What’s Wrong with the World

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What's this?

What's this?

I hope you don't mind, Steve; I fixed the image tag.

And it is an excellent point: the larger and more expensive the federal government (or the government operating at any particular level) is, the more it is going to ultimately be controlled by those who actually pay for it as a class -- even when their paying for it is not optional on an individual level. Control can be distanced to some extent from who pays, but not infinitely and not forever.

Zippy - many thanks. I couldn't figure out how to do that.

And yes. I fear that we've reached a point where citizen control over the federal government is simply a pipe-dream.

And it is an excellent point...

I don't find it to be so patently "excellent." If the government is smaller, assuming that each and every member of the government will still have his price (human nature will survive the purge), it will only result in the rich having fewer individuals to bribe. How does that work for the common good?
And, unless "democracy" (such as it is) is done away with completely, how do you propose to shrink the government without taking away from the voters who aren't rich their ability to nominate and elect politicians who promise to give them all those "goodies" that you want to see eliminated? You seem to assume that the majority of Americans hold your views. I don't find that to have been demonstrated. Nor do I believe that it is demonstrable.
It would seem that what you want is government by a small team of managers, rather than government by an expansive(and expensive) bureaucracy with a large team of managers.
Call it what it would be, then.

How does that work for the common good?

I don't understand what I called an excellent point as a point about what ought to be done for the common good. I understand it as a factual point about how things work, whether anyone wants them to work that way or not: that there is only so much that can be done to distance funding from control, that he who pays for it will naturally have (as a class) disproportionate influence over it (whatever "it" may be), and therefore the larger and more progressively funded the federal government happens to be the more it will be controlled by the rich.

I think that is true. When we make policy, we don't say "well, if the Rocky Mountains were on the east coast then that would be better, so lets make policy based on the presumption that they are." I see Steve's main point as a fact which must be taken into account, not a moral evaluation.

that there is only so much that can be done to distance funding from control

Zippy--
That's fine. No argument there. But isn't the thrust of the argument being made here that the rich have every reason to complain about the percentage of the tax revenue that they are required to pay? And isn't the conclusion emerging from that complaint, that, for the rich, smaller government would be better? They would still have control, but they'd be able to keep more of the gelt. Meanwhile, in terms of the perceived "common good," smaller government would mean fewer services. Unless it is demonstrable that lower the tax rate on the super-rich would somehow eliminate poverty, and thus the need for those services, I think we have a problem here, in terms of "democracy."
Nobody forced the super-rich to become super-rich. If the incentive for them to become super-rick is removed by confiscatory taxation, I have no problem with that: tough nuggies. I'm not buying the Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged premise. If the super-rich are going to out-source the jobs, in order to enhance their already obscene level of wealth (in careless disregard for the message of the Gospels regarding prioritizing wealth, btw), I'd say tax them down to their knees.
Name that tune.

And isn't the conclusion emerging from that complaint, that, for the rich, smaller government would be better?

Yes, and the poor also. If we take the bare fact and look at its extrapolations, it seems to mean that smaller government is better for everyone. You seem to be operating on a different assessment of how things factually work than I am. A smaller government, funded more proportionately by the poor and middle class, will also inter alia be more controlled by the poor and middle class. Thus it will be better at protecting their interests as citizens. Smaller government represents an improvement for everyone, on this extrapolation.

Whether the extrapolation follows or not is perhaps more arguable than the initial premise. But the initial premise remains very sound, it seems to me: as the size and scale of government increases, and/or its funding becomes more progressive, it will become less representative of the express interests of the poor and more representative of the express interests of the rich. Said very differently (yet still I think the same point), the dependence of the plight of the poor on the good will of the rich cannot be eliminated by rules, economic and tax structures, etc.

I'd say tax them down to their knees. Name that tune.

The title of the song seems to be "Put A Shotgun In Your Mouth". Or at least "Frustrated Incorporated".

"They paid for it. It's theirs. Why would they, alone, of all people in all history, forego their individual interests in favor of some sort of common interest?"

