Should We Keep the Facts of Torture Secret

An argument I've heard any number of times, in which I find little merit, goes like this:

Some, like U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), argue that the Islamic State and al-Qaeda already have the United States in their cross-hairs, so what’s the difference. That’s true in general, but will this report’s release help these groups find new foot soldiers, followers and funding?

The info in this document, especially with its lurid details, could prove a propaganda bonanza for existing or future terrorist groups — not to mention "lone wolves" who may be incited to violence by it.

This is a serious risk.

The assumption behind the argument is that the people who were on the receiving end of U.S. torture are every bit as in the dark about it as the people of the U.S., who were told about water boarding and not much else. As if, when asked, a suspect who was tortured but eventually released would decline to describe what happened during his detention, lest he make people angry at the U.S.

I recognize that a lot of people here bought into the "They hate us for our freedom" canard, but really.

Democracy Will be Ruined if Obama Acts Like... Ronald Reagan

Poor Ross Douthat is in a tizzy over the possibility that President Obama may act through executive order, to address some of the immigration issues that the Republicans refuse to address through legislation. No, of course, Douthat makes no mention of the fact that the Senate passed an immigration reform bill that died in the Republican-controlled House. He instead sees the inevitable death of democracy in the President's following in the footsteps of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Douthat's first resort is to the slippery slope, the idea that if the President is willing to shield some groups from deportation in a manner consistent with his constitutional authority and existing law, he could exempt pretty much every person unlawfully in the U.S. from being subject to deportation. He fantasizes,

So the president could “temporarily” legalize 99.9 percent of illegal immigrants and direct the Border Patrol to hand out work visas to every subsequent border crosser, so long as a few thousand aliens were deported for felonies every year.

Even if we assume that to be the case, as Douthat's fantasy has no chance of actually becoming reality, it makes for a weak argument against the exercise of executive prerogative. If anything, though, Douthat's hyperbolic scare tactics reveal the weakness of the Republican position. Perhaps it is only in the face of such a fantasy scenario that House Republicans could be inspired to do their job and actually pass legislation.

Douthat makes an extraordinarily weak attempt to distinguish the President's proposal from past executive actions, revealing his essential ignorance of the facts.

In past cases, presidents used the powers he’s invoking to grant work permits to modest, clearly defined populations facing some obvious impediment (war, persecution, natural disaster) to returning home.

Obviously, the amnesty that Bush and Reagan granted to the wives and children of prior beneficiaries of legislative amnesty do not even slightly resemble what Douthat describes. Douthat also suggests that the number of potential beneficiaries somehow makes the Obama proposal different from what has come before. However, what the numbers truly reflect is the extent to which Congress has neglected this issue -- immigration reform was supposed to be a priority for George W. Bush, but he was never able to get a bill past his own party. As the previously linked article indicates,

"Bush Sr. went big at the time. He protected about 40 percent of the unauthorized population. Back then that was up to 1.5 million. Today that would be about 5 million."

The same article quotes a former Republican aide to then-Senator Alan Simpson that a difference at that time was that Congress indicated that it was going to pass legislation addressing the issue. That's really a distinction without a difference. Nothing is stopping Congress from passing immigration reform legislation, or a narrowly tailored bill directly addressing the issues on which Obama has proposed executive orders. Instead they talk about trying to tie anti-immigration provisions onto "must pass" legislation, potentially triggering a government shut-down. A mature Congress would debate and legislate. We don't have a mature Congress.

From there, it's back to the slippery slope. A President, Douthat argues, could "rewrite" vast areas of public policy through executive order. Again, Douthat ignores the fact that executive orders must be consistent with the law, and thus that Congress has an easy and obvious remedy to overreach -- namely, doing its job. Douthat adds one of his near-inevitable whinges about how Democrats are supposedly hypocritical,

No liberal has persuasively explained how, after spending the last Republican administration complaining about presidential “signing statements,” it makes sense for the left to begin applying Cheneyite theories of executive power on domestic policy debates.

Perhaps Douthat spent years complaining about executive overreach by Bush and Cheney; I can't say that I've followed him closely enough to know, and can say that I don't care enough about his past writings to try to find out. I could point out the obvious, that executive orders are not the same thing as signing statements. A signing statement declares, in effect, "I don't think that this law (or some provision of this law) is constitutional, so I won't be bound by it". Congress can't do much about a signing statement -- it has already legislated on the issue, so passing another bill saying "We really mean it" isn't going to have an impact.

As Douthat should know, an executive order must be consistent with federal law. With an executive order, Congress is free to express its will, and nothing is stopping Congress from passing an immigration law addressing these issues. A better analogy would be to the objections raised to the stack of executive orders that George W. Bush signed on his way out of the White House, but perhaps Douthat doesn't know that history -- or perhaps he doesn't want to allude to facts that betray how pathetic his argument truly is.

It's also interesting that Douthat floats from accusing "liberals" of being hypocrites to relying on a poll that documents that most Democrats oppose unilateral action.

According to the latest IBD/TIPP poll, 73% of the public say Obama should work with Congress on reforms. Just 22% say he should "sidestep Congress and act on his own using executive orders" — something the president has repeatedly pledged to do.

Among independents, 78% say Obama should work with Congress, with only 19% saying he should go it alone. Even among Democrats, only 39% say Obama should act unilaterally, while 54% say he should work with Congress.

Were Douthat more interested in facts and less interested in attacking "liberals" and the President, he might concede that the President's willingness to act by executive action flows from his own party's refusal to legislate on a wide range of important issues, including immigration. He could even call on his party to preempt the President or to make immigration reform a priority in January. Odds are it will take a year from the time any executive order is finalized to when agencies have new regulations and procedures in place to carry out the new policy -- Douthat should note that if the Republicans who will be in control of both chambers of Congress choose not to pass an immigration law during that year, they have nobody to blame but themselves. If they pass a clean bill and it is vetoed by the President, they will be in a strong position to complain -- but they have no apparent intention of being that responsible.

Douthat next resorts to the notion that the midterm election stands as some sort of informal referendum on the President's agenda, I guess signifying that he's supposed to abandon his agenda in favor of whatever the Republicans want. By now, Douthat should be aware that his depiction of a midterm election as a plebiscite is not, in fact, its role, nor is it how legislators treat the outcome of an election. What the election does do, however, is give the Republican Party control in both chambers of Congress, and tremendous latitude to pass an immigration reform bill of their own design come January 1 -- or, if the House Republicans choose to do so, even during the lame duck session.

Douthat follows up by describing his column as "shrill-but-accurae", which shows, I guess, that he can be half-right. After reiterating his position that the number of people who might benefit from the executive orders is larger that with similar prior actions, percentages apparently being beside the point, Douthat expresses the belief that President Obama hopes that his executive orders create "facts on the ground" that a future President won't easily be able to reverse. Wow, now that's the sort of brilliant insight that makes clear why he got his NYTimes gig. Next column, "I just looked in a mirror and realized that there's a nose on my face."

Douthat believes that the executive orders might not be reversed because a "moral obligation" could arise; it's not clear why Douthat believes that such a "moral obligation" would sway a Republican president or legislators. He argues that the "moral obligation" would result in "a form of political pressure", with its supposedly being harder for government "to retract a benefit than to grant it in the first place". Again, no explanation as to why he believes the Republicans -- their party being dedicated to rolling back Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other aspects of the social safety net -- would not give it a college try. Oh, but then he gets to the real issue -- that we're talking about "a Republican establishment that’s fearful of doing anything to alienate Latinos in a presidential year".

