A Second Hand Conjecture

Hugo Chavez travels a bit further down the road to his ultimate destination – Supreme Dictator of Venezuela – with the help of his wholly-owned subsidiary,the “National Assembly”:

Venezuela’s Congress on Wednesday granted President Hugo Chavez powers to rule by decree for 18 months as he tries to force through nationalizations key to his self-styled leftist revolution.

The vote allows anti-U.S. leader Chavez, who has been in power since 1999, to deepen state control of the economy.

The lawmakers, all loyal to Chavez after opposition parties boycotted the 2005 congressional elections, flaunted their populist credentials by taking the unusual step of holding their vote in public in a square in Caracas.

“We in the National Assembly will not waver in granting President Chavez an enabling law so he can quickly and urgently set up the framework for resolving the grave problems we have,” said congressional Vice-President Roberto Hernandez.

An “enabling law”? Hmmm, where have I heard of such a thing before? Oh yeah:

The Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz in German) was passed by Germany’s parliament (the Reichstag) on March 23, 1933. It was the second major step after the Reichstag Fire Decree through which the Nazis obtained dictatorial powers using largely legal means. The Act enabled Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his cabinet to enact laws without the participation of the Reichstag.

What a grand idea! Give Chavez even more power, so that he remain in charge indefinitely, change the laws at will, and solve all of those nasty problems that plague Venezuela. It’s sure to work.

The economic reforms are set to work in tandem with increased political centralization. Chavez is forging a single party to lead his radical reforms, stripping the central bank of autonomy and seeking indefinite re-election.

Yeah, a single party should do the trick. No messy dissents that way. I mean just look at the trouble Chavez has had getting anything done since he came to power:

Since Chavez took office in 1999, his government has seized company assets, farmlands and private buildings for cooperative ventures and imposed state control through joint ventures in the oil sector, raising the taxes and royalties foreign partners pay. His wealth redistribution efforts have made him widely popular among Venezuela’s poor and working classes.

But critics say Chavez, who now effectively controls all branches of government in Venezuela, is worsening persistent economic problems by ill-considered fiscal and monetary policies, and by creating too much uncertainty about the future.

With government spending at near-record highs, the economy isn’t generating enough goods and services to soak up the excess liquidity. Currency controls trap this cash in the economy, fueling inflation that officially is still below the 30 percent level in 1998 when Chavez was first elected, but above maximum interest rates regulated by the central bank.

But don’t forget, Venezuela is the fastest growing economy in South America! Chavez must be doing something right.

High oil prices made Venezuela’s economy the fastest-growing in South America last year, but near-record public spending by a government awash in petrodollars also led to the region’s highest inflation rate. And with so much uncertainty about where the country is heading, there are few solid investment options.

The irony in the Chavez march to totalitarianism is that it is fueled almost entirely upon the propaganda of class warfare. Chavez routinely tosses populist bits of rhetoric to the poor masses to bolster his image as one who is looking out for the working people:

“Oh, you have a yacht? Perfect, give it to me, buddy,” Chavez said. “You go around Caracas in a tremendous car. You have a house where you live and another one by sea… You have some marvelous art collections — come here, buddy.”

But what happens when there are no more “rich” people around for Chavez to bully. The state controls on the economy are quickly depleting any means of creating and/or protecting wealth, so who is going to do all that oppressing that needs to be done in order for Chavez to maintain his image? I expect that Chavez will rely on the old Castro stand-by in that case:

The Cuban government of Fidel Castro has condemned the United States for the high level of poverty in Latin America, stating that the “neo-liberal” economic policies supported by the U.S. “generate discontent” which demand change, according to official Cuban sources.

It should go without saying here that the road to dictatorship, down which Venezuela now hastily careens, is the same as The Road to Serfdom.

MORE: Doug Mataconis at The Liberty Papers highlights one of the effects of Hugo’s power grab — mass exodus:

As Hugo Chavez continues his apparent quest to become the heir apparent to Fidel Castro, Venezuelans who desire freedom and prosperity are starting to vote with their feet:

CARACAS, Venezuela — The line forms every day after dawn at the Spanish Consulate, hundreds of people seeking papers permitting them to abandon Venezuela for new lives in Spain. They say they are filled with despair at President Hugo Chávez’s growing power, and they appear not to be alone. At other consulates in this capital, long lines form daily.

Technorati Tags: Hugo Chavez, Venezuela, dictatorship, enabling law, Enabling Act, Cuba, Castro, socialism, totalitarianism, The Road to Serfdom

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I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.
-Joe Biden

Did he really say he is the first such African-American?

Michael may be right about this ending his candidacy, but I am not sure.

Let me give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant the first such candidate (a benefit of the doubt almost never given to Republicans.) Still, I have little use for Jesse Jackson, but was he not articulate? Bright? A clean and nice looking guy? What the heck is that about? (I won’t bring up Sharpton for obvious reasons.)

I don’t want to make too much of this because Biden certainly isn’t meaning to say anything other than many Americans are ready and would be happy to elect a charismatic African American who they trust on the issues.

I could though, and if he was a Republican the media and a great part of the left side of the blogosphere would do so. It comes off as a bit, well, off. Doesn’t it? I could infer all kinds of dark things about the statement, couldn’t I?

Well, Barack Obama’s campaign manager certainly hopes people do:

And as for rest—including Mr. Biden’s use of the words “articulate” and “nice-looking” to describe the Senator from Illinois—the spokesman said, “Senator Biden’s words speak for themselves.”

They do?

I don’t think so, but if the past treatment of people such as George Allen is any indication they will be claimed to speak for themselves, and nothing Biden says will be allowed to change that. Reporters will start digging up anyone they can who will claim Biden is a long time racist.

Or not. He is a Democrat. I am not sure how this plays or which outcome would bother me more. A continuation of the double standard or another ridiculous firestorm.

He is actually relatively nice to Obama, basically claiming he hasn’t done anything, which is pretty much true. He is pretty scathing about Hillary and Edwards:

“I don’t think John Edwards knows what the heck he is talking about,” Mr. Biden said, when asked about Mr. Edwards’ advocacy of the immediate withdrawal of about 40,000 American troops from Iraq.

“John Edwards wants you and all the Democrats to think, ‘I want us out of there,’ but when you come back and you say, ‘O.K., John’”—here, the word “John” became an accusatory, mocking refrain—“‘what about the chaos that will ensue? Do we have any interest, John, left in the region?’ Well, John will have to answer yes or no. If he says yes, what are they? What are those interests, John? How do you protect those interests, John, if you are completely withdrawn? Are you withdrawn from the region, John? Are you withdrawn from Iraq, John? In what period? So all this stuff is like so much Fluffernutter out there. So for me, what I think you have to do is have a strategic notion. And they may have it—they are just smart enough not to enunciate it.”

Just smart enough!? Good thing he didn’t say that about Obama.
This may be a fun two years for blogging.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Edwards, Race, Hillary Clinton, George Allen, Democrat, President

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Well, in a de facto sense at least:

Mr. Biden is equally skeptical [as he is of Sen. Clinton's chances of being elected]—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Got that? Sen. Obama is the first African-American to be simultaneously articulate, bright, clean and nice-looking. Quite the compliment. I hope Biden at least washes his feet before planting them firmly in his mouth.

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Less than 24 hours after telling Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki “Go forward. We are all with you.”, and with rapidity that would make even Janus blush, U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, returned home to declare “What is happening in Iraq is chaos.”:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has just returned from a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. She sat down with NPR’s Renee Montagne, who asked her for one word to describe the situation in Iraq.

“Chaotic,” Pelosi said. “What is happening in Iraq is chaos.” She went on to say that after nearly four years in Iraq, “We just have to end it.”

While there, she met with various Iraqi and American officials, including the Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki. She said that in all of her conversations, she was disappointed that there didn’t seem to be a political strategy in Iraq to go along with the military strategy. She said that Maliki told her that the increased number of U.S. troops in Baghdad had to be successful in the next four to six months in securing the Iraqi capital.

“Everyone that we spoke to said that this escalation that the president is engaged in is the one last chance,” she said, adding, “Many did not believe it would be successful.”

I’m sure that Al-Maliki feels quite encouraged by Pelosi’s sentiments. But just in case the Iraqis were not clear on how the Madam Speaker stands behind them, Pelosi brandished her steely blade:

Pelosi also criticized the competence of Iraqi troops. She said that she did not believe the training effort had been serious, as the troops are still not ready. But, she added, after all that American troops have accomplished in Iraq — overthrowing Saddam, providing security for elections and a constitution and a new government — it is now an Iraqi responsibility to protect Iraqis.

“Whatever the adequacy of their troops,” she said, “it’s their responsibility now to get the job done. And the longer we stay the more dangerous the situation, the more deaths to Americans, and the less stable the country.”

To recap, Pelosi goes to Baghdad, assures the Prime Minister that the Democrat’s have his back despite any differences with Republicans, comes home and immediately declares the situation beyond repair, insults the Iraqi troops as inadequate, and declares that it’s time for the U.S. to leave.

But she supports the U.S. troops, right? Maybe it would be better if she didn’t.

Technorati Tags: Nancy Pelosi, Nouri Al-Maliki, Iraq, “support the troops”

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I think we, as semi-disenfranchised, Americans have a prime opportunity in the current debate over the perceived need for further benchmarks for our efforts in Iraq.

What is desired in this debate from some quarters are, timelines, goals, and the consequences of missing those goals.

I think that is an excellent idea, and we should start with the many programs enacted in our own country.

Where are the benchmarks for the War on Poverty?

Where are the benchmarks for the War on Drugs?

Where are the benchmarks to say we are doing well, or that current legislation needs to be altered or dropped?

This is a meme we can use to our advantage.

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As I have stated many times, I have many concerns about our current President and his expansive view of Presidential power. I have also said that this is nothing new, and that I have seen no evidence that the Democratic party is better. In fact, if our President sees too much power in his own hands as acceptable, the Democrats seem to want to put even more power in our governments hands, just not the Presidents. Which is rather odd considering the executive is who leads the government to whom they have given such power.

I have also been told that Bush is different, because he pursues policies that violate our Constitution, and I have no doubt he does. Once again, is that exceptional? I would argue much of our government is unconstitutional at this point, but I certainly can say that politician after politician has pursued or used powers that were blatantly unconstitutional.

