Category Archives: Politics

June 6, 2026 · 4:19 PM

Unimpeachable

In a recent post, I suggested several potential amendments to the U.S Constitution, including an amendment to change the method used for handling the impeachment removal trials in the Senate to a secret ballot approach. While I won’t rehash those arguments here, I did want to expand on that with a quick thought exercise to illustrate why reform to the impeachment process is so important.

Basically, the question is: what would a President have to do in order to actually be both impeached and removed under the current process?

The Math

Under the current Constitutional process for impeaching judges or executive officers, the Impeachment is handled in the House by a simple majority vote on the Articles of Impeachment, but at the Senate trial, conviction and removal requires a vote of 2/3 of the Senate. In both cases, under the current process, the votes are almost always held on the record, where you know exactly how each member of Congress voted.

Which means that in order to convict and remove a President, they currently would need 67 Senators to vote against them. In my lifetime1, the largest majority a party has held in the Senate was 59-412 in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), but on average the majority party over that same time frame has only held a 53-47 lead.

So, if you imagine the easiest Senate Trial vote during that post 1980s timeframe, where the defending President was in the most extreme minority (i.e., with 41 senators of the President’s party against 59 senators in opposing parties), the majority party would still need to convince 20% of the President’s party’s Senators to vote against the President in an on-the-record recorded vote…

In the most extremely challenging case, trying to impeach the President of the most extreme majority party (i.e. 59 Senators aligned with the President’s party against 41 senators of the opposing parties), the minority party would need to convince almost 45% of the President’s Party’s senators to publicly vote to convict and remove the President.

So, basically, to actually remove a President, you need to convince somewhere between 20-45% of the senators from the President’s own party to publicly vote to sentence and remove the President…

What Would a President Need to Do to be Convictable?

Given those numbers, let’s go back to the thought experiment. With a public vote, how extreme of behavior do you currently think it would take for a President’s party to publicly vote to convict and remove them?

Imagine first the other party. Those unprincipled cretins. What would it take for 20-45% of their Senators to vote to convict and remove a president of their own party, on a recorded vote?

Then imagine your preferred party. Obviously much more principled than those other guys. But be honest with yourself, what do you think it would take for your party to turn on your own president bad enough for 20-45% of them to vote to convict and remove your own president from power?

Cold-blooded murder in public might actually be enough, so long as the victim was sympathetic, the murder was done in public, and there were no plausibly mitigating circumstances. Maybe3.

That’s about the only thing I think would have a solid chance. I doubt an affair or an accusation of sexual assault would be enough to be reliably convictable, other than in extreme cases. I doubt abusing power for personal gain by accepting or soliciting bribes, or insider trading of stocks or prediction markets would either4. Flagrantly violating the Constitution by say starting a war without Congressional approval, creating taxes without Congressional approval, etc. don’t seem to be anywhere near enough.

This is why I say that impeachment, as it currently stands under the Constitution is functionally useless as a check on executive power.

  1. I’m almost 46 years old, which is older than the current median age in the US of 39.4yrs old. ↩︎
  2. Technically the Democrats only held 57 seats, but they had two independents who regularly caucused with them. ↩︎
  3. I wish I had more confidence that this was a better than 50/50 probability. ↩︎
  4. I heard a joke recently that the best way Iran could tell if the US was about to restart hostilities is if there were any suspiciously large anonymous Polymarket bets on something related. The number of bets that look like insiders making millions on front-running administration announcements is truly impressive. And unlikely to result in any consequences. ↩︎

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April 25, 2026 · 9:08 AM

Simultaneously True #1: Iran Thoughts

I’ve been wanting to start a blog series for a while with short posts about things that are able to be simultaneously true. For a ton of different reasons, people tend to lump several ideas together, either in their own thinking, or their assumptions about your thinking, that don’t actually have to go together. This series is about trying to point out the false dilemmas and false corollaries, and some of the reasons people seem to get stuck with them. I’ll start with something nice and incendiary: the current US/Israel war with Iran. As with the Iraq War, proponents of the war often felt the need to bundle certain beliefs with that support, and opponents of the war often felt the need to bundle other beliefs with their opposition.

