Constitutional Ignorance Led to a Tyranny of the Majority

Constitutional Ignorance Led to a Tyranny of the Majority

Constitution Day—September 17—marks the anniversary of its 1787 signing. Students will be taught about it...but not because of its importance. It is now a mandatory topic for every educational institution receiving federal aid. However, what won’t be taught is the irony of that requirement, which originated from the man then-described as the Senate’s leading Constitutional scholar, while clearly conflicting with the Constitution.

In 2004, Senator Robert Byrd (D.-WV) added this requirement to a pork-filled spending bill that was blatantly inconsistent with Americans’ general welfare. It also clearly overstepped the 10th Amendment’s restriction of the federal government to only its enumerated powers.

His “solution” aside, Byrd was correct about Americans’ inadequate Constitutional knowledge. As one National Constitution Center poll concluded, only one in six of us claimed detailed knowledge of the Constitution—despite the fact that two-thirds said it was “absolutely essential” to have.

Lack of Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing

In other words, Americans know too little about our Constitution to maintain the freedoms it was designed to protect. Instead, our ignorance leads us to sacrificing rights out of undue deference to majority rule.

America’s Constitution did not endorse majority rule. Our founders did believe in voting to select who should be entrusted with the power of government, but the more important and prior question they addressed was: “What powers do the people delegate to the federal government to exercise on their behalf?” That is why so much of the Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights, is devoted to what the government is not allowed to do, regardless of majority sentiment. As Jefferson said, our founders fought not for democracy, but for a government “tied down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

In fact, our founders had a great distrust of majority rule. Alexander Hamilton asserted that “Real liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy.” James Madison said “democracies…have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” Thomas Jefferson warned that “an elective despotism was not the government we fought for,” and that “The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.”

That is why the Constitution contains multiple non-majority rules to protect Americans against federal abuses, such as presidential veto power and the super-majorities required to change the Constitution. Its defense is the rationale for the Supreme Court’s power to strike down unconstitutional laws, regardless of how many congressional votes they received.

“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote."

Despite our founders’ antipathy toward pure majority rule, many today feel that our founders’ opposition to unlimited democracy can be squared with political determination of everything by adding the phrase, “also protecting the rights of the minority.” However, as Ayn Rand put it, “Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).” Consequently, our lack of Constitutional knowledge means that believing in protecting the rights of minorities does not actually protect them when they are outvoted.

Since Americans don’t clearly understand their Constitutional rights against government abuse, the unwise habit of deference to political majorities results in those rights being steamrollered whenever more than 50% vote to do so. Examples are plentiful because—despite the Constitution’s imposition of strictly limited, enumerated federal powers—there is no area it does not now reach, if not dominate. And with our protections eroding, majority voting controls more and more of what our founders thought they had made off-limits to political determination.

Sadly, as we can’t effectively defend what we are only vaguely aware of, American inattention to the highest law of the land puts our most essential rights and liberties at risk. We may think we have inalienable rights, as the Declaration of Independence asserts. But those rights are protected by the Constitution only if we know what they are and we remember that the federal government was not granted power to take them away based on any simple majority vote. Unless we once again take our rights as seriously as our founders and vigorously defend the Constitutional safeguards that maintain them—even against majority pressures—the system of self-government our founders left us will continue to erode. But when we don’t even recognize the irony of a federal mandate to promote understanding of the Constitution, especially when it is inconsistent with the Constitution, we are unprepared to do anything to effectively preserve its protections against government abuse.


Gary M. Galles


Gary M. Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University. His recent books include Faulty Premises, Faulty Policies (2014) and Apostle of Peace (2013). He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Trump’s Lumber Tariffs Hurt Hurricane Recovery

Trump’s Lumber Tariffs Hurt Hurricane Recovery

As the flood waters from Hurricane Harvey dry up, the residents of affected areas are turning to the task of rebuilding their storm-ravaged communities.

Early estimates of the damage suggest they have their work cut out for them. The Texas Division of Emergency Management reports that the storm destroyed 9,407 single family homes. Another 44,013 experienced major damage. Moody's Analytics estimates that the cost of the hurricane will be in the $51–$75 billion range.

President Donald Trump has pledged $1 million of his own money to Harvey relief efforts, along with a $15 billion aid package for areas affected by the storm. But he's also pushing protectionist policies that will raise the cost of the basic building materials, making recovery a longer, more difficult, and more expensive process.

The Price of Protectionism

In April, the Trump administration imposed countervailing trade duties averaging 20 percent on imported softwood Canadian lumber, a common material in home construction. In June, he hit them again with anti-dumping duties of 6 percent.

The initial application of these tariffs aggravated consumers of Canadian lumber, says Kevin Mason, managing director of ERA Forest Products Research (a timber market analyst firm), and the damage done by the storm has only made those consumers' situation worse.

