Author: Warren Coats

I specialize in advising central banks on monetary policy and the development of the capacity to formulate and implement monetary policy.  I joined the International Monetary Fund in 1975 from which I retired in 2003 as Assistant Director of the Monetary and Financial Systems Department. While at the IMF I led or participated in missions to the central banks of over twenty countries (including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgystan, Moldova, Serbia, Turkey, West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Zimbabwe) and was seconded as a visiting economist to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1979-80), and to the World Bank's World Development Report team in 1989.  After retirement from the IMF I was a member of the Board of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority from 2003-10 and of the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review from 2010-2017.  Prior to joining the IMF I was Assistant Prof of Economics at UVa from 1970-75.  I am currently a fellow of Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.  In March 2019 Central Banking Journal awarded me for my “Outstanding Contribution for Capacity Building.”  My recent books are One Currency for Bosnia: Creating the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina; My Travels in the Former Soviet Union; My Travels to Afghanistan; My Travels to Jerusalem; and My Travels to Baghdad. I have a BA in Economics from the UC Berkeley and a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago. My dissertation committee was chaired by Milton Friedman and included Robert J. Gordon. I live in National Landing Va 22202

More on the balance between the public and private sectors

Private sector rights.

I strongly support the right of the Boy Scouts of America’ to define who it will accept as members (i.e. its right to exclude gays). I don’t have to agree with how people use their freedom to believe passionately in their right to be free including who they join with in clubs. I was happy to see that organization relax its rules and open its doors to gay boys. But that door was not opened very wide and the BSA still has a way to go. I was thus very happy to see Lockheed-Martin end its donations to the Boy Scouts until remaining discriminations are ended.

Richard “Guglielmetti, 66, who led Troop 76 in Simsbury, Conn., for a dozen years until 2005, said leaders and members of his troop ignored the national organization’s prohibition on gays as scouts or leaders because they felt it was wrong.” (US Today, January 28, 2013)  It would have been counterproductive and morally wrong in my view for the government to have forced this result or to push it further.

As another example, Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson (I never heard of him) said some perfectly ignorant and offensive things about gays. We should all defend his right to say what he wants to. We should also defend the right of A&E to suspend his show, though I am not particularly happy about mixing up commerce and politics or moral issues. Fortunately, A&E is a cable show. Cable programs are not subject to the government regulations covering over-the-air shows and are free to pretty much do what they want. This helps explain why cable shows are often much more interesting.

A process of public discussion and education best sorts out touchy issues such as these. The government is not needed or wanted here.

Domestic spying

Whistle blower Edward Snowden received further confirmation of the legitimacy of his belief that the government has over reached in its domestic personal data collection (see my several earlier blogs on this subject). In ruling that NSA’s massive metadata collection for all domestic phone calls (numbers called, date/time, and duration) was unconstitutional, Federal Judge Richard J. Leon stated that the government had failed to “cite a single instance in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent attack.” (Washington Post, December 20, 2013).

Equally damning was the just released report of a panel appointed by President Obama to investigate charges of NSA abuse, which included among its members former deputy CIA director Michael J. Morrell. The review panel said the program “was not essential to preventing attacks and could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional [court] orders.”

Snowden has performed an enormous public service at great personal risk. Thank you Mr. Snowden

Maybe our ship is starting to right itself.

More on cell phones in planes

My blog Friday was meant to contrast two attitudes toward the desired role of government—regulating our behavior for our own good (Big Brother), or regulating our behavior when necessary for the protection of third parties.  But the more I thought about the cell phones in airplanes issue, the more convoluted it seemed.

There is no evidence, despite lots of testing, of any danger from cell phones, iPads, PCs, etc. for the operations of airplanes. See the article by a WSJ staff reporter: http://www.cs.ccsu.edu/~pelletie/local/news/telecom/Cell_phones_on_planes.html. The Big Brother argument that it protects those of us preferring quite from the conversations of other passengers is also bogus. Not only are people free to carry on conversations with other (willing) passengers, but we have been able to talk to people on the ground from phones in our arm rests for well over two decades. So what is going on? Without denying that many well-meaning, public-spirited people go into government service, the answer seems to lie in the usual place. Government regulations very often come to protect the interests of the incumbent members of the industry being regulation. Most monopoly power of private companies is bestowed by government. Please save me from Big Brother.

