Four People Who Should Not Run For President

The ink is not even dry on the results of the last election and we are already being inundated with speculation about 2016. As early as it is, the field of candidates is pretty well developed. Unfortunately, our next election is shaping up to be another dynasty election. The establishments of both parties are working overtime to anoint an establishment-friendly candidate, who knows how the game works, and who is not shy about rewarding political contributors. It's shaping up to be yet another election we could all just do without.

The point of this article is not to say that establishment candidates are necessarily bad. To the contrary, without the political establishments, most candidates would have no chance of winning. The political establishment provides the money to get the message out, the volunteers to get out the vote, and the media support necessary to stay on message. But there is a big difference between a genuine Washington outsider, who leans on the establishment in the general election, and the Washington insider who spends his or her time doling out goodies to political supporters. The latter deserves the lion's share of the blame for many of the problems facing our nation.

On the other side of the equation, there are a number of candidates that are not necessarily part of the problem, but are simply unelectable. They have demonstrated, either by actions or words, that they would not withstand the scrutiny of the election, or would otherwise self-destruct during the process.  Like the Washington insiders, it would be best for the process if they just sat this one out. So, here are the four candidates that, in my opinion, we would be better off without.

Jeb Bush

At the top of the list is Jeb Bush. By all accounts he is a good man, did a good job in Florida as governor, and would be a formidable fund raiser. He probably would be a competent president. But, his last name is Bush, and there is strong evidence that the country still has Bush fatigue. George W. Bush left office with a low approval rating, and many Americans still believe that his policies caused lasting damage to the economy. There are also many Republicans that believe that W did lasting damage to the Republican brand with the bank bailouts, Medicare Part D, Common Core, deficit spending and, of course, the invasion of Iraq. The last two years of his presidency were a remarkable rush to the left after having governed as a conservative for more than six years. Like his father before him, W left conservatives suspicious that the Bushes are really just repackaged New England RINOs. George H. W. Bush, for example, also did lasting damage to the Republican brand (and the Reagan legacy) when he signed into law the largest tax increase in American history. Four years later, after having lost his bid for reelection, Bill Clinton was able to use that precedent to argue that "even Republicans believe in tax hikes," as George Bush Sr. was the poster boy for a tax and spend policy that cost the party its monopoly on the issue. Bush supporters, of course, argue that the Bushes are "reasonable" and willing to "compromise" when in the best interests of the country. While that may be true, the "compromises" for which the Bushes are most famous led to disastrous election results for the Republican party.

Finally, I think it is bad for our country to have these political dynasties. Dynastic poltics is particularly un-American. If Jeb Bush were to be elected, he would be the second Bush in one generation and the third in two to hold the most powerful office in the world. Even if he is the greatest, most moral man on Earth, that sends the wrong message to the rest of the world. America is not a monarchy and, while we can vote against another Bush (which we probably would), Jeb Bush's presence on the stage crowds out other candidates who might otherwise bring fresh ideas to the table. It's time to turn the page.

Hillary Clinton

For many of the same reasons discussed above, Hillary Clinton needs to get off the stage. She had an unremarkable career as a Senator, largely playing it safe on most issues, and an equally unremarkable stint as Secretary of State. Her principal qualification for the presidency is that her husband was president. She has been in politics nearly her entire life, she has little real world experience, and she has certainly demonstrated, at least early on, that she has trouble connecting to most Americans in a meaningful way. She's no Bill, and it is doubtful that she would govern as effectively as her husband did.

A Bush vs. Clinton election would be the epitome of elitism. Imagine how history would be written: Since 1988, the presidency has been occupied by Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Clinton. That's just not good for America.

Chris Christie

Governor Christie has already demonstrated a tendency to blow up while on the campaign trial. In America we like our leaders to be measured. Measured leaders are reasonable. They make measured decisions. They are contemplative and fair. Christie is a large man with a booming voice who has no compunction about using both his size and his voice to shut others down. While that is sometimes necessary, Christie seems to need to do it more than others. It is very likely that whoever he runs against will find a way to exploit his temper and his bombastic nature. Add to that "Bridgegate," and you have someone who is too risky to nominate.

