Calmer voices amid scare-tactic fearmongers
Quality commentary on the bailout:
Bankruptcy, not bailout, is the right answer
It makes me sick when people lay the current financial crisis at the feet of deregulation, ignoring government’s hand in the creation of this economic Frankenstein’s monster. From the article:
This bailout was a terrible idea. Here’s why.
The current
mess would never have occurred in the absence of ill-conceived federal
policies. The federal government chartered Fannie Mae in 1938 and
Freddie Mac in 1970; these two mortgage lending institutions are at the
center of the crisis. The government implicitly promised these
institutions that it would make good on their debts, so Fannie and
Freddie took on huge amounts of excessive risk.Worse, beginning
in 1977 and even more in the 1990s and the early part of this century,
Congress pushed mortgage lenders and Fannie/Freddie to expand subprime
lending. The industry was happy to oblige, given the implicit promise
of federal backing, and subprime lending soared.This subprime
lending was more than a minor relaxation of existing credit guidelines.
This lending was a wholesale abandonment of reasonable lending
practices in which borrowers with poor credit characteristics got
mortgages they were ill-equipped to handle.
I’ll tie this back into the debate from Friday–I’ve rarely heard so many things of which I need to be fearful. If you swallowed the debate hook, line and sinker you’d probably believe we’re on the brink of another cold war with Russia, that the economy is going to grind to a complete halt, that we should be scared out of our pants over Iran, etc., etc., etc.
Thank goodness there are people keeping a cool head in the midst of the “whatever works” school of campaigning and governing (see, e.g., fear). I know I’m going far afield here but I’ll bring it back quickly. Take a look at September’s Cato Unbound topic on responsible psychoactive drug use (brilliant discussion that I would be happy to drive traffic to). It drives me crazy that people believe it is legitimate for government to provide misleading or inaccurate information for the purpose of achieving a public policy goal.
I think it OK (meaning not unconstitutional and not outrageous if the
majority want it) for the government to promote health and well being
through public health campaigns that seek to change behavior,
particularly when the campaigns are directed toward youth. I generally
prefer for such campaigns to achieve their ends simply by providing
accurate information, but acknowledge that sometimes appealing to
emotions or providing only selective information is more effective at
changing behavior.
Don’t misunderstand the author here . . . “selective” information is merely a euphemism for lying to the public. It’s “spin” (with all the negative connotations that implies) . . . “technical” accuracy leading to inaccurate conclusions based on the knowledge of how people will interpret provided data from a “trusted” source.
Translate that into any topic . . . the economy? The War on Terror? I don’t know that all slippery slopes have the same grade, but when it comes to information we receive from our government, we seem to be pretty far down a pretty slippery slope already. I understand national security, which is to say that it is a legitimate reason to potentially withhold information, but it has been so misused over the last several decades even there it seems there is little reason to trust what we are being told.
So I take these dire warnings from Paulson in late-night meetings to Congressional leaders with much less credibility than perhaps others are. But let’s stop teasing Wall Street with a big government bailout, and let them get about the task of picking up their pieces. It can be done. We’ve seen them do it. But they’re going to drag their feet as long as there is the promise of free money out there. No reason to bite the bullet if you might get a Get Out of Jail Free tomorrow, right?
More communist than China, more socialist than France
Add this article to the one below:
How We Became the United States of France
I’m starting to wonder whether, in the “first world” of countries, there is anything other than an awful mix of quasi-capitalism, nationalistic fear-mongering, and big government (e.g. massive taxes and tiny freedoms).
Seriously, the United States certainly had its problems back when freedom meant freedom–everything wasn’t sunshine, rainbows and tulips. And our fledgling nation was helped by seemingly endless natural resources. But we are not the nation we were, and neither major political party seems to have any inclination to look back and try to cull the good from the bad. Instead we look to the new role models of the world–China for national security, France for economic advice, Russia for foreign affairs.
It’s just a truly sad state of affairs, to know that you are living in the decline of power. Had we not abused our position, had we not driven down the road to hell with the bestest of intentions, maybe we’d still lead in education and innovation. Maybe we wouldn’t be looking down our economic backs at the pursuit of China and India.
