I have a new post up at Publius Endures discussing Ron Paul’s endorsement of Constitution Party Chuck Baldwin for president.
Category: Politics
Presidents sign the bills that control the economy.
Via John Cole, this editorial cartoon (original source – Steve Greenberg):
Of course this is too blunt to be accurate. There is the additional guilty party, the Congress. It’s more reasonable to suggest that their guiltier, but the nature of our political system produces the marketing message conveyed in this cartoon. Better to just take the message that politicians lie.
Take the beauty of divided government as the better lesson. It’s not perfect because you can see the results of divided government under Reagan, Bush, and Bush. Maybe they would’ve been worse with unified government. Maybe not. I don’t want to speculate here. So I’ll just suggest that pre-W Republican fiscal partisanship controlling Congress and a philandering Democratic fouling the White House are approximately what America needs forever more. Petty distractions from the task of legislating. Maybe we’d no longer need to believe in the same change every four, eight or twelve years.
Blue is the new professionalism?
Via Amy Alkon, I see that TSA has new uniforms. (Conveniently unveiled on September 11th. Symbolism, woohoo!) I have no doubt this will improve the airport security experience. It says so right on the website. Click on What’s Behind the Uniform and you’ll be treated to exciting claims. For example:
ENGAGED WORKFORCE
TSA is revamping the checkpoint process and relying on more personal interaction to detect suspicious behavior. Training officers to increase one-on-one passenger interaction will foster a calmer, quieter environment that will result in a better experience for travelers and increased security.
Should I assume that the gaggle of TSA officers who attempted to bully me last month for exercising my rights hadn’t undergone the new training yet? Will new uniforms enable them to foster a calmer, quieter environment that doesn’t include 7 attentive thugs blocking the line for all passengers and patronizing me that their thuggery is somehow making us safer? Have they been corrected to understand that personal interaction that ends with me exercising my rights does not, in fact, mean that I have engaged in suspicious behavior in need of detecting?
I’m not counting on it.
Government can and will break its own rules.
When I say that the introduction of single-payer healthcare would not lead to the en – or even a significant reduction in – the circumcision of infant males in the United States, I do not hope I’m right. But I still see no reason to think I’m wrong. My analysis includes the evidence that countries with nationalized healthcare don’t pay for ritual/cultural circumcision. I also understand that claiming any particular market is somehow different is dangerous. But it’s quite clear that Americans have an irrational affinity for cutting the genitals of male children. That is a political rather than economic factor in this debate. Our politicians have never shown an ability to say “no” when confronted with a choice of excessive spending or the potential loss of votes. Wrap in religion and it’s a perfect combination for everyone to ignore facts (and the child).
There is one fact in the above narrative that is not accurate. If you’ve guessed that countries with nationalized healhtcare pay for ritual circumcision, congratulations, you understand politics at the expense of economics. From England:
… medical opinion has swung against it, and the procedure is now mainly carried out here for religious reasons.
As such, according to NHS guidelines, it should only be carried out, and paid for, privately.
But an investigation by More4 News has found an increasing number of health trusts are bowing to pressure, and offering circumcisions free on the NHS.
I’d normally embed the video here. I do not like the still image presented before the video plays. You can find it at the link above, or directly here.
Take note that no one in the report mentions what the boys might want. It’s a religious requirement for the parents to impose on their children. That’s enough for everyone to ignore the obvious questions beyond the cost, even though unnecessary circumcision is unjust, both morally and legally. But even in a culture like England that generally does not circumcise, mix the parents’ religion with an inability to pay and the state pays. America will be different how?
The bit about “unscrupulous circumcision practitioners” is particularly fascinating. The doctor interviewed in the beginning of the report operates in a glass house. No, he’s not a mechanic circumcising an infant with a soldering iron. Yet, he is a professional sworn to an oath placing the patient’s health as his first priority. As long as his child patients are healthy when he mutilates them, he is nothing more than an unscrupulous circumcision practitioner with training. The physical results may be less troublesome, but those children will still carry the mark of his criminal lack of ethics for the rest of their lives.
Post Script: I still detest the idea of single-payer healthcare because of the inevitable deterioration in health and care before we get to any discussion of rights.
