Science and Politics: View from the other side

A logical series is a sequence of symbols constructed according to a certain rule. For instance, the series 1,2,3,4, where each number exceeds the preceding one by unity, has a simple and easily recognizable structure. One can also design series according to more complex and not so easily discernible rules. Logical series are very popular among creators of standardized tests and were even used in the plot of movie plot ( Oxford Murders ).

What does it all have to do with our discussion? In his previous posts, Nathan proposed his own logical series: history, evolution, climate change. The rule used to construct this series is not very complex: these are the fields of inquiry being attacked by "right wingers". While at first glance it seems that there is some logic in this series, a deeper analysis reveals its fallacious nature. The moniker “right wing” is so broad and covers such a multitude of opposing political positions that its use does not seem to serve any useful purpose in general and even less so in this particular discussion. Indeed, while the belief in creationism strongly correlates with political affiliation of the faithful, the skepticism with regard to global warming by itself is a scientific and not a political position. I do not deny, of course, that it is often used to promote particular political interests, but it does not define the political views of scientists supporting this position. For instance, one of the most prominent “skeptics” Freeman Dyson , is quite liberal in his political views. After all, “alarmist” views on the global warming issue are also used to advance a clearly defined political agenda, but I would stop short of prescribing liberal views to all scientists holding the alarmist position.

Nathan also puts forward the idea that evolution and global warming have a shared property of being “normal sciences” in the terminology of Kuhn. In other words, both evolution theory and global warming are “mature” scientific fields with established consensus regarding their respective basic principles. I think, however, that if someone scratches below the surface of the obvious, some significant peculiarities of the climate science would emerge. It is interesting, for instance, that while in biological community no one has been paying any attention to creationism as a serious alternative to evolution for many years, the supporters of global warming theory are still in bitter fight with their opponents. It is even more peculiar that this fight has taken the form very different from what is generally accepted as normal scientific discussion. Normally, scientific consensus is not supposed to be established with the help of governmental and even intergovernmental bodies. It is also very uncharacteristic for “normal” science to carry out “scientific” discussions by either smearing opponents as somebody’s (in this case oil/gas/coal industry’s) puppets or dismissing them as incompetents. This happened in the past, of course, with rather detrimental results for science. Something rather similar occurred in the Middle Ages in Europe, when Christian Church was preventing any deviation from “consensus” on Aristotelian -Ptolemaic systems, and in Soviet Union, when the Communist Party forced the “theory” of Academician Lysenko to be accepted as “consensus” of Soviet biologists.

The “non-traditional” methods of scientific discussion are justified by the need to respond to political intrigues of the “right wingers”. While it is true that scientific nature of skeptics’ arguments is to some extent discredited by the political campaign organized by the fossil fuel industry and supporting it politicians, there are several points to be considered when discussing this issue. First, it should be understood that the political resistance to the immediate actions based on alarmist’s views reflects enormous economical and political consequences of these actions. At stakes are not just lavish lifestyles of a few CEOS, but hundreds of thousands of jobs around the world, the pace of world economic development, and ultimately the amount of wealth in the world. Without this wealth, none of the programs designed to help poor and developing nations can be possible. It seems that world “left-wing movement”, which almost universally supports the alarmist views on global warming and the redistributive programs of international assistance, is actually shooting itself in the foot, causing one doubt their sincerity.

