The Editor's Desk

Radley Balko, a senior editor at libertarian-leaning Reason magazine, has done a lot of analysis about the use and misuse of SWAT raids, as well as reporting on other misuses of power within the justice system in the United States. Reason magazine’s blog, Hit and Run, was where I first found out about the deadly, misguided SWAT raid in Virginia I used as an example in a recent editorial.

Balko’s own blog is here, if you’re interested in following these issues. I got more interesting responses from my SWAT editorial than I expected. I’m just horrible at predicting people’s responses to the things I write about.

Oh, and I’m not promoting Balko’s blog simply because he recently complimented my SWAT editorial in it. I had totally planned to mention him a week ago here in my blog. Totally. Really.

I’ve been invited to join other opinion writers in Freedom Communications (the company that owns the Desert Dispatch) in participating in a blog analyzing the presidential race over at the Orange County Register. Take a look at the blog here.

One of the goals is to discuss how the presidential race is being perceived or is being impacted in our various regions. However, I honestly don’t hear much about the candidates except from a handful of local folks who are personally involved in party politics.

I wonder if it’s because of our overall isolation and local focus. But I also worry if there’s a fear of our own irrelevance in national politics. We’re a small community that tends to vote conservative in a state where the Democratic presidential candidate tends to win easily — and so go the electoral votes. We’re also just a tiny part of our large state and congressional districts. Sometimes I wonder if people in Barstow feel that their votes beyond local issues matter.

I’d certainly love some feedback on the subject.

I was disturbed and a little sad to read a letter from the Mojave Valley Volunteer Hospice board that they were getting angry or harassing phone calls because they had to cancel Thanksgiving meal deliveries due to the ultimately fatal illness of administrator Donna Zeller.

First of all, I was sad to hear of Zeller’s passing. I volunteered one Christmas to help deliver meals and it was a wonderful experience. I’ve also interviewed Zeller for news stories in the past. She was a wonderful woman and will be missed by this community, particularly given the challenges of fighting deadly illnesses in this isolated desert town with limited resources.

I should be surprised that people would respond to the cancellation of the delivery service so negatively, but I’m not. We received calls alerting us to the problem that Desert Manna not having enough food to give baskets to every family who requested help this season and having to restrict the donations to families of at least four.

One of the people who called us was angry and clearly expected us to write something critical of Desert Manna for not giving everybody baskets. Of course, we did no such thing. We reported about the situation in the hopes of encouraging community assistance (which apparently helped to some degree), but we certainly had no intention of pointing the finger at Desert Manna.

This is one of the results of living in an entitlement culture. The more we are given, the more we come to believe that we are entitled to these things we have not earned. I know that sounds callous, but is there any alternative? It’s certainly not acceptable to treat gifts from charitable organizations as though they’re something we’re owed.

It’s disturbing how pervasive the idea that somebody else will provide for us has become in our culture. I’m well aware that there are needy and helpless people within our community — I met several of them doing these deliveries a couple of years ago. But it’s disappointing that some folks immediately went to a place of entitlement, rather than helping look for solutions, when a problem arose.

Much to my surprise, I’ve received a much stronger reaction to the proposed local rental inspection ordinance and my editorial expressing my opposition. And it turns out quite a number of Barstow residents are equally concerned about the violation of privacy and search and seizure protections.

I’ve received several calls and a couple of e-mailed comments about the issue, all in opposition to the city’s ordinance. A couple of days ago in the blog, I figured folks would support the ordinance as a way to (allegedly) help clean up Barstow.

As it was time for a new front page poll, I’ve put one up to gauge attitudes toward the proposed ordinance. Feel free to vote!

My editorial today took a fairly predictable libertarian position that the City of Barstow lacks the constitutional authority to order door-to-door inspections of rental units.

Though I’ve already gotten one supportive comment online, I’m not holding out much hope that Barstow residents will speak out against the ordinance, given the community’s dislike of some the really run-down properties in town.

The ordinance appeals to people on both the left in the right in the way it uses government authority to achieve wanted ends. On the left, the ordinance speaks to the desire to use the government to protect the consumer from some of the abuses of the marketplace — in this case, poor tenants stuck in uninhabitable homes, afraid to contact authorities for fear of being evicted. It appeals to the right as a tool of law enforcement to deal with a difficult problem — typically drug abusers/dealers/gang members who allow their homes to decay and affect the neighborhood negatively.

