So the anti-war nuts in Berkeley have been spending their time (do they have jobs?) protesting a Marine Corps recruiting station. Their city council voted on a resolution to voice their displeasure for the post and said “If recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders.”1
Typically, when I hear something like this, I roll my eyes and remember that tolerance includes tolerating people like those.
A far more appropriate response, though, is this one:
In Washington, a group of Republican lawmakers have introduced the Semper Fi Act of 2008 — named after the Marine motto — to rescind more than $2 million of funds for Berkeley and transfer it to the Marine Corps.
“Like most Americans, I really get disturbed when taxpayer money goes to institutions which proceed to take votes, make policy or make statements that really denigrate the military,” said Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana, a co-sponsor of the bill.
He told CNN he believes the bill will pass. “I think it’s going to have significant support.”
The bill’s co-sponsor, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, said in a written statement, “Berkeley needs to learn that their actions have consequences.”
This is pretty much the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard. While I doubt it will go anywhere, it would certainly send a message: don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
As if that’s ever stopped them before.
February 10th, 2008 at 2:05 am
I agree, the Act won’t go anywhere. However, I don’t think it will send any kind of message. It will probably do the opposite and give them more reason to do what they do.
And don’t the Republican lawmakers in Washington have jobs? I think they have better things to do than deal with one liberal university.
February 10th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I’d say dealing with municipalities that try to interfere with military recruiting is a pretty important thing to do.
On top of that, this is Washington we’re talking about. This kind of thing will motivate the base without really offending anyone who would’ve voted for them anyway.
February 10th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Once again, you talk like it’s a widespread problem and that other municipalities are doing the same. Which isn’t the case. It’s an isolated incident from a “municipality” known for this stuff. Maybe the Republican lawmakers are scared that Berkeley could be setting an example for other municipalities? Gee, I wonder why that could be!
February 10th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
You’re right. It’s a great idea to wait until a problem is widespread before you try to fix it.
I’m not sure why the lawmakers would be “scared.” I think it’s more that they don’t want our tax dollars to help fund this kind of behavior. More power to them, I say.
Besides… trying to hamper military recruiting isn’t going to get us out of Iraq any faster, all it does is belie the true motive for people like Code Pink: they don’t like the military generally and the war is just a convenient excuse to pretend like they’re changing the world through their protests.
February 10th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
You wouldn’t have a problem to fix if you hadn’t created it on your own. And if numerous municipalities followed Berkeley and the “problem” became widespread, what would that say? That our government knows what is right for us at all times, and the public opinion is insignificant?
Yes, who cares about rights and opinions? Let’s just put them back in line! A subjective, obedient populace is a good populace.
Military recruiting doesn’t need Berkeley to hamper it. The war is doing it on its own.
February 10th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
subjective=submissive :o)
February 10th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
“You wouldn’t have a problem to fix if you hadn’t created it on your own.”
I didn’t create any problems (and I certainly didn’t create them “on [my] own”). If by “you” you mean “you Republicans”, then I have to point out that Congress as a whole started the war and the Democrats have done nothing to stop it since taking control (except a LOT of talking). For all the anti-war rhetoric, if you judge based on actions, the war is a truly bi-partisan effort.
And if numerous municipalities followed Berkeley and the “problem” became widespread, what would that say?
That there are a lot of city councils out there who want to give the military a middle finger and are willing to give up their federal funding to do it. Sounds fine to me.
That our government knows what is right for us at all times, and the public opinion is insignificant?
Um… you do realize that this was a resolution made by a group of elected city officials and not a referendum voted on by the public, don’t you?
Yes, who cares about rights and opinions? Let’s just put them back in line! A subjective, obedient populace is a good populace.
No rights are being infringed here. No opinions are being silenced. Contrary to liberal belief, nobody has a “right” to federal funding.
Military recruiting doesn’t need Berkeley to hamper it. The war is doing it on its own.
Assume, for a moment, that you’re right about this. It makes the resolution all the more idiotic, doesn’t it? It could cost them millions of dollars in federal funding, and for what? So they can give the Marines the middle finger? Awesome.
Try to quit thinking about this as an “us versus them” situation and think about it from the perspective of the federal government. Regardless of whether there’s a war going on or not, the government never wants to hinder military recruitment (see, e.g., the millions spent on recruiting commercials. Sending federal money to organizations (the Berkeley City Council) who see fit to try to impede the recruiting process is nothing but counter-productive.
One might also want to think about all of the possible consequences of the Marines having a hard time getting the man power they need. One of the possible consequences is the government saying: “I guess it’s time to bring everyone home!”
