Andrew Hagen

Should an immigrant be President? The New York Times editorializes that the Constitution should be changed to eliminate the requirement of natural-born citizenship for the presidency. (*) Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 of the Constitution says:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of the President. . . .

(†) The Times cites the history of immigration to America as an argument in favor of lowering the requirements.

The object of the rule is clear: to provide assurance beyond doubt that the President of the United States is loyal exclusively to the country he serves. Eliminating the rule means eliminating that level of assurance.

The framers of the Constitution were aware that the rule could be perceived to create inequities. They knew that men who had contributed much to the founding of the republic would be passed over, with no possibility of being elected President. They were men like Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, Lafayette, and Baron von Steuben. They nevertheless chose to establish the rule. They chose wisely.

The Constitution should not be changed in this way. The US is currently enjoying a huge number of immigrants, 33.1 million of them. (‡) The current US population is 292 million. (§) Therefore, more than one in six who live in America are foreign-born. This leads to a false understanding of what America is.

We have reached a high-point of immigration. It is a state of affairs that cannot last. A sharp reduction in the number of immigrants admitted into the United States is inevitable sometime in the next few years, due to the need to culturally assimilate the great numbers who have arrived in recent decades. Thus, though the restriction of the presidency to natural-born citizens appears to be a nativist bias today, it will be seen in coming years more and more as the commonsensical rule it has always been as the proportion of immigrants declines.

Furthermore, today the United States is the most powerful country in the world. We have dealings and affairs with every other nation. We have used our preeminence to stand for freedom, justice, and peace in every corner of the globe. The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and the person ultimately responsible for the conduct of America’s foreign policy. Should the President be born in another country, our ability to appear as a fair international broker will decline in the eyes of the world. A Canadian-born President would always appear to favor Canada. A South Korean-born President would always appear to favor South Korea, and so on. Regardless of the reality, the perception would be damaging that our President is naturally biased in favor of one foreign country above all others.

Out of forty-three Presidents, few have been very bad, a number of them have been outstanding, and none of them have failed to love their country or be loyal to it. The rule of natural-born citizenship has served us well. We should keep it.

The Harvey Milk School, the gay-only public high school recently opened by the City of New York represents a step backward. Instead of promoting equal rights for gay people, it segregates gay students from others. (*) Instead of allowing young people to discover the truth about themselves in an environment protective of their true selves, it relegates young people to a school that will act like a magnet for chickenhawks. Most importantly, however, instead of protecting all students from bullying and harassment, the gay-only school allows school administrators to permit bullying and harassment to continue. Even if the gay-only school grows large, it could not possibly educate all gay students in New York City. So what then of those who cannot get in? It is inconceivable that just because all students are gay, no bullying or harassment will exist in the school. Finally, what proof of homosexuality could the school administrators possibly demand?

The gay-only school is a horrible idea that will contribute nothing to either society or to the gay movement.

Update: 9 September 2003. Added name of high school.

Update: 5 December 2003. A month ago, several teenagers from the school were arrested for dressing as female prostitutes so that they could steal money from their would-be clientele. (†) It is not a positive note on which to begin.

Common defenses of the proposed recognition of marriage between two members of the same sex are that it would improve the general morality of society by bolstering and supporting the institution of marriage, and that it would change gay people for the better. Those are the positions, for example, of gay marriage–proponent Andrew Sullivan. (*)

Writing in the Village Voice, however, Richard Goldstein attacks this reasoning, saying those would be states of affairs that would prevail only in the short run. He writes:

Generations of radicals have imagined a world in which the norm-making rules of matrimony are suspended—or at least loosened to suit the way people actually live. This is a struggle worth waging. Why do radicals assume it will be hindered if gay people can wed?

It’s understandable that advocates for gay marriage would portray it as a tribute to normalcy, and in the short term it probably will look like that. But as gay people grow accustomed to this option they will shape it to suit their particular needs. You’ll see leather weddings, boi-on-boi unions between queers of the opposite sex, trans matches that defy the boundaries of gender—all in cahoots with rice-throwing, trip-to-Niagara realness. Queers won’t stop being queer just because they can get hitched. The tradition of open relationships won’t cease to exist, nor will the boundless exploration of identity and desire. Marriage won’t change gay people, but merely affirm them as they are—and that, in all its profane glory, isn’t so different from what straight people have become.

(†) This appears to be a little-discussed matter.

In yesterday evening’s Democratic presidential debate, Howard Dean came out in support of pulling US troops out of Iraq. (*) He said: “We need more troops. They’re going to be foreign troops, not more American troops, as they should have been in the first place. Ours need to come home.” This represents a 180? pivot from his earlier position of keeping US troops in Iraq until the job is done.

