The Federalist Papers #34: War is Expensive. To Defend the Union, the Federal Government Needs an Ample Power of Taxation—Alexander Hamilton

image sourceLink to the full text of the Federalist Papers #34

image source

Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #34

Today we celebrate the 245th anniversary of the founding of our republic. 245 years is a long time for a republic to last. In lasting that long, the solutions to design problems that the framers embedded in the US Constitution have been crucial. In getting the US Constitution ratified, the Federalist Papers were crucial.

In the Federalist Papers #34, Alexander Hamilton points to a crucial aspect of the Constitution for the survival of the United States: an unfettered power of taxation that could finance the military survival of the United States. On his assertion that fighting wars and insurrections can be expensive, he has been backed up by subsequent history. The Civil War was very expensive. World War II was very expensive. And the other wars were not cheap.

Alexander Hamilton made another prediction, however, that in the due course of time was falsified: his claim that non-military government expenses would always pale in comparison with military expenses. In the last few years, during our continuing wars, Social Security spending is greater than military spending, Medicare is greater than military spending, and non-defense discretionary spending is almost equal to military spending. Even if we got into a bigger, hotter war, there isn’t enough GDP to make military spending that many times larger than Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid put together. Of course, that evolution depended on the amendment to the US Constitution allowing and income tax, so it was fair for Alexander Hamilton to think the constitution-before-amendments that he was arguing for was unlikely to lead to peacetime expenditures anywhere near the level of expenditures in a major war.

There has been a recent focus on our nation’s history having been steeped in sin. Of course it is: even as a nonsupernaturalist, I can say that human beings are steeped in what can reasonably be called sin (and there is plenty of cruelty and ugliness in the animal and plant world, too). What is remarkable is that we have crawled out of that morass of sin as much as we have. To me, the abolition of slavery we eventually got to is more remarkable than slavery; that the murder rate is below one hundredth of a percent per year is more remarkable than that it is above one thousandth of a percent per year, and the love that many people bear for others is more remarkable than the hatred and selfishness we see in the world.

With key amendments in place, the US Constitution keeps us in relative safety and made the legal and political successes of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s possible. In the 2020s, we face a new round of geopolitical and social justice challenges, as well as key decisions about taxing and spending. But had things gone differently, the situation in 2021 could have been worse—much, much worse.

I am grateful for Alexander Hamilton’s efforts in arguing so strenuously for the Constitution. Below is the full text of his argument in the Federalist Papers #34:

FEDERALIST NO. 34

The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation

From the New York Packet
Friday, January 4, 1788.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York:

I FLATTER myself it has been clearly shown in my last number that the particular States, under the proposed Constitution, would have COEQUAL authority with the Union in the article of revenue, except as to duties on imports. As this leaves open to the States far the greatest part of the resources of the community, there can be no color for the assertion that they would not possess means as abundant as could be desired for the supply of their own wants, independent of all external control. That the field is sufficiently wide will more fully appear when we come to advert to the inconsiderable share of the public expenses for which it will fall to the lot of the State governments to provide.

To argue upon abstract principles that this co-ordinate authority cannot exist, is to set up supposition and theory against fact and reality. However proper such reasonings might be to show that a thing OUGHT NOT TO EXIST, they are wholly to be rejected when they are made use of to prove that it does not exist contrary to the evidence of the fact itself. It is well known that in the Roman republic the legislative authority, in the last resort, resided for ages in two different political bodies not as branches of the same legislature, but as distinct and independent legislatures, in each of which an opposite interest prevailed: in one the patrician; in the other, the plebian. Many arguments might have been adduced to prove the unfitness of two such seemingly contradictory authorities, each having power to ANNUL or REPEAL the acts of the other. But a man would have been regarded as frantic who should have attempted at Rome to disprove their existence. It will be readily understood that I allude to the COMITIA CENTURIATA and the COMITIA TRIBUTA. The former, in which the people voted by centuries, was so arranged as to give a superiority to the patrician interest; in the latter, in which numbers prevailed, the plebian interest had an entire predominancy. And yet these two legislatures coexisted for ages, and the Roman republic attained to the utmost height of human greatness.

In the case particularly under consideration, there is no such contradiction as appears in the example cited; there is no power on either side to annul the acts of the other. And in practice there is little reason to apprehend any inconvenience; because, in a short course of time, the wants of the States will naturally reduce themselves within A VERY NARROW COMPASS; and in the interim, the United States will, in all probability, find it convenient to abstain wholly from those objects to which the particular States would be inclined to resort.

To form a more precise judgment of the true merits of this question, it will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will require a federal provision in respect to revenue, and those which will require a State provision. We shall discover that the former are altogether unlimited, and that the latter are circumscribed within very moderate bounds. In pursuing this inquiry, we must bear in mind that we are not to confine our view to the present period, but to look forward to remote futurity. Constitutions of civil government are not to be framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination of these with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural and tried course of human affairs. Nothing, therefore, can be more fallacious than to infer the extent of any power, proper to be lodged in the national government, from an estimate of its immediate necessities. There ought to be a CAPACITY to provide for future contingencies as they may happen; and as these are illimitable in their nature, it is impossible safely to limit that capacity. It is true, perhaps, that a computation might be made with sufficient accuracy to answer the purpose of the quantity of revenue requisite to discharge the subsisting engagements of the Union, and to maintain those establishments which, for some time to come, would suffice in time of peace. But would it be wise, or would it not rather be the extreme of folly, to stop at this point, and to leave the government intrusted with the care of the national defense in a state of absolute incapacity to provide for the protection of the community against future invasions of the public peace, by foreign war or domestic convulsions? If, on the contrary, we ought to exceed this point, where can we stop, short of an indefinite power of providing for emergencies as they may arise? Though it is easy to assert, in general terms, the possibility of forming a rational judgment of a due provision against probable dangers, yet we may safely challenge those who make the assertion to bring forward their data, and may affirm that they would be found as vague and uncertain as any that could be produced to establish the probable duration of the world. Observations confined to the mere prospects of internal attacks can deserve no weight; though even these will admit of no satisfactory calculation: but if we mean to be a commercial people, it must form a part of our policy to be able one day to defend that commerce. The support of a navy and of naval wars would involve contingencies that must baffle all the efforts of political arithmetic.