Same as it ever was.

“When I run over in my mind the various commonwealths flourishing today, so help me God, I can see nothing in them but a conspiracy of the rich, who are fattening up their own interests under the name and title of commonwealth. They invent ways and means to hang onto whatever they have acquired by sharp practice, and then they scheme to oppress the poor by buying up their toil and labor as cheaply as possible. These devices become law as soon as the rich, speaking through the commonwealth--which, of course, includes the poor as well--say they must be observed.”
St. Thomas More

A smaller government, funded more proportionately by the poor and middle class, will also inter alia be more controlled by the poor and middle class.

What nonsense. That might plausibly be the case, if it were not for the fact that the true weight of the influence on legislators is not determined by the percentage of taxes paid, as those taxes are reflected in governmental budgets, but rather on the amount of influence over those legislators which can be purchased through legalized bribery (in addition to extra-legal graft that goes on).
First speak to me of publicly-funded elections, for instance, if you want me to begin to credit your case.

...the true weight of the influence on legislators is not determined by the percentage of taxes paid, as those taxes are reflected in governmental budgets, but rather on the amount of influence over those legislators which can be purchased through legalized bribery...

Oh, it is far worse than you think. The taxes reflected in governmental budgets are the oxygen, the food supply which makes things run. Steve's point is that when you (in this case the rich as a class) supply all the food and oxygen, you control the organism. He's right.

That the supplying is (weakly) obligatory doesn't really alter things much: parents' obligation to supply food and oxygen to their children is stronger still, and yet control comes with that obligation despite its even more stringently obligatory nature. (I say more stringently because the rich don't have to invest their money to generate more income to be taxed, whereas parents have an obligation to feed their children or die trying).

(I say more stringently because the rich don't have to invest their money to generate more income to be taxed, whereas parents have an obligation to feed their children or die trying).

That is the thesis of Atlas Shrugged in a nutshell.

The problem is that the rich have selected and paid for the legislators--and thus incurred their indebtedness and future compliance--prior to any of them being voted into office. If they are Republicans, they can control their impecunious base with empty promises and rabble-rousing alone. But, if they are Democrats, they need to be able to deliver services to get the needed votes. Which requires taxation, which is why the rich prefer the GOP.

I understand it as a factual point about how things work, whether anyone wants them to work that way or not

"The world is everything that is the case", eh?: Positivism? Determinism? Amor fati? I am more of a Platonic Idealist than to just accept that. How could something like Chestertonian Distrubutionism take place in the Real World? Without a doubt, it would take a conversion of men's hearts away from property rights, in the direction of charity and the Common Good. The only reason to generate great wealth would be for the purpose and privilege of using it--using most of it--for the relief of the needy. The ability to do so would be universally recognized as its own reward.

That is the thesis of Atlas Shrugged in a nutshell.

Uh, no. I think Rand was about as deep and insightful as a bag of hammers. That doesn't imply that a proposition is false simply because Rand once said something somewhat like it.

Positivism? Determinism?

Uh, no. Believing that there are certain real things about the world which we cannot bend to our will no matter how much we stamp our tiny little feet is not positivism or determinism.

Once such a configuration of political and economic forces becomes entrenched, it would seem to be almost entirely self-perpetuating, absent some external shock to the system; an expansive governmental apparatus will be funded predominantly by the wealthiest segment of the population, which is to say, a small minority of a minority, and so will govern, for the greater part, in the interests of that minority. Democratic efforts to loosen the connections between economic privilege and political power will almost always be parried, even when they appear to have succeeded legislatively.

The interesting question, as far as I am concerned, involves what happens when this system experiences a true legitimation crisis: when the masses, formally enfranchised but substantively excluded from the formulation of policy and the deliberative acts of governance, recognize the intractability of their status quo. Or, more precisely, what would happen in the United States, given that what happens in a country such as Mexico is already well-known to us: they vote with their feet and emigrate.

