Author: Tony

If I wanted class warfare, I would’ve supported John Edwards.

Via Greg Mankiw, here’s Senator Obama on NAFTA:

… We can’t keep playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expect a different result – because it’s a game that ordinary Americans are losing.

It’s a game where lobbyists write check after check and Exxon turns record profits, while you pay the price at the pump, and our planet is put at risk. That’s what happens when lobbyists set the agenda, and that’s why they won’t drown out your voices anymore when I am President of the United States of America.

It’s a game where trade deals like NAFTA ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart. That’s what happens when the American worker doesn’t have a voice at the negotiating table, when leaders change their positions on trade with the politics of the moment, and that’s why we need a President who will listen to Main Street – not just Wall Street; a President who will stand with workers not just when it’s easy, but when it’s hard.

Kip offers an excellent rebuttal on Obama’s pandering to the Wal-Mart and Exxon non-angles, so I’ll point you there.

What struck me most in this nonsense is the last line. Apart from missing the truth that we need a President who understands that the President’s primary role in the economy is to get out of the way, Senator Obama is backwards on his spin. Telling people we’re going to erect barriers to free trade in an effort to protect domestic interests is easy. Telling people we’re going to stop listening to lobbyists while indirectly telling them we’re going to start listening to a different set of lobbyists is easy. Pitting one group of people against another group of people in order to win votes is easy.

The only hard task in American politics is telling people no. I haven’t seen a politician in my lifetime capable of doing that. Barack Obama is a politician.

The free market – which we do not have – works. There are winners and losers in the short-term as change disrupts the existing manner of operations. That is inevitable, and we can discuss a minimum safety next mechanism (public or private) necessary to squeeze through the turmoil. There will also be winners and losers in the long-term, but that hinges much less on individual skills and much more on motivation to adapt. Specific losing is not inevitable in the long-term.

Pandering to this type of class warfare, which is exactly what Sen. Obama engaged in, will lead to economic turmoil as government intervention designed on fixing perceived injustices only creates different injustice. It skews market incentives. It distorts individual tastes and preferences. It encourages inefficient economic behavior. That is not leadership. To any extent that he believes pretends otherwise, Senator Obama is not running on a platform of change.

Around the Web: Vigorous Nodding Edition

John Cole assesses the Senate’s asinine behavior in passing the anti-liberty FISA bill with telecom immunity and pursuing the NFL over Spygate perfectly:

There is a very real and perverse possibility that the NFL will face tougher sanctions for spying on practice squads and covering it up than the telecoms and this President will face for spying on the citizenry and lying about it.

That the Democrats caved so easily on the former is another reason to ignore them as a party of leadership.

Next, Jacob Sullum dissects the problem with too many science journalists and editors:

Any journalist who doesn’t feel comfortable going beyond what appears in a medical journal to put a study’s findings in context and offer caveats where appropriate has no business writing about science. Reporters can’t be experts on everything, but they can ask smart questions and seek informed comments regarding a study’s potential weaknesses. If news organizations refuse to do so on the grounds that the study was peer reviewed and therefore must be faultless, they might as well just reprint researchers’ press releases. Which is pretty much what they do, all too often.

This is essentially every bit of “journalism” in America regarding circumcision over the last 125 2½ years. For example.

Finally, Colman McCarthy wrote in yesterday’s Washington Post on the current steroids brouhaha in Congress:

This is the second time members of Congress have posed as drug-busters cleaning up the great American pastime. Except that drug use — whether involving legal or illegal drugs — already is the American pastime, and it is far bigger than baseball.

I’m hoping that Roger Clemens polls the members of Waxman’s committee on their use of performance-enhancing drugs. Start with Viagra. Or Cialis, ready for action “when the moment is right” — say, a congressman stumbling home after a late-night floor vote on an earmark bill. Clemens might ask the members how many need shots of caffeine drugs to get themselves up and out every morning. He might ask the members how often they reach for another shot of Jack Daniels to enhance their performance while grubbing for bucks from lobbyists at fundraisers. And before leaving Capitol Hill, he should grill the allegedly clean-living baseball reporters on how many of them sit in the press box enhancing their bodies with alcohol, nicotine and caffeine drugs. And a blunt or two when night games go extra innings and deadline nerves need steadying.

