As George Bush has demonstrated, you can pretty much destroy an entire country and more than a quarter of the public will still insist you did an O.K. job.

The target of Collins' comparison is New York's accidental governor, David Paterson, who — thanks to his wide, broad and deep incompetence — is setting new records for "drops in approval ratings."

But Paterson is not the target of this blogpost:

Meanwhile, the 32 Democrats who control the [New York] State Senate by one vote have discovered that a party with a one-vote majority is exactly as good as its weakest, dumbest and most venal member. This in a group where one guy is about to stand trial for beating up his girlfriend and several others give the impression of being willing to trade their vote for a television someone handed them from the back of a stolen truck.

Gay New Yorkers could have told you that.

And not just gay New Yorkers. Gay Californians had the state legislature, the governor and the attorney general on their side. Oops, they forgot to check with the "weakest, dumbest and most venal" element of their governing process — bigot voters. Outcome: Not exactly as planned.

Or gay Vermonters. State legislature on their side. Oops, they forgot to check with the "weakest, dumbest and most venal" member of their governing process — a bigot governor. Outcome: Not exactly as planned.

Of course, this phenomenon of "weakest, dumbest and most venal" is non-partisan. Remember how Republicans briefly exhaled a sigh of relief upon learning that they still had a filibuster-enabling bloc in the Senate? Well, the three "weakest" members of the Republican caucus promptly put that wishful thinking in its place.

As for the Democrats in Congress (and remember, there are an awful lot of them now), they still can't come up with the votes to repeal DOMA or DADT. Why? Three reasons: weak, dumb, venal.

Or maybe not. Maybe to be weak is to be powerful and to be dumb is to be smart. (Since all politicians are by definition venal, we'll leave that one aside for the moment.) The least Democratic members of the New York State Senate essentially captured the entire legislative agenda. So did the three New England pseudo-Republicans in the U.S. Senate. And who could possibly forget Joe Lieberman?

Sometimes "weak as strong" goes Mobius Strip and becomes "weak as strong as weak as …" See, e.g., Arlen Specter, who is either the strongest weak Republican, or the weakest strong Republican, in the Senate. Or maybe he's not even a Republican anymore — hard to tell these days. But card check still hinges on his weak-strength/strong-weakness.

The idea of "weak as strong" even transcends the legislative branch. Recently, a silly woman wrote a silly book espousing a silly idea: That Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is a ("modest") libertarian. Um, no. The best way to describe Kennedy (or at least post-O'Connor Kennedy), as I have explained previously, is as the perennial chaser of the swing vote. Because on the Supreme Court, the swing vote — whether as "weakest conservative," "weakest liberal" or "weakest whatever" — is of course the strongest voice: the one who gets to write the controlling opinion.

Democracy fetishists (and their incestuous siblings, the political fetishists) tend to forget that "politics" is nothing more than "politicians" — all of whom seek, to the greatest extent possible, to maximize their own power, prestige and influence. If being (or acting) "weak, dumb and venal" works to that end, then few if any politicians will hesitate to do so.

Furthermore, a system that is rigged to pull both partisan extremes to the political center will inevitably maximize the power at the center. But what is "the center" but the weakest partisans? The system encourages weakness; the system rewards weakness. To be weak can be extraordinarily powerful.

So stop acting surprised when you see "weak, dumb and venal" politicians all around you casting "weak, dumb and venal" votes.

(Part One here.)

Anger is building against the police department in the wake of an increase in arrests of gay men for prostitution at Manhattan adult video stores. Last week, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn joined in the outcry. She said she is working with the mayor's office and commanders of the police department to set up a meeting that will include gay community groups "to get to the bottom of this."

The arrests have been documented by Duncan Osborne of the Gay City News over the last several months. Police are allegedly using handsome young undercover cops to cruise middle-aged gay men, offering to go home with them for consensual sex. As they leave the store together, the cop offers to pay the man for the sex, confusing the victims who can't imagine why the younger man would make such a proposal. Then, as they walk out of the store, the victim, despite never having agreed to any exchange of money, is surrounded by undercover cops, handcuffed and charged with prostitution.

Gay activists and civil libertarians see the arrests as part of a continuing effort to shut down porn operations in the city and a tendency by the police department to criminalize gay sexual behavior.