A reasonable interpretation of that last point is that the rest is window dressing. Douthat knows that the problem is not so much an issue of executive overreach as it is an example of Republican Party dysfunction. The faction that wants to pass immigration reform can't get a bill past the party's anti-immigration factions, but if you have some form of immigration reform in place the party as a whole won't want to touch the issue for fear of alienating an important voter bloc.

[Recognition of Republican reluctance to alienate Latino voters] is, of course, part of the political calculation here … that claiming more presidential authority won’t just accomplish a basic liberal policy goal, but could also effectively widen the G.O.P.’s internal fissures on immigration, exploiting the divergence of interests between the congressional party and its would-be presidential nominees.)

It's not the President's fault that Douthat's party is dysfunctional on this issue. It's the fault of its elected representatives.

Douthat makes a rather incredible statement,

Then finally, even setting all of the foregoing aside, even allowing that this move could be theoretically reversed, pointing to the potential actions of the next president is still a very strange way to rebut complaints about executive overreach.

It's as if Douthat has never before heard of an executive order. Could he be so ignorant of the U.S. system that he's unaware of the thousands upon thousands of executive orders that have been signed by past administrations, or that there's absolutely nothing unique or special about how Congress or a future President would respond to Obama's proposed administrations as compared to any other executive order?

And this....

But that reality doesn’t really tell us much of anything about whether a particular moves claims too much power for the executive branch itself. Even in the fairly unlikely event that Chris Christie or Marco Rubio cancels an Obama amnesty, that is, the power itself will still have been claimed and exercised, the line rubbed out and crossed; the move will still exist as a precedent, a model, a case study in how a president can push the envelope when Congress doesn’t act as he deems fit.

Given his prior concessions, Douthat knows that's a specious argument. When you're talking about actions that literally track the footsteps of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, you're not talking about a new line being set. Perhaps Douthat means to indict Reagan and Bush for moving the line that Obama is treating as a fair limit? No, of course not. We're dealing with a standard Republican argument that boils down to, "Whatever may have happened under a past Republican president, it's different when a Democrat does it."

Douthat could have offered a reasoned explanation for why immigration reform is a bad idea, or why his political party is correct to oppose it. He could have offered a balanced argument -- yes, it follows precedent; yes, it follows Republican precedent; yes, it flows from Republican obstruction in Congress; but it's still a bad way to implement policy. He could have implored his party to finally pass an immigration reform bill and render the issue moot. But any of that would be far too surprising. Instead, predictably, Douthat makes what is at its heart an appeal to fear, built on the weak foundation of the slippery slope.

Me? As this whole issue could be preempted if Congress simply does its job, I call on Congress to do its job. If Congress can't do that much, even as Douthat bleats about executive overreach, presidents will be effectively forced to rely on executive orders to circumvent Congressional gridlock. That's bad for the country, but in most cases it will likely be worse for nothing to get done.

Calling People "Low Information Voters" Doesn't Validate Decentralization or Privatization

In a recent article in Forbes, Ilya Somin bangs one of his favorite drums, that of the "low information voter". Somin complains that many voters don't understand the background to the government shutdown, or how much government spending goes to Medicare, Social Security and foreign aid, then lectures, "This kind of basic knowledge may not be all voters need to know to form intelligent opinions. But it’s hard to do so without it." He complains further that even informed voters can misunderstand the evidence, and that people with conflicting political beliefs can interpret the same evidence as being consistent with their own beliefs. Somin, in essence, blames this all on laziness:

It is easy to blame ignorance on stupidity or on the media. But basic information about most political issues is readily available in the media and online. It isn’t hard to find out what Obamacare insurance exchanges are. The problem is that most people don’t take the time and effort to do so. That is not because they are stupid, but because there is so little incentive to acquire political information.

I'll take issue with both of Somin's assertions. First, there is a concerted effort by parts of the media, the so-called news entertainment industry, to mislead its audiences into believing utter nonsense. If you're marginally informed about the issues, you can't turn on Fox News or drive time talk radio without figuring that out. Whether or not people should trust that type of news source isn't really the point, as many people do trust those sources and end up being misinformed and distracted from the actual issues.

Further, the mainstream media has an unfortunate tendency to turn every policy debate into a horse race, taking the proverbial "view from nowhere" while airing guests and interviews that they know to be objectively false or misleading. It seems that people like the argument more than they like to be educated, and that conflicts and contests generate more readers and viewers than a dispassionate explanation of the facts and how one side of the issue has a weaker case or is just plain wrong. A case in point would be "death panels", an outright lie about the PPACA (Obamacare) that was concocted, refined and perpetuated by the right-wing media. The mainstream media could have snuffed out that absurdity at the outset, but instead treated it as if it was a valid claim and let partisans lie on the air about the meaning and effect of perfectly reasonable provisions of the PPACA. Even though those provisions were dropped as a result, to the detriment of elderly patients, many people remain convinced that the PPACA creates "death panels". The fault for that lies almost entirely with the media. Another example would John Boehner's statements, including his widely distributed editorial, about the government shut-down. If you believe what he says you'll be less informed than when you began trying to follow the issue - but the media is not going to help you understand that, because they want Boehner to submit editorials or make appearances on their shows.

More than that, though, why does Somin believe people should have to dig for information in order to be informed, when they are reading the newspaper (or virtual equivalent) or watching the news and are being assured by the talking heads that they're getting enough information to be informed? Not everybody has the luxury to be a law professor, with many hours in an office to explore areas of esoteric interest, read the Internet, and discuss the issues of the day with informed colleagues. Most people work jobs that do not afford them similar luxuries, and it's perfectly reasonable for them to believe that the time they spend catching up with the news before heading to work, in the car, or after putting the kids to bed is sufficient to keep them informed. It's not what Somin deems being "rationally ignorant", with people knowing that they are informed but choosing to spend time on other things. It's a matter of there being only so many hours in the day, and the fact that the less you know the less aware you are of how much you need to learn.

Let's recall also that the concept of democracy does not anticipate that every voter will be informed on every issue, or even most issues. The Founding Fathers includes a number of checks on popular democracy out of concern that the masses might make bad choices - hence the non-elected Senate and the Electoral College. Inherent in the popular vote is the notion of the wisdom of the crowd - the idea that the larger body of voters will collectively exercise a level of insight and wisdom that significantly exceeds that of the typical individual voter. That's not an excuse for failing to try to better educate the pubic about the issues of the day, but if you accept that concept it's much less worrisome that people wish that spending for foreign aid were only 1% of government spending... it's actual level... instead of 10% or more.

From that rather dubious perch, Somin launches himeslf into a non sequitur:

The problem of ignorance is exacerbated by the enormous size and scope of government. Government spending accounts for well over one third of GDP, and government also regulates nearly every aspects of life. Even if voters devoted far more time to following political issues, they would still be ignorant about most government policies.... But we can help alleviate the problem by limiting and decentralizing government. When people “vote with their feet” in the private sector or in choosing what state or local government they want to live in, they have much better incentives to acquire information and use it rationally than when they vote at the ballot box.

That argument strikes me as utter nonsense. The federal government gets an incredible amount of media attention. The more local government becomes, the less media attention it typically receives. In many communities there's no meaningful media coverage of local government. While there have been corruption scandals at the federal level, in recent decades they have typically involved a small number of individuals with little impact on the overall functioning of government. The problem of corruption can be significantly more pronounced at the state level, as evidenced by Illinois, and can be appalling at the local level, as evidenced by Kwame Kilpatrick's Detroit. It is absurd to pretend that it is easier for voters to stay informed in relation to matters handled by a panoply of state and local governments, than it is to stay informed in relation to the actions of the federal government. Were that not true, one would reasonably expect that corruption and misconduct would improve at the local level, not significantly worsen.