Pulling our troops out of Iraq now would do great damage to the US’s standing in the world. It is shocking that the Democratic Party frontrunner would take such a radical position.

Update: 8 December 2003. Linked by Obsidian Wings which also has a good analysis of Dean’s Iraq policy. (†)

Former Vermont Governor, Democratic Party presidential frontrunner, and medical doctor Howard Dean supports physician-assisted suicide, just like “Dr Death” Jack Kevorkian, who is serving a prison sentence for murder. (*)

Indiana University is blatantly attacking the academic freedom of one of its professors, Eric Rasmusen. He posted some anti-gay rights messages to his web log. IU told him to remove them. (*) Eugene Volokh comments that this appears to be a clear-cut case. (†)

Rasmusen’s web log is available at a new site. (‡) I disagree with his views, but I support his right to give them voice.

I’d like to encourage Professor Rasmusen and anyone in a similar situation to seek the advice of a professional attorney.

Update: 9 September 2003. IU has allowed Rasmusen to keep his web log on his university-provided web site. (§) (**) This is a victory for academic freedom. Especially in the university context, all opinions should be protected, including offensive ones.

Update: 5 May 2004. Eric Rasmusen’s web site is now located at a new site. (††)

I was just listening to Sean Hannity’s conservative radio talk show (*) when he began talking about vouchers. This is the proposal to give public schoolchildren “vouchers” that will allow them to attend private school at government expense. It just doesn’t make sense.

As Hannity said, there are many excellent public schools in America. These tend to be in middle class and well-to-do neighborhoods. They are good schools because, as Hannity flatly stated, the people there pay taxes and give donations to build and maintain superb schools. On the other hand, schools in poor neighborhoods tend to be subpar due to lack of funds.

The solution would seem obvious. Channel federal and state tax dollars into poor schools to bring them to the level of schools in more affluent areas.

That is not what Mr. Hannity calls for, however. He wants vouchers. Supposedly, vouchers would allow all students attending poor schools to go to well-run private schools. This would de-fund the bad public schools, but the good public schools would continue to exist.

Proponents claim that vouchers would give kids a better education for the same or less public expense. Some private schools, particularly Catholic schools, spend less per pupil. (†) Private schools enjoy a good reputation for quality.

That vouchers would work cannot be true, however. Private schools admit only the children they want to admit. Private schools can discriminate in any manner they choose. In practice, they admit the better students. That is, they admit the kids who are most teachable. Kids who require special education or more attention can be and are in practice denied entry into private schools. (‡) If private schools had to take all children, they would not be as efficient. Their students would not do as well, either, since they were not cherrypicking better students to educate.

Adopting a voucher system would transfer large sums of taxpayer dollars to religious institutions. This is objectionable on the grounds that it would lead to religious ill-feeling because the government would appear to favor some religious groups over others. In particular, it would channel a great deal of money to Catholic schools.

Most private schools in the US are religious, and many of those are Roman Catholic. The US National Center for Educational Statistics (§) estimates that currently 23% of K-12 schools are private. Furthermore, 11% of all K-12 students attend private schools. (**) Thus, private schools have less pupils than public schools on average. About 84% of all private schools are religious, and about 49% of all private schools are Catholic. Twenty-seven percent of the US population as a whole is Catholic. (†† PDF Table 64) Private schools are overwhelmingly religious and largely Catholic. Any voucher program would tend to benefit religious schools and Catholic schools in particular.

With 89% of kids being taught in public schools today, there is simply no way for most children to be taught in private schools tomorrow. Regardless of how private schools choose to discriminate in their admissions processes, most children will have no opportunity to attend private schools.

No matter what policy choice we make, few children will be able to attend private school.

The best solution is the obvious one: fully fund public schools. This will require more money from federal and state governments. As in all government expenditures, it is appropriate to be watchful for any waste.

It’s too bad that conservatives like Sean Hannity tend to reflexively cite vouchers as a good educational policy option without considering the most direct approach.

The Iraqi Governing Council has named its cabinet, pushing one more step forward toward the free restoration of Iraqi self-government. (*) This should clear up the earlier confusion about the cabinet and allow the quick formation of a new Iraqi police force. (†)

Additionally, the Coalition Provisional Administration deleted the words “Allah Akbar” from the Iraqi flag. (‡) The words had been added by Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War.

Today, Spanish officials arrested Tayseer Allouni for involvement with and support of Al Qaeda. (*) Allouni works for the Qatari-based, satellite channel Al Jazeera.

I have previously criticized Al Jazeera for its Islamofascist bias. (†)

Al Jazeera’s web site is covering the story.

Soon after the arrest an Arab rights body called for Alouni’s release.