Cell Phones on Planes: A Defining Issue

The Federal Communications Commission is moving towards allowing the use of cell phones on airplanes. Many of us have known for a long time that their use poses no safety issues (yes the government does sometimes—how shall I say it in a way that will not attract NSA attention—misrepresent things). The FCC’s ruling rests on whether it would be good or nice for us to be able to use them. Whether we want our government to establish rules on what is nice public behavior is one of those issues that help define and reflect differing attitudes toward the desirable (not to mention, because it seems largely irrelevant these days, constitutional) role of government.

As I write this note, it seems that the FCC is moving towards a compromise ruling that would allow the use of phones and other electronic devises (Mac, iPad, etc – yes I am an Apple fan) for internet access to email, text messages, and web surfing but not talking. This strikes me as odd in that it has been possible to do that for some years now. I have used the service (for a fee) to send and receive email on Delta and other planes with the equipment: http://www.gogoair.com/gogo/splash.do. Oh well.

I cringe when people base their views on whether government should control certain behaviors (pot smoking, public profanity, talking lauding in public etc) on whether such behavior is good or bad for the person doing it. For me the test (along with the constitution) is whether my behavior endangers other people. Thus the issue of whether secondary smoke is harmful and if so should be banned in the workplace, for example, is a legitimate public policy concern. The outcome should rest on the facts; is it harmful to third parties or not.

I would not like for people to talk on their cell phones on planes, but am appalled by the idea that the government would not allow airlines to set their own policies in this regard. I don’t like talking on planes in any form. I have not talked to anyone on a plane other than the flight crew for many years. No government ruling caused this or is desired. Somehow I have been able to successfully and without words communicate to anyone next to me that I do not want to talk. My loss, I am sure, but it is fortunately still my choice.

I am reminded of a flight home from a wonderful European vacation with my son, Brandon, years ago. The man and woman behind us were chattering away and their conversation became more and more homophobic. My son finally turned around and said, “Would you please shut up.”  Those lobbying the FCC to forbid phone calls on planes should probably include fines for offensive speech on planes or in other public places (the First Amendment be damned). Those, like me, who prefer a more limited, less intrusive government, prefer to rely on common courtesy as it evolves through private interactions. Perhaps because I am the oldest of my siblings I never liked the idea of a Big Brother.

Spying

Two articles on the same page of Tuesday’s Washington Post reported on similar activities from opposite perspectives. In one, “A 28-year-old British man whom prosecutors described as a ‘sophisticated and prolific computer hacker’ has been charged in connection with cyberattacks in which he illegally accessed the personal information of U.S. soldiers and government employees, and obtained other information about budgets, contracts and the demolition of military facilities, authorities said Monday.” Why did he do it? Why do such people do such things? For commercial/financial gain? In this case, it seems, the motivation was political, though I am not sure what the political point was. “British-man-described-as-prolific-hacker-indicted-in-cyberattacks-on-us-agencies/2013/10/28/”

The second article discussed the NSA program to eavesdrop on friendly heads of state, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, launched in 2002. President Obama apparently did not know the extent and details of such surveillance until very recently nor did Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who oversees the NSA as the Senate Intelligence Committee chair. Why did they do it? “Their [NSA staff] job is to get as much information for policymakers as possible,” a senior administration official said. “They’re used to coming at this from the other direction — that is, being criticized for not knowing enough. This is a new dynamic for them.” “Obama-didnt-know-about-surveillance-of-us-allied-world-leaders-until-summer-officials-say/2013/10/28/”

In the first case, we were angry and in the second case Chancellor Merkel and most of Europe were angry and both with good reasons. We want our intelligence agencies to collect all of the information needed to protect us from harm. All countries spy on each other, but the tools and activities of espionage agents are potentially double-edged swords. Because of the potential dangers of turning these tools on our own citizens (and friends) for political advantage, strict limits have been placed on domestic surveillance and our allies might have assumed they were spared as well.  Unfortunately following the 9/11 attacks many American’s were more concerned about security than privacy and liberty and willing to move the balance away from protecting privacy.

When these systems of spying were first developed, those using them had (I assume) the best of intentions—gathering information from and on enemies to help protect the nation. And this is exactly what we wanted from them. Whether it is really possible to detect useful information from the millions upon millions of messages (verbal and electronic) being collected is an interesting question, however. Targeting specific individually is dramatically easier than looking for needles in massive data haystacks, but the heads of state of our allies?