Also, it's a rather arrogant conceit to suggest that if people don't like where they live, it's simple for them to sell their homes, uproot their families, get new jobs, and relocate to a community more to their liking. While there is no question but that when things get really bad a growing percentage of people will "vote with their feet", the significant number of people who stay behind reflect the reality that for most people it's not simple or easy, and for many it's an unaffordable luxury. More than that, there's more involved in choosing where you live than whether or not you like the state or local government, and moving to a different location that has a government more aligned with your beliefs may mean sacrificing social, employment and cultural opportunities that are important to your quality of life, as well as giving up easy access to top hospitals or similar local amenities.

Most of us spend far more time and effort acquiring information when we choose what car or TV to buy, than when we choose the president of the United States. The person deciding which car to buy knows that their decision is likely to make a real difference to the outcome. The same goes for a person deciding where to live in a federal system.

Perhaps he's speaking for himself, but I disagree with Somin's initial assertion. Most people give considerable thought to the president, and whether or not they will vote for or against an incumbent president. One might argue that much of that thought is partisan, and thus "doesn't really count", but that would sidestep Somin's claim - which is tantamount to arguing that people start thinking about their next car or television the moment they bring a new one home. I think people who vote hope that their vote makes a difference. A real difference in the outcome? Very few people who move to a new community do so with Somin's unrealistic notion that they will somehow influence local government simply by leaving one community or by joining another - I don't believe that I've ever met such a person. Moving to a different community based upon an assumption that it will be materially better than the place you live because of your perception of the political ideology of the local government seems like a fool's errand.

Somin presents no evidence, nor really any argument, that localized government would be cheaper, better, more transparent, less corrupt, more efficient... that it would provide any actual benefit to the public. He does not address the complexity of the modern nation state, nor the fact that some of the things of which he complains (e.g., ignorance of spending levels for foreign aid, Social Security and Medicare) are going to remain at the national level. He may have a pipe dream where programs like Social Security and Medicare become state-run programs, but the added complexity of such an approach should be obvious, as should be the impairment of people's ability to "vote with their feet" when they have to worry about how benefits are coordinated between states. But if you leave the big ticket items at the national level - military spending, Social Security and Medicare, along with matters that the federal government alone can reasonably address, such as managing foreign relations, regulating interstate commerce, providing the FDA, FTC, SEC, EPA, FEMA, USCIS, ICE, USPTO and the like, Somin's approach isn't actually going to simplify choices for voters at the federal level. It will instead add to the complexity of their other votes while doing next to nothing to simplify the federal government.

From there, Somin doubles down on his non seqiturs:

By reducing the size of government, we can enable more choices to be made in the private sector, where people have better incentives to become informed.

It seems that Somin imagines a future involving a lot more than localization of government, with government either outsourcing various tasks to the private sector or people being left without government support in certain areas of their lives and having to turn instead to private sector solutions. Somin is employed by a major university, and likely chooses his health insurance from a number of heavily subsidized plans offered by his employer - something akin to a health insurance exchange under the PPACA, but with his receiving a large subsidy for which he would be ineligible under that law. It's unlikely that Somin has ever tried to purchase health insurance on the individual market, let alone insure his family in that manner. It is unlikely that he has dealt with insurance companies' arbitrary denial of coverage, or trying to get individual coverage with a pre-existing medical condition. If he had, he wouldn't adhere to the fantasy that "more choices" result in a better informed consumer and even if all he cares about are incentives he would be aware of how difficult it is to actually compare individual health plans - even those offered by a single insurance company.

Were Somin to research the issue he would learn that having too many options can be paralyzing - people get confused, don't know how to draw meaningful distinctions, and may end up making their choices based upon arbitrarily selected, sometimes incorrect, information and assumptions. Somin may fret for hours or days about what TV to buy or what car to purchase, but at the end of the day his life will be little affected by whether he chooses a Camry or an Accord, a Vizio or a Samsung. If Somin believes his own conceit that voters are too lazy to educate themselves, his is a recipe for making that situation worse.

Detroit Isn't Greece

Remember that movie from a few years ago, where a kid grew increasingly neurotic and agitated about government debt until a psychologist teased out his secret, "I see Greek people... they're everywhere... and they don't even know they're Greek!" Well, neither do I, but had they made that movie the child might have grow up to be Charles Lane.

I have three basic problems with people who are inclined to point to units of government and declare, "That's like Greece". First, those making the comparison often seem to have little understanding of the situation in Greece. Second, their comparisons are usually spurious. Third, the gist of their argument usually has nothing to do with Greece or the circumstances that led up to its economic crisis, and usually have a lot more to do with a desire to cut social spending or to attribute some form of blameworthiness to the ordinary people who have profited the least and suffered the most from the mistakes and misconduct of their governments. I'm not seeing Lane as an exception.¹

Greece's economic crisis did not emerge in a vacuum. If any nation in the Euro zone was not aware that Greece was playing games with its finances first to qualify for entry into the Euro and subsequently to nominally meet the limits on the size of its deficits, the ignorance would have to have been willful. Greece's governance was impaired by ineptitude, corruption, and a willingness to turn a blind eye to tax fraud. But the average Greek person was part of a culture that was more entrepreneurial than most - just oriented toward small, family-run businesses as opposed to the version we're used to - and on the whole they were paying a higher share of their income in taxes than a typical U.S. citizen. It's all too easy to shrug off the hardship they are experiencing, first from the economic collapse and second from austerity measures, while ignoring the fact that those who profited the most from the lead-up to the crisis are also typically those most insulated from its consequences.

A comparison between Greece and Detroit perhaps holds true in relation to the perceptions that lead to a mentality of austerity - a notion that the people are at best undeserving and at worst need to suffer. Never mind that most of them are trying to get through their lives under difficult circumstances. The City of Detroit has lost close to two thirds of its population since its peak. It's easy to look at Coleman Young, who chose to transform himself into a cartoon, and forget that he became mayor following a period of crisis and actually did good work during his first term. It's astonishing, how bad things became over his subsequent terms, or the culture of incompetence and entitlement that took over the City's government during his era.

It's easy to forget that when provided with the opportunity to do so, the people of Detroit made the very responsible choice of electing Dennis Archer as mayor - but (one might infer, when confronted with the entrenched corruption and incompetence left beyond by Young as well as the lack of resources and political capital necessary to effect a significant reform of the city and its government) he left office after one term and was succeeded by the young, charismatic,² and (alas) corrupt Kwame Kilpatrick. It's also easy to forget that Kilpatrick was succeeded by Dave Bing, who is much more in the model of Archer, but by some combination of timing, personality and opportunity, more willing to take on the entrenched interests that have impaired the city. As they say, at least in relation to trying to forestall the appointment of an emergency manager and possibly to keep the city out of bankruptcy, too little, too late.

It has been painfully obvious for decades that Detroit needed serious outside intervention. That did not occur for three reasons: first, few people were willing to pay the political price associated with the necessary reforms. Mayor Bing was able to propose consolidating neighborhoods and essentially shutting down the sparsely populated ares of the city because things had degenerated well past the point of sustainability - but the need for those measures were obvious more than twenty years ago. Second, change isn't cheap - and nobody wants to pay for it. For example, there are huge, slowly decaying buildings and structures in Detroit that remain in place, eyesores that stand in the way of brownfield redevelopment, because they're too expensive to remove and nobody in their right mind wants to develop land that sits next to a decaying hulk or contaminated land. The state is unwilling to divert that type of money into Detroit, and it's not even on the federal radar screen. Third, it's very easy to blame the people of Detroit for their own plight, even though things get far more complex when you start looking at individuals. Our nation's approach to its anachronistic large cities³ and the problems of the inner city is largely one of disinterest and neglect - and that's not likely to change as long as the nation, as a whole, perceives the residents of those areas as undeserving of help.