The most interesting thought to me is that for years conspiracy nuts have been talking about things like the “New World Order” or “One World Government” or whatever . . . where the shadow brokers of power consolidate governmental power worldwide into the UN or some similar body to impose the world onto the United States, to destroy our economy and our values.
Did I miss the takeover? With China adopting more free market policies, with the U.S. government taking over entire industries . . . it looks to me as if the material distinctions between major governments are fading away. Maybe we did miss the invasion, while looking to the government to save us from ourselves. Is there some first world government model that is inescapable whether you are a Constitutional Republic or a one-party authoritarian state? Are modern governments trapped into becoming nearly homogeneous because of the power of the rich and the demands of the poor and middle class?
I don’t know the answers, I only think our direction is a sad one. Neither major Presidential candidate strikes me as truly caring one whit about change. Neither truly wants to change the direction of this country. And whether that change would be massive government control, or Chiacgo-school economic reforms, at least I could respect a candidate that really wanted change. That stood up and fought for something other than a slightly more or less mealy than the status quo that we choke down every day. This path is a slow death spiral towards irrelevance. I wonder how soon we will be able to look for the next paradigm shift in government, the next evolution in moving forward? That will at least be an interesting thing to look towards.
What a wonderful world we live in.
CFI: It’s time for science and reason
Hat tip to Pharyngula. The message this video has to convey is important, and so I’ll let it speak for itself.
Why are our political ideas so entrenched? Science offers clues.
Thought this was a fascinating article on the correlation between fear and politics:
Political views ‘all in the mind’
You hear a lot of people talk about the “politics of fear”, and it turns out there may be something to that when dealing with the Republican base, and I’m saying that more observationally rather than critically (despite the fact that there are critiques to that approach).
What I don’t like about fear is that it isn’t part of a calculated, considered assessment and response. When you react purely out of fear, your almost random action is just as likely to exacerbate a problem as solve it.
Not being afraid is not the same thing is being stupid. For example, you hear about people fearlessly going into wild animal areas at zoos, and generally that kind of stupidity doesn’t end well. But there are people standing outside the zoo cage who aren’t afraid, but nonetheless conclude that it isn’t a great idea to climb into the hippopotamus habitat at their local zoo. I think this point gets lost on some people in political debates. Libertarians with an isolationist bent when it comes to military deployment are often accused of, essentially, pandering to terrorists–that if we aren’t afraid of terrorists to the point where we are willing to expend vast sums of money to go invade and violate the sovereignty of foreign nations then we must be stupid. Or that our calculated decision that these types of military actions aren’t in our best interest will only egg terrorists on because the terrorists will believe their fear tactics are working–that surely we are reacting out of fear and appeasement of terrorism than out of rational analysis.
Of course, fear isn’t always a bad thing. There isn’t always time to make detailed calculations and analysis; sometimes conviction and action in the face of fear provides an invaluable initiative. It’s just as true of humans as it is of flies (hat tip to io9.com for the link). When dealing with a life-or-death situation, or any highly time-sensitive issue, having conviction and making a fast first move based on stereotypes and other preconceived notions can can be the difference between victory and defeat. Fear can trigger this kind of non-thought action. In other words, victory in such a manner under imminent life-or-death circumstances has its own framework of moral justification, but not so much in other circumstances. A certain demographic or segment of the population believe don’t make that distinction–they believe that winning, in and of itself, is all that is important regardless of principle. But the bottom line is that initiative has deep roots in evolutionary biology, it’s just that the thresholds of fear vary significantly across individuals. And apparently have some direct correlations to our political views.
Fascinating stuff.
Obama confuses me–do we read them their rights, or kill them?
Obama to Palin: ‘Don’t mock the Constitution’
I don’t fully understand how Obama is positioning himself on the War on Terror. In an effort to . . . gain the votes of independents? . . . he has adopted pretty much every Republican stance regarding the War on Terror. On this topic the differences between McCain and Obama can be measured in nanometers.