So here’s a list of a few things that are able to be simultaneously true:

  1. The Iranian regime is a brutal and oppressive regime that has gleefully murdered its own people, and the Iranian people would be better off if the current regime took its appropriate place on the ash-heap of history.
  2. War is always a dice-roll, that while sometimes successful in achieving its primary objectives, almost always comes with huge unintended consequences.
  3. There’s a reason why the Constitution vests the power of declaring war in the Congress and not the President. If a President feels war is needed, he/she should make the case to Congress, and Congress should decide on it.
    • Congress should also get in the habit of impeaching and removing Presidents who drag the country into Congressionally unauthorized wars of choice.
    • And yes, I would have been fine with Congress applying that to past Democratic Presidents who have launched Congressionally wars.
  4. While I’m generally opposed to starting wars for non-defensive purposes, it is something that is explicitly within Congress’s purview to do, if they decide war is in the best interests of the nation. That decision however, was never intended to be put in the hands of one person.
    • I think that had he wanted to, the Trump administration might have been able to successfully make the case to Congress for the war. There are very real strategic reasons why a war might have been the least worst option at some point.
  5. The Iranian regime has been engaged in periodic hostilities with the US and many of its neighbors throughout most of my lifetime.
  6. That doesn’t mean that the US President was authorized to start a new war without needing to seek Congressional support.
  7. There is still a real chance that the Iranian regime could still fall, but there’s also a very real chance that they can inflict enough pain on the US to force us to back down. Neither side is winning so far, at least by any real definition of the term.
  8. The US/Israeli operations at the start of the war were tactically brilliant. Using the Iranian regime’s security state apparatus to help track and target regime leaders was impressive.
  9. Tactics and Strategy aren’t the same thing, and while the US/Israeli side has had some tactical brilliance, the war so far has been a strategic embarrassment.
    • Like the complete and utter lack of planning for securing the Strait of Hormuz, even going so far as decommissioning some of our last remaining minesweeper vessels only a few months before the war began.
  10. Even if the US wins the war, and the Iranian regime crumbles, there will likely be long-lasting economic damage caused by this war and the disruption to global trade.
  11. The downside risks of this war spiraling further out of control aren’t fully appreciated or priced-in by the market yet. If the Iranian regime falls, but decides to pull the Samson option, it could yet kill a lot of people and do a lot of hard-to-quickly-repair damage to the global economy.

I could go on, but I think this sort of illustrates the point. You can oppose the war, without becoming a “Tanky” and acting like the Iranian regime is good, and that it would be good for the world if they won. You can oppose the war, but still hope that if it continues being fought, that the Iranian regime falls and gets replaced with something less brutal to its own people and neighbors. You can support the war, but still realize it’s being incompetently executed by a President that is clearly out of its depth. You can hope that the Iranian regime gets replaced as a result of this war, and still think that Congress should impeach the President for dragging us into it without Congressional authorization. Etc.

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Filed under Foreign Policy, Government, Politics, Simultaneously True

April 3, 2026 · 6:00 AM

Some Proposed U.S. Constitutional Amendments for America’s 250th Birthday

America is coming up on its 250th birthday celebration this summer, and as part of thinking about where our country has been and where it is going over the next fifty years, I wanted to suggest a few constitutional amendments that I think could help get us on a better track for the future.

Why Even Make the Constitution Amendable?

The founders created the amendment process to the Constitution because they knew it would be needed. I was reading a good historical fiction series on the American Revolution and early founding days of the republic1, and it really drove home how much compromise and creativity went into the Constitution. It’s kind of mind-blowing how many unique features of the US government ultimately came down to a single vote, or someone coming or going from the convention at the right time. They knew that while the Constitution was inspired, it was also the work of imperfect men, and also a product of their time, and that a process for updating the constitution would be necessary for several reasons:

  • To fix mechanisms that ended up working in practice differently than intended, and address unseen flaws in how things were setup.
  • To reflect and address the changing realities and needs of the country as it grew and as technology and society progress.
  • To allow the people to deliberately change the relationship of the people and the government over time as needed.

They also made the amendment process a non-trivial one, so that major changes in the government and the relationship between the people and the government required broad consensus, not just the whim of a temporary slim majority.

I don’t want to get into a history lesson, but some examples of things the amendment process has been used for in each category include:

  1. Fixing Flaws: Early on, they realized that the way they elected President and Vice President could and did put two political rivals together in presidency, which didn’t work very well in practice, so they changed how the Vice President was elected. Also, the Bill of Rights amendments were added as additional protections to the people.
  2. Addressing Changing Realities: One of the big compromises in the original constitution was basically punting on the thorny issue of slavery. After the Civil War, several amendments finally addressed correcting those earlier compromises now that the country was ready to move on. Also, over time the right to vote was expanded to women and all citizens, to better reflect changing societal norms.
  3. Deliberate Changes to the Relationship with the Government: I’m less a fan of some of these changes, but for instance changing the Senate to being elected directly, or allowing the federal government to collect income tax were major changes that were done via the amendment process. While not everyone likes those changes, at least they weren’t done just as a legislative change by a slim majority, but actually required buy-in from the public at large. I guess you could also count Prohibition and the Repeal of Prohibition under this category.

Anyhow, that’s a lot of background. Let me jump into my thoughts on a few new Constitutional amendments for our nations 6th 50 year cycle.

An Age Limit for Federal Office

The first amendment I’d like to suggest is setting an upper age limit for federal offices (President, Vice President, Congress, and the Supreme Court), somewhere in the 75-80 years old range. This amendment would likely need to include some provisions for how to transition to this new age cap, especially for sticky areas like the Supreme Court, and possibly some mechanism with a high threshold requirement allowing rare, specific exceptions if they’re broadly supported.