Still, Detroit has its bright spots. If Lane ever actually makes it to the city, he may want to check out Greektown.
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1. For example, Lane waxes poetic about the union-busting powers granted to Detroit's emergency manager then complains, "German chancellor Angela Merkel could only wish for such quasi-dictatorial power over her Greek clients", seemingly unaware that Germany has been a driving force behind the failed austerity measures that have been imposed upon Greece to the extreme detriment of ordinary people; he argues "Greece’s state-owned money pits include a railroad and ports. The political class in Detroit saw fit to own water works and parking garages", as if it's unusual for a municipality to own a water utility or parking structure and as if the comparison between that type of service and owning seaports and railroads has any validity, and in ignorance of the fact that Detroit's water utility produces high quality water and sells its services to other area communities; he suggests that Detroit's pension obligations are somehow analogous to the cause of Greece's economic crisis, never mind that pensions had nothing to do with Greece's crisis and the relative size of Detroit's pension obligations to its tax revenue is far more a creature of its collapsed tax base than of the fact that city employees receive pensions.

2. I did not personally find Kilpatrick to be appealing - I would label his style and swagger as appalling - but I can't deny that many others thought he was charming and liked his bravado.

3. Many cities that were once important, even crucial, hubs for trade are now largely irrelevant. Many of the industries that were once consolidated in major cities have shifted to other states, and even to other nations, with little to take their place. Detroit has lost 60% of its population, leaving behind a tax base insufficient to support its infrastructure, but without enough jobs or opportunities for the people who remain behind. As huge numbers of capable workers have left the city, a disproportionate number of those left behind have marginal jobs skills, physical or mental illness, drug addiction, or some combination thereof - with a predictable effect on the community, its schools, and its attractiveness to employers.

Ka-Ching! Tim Geithner Cashes In

Not that it's unusual for former government officials to cash in on their years of service, but it seems to me that it's worth noting when a guy who personifies "regulatory capture" cashes in:

Tim Geithner, the former US Treasury secretary, has been elevated to the highest rank of public speakers, alongside former world leaders Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, after receiving about $400,000 for three speaking engagements.

A speech at a Deutsche Bank conference last month netted him about $200,000, according to people familiar with the situation, underscoring the lucrative fees that former public officials can receive.

I'm not clear on why people would be particularly interested in Geithner's "take on topics including Federal Reserve policy and the state of the world three months after leaving the Obama administration", but then I have always been skeptical that this type of payment is actually for the speech as opposed to reminding other "public servants" of the riches that await them if they keep the industries they regulate happy.

Why a Coward's Path to Medicare Reform Won't Work

I've made no secret of what I think of policy proposals that are not slated to take effect until after an election or, worse, after the next President is in office. Granted, sometimes the timing issues are a bit more complicated than they might appear at first blush. The "Bush tax cuts" were scheduled to expire after ten years not because Bush wouldn't have preferred to make them permanent, but because they were passed through reconciliation and thus had a ten year shelf life. Obamacare was implemented in phases not because there was concern about earlier implementation, at least on the part of the Democrats, but because of insistence that the bill be revenue neutral. The staged implementation allowed the financial projections to show revenue neutrality over a ten year period. Which is not to say that I don't think that the Obama Administration felt some relief when the least popular aspect of the plan was pushed to 2014, a happy side-effect of the bitter pill.

In stark contrast are policy proposals over issues that a President fears would be damaging. George W. Bush promised that his policies would lead to an independent Palestinian state during his second term because he didn't want to fall flat on his face trying to force a resolution before his reelection, taking advantage of any suckers who supported his reelection based upon his feigned interest in the issue then all-but-dropping it after his reelection.

The more difficult issues of our time, it seems, are placed on the coward's schedule. The ultimate cowards of our current election cycle are Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, who are deliberately creating a conflict between generations in order to try to grease their way into the White House. They have made clear that they want to turn Medicare into a voucher program and would prefer to do so immediately, but they don't have the courage to stand behind those convictions.

Instead they claim that they will pass legislation that will take effect a decade from now, long after their assumed second term ends, that will leave untouched the Medicare benefits of anybody over the age of 55 but will give any younger person a voucher inadequate to pay for equivalent coverage - and with the voucher structured to lose value over time in relation to the projected future cost of health insurance. They pretend that they will make up some of the shortfall by reducing the value of the voucher for wealthier seniors, but know full well that the amount they could save through such a measure would be a relative pittance.

You know what else? Other than the fact that health insurance companies don't care to insure seniors, with their unpredictable and often high medical costs as well as end-of-life care, their present proposal sounds an awful lot like "Obamacare for seniors, with a public option." Funny how they're not worried about "individual mandates", public competition with private insurers, and the like when it's their proposal. That's not really a big surprise, though, given that Romney still supports Romneycare - his real objections to "Obamacare" are that (a) objecting could help him defeat a Democratic president and (b) it might work.

Back to the coward's time line. As anybody who knows anything about how our system of government works can tell you, Congress passes spending measures on a year-by-year basis. Congress meets and passes new legislation each year. If this year's Congress passes a law that attempts to bind future congresses, a future congress is free to change or repeal that law.

Why do Romney and Ryan quiver in their boots at suggesting to today's older voters, those age 55 and older, as well as current Medicare recipients that their benefits should be transformed to a voucher program? Simply put, those voters have more money and influence as compared to most other voter blocs, they like and want Medicare, and they vote. Romney and Ryan are happy to try to scare those voters with demagoguery about bureaucrats deciding what care they will get, or budget cuts that don't directly affect benefits and which they, themselves, have endorsed. But when it comes to telling that population, "Medicare costs the nation too much, you paid for it but not enough as compared to what you're getting, and it's only fair that you share the burden of our reform," nope, not happening. They propose continuing what they claim to be an undeserved windfall to today's seniors, while imposing what they claim to be an unreasonable burden on everybody else.

So let's move nine years into the future. Assuming Romney and Ryan win the election, they'll be out of office. And their Medicare reform? It won't yet be in effect. The voters they're presently terrified of confronting will be 65 and older. And an entirely new population of voters will be between the ages of 55 and 65, and the new generation of politician will be every bit as terrified of those voters as Ryan and Romney are right this very minute.

It appears to be the hope of Romney and Ryan that, when confronted with that anger, rather than repudiating the never-implemented Medicare reform, politicians a decade from now will look at the budget picture and say, "Let's just put this voucher thing into effect for everybody." More likely, they'll either say, "Let's put this off another ten years." Faced with enough voter anger, as the deadline becomes real and the weakness of the replacement benefit becomes obvious, they'll say "Oh well, I guess we won't be implementing that plan after all."

Either way, the most likely impact of the cowardly reform schedule is that rather than making tough choices, politicians of the next decade (for most of which Romney and Ryan hope to be leading the pack) will slough off the idea that they need to do any hard work to fix Medicare for the long term because, "Several years from now our reform will come into effect and the markets will magically fix all of this stuff." That is, Romney and Ryan are giving themselves an excuse to do nothing constructive and to show no leadership on the actual issues facing Medicare, knowing full well that their cowardice on the issue could create immense difficulty for the administrations that succeed them.