Is there anything wrong with pointing out that a lot of our success in Iraq has been achieved by religious segregation, assassination, and, obviously, torture? And in spite of the ignorance of our leaders for years about the Muslim socio-political landscape? When we pull out and all of our carefully-constructed (and U.S. enforced) walls and barriers start to come down, what happens? We’ve brought the problematic militias on board . . . when we leave and they’re in power, what is the check on that power? What prevents them from reigniting the sectarian violence that exists outside of the context of al Qaeda in Iraq? Unless, of course, we unofficially make Iraq a colony of the U.S. by leaving a permanent military presence.
The problem is that Democrats don’t have the balls to stand up and say that our neo-colonial policies are a significant financial drain on our country and we would be much, much, much better off entering a period of relative isolationism compared to the past 60 years. They don’t have the balls to say that yes, all suspects should have their day in front of a court, here in the U.S., or elsewhere. They don’t have the nutsack to state that it is our interventionist policies that created an environment conducive in the long term to fomenting enemies of the country.
We just killed a major terrorist in Pakistan. He used to be our friend, when it suited our purposes . . . surprise, surprise! How many of those people are we training now? Arming now? Short term gain, long term failure. And if your answer is otherwise, why is it different now than it was before? Why is history going to give us a free pass this time for the same failed foreign policies of the past 60/70/xxx years in the Middle East?
Take Obama’s latest mixed message:
On the one hand (from the article referenced above):
Calling it “the foundation of Anglo-American law,” he said the principle “says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, ‘Why was I grabbed?’ And say, ‘Maybe you’ve got the wrong person.’”
Okay . . . but wait (from the same article):
“My position has always been clear: If you’ve got a terrorist, take him out,” Obama said. “Anybody who was involved in 9/11, take ‘em out.”
So . . . if we spot a “terrorist” from 100 yards out, or from space, we can put a bullet in their head or drop a bomb on their house–that’s all good, apparently (regardless whether we hit the right target or not, or if they are actually guilty of the crimes we suspect them of). But if we capture them, they should have rights? Talk about selective application! I understand that sometimes you have to hit someone from distance (despite the many civilian deaths that have resulted from those kinds of strikes, even with today’s technology), but the underlying issue is that Obama’s rhetoric is indistinguishable from McCain.
Keep in mind that if I absolutely had to vote between Obama and McCain, I would vote for Obama, but he’s not the great change agent he’s hyped as. He’s more of the same, and he proved it when he didn’t vote against the bill giving telecoms retroactive immunity for illegal spying activities. If he can be “convinced” that it’s ok for telecom companies to receive retroactive immunity for breaking the law in being complicit in illegal spying on Americans, why should I or anyone else have any confidence that he’ll protect our Constitutional rights in other ways? Sure, he’ll push the pet Democrat rights like abortion, but when it comes to the power of the government and corporations vs. the rights of the people, the rights of human beings . . . he’s already shown his colors. Sure, he’ll talk a good game about not taking big corporation money–he doesn’t really need it anyway, but he hasn’t shown me that he has any inclination to really put his foot down. And that’s a damn shame.
You don’t want to mock the Constitution? Don’t say we’re going to go around assassinating people.
If we really wanted change, this election would be between Kucinich and Paul. This campaign couldn’t be shallower if it was a kiddie pool.
McCain just doesn’t strike me as having a good mental grip.
I know that politicans have to remember a lot of things. A ton of things. So many people, and facts, and a lot of the information they get, because they are so busy, is being fed to them by people–who, in fairness, are usually people picked by the candidate himself or herself, so the candidate bears a lot of culpability if they are being fed mis-information or spun information.
But McCain just doesn’t seem to me to have the mental sharpness to process, internalize, and communicate. Whether it is the gaffe over the Iraq-Pakistan border, Czechoslovakia, whether al-Qaeda is Sunni or Shia, how safe it is in any specific place in Iraq, or whatever, I know these all can be classified as just “verbal slip-ups”, but I’ll be damned if they don’t remind me way too much of George Bush. Maybe for some people that’s a good thing, but it isn’t for me. I want to have confidence that a presidential candidate really has a good grasp on issues they consider important, and if McCain is running on a platform as being the better man to tackle terrorism and terrorists, then he damn well better know what Muslim faction al-Qaeda belongs to. So far he has not demonstrated to me that he has a significant and comprehensive knowledge on even the topics he holds himself out as being knolwedgeable about, much less topics he doesn’t even pretend to know a lot about, such as economics. Given how much traditional conservatives used to care about economics, it just boggles the mind that you would have a Republican presidential candidate that isn’t extremely well versed in economics and economic policy. Of course, that would have required Ron Paul to get the nomination, and that did not happen.