Joe Biden

I've always liked Joe Biden. I rarely agree with the man, but I respect a man who speaks his mind using regular language. The snobby media of course can't stand this kind of man and look for opportunities to mock him for dropping the F-Bomb or telling it like it is about the efficacy of his boss's policies. I don't doubt his genuine love for the country, even if he does have some bad ideas or speaks a little too bluntly from time to time. All of that being said, his time has come and gone. Like the Republican party, the Democratic party also needs new blood. The old guard has old ideas that have proven equally unpersuasive over the last decade. Most Americans crave a robust debate on real issues, but we have also learned to tune out the same old tired arguments that have been constantly recycled. Joe Biden represents the recycling. Again, it's time to turn the page.

Obama's Cuba Legacy Will Sting For Generations

Several days ago, President Obama took a number of unprecedented steps to "normalize" relations with Cuba. Unfortunately, as we have become accustomed to by now, the President apologized for decades of American sanctions, made every concession he could, and still walked away with a bad deal. His efforts were largely wasted because, at the end of the day, the Senate is the body that would have to actually "normalize" relations with Cuba by ending decades of embargoes and treaties designed to isolate the country that once allowed Soviet missiles to target our shores. That's probably not going to happen, so the President's actions were only symbolic.

Cuba was actually the "America" that Columbus discovered in 1492. Shortly thereafter it became a Spanish colony. In 1902, with significant help from the United States, Cuba declared independence from Spain. For five decades thereafter Cuba was the destination for wealthy world travelers and entertainers. The government was hopelessly corrupt, however, and in 1952 Fidel Castro and his brother, Raul, used a junta to attempt to overthrow the government. They were radical communists, violent and acting with few restraints. They were defeated and Castro was imprisoned until 1955. He was released and fled to Mexico where he became a close friend of Che Guevara. Che was also a violent, unrestrained revolutionary. When he returned to Cuba in 1959, he had broad support for his revolution. The government fled the country, along with a substantial number of loyalists, and Castro took over. He quickly purged all opposition from the island and consolidated his rule.

Initially, the United States did not oppose his regime. After all, he was a lawyer, educated in the United States, he loved baseball and American cars. How bad could be be? It didn't take long, however, for the U.S. government to figure out that Castro was insane. He acted irrationally and with slight regard for anything that wasn't directly related to his radical plans for the Cuban people. It became clear that Castro would have to be removed. An attempt was made in 1961 by the Kennedy administration in what became known as the Bay of Pigs. The invasion, made up of Cuban exiles, was intercepted on the beach and decimated. 

Of course, just one year later, we faced the Cuban Missile Crisis. While the threat of Soviet missiles was eventually eliminated, the world faced the possibility of a war of unfathomable proportions because, in part, Castro wanted to guarantee his rule in Cuba by enlisting Soviet support.

Since consolidating power, Castro has (1) instituted forced labor camps for political opposition; (2) actively worked to identify so called "bourgeoisie" and place them in reeducation camps - or kill them; (3) criminalized unemployment by arresting anyone not seen working at a job; (4) "reeducated" homosexuals in forced medical rehabilitation camps; and otherwise arrested, tortured and executed some 30,000 other "dissidents" during his reign. In short, Fidel Castro and his brother are very bad men. There should be no mistake about that.

Of course, many Cubans over the years have fled to America, where they have worked extremely hard to build good lives for themselves and their families. They hate the Castros. Fidel and Raul are, to them, the devil incarnate; the torturers of the innocent, and executioners of their families. President Obama did not grow up in Cuba. These men and women did, and they know something about it.

American opposition to Castro has been justified. It has been justified since the beginning, and will continue to be justified for so long as Cubans live under this oppressive, violent regime. The Castros will all be dead soon. There is not one younger than 70. To believe now, as the regime is about to fall, that it was the appropriate time to forgive all past transgressions is beyond naive. It is radical. It is not just a little radical either. It is 60's Che Guevara radical. It is a young man in college with his "Che" T-Shirt on, angrily itching to show the world how backwards they all are for opposing such a great man. It can no longer be classified as naive. It is a belief system.

The funny thing is, I could see a president, after having opened up trade with dozens of other countries, after negotiating substantial treaties with other nations, or preserving American power overseas, I could see that president normalizing relations with Cuba. There would no doubt be a debate. How that president addressed the Castros in the process would also be an important indicator of whether we were conceding defeat or they were. But, to make it your single affirmative foreign policy legacy is just unfortunate. Coupling that with an apology for decades of sanctions, supported by hundreds of American leaders and every president over six decades, is simply misinformed. Then to do it now, as the Castro regime is about to die out, shows that in the President's mind, it just couldn't wait. It looks suspiciously like he wanted to apologize to Castro while he was still alive so he could appreciate it and savor his victory. 