Admitting that we ought to try the novel and absurd experiment in politics of tying up the hands of government from offensive war founded upon reasons of state, yet certainly we ought not to disable it from guarding the community against the ambition or enmity of other nations. A cloud has been for some time hanging over the European world. If it should break forth into a storm, who can insure us that in its progress a part of its fury would not be spent upon us? No reasonable man would hastily pronounce that we are entirely out of its reach. Or if the combustible materials that now seem to be collecting should be dissipated without coming to maturity, or if a flame should be kindled without extending to us, what security can we have that our tranquillity will long remain undisturbed from some other cause or from some other quarter? Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others. Who could have imagined at the conclusion of the last war that France and Britain, wearied and exhausted as they both were, would so soon have looked with so hostile an aspect upon each other? To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquillity, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.

What are the chief sources of expense in every government? What has occasioned that enormous accumulation of debts with which several of the European nations are oppressed? The answers plainly is, wars and rebellions; the support of those institutions which are necessary to guard the body politic against these two most mortal diseases of society. The expenses arising from those institutions which are relative to the mere domestic police of a state, to the support of its legislative, executive, and judicial departments, with their different appendages, and to the encouragement of agriculture and manufactures (which will comprehend almost all the objects of state expenditure), are insignificant in comparison with those which relate to the national defense.

In the kingdom of Great Britain, where all the ostentatious apparatus of monarchy is to be provided for, not above a fifteenth part of the annual income of the nation is appropriated to the class of expenses last mentioned; the other fourteen fifteenths are absorbed in the payment of the interest of debts contracted for carrying on the wars in which that country has been engaged, and in the maintenance of fleets and armies. If, on the one hand, it should be observed that the expenses incurred in the prosecution of the ambitious enterprises and vainglorious pursuits of a monarchy are not a proper standard by which to judge of those which might be necessary in a republic, it ought, on the other hand, to be remarked that there should be as great a disproportion between the profusion and extravagance of a wealthy kingdom in its domestic administration, and the frugality and economy which in that particular become the modest simplicity of republican government. If we balance a proper deduction from one side against that which it is supposed ought to be made from the other, the proportion may still be considered as holding good.

But let us advert to the large debt which we have ourselves contracted in a single war, and let us only calculate on a common share of the events which disturb the peace of nations, and we shall instantly perceive, without the aid of any elaborate illustration, that there must always be an immense disproportion between the objects of federal and state expenditures. It is true that several of the States, separately, are encumbered with considerable debts, which are an excrescence of the late war. But this cannot happen again, if the proposed system be adopted; and when these debts are discharged, the only call for revenue of any consequence, which the State governments will continue to experience, will be for the mere support of their respective civil list; to which, if we add all contingencies, the total amount in every State ought to fall considerably short of two hundred thousand pounds.

In framing a government for posterity as well as ourselves, we ought, in those provisions which are designed to be permanent, to calculate, not on temporary, but on permanent causes of expense. If this principle be a just one our attention would be directed to a provision in favor of the State governments for an annual sum of about two hundred thousand pounds; while the exigencies of the Union could be susceptible of no limits, even in imagination. In this view of the subject, by what logic can it be maintained that the local governments ought to command, in perpetuity, an EXCLUSIVE source of revenue for any sum beyond the extent of two hundred thousand pounds? To extend its power further, in EXCLUSION of the authority of the Union, would be to take the resources of the community out of those hands which stood in need of them for the public welfare, in order to put them into other hands which could have no just or proper occasion for them.

Suppose, then, the convention had been inclined to proceed upon the principle of a repartition of the objects of revenue, between the Union and its members, in PROPORTION to their comparative necessities; what particular fund could have been selected for the use of the States, that would not either have been too much or too little too little for their present, too much for their future wants? As to the line of separation between external and internal taxes, this would leave to the States, at a rough computation, the command of two thirds of the resources of the community to defray from a tenth to a twentieth part of its expenses; and to the Union, one third of the resources of the community, to defray from nine tenths to nineteen twentieths of its expenses. If we desert this boundary and content ourselves with leaving to the States an exclusive power of taxing houses and lands, there would still be a great disproportion between the MEANS and the END; the possession of one third of the resources of the community to supply, at most, one tenth of its wants. If any fund could have been selected and appropriated, equal to and not greater than the object, it would have been inadequate to the discharge of the existing debts of the particular States, and would have left them dependent on the Union for a provision for this purpose.

The preceding train of observation will justify the position which has been elsewhere laid down, that "A CONCURRENT JURISDICTION in the article of taxation was the only admissible substitute for an entire subordination, in respect to this branch of power, of State authority to that of the Union." Any separation of the objects of revenue that could have been fallen upon, would have amounted to a sacrifice of the great INTERESTS of the Union to the POWER of the individual States. The convention thought the concurrent jurisdiction preferable to that subordination; and it is evident that it has at least the merit of reconciling an indefinite constitutional power of taxation in the Federal government with an adequate and independent power in the States to provide for their own necessities. There remain a few other lights, in which this important subject of taxation will claim a further consideration.

PUBLIUS.

Links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far:

Media of Exchange and Unit of Account, Legal Tender and Forced Tender in El Salvador

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Link to the article shown above

In Intermediate Macro, I teach about the the functions of money: medium of exchange, unit of account and store of value. Sometimes standard of deferred payment is added as a fourth function. It is good to have examples. El Salvador now has some interesting ones for medium of exchange and unit of account. (Almost anything is a store of value, so that is the least interesting function. The closest I can come to something that isn’t a store of value but is a medium of exchange is a credit card.)

Since 2001, the unit of account in El Salvador—which is also a medium of exchange—has been the US dollar. In their June 22, 2021 Wall Street Journal op-ed “El Salvador’s Big Bitcoin Mistake,” Steve Hanke and Manuel Hinds write:

Twenty years ago, after years of painstaking preparation, weeks of congressional deliberation, and a green light behind the scenes by the U.S. Treasury and the International Monetary Fund, El Salvador effectively mothballed its currency, the colón, in 2001. The U.S. dollar officially became the coin of the realm.

