Memories of Kerry's Military Service

John McCain knows that any close investigation of specific events of anyone's military career will produce conflicting reports and memories of how things happened. Indeed any close investigation of any event, traffic accidents, the Kennedy Assasination, Kerry's Vietnam heroism will produce a new account for every witness that is identified. Inevitably, witnesses won't agree. Welcome to source criticism.

Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan

The very fact that I know the name of the Pakistani computer expert who was a US mole in Al Qaeda means that he's no longer a mole.

See Jim Dunnigan on the subject: Reading al Qaedas Encrypted Email
The latest Kuwait Times story on Khan: Pak hunts for two Africans linked to plots in US, UK
Captain Ed: Al-Qaeda Takes Body Blows, Shifting Direction

Most unpleasantly, the New York Times: Unmasking of Qaeda Mole a U.S. Security Blunder - Experts
They write, "Last Sunday, U.S. officials told reporters that someone held secretly by Pakistan was the source of the bulk of the information justifying the alert. The New York Times obtained Khan's name independently, and U.S. officials confirmed it when it appeared in the paper the next morning."

Tim Ripley, a security expert who writes for Jane's said, "It's not exactly cloak and dagger undercover work if it's on the front pages every time there's a development, is it?''

Indeed. The first cause here was some government official who said something he shouldn't. Do they have any more of those loose lips sink ships posters laying around? Maybe they should put a few up on the walls. The times is correctly reporting this as a blunder. The Times is totally silent on the effect its role has had in this fiasco. My take is, the official bludered, the Times is malicious. They knew what they were doing. First up against the wall when the revolution comes.

Bit of a two week break there, back now.

Thoughts on European thoughs on America

"Were these actions reflective of a society more serious, more thoughtful, than the one I’d left? Or did they reveal a culture, or at least a media class, that was so awed by America as to be flattered by even its slightest attentions but that was also reflexively, irrationally belligerent toward it?"

Bruce Bawer writes at the Hudson Review.  A tip of the hat to Virginia Postrel for the link.

UN Human Rights Commission

Mark Steyn writes:

"The UN system is broken beyond repair. In May, even as its proxies were getting stuck into their ethnic cleansing in Darfur, Sudan was elected to a three-year term on the UN Human Rights Commission. This isn't an aberration: Zimbabwe is also a member. The very structure of the organisation, under which countries vote in regional blocs, encourages such affronts to decency.
The Sudanese representative, by the way, immediately professed himself concerned by human rights abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib."

A complete list of states represented on the UN Human Rights Commission is here.  Milt Rosenberg writes, "Mark Steyn puts aside his usual ironic stance and offers up, in this article from today's London Telegraph, a true and deeply-felt, "j'accuse" directed at the cynical murderers in Khartoum. "

How People Make their Political Decisions
 
Victor Davis Hanson has a great article on how some people make their political decisions.  Wanted to appear to be on the winning side, they mouth the words that are supported by the news of the past 48 hours.  This is only possible with a lack of historical knowledge.  When you study the most successful campaigns, indeed the more campaigns of any kind that you study, you see that they all involve setbacks, intelligence failures, moments of brutality, and failure.  Victory does not involve perfection, certainly not of a mechanical sort whereby the campaign unfolds like a clock.  War involves two sides seeking victory, attempting to thwart the other, hide its secrets, and so forth.  If you fail to grasp this essential fact, you might be presuaded that the outcome of the campaign will most resemble the freshest news. 

On the other side from those who have no anchor and who drift about on the most recent news, there are the ideologically committed.  All across the political spectrum you will find them.  Paleocons who opposed the war, neocons who support it, 9/11 democrats, the hard left and so forth.  Some of these people may loose faith and join those whose support or objection follows the latest news, but many will hold fast to their long held convictions that the war is either good or bad.  Note that its very hard to hold fast to convictions to be indifferent, that tends to devolve into reflecting the lastest news, although possibly without much enthusiasm either way.  Hanson doesn't explore the neocons and 9/11 democrats who remain committed, he's looking at the left who is committed to our defeat.  Those who want to relive the Vietnam War, or who use that war as a template for all wars, or who otherwise are fighting the last war.  I say that because in miniltary history, fighting the last war is a common mode of analysis.  Why did France loose so badly in 1940?  They were fighting WWI.  Why did the Americans have such troubles in Vietnam?  They were fighting the war they prepared to fight, a war against the Soviets in Central Europe that they expected to look like WWII.  The Army was, anyway, one can look to the Marines and their seperate experience of small wars, but I digress.  In many ways, people have lined up on this war, not on the basis of the the merits, but on the basis of long held beliefs about the last war.  The neocons see the last war as the Gulf War, and they think about what happened after the withdrawl of the Soviets from Afghanistan, and they focus on the missed opportunities to advance democracy.  The left is still fighting Vietnam. 

Hanson observes three problems with our remarkable victories in Afghanistan and Iraq.  First, they were so swift that many enemies were not defeated, they were over-run.  Like the Japanese soldier on some Pacific Island, the war continues.  Second, the American observers who lack firm commitments based on historical knowledge, ideology, or the merits of the case, were flush after the victories and have since slinked over to the other side.  Bill O'Reilly is the exemplar of this case.  This creates a perception that everyone is turning against the war.  Be on the lookout for a Cronkite moment, or perhaps its more like a series of mini-Cronkite moments.  Third, the swift victories set the bar fantastically high for what American success looks like.  Instant success without any casualties became the standard, and that's impossibly high.  So our swift victory created the problems of undefeated Taliban and Baathists still resisting, and unsustainably high expectations from observers and standards, which make the reconstruction look like a failure by comparison, regardless of its actual status.

Hason figures that there is a committed 20% who oppose the war no matter what and a committed 30% who favor the war no matter what.  My own guess is that this 30% is a combination of those who favor the war for ideological reasons and those who are committed to the merits of the case.  This leaves a 50% block who lacks a basis for judging the merits, generally to be found in some kind of metaphysics, an understanding of how the world works.  Two key bodies of ideas that could form such an understanding are a knowledge of history and a well formed ideology.  So this 50% is ungrounded, responding to the lastest news, or the most clever observer. 

Hanson's conclusion?  "Brace yourself: In the next three months we are all in for the ride of our lives."

Problems with lawyers
 
Watching how lawyers are responding to the 9/11 Commission is troubling.  Jeff Jarvis makes note that lawyers are part of the problem.

"Lawyers are necessarily a suspicious breed. They live by rules. They think in terms of us vs. them. They think contention. They argue for sport. They always think they can appeal to a higher authority. They aim for victory. They are patient.
All those traits have an impact on American society -- many or most of them not good."

Jarvis is making a broad point about society in general and is contrasting the lawyer world view to that of programmers.  I'm interested in borrowing Jarvis' analysis on lawyers, looking at the 9/11 Commission and contrasting it with historians. 

The lawyers I hear commenting on the 9/11 Commission, at least from the right, are making the argument that Wilson lied, Berger stole, Gorelick was judging her own policies, and Richard Ben-Veniste was a rabid partisan.  Since it is a principle among lawyers that one's credibility tends to be established by one's least credible statement, they saw the Commission and its Report as thoroughly comprimised by these somewhat less than disinterested public servants.  Hugh Hewitt has been especially lawyerly here.  And the lawyers have conformed to Jarvis' analysis, suspicious, looking to rules of courtroom evidence, us vs them, argumentative, claiming that all of this is authorotative, seeking to win the argument, and I presume patient as well. 

Historians are aware that all sources are full of bias.  We know that Einhard did not write an objective account of the life of Charlemagne.  That the historiography of Napoleon is strongly for or against.  That the answer you get depends as much on the evidence you consult and on the questions you ask as it does on what really happened.  We are not witnesses of the past, but have to rely on written accounts that are full of the author's own intent and understanding of events.  But historians have a method.  The historical method, developed during the Rennaisance and advanced in the centuries since, aims to get at the truth despite the presence of bias and the problem that 1st person accounts will tend to protect the interests of the author/speaker.  I have a much greater level of confidence that I can read the 9/11 Commission Report and find useful knowledge than the lawers seem to.  Its a product of historical rather than legal training.

Jumping the Gun?
 
