Daniel Drezner has read Mike Huckabee's Foreign Affairs article outlining his approach to foreign policy so we don't have to. It seems Drezner is saving us from Huck's "loopy writing" and contradictory arguments.
The essay is a great symbol of Huckabee's campaign -- there are feints in interesting directions, but in the end it's just a grab-bag of contradictory ideas. In a New York Times Magazine profile, Huckabee mentions columnist Thomas Friedman and new sovereigntist Frank Gaffney as his foreign policy influences. Those in the know might believe this to be impossible, but Huckabee's Foreign Affairs essay really is an attempt to mix these two together in some kind of unholy alchemy. Take this paragraph:
American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach out. The Bush administration's arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad. My administration will recognize that the United States' main fight today does not pit us against the world but pits the world against the terrorists. At the same time, my administration will never surrender any of our sovereignty, which is why I was the first presidential candidate to oppose ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty, which would endanger both our national security and our economic interests.
Really, you just have to stand back and marvel at the contradiction of sentiments contained in that paragraph. It's endemic to the entire essay -- for someone who claims he wants to get rid of the bunker mentality, Huckabee offers no concrete ideas for how to do that, and a lot of policies (rejecting the Law of the Sea Treaty, using force in Pakistan, boosting defense spending by 50%) that will ensure anti-Americanism for years to come.
The AP reports on Huck's article here.
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But who really cares as long as it sounds good? We have to reject Bush's policies but still have his swagger and arrogance.
There's more to conservatism than economic conservatism, whether of the libertarian or pro-business variety. Why should they destroy their movement by supporting a marginal protest candidate like Thompson who's decided abstract principles of federalism are more important than basic moral values like fetal life?
At least, it seems, he would defer to McCain on the torture issue.
I'm not saying these critiques are wrong, uncalled-for, or inappropriate. It's just interesting to see the VC's Fredheads setting their sights on the newly-ordained popular favorite not named Thompson.
More than anything, perhaps, I'm surprised that they appear to be so driven by the polls and mass media instead of the other way around. But perhaps the cycle is endless and inescapable.
And take the commies with you!
Two quick points (both of which probably fit better in the other Huck thread). First, Thompson's position on abortion (anti-Roe, anti-amendment) was Huckabee's position up until last year. Second, if protecting fetal life is your highest priority, how would having a President Huckabee calling for a constitutional amendment that would never pass -- and was not even voted upon when the GOP controlled Congress -- do more to actually achieve your goal than the available alternatives?
JHA
Is anybody over 20% in the national polls now?
Fred is the candidate who is the least distasteful to the most people. But can a front porch campaign be waged these days?
Romney seems to be getting more institutional support lately; Robert Bork just endorsed him, for example.
Even McCain could probably be sold as the guy whose "turn" it is.
Giuliani and Huckabee are just unacceptable to too many people.
The "bunker mentality" Huckabee wants to change deals with PR, not policy. He thinks, correctly, that President Bush has not been very articulate.
His other jabs at the President are that we did not send enough troops to Iraq and haven't been tough enough with Pakistan.
He wants to have a bigger army and kill more people than the President.
Other than closing Gitmo and opening direct talks with Iran, there is nothing about future policy that the current President could not live with.
I read the piece as saying Huckabee would get tougher but sound more humble.
It is contradictory in places but all platform type statements are contradictory. How many politicans say they want to have more programs but tax less, for instance.
A classic illustration of what's wrong with what the Republican party has become. To a large chunk of the Republican base, it matters not in the least that federalism is inscribed in the Constitution while the federal government's ability to do anything about abortion is not. Abortion matters, federalism doesn't, Constitution notwithstanding.
Why? well because abortion is
in the Biblea matter of "values" so why should some trivial little impediment like the Constitution count against that?Assumes facts not in evidence. If your highest priority is actually power/money, not protecting fetal life, then that can be accomplished just as effectively by pushing futile wedge issues intended only to divide the public and test the loyalty of leaders. How much time was wasted in 2004 discussing a same-sex marriage amendment? And what was the first story out of the box on the day after the 2004 election -- "values voters" were the key to Bush victory. Turned out later the story was based on a misreading of exit polls, but it won evangelicals four more years of political and fund raising clout and a regular spot on the Sunday talk shows. Mission accomplished.