I think there are several reasons why this is both reasonable and valuable:

  • Our Constitution already includes lower age limit qualifications for most major roles (President, VP, House, and Senate). These were based upon the founders opinions on roughly when people might be mature/experienced enough to do the job well, but realistically there are almost certainly plenty of people under the age threshold who are more mature and experienced than some of the people we’ve elected from above that threshold. It’s an imperfect system, but also a reasonable one based on our founders understanding of human nature.
  • As we’ve witnessed with the Biden administration and are likely actively witnessing with the Trump administration2, there’s a high risk of mortality and severe cognitive decline in this timeframe. While there are absolutely some people who are healthy and mentally sharp well beyond this age, it’s also a time where decline can happen rapidly. And as was clear from the Biden administration, our constitutional tools for “taking the keys away from a stubborn grandparent when they think they’re still safe to drive” are limited and fraught.
  • When people in power go downhill mentally, it creates a real “Weekend at Bernie’s3” sort of incentive for their team, where staffers and aides realize they can exert an outsized influence on a president or congressperson, while hiding behind that person’s popularity with their voters.

In a country with approximately 125 million citizens in the 35-75 year old age group, I really don’t see a strong need to include people in an age group with high risks for mortality and mental health decline in the candidate pool. The risks are high, and the payoff is unclear. Almost every congressperson or executive we’ve had over those age limits kind of makes my point. Of the original founders, only Benjamin Franklin would’ve been excluded by this suggested rule, and frankly, I think he was self-aware enough to admit that serving as an executive at his age and health would have been a horrible idea. It might be worth including some sort of “exception” mechanism, like a Senate vote with a high threshold (say 65%) to allow someone a waiver if they have broad enough bipartisan support, in case we’re ever lucky enough to get someone of Franklin’s caliber again.

Also, while I’ve seen some argue that the health/mental acuity issues should be handled via some sort of test, rather than a blanket age cap, my worry is that is way too subjective and gameable. And once someone is in a position of power, it’s almost always harder to remove them if it starts becoming obvious that there’s something wrong. It’s just seems a lot wiser to set a reasonable age limit, and not have to deal with the messiness of having to decide things each time, on a case-by-case basis.

If technology allows human health outcomes to shift noticeably over the coming decades, where we no longer have the huge risk of health or cognitive decline issues around this age group, the number can be revisited in future amendments.

Putting Teeth Back Into Impeachment

The impeachment process, as it is currently implemented, isn’t very effective. At least for the most powerful positions in the US government. Which is kind of broken. The executive branch regularly usurps powers explicitly granted under the constitution to Congress, especially on things liked dragging the country into undeclared wars, but Presidents and executive officers know there is almost no chance of successful impeachment and removal of executive officers under the current process4.

I think one change could restore impeachment to something that has a real threat of removing an executive officer who crosses the line: making the impeachment removal vote in the Senate be handled via secret ballot5, and either getting rid of the mechanism for forcing the vote to be public, or significantly raising the threshold from 20% to say 40-50%.

The rationale for this suggested change should be fairly obvious. There’s a reason why the votes of individual jurors are almost never public record information, whether for criminal trials, military courts martial, etc. In fact, in some high-profile cases, such as for organized crime, the attorneys don’t even know the names or personal information of the jurors. All of this is to preserve the independence of the jurors. Because it’s pretty obvious that if the jurors individual votes were public record, it would be extremely easy to influence them to vote in specific ways, using threats or bribery.

Keeping the votes for at least the Senate impeachment removal process by secret ballot, and forbidding Senators from disclosing their votes after the fact would go a long way towards preserving independence by making both bribery and threats significantly harder to carry out. It is worth noting that impeachment removal would still require a 2/3 vote in the Senate, which given the nearly balanced power of the two major parties would still require convincing roughly 1/4-1/3 of the Senators of the accused executive officer’s party that they should be removed from office. And that’s assuming that all of the Senators of the opposite party honestly agree that the charges are legitimate, when free of outside pressure from their party.

I know that generally speaking, most legislative action should be public-record, so legislators can be held accountable by the people they represent. But there’s a reason why almost no other jury system has jury votes public record, and when functioning in a jury role for impeachment removal hearings, I think it would be wise to follow what has worked so well in literally almost everywhere else in the judicial world, by keeping Senators in their juror role independent via secret ballots.

A Speaker Truly of the House

I’m not sure if Congress has ever been highly functional6, but the last twenty years have seen Congressional dysfunction reach new lows. Our country has real problems like spiraling debt, an imperial presidency usurping congressional authority7, the rise of authoritarian peer adversaries, rapidly changing technology, etc., and we really need to have a Congress that functions at least a little. My suggestion for a constitutional reform to help Congress function better is to change how the Speaker of the House is elected.