In any event, it would appear that there is a correlation, albeit not the tightest of all possible correlations, between a somewhat-more-equitable distribution of property, the size and scope of government, and the quality and degree of representation afforded by the political architecture of a nation. Again, however, once these things become imbalanced, they seem to engender catch-22s, such that the system itself has pre-established responses to any efforts to dislodge it. In this light, perhaps the more demotic aspects of the welfare state ought to be interpreted, in metapolitics, as the means whereby a ruling politico-economic caste purchases the quiescence of the masses, who might otherwise threaten to destabilize the social order itself, seeking by force the redress they cannot acquire by petition. I'm hardly the first to asseverate such a notion.

...what happens when this system experiences a true legitimation crisis: when the masses, formally enfranchised but substantively excluded from the formulation of policy and the deliberative acts of governance, recognize the intractability of their status quo...

Possibly something like this?

Uh, no.

Uh, no.

Well, that certainly puts me in my place, Lord Hammerbag!

the means whereby a ruling politico-economic caste purchases the quiescence of the masses

Perhaps. I think, however, that it is the case (ahem!) that life on the dole remains so very dreary that an angry reaction to it slowly builds up, like pressure along a fault line, and eventually results in riots and chaos. The way to permanent quiescence of the masses must include the ability of the masses to have some pride in their role in society and some self-respect for their daily existence. It is a myth that people will choose welfare over work, where decent work resulting in a decent standard of living is available to them.
The obverse of that coin, however, is that the work people do must earn them the respect of those people on behalf of whom the work is performed. Respect for unskilled, or low-skilled, labor does not exist. A person might as well be on welfare as clean motel rooms or bus tables, for the amount of respect the person gets; and this regardless of how well they do their jobs and how reliable they are at showing up on time to do them. It is a mystery to me why we are not all murdered in our beds.

Well, yes. I'm hoping to avoid unpleasantnesses of that nature, which will come, not necessarily with blood and fire, but quite possibly the both of them, possibly at the hands of the very people with whom the wealthiest now ally themselves: Latin Americans fleeing their native plutocracies. Americans seem altogether passive; but what of Latin Americans who, having fled countries in which they had nothing to look forward to, personally, but a lifetime of the shaft, emigrated to America? What will they do once they recognize that America offers them a more, well, elaborate version of the same shaft?

If I'm right, and what this comes down to is that the plight of the poor necessarily always depends not so much on formal structures of taxation and such but on the good will of the wealthy as a class, then there seems to be two proximate implications:

(1) The cult of radical individualism has to be stamped out, in order that the wealthy might have the capacity to perceive themselves as an aristocratic class capable of having a good will as an aristocratic class; and

(2) That corporate aristocratic good will has to be somehow cultivated.

I doubt that this is good news to reductionists who want a policy option which can fix things by passing and enforcing appropriate legislation, or to those so used to suckling at the teat of envy that they would rather see the wealthy put in their place than actually accomplish something constructive. I make no proposals, at this point, as to how those things might be accomplished; but a revival of the institutional Christian religion in all its glory and moral authority comes to mind.

Rodak, I realize you are rather embittered by the present state of affairs in their country, and I do not fault you for it; but, really, you have to back off on your dramatic hyperbole.

"Respect for unskilled, or low-skilled, labor does not exists." Horseapples. There are still millions upon millions of people in this country who raise their children in the belief that no honest work is dishonorable. I admit that this glory of American civilization is rapidly being attenuated, not least under pressure from the social effects of mass immigration, but it hardly is annihilated.

"How could something like Chestertonian Distributism take place in the Real World? Without a doubt, it would take a conversion of men's hearts away from property rights, in the direction of charity and the Common Good."

Um, no. Distributism is emphatically about property rights. The very last thing Chesterton want to convert people away from is private property. He wanted to convert them to it.

"A person might as well be on welfare as clean motel rooms or bus tables, for the amount of respect the person gets; ... It is a mystery to me why we are not all murdered in our beds."

Yes, because the first thing that comes to my mind if I sense disrepect is . . . murdering men in their sleep?

Come on, man. It ain't that bad yet.

