Strata-Sphere is a blog that I read religiously. AJ is a joy to read about science, logic, and foreign affairs. I rarely disagree with those conclusions and often am educated to extraordinarily intricate levels. He does a wonderful job of making complex ideas simple.
Then he gets mad at the Republicans, particularly conservative republicans that insist on consistency. These he treats as pariahs. Admittedly I am one of those. Like every other person, I want people whom I respect to respect me in turn. I have no problem earning that respect. So, am I eligible to earn that respect?
1. Harriet Miers should never have been on the court. Justice Alito is superb. Conservatives erred in seeking an upgrade? The point of confirmation, according to the Federalist Papers, is to avoid having the presidents' friends of dubious quality be appointed without comment. How does this differ from that ideal?
2. AJ hates the attempt to block immigration legislation. Fiat justitia ruat caelum: Let justice be done though the heavens may fall. A bit bold in tone but actually in my practice a way to get things cleaned up quickly. If a case gets knotted up with a judge trying to dictate a "fair result," it often is highly inefficient and likely to reward the wrong-doer. If the judge flatly enforces the rules quickly and efficiently, the result is more likely to be that the parties resolve the issue themselves in a more efficient manner. This is the problem with the immigration debate position that AJ takes, he is interested in being fair to the law breaking immigrants. Unfortunately, he would reward the rule breakers and claim jumpers at the expense of those immigrants wishing to play by the rules. Experience has quickly shown us that refusal to give jobs in states to illegals and a weakening economy quickly reverses the net immigration flow. If we take a few more steps to tighten those up by more aggressive enforcement against cheating business owners, the immigrants leave quickly. The experience of history with immigrants is something like an eight-to-one ratio: eight leave voluntarily for every one that suffers enforcement of the rules. I suggest that ratio would go higher as the immigrants believe the free-ride of welfare, education, false automatic citizenship, and tax evasion (i.e., under the table payments) are closed down. Legal immigration will be much easier to justify.
I would add that I am in favor of immigration, but I want a small ratio from any one country. Diversity of country of origin will weaken the down side of immigration allowing more divergent strengths to appear. Too much of one profile is damaging.
3. Pushing Specter out. If jumping from the party is seen as detrimental, the party will build cohesion. Specter got a temporary advantage of going with the Democrats. The Democrats have helped the Republican cause by treating him like a pariah. Less likely to get followers. Now if a person stays, he is going to be more sensitive to primary voters. Independents naturally get mad at this result, because they don't want to lower themselves to belong to a party.
In fact, the more people that join a party and regularly vote for it in the primaries, the more the party will move toward the center. The parties would serve themselves well by making party primary participation be more valuable: discourage open primaries and make challengers easier. That will push the parties toward the center of their end of the spectrum. A party should never be in the center, because then there is less benefit from changing parties by voting. The weaker party is always the most centrist because they feel they need to imitate the winner.
I would argue that 60% of the population tells Gallup that they live and act conservatively in daily life. If the Republicans can show how their ideas better reflect these habits, we will persuade more.
4. AJ does not radical sounding language. The problem is that parties build loyalty by activating their followers passions. I wish it were not so, but people are persuaded by their emotions nine times out of ten. Put another away, market research on convincing clients to implement one legal strategy over another shows only 10% of the population can be persuade by "the bottom line" of accounting numbers. Why is a legal strategy implemented by Congress different?
In fact Democrats own most of the population either in party identification or means of persuasion because they show a reckless disregard for the truth when passions will get them what they want. Lie, cheat, steal . . . who cares, they say, just win.
I want Republicans to get the best people in the job, that strictly adhere to the rules, and argue on logic with the ability to show passion simultaneously and to clearly identify friend from foe.
Compromise where it actually moves your agenda forward. Stand firm where compromise only weakens your cause.
If that makes me a radical, then radicalism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
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