The generic slogan of American police forces is, “To protect and serve.” It has long been a slogan that has annoyed me. And I’m not alone. Most liberals bristle at it. In particular, it is never clear just who it is that our police officers serve. When an officer shows up on the scene, he is less likely to help out than an average person. His presence usually fills those involved with a feeling that the officer will find some reason to start arresting people.

For example, suppose a fight breaks out at a party. The police are called. They will arrive long after the fight is over. Those involved in the fight will likely have left. But the officers might notice that illegal drugs are being used at the party. So the people at the party aren’t being protected. The people at the party aren’t being served. Liberals like me have always thought the slogan was nothing more than a sick joke. My friend Jim Hogshire always says, “I can’t imagine a situation in which I would feel safer with a cop around.” When I first heard him say that, I thought he was being hyperbolic. But over the years I’ve come to agree with him completely.

Last week I read a great article by Sam Mitriani at Alternet that greatly clarified my thinking, The True History of the Origins of Police — Protecting and Serving the Masters of Society. The mistake that we liberals make is to assume that the police slogan applies to us. But it doesn’t. The police are committed to protecting and serving the power elite. If they do from time to time manage to protect and serve us plebeians, it is just because the interests of the power elite temporarily overlap with ours. There is nothing more to that.

As Mitriani explained, in the 18th century, there were “elected constables and sheriffs” who were directly responsible to the people. (In the south, ever the shining light of modernity, they had slave patrols.) It wasn’t until after the Civil War that the modern police force came into being. And it certainly wasn’t for the purpose of protecting the masses from marauding gangs intent on raping and pillaging. No, it was to keep the working classes in their place — namely working 12 hours per day, seven days per week for slave wages. The American Dream!

The thing in the article that most struck me, however, was the way that the law was applied. The idea of police neutrally was always a shame:

But that wouldn’t happen today, right? Right?! Of course it would. One of the shocking things that I’ve learned over the years is that the police don’t have a very good idea of what the law actually is. They have this feeling that if they don’t like what you are doing, it must be against the law. And the truth is that local, state, and federal legislatures have really helped them out in this regard. Basically, anything that an officer claims is illegal is illegal.

This is the ultimate authoritarian cudgel: have a lot of laws on the books that are never used — except when you threaten the power elite or their representatives. And this is why I get really angry when people talk about how unions are violent and how they have ties to organized crime. The police have always been the ultimate weapon of the power elite to stop workers from unionizing. And they were very violent — involved in, among other things, the assassination of labor leaders. Yet in the modern imagination, it was the the unions and their representatives who were violent. Somehow workers are just violent by nature and all the good business owners are are lambs who want nothing but a peaceful and equitable settlement.

From the murder of Anna LoPizzo to the Columbine Mine massacre to the murder of Eric Garner — the police have always been around to protect and serve the interests of the power elite. That’s why the phrase “to protect and serve” has no object. Americans wouldn’t be too keen to know who and what the police are paid to protect and serve.

The more I read about King v Burwell, the more it seems clear to be defeated. It is the most recent attempt to destroy Obamacare — this time by disallowing subsidies to people purchasing insurance on federal exchanges. The net result would be to harm middle class people in Republican led states. The idea is apparently to make people so angry at the arbitrary injustice that they would demand the law’s repeal. I’ve always thought it just as likely that the people would be angry at the Republicans who did this, and demand that the state level Republicans stop being so spiteful and take the free money from the federal government.

Aside from that, the case is just bad. It is based upon a single sentence in the 20,000 page healthcare bill. Consider an analogy. Suppose I made a statement:

This is clearly a statement against murder. And that is the case, even though one of the sentences mistakenly read, “But it is always wrong to be against murder.” Clearly, that sentence is a mistake. It would most likely have been an editing error, combining “it is always wrong to murder” and “I am completely against murder.”

This is what the plaintiffs in King v Burwell are doing. Now some have countered that this one sentence changes what the bill means. The problem is that the sentence doesn’t exist in isolation. An enormous amount of the bill assumes just the opposite. It uses “state run exchanges” as a synonym for any exchange run by a state government or the federal government. In other words, the word “state” is used as a synonym for the government.

What this all means is that if a number of justices find for the plaintiffs, it’s going to look really bad. No one is going to find it shocking that many of the justices are nothing more than partisan hacks. But it will be another nail in the coffin of the Supreme Court’s good reputation.