Watching CNN, and Anderson Cooper's poll today is "Do you agree with the conclusions of the 9/11 commission?"  My question is, who knows what it says?  I know what I have been told about it, but much of that information is inconsistent and contradictory, so I really have very little idea what the conclusions are themselves, just how various people want them spun.  So I guess the real question being asked is, "Do you agree with what opinion leaders have been saying the 9/11 commission says?"

Sloppy?
 
Have you noticed that nearly everyone who has come out in support of Berger has followed a formula?  They use the word sloppy, and they identify with that sloppiness.  With such a formula, this screams spin.

Who Lied?
 
Instapundit is linking to Just One Minute, where the Wilson's CNN appearance is examined.  Wilson wants to have his cake and eat it too.  He claims in the interview that Niger was not involved in any uranium talks with Iraq, but he also claims that any errors or untrue statements attributed to him are, "either misquotes or misattributions."  Lord Butler's report puts poor Wilson in quite a conundrum.  Mark Steyn is describing Wilson as a serial liar,  and as usual, the evidence is with Steyn.  

Jaw Dropping
 
AP is reporting that Sandy Berger removed highly classified terrorism documents and handwritten notes from a secure reading room while preparing for the 9-11 commission hearnings.  He apparently concealed them in his jacket, pants, and portfolio.  While the documents he concealed in his pants were obviously intentional, he claims that those placed in his portfolio were unintentional.  What kind of panic motivates a former national security adviser to try and walk out with hand written notes of classified documents from the National Archive?  This is stunning.
 
Hat tip to Hugh Hewitt for passing along this wire.

Libertarians and Social Conservatives
 
There is growing evidence of disaffection between Libertarians and Social Conservatives.  Red State puts it just right when they observe, "If we were not at war right now, the pressures in the Republican Party would be much, much closer to the surface than they are right now ... particularly when Democratic foreign policy positions are not notably reassuring." 
 
Given the presence of folks on the Left who have a cultural agenda, there are two common responces, get your government out of our culture, and rally around the cross.  In the negative sense, they agree, neither want to see the cultural agenda of the Left imposed by a regulatory state.  But, there are two problems.  The Libertarians object to the impossion by a regulatory state, and could care less about the agenda itself.  The Conservatives object to the agenda and are not particularly riled by the regulatory state.  This distinction is obvious when talking about prayer in schools.  Libertarians will reject both the multiculti-indoctrination and the state endoursement of prayer.  Conservatives have no problem with the state nurturing a Biblical social order.  The second problem should be obvious.  Not only do they both disagree about where the problem is but should the Conservatives find themselves in a position to push their agenda, they will find the Libertarians are now in opposition. 
 
My party preserving plan is Adamsian.  Adams compared America and Britian and argued that  state support undermined the individually found commitment possible in America.  Certainly there was some state support for various churches in Adams day, but its a comparative argument.  If the party adopts the Libertarian position, that the state will not be in the business of advancing or restricting anyone's cultural agenda's, religion will flurish, conservatives will avoid a backlash that goes with authority (no matter who has it), and culture will fade from political significance as its issues cease to be political ones. 

Hmm, color
 
Looks like the blogger people have updated their interface.

Fighting the Wrong Fight pt3

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Randy Barnett is summing up a debate between Richard Epstein and Stephen Bainbridge on the use of judicial review. This is a discussion of the kind of institutional arrangement that might lead to fruitful reform. Epstein wrote at the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), and Baimbridge replied on his weblog, including generous quotes of Epstein's article. Further, Epstein has a reply at Bainbridge's site.

As I reveal in pt 1 (just below), my sympathies are with the libertarian side here, specifically, "guarantees of individual rights [pushed] to their logical conclusion." However, I recognize the concerns of the social conservatives (advocating a majoritarian democracy) that this is dangerous with a radical bench and schools. These radical institutions put us in a give-them-an-inch- and-they-take-a-mile situation. While I am loath to enshrine a Christian view of marriage in law, I am drawn to the conservative argument which Russel Kirk makes in an excerpt by Bainbridge, "Constitutional restrictions, political checks and balances, adequate enforcement of the laws, the old intricate web of restraints upon will and appetite—these the conservative approves as instruments of freedom and order," because the will and appetites of those who would re-define the family appears infinite.

There is much truth in the conservative motivations which Bainbridge espouses, and it may be sufficient to win my support for the marriage amendment as a last resort to block the actions of radical judges. Nevertheless, the better solution is an attempt to forge a somewhat more majoritarian order, not to rely on stop gap measures like this one. The schools and the courts must be reformed to bring them more into line with the popular will. Once that has been accomplished, it will be safe to apply Epstein's principle, that "The path to social peace lies in the willingness on all sides to follow a principle of live-and-let-live on deep moral disputes." That's why the marriage amendment is the wrong fight. We need to re-establish an order capable of retraining overweening appetites, so that the greatest and most expansive liberty can be extended free from the fear that abuses of liberty will undermine the very social order that preserves it.

Fighting the Wrong Fight Pt 2

Called the Hugh Hewitt Show and gave a brief summary of the post immediately below. Hugh's response was that the structural problems can't be solved, the Marriage Amendment is the only practicable approach. That may well be true in this instance, since thorough going reform would take a long time. Nevertheless, if these out of step institutions are not made somewhat more responsive, than these kinds of fights are now a perennial feature of American society. Its not satisfactory to just accept constant discord over social issues where the preponderance of will is so one-sided, and where neither of the two contending political positions reflects the great mass of Americans. So, I contend that we must continue to explore the nature of desirable reform so that the will of the people is not thwarted by institutionalized power in the hands of radicals.

In a related note, Hewitt argued there was no long term solution, at least to the judge problem. "Its a republic, if you can keep it." Hugh reminds us of one of Franklin's last pronouncements. But the early republic was far more legislative than our current system. The legislature has given way to the courts and the executive over the last two centuries. I do not think that this is inevitable or unsolvable. I'd much rather be posting on an Amendment to tilt power back to the legislature than on one to address the symptoms of a larger problem.

Fighting the Wrong Fight

My thoughts on so-called "gay marriage."

I have no problem with what arrangements people want to make for themselves, so that property is managed, significant others are recognized as such. So in that regard, civil unions is a no-brainer.

I am uncomfortable with an amendment to cast in stone a Christian definition of marriage, in a government which claims to welcome all ideas and peoples, including, non-Christians. In this regard, the best solution would be to take marriage entirely out of the hands of the state, give it entirely over to the churches, and leave in the state's hands only the civil union for all. Marriages would refer to the religious understanding, the civil union would refer to the state's understanding. Churches would regulate marriage, the state unions.

Social conservatives do have a point, however. The social understanding of the institution is critical because of the effect it has on children. The arrangements for raising children; for teaching children what is normal, or ideal, or functional; for giving children the best chance for a happy life is at stake. There is no one right way to raise children, and no ideal of companionate marriage should be imposed. Likewise, the traditional system is based on a wealth of experience and should not be cast aside for an alternate ideal of some "new definition of family." These issues should be promulgated by families, schools, churches, and communities in cooperation.

But, these institutions are not in cooperation. Social conservatives argue that judges take no account of the traditional understanding of the laws or customs of marriage, and push a radical agenda. That they do so trumping legislatures is troubling. Judicial oligarchy. Social conservatives argue that schools will take the most radical models of family and project them as normal. Anyone who has seen what schools have done with models of family to date will appreciate the potential for school-as-social-engineer.

The problem isn't that somewhere a gay couple wants to legally identify itself as a couple, nor is it that somewhere a social worker might find such a couple to be parents suitable for adoption. The problem is that no matter where Americans want to set the standard, radical judges will force a shift to the left, and that public schools will promulgate the most radical interpretation of the family. The problem isn't a gay couple looking for legal protections, the problems are our radical judges and public schools. That's where the efforts would be better spent.

Had Chevy Chase been commenting on politics in 1944

"I'm frightened by FDR, if you want to know the truth. He's a narcissist, as are we all. But, eh, he's managed to, ah, you know, form a few fascist kooks into a, ah, an entire world war, and I, ah, I don't trust him. I don't like him. And I think he's venal, and I just don't like him, for the record. I want him out. I want Norman Thomas in."

Hat tip to Hugh Hewitt for posting the transcript of Chase's yammering.

Senate Intelligence Committee Report

Bill Bennett was lamenting this morning the fact that the intelligence failures surrounding the WMD's (and I might add the post war estimates) might have the pernicious effect of raising the bar so high that we'll never be able to act until its to late to do so.