Perhaps they hope that their fiscal policies will leave the government in such bad shape that it cannot afford to perpetuate Medicare. But if that's the case, they should admit up front that they are offering a recipe to harm and weaken our nation, not one that will give it an strong economic footing. If, on the other hand, they believe their budget plans will improve the nation's finances, what are the odds that their successors are going to take the heat for decisions Romney and Ryan were too cowardly to implement when, just like Romney and Ryan, they can push the issue off onto a future administration.

Justice Roberts, a Bully?

Not quite on par with those who inspired me to poke fun at Peggy Noonan, but really? Ilya Somin argues that, in light of the ACA ruling, then-Senator Obama's comments on Justice Roberts seem prescient, that in his "history of public service...[Roberts] has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak". Somin argues that the ACA ruling fits that description, fancifully arguing that,

Justice Roberts sided with “strong” insurance companies (who are major supporters of the individual mandate) and “those in power” in the “executive branch and the legislative branch” against the comparatively “weak”: small business and the majority of ordinary voters who opposed the mandate and wanted it invalidated.

Somin then admits that he does not believe that Roberts was "motivated by any great love for insurance companies or hostility to 'the weak'", but that "it’s ironic¹ that his ruling in this crucial unintentionally fits Obama’s 2005 critique of his record".

With all of the years Roberts has been on the court, and all of the instances in which the Court has explicitly sided with the legislature or with monied and powerful interests² when they were lined up against much weaker opponents, Somin picks this case as his first (and presumably best) illustration of Obama's point?

Seriously?

In this world in which the "broccoli mandate" is advanced as a serious argument for why a health insurance mandate would inevitably lead to atrocious overreach at the federal level - but be completely acceptable and virtually free of risk at the state level - have we lost touch with the concept of "self-parody"?
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1. A black fly in his chardonnay?

2. Under Somin's strained - dare I say overwrought - interpretation of Obama's statement, most cases that come before the Supreme Court have powerful interests on both sides.

Shifting Public Opinion

One of Bill Maher's consistent complaints about the Democratic Party is that it fails to shift public opinion on important issues. He perceives the Republican Party as able to shift public opinion. In some sense this is true - if you look, for example, at climate science or healthcare reform, the Republican Party has been very successful at confusing the debate, misrepresenting the facts and science, and shifting public opinion in favor of the interests it represents. It's as if they're emulating the tobacco industry executives who used to consistently lie about the safety of cigarettes, while paying off Members of Congress who supported them. (Sorry... making campaign contributions, right on the floor of the House. Gotta use the right euphemism.) Actually, that's exactly what they're doing.

But even in that context it's not as if they're working in a void - there are always Democrats who are happy to hop on board the gravy train. You cannot count on a "mainstream media" owned by billionaires with their own political agendas (and no, I'm not just talking about Fox) to want to clarify the issues. And even if the information is "out there", most people don't have the time to research the facts - they rely upon the representations of "trusted" third parties who often, unfortunately, don't deserve their trust - even if they have the skills. And let's not forget confirmation bias - it's much easier to convince somebody of something the first time around, but once that belief is set they will tend to discount any information that challenges their existing belief. Everybody at times falls victim to confirmation bias.

There's an ugly reality to politics, in which finding a narrative that works is more important than telling the truth. It's the same thing that happens in a trial, when the attorneys for the two different sides make very different arguments about the meaning of the same set of facts, but with more feedback. In a trial the lawyer tries to figure out from a juror's expressions, reactions, eye contact, and other indirect clues whether or not the juror is receptive to an argument. In politics there are opinion polls, media reactions, and now social media, all of which provide advance hints and near-instant feedback.

You can see what I'm talking about, right now, in the presidential campaign. Both sides throw out accusations and innuendo meant to discredit the other, in the manner of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. If the assertion doesn't resonate, it's time to rework it or try something else. If the accusation rebounds, it's dropped. If it works, a new plate of spaghetti is prepared based upon that winning strand, and the process starts again. See, e.g., Romney's latest, fumbled attack - a slightly reworked version of the attack that various political opponents have been attempting against Obama for more than four years. (Are you hungry for warmed over, four-year-old spaghetti? Yum....)

When you hear somebody who espouses more radical positions on the political left complain that the President is not effectively advocating for that position, upon investigation you will usually find that they are overstating the probable impact of such advocacy, that the person is ignoring the fact that Congress is unwilling to act (less of an issue if the other party is in control, but a potentially significant P.R. issue if the president's own party won't follow his lead), and also overestimate public support for the proposal. I do think that there is power in the President's ability to stand before the nation and present arguments about public policy matters, but I believe that the impact is gradual - and won't always be successful. I think that Presidential actions on gay rights issues have helped shift public opinion over time, but we're talking decades. The bully pulpit is not a source of instant gratification.

But, you respond, sometimes an argument resonates with the people and enables a President (and Congress) to implement a significant policy change, or to pass what was previously controversial legislation. Well, yes, but when that happens it's almost always within the context of an emergency. Sometimes the emergency is real, sometimes in retrospect it sounds like "We've always been at war with Eastasia", but I won't deny that it can be a very effective tactic.¹

When you're trying to shift public opinion, it helps if you have a strong foundation for your position. If you're really dealing with something new, you may be able to lay the foundation before your opponent responds and gain a significant advantage over him.² When Ronald Reagan demagogued about the welfare state, it didn't matter if there actually were Cadillac-driving welfare queens, because the public was looking at decades of massive public expenditure in the "war on poverty", money flowing from them to the "undeserving other", with clear evidence that many projects had failed and many others had not succeeded. That also stands as an example of a shift over time - it took another decade for the most significant welfare reforms to become law.

You're most likely to succeed in shifting public opinion when there's broad public acceptance of the foundation of your argument. The argument that we need to balance the budget resonates because most people want the budget to be in balance. The argument that spending large amounts of money in a renewed "war on poverty" would be a waste resonates, because most people believe that past similar efforts were on the whole a waste of money. The argument that unions are, on the whole, bad resonates because - for a broad range of reasons - most people are skeptical of unions and their present contribution to society.³

Ideally, politicians would approach issues like this:

1. Our nation is facing [issue] that we need to address.
2. Possible solutions to [issue] are [responses].
3. Although there is some disagreement upon which response is the best, we're working to figure out and implement a response that will adequately resolve the problem.

For a simple example, consider past "fixes" of Social Security - tweak tax rates and ages of eligibility, and at least on paper it's good to go for another half century or more. But that doesn't happen because neither party actually wants to cut benefits - at least not for current recipients or those who will soon receive benefits - because those people vote. And one party doesn't actually want to fix the current system - they want to privatize it or eliminate it. There is thus little attempt at an honest discussion, while pundits who know the back story tut-tut about how serious the issue is without explaining why it's not addressed.

How do you fashion an appeal that is likely to work? That is likely to get the public to advocate for policies that don't advance, and perhaps even harm, the greater public welfare or their own self-interest? The Catholic Church helped us out by creating a short-list of triggers: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.

1. This is a time of war.
2. No patriotic American would criticize the President in a time of war.
3. Critics of this war, therefore, are not patriotic.

1. Taxes are bad.
2. My opponent wants to take your money to pay for [programs that benefit others].
3. I won't raise taxes under any circumstances, so you should vote for me.

1. We need to protect children.
2. My opponent wants gay people to get married, to have families, to teach in schools, to have the opportunity to seduce your children or make them gay.
3. I will protect your family and our way of life.

1. The other side says that free government insurance is necessary, using that child as an example.
2. That child has granite counter tops in his home.
3. Therefore, the program is really about taking your money to give free stuff to people who are already richer than you.