Um, no. Distributism is emphatically about property rights. The very last thing Chesterton want to convert people away from is private property. He wanted to convert them to it.

Duh. But, in the present state of affairs, there would need to be found a way to re-distribute, some of the property already being held by individuals, or corporations, into the hands of those without property. This would involve a re-thinking of what is meant by "property rights" on the part of the propertied. It's pretty hard to convert those without property to a mind-set based on property without allowing them to acquire property.

It ain't that bad yet.

Not here. Not now...

"We are all players in the global market: if we do not compete, we will perish." The market is where we are, where we find ourselves. How we got to be here we may not ask. It is like being born into a world we have no hand in choosing, to parents unknown. We are here, that is all. Now it is our fate to compete.
...But surely God did not make the market -- God or the Spirit of History. And if we human beings made it, can we not unmake it and remake it in a kindlier form? Why does the world have to be a kill-or-be-killed gladitorial amphitheater rather than, say, a busily collaborative beehive or anthill?
...(Interesting how the march of mercenary individualism drives one into the corner of reactionary idealism.)
~ J.M. Coetzee, Diary of a Bad Year

There are still millions upon millions of people in this country who raise their children in the belief that no honest work is dishonorable.

Unfortunately, even to the extent that such labor is honored rhetorically, down where the rubber hits the road it is radically dishonored by being compensated at rates which do not afford the worker a decent standard of living. Ergo, to one doing such work--and it is essential work--neither make-work, nor optional--it is honored mostly in the breach.

...but a revival of the institutional Christian religion in all its glory and moral authority comes to mind.

A reconversion from paganism to Christianity, in other words.

A reconversion from paganism to Christianity

I would say: a reconversion from cheap grace to Gospel truth.

I make no proposals, at this point, as to how those things might be accomplished; but a revival of the institutional Christian religion in all its glory and moral authority comes to mind.

For a non-proposal, that's a pretty good proposal.

The Peasants' Revolt? But didn't that occur in the late 1300's? I thought the peasants were doing great before Henry VIII?

Okay, I'll stop.

Good story for this thread: Yesterday I got some fish at the local superstore. The fish counter is right next to the meat counter, and they always have one person manning both. They really should have more people for the job, and one often has to wait. A fairly elderly man was weighing some meat when I showed up, for someone not visible. Maybe it was for an order that had been called in. I waited for a few minutes; he kept looking up and smiling. He came over then and said (I swear), "How may I serve you?" I nearly fell over. I don't think anyone has ever said that to me in all my born days. "How can I help you," yes, sometimes, which means about the same thing, technically. But it didn't sound the same at all. That guy radiated good will. I got my two pounds of catfish fillets. It was a very pleasant exchange. We respected each other. I don't know exactly how that spirit can be fostered, but there was a person who didn't resent his situation, and who evidently expected respect from others and intended to give it to them regardless. I hope he gets it.

Some responses to reflections:
(1) The middle class and the rich are going to pay for any sort of federal government, because they are the only ones who can afford it. The numbers themselves dictate that much.

(2) The only way to combat this is to have much stricter lobbying laws or public financing of elections. The worst thing would be to make it more difficult for the poor to vote, which is the only resource they have to leverage against this power scheme.

(3) Because their interest is in keeping a majority of the citizens content enough not to demand an increase in taxes generally or against them specifically.

A response to some responses to reflections;

1) The middle class can afford a government the size of this one? Very, very doubtful at best.
What is clear is that an electoral alliance between the non-taxpaying underclass and the affluent is the force that sustains Leviathan. It is in the interest of the managerial class that both the size and plight of the under-class continue to grow?

2)The role and scope of government regulation provides the great incentive for interest groups of every persuasion to lobby legislators and agencies. Reduce the incentive for graft or for dubious law by cutting the size of governmental interference in the lives of most Americans. Not by outlawing free speech.

3)Huh?

EDIT;
1) The middle class can afford a government the size of this one? Very, very doubtful at best.
What is clear is that an electoral alliance between the non-taxpaying underclass and the affluent is the force that sustains Leviathan. It is in the interest of the managerial class that both the size and plight of the under-class continue to grow.