But I suspect this may not be so. There are two reasons for this. One is that I'm not floored by the intelligence failures. Knowing too well the history of war, serious intelligence failures are a dime a dozen. They are a subset of Clauswitzian friction. Another group of humans is trying to defeat our efforts, in this case hiding their secrets, and so to a great extent our efforts are cancled by theirs. Some things are easier to detect, and so we'll be right more often than wrong. A secret weapons program, however, is the type of thing that we'll be wrong about more often than not. For example, we had no idea of the Japanese warplane development through the 30's until the end of the war when we discovered the prototypes of quite advanced designs. Keep in mind that we had broken several Japanese codes and that the Second World War is generally a war characterized by intelligence successes. Had they been working on gas or biological weapons it would have been as much a surprise as our own atomic weapons had been to the Japanese.

Another point to be made here is that the extent of our intelligence failures is over-estimated. Perhaps the most famous example is the sixteen words Bush included in his State of the Union Speech in early 2003. Lord Butler's report (officially out in two days) is previewed in the Financial Times (registration required) this way: "People with knowledge of the report said Lord Butler has concluded that this claim was reasonable and consistent with the intelligence." As we look over the paperwork in Bagdad, we find that we over-estimated some threats and under-estimated others. Anyone whose tried anyting as simple as vacationing with a family of four will acknowledge that this is pretty much par for the course. While its true that we have a vast, expensive intelligence service, never forget that on the other side are people endevoring to keep their secrets secret.

The second point is the one made by John Podhoretz in his Post column. And that is that no one relied only on the WMD argument, and so the role of the intelligence failures are only a leg to one part of the argument. Consider, you want to drive to a friend's wedding, but encounter unexpected highway construction. Had you known about the contruction you still would have gone to the wedding, you just would have altered your decision making about whether or not to drive. As Podhoretz writes, "Those who supported the war, in overwhelming numbers, believed there were multiple justifications for it." For those who opposed, the WMD arguments were not persuasive as a cause of war when they accepted the arguments as true.

So the problem of the intelligence failures is one of methods, not one of justifications. We must seek to improve intelligence not in order to justify the next action, but to save lives and speed up the process. This is not to say that the intelligence failures didn't cost some supporters or won't raise the bar a bit the next time the intelligence is examined closely, but that this is a shift on the margins. The next case that needs to be made in the war on terror will find most of the same supporters and most of the same opponants.

Virginia Postrel comments on defections

The dynamist herself comments on Jacob Levy and Andrew Sullivan and others who consider Kerry because Bush has ushered in a giant new medical entitlement, flirted with tariffs, and smiles at ag subsidies.

She observes that if dissatisfaction with the Bush economic policy bothers some on the right, Kerry is not the answer. Indeed her post is called the "Kerry Delusion." Postrel suggests that the flirtation with Kerry is fasionable.

Levy objects.

Postrel responds.

I'm ready to strangle somebody

Its been several hours since Kerry named Edwards as his running mate, and already I am ready throttle whoever has decided that they need to bash Edwards because he lacks foreign policy experience. I find this argument both intellectually dishonest and politicaly offensive. It intellectually dishonest because the former governor of Texas, and for that matter, Arkansas, California, and Georgia, didn't have foriegn policy experience. To attempt to deflect the question to Dick Cheney's experience, as Laura Ingraham ignore the fact that someone on the Dem ticket, Kerry, does have foriegn policy experience. He's no Dick Cheney, but to expect that you have to gave the foriegn policy experience of a Dick Nixon, a GHWB, or a Dick Cheney to run excludes a heck of a lot of candidates. Which leads me to my second reason for rejecting this argument, I find it politically offensive.

Its part of the American myth that anyone can grow up to be president. (By myth I mean that its a fundamental idea, regardless of its truth value. Obviously very few people will be president, but since men like Lincoln, Nixon, and Clinton rose from obscurity to become president, there is something to the notion that anyone could grow up to be president.) Under the theory of democracy, anyone can hold office. The Athenians really belived this. Most offices in Athens were allocated by lottery. That's a commitment to the capacity of every citizen. The Romans, on the other hand, had an office holding class, the patricians, but eventually allowed the rest of the citizens to decide which patrician would get elected. This theory assumes that some people are better suited to office than others, and the pool of candidates should be limited to some criteria.

As a classicist, I think there is a golden mean between these positons. Nevertheless, I think that anyone who serves a term of a statewide office, such as senator or governor, is eligable for consideration for the presidency. If the people want to consider someone seriously, I think that suggests that he person is qualified. Edwards was a Senator, so I think he's qualified to put himself forward for the highest office. Edwards ran a strong second in the primary, certainly that qualifies him to be veep. If you think he's not qualified, I have two words for you: Abraham Lincoln. Failed businessman, failed politician, some rank him as the top president. Edwards may very well fall short of Lincoln's stature, but the option to give him the chance belongs to the voters.

Divisions on the Right pt. IV

Daniel Drezner takes notice of Jacob Levy's post (see below) on his problem's with Bush. He then goes on to quote Andrew Sullivan's recent post on "the looming Republican [civil] war."

My own sense is that Sullivan is over-stating the effect of divisions within a coallition. If contradictory, conflicting factions blew parties apart, the democrats would have exploded a dozen times by now. Parties have ways of managing diverse opinions. As Drezner notes, "it's telling that the Bush administration has decided to award prime time slots at the GOP convention to a lot of Republicans that have had strained relations with the White House. It's also telling that they've accepted." Bithead posted in the comments section of Drezner's blog that its, "mere wishful thinking on Sullivan's part." That seems pretty accurate to me.

Sullivan writes, "The FMA battle now looks more and more like an attempt by Santorum to identify Republican social moderates so he can use primary hardliners to challenge them in the future." Perhaps, but I think it looks more like an attempt to force Kerry to clash with the pro-gay-marriage forces in his own party, possibly sending them to Nader. If Bush makes enough of an issue of it, it may rally some parts of the base. The question of whether it can do so without alienating other parts of the base relies on how its done. Levy mentioned it by writing, "The President doesn't play a direct role in amending the Constitution and anyway I feel sure that the FMA will never pass." Likewise, I discount it as so much pandering, all fluff. Not the direction I would take, since I would just take the state out of the marriage business altogether, but no one is asking me.

Drezner thinks that a Bush win will salve party divisions: "Nothing eases internal party divisions like winning." Though he also suggests a loss will produce, "internecine conflict [...] bloodier than [Sullivan] projects." Sullivan is clearly unhappy with the influence of the Religious Right in Republican circles, as he wrote in the Sunday Times. Sullivan misses one key part in the telling of this story, however, the hostility toward faith by the Left, and more and more by the Democratic Party. The Dems, as Sullivan points out, once had Catholics, Southern Baptists, and Jews. They have lost nearly all of the faithful because of their absolutist position on abortion, their strict seperationist politics, and their approval at the purging of religion from public life.

Plenty of Republicans accept the need for legal, safe abortions, but they don't feel the need to be absolutists. Plenty of Republicans favor an accomodation of religion far short of Roy Moore and would defend the principle of seperation of church and state without the need to purge the seal of the county of Los Angeles of its mission past. As a result one party is more hospitable to faith than the other. That is something the Dems did to themselves. He concludes by writing, "The partisan fusion of politics with religion in this campaign is poisoning an already toxic cultural atmosphere. God help us if it makes its way onto the altar itself." I think its a long accomplished fact and is a legacy of the New Left, not the New Right.

Keeping an eye on discontent on the Libertarian Right

Jacob Levy on the Volokh Conspiracy weighs in on his Presidential fitness calculations. As I argued here, satisfaction on the right for Bush depends on how your prioritize policy. Levy is a Libertarian who has here to fore not voted for a major party candidate. So, he is somewhat outside of the point I was making last month. Nevertheless, he does reflect the dissatisfaction of the Right with Bush for not pursuing a certain parts of the agenda Bush seems to favor. We writes, "And, man oh man would I prefer to be supporting a pro-Social Security privatization, pro-voucher, pro-tax cut incumbent president who was serious about fighting the war on terrorism and democratizing the Middle East and who might appoint Supreme Court justices who would enforce a strict reading of the Commerce Clause." Further, he identifies what attracts him to Bush, as tax cuts, his hawkishness, and a desire not to find himself assisting certain parts of the Left. But, he is steeling himself for a Kerry vote because there is no Social Security privatization movement, no voucher effort, and the tax cuts are meaningless without spending cuts, and he believes the administration to be "terrible incompetent" all the while making decisons on political rather than policy grounds.