The President's Cuba legacy will be remarkable in history. There can be no doubt about that. When Cuba does finally open up - after Raul Castro dies - and Cubans flock to the United States, you can bet that very few will ever vote for the party that apologized for Castro. You can also bet that Cuba really won't be open before that time, even after the President's recent efforts. 

I ordinarily would not be so hard on the President for taking this position. After all, I like Cuban cigars and rum as much as anyone else. I'd love to vacation in Cuba. I hear it's a pretty place. But, President Obama accidentally revealed something about his true motivations by a mistake he made in his speech. I find those motivations disturbing. In his apology, President Obama referenced the "legacy of colonialism." America, however, has never been a colonial power. That was old world Europe. America was, in fact, a European colony, as you may recall. But in President Obama's mind, America is a colonial power, which has, among other things, oppressed the people of Cuba.  He is completely wrong on his history, however. First, as I mentioned, America did not colonize Cuba. Spain did. More importantly, however, America fought for Cuba's independence from Spain. Part of that became what was known as the "Spanish American War." The ship the Maine, of "remember the Maine" fame was sunk off the coast of Cuba in 1898. American then intervened on behalf of Cuban independence in 1902 - just four years later. It is doubtful that Cuba would have won its independence without American help. Independence. Not colonialism. Independence.

There is a deep misunderstanding of history at work here and, like most deep misunderstandings of the facts, it has led to yet another poor policy decision. The time to normalize relations with Cuba would have come anyway. Old men tend to die, even if they are dictators. They also tend to be replaced by younger leaders with different values. In the case of Cuba, there is a legacy of oppression that would soon be lifted without American intervention. Intervention in this case bolstered the dictatorial regime. Consequently, President Obama is now the one acting like the leader of a colonial power, interfering with the individual rights of the colonists.

What the Sony Hacking Attack Really Shows Us

There is no story in the news that illustrates our obsession with pop culture more than the Sony hack attack. North Koreans, upset about a movie that mocks their Dear Leader, launched the attack and threatened to attack movie theaters that showed the film. For the entire first week of the scandal, the media was entirely focused on what was "leaked" about movie stars and Sony executives. Only now are we starting to see the real story emerge. 

This was a serious attack.

This was a cyberattack on U.S. soil by a foreign government. This isn't some hacktavist group looking for nude pictures of Kate Upton. This was a military operation, carried out by a central government with the intent of disrupting commerce in the United States. We would be well advised to take this seriously even though the reasons for the attack are quite silly. A young, culturally naive dictator doesn't like being mocked by Hollywood. Of course, in his mind, he is a big star. Dennis Rodman went to visit him after all. So this mocking really struck a nerve. He then acted like a child and launched a cyberattack on a movie company. You couldn't make this stuff up, and the immaturity is stunning. But what this also tells us is that we are incredibly vulnerable. Apparently, this attack was extremely sophisticated. He could've targeted our power grid or worse. The next dictator may choose to exploit those vulnerabilities, which leads me to my second point.

This childish dictator has nuclear weapons.

If ever there were an argument for taking extreme risks to stop nuclear proliferation, this is it. An impudent young man, raised in the fantasy world of North Korea's dictatorship, succeeded his father and now controls one of the largest militaries in the world. If Kim Jong-Un acts like this in response to a silly movie, what do you think he would do if the world really mocked him? The level of instability in this man's head should give us all a moment of pause. Presumably, he has his finger on the proverbial button. While he can't necessarily reach the United States with his nuclear weapons, he certainly can hit South Korea, maybe Japan, and either way cause substantial global chaos. And he may do so on a whim.

"Nuclear deterrence" is only a deterrent so long as the opponent is a rational leader. There is a serious problem, however, when the other side is unpredictable, unstable or insane. This is precisely why even reluctant hawks believe that stoping nuclear proliferation, by any means, is an acceptable risk. Yes, war is terrible, but nuclear war is worse. We can never really know who will inherit some unstable country's nuclear deterrent. Perhaps nuclear weapons are safe in the hands of the Pakistani military leaders, but what about the extremists that helped hide Osama Bin Laden right down the street from the military academy? Should we not fear those people getting their hands on nuclear weapons? The same holds true for Iran. Maybe the current Ayatollah will not use nuclear weapons to exterminate Israel, but what about the next guy? Should we not take these leaders at their word when they threaten to use weapons of mass destruction? 