Whether or not any actual changes will occur is something of which I’m extremely suspect. I asked Jeanette Hayhurst, city project manager for housing, whether the city was having luck getting absentee landlords (the target of this proposed ordinance) to respond to existing code enforcement efforts. She said that the responses were improving, which sounds like they have a long way to go still. I have doubts that absentee landlords are going to respond to this ordinance or care about the city’s threats.

Before writing the editorial I contacted Patricia Neal, the consultant helping the city with the rental studies and the formulation of the ordinance. I asked her about legal challenges to the ordinances in other communities. She said the ordinance has survived a challenge on the state level over the forced fees. However, she wasn’t aware of any challenges on the federal level on the basis of the inspections violating the Fourth Amendment (the crux of my argument). She doubted whether the Supreme Court would even take up a challenge in this situation, and after the Kelo vs. New London decision (authorizing abuse of eminent domain) I’m sadly inclined to agree.

Jason Smith mentions in our news blog some of the silliness that goes on at the Barstow Planning Commission. Our commissioners actually spend time discussing and analyzing what street names in Barstow should be.

I’ve already commented on the ridiculousness of the commission going on and on (and on and on) in their discussions of what colors are permissible on the exterior of local businesses. Is there any point, any line that we will cross where our community will turn around and say, “You know what? We don’t need your help with street names or colors, so why don’t you just stay out of it? Thanks.”

Tuesday’s editorial will be my commentary about the state Senate bill mandating changes in school food options to make them healthier. I’m coming to the issue from a libertarian perspective, so you can imagine the giant eye-roll I’m directing at the matter.

But I do want to add that healthy eating is actually an important issue to me. I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes (caught while still fairly mild) last November and have had to make major changes to my lifestyle. Like many adults who spend a lot of time working, I didn’t pay much attention to what I was putting in my body, relying on fast food and soda to keep me going during the day.

I never at any point in this reevaluation of my eating habits would have expected (or for that matter, allowed) the government to make these changes for me. Why on earth would I do that? They don’t know me. They don’t have to deal with the consequences. They don’t have to care whether the advice they give me is accurate. They won’t be the ones to go blind or suffer permanent nerve damage.

When the news of New York City’s trans fat ban hit the wire, I thought to myself, “Why would people allow this?” Then I read one harried businesswoman say she was glad about the ban because it meant one less thing she’d have to think or worry about.

That comment from her sent shivers up my spine. I would never, ever surrender my decision-making rights to a gaggle of government bureaucrats, even if it meant I would have to take responsibility for my own stupid decisions.

It’s interesting how nature has its own way of keeping you in check. I went blind in one eye for a nerve-wracking 30 minutes last year while at work; this incident was what ultimately led to the diagnosis. Going blind is one of my greatest fears, probably even greater than dying. Mother nature couldn’t have figured out a bigger incentive to cause me to change my behavior. The government certainly couldn’t.

And it worked. I’ve lost 20 pounds, all because I wanted to change my behavior, not because the government did my thinking for me.

Several Supreme Court decisions came down today regarding First Amendment issues.

First, the court ruled unconstitutional certain restrictions on advocacy political advertisements prior to elections. The court ruled 5-4 that the guidelines restricting a timeframe prior to elections when the ads could run were too severe.

This goes down as a partial “W” for the First Amendment. The court didn’t throw out the entire McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, but does allow more freedom for interested parties to make their cases to the American people as elections approach. Now if the whole law, which favors incumbents in the guise of allegedly “cleaning up” politics, could get tossed out, that would be great.

In a more complicated decision, the First Amendment gets a small “L”in the case of a high school student and his “bong hits 4 Jesus” banner. You can probably guess what this case is about. Boy hangs up banner, gets in trouble. The school’s argument here was that he wasn’t saying anything of substance about drugs and the banner could be seen as advocating illegal behavior. The court agreed, but made it clear that the nature of the boy’s message mattered here. If it had made some sort of political statement about drug legalization or something to that effect, the decision might have gone otherwise.

While I understand the nature of the decision, I don’t expect that most school administrators will understand or care about the distinctions. I fully expect this decision to be pointed to when schools suppress actual political speech.

And in a ruling regarding the executive branch of the United States and the separation of church and state, I’m still not quite sure how to call it. The Supreme Court blocked a suit against the Bush Administration’s Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The plaintiffs argued (quite correctly, in my opinion) that the government was giving tax money to churches, a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In a 5-4 ruling, the majority determined that the plaintiffs had “no standing” to argue damages in this situation.

My limited understanding of the court ruling (and I did actually read several pages of both sides here, but I’m not even capable of being a pretend Internet lawyer) was that the money spent was distributed at the discretion of the executive branch. The distribution of funds in this fashion could not be subjected to lawsuits in this fashion, or else it would open the executive branch up to lawsuits over every expense or decision. It falls upon the legislative branch (Congress) to set guidelines for executive branch expenditures if it chooses to do so.