What brings on this reflection on my argument that as much as I may disagree with the Bush administration on any number of topics, that I see him as nothing more than typical? Well, it is this:

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Just a few updates on the story from December of a suspected Playstation thief who was killed during a raid to arrest the suspect.
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And why do we need more of it?

What am I talking about, progress reports and benchmarks for our efforts in Iraq.

Instapundit pointed me over to bizzyblog who has comments on Boehner’s interview with Hugh Hewitt.

It seems Boehner has a proposal to require a report to Congress every 30 days about the progress of our efforts in Iraq.

we would have a series of benchmarks. We require that the administration report every 30 days. And the point of this is to try to make sure that the President’s strategy is successful. And you know, the benchmarks will allow us to determine whether sufficient progress is being made in Iraq to stabilize the new democracy there, to deny terrorists a safe haven, to ensure stability in the region.

Without going into the motives behind such a request, or the ramifications about such a request, let’s talk about whether such reports are needed. (more…)

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The recent hullabaloo over the New York Times (NYT) cracking down on its ace war reporter, as covered by Lance below, raised the issue of whether the paper would issue similar admonishments to a reporter expressing an opinion that was more in line with the NYT editorial page. Specifically, would the NYT reader’s representative, Byron Calame, treat a reporter voicing anti-American screeds with the same disapproval as his treatment of Michael Gordon? Lance, via Newsbusters, highlighted one particular instance that suggests it would not:

I’ll give an example of a personal opinion from another Times reporter, Neil Mcfarquhar, I got from Newsbusters as well:

“If you talk to people my age — I’m in my mid-40s — and who grew up in poor countries like Morocco, you know, they will tell you that when they went to school in the mornings, they used to get milk, and they called it Kennedy milk because it was the Americans that sent them milk. And in 40 years, we have gone from Kennedy milk to the Bush administration rushing bombs to this part of the world. And it just erodes and erodes and erodes America’s reputation.”

That is a statement that says a lot, and there is much to criticize. It is certainly a personal opinion, but is it one that I want the editors of the Times to keep him from spouting? No. Nor did they.

While I admit that this example appears somewhat damning, I think there is a better comparison to be made, one that may shed more light on the answer we seek. (more…)

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From my e-mail bag I found this amusing, though the problem of establishing title in Louisiana is real, I am sure the story is apocryphal:

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Found this today over at the National Review with some important things to say about how Milton accomplished what he did. A lesson we should all take to heart in our quest for accomplishing change in our government.

But now to an important question for Milton Friedman Day: How’d he do it?

The quick answer is that Friedman, in addition to being a master theorist, was a master tactician — although his tactics were of the most affable sort.

To begin, Friedman did not make the tactical error of preaching to the choir. How easy it would have been for Friedman to follow his libertarian instincts and retreat to a safe perch where he could have spent a lazy career basking in the “hear, hear” applause of those demanding sermons. Instead, Friedman built support for his ideas by actively engaging the American people. The best examples were his Newsweek columns on monetary policy and the 10-part PBS television series, Free to Choose. By humanizing his premises, he won converts — and a few grudging critics.

Next, Friedman did not make the procedural mistake of insulting, or talking down to, elected officials. PhD status, whether earned or honorary, does not necessarily translate to the people skills and horse sense required to build the coalitions that result in new policies, laws, and successful litigation. As an advisor to presidents Nixon and Reagan on successful policy initiatives, Friedman succeeded by following the adage, “honey, not vinegar.”

Finally, Friedman and his colleagues identified the government institutions with the power to put their ideas into action. Is it more important to capture the ear of the Fed chair, or the intellectual curiosity of the rank-and-file economists at one of the Fed’s member banks? Well, hooking a curious few worked just fine for Friedman. The St. Louis Fed gave credence to Friedman’s ideas in the 1960s, and a decade later they were debated at the institution’s highest levels.

To be sure, if Friedman were peddling junk, Friedmanism would have stopped well short of a multi-decade march through the lofty halls of the U.S. central bank. But we also must tip our hats to this affable tactician. Milton Friedman knew what to say, but he also knew how to say it for the greatest effect.

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I like this quote from KC Johnson on the performance of the major media versus that of the college media, in this case specifically the Duke Chronicle, from a post of Jim Lindgren’s:

In fact, compare the Chronicle’s coverage to that of the New York Times on this case, but remove the mastheads from the two papers. I suspect that most people would guess that the Times, with its (until recently) simplistic, one-sided articles and commentary was the college newspaper, and the Chronicle’s work was that of the country’s paper of record.

Read the whole thing.

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SEN. COLLINS: Finally, I have to comment on your answer to my very dear friend, Senator Lieberman, about the impact of a passage of a resolution and whether that would — I believe the words were “demonstrate to the enemy that the American people are divided.”

General, the American people are not divided in support of our troops. The American people are not divided in wishing you all the success in the world, despite our disagreement with the strategy.

And I must say that the resolution that I’ve been working on with Senator Ben Nelson and Senator Warner is very clear in expressing support for our troops. And I don’t think it’s going to come as any surprise to the enemy that the American people are in fact deeply divided over this strategy. But nothing divides us in our common support of the brave men and women who are fighting in Iraq. And nothing divides us in our common support that we hope we’re wrong and that this strategy is a success, and we wish you well as you undertake this very dangerous and difficult mission.

This (from General Petraeus’ confirmation hearings) drives me to distraction. If you support the troops, and they are going on a mission, you cannot do things to undermine them. This “we are united in our support of the troops” claptrap is getting really old. Once they are going, anything you knowingly do which makes their mission harder or more dangerous is not “supporting the troops.” All the “we wish you well’s” in the world won’t change that fact. If I march off to war and those who are opposed to it encourage my enemies, claim that my mission is hopeless and the judgment of my commander (General Petraeus) is flawed, while sowing defeatism and discord within the troops I serve with, they are not supporting me. They are harming me and the goals of my fellow soldiers.

I am not saying that Senator Collins wishes our soldiers harm. I am saying she feels that making her political point is more important than truly supporting them or even avoiding harming them. Wishing our troops well is not the same as supporting them.

Update: In response to an e-mail I will say it another way. Wishing our troops come to no harm is not the same as acting in a manner that makes that less likely. The resolutions Senator Collins defends do not make it less likely our troops will come to harm, they make it harder on our troops. That is not support, it is undermining them.

I think it is important, and my conversations with my brother and other soldiers confirm this,to reiterate that the troops do not see it as support either. That doesn’t mean they are always fair to critics. My brother made that point. Many troops understand that people have a right to criticize, that it has its purpose, but they also feel much of the criticism, especially gutless resolutions, are undermining them. They also reject that the criticism can be construed as support. Josh and I have I think a fruitful discussion of the nuances (and as I have said before, you should be reading Josh and the Conjecturer) in the comments. McQ makes the same point here and also gives us this video:

[youtube]uyqk1LsCDBQ[/youtube]

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Update: Michael has a nice post that looks at another incident to get a better gauge of what the Times past behavior has been. I clarify what bothers me a bit in the comments.
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This story from Newsbusters is somewhat amusing in a perverse sense. The New York Times and other media organizations reporters express opinions about politics on a regular basis, and it often is carried as news (emphasize what one commander says, sometimes out of the full context of their views, versus another, etc.) It is often complained about. Well the New York Times has taken action and decided to make a point about a reporter making his views known. Let us be clear, it isn’t about distorted news coverage, or expressly making an opinion within the news coverage (as opposed to structuring a story to the same effect) but rather making a clearly labeled personal view known. This should be the least objectionable sin, if one can even call it a sin, but The Times stepped up to squash this public airing of an opinion. What could be so objectionable to stir the Times to action?

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California and Chicago both declared today “Milton Friedman Day.” And PBS is going to air his biography, “The Power of Choice” tonight.

Friedman’s impact on history isn’t limited to economic prosperity. Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, explains Friedman’s legacy: “It was explaining the relationship between economic freedom and all our other civil freedoms. What Milton Friedman taught was that without economic freedom, all the other liberties that we take for granted either cannot exist or are easily swept away.”

H/T Freakonomics Blog

A couple of interesting links I found while researching this post…

http://www.miltonfriedmanday.org/index.php

http://www.ideachannel.com/Friedman.htm

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=012907A

Milton Friedman got it right, and Plato got it wrong.

That is the message that I take away from Clifford Winston’s exhaustive survey of the actual results of well-intentioned government policies aimed at correcting market failures. He looks at policies designed to address all of the ills that economists and others have identified with markets — monopoly power, imperfect information, externalities, and so on. Government tends to make things worse, not better.

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Finally, someone in a position of some influence saying what many on the “not-left” side of the aisle have been saying since before the disastrous November elections. Now, if only Republicans would listen, and change their errant ways, the Republican Party might see some gain in support from its historical “co-belligerents,” the Libertarians.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/27/AR2007012701171_pf.html

At a time when the conservative movement is looking bereft, humbled by midterm-election defeats and hungering for a presidential candidate to rally around, Jeb Bush delivered yesterday in Washington a resounding endorsement of conservative principles, bringing his audience repeatedly to its feet.

In his lunchtime remarks to the Conservative Summit, Bush struck every conservative chord, blaming Republicans’ defeat in November on the party’s abandonment of tenets including limited government and fiscal restraint.

“Don’t take offense personally if I get mad at Congress,” the Republican former Florida governor began. “It’s important for us to realize we lost, and there are significant reasons that happened, but it isn’t because conservatives were rejected. But it’s because we rejected the conservative philosophy in this country.”

He added, “If the promise of pork and more programs is the way Republicans think they’ll regain the majority, then they’ve got a problem.”

Bush’s speech prompted three standing ovations from the audience of hundreds at the National Review Institute’s conference at the JW Marriott Hotel, reflecting the widespread concern among conservatives that exorbitant government spending led to the loss of majorities in the House and Senate and concern about whether Republicans would again embrace the traditional principles.

There is a big problem with what Laura Ingraham said. Democrats have the style, if not the substance, of being in the workers best interest. That will be a high hurdle for Republicans to overcome, since the usual stereotype of the party is being in the pocket of big business. Of course, there lies the classic chicken and the egg conundrum, do workers benefit more when business is less restrained by government regulations?

At a Friday night panel on the state of conservatism, commentator Laura Ingraham argued that Republicans — if they are to have any chance of winning in 2008 — must wake up to the fact that Democrats are embracing politicians such as Sen. James Webb (Va.), a gruff military veteran who delivered his party’s response to the State of the Union on Tuesday by attacking President Bush’s Iraq plan while offering a populist economic message.