"Reduce the incentive for graft or for dubious law by cutting the size of governmental interference in the lives of most Americans. Not by outlawing free speech."

Amen and amen, Kevin. I'm glad to see someone speaking out against the whiff of "campaign finance reform" coming up here.

Eh. I concur generally with the sentiment that a reduction of governmental interference in ordinary life is to be preferred over curtailments of free speech; but I'm not averse to limitations upon corporate speech. Fictional persons do not deserve the same panoply of rights and privileges as, you know, real persons.

The worst thing would be to make it more difficult for the poor to vote

Like what?

By asking them to show some ID that they show when they rent DVDs?
Horror!

"The worst thing would be to make it more difficult for the poor to vote."

We have already done something far worse than that.
We've rendered their votes meaningless. The electoral process is a cruel charade for millions of people in our inner-cities. By making people so dependent on the State, their votes are perversely used to expand the very dependency that has hollowed out their communities.

1) "The middle class and the rich..."
2) The original reflection Steve posted concerns how to reduce the influence of the rich. If your answer to that problem makes it more difficult for the poor to vote, or does nothing to restrict the buying of politicians, you are increasing the influence of the rich. Which is fine if that is your goal, but own up to it. Further, I have always rejected arguments which suppose that money equals free speech. It is not and cannot be equivalent. Money should be viewed as an amplifier for speech, not its substitute.

1) "The middle class and the rich..."
Two distinctly separated socio-economic groups. What evidence is there that the former can afford the size of our government?

2) "The original reflection Steve posted concerns how to reduce the influence of the rich. If your answer to that problem makes it more difficult for the poor to vote, or does nothing to restrict the buying of politicians, you are increasing the influence of the rich."

I already offered the only real cure; reduce the role of the government and you'll have reduced the influence the rich - who constitute most members of our managerial class - over others. I hope that's clear.

Kevin,

"...reduce the role of the government and you'll have reduced the influence the rich..."

People keep asserting that as if it is obviously true, but I just don't see the connection. It is not as if the role of government regulations increased without any cause. The abuses of corporations resulted in a backlash to reign in their power.

We have been seeing a reversal of that trend, where industries are deregulated to traumatic effect (Savings and Loan scandal, Enron). They are also paying a decreasing amount in taxes.

When all corporations are combined, 60% of US owned corporations paid no federal taxes at all, and 33% more paid less than a 5% tax rate. For foreign corporations, the numbers are 70% and 18%, respectively.

Limiting the data to only large corporations, the numbers fall to 38% of US corporations paying zero tax, but increase to 40% paying less than a 5% tax rate. For foreign corporations, the numbers are 32% and 42%, respectively.

The percentage of companies paying zero taxes was trending upwards over the five year period analyzed, which was a time of economic prosperity. All gain, no pain.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04358.pdf

I hope that's clear.

It's clear that that's what you said. It's far from clear that it makes any sense. Reduce the bureaucracy, which is what you're advocating, and what is left of the government is the professional political class, and the monied elites who bought and paid for them. The people gain from that how?
Step2 is quite correct in proposing that the people would gain if the people paid for the election campaigns of the politicians with public funds. Men could be elected to office who were beholden to nobody, other than the people who voted them into the job. Then we might see govenment that was just a skosh more reponsive to the will of the people, and less responsive to the demands of the corporate elites.

"Reduce the bureaucracy, which is what you're advocating, and what is left of the government is the professional political class, and the monied elites who bought and paid for them."

What? The bureaucracy is an instrument of the professional political class. How does reducing it
not decrease their power?

And public financing will only solidify the pwer of the entrenched. I'm afraid your proposals only perpetuate that which you want to change.

And public financing will only solidify the pwer of the entrenched.