Those who work for the NSA and other intelligence agencies are surely motivated by the highest objectives. But what do good people do when they have such access to information on the private activities of those they don’t like politically—republican’s able to browse around in the private affairs of democrats and visa versa?  IRS agents abusing their power against Tea Party organizations comes to mind, for example. Snowden has shown us that as time has gone on the temptation to use more widely the enormous capability available to our intelligence agencies has grown. And not one hundred present of our government officials are always honorable to begin with.  In the following article in The Washington Post, Harold Meyerson quotes the WSJ as follows: “The agency [NSA] has been rebuked repeatedly by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for misrepresenting the nature of its spy programs and for violating the court’s confidential orders.” “A-turbulent-spy-agency/2013/10/29/”

On top of this, the government’s insistence that American Internet access providers and large data collectors leave back doors through which the NSA can enter to collect data, has reduced Net security against the likes of the British hacker mentioned in my opening paragraph. Fortunately, once again, when things go too far there is a backlash. Even Senator Feinstein is saying stop.

Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden continues to amaze me and to rise in my admiration (see his interview by the New York Times). “Snowden-says-he-took-no-secret-files-to-Russia” 

He most certainly violated his pledge and the law, but the thoughtfulness and care with which he has revealed very selective documents contrasts very sharply with the damaging data dump of Chelsea Manning (AKA Bradley). Manning, who never convincingly explained what he thought he was doing or why, impeded the flow of candid information and discussion within the U.S. government (e.g. in cables between our embassy’s and the State Department). This will make future diplomacy more difficult.

Snowden, on the other hand, who revealed information gathering programs and their assessments rather than the content of information collected, has thankfully forced more open discussion of what tools the government has and how they should be used. He has risked his own future in the heroic service of the higher interests of his (and my) country.  Richard Cohn expresses these views very well in a recent Washington Post oped: “Snowden is no Traitor/2013/10/21/”

Our government has been caught lying repeatedly in connection with its spying activity. https://wcoats.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/abuse-of-power/  In many respects this is an expected part of the game with regard to enemies we wish to protect ourselves from. But the law sets important limits and safeguards on the government when it comes to spying on its own at home or friends abroad (e.g. the President of Mexico, 70 million French phone records per month, etc). Records revealed by Snowden document that these are being violated as well.

Last week I attended a fascinating discussion at the Brookings Institute between Matt Apuzzo, Investigative Reporter for The Associated Press and author with Adam Goldman of Enemies Within: Inside NYPD’s Secret Spying Unit and Bin Ladin’s Final Plot Against America (Touchstone, 2013), and Bruce Riedel, Director, The Intelligence Project, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence. Apuzzo and Goldman’s book is a spy thriller account of the only specific case revealed by the government of the 50 potential attacks they claim their programs helped prevent. The government thwarted the September 2009 al Qaeda terrorist plot – led by Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-American – to attack the New York City subway system. Without taking a position on whether NSA and related domestic spying activities helped with this case, Mr. Apuzzo reported that the link to the would be terrorist came as the result of an email he sent to a known British terrorist. This was enough to enabled the government to monitor Mr. Zazi’s communications on the basis of older and established intelligence authorities without resort to the more intrusive programs reveals by Snowden. So the government lied to us again.

The natural tendency of government is to grow and to expand their authority. Whenever our government seemed to go too far, American’s have pushed back. Edward Snowden has alerted us to the need to push back again and I am very grateful to him for that.

Can Washington Still Govern?

October 11, 2013

The popularity of the government is at an all time low. Different people want different things, thus none of us can have everything we want. What to do? Congress enacts laws and if they later decide that they enacted a bad one they can vote to amend or repeal it. The voting public can vote out representatives who don’t properly represent them and vote in new ones who will adopt the laws they want.  But at the end of the day compromise is required to satisfy the largest number of people.

Refusing to authorize government expenditures for existing laws and thus shutting down the government (sort of) is better described, according to Andrew Reinbach, as sedition:

“The definition of sedition says among other things that ‘If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire… by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States… they shall each be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.’”