Dollarization has worked: Since 2001, the average annual inflation rate has been 2.03%—the lowest in Latin America. 

Since June 8, 2021, by law, anyone offering a good or service in El Salvador must accept Bitcoin as a medium of exchange. But Bitcoin is not a unit of account in El Salvador. That is, people still primarily think about and record values in terms of dollars, not in terms of Bitcoin.

In addition to giving an example of a medium of exchange that is not a unit of account, El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law also points to an important distinction about what legal tender is and what it isn’t. In the US, legal tender means that preexisting debts can be paid in dollars, but doesn’t mean that merchants must sell to someone offering dollars. Steve Hanke and Manuel Hinds write:

Legal-tender laws, like those in the U.S., only specify what currencies discharge debts, including the payment of taxes. Forced-tender laws remove the freedom of choice in the use of currencies for all transactions, including everyday purchases like groceries. When forced tender is imposed, all domestic exchanges, including those that traders would rather conduct in another currency, must be conducted in the currency designated by law.

They then give Soviet and Nazi examples of forced tender laws.

Personally, I have been interested in the distinctions between medium of exchange and unit of account and the details of what legal tender means because these distinctions and details matter for negative interest rate policy. On negative interest rate policy, see my bibliographic post “How and Why to Eliminate the Zero Lower Bound: A Reader’s Guide.”


Judd Legum on Critical Race Theory →

In the Twitter thread the title of this post links to, Judd Legum makes Critical Race Theory sound a lot better than the Wikipedia article “Critical race theory” does. In particular, the current version of the Wikipedia article “Critical race theory” has this on academic criticism of Critical Race Theory:

Law professors Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry argue that critical race theory lacks supporting evidence, relies on an implausible belief that reality is socially constructed, rejects evidence in favor of storytelling, rejects truth and merit as expressions of political dominance, and rejects the rule of law.[19] Farber and Sherry additionally posit that the anti-meritocratic tenets in critical race theory, critical feminism, and critical legal studies may unintentionally lead to antisemitic and anti-Asian implications.[61][62] In particular, they suggest that the success of Jews and Asians within what critical race theorists argue is a structurally unfair system may lend itself to allegations of cheating, advantage-taking, or other such claims. A series of responses to Farber and Sherry on this matter was published in the Harvard Law Review.[63] These responses argue that there is a difference between criticizing an unfair system and criticizing individuals who perform well inside that system.[19][63]

In a 1997 Boston College Law Review article, Jeffrey Pyle argued that critical race theory undermined confidence in the rule of law, writing that "critical race theorists attack the very foundations of the liberal legal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism and neutral principles of constitutional law".[64]

Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals argued in 1997 that critical race theory "turns its back on the Western tradition of rational inquiry, forswearing analysis for narrative", and that "by repudiating reasoned argumentation, [critical race theorists] reinforce stereotypes about the intellectual capacities of nonwhites."[20] Former Judge Alex Kozinski, who served on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, criticized critical race theorists in 1997 for raising "insuperable barriers to mutual understanding" and thus eliminating opportunities for "meaningful dialogue".[65]

In his June 21, 2021 Wall Street Journal op-ed “Critical Race Theory Is the Opposite of Education” echoes some of these academic criticisms, contrasting the intellectual attitudes in Critical Race Theory to his open-minded Marxist tutor at Oxford. He writes:

Critical race theory—and its various postmodern cousins—is not some interesting interpretation of social and political history that we are free to examine, embrace or discard. Its proponents do not seek to frame a critique of modern America to be tested alongside alternatives.

They insist that a traditionally liberal approach to evaluating the merits of competing ideas is itself an outgrowth of an illegitimate system of oppression. Rejection of their critique is the product of false consciousness, since critical thought is itself invalid, the product of white male hegemony.

There certainly can be a version of Critical Race Theory that is exactly what we need: an “interpretation of social and political history that we are free to examine, embrace or discard. … tested alongside alternatives.” Some proponents of Critical Race Theory will be doing exactly this, while other proponents of Critical Race Theory will indeed be going too far by rejecting rational inquiry and rational judgment of evidence. In any case, those of us who are judging Critical Race Theory should be extracting the rational arguments from Critical Race Theory and paying close attention to those. Judd Legum points to some of those rational arguments.


In Praise of Herbs

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Link to the article shown above

For many people, salads seem healthy but boring. But they don’t have to be boring. My giant salad has evolved in many ways since I wrote “My Giant Salad.” Two of the best additions—when I have them—are sliced green onions and fresh basil.

Basil keeps good company with many other wonderful herbs. For example, fresh mint leaves can do a lot to jazz up almost anything. And Americans are ramping up the use of many other herbs. In “The Herb Revolution in American Cooking,” Bee Wilson describes many indications of the rise of herbs. First, use of herbs in typical American cooking used to be rudimentary:

In “Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book,” published in 1950, the anonymous author confidently pronounces that there are just “six simple herbs basic to all seasoning”: mint, thyme, sage, marjoram, rosemary and basil. Except for mint and basil, all of these are described as being good for stuffings and meat cookery, which reflects what a limited number of dishes herbs tended to be used in back then.

The author also grudgingly admits that bay leaves, chives, chervil, parsley and tarragon are useful “additional herbs.” But there is no mention at all of cilantro, which has grown in popularity along with Mexican immigration to the U.S. since then. 

Now, variety of herbs has increased:

Along with the older Western stalwarts of parsley and chives, Americans are increasingly buying Thai basil and makrut lime leaves and fresh methi leaves (a grassy and pungent herb much used in Indian cooking).

Quantity for a given dish is often higher:

Now, under the influence of Middle Eastern cuisine, we are getting bolder still in our use of herbs and seeing that they can be used by the handful rather than the tablespoon. The Persian omelet, kuku sabzi, is so green that there are more herbs in it by volume than eggs.