This brings me to the second important point. To talk about political “intrigues” of the right while ignoring the influence of political left on the issue of global warming is, mildly speaking, hypocritical. While I do not subscribe to the theory of centrally organized conspiracy beyond the global warming problem, it is impossible not to see the complex network of interests of various groups benefiting from and exploiting the “threat” of global warming. Some of these interests have been exposed in a number of publications and films presented in this Wikipedia article . While I do not endorse or agree with some of the claims cited in this article, it gives a comprehensive overview of various groups benefiting from the global warming scare. I will mention only some of them whose influence is, in my view, most important. Climate scientists, who were once seen by many as providers of the material to TV weather anchors, suddenly found themselves at the forefront of public attention. It is very tempting to keep it this way because it is just nice to feel yourself important and besides along with attention usually come the money in the form of governmental grants. I am not saying that all climate scientists behave this way, but being a scientist itself and seeing similar behavior, while on much smaller scale, in my own scientific community, I understand that this kind of temptation is very difficult to resist. In additional global warming issue is a golden goose for UN bureaucracy, which finally found a way to extend its power over economic activity of most of industrialized world. National governments can use this issue in a variety of ways from distracting population from other problems, acquiring means for even larger control over their societies, etc. Finally, for the socialists of all kinds , organizing anti-globalization and other protests, the global warming scare is “once in a life-time” opportunity to finally crush the spinal chord of so much hated capitalism, which will undoubtedly result in massive unrest with a lucrative power grabbing opportunities. All these interests are converging at one point: global warming is a very real opportunity to replace free market economy with central planning, which is a dream of all bureaucracies and professional socialists.

This deep interconnection between the global warming science and world economics and politics drastically distinguishes it from other “normal sciences” and thus, the so-called “consensus” in climate discussion should be considered with a great suspicion. It is interesting that Mike Hulme of University of East Anglia, who is one the leading alarmists, after being caught with red hands (climatgate scandal) admits this much in his article in Wall Street Journal : “Yes, science has clearly revealed that humans are influencing global climate and will continue to do so, but we don't know the full scale of the risks involved, nor how rapidly they will evolve, nor indeed—with clear insight—the relative roles of all the forcing agents involved at different scales”. So much for the alarmist consensus. In the same article Hulme openly admits that the debate over the global warming is not over scientific but moral differences: “Too often, when we think we are arguing over scientific evidence for climate change, we are in fact disagreeing about our different political preferences, ethical principles and value systems.” I rest my case.

Tea Party history and "Big Picture"

In one of his comments in the thread on all the things wrong with the Tea Party version of history (see here ) Nathan accused Dr. McClanahan of the Tenthers movement, and by extension all other authors sharing this ideological platform, in methodologically wrong approach to history. Two main points of Nathan's indictment were: 1. McClanahan cherry picks historical facts and quotes of historical figures that suite his political agenda, and 2. He uses a "welter of detail" (thanks, Nathan I learned a new word!), without showing the place of these details in a bigger picture. Well, Nathan, in my opinion, this criticism is not entirely fair, and is based on misinterpretation of objectives of McClanahan's article. If McClanahan tried to argue that the ideas of the compact theory and of strictly limited federal government with enumerated powers in early American history was the singular or at least a prevailing point of view, I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you. However, his objective, at least the way I saw it, was very different and much narrower. All what he tried to do was to repudiate the notion that these ideas, which were the basis of the Tenthers movement, never played an important role in earlier American political discourse or as Mr. Millhiser (McClanahan's liberal opponent) put it "tentherism has no basis in the Constitution or its history. President George Washington himself rejected tentherism early in American history, and this radical view of the Constitution gained no traction at all until fairly late in American history." With this limited goal in mind, I think that McClanahan's use of quotes from Hamilton or Marshall is justified. Dr. McClanahan is obviously well aware of political positions of both these men and of devastating effect on the "compact theory" of the Marshall's ruling in McCulloch v. Maryland . This circumstance, however, makes these quotes all more important because they essentially confirm the point that the ideas supported by the Tenthers were pretty much on the mind of the leading politicians of the time including those who eventually accepted the opposite point of view. I am not arrogant enough to think that I can say anything new about Marshall's ruling in this case, which is probably one of the most studied and written about Supreme Court cases in US history, but I would like to bring to attention the opening phrase of his arguments, which says: "This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it, would seem too apparent, to have required to be enforced by all those arguments, which its enlightened friends, while it was depending before the people, found it necessary to urge; that principle is now universally admitted." This statement is in direct contradiction with Millhiser's assertions, and even though Marshall continues to establish the idea of implied powers and to negate the compact theory, this opening confirms than the notion of enumerated powers is not the figment of Tenthers' imagination, but played an important part in establishing American Constitutional order.