I feel a little odd about the decision. I understand the logic they’re presenting, but if a branch of the government is violating the Establishment Clause, does it matter the circumstances? In this case, the Supreme Court narrowly ruled that it doesn’t have the power to tell the executive branch what it may or may not spend money on, even if it’s a violation.

Of course, from a libertarian perspective, if the government didn’t take tax dollars and redistribute them to charities against our will in the first place, we’d all be free to donate to whichever secular or religious charity suited us.

So how does a lifelong lefty liberal ultimately find himself drawn toward libertarian philosophy?

It’s a bit of a paradox, really. My dislike of the behavior of President George W. Bush and his administration led me away from the left toward the center over the course of several years.

That probably doesn’t make much sense, so I’ll have to explain. Way back in 2000 I was living and working in San Diego. One day I was having lunch with an acquaintance I knew from my work as an editor. We were discussing the presidential race and I was expressing my dissatisfaction with Al Gore (I thought he was a condescending phony – and still do). He had already decided he was voting for Gore. He was a gay man with an adopted daughter. His fear was that if Bush won the election, there would be a serious rollback of gay rights, and he would lose custody of his daughter.

That’s certainly pretty heavy reason for his decision, and I don’t blame him for his logic, even though a rollback that severe didn’t ultimately happen. I recall thinking at the time how scary it is to have to hope for a particular side to win the presidential election in order to hope to have your rights secured.

But that’s exactly what happened in America. Our civil liberties are no longer being defined by the Constitution – they’re being defined by whoever happens to be in power.

Like any good leftist , I wanted to preserve my own personal liberties and those of my friends and allies, and use government to make the world of better place by collecting taxes and redistributing the money to help people I thought needed it.

I can’t exactly pinpoint the moment of epiphany. I think I might have been watching “The Daily Show” and listening to a rant or joke referring to the oppressive politics and misbegotten priorities of the Bush administration. Jon Stewart, quite accurately, enjoys skewering Bush over his arrogant expressions of power despite so much public opposition. He won. He gets to decide. He’s “The Decider,” if you’ll recall.

It’s the nature of Bush’s arrogance that led to my transformation. I realized that the real difference between my beliefs in government influence and Bush’s was not how much influence and control the government should have on citizens’ lives, but merely the direction in which the control would be manifested. I was just as willing to allow the government to curtail people’s rights, particularly property rights, in order to pursue what I believed to be an ideal society. So does President Bush. We differed only in our distinctions of what makes an “ideal society.”

Logic dictates that if I believe that I have the right – when people who share my values are in control of the government – to shape and curtail individual rights in order to build a society I want to live in, then I also have to accept it of Bush and those who support him. He won. He gets to be “The Decider.” I had to accept his authority if I were to demand the right of government to make similar decisions in a reversed situation.

But I won’t accept the right of the president to curtail civil liberties just because he and his party won. That runs counter to the very idea of civil liberties and makes a mockery of our own Declaration of Independence, which set forth the idea that certain rights are innate and not subject to government suppression. And so I, after a bout of soul searching, abandoned many of my beliefs that the government should play a role in shaping society. The society that government shapes would always be defined by whoever is in control, and at times, those people are not going to share your values and ideals.

Ultimately that journey led me to libertarianism, where everybody gets to decide for himself or herself what kind of life to lead, and the government is responsible for preserving our security and rights. And to think, I used to believe libertarianism was an extremely selfish political philosophy.

A couple of interesting quotes from today’s Freedom School seminars:

 ”It becomes very difficult to defend liberty when you cave in on your favorite political projects.” — Tibor Machan, Freedom Communications Inc. libertarian commentator and advisor.

Tibor was giving a speech on markets and morality and why a foundation of personal liberty was vital to any realistic discussion of ethics and morals. The quote is particularly important to me because it feeds directly into another blog entry I’m working on explaining a little bit more about my transition toward libertarian thought.

“People use numbers the way they use rocks. They throw them at each other.” — Joe Cobb, former chief economist for the U.S. Republican Policy Committee.

Joe Cobb was speaking on the extremely vocal, emotional public conflict regarding illegal immigration. Joe is in favor of eliminating immigration quotas and argued that illegal immigration is a victimless crime, although there was a recognition of the drain on public services by illegal immigrants. Part of a libertarian perspective, though, is that the problem is our entitled attitude toward public services in the first place, not that illegal immigrants have access to them.