Liberals arguing for gun control in this country would never agree to allow mentally unstable citizens to possess firearms. As we've seen all too often, you give a crazy man a gun and he will shoot up a school, killing as many innocents as possible. Many of those liberals argue that we should ban all guns and confiscate weapons already in the possession of citizens; that disarming everyone to save even one child from gun violence is worth the trade. Yet, many of those same liberals, the President included, would allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon and instead employ a strategy of "containment" and "deterrence." It is a near certainty that a nation that elects leaders who threaten to "wipe" other countries "off the map" will not always have rational leadership. We should anticipate that and act accordingly.

We live in a society with no privacy.

If you haven't already figured it out by now, let me make it clear. Everything you do, say, write, record, email, save, surf or snap is capable of being discovered. In fact, the vast majority of all of that information is already in the public view. You have no privacy. Cameras in public record your steps. Cameras on the street record the places you drive. The NSA has your phone and text records, showing the people you contact and, probably, the content of the messages. Mega-companies, foreign governments and the U.S. government have a record of every single thing you do on the internet. Every search, every website you visit and every password you change is recorded somewhere or monitored. The FBI and NSA have spent hundreds of billions of dollars over the past decade developing and deploying data-mining tools to catch everyone thinking about violating any law or launching any attack.

It is impossible to gather all of this information and have it never be used in a malicious way. Sony is case in point. Embarrassing emails, employee information, health information, you name it, all gathered, stored and hacked. The next time you're asked to give out some personal information to some insurance company or healthcare conglomerate, you have to ask yourself where that information will wind up. It may be North Korea.

It is absolutely time for us as a nation to demand that our privacy be restored. Mega-companies don't need to know what brand of socks I like and target internet ads to my interests. They don't need that information. They want it, sure. It makes them more money. But they don't need  it and they are not in any way entitled to it. The same holds true for government. Our government doesn't need to know everywhere I've been or everyone I've talked to. They just don't. Even if they are catching criminals and terrorists with that information, there are better ways to do it and, even if there are not, this is one of those times that we should refuse to sacrifice liberty for security. A society in which everything we do is monitored is not free. To the contrary, it is very dangerous.

We continue to underestimate our adversaries.

Once again we have underestimated the ability and will of an adversary to do us harm. This is not a uniquely American trait, but we seem to be best at it. We mock Putin with photoshopped pictures of him and his "pet polar bear." Meanwhile, he invades and conquers a country. We mock ISIS as a "JV team," as they round up whole villages of women and children and exterminate them. We mock Kim Jong-Un with funny pictures and a movie, while he develops nuclear weapon delivery systems, cripples a company with a sophisticated hack, forces humiliating concessions from them and embarrasses the country.

At some point, we have to start taking these people seriously as the threats emerge, not after. If we don't, the next surprise could be something much worse than a hack attack over some movie.

Our Obsession With Limited War Leads To Bizarre Policy Choices

Last week the Senate released a report on so called "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by the CIA between 2001 and 2008 to extract information from terrorists captured on the battlefield. The "torture report" chronicles the sometimes bizarre treatment given to about a dozen captives. This investigation can now be filed away with all the other investigations our country has been forced to conduct since Vietnam into "abuse," "war crimes," and other such "atrocities."

Whether "enhanced interrogation" is torture or not is not the point of this article. There are strong arguments on both sides, and I don't think this report or any other investigation has yet revealed the full scope of the program or its effectiveness. Nor is this article about whether releasing this report was wise. Undoubtedly, it will embolden our enemies, but it also gives Americans an opportunity to see what our professionals thought was necessary in the wake of 9/11 to stop imminent attacks on the United States. We will continue to debate that and decide as a nation whether our actions were appropriate. The polls are divided on these issues and, like with most things, history will be the true judge, not the Senators issuing this report.

Several months ago, President Obama's former Defense Secretaries, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, went public with allegations that the President and his political advisors were micromanaging the military, making exceptionally poor strategic decisions, and ultimately making the nation less safe. This is nearly unprecedented in history. Two former Defense Secretaries, from different ends of the political spectrum, criticizing the Commander in Chief for, in their opinion, making the country less safe. 