How so? The way things are now, it is very difficult to defeat an encumbent, because a proven winner finds it easy to continue to obtain funding. With public funding of elections, if the people were displeased by the performance of an incumbent, they could put forward a candidate of their choice (presumably through some kind of petition drive as a qualifier for the public funding) who would have a chance of unseating the encumbent in a primary. Public funding would make term limits unnecessary, and help to ensure legistatures at every level of government that were responsive to the electorate and not to their corporate masters.
Step2 is right about another thing: court rulings aside, money is not speech. Money is access to the means of broadcasting speech, which is why he who has the most money has a huge, and unfair, advantage over his less pecunious rival. That is not a level playing field, and is, therefore, anti-democratic.

The percentage of companies paying zero taxes was trending upwards ...

It is important to understand what this does and doesn't mean though. Corporate profits are first taxed as profits to the corporation. At that point, they are either (1) reinvested in the business (which very often means paying salaries and bonuses, which then get taxed again as personal income) or (2) paid as dividends to shareholders, in which case they get taxed again as income to that shareholder, even though they were already taxed at the corporate level. This is why S-corps or LLC's rather than C-corps are often used for income-producing businesses which do not reinvest much of their profits in business operations: it is a way of having those profits taxed only once rather than twice, as is the usual case with corporate earnings.

This is rather like the "double whammy" of the inheritance tax, where money is taxed as it is earned by the person and then taxed again when he dies.

That isn't to pass judgement on those things: it is merely to point out that discussion of corporate income taxes in isolation is pretty meaningless.

"How so?"

Let me give you just one example. To compete with the media's pro-choice bias (talk about entrenched interests)requires pro-lifers to pay for air-time, mailings and the like. In an election campaign where both candidates were equally financed at taxpayers expense (more power to the State) the pro-lifer would still be operating from a distinct disadvantage when it came to access to the airwaves. Score one for the status quo. Again.

There is also the constitutional argument against your stance. Yes, "money is not speech", but restrict the former and you will have suppressed the latter. After all, if no one hears your message, have you really spoken?

I'm done with this conversation about electoral mechanics, other than to say, a successful insurgency against the utilitarian Collosus that rules from Washington government will require, in addition to prayer, bearing Witness and retaking our cultural institutions; money.

I wish it was otherwise, but it is not.

...if no one hears your message, have you really spoken?

If a man speaks in the forest, and no woman is around to hear, is he still wrong?

where both candidates were equally financed at taxpayers expense (more power to the State)

This is only "more power to the State" where "the State" represents the People, as it should, rather than the Government + corporate power. I am unmoved by that argument.
I am also unmoved by the pro-life example as an argument here. The pro-life position is based on an article of religious faith that should not become an article of statute law in a non-theocratic state. If one believes in ensoulment at conception, then one should not have an abortion. If one does not, abortion under certain, well-defined, circumstances should be an option.
If a pro-choice candidate wants to use the air-time afforded him on anti-abortion speeches, he may do so. By doing so, he will either force his opponent(s) to use their air-time opposing his pro-choice message, or raising their own issues, and ignoring his. Either way, so far as the political campaign is concerned, the playing field is level. There is nothing to prevent privately-funded interest groups from buying media time to promote pro-life, or any other issue, so long as they don't directly promote a candidate in the process. That is where money and free speech have a marriage that is sanctioned by the constitution.

"This is only "more power to the State" where "the State" represents the People,"

Sure.

That is the real divide here. I think the State manipulates the truth, if it indeed even recognizes it, for it's own ends. You are comfortable with the status quo (example:"abortion should be an option.") so it makes sense that you would support a policy like public financing that constricts debate, and empowers the State, while creating the illusion of a "level playing field".

You are comfortable with the status quo

Public financing need not restrict debate. The people control the airwaves and can require the broadcast networks to donate time for "debates," as well as for commercial spots. That should be made part of the obligations entailed by being granted a license to broadcast.
It is not the status quo that I'm satisfied with. I'm completely dissatisfied with the status quo. I thought I'd made that clear? That's why I want to change the way we conduct elections.
Another thing that public financing of elections would make possible is viable third (or fouth and fifth) party candidacies. That would allow for the formation of coalitiions, which would again enhance the power of the electorate.