The Constitution doesn’t currently say very much at all about how the Speaker of the House is elected, just that they should be chosen by the members of the House. My next amendment recommendation would be to require the Speaker of the House to be elected by at least 60% of the representatives in the House, not just a bare majority.

Why on earth would I suggest changing the threshold like that?

  • With how evenly balanced the two major parties have been, control of the House often comes down to only a handful of votes, meaning that the extreme wings of both parties often hold outsized power over their caucus. But neither party has held 60% of the House in over 60 years, meaning that under this rule, a Speaker could only be selected by including at least some members of the minority party. Since you already have to court at least a few moderate members of the other party, it becomes easier to get a stable support point by ignoring your party’s extreme fringe, and focusing on the majority of your party and the most moderate members of the opposing party.
  • Under a Senate that continues to operate with the filibuster8, it’s really hard for legislation to pass both chambers of Congress without some bipartisan support anyway, so having a Speaker that represents 60% of the House increases the odds of not having party-line House bills that have almost zero chance of passing in the Senate9.
  • A Speaker that represents 60% of the House also likely wouldn’t be just representing a single party, negotiating directly with the President/Senate Majority Leader and sidelining most of the rest of the Congress. That could help convert congressional roles back to being legislators, rather than mostly being a performative position. That might attract people better talented at finding acceptable compromises and workable solutions.
  • The Speaker of the House sets the agenda for which bills are considered for vote. For the past few decades, both parties have run things under something called the Hastert Rule, where only legislation supported by a majority of the majority party is even considered. Under a Speaker that represented 60% of the House. Meaning that something that has significant but not majority support in the majority party, and strong support in the minority party can only really be considered if they force the Speaker’s hand using a discharge petition. In a House overseen by a 60% Speaker, I think you’re likely going to see more bipartisan bills put up for consideration.
  • A 60% Speaker is also less likely to support and enable politically-driven investigations and impeachments as a Speaker who is in thrall to their party’s extremists. Similarly, a 60% Speaker is less likely to obstruct investigations and impeachment inquiries to protect an administration that happens to be aligned with the House’s current majority party.
  • The Speaker of the House is the second in line for the Presidency, after the Vice President. A 60% Speaker is a far less scary proposition than one who only got elected by appeasing the extremist wing of his or her own party.
  • The Speaker of the House plays a major role in assigning committees. A 60% Speaker is less likely to give away committee roles to unqualified extremists from their own party, and is more likely to pull people from committees if they’re being incompetent.

Having a majority still confers real benefits in voting on legislation and amendments, but by shifting the agenda from a strongly partisan to a more bipartisan Speaker, I think a lot of the dysfunction of the last 30 years might start to go away, and we might start attracting real legislative talent again. The challenges our government faces at this point requires a more competent and functional Congress, and having a Speaker that has to represent more than the bare majority in the House could go a long way towards making that happen10.

Shutting Down the Endless Government Shutdowns

Under the current legislative rules, if the appropriations bill for an agency, or a continuing resolution11, isn’t passed by the end of the fiscal year, that agency is shutdown until either an appropriations bill or a continuing resolution is passed. But a shutdown doesn’t have to be the default situation if an appropriations bill isn’t passed on time.

My fourth suggestion for a new constitutional amendment would be to change how appropriations are handled, so that a continuing resolution is the automatic default if a new appropriation isn’t passed. To make it mildly painful to not pass an appropriations bill, it could be a continuing resolution with an across-the-board 2-5% decrease from the previous year’s funding.

Most governments throughout the world are setup under a similar approach, where a failure to pass a new budget doesn’t result in a shutdown, it just results in the equivalence of a continuing resolution. US government shutdowns have become an increasingly frequent example of US government dysfunction. They almost never result in truly positive change for either party, rarely result in increased fiscal discipline, often result in passing huge poorly-scrutinized omnibus appropriations or year-long CRs, and frankly make life miserable for the entire population for little lasting gain. Admittedly shutdowns would be far less likely if the previous reform was enacted, but I think it’s a tool that should be removed from the Congressional toolbox, and burned.

One other potential check on appropriators who can’t come up with a passable budget would be a “three-strikes rule” for appropriators. Each time your appropriations committee fails to pass a budget on time, all members of the committee get a strike on their record. After three strikes, you’re no longer eligible to serve on the appropriations committee. Seats on appropriations committees are some of the most coveted powers in Congress. If members of the committee are incapable of doing their job, they shouldn’t be able to keep the perk of a cushy appropriations committee seat.

No Self-Suing

It’s always interesting looking at rules. You almost always find ones that make you really wonder “what idiot did something that dumb enough to require adding that rule?” This is probably one of those rules.