"Some people who've just gone through this devastation—they've had their house flooded or it's been destroyed," Mason says. "To the degree that they've got to go out and get lumber to do some repairs, they're going to be paying close to record high prices. And part of the reason prices are as high as they are is because of these duties."

Tariffs Are Hurting Importers

The U.S. has imposed tariffs on Canadian lumber imports periodically since the mid-1980s. What makes the latest round of tariffs unusual, Macon says, is the degree to which U.S. consumers have eaten the costs of those trade barriers.

"Historically the Canadians have had to absorb half if not the bulk of the duties," says Mason. "This time the U.S. consumer has borne the entire brunt."

According to a pricing index put out by the timber market publication Random Lengths, lumber prices hit a peak of $430 per thousand feet of board in April, the month countervailing duties were first imposed. That's 20 percent over where lumber prices were in January, and nearly 25 percent higher than where prices were in April 2016.

The increase has not gone unnoticed by builders, including those in areas affected by Hurricane Harvey.

"A lot of our distributors, and lumber companies that we deal with, were buying a lot of that imported lumber because they got a much better price, and that rolls over into the prices that we pay," says Patrick Mayhan, vice president of purchasing for the Houston-area company Westin Homes.

That dependence on cheaper Canadian lumber meant that Mayhan's company was particularly vulnerable to Trump's tariffs.

"It was a significant hike at the time. It was a 20 percent increase," he tells Reason, adding that "we had no choice but to pass that along to our retail pricing for the home. And that's a significant amount, because lumber is a big part of the cost of building a home."

Adding Insult to Injury

Increased demand from the storm would push up prices regardless. But thanks to the tariffs, that price increase is starting from an artificially inflated baseline. For some, that could be the difference between a new home and no home at all.

"Currently for each $1,000 that you tack on to the price of a new home, about 150,000 people nationwide can no longer afford homeownership," says David Logan, director of tax policy analysis for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). Logan says the tariffs have increased the costs of lumber for NAHB members by 15 to 20 percent, increasing the cost of a new home by some $1,700.

Zoltan van Heyningen, executive director of the pro-tariff U.S. Lumber Coalition, disputes the numbers coming from the NAHB, saying the impact of tariffs on home prices and homeownership has been overhyped.

"The impact on consumers is negligible to none. The impact on producers is life or death," he tells Reason.

But builders like Mayhan are quickly approaching the point where they cannot pass added costs onto the purchasers of homes. Though it's still too early to tell, the expected price increases coming in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma might push them past that point.

For some builders, that pressure to contain retail prices will lead them to compensate for higher lumber prices with lower profit margins. For others, particularly those operating at lower margins, reduced returns might mean forgoing new construction projects.

That's particularly true for people planning to rebuild in the aftermath of Harvey and Irma. In addition to near-record-high lumber prices, the costs of other materials—drywall, sheetrock, siding—have gone up as well.

Trump told reporters recently that the response to the recent storms is "gonna cost a lot of money." Without his tariffs on imported lumber, the cost could be considerably less.

Reprinted from Reason

Christian Britschgi


Christian Britschgi is a reporter for Arizona Watchdog.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Government Run Amok at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms

Government Run Amok at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms

 

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) must be anxious to get on my list of government bureaucracies that shouldn’t exist.

The bureaucrats have engaged in some really silly and petty behavior (such as confiscating Airsoft toy guns because they might be machine guns), and they’ve engaged in some behavior that is criminally stupid and dangerous (running guns to Mexican drug gangs as part of the “Fast and Furious” fiasco).

If It's Not One Thing, It's Another

Now we have another example. Though it’s so bizarre that I’m not sure how to classify it. Basically, the bureaucrats created an illegal slush fund, and then used the money illegally.

The New York Times has been on top of this story. Here are excerpts from the latest report.

For seven years, agents at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives followed an unwritten policy: If you needed to buy something for one of your cases, do not bother asking Washington. Talk to agents in Bristol, Va., who controlled a multimillion-dollar account unrestricted by Congress or the bureaucracy. …thousands of pages of newly unsealed records reveal a widespread scheme — a highly unorthodox merger of an undercover law enforcement operation and a legitimate business. What began as a way to catch black-market cigarette dealers quickly transformed into a nearly untraceable A.T.F. slush fund that agents from around the country could tap. …One agent steered hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate, electronics and money to his church and his children’s sports teams, records show. …At least tens of millions of dollars moved through the account before it was shut down in 2013, but no one can say for sure how much. The government never tracked it.

Oh, by the way, the BATF was breaking the law.

Federal law prohibits mixing government and private money. The A.T.F. now acknowledges it can point to no legal justification for the scheme.

But you won’t be surprised to learn that there have been no consequences.