Here are two others:
While #1 is certainly unlikely, #2 is not. Oppose the war if you oppose the war… opposing the military (as Berkeley is doing here) is a different animal entirely, and it doesn’t take a particularly high level of intelligence to see the difference.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Hey Pete… how’s it going? There’s a new Mexican restaurant in T-town… it is very nice, it’s called Los Calientes and the service is hands down the best in town.
Ok, so this… “You wouldn’t have a problem to fix if you hadn’t created it on your own.” And the fix, presented by Berkeley, is to end the war right now.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Let’s assume that going into the war was wrong (which, as Pete pointed out, wasn’t considered the case by either party in Congress). You have two direct types of recourse:
The first is misguided. It’s the argument of fixing a problem by performing the opposite action of what created the problem. Just like a burnt cake won’t be fixed by putting it in the freezer, a “bad” war won’t be fixed by pulling troops out before they finish the course.
The second choice is a good one, as it recognizes the fundamental power of democracy to bring about change.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Sweet! I should be coming down in a few months — we’ll have to check that place out.
February 11th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Hey Pete. Long time. How’re you?
Is anyone else uncomfortable with federal funding being contingent on political beliefs? I could see there being a case for action if a zoning law forced the recruiting office out of town, but this was the definition of a non-binding resolution. What action did they carry out that deserves consequences? Dissent?
February 11th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Hey, Ryne. I’m doing pretty well, yourself?
I don’t really see it that way. You have a resolution encouraging citizens to impair the military’s ability to recruit. As I said above, recruiting is important regardless of whether we’re at war or not, so this is not so much “anti-war” as it is “anti-military”.
Besides, this isn’t funding based on a political opinion or even the expression of a political opinion. It’s the denial of funding based on an overtly hostile act toward the federal government that could cost us all money and lives.
(To say nothing of the fact that hating the military is hardly a “political belief”.)
But the solution is simple: if the citizenry of Berkeley believe in their council’s opinion, they should be willing to foot the bill for the services previously funded by the federal government. If they’re not, they should get rid of the council.
Why should federal tax payers be forced to pay for pro-military advertisements AND the actions of anti-military municipalities. It’s terribly inefficient.
February 11th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I’m doing pretty well. Morgan says hi. Sorry in advance for the length.
The resolution didn’t tell citizens to do anything (a) illegal, or (b) that they weren’t doing already. I don’t think anyone ever thought that military recruiters were welcome visitors in Berkeley, so I think the only encouragement this resolution provided was to remind protesters keep it non-violent. I’m not wild about the council actually passing this, but it’s completely trivial and shouldn’t be treated like treason.
The article linked above stated that a handful of protesters camped out in front of the office after the resolution (and probably at earlier times as well). I count three people in the picture. I think the Berkeley city council and the sponsors of the Semper Fi Act greatly overstate the ability of the Berkeley citizenry to actually interfere with, let alone provide illegal obstructions against, this office. An appropriate solution would be a higher-ranking municipal or state official notifying the city council that this resolution is incendiary and sets up bad precedent. The congressional act is a gross overreaction and possibly more hostile than the original act.
Regarding the other points, this most definitely qualifies as a political belief. What does and doesn’t qualify as a belief is a bigger issue, but this appears to be a difference of opinion over a civil issue. Describing their viewpoint as hatred mischaracterizes their views, especially the woman in the article who was protesting because of poor post-war support for veterans (Sharon Adams quote). One could just as easily describe the Congressmens’ position as hatred for war-protesters.
When talking about the burden on federal taxpayers, don’t forget the 102,000 people who are citizens of Berkeley (and students as well, who typically don’t count as residents in a census) who pay federal taxes as well. They have a median household income of $51, 256 (~45k households) with a per capita income of $30,477. Assuming every household is married filing jointly (lowest tax on the table, ignoring dependents as the median family income is over $80k), the city of Berkeley contributes about $240M in federal tax revenue (this is a gross underestimate: using the per capita income to calculate the town’s income, removing the highest possible standard deduction for each person and using a 15% tax rate puts the estimate closer to $395M. I’m not messing with deductions today). I don’t see how you cut their federal tax benefits while pocketing their tax payments. Whether you like their politics, you can’t punish 100,000 tax-paying American citizens because a city council did something stupid.
(As an aside, assuming that the government spends about 37% of it’s budget on military spending, Berkeley contributed between $89M and $146M to the military budget. FYI)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley,_California#Demographics)
February 11th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Well, you can certainly dislike the Semper Fi Act if you wish, but characterizing it as some sort of first amendment issue is a red herring.
