Going dark

I’m going dark - well, darker - for a while. I’ve started a number of posts lately and can’t “close” any of them so I’m going to stop trying. Comments are disabled although you can always reach me via my email address in my profile - look to the right-hand column and down.

I’ll check back on November 3 and let you know if it rained in Poughkeepsie on the 2nd.

In which Thomas Friedman saves me

Quite some time ago I was involved in a comments discussion at Reclusive Leftist which shook one of my long-held beliefs about “the Left”. It occurred in the context of a discussion on health care policy but veered into the issue of the United States’ superpower status. RL is replying to an earlier comment on health policy when she says:

... international comparisons don’t matter to most Americans. Exceptionalism is strong in this country. Most people cannot quite believe that anything learned in any other country really applies to America.

It’s enormously frustrating, of course. But I don’t know any way around it. I think we may have to get further along in our descent from World Superpower. Kind of the way Britain had to stop being an empire before it could really deal emotionally and psychologically with being one of a number of small European countries.

A friend of mine likes to cheer on the Chinese. Take our crown! she says. We’re ready for you to take over as the Evil Empire!

To which I replied:

Which is why I found Dr. Socks’ comment #51 quite surprising and rather discouraging. I always believed that conservatives who insisted the Left actually *wanted* the US diminished and would be overjoyed to let others - India, China, possibly Russia - become the globe’s super-powers, were paranoid wingnuts. Sure, I would say, the Left wants the United States to use its power and wealth differently but it doesn’t actually want the US to be at the mercy of other countries, a couple of which have remarkably lousy records on human rights. I now realize I’ll have to go abase myself for being so naive.

I thought about this exchange from time to time but never quite found a hook on which to hang it in a blog post. (Besides I don’t like to abase myself any more than anyone else does.) Recently Thomas Friedman wrote a column that gave me that hook. He argues that:

When the world’s only superpower gets weighed down with this much debt — to itself and other nations — everyone will feel it. How? Hard to predict. But all I know is that the most unique and important feature of U.S. foreign policy over the last century has been the degree to which America’s diplomats and naval, air and ground forces provided global public goods — from open seas to open trade and from containment to counterterrorism — that benefited many others besides us. U.S. power has been the key force maintaining global stability, and providing global governance, for the last 70 years. That role will not disappear, but it will almost certainly shrink.

Friedman quotes Michael Mandelbaum’s claim that:

No country now stands ready to replace the United States, so the loss to international peace and prosperity has the potential to be greater as America pulls back than when Britain did.

He then does a brief rundown of possible replacements:

After all, Europe is rich but wimpy. China is rich nationally but still dirt poor on a per capita basis and, therefore, will be compelled to remain focused inwardly and regionally. Russia, drunk on oil, can cause trouble but not project power. “Therefore, the world will be a more disorderly and dangerous place,” Mandelbaum predicts.

Friedman (and Mandelbaum) appear to be arguing that the existence of any global superpower would be better than none. That may be true in terms of containing armed conflict. I don’t think it’s true in all global concerns, though. It seems to me that the United States has usually tempered its raw national self-interest with at least some concern for the welfare of the global community as a whole. I’m not sure China would so temper its own self-interest - although I suppose it might grow into that - and I am fairly sure Russia would not. As for Europe, I believe it probably would be concerned with global welfare but think that’s irrelevant since Europe seem to be permanently stuck in wimpy - although enough chaos in the wake of an American retrenchment might change that.

Still, it’s reassuring to see that someone who I think can accurately be described as Left (with a capital “L”) acknowledges the fact that the United States’ reign as superpower has provided benefits - “global public goods” - for other countries. He may not agree with me that this country has been unusually beneficent but it eases my mind to read the remainder of his column and find that he would, in fact, like for the United States to do whatever is necessary to stop its “descent from World Superpower”. Not only is it substantively reassuring, it also means I can dismiss Reclusive Leftist’s position as on the fringe and not have to abase myself after all.

Lovely spam, wonderful spam

Blogger is sorting some comments into the Spam bucket which is fine. It’s sorting some non-spam comments into the Spam bucket which is understandable. However, when it emails me about comments it is not warning me when a comment is sorted into the Spam bucket and that's neither fine nor understandable. This means I’ve been assuming the comments I’m emailed about have been showing up and so I haven’t been keeping up with un-spamming good comments as well as I should. I finally figured out this was going on and will be checking the Spam bucket more often - I’m hoping to remember to do it every day.