These quotes also play an important role in understanding the "Big Picture", which you, Nathan, are so concerned about. I agree with you that the key members of the Founding generation were complex people, who constantly debated the ideas that laid the foundation of American Constitution, revising and developing them and their own views on various principles of organization of American republic. They were not a uniform group of people, there were fractions and counter-fractions and political maneuvering sometimes of the worst kind. One thing, however, united them all, and this is my understanding of the Big Picture. They participated in the birth of a new political order, which was a product of the rebellion of people against the King. This idea of the King, understood in a broad metaphorical sense as any arbitrary rule with unlimited powers over men, was pretty much on the minds of everybody in the Revolutionary generation. The new order, which they created, was supposed to eliminate the King, make it impossible for any person or institution to become the King. Thus, the idea of limiting the power of government, particularly, federal government was the central theme of all the debates that seek to find the right compromise between the form of government that could actually govern without becoming the King. In this context, the quotes from leading proponents of stronger government, which were cited by McClanahan, are very important. They allow to suggest that when Hamilton, or Marshall, or Madison talked about strong central government they actually meant something different from what present days supporters of the strong government have in mind. This is a frequently occurring but not too often acknowledged linguistic and gnoseological phenomenon - the substitution of the meaning. The phrase "strong central government" is just a "meaning holder", an empty frame, which is being filled with different meanings in different cultural and political contexts. I do not think that Hamilton in his wildest dreams envisioned that his views of strong government would be taken to give the government the power to establish the Department of Education, to control the minimum wage or hiring practices of private businesses, or to establish the system of public welfare. All these things might or might not be justified on various grounds, but to use the position of Hamilton to justify them is historically and logically wrong. Take the case of Madison, for instance, who is said to be flip-flopping on the issue of the strong federal - versus state governments. You mentioned that Madison became a supporter of the former, but the context of this flip-flop is very telling. He just lost a humiliating war against Britain and realized that one cannot fight a war with state militias, without a centrally commanded standing army and without centralized means to finance it. Thus, he became a supporter of the "strong federal power", but for him it meant just two things: to have an army and to be able to issue federal currency. This is a far cry from "implied powers" of today's federal government.
This is essentially the "Big Picture" how I see it. And in my mind this picture only proves how right was Jefferson, when he warned against the dangers of federal government without explicitly specified limits on its power. The history demonstrates that governments behave like gases: just as a gas expands to occupy all available to it volume, governments expand to grab all the power, which is not explicitly denied to them. It is sadly ironic, of course, that Jefferson himself contributed to the demise of his concept of limited government through his Louisiana Purchase. This story, however, is more complex than your, Nathan, comment suggests (see its nice recapitulation here . Jefferson understood very well that this act was unconstitutional and wanted to pass a Constitutional amendment to remedy this situation, but he fell the victim to the political expediency as so many other great men after him. Unfortunately, his weakness opened the flood gates of federal activism and expansion of federal powers, which sometimes, indeed, have been used for good, but most often, were detrimental to the development of the country.

Science and Politics

Toward the end of our previous thread, Lev took me to task for “lumping together” examples from three disparate fields, history, global warming and evolution, to show the propensity of certain present day conservatives to advocate positions that are fundamentally at odds with reality. Regarding history, Lev writes: “Interpretation of history, the way I see it, (please correct me if I am completely off the mark here) is unavoidably ideological. I remember our discussions of Orientalism, and how you pointed out the great role of ideology in interpretations of the relationship between West and East.”  But while history cannot, in Lev’s view, be separated from ideology, global warming and evolution, “belong to domain of empirical science, which is much less prone to ideological influences.”  Still, Lev notes a significant difference between these two fields: Darwinian evolution has been around for 150 years and is a well established element of modern biology. On the other hand, the science behind the model of global warming particularly as it relates to human causality is much less developed and remains a matter of legitimate scientific debate.  Unfortunately, Lev writes, “both sides of the debate have vested economical interest in its outcome, and, therefore, something that should be a purely scientific matter has turned into a political circus.”  Lev puts most of the blame for this on the “alarmist” side which has prematurely advanced preliminary and not fully confirmed results.  Lev considers it naïve to attribute humanitarian motives to the “alarmists” and feels that they have “set a very bad precedent from the point of view of the integrity of scientific discourse.  While I am not a climatologist,” he writes, “I have enough training to understand the complexity of the problem they try to model and the unreliability of any results in this area."