Its a serious set of charges. Its also further evidence that there are people on the Right (as Levy described himself) who are dissatisfied with Bush. My earlier consideration focused on social issue conservatives, which Levy certainly is not. He's on the libertarian side of the right wing, as his own policy wish list should make clear.

The question is, are we just watching the normal cross-over up close? I'm really only interested in the divisions on the right. I accept that there are plenty of pro-war democrats who will be crossing over. Ed Koch is only the most obvious example, a fellow who proudly proclaims he opposes Bush on everything except the war, and then affirms that the war is more important than everything else, so supports the President. Its certainly possible that these two groups simply are part of the normal crossover of any election. Its certainly possible that one group or the other will be substantially larger than the other. Some of this can be revealed by closely watching the polls and taking clues from certain responces, not just the summary numbers. Some of this will be revealed as the election nears. Some may require post election analysis.

I'll keep watching the dissatisfaction on the right, hoping to make some sense of it, as well as looking out to see if the left is up to anything interesting.

Essay on Schools, Nerds, and the Social Pathologies of Students

Something of an object lesson on how the internet works, this. I started off reading the Volokh Conspiracy, in which Eugene questions the foundations of statutory rape laws. Find updates here, here, here, and here. The second "here" includes a link to Glenn Reynolds' Fox piece on our disfunctional schools and the resulting student pathologies. Over at Reynold's Instapundit, he has this post. In it, he included links to this essay, by Paul Graham on how school induced pathologies are a problem for nerds. There is also a link to Kimberly Swygert's site, Number 2 Pencil.

I have seen four theories. The envy theory, the puberty theory, the distopian theory, the distraction theory, and the awareness theory. The envy theory and the puberty theory are popular out there somewhere, but these reviewers here are not fond of them. I think they have some truth to them, but are very limited in their explanatory ability. Providing more explanation are the distraction and the awareness theories. The distraction theory, which is argued by Graham, is that bright kids have other interests that distract them from putting forth the effort to be popular. The awareness theory, which I heard argued at a presentation for parents of gifted children, is that bright kids are aware of things not known to average kids, and are thus thought to be weird, boring, or otherwise odd. There is a lot of similarity between the distraction and awareness theories, except that the distraction theory suggests that bright kids could be popular if they wanted to prioritize popularity over their other pursuits, while the awareness theory would require not only priority, but concealing their awareness as well. Both argue different things, so I distinguish between them. Both are limited to explaining why people who achieve success as adults were so often not popular in high school, but does little to explain the sex, drugs, or violence that are the more serious problems in the school.

The final theory is the distopian. Glenn Reynolds is mostly arguing the distopian theory, although it is also lurking right behind the curtain in Paul Graham's essay. The distopian theory argues that schools are environments that select for disfunctional behaviors. Reynolds cites the way society infantilizes adolescents, the way marketers exploit their leisure, and the peer socialization. Graham takes issue with the pointlessness of the time spent in school, from which flows an artificial society based on popularity. He points to analogs like prison and the idle rich. Graham writes, "Teenagers now are neurotic lapdogs. Their craziness is the craziness of the idle everywhere."

Its the distopian theory that carries the most weight the longest distance. It may or may not rise to the level of dominancem let's see what the critics of it can muster, but it can't be counted out.

Hope you had a happy 4th

Kindergarteners pose grave threat to Palestinians

Hamas’ military wing, Izzadin Al-Kassam launched four rockets toward a kindergarten in Sderot. See LGF for the whole story.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Dennis Prager discussed the dicotomy between male nature and being a man today. Along the way, Dennis and callers raised the question of female nature and being ladylike as well as the term ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen refers to an aristocratic code for behavior, which Americans had largely but not completely abandon in the Jacksonian era. There are reasons for class distinction to reinforce the presence of aristocratic behavior, and there was the continuing European influence on American society. Nevertheless, Americans had come to understand the proper conduct of their own elite without having to create new words for all of this.

During the 60's, the kind of artificial behavior which had survived the Jacksonians, was condemned in favor of authentic behavior. The reformers of the 60's, who did like to engage in Orwellian re-naming, are the one's responsible for abolishing "ladies and gentlemen". Feminists may have had a grudge against "ladies" because they needed to both destroy the alternate model of aristocratic women's power as well as the boundaries the aristocratic model created between men and women, but it is the conjunction of feminists and the push for informality in society that is responsible here.

Thoughts on Realism

Saw Kissenger on one of the Fox shows arguing that security and stability should be the priority of all wise statesmen. He was asked about Iraq, and just applied his old formula. I contend that Realism made more sense during the Cold War than it makes today. During the Cold War, where the Soviets were eager to exploit insecurity and instability in places like Greece, Turkey, Korea, and Iran from the very begining, to their development of a policy of fomenting communist revolution throughout the third world, it was critical to keep anti-communist governments stable and secure, lest the state be lost like China, Cuba, or Mozambique.

Today, there is no Soviet Union pushing communist insurgencies. While it can be argued that Islamofascism is a threat in Jordan, Moracco, and Turkey, some realism might be called for. This is why the Russians were given a pass in Chechnya, and why Pakistan's government was brought back into the fold. But the more potent force in the long term is democracy. So Kissenger is wrong to prioritize security and stability in all times and places. Some instability is neccesary to bring about democracy. Whether its American intervention in Iraq or covert support for democrats in Iran, a certain amount of instability can yield much greater dividends. We need to have a set of conflicting values, embracing democracy and stability. Where democracy isn't likely, and where the democracies of the world are unlikely to stay involved for the long term, like Sudan, then stability and security means stopping the genocide. Where it is possible and/or where the democracies will commit for the long term, the status quo is a problem.

The Heroic view of Politicians

Richard Engel, writing an essay at MSNBC, starts off with this:

"A Iraqi friend recently asked, "Are the Americans so smart that they have a plan for Iraq that's so complicated that I don't understand it, or are they so stupid that they have no plan at all?" After a paragraph of explanation, the iraqi replied, "My Iraqi friend refused to believe it, insisting that the United States must have a secret, genius plan to serve its long-term interests in the Middle East. "If America weren't clever, how could it be a great power?" he asked rhetorically."

This is the heroic view of politicians. They are bigger, stronger, smarter, better looking, and in all other regards better than regular people. That is why they rule. The alternative, democratic theory of government, is that politicians govern because regular folks selected them. The two theories are not entirely mutually exclusive. There is plenty of evidence that its an electoral advantage to be better looking, taller, appear more fit, and there is substantial evidence that voters need to believe their elected leaders are healthy. This is the remaining heroicism of our electoral politics. TV appeals to the heroic, and so undermines the final squashing of heroic values in politics. In a democracy, there is no reason to assume that politicians are bigger, better, stronger, smarter, or like Achilles and Herakles, close to the gods than we common men. The fact that so many people actually continue to hope that our leaders will be heroes (supermen) may explain some of the hatred for Bush, who appears (other than his remarkable fitness) to be the very opposite of the heroic figure. If one's complaints about Bush focus on his inability to garner the popular vote, one is making a democratic argument. If one's complaints about Bush focus on his speech, his intelligence, his appearance, one is making a heroic argument.

I say all this about our own society, and we have had democracy in one form or another in America since Jamestown and Plymouth. Iraq has been under the rule or monarchs or dictators that explicitly made heroic claims to governance since the mudbricks were piled into cities at Ur and Uruk. I am not saying that bringing democracy is impossible in Iraq, I am just pointing out an obstacle that needs to be overcome.

Growing up Tory

Interesting book excerpt or summary of the work by Jo-Anne Nadler, Too Nice to be a Tory: It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To. Its hard to tell what it is, but its written in the first person.

Tories full ahead for School Choice!

"Parents will be able to send their children to any school - state or independent - under a Conservative government, Michael Howard has said." So reports the Independent today. "By giving parents real choice and teachers real freedom success should flourish and failure should wither away." Let's hear it for Michael Howard. As the line goes, read the whole thing.