Ms. Adams may indeed be protesting the post-war treatment of veterans. I doubt it. If she is, she’s doing it in the least-effective possible way. Regardless, this bill has no impact on her except as a citizen of Berkeley.
As for all of the tax math… it’s all pretty pointless. The whole point of taxes is to redistribute wealth (sometimes in the form of money, sometimes in the form of services). If every person got back the same amount they put in, we wouldn’t need the federal government at all.
Besides, it’s a well settled principle that congress may do with federal money pretty much anything they want. They condition all sorts of spending on all sorts of different requirements and there’s always a very simple, democratic solution: ignore the rules, raise state/local taxes, and pay for the services yourself.
If, as you suggest, the City Council’s resolution was so ineffective and harmless, then they really should’ve never done it to begin with… a point I hope the Semper Fi Act drives home quite clearly.
February 11th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I added the tax math to point out that any Berkeley vs. the taxpayers argument is a false dichotomy.
I have a number of criticisms of this bill, but I’m most concerned with the funds for UC-Berkeley being affected. The University did absolutely nothing wrong. It’s offenses were being in the city of Berkeley and having a history of civil protest. Because of that, it’s getting a funding cut, which could presumably affect scholarships, research funding, the ability of the university to attract researchers, etc. This is on top of the $2M that would be cut from the city’s budget, which I’d imagine would affect the (lower-class) citizens much more than the councilmen. This is the equivalent of shooting a fly with a shotgun. This act won’t hurt the council much; it’ll affect college students, poor people and those that benefit from university research.
There was a right way to deal with this council, as there are levels of government between city council and the U.S. Congress. There’s also a legal system if these Congressmen had an issue that was actually important. They could have introduced legislation that protected military recruiters, or enacted penalties for changing zoning laws to affect recruiting offices. I can’t count the number of better ways to have done this, but I also can’t think of any better ways for those Congressmen to deal with this that would have also gotten them in the newspaper.
February 11th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
There was no dichotomy at all, let alone a false one. There is one group of people: tax payers. All tax payers. It’s no more efficient for a Berkeley tax payer to fund the two competing sides of an battle than it is for a tax payer in Boston.
I believe this is the right way to deal with the problem. You mention that the $2 million to the Berkeley budget won’t hurt the council… having worked along side city government in the past, I would disagree.
If it doesn’t, the University will almost certainly make sure that the council feels it.
It really all comes down to this: don’t bite the hand that feeds you. If you nurse at the government teat, be wary of doing things that might irritate it… especially doing things with the express purpose of ticking people off. If you want to do those things, prepare to have to pay for them out of your own pocket.
February 11th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
A topic entwined in this is the possibility of elections tampering: implicit in this punishment is that if the people of Berkeley elect better, this wouldn’t happen/will be undone. I’m very uncomfortable with Congress doling out more funding to municipalities that vote for people that Congress likes, or giving less funding to cities that elect people that piss Congress off.
I’m still uncomfortable with how wide a net this act casts. If a Congressman has an issue with the council, deal with the council. What if the California delegation chose to retaliate for this and pull a couple million out of Katrina relief to teach Sen. Vitter that vindictive legislation has consequences as well? It’s just a very bad precedent.
What I find hilarious is that the people of California was already dealing with this. California already has a petition with 10,000 names in response to the council’s decision, and the state legislature threatened to pull money a week before Congress did. The mayor already said he’s voting to rescind the letter, and the council scheduled a meeting to discuss the issue before the Senate decided to threaten funding. The mayor’s office said that the state and federal bills to pull funding won’t pass and were just attempts to get into the media.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_.....st_emailed
Berkeley City Council web page, in case anyone wants to read the actual resolution: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/
I’ve got some work to get done, so I’ll probably call it quits here. Good talking to you.
February 11th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
The more times I reread that Mercury News article, the more I think of the Berkeley mayor as Ron Livingston in Office Space. He knows the city council screwed up, and is dealing with it, but every level of government above him comes back and tells him to put a coversheet on his TPS report.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
What you describe is not “elections tampering”, it’s called “Democracy.” Consider a similar situation, in which a state government raises the speed limit and, in so doing, loses federal funding for their highway projects. The solution is not to vote into office officials who will play by the rules so they can get the money.
That’s how it’s SUPPOSED to work. Congress conditions funding upon certain behavior, local electorates can take those conditions and monies into account when they vote.
He is dealing with the council. Not in the way you’d like, but that’s where democracy comes in again. Don’t vote for him in the next election.
Sounds like a lot of people on the same page here. Good. This is how our system handles people like those on the Berkeley City Council.
