovereign lord was- they knew who was the real lawmaking authority who watched over them and governed their behavior. Even on the shores of a faraway world, far from the British military or the power of the crown, far beyond the reach of any monarch, in a hostile land filled with potentially hostile people, the Pilgrims sat down and gave thanks to their sovereign lord and savior, to the authority which governed their society, to the source of law and rules and power, and to the one person who could possibly guarantee their safety and salvation. The Pilgrims gave thanks to God and his son, Jesus Christ, recognizing him as their sovereign.

Nolan Finley, writing in the Detroit News today, wrote in Editing God out of history distorts truth:

Ask any grade school kid who the Pilgrims were giving thanks to on the first Thanksgiving and I'll lay you three-to-one odds that the answer you get is, "the Indians." Public education is so obsessed with separation and so uncomfortable with discussions of religion that it has sanitized the unbreakable link between faith and America's founding. Now children are taught that the Pilgrims set the first Thanksgiving dinner for the Native Americans who helped keep them alive during their first harsh year in the New World.

This is more than just a small distortion in the name of political correctness. And it's not one of those Merry Christmas versus Happy Holidays issues. Whether you're a believer or non-believer, you should be concerned that God is being written out of this nation's history because doing so will limit our understanding of who we are as a people.

Faith was the driving force in the lives of the Pilgrims. Certainly the Indians helped them through the deprivations of that first year. But the settlers believed it was their prayers that accounted for their survival. And despite the starvation and sickness, they saw this new land as a great gift from God, a place where they were free to practice their religion.

The freedom to worship sparked a hunger for other liberties and created a culture that chafed at submission to arbitrary authority.

The words they used matter. When you edit out "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" from the Declaration of Independence, as President Barack Obama has been doing lately, you lose the understanding that the early Americans were able to take the extraordinary risk of breaking way from their king and taking responsibility for their own governance because they believed God was the only sovereign they were answerable to.

It was a remarkable proposition at a time when the entire rest of the world was under the rule of monarchs.

The belief in America's divine destiny and its providential partnership fueled the nation's sea-to-sea expansion and sparked a missionary zeal for spreading freedom. It gave rise to the notion of America's large and unique place in the world and the theory of American exceptionalism that is also now considered quaint in many quarters.

The irony here is that schools have no problem exposing our flaws in the name of getting history right. It almost relishes defrocking our heroes — Jefferson owned slaves, and so did Washington; Jackson practiced genocide; the pioneers ravaged the land. They do so even to the point of challenging the nation's legitimacy.

But when it comes to discussing the very complex and integral ways religion shaped our history, educators lose their nerve. So they invent more convenient scenarios, such as Pilgrims cooking up the idea of a huge Thanksgiving dinner to honor their Indian benefactors, instead of the God whom they ardently believed led them to this New World and controlled every aspect of their fate.

There's both good and bad in the nation's religious history. Americans have done some noble things in the name of serving God, and they've made some tragic mistakes doing the same. It's not proselytizing to explore that relationship between God and country. It's just telling the truth.

Truth is largely being scrubbed from public schools today, especially in the social studies, in ways big and small, and the fact that almost every single one of my students thinks that Thanksgiving was held to give thanks to the Native-Americans and not God is just one more piece of evidence that our nation is losing its history and its soul, and soon when people ask you who your sovereign is, your answer of "The President of the United States" will not be the same as the Pilgrim's reply of "God and Jesus."

Charles Krauthammer has picked up on the fact that we are once again living in interesting times:

Which brings us to the age of Obama, perhaps the most exhilarating time of all. There is nothing as bracing for democracy as the alternation of power, particularly when it yields as serious, determined and challenging an ideological agenda as Barack Obama's. This third wave of transformative liberalism -- FDR, then LBJ, now Obama -- is no time for triangulation. This is not incrementalism. We're not debating school uniforms. When Obama once declared Ronald Reagan historically consequential and Bill Clinton not, he meant it. Obama intends to be the Reagan of the new liberalism. The prospect of combative and clarifying 2010s, of sharply defined and radically opposed visions, is both politically and intellectually invigorating.

He's right- after Reagan's Presidency that marked the 1980's and the Republicans took back Congress in the 1990's, everything got better, and success and prosperity was boring and predictable and happy, and a sizable number of people couldn't handle that and rejected that. They rejected the 'jobless' 4% GDP growth of the Bush years, they rejected the victory over evil enemies in Iraq, they rejected the accountability of our education system, and they demanded a change. And they got it.

The election of Obama and rise of the liberals in Congress changed America- it marks the end of our nation as a free, prosperous nation built on liberty, freedom, rule of law, and protection of property rights. The new USA that Obama is building, the hope for many and the change from the past, is a nation built on nationalization and government takeover of privately owned and operated industries like the auto companies and healthcare and banking, of unelected bureaucrats in the EPA or czars like the pay czar determining what sorts of policy we will follow as a nation, of the rise in the power of the person and the violation of the rules of law by people, of increasing tyranny and dehumanization of those opposed to their tyrannical agenda, and the fall of morals and values in society.

The change that Obama represents is a change that I oppose with the whole strength of my being, and which I now fight on every front that I can possibly fight it on- I resist the rise in drug use, I resist the increase in abortions, I resist the rise in unemployment, I resist the increase in disrespect in our society, I resist the rise in sexting and underage sex, and I reject other changes the Obama's policies represent.

And because I resist and fight this change of Obama, it is going to be an interesting decade that we are looking forward to. The children of Reagan, embracing the conservative principles on which our nation was built and recognizing the benefits and beauty of the free market and religion and liberty, are going to be engaging an all out war against a generation of lost and sad individuals who embrace meaningless phrases as they stumble through their religion-less life believing in ghosts and global warming, fighting to establish communism and fascism in our society. Through this battle, America will emerge either stronger and more certain of itself and its place in the world, or weaker and less certain of its future as a nation in this world.

Expect the '10's to be a wild ride. Indeed, Our Long Conservative Nightmare is Over
and May You Live in Interesting Times.