I would like to respond both to the general point about lumping things together and also to Lev's suggestion that history is always intertwined with ideology.  

What's wrong with Tea Party history?

 Note--Our previous thread was getting a little tangled with different topics, so I thought it would be helpful to separate the discussion of history as a separate posting.   Here's what I wrote:

Lev's previous post raised two questions, one concerning the nature of historical objectivity and the other concerning the specific interpretation of early American history put forth by the Tea Party. The first is of course one of the great issues in the philosophy of history. I'm happy to chime in with my two cents worth, but I think I'll save this for another time.

I do want to say a few words about the second question. First, some additional reading. I'm not a specialist on Early American history, so I don't want to go too deep in arguing the specifics. But Jill Lepore at Harvard has just come out with a book that addresses precisely this issue: The Whites of Their Eyes:
The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History. I haven't read Lepore's book, but I have read an article she wrote in the New Yorker, which I assume touches on many of the ideas in the book.

To tell you the truth, I actually found Lepore's article a little annoying mainly because she tries to do too many things at once. She is constantly shifting between the American Revolution, the present-day Tea Party, and the bicentennial events in Boston in the 1970s. (Incidentally, I remember these events very well. I was one of the 30,000 protesters at the "People's Bicentennial" at Concord in April 1975 that Lepore mentions briefly). In the midst of all this shifting around, her point gets rather muddled. But she certainly makes her views clear on the Tea Party version of the American Revolution, and these points apply to the link that Lev provided.

So what's wrong with the Tea Party view of history? First, it is simplistic. The Tea Partiers take a period that was rife with discussion, debate and dissent and homogenize it all into a uniform image of the "Founding Fathers" -- as if they agreed on everything and spoke with one voice. The tenth amendment is a good example of this. It's clear that there was intense disagreement in the 1780s and 1790s about the powers of the federal government. Yet the tea party enshrines one set of voices in these debates as dogma--this despite the fact that it was the anti-federalists calling for a weak and circumscribed government who essentially lost the argument.

My second point is that the Tea Party's view of history is tendentious. A conscientious historian, even when arguing a controversial thesis, will present the full range of evidence and craft an argument that accounts for all its elements. What the Tea Partiers do, in contrast, is to pick out of a very rich and diverse base of evidence the pieces that seem to support their interpretation. The link Lev provided is a good example of this. The author traces the debates leading to the inclusion of the tenth amendments and the adoption of the constitution. He cites several petitions from states calling for an explicit listing of the powers of the Federal government in the constitution. He does not, however, acknowledge the numerous arguments put forward in favor of a strong central government whose powers were implied but not enumerated in the constitution. Nor does he acknowledge the more nuanced position of some of the key figures. For example, he might have noted that Madison himself insisted that the word "expressly" be deleted from the phrase "powers expressly delegated" that appeared in the original draft of the 10th amendment. Clearly Madison believed that powers in the constitution could be implied and not explicitly listed. The positions of Alexander Hamilton and George Washington on these questions are barely noted at all.

My final point is that the Tea Party's history is "presentist" enterprise stemming from a need to create a usable past rather than understand history in its own terms. This is most apparent in the tone of the tea party arguments--the over the top polemics, name calling, empty rhetoric masquerading as argument. The author rails against "statist zombies" who are all wrong because "they don't know what they're talking about." Obviously this guy has a pretty serious political agenda and is drawing on history for support. This is understandable, but it doesn't make for good history. 