In some ways, their criticisms are unfair. Micromanaging the military is nothing new. Harry Truman, for example, was accused of micromanaging the Korean War. He refused, for example, to allow his generals to broaden the war to include China. He was also accused of not pressing for total victory, and he ultimately fired General MacArthur who, at the time, was the most popular general in the country. History has been kind to Truman, but his approval rating at the time was very low.

Lyndon Johnson is famous for his micromanagement of the Vietnam War. Robert Gates, who actually served under Johnson, recently reminded Americans that Johnson went so far as picking individual bombing targets and village "relocation" sites. The enemy found safe haven in nearby Cambodia, which Johnson decreed off limits. He wanted to limit the war to Vietnam. President Nixon was only marginally better, expanding the war to include additional targets, but still limiting the military's ability to fight the enemy where they were.

Modern presidents were not immune. Who could forget how, when Mulla Omar was in the sights of a Predator drone, some lawyer refused to clear the target? We then learned for the first time that our military was consulting with lawyers about which targets were fair game and which were off limits. It is these same lawyers, of course, that drafted the "guidelines" used for enhanced interrogations, suggested labelling terrorists as "enemy combatants" and shipping them off to "Guantanamo Bay" rather than keeping them prisoner on the battlefield.

The problem is this, micromanagement is not a strategy. It is not a tactic. Micromanagement is the principal side effect of a poor strategy, poor execution and a lack of moral resolve. And, in the post World War II era, it is the result of our obsession with "limited warfare."

"Limited war" is the fiction that presidents, prime ministers and generals have used to justify projecting military force where it is not absolutely critical to our survival. War fighting is "limited" to the leadership or the "regime" and its supporters. Limited war is fought with drones and "precision air power," lawyers and "approved target" lists. Civilian casualties are to be avoided at almost any cost because, theoretically, it is not their fault that some evil, oppressive regime chose to fight us. They are therefore absolved of all guilt and responsibility. To that end, limited war is fought for "regime change," and there is never any plan to "occupy" the enemy once it is vanquished. 

Limited war requires the mental gymnastics with which we have now become so familiar. "Soldiers" are now designated as "enemy combatants," and while we won't "torture" anyone, we will use "enhanced interrogation techniques" to extract intelligence. Enemy combatants are then "tried" in military "courts" for their "crimes." Some politicians have gone so far as to demand that they be brought to the United States to be tried in federal courts. 

It is this deconstruction of all things war that has led us to strategic failure and has arguably caused us to violate our own principles. Worse still, since "limited wars" are never actually won, it has also led to a state of perpetual war for our nation. Limiting war has no deterrent effect on most potential enemies, especially fanatics. Our enemies have made it clear that they do not value life. Promising a population that we will limit our violence to only those people running the country absolves them of any responsibility to change their own regimes or take responsibility for the conduct of their own governments.

By contrast, the threat of total war is a substantial deterrent to almost every potential enemy. It is fought with one goal - to win. Total war is fought with whatever weapons are required to achieve that one goal. While civilians are not directly targeted, there is little concern given to collateral damage. Cities and infrastructure are totally destroyed in order to stop the enemy's ability to continue to wage war or to ever wage war again. Total war is waged until the enemy unconditionally surrenders. The entire country is dismantled, occupied, and then rebuilt in accordance with western standards and based on western values. Troops remain in the country for as long as is necessary to ensure that whatever cause the populace followed to war is completely extinguished - even if that takes generations.

Of course, in the West anyway, we have long agreed upon certain limitations. Western warfare does not, in theory, allow the forced or violent interrogation of POWs. Chemical Weapons are banned from the battlefield, and were not in fact widely used after the ban was put in effect. We have the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners who are captured in uniform. We have the International Red Cross. While the enforcement of these western norms is largely dependent on the guarantee that the enemy will also follow the rules, they are at least reasonably clear and understandable.

We get confused, however, when we face an enemy that doesn't follow the same rules, or when the threat they pose is not existential. For example, were we facing an invasion force, waging a "limited war" would be suicidal. Since the threat would be existential, the total destruction of our enemy would be justified. If that same invasion force refused to abide by the traditional rules of war, we would be justified in using whatever force against whomever to defeat the threat. A fight for survival usually doesn't carry with it a long list of rules.