“We have to be careful with conservatives not to remain in an echo chamber,” Ingraham said. “The party that comes off as the party that represents the American worker best is the party that wins in 2008.”

UPDATE 1:

Governor Mitt Romney can certainly talk directly to conservatives, but that’s preaching to the choir at this point. Can he transform his understanding (from a conservative viewpoint) of our nations strengths and weaknesses, into a more populist message?

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200701/POL20070129d.html

America is at risk of becoming “the France of the 21st Century” unless policymakers curtail burdensome government policies and extravagant entitlement spending that work against the creative energies of free people, said former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

…

Romney invoked the historical example of France to show how quickly once-great nations can lose power and influence when the wrong polices are embraced. To drive the point home, Romney quoted his father, who said, “Nothing is as vulnerable as entrenched success.”

Unlike liberal Democrats who view government as the greatest source of American strength, Republicans understand that it is the “hard-working, innovative, risk-taking, God-fearing, family-loving and freedom-loving” American people who make the nation great and ensure its superpower status, Romney said.

Americans are fully capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st Century, he continued, so long as they have greater individual freedom, lower rates of taxation, less cumbersome investment opportunities and a more efficient government.

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Update: Back from my weekend vacation I find that McQ sees this issue similarly.

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General Petraeus has been confirmed 81-0. In a world of political conviction this wouldn’t have been the result.

As I pointed out in my open letter, (and this post will make more sense if you have read it) the upcoming resolution expressing disapproval for the increased troops is political gamesmanship which might help some get re-elected, but does nothing to achieve anything constructive, whatever any of these blowhards think being constructive might mean.

How is this for cognitive dissonance:

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI): General, I think everybody in the Congress and every American wants us to succeed, wants to maximize the chances of success. (Armed Services Committee, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 01/23/07)

SEN. BILL NELSON (D-FL): Now, you’re going to be confirmed. Your reputation obviously precedes you. And we hope and pray for your leadership being a success. There’s a lot at stake for this country. Godspeed, General. (Armed Services Committee, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 01/23/07)

SEN. EVAN BAYH (D-IN): I think the best thing we can do to support the morale of our troops and defeat our adversaries is to have a policy that maximizes our chances for success. General, I support your nomination, and I wish you well. (Armed Services Committee, U.S.Senate, Hearing, 01/23/07)

Uhh, if he is such a wonderful qualified leader to put in charge of a strategy that maximizes the chances for our success, why are they voting against his strategy? It is his strategy by the way, that is why he was chosen to lead it.

SEN. JOE BIDEN (D-DE): Why Do We Want To Stop The Surge? We Don’t Agree With The Mission. (Foreign Relations Committee, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 01/24/07)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA): I Tell You What: I’m Confident It Will Not Work. (Foreign Relations Committee, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 01/24/07)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL): The President?s Strategy Will Not Work. What was striking to me in listening to all the testimony that was provided, was the almost near unanimity that the president’s strategy will not work. (Foreign Relations Committee, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 01/24/07)

So why are you voting for him and his plan in this forum, praising him to high heaven and express such confidence in his judgment if he has put together such an unrealistic and foolish plan that it not only might not work, but is doomed for failure?

As Kate O’Beirne points out:

Rather than back a non-binding resolution of disapproval, why didn’t the gutsy Senators, like Chuck Hagel, who are riding the surf of public opinion opposed to the troop surge and taking on a president with approval ratings at the freezing level vote against General Petraeus’ confirmation? Their convictions hold that he has endorsed a wholly unjustified escalation and will be leading troops on a futile
mission. They want a role in the conduct of the war and with the need to win Senate confirmation of Gen. Petraeus the Constitution has given them one, but they have taken a pass. Because Gen. Petraeus is an experienced, credentialed, credible advocate of the new strategy, Senators have no interest in tangling with him. When you’re playing at being a military strategist you sure don’t want to go up against the real thing, so better to have an unpopular commander-in-chief be the face of the new mission rather than the veteran general who will be in command.

I think that is part of it, but it goes deeper. The Washington Post noticed the muddled thinking as well:

Such Is The Muddle Of Congress On Iraq: A Majority May Soon Go On Record Opposing The New Offensive In Baghdad Even While Encouraging The Commander Who Leads It.

….

On Tuesday nearly every member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warmly endorsed Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, and a number wished him success or “Godspeed” in his mission. Yesterday some of the same senators voted for a resolution that opposes the increase of troops for Gen. Petraeus’s command — even though the general testified that he could not accomplish his mission without the additional forces and hinted that such a resolution could encourage the enemy.

Hinted? He flat out said it would, but kudos for the Post noticing that our politicians are playing with peoples lives.

How about this line from Hagel:

Hagel vainly implored his Republican colleagues to join him in supporting the resolution, which was approved 12 to 9 during a session of the Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. “If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes,” he said. “This is a tough business.”

Yeah, and supporting this resolution accomplishes what sir? The man you just voted for said it would be harmful, it certainly does nothing to effect policy. I have slowly seen my respect for Senator Hagel erode away, not because I disagree with him, but because he is the one engaging in loud talk and no action. I disagree with Russ Feingold, but he hits the nail on the head about you Senator Hagel, though undoubtedly he wouldn’t say he is talking about you:

“It’s a walk in the park right now to oppose the idea of this war. It’s also very easy to oppose the escalation,” Mr. Feingold said. “They are once again being too timid and too cautious.”

Yeah, you are the one going out on a limb Senator Hagel, rrriiight! Vote for a destructive and ineffectual resolution and vote to confirm General Petraeus despite, what you must conclude given your own rhetoric, his obvious foolishness on how to move forward. If Bush is making a doomed and foolish choice doesn’t that extend to Petraeus?

So what is going on with all this hot air, hypocrisy, damage to our troops morale and buoying our enemies? Part of the answer can be found over at QandO with McQ’s response to Senator Feingold’s statement:

He’s right, of course. Anyone can blow and go about opposing the war but are very nervous about the potential political costs of really doing anything concrete to defund it. Because, you see, doing something like that means taking ownership of the problem, and the one thing the Democrats have made obvious over the years is they don’t mind being screamingly critical about the problem, but they aren’t about to take ownership by offering to do what is necessary to back up their rhetoric.

What is their fear about taking ownership? Obviously they will alienate those who feel the effort in Iraq should continue. What really scares them is that if Iraq flies apart they will get the blame. They want Bush to admit defeat so it isn’t all on them. The fact that opinion polls right now show the public is dubious gives them little comfort. That can change quickly.

The real problem is longer term. The people may be turning on Bush, but down the road as Iraq probably gets worse and other problems spring up in the Middle East and terror attacks possibly pick up are the people going to elect the people who quit? Even if they are glad we quit, is it those people they want in charge in the future? Murtha? Kerry? Hagel?

That may seem like an obvious yes, but I doubt it. Think back to Vietnam. As unpopular as that war was, McGovern lost. The people may have wanted the war over, but they liked the quitter even less.

More importantly, it was only five years after the fall of Saigon that saw the triumph of Reagan, the anti-McGovern. The tragedy in Vietnam didn’t sour the people of America against a strong and aggressive posture against our enemies, it goaded them to find someone who promised to move us past those disasters and reassert our role in the world, someone who was not afraid to rattle his saber.

That doesn’t necessarily mean a Republican, but it almost certainly doesn’t mean those who quit or defunded the effort, so we see them playing to the anti-war faction with political theater undermining the war, such as the upcoming resolution, while refusing to put themselves in the position of actually forcing us to quit without the administrations acquiescence and making what happens afterward their legacy.

This is shameful. As I said in my letter:

Please make a courageous choice. Support the war, vote to end it or work for the policy you think would be appropriate.

Please do not vote to merely undermine it.

That applies to you Senator Hagel, that would make your statement more appropriate and less stomach turning.

Technorati Tags: general Petraeus, Iraq, War, Democrats, Republicans, McGovern, Hagel, Biden, Senate, Vietnam, McGovern, Bush

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I have said fairly frequently on this blog that it makes more sense to pay attention to those whom we disagree with who actually have something on the ball and to try and take on their arguments as they intended to make them rather than on the basis of what is easiest to attack. That is why I spend more time reading Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias than say Kos or Jane Hamsher (though I wish her well in battling cancer.) I guess I occasionally take a foray over to the Puppet Masters abode because he is certainly the best at attacking people at their weakest point, misrepresenting them, exaggerating, etc.

So let me say I think Kevin Drum has hit on something I am willing to talk about. This is the kind of area where all of us should be able to get together. We won’t, but this is the kind of thing where we should be able to:

as long as we’re thinking big, I’ll toss out one of my favorite outlandish suggestions: why not abolish the corporate income tax as part of this grand bargain? After all, it doesn’t raise all that much money any more (less than 2% of GDP); it’s by far the biggest source of tax complexity we have; it mostly gets passed on to consumers anyway; and it’s the foundation of all corporate welfare. Take away the corporate income tax, and presto! No more tax breaks for special interests. K Street would be decimated.

Consider this deal: The corporate income tax goes away. It’s replaced by a VAT plus an increase in capital gains and dividend taxes to the same level as the tax on income. (Added bonus: the whole “double taxation” argument goes away since corporate profits aren’t taxed in the first place.) And the whole thing is used to fund national healthcare (along with the payroll taxes and general fund revenues that are already dedicated to healthcare). States could be encouraged to follow suit by agreeing to pick up the Medicaid costs of any state that kills its own corporate income tax.

Of course he is absolutely right about the corporate income tax. The benefits of killing that beast from an economic and political efficiency standpoint are tremendous. It costs a huge amount in terms of political manipulation and corruption, costs to business as well as distorting business decisions while raising little revenue. Whatever your political, ideological or economic views it makes little sense. Eliminating it would give our businesses a large competitive advantage without costing us much in return as well, unlike subsidies.

Kevin is right that eliminating the corporate income tax eliminates much of the rationale for dividend and capital gains to be taxed lower than income. So, keep dividends and capital gains equal in taxation, index capital gains for inflation, and tax them at the same rate as income. That would be an improvement, but I think that there are some reasons people might resist having investment gains and income treated the same as ordinary income. I don’t feel strongly about it, but many do. At minimum they could be raised. However, that shouldn’t keep us from eliminating something as detrimental and pointless as the corporate income tax.