Why liberal arts are so liberal and is there an objective truth in history?

In his last post in the thread devoted to Matusevich's article, Nathan made a statement about the lack of professional historians in the Tea Party movement. I see it as an opening line for a topic that he suggested earlier: Why liberal arts are so liberal?

I would be happy to talk about it. The fact that this issue came up in Nathan's mind is admission of the fact that liberal art academia is indeed significantly tilted to the left (whatever it means). I found only two guys with professional historian credentials looking at history from conservative point of view: Larry Schweikart and Burton Folsom Jr. Thus, it is do not sound as much as a conspiracy theory to me, when conservatives including Tea Partiers complain about history being presented and taught from the left wing perspective. History is a tricky thing, and pursuit of truth in history has often been marred by ideological inclinations. You know how they say: the history is always written by the victors. Is there an objective truth in history, which has to be pursued? Is it a fair question, or I am judging history from withing a wrong framework? This is Nathan's turf, and I feel myself as an intruder. Still, let's talk, and I will try to behave.

Thus, to begin I have a question for Nathan's as a professional historian. Nathan, what will you say, as a professional historian, about this
article ?. What is wrong with it from the point of view of historical truth?

Limits on federal powers and pork

I was walking my dog after responding to the last Comment posted by my friend in our previous thread, and, boy, I was mad at him. I was mad because he fell in that very trap of declarations and expletives that we agreed not to fall into when we started this blog. I admit, I did push him slightly in this direction, but it did not make me fill better. Eventually, however, my thoughts wondered back toward the topic of our last discussion: 10th amendment and limitations of powers of federal government. This is when I realized that most of what I wrote in last several Comments was complete nonsense. No special Congressional Committee would help to protect states' rights. For several minutes I pondered an approach of the Tenthers movement that is bent on giving states the powers to nullify or declare unconstitutional federal laws. I, however, did not see how this idea can produce anything practically positive unless federal government itself is ready not to enforce the law being nullified, how it happened with California marijuana law. And then it occurred to me that I looked at this problem in a completely wrong way. I realized something, which is, of course, an obvious thing for real scholars of American Constitution, and which I also knew about, but somehow did not apply to the issue under discussion. The organization of the federal government with its two chambers was designed in this way precisely in order to prevent the encroachment of federal government on state rights. While the Congress is the instrument of federal legislative process, the Senate is supposed to represent the interests of the states. It is the Senators who are supposed to make sure that federal laws do not violate state rights.

This does not work, however, and the question is why? The answer seems to me quite simple and can be formulated in one word: money. It has happened in the course of history that federal budget has been steadily growing and the power of the federal government grew with it. Eventually, it enabled the government to buy even more power through bribes establishing a self-supporting vicious circle. I am not talking about bribing the senators or state legislators, because mostly it is the people, the voters and taxpayers, who were bribed and corrupted. As a result, instead of ensuring state's sovereignty and ability of its citizens to live freely and take responsibility for themselves, senators started bringing home pork, and were rewarded by the electorate for bringing in more and more federal money in the form of federal funded projects, federal financing of state projects, direct federal payments to states' budgets and such. Unless this situation is changed nothing can restore state's and people's sovereignty. The only way to change these ongoing bribery is to completely eliminate a possibility of pork barrel legislation, which would probably require reforming the structure of taxes. Thus I would suggest that all organizations and groups concerned with unlimited growth of federal power: Tenthers, Nullifiers, and others would direct there efforts in one direction - getting rid of pork. Once senators stop being elected on the basis of who is the best bread winner for the state, their job will be judged on the basis if they ensure that states have enough economic freedom to develop their own economies. Of course, there always will be some federal jobs and projects, but as their number will be severely diminished, they will stop playing such a large role in elections.