The President runs the executive branch, which includes overseeing the Department of Justice. If someone sues the Federal Government, the Department of Justice provides the attorneys who defend the government against the suit. President Trump and several of his former employees have recently sued the Federal Government for massive amounts of money in damages. If you can’t see the massive conflict of interest in being able to sue an organization that you also run, and whose defense attorneys you can order to settle the suit in your favor, I’m not sure what to tell you.

My fifth suggested Constitutional amendment would be a strict ban on the ability of an executive branch officer (and especially the President and Vice President) to sue the government while the administration that he or she is/was part of is still in power.

The President and Vice President are currently protected from civil and criminal suits while in office, it’s a fair trade that they shouldn’t be allowed to sue their own government while in office.

Nobody Above the Law

My final recommended constitutional amendment deals with the sticky issue of how to balance the importance of preventing purely political prosecution of former executive branch officers, while at the same time allowing them to be held accountable for their actions. Right now, we have the ironic situation, where some of the most powerful people in the world are held to much lower legal standards than almost anyone else in the country. Knowing you can be held accountable for lawbreaking is one of the keys to deterring law-breaking. But right now, a former President can hide behind the claim that they’re just being prosecuted for political reasons.

My suggestion for how to balance those two competing objectives is to provide a mechanism for allowing criminal and civil prosecution of former executive branch officers upon secret ballot vote in the Senate of at least say 60 or 65% of the Senate.

Here are some thoughts on this idea:

  • Going back to previous points — given the partisan makeup of the Senate, this would almost always require getting at least a few votes from members of the accused officer’s own party. This both should help prevent obviously political prosecutions, while also giving bipartisan legitimacy to prosecutions that Senators acting without external pressure agree are legitimate.
  • If the Senate votes to allow the prosecution, this should automatically eliminates the ability of the executive officer to request that the judge dismiss the charges based on executive privilege.
  • The vote to allow the prosecution does not decide the result of the legal action. The former officer would still be entitled to all of the legal protections and due process of any other citizen. It would be up to the judge and jury to decide to convict and how to sentence. The Senate vote just clears the way for the trial to occur.
  • In the case where a criminal case is brought against a former executive while that person’s party is in power, it might be worth giving the Senate the option, also requiring a similar 60-65% secret ballot vote to assign an independent prosecutor who does not answer to the current administration to prosecute the case. Because this person would require approval of a similar 60-65% of the Senate, that should force them to be someone with bipartisan support.

I think a mechanism like this might provide a way to allow legitimate prosecutions to happen, to hold previous executives accountable for criminal behavior, while still preventing blatantly political prosecutions from happening.

Conclusions

I’d love to hear what people think of these amendments, but I think they could go a long way towards making our government more functional, more just, and more likely to last as a functioning country to see its 300th birthday. Feel free to leave comments if you see flaws in my suggestions, have improvements you could suggest, or if you think any of these ideas have any chance of getting proposed and enacted.

  1. The Prelude to Glory series by latter-day saint author Ron Carter. It was an enjoyable nine-book series that starts shortly before the battles of Lexington and Concord, and wraps up at the end of the War of 1812. ↩︎
  2. It is interesting to see people who were so adamant that the left was covering up Biden’s cognitive decline are now basically doing the same thing for Trump. ↩︎
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekend_at_Bernie%27s ↩︎
  4. It’s kind of telling that Mitt Romney was literally the first senator in US history to vote for removal of a president of his own party. I’m not positive if Senators crossed the aisle in either of the two cases of executive officers impeached, but I somewhat doubt it. ↩︎
  5. I might also suggest having the House impeachment vote be by secret ballot for similar reasons. ↩︎
  6. Reading that historical fiction series about the Revolutionary War really drove home how dysfunctional Congress has historically been. On the plus side, it gives you some hope — we’ve survived Congressional incompetence in the past, so maybe there’s hope we can survive the current messes. ↩︎
  7. Presidents from both parties have used Congressional dysfunction to justify rule by executive order. Each side complains about the other side’s overreaches, and both sides tend to prefer concentrating executive power to accomplish different ends. But partisans on both sides often go for executive overreach to accomplish things that they know they don’t have sufficient popular support for to achieve via the constitutionally authorized legislative channel. ↩︎
  8. Which as annoying as it is, probably prevents way more mischief and stupidity than people realize. Most norms and customs are only truly appreciated when we’re dumb enough to toss them aside for short term advantage. ↩︎
  9. This should also at least somewhat moderate the risk of a party with a trifecta being able to ram through major changes to the government that only have a slim majority of support. ↩︎
  10. If that works, it might be worth a follow-on amendment doing a similar thing for the Senate — Have the Senate agenda controlled by the Senate President Pro Tempore, and have them elected by 60% of the Senators. If you had both chambers overseen by leaders who had to represent more than just the majority party, I think you’d be pleasantly surprised at how much more effective our Legislative branch became. It’s not a panacea of course, but I think it would help a lot to put legislating back into the hands of the legislature. ↩︎
  11. A continuing resolution is a stopgap measure that basically funds an agency at the same budget as the previous year, often with the same funding levels for programs within the agency as the previous year. Ironically, the term CR in Tagalog is the term they use for a bathroom. It seems ironically appropriate, because CRs are a crappy way of funding a government agency. ↩︎

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June 16, 2025 · 9:07 PM

King-men

The recent “No Kings” protests over the weekend, and some of the comments and snark about them on social media reminded me of something I noticed from a story from the Book of Mormon a while back.