I'm not endorsing this approach, either to campaigning in general or in "tossing red meat to the base", but when done correctly (so to speak) it works. One of the reasons that Democrats aren't as effective with this type of argument is that people who align themselves with the Democratic Party - and more importantly, those who give money to the Democratic Party - find it distasteful. Another is that a lot of left-wing concepts are designed to appeal to our enlightened side - charity, sacrifice, patience.... "No - what's in it for me"?

When a rich Democrat argues that he supports higher taxes, even though he will may tens of thousands, perhaps millions, more in taxes himself, the Republican response is to suggest that he has a hidden agenda or to repeat the ludicrous argument that, if he truly meant that, he would already be voluntarily paying extra money to the IRS. Because... appeals to our darker nature are more effective and, frankly, the people who are most receptive to arguments that appeal to our baser nature know their own motivations, and are thus apt to project them onto others.

Another problem is that a lot of left-wing ideas are premised upon the belief that with the right argument, the right circumstances, the right... something... we can all be better, more enlightened people, happily working for the common good. You are going to do much better in creating and implementing solutions to problems, and in convincing the public that your proposals are workable, if your reform is not dependent upon improving human nature.

Finally, with intentional oversimplification, the political right tends to have a blind spot when it comes to military action, and the political left tends to have a blind spot when it comes to "great society" projects. "Don't worry about the cost - we can afford it, and it will probably pay for itself." The right has the advantage, because shooting things and blowing them up produces an immediate, visceral reaction. "Go team!" The left has the disadvantage that such programs involve appeals to our better nature, fly in the face of a history of what are perceived as similar, failed efforts, and can be challenged by resort to the aforementioned cheap rhetorical tools - appeals to spite and envy, appeals to ridicule, etc.

In short, in my opinion, if you want to shift public perception on an issue:

1. Start with a strong foundation - working with, not against, something the public already believes;

2. Propose a solution consistent with human nature - one that can be understood and accepted by our selfish, sometimes irrational minds;

3. Recognize that some of the most effective tools are unseemly - and that your choice may be between making a more effective dishonest argument and a less effective honest argument.

4. Even if you stick to principle, you should not expect that your opponent will be similarly principled.

5. Expect the process will take time - years to decades - if it works at all.

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1. "This is a terrible emergency, brought about by irresponsible members of the financial industry. We must bail them out, protect their salaries and bonuses, and get them back to 'business as usual' as quickly as possible, whatever the cost to the taxpayer." "This little vial could hold enough Anthrax to cause immediate chaos - and Iraq may have tons of it."

2. The Swift Boat Liars did this to John Kerry, who apparently believed that their incredible accusations would be compared by others to the factual record, but ended up on the defensive for the rest of the campaign.

3. One of the difficulties faced by those who would like to help support organized labor is that unions have played a terrible P.R. game, and that the core purposes of a union - advocating to improve a worker's wages, hours and working conditions - do in fact raise the cost of business and create resentment among non-union workers. Also, the excesses of major unions in past years carry an echo.

Hey, Pleb - Why Aren't You Kissing The Ring?

Yesterday, when I was spending a ridiculous amount of time troubleshooting a server, I missed a lecture from David Brooks in whose view our nation, it seems, is no longer sufficiently deferential to authority. After an odd sort of introduction in which he complaints that modern memorials tend to humanize rather than deify their subjects, Brooks asks, "Why can’t today’s memorial designers think straight about just authority?" And by "memorial designers" he appears to mean "average Americans".

Some of the reasons are well-known. We live in a culture that finds it easier to assign moral status to victims of power than to those who wield power. Most of the stories we tell ourselves are about victims who have endured oppression, racism and cruelty.

Then there is our fervent devotion to equality, to the notion that all people are equal and deserve equal recognition and respect. It’s hard in this frame of mind to define and celebrate greatness, to hold up others who are immeasurably superior to ourselves.

But the main problem is our inability to think properly about how power should be used to bind and build. Legitimate power is built on a series of paradoxes: that leaders have to wield power while knowing they are corrupted by it; that great leaders are superior to their followers while also being of them; that the higher they rise, the more they feel like instruments in larger designs. The Lincoln and Jefferson memorials are about how to navigate those paradoxes.

I disagree with Brooks' initial premise. We live in a culture that, on the whole, idolizes fame, wealth and power. We have an enormous population of celebrities who are "famous for being famous", people with little to no skill or talent beyond attracting media attention. From the Kardashians to Joe the Plumber, they're not necessarily bad people but they have nothing to offer beyond their fame. We assume that anybody who has become wealthy or who has succeeded in business is admirable and worthy. And yes, that extends to politics. You need look no further than the host of mediocre politicians who sought the Republican presidential nomination - and were taken seriously.

I am not sure what to make of Brooks' second point, save for this: If Brooks could make a genuine case that we're tearing down "others who are immeasurably superior to ourselves", he would provide an example. It's fair to say we're living in a very polarized time, and that there's a strong partisan effort to tear down individuals and politicians associated with "the other side", but that's far from new or unique to this era. It's fair to say that we know more about people of prominence than we did in the past, and that it's easier to deify a business or political leader if you don't know about his quirks and foibles - but although it may be easier to imagine that somebody is "immeasurably superior to ourselves" if we don't know the facts, it's not unreasonable to judge a person based upon facts instead of myths.

Really, in this context it would be helpful for Brooks to clue us in, by naming at least one individual whom he concedes to be "immeasurably superior to" himself.

In terms of a "fervent devotion to equality", Brooks may not realize this but one place you can get the idea that "all people are equal and deserve equal recognition and respect" is... wait for it... the Declaration of Independence - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...." One might also note that the preamble to the Constitution does not begin, "We the others who are immeasurably superior to you...." Brooks may believe that to be the subtext, "Ha ha, let's pull one over on the plebs and suggest that they're our equals", but even if he truly believes that language to be a conceit it would be absurd for him to simultaneously pretend that no prior generation "fell for it".

Further, the concept of true equality is not dominant in our culture. When you hear demagoguery about "liberal elites", the neglect of "flyover country", whether the President is a "full-blooded American", and the like, that's about building a sense of superiority in the target audience. Perhaps Brooks means that we should attempt to be more objective when assessing ourselves, but there's no shortage of judgment in our society when it comes to assessing others.

Brooks complains that the slogan, "question authority" is used indiscriminately - questioning not only bad authority - perhaps the authority that led us into war in Vietnam - but also good authority - perhaps the authority that led us into war in Iraq? As with sharing the identity of his superiors, examples would strengthen his argument - or reveal its incoherence.

Brooks complains that Americans perceive "elites" as self-interested. He does not define that term, and his separate reference to "public servants" makes it clear that he's not simply talking about elected officials. In what sphere other than politics would he have us believe that the "elites" are looking out for the rest of us? Should we look to the historic leaders of the tobacco, energy and financial industries? The entertainment industry? Are we being too hard on media elites, such as Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black? Egad. You don't have to assume that they're hiding something to recognize that they're people, and that they very often put their incomes and stock options ahead of the interest of their own companies, let alone the general public. I'll concede - Rupert Murdoch is "immeasurably superior" to me in terms of his ability to identify and exploit economic opportunities, but beyond that he's a terribly flawed human being. Should I close my eyes to that truth?

And what of politicians? When Mitch McConnell declared that "the single most important thing we [the Republican elite] want to achieve" is to make President Obama a one-term President, should I take him at his word? Or not? Because if I take him at his word, how can I avoid viewing him as a flawed human being, looking out for position and power even if it harms the country? And if I think of him as lying, how is it not his fault that people assume that he means what he says instead of assuming that he has glorious, positive motives and intentions that he hides from us?