My apologies to anyone whose comments languished unread for too long.

Majestic equality

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. - Anatole France

And to drive gas guzzlers.

Jeff Jacoby has written a critique of last year’s Cash For Clunkers program. There were a number of problems with this program but the one that stands out for me is the one caused by the environmental aspect of Cash For Clunkers. In order to help the environment, the program required the destruction of the (perfectly usable) cars traded in when new cars were bought. This has reduced the supply of used cars and driven up the price for people who want to buy one. According to Jacoby, there should have been no question who would benefit and who would suffer as a result:

No great insight was needed to realize that Cash for Clunkers would work a hardship on people unable to afford a new car. “All this program did for them,’’ I wrote last August, “was guarantee that used cars will become more expensive. Poorer drivers will be penalized to subsidize new cars for wealthier drivers.’’

I have written before about a government program - outlawing incandescent lightbulbs - that is saving the environment on the backs of those who can least afford it. As I said then, I do not think either Michael Crichton or Aaron Wildavsky would be surprised at yet another example of the truth of Wildavsky’s conclusion that:

resilience is a better strategy than anticipation, and that anticipatory strategies (such as the precautionary principle) favor the social elite over the mass of poorer people.

(Via Greg Mankiw)

Outtalked

Grim is hosting a discussion on “reasonably talk[ing] through the idea of limiting the franchise.” I won’t be participating - I explain why below - but I want to address a couple of points he made about my writing.

First, I was apparently unclear on principles and pragmatism. To me, a principle is something you stand by regardless of whether it benefits you or your “side”. If you truly believe women are temperamentally unfit to vote and you stand by that even if allowing them to vote would benefit you or your side, you are acting in a principled fashion. You’re a jerk but you’re a principled jerk. If, however, you believe women are temperamentally unfit to vote when their voting disadvantages you or your side but believe the opposite when their voting advantages you or your side, you are not acting on principle. “Pragmatic” was John Derbyshire’s word for his stance; I would have done better to use “opportunistic”. So a Democrat who states that he absolutely supports women’s suffrage because they lean Democratic is no more principled than a Republican who opposes women’s suffrage because they lean Democratic. To extend this to its logical conclusion, it will be interesting to see if anyone in Grim’s discussion comes up with principles for limiting the franchise that would eliminate him or herself from the pool of acceptable voters.

I do not, in fact, oppose any and all limits to the franchise. For example, I specifically referred to “non-felonious Americans” in one of my diatribes. The franchise is already limited by excluding - to greater or lesser degree - those who have committed a felony and I agree with that limitation (although I am not firmly decided on whether felons who have served their time should be able to vote).

It is this very agreement on my part that creates the danger for me in participating in this type of discussion. It would be remarkably easy for me to start with the premise that preventing felons from voting is reasonable and move to the argument that if I am content to take the vote away from those who chose not to obey our laws, why should I not go further and take the vote away from those who choose to engage in other activities I find objectionable? And, beyond that, to grant the vote only to those who engage in activities I find desirable? And to slide into what seems the only possible answer: “Well, okay, I guess it’s pretty much the same thing. So why not?”

Logic, especially logic that walks me from one innocuous step to another, is hard for me to resist even if my ultimate destination is no place I would have gone if I’d seen my destination beforehand. My beliefs about right and wrong don’t stand a chance against it.

Before the evening was half over, Jo felt so completely disillusioned, that she sat down in a corner to recover herself. Mr. Bhaer soon joined her, looking rather out of his element, and presently several of the philosophers, each mounted on his hobby, came ambling up to hold an intellectual tournament in the recess. The conversations were miles beyond Jo's comprehension, but she enjoyed it, though Kant and Hegel were unknown gods, the Subjective and Objective unintelligible terms, and the only thing `evolved from her inner consciousness' was a bad headache after it was all over. It dawned upon her gradually that the world was being picked to pieces, and put together on new and, according to the talkers, on infinitely better principles than before, that religion was in a fair way to be reasoned into nothingness, and intellect was to be the only God. Jo knew nothing about philosophy or metaphysics of any sort, but a curious excitement, half pleasurable, half painful, came over her as she listened with a sense of being turned adrift into time and space, like a young balloon out on a holiday.