So let us do it!But we won’t. Why? Because even if Kevin could convince his fellow progressives of the merits of the idea, he and his allies insist on attaching it to things where we don’t agree, areas where we have fundamental differences such as health care. Why would anybody who is opposed to the socialization of 1/7 th of our economy trade that for something we all agree should be done anyway. That isn’t compromise. Ask the country to give up something similar that Republicans know makes little sense but often stick to for ideological or political advantage reasons. How about eliminating agricultural and other business subsidies to pay for the loss in revenue? That makes tons of sense. Archer Daniel Midlands loses its subsidies but gains from the elimination of the corporate income tax. Then we can argue about the VAT, proper rates of taxation or health care and see who wins at the ballot box. Let us start however with eliminating those things which should offend us all, whatever our opinions about the role of government or more fundamental matters.

Jane Galt weighs in on the topic, gives an excellent rundown of why the corporate income tax is a really bad tax and once again gives us her version of tax reform as well. I suggest we start with the two obvious and easy choices I list above first. We were able to achieve a bit of bipartisan movement for porkbusters, this is an even bigger and more consequential area where left and right should be able to get together. Bi partisan and achievable beats partisan leveraging any time.

Azziz Poonawalla seems willing to think about it as does Meta DC.

Technorati Tags: Taxes, corporate taxes, VAT, income taxes, subsides, Democrats, Republicans, health care

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To our Senators,

I have a brother who has been in Iraq and will probably soon be there again. We understand your indecision about the increased commitment of troops to Iraq. We do support making the commitment, but we understand if you do not.

We do not however understand the possibility that you will vote in favor of the upcoming resolution. If you do not feel the increase, but more importantly the new approach, is worth pursuing I can only assume you have decided that the effort in Iraq should be abandoned. If that is your feeling please feel free to vote to defund the war and bring our troops home. I will disagree with that approach, but that is what you should do.

If you in fact support going forward with the effort in Iraq, but disagree on the strategy, this is not the method to accomplish that.

If you are not willing to defund the war, then you are merely damaging the morale of our troops and giving aid and comfort to the enemy. General Petraeus has made clear (my brother and other soldiers I have spoken with agree with him) this resolution will do these things. War is in the end about breaking the will of the enemy, this resolution makes that more difficult. I know this is a difficult choice, but either you support the efforts of the troops or vote to bring them home. I know what I and my brother support, but I understand why you might feel otherwise. Nevertheless you have an obligation to either support General Petraeus and the troops or bring them home. To hide behind the resolution accomplishes nothing to bring our troops home but makes their job more difficult. To hide behind this resolution does nothing to move toward any policy which you believe might be more appropriate. It is political theater, not constructive action, whatever action it is which you might support. The symbolic nature of the resolution accomplishes nothing constructive and only harms. This will lead to people dying who otherwise would not. You are increasing the danger my brother already faces.

For that reason I have signed the NRSC petition at http://thenrscpledge.com/ which states:

If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.

If there were a petition aimed at Democrats I would sign it. I can vote for someone who opposes our Presidents policy, I cannot support those who would vote for this resolution.

Please make a courageous choice. Support the war, vote to end it or work for the policy you think would be appropriate.

Please do not vote to merely undermine it.

Regards,

Lance

Technorati Tags: Iraq, surge, General Petraeus, Senate, Republicans, Democrats, War

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Over at QandO while reading the commenters having a jolly time making fun of Jimmy Carter, Tom Scott chose to rise up to defend the former President:

Yeah, and you laughed at him when he was attacked by a rabbit. Well now former

No need to click through, the video is below the fold:
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With the passage Wednesday of a Senate resolution rebuking the President’s planned “surge,” and the recent revelation that more than one fifth of Americans want that plan to fail, I couldn’t help but recall these inspiring words:

In all of history, I know of no war, aggressive or defensive, that was won by a nation that entered it with a plan for how and when the nation would surrender.

Senator Richard B. Russell (D-GA) uttered those words in support of his proposed legislation banning the federal funding of “surrender studies” back in 1958. The issue of surrender studies arose when another Senator, Stuart Symington (D. MO), fanned the flames of partisanship in order to boost his presidential aspirations by portraying Pres. Eisenhower as soft on defense (he ultimately lost the Democratic nomination to John F. Kennedy). In addition, Symington was the former, and first, Secretary of the Air Force, who had a great interest in national defense, thus he seized on any issue that highlighted its importance. In 1958, at the height of the Cold War, Symington got wind of a study regarding when the USA should surrender in the event of an all-out nuclear war, allegedly done on behalf of the Pentagon. That August, he began inserting news articles into the Congressional Record:

On an otherwise quiet summer day in August 1958, Stuart Symington (D. MO)3 asked leave to insert an article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in the Congressional Record. The piece, prepared by Thomas R. Phillips, was entitled: Question of When the United States Should Surrender in an all-out Nuclear Attack Studied for the Pentagon.4 Phillips alleged that the United States government was investigating possible American responses to a nuclear attack. Moreover, one agency was examining the assumption that surrender would be advisable if faced with overwhelming force. The remainder of the article examined the premise that the USSR possessed superior military forces. Using the article as a jumping off point, Symington offered a few comments critical of the President Eisenhower’s defense policy.

The issue of surrender studies next surfaced later that August when Symington summoned his colleagues to consider articles in the New York Mirror and the Washington Post.5 The articles revealed that a request for information concerning the surrender study submitted by William F. Knowland (R. CA), H. Styles Bridges (R. NH) and Everett M. Dirksen (R. IL) had disturbed the president.

The three later informed their Republican colleagues that Eisenhower was horrified that “such a defeatist study could be conducted by… the Defense Department.” The Washington Post, citing an unnamed source, reported: “I’ve never seen the President so mad. He turned the Pentagon upside down trying to get to the bottom of it.”6 Significantly in light of later events, Symington continued to focus on the defensive capabilities of the United States. He read yet another article into the official record. This column, also by Thomas R. Phillips, alleged that the American missile program was so inadequate as to allow the USSR a substantial measure of superiority.

Eisenhower was reportedly quite upset about the study, and apparently turned the Pentagon upside down looking for the culprits. Not only was he being made to look the timid warrior in contemplating America’s surrender, it was a potential opponent and former Air Force Secretary who was doing it. That would not abide, so Eisehower went into damage control. However, the cat was now out of the bag, and Senator Russell grabbed that tiger by the tail and rode it all the way to a full-throated Senate confirmation of the fact that the US government would not ever, under any circumstances, consider surrender an option.

That which began as the foundation for an argument quickly became a matter of disproportionate importance. Senator Russell was determined to safeguard the honor of the American people. He would not support those he saw as cowards who would count the cost and develop plans for surrender. He insisted: “In all of history, I know of no war, aggressive or defensive, that was won by a nation that entered it with a plan for how and when the nation would surrender.” In fact, if the Eisenhower administration entertained any thought of surrender, then the nation should capitulate immediately and thereby forego spending billions in treasure in a fruitless enterprise.10

Of course, Russell did not believe the American people were willing to consider surrender to any nation. In his opinion, Americans would die on their feet before they would live on their knees. To that end, he offered an amendment to a pending supplemental appropriation bill … The amendment would prohibit the future expenditure of funds for surrender studies. The proposal would also hold hostage the salary of any employee or official who countenanced such studies.

Of course, in reality the legislation accomplished nothing. The study complained of was actually privately funded, and it was no more than a theoretical analysis; a big “What if?” The government was not entertaining the idea of capitulation to the Soviets, nor had it ever done so. But no amount of reality was about to rain on Senator Russell’s parade.

Symington sought to turn the debate back to the nation’s defense, but lost the floor to Knowland, who assured his Georgia colleague that Eisenhower knew not the meaning of surrender. “I repeat that the word surrender is not even in the vocabulary of the President.”17 Russell would have none of it. The American people must be reassured. The world must be informed the United States had no thought of surrender. Moreover, as for him, the Congress of the United States should never “authorize the expenditure of public funds for studies in contemplation or a condition or situation that would result in bringing the United States to its knees.”

The amendment gathered more and more political steam since, after all, who wanted to be seen as soft on defense at such a critical point in the history of the nation’s security. It was political suicide. Accordingly, after some last minute wrangling and proposals for substitute language, the amendment passed 88-2. It was functionally meaningless, for sure, except as a grand gesture of respect for the American spirit, for which no other function was necessary. The New York Times had this to say about the Russell Amendment:

Defeatism is a primary means of giving aid and comfort to the enemy…. It is an invitation… to seek refuge in appeasement. It is an appeal to fear, to cynicism, to irresolution…. This is not to suggest that we need a purblind chauvinism to solve our problems. We can ascertain all the facts and we can face them… [Still, a free people] cannot tolerate even the thought of surrender[ing]…. their freedom… [if] they have faith in the righteousness of their cause and [are] confident of its ultimate triumph.

Oh, how times have changed. Instead of resolute resistance to our enemies, surrender is openly contemplated and actively encouraged. Instead of assuring the American people of its resolve and courage, government officials routinely undercut their political opponents at a great cost to the nation, and to the despair of many of her citizens. Instead of messages of encouragement and support for our nation at war, defeatism is the virtue of the day amongst our political elite and media heavies. If Senator Russell were alive today, he would keel over with shame for what the nation that he vowed would never surrender has now become.

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Update:Don Surber has a reaction and the Wall Street Journal weighs in as well.
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An argument has been going around that we should not be holding the Democrats accountable for standing in the way of reform because the Republicans failed to do much about it when they were in the majority. It seems to me that we here, and many around the blogosphere and in the media, argued long and hard that the Republicans had squandered their right to the vote of those of us wanting a transparent, fiscally responsible government. That the only hope was to make it felt at the ballot box that we were dissatisfied.
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The fight to raise the minimum wage is about to become a rout. Of course, as we noted earlier that fight doesn’t include American Samoa, and we still have no way to know exactly why. Actually, what I should say is that the explanation is incoherent.

Let us go over a few of the facts, or maybe they are facts. Let us just call them pieces of information:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday said Democrats will close a loophole in the House-passed minimum wage increase that exempts American Samoa — an action taken after it was revealed that one of the U.S. territory’s main employers is based in her congressional district.

“I have asked the Education and Labor Committee as they go forward with the legislation to make sure that all of the territories have to comply with U.S. law on the minimum wage,” Mrs. Pelosi said.