Nonetheless, Brooks states, "I don’t know if America has a leadership problem...." Seriously? He can be a card-carrying member of a party that is led by McConnell, and that flirted with the idea of President Gingrich and President Santorum, and still wonder?

You can argue that McConnell makes it easy - that he's the low-hanging fruit - but really, if I'm not supposed to look at McConnell who's left to deify? John Boehner? Am I supposed to deify Mitt Romney, who technically has not yet even won his party's nomination, based upon his past ten years of self-aggrandizement and political campaigning? Just assume, perhaps because he's rich and has the right pedigree?

Daniel Larison refutes Brooks' notion that the Tea Party and OWS movements are leaderless, and responds,

What bothers Brooks about these movements is not that they reject all authority, but that they have weighed the claims to authority made by the current political class and found them badly wanting. These people probably haven’t concluded that they are “better than everyone else around them.” They are reasonably sure that their leaders are worse than they should be. If they are more cynical now than before, it could have something to do with the complete lack of accountability for the people most responsible for the calamities of the last ten years.

Not just ten years, though. The Watergate scandal broke in 1974. And any comment on increased cynicism toward government should acknowledge that the Republican Party has made a deliberate effort over recent decades to attack the motives, competency, and utility of government.

Brooks argues that our nation needs more "good followers", those who "recognize just authority, admire it, be grateful for it and emulate it". As stated, that's not unreasonable. If you are governed by a "just authority", you can no doubt find many admirable aspects, worthy of gratitude and emulation. The problem is that Brooks implies that the "just authority" we should be grateful for is that of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Mitt Romney. And through it all, while Brooks has no problem condescending to the masses for their failure to defer to those "others who are immeasurably superior to ourselves", one senses that Brooks has no trouble placing himself near - and perhaps even at - the apex of "others who are immeasurably superior to" you.

Which Voters are Getting What They Want?

Charles Pierce has taken apart most of David Brooks' exposition on "The Age of Innocence", but I think that the following claim deserves some attention:

Leaders today do not believe their job is to restrain popular will. Their job is to flatter and satisfy it. A gigantic polling apparatus has developed to help leaders anticipate and respond to popular whims. Democratic politicians adopt the mind-set of marketing executives. Give the customer what he wants. The customer is always right.

Having lost a sense of their own frailty, many voters have come to regard their desires as entitlements. They become incensed when their leaders are not responsive to their needs. Like any normal set of human beings, they command their politicians to give them benefits without asking them to pay.

I don't think that there's any way to dispute how poll-driven politics has become. Mitt Romney personifies the worst of that phenomenon - if you want to know what he thinks about an issue, all you have to do is check the latest poll and you'll find that he has undergone a heartfelt transformation from his previous stated opinions and now agrees, with every fiber of his being, with the position he believes will help him win the election. Don't ask him what he said on prior occasions because he may not remember the position he took - but rest assured, whatever it was, he stands by it.

Brooks suffers from the standard beltway pundit's obsession with Social Security and Medicare, so I expect that if pushed on the issue he would point to those two government programs as proof of his latest imagined transformation of human nature. But Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965, a mere three years after Brooks' imagined peak of American civil society, by which time Social Security had been in effect for thirty years. The good, wholesome voters of the past asked for and received those programs from enlightened politicians who respected the way government was supposed to work - unlike the self-interested voters of today who merely ask that those programs be continued, or at least not too badly devastated. Shame!

Brooks thus complains about how workers "want great lifestyles without long work hours." (Alas, we cannot all be New York Times columnists.) "They want dynamic capitalism but also personal security." If you could accomplish that, would it not be a good thing? "European welfare states go broke trying to deliver these impossibilities." Um, yeah, rather than legislating a shortened work week, supporting unions, and offering a broad social safety net, it's a darn shame this country isn't more like Germany.

Seriously, though, if workers want short work weeks and politicians do exactly what workers want, why don't we have a shorter work week? Why do we have, instead, more jobs being classified as "exempt" such that workers can be salaried with no cap on their weekly hours? Why isn't the minimum wage higher? Why do middle class voters pay any taxes at all - who, after all, wants to pay taxes? Brooks shares a common sentiment about populism and describes the slippery slope that should be resulting from that populism, but where can we actually see that slippery slope in action?

Meanwhile, we have had poll-driven promises from both political parties, and most notably from the Republican Party, for decades. All of the Republican litmus test issues are poll-driven. Yet when in office, even when they hold all three branches of government, the Republicans tend not to deliver on those issues. Worse, even though their voters say they want a balanced budget, the Republicans habitually break the bank. The reasons for that are obvious - the Republican Party is interested in winning elections. By becoming the "pro-life" party, the Republicans can push that issue in every election. But if Congress and the President were to deliver, pfft - gone. Yes, we get lots of populist, poll-driven promises in their campaigns, but if it's not an issue the party actually cares about you simply cannot expect that anything will get done - and should expect the opposite if it's an issue that can be recycled from election to election.

Brooks is, in effect, confusing the bread and circuses with the actual work of government. Brooks could find plenty to criticize in the actual workings of government, and how the system has become skewed to the incredible advantage of wealthy people (like him) but... nah, easier to blame the plebs.

David Brooks Takes On The Rebel Without a Cause

Taking Brooks out of context in a completely unfair manner,

My own theory revolves around a single bad idea.

Which of your theories doesn't, David?

Now to be more fair...

For generations people have been told: Think for yourself; come up with your own independent worldview. Unless your name is Nietzsche, that’s probably a bad idea. Very few people have the genius or time to come up with a comprehensive and rigorous worldview.

If you go out there armed only with your own observations and sentiments, you will surely find yourself on very weak ground. You’ll lack the arguments, convictions and the coherent view of reality that you’ll need when challenged by a self-confident opposition.

Brooks' example is of a guy who railed against organized religion in the name of Jesus, then retreated when confronted with scripture showing that "In fact, Jesus preached a religious doctrine, prescribed rituals and worshiped in a temple." The fact that he retreated in the face of authority, it would seem, undermines Brooks' point. When confronted with authority this person didn't say, "I don't care what facts you have, I'm entitled to my own views and interpretations," he folded. Brooks also overestimates how completely we can divorce ourselves from the society in which we are raised - from the values imbued by our social institutions, parents and families, peers, role models.... It was only a few days ago that Brooks was claiming that there's some form of unified white culture, breaking down on economic lines, with the top twenty percent having a different value set than the bottom thirty - so much so that he used the term "tribe" to describe each group. Now he would have us believe that each and every person in those groups formed their values in a vacuum and that the similar outcomes are a matter of pure coincidence?

Brooks tells us a lot about himself when he lectures,

If I could offer advice to a young rebel, it would be to rummage the past for a body of thought that helps you understand and address the shortcomings you see. Give yourself a label. If your college hasn’t provided you with a good knowledge of countercultural viewpoints — ranging from Thoreau to Maritain — then your college has failed you and you should try to remedy that ignorance.

Brooks' conceit of the "young rebel", it would seem, is a college student who is expressing strong, unfocused opposition to the status quo but does not have an academic framework upon which he can hang his opinions. It's reasonable to say that if somebody who has that form of unfocused opposition doesn't find peers who share his views, a movement that shares his views, a credible history or movement that supports his views, he's unlikely to either persuade anybody to share his views or to create a movement. Why does this theoretical individual concern Brooks?