The Arab Commission for Human Rights told Aljazeera the Spanish action was a serious attack on press freedom.

It said the arrest dishonoured Spain and the police should apologise immediately to Alouni and his family.

(‡) Funny. It’s not like the Arab Commission for Human Rights needs to get the facts first, or even consider the possibility that the charges could be true. They just know they are false. They must have some very good information, I guess.

Michael Ledeen claims that the various terrorist organizations and terrorist-supporting states have united their efforts in Iraq to defeat the Iraqi people’s drive toward freedom. (*) The old divisions between terrorists formerly categorized as Sunni and Shi’ite, secular and religious, and Arab and non-Arab have broken down, Ledeen says.

I would like to see more evidence on this point. If it is true, it would have a significant effect upon how the War on Terrorism should be waged.

James S. Robbins ably enunciates the get-tough approach to North Korea. (*) The Stalinist backwater is more of a criminal enterprise than a state, North Korea will not enter into any arms control regime in good faith, and there is no reason for us to unilaterally surrender our superior bargaining position.

Robbins draws an analogy to Reagan’s rebuff of Gorbachev’s offer at Reykjavik in 1986. Reagan wisely turned Gorbachev down. There was no reason to drop SDI when, in any case, the USSR could not compete in that area.

The situation with 21st Century Stalinism is different. The Soviets could be trusted to not sell their nuclear weapons to the highest bidder. The Soviet leadership was clearly ready to negotiate in good faith. Kim Jong Il is a less likely negotiating partner. He broke the 1994 Agreed Framework, for example. He has sold ballistic missiles to Pakistan and Iran. Yet, an appeal to his sense of self-survival can be made successfully.

It is right for Robbins to use the possibility to bolster his argument that North Korea could sell nuclear weapons to a hostile state or group, such as Al Qaeda. Yet, that possibility also bolsters the argument of the negotiations camp. It is necessary to disarm Kim Jong Il somehow, because if we do not we are likely to be stung either directly or indirectly. My argument is that we can disarm him peacefully.

North Korea of 2003 is different from the Soviet Union of 1986. Kim Jong Il has not plotted a course where his state could collapse of its own weight. It will either die in flames or slowly modernize. Gorbachev was instrumental to the Soviet collapse. He insisted that when various SSR’s (Soviet Socialist Republics, the constituent parts of the Soviet Union, like Lithuania, Latvia, and the Ukraine) began to announce their split from the USSR (the Union of SSR’s), Gorbachev let them go. The Soviet constitution provided for the right of SSR’s to split should they ever so decide. Gorbachev merely required that the Soviet constitution be honored as written, and so it was for one of the first and only times.

Kim Jong Il is not Gorbachev. He will not allow a peaceful disintegration. He will take his half of the peninsula down either the fiery path of oblivion and ruin, or the communist-capitalist hybrid model of China. The peaceful outcome here is better, so long as North Korea is sans nuclear weapons. Over time, human rights conditions in North Korea are bound to improve, particularly as free markets establish themselves. Once North Korea is disarmed, furthermore, it will be more amenable to human rights demands.

Robbins is right when he says the US should drive a hard bargain. On top of disarmament, the US should demand a process for further negotiations where human rights can be addressed. The US should demand that the North Koreans both negotiate in good faith and disarm in good faith. We should be prepared to go to war to make our demands stick. We should also be prepared, however, for Pyongyang to meet our demands.

The President should make this a personal top priority. It has been pushed to the back for too long.

A Slate article from a few months ago drew the interesting observation that thus far George Walker Bush is the first president since Herber Hoover to preside over an economy that loses jobs. (*) Even George Herbert Walker Bush did better. Hoover lost his re-election bid in 1932 to F.D.R., ushering in the New Deal.

Signs of economic recovery are present, but will the recovery come fast enough to save W’s job?

North Korea has shifted course and will continue negotiations on its nuclear weapons program. On the other hand, Chinese analysts have given their assessment of the talks, and are blaming the United States.

The switch comes as China’s top diplomats have grown increasingly concerned that the United States does not have a negotiating strategy beyond using multilateral talks to put pressure on North Korea, analysts who have spoken to Chinese officials about the issue said today.

In contrast, these analysts said, China is persuaded that North Korea is prepared to trade away its nuclear program for the right mix of security and economic incentives.

Wang Yi, China’s vice foreign minister and the host of last week’s talks, told reporters in Manila on Monday that he considered the United States the “main obstacle” to settling the nuclear issue peacefully. He did not elaborate. . . .

(*) Allow me to. George W. Bush is a stubborn old mule. Bush’s orneriness is a character trait with both good and bad dimensions. In this case, being a stubborn old mule is more bad than it is good.