The thought that tax-payers would have to further subsidize not only candidates from the 2 major parties, but other parties as well makes me nauseous.

Remember, "He who pays the piper calls the tune." Supporting public financing is sleep-walking into an ambush. Can you imagine the fall-out if a publicly financed candidate ran an explicitly Christian campaign? Sorry, if you want a system that truly gives voice to the poor and curbs the power of their cynical overseers, your proposal will have to be abandoned.

"The pro-life position is based on an article of religious faith that should not become an article of statute law in a non-theocratic state. If one believes in ensoulment at conception, then one should not have an abortion. If one does not, abortion under certain, well-defined, circumstances should be an option."

Oh, look, we finally got Rodak's position on ripping babies to pieces in the womb. (He never mentioned it before here that I can recall.) And note that this position makes him not very worried about the possible effects of limiting campaign speech on the pro-life cause, because it's a "religious" position. Well, gee, I guess that tells us a lot about where "public financing of elections" goes, doesn't it? Kevin's concerns seem better-founded all the time.

Lydia--
You have ham-fistedly misrepresented everything that I said above. So be it.

The pro-life position is based on an article of religious faith that should not become an article of statute law in a non-theocratic state. If one believes in ensoulment at conception, then one should not have an abortion. If one does not, abortion under certain, well-defined, circumstances should be an option.

You did type that, didn't you?

The mistake you made is that the pro-life position does not necessarily depend upon a religious belief in ensoulment at conception. For many non-religious pro-lifers they simply recognize the rather well established fact that human life begins at conception. Killing that human life, is, in fact, killing human life. Moreover, from a purely materialistic view, the pro-life position is quite strong - if all a human being consists of is a collection of cells with certain DNA, then the just conceived human being has as much right to the state's protection as one conceived 20 years and 9 months earlier.

This isn't really the place to debate abortion theory. It's totally off-topic.
Let it be noted, however, that I never said that I was personally in favor of abortion on demand. Nor did I say that unconditional abortion on demand should be the law of the land.
What I will say that abortion is either murder, in the legal sense, or it is not. If it is murder, then both the woman who has the abortion and the abortionist should be equally guilty under the law of first-degree murder. If I hire a hit-man to take out my wife, he and I are both guilty of murder. Abortion is no different.
And there should never be an exception for incest or rape.
Also, if a fetus is a person from conception, then a fetus must be a person everywhere, and always. It must not be state's rights issue. Murder is not a state's rights issue.
When the pro-lifers get all of those eggs in one basket and begin to work for the constitutional amendment that it would take to make it all law, I won't oppose it.

Rodak does have a very relevant point. The one thing that keeps the federal government so large is the ability it has gained to make or break industries and more recently, individuals' wealth. If we were to replace two or three of the more moderate/liberal Supreme Court justices with strict constructionists, thereby putting people into place who would have a strong bias to bring down the role of the federal government considerably, a lot of corruption would simply go away because it wouldn't be legally possible. What is the point of bribing a legislator if the Supreme Court is rabidly constitutional, and will slash the bill down within a few months of getting ratified?

The longterm effect of a strict constructionist Supreme Court would be that politicians' powers would be greatly cut back to what our founders intended, thus making the positions less attractive to easily corruptible, self-seekers in the first place.

The longterm effect of a strict constructionist Supreme Court would be that politicians' powers would be greatly cut back to what our founders intended...

MikeT--
Good grief, please don't associate me with that idea!
What the Founders intended was certainly not a body of law dictated by the federal courts. The Congress was to write the laws; the courts were to interpret the laws; and the Executive was to enforce the laws.
The way to get legislators who will properly represent the will of the people--whatever the consensus might be--is to make it all but impossible to bribe those legislators. We would accomplish that by making it unnecessary for them to spend much of their time going around begging for alms in order to fund their election campaigns. Public funding of elections would both eliminate the opportunity for bribery, and allow the legislators considerably more time to spend on doing the work of the people.