What is more telling, however, is what it says of the conservative movement generally. Even if this challenge to Obamacare goes down in flames with a 0-9 finding, it will still be the case that a majority of the conservative movement thought and will continue to think that this was a reasonable challenge to the healthcare law. And that shows a shocking lack of belief in democracy. It doesn’t matter that the law was enacted using all of our democratic processes — in the full light of day. And it did that despite the organized and unethical efforts of the power elite. Yet they are willing to use absolutely any tactic to destroy the will of the people. And that includes harming their very own constituency.

We aren’t talking about zoning laws here. If the conservatives manage to prevail in this effort, it will result in untold disruption. As it is, many poor people who would now have health insurance don’t because of the spitefulness of state level Republicans. Some have died who wouldn’t have otherwise. If healthcare becomes unaffordable because of King v Burwell, they same thing will happen — and even more will die. And that’s a price that conservatives think is worth paying for winning a single battle in their fight against the president.

The conservative movement in this country is committed to their ideology. But that ideology is vacuous. It believes in “freedom” but doesn’t care at all for practical effects of its policies on freedom. Thus we get policies to increase the freedom of those who are already the most free, while it greatly reduces the freedom of the rest. It believes in “life” but doesn’t care at all for the practical effects its policies on life. So it pushes for laws that reduce the number of legal abortions, which manage to be more than offset by the number of illegal abortions.

Ask almost any conservative about healthcare and they will tell you that they want everyone to have access to healthcare. But the current healthcare law isn’t how they want to do it. So they are willing to deprive tens of millions of Americans of healthcare in the name of providing Americans access to healthcare. Because the practical consequences never matter. If Dick Cheney might have to pay an extra dollar for his next heart transplant, the conservatives are there to protect his freedom to low cost heart transplants. If that means that poor children die of unnecessary illnesses, nothing can be done. We can do anything we want to help the poor — as long as it doesn’t harm the power elite in the slightest. And that “slightest” includes even the potential for harm.

If you want to understand what is wrong with the conservative movement, you need look no further than King v Burwell. The poor and the middle class just don’t matter. If they could bring back droit du seigneur, they would. Because they know that the rich are just better. And they should be treated accordingly.

Eric Boehlert wrote a great article over at Media Matters the other day, Are Media Crowning Jeb Bush A “Moderate,” The Same Way They Promoted George W Bush As A “Compassionate Conservative”? As everyone should know, Jeb Bush is extremely conservative. You might even call him a fascist — I certainly do. But Boehlert links to many in the “liberal media” who are all on about what a “moderate” Bush is and how he plans to run as a “centrist.” If Bush is a moderate and a centrist, then those words have no meaning.

This is entirely by design of the American conservative movement. The idea is to push totally loony ideas so that their normal — extremely conservative — ideas are seen as “moderate” and “reasonable.” A competent press would not allow this kind of “working the refers” and allowing expectations to be so badly distorted. The situation is such that there is no substantive difference between the conservative freaks and the conservative establishment. It is all about style. When it comes down to it, Bush is a “moderate” because he talks nice. Louie Gohmert is a “freak” because he doesn’t.

But it wouldn’t matter which man lived in the White House. They both would appoint judges that would repeal Roe v Wade. They both would sign budgets that cut food stamps for the poor and lowered taxes on the rich. And they would both be itching to go to war with any of “those people.” For the majority of Americans, there should be no difference between these men. But because of what the mainstream media think, Bush is an acceptable candidate and Gohmert is not.

Of course, for well established reasons, the Democrats do not do the same thing on the left. This is especially interesting, considering that economic populism is extremely popular — on both the left and the right. But as a result, the effective hard left in this nation is just standard policy — stuff that is to the right of what Democrats believed in the 1940s. And that means that the media have no problem assigning someone like Elizabeth Warren as an extremist, even though there aren’t many voters in the United States who would disagree with her economic agenda.

The conservatives can be taken seriously while pushing an extremely unpopular economic vision. The only problem that they face is that they’ve developed a base that doesn’t much care about the policy. And for good reason! Does some retired truck driver really care about cutting the corporate tax rate? No. He’s not a conservative for the reasons that the elites are. He’s a conservative because he’s mad as hell. And the conservative movement has a very simple and compelling narrative to explain why his life has been so unfulfilling: “those people.” You name it: minorities, feminists, environmentalists, socialists, young people, Hollywood, college professors. This guy will accept George Bush but what he wants is the red meat that spews out of Louie Gohmert’s mouth.

If it weren’t for the Louie Gohmerts of the Republican Party, it is quite possible that our retired truck driver would not vote for Jeb Bush and the seemingly endless stream of Republican establishment-bots like him. He might even be open to the economic agenda of Elizabeth Warren. But that can’t be allowed to happen! It is frightening to the power elite. And so the establishment in both parties sees that it doesn’t happen.