…no one was ever prosecuted, Congress was only recently notified, and the Justice Department tried for years to keep the records secret.

And it’s also worth noting that this is also a tax issue. As I’ve noted before, high tax rates encourage illegality.

Though cigarettes are available at any corner store, they are extraordinarily profitable to smuggle. That’s because taxes are high and every state sets its own rates. Virginia charges $3 per carton. New York charges $43.50. The simplest scheme — buying cigarettes in Virginia and selling them tax-free in New York — can generate tens of thousands of dollars in illicit cash. By some estimates, more than half of New York’s cigarettes come from the black market.

By the way, I can't help but wonder why the federal government is engaging in all sorts of dodgy behavior to help enforce bad state tax laws. Yes, I realize the cigarettes are crossing state lines, but so what? The illegal (but not immoral) behavior occurs when an untaxed cigarette is sold inside the borders of, say, New York. Why should Washington get involved?

In other words, I like the fact that borders limit the power of government. It’s why I don’t like global schemes to undermine tax competition (why should Swiss banks be required to enforce bad U.S. tax law?), and it’s why I don’t like the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act (why should merchants in one state be required to enforce the sales taxes of other states?).

But I’m digressing.

Let’s get back to the Bureau’s misbehavior. Here’s some additional reporting from the U.K.-based Times.

A US government crime-fighting agency ran a secret bank account that its employees used to buy luxury cars, property and trips to casinos. Officers for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), charged with investigating smuggling and gun crimes, built up a slush fund worth tens of millions of dollars through illicit cigarette sales, ostensibly as part of an operation to catch traffickers. The scandal is the latest controversy to hit the agency, which has been criticised in recent years for lack of accountability and allowing the flow of guns and drugs to go unchecked. …Cash from the slush fund generated at an ATF field office in Bristol, Virginia, …funded activities such as a trip to Las Vegas, donations to agents’ children and the booking of a $21,000 suite at a Nascar race.

But That's Not All

And what about the overall BATF bureaucracy? Well, it’s getting some unfavorable attention. Keep in mind that this scandal is on top of the “Fast and Furious” scandal of the Obama years.

The ATF has said that it has “implemented substantial enhancements to its policies, and has markedly improved leadership, training, communication, accountability and operational oversight”. Under the previous administration, it was widely derided for a botched weapons operation known as “Fast and Furious”. The agency allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel kingpins. But out of the 2,000 firearms sold, only a fraction have been traced. The secret account scandal has renewed calls from across the political spectrum for the department of about 2,000 agents to be reformed or shut down.

Last but not least, I think we have a new member of the Bureaucrat Hall of Fame.

Thomas Lesnak, a senior ATF investigator, began the scheme. …Mr Lesnak retired with his pension and was not reprimanded.

Just like Lois Lerner and the IRS, engaging in corrupt and crooked behavior and then escaping any punishment.

Maybe the two of them should hook up? They’d make a great couple. I’m sure they could even figure out a way to make taxpayers finance their wedding and honeymoon.

P.S. The “Fast and Furious” scheme was just one of the scandals that occurred during the Obama years, but it may have been the most foolish. Didn’t anybody at the BATF realize that it wasn’t a good idea to funnel weapons to Mexican drug gangs?!?

P.P.S. The silver lining to that dark cloud is that we got a couple of good one-liners about the Obama Administration’s gun-running scandal from Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon.

Reprinted from Intentional Liberty

Daniel J. Mitchell


Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Mighty Bomb Jack / Solomon’s Key (NES)

This is an ad for two early releases by Tecmo for the NES, Mighty Bomb Jack and Solomon's Key. This advertisement is from the February/March 1988 issue of Nintendo Fun Club news which was an official Nintendo publication that was the precursor to Nintendo Power.

Mighty Bomb Jack was released by Tecmo for the NES in 1987. I always though it looked like an interesting game but reviews were generally poor. It seems to be a pretty generic platform game and it was apparently fairly repetitive and without much depth. Despite this, it has seen numerous re-releases. It was released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2007, for the 3DS Virtual Console in 2012 and for the Wii U Virtual Console in 2014. Those also got rather poor reviews. More contemporary releases include ports for the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST and Game Boy.

Solomon's Key was originally an arcade puzzle game released by Tecmo. In 1987 and 1988, a number of home ports were released. In addition to the NES version, there were ports for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, Sega Master System (Japan only) and others. There are also a couple of other games related to Solomon's Key. The Game Boy Color game, Monster Rancher Explorer is an updated port of Solomon's Key. Also, one of the latest NES releases, Fire and Ice, was a prequel to Solomon's Key. The NES version of Solomon's Key was released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2006 and in 2013 on both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U Virtual Consoles. It was also released for the PS4 in 2015.

These games aren't really the ones that made Tecmo famous on the NES. That would come later with the release of Tecmo Bowl.