Classification can be treacherous

As I have said more than once on this blog, sometimes political classification can be treacherous. On economic matters, I tend toward the conservative end — for lower taxes and lower spending, in general, though I have my causes that I think deserve spending. On social matters, I'm probably very much a liberal. But again, if "liberal" means anti-Israel, as it's coming to be these days, I go back to the right on this issue.

I recently saw a posting on the FrumForum blog by Noah Kristula-Green referring to Jon Huntsman as "More Conservative Than You Think." It bears some quoting:

Ever since Jon Huntsman declared on Twitter that he thinks evolution and climate change are real, he has been identified as the “moderate” candidate in the GOP field, the candidate whose goal seems to be to antagonize the Republican base. Charles Krauthammer described him as “a liberal’s idea of what a Republican ought to be.”

But what if the real Jon Huntsman is actually a candidate with an incredibly conservative record? This is the argument in The American Conservative’s new piece on Huntsman by Michael Brendan Dougherty.

-In spite of his support for civil unions, Huntsman is very socially conservative. His pro-life record is very substantive. Dougherty calls him “the pro-life cause’s most accomplished executive.” In Utah, second trimester abortions are banned and third trimester abortions are a felony because of Huntsman. His gun record includes making it possible to carry concealed guns in Utah.

“In Jon Huntsman’s America, once a child survives the first trimester, he’s well on the way to having a rifle in his small hands and extra money in his pockets,” Dougherty says.

-His economic record is very conservative: $110 million in tax cuts and a flat tax rate state wide. On healthcare, the article refers to Health Exchanges in Utah that he approved, adding that, “Unlike Romney, Huntsman’s state healthcare reform achieved more insurance coverage for residents without resorting to an individual mandate.” Left unmentioned in the piece is that Huntsman is also a strong advocate for the Ryan budget and has made multiple calls for it to be signed into law.

-His foreign policy at times can hit similar to Ron Paul sounding notes without being isolationist. In addition to questioning America’s role in Libya, Huntsman also asks, “why do we have so many military bases in Japan, we’re half a century after World War II? Why so many in Germany? Does it make sense for America to remain in these places?” He wants counter-terrorism in Afghanistan, not counter-insurgency or nation-building, and he wants the US to return to focusing on its long-term growth before going abroad.

Despite this, Huntsman isn’t seen as a conservative at all. He has some of the lowest poll numbers of anyone in the GOP field — he only barely qualified for the upcoming NBC-Politico debate. Rick Perry gets more traction just by calling Ben Bernanke’s actions treasonous and by calling Washington DC a “seedy place”.

Speculating what any of this can mean for Republican presidential nominee, Jon Huntsman is very premature. But during the next debate, it will be important to listen to Huntsman’s answers and keep in the back of your mind this piece of knowledge: whatever Huntsman is, he is not as moderate as you think.

On some of these issues, I'm in agreement with Huntsman. On others, of course, like abortion and guns, I'm not. But this posting deserves some attention.

On Mark McKinnon's program (Part 3 of 3)

The last four of Mark McKinnon's proposals:

9. Go nuclear. The ultimate green strategy, good for the environment, good for the economy and therefore doable, is a natural-gas-to-nuclear-power plan proposed by contrarian Robert Bryce. Wind and solar power are land-intensive, a green sin, but not energy-dense, and affordable only when heavily subsidized. And wind power must be supplemented with hydrocarbons for reliability. Texas leads the nation and is sixth globally in wind production, yet only 8.7 percent of installed capacity is dependable during peak demand. And it provides only 1.2 percent of the state's total energy need. In Denmark, the poster child for wind power, neither carbon dioxide emissions nor hydrocarbon consumption have been reduced. Natural gas resources in the U.S. are equivalent to three times the known oil reserves of Iraq. Natural gas is the near-term solution for cleaner fuel and the bridge to the fuel of the future—nuclear, the most carbon-neutral, power-dense, relatively affordable and available energy source. As Bryce says, "If you are anti-carbon dioxide and anti-nuclear, you are pro-blackout."

I have long agreed with this proposal. People are afraid of Three Mile Island-type scenarios, but nobody was harmed by Three Mile Island. People were seriously affected by Chernobyl, but that was a type of reactor we don't think of building in the U. S., precisely because of the hazards associated with it.

10. Get right. Repealing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in the U.S. military and legalizing same-sex marriage are issues of equality for all. Sixty percent of Americans favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. Gay people serve their countries openly in the British, Canadian, and Israeli military. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is discriminatory, and it limits our ability to recruit and retain the greatest numbers of the best and brightest, especially critical while we are still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both back this needed reform. And for the first time since Pew started tracking opinions on same-sex marriage 15 years ago, fewer than half of those polled now say they oppose legalizing the institution. Republicans constantly claim to be the party that defends the Constitution. In my opinion, we have no legitimate right to that claim until we get right on gay rights. It's way past time for the GOP to come out in support of equality for all.

