29 April 2013
Boston and the Patriot Act
Extraordinary martial law-type actions were used by the FBI and the local Boston area police to mount an effective response to the Marathon bombing. This temporary and unusually draconian suspension of civil liberties was indeed accepted by Boston residents who are normally very vigilant against encroachment on their rights by government. However, that doesn’t mean, as Daniel Henninger implies in his article in the April 25, 2013 Wall Street Journal, that they would be as compliant with such “protections” from terrorism before an attack on their well-being.
Yes, that means continued vulnerability to random violence. That, after all, is a price of freedom. An unspoken reliance on society’s quick ability to react with effective police action when it is called for is an essential component of a liberal democracy. That is what the Patriot Act was enacted to institutionalize. However, liberals soon regretted precipitously making explicit what had been unspoken before 9/11.
If anything, the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings demonstrated that unspoken reliance on the willingness of citizens to allow their liberties to be infringed in extreme circumstances can work in truly liberal societies. It did not show any diminution of Bostonians’ or liberal Americans’ valuation of their freedom below their security from deranged brothers or international religious fanatics. Commitment to every principle has reasonable limits—in this case public safety was paramount.
Extraordinary martial law-type actions were used by the FBI and the local Boston area police to mount an effective response to the Marathon bombing. This temporary and unusually draconian suspension of civil liberties was indeed accepted by Boston residents who are normally very vigilant against encroachment on their rights by government. However, that doesn’t mean, as Daniel Henninger implies in his article in the April 25, 2013 Wall Street Journal, that they would be as compliant with such “protections” from terrorism before an attack on their well-being.
Yes, that means continued vulnerability to random violence. That, after all, is a price of freedom. An unspoken reliance on society’s quick ability to react with effective police action when it is called for is an essential component of a liberal democracy. That is what the Patriot Act was enacted to institutionalize. However, liberals soon regretted precipitously making explicit what had been unspoken before 9/11.
If anything, the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings demonstrated that unspoken reliance on the willingness of citizens to allow their liberties to be infringed in extreme circumstances can work in truly liberal societies. It did not show any diminution of Bostonians’ or liberal Americans’ valuation of their freedom below their security from deranged brothers or international religious fanatics. Commitment to every principle has reasonable limits—in this case public safety was paramount.
18 April 2013
Two Kinds of Politicians
In the light of the failure of the U.S. Senate to pass a background check requirement on gun purchasers, it is evident that there are two kinds of politicians in that congressional body. Politicians live by the force of their personalities, by being able, like actors, to convince voters to suspend disbelief in the shortcomings of their policy proposals. One sort of politician makes proposals based on his or her personal beliefs and analysis; the second sort makes those proposals based primarily on his or her judgment that the position he or she takes on the issue will lead to reelection.
Of course, the first kind of politicians may be called fools by the second sort. After all, politics is their chosen career and our system of government is designed to produce its democratic result through the natural desire of representatives to prolong their continuance in office.
President Obama and former representative Giffords both have chosen the wrong target of their denigration. They must redouble their effort to change public sentiment on gun possession and, for that matter, to delink the preservation of our freedom from the need to bear arms against a potentially oppressive government. In an era when the power of communications through personal networking may carry more political clout than bullets, it is not unreasonable to expect success in combating the gun lobby by appealing directly to the public on the merits of both gun control and holding our elected representatives to account.
In the light of the failure of the U.S. Senate to pass a background check requirement on gun purchasers, it is evident that there are two kinds of politicians in that congressional body. Politicians live by the force of their personalities, by being able, like actors, to convince voters to suspend disbelief in the shortcomings of their policy proposals. One sort of politician makes proposals based on his or her personal beliefs and analysis; the second sort makes those proposals based primarily on his or her judgment that the position he or she takes on the issue will lead to reelection.
Of course, the first kind of politicians may be called fools by the second sort. After all, politics is their chosen career and our system of government is designed to produce its democratic result through the natural desire of representatives to prolong their continuance in office.
President Obama and former representative Giffords both have chosen the wrong target of their denigration. They must redouble their effort to change public sentiment on gun possession and, for that matter, to delink the preservation of our freedom from the need to bear arms against a potentially oppressive government. In an era when the power of communications through personal networking may carry more political clout than bullets, it is not unreasonable to expect success in combating the gun lobby by appealing directly to the public on the merits of both gun control and holding our elected representatives to account.
16 April 2013
Burying Power Lines
The arguments of Theodore J. Kury in the April 15, 2012 WSJ defending the refusal by electric power companies to bury transmission lines fail to acknowledge two of the ways investment in making transmission lines less vulnerable to storm-related damage can be paid for.
1. When retail customers have no power
a. They don’t burn heating oil and buy less of it from suppliers
b. They don’t see ads while watching TV or surfing the Internet on their computers and buy less from advertisers
c. They don’t buy perishables and other power-dependent products from their local merchants, who may not be able to open for business at all.
These and other secondary beneficiaries of more reliable electric power delivery would logically object to helping subsidize the expense of power line burial by paying a surcharge on their customers’ utility rates.
2. Besides, system-wide power line burial is a straw man. Criteria can be established that limited required burying of power lines to those routes where the cost per mile cleared a reasonable maximum ceiling. A power grid that combined above and below ground transmission methods could partially be financed by raising utility rates only to those customers who benefited from more reliable service owing to the delivery of their electric power through weather-resilient underground lines. The residents’ added expense of electricity would be recovered in the increased value of their real estate.
The arguments of Theodore J. Kury in the April 15, 2012 WSJ defending the refusal by electric power companies to bury transmission lines fail to acknowledge two of the ways investment in making transmission lines less vulnerable to storm-related damage can be paid for.
1. When retail customers have no power
a. They don’t burn heating oil and buy less of it from suppliers
b. They don’t see ads while watching TV or surfing the Internet on their computers and buy less from advertisers
c. They don’t buy perishables and other power-dependent products from their local merchants, who may not be able to open for business at all.
These and other secondary beneficiaries of more reliable electric power delivery would logically object to helping subsidize the expense of power line burial by paying a surcharge on their customers’ utility rates.
2. Besides, system-wide power line burial is a straw man. Criteria can be established that limited required burying of power lines to those routes where the cost per mile cleared a reasonable maximum ceiling. A power grid that combined above and below ground transmission methods could partially be financed by raising utility rates only to those customers who benefited from more reliable service owing to the delivery of their electric power through weather-resilient underground lines. The residents’ added expense of electricity would be recovered in the increased value of their real estate.