Let's dispense with a preliminary matter: If the incidents truly occurred as described here, then the arrests are undeniably frivolous. There was neither an exchange of sex for money nor an agreement to exchange sex for money. And "loitering" on private property (with no objection from the property owner) is an insolent oxymoron.

What's more interesting to me than the (uncomplicated) entrapment analysis (or the community response, which is entirely predictable) is how this scandal relates back to self-loathing homosexual Larry Craig.

To review: There was some background noise in the Craig affair over the tangential question of why law enforcement should undertake a sting operation in an airport men's room in the first place — why not just hire (much cheaper and much less complicated) porters to monitor the facilities? I signed on to that criticism without reservation.

But that question had nothing whatsoever to do with the pesky fact that Craig was in fact guilty. If he hadn't solicited the detective, then he most likely would have solicited someone else.

The circumstances of Craig's arrest and guilty plea were unfortunate, but only in the sense that so many libertarians screwed up the analysis so badly. The mental gymnastics necessary to invent a supposed "right to peer inside a closed restroom stall" and "right to reach into the occupied stall next to you" were downright embarrassing to those of us who focused on the true libertarian right at issue here: the right to be left alone while sitting in a bathroom stall.

The libertarian intolerance for the criminalization of "victimless crimes" requires a constant awareness of what exactly constitutes "victimless." The NYPD incidents seem clearly to qualify. The Craig incident wasn't even close.

Previously:
–More Thoughts on Larry Craig
–Larry Craig Epilogue (For Now)
–Craig Now Absurdly Claiming Constitutional Violations
–On the ACLU on Larry Craig

The concept of a "natural unemployment rate" follows from looking at unemployment as a search process. According to this theory, people search for a new job so long as the expected benefits of additional search exceed the expected costs of additional search. Once the expected costs of additional job search exceed the expected benefits, people stop searching and take the best offer they have found (and that is still available) to that point.
…
In Canada, one reason the natural unemployment rate seems to have declined from its peak in the 1980s is that EI ("employment insurance", the current euphemism for unemployment benefits) has become less lucrative and other policies have also been altered with the result of somewhat lowering the height of the social safety net. One result has been that people search less and for shorter periods of time when they are unemployed, thus lowering the unemployment rate.

You mean that (socialized-medicine) Canada is, in at least one respect, less welfare-statist than the U.S.? Go figure.

Now comes word, meanwhile, that President-Elect Obama hopes to significantly expand unemployment benefits.

One of the mitigating joys of Career 2.0 is receiving 39 weekly direct deposits of $405 from the New York State government. That's a puny fraction of the well over $100,000 in state income taxes I've paid over the years (not to mention New York City income taxes, state sales taxes, etc.), so suffice it to say that I, qua libertarian, am hardly ethically conflicted about it. And while I do faithfully perform all the required job-seeking activities that attach to receiving unemployment insurance, let's just say I'm not in any rush. "Expected benefits" versus "expected costs" indeed.

Meanwhile, as I commented over at EclectEcon:

Note that the debates in the U.S. over extending benefits are increasingly focused, not on the "automatic stabilizer" paleo-Keynesian argument, but instead on neo-liberal notions of "humaneness."

If you subsidize something, you get more of it. So yes I too think the natural rate of unemployment in the U.S. will undoubtedly rise.

And I am Exhibit A.

I also hear that she opposes drowning kittens in the East River.

Both are nice to know, but both are totally irrelevant to the question of whether she is qualified to serve as a United States senator generally, or is entitled to be appointed senator from New York specifically.

Caroline Kennedy has never earned any title or rank higher than "Ms." — not Doctor Kennedy, not Professor Kennedy, not CEO or Chairwoman Kennedy, and definitely not Judge Kennedy, Ambassador Kennedy, Secretary Kennedy, Mayor Kennedy or even Representative Kennedy.

And this despite every advantage available in a nation supposedly dedicated to principles of meritocracy while supposedly repulsed by notions of hereditary nobility. She was born rich and privileged, and was afforded every preference — and deference — her entire life. A life that, all things considered, has been decidedly mediocre and is best described as, "I shall ask nothing of you, so please ask nothing of me."

It was an arrangement that worked very well, both for her and for America. It is an arrangement that should be maintained.

Say what you want about Hillary Clinton and her megalomaniacal carpetbagger use of a Senate seat as a weigh station on her path to the White House Foggy Bottom. At least she had the common courtesy to, um, run for the office.

If Ms. Kennedy wishes to be appointed Senator Kennedy, then the only moral way to go about it would be to accept the appointment strictly as a temporary placeholder*, with an unambiguous public pledge not to stay in the office past the 2010 election.

(*In the same way that Joe Biden's shill is serving as a placeholder until Beau returns from Iraq to claim what apparently is now Biden family property.)

Which means that for six months I have been enduring repeated misrepresentations by the board about the economics of the proposal (which, at the end of the day, is nothing more than an unjustifiable transfer from some residents to others; the building's finances are merely a neutral conduit — one might say a money-laundering conduit).

But that's all, as I said, old news. What's interesting now is that after three solicitations, the board still doesn't have the votes to impose the tax. Which invites two observations:

1. The document the board has distributed to shareholders — three times — is deceptively designed not as a ballot, but as a form to be signed and returned, obviously with the intent that people will simply sign and return it without realizing what it is. There are no clear "For" and "Against" boxes to be checked off. The only way to vote "No" is by not returning the form at all. I suppose this is legal, but it's wildly unethical in my opinion.

2. At an informal shareholder meeting a month or so ago, a fellow resident asked the board president a simple, direct and perfectly reasonable question: At what point is this "vote" over and the decision made not to impose the transfer tax?

The board president's response was a curt, almost snarky: Never.

He then went on to explain that the board can, and will, continue to send solicitations until they have the necessary "votes," (but remember, no real "ballots" were ever distributed). Moreover, the consent forms that have already been returned never expire. (I suppose they can be revoked, but that requires an active effort and again exposes the fallacy of calling this process a "vote.")

So does any of this sound familiar?

It should, because it exactly mimics the con game being perpetrated by Congressional Democrats in the form of the Employee Free Choice Act (which, incidentally, surely wins the "Most Orwellian Legislative Title" Award™).

The Employee Free Choice Act essentially allows labor unions to avoid traditional votes on whether to unionize and instead solicit consent cards — which are not anonymous. The union will therefore always know exactly who has, and has not, submitted the card. And target, literally, those who oppose unionization.

Imagine having the omnipresent threat of a union thug "discussing" your lack of consent with you. At work, even at home. Any time, without warning. Forever.

Imagine signing the card check and then later deciding that you've changed your mind. Since your card check never expires, you would have to take the active step of approaching union representatives and asking for your card back. Think that would be a cordial encounter?

Finally, while shareholder votes, about flip taxes or anything else, can't be anonymous by their very nature, the same cannot be said about union votes. They have always been anonymous, for the pesky reason that anonymous voting is a core (small-d) democratic principle. Indeed, anonymous voting is a core American principle. The sanctity of the secret ballot should be respected whenever and to the greatest extent possible.

Except where unions are concerned — then screw it, right?

The fundamental fallacy of collective bargaining is that the interests of the union and the interests of employees are always perfectly aligned. They are never perfectly aligned and are often not aligned at all. The nightmarish Employee Free Choice Act is not a transfer of power from employers to employees, or even from employers to unions. It is instead a transfer of power from the employees to unions. The employer, like my co-op, is a neutral conduit.

A nightmarish bill, very likely to be passed in the next Congress and signed by the next president. In the name of "progressivism" and "employee empowerment."

More generally, as I have noted before: Labors unions were, at best, a Twentieth-Century solution to a Nineteenth-Century problem. They have no legitimate role, none whatsoever, in the Twenty-First Century.

New York State's perpetually mismanaged Metropolitan Transportation Authority, along with its bought-and-paid-for lackeys in Albany, are unfortunately now leapfrogging even further away from this rudimentary principle of fiscal propriety:

The regional mobility tax — 33 cents on every $100 of payroll — would provide $1.5 billion a year, and the tolls would produce $600 million in net revenue a year ($1 billion a year in gross revenue minus expenses)[.] The new revenue streams would help finance borrowing for a $30 billion-to-$35 billion M.T.A. capital plan for 2010 to 2014 that would help stimulate the economy while maintaining vital infrastructure.

Read that again: A bureaucrat is actually brazen enough to suggest that imposing a new tax "would help stimulate the economy." The Great Liberal Delusion™: that an economy can ever tax its way into prosperity.

And not just any tax — a payroll tax. A tax that specifically targets the working poor that New York's off-the-scale liberals pretend to care about (in much the same way that Washington's off-the-scale liberals pretend to care about the working poor when they cheer on Social Security).

Be sure to reject outright of course any flunk-the-final insistence that "businesses will pay the tax and not workers." Businesses never pay taxes; they only remit them. Only individuals pay taxes — either through higher prices, lower wages or reduced profits. With a payroll tax, that burden of course falls on the workers. To help "stimulate" them. Somehow.

The other fraud that apologists are foisting upon the economically illiterate is that this disconnected payroll tax is justified by the future growth that expanding and improving mass transit will generate. Consider the ever-reliable defenders of ever more and ever bigger tax-and-spend governance — the New York Times editorial board:

The cost of a vibrant city, fed by its daily influx of commuters, should be shared by others who benefit. That means drivers, who face less traffic because so many other people leave their cars at home. And businesses that can draw employees from across the metropolitan area should also contribute.

Again, a city cannot tax itself into "vibrancy" and businesses will not "contribute" the new payroll tax — employees will.

But there is another aspect to this con, a sort of intertemporal bait-and-switch. If expanding or improving mass transit makes a city more "vibrant" tomorrow, or allows a business to attract more customers tomorrow, then government revenues should increase — tomorrow. More people riding subways and buses means more fares paid, more business means more sales taxes and business taxes, more employment means more income taxes. Tomorrow. So overlaying an entirely new tax today, based on (purported) benefits tomorrow, is simply illegitimate — because those (purported) benefits will now be taxed twice: today via the new payroll tax and tomorrow via the boring old taxes that we already know and hate.

In conclusion, let's go back to the Times and first principles:

Almost every commuter recognizes that a fare increase is inevitable, but [a 23% increase] is unnecessarily onerous.

Why is it "especially onerous" to expect those who use infrastructure to be the ones who pay for it? Raising the subway and bus fare from the current $2 to $3 would be a 50% increase — and yet still far from "onerous." (Again, if the concern is the poor, then the answer is means-tested vouchers, not new taxes that transfer wealth from all non-users, including the poor, to all users, including the non-poor. It's absurd.)

Previously:
–Who Should Pay for Mass Transit? (Part One)
–Who Should Pay for Mass Transit? (Part Two)
–If You Don't Live in NYC…
–Why Should There Be Municipal Golf Courses?
–Are Public Libraries Really Public Goods?

After being dealt a rare public embarrassment by the City Council, which forced his administration to acknowledge on Monday that he was legally required to send out $400 rebate checks promised to hundreds of thousands of New York homeowners, a defiant Mr. Bloomberg said on Wednesday that he had no plans to release the money.

At a news conference, Mr. Bloomberg described the rebates as "up in the air." Asked what he would tell homeowners who have been depending on the money to pay bills or buy holiday gifts, he responded: "Plan for the worst, and hope for the best."

When pressed, the mayor said: "I just answered your question. You just don’t want the answer."

To be clear, I have always been and continue to be adamantly against the rebate, which is nothing more than a stealth layer of progressivity quietly superimposed upon property taxes.

But that's not the point — this is: The rebate law was duly enacted and its terms are unambiguous — even the mayor's office admits that there is no bona fide dispute on that question.

And still Bloomberg tells the City Council, and taxpayers, to go screw themselves. He'll do whatever he damn well pleases — because, in case you forgot, he's in charge.

This is the most unrepentant display of unbridled anti-taxpayer political hubris I've seen since Alaska Representative Don Young's infamous "my money, my money" tirade on the House floor.

But if anyone can "out-Young" Don Young, it would be the insufferable Michael Bloomberg. As chronicled in the Times exposé (and of course on this blog), Bloomberg never hesitates in, and indeed seems to enjoy, dismissing his constituents as whiners, obstructionists — or just plain idiots.

So I ask again, in the wake of Bloomberg's recent, dishonorable end-run around term limits: four more years of this?

The "Best" (i.e., Worst) of Bloomberg:
–NYC's Tax-and-Spend Microcosm
–"Just Plead Guilty"
–Bloomberg: "Poor Get Better Health Care Than Rich"
–Bloomberg Decries Tax Breaks for Opponents While Championing Them for Supporters
–"Be Glad We Don't Take It All"
–Latest Bloomberg Election Stunt: Senior Rents
–Bloomberg: Ban Campaign Contributions by Businesses
–Still Think Bloomberg's Not a "Typical Politician"?

By sheer coincidence, word has come down that New York City's out-of-control Landmarks Preservation Commission continues to justify its own unjustifiable existence by finding new sharks to jump:

Silver Towers/University Village, three concrete towers designed by I. M. Pei that were part of Robert Moses's vast urban renewal program for Greenwich Village, was one of seven landmarks officially designated on Tuesday by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The six other newly designated landmarks include aluminum-clad low-rise office building by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and a late 19th-century cast-iron commercial building.

Here are pictures of the more absurd designations. I dare anyone to make the case that these structures are either aesthetically pleasing or historically relevant to the point where their owners should be stripped of their property rights over the structures:

Silver Towers / University Village
(a/k/a "Ode to East Berlin")

Morris B. Sanders Studio and Apartment
(a/k/a "Ode to a High School Gym Shower")

Fire Engine Company No. 54
(a/k/a "Ode to Gaudy Banners Hanging from
Supposedly 'Historic' Red Brick Face")

There was surprisingly little discussion of Proposition 8 (apart from the buzz about this morning's New York Times exposé about the role of the Mormon Church in the ballot measure — the Washington Post ran a similar piece as well), and much more about the maddening situation in New York. For those not in the know, a senior Democratic state senator, who also happens to be a Hispanic representing a a Hispanic district in the Bronx (oh, and he's also a Pentecostal minister) is threatening to block the election of the front-runner candidate for senate majority leader unless he pledges to keep gay marriage off the legislative agenda.

Anyway, stepping out at the lunch break, intending to go home, I was stunned to find myself drenched not in rain (as has been predicted) but rather warm inviting sunlight.

So how could I not go down to the gay rights rally at City Hall?

Overall, a good day. A very good day indeed.

Previously on YouTube:
–NYC Rally For Marriage and Against Proposition 8

The program is modeled after one begun three years ago in New York that has withstood legal challenges. However, experts said it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of such searches, beyond assuring the public that police are being vigilant.
…
Checkpoints will be set up at Metro facilities, and passengers will go through inspections before entering a rail station or boarding a bus.
…
Those who refuse to have their bags searched will not be allowed to enter. Transit Police will not arrest people who refuse to have their bags inspected.

In the searches, Transit Police will randomly choose a number, such as 17. Then they will ask every 17th rider with bags to step aside for an inspection before boarding a bus or entering a rail station.

I wrote several blogposts about New York City's program and the (ultimately unsuccessful) litigation challenging it. My thesis, which is entirely applicable to D.C.'s plan, can be summed up rather succinctly:

1. Any inspection regime for a transportation network where a would-be malfeasant can simply turn around, walk away and enter a few moments later at another station (or even another entrance at the same station) is objectively worthless. It has no detection or deterrent effect — absolutely zero.
2. A worthless program is, by definition, unreasonable.
3. Unreasonable searches are explicitly prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.
4. Therefore, any such inspection regime is facially unconstitutional.

The only reason the federal courts upheld New York's program was by embracing a position of unthinking acceptance of completely unsubstantiated assurances from law enforcement and mass transit bureaucrats that "the program works." That's not judicial deference, it's judicial abdication. And it's disgraceful.

The terrorists seek to destroy our way of life. Thanks to programs like this, they are succeeding.

More thoughts from Flex Your Rights, Hit & Run, Cato@Liberty.

—

One ancillary nitpick:

If others are acting suspiciously, Transit Police have the right to stop a person not selected for inspection.

The police, qua police, never have the "right" to do anything. They might have the power (legitimately or illegitimately derived) to act pursuant to their governmental authority, but never the right. Only civilians, qua civilians, can ever have rights.

The federal government and its capital district have no "rights." States have no "rights." Cities have no "rights." Mass transit bureaucracies have no "rights." The police have no "rights." They only have powers — powers that they can and do abuse.

—

Previously:
–Circuit Court Upholds Worthless Subway Searches
–NYC Subway Searches Ruled Constitutional (For Now)
–The Random Searching of Pelham One Two Three
–Subway Searches and Korematsu