I understand that all what I wrote here so far is a declaration, but I suggest treating it as a hypothesis. The next step would be to look at the history of "pork" in American politics and check if there are data demonstrating correlations between electability of senators and their earmark activity.

Детская болезнь правизны

Maxim Matusevich has written an interesting piece about the political inclinations of Russian immigrants.

http://www.sensusnovus.ru/opinion/2010/10/31/1898.html

I can imagine that this strikes close to home and may not make for the most pleasant reading.  But I'm curious what you think.

After we talk about this, I'd be more than happy to have a discussion along the lines of "why are the liberal arts so liberal?"  In other words how to explain the overwhelming leftward tilt of American academia in general, and the humanities in particular.   But first, what about this childhood illness of Russian immigrants?  Is Maxim on to something?

Are the Tenthers indeed extreme?

OK, Nathan, let me first make a wisecrack about your definition of what is an extremist idea. If you apply it literally, the single-payer system of health care falls under this definition, don't you think? It does change the fundamentals of how health care is provided in this country, and could have led to violence if it were adapted because a majority of the country is so much against it.

Now about the Tenth Amendment, which I understand very differently from you. You write that this amendment allows states to pass any laws that do not contradict the federal laws. If this were the case it would have been a non-issue from very beginning. I think, however, that the meaning of this amendment is much less trivial than your post suggests. My understanding is that it forbids the federal government to make laws in the areas outside of those that are defined by Constitution. The practical application of this amendment depends on interpretation of several Constitutional clauses, mostly the Commerce Clause.

Some of the examples that you have used to make your point are, in my opinion, out of place. For instance, funding of research by federal government falls very well under the Welfare clause of the Constitution, and I do not remember any states disputing it. So let's focus on things more relevant to the issue under discussion. Minimum wage law, which, in my opinion, is a bad law, was indeed challenged under the 10th Amendment, but I do not think it is really a 10th Amendment issue or at least not in its traditional understanding as state versus federal government dichotomy. However, this is also topic for a separate debate.

Now let's talk about the Tenth Amendment itself, which has more interesting and controversial history than your post implies. In its heart is the dispute over separation of power between state and the federal governments, which is as old as the Constitution itself. Respectively, the tenthers movement is of about the same age and was not created by the Tea Party. At various times throughout the history, this movement moved to the forefront of the public consciousness or receded to the subconsciousness of the nation, depending on the expansion or shrinkage of the powers of the Federal government. It is hard to see this movement as extremist given that the first Tenther was none else but Thomas Jefferson. He invoked it in his dispute with Alexander Hamilton regrading the 1st Bank of the USA, and while Washington took Hamilton's side, the 10th amendment continued to be considered an important part of the Constitution. During the years before the Civil War, many states, not just Southern ones, tried to use it to block Federal legislation, which they deemed as violating their rights. However, the dispute over the "tariff of abomination" and the nullification crisis of 1832, which you mentioned in your post, was not really a 10th amendment issue. South Carolinians saw that tariff as an attempt by the industrial North to improve their economic situation at the expense of agricultural South and their actions was a just attempt to save livelihood of the state's citizens.

Civil War and the victory of the North made, of course, 10th amendment dormant for quite a long time, but eventually it did make a comeback with 1883 Supreme Court decision striking down the the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The 20th century, and in particularly, the New Deal policies of Roosevelt, weakened this amendment again, however, it was used in several Supreme Court cases as a basis for litigation, sometimes successfully, during entire of the 20th century.

Thus, I would argue that attempts to limit the power of the Federal government with the help of 10th amendment is a long standing tradition in the ever changing political discourse of the country as it tries to balance and re-balance the rights of the federal government, state government and the individual. In my opinion it is a very useful tool to keep the government in check, because any government has the tendency to expand its power further and further unless it's not prevented from doing so by the laws and people willing to invoke them. In 1985 ruling, Supreme Court delegated to the Congress the power to limit its own power through the democratic process shifting the problem of the power balance from legal to political realm. I do not completely agree with it, but as it stands now, it puts a great responsibility on the citizenry to make sure that their representative in the Congress vote only for those laws that give Federal Government as much power as people are willing to give to it. In this situation the 10th amendment becomes a useful political tool to limit the growth of the Government. So, in my opinion, the Thenters are not extremists, they continue a long tradition that began with Jefferson, and which helped the people of this country to remain as relatively free as they are now. Because any expansion of the Power of the Government means narrowing of people's freedom.