And the total amount of herbs used is rising dramatically:

Most Americans are using far greater quantities of herbs—and different ones—than in the past. Sales of fresh herbs in the U.S. have tripled since 2000 from 1% of all fresh produce sales to 3%. Fresh herbs used to seem like a fancy luxury ingredient compared with an old-fashioned jar of dried oregano, but a survey in 2018 by Shenandoah Growers, a Virginia-based produce firm, suggested that more than half of all shoppers now regularly buy fresh herbs.

Sugar is the lazy way to make food taste good. Herbs and spices are a more creative way, that avoids the harm of sugar.

Mormonism Wanted to Show It Was American. Now What It Means to Be American Is Up for Grabs—McKay Coppins

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Link to the article shown above

McKay Coppins January/February 2021 Atlantic essay “The Most American Religion” is a very long read, but has some incisive things to say about Mormonism. Let me distill out the most interesting and novel threads in what he said. All the quotations in this post are from that essay. McKay is a Mormon himself, and so sometimes uses “we” to refer to Mormons.

One key point he makes about Mormonism is how eager it is for validation in the broader culture. When I was growing up in Mormonism, every Mormon who was a celebrity in the broader culture was precious to us as Mormons. We were inordinately proud of the Osmonds and Johny Miller (the golfer) and the Marriotts (the hotel magnates). Mormons were (as I was) and are a little pathetic in this way because as McKay reports a theater critic telling him: “your people have absolutely no cultural cachet.”

McKay points to the importance for Mormon history of the desire for cultural validation:

Mormons didn’t become avatars of a Norman Rockwellian ideal by accident. We taught ourselves to play the part over a centuries-long audition for full acceptance into American life. That we finally succeeded just as the country was on the brink of an identity crisis is one of the core ironies of modern Mormonism.

The Republican tilt of Mormonism has something to do with the long-lasting effects of a deal the Mormon Church made to get statehood for Utah toward the end of the 19th century. (See “How the Mormons Became Largely Republican.” But the traditional Americanism of Mormonism has to do with trying to get acceptance.

Mormons still longed for full initiation into American life. By the end of the 19th century, they had embarked in earnest on a quest for assimilation, defining themselves in opposition to their damaging caricatures. If America thought they were non-Christian heretics, they would commission an 11-foot statue of Jesus and place it in Temple Square. If America thought they were disloyal, they would flood the ranks of the military and intelligence agencies. (At one point, Brigham Young University was the third-largest source of Army officers in the country.) To shake the stench of polygamy—which the Church renounced in 1890—they became models of the large nuclear family.

Unfortunately, one of the ways the Mormon Church tried to assimilate was taking on at least the basic American racism—something it is at pains to live down now, under the constraint that admitting fully that its past racism was a mistake runs the risk of diminishing the authority of past Mormon leaders. (See “Flexible Dogmatism: The Mormon Position on Infallibility” and “Christian Kimball on the Fallibility of Mormon Leaders and on Gay Marriage.”) And even changing the direct institutional racism required a revelation from God (as subjectively experienced by Mormon Church leaders).

Nevertheless, because Mormon racism was just trying to fit in, on average it never went as deep as the rooted racism that Mormonism was trying to blend in with. As some evidence that racism and its ilk doesn’t run as deep in Mormonism as one might expect from its history of overt, official racist policy, Mormons on average are much less subject to the ugly anti-immigrant sentiments than would be expected from their political leanings and the cultural moment:

According to one survey, Latter-day Saints are more than twice as likely as white evangelicals to say they welcome increased immigration to the United States. When Donald Trump called for a ban on Muslim immigration, the Church, hearing an eerie historical echo, issued a blistering condemnation. Later, when Trump signed an executive order allowing cities and states to veto refugee resettlement, Utah was the first red state in the country to request more refugees.

Muhammed Shoayb Mehtar, who served as an imam in Utah for more than a decade, told me that when new people would arrive at his mosque—many of them refugees fleeing desperate circumstances—locals would show up, offering food, furniture, and jobs. In some states, Muslims worried about harassment and hate crimes. But in Utah, Mehtar said, “folks don’t have this toxic view of Oh, they are foreigners; they want to take over. They don’t have that mentality within them.”

I suspect that my own views on immigration were heavily informed by the 40 years I spent as a Mormon before I left Mormonism in 2000. (You can see my views on immigration in “It Isn't OK to Be Anti-Immigrant,” ‘The Hunger Games’ Is Hardly Our Future--It's Already Here and “Handling Immigration in a Way that Addresses Legitimate Concerns.”)

Mormonism has real strengths in helping people have a positive attitude toward those that are different. (Even those in other religions need to be understood and empathized with in order to have any hope of converting them. See this Twitter thread.) And unlike Progressive doctrine, among the gulfs Mormonism helps people bridge is differences in political views. McKay writes:

Mormonism has a reputation for conformity—starched white shirts and white picket fences and broods of well-behaved white children. But in much of the world, Mormon congregations are characterized by the way they force together motley groups of people from different backgrounds. Unlike most American Christians, Latter-day Saints don’t get to choose whom they go to church with. They’re assigned to congregations based on geographic boundaries that are often gerrymandered to promote socioeconomic diversity. And because the Church is run almost entirely by volunteers, and every member is given a job, they have to work together closely. Patrick Mason, a historian of religion, calls this “the sociological genius of Mormonism”—in a society of echo chambers and bowling alone, he says, the Church has doubled down on an old-fashioned communitarianism.

… at church, my most meaningful relationships were with people who resided well outside my bubble—middle-aged mail carriers and Caribbean immigrants; white-haired retirees and single parents navigating the city’s morass of social services.

Those who don’t know Mormonism well often assume that they have standard Republican views. But Mormonism has a strong belief in redistribution and people’s need for help from others, but redistribution and help from others by the Church (acting either as individuals or institutionally) rather than by the state:

Though Utah is very conservative, its residents generally don’t romanticize rugged individualism or Darwinian hyper-capitalism. It has the lowest income inequality in the country, and ranks near the top for upward mobility. The relative lack of racial diversity no doubt helps skew these metrics—structural racism doesn’t take the same toll in a state that is 78 percent white. But economists say the tightly networked faith communities have provided a crucial extra layer to the social safety net.