Seven Years Later
To commemorate today’s anniversary, I’m reposting my entry from two years ago. I’d phrase some of my statements to be clearer, but overall my sense of our world remains unchanged from what I expressed then. Not much has changed in our political discourse, unfortunately but without surprise. I won’t suggest it’s getting worse, but we have almost two months to endure before election day.
I don’t want to belabor any of the obvious points about this anniversary. We all know what today is. We were all there in our own way to witness the horror, wherever we were that morning. Today is different only because we have the perspective that time alone can bring.
What irks me about today is that we’ve had a clear failing in leadership. It would be easy to pick on the president or some other member of the administration or in the Congress. No, that’s the wrong answer. We’ve had a failure in leadership among every politician who has used that day to sell us fear rather than answers. We’ve had a failure in leadership by every government official charged with keeping us safe who has acquiesced to believing that the ongoing threat is so existential that the ends justify any and all means. Worst of all, we’ve had a failure in leadership among every voter who has accepted the fear and the acquiescence to obtain some sense of safety, no matter how irrational or illusory. [ed. note: for example]
Despite the rhetoric to the contrary immediately following the events of that day, I should’ve expected the nature of the partisan political desire to provide the only solution and to claim credit before achieving success. That’s the nature of the job, although it doesn’t have to be. And government officials are charged to follow orders, despite the options to defy unconstitutional orders built into the system through years of need. Again, this is not surprising. The failure to lead in any of these positions is foreseeable. It’s this failure in ourselves to reject elected representatives who care more about their careers than our lives that I think about most today.
This failure is not in politicians of any specific party. The Republican quest for a permanent majority has blinded them to their supposed core principles of liberty and limited government. They want us secure from attack, but not secure in our minds. They wish to walk the balance of these two contradictions by using fear as a campaign tactic to assure us that pulling the (R) lever every November is the only way to prevent that day from happening again. This is crass and shameful, not deserving of even a temporary majority.
The Democratic quest to oppose an administration they’ve hated since 2000 blinds them to the clear need for opposition to provide a vision of success when the majority has strayed. They forget that good people can possess bad ideas. Someone must remind them that the failure of this president is not desirable. Too many Democrats believe that opposition should rejoice in the majority’s failure. They have also settled for believing that America can act as a turtle and retreat to the apparent safety of our shell. They are wrong. They do not deserve to replace the Republicans.
But we accept this. We believe it’s more important to know who to blame for government failures leading to that day than to know how we can fix those problems before they fail us again. We hate President Clinton or we hate President Bush. We believe we are in a religious war or we believe that we are fighting a few fringe lunatics who justifiably hate us for our alleged arrogance. Those coarse generalizations are insidious. The truth, of course, is somewhere in the middle. We know this even when our representatives pretend that we don’t. But we do nothing about it. The venom has carried on for nearly five years. This is dangerous.
When the inevitable push for November begins, with its parade of symbols from that day, we must say that we’ve had enough. We must say that we do not believe that day’s lesson should be permanent fear and hatred. We are strong for the principles we stand on. They have led us to our power and standing in the world. We must show that our ideals are true. Revenge against our enemies, across oceans or across the street, does not serve us. Justice and peace are all that matter.
We must demand that our representatives lead. If they refuse to be accountable, we must vote them out and find new representatives. We must expect solutions instead of fear and blame. We are all on the same side. Disagreement does not equate to a desire or willingness to lose. We showed that we could be united following that day. We must return to that. That is the way to respect America and our continued strength. By leading we find a safer future.
That is how I want to honor those who died that morning.
The invisible hand always loses to the visible fist.
Who will be the loudest voice to proclaim this proof that the government must rescue us from a market failure?
The Treasury Department seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the nation’s giant quasi-public mortgage finance companies, and announced a four-part rescue plan that includes an open-ended guarantee from the Treasury Department to provide as much capital as they need stave off insolvency.
When even the New York Times realizes that Fannie and Freddie are quasi-public rather than quasi-private, there can be no defense for the failure of the private market. Lawmakers encouraged these two to grow into the mess they are now through poor oversight and perverse incentives. When organizations exist where subjective, politically-favored goals matter more than objective, profit-driven goals, the private market has nothing to do with the organizations.