You may remember the wars in Nineteen Eighty-Four. They are constantly going on and the sides are all equally matched. So no country ever gets much of an advantage. And they are only fighting over a small bit of useless land anyway. This reminds me of how the Democrats and Republicans compete. At this point, they are really only fighting over social issues. Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, the working class does anywhere for mediocre to poor. And the power elite just get richer and more powerful.

Assuming this is not a conspiracy, then the people we have to blame are those in the mainstream media. They are the ones who define the far left as anything a Democrat (And many a Republican!) ever proposed before 1992. And they only define the far right as people who push fascist ideas using the wrong words. Fascist ideas that are well spoken are “center right” and “moderate.” The problem is not our politicians. It is our media. And that means it is us. Because we are the ones who keep listening to this claptrap.

Ed Kilgore wrote a great article over at Talking Points Memo last week, Our Economic Problems Keep Changing, but the GOP’s Answers Stay the Same. Of course, it isn’t surprising that I love it; it perfectly encapsulates something that I’ve been writing about for years. The ideological rigidity of the conservative movement only allows them a couple of tools, and so they apply those tools to every problem they come upon. It is pathetic.

Put bluntly and broadly, the tools are (1) take money away from the poor; and (2) give money to the rich. My favorite example of this is the Republican Party mainstay “tort reform.” This is something that Republicans hate in all cases because they don’t like the idea that poor people could sue rich people and corporations for harm done. But it takes on its greatest form as “healthcare reform.” The idea is that doctors are over treating patients because they are so afraid of being sued. As a result, healthcare costs are high because doctors are covering their behinds with a bunch of unnecessary tests.

The reality is rather different. It turns out that doctors over-treat patients (if you want to put it that way) because — Here’s a shocker! — they actually care about patients getting better. Studies have found that reducing malpractice damages has little to no effect on this so called defensive medicine. Thus, “tort reform” would not make medicine more cost effective. It would, however, keep money in the hands of the rich and out of the hands of the poor. And since that is the ultimate goal of the Republican Party, no amount of evidence about their supposed justifications is going to change their thinking on the matter.

Kilgore put it well:

This relates to another political myth: Republicans are for small government. What’s so awful about this myth is that the kinds of government that Republicans want is exactly the kind of government that most oppresses people. As I’m fond of pointing out to people, it isn’t the public library that limits freedom. It is rather institutions like the police, the military, spying agencies.

Of course, conservatives counter that it is unnecessary taxation that enslaves people. But this clearly isn’t the case. Paying a high tax rate might be unpleasant, but it isn’t oppression. And that argument really sounds hollow for a group that thinks that the 20% of our federal budget spent on military — representing almost half of all the military spending in the world — isn’t enough. This is also the group that seems to think that no level of oppression is unjust if it is applied to a pregnant woman — including penalizing her for not living a healthy enough life.

This is why it is best to think of the Republican Party in the way I mentioned above: they believe in impoverishing the poor and enriching the rich. So I’m sure that the Republicans will eventually come up with some new ideas. If any conservative wonk comes up with a new way to take from the rich and give to the poor, the Republicans will be right on it. Otherwise, it will be the tried and true methods. The United States government has a proven record of helping the rich and the expense of the rest. And given that it works so well, who needs new ideas?

Linda Greenhouse wrote a great summary of what’s going on with King v Burwell, Overturning Obamacare Would Change the Nature of the Supreme Court. Among other things, she showed that statements and findings of even the most conservative justices show that they should find for the government and put an end to this attack on the federal healthcare exchanges once and for all. But Greenhouse is hardly assured. She ended the article by noting that she thinks the justices who decided to take this case probably think of it as a second chance to destroy Obamacare. And her article is an attempt to alert them to the fact that doing this would have huge consequences for the court itself.

I am probably naive, but I’ve been harboring a more positive scenario. Couldn’t it be that the Supreme Court is trying to send a signal to the conservative movement that it needs to move on? I know if I were a conservative, I would find King v Burwell extremely embarrassing. The idea of the challenge is that Obamacare is so horrible that it is okay to screw over middle class people — most of them in Republican dominate states. And this is not to repeal Obamacare; it is just to maybe move the politics in a slightly better direction for a future repeal. What’s more, it wouldn’t just be bad for the middle class. It would also be terrible for doctors and hospitals. Even if you really want to repeal Obamacare, this is not the way.

So it isn’t ridiculous to think that smart conservatives might want to crush this nonsense. And a solid 9-0 decision would not only stop this case but would likely stop the whole “destroy Obamacare in the courts” industry. It would signal that the Supreme Court is really not interested in this and that if the law is to be repealed, it needs to be done democratically through legislation. This is what I really want to believe.

