I'm back

I finally finished reading the book, "FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and his New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression." This is must reading for anyone who wants to know how the Great Depression began (without needing an economics degree), and what our nation did to attempt to correct it (and failed).

It was a nice departure from some of the heavy stuff I have been reading as of late. The book sums up its points well in the conclusion. First,:

"After Americans suffered through a catastrophic contraction for three years (1929-1933), FDR supported policies like the National Industrial Recovery Act that promoted further contraction. His executive orders helped enforce higher consumer prices when millions of Americans were unemployed and needed bargains. FDR approved the destruction of food when people were hungry. FDR signed into law higher taxes for everybody, so consumers had less money to spend, and employers had less money with which to hire people - during the worst depression in American history."

As Jim Powell (the author) makes the point, FDR will be remembered less fondly as economists look back on the performance of his policies.

This, of course, does not discount the fact that he brought hope to millions of Americans and at least showed he was trying something. I fear that as time goes on, people will remember less of his intentions and more of his failed policies, particularly as Social Security goes bust.

Current Reading

I have missed a couple of my most recent reads, but I will get to those later. My current reading is by a gentleman from the D.C. based Cato Institute, my favorite libertarian think tank.

The title of the book is "FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression."

I have been interested in reading this book for some time, as most of what the Democrats idealize is a return to the New Deal policies. It is and has been my opinion that the New Deal policies hurt America and that politicians and apologists have been revising history ever since.

While I am only about half-way through the book, there are some interesting facts to note: First, Roosevelt was innagurated in March of 1933. It is widely (correctly) assumed that the Great Depression began sometime in 1929. The first New Deal program was passed into law in late March 1933. The Great Depression ended sometime in the early 1940's, spurred by our entrance into World War II.

What is not widely agreed upon are the causes or the remedies of the Depression. Powell argues (and I agree) that the Depression ocurred largely because of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, which led to a worldwide trade war, massively depressing consupmtion and investment. Roosevelt argued that is was greedy businessmen and stock speculators.

I would go so far as to say that if President Bush had attempted some of the remedies that Roosevelt did to allow our economy to recover, that Congress would have forgone impeachment hearings and went directly to lynching him.

Whatever your opinion of Roosevelt was (I believe that he was a great President), his tactics were certainly unconstitutional. Many of his (and his Brain Trust's) ideas came directly from facist Italy and Communist Russia. He was great, in my opinion, however, because of the spirit of the country, which he helped to bring back to life. Were it not for Roosevelt stopping the country's lethargic slide, this may very well be a different nation. If nothing else, he inspired hope, as have other great presidents before and after him.

NSA Surveillance

Recently, there has been a half-hearted debate regarding the National Security Agency's monitoring of telephone calls between people located in America and known Al-Qaeda affiliates. This has caused quite a stir, and probably has damaged some of our intelligence capabilities.

It is very important, however, to understand what it is that we are talking about here. Further, it is my opinion that lawmakers should decide upon appropriate use of this power, which has been ocurring in this capacity for many years, at least preceding the current administration to the previous administration.

I believe it is fair to say that nearly all Americans would agree that we are "at war" with at least Al-Qaeda, and perhaps linked organizations within the Muslim Brotherhood (Islamic Jihad, Jemaat Islamiya, etc.). So from that reasoning, I believe most people would agree that it is a military duty to attempt to monitor the communications of Al-Qaeda, particularly if it involves communications to this country from nation-states, such as Afghanistan. Please note, this does not mean that all communications between the United States and Afghanistan are monitored. This means that all communications between the United States and a know Al-Qaeda operative or associate in Afghanistan are monitored. This would appear to me to be a military operation, and not a policing one.

I think it would be appropriate to make a corrolary here: if the United States found out during World War II that Adolph Hitler was making telephone calls into the United States, would surveillance of these calls require a court order? What if there was no evidence the person in American that Hitler was calling was doing anything wrong? Could they still monitor those calls? What if these calls provided no information about troop movements, but rather gave insight into Hitler's personality? Would this tapping have been appropriate, and would it have been necessary to get a court order?

This is the crux of our current debate. From what I understand of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), it is intended to be used as a police tool against domestic actors, not for the purposes of intelligence.

However, neither the media, the administration, nor the Democrats will allow this debate to occur. We are to believe that either this is an unacceptable intrusion on our privacy, that the President has unlimited power to do what he believes is necessary (the philospher king), or that this is an unprecedented violation of our liberties.

None of these could be furhter from the truth.