The best overview of the outrageous behavior by both the Republicans and the Democrats remains, in my judgment, the article by Charles Krauthammer that I posted earlier. “Who Shut Down Yellowstone? /2013/10/03/”.  This all came back to my mind as I drove down Clara Barton Parkway toward the District yesterday morning for an 8:30 am meeting with the Afghan delegation here for the IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings. There are a number of parking areas along the parkway. People park there to take their canoes down to the Potomac or to walk along the river. You might have thought that closing the government would have no consequences for such pullovers. At most it might leave the trash deposited in the trash cans there uncollected. Instead, the government spent the money to place concrete barriers beside the road preventing anyone from pulling off and parking there.  I am told that the same was done across the river on the Virginia side along the George Washington Memorial Parkway and no doubt in many other places as well employing the well-known government trick of making the cuts as painful as possible to the public.  This is the government we have now. The moron who made those decisions should be fired (the gentlest penalty that passed through my mind).

I have always believed that one of the things that makes America great is that it has managed to create a system in which people of different cultures and faiths, but common core values, live peaceably together. This gives our country the enriching benefits of the creative power of diverse ideas from diverse cultures without the costs of social strife. A major source of this success comes from a constitution and system of government that has limited the power of the government and does not overly interfere in the private activities of its citizens. No ones religious beliefs are imposed on anyone else, etc.

These days our political class seems to have lost the capacity of compromise, an essential aspect of living together peaceably. Many of our politicians no longer see compromise as a virtue (the fools). The problem is not a new one, of course. When farmers from the Near East moved into Central Europe 7,500 years ago they were not assimilated by the hunters-gatherers who lived there. Rather they coexisted in parallel cultures, forced by necessity to get alone.  “Stone-age Farmers-Hunters Kept Their Distance /2013/10/10/”

Fortunately, the dysfunction of our government is not reflective of our broader society, though I know there are many ugly exceptions. I was happy to read in today’s Washington Post that a heart wrenching dispute between the natural father of a four year old girl and her adopted parents who actually loved and cared for and raised her has been resolved and a mutually sensible way, keeping hope for civilization alive: “Cherokee Nation and Father of adopted 4 year old girl drop court battle for custody /2013/10/11” Veronica’s adopted parents will retain custody of her but will cooperate in making ways for her natural, Cherokee father to be involved in her life.

Using an increase in the debt ceiling as leverage to reduce the government’s deficit to sustainable rates is quite a different matter.  It has been recognized for many years by both political parties that government spending commitments in the future, given the aging of the population (i.e., the fall in the working age population relative to the retired population), could not be met. The Congressional Budget Office’s current long-term, baseline forecasts, which assume current tax and spending laws (including the reduced spending growth required by the sequester) are for the debt to grow more rapidly than income, i.e., to rise as a percent of GDP without end. One bipartisan effort after another (Bowles-Simpson commission, the Senate Gang of Six, Bipartisan Policy Center’s Debt Reduction Task Force, the Super Committee, etc.) tried to reach tax and spending compromises and failed. Yes, even with the sequester (across the board cuts in planned spending increases) the growth in debt is not sustainable. Something must change. A compromise must be agreed. Using approval of an increase in the debt ceiling as leverage to achieve such a compromise is a reasonable tactic. If not now the market will force it later (significant increases in the interest rates demanded by the market to lend to an increasingly over indebted government). Better and cheaper sooner than later. “The-sequester”  “Thinking About the Public Debt”

An Afghan view

Burhanuddin Rabbani was the President of Afghanistan from 1992 – 96.  After the fall of the Taliban regime, he served temporarily as President from Nov to Dec 20, 2011, until the International Conference on Afghanistan in Bonn chose Hamid Karzai for that position. He was assassinated in his home in Kabul on September 20, 2011 by a suicide bomber. One of his sons, Shuja, a former Deputy Director General of the Financial Supervision Department of Da Afghanistan Bank (the central bank of Afghanistan), was in his father’s house at the time of the assassination. He posted the following on his FACEBOOK page today (September 29):

Afghan elections buzz is on full swing. Twitter wars have begun, social media propaganda is on full scale, ethnic cards are being thrown at your face, and I couldn’t be bothered to get involved. I never voted, I don’t intend to vote, but if you believe in democracy, then go ahead and rock your vote and I wish you all the very best!

All I can say to the youth is that if you’re not happy with the choice of the future President of #Afghanistan, remember that not enough of you voted. If the votes are rigged like last time, maybe you should join Anonymous and start a revolution. Or maybe not. Maybe you should just leave the country for dreams of a better life and never return. Some say the next President has to be someone who is given the “stamp of approval” by President Karzai. Remember that President Karzai is not some Godfather. Power was given to him and power can be just as easily taken back from him. Pashtun or Tajik, it doesn’t matter because as a nation, we’ve never really had respect for any of the Presidents or Heads of State so why play the ethnic game?