For Mormons, there is a distinct set of religious ideals that can win out over political partisanship. McKay has two passages about Mormonism and Trumpism. The facts alone are fascinating, even if you disagree with McKay’s interpretation:

In the past few years, Mormons have become a subject of fascination for their surprising resistance to Trumpism. Unlike most of the religious right, they were decidedly unenthusiastic about Donald Trump. From 2008 to 2016, the Republican vote share declined among Latter-day Saints more than any other religious group in the country. And though Trump won back some of those defectors in 2020, he continued to underperform. Joe Biden did better in Utah than any Democrat since 1964, and Mormon women likely played a role in turning Arizona blue.

Scholars have offered an array of theories to explain this phenomenon: that Mormon communities are models of connectedness and trust, that the Church’s unusual structure promotes consensus-building over culture war, that the faith’s early persecution has made its adherents less receptive to nativist appeals.


… conservative Mormons were among the GOP voters most resistant to Trump’s rise in 2016. He finished dead last in Utah’s Republican primary, and consistently underperformed in Mormon-heavy districts across the Mountain West. When the Access Hollywood tape leaked, the Church-owned Deseret News called on Trump to drop out. On Election Day, he received just over half of the Mormon vote, whereas other recent Republican nominees had gotten closer to 80 percent.

Trump did better in 2020, owing partly to the lack of a conservative third-party candidate like Evan McMullin. (Full postelection data weren’t available as of this writing.) But the Trump era has left many Mormons—once the most reliable Republican voters in the country—feeling politically homeless. They’ve begun to identify as moderate in growing numbers, and the polling analyst Nate Silver has predicted that Utah could soon become a swing state. In June, a survey found that just 22 percent of BYU students and recent alumni were planning to vote for Trump.

Robert P. Jones, the head of the Public Religion Research Institute, says this Mormon ambivalence is notable when compared with white evangelicals’ loyalty to Trump. “History and culture matter a lot,” Jones told me. “Partisanship today is such a strong gravitational pull. I think what we’re seeing with Mormons is that there’s something else pulling on them too.”

An extreme case of a Mormon Republican resisting Trumpism is my distant cousin Mitt Romney voting to convict Donald Trump. Here, some of what I see as the “Stoic” virtues of Mormonism came into play:

After Romney voted to remove Trump from office—standing alone among Republican senators—he told me his life in the Church had steeled him for this lonely political moment, in which neither the right nor the left is ever happy with him for long. “One of the advantages of growing up in my faith outside of Utah is that you are different in ways that are important to you,” he said. In high school, he was the only Mormon on campus; during his stint at Stanford, he would go to bars with his friends and drink soda. Small moments like those pile up over a lifetime, he told me, so that when a true test of conscience arrives, “you’re not in a position where you don’t know how to stand for something that’s hard.”

I have half-joked or quarter-joked often in my blog about “save-the-world” projects. (And I posted my Unitarian-Universalist sermon “So You Want to Save the World.”) I got this combination of grandiosity, desire to make a—and belief that it is possible to make a difference—partly from my Mormon background (and from my high-status within Mormonism as a male and a grandchild of the 1973-1985 head of the Mormon Church, Spencer W. Kimball).

In the political realm, the idea that Mormons can make a difference is encapsulated in a powerful Mormon legend McKay lays out:

There is a story about Joseph Smith that has circulated among Mormons for generations. In 1843, a year before his death, he was meeting with a group of Church elders in Nauvoo when he began to prophesy. The day would come, Smith predicted, when the United States would be on the brink of collapse—its Constitution “hanging by a thread”—only to be saved by a “white horse” from God’s true Church.

Historians and Church leaders have long dismissed the story as apocryphal … But the notion has lingered for a reason. It appeals to the Mormons’ faith in America—and to their conviction that they have a role to play in its preservation.

Interestingly, Mormon efforts to make a political difference are showing up in a certain level of resistance to Trumpism. (For example, “Mormon Women for Ethical Government” arose in reaction to the election that made Donald Trump president.

It should be obvious that I find a lot to admire in Mormonism. And just as obviously, I found many things to object to in Mormonism, otherwise I wouldn’t have left the Church of my ancestors. Many Mormons and many who oppose Mormonism assume Mormonism is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Not so. Like most complex objects, it is quite possible to learn from and emulate the good parts and reject the bad.

Biological Evolution Right Before Our Eyes

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I get annoyed often these days reading or hearing people express their devotion to science but treating science as if it were an authoritarian enterprise. Saying one should believe in the scientists as if they were some kind of high priests is contrary to the spirit of science. The spirit of science is pointing to the evidence.

Now, of course it is not always possible to double-check and personally understand everything that scientists have done, so some degree of trust in scientists is a practical necessity, but the spirit of science is to go as far in that direction as is at all reasonable. For biological evolution, there is a lot that can be done toward citing evidence that can be understood by most people—including by people who want to disbelieve in biological evolution. Cal Flyn’s June 3, 2021 Wall Street Journal article “When Pollution Drives Evolution” is a great help in that regard. No longer are light and dark colored moths the best examples of evolution in modern times.

Let me quote some highlights from Cal Flyn’s article, with passages separated by added bullets:

  • Since the late 18th century, the heavy industry that lines New Jersey’s Newark Bay has belched a thousand insidious contaminants into the waterway. Tanneries used sulfuric acid to strip hides, arsenic to preserve them and chromium to tan them. Hat makers used mercury nitrates to turn fur into felt. Later, factories produced polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), highly toxic oils and waxes once used as coolants and insulators, as well as the phenoxy herbicides known as Agent Orange and their noxious byproduct dioxin—one of the most toxic substances known.

    In humans, these pollutants can cause every kind of cancer. In fish, PCBs alone are known to cause devastating deformities and developmental issues, including impaired fertility.