Keegen critiques Neocons

In the Telegraph this morning, John Keegan offers a solid Realist crtique of the Neoconservatives. I would quibble with his division of the ideological sphere into the religious and the political, but I'll leave it at that.

The Rostra

I bumped into a new blog, the Rostra. Its full of all kinds of classical goodness, and so warms my heart. It does seem a bit tilted to the Platonic, but I'll forgive that as any classicism in this modern world is better than no classicism. I'll certainly be checking in from time to time.

Canadian Elections

Following the link on Instapundit, the Grand Forks Herlad is running this AP story on the Canadian elections. Its a dissapointment that the Liberals have hung on to power, even if it is a minority government. I'll be looking for maps of the voting results as well as statements about and changes in the approach to America.

If I were Emperor of Education...

Jay Mathews of the Washington Post ran an essay by Richard Chapleau on the subject, "If I Were Emperor of Education." I came across links to it at Highered Intelligence, where I also learned that Chris O'Donnell was challenging his readers to offer their own answers to the question.

And so I go, If I were Emperor of Education

I would let the market reign. Rather than a government solution of mass proportions (like mass transit, mass media, mass production, and weapons of mass destruction all products of the modern age) involving standardized curricula, standardized testing, standardized teacher preperation, and stadard textbooks (another feature of the modern age) I would embrace the post-modern possibilities of markets to liberate individual choice. Away with the model of schools designed to suit the age of coal and iron.

Anyone should be able to start a school and see who sends their children. People could form schools to any purpose using any methods, parents will choose to send their children to the school that appeals to them the most. I have no doubt that the best possible results will be achieved when competative pressures are applied to education as they are to the sale of other goods and services.

Canadian Elections

There are elections comming up in the great white north on Monday, the 28th. There is a nice roundup on the subject at the Spectator.

Recenty, I observed that the future of many elections in the world will involve one party tacking pro-American (as in United States of) and the other party tacking against. To a certain degree it has always been so. But where in the past, the less American party premiced itself on "where with America, but..." now in the absence of the Soviet threat, there is no need for this prepratory clause. As I refer to earlier, I disgaree somewhat with VDH on his assessment that Europe is no longer an ally. I look back and see resistance in Europe during the Cold War by parties of the left, and by France on a range of issues. Without the Cold War, this division will become more obvious and more serious. For that reason alone, keeping an eye on foriegn elections will be an important duty for the aware citizen.

The Spectator article mentions a website Canadian Ally dot com which makes the case that Canada is not France. In many ways, this is part of the divide between Quebec and Western Canada as much as it is between left and right. Its easy to look at the government of countries like Canada and Germany and see problems, just as it appeared that Spain was with us before the Madrid attacks. But the Candian right and Western Canada in general are always more sympathetic to notions of "free trade, individual liberty, and military might" and they always are, even when governments of the left get to do the talking.

What's up with the beheadings?

I continue to hear talking heads on the tube suggest that the purpose of the beheadings is to intimidate the West. Its certainly possible that the terrorists might hope for a collapse of western resolve as happened in Spain. But I think they are aware that for the most part, these acts will stiffen resolve. Rather, like Belmont Club, I think that these beheadings are aimed at a different audience: the Islamic world. This makes these attacks more insidious.

What is the deal with détente?

I've seen a lot of slamming of détente going on in the reflections on the Reagan presidency. Most of these commit the error of lumping Nixonian and Carterian détente together. For Nixon, détente was a strategy to ease tensions, to send both boxers back to their corners for a drink of water and removal of blood about the face. In the declining days of Vietnam, America needed a return to the corner in order to come back out into the ring refreshed.

For Carter, détente was an abidcation of the ring, an attempt to abandon the match, hopefull that a draw could be arranged.

But imagine, if you will, along with me. We know that Ford was staging a strong comeback at the end of the 1976 election, and some speculate that if the campaign lasted another two weeks he could have won. So let's suppose that he did. Let's look at his foriegn policy cabinet for his first full term. Let's assume that At some point, Kissenger is replaced by Haig in the new administration. Its unlikely that the old hand of Kissenger would be disirable in a Ford administration elected in its own right. Haig had been made NATO Commander by Ford, so appointment to State is reasonable. This allows us to draw on Haig's subsequent tenure from 1980-82 as a guide to his action. Donald Rumsfeld was made Secretary of Defence in 1975. Let's keep him on. Now the question is, would a Ford, Haig, Rumsfeld team have given away the arms control store, responded to by Afghanistan by quitting the Olympics, and failed to back the modernist Shah against the Islamic fundamentalists?

A Ford, Haig, Rumsfeld team would certainly have made mistakes (being falible humans) but its hard to imagine that one of two outcomes would have been achived. 1) The Soviets would have been contained by the certainty that the Americans would respond forcefully or 2) the more probable case, the Americans would have argued that the Soviets cast aside détente and would not have been constrained by it in their reactions to Soviet support for terrorism, its arms control violations, and the invasion of Afghanistan.

The purpose of this little experiment is to suggest that détente didn't have to mean a Carter foriegn policy. While its certainly true that once we assume a Carter foriegn polciy, Reagan is the solution, that is not the same thing as a blanket condemnation of détente. Indeed in many regards, Reagan's actions were based on restoring the earlier détente, as reflected in his arms control agreements and many meetings with Gorbachov.

Trouble for the Social Democrats?

Two items struck me in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung this morning. Both represent trouble for the Social Democrats. One item is the discontent on the Left with Schröder's Agenda 2010 reforms. These reforms, like those of Blair and Clinton, have attempted to use market solutions and some withdrawal from the nanny state with the purpose of making the remaining social programs, stronger, more robust, and more effective. Rather that seeking to reduce these programs because they are bad, Agenda 2010 seeks to improve their viability in the face of climbing costs. The left rejects this position and advocates higher taxes and more programs. A splinter group has been talking about the possibility of an alternative party since March. The recently met at Berlin's Humboldt University, and plan to assemble a platform in the next month. By the end of the year they plan to have some plans about whether to go ahead with the formation of a new party. This opinion piece on the problem is not optimistic.

The second item is the rise of the Green Party at the expence of the Social Democrats. The support for the Greens has nearly doubled in the past five years, and in Berlin, the Greens outpolled the SDP. The Greens themselves think they have become mainstream, and that may be true, but in light of the above article, its also just as likely that the Social Democrats are hemoraging leftist voters to the Greens. In America's winner take all system, a third way politician could succeed by holding on to their base on the left while attracting swing and centrist voters by moving to the right. In a multiparty parliamentary system, voters can more easily shift to the party next over to the left. In the American system, the appearance of a party even more leftist than the Democrats, such as Nader in 2000, siphons off voters handing the election to the Right. In a parliamentary system the SDP could still govern through a coallition government of the left, but would be forced to make concessions to the allied parties, effectively pulling the center of gravity of the Chancellor's policy closer to the majority of voters. One way to accomplish this is to reorganize the cabinet.

An interesting side note, is that the FAZ reports that one alternative explanation for the Greens success at the expence of the SDP is that the Green's cabinet possitions, the foreign, consumer, and enviromental portfolios, have nothing to do with the domestic cuts involved in Agenda 2010.

In American politics, the political cost of such reforms as welfare and social security reform typically require the appearance of bipartisanship to avoid these effects. With two parties its possible to arrange the crossover votes, the photo ops, and the other trappings of bipartisanship. With a dozen parties, there will always be someone willing to attack the government and collect the votes againts any unpopular reforms, no matter how neccesary. Social Security reform, traditionally the third rail of American politics, has been known to occupy this place. The Agenda 2010 involves Germans in many of the same problems in allocating benefits and costs of its generous social welfare programs.

Travel Safety

There was a nice Explainer in Slate last April on fatality risk of air and rail travel. As any regular readers might have guessed, I am doing some analysis of transportation on a variety of criteria this summer. More will be forthcomming.

What is Iran up to?

John Keegan has a nice piece in the Telegraph on the causes of the current spat (the British patrol boat incident) and the more general problems Iran poses. This line may well be telling:

"An optimistic Western assessment is that its young people reject its religious government and would welcome liberation from the ayatollahs. A more realistic judgment is that, while Iranian youth seeks liberation, it does so within an Islamic context." And, "National pride will encourage the Iranians to become a nuclear power. Western efforts to prevent it doing so risk being counterproductive."