My stance remains unchanged. McCarthy’s essay holds up a mirror to the hypocrisy of today’s moralizers, both inside and outside of government.

I came, I saw, I got the sticker.

As I said I would, I voted for Sen. Obama today. I don’t feel better about the world. I’m not relieved that change is on the way. My teeth aren’t straighter. My hair isn’t shinier. I didn’t win the lottery. Is that because I don’t believe enough?

For what it’s worth, I’m standing by my refusal to vote for either party’s candidate in November. Having already judged Sen. Obama the least problematic, relatively speaking, I’ll ignore Senators McCain and Clinton until another day. But this misguided enthusiasm for Obama because of his promises of help with college tuition from a voter¹ looking for a vending machine candidate and Radley Balko’s concise rebuttal of the stupidity of such an offer sum up my antipathy to registering a general election vote for even this least problematic candidate. Barring a stunning development or a good third party candidate (i.e. not Bloomberg), I’m voting for myself for president in November. I already have three votes lined up. Join the parade early. (I’d add often, but that’s the modus operandi of the two major parties.)

I’ll leave you with a scene from my voting experience today. When the woman in front of me walked to the check-in table when it was her turn, she countered any optimism I’m supposed to have about democracy (in the naked, majoritarian sense) with the following:

Volunteer: What’s your name?

Woman: <states name>

Volunteer: <after verifying name> Which primary would you like to vote in?

Woman: I don’t know.

Volunteer: You have to pick one.

Woman: What are the choices?

Volunteer: <pointing> There are the sample ballots.

Woman: <slowly reads the two ballots, then points> This one.

She chose the Republican ballot. I’m stereotyping guessing she voted for Huckabee because of his affiliation and his opposition to teh gay. That’s probably not fair, but I’m trying to gauge my world – my neighbors – with incomplete information. My theory fits my district, unfortunately.

Any dissenters from that theory, with only the limited information I gave?

¹ Via Andrew Sullivan.

There are exceptions to “Always Be Closing.”

I don’t write about work here because it’s not that interesting, you don’t care, and it’s not a good idea. Some combination of those three is always in effect, so I leave it out. But I want to pull back the curtain once for a specific purpose.

Yesterday’s entry that I might miss voting on Tuesday referred to a contract I was negotiating that involved traveling. It was to start Monday, but I rejected it this morning. That’s not particularly useful to you, but the experience reminded me of a key lesson I’ve learned, whether in my negotiating class in business school or through experience. When you have the sale closed, shut up.

My adversary did not heed this lesson. (I would not normally use adversary in this context, but that’s what he wanted to be.) As I prepared to say “yes”, he interrupted me to question my decision-making process in an insulting manner, implicating my personal life as questionable. Thinking he was proving to me why I had to say “yes” and forcing me to appreciate his understanding while I was being unreasonable, he talked me out of the deal. I would have to work with him for the length of the contract. If he won’t trust my judgment now on my personal decision, I will not risk trusting him to trust me later on professional decisions.

As a blogger, I rarely practice this, but sometimes it’s important to keep one’s opinion quiet.

Addendum: Danielle and I ordered Chinese food last night. My fortune was: Any decision you have to make tomorrow is a good decision. It’s great knowing I couldn’t screw up.

Is the act the crime?

Is this disgusting act criminal because the man assaulted the children or because he practiced medicine¹ without a license:

A Gaston County man, who is the father of a dozen kids by two different women, is now facing even more child abuse charges in Caldwell County.
…

Marlowe and his two wives lived in Lenoir for several years and during that time Amber says he delivered and then circumcised two of his youngest sons.

Police reports indicate that Marlowe used a utility knife and one of the boys even bled extensively.

I understand what most people will argue is the difference between this story and common American practice. I reject such arguments outright. If you think that an operating room and training would be sufficient to overcome the clear assault, you’re ignoring that ritual male genital cutting takes place outside of a sterile surgical environment. You’re ignoring that training is required because the act is surgery. You’re ignoring that surgery was not indicated in the circumcision of these two boys, just as it isn’t in more than one million American male infants circumcised every year. You’re also ignoring that female genital cutting could pass the same low test, yet we understand that the location and training is indicative only of the person’s sense within the confines of insanity. The physical act is assault.