Just one additional thought. The Tenth amendement issue might appear to be a specifically Southern issue, which is not too surprising given that after the loss in the war, the South was occupied by the Northern troops and was deprived of their simplest liberties. I also think it is wrong to demonize the 10th amendement because the South used to it to protect their rights to keep slaves. After all, human laws as well as natural laws can be used for good and for evil, but we do not demonize Einstein's mass-energy relation because it lies in the foundation of the atomic bomb, do we?

Tenthers and Nullifiers

OK, Lyova.  At the end of our last thread, you suggested that I dig up some examples of Tea Party extremism for us to discuss.  To be honest, I wasn't all that keen on more tea--coffee's more my style these days--but I decided to do some poking around on the internet to see what comes up.   Let's just say that when it comes to extreme ideas, you don't have to look far.   Of course, extremism is often in the eye of the beholder, so I'll reiterate what seems to me a more or less objective definition.  Extremist ideas, in my book, are those that would require a major transformation of existing institutions and norms to be put into effect. I'm not talking about reform here.  I'm talking about fundamental structural changes that would significantly disrupt ordinary life and raise the potential for violence.  

As I said, there are lots of choices out there, but one strain that caught my eye comes from a group that's come to be known as the "tenthers."  The "tenth" here refers to the Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution, which, I have to admit I had to look up -- it's not one of the big ones that we all remember.  The Tenth Amendment concerns the relationship between the states and the federal government.  My reading is that it reiterates the common sense principle that as long as something isn't expressly forbidden it can safely be assumed to be legal.  In other words, the states can go ahead and make laws in any area that has not specifically been declared off limits or assigned to the federal government in the constitution. (The exact wording is: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.").

OK, so far so good.  Basically all this means is that Congress has the power that it has--that it must act within the framework set up by the constitution.  What the tenthers are saying. however, is that unless an area of legislation is explicitly listed in the constitution, Congress can't touch it.   Why has this doctrine emerged now?   In a word -- Obamacare.  Tea Partiers don't like it, and since the constitution says nothing about regulating health insurance, the whole thing can be safely dismissed as unconstitutional under the tenth amendment.  Sounds good to me!  In fact the tenth amendment is such a nice tool, why not use it some more to get rid of other things that aren't in the constitution.  I don't recall that there's any mention of the minimum wage, for example.  There's certainly nothing about Social Security, or Medicare, or unemployment insurance or civil rights laws or the NIH, NSF, NEH, NEA, NASA, NWS, and all those other Ns supporting no-good scientists who sponge off hard working tax payers to come up with ridiculous lies about big bangs, monkey ancestors and global warming.

OK--so we've established that just about everything that the Federal government does is unconstitutional under the tenth amendment.  So what can we do about?  The tenthers have an answer for that too -- it's called nullification.   What the government is doing, the tenthers say, is usurping powers that rightly belong to the states.  So therefore, the states have every right simply to declare the offending laws null and void in their territory.    This has already begun in fact.  Last summer voters in Missouri passed a "Healthcare Freedom Amendment" that attempts to bar health care reform from taking effect in the state.  Similar movements are at work elsewhere.

How dangerous is this?  In the short run, perhaps, not very.  After all, we have nearly 200 years of judicial precedent rejecting the tenther arguments.  The likelihood that the courts would uphold these measures seems pretty small, although with our current Supreme Court, you never know.  But what if the tenthers decide that courts themselves are unconstitutional?  After all, judicial review is also one of those things you won't find explicitly spelled out in the constitution.   Then it becomes a question of enforcement--will the federal government have the power to enforce its laws in states that reject them? 