The Telegraph also has an editorial in which they urge Blair to abandon the policy of rapprochement, coordinated with France and Germany, and shift toward the American position.

Finding the Telegraph a much better review of Iranian affairs, I continue. Granted their men are being held there, but this next story is about the Iranian bomb. I will add here that when a country has this kind of an experience as the British have just had with their soldiers, its revealing of how things really are. Unlike the nice words which the diplomats pour so sweetly, these kinds of incidents are telling. Boris Johnson relates some of his experiences with the Iranian ambassador to Britain. He observes, "In deciding whether a country is suitable to wield nuclear weapons, you may think that its promotion of suicide bombers is not an encouraging sign." So when he asks, "on what grounds, exactly, should one country - no matter how powerful - be able to prohibit another sovereign state from acquiring a weapon that the government of that country may desire?" His answer is, " as soon as they have a full and functioning democracy, they can have the bomb that goes with it."

The Guardian, on the other hand, suggests the possibility of, "a grovelling apology from Britain."

More of its not quite democracy in Europe

In March, I mentioned that Europe would be governed in practice by the big states, not by a democratic principle of one man one vote. French finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy has come out saying that this should be done. He identifies six states: France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy and Poland. Interestingly, he's the inclusive fellow on this issue. Jacques Chirac would prefer to do things by having France and Germany bully the rest of Europe. Yesterday, Mark Steyn took up the issue of European federalism in his Telegraph article, "Vote No". And why not. Also in the Telegraph was news that Germany, though their spokesman, Bela Anda, "joined France to insist that Britain and other "non-core" countries should be barred from proposing candidates for president of the European Commission."

Its clear that part of this was aimed at torpedoing the candidacy of Chris Patten, who is reported to have said, "Even though I had a lot of support, a couple of the bigger member states said 'nul points'." But still more, France and Germany seek to "control the EU machinery despite being part of a minority group within the enlarged bloc of 25 states." [again quoting from the Telegraph]

Britain is not pleased, and Jack Straw certainly seems less than thrilled. He pointed out that the reading of the constitution allows the president of the commission to come from any member states. But, as they say, some animals are more equal than others. France and Germany would prefer to impose Belgium's federalist prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt on the EU. He was an advocate of building an extra-NATO European army, which is the kind of instrument that Euro-nationalists could use to posit Europe as a rival of America on the world stage.

I'll offer an aside here, because often George Bush is accused of taking needless steps which have antagonized allies, friendly neutrals, and fair weather friends. What kind of step is it to talk seriously about creating such an army? Or supporting someone who does for a top Euro position? Europe is not about to start cutting into its generous social benefits to provide the kind of military spending necessary to pose a real challenge to America. So such a move carries all the downsides of antagonism without any of the upsides of independent policy. Those who are dubious about American policy might wish that Europe could act as a check on American "excess", but such a policy is both costly in terms of political relations with America as well as costing money which European voters would rather spend on their army of bureaucrats. So rather than being a serious challenge, its just a pointless annoyance. Do not believe those who claim that it is Bush who has breached the relationship with "friends". While Bush has done provocative things, he has backed up his policies. For all the disruption, Saddam is gone and Iraq has an opportunity to lead the Arab world into modernity. Whether you think that advances the War on Terror or was a distraction from it, its a real accomplishment. Guy Verhofstadt and his Euro-Army are just provocative disruption without anything to show for it.

France and Germany want the rest of Europe to "keep quiet". The debate is one of whether France and Germany have the ability to govern Europe alone, or, as Nicolas Sarkozy suggests, France and Germany don't have the power to do it. He has pointed to the failure of the Franco-Germans to push through Verhofstadt. But a "big six" is the same game of big state domination over small states. It may be more diverse, and so more capable of imposing its will on Europe, but its still fundamentally at odds with democratic principles.

As I wrote in March, American federalism used a bicameral system to prevent the large states from becoming dominant. The Senate gives equal weight to all states, and thereby prevents the large states from being able to manage policy for the whole country. Europe ought really to regard America as a model in this regard, among others.

Steyn makes the point that this attempt to hold all the power is doomed to fail. "America is the exception that proves the rule, because it's a highly decentralised federation. [...] If America were as centrally governed as France, it would break up. Yet that, in a nutshell, is what the new Europe will be: a jurisdiction the size of America, but as centralised as France." What's ultimately compelling about Steyn's piece (other than the prose, which is always a delight) is that he crafts an argument for both friends of the individual nation states and for a federal Europe. Its rather obvious that the friends of the nation state would oppose the new forms, but given that "the only pan-European state on offer is doomed to fail," friends of the very idea of pan-Europeanism are well advised to nix this offer and hold out for something better.

Iraq/Al Queda Connection

I haven't blogged on this because such nice work was being done elsewhere. Here is an excellent example at Evangelical Outpost.

Fatah bears full responsibility

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, David Bernstein, quotes the following from Palastinian Authority prime minister Qurei: "We have clearly declared that the Aksa Martyrs Brigades are part of Fatah." "We are committed to them and Fatah bears full responsibility for the group."

Qurei gets no disagreement here.

We realized that we had all been duped

Prof Baimbridge has the corporate law analysis of Air America's implosion. See the WSJ/AP article here. There were apparently sales of assets while debt was being contracted, and now default looms. That sets up credit fraud. Investors were defrauded as well, who had been told that the amount already raised was closer to $30 million, and now it appears to be $6 million.

Euro Center Right looks to Patton

As the EUObserver reports, Jean-Claude Juncker, the favorite of the center right has opted not to leave the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, so The UK's Chris Patten will carry the mantle of the European People's Party. Silvio Berlusconi nominated Patton. Elmar Brok, a German Christian Democrat MEP, says Patten, "enjoys great popularity in the Parliament". Patton is currently the EU's external relations commissioner. It will be interesting so see how he fairs.

German Opposition eyes 2/3's majority

Christian Social Democrats, the Christian Social Union, and the Free Democrats are looking forward to a 46 seat hold on the upper house. As Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says, "With this majority, it could block every legislative proposal made by the coalition that passes through the Bundesrat." They need to win in the upcoming Saar elections in the first week of September, then follow up two weeks later with wins in Saxony as well as achieve an upset win in Brandenburg. This will set them up to steal a seat in either the Schleswig-Holstein or North Rhine-Westphalia elections. Should the Christian Democrats and their allies get two thirds of the seats in the Bundesrat by 2005, it will certainly suggest a change in the top spot in 2006 when Schröder's term is up.

Mark Steyn on the new Clinton week of hype

While making my way through the Telegraph, there is this gem by the singular Mark Steyn. Most observers agree that Clinton overshadows Kerry, the question is, does Clinton intend to.

Cars are more fuel-efficient than trains?

So claims a study reported in the Telegraph. The Telegraph article claims that trains have increased in weight: "Virgin's SuperVoyager rolling-stock is estimated to be 40 per cent heavier per seat than the ageing 125s it replaced." Further, "Engineers at Lancaster University said trains had failed to keep up with the motor and aviation industries in reducing fuel needs." This is entirely believable. It reflects the constant effect of the market operating on automobile design and the much more statist approach to railroad procurement. Also in that vein, "Roger Ford, of Modern Railways magazine, said one reason for declining energy efficiency was the impact of health and safety and disability access regulations."

The report continues, "I know this will generate howls of protest, but at present a family of four going by car is about as environmentally friendly as you can get." They include a nice chart worth a look. I would like to look at the numbers, but I would not be surprised if the constant application of engineering effort has improved automobile effeciency substantially while regulations have reduced the effeciency of trains.