The decision follows criticism over the exemption, reported earlier this week by The Washington Times, to allow tuna canneries in American Samoa to continue paying $3.26 an hour — nearly $4 less than the $7.25 minimum wage passed by the House Wednesday.

Uh, let us just say that that loophole closing didn’t occur.

The argument being made is that raising the minimum wage in American Samoa would devastate the local economy, though as I pointed out earlier, theoretically American Samoa is a perfect example of the kind of place where a minimum wage might make sense. I must admit I don’t think it is a good idea, but any arguments against it would apply anywhere, not just American Samoa. Of course, raising the minimum wage is a great idea according to American Samoa’s Representative Faleomavaega: (more…)

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All in all a competent speech. I like the ideas on health care overall which was the high point for me on the domestic policy side.

On the war in Iraq he laid out his argument better than he has in recent months. Outside of that I pretty much hate the State of the Union speech and wish they would just deliver it in written form as everybody from Jefferson all the way to Woodrow Wilson did. One more reason to despise Woodrow Wilson.

What I hate even more is the opposition response. I suggest that the Republicans forgo this tedious exercise should the Democrats take the White house. They won’t, but I can always hope. Maybe if the Republicans look ridiculous for a few years the Democrats will figure out that you always look bad in comparison to whoever is the President. How about this from Webb? (more…)

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I haven’t weighed in on the Duke rape scandal primarily because it’s been handled quite thoroughly elsewhere. However, today I read (via Insty) what can only be described as a model of supreme self-deception and insipid anlalysis:
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I haven’t addressed D’Souza’s new book The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, though Robby asked me to long before it was even out. I have meant to, but at this point it seems a bit superfluous. It has been dissected and critiqued so extensively that I can’t imagine as someone who hasn’t read it, and doesn’t intend to, that I can say anything more of value about what he is arguing.

As for what my opinion is, any reader of my writings here should have no difficulty figuring my position out, but if you want a good roundup of views that reflect mine I suggest starting with Eric Scheie who it will surprise nobody to find out I agree with once again. If you read Instapundit you already saw these links from Eric, but if you missed them go ahead and take the time to go and poke around. By poke, I mean go to the many other writers he links to who have addressed various aspects of D’Souza’s argument. One thing is heartening, the right as a whole seems to be rejecting his thesis (if not every aspect, which seems about right to me) that liberals and libertarian leaning people do is pretty much a given. If you did go and read Eric you may have missed his updates and this piece from Dean Barnett. If so, go ahead and give Dean a bit of your time.

Technorati Tags: D’nesh D’Souza, libertarianism, 9/11, war, Islam, Islamism

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The expansion of the influence of virtual worlds continues. From Blake Hounshell, formerly known on the internet as Praktike:

Reuters will conduct a series of interviews with artists, politicians and executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland next week, in front of a live Second Life audience.

Reuters Bureau Chief Adam Pasick will talk with guests including Linden Lab Chairman Mitch Kapor, author and entrepreneur John Battelle, former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, and musician Peter Gabriel during the WEF, which takes place Jan. 24-28. They will have their own customized avatars and will take questions from residents.

Heh, and what about the latest news on the economic influence I discussed earlier:

According to Reuters, $1,184,358 real U.S. dollars–that’s million with an “m”–were spent in Second Life over the past 24 hours.

Hat tip: Joshua Foust at The Conjecturer.

Technorati Tags: Virtual worlds, economics, foreign ploicy, Davos, World Economic Forum

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I don’t know what to make of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. On one hand he is one of the architects of the Islamic Republic, one time designated heir to Khomeini, a supporter of the seizing of our embassy at the dawn of the Revolution and still claims to believe in the Guardianship of the Clergy. (more…)

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Speaking of pumped, I should be, but I am less excited by the thought of Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age coming to the Sci-fi channel.

However, having George Clooney behind it means maybe it will get the funding it deserves and we can avoid some of the issues I have with the Sci-fi Channel adaptations of the past.

Just as important Stephenson himself will do the adapting. So call me cautiously pumped!

For those who would like an academic take on the book, I give you this:

http://spot.colorado.edu/~toakes/Diamond.html

Technorati Tags: Neal Stephenson, he Diamond Age, Sci Fi Channel, George Clooney

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Hat tip: Stephen Bainbridge

It is being turned into an HBO series!

The series will begin with the 1996 first book, “A Game of Thrones,”
and the intention is for each novel (they average 1,000 pages each) to
fuel a season’s worth of episodes. Martin has nearly finished the fifth
installment, but won’t complete the seven-book cycle until 2011.

…..

“They tried for 50 years to make ‘Lord of the Rings’ as one movie before Peter Jackson found success making three,” Martin said. “My books are bigger and more complicated, and would require 18 movies. Otherwise, you’d have to choose one or two characters.”

I am really pumped!

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From Robin Hanson’s fascinating blog, Overcoming Bias, I found this:

Last November we learned that the US public believes in God more than college professors, who believe more than professors at elite schools:

Almost a third answered “none” when asked their religion — more than twice the percentage found in the general population. Science professors were the least religious. Accounting professors were the most religious. More than half the professors at places other than so-called “elite” universities said they absolutely believed in God. About a third of the professors at elite schools took that position. … About 30 percent of community college professors considered intelligent design as a serious scientific alternative. Fewer than 6 percent of professors at elite universities took that position.

If all we know about a view was that professors held it more, and elite professors even more so, we would be inclined to favor that view. But other considerations can be relevant; if we knew elite professors favored increasing elite research funding, we might attribute that to self-interest bias. So should we favor elite professors’ views on God, or can we identify other relevant considerations?

There were a lot of responses from around the web, and I would love to hear from our readers. One thing I noticed in the responses that was insufficiently debated, the possibility that elite professors and the academic community in general discriminate against the religious. Do academics at elite universities automatically mark down as a negative strong religious belief, especially in the biological sciences? Does that (speculative) bias affect the likelihood of academics to hold to religious belief? This is not an assertion, but a question.

Robin Later added some potential explanations for the correlation:

1. Information – Elite academics have better information and analysis.
2. Social pressure – Random variations in local social pressure are a generic explanation for all behavior differences.
3. Calm – Tyler says the academic neutral tone fits badly with charisma.
4. Unfeeling – Academics prefer explicit reasoning, and neglect our feelings, which some call our best evidence for God.
5. Safety – Anders suggests the safe cushy academic world doesn’t inspire fear, which inspires hope in God.
6. Contrarian – Academics distinguish themselves from others via differing beliefs.
7. Jealousy – God would be a threat to academics intellectual authority.
8. Mystery – God is too hard to understand for academics to make progress using him as an explanation for things.

In terms of what these theories suggest about what to believe: 1 favors no God 6,7,8 favor God, 4 is hard to interpret, and the rest seem neutral.

Discuss. Here is the discussion from Marginal Revolution, Stephen Bainbridge, Outside the Beltway and over at Jane Galt’s place.
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Courtesy of MEMRI

Prominent Iranian satirist Ebrahim Nabavi a known critic of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as of members of the Iranian religious establishment Takes aim at dear Mahmoud in an open letter posted on the reformist online daily Rooz. He was responding to the letter Mahmoud sent to the American people last November. The following are excerpts from Nabavi’s letter, in the original English. (more…)

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While my political prognostications may not be up to snuff, I could not resist pointing out a prediction that I nailed:

It’s still early in the season, but I think a Chicago-Indy SB is the best bet, and my money is on Manning.

Accolades are welcome in the comment section.

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The Nation of Islam has a sports blog (Hat tip: Three Sources) and it is a riot. I thought the nonsense at the Stormfront (not linking, I tired of their schtick when I linked to them last time) site was offensive and ridiculous. Get a load of this (which at first I thought might be parody):

White devils on ice. Whirling dervishes on skates. White athletes propelled and assisted by physics to speeds they can not reach on land. The ice. The last refuge and hiding place of the white athlete.

Relegated to minority status in most team sports, the white athlete has retreated to frozen water as a means of preserving his one “major” remaining sports league. Knowing full well the Negro athlete has a traditional distaste for performing on or in water. After all, it was across a great body of water the Negro was shanghaied and stolen.

Hey, wasn’t Al Campanis fired for saying something about African Americans and water?

As Negroes, we turned our attention to NASCAR, hoping that Jay-Z or Carmello Anthony would invest in the future of Negro America by developing a racing team to return the world of autoracing to the original human. While our eyes were diverted, the white devil sprung into action.

Hockey players agreed to pay cuts. A new network was conjured to carry the “sport”. And, like the rebirthed spawns of satan, the return. Brawling, bearded and unevolved monoliths reappeared from the frozen northern wasteland.

For those not getting it, the original human is one of African ancestry and the unevolved are white people, though by the terms own reckoning aren’t we all of African ancestry? It seems the view is that whites and other races are being driven from sports because of their inherent inferiority.

Check out the first post from this pocket of racial hatred:

A resounding “good day” from the Nation of Islam, as we pursue or path of righteousness and brotherhood by venturing into the world of sports.Anticipate a view of the sports world through the eyes of the original members of the Tribe of Shabazz.

As the original humans, the view through our eyes is the only authentic view.

In the words of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad: “We don’t hate white folk. We just don’t like ‘em much.”

(emphasis mine.)

Technorati Tags: racism, Nation of Islam, Race, Elijah Muhammed, Hockey, NHL

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I went to get a copy of my local paper today, and while I was there I glanced over at the cover of USA Today to see what they were reporting, and I saw this headline:

Costs keep students from first-choice colleges

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This is a nice example of why I take paleocons even less seriously than I take diehard, doctrinaire Libertarians. As some QandO commenters are fond of saying (in full snark mode), “It’s all dem Joos’ fault!”

Here’s a post from Da Man himself, Patrick J. Buchanan. Notice that Buchanan implies his agreement with those who support Congress simply cutting the funding to the war in Iraq.

Until the Paleocons give up the never ending Evil Zionist Conspiracy arguments, they will continue to be treated like the unrepentant anti-Semitic cranks that they prove themselves to be on a daily basis.

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Via McQ at QandO we see from a recent Fox poll that at least some Americans are rooting against the home team:

19. Do you personally want the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?

——————————– Yes —- No — (Don’t know)
16-17 Jan 07 ————- 63% — 22 — 15
Democrats ————— 51% — 34 — 15
Republicans ————– 79% — 11 — 10
Independents ———— 63% — 19 — 17

A little over one fifth of Americans would rather see the “surge” fail than succeed. And it’s highly unlikely that the respondents misunderstood the question, since the very next question was “20. How likely do you think it is that the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week will succeed?” How any citizen can wish for the failure of his or her own country is mind-boggling to me. But, should I really be surprised?