To be fair, I will not attribute this solely to government failure. I do not concede that the private functions are failing, though, because they are signaling exactly what they’re supposed to be signaling – there was too much cheap and irresponsible money in the mortgage market. This should be a lesson learned. I doubt it will be, precisely because neither is being allowed to fail. Perhaps that’s the right decision; I do not claim to know. But we shouldn’t be here.
Should we move next into discussing American automakers?
This should be comedy gold. Instead, it’s just scary.
Sen. McCain selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his VP nominee. Interesting.
So now that the election’s outcome is now longer in doubt, I’m looking for the partisan nonsense suggesting otherwise. I found it at The Corner. Every piece reminds me why I don’t bother to read NRO, not for mockery and certainly not for information. A few winners from today, in no particular order…
A Little Dubya Love [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Readers heard Palin say “nucular” and wonder …
Given his track record, let’s imitate Bush’s shortcomings. Brilliant.
Next:
Hope and Change—for McCain [Victor Davis Hanson]
The brilliant timing of the post-Obama speech/kick off Labor Day weekend in the appointment of the anti-pork, middle-America charismatic Palin … The 72-year old McCain is still running behind the Messiah, and who knows whether the sudden 3.3 GDP good news on the economy, the stability in Iraq, and cooling off of gas price spikes will hold or play a role. …
Alaska is middle America? But poor geography skills are minor in the face of clear delusion.
Next:
Why Sarah Palin is No Dan Quayle [Peter Robinson]
… But whereas Dan Quayle never actually did anything for Bush, Sarah Palin has helped McCain in two important ways: She has cut short the attention the press would otherwise have lavished on Obama all weekend, limiting Obama’s bounce. This has solved McCain’s most immediate tactical problem.
Forgive me for thinking a candidate should choose a running mate on credentials rather than political (mis)calculation.
Continuing:
… And she has thrilled the GOP’s conservative base, which can now in good conscience give itself to the McCain candidacy with enthusiasm—not feigned enthusiasm, real enthusiasm—for the first time since the senator entered the race. This has solved McCain’s worst strategic problem.
Give itself? That’s just icky. But thank God only the Democrats are looking for a messiah.
Finally, my favorite:
Jubilation, Cont’d [Peter Robinson]
A reader:
The surest sign Palin has fired up the base is the high volume of Corner posts on the Friday afternoon before Labor Day—and the fact that I am deliriously hitting refresh every 5 minutes.
This is why the “Stupidity” tag had to beat down the “Propaganda” tag for primary category honors on this post.
Human Resources Award Winner
As if I needed another reason to hate the Party Before Principle mentality that pollutes politics, this:
Former Justice Department counselor Monica M. Goodling and former chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson routinely broke the law by conducting political litmus tests on candidates for jobs as immigration judges and line prosecutors, according to an inspector general’s report released today.
Goodling passed over hundreds of qualified applicants and squashed the promotions of others after deeming candidates insufficiently loyal to the Republican party, said investigators, who interviewed 85 people and received information from 300 other job seekers at Justice. Sampson developed a system to screen immigration judge candidates based on improper political considerations and routinely took recommendations from the White House Office of Political Affairs and Presidential Personnel, the report said.
Goodling regularly asked candidates for career jobs: “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?” the report said. One former Justice Department official told investigators she had complained that Goodling was asking interviewees for their views on abortion, according to the report.
A novelist wouldn’t write something so ridiculous because no reader would believe it, yet this too-stupid-for-make-believe mindset is how the Bush Administration tried to rebuild our justice system. Permanent majority and all that. I’ll pass.
Not that I think Democrats will not be ridiculous in their own way when they regain control in November. Hopefully they won’t appoint a new Monica Goodling. But if they do, no doubt he or she will be an economist. “What is it about the profit motive that you most distrust?”
At least the stock is up today.
The latest news in the proposed Sirius-XM merger is too similar to recent demands to be anything other than caving to someone’s rent-seeking, so only a quick summary is necessary:
FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, a Democrat, wants the companies to cap prices for six years and make one-quarter of their satellite capacity available for public interest and minority programming, among other conditions.
If the companies agree, Adelstein told the AP that he will support the deal.