At times, I really do think we’re in denial about living in two-countries-in-one like the Iraqi Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq. But dare I mention anything on officially separating Afghanistan’s North from the South and drawing official borders and pay whatever price it takes to get ourselves the peace we’re looking for, I’m bound to be labelled a racist, a fascist, a slave of Pakistan, a slave of Iran, a slave of USA, this, that, and everything in-between.

If you want to call me names, go for it. Go ahead and label me. It’s just another label. I’ve lived my whole life hearing all kinds of criticisms thrown at us. From freedom-fighting Mujahidin heroes to warlords and war criminals, I’ve heard it all before. In the end, when you’re done wasting your time and energy, I’ll still be here – just like all the others before me. Afghanistan is a strange country: from the weakest to the strongest of leaders, we’ve never given our leaders the respect they deserve.

If the youth of Afghanistan is waiting for an Afghani Nelson Mandela, guess what? It will never happen. Learn from what you’ve had before, make best use of what you have today, and create your own tomorrow. And when Afghanistan becomes a civilized country, that’s when I’ll decide to return. If not, I’m pretty sure I’m not missing anything and I make no apologies for it.

More on Syria

My high school and college friend, Bill Hulsy, now living in Southern California, offers his analysis of Obama’s justification for attaching Syria:

Dear Friends:

This e-mail will discuss the various flaws in the arguments provided by the Obama Administration for an attack on Syria.  There are seven major flaws in the argument, to wit:  1) the predicate proof is unsatisfactory and unpersuasive, 2) the action is illegal under our law and international law, 3) the Chemical Weapons Convention does not provide a legal basis for this action, 4) the ostensible beneficiaries and cheerleaders of this action are bad actors, 5) this action is a pretext for War with Iran, 6) the United States has no moral standing since we have both used and aided and abetted the use of chemical weapons, and 7) U.S. loss of face is the problem of Obama himself, and a lesser alternative to bad policy.

This proposed action is predicated on alleged use of chemical gas by the government of Syria.  This contention is illogical as the Syrian government was winning the civil war, and the use of chemical agents is an act of desperation.  Much of Syria has been overrun by the rebels and they have captured many munitions and that includes chemical agents.  The Internet is full of pictures and stories showing that the Syrian rebels have chemical agents.  Logic suggests their use of the gas as a “false flag” operation.

The whole post-WWII peace process has been based on the use of the United Nations.  The United Nations Charter was adopted and ratified by the United States in 1945.  It is a treaty and is United States law.  Article 42 provides that force may be used individually or collectively by signators only if approved by the Security Council.  The only exception is the right of “self defense.” which is permitted under Article 51.  There is no special exception for chemical warfare.

The Chemical Weapons Convention was adopted in 1993.  Syria is not a signatory.  That convention has no enforcement mechanism.  Hence, there is no right to wage war or commit acts of war (such as proposed) pursuant to some “norm” of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The rebels in Syria are Sunni jihadis.  These are the same people who attacked the United States on 9/11.  Syria is a secular, not a religious state.  The Christians (numbering 2 million souls) make up 10% of the population.  The government protects the interests of the minorities in Syria of which the Christians are one.  The Sunni jihadis want to commit a sectarian cleansing, driving the Syrian Christians into Lebanon.  For a look at what a Sunni jihadi victory would look like, from a religious point of view, see what happened to the Christian community in Iraq after the Iraq War.

This attack is nothing but a pretext for a War with Iran.  This attack will provoke counter-measures by Syria’s allies.  Either an agent of Iran (or one of our agents operating in Iran) will fire a missile at a U.S. ship or tanker and, then, immediately we will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and the war will be on.  Israel will attack Hezbolla in Lebanon, reactively or pre-emptively,  Russia will cut off oil supplies to Europe.  United States assets all over Arabia and the Moslem world will be at risk.  I believe that is the real reason for the attack on Syria–to promote war with Iran.  It is the American Way.