In a post deriding what passes for debate about the war, Callimachus poses an interesting question, which I think informs our analysis of the poll answers:

A war and an anti-war driven by a politicized mass media and a media-gaming political class naturally devolves to a place where words and clichés trump realities.

The new SecDef seemingly had to pass only one confirmation test: Use the words “not winning in Iraq” in front of Congress. Anti-war types get all apoplectic over whether Bush calls it a “war” or not. “Stay the course” … “mission accomplished” … “cut and run.” Everybody knows these; what kind of war is it where everybody on the home front can bicker about slogans and no one can name a hero?

Words like “neo-conservative,” “civil war,” WMD,” “democracy,” “treason” inhabit the core of the public discussion about Iraq — and no two people who use them daily can agree on what they mean. Are 20-year-old Sarin gas artillery shells WMDs? Is Dick Cheney a neo-conservative? Is Iran a democracy?

(To be fair, some can name the heroes.)

Militarily we are unbeatable, and as I’ve pointed out before, this war will not be won or lost on the battlefield, it will be won or lost on the airwaves and in the tubes. Because the debate over the war is so focused on political considerations (i.e. winning the war = Bush winning politically; losing the war = Democrats winning politically), it seems that the actually prosecution of the war is a side issue. Winning the war does not seem as terribly important to some as who will be in charge of the government here at home. Because the entire debate about the war (driven by the MSM and media savvy politicos) amounts to little more than finger-pointing and self-righteous prognostication, the actual prosecution of the war — i.e. our victories and our setbacks; our accomplishments and our failures — gets short shrift. Of course, a good share of the blame for this situation falls squarely at the feet of President Bush who, aside from executing a poorly concocted post-war plan, has virtually abdicated the bully pulpit, and has done little to nothing to energize Americans’ support for the war effort. That there are those who wish us to fail in Iraq should then be unsurprising.

By the same token, those who wish us to fail should expect to have their patriotism challenged, and indeed they may want to question it themselves (if you really want us to fail, why are you here?). As should those who place political considerations above our national interests in defeating the insurgency in Iraq, stabilizing the government, and getting into a long stare-down with Iran and Syria. If you are more concerned with your political party winning (or with a hated candidate losing) in the elections than with your country winning in the war, your patriotism is suspect at best. That goes no matter whether you are Republican (11% want us to fail), Democrat (34%) or Independent (19%). Rooting for the US mission to fail because it suits your political druthers indicates that you have no patriotism, and really begs the question as to whether or not you’re an American. I can sympathize with those who merely want us to end the war, those who thought it was a bad idea from the get-go, and even those who just plain old hate Bush. But hoping that your country fails is simply intolerable, and if you really feel that way, then maybe you should just leave.

Technorati Tags: patriotism, questioning, fox poll, surge in Iraq, war in Iraq, GWOT

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Update X2- First update at the bottom, but from around the blogosphere: Coverage at Government Bytes, Diane Feinstein calls the amendment impossible to understand! Ballots, amendments, they are all too hard to understand for Democrats. Mark Tapscott notes that “Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL, Reid’s majority whip, is claiming Gregg’s amendment is actually a parliamentary trick by the GOP to ‘bring this ethics bill down.’” Of course Instapundit is on the ball as well.

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In an encouraging part of the effort to regain their reputation as fiscally responsible, especially on the spending side, Republicans in the Senate are proposing a version of the line-item veto to give the President more tools to combat excessive sending, pork, earmarks and politically connected tax benefits. If it works Porkbusters will have a real tool to help hold the President and Congress accountable for using responsibly. This battle is important, for as I have noted repeatedly and Keith pointed out the other day, we know what the Democratic approach to spending is going to be. This is especially important for those of us who argued that the Republicans no longer deserved their reputation for spending restraint or our support. We need to support every effort they make to return to their roots.

Instead of vetoing individual items the president would be able to rescind individual projects and send them back to Congress:

“Line-item is the title being put on this, but what it amounts to is a targeted rescission, where items in big bills that are buried there can be brought into the light of day,” Gregg said in an interview.The latest Senate line-item plan would resemble a measure that Gregg, the Budget Committee’s ranking Republican, passed out of committee last year during his chairmanship. That bill would prevent money from rescinded projects from being used as offsets for new spending, allowing the president to propose cancellation of certain spending projects and tax benefits that would be bundled in up to four annual packages.

Congress would vote on those line-item rescissions as a group, which DeMint said would give cover to lawmakers concerned about sparking political retaliation or casting a vote against their state’s perceived interests. Giving Congress the ultimate say on canceled projects also is intended to avoid constitutional challenges, such as the 1998 court ruling that struck down former President Clinton’s line-item authority.

Hopefully this approach will not run afoul of the courts, and at first blush it looks as if it should. There are other obstacles, the biggest being the Democrats who are looking for a fight. According to our source in the Senate:

Despite their promises of real reform, it looks like the Democratic leadership is going to try to block it. Senator McConnell is pushing to force the Senate to vote on the amendment, but Harry Reid is going to try to prevent the vote from taking place at all. He said that if Republicans insist on a vote on this earmark reform, it will be a “long weekend”.

Harry Reid is now arguing that they cannot even have a VOTE on Senator Gregg’s earmark reform amendment because….er, the American people deserve ethics and lobbying reform. Apparently, “ethics and lobbying reform” means ‘blocking votes on earmark reform”.

I hope this does end up as a long weekend, and I hope that long weekend ends with those opposing a common sense attempt to control the out of control appropriations caving. I mean you Senator Reid.

It should be remembered that the Democrats blocked last years ethics and reform bill last year for unrelated reasons and they attached an abortion amendment to the Bankruptcy bill in 2005. Since they have reluctantly accepted the DeMint earmark reform amendment to the ethics bill, they have tacitly agreed that earmark reform is an essential part of ethics reform. So at minimum why can’t we have a vote Senator Reid?

Update: Heh, Harry Reid has agreed to negotiate about whether they will have a vote. I guess the long weekend was looking less inviting than Harry thought.
Technorati Tags: Ethics, Porkbusters, Congress, Democrat, Republican, Spending Reform,

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Curious? Satisfy it below the fold.
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I had the good fortune to meet up with Jon Henke this evening at the Hit & Run Happy Hour event downtown in D.C. You will be disappointed to learn that Jon is not some rabid libertarian fanatic, hell-bent on undermining the establishment at its roots. I saw no signs of rabies whatsoever. Actually Jon is just like you and me; he’s got a wife and kids, just starting a new job in a new town, and he’s simply looking for a way to make his way in life … although he does get paid to surf the internet all day. Anyway, it was truly a pleasure getting to meet Jon, and it sounds as though he is enjoying his new adventure.

The Hit & Run event was fairly interesting. There were several blog celebrities there such as Max Borders, and Radley Balko (who was very engaging). Most of all I enjoyed meeting Megan McArdle (aka, Jane Galt). Well, actually I didn’t meet her so much as stand there and watch Jon meet her with a rather silly grin on my face. For those who don’t know, yes she is tall, she is lovely, and like all good New Yorkers she seems entirely unflappable. There were other interesting people there as well, including a Catholic priest and diplomat from the Embassy of Tunisia. All in all, it was a very entertaining evening.

Technorati Tags: QandO, Jon Henke, Max Borders, Radley Balko, Megan McArdle, Reason magazine, Hit & Run

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The Democrats wanted to end the excesses of the Republican administration. Hey, we don’t need to keep terrorists and suspected terrorists in Gitmo. We should always wait and get a warrant when suspicious calls are made to suspected foreign terrorists. And their library records should be off limits too…

OK, I may believe that the anti-terror efforts of the administration need a closer examination, and probably some tweaking, but I was never a fan of the “divided government” strategy with regards to voting in last Novembers elections. I was in a Republican safe area, so my choices ran from voting for the shoe-in candidate, or voting Libertarian. By and large, I voted Libertarian. I knew that voting for Democrats (even if the reason was to punish the Republicans) wasn’t going to result in a reduction of governments excesses, just a shifting of the target of those excesses.

Well, if I’m to believe the American Center for Law & Justice, (which I’m inclined to do at this time,) in addition to Democrats wanting to raise our taxes, they also want to limit free speech even further then McCain/Feingold did already.

Nancy Pelosi hasn’t been Speaker of the House for two weeks yet and there is already proposed legislation which would be the most significant encroachment ever into the affairs and ability of churches and other organizations to communicate. Under the guise of lobbying reform, Speaker Pelosi and others have proposed legislation greatly expanding the scope of lobbying regulation which would have a significant impact on churches, pastors, religious denominations, public interest organizations, civic organizations and other nonprofit groups. Even private individuals who voluntarily pay for media to distribute important messages to the general public on political matters would be impacted.

So draconian is the proposed Lobbying Reform Bill that it would actually impose registration and reporting requirements on churches and other nonprofit organizations. This is because the definition of “lobbyist” and “lobbying firms” includes specifically grassroots-organizing efforts.

While they are mostly talking about large churches, I have to wonder how blogs and other freely organized groups are going to fair under this new law (if enacted.)

Under the House version of the Bill, a church or organization would be considered a “grassroots lobbying firm” subject to this law if the group attempted to influence the general public to voluntarily contact federal officials in order to express their own views on a federal issue. Furthermore, many large churches and ministries utilize mass media to communicate their message. Under this House Bill by Nancy Pelosi, these communications, as long as they are directed to at least one person who is not a member of the church, would fall under this new Bill. Finally, if the church spends an aggregate of only $50,000 or more for such efforts in a quarterly period, they are now required to register as lobbyists. Many ministries spend $50,000 or more a month for air time.

Well, phew, a little blog like ours shouldn’t have anything to worry about, but this is certainly a slippery slop to be pursuing. And what might this legislation have done in the past?

Nancy Pelosi’s proposed legislation would have stopped Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from gathering support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In fact, as he addressed the social issues from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA, he might well have had to register as a lobbyist.

I do have to wonder what some libertarians were thinking when they advocated voting for Democrats. I certainly expected attacks on gun ownership, our anti-terrorist efforts, our efforts in Iraq, national security, tax increases, and an increase in onerous legislation and regulations. Why, because that is what they’ve done in the past when they had the power to do so. I was certainly in agreement with those urging caution in this past election.