In Alma 51, Mormon is recounting some civil unrest that eventually led to a major war that dominates the rest of that book. Here are the relevant verses (Alma 51: 2-8), with my emphasis added:

2 Nevertheless, they did not long maintain an entire peace in the land, for there began to be a contention among the people concerning the chief judge Pahoran; for behold, there were a part of the people who desired that a few particular points of the law should be altered.

3 But behold, Pahoran would not alter nor suffer the law to be altered; therefore, he did not hearken to those who had sent in their voices with their petitions concerning the altering of the law.

4 Therefore, those who were desirous that the law should be altered were angry with him, and desired that he should no longer be chief judge over the land; therefore there arose a warm dispute concerning the matter, but not unto bloodshed.

5 And it came to pass that those who were desirous that Pahoran should be dethroned from the judgment-seat were called king-men, for they were desirous that the law should be altered in a manner to overthrow the free government and to establish a king over the land.

6 And those who were desirous that Pahoran should remain chief judge over the land took upon them the name of freemen; and thus was the division among them, for the freemen had sworn or covenanted to maintain their rights and the privileges of their religion by a free government.

7 And it came to pass that this matter of their contention was settled by the voice of the people. And it came to pass that the voice of the people came in favor of the freemen, and Pahoran retained the judgment-seat, which caused much rejoicing among the brethren of Pahoran and also many of the people of liberty, who also put the king-men to silence, that they durst not oppose but were obliged to maintain the cause of freedom.

8 Now those who were in favor of kings were those of high birth, and they sought to be kings; and they were supported by those who sought power and authority over the people.

So here are my thoughts:

  • Notice first that the “king-men” didn’t choose that name themselves, but were called that name by their political opponents.
  • Also, given that this is an abridgement of the story, we’re never given details on exactly what the particular alterations were to the points of law that they wanted changed. The effect of those changes is described as changing the law “in a manner to” overthrow the government and establish a king. Which kind of suggests it may have been a little more complicated than literally saying “we’re going to replace the Chief Judge with a King”.
  • Notice that we also don’t really get to hear side of the story of the people who were labeled king-men, just that they lost, and that their opponents believed that they were just trying to make those changes because they wanted power over other people. But most people, even bad people, or people pushing bad policies, have internal rationalizations for what they’re doing that don’t paint themselves as the villain of their own story.

I’m not saying that if we had more of the details that we’d find that the king-men were actually in the right. I generally trust Mormon’s opinion in this case, that the requested changes would’ve led to dangerous concentrations of power that would’ve threatened the liberty of the people.

But it is interesting to think what it would’ve been like to hear this political debate had it occurred in a day of social media. Would the king-men have felt demonized, and that accusation of them wanting power and authority and kings was unfair? Did they have any reasonable sounding arguments, even if they were wrong? Were there otherwise good people convinced by some of those arguments, not because they actually wanted a king per se, but because the government was seen as too ineffective, and they wanted leaders to have the power to get things done? Did some people see the freemen labeling their opponents as “king-men” and align themselves with the king-men because they thought the freemen were unfairly slandering the group?

Anyhow, it’s one of those things that I’d love to hear more of the backstory, because for a historical item from over two millennia ago, it feels very timely.

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June 14, 2025 · 4:14 PM

Random Thoughts on Immigration

I’ve been spending a lot of time off of social media this year. Partially due to how chaotic and depressing social media tends to become during a Trump administration, partially due to the fact that I usually end up doomscrolling, and partially because I’m worried I’ll say something that will be used to get my company in trouble. We’re working on some defense tech applications that I think will make a big difference in the defense of our friends and allies in east Asia in case of a China war, but the current administration has shown a gleeful willingness to cancel useful programs when the people tied to them are deemed to be political enemies. So, I’ve mostly tried to bite my tongue on things. But frankly I feel a little bit like a coward for hiding my opinions when I feel the country is headed in a dangerous direction. So I figured, I’d use this blog to share my thoughts on policy/political topics that aren’t directly space/technology related (I’ll save those for Selenian Boondocks), realizing that almost nobody reads anything here, but that it still could very well be used against me at a future date. That’s a lot of preamble, and some of you are probably thinking I’m pretty paranoid, but I felt it needed to be said.