Well of course they say that. What else would you expect them to say? “Well, Mr. Prosecutor, the Defendant says he’s not guilty… case dismissed!”
February 12th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I’m posting against my better judgement, because I don’t think we’re going to convince each other of anything. I also don’t know how to put your sentences in those yellow boxes, so I’ll just take your points a paragraph at a time. If I don’t hear from you in a while, good luck with the job search.
There are several differences between this issue and the highway issue you describe. First, speed limits and highway money have something to do with one another. If you can’t tell the difference between “we’ll give you money to build highways provided the speed limit is under 65″ and “we’ll give a university research money provided your nearest city council don’t protest the military”, I can’t help you. Second, a change in a speed limit is an actual law; this was not a law, but a resolution to write a whiny letter that was always going to be ignored. Congress is allowed to consider certain types of relevant behavior in assigning programs and funding, but shouldn’t relevant behavior be constrained to the same topic as the funding destination? I just don’t like the idea of voters feeling pressured to vote for someone of a particular party because that party controls Senate finance, whether that pressure is real or imagined.
Congress isn’t dealing with the council; they are dealing with everyone who lives in the same town as the council. It’s not so much democracy as it is mob justice, going after a man’s family because he broke an unwritten rule at the craps table. The petition in the Mercury News article demonstrates that you can’t consider the will of this council to be the will of the people of Berkeley. If the Senate lacks the power to affect the council without harming people who oppose the council, maybe they shouldn’t be the ones doing the punishing.
The rescheduled town meeting and the petition is how our system deals with this problem. Unless there’s a Senate committee on stupid city council decisions, this bill’s co-sponsors are about 3000 miles outside of their jurisdiction. For instance, a quick Google search revealed that Benson, AZ passed a resolution last week opposing the enactment of the Aviation Investment and Modernization Act of 2007 and any similar measures. They’re about 50 miles outside of Tuscon: should the University of Arizona have their funding cut? I have no doubt that these kind of resolutions happen often: it’s not the place of the U.S. Senate to skip over local and state governments to deal with this.
(http://www.bensonnews-sun.com/news/news7.txt)
Are you actually arguing that there is no chance that a Senate bill introduced a full week after state and local had begun to deal with this issue is a media play? The mayor could have expressed concern about the appropriateness of the bills, or thanked them for showing support for a position he shares.
February 12th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Funding is conditioned on non-relevant factors all the time. If you don’t like that, you really just need to push for lower federal taxes. You keep trying to add doom and gloom to the fact that you just don’t like congress messing with your anti-war protesters. That’s fine, but this isn’t a first amendment issue, it’s not an “election tampering” issue, it’s not anything like that.
The point of mine that you keep missing or ignoring is that funding cities that do things like this is essentially congress spending tax dollars to fight both sides of an issue. It makes no sense. If instead of staying local, the a city council decided to run ads on TV opposite ads for the different service branches opposing them, would your opinion differ? If so, why?
The rescheduled town meeting and the petition is how our system deals with this problem.
There’s not just one way. Short of the commerce clause, there’s really nothing that gives congress more power than the power of the purse. The Semper Fi Act is an example of one way our federal government deals with things, and since Berkeley (much to their chagrin) is in the United States, arguing that it’s outside the jurisdiction of the US Government seems a little bizarre. There’s no “pecking order”, if you tick off the big dog, he doesn’t wait for the medium sized dog to nip at you first, he just takes care of it.
Are you actually arguing that there is no chance that a Senate bill introduced a full week after state and local had begun to deal with this issue is a media play?
Of course I’m not saying there’s no chance. What I’m saying is that your appeal to authority (especially an authority with a dog in the fight) was supremely unconvincing. Besides, the act itself was a media play, so it sounds a lot like the pot and the kettle to me.
PS: Problems with the Benson resolution analogy: a) Cal students can vote in city council elections, Arizona students cannot vote in Benson city council elections. b) There’s no chance that the Benson resolution would have a cost to the federal government in dollars or lives.
February 12th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
They’re not my anti-war protesters; that was an attempt at a cheap shot and an ad hominem attack that’s beneath you, Pete. I’ve called the council’s decision stupid and whiny several times; my issues are with the people who don’t support this dumb council decision and are going to suffer regardless because Congress can’t hit one without the other, and would rather negatively impact the innocent than let the innocent beat the crap out of the council all by themselves.
By the way, the Berkeley city council meeting is tonight, and protesters have already surrounded the place. I’ll try and find time to respond to your latest post after their meeting or in the morning.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ala.....ci_8239736