We've actually been here before.  In 1832 the South Carolina legislature convened a convention to nullify a federal tariff law that was seen as particularly disadvantageous to local interests.  It almost came to civil war.  The state had a militia armed to the teeth and ready to defend its rights, while the federal government had put forth a plan to continue enforcing its nullified tariffs come hell or high water.   It was only some last minute legislation and deft compromise maneuvering that pulled both sides back from the brink.  But it's no accident that South Carolina was the first state to secede from the union in the build-up to the Civil War as well as the scene of the first bloodshed.

The bottom line:  the Tenthers and Nullifiers, whose ideas are well within the mainstream of the Tea Party movement, are most certainly extreme.  Implementing their program would mean the effective dismantling of the power of the state as we know it today.

Reading Sean Wilenz in New Yorker writing on Tea Party

Here just some random thoughts that occurred to me the other day after glancing over a paper by Dr. Wilenz in New Yorker were he laid on layers of his erudition and sophistication. So I thought, education and knowledge is supposed to enlighten people, illuminate dark areas of human mind, uncover the truth. But the same education and the same knowledge can also be used to hide the truth behind a smoke screen of facts, pieces of information, names dropped just for the sake of dropping the names. This screen is used to confuse people, to pull the wool over their eyes. And then I understood the obvious: why "tea party" folks have this annoying anti-intellectual bias. They instinctively feel that they are being taken for the ride by this guys concocting pseudo-intellectual meaningless "political discourse". This is just too bad as it gives bad name to anything more or less intellectual and complex.

What this is and who we are.

Lev Deych and I have known each other since the day some 12 years ago when we both showed up at new faculty orientation at our university. Lev is a physicist and I am a historian, but we found common ground in part in our love of things Russian.  Lev, of course, grew up and started his career in the former Soviet Union, and I am a specialist in Russian history immersed in Russian culture on more or less a daily basis.

At some point, not long after we met, Lev hit upon the felicitous idea of playing racquetball.  We looked up the rules on the internet and from that point on, once or twice a week we would spend a few hours in the gym dashing around the court, swatting balls and struggling to get the upper hand.  When we were done we would retire to the sauna to continue our struggle, only instead of batting around a rubber ball it was ideas and opinions.  It was clear right away that we had very different views.  I'm a lifelong democrat and unabashed liberal dedicated to the notion that state can and should act to promote the common good.  Lyova, on the other hand, is a staunch conservative with distinct libertarian tendencies who sees the government intervention is social and economic life as a threat to liberty.   As far apart as we were ideologically, I found our discussions very engaging and stimulating.  After all, it's not hard to talk politics with people who share your views, but to formulate and defend arguments against an intelligent, well informed and passionate opponent requires a much higher level of mental dexterity.  And it was all the more satisfying on those occasions when we would actually find common ground.

After a few years, Lev moved on to another university and our racquetball sessions came to an end, but we continued to get together along with our families and our debates continued.  Over the past few months, we found that our debates were starting to migrate on-line, showing up on facebook comments and occasional e-mails. In that case, I thought, why not move our discussion to a platform that is more conducive to that sort of thing--hence the idea for a blog.  I don't know about Lev, but I also felt like this sort of dialogue across ideological lines is all too rare in our ever more polarized society and that perhaps by putting our dialogue in a form that would be accessible to others that we might be making a contribution of sorts.  So here goes.

A few ground rules that I would propose.  The working languages of this blog are English and Russian.  Lately we've mainly been writing in English and this will probably continue, but don't be surprised if we occasionally lapse into Russian, and readers, of course, are welcome to contribute comments in either language.  Grammatical errors and typos in either language are granting blanket forgiveness beforehand.   It is understood that we may vigorously disagree on just about everything we discuss, but the underlying tone will always be respectful and positive.  Ad-hominem attacks, abusive language, invective, etc. have no place here.  Have I left anything out?  OK--let's go.