That's the great fear of the Republican elite - that the party might nominate a True Believer, someone who doesn't realize that slate of constitutional amendments about the usual wedge issues (flag burning, abortion, gay people) is just there to bring in the votes on election day so the party can go back to making money afterwards. In other words, they're shocked that Huckabee doesn't seem to realize there's a reason why those amendments only get proposed in even numbered years.
Indeed. I would throw the evangelical leadership in with the Republican elites, though. Haven't seen Richard Land, Dobson, or Robertson stumping for Huckabee, for example. It's just that no one told the voters in Iowa how the game works.
Not to quibble, but "arrogant bunker mentality" (I italicize a word you omitted) only refers to style ("PR"), not substance?
Of course the larger point is Repubs running away from Bush, but I guess that's old news.
Couldn't have happened to a better party!
I'm not so sure that this is the best example of the internet disconnect. The pro-Ron Paul internet/C-SPAN phenomenon despite low single digits real-life polling is a good example, but the high polling in real life for Huckabee hasn't lasted nearly long enough to be meaningful.
In real life, I think he got a partly media-driven partly local boost which so far has only lasted through a few polls. I think only one or two national polls. The number of candidates who have experienced this kind of surge and then died away within a few weeks EVEN THIS CYCLE is hard to count. We saw this with McCain at the beginning, Romney, Thompson - the only sustained ones so far have been Giuliani and Hillary. You can't even call the Obama surge meaningful quite yet and its much more believable than the Huckabee surge.
If you pray to God and rely on His inspiration, you don't need to have ideas.
Democracy only works when the process is more important than the outcome. For most of us, there are some possible outcomes of a political process that would cause us to abandon democracy.
For some people, abortion is such a process.
There are gradations to abandonment of democratic process. One need not take up arms against the government or blow up opponents' facilities. There are various levels of passive resistance, disobedience to laws, and manipulation of the legal system.
Liberals were willing to rely on the courts to remove this issue from its traditional place as governed by state police power. In doing so they trampled upon majority opinion (at that time) in a majority of the states. The irrationality of the opinion added insult to injury, as far as its intelligent opponents are concerned. But the road from Berlin to Paris also goes from Paris to Berlin, so to speak. By paving the road, the litigants and judges who gave us Roe v. Wade provided legitimacy not only for overruling it, but for anit-abortion rulings through judicial and constitutional processes.
This genii should be put back into the bottle (wow, I'm mixing metaphors today) and regulation of abortion should be returned to the states. The issue is one on which people feel strongly, which has minor impact on the survival of the nation, which has minor impact on other states (in contrast to the potential impact of same-sex marriage) and on which opinion varies considerable by region. It would be good for the US if it could be taken out of the national political debate.
Because there can be no other source (or at least defense) of rights. Your principles will not protect your rights, your god will not protect your rights, and your two strong hands and big, long gun will not protect your rights, more often than not. That's what we have government for, mostly, and the majority vote is the basic tool of the form of government to which we currently subscribe.
If a conviction is shared by a large enough majority, it may attempt to make it difficult for future majorities to impose contrary convictions, as the Constitution does. This doesn't change the reality that any "right" can be conferred or taken away by a large enough majority, and no right is "fundamental."
(To preempt the recently inevitable charge of heresy against libertarianism:) When I say that I am a libertarian, I do not mean that I have intrinsic rights that oughtn't be violated, but that the constellation of rights typically guaranteed by libertarianism is the one most appealing to me.
I guess it is more accurate to call it "style" rather than just "PR". Be more aggresive with PR and at least appear to listen to other views.
That the NR types are now freaking out that the Republicans might actually nominate someone who believes the crap they publish is really Rich (speaking of Rich, see also Rich Lowry's takes on Huckabee which are just great). Chickens coming home to reap people. This is exactly what happened to the Dems after the DLC overlooked the liberal wing of the party for too long . . . . (I stole the article as an example from Sadly No.)
How do I identify a fundamental right? Or, more properly, what criteria can we agree on regarding which rights are fundamental?
In the case of abortions, the two sets of partisans propose as fundamental rights putative rights which conflict.
If you are asking which putative rights ought not be subject to modification by the political process that is another question. I don't think that either the right to abort a fetus or the right of a fetus not to be aborted falls into that category.
As a matter of expediency the SC has used substantive due process to preempt a large territory and wrest it from control of legislatures and states. But, as I point out, this is a double-edged sword. Another court can find constitutional rights that trample on what YOU think should be fundamental rights.
It's not easy by any means, but since the Constitution explicitly contemplates unenumerated rights, we do have to make some kind of effort to find out what "fundamental" rights are (since presumably they'll be first in line) unless we're prepared to ignore the text of the Constitution.