So I wanted to start with some thoughts on immigration, which has been fairly front and center under the current administration. I’m not going to try to organize this into a super long article, but here were some of my key thoughts on the topic:

Thoughts on illegal immigration:

  • I’ll be honest that I think our immigration system is broken, and that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are people who are here because they want to work, raise families, and be part of the United States and the American dream. As a libertarianish sort, I really don’t see the value in deporting people who fall into this category, who while technically violating the law, are not actually harming and are in fact helping by being here.
  • I also think that arresting and deporting people who came here legally, and while working the way through our broken immigration system made honest clerical mistakes, or missed paperwork deadlines, but who have otherwise been active, contributing members of society is particularly stupid, and morally bankrupt.
  • That said, I can totally understand deporting non-US citizens who are here but who choose to hurt other people, whether through property crime or violence. While I think there’s a reason to consider mercy in cases where people made honest mistakes or were stupid and are willing to try to repair the damage they caused, I think that not enforcing laws against immigrants who hurt Americans is only going to turn more Americans against immigration, and hurt the many who are here not actively hurting others. Religion or culture should not be an excuse for harming others, whether citizens or other immigrants.
  • I think that while the immigration system is broken, that leaving it broken is also not idea. I like how Frédéric Bastiat put it: “No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.” I feel like in many cases our restrictive immigration laws do contradict morality (to say nothing of common sense or our national interests), and they should be fixed, not just ignored.
  • One interesting example is Elon Musk. AIUI, he came here on a student visa (which doesn’t allow you to work), dropped out of school (which AIUI technically requires you to leave the country within 15 days if you don’t enroll in school somewhere else) and stayed and started a startup (which technically violated the terms of his student visa). At this point he was technically an illegal immigrant. He later filed for a green card and US citizenship, but both of those applications require answering a question of if you have ever violated the terms of previous visas or other immigration authorizations. Since he was granted a green card and eventual citizenship, we can assume that he probably lied on his application, which is also illegal. So, based on the evidence I’ve seen, there’s a very good chance that Elon was an illegal immigrant. Some on the left, after his cozying up to the Trump administration, even suggested he should be deported. But seriously, is there anyone in their right mind who really thinks our country would’ve been a better place with Elon deported? I have plenty of bones to pick with Elon on how he treats his employees, and companies he works with. I think his business ethics leave a lot to be desired. But I think you have to be a blinded ideologue to think the country would’ve been better had he been arrested and sent back to South Africa at any point in the journey. The thing I wish people on the right would recognize is that there are so many other people in this country who are also technically illegal immigrants, who also contribute to this great country, even if not in as visible or flashy of ways, and who also deserve that same level of grace.

Some immigration reform ideas I’d be in favor of:

  • I know amnesty is a dirty word on today’s right, but I absolutely think that there should be a way for previously-arrived illegal immigrants, who are otherwise law-abiding, contributing members of their communities to get right with the law. I also don’t think they should have their pathway to eventual citizenship completely barred. I’m fine with making that path difficult, in a way for them to show that becoming a citizen of this country is something they’re really willing to work for.
  • I’m generally against the idea of quotas on the number of work visas, or at least think they should be greatly increased. If there’s a lot of demand for labor, and people are willing to come here and work, why should the government be micromanaging who companies can or can’t hire? I can see blocking entry for people who have violent criminal records, or who currently have infectious diseases, but quotas are basically government micromanaging the economy. Also, if you make it easy for people to come when there’s work, it also makes it easier for people to leave if work dries up. When getting into the country is really dangerous and illegal, it incentivizes staying even if the work situation goes bad. But if you make it easy for workers to come and go, you’re less likely to see immigrants stick around if there isn’t work.
  • I don’t think there should be a lot of visa types that don’t allow you to work, and I think that those few that might fit in that category (like short-term tourist visas) should have a way to convert to a working visa if you do find work. And I definitely think anyone here as a refugee or asylee should be allowed to work. Letting people in, but not letting them work is a recipe for creating a welfare weight on cities and communities, and generally turning people against immigration and refugees in general.
  • As mentioned above, I actually do favor a path to citizenship even for illegal immigrants. I’m fine though with making their naturalization be something that is structured to directly benefit existing citizens more clearly. For instance, if someone who was given amnesty and allowed on a work visa wants to apply for a green card, maybe some requirement should be that they need to pay taxes, including social security and medicare/medicaid taxes for X number of years before they’re allowed to apply, with none of the social security payments they’ve made prior to getting their green card counting toward what they can take out later when they retire. I think many of them would still absolutely think it’s worth it, and ideas like that could help keep entitlement programs solvent. I’m also a fan of letting former illegal immigrants earn their way into a green card via public service, or service in the armed forces. I’m also fine with making demonstrating English proficiency be part of the required process.