Senators Bennett and McConnell have proposed an amendment to the Senate bill which would eliminate some of the provisions relating to churches and grass-roots lobbying efforts. You can digitally sign-on to a petition supporting the amendment here. We will need to keep an eye on this bill and it’s progress. Something tells me that by the end of the legislative process, we’ll need to have many more eyes on many more bills and some truly odious legislation is going to slip past everyone.

Updated:

McQ over at QandO has a post on another possible threat to free speech, the return of the “Fairness Doctrine.” The effect of which would more likely be the muzzling of conservative/republican/libertarian viewpoints in the radio and tv spectrum.

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Michael said the other day:

Even so, it’s getting harder and harder for Democrats to lay any fiscal irresponsibility at the feet of tax cuts, when such cuts are at least partially responsible for the increased revenues, and federal spending continues to grow, albeit at a slower rate. Ratchet down the spending side (sharply) and we should begin to take chunks out of the overall debt.

That’s not going to stop them from making the rhetorical and highly emotional argument that the rich don’t pay their “FAIR SHARE.”

Yes, wouldn’t it be nice if the Democrats actually cut spending, without leaving free Iraqis hanging in the balance or gutting the defense department. Well, something tells me, even if the Democrats got us out of Iraq completely, government spending would still increase.

And the Democrats are also on track for increasing taxes as well. What did they do first, they changed the rules to give themselves more power to raise taxes.

Beginning of the End

On Thursday, the House of Representatives will vote on legislation to increase taxes for the first time since 1993. It took just 15 days of new found power for the Democrats to raise taxes. The first vote of the 110th Congress removed the 3/5 supermajority to raise taxes. The following day was a vote to enact a new rule requiring offsetting tax increases for every tax cut.

But hey, the Democrats aren’t known as the Tax and Spend Party for nothing…

I mean, what was everyone expecting when they voted for the Democrats (or for some, voted against the Republicans.) That the tiger would shed its stripes and become a tame house-cat, only overturning the worst excesses of the Republicans but otherwise being benign?

Well, you get what you pay for, and in this case, you get what voted for. Of course, the big problem is, I get what you voted for to, which is certainly not what I wanted. Oh well, that’s what happens when you live in a Federal Republic with power and money hungry people being the only ones (mostly) that have the resources to be elected.

Well, at least we’ve got at least half a year to figure out how to minimize the impact to our personal pocket books. Of course, raising taxes, and the minimum wage is likely to sabotage our economy, which, of course, the Democrats will want to “fix” with more government intervention. So, get ready for a rocky ride in the next few years.

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During WWII the media is generally acknowledged to have behaved significantly differently than the media today. The government desired coverage as positive as could be reasonably produced. Losses, setbacks and other difficulties were consistently minimized or surrounded by other copy designed to boost morale, build support for the war effort and steer away from issues that might impact public perceptions of the military in a negative fashion. There was criticism and some was unfair (and of course the Roosevelt administration never felt the press was as cooperative as they wished) but no administration or its core fans ever feel coverage is sufficiently positive.

Just as negative events were routinely portrayed in as positive a light as could be managed or even ignored, victories or fortunate turns of events were glorified, exaggerated and ascribed to the stellar leadership of the administration and its favored commanders. Papers and journalists stepping out from this pattern were despised by many (though hard core Roosevelt haters continued to exist and get coverage.) I don’t mean to imply false coverage (though it existed) just very slanted. I also don’t mean uniform, though certainly the vast majority was slanted favorably. That even applied to our allies who were portrayed far more positively than they deserved, most uncomfortably the Soviet Union.

This was not only a goal of the Roosevelt administration, it was considered an important part of the war effort. Certainly they felt it was important in actually winning a war that often provided plenty of reasons for low morale and a desire to end the effort. Allied atrocities were certainly never covered or dwelt upon.

I don’t describe this to wish it were so now, but merely to point out that it was true and considered right by those who we would consider liberal today. I also describe it to point out that it has never been denied to my knowledge that it aided that effort. I am not claiming we would have not won WWII without the propaganda efforts of the era, though that is not out of the question. If the morale of soldiers and citizens had faltered for an extended period of time we might not have had the will to see it through, though I doubt the consequence would have been that severe. I do believe, but more tellingly the Germans, Japanese, Italians, our government, military commanders and soldiers did, that it did play a key role and made a significant difference in the result. The war ended earlier and many fewer of our soldiers died because of the effort. Our government didn’t go to the lengths they did for no reason. Certainly no one has ever denied the importance of propaganda to the German effort. If anyone denies this it will be the first time I will have heard it. If you do it will not convince me.

Does this mean that the coverage was wrong? Well we won, so by the logic of many today it was accurate. The media should be congratulated and everything I just said was false. The American people were never misled about the war, their sense of what was happening was accurate. Nobody who wished for more honest or evenhanded coverage could possibly have a point, we won did we not? Those who claim that the war had not gone as well as it was portrayed are but Roosevelt haters and fascist sympathizers. They have egg on their face for being so incorrect.

My response is the critics (and by extension me) were right. The war could have been lost or gone much worse or longer and that reality was not adequately represented by the media of the time. Our troops at times committed atrocities that today many would argue should have shocked us. Of course if that had happened the most dire of consequences might have come true! Should I be glad that the media behaved the way it did? I shouldn’t, but I am.

Today of course we have a different media, and in many respects that is a good thing. I certainly could not stomach such a compliant or pollyannaish media, no matter how glad I am that it happened before. Of course, because things turned out well I am glad for all kinds of things that happened in the past that I disapprove of, but I know it was wrong.

What I do dislike in todays media is the opposite. Successes, victories and things which should cheer us are ignored, or when impossible to ignore accompanied or placed in the context of grave difficulties and other minimizing techniques. Setbacks and negative trends are emphasized and compiled in exacting detail and portrayed as inevitable and obviously foreseeable. It is the mirror image of WWII, but unlike that prior time the distortion cannot be portrayed as helping our effort.

That it is a distortion is denied by, well, let us turn WWII around and alter slightly what I said earlier using the logic of today,

Well we are unsuccessful, so it was accurate. The media should be congratulated and everything I just said was false. The American people were never misled about the war, their sense of what was happening was accurate. Nobody who wished for more honest or evenhanded coverage could possibly have a point, we are losing are we not? Those who claim that the war has not gone as badly as it has been portrayed are but Bush lovers and fascist sympathizers. They have egg on their face for being so incorrect.

Does that sound familiar? I think I have heard that argument on this very blog on many occasions. Needless to say that reasoning is no more satisfying as applied here than to WWII. So what? Certainly the troops, military commanders, the administration and most tellingly our opponents feel the media has had an effect. Why would the media coverage have an undeniable effect during WWII but in a much more media centric age less of one? If less, how much less? Does that mean that we would have been drastically more successful had the media coverage resembled WWII’s? No, but that can’t be ruled out. I would prefer something more accurate and contextually nuanced, but if I had to choose one distortion over the other give me WWII’s any day.

Am I blaming the media for difficulties in Iraq? Of course not, but I tire of the denial of the media’s character and role based on how things are turning out or claiming that such things make no difference. I expect no better of the media and suggest that we all should stop doing so, therefore it doesn’t upset me greatly. Listening to people make these two well worn arguments in the face of history tires me however, and this war is tiresome enough.

Update: I should address one other aspect of this issue. It is also asserted, and quite reasonably so, by people on all sides of the questions about our policy in Iraq, that this is a war being fought at least as much on the political and media front as militarily. It is commonly held, and quite reasonably so, that that our opponents view this as a war fought at least as much in the media to influence political and intellectual trends and actions. Hence their emphasis on media, new and old, to distribute their message and shape perceptions. Once again I hear no one deny this, yet if this is true how can one deny that the coverage and content of the media is of no consequence? How can it be said that media is merely a reflection of reality rather than a prime shaper of not only perceptions, but of the actions of all combatants, whether politically, ideologically or militarily? One cannot hold to the first set of statements and belittle concerns about the second and be intellectually consistent.

Technorati Tags: Worl War II, Roosevelt, media, Iraq, war

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I daresay that those who have read my recent posts on President Bush’s new strategy for Iraq and my comments here, at QandO, and elsewhere believe that I am fairly gloomy in my outlook on the situation in Iraq. I believe that is very likely an accurate assessment and I continue to be highly “gloomy,” “dour,” and “skeptical,” of the new Surge plan. In this case, however, I’ve got reasonably good reason to be so. General George Casey, the current commander of US forces in Iraq (soon to be replaced by General Petraeus), believes that the Surge will take at least 3-6 months before results will be seen. Ok, assuming that General Casey’s assesment is correct (and who would have better firsthand knowledge of the situation in Iraq than him), let’s think about what that means for us. Firstly, we’re going to be pulling approximately 20,000 extra troops into Iraq (mainly Baghdad). That number is probably going to include a fair number of soldiers who have already done at least one tour of duty in Iraq. Secondly, the Surge strategy virtually mandates heavy combat. The key objective of the Surge’s mission is the suppression of militia power. I suggest that the militias will not simply go quietly into the night here. They are going to fight back. That means casualties. Probably a relatively high number of casualties, in fact (US and Iraqi). Thirdly, this operation is not predicted to bear fruit for three to six months, minimum (per General Casey). Months and months of intense fighting and potentially heavy casualties before we see any concrete results. Assuming that the strategy succeeds.

I understand the frustration that many have had with our most recent strategy in Iraq which appeared to be “stay the course.” Indeed, said strategy seems not to have produced the desired results and it has become politically unfeasible. Are our only options then the Surge or complete disengagement and evacuation? I don’t really know, however I am fairly confident that those two options will both produce unwanted results to the parties advocating them. Should the Surge succeed, I shall happily eat crow. My concern is primarily with those in the line of fire. I do not wish to see their lives squandered on hasty strategies conceived out of frustration, impatience, and political strategizing. I want to see the Surge succeed, but I cannot believe that it will do so and that it will result in more unnecessary waste of life. After six months of heavy fighting and casualties, Congress will pull the plug and our troops will be evacuated. What exactly will have been achieved then?