  • In 2016, a team of scientists at the University of California, Davis, genetically sequenced killifish from four contaminated harbors, including Newark Bay, and compared the genomes to those from uncontaminated sites. The pollution-tolerant populations had each evolved similar adaptations that rendered them up to 8,000 times more resistant to industrial pollutants, allowing them to live in water that would normally kill them.

    This was evolution at a stunningly fast pace, given that the most harmful toxins were released in the 1950s and 1960s. And the killifish is not the only species to have managed this feat. The Atlantic tomcod in the nearby Hackensack River, for example, has also evolved a gene that makes it immune to the effects of PCBs.

  • … tawny owls in Finland are now changing their colors. Tawny owls come in two colorations, dark brown and pale gray. Records suggest that the proportion of dark owls is increasing, which researchers have linked to declines in snow cover.

  • Overfishing and overhunting have driven the evolution of smaller fish, which are better at slipping through nets, and tuskless elephants, since tusked species are more often killed for their ivory. In one South African national park, 98% of female elephants are now born tuskless. And that’s not to mention our ongoing arms races with pesticide-resistant insects, drug-resistant viruses and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

There is no doubt that some disbelievers in evolution will remain unconvinced by even these examples, but I’ll bet that some will be convinced. And the mind and character of the one arguing for evolution is greatly enriched by making arguments based on facts such as these, rather than making an argument from authority.

On freedom of speech as opposed to authoritarian approaches to thought control, see:

Fasting as a Reboot

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In wartime, during heavy fighting, when replacement parts are hard to come by, soldiers often given up on some of the vehicles, and strip those vehicles for parts to use in repairing other vehicles. This is called “cannibalizing” those vehicles whose parts are stripped.

Similarly, when the body finds nutrients scarcer because you are fasting (for example, not eating anything, but only drinking water), it gives up on certain molecules and even whole cells and cannibalizes them for spare parts. Then when you are eating again and nutrients look more abundant to your body, new molecules and even whole cells are constructed. Because the body is judicious in which molecules and cells it cannibalizes, fasting fosters a type of quality control for the body. The new molecules and cells are generally of higher quality than the ones that have been cannibalized. Thus, fasting, followed by eating again results in a type of renewal, or a “reboot,” to use a computer metaphor.

One of the easiest places to see the reboot in action is by looking at the white blood cells. The blog post “Study Finds Fasting For 72 Hours Can Regenerate The Entire Immune System” by Elizabeth DeVille reports on some research confirming the reboot for white blood cells.

Another, quite distinct way in which fasting is a reboot is that it seems to reset the production of hormones such as insulin and ghrelin. Evolutionarily, it didn’t make sense for your body to distract you with debilitating hunger when no food was available, and our ancestors faced plenty of periods of time with no food available. Our ancestors didn’t face “dieting” in the sense of eating reduced quantities of “modern” foods that have only existed relatively recently. In other words, our bodies are well-designed for periods of no food, but not well-designed for modern foods. Periods of no food that our body is well-designed for can help our body get its bearings.

So-called “paleo” diets focus on what kinds of foods were available long ago. But the temporal pattern of eating long ago—including substantial periods of no food—and the rarity of some foods that were available—for example, honey in only small amounts and that quite seldom—are also very important to pay attention to. Paleo diets have some useful ideas, but they are also missing some other key ideas.

On trying get insulin levels into a good range, see “Obesity Is Always and Everywhere an Insulin Phenomenon.”

On ghrelin, let me quote from the blog post “7 Benefits of Fasting and the Best Types to Try for Better Health” by Kissairis Munoz:

5. Fasting can normalize ghrelin levels.

What is ghrelin? It is actually also known as the hunger hormone, because it is responsible for telling your body that it is hungry. Dieting and really restrictive eating can actually increase ghrelin production, which will leave you feeling hungrier. But when you fast, though you might struggle in the first few days, you’re actually normalizing ghrelin levels.

In other words, fasting won’t be as hard as you think; it can be much easier than dieting in the sense of just trying to eat less of what you usually eat. (Eating low-insulin-index foods is the key to making eating less easier and to making the first day or two of fasting easier. See “Forget Calorie Counting; It's the Insulin Index, Stupid.”)

Before getting serious about fasting, there are important things for you to know. I have links to my diet and health posts organized in “Miles Kimball on Diet and Health: A Reader's Guide.” Within that bibliographic post, I have a section of links to posts particularly on fasting. Here are those links copy-pasted:

The Federalist Papers #33: The 'Necessary and Proper' and Supremacy Clauses Only Make Explicit What the Specified Powers Imply—Alexander Hamilton

image sourceLink to the full text of the Federalist Papers #33

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Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #33

For economic growth, the difficult political problem is to get a government powerful enough to keep private parties, subsidiary governments or foreign governments from the injustice of stealing, cheating and threatening violence, without empowering and licensing the government to unjustly steal, cheat and threaten violence from its own people. The same political problem arises for generating other blessing of society.

Americans on both sides of the debate about the Constitution had this problem on their minds. Those in favor of the proposed Constitution were more concerned about getting a federal government powerful enough to keep foreign governments, subsidiary governments and private parties from stealing, cheating or threatening violence, while those against the proposed Constitution were more concerned about keeping the federal government from overreaching and doing serious wrong.

In the Federalist Papers #33, Alexander Hamilton addresses the design problem of how the federal government should be constrained and how it should be empowered. He argues that it should be constrained by being subject to elections and by having a limited set of enumerated powers and empowered by being given all authority logically necessary to have those enumerated powers.

On being subject to elections:

If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.

On having a limited set of enumerated powers:

The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded. Suppose, by some forced constructions of its authority (which, indeed, cannot easily be imagined), the Federal legislature should attempt to vary the law of descent in any State, would it not be evident that, in making such an attempt, it had exceeded its jurisdiction, and infringed upon that of the State? Suppose, again, that upon the pretense of an interference with its revenues, it should undertake to abrogate a landtax imposed by the authority of a State; would it not be equally evident that this was an invasion of that concurrent jurisdiction.