Not only does the United States have no legal standing for this attack, but, also it has no moral standing to attack Syria.  We used Agent Orange in Vietnam, which was a chemical agent.  We used phosphorus in Fallouja, and we aided and abetted Iraq in its use of gas in warfare in its war with Iran.  We provided the intelligence for where the gas was to be placed to devastate the Iranians where they were massing troops.

It is said that America will lose face if Congress does not approve an attack.  Well, even if that is true, the fault will be Obama’s since lacked any legal or moral power to draw “red lines” regarding the conduct and internal affairs of independent states.  The alternative to the “loss of face” is much worse.  Mr. Obama styles himself a Constitutional Scholar.  He should have known better.

William S. Hulsy
Attorney at Law

Syria and the Red Line

On August 21, 2013, a chemical weapons attack killed 1,429 men, women and children on the outskirts of Damascus. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry attribute the horrifying attack to the Assad government. The Geneva Protocol of 1925, the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, and the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 forbid the use of chemical weapons. The use of force to punish violators of the ban may be authorized by the UN Security Council. The United States is not unilaterally authorized under international law to do so.

President Obama continues to surprise me. Despite over a 100,000 casualties in Syria’s two-year plus civil war, he has wisely resisted direct involvement in a conflict that the U.S. has no obvious self-interest in. We have no real control over the unfolding events and outcome of the struggle underway there. Unfortunately, there is no plausible outcome that serves our interest in peace and democracy in the region much less in having a friendly regime. There is no obvious successor to Assad’s regime, though radical Islamism (al Qaeda) forces seem to currently dominate the anti-government forces. Edward Luttwak argues in a NY Times op-ed that a stalemate is the least bad of bad options. “In-Syria America Loses if Either Side Wins”

Obama then foolishly drew a red line against the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. It now seems very likely that Assad has crossed it in a big way. If the U.S. does not act decisively it will lose credibility and its red lines will become meaningless. If it acts, as Obama has suggested, in a limited, “surgical” manner that does not tip the balance of Syria’s civil war, will it have “taught” Assad a lesson that will detour him from using chemical weapons in the future? More likely it will affirm U.S. powerlessness in the area. And what about the inevitable collateral damage even if our rockets hit their intended targets and Syria’s unpredictable countermeasures? In a statement released September 1, the International Crisis Group stated that: “To precisely gauge in advance the impact of a U.S. military attack, regardless of its scope and of efforts to carefully calibrate it, by definition is a fool’s errand…. Consequences almost certainly will be unpredictable.” “Syria Statement”

In a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee last month, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that: “As we weigh our options, we should be able to conclude with some confidence that use of force will move us toward the intended outcome. Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next. Deeper involvement is hard to avoid.” More recently he added that: “Simply the application of force rarely produces and, in fact, maybe never produce the outcome we seek.” According to Daniel Byman of Brookings Institute “A limited bombing campaign against Syria’s chemical weapons infrastructure is likely to produce the worst of all worlds: raising expectations and further involving the United States in the Syrian civil war without significantly altering the balance of forces on the ground.” “Syria Crisis-Military Action”

Syria’s use of chemical weapons without consequences could render their prohibition toothless. However, not only is the US not legally authorized to police world agreements, it can’t afford to go into another war and still remain economically and militarily strong. Given Russian and Chinese opposition, the UN Security Council will not authorize the use of force. A U.S. attack on Syria would violate international law every bit as much as Syria’s apparent use of chemical weapons has. That does not mean that nothing can be done within the framework of the law in reaction to the use of chemical weapons. If we continue to disregard international law, why would we expect others to abide by it? Globalization, which has dramatically reduced poverty around the world, would suffer. We would be left to police the world by military force (and how has that been working for us?) until we burned ourselves out.

In his rose garden address to the nation Saturday the President said that: “I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets….  And I’m prepared to give that order.” His surprise, however, was his promise to seek Congress’s authorization, something he had not considered necessary for Libya. “But having made my decision as Commander-in-Chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interests,… I will seek authorization for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress.” Regrettably he did not seem to seek this authorization as a legal requirement of the constitution but rather as a pragmatic way to build public support. What ever his reason the step is welcomed.

Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith reviewed the legal arguments over the President’s war powers in a recent New York Times article: “What Happened to the Rule of Law?”  The Obama administration has pushed Presidential authority further than any previous administration. A return to the rule of law, domestically and internationally, is America’s best chance of survival in a dramatically changing world.

Congress should say no to Obama’s request for an illegal and unpromising attack on Syria. But we can thank him for asking.