Anyone outraged by the circumcisions in this story who does not object to circumcision as it is commonly practiced in America is a hypocrite.

¹ To the extent that this is “medicine” in its common form, an objectionable claim.

Virginia Primary Endorsement

I may not get to vote in next week’s primary in Virginia. That would be a shame because I’d decided against my own objections to every candidate running to cast a vote against Hillary Clinton. As I’ve written, I don’t buy into Obama’s marketing plan of “Change, rah rah”. I just don’t care, and the cynical part of me hates the unquestioning pep rally feel of this quest for a Dear Leader. I want specifics, and since those specifics I want are what the politician will stop doing, I’m not interested in Senator Obama’s progressive gobbledygook. But Hillary Clinton must be stopped.

I’ve thought about the reasons why, as I’ve come to this conclusion recently. Megan McArdle almost summed it up yesterday:

Barack Obama. No surprise here. He’s slightly to the left of Hillary on goals, but he’s well to the right of her on process. His goal is not more government so that we can all be caught up in some giant, expressive excercise of collectively enforcing our collective will on all the other people standing around us in the collective; his goal is improving transparency and minimizing government intrusion, while rectifying specific outcomes. His economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, is brilliant. Plus, he doesn’t have Hillary Clinton’s deep administrative ties, which means two good things: less capture by the bureaucracy, and arguably less ability to get things done. And frankly, I’m creeped out by the notion of a presidential succession that goes Bush . . . Clinton . . . Bush . . . Clinton.

Again, I don’t like what Sen. Obama is proposing in his never-discussed agenda. I will not vote for him in November if he’s the nominee because he is offering us what he thinks we need. But he needs to be the nominee because Clinton is offering us what she knows we need. Her potential to change her course in the face of contrary evidence is on par with George W. Bush’s mastery of that skill.

I don’t like the short-term if Senator Obama is elected. The chance is too great that there will be a kumbaya grace period for his agenda with the Democratic Congress, but long-term, yeah, I think he will display a lesser ability to get things done. It’s a point made by a friend in another conversation recently; it’s a good one.

Since Virginia doesn’t require party affiliation to vote in a primary, I could vote in the Republican race. But why would I bother? As soulless and unpalatable as he is, I like the idea that Romney would have very little political capital to get things done. However, I also think he would sell any one of us out to another if he thought it would help him. Soulless is as soulless does. But he also has no chance of defeating McCain here, so I’m not interested in wasting my vote. Vote None of the Above.

No right to digital television exists in the Constitution.

While watching television last night, Fox subjected me to a commercial about digital television from the National Association of Broadcasters’ digital television (DTV) transition campaign. Normally I could phase out and not care. But in the middle of the commercial, this:

That’s an interesting claim. Am I to take from this the idea that Congress is smart enough to know what’s good and what isn’t good? It’s marketing, yes, but people showed up to vote in multiple states yesterday where a primary won’t be held for at least a week. Anything that further cements in anyone’s mind that Congress’ central planning is wise and informed can only be considered detrimental. It shouldn’t be too hard to make the correct connection based on the commercial’s mention of the converter box coupon, a giveaway that most people don’t need and no one deserves.

Does religion permit you to increase risk to patients?

From the UK:

Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam.
…

Dr Mark Enright, professor of microbiology at Imperial College London, said: “To wash your hands properly, and reduce the risks of MRSA and C.difficile, you have to be able to wash the whole area around the wrist.

“I don’t think it would be right to make an exemption for people on any grounds. The policy of bare below the elbows has to be applied universally.”

U.K. health officials want to apply this universally to all health care practitioners, individuals who enter into voluntary employment contracts. This is, of course, the proper decision because it’s based in science and objectively applied. No one has a right to put others at risk to satisfy your religion.

For consideration: how is that view compatible with a belief that parents have the right to impose the risks and negatives of medically unnecessary circumcision on their healthy children, as long as their religion requires it? Is the patient’s health and welfare relevant, as it clearly is in the example above?