Monthly Archives: May 2018

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Rubio and Warren Join Forces Against Working Folks

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World map (based on File:BlankMap-World-USA-Ca...
World map showing the legal status of sex work by country (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In April, a year after its introduction in the US Senate by Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the US House of Representatives passed the End Banking for Human Traffickers Act, “an act to increase the role of the financial industry in combating human trafficking.”

Of four quick and easy tests for bad legislation, the bill passes three:

First, it’s “bipartisan.”  While many construe bipartisanship as a good thing, “the best of both worlds,” in practice the opposite is usually true. Each party gives the other the worst thing it wants — control of this or that piece of your life — in trade. In this case, no such trade is really required, because Rubio and Warren are aligned on both elements of the issue. Both of them want control of your genitalia and both of them want control of your bank account.

Secondly, it exploits moral panic to discourage scrutiny of its actual effects. In this case, the trending buzz word is “human trafficking.” In theory, that term means sexual enslavement of adults and/or sexual exploitation of children for profit. In practice, it always boils down to just another excuse for harassing adult sex workers trying to make a living and, contra all the “for the chillllllldren” posturing, taking food out of the mouths of THEIR children  (if not taking away their children entirely).

Thirdly, it doesn’t even bother to hide the fact that it’s yet another attempt to conscript supposedly private sector actors into conducting (and reporting on) intrusive search-like activity that, if done directly by government employees in similar en masse fashion, might be held accountable to inconvenient standards like probable cause, warrants, etc.

The only test the bill fails is the “warm, fuzzy, and/or patriotic-sounding acronym” test. EBHTA? No CASH (Cute Acronym Skills Hero) bonus for the congressional staffer assigned to come up with that title.

The bad news is that if this bill passes the Senate and is signed into law, sex workers —  already pushed to the economic margins  in various ways by law enforcement, social stigma, and the poverty that often precedes the sex work career path — are going to have an even harder time opening or keeping checking or savings accounts at traditional banks, and therefore a harder time successfully applying for credit lines or home or car loans.

The good news is that the bill, whether it passes or not, will inevitably strengthen the counter-economy. Sex workers will turn to (or remain with) barter, cash, and cryptocurrency rather than trust what wealth they have with institutions subject to regulation by the likes of Warren and Rubio.

That eternal counter-economy serves workers, traders, and entrepreneurs as opposed to empowering politicians and their cronies. The Soviet Union ruthlessly attempted, and utterly failed, to suppress it for 70 years, even when at times it was the only thing standing between the Russian people and starvation.

Rubio and Warren and friends will fail too. Unfortunately, working people are the eggs they break in pursuit of an authoritarian omelet.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Missing Children: The Pottery Barn Rule Revisited

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(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If one in five American parents couldn’t figure out where their kids were, most people would rightly see the phenomenon as a crisis and a national scandal. Grandstanding prosecutors with visions of gubernatorial campaigns dancing in their heads would conduct mass parental perp walks. Legislators would boost their presidential aspirations by co-sponsoring legislation requiring universal implantation of GPS trackers at birth.

But when the same US government that postures as a better parent than real parents, crows over “extreme vetting” of immigrants, and announces separation of undocumented families as policy, loses track of 19% of unaccompanied refugee children placed in homes by the Office of Refugee resettlement, ORR is “not legally responsible.” So says Steven Wagner, acting assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families.

That’s par for the course when it comes to government and responsibility.

For example, if I find myself in fear of a police officer and shoot him, you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be held “legally responsible.” But if that same police officer shoots me and then claims he was afraid because he thought my cell phone was a gun, the chances of any “legal responsibility” attaching are slim. If he doesn’t just get a  paid vacation (“administrative leave”) before being “cleared” as having “acted in accordance with department policy,” a court will likely find him not responsible under the theory of sovereign immunity (the idea that when a government employee is on the job, no personal liability attaches to that employee’s actions).

Even when a government official DOES “accept responsibility,” it usually reads as “OK, I’ve said I accept responsibility, now let’s forget about it and move on as if nothing happened, and don’t you dare mention it next time I’m up for promotion or re-election.”

In 2002, US Secretary of State Colin Powell allegedly invoked “the Pottery Barn rule” — “you break it, you bought it” — by way of trying to get President George W. Bush to rethink the ill-fated invasion of Iraq.

Pottery Barn actually has no such rule, but when I was a kid a lot of stores sported signs saying exactly that.

Government doesn’t have such a rule either, but it should.

A government employee who loses track of 1,475 children placed in his charge needs to to be fired — at least. An investigation of possible criminal negligence doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. Nor does a home visit by the area’s Department of Children’s Services or equivalent to make sure his or her own kids haven’t gone missing.

Even better, we could stop handing over so much power to government on the silly supposition that government jobs magically make the people who hold them smarter, more competent, or more responsible than us regular folks.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Election 2018: Make Gridlock Great Again?

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President George W. Bush honors with the 2006 ...
President George W. Bush honors William Safire with the 2006 President Medal of Freedom during ceremonies Friday, Dec. 15, 2006, at the White House.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Gridlock is great,” wrote the late William Safire. “My motto is, ‘Don’t just do something. Stand there.'”

Well, maybe he wrote that. The quote is plastered across numerous web sites with attribution to Safire, but I’ve yet to find one that cites any of his numerous books or columns as source. It sounds like something he might have said. Close enough for government work (a phrase that originated either in the US during World War Two or Canada circa 1906, take your pick), right?

Safire died in 2009, at a time when American politics seemed to be proving him wrong.

Congress has been controlled by one party and the White House by another for eight of the  last 12 years. But instead of gridlock, what we’ve mostly seen is a sort of mutual back-scratching process in which each party rages (with all the vigor and believability of professional wrestlers) at, then “reluctantly” supports, the other’s excesses.

George W. Bush and Barack Obama vetoed 12 bills each during their combined sixteen years as president —  less than 2/3 as many as Bill Clinton in his eight years. The last president to veto fewer bills than either Bush or Obama was Warren G. Harding, who served for less than 2 1/2 years.

The betting public sets reasonably good odds on a return to “divided government” after this November’s midterm elections. At PredictIt, in answer to the question “What will be the balance of power in Congress after the 2018 midterms?”  shares in “Republican House, Republican Senate” and “Democratic House, Republican Senate” are each trading at 40 cents, with “Democratic House, Democratic Senate” at 28 cents and “Republican House, Democratic Senate” at 3 cents.

Prediction markets aren’t perfect, but they reflect the opinions of people who have money riding on being right, instead of just the opinions of people who happen to have opinions. A considerable percentage of people with skin in the game think that Republican president Donald Trump will face a partially or completely Democratic Congress, instead of a Congress dominated by his own party, starting next January.

Could real gridlock be on its way back into fashion? I’d like to think so. But I don’t.

Throughout Donald Trump’s career, he’s been anyone’s dog who’ll hunt — er, make deals — with him (ask the Democratic politicians he’s donated to over the years). If the Democrats do well in the midterms, he’ll probably just pronounce himself the most Democratic president in history, and act accordingly.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY