Auxiliaries, Citizens, and Mexicans

Political discourse on immigration reform remains remarkably limited and short-sighted. Opponents of the act tend to characterize it as a gross injustice. Bending our nations laws to accommodate illegal aliens cannot, in their view, be justified. Uneducated and illiterate Mexicans have little to contribute to modern American; they will burden our public schools, hospitals, and welfare system while paying minimal taxes. Ultimately, these economic and social arguments veil either racist attitudes towards Hispanics or an acute lack of foresight and political understanding. Laws are meant to be adapted to respond to changing circumstances. With sluggish population growth, a faltering recovery, and massive budget deficits, America could benefit greatly by an influx of new citizens, even if they are generally unskilled and uneducated. It is ironic that many of the same Republicans who so vehemently espouse free trade (e.g. NAFTA) oppose looser immigration policy.

Sources on Sacrifice

For those of you interested in ancient history or archaeology, the following may be relevant to your interests:

New research has tendency to be over-hyped. A recent study of a Carthaginian infant burial site (a Tophet) has refuted the proposition by some scholars that all the infants buried at Tophets were sacrificed (here is the article). Osteological analysis of the remains of infants has shown that 20 percent of those found died before birth, and thus could not have been sacrificed. It seems more likely that Tophets were used as more general burial sites.

However, this does little to refute the general historical evidence for child sacrifice at Carthage. Kleitarchos, Diodorus, the Old Testament, and some inscriptions all support child sacrifice at Carthage. Schwartz, the author of the article, rightly limits his conclusions: "Skeletal Remains from Punic Carthage Do Not Support Systematic Sacrifice of Infants." However, as so often happens, studies limited in scope are taken too far. One article has gone so far as to declare that Schwarts' research refutes "millennia-long claims of mass infant sacrifice in ancient Carthage." This just isn't the case. Nothing says that all of those children buried died of natural causes. Moreover, some sacrifices could have been buried elsewhere. Writers in the media and university have a responsibility to remain skeptical of new claims and opinions. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to blow new research out of proportion and make sweeping claims about the past. Orthodox perspectives should not be quickly dismissed, and new research should not be overstated.

Evangelicals and Academics

Here's an interesting article on Evangelicalism in modern America. I believe that it is indicative of an underlying lack of diversity within the academic community. Conservative Christian academics are a dying breed. As the author acknowledges, most professors, even of religion, are completely unfamiliar with the religious identity of millions of modern Americans. Even the author of the article (Timothy Beal) ascribes to the liberal dogma of academe (notice his description of the Bible as "an accidental book"). Contrary to this article's suggestion, no mere article or book will bridge the fundamental gap between academia and conservative Christianity. If Evangelicals truly want to be understood, they themselves must penetrate the ivory tower of academia. Until underrepresented groups finally gain their own voices in the liberal world of the American university, they will remain strangers and foes of academics.

Health Care Repeal

Although the Republicans have swept the House of Representatives, they failed to win enough seats for a majority in the Senate. How, then, will they honor their promise to repeal health care? Even if they could muster a handful of votes in the Senate (an unlikely possibility), they could never get past the filibuster or presidential veto. Is this a lost cause? Will the Republicans be able to undo Obama's "socialist" agenda?

Probably not through legislation. However, a number of State Attorney Generals have begun a suit against the federal government, arguing that a number of provisions in Obamacare are unconstitutional. While many of these challenges are likely to fail, I think that the challenge to the provision requiring every American to purchase healthcare (or suffer a penalty) has the best chance to be overturned. Why? Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

Supreme Court jurisprudence on the Commerce Clause has swung widely back and forth in the past century. Beginning during FDR's presidency, partly out of fear of his court packing scheme, the Court began to rule minimum wage laws and other measures by congress as Constitutional. Later, in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, the Court ruled that congress could require, pursuant to the Commerce Clause, motels to treat black guests the same as white guests even if the guests were from in state. Given these precedent cases, it may seem that the Commerce Clause gives congress a blank check to do any and everything it wants.

However, during the 1990's, the Rehnquist Court began to reign in the Commerce Clause. In US v. Lopez and US v. Morrison, the Court ruled that congress' legislation on guns in schools and rape was unconstitutional. The Commerce Clause allows congress to regulate things/persons in interstate commerce, channels of interstate commerce, and things substantially affecting interstate commerce. In Lopez and Morrison, the Court ruled that a kid bringing a gun to school and a man raping a woman did not have substantial effects on interstate commerce because the relationships were "too attenuated."

So what will the Court rule when the health care bill comes up? When I buy health care or don't buy health care do I "substantially affect" interstate commerce? Personally, I think no. The Court is likely to agree. Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito, the true conservatives on the Court, will strike down the law. Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan will rule in favor of the government. What will Kennedy do? If he follows his own voting in Lopez and Morrison, he will strike down the law. Liberal pundits may scoff at the "radical" or "reactionary" Republican challenges to the constitutionality of Obamacare, but they overlook the fact that the Constitution only enumerates certain powers to Congress, all other powers reside with the states.

When Republicans proposed that Congress should be required to cite each constitutional provision which gives them authority to pass each law, the Democrats opposed them. Why? Did Democrats fear that they would not be able to justify their own measures constitutionally? Or do they not have enough knowledge of the Constitution to find such provisions? Maybe, liberals simply feel so confident in the righteousness of their own agenda that they do not wish to be burdened by an outdated document written by a bunch of dead white men. Either way, if the Supreme Court overturns the health care bill, it will be seen by liberals not as a defence of Constitutional principles, but as an activist conservative Court run amock.

Tax Cuts for the Wealthy or for the Nation?

Recently debate has flared up over whether Bush’s so called “tax cuts for the wealthy” should be extended. Republicans urge congress to extend all the cuts, but the Democrats want to only extend the cuts for the bottom 98% of all income earners. Thus far, the Democrats have cast this as a choice between helping the rich or the nation. I, however, believe that extending all the tax cuts is not only good for the rich but good for the nation.

The reason most often given by Republicans for extending the cuts is that they help small businesses, for many small businesses file their taxes as individuals and thus would benefit from tax cuts to those earning above $250,000 a year. This is true, but it is often pointed out that small businesses can be helped without extending tax cuts of millions of wealthy Americans. Very few small businesses would actually benefit from this; the vast majority would remain unaffected.

However, there are far more important reasons to extend the tax cuts to the wealthy, reasons which are rarely mentioned by politicians. It is a commonplace that taxation decreases efficiency. Economic agents, even wealthy ones, will be less willing to work hard if they know the government will take a large portion of their income. An increase in government revenue will bring on a decrease in overall GDP. Thus, a decrease in taxes can cause an increase in tax revenue, and an increase in taxes can cause a decrease in revenue (the Lerner Curve). Admittedly, this is unlikely to happen, but it demonstrates that an increase in taxation is unlikely to increase tax revenue proportionally. Taxes have the unintended consequence of decreasing productivity over the entire economy.

Now under normal circumstances, correcting the deficit through more responsible tax policies would be imperative. However, we risk descending into a second recession if we tether down economic productivity with more taxes. In a recent poll, 60% of economists said that extending all the tax cuts would be the most economically sound choice. Surely, having experienced the devastating effects of the most recent recession, we should not allow our economic choices to be influenced by some infantile desire to take from the rich and give to the poor, especially since the consequences could be disastrous for the entire economy. The debate over tax cuts should not be about taking money from the greedy and lazy richest 2% of Americans. No, the debate should be about what is best for the nation. There are many strong reasons to extend the cuts, and our nation’s leaders would do well to focus on helping the nation and not punishing the wealthy.

Today's Elites

In recent times, commentators like offhandedly to compare America to Rome or to Athens, often with some vague implied notion that we must beware of our own "decline" and potential "fall." These statements are generally vague and historically uninformed, but they show an acute awareness that our own nation should look to the past to help steer our course for the future. It is peculiar, then, that pundits rarely critique the vices of modern America, as those in antiquity were so ready to do. Livy, for instance, observes of his own time that "we are able to endure neither our vices nor their remedies." Ammianus Marcellinus comments upon the depravity of the city of Rome as a major reason for its decline. In the past those wishing to critique their own societies tended to focus on moral as well as economic and political weaknesses.

I was somewhat refreshed then when I, while staying up late into the morning, read the following article by a conservative military historian. It is essentially a critique of what he sees as a "postmodern cultural elite" which he believes permeates academia, government, Hollywood, and corporate America. While we can easily dismiss Hanson's complaints as unsubstantiated generalizations, he brings up a number of interesting contradictions which may be important to consider:

- Those progressives obsessed with a green revolution tend to live very "ungreen" lives, favoring jets, boats, large homes, and countless electronic devices, yet they are the same public figures who denigrate those less fortunate for ecologically harmful activity.

- Although elites tend to romanticise nature, they are far removed from it and have little experience with the mechanics of agrarian society.

- Rich Americans like to go to the gym and exercise so as to appear muscular and healthy, but most intentionally avoid manual labor. In other words, today's elites exercise out of vanity and distance themselves from those who actually do work.

As many of our readers are attending universities and moving into careers in government and academia, I believe that it is important for us to consider some of Hanson's critiques of today's elites. It is possible, I think, that we can lose sight of the values and plights of common people. We should be quick to check our own excesses and shortcomings lest we suffer the same fate as Athens and Rome.

In Support of Disengagement in Afghanistan

It is a commonplace that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are a massive drain upon the political, military, and financial resources of the United States. Although civilian leaders like to put deadlines for the achievement of objectives and troop withdrawals, “victory” is proving difficult to define and achieve. I do not doubt that a stable liberal democracy could eventually be established in Afghanistan, given enough time and effort on the part of the US military. However, in light of the tremendous financial, political, and military cost of a protracted war as well as the minimal strategic significance of Afghanistan, the best choice is to disengage.

Currently, the US has about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. At about 1 million dollars per soldier per year, that will cost the US well over 100 billion dollars per year. More importantly, our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as other factors, preclude involvement in other countries like Iran and North Korea (see "Contain Iran" by James Robinson). These many woes of warfare will not go away in the near future; it will take years before Afghanistan has been molded into a stable democracy.

The strategic importance of Afghanistan, as well as the entire Middle East, is greatly overstated (see “The Middle of Nowhere” by Edward N. Luttwak). Afghanistan has few natural resources and no significance in the international network of trade. It is a nation of impoverished farmers who live in isolated hamlets. What do we hope to gain from Afghanistan? Proponents of the war will argue that the Taliban in Afghanistan poses a national-security threat to the US a la September 11, 2001. This argument is unpersuasive. No doubt, the existence of the Taliban is counter to our interests. However, we must consider the costs and benefits of pursuing the Taliban to every last cave and mountain. I believe that disengagement is preferable to our current strategy when we consider our costs and benefits.

Disengagement is not withdrawal. I advocate neither a sudden or gradual withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Rather, I propose that the most economical and effective use of our forces is to stop all major combat operations and fortify our ground forces into bases near urban centers. There they can protect the central government from large foreign and domestic threats which materialize, and they can thwart the machinations of the Taliban through extensive aerial bombardment (see “In Praise of Aerial Bombardment” by Edward N. Luttwak). This will minimize the material and human costs while maintaining a degree of stability acceptable to our interests.

This choice is certainly unpalatable for policy-makers. The increase in civilian casualties will be unpopular, not to mention the perception that we have “given up” the fight against terror or the hunt for Osama. However, considering the minimal strategic significance of the region and the tremendous resources and time required by our current strategy, disengagement is the best choice. True, it will surrender the Afghan people to instability and violence for the foreseeable future, but it will serve our own interests and enable us to deal with unforeseen problems which may emerge. After all, as Polybius says, “In war we must always leave room for strokes of fortune, and accidents that cannot be foreseen.”

Greetings and War

Greetings everyone! I have just joined this "blog" and am eager to contribute my thoughts and comments. Althought I am no expert on foreign policy, nor even an international affairs student, I believe that my studies of antiquity and history may be of interest and possibly - dare I say it - relevant to issues in the modern world. I am currently completing a research paper which analyzes the role of limitanei and soldier-civilian interactions in Roman Arabia. However, for my first blog, I would like to write a brief summary and review of a book I read this summer (or last spring? I forget when I finished it).

The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Ancient Greece is a book by the historian Victor Davis Hanson which gives helpful insights into the uniquely Greek approach to warfare and how that approach still colors our perspective on waging war.

The conditions of an egalitarian and agrarian Greek society helped mold hoplite battle and thus western warfare. Farmer-soldiers needed to be present in their fields and preferred to be home with their families, so they opted for short, brutal, and decisive battles as opposed to extended campaigns of attrition. Hoplite battle is perfectly suited for these all-or-nothing battles. Two armies face off in an open field and clash in a head-to-head collision of shock infantry. Hanson goes into extensive detail regarding the sheer horror of this kind of battle. Although war only consisted of a few hours of combat a year for a Greek polis, it had a profound impact upon the psyche of the hoplite. Hanson argues that the glorification of war found in literature is merely a symptom of how tremendously the prospect of open battle weighed upon Greek men.

Because of the conditions of Greek warfare, battle was limited in scope, a few hours a year. While we have inherited the Greek preference for open and decisive battles, we have greatly expanded the scope, lethality, and consequences of war in the modern world. A hoplite might have fought a few hours a year, but a marine in Afghanistan has to deal with the prospect of conflict for months at a time. Gone are the days when soldier-civilians, after voting in the assembly, would take up shield and spear and fight out a war to defend their endangered lands. Now, with our professional armies and modern arsenals, cold and calculating decisions are made, and long drawn out campaigns are fought, sometimes with devastating consequences.

While Greek infantry battle was just as brutal as modern warfare, if not more so, we can learn from their perspective. For them, battle was a brutal necessity and a communal choice. Rather than seeking out the total domination of their enemies, as Alexander the Great would later do, Greek armies in the 5th and 6th centuries fought chiefly to resolve conflict through quick and decisive battle. Our problem is that we share the Greek desire for decisive and head-on battle but have greatly expanded the scope and aims of warfare. Now, we fight enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq who do not fight the "Western Way of War." This presents us with a quandary which talented strategists have tried to fix through various forms of "counter-insurgency." As we seek to serve the interests of the state through warfare, we should remember the material and human cost brought on by the modern way of war.