Despite this there are questions that the Telegraph didn't explore. Paul Marston, their transport correspondent, gets some criticism from other sources, but most of it is not on point. "Friends of The Earth expressed surprise at the findings, which it said were not in line with previous studies." This may or may not be true, but the notion that studies are not in lock step agreement tells us nothing about which to find credible. Tony Bosworth, of FoE, is quoted as saying, "The main problem is not long-distance travel but the 25 per cent of car journeys which are less than two miles. Those are the least efficient and often the most polluting." I don't know how transportable these statistics are, but the Edinburgh to London trip is not a typical automobile trip, both in terms of its distance or in terms of the number of likely passengers. Bosworth wants to compare apples as well as oranges, and clearly a thorough analysis, of which this Lancaster University study is only a part, would consider not just a sample drive, but would analyze various kinds of drives in terms of their alternatives. The article has nothing to say on intra-city rail. Finally they quote Bosworth as saying, "Cars cause congestion, disrupt communities and are much less safe than trains." All of which would be part of a total analysis of transport alternatives, but does nothing to challenge the claims made by this study that trains cease to be fuel effecient. Not mentioned in the article is the question of how many people actually are riding in cars. I get the impression that the study is presuming more riders in cars than I would have expected, but that might be accurate for the British experience. Some examination, or a nice chart, on the number of riders per mile of travel at least, would be useful. They also seem to assume that the VW Passat is a typical vehcile. Is it? I'd like a variety of vehicles compared based on their prevelence on the road.

What is inescapable is that the study's claims that automobile effeciency increases and railroad effecincy descreases may have made automobiles a much better option than car alternative advocates might have expected. This includes me. I will be interested to see just how widely this analysis can be applied beyond a Passat traveling lengthwise across England. Most notably, the average commute will be my key interest in any analysis I attempt. See my two posts on rail here and here.

The Telegraph also includes an editorial on the subject with this final line, "the environmentalist lobby, traditionally as rigid in its thinking as Victorian missionaries, will have to come up with some new slogans. May we make a modest suggestion? "Save the planet. Jump into your car."

German Revolution?

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is reporting substantial electoral defeat by Schröder's Social Democrats, the German party of the left. The FAZ's own word for it is "debacle". They report, "The two dominant opposition parties - the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union - are not really interested in a quick change in government." They provide one key reason, that the opposition parties don't want to be saddled with Schröder's “Agenda 2010" in mid course of reform. I suspect they also would prefer to wait out the Iraqi situation a bit longer. Traditionally the Social Dems have been cool on America and the Christian Dems have been the America friedly party. That will be politically easier to pull off after soveriegnty is transfered in Iraq and things have been going well there. Just how Americophillic they will be will be an interesting thing to witness.

In fact, I would not be surprised if the future of politics in many parts of the world is that part of the differences in party result in a pro-America party or parties, and an anti-America party or parties. Its not unprecidented, but I suspect it will be the dominant paradigm, rather than Victor Davis Hanson's prediction that Europe is a lost cause.

How Timely

Recently, I argued that while many of us regarded the War on Terror to be the most important issue, I invented a conjectoral social conservative who was unhappy with the President, based on a caller to the Hugh Hewitt show. My point was, that just because we knew plenty of folks from the far right to the responsible center left (a catagory that includes Joe Lieberman and Bill Clinton) and on to a few like Christopher Hitchens who back the President because of the war on terror, doesn't mean there aren't folks who are unhappy because they prioritize differently.

Andrew Sullivan has added himself to those ranks. Glenn Reynolds mentioned his disagreements with the President, but supports him because the War on Terror is his priority. Arthur Chreknoff has done the same. But, for Sullivan, the priorities are different. I'm not going to attempt to arrange the three areas in priorty as Sullivan sees them, since I am not aware of a systematic approach to these iisues on his part. What I can say, based on his blog and and other statements, is that the domestic issues are very important to Sullivan, namely normalizing the the status of homosexuals in our society, and that this puts Sullivan squarely in opposition to Bush. In economic matters, Sullivan was not crazy about the tax cut and does lament the deficit. Sullivan clearly supports the War on Terror. Whatever support for the War Sullivan has, and on whatever economic issues he may find the President on solid ground, these are not sufficient to sustain his support for Bush. His priorities lead him to withdraw support for a president who he shares agreement with on other issues.

What's Wrong with Forks?

All silverware, but forks especially, suffer from a problem of balance. Too often the busy diner wants to move from here to there and so picks up their plate and the fork falls off. Especially bad are forks weighted in the handle. Too me this seems entirely backwards. When the time comes to utensilize some future kitchen, I will need to seek out a set of tableware which has addressed the problem.

separation of Powers

Those who have a strong commitment to a separation of powers in our society are often liable to support the principle broadly, favorite a divert of power centers in society, and so being suspicious of trusts or other combinations of power which would undermine the defense of liberty. My friends on the right would have no problem recognizing the problems inherent in the alliance of big media with one political party. For similar reasons, its troubling that some accomodationists would happily blur the line between church and state, or deny that the separation of church and state is intended by the 1st Amendment.

Its one thing to be even-handed but separate, its quite another to either attempt to purge religion or to ask the state to endorse religion. Purging religion is to arm the state with an ideological purpose, as is endorsing religion.

One the one hand there should be a concern about allowing the state to acquire power over the operation of churches or the ideas which they promulgate. If you want to see religion remain ideologically independent of the state position on controversial issues, separation benefits religion. Are cultural conservatives normally people who look at the state and say, I want more of that, and give me a double helping of bureaucratic inefficiency and multiple constituency inertia?

Religion, just like markets, flourish when the state gets out of the way. I don't want the state subsidizing steel or Catholicism, and I don't want burdensome regulations or interference which would deny us cherry tomatoes or evangelical outreach.

People are Short Term Optimizers

Professor Bainbridge has an interesting post on setting the economic sliders. I view the economy as governed by four sliders, much like the one that controls your computer's sound volume. As you move any slider the other three are affected. The sliders are productivity, equity, stability, and sustainability. At any given moment, a shift towards greater equity will tend to reduce the other sliders. Over the long term economists have learned how to increase the stability slider a bit while keeping the productivity slider pretty high. We call these Keynesianism and Monatarism.

Specifically, Bainbridge is talking about these choices in terms of corporate governance. In terms of my metaphore, he asks what effect on productivity is had when we try to slide the equity slider toward greater equity as a result of greater labor influence in corporate governance.

My own extended thought experiment in the effects of socialism, but more importantly the long term evidence suggests that a shift which increases equity and lowers productivity has long term consequences for sustainability and stability.

This reinforces the notion that humans are good short term optimizers (and sometimes they prefer to maximize) but that they are poor long term optimizers. They tend to be especially bad when the consequences of action is both temporally distant and indeterminate. Eating a proper diet involves certain short term costs (mostly of a transitional nature) but provides long term benefits. Since the benifit is deferred and the costs are front loaded, eating well (or quitting smoking, or wearing seatbelts) are difficult for humans to sustain. When the consequences are not only deffered but uncertain, they are especially hard to sustain.

So, given a choice between guiding a corporation towards shareholder wealth maximization or improving worker advantages now, workers tend to benefit their immediate selves, even at the cost of their long term selves.

As Jane Galt discusses (here and here) attempts to do both simultaneously. As Bainbridge noted, "my article presents a clear explanation of why some firms find employee involvement enhances productivity and, perhaps even more important, why it fails to do so in some firms." Putting aside the question of those who fail to navigate an increase to equity and productivity, just how real are the achievements of those who appear to achieve both. Galt asks, to what extent are these successes there result of a "stakeholder" model, and to what extent is the success based elsewhere, and the equity benefits are possible therefore?

This kind of situation is very complex and understudied, but I suspect it may well be possible to find combinations of equity benefits (broadly distributed rather than concentrated in stockholder an excecutive hands) and productivity benefits in our current (and future) enviroments.

In general, I would argue that there are minimum thresholds of stability, sustainability, and equity that are required at a given level of productivity, below which, productivity is harmed. Once they are met, any play left in the system can be allocated according to the values of the society setting the sliders. However, productivy has a tendency to produce benefits to the other catagories as it climbs.

This leads me to conclude that in general, the greatest benefits to the greatest number are realized when threshold levels of equity, stability, and sustainability are met and the rest of the play is put into productivity.

Airborne

My brother has caughed up four posts this month so far on his blog. He has, however, revealed that he plans to parachute for his 31st birthday.

Three factions in the Republican Party

I have long held that there are three factions in the Republican party, the social conservatives, the pro-business wing, and the hawks. Today, a few callers to the Hugh Hewitt show were complaining that Bush was spineless because he hadn't done much to advance a conservative social agenda. I called in and made the point that parties are collations, and that the president has opted to spend his efforts on the war on terror (foreign policy) and the recovery via the tax cut. As such, his domestic achievements had suffered. Aside from No Child Left Behind there have been no major policy initiatives.