But here, A, it seems you're confounding the holding of a right and the ability to defend the right. Certainly, against the claim X has a right to life, we wouldn't say, "No, because he was murdered last night, so obviously he didn't have that right." To say A has a right to life is not to say that others are unable to kill him, merely that others that do so are morally in the wrong, and that may be justly punished for such action.
Now, if you agree with the prior paragraph, you presumably also agree that, say, Jews in Nazi Germany had a right to life, even if a majority of Germans voted against recognizing it (this isn't what actually happened; it is a hypothetical). So your claim that majority rule is the only source of rights seems weak.
I would say that the Nazis were wrong, but I would not use the language of rights. Questions of moral justification and questions of legal right should, at least for the purpose of clear discussion, be kept separate. What I deny is the existence of "objective moral rights." As for "subjective moral rights," those are just my judgment of what the majority should rule, and my judgment of what legal rights are morally justified. Start with a happy relativism and extrapolate, or start with an arbitrary axiom or god and preach.
Also, Godwin's law, much?
There is not even one contradiction in the paragraph that he cites.
There is no contradiction between opening up and reaching out on one hand, and taking steps to protect sovereignty and build the military on the other.
In other words, one can be more open as a matter of process and communication, but have substantive positions that others may not agree with.
I liked your original, "Chickens coming home to reap," better. It sounds like the trailer tagline for a parody of a 1950s monster movie.
Legal rights are not the same as fundamental rights. The former are somewhat arbitrarily defined. The latter comprise a moving target-- you still haven't described a test for validating a putative right.
As for the 9th Amendment-- I'm not a historian, but suspect that the amendment refers to those rights that English subjects had enjoyed under common law and equity prior to the adoption of the Constitution. I don't think those who ratifieed it were saying, "If we didn't affirmatively limit a conceivable right in the Constitution, then you have itand nobody can take it away."
There aresome rights that are specified in the Constitution that are clear, like the right to a jury trial in certain actions, or the right not to have soldiers quartered in one;s house in times of peace.
There are others that are subject to interpretation. Freedom of speach clearly meant less to them than to us. The Founding Fathers were always suing each other for libel, and passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. I've read that that they meant that there shouldn't be prior restraint on speech (i.e., direct censorship) but that you would be subject to punishment for what you aired. But the test is what it is, and most of us (me included) favor a much broader interpretation.
But, at the end of the day, the Constitution is simply a document that expresses what we want the government to do and what we want them not to do. There is nothing fundamental about this. Our best defense is federalism--leaving things to the states. Then, to the extent that we disagree on what is important-- in fact, on what is fundamental-- the ability of some to impose thier will on others is limited by geography and by the ability of dissenters to move to a different part of the country.
The term "fundamental right" isn't equivalent to "constitutional right" or even "unenumerated constitutional right" but if you're trying to figure out what unenumerated constitutional rights are, the fact that a particular right is "fundamental" might plausibly be said to give that right a head start over other rights in terms of qualifying as an unenumerated constitutional right.
I don't actually have a test for determining such rights - it's a hard subject and I don't do this for a living, though if I recall correctly, the Supreme Court has set out a test in a number of cases, including a "right to die" case, the name of which escapes me at the moment.
I believe the theory the Founders had in mind was to guard against excessive government power by dividing the sum total of all governmental power along three separate axes, federal versus state government (federalism), different components of the federal government (executive, legislative, judicial, i.e. "separation of powers") and government versus individual (Bill of Rights). Since one of those axes (federalism) has completely collapsed, and since there is zero support for resurrecting it (unless you're Ron Paul or Clarence Thomas) I think it behooves us to pay careful attention to the preservation of the other two axes.
A pseudoStraussian or Platonist might try to enhance their concept of liberty by trying to convince others of the validity of the noble lie of fundamentla rights, but this ultimately will not be a bulwark against passions in an emergency. See Koramatsu.
Religion is another possible restraint on people's impulses to use the government to hurt others. As we see from our friends in Saudi Arabia, it can be used to the opposite ends. Some of us are afraid that Huckabee's religion inspires an authoritarian streak. Not that he is a Saudi mullah, but that he does not seriously entertain other points of view and will try to overcome them through using the institutions of the US government.
You can set up the Supreme Court as a bulwark, but if the court gets populated by judges who want to suppress liberties, it will do so with no effective way to constrain it.