There is no need to give North Korea a non-aggression pact or a peace treaty. Such a gift would be anathema to our long-standing policy of promoting a peaceful and free reunification of the Koreas. North Korea is proposing a non-aggression pact, but that appears to be merely a negotiating position that they would bargain away. In return they would want some kind of oral reassurance that the US will not attack.

Kim Jong Il is a skittish, growly bear. To our eyes, he appears to act irrationally. His moves all make sense, however, in the context of the preservation of himself and his regime. Reassure the bear, don’t put him in a corner, and feed him, and he will not swipe at you with his nuclear stockpile and will let you dismantle it.

Here’s a bare bones suggestion for such an approach. “We won’t attack North Korea because of its nuclear program unless North Korea continues its nuclear program. We also offer certain economic incentives to North Korea. . . . ” Etc, etc.

James Laney and Jason T. Shaplen argue in favor of talking. (†)

The report on the loss of the space shuttle Columbia was released last week. (*) It is 248 pages. (†)

What is most disturbing is the report’s indictment of the management culture at NASA, a perfect echo of the criticism of NASA following the 1986 loss of the Challenger. It is pathetic at this point, but NASA now seems to have a web-based safety problem reporting system. (‡)

Congress should get its share of the blame, however, for failing to fund NASA more generously. Had Congress given NASA the money it needs, we would at least have the next generation space plane ready to go. With Congress’s yearly pittance of $10 billion paid to one of the government’s most important agencies, it will take years before the space plane is ready.

Jonathan Pollard, an American convicted in 1987 of handing over the crown jewels of the United States’s intelligence services to Israel, will appear in court for various motions. The court will hear arguments that his life sentence should be reconsidered. (*) Pollard’s rabid supporters want him to be freed, and thus sickly resemble the Mumia Abu-Jamal movement. (†)

Having got them from Pollard’s treachery, Israel almost certainly provided these most precious US secrets to the Soviet Union, according to a Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker published on 18 January 1999, pp. 26-33. (‡)

There is no telling how severely Pollard’s betrayal has cost our country in lives and otherwise in various military conflicts since.

Pollard is a turncoat to the United States. He should never be freed under any circumstances. The people who are supporting him ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Update: 4 April 2004. Title changed. Some wording changed.

Today, Labor Day, Democratic presidential candidate and Senator from North Carolina John Edwards used the occasion to present his ideas for improving labor law through legislation. (*) The proposals range from reducing restrictions to gaining union representation to banning the permanent replacement of striking workers. These are not new ideas, but are the bread and butter needs of the American labor movement.

Edwards’s press release cites the Dunlop Commission Report. († PDF) The Report was vigorously disputed by the pro-business Cato Institute. (‡)

Nathan Newman is covering labor issues all week, and is celebrating Labor Day with a list of labor-related stories. (*)

Have a happy Labor Day.

California Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, Democrat, is running in the gubernatorial recall race, but has had to face serious questions about his past involvement in a Chicano student group called Mecha. (*) This is a college group, present on many campuses, that calls for the primacy of racial identity, particularly Mexican ethnicity, in politics, and for the southwestern United States to be “liberated” by returning it to Mexico. Bustamante has shrugged off calls to repudiate Mecha. Instead, he has defended Mecha as some kind of a job network.

No one deserves a pass on the issue of racial politics. It does not matter what group is supposedly oppressing what other group today. If any racial group baldly asserts that it is superior in its virtue or in its claim of land, and the assertion is unchecked, dire consequences will follow. Either that group will one day become powerful and do harm as it suggested it would, or an opposite group of a different race will form to counteract it. Thus the cycle of intolerance and hatred is renewed. That any elected public official might be involved is abominable.

Bustamante ought to make it crystal clear where he stands on the issues of racialism and separatism. Does he agree with Mecha or not? If he continues to stonewall, the voters of California should choose someone else.

This is partially in response to the challenge of Glenn Reynolds. (†)

In the New York Review of Books, H Allen Orr has an unexpected but ultimately very satisfying takedown of Matt Ridley’s Nature via Nurture. (*) Ridley tells his audience that genes are active throughout an organism’s life, thus ending the old nature vs. nurture debate. Convincingly, however, Orr finds the debate still very much alive.

Daniel Pipes gives insight into the UN bureaucracies that handle refugee problems. (*) The UN High Commission for Refugees handles most refugee problems around the world, and defines refugees as those who have left their homes under duress to the exclusion of their genetic descendants. On the other hand, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), is specially dedicated to Palestinian refugees, who are defined as anyone genetically descended from an actual Palestinian refugee. Pipes correctly notes that this privileges Palestinian refugees above all others, and aptly calls for investigation into why 40% of UNRWA’s funding comes from the United States.