On being given all authority logically necessary for those enumerated powers (different passages separated by added bullets):

  • … the constitutional operation of the intended government would be precisely the same, if these clauses were entirely obliterated, as if they were repeated in every article. They are only declaratory of a truth which would have resulted by necessary and unavoidable implication from the very act of constituting a federal government, and vesting it with certain specified powers.

  • What is a power, but the ability or faculty of doing a thing? What is the ability to do a thing, but the power of employing the MEANS necessary to its execution?

  • If there is any thing exceptionable, it must be sought for in the specific powers upon which this general declaration is predicated. The declaration itself, though it may be chargeable with tautology or redundancy, is at least perfectly harmless.

  • The Convention probably foresaw, what it has been a principal aim of these papers to inculcate, that the danger which most threatens our political welfare is that the State governments will finally sap the foundations of the Union; and might therefore think it necessary, in so cardinal a point, to leave nothing to construction. Whatever may have been the inducement to it, the wisdom of the precaution is evident from the cry which has been raised against it; …

  • But it is said that the laws of the Union are to be the SUPREME LAW of the land. But what inference can be drawn from this, or what would they amount to, if they were not to be supreme? It is evident they would amount to nothing. A LAW, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe.

  • It would otherwise be a mere treaty, dependent on the good faith of the parties, and not a goverment, which is only another word for POLITICAL POWER AND SUPREMACY.

  • But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such.

  • … it EXPRESSLY confines this supremacy to laws made PURSUANT TO THE CONSTITUTION; which I mention merely as an instance of caution in the convention; …

However well-designed a constitution, it will always be difficult to maintain in practice the middle course between a government too weak to rein in injustice and a government so unbridled itself that it commits great injustice. But enumerated powers along with whatever is logically necessary to those powers is a dimension of the design of the US Constitution that gives us a fighting chance, if we honor that principle.

As I write this, I am very conscious that the enumerated powers need to be interpreted in the light of changes in human affairs. The example I have in mind is monetary policy. Here, the Constitution clearly gives the US Federal Government authority over monetary policy as monetary policy was understood in 1787. But our understanding of monetary policy has advanced greatly since 1787. I am glad the US Constitution has been interpreted by the Supreme Court as allowing the US Federal Government to conduct monetary policy as it does today, even though that is not the only possible interpretation of the relevant parts of the Constitution.

As two other examples, I think the power of the federal government under the 14th amendment to protect citizens against infringement by state and local governments against those rights granted in the Bill of Rights has been underinterpreted, while the power of the federal government under the interstate commerce clause has been overinterpreted. (However, federal checks on zoning laws would clearly be within the power of the interstate commerce clause. Zoning laws have a huge effect on interstate migration and on the national economy. Also, the civil rights enforcement powers of the federal government under the 14th amendment also give the federal government power to put checks on zoning laws.) It is hard to avoid the need for interpretation, but interpretations can be of better or worse quality.

In any case, I think we will be better off if we don’t lapse into ignoring the principle of a finite set of enumerated powers of the federal government.

Below is the full text of the Federalist Papers #33, so you can see all of Alexander Hamilton’s arguments in context.

FEDERALIST NO. 33

The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation

From the Daily Advertiser
Thursday, January 3, 1788

Author: Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York:

THE residue of the argument against the provisions of the Constitution in respect to taxation is ingrafted upon the following clause. The last clause of the eighth section of the first article of the plan under consideration authorizes the national legislature "to make all laws which shall be NECESSARY and PROPER for carrying into execution THE POWERS by that Constitution vested in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof"; and the second clause of the sixth article declares, "that the Constitution and the laws of the United States made IN PURSUANCE THEREOF, and the treaties made by their authority shall be the SUPREME LAW of the land, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

These two clauses have been the source of much virulent invective and petulant declamation against the proposed Constitution. They have been held up to the people in all the exaggerated colors of misrepresentation as the pernicious engines by which their local governments were to be destroyed and their liberties exterminated; as the hideous monster whose devouring jaws would spare neither sex nor age, nor high nor low, nor sacred nor profane; and yet, strange as it may appear, after all this clamor, to those who may not have happened to contemplate them in the same light, it may be affirmed with perfect confidence that the constitutional operation of the intended government would be precisely the same, if these clauses were entirely obliterated, as if they were repeated in every article. They are only declaratory of a truth which would have resulted by necessary and unavoidable implication from the very act of constituting a federal government, and vesting it with certain specified powers. This is so clear a proposition, that moderation itself can scarcely listen to the railings which have been so copiously vented against this part of the plan, without emotions that disturb its equanimity.

What is a power, but the ability or faculty of doing a thing? What is the ability to do a thing, but the power of employing the MEANS necessary to its execution? What is a LEGISLATIVE power, but a power of making LAWS? What are the MEANS to execute a LEGISLATIVE power but LAWS? What is the power of laying and collecting taxes, but a LEGISLATIVE POWER, or a power of MAKING LAWS, to lay and collect taxes? What are the propermeans of executing such a power, but NECESSARY and PROPER laws?

This simple train of inquiry furnishes us at once with a test by which to judge of the true nature of the clause complained of. It conducts us to this palpable truth, that a power to lay and collect taxes must be a power to pass all laws NECESSARY and PROPER for the execution of that power; and what does the unfortunate and culumniated provision in question do more than declare the same truth, to wit, that the national legislature, to whom the power of laying and collecting taxes had been previously given, might, in the execution of that power, pass all laws NECESSARY and PROPER to carry it into effect? I have applied these observations thus particularly to the power of taxation, because it is the immediate subject under consideration, and because it is the most important of the authorities proposed to be conferred upon the Union. But the same process will lead to the same result, in relation to all other powers declared in the Constitution. And it is EXPRESSLY to execute these powers that the sweeping clause, as it has been affectedly called, authorizes the national legislature to pass all NECESSARY and PROPER laws. If there is any thing exceptionable, it must be sought for in the specific powers upon which this general declaration is predicated. The declaration itself, though it may be chargeable with tautology or redundancy, is at least perfectly harmless.