Frankly, I've said enough on this topic that anyone reading this blog knows McKinnon's proposal has my full approval, so I need to say nothing more.

11. Open the borders. Any act that proposes 16,000 additional IRS agents can't be good. But President Obama is right: "Consumers do better when there is choice and competition." Unfortunately, the misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does neither. Seventy-nine percent of Republican voters, 56 percent of voters not affiliated with either party, and a majority of voters in the battleground congressional districts still favor repeal. As an alternate strategy to lower costs, it's time to open the borders to allow the purchase of private health insurance across state lines, and to allow consumers and businesses to associate for better pool rates. Just six months after the bill was signed into law, consumers face increasing premiums, fewer choices when it comes to health-care insurers and providers. Squeezed by Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement payments below cost and mounting liability insurance costs, doctors may soon be an endangered species. There's a reason doctors have flocked to Texas since 2002: tort reform. Tort reforms are needed to protect patients' access to health care providers.

When I first looked at his title, I thought this proposal was going to deal with illegal immigration, but actually, as will be seen below, that is his next proposal. In fact this #11 is a really common-sense proposal. Some pieces of it have already been endorsed on this blog; I really agree with just about all of it.

12. Recognize reality. It's time to fix illegal immigration. Voters in Arizona and Texas are rightfully frustrated by the federal government's disinterest in protecting our sovereignty. Though unemployment numbers are high, low-skilled immigrants actually expand the size of the overall economy. Punishing those who work hard, who do not hurt others, and who seek a path out of poverty for their families is not the answer. The fixes need to begin now, and begin in parallel. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has the right plan. Secure the border; ceding a no-go zone to foreign drug lords on American territory is not acceptable. Deport illegal immigrants with felony convictions. For the 11 million already in this country, provide a tough but fair path forward which would include paying fines and back taxes, passing background checks, proving English proficiency and going to the back of the line to work toward lawful permanent residence. We need to expand and simplify the farm-worker program to address seasonal work needs. Issue all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, a biometric ID card. And strengthen the penalties and enforcements for employers. At the same time, we need to expand the number of visas issued for high-skilled workers in science and technology, the next Einstein may be waiting.

This is probably a pretty reasonable way to handle it. It is close to the plan which was proposed by both George W. Bush and John McCain, but extremists on both sides led to its being scuttled.

McKinnon closes by saying:

It's not a brand that brings the middle together. It's a shared belief: The promise of America still exists. Though the system is corrupted, and government now rules as the master, not the servant, the ideal of liberty balanced by responsibility lives on—right in the middle.

That is a pretty good summary.

Last night's debate

Barack Obama is supposed to be a great orator — and perhaps he is, when reciting a prepared speech. But last night he began just about every remark with a heming and hawing that shows he cannot think on his feet.

And he seems to forget that his opponent is John McCain, not George Bush — at least he used Bush's name at least as much as he did McCain's. Perhaps he might like to be charged with every mistake of a past Democratic President?

McCain made one great point: The President to be inaugurated in January doesn't have anything to do with how we got where we are (In Iraq, which was the topic being discussed at the time, or in any other matter). He has to determine what we do from this point on, and he cannot rewind the clock and do a "do-over" from 2000.

Obama seems to think that Iraq was a distraction from fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. He fails to see the interconnection; perhaps because what he considers important in Iraq is that he was bankrolled by Saddam Hussein's banker, Nadhmi Auchi. We don't want Middle Eastern Arab money controlling our President.

"Failed foreign policy"?

Barack Obama keeps referring to "Bush's failed foreign policy." Well, to me it looks like one that is succeeding, although not yet completely. When George W. Bush became President, Saddam Hussein was slaughtering Kurds and anyone else who disagreed with him in Iraq, and the Taliban was presiding over an Afghan government that would criminalize a kid for flying a kite, or a girl for going to school. Today, Saddam Hussein is in his grave, and the Taliban is fighting a rear-guard action to try to take back portions of Afghanistan, while both Afghanistan and Iraq have governments that are far closer to democratic than the ones they replaced. I would call that success, not failure — at least partial success, anyway.

Meanwhile, Sen. Obama has proposed a foreign policy that truly can be described as failed. One might ask — how could his foreign policy be considered to have failed, when it hasn't been tried? Well, it has been tried — not in the United States in the 2000's, but in Great Britain in 1937! A certain Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister that year. Like Obama today, he believed you could talk to genocidal dictators in the same way as you might to honorable men who lead democratic governments. He met with Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany, and gave him what he wanted, control over the nation that was then called Czechoslovakia. And he returned from Munich proclaiming that he had brought "peace in our time." "Our time," apparently, lasted two more years, until Hitler invaded Poland and World War II began, at least for the European nations. (We stayed out of it until we were ourselves attacked by Hitler's Japanese ally.)

But Sen. Obama doesn't seem to know this history. He wants to show that the way to go is the way that Chamberlain tried 70 years ago. It failed then, and it won't work now.