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Since starting this little project at A Second Hand Conjecture there have been many highlights, my first link to a post (talk about inflating the ego, it was from Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy on day one) our first Instalanche (and Glenn Reynolds has been far more generous with links and support than I ever imagined or believe we can possibly deserve) getting to know Michael, Omar, Keith and others (Glasnost, Don and Pogue Mahone come to mind) covering the Turkish Invasion (Michael’s adaptation of Shakespeares St. Crispin day speech being an especially brilliant satirical adlib that will forever be in my blogging Hall of Fame) and the general amazement at how well this has gone for a bunch of essentially unknown people.

Two events personally stand out for me, and I ask you as readers to forgive my little bit of childish wonder, but I hope this never gets to the point that I can’t get excited about some things.

The first was when a long time influence, someone who I have read and admired for my entire adult life not only linked to me, but praised my application of her ideas, Virginia Postrel. I am not prone to hero worship, but of the public intellectuals still alive Virginia is one of the few for whom my admiration slides over into near juvenile stammering awe. Unfortunately I will never get to interact with one of the few others (I can’t think of anyone else who is alive) Milton Friedman.

The Second was the day that McQ of QandO asked if I could be one of their first guests on their revamped podcasts now that Jon Henke is no longer able to participate. You can listen to the podcast here and I understand Michael will be dissecting our conversation as well. QandO is the blog I read most, and which in turn has been most supportive of what we are trying to do here. It was great to finally have a chance to actually converse with two of the people who provided the model for me in adopting a tone of civil debate on politics and especially an open minded non-dogmatic approach to libertarianism in the blogosphere. What a conversation it was. Both were a joy to discuss issues with and our discussion went on far longer than the podcast. Some of the other issues we touched on afterward I’ll be trying to follow up on over the next few days.

I need to thank Pogue by the way. My voice had given out after a week of illness and to the extent I was able to talk at all was due to following my grandmothers old cure and conducting the podcast with a mug of rye whiskey and lemon juice mixed with the honey Pogue so thoughtfully provided to coat and soothe the throat. My grandmother called it cough medicine, I call it a miracle. I sounded as if I had a throat full of gravel, but I made it through. In my household there is honey and “Pogue honey.” We actually have a relative who feels slighted because when she asked for some of our store of honey we wouldn’t part with the “Pogue honey” and gave her some we bought at Whole Foods. “I want some Pogue Honey!” I kid you not.

Unfortunately we did not get to discuss a couple of things I thought we might get to, which means I wasn’t able to discuss in greater depth Jon Henke’s problem with malicious nanobots, but the topic we spent the entire time on was too large to allow us to get to anything else.

Okay, enough of me enjoying the afterglow. I will be posting tonight or tomorrow a piece following up on the podcast. The podcast focused on the potential upside of the surge. Obviously there are many caveats, points of concern, tangential arguments and more which all deserve more discussion than we were able to give them. Before I publish the piece please send e-mails, leave comments about areas you think were neglected, things you disagree with, issues ignored or misstated, questions you have about what we said, etc.

This will be a link heavy post featuring the views of a great many people, please send me ones you would like me to address.

Technorati Tags: QandO, Podcast, The Surge, Iraq, Iran, Virginia Postrel, Glenn Reynolds, Volokh Conspiracy, blogging, honey, whiskey,

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In case you’ve missed it, you can hear our fearless leader Lance pontificate in dolby on the weekly podcast for QandO.

In this podcast, Bruce McQuain and Dale Franks speak with A Second Hand Conjecture’s Lance on the troop surge in Iraq.

For those of you who prefer it, the direct link to the podcast is here.

I’ll post a review once I’ve finished listening to it. I promise to be as tough on Lance as Pogue is on logic.

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Donald Sensing identifies, and then draws a big red circle around, the fundamental problem with the modern political leadership — i.e. a lack of leaders (h/t Insty):

In my studies of American history, I cannot identify another time when both political parties were of such small ideals, little intellect, less vision and greater selfish interest than both parties are now. The American people are more poorly served by our national political figures now than ever. We‛ve certainly had times when one party or the other was miserable, but fortunately there were some voices within them were heeded for renewal and during such times there was a reservoir of excellence in the other party. Today neither the Republicans or the Democrats have anything to commend them to the admiration of future historians and there exists no one in either party who can possibly lead them out of the swamp. McCain? Pelosi? Obama? Gingrich? It is to laugh. Then cry.

Who was truly the last great President? Other than Reagan (whether you love him or hate him), who were the real leaders qua leaders as President? By my count, you have to go all the way back to Eisenhower. What about the Senate? Gingrich certainly invigorated the House, but other than him have we had a real “leader” in Congress since “Tip” O’Neill, or perhaps Patrick Moynihan? My answer is an unequivocal “No!”

And who can we really look to as a leader now? George W. Bush had his moment when he stood at Ground Zero and uttered those famous words — “I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” But since then, it’s been one bungle after another. He may have risen to the occasion at the time, but his lack of leadership in effectively prosecuting the war has resulted in an untenable situation where the American public needs to see positive results soon, or the most dire of consequences may occur. To make matters worse, Congress has been totally absent in terms of leadership, both in performing its duty to oversee the office of the Presidency, and in making the needs of the country paramount to the needs of the respective political parties.

Sensing accurately alludes to the problem at hand (i.e. a lack of statesman and leaders) in this paragraph:

We can still prevail in Iraq, but that would require our president to speak straight to us about what it will take and a Congress that turn its eyes away from “the children” (meaning more big spending programs and federal control of our daily lives) and toward building the military numerically and deciding that once again, partisanship stops at the ocean’s edge. But that won’t happen, see above.

Leadership is a virtue, and one that is sorely lacking in today’s political class. Leadership defies internal struggles. Leadership creates even where partisanship seeks to destroy. Indeed, leadership quells internal divisiveness by harnessing and directing energy that would otherwise be spent in the reckless pursuits of rent-seekers bent on securing power and position at the expense of the very demesne over which they crave control. Leaders take you somewhere, while partisans leave you mired in the status quo. Politically speaking, we have no true leaders; we have only power-brokers and charlatans, masquerading as our benefactors.

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In tax revenues!

The federal deficit has improved significantly in the first three months of the new budget year, helped by surging tax revenue.

In its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Friday that the deficit from October through December totaled $80.4 billion, the smallest imbalance for the first three months of a budget year since 2002. The budget year starts Oct. 1.

[...]

The Treasury said the government actually ran a surplus of $44.5 billion for December, the largest ever for that month. The gain reflected a big jump in quarterly corporate tax payments.

The $80.4 billion deficit for the first three months of the current budget year was down 32.6 percent from the imbalance for the same period a year ago of $119.4 billion.

You would think this would be bigger news. You would be wrong.

Before we get all excited, however, the only good news is that the government is spending slightly more per fiscal year than it brings in, when compared to prior years.

For the first three months of the current budget year, revenues total $573.5 billion, an increase of 8.2 percent from tax collections in the same period a year ago. Outlays totaled $653.9 billion, up 0.7 percent from a year ago.

The outlay figure was lowered by $13 billion in payments to the government from last summer’s auction of a portion of the public airwaves. In the government’s accounting process, that revenue is counted as money that reduces outlays rather than as a government receipt.

The overall debt of the nation continues to grow apace. Even so, it’s getting harder and harder for Democrats to lay any fiscal irresponsibility at the feet of tax cuts, when such cuts are at least partially responsible for the increased revenues, and federal spending continues to grow, albeit at a slower rate. Ratchet down the spending side (sharply) and we should begin to take chunks out of the overall debt. Of course, that would involve not just reining appropriations and pork, but those monoliths of government nannism, Social Security and Medicare.

Technorati Tags: deficit, surplus, tax revenues, Social Security, Medicare, tax cuts, federal entitlement programs

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I am an opponent of minimum wage legislation, and one reason to oppose any regulation is that it is generally rigged to benefit someone somewhere who shouldn’t receive government help anyway. Ironically, one of the situations where minimum wage legislation might make the most sense is in a relatively isolated location where the local economy is almost entirely dependent on one or two employers who therefore have little competition for labor producing a product that is almost entirely exported and the profits of which are not spent in that local economy. Even if said employers reduced the workforce somewhat it is quite likely the increased wages would spur the local economy to produce more jobs. Employment losses are likely to be minimal because wages are possibly below a competitive market rate anyway. The local workers have had no alternatives to lead to a bidding up in wage rates.

Our local lovable contrarian curmudgeon Pogue Mahone posited such a situation and in such a peculiar circumstance he would have a possible point. So, if we are to raise the minimum wage the places we should most carefully consider making part of such a measure would be places where workers are in that very position. Luckily we have kind hearted liberal Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi around to make sure that these most vulnerable of workers, who if rewarded would have the most significant impact on their local economy, are covered. That is the whole point of having this particular species of congress critter around isn’t it?

One of the biggest opponents of the federal minimum wage in Samoa is StarKist Tuna, which owns one of the two packing plants that together employ more than 5,000 Samoans, or nearly 75 percent of the island’s work force. StarKist’s parent company, Del Monte Corp., has headquarters in San Francisco, which is represented by Mrs. Pelosi. The other plant belongs to California-based Chicken of the Sea.

75% of the workforce! A clear example of a situation where making the workers better off would take money away from a company and divert it into the local economy. A clear example of a situation where it is very likely that wages are lower than a free market would dictate! A clear example of where a congress critter of the liberal persuasion should be diligently protecting workers and not handing unfair competitive advantages to particular corporations!

So what did we do when we passed this bill which has effects mostly ranging from pointless to damaging? We exempted American Samoa! (more…)

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It seems that a number of insurance companies may fall prey to North Korea’s latest, rather ingenious, attempt to secure hard currency:

Faced with concerns that it may be involved in international reinsurance fraud, the cash-strapped regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il is striking back hard—through the British court system.

In a complaint filed last week in the commercial section of Britain’s High Court of Justice, lawyers representing the state-owned monopoly Korean National Insurance Corporation (KNIC) have sued a group of international insurance firms, led by a subsidiary of German insurance giant Allianz Group, for more than $57 million. The lawsuit charges that the insurers have failed to pay reinsurance claims on a North Korean helicopter accident in 2005 that crashed and destroyed a Pyongyang warehouse containing emergency relief goods, even after being ordered to do so by a North Korean court.

This lawsuit is interesting on so many levels, not the least of which is the irony in the brutal, communist dictatorship of North Korea seeking redress in a court of common law, one of the foundations of freedom in the Western world (more properly, the Anglosphere). However, what I find most fascinating is that these insurance companies entered contracts with KNIC whereby it was agreed that disputes would be settled in North Korean courts (emphasis added). (more…)

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