But SUSPICION may ask, Why then was it introduced? The answer is, that it could only have been done for greater caution, and to guard against all cavilling refinements in those who might hereafter feel a disposition to curtail and evade the legitimate authorities of the Union. The Convention probably foresaw, what it has been a principal aim of these papers to inculcate, that the danger which most threatens our political welfare is that the State governments will finally sap the foundations of the Union; and might therefore think it necessary, in so cardinal a point, to leave nothing to construction. Whatever may have been the inducement to it, the wisdom of the precaution is evident from the cry which has been raised against it; as that very cry betrays a disposition to question the great and essential truth which it is manifestly the object of that provision to declare.

But it may be again asked, Who is to judge of the NECESSITY and PROPRIETY of the laws to be passed for executing the powers of the Union? I answer, first, that this question arises as well and as fully upon the simple grant of those powers as upon the declaratory clause; and I answer, in the second place, that the national government, like every other, must judge, in the first instance, of the proper exercise of its powers, and its constituents in the last. If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify. The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded. Suppose, by some forced constructions of its authority (which, indeed, cannot easily be imagined), the Federal legislature should attempt to vary the law of descent in any State, would it not be evident that, in making such an attempt, it had exceeded its jurisdiction, and infringed upon that of the State? Suppose, again, that upon the pretense of an interference with its revenues, it should undertake to abrogate a landtax imposed by the authority of a State; would it not be equally evident that this was an invasion of that concurrent jurisdiction in respect to this species of tax, which its Constitution plainly supposes to exist in the State governments? If there ever should be a doubt on this head, the credit of it will be entirely due to those reasoners who, in the imprudent zeal of their animosity to the plan of the convention, have labored to envelop it in a cloud calculated to obscure the plainest and simplest truths.

But it is said that the laws of the Union are to be the SUPREME LAW of the land. But what inference can be drawn from this, or what would they amount to, if they were not to be supreme? It is evident they would amount to nothing. A LAW, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe. This results from every political association. If individuals enter into a state of society, the laws of that society must be the supreme regulator of their conduct. If a number of political societies enter into a larger political society, the laws which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers intrusted to it by its constitution, must necessarily be supreme over those societies, and the individuals of whom they are composed. It would otherwise be a mere treaty, dependent on the good faith of the parties, and not a goverment, which is only another word for POLITICAL POWER AND SUPREMACY. But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such. Hence we perceive that the clause which declares the supremacy of the laws of the Union, like the one we have just before considered, only declares a truth, which flows immediately and necessarily from the institution of a federal government. It will not, I presume, have escaped observation, that it EXPRESSLY confines this supremacy to laws made PURSUANT TO THE CONSTITUTION; which I mention merely as an instance of caution in the convention; since that limitation would have been to be understood, though it had not been expressed.

Though a law, therefore, laying a tax for the use of the United States would be supreme in its nature, and could not legally be opposed or controlled, yet a law for abrogating or preventing the collection of a tax laid by the authority of the State, (unless upon imports and exports), would not be the supreme law of the land, but a usurpation of power not granted by the Constitution. As far as an improper accumulation of taxes on the same object might tend to render the collection difficult or precarious, this would be a mutual inconvenience, not arising from a superiority or defect of power on either side, but from an injudicious exercise of power by one or the other, in a manner equally disadvantageous to both. It is to be hoped and presumed, however, that mutual interest would dictate a concert in this respect which would avoid any material inconvenience. The inference from the whole is, that the individual States would, under the proposed Constitution, retain an independent and uncontrollable authority to raise revenue to any extent of which they may stand in need, by every kind of taxation, except duties on imports and exports. It will be shown in the next paper that this CONCURRENT JURISDICTION in the article of taxation was the only admissible substitute for an entire subordination, in respect to this branch of power, of the State authority to that of the Union.

PUBLIUS.

Links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far:

Making Cities Better: James Hagerty and Samantha Pearson on Jaime Lerner

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Jaime Lerner, the former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, died May 27, 2021. He was one of the most innovative mayors in the world, with practical “get the job done cheaply and practically” and “fail faster” philosophy (all quotations in this post are from the Wall Street Journal obituary “Brazilian Mayor Became a Global Guru of Urban Planning,” by James Hagerty and Samantha Pearson, with bullets added to separate passages):

  • “Imagine the ideal … but do what is possible today. Solutions for 20 or 30 years ahead are pointless because by then the problems will probably be different.”

  • Rather than spending years to formulate elaborate plans, he said, mayors should start making changes right away. “Citizens will teach you if you’re not on the right track,” he said.

In line with the “get the job done cheaply, practically, and quickly” Jaime went for buses, getting residents to do some of the work of garbage collection, and quirky rather than magnificent buildings:

  • Mr. Lerner, an architect, decided there was no reason a subway had to be underground. He built a network of dedicated bus lanes with plastic tubular stations, resembling subway platforms, where people paid in advance to speed boarding.

  • Sending garbage trucks into slums was difficult and expensive. Mr. Lerner found it was cheaper to persuade the poor to deliver their rubbish to collection points in exchange for vegetables.

  • … “urban acupuncture,” a quirky building or street feature that lures visitors and revitalizes a neighborhood. One example is Curitiba’s Wire Opera House, made of steel tubes.

Jaime was willing to force through a pedestrian mall in a winning bet that people would like them:

  • When he first became mayor in the early 1970s, downtown retailers had blocked proposals for a pedestrian mall. Mr. Lerner decided to plow ahead without awaiting a consensus. His director of public works estimated it would take four months to transform six blocks of a central street into a pedestrian zone. The mayor responded that he wanted the job done in 48 hours. “We did it in 72 hours,” he said later.

    Once retailers saw the results, Mr. Lerner said, they encouraged him to expand the pedestrian zone.

Finally Jaime respected the poor and existing good things:

  • Curitiba sought to preserve natural features and neighborhoods, while encouraging low-income people to build their own homes by giving them technical advice and discounts on land.

There were a lot of good ideas in this obituary. Stories of Jaime Lerner are good for anyone who cares about cities to hear.

For related posts, see “Why Housing is So Expensive” and the posts it flags at the bottom