The problem we have is largely one of timing. We have become so accustomed to fighting these perpetual low intensity conflicts that we prefer that to the massive, but rare engagements of the past. During the Cold War, we had to be very careful about how and when we entered a conflict. Since total war with a nuclear superpower was unacceptable, every provocation had to be analyzed. Wars were not fought to win, but rather to maintain the status quo with the Soviet Union. That was always the strategic objective. 

The Cold War is over now. We no longer have to wage war to a stalemate in an effort to avoid thermonuclear war, yet we are acting as if we do. For example, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, we sent a massive military force to eject Hussein from the country. We did not, however, continue on into Iraq to defeat the country. The result has been a state of war existing between our countries for almost 25 years. It would have been easier and cheaper to invade, conquer, occupy, rebuild and stay. Perhaps the region would be more stable now. In any event, it is hard to imagine that we would be worse off.

Doing nothing can also be justified. Not every regional conflict is our problem, nor can every problem be solved with U.S. military force. Even the biggest proponents of perpetual, limited warfare admit that sometimes civilians are killed. Sometimes a predator drone accidentally blows up a wedding and kills some children. From a moral perspective then, each decision to use force must start with the question: "Is this worth killing an enemy's child over"? That may seem simplistic, but the scale of the engagement is not really the issue. Both limited war and total war result in civilian casualties. Total war may result in more civilian casualties, but the war is shorter, serves as a strong deterrent to others who may be inclined to wage war in the future, and ultimately results in the total defeat of the errant ideology that led to war in the first place. Limited war, by contrast, means that the violence lasts for generations, usually devolves into guerrilla warfare, is used as a rallying cry for extremists, and has historically led to a U.S. "withdrawal." Twenty-five years after Hiroshima, Japan began to emerge as the serious economic power it is today. Twenty-five years after the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq is still at war. Our strategy has failed and it is time for a new one.

War is violent. It is never going to not be violent. War is sometimes necessary. It will always sometimes be necessary. War is fought with soldiers, not lawyers. War is won by killing the enemy and crushing their will to fight. It is not won by emphasizing the avoidance of civilian casualties or trying to approve targets in real time. War is won by using a huge invasion force to overwhelm the enemy and disabuse them of idea that they will retreat into the civilian population to wage a successful guerrilla war later. Wars are won by stationing a huge occupying force in country after "major combat operations" are terminated. It is not won by turning the country back over to a symbolic government that is hostile to us, and that doesn't have the support of its people. War is won by having a clear strategic purpose and the moral resolve to annihilate the enemy and then suppress their remnant for as long as is necessary to achieve lasting peace.

Let us no longer be confused as a nation about what war is or how it is waged, won or lost. Torture is torture and cannot be "enhanced" in anyway that improves it. Defeat is defeat and cannot be spun with terms like "withdrawal." Retreat is retreat and cannot be recast as a "draw down." When we commit our men and women to these fights, victory is either worth achieving or it is not. If the objective is important, if it is worth the lives of our men and women in uniform, then it is worth achieving in the quickest possible way, which is also usually the most violent. If the extreme violence and inevitable collateral damage required to actually win a war is not palatable to us under the circumstances, then it is not a matter for our armed forces. It is a police action, and we should just commit ourselves to arresting "enemy combatants" and trying them in federal court for "crimes against" whomever. Something tells me, however, that most of us war weary Americans are ready to be done with all of this. And the enemy better be careful, because we hate to lose...

Garner and Brown Show There's No Room For Error

Eric Garner, an obese, asthmatic, 43 year old black man, was choked to death by police officers earlier this year. Last night, the grand jury looking into charges against the arresting officer failed to indict. Although there is absolutely no connection between this grand jury and the grand jury in Ferguson, one can't help but to notice the eerie parallels. 

The Garner killing was recorded on video by a camera phone. In it, there is no mistake that Garner is telling the four officers holding him down that he "can't breathe." In fact, he said it eleven times before dying of asphyxiation. Michael Brown's confrontation with police, of course, was not on video but, even if it had been, the story would've been very different. Michael Brown stole some cigarillos from a convenience store, confronted an officer in his car, got shot and continued to refuse to surrender. Garner, on the other hand, did in fact have his "hands up," as four or five officers tackled him to the concrete. One put his knee on Garner's head, pressing his face into the road. Another sat on his back, barring his shoulders, and yet another sat on his legs, cuffing him. Garner died.