My alternative is Obama, a candidate who suddenly decided that citizen rights really aren’t that important after all, and retroactive immunity is okey-dokey. Fight for the people dammit!! Give me some reason to believe you’re actually going to stand up for citizens, and not just for big government power. No?
Crap, time to “waste my vote” again on the Libertarian candidate. Maybe next election . . .
The genius of interventionalist foreign policy!1!!oneONE1!on!!1! [Daily Show excerpt]
Getting involved in countries you don’t understand for your own non-critical self-defense interests (i.e. economic, political pissing wars, etc.) has a particular habit of biting you in the ass.
Case closed, your honor.
Unless, of course, you want to delve even further back . . . but it only makes the interventionist case worse, not better.
You F-ing Cowards!
Democrats cave in to Bush’s demands, continue raping civil liberties.
My favorite part:
Democratic leaders there were working on a plan to bring up the Senate-passed measure and vote on it Saturday in response to Bush’s demand that Congress give him expanded powers before leaving for vacation this weekend.
Oh, no, the President has threatened to veto our bill, what do we do?? Guess there’s nothing left to do but bend over and take it up the can!! Thank you, Mr. President, can I have another??
How about you grown a goddamn pair and tell him to stuff his veto pen where the sun doesn’t shine!!
I mean, who is under the most pressure here? A court had ruled the existing program Unconstitutional, so continuing it without Congressional approval would be in violation of a lawful court judgment. Democrats should have told Bush to take it or leave it—dare him to veto a bill protecting the civil liberties of Americans. Why is a Democrat Congress afraid of a man whose approval rating is lower than the average number of points the Indianapolis Colts put up during the regular season last year??
This just really pisses me off. Do either of these political parties stand on anything resembling principles any more? First Republicans abandoned anything resembling fiscal responsibility, now Democrats abandon civil liberties. What a joke. Watch for more updates as the President seeks to expand the next version of the bill to provide corporate immunity for anyone that helped with illegal surveillance. Unreal.
Is Iraq a sovereign nation or not?
Hot on the heels of the recent poll of Iraqis indicating that most Iraqis want us out of Iraq, and not just that, but that they believe they will be safer when we’re gone, comes a blog report from Amygdala on an appearance by Senator Mike DeWine (R-OH) on Meet the Press which highlights a fundamental flaw in our Middle East policy.
There has been a lot of rhetoric about how we want to build a free and stable democratic Iraq to serve as a beacon of, well, freedom, stability and democracy in the Middle East. But it seems to me as if a fundamental premise underlying that entire framework is that Iraq is a sovereign nation. Right?
Enter Senator Mike DeWine.
But you know, on reflection, this is their country. There’s a lot of things going wrong. You blame someone who is there. Still does not change that we’re not in Iraq primarily for the Iraqis. We’re in Iraq for us. We’re—have to do what we have to do, and it goes back to what the three generals—three military leaders said. It would be a total disaster for us to leave. It is in our self-interest, the interest to protect American families, that we are in Iraq. That’s why we’re there.
I’m not here to blame DeWine for his statement, I think it’s completely honest, if a bit contradictory (I’m not completely clear why he can’t see that). How can it be their country, really, if we’re going to do what we have to do (and, presumably, stay until we’ve done it) if the Iraqis want us out and we aren’t even considering leaving?
It exposes the seedy underbelly of our President’s rhetoric about wanting democracy and freedom in Iraq–that we’re happy if these are consequences of our presence, but that if the President and Congress was satisfied that we had won the War on Terror in Iraq, and that our leaving wasn’t going to increase the risk of danger to the United States, our “commitment” to Iraqi freedom and democracy would give way to political expedience faster than a partisan pollster can stuff a ballot box.
We’ve done it before, so let’s not fault people passingly familiar with history for knowing that.