Now I read in Power Line that the President is commanding a huge lead over Kerry on foreign policy and a substantial lead on the economy. Its as though where the President has made an effort, he has built a popular record. He has placed foreign policy as the top priority and has a huge lead. He has put the economy in second place, doing only enough to cut taxes substantially and release the productive power of the American people. As such, the deficit is left for later. Something of a compromise. People who are committed to some specific or to a broad conservative social agenda seem to be disappointed that the President hasn't been more active. I say the war on terror has crowded out initiatives the President would have taken otherwise.

Hugh responded that he has a forthcoming book on the subject and that he argues that we should measure success in terms of getting 75% for the reasons I have mentioned, rather that focusing on the lost 25% and lamenting failure.

I am interested in what Hugh will have to say on paper. If he means to say that 75% of the conservative agenda has been accomplished I demure and suggest that its more like half. If he means to include the idea that the liberal agenda has been halted at the Federal level during this administration, I will concur.

Let's take a domestic issue, one that the caller raised, gun rights. The President has done nothing to advance the cause of responsible gun ownership by repealing some of the silly Clinton era laws. He has however allowed some to lapse, and certainly not considered any new limitations. Is the glass half full - no move to the left on guns? Or is the glass half empty - no move to the right on guns?

For a guy like me, who considers foreign policy to be the most important issue for a president, who puts economic issues second, and who further more would probably have problems with Bush's social agenda, I feel like I am getting 90-95% of what I want. Aside from the deficit, I'm totally a happy camper.

For a fellow who puts social issues first, economics second, and like me in reverse is not happy with Bush's foreign policy agenda (lets call him a Buchananite in FP), he's getting very little indeed.

I can swallow the deficit and celebrate the tax cut because I'm getting what I want in foreign policy and can ignore Bush's stand on church-state issues, his gay amendment, and some other troubling policies because its mostly talk. For the other guy in my example, who just sees talk in the domestic arena, who doesn't like the President's FP, he cannot swallow the deficit, but rather ends up writing off the tax cut as the only good thing Bush has done.

All I can say to such a fellow, however, is that Bush was your man before 9-11, but he's mine now. Whether you can have him back in a second term is up for grabs.

Note: As anyone who has ever called a talk show might recognize, my phone comments were brief, and my description of them here are elaborated, a benefit of this forum.

Iraqi Trial of Saddam

The way some people are discussing what constitutes a fair trial for Saddam Hussain leaves something to be desired. The question is one of establishing what he really did, and finding a fair punishment. No fair trial would not find him guilty. Its guilty of what, that is the question, and what do we do about it.

Wolfowitz in the WSJ

He outlines policy nicely on Iraq, covering the President's five point plan.

The End is Nie

My brother has seen The Day After Tomorrow and has reviewed it. So, it turns out has Matt Welch. He writes, "Utter horseshit, but damned entertaining."

Which is the Progressive Party?

Reading Roger Simon's post on "Did I leave the left or did the left leave me?" and subsequent comments. A long back and forth takes place as the notion of possitive social change and an adhearance to the status quo is discussed. Most conclude that both parties have on various occassions taken both roles. As someone who worries about the influence of the South on Republican politics, I am heartened to read this comment: "One could argue (as my own Democrat Father does) that the South has become more progressive the more Republican it has become." This means that the old Dixiecrat preservation of the status quo is not a Southern quality which transends party, but something that is being shed just as hostility to the party of Lincoln has.

Highway Follies

Almost three weeks ago I linked to Virginia Postrel's NYT article on highway spending. There has been some back and forth over at the Dynamist on this topic. First, a reader suspects some highways statistics are inflated and unsupportable by methodology. A Senior Staff Economist in the FHWA Office of Policy replies and defends the figure that one billion dollars in spending creates 48,000 jobs. VP remains dubious: "It still doesn't pass the smell test." A few more thoughts by VP on how a great deal of this road spending is "low-value roads with porkbarrel appeal. It also subsidizes neighborhood amenities." Road spending isn't aimed to be effecient expenditure, economically stimulating, but rather is its about political spending to bring dollars back to the district. She continues in a sequential post on how the assumption behind the 48,000 per billion statistic assumes Keynesian disequilibrium of Great Depression proportions.

Are you in an echo chamber?

Too many people are, and here is more evidence. Daniel Drenzer links to a prose stylist who has gone over the Marxist academic cliff. Chun the Unavoidable has mixed feelings about his anthropological discovery of a rare specimen (or so it is supposed), an alleged supporter of, "the President without having an obvious financial interest at stake." As the specimen, Sissy Willis, responds, "We were reminded, of course, of Pauline Kael's reaction to Richard Nixon's landslide presidential victory over George McGovern in 1972: 'How can that be?' she supposedly said. 'No one I know voted for Nixon.'"

Chun the Unavoidable has seemed to avoid a large segment of the population, given the number of people who voted for W. And I wouldn't be surprised if they were avoiding him too. As Virginia Postrel pointed out some time ago, people like it that way. People are congregating more and more with the like-minded. She notes, "The danger, of course, is that people will believe the stereotypes of their political opposites, because they don't actually know anyone on the opposite side of the red-blue divide."

The most interesting people to talk to and to read are those who are dealing with engagement (not neccesarily agreement) across their own boundaries. If you don't talk to and read what other people have to say, people with different assumptions, values, and goals, you are wearing a set of blinders.

The Outsourcing Bogeyman

This is the title of Daniel Drezner's article in Foreign Affairs on this hot election year topic. The heart of the matter is here: "The benefits of such free trade -- to both consumers and producers -- are significant. Cushioning this process for displaced workers makes sense. Resorting to protectionism to halt the process, however, is a recipe for decline."

Condorcet voting method

I came across something interesting on the web this morning. A method of voting advocated during the late eighteenth century by the marquis de Condorcet, the enlightenment mathematician and economist. I am familiar with his economic theories (we slight Condorcet in favor of Adam Smith, but in fact, both are founders of capitalism). In 1785, Condorcet wrote the Essay on the Application of Analysis to the Probability of Majority Decisions, which I had seen refereced, but never described. Here is a nice website on the Condorcet Method. Here is the wikipedia version.

I had always had a soft spot for Condorcet because of his economic ideas, his social ideas, and because I am generally partial to enlightenment figures, but here is another thing to weigh in favor of him.

As someone who laments the way winner take all eliminates the possibility of any escape from the two-party system, as well as the seemingly unresolvable problems of campaign finance reform, the Condorcet method seems quite interesting.

Cosby chastizes those poor parents in the Black community

This story seems to be ignored for the most part by major media out of concern for the minefield that accompanies issues of race. Matt Rosenberg covers it in NRO.

Shattered Glass

The movie is out on home format now, so I rented the DVD, watched the 60 Minutes interview, watched the movie, and watched the movie again with the commentary provided by the screenwriter/director and Charles Lane, who was a writer then the editor during the period of Glass' ficturnalism. Afterwards I went to the web to read the original Forbes coverage. This is Kambiz Foroohar's analysis written at the time. The movie makes him the editor of Forbes Online (which may well be accurate, but movies take liberties). This is Adam L. Penenberg's article on the New Republic piece which brought Glass down. As portrayed in the movie, Forbes is irked that they were scooped, and sets out to write a companion piece with a bit more meat for their business oriented readers. When they look at the story it comes apart in their hands. This is Penenberg's article on the Forbes revelation that the TNR story was no good.

I ended up at the Daily Standard's take, written by Jonathan V. Last. Last is not a sympathetic reviewer, because, I suspect he differs with TNR politically. While he points to all manner of charges against Glass from the Correspondence pages, I'd need to go back and read more of the correspondence to draw form conclusions about how telling these Last prints are. For myself, I would not be surprised if TNR doesn't find charges made by the college RNC, the American Conservative Union, and other similar groups to be disinterested. My old TNR's are in a box and I'll have to get them out at some point and take a look. I have seen some articles in TNR and other places generate heated correspondence, but as Last points out, its not one or even a few pieces that raise eyebrows, some issues are controversial, its that Glass had an unusual amount.

Its a interesting story. The movie was well done, neither sensational nor tedious. The actors were well chosen and interesting choices. I particularly enjoyed seeing Hank Azaria and Steve Zahn playing dramatic roles.

Swingers at Slate

Slate has a new feature on swing states, and its first example is Missouri. Show me!