Sadly, I fear that I am being naive. If there is anything that has become clear watching the Supreme Court over the last three decades, it is that justices are anything but objective. They come to quick decisions and then justify them. And the more a justice claims that he is just following the law, the more subjective his process is. So I have no doubt that Antonin Scalia will be able to justify whatever it is he wants to believe. After all, Scalia didn’t have a problem using “equal protection” for that one time in George W Bush’s case. And Samuel Alito is arguably worse. And after Anthony Kennedy’s behavior during the previous Obamacare case, I wouldn’t put anything past him. I actually have a bit more respect for Clarence Thomas, and think he is more likely to be consistent. But you never know.

I think it is a good thing that Linda Greenhouse is trying to make a preemptive strike against the Supreme Court embarrassing itself again. But we know from things Scalia said that he won’t see anything published in The New York Times. Maybe if we can get Rush Limbaugh to cover it, some of it might get to him. But Greenhouse was overstating things when she wrote:

But if the conservatives on the Supreme Court cared about the verdict of history, they would have acted very differently up until now. The only conservative who really seems to care about history is Roberts himself. But he’s facing a bleak entry in the history books. If King v Burwell comes down to another 5-4 decision, people are going to say that the Roberts Court finished the destruction started by the Rehnquist Court. If Roberts is going to save his legacy, he ought to be praying for some fatal heart attacks among the conservatives on the Supreme Court.

But I still hope that the conservatives are just tired of all these Obamacare cases and want to see them end. But I expect a 5-4 decision one way or the other.

Dietz Vollrath wrote a good article on his The Growth Economics Blog, Techno-Neutrality. It counters the argument that robots are going to make us all lose our jobs. He makes four strong points: (1) The economy is more creative than we can imagine; (2) Robots change prices as well as wages; (3) Who is going to buy what the robots produce?; and (4) Wealth concentration would be a problem with or without robots. And I agree: by standard economic analysis, we shouldn’t have anything to worry about. In general, automation has been a great thing for humans. Yet I’m still concerned. Let me explain that.

My fear is not that one person is going to end up with all the robots and the rest of us will starve to death. But it is quite possible that we could end up with something like a banana republic. In this scenario, the society would have a small rich elite, a small middle class to serve their more advanced needs (Building and repairing robots?) and a huge under class. This is also, more or less, a feudal system. And I understand that feudalism was dictated by law. But “property rights” are a form of law. The more money that the rich have, the more they can corner the market in robots and natural resources.

I really am not certain how realistic this scenario is. I don’t give it a great deal of thought because we have a very long way to go to get to that point. But it is certainly true that over the last century, technology has been used to increase inequality. And part of this is just our intellectual property laws. It is shocking that as the speed of society has gotten faster — so that movies that were made ten years ago are now called “old” — has an ever increasing copyright length. A film made today will still be under copyright protection when a baby born today is long dead. But this, I fear strikes right at the heart of the problem of robots and inequality.

With each new innovation comes far greater financial rewards. So Disney is willing to spend millions of dollars every few years to lobby Congress to yet again increase the length of copyright to save Mickey Mouse from the indignity of being free to everyone. Imagine if Common Sense were still under copyright. Outrageous? I doubt it. The only reason it isn’t is because the modern corporation didn’t exist to profit off it at that time. If it had, I’m sure that the United States government would have been convinced by now to create perpetual copyright. It doesn’t make sense for a human to care about that sort of thing, but corporations don’t die.

So the question is really how robots will cause the economic system to be distorted. I understand that in a truly “free market,” it wouldn’t be possible for a few people to control all the robots. I also understand that there is no such thing as a “free market” and that there never has been. So what have we seen the last four decades? Productivity gains — due to one extent or another to robots — have all gone to the owners of capital. Thus it isn’t surprising that people are worried.

In 1790, copyright length was 28 years. By 1831, it was 42. By 1909, it was 56. By 1976, it was 75. By 1998, it was 95. Notice something there? I don’t just mean that it is increasing. I mean that the rate that it is going up is increasing. It is getting worse at a faster rate. And this is just what we would expect when the rich have both increasing power and motivation to keep any innovations to themselves.

I do agree that it isn’t technology itself that is the problem. But we are on a four decade long path where technology has only been used to enrich the already rich. And the longer this goes on, the harder it becomes for technology to do what the economics claims it should do and what history has show that it has done. I hope that Dietz Vollrath is right in his first point, “The economy is more creative than we can imagine.” In my life, that hasn’t been the case. American economics is more ossified than a petrified forest.