It also shows the reality of our paternalistic government–we do not respect Iraq as a sovereign nation. If we did, how would we handle the knowledge that in a democratic state that most of the people did not want our presence? Why, we would leave. That’s what respect is about. But other nations know that when it comes to the United States the only respect you’re going to get from us (when you’re standing in the way of U.S. interests) is when we’re looking at the wrong end of a nuclear weapon.
Is it any wonder that states whose governments have been targeted by the U.S. are trying by hook or crook to drum up a nuclear arsenal?
And exactly how is it that other Middle Eastern nations and citizens thereof are going to look up to Iraq and its model government if it’s clear they’re just the U.S.’ bitch? Even assuming we “win” in Iraq, if that means we have to stay there for five or ten years after we know the Iraqis want us out, what will we have accomplished? We’ll have proven that we really view Iraq as little more than an extended colony, obligated to follow our policy interests even if their people have determined that such interests are not Iraq’s interests.
Acknowledging that we’re in it for us and not them does clarify the victory condition problem. If maybe we’re there for us, maybe we’re there for them is this kind of mish-mash of justifications, how do you set victory conditions? It’s a mess. But if you narrow it down to “We’re here for us” then you can at least be definitive about what we want to accomplish. At least at that point you can say that regardless what the Iraqis believe that we’re staying anyway, dammit, until we’ve got what we came for. Do I expect that to occur? I do not. I fully expect Senator DeWine’s comment to be flushed down the political toilet of history, never to be heard from again, leaving us right back where we were before.
Two final points:
1. Before you counter this by saying “We are there for the Iraqis,” consider the can of worms you’re opening up from a foreign policy perspective by justifying deposing a dictator or authoritarian government because of how the people are treated. There’s a lot of people in this world, and a lot of crappy governments, and the line is going to get real long, real quick, if you’re going to put your flag in the ground over that principle.
2. Iraqis want us out. Iraqis believe they would be safer with us out. We are now at a place where their sovereignty is at odds with our interest. Don’t come on here claiming that somehow our interests are aligned. To do so you better have a damn good reason to throw the poll results out. Maybe such a reason exists. Maybe there is a flaw in the methodology I am unaware of, or an unreported bias by the organization. Maybe you hate polls, I don’t know. But don’t come on here and claim we’ve got aligned interests unless you can back it up a substantive claim that a majority of Iraqis want us there.
And when we win, it will be a magic fairyland!
I am writing in reaction to Andrew Coulson’s latest Cato-at-Liberty post. He seems to be saying that in spite of the NIE report saying that the risk of terrorist is getting worse that is to be expected because we haven’t won the war in Iraq. His comparison is to WWII by saying that we were no safer from 1942-1945 than we were in 1941 because, d’uh, the war was going on and you can’t expect to be safer ’till it’s over! Don’t get me started on what I think about WWII analogies to fighting terrorism . . .
What Coulson seems to be misunderstanding in his own mind is that the War in Iraq is different from the War on Terror. We are generating a new generation of Islamic radicals, not just in Iraq but in other countries in response to our foreign policy ineptitude in the Middle East. This new generation will be led in some instances by veterans of the Iraqi insurgency and civil war. Regardless whether we win or lose in Iraq, we have sowed the seeds of Islamic extremism for our children.
In other words, even assuming you believe we are winning in Iraq, our actions are setting us further back in the War on Terror. So even when we “win” in Iraq, it will be phyrric, because it will have failed to address the real issues that will inevitable bear fruit in the future in the form on new Islamic extremism. Let the Post not accuse me of hindsight bias (do not get me started on their ridiculous article), for I am putting my flag in the sand and declaring right here and now that unless and until the United States gets a grip on its neo-colonial/imperial foreign policy we will always be at a greater risk of terrorist attack, for now and evermore, no matter what the result in Iraq.
To close the loop, that seems to leave the question of Iraq hanging in the balance. Do we leave? Do we stay? Does it matter? I say whether you set a firm deadline or not, you damn well better set some reasonable, achievable victory conditions and stick to them. From a practical perspective that likely means you commit to training X number of troops and police, then you’re done. You get out. Most of them want us out. Most of them believe they will be safer when we’re gone.
The further upside to that is that it shows we respect their sovereignty and democracy. If a majority of Iraqis want us out, then the government should be asking us to leave, and we must respect that, or else it means they’re little more than a 21st century colony.