Liberty and the Overly Prescriptive State

Few things reveal a person’s views on liberty more than their attitude toward the right of others to say or do things they disagree with. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects our right of free speech and assembly, later interpreted to include the right of association. “The NSA Unravels a Civil Rights Era Win”/2013/08/29/ None of these rights is absolute (yelling fire in a theater, etc), but where we as a society draw the line has a great deal to do with how successfully our diverse citizens will live together in harmony and freedom.

The latest example of the imposition of the state into what should be private issues of belief is California’s ban on health practitioners “offering psychotherapy aimed a making gay youth straight.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco ruled that the law does not violate the free speech rights of licensed counselors and patients seeking treatment.” “US Court Upholds First in Nation Law Banning Gay to Straight Therapy for Minors”/2013/08/29/

Conversion therapy is a scientifically documented scam, but if its practitioners believe in it, it is not a deliberate fraud (maybe they do and many they don’t). We are freer, and live in greater harmony the more we allow people to pursue and experiment with their own beliefs. This includes things the rest of us might think are silly. Such freedom, when exercised within a strong set of moral values, also tends to move society more quickly to a more virtuous level. The caveat is that in allowing people to live according to their own creed, they must do no real harm to others.  Even the “doing no harm to others” standard is subject to discussion and can moved a bit this way or that – toward more freedom or less. In the case of the California law against conversion therapy, the law was aimed at protecting minors from harm inflicted by such therapy and we have rightly been quicker to protect minors than others. In short, drawing an appropriate line between private rights and state intervention is a serious and not particularly easy undertaking.

Those of you who are lucky enough to be Facebook friends of Jonathan Rauch, author of “Denial” and currently a contributing editor of the National Journal and The Atlantic, and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institute, have access to a very thoughtful discussion of the freedom of conscience, association and speech and equal protection of the law. In comments to one of Jonathan’s postings, Charlotte Allen, Tom Palmer, and Walter Olson, Walt Becker (a pseudonym), David Dalton and others explore the interface between the freedom of association and equal protection of the law in the context of same sex marriage. In such discussions it is critical for those of us who defend the importance and morality of liberty to clearly distinguish what we individually believe is right and good from what is or should be allowed under the law. The law should allow people to make their own stupid mistakes.

In reaction to slavery and Jim Crow laws, which legally discriminated against blacks, America has gone well beyond repealing such legislation and has adopted a range of anti-discrimination laws limiting the ability of “public” businesses to choose their employees and customers. These anti-discrimination laws are now increasingly being extended to GLBTs (Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transgenders). Personal beliefs and preferences, whether we agree with or respect them or not, thus confront state interference in our personal choices and behavior. Doctors, who do not believe in abortion, are required to perform them. Companies whose owners do not believe in contraception are forced to provide health insurance and condoms to employees wanting them. A New Mexico photographer and baker are sued for refusing to provide their services to a same-sex wedding ceremony.

Equal treatment in the law was put aside for Affirmative Action giving preference to blacks in some cases on what was meant to be a temporary basis until the damage of earlier negative discrimination could be reversed. The Supreme Court has now started to roll back such preferences. In the above Facebook debate, Charlotte, who has trouble accepting marriage equality for same-sex couples, takes a more libertarian position on other areas of state imposed morality when she says “Why can’t we give people the freedom to set the parameters of their own commercial transactions?” The optimal balance shifts over time and I doubt that we have it anyway.

The government, which is often a lagging reflection of public sentiment, has been one of the last to extend equal treatment to same sex couples. Pure profit motive led corporate American to move ahead several decades ago to extend “marriage” benefits to employee partners of whatever sex. They did so in order to attract the best employees without regard to their color, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation. Discrimination has an economic cost.

No church should be required to marry anyone they don’t want to or don’t believe would be consistent with their beliefs. Allowing same-sex couples to receive a marriage license and the legal benefits that come with it from the State, which is surely required by the principle of equal protection of the law, does not and should not obligate any church to do so. I think that the treatment of the Boy Scouts of American set the right example.  As a private club the law allowed them to exclude gay boys from membership if they wanted to. However, evolving social understanding and attitudes and deeper reflection by Boy Scout leaders are slowly leading the Boy Scouts to change this policy. Getting the balance right will never be easy, but I prefer to error on the side of personal freedom rather than government dictated morality.