She looked round to see how the Professor liked it, and found him looking at her with the grimest expression she had ever seen him wear. He shook his head and beckoned her to come away, but she was fascinated just then by the freedom of Speculative Philosophy, and kept her seat, trying to find out what the wise gentlemen intended to rely upon after they had annihilated all the old beliefs.

Now, Mr. Bhaer was a diffident man and slow to offer his own opinions, not because they were unsettled, but too sincere and earnest to be lightly spoken. As he glanced from Jo to several other young people, attracted by the brilliancy of the philosophic pyrotechnics, he knit his brows and longed to speak, fearing that some inflammable young soul would be led astray by the rockets, to find when the display was over that they had only an empty stick or a scorched hand.

He bore it as long as he could, but when he was appealed to for an opinion, he blazed up with honest indignation and defended religion with all the eloquence of truth--an eloquence which made his broken English musical and his plain face beautiful. He had a hard fight, for the wise men argued well, but he didn't know when he was beaten and stood to his colors like a man. Somehow, as he talked, the world got right again to Jo. The old beliefs, that had lasted so long, seemed better than the new. God was not a blind force, and immortality was not a pretty fable, but a blessed fact. She felt as if she had solid ground under her feet again, and when Mr. Bhaer paused, outtalked but not one whit convinced, Jo wanted to clap her hands and thank him.

(From Little Women by Louisa May Alcott)

Apologies

One of my recent posts regarding women’s suffrage received a comment from Kevin D. Williamson regarding the post of his that got me started on all this. I had planned to begin this apology post with, “Assuming this comment is truly from the Kevin D. Williamson who wrote the NRO article I referenced”. Once I thought about it, however, I realized I owed Mr. Williamson an apology whether he was the commenter or not.

First, I assumed that I knew the motivation for Mr. Williamson’s apparent distaste for the Nineteenth Amendment. As a very wise woman recently reminded me, I can’t know someone else’s motivation and should therefore assume the best rather than the worst. So I apologize for tarring Mr. Williamson with motives expressed by those at NRO who clearly advocate overturning women’s suffrage but not by him.

Second, I spoke of Mr. Williamson in terms I would never use to a “real” person. I thought that because my blog was very obscure and therefore Mr. Williamson would never see what I wrote, I could act as if there was not actually a human being behind his keyboard. (One of the things that makes me wonder if the Kevin D. Williamson of the comment is the Kevin D. Williamson who wrote the NRO post is that the commenter is far kinder to me than I would have been if I were the person who wrote the NRO post.) I apologize for insulting Mr. Williamson.

But what if it doesn't?

Douglas Schoen is advising Barack Obama on how to “secure his political future”. His advice basically amounts to “do what Bill Clinton did - at my urging - after the 1994 mid-term elections”. One specific piece of Schoen advice caught my eye:

Beyond that, the administration must emphasize that it understands the electorate's concern about fiscal prudence, the deficit, the debt and the need to balance the budget.

But what if the administration doesn’t understand any of this? Well, then, I imagine many consultants would say, the administration should lie and say they do. After all, maybe Bill Clinton was lying when he suddenly claimed to have seen the light in 1995. Good advice, I suppose - what else are they going to say at this point - but I see a problem with that strategy.

When Bill Clinton changed direction, it was possible to believe (accurately or not) that he had come to understand the electorate’s concerns. Maybe he actually considered us all rubes who were too stupid to understand the wisdom of his original plans but since he didn’t insist on referring to us as such we were able to believe that his change of heart was sincere. He had, we could convince ourselves, listened to the great wisdom of the American electorate and was swayed by their beliefs, their convictions, their understanding of what was best for their country.

That’s going to be a hard sell for the current administration. This administration is going to have to convince us that it’s listened to the great wisdom of a bunch of stupid, backward, racist wingnuts and been swayed by their idiotic beliefs, their small-minded convictions, their complete lack of understanding of anything and everything. Even the Obama of 2008 would have trouble putting that over; I can’t imagine how the Obama of 2010 would manage it.

(Both links via Contentions)