Let’s ignore the death reality the merged company would face if it agrees to cap prices for six years and the government continues to contribute mightily to inflation. Why bother with concerns that expenses for the company could increase substantially in six years? Forget¹ that. And let’s also ignore how the influence is being peddled here to benefit Adelstein. It’s offensive, but I do not care more now than my already high libertarian frustration with our unnecessary, unwise regulatory scheme. Hopefully his vote won’t be necessary because two commissioners have already announced support, with a third, Deborah Taylor Tate, expected to support the merger. (She, like the commissioners who’ve decided to vote “Yes”, is a Republican.) Instead, I’m more cynically amused by Adelstein’s concern:
“It’s critical that if we’re going to allow a monopoly, that we put in adequate consumer protections and make sure they’re enforced,” Adelstein said.
The government dictated the existing market when it determined exactly two companies would offer satellite radio services. It is irrational to now complain about unacceptable market conditions. If we humor Adelstein’s fears, a duopoly is hardly better than a monopoly, yet years of experience have shown that satellite radio is not able to price itself as it pleases, or offer limited entertainment choices as a cost-saving measure. Customers began flocking to Sirius when Howard Stern joined the company. I suspect they will flee when he retires. The range of entertainment choices is too large. The executives of Sirius and XM know this, so they seek to stay competitive with a merger. The members of Congress and the FCC are the only people under the delusion that the merged company will gain monopoly power.
Adelstein has an interesting, if unsurprising, solution:
Adelstein also wants to set up an enforcement regime to make sure the companies adhere to the conditions, something that was not outlined in the previous voluntary offer.
So it’s not okay for a merged Sirius-XM to have (the perception of) monopoly power, but it’s necessary for a new regime to have monopoly power to enforce the FCC’s limitations. A government enforcement regime would be benevolent in ways that Sirius-XM would be inherently incapable of acting. Obviously. Would a central planner mislead you?
When the companies announced their proposed merger in February 2007, I’d hoped they could complete the merger in time for me to receive part of the 2008 baseball season on Sirius. I’m now doubting I’ll experience any of the 2009 season on Sirius. I will not thank the FCC for its awful effort at looking after my interests as a consumer.
¹ <cynicism>Obama won’t let that happen!</cynicism>
The leftists can defend themselves.
Via a friend’s tip, a few anti-gay bigots are protesting McDonald’s for some reason or other. Sometimes the idiocy – something about exposing McDonald’s sinful bowing before the Homosexual Agenda™, I think – is so ridiculous that it just isn’t worth my time to investigate closely. As evidence, consider the statement by the protest’s organizer, Peter LaBarbera, as reported by Good As You:
“The people involved in this boycott of McDonald’s are good family people — not vegans, America-hating leftists, or some other fringe group.”
Wow. I see that LaBarbera has been so busy investigating the Homosexual Agenda™ that he doesn’t understand a few things about vegans. One, I have a family, although I’m about as indifferent as I can be to any concern over whether Peter LaBarbera thinks I’m a good family person. Especially if being good means hating people for who they are, as opposed to liking a person who chooses to be an ass.
Two, some vegans might hate America, but those vegans do not hate America because of veganism. But if LaBarbera took a quick (non-gay) stroll around Rolling Doughnut, he’d figure out have all the information necessary to know that I love America and its ideals. Not enough to endorse everything America does, which naturally makes me a pinko, I know. Still, I love it enough that it’s hardly plausible to lump me in with people who hate America. If I want to be embarrassingly stupid, I might suggest that LaBarbera is an America-hating terrorist because his dietary choices match those of Osama bin Laden. But I won’t because I’m not a complete moron.
Three, “fringe” is a very subjective term. I would think that, of course, since if I thought veganism was wrong, I’d change. I don’t because I think I’m right. Many fringe opinions in American history have become the norm. So, fringe doesn’t mean bad. Also, forgive me if I don’t take my ideas from the popularity contest view of what is acceptable rather than a reasoned consideration of principles.
Four, McDonald’s is not exactly vegan-friendly. The french fries aren’t even vegetarian. The key difference, though, is that McDonald’s ignores me because I am not in it’s large, core market. I am on its fringe, but it doesn’t feel compelled to express complete contempt for me. I didn’t think that was noble, but LaBarbera makes me wonder if I set the bar too high.
Post Script: I suspect I belong to at least one other group LaBarbera despises as part of the “anti-American fringe”.