The nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina have dominated the news for the past month. As I sat down to write this essay it occurred to me these two seemingly unrelated events in fact tell the same story.
Harriet Miers Nomination
On October 3, President George W. Bush nominated Harriet Miers, his White House counsel, for the position on the U.S. Supreme Court being vacated by Sandra Day O’Connor. By all accounts, Miers is smart, hard working, honest, and loyal to Bush. He says her “talent, experience, and judicial philosophy make her a superb choice to safeguard the constitutional liberties and equality of all Americans.”
The problem with this nomination–and it is a big one–is that Harriet Miers’s thoughts on judicial philosophy are undeveloped, having apparently never been written down or even discussed with others. This makes her unprepared to engage as a peer in discussion and debate with other members of the Court.
Why didn’t Bush nominate a candidate who has expressed clearly his understanding that the Constitution exists to limit government power and protect individual liberty? Such a nominee would have been consistent with Bush’s often-expressed fealty to the principles of limited government, individual liberty, and federalism. He owed that to the conservatives who have stood by him despite his many questionable decisions.
It seems the president turns to a close circle of loyal friends and allies when making important personnel choices; with opinion polls showing his approval rating falling to record lows he wanted to avoid the extended controversy that might surround a conservative or libertarian nominee; and Miers has assured the president, explicitly or implicitly, that she would be a reliable pro-life vote the next time Roe v. Wade is before the Court.
These considerations may explain the president’s choice, but they do not make it a good one. The Senate now has the duty to approve this nominee unless faced with clear evidence she would be unable to perform the duties. Miers should be allowed to join the nation’s highest court, and all we can hope for is that she will follow the lead of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas until she discovers and is able to act on her own judicial philosophy.
Hurricane Katrina
A big natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina allows everyone to pull out their trusty ideological star maps and sextants and interpret the event according to their personal convictions. For example, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, during the “Millions More Movement” march in the nation’s capital on October 15, said the disaster proved the Bush administration’s flagrant disregard for blacks and the poor.
Liberal commentators say Katrina was all Bush’s fault and go on (as they always do) to claim the disaster “brought to the surface” the suffering of the poor and disadvantaged who Bush and Republicans in general try to suppress and ignore. Radical environmentalists, a wholly owned subsidiary of the liberal movement, blame the hurricane on the Bush administration’s opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, the global warming treaty.
Some conservatives see Katrina as God’s punishment for the U.S. role in encouraging Israel to leave the West Bank or for immoral conduct that takes place during Mardi Gras, or even timed to prevent an annual gay pride festival.
Strange Assumptions
Now, I do not claim to be free of ideology, but my ideology requires that I assume less than most other ideologues. For example, I do not have to assume, as Minister Farrakhan does, that the federal government was expected to be the “first responder” to a natural disaster such as Katrina. Or that Bush prevented a black mayor and Democrat governor from implementing their emergency evacuation plans.
Liberals have to assume that many people will always be poor and helpless. It hurts their brains to ask how these people came to be poor and helpless or what keeps them that way even as millions of other people with the same skin color and same (or less) endowments of brains and strength get up every morning and earn a good living.
Environmentalists have to assume global warming is really taking place, despite satellite data saying it isn’t. They assume the human presence is responsible for the alleged warming, even though natural variation is far larger than any likely human effect. They assume the alleged warming caused by the human presence is causing more frequent and intense weather events, even though all the experts in the field say there is no evidence this is the case.
Real Lessons from Katrina
“Katrina was the most predicted national calamity in the history of natural disasters,” according to Pat Michaels, a climatologist. Yet governments at all levels, whether led by Democrats or Republicans, were too incompetent, too corrupt, or too distracted by petty politics to prepare adequately for the event.
New Orleans’ underclass was so completely dependent on politicians and taxpayers for its day-to-day survival that many of its members couldn’t even buy a bus ticket out of town or a few days’ worth of food to set aside. These people thought they were entitled to be rescued from their homes and rooftops, and then some of them thought they were entitled to steal things they wanted from vacated homes and stores.
The poverty and dependency exposed by Katrina don’t support calls for a new national anti-poverty campaign. They justify nearly the opposite: We should dismantle the complex and expensive web of social services that makes people poor and dependent, and replace it with a system that requires work and holds people accountable for their actions.
Illinois reduced its welfare population by 86 percent between 1996 and 2003, and the guy most responsible for making it happen, Gary MacDougal, wrote a book about it and is happy to help other states follow Illinois’ lead. Shamefully, few other states have shown any interest in replicating Illinois’ success.
What about those environmentalists who use the suffering caused by Katrina to generate attention and raise more money for their global warming scare campaign? A plan to improve the levee system that would have saved the city of New Orleans from the flood waters was approved back in the 1960s, but it was never built, due to the objections of environmental activists. An environmental group called Save Our Wetlands still brags on its Web site about its role in stopping construction of the levee.
I used to be an environmentalist. These guys really embarrass me.
Two Women, One Story
In politics, as Friedrich Hayek explained, it is often the worst who get to the top. Harriet Miers was nominated because she represents the values and beliefs of the majority, not the best and brightest. She appeals to the “lowest common denominator” because she offers an empty canvas upon which the hopes and expectations of others can be projected without fear of contradiction.
Katrina was so terribly destructive because the mayor of New Orleans and governor of Louisiana failed to do their jobs, along with countless other bureaucrats at every level of government. They are merely the latest in a long line of incompetent seat-warmers who knew disaster was imminent but did nothing.
Failure in government is not the exception but the rule. We should expect it, and find ways to avoid relying on government, not make it bigger or “better.” The lesson is: Don’t trust government for anything more important than collecting garbage and raking leaves in the parks, and have a backup plan in case they mess that up.