I know these opinions aren’t popular. I’m not advocating for these things because I think it’s likely to be politically advantageous for me. As a libertarianish sort, I expect I’m always going to be a political minority, with or without more immigration. I just think these policies are the right principles. Let people come who want to work, enforce the law against those who actively choose to harm others, but only use deportation on those who choose to hurt rather than build, let people here work and be active members of their community, make it easier for honest people to come and to go as needed, continue to keep non-citizens ineligible for government welfare. Maybe I’m an unrealistic radical for believing these things, but I wanted to at least share my thoughts on the topic.

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Filed under Immigration, Politics

August 6, 2015 · 10:27 PM

YHABFT: Thoughts on the First 2016 GOP Presidential Debate

[Note, on my other blog, Selenian Boondocks, I started a category called YHABFT (You Have a Blog for That). I sometimes have thoughts that I could try cramming into a twitter stream of consciousness, but I did that one too many times and Ben Brockert and Will Pomerantz started reminding me that “You have a blog for that” when I got too carried away. I’m just trying to save them the hassle of reminding me.]

I was able to watch a bit of the GOP debate tonight (before Fox pulled the plug on the UK news site I was using to watch it), and figured I ought to mention my thoughts. I’m trying to keep electoral politics on Selenian Boondocks to a reasonable minimum, unless it intersects with space policy, so I decided to post this here.

A couple of points up front about my political leanings to set the tone:

  • I’ve never voted for a presidential candidate from either major party–I think I’ve voted Libertarian most of the last three times.
  • I have registered “for that party that let me vote for Ron Paul in the primaries” both of the past two elections.
  • I have voted for Democrats, Republicans, and third party candidates, so I’m not the kind of person the GOP can consider a safe vote.
  • A candidate doesn’t have to be perfect to get my vote, but I do have to feel that their pluses outweigh their minuses, not just that they’re not as bad as the other major party candidate.

With all that said, here’s a couple of thoughts on the part of the debate I saw (roughly the middle 60 minutes of the two hour debate):

  • I can’t stand Trump, and I don’t think he’d make a good leader, but I don’t think his performance lowered my opinion of him.
  • I’m really not a fan of Chris Christie and his stance on domestic spying, and there’s almost no chance I’d vote for him if he got the GOP nod, but I had to give him points for his answer on the need for entitlement reform. I’m libertarian enough that I’d like to see Social Security go the way of the dodo, but since it isn’t going away, at least making minor tweaks like he suggested to make it less likely to blow up on future generations is a good thing, and it was ballsy to make that argument, even at a GOP debate. I don’t like him, but my respect for him increased.
  • Ben Carson was a total disappointment. None of the answers I heard from him impressed me at all.
  • I didn’t like Ted Cruz to start with, and some of his answers tonight made me even less of a fan.
  • Rand Paul is one of the few on the GOP side I’d be likely to vote for, but he only did so-so. At one point I think he interrupted Trump incorrectly, which came off kind of amateur hour. I did like his defense of the 4th amendment though. And his nuanced answer on the Iran Deal was better than I had expected with his attempt at pretending to be a hawk lately. But overall not a home-run performance for him this time around.
  • Kasich impressed me with points he made in two of his answers. I liked him making the point that while growth is important, it’s also important for conservatives (and libertarians) to reach out to those “in the shadows” so that all Americans feel like the American Dream applies to them too (he said it better than I could). I wish he’d gone into more detail on that though, because while the platitude is definitely good, the details matter. I also liked his answer on the “what would you do if your daughter was gay” question. I’m also pretty old-fashioned when it comes to questions of sexual morality, but agree with the sentiment that we’re supposed to love people, even if we disagree with what they’re doing. Kasich overall left me with a higher impression of him than I started with.
  • Probably the most surprising one was that I agreed with a decent amount of what Jeb Bush said. I still doubt I’d vote for him, but his comments on the importance of leaving educational curriculum and standards to the state were good–I just wish he’d do a better job of explaining what he means by “supporting Common Core”, because the two opinions at least on the surface seem to differ a lot. I really couldn’t stand the mach swagger BS persona that the GOP built up around his brother during his 8 years as president, and shudder at the thought of a Bush vs. Clinton rematch (could someone talk one of Perot’s kids into jumping in to make things interesting?), but have to grudgingly admit that I thought he also managed to earn some extra respect from me. Especially when he got in an aside about making immigration easier as part of his answer to some question.
  • Walker did ok on several questions, but I really thought his answer on his immigration 180 was pathetic. It really came across as “I had a principled view, but know I couldn’t get elected if I defended it.”
  • I can’t really remember anything positive or negative about Rubio’s answers, and didn’t like Huckabee’s answers (except for once) but can’t remember details about what he said overall.
  • I’m also glad I’m Mormon, because otherwise, I’d probably be in the hospital from alcohol poisoning from doing a drinking game (one shot every time someone invokes Reagan, etc.)…

In case anyone cares.

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Filed under Politics, YHABFT