When you look at the video, it is brutal, but it is also a fact that Garner did not surrender, resisted a little, and the officers appear to be using force that was basically reasonable to restrain a very large man. It's not like they hit him with batons or shot him, and most people understand that arresting someone can be violent. Taking a man to the ground because he refuses to surrender is ugly, and sometimes things go wrong.

Most of us understand that sometimes the police need to use force. Most Americans realize that police are out there to protect us and our property, and most of us feel comfortable knowing the police are patrolling our neighborhoods. When really bad things are happening, we want a professional, trained, effective police force to intervene on our behalves and, typically, if the crime is serious enough, we will forgive the police for making a few mistakes. For example, if Eric Garner had been killed while raping an 11 year old girl, no one would bat an eye. If Eric Garner was choked to death after beating an old lady with a club, few of us would say a word. 

But that's not what happened. Eric Garner was choked to death because he was selling loose cigarettes to people on the street. That's right, he died because he was selling some cigarettes. I made the point in my last Ferguson article that we now have so many silly little laws that the police basically have plenary power to stop you, frisk you and probably arrest you for some highly subjective "suspicious activity" that you may or may not be engaged in. This will eventually lead to disaster in a free society. More laws means more officer-citizen interactions. More officer-citizen interactions means, statistically, more confrontations that lead to injury or death. Accidentally using excessive force to stop a man from raping a woman on the street is more or less acceptable to most Americans. Accidentally killing a man for violating the "loose cigarettes" law is not.

Deaths like this one highlight the absurdity of our current system of laws. Whether it's stop and frisk in black neighborhoods or DUI checkpoints in white suburbia, the government's reach is now absurdly broad. The government, and consequently the police, are viewed with suspicion in many neighborhoods, both black and white, because of the enormous scope of the powers they wield. Sadly, I would wager that most Americans feel better if they can get to and from work without seeing a police cruiser on the road or some kind of checkpoint or speed trap. Whereas there once was a time when officers were members of the community and had personal relationships with the citizens, now the citizenry would rather just avoid contact with the police altogether. That is not the fault of the citizenry. It is the result of modern police tactics, too many laws, and a change in the law enforcement mission.

The fact of the matter is, the police have become militarized to the point that they are more of an "intimidation force" than a police force in many urban areas. Most police commissioners admit this. They admit using SWAT teams to serve arrest warrants in the middle of the night because they want to "surprise the suspect," use "overwhelming force," and "intimidate" any bystanders that may want to intervene. That's fine when you're arresting a violent criminal, but when that force is overused, it is viewed as excessive. Putting that aside, most communities aren't interested in having their communities policed by SWAT teams dressed like Navy Seals carrying M-16's and grenade launchers. It just isn't very friendly.

More importantly, however, if you've been vested with the extremely broad power to basically confront anyone you want, and you've been given a gun to do it with, then there is no longer any room for error. This is not uncommon for professionals. Lawyers, for example, have no room for error. You miss a deadline, have a mistake on your calendar, have an employee mistakenly disclose something, you're done. Doctors have no room for error. You nick that artery, you kill the patient, and you may lose everything. Pilots have no room for error. Soldiers have no room for error. And now, because of the broad power modern police have to use force to confront individual citizens over minor infractions, they too have no room for error.

To that end, police need to be better vetted, better trained and much better paid. We already expect a high level of professionalism from our police officers, but they are trained and paid at much lower levels more akin to civil servants. This has to change and there's no reason why it can't. As citizens, we should want only the smartest, highest trained, most highly incentivized police officers on our streets. Whatever the cost, it is worth it.

Then, as citizens, we need to insist that our elected officials stop passing laws to address every perceived ill in society. Selling loose cigarettes is perhaps the silliest law I've ever seen used in the modern era to justify the violent arrest of a person. Perhaps the police acted appropriately under the circumstances. After all, a law had been broken. The police don't make the laws, they just enforce them. Perhaps the level of force used was justified. Garner was a big man and he was not exactly surrendering. The entire episode, however, is still an abomination. The law is absolutely unjustified, and now we see how one of these silly little laws can lead directly to tragedy. Garner is dead because some city councilman thought he would justify his existence with a new ordinance stamping out cigarette peddling. 

There is perhaps no greater justification for civil disobedience than to protest unreasonable, capricious laws like this one. The next step is to hold the leaders who pass these laws directly accountable for bringing us one step closer to a police state that we will all fear.