What I suspect Brooks is really trying to do here is to attack the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, to titter at them as a bunch of uninformed kids who don't really know anything other than that they're angry. "At least the Hippies¹ knew they opposed the draft, right?" Never mind that the Occupy movement wasn't driven by college students and had, at its core, a very clear impetus - "We don't know the means, but we need to reform a system that benefits the top 1% at the expense of pretty much everybody else." That inspiration is remarkably similar to the objections that brought about the Tea Party movement, a bail-out of wealthy bankers with taxpayer money. If anything, the rapidity with which the Tea Party movement was captured by corporate interests and channeled into a movement defending the status quo is much more deserving of Brooks rejection of "rebellion without a rigorous alternative vision" s "just a feeble spasm". Seriously - to go from vehemently objecting against the financial industry bailout to being a tool of the political party most wedded to Wall Street? How feeble is that.

Brooks continues his lecture to the theoretical "rebel without a cause" college student,

Effective rebellion isn’t just expressing your personal feelings. It means replacing one set of authorities and institutions with a better set of authorities and institutions. Authorities and institutions don’t repress the passions of the heart, the way some young people now suppose. They give them focus and a means to turn passion into change.

So the message is, unless you can find a way to replace existing authorities and institutions with something better, don't bother? It's not enough to advocate unless you identify a means? And as you'll inevitably fail in that endeavor, why trying? Instead ally yourself with the authorities and institutions that give your ideas "focus and a means to turn passion into change" - that is, support the status quo and try to change things from the inside?

Indeed, a core idea worthy of David Brooks.²
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1. Brooks' editorial is titled, "How to Fight the Man". What decades does he believe this is?

2. This is the story of how "Don't trust anybody over thirty" becomes "Don't trust anybody under thirty", a story not of social change or revolution but of assimilation.

Ron Paul: I'm Not a Racist and... Look! A bird!

Ron Paul is having a difficult time distancing himself from the racist articles in his newsletters, in no small part because he profited from them, they went out under his name, and he won't disclose who wrote the articles that have no byline (i.e., virtually all of them). In the past Paul has claimed that he didn't know who wrote the content - but he's now a perennial presidential candidate, and it's simply not credible that he has chosen not to look into the issue.

Let me say this: if I were publishing a newsletter under my own name, became bored or disinterested with it to the point that I didn't know or care what went into it (as long as I got a royalty check from whomever was continuing to issue it), and discovered that they were repeatedly publishing offensive, racist drivel with no byline, I would have been livid and I would have found out exactly who was responsible both for writing that content and for deciding to publish it. And I wouldn't be at all coy about identifying them and calling them to the carpet for taking advantage of my distraction in their publishing of odious material under my name. When I hear of a politician who has been discovered to have racist associations, it generally means one of two things: The politician is a racist, or the politician saw the opportunity to advance his position by appearing sympathetic to racism. Paul denies being in the first category, and hopes that his claim of ignorance will keep him out of the second, but I simply don't find his claims of ignorance to be credible.

What do we get from Paul? First we get, "I'm not a racist, so why are we even talking about my newsletters", followed by an effort to change the subject:

In a debate hosted by ABC News, Yahoo! and WMUR, Paul was asked about some controversial newsletters with racist remarks that he sent out under his name in the 1980s and 1990s. Paul said they are distraction from the real issues at hand, which are his record and beliefs regarding race in the United States.

Paul said that Martin Luther King is one his heroes for practicing "the libertarian principle of peaceful resistance and peaceful civil disobedience," and highlighted his understanding that the drug laws in the United States unfairly penalize African Americans.

"True racism in this country is in the judicial system," Paul said, "the percentage of people who use drugs are about the same with blacks and whites. And yet the blacks are arrested way disproportionately."

The MLK comments are likely inspired by the fact that one of the controversial newsletters rails against King:

Boy, it sure burns me to have a national holiday for Martin Luther King. I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.

Paul opposes the war on drugs, and also opposes the status quo approach to the military, unusual positions for politicians to take and certainly unique among Republican contenders. He does us a favor when he brings some of his contrarian viewpoints to the stage - we're locked into an ideology on certain issues that our political leadership is unwilling to challenge, even though many believe present policies to be misguided or counterproductive. But let's pause for a moment: over the past few decades our nation's legislatures have gone to extraordinary lengths to impose long sentences for drug crimes and to strip judges of their discretion in modifying sentences defined by sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors have a great deal of discretion in choosing what offense to charge, and can have a significant amount of control or influence in how sentencing guidelines are scored. The federal courts have pushed back a bit, but to the extent that long sentences and disproportionate outcomes are a problem it's not appropriate for a legislator to wag his finger at the judiciary.

Case in point: The disparate treatment in sentencing for crimes involving powder cocaine versus crack cocaine were legislated by Congress in 1986. It took almost a quarter century to inspire Congress to address that disparity. To his credit, Paul pushed for parity - but Congress chose simply to reduce the disparity from about 100:1 to about 18:1. If Paul wants to claim that the disparity represents institutionalized racism, he needs to point his finger at his own party and his colleagues in Congress. To the extent that he believes that it is somehow a failure of police agencies that "blacks are arrested way disproportionately" for drug crimes, that also is not the fault of the judicial branch. Police agencies fall under the executive branch or local government. Surely Paul knows all of this, and knew it even before having participated in confirmation votes for the heads of federal law enforcement agencies.

Another case in point: Paul complains that the death penalty is unfair because African Americans "get the death penalty way disproportionately" and that a "rich white person" is unlikely to be executed. Paul's thinking on the death penalty has changed over the years, but only to a point:

I do not believe in the federal death penalty and in my book, “Liberty defined” I explain it in more detail but basically I make the argument for being against the death penalty. But I would not come and say that the federal government and the federal courts to tell the states that they can’t have death penalties anymore, I don’t go that far.

This particular defect in Paul's thinking has been highlighted by many others: although he objects strenuously to certain acts of the federal government in a manner consistent with libertarian thought, his objections do not extend to the exact same actions taken by states. Even if the state action is much more frequent or, if you accept the basis of Paul's objections, a much greater threat to liberty and equality.

I think I read an article yesterday on the penalty, and 68% of the time they make mistakes, and it’s so racist, too; I think more than half the people getting the death penalty are poor blacks. This is the one place, the one remnant of racism in our country is in our court system; enforcing the drug laws or enforcing the death penalty.

So Paul believes that states do a terrible job administering the death penalty, inappropriately sentencing people to death for crimes they did not commit, pursuing the death penalty against "poor blacks", and that its continuation is racist. But that's okay, because it's not federal action? Also, does Paul sincerely believe that it's the judiciary's fault that Congress has expanded the number of death penalty crimes at the federal level and passed legislation such as the "Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996" with the express purpose of making it easier to impose and carry out the death penalty? Surely not. As Paul knows, assuming his party doesn't filibuster in the Senate, Congress can abolish the federal death penalty at any time a majority of the members of both houses vote to end it.

In summary, I'm not impressed with Paul's failure to explain the authorship of the racist content of his newsletters, or why he has not held accountable those responsible. I am not impressed with his effort to change the subject to, "Let's talk about real racism". And I'm not impressed either by his attribution to the judiciary responsibility for injustices caused by or that could be ended by the executive and legislative branches of government, or for how he won't extend his professed concern for protecting people from governmental overreach to the actions of state governments. I understand Ron Paul as a protest vote. I understand Ron Paul as the only candidate for certain single issue voters, particularly those concerned with civil liberties or military overreach. But I've lost track of the number of people I've heard announce support for Ron Paul, only to have to roll back that support when they realize how unhinged and inconsistent he is on some very important issues.

Bitter Pills from Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs' comments to President Obama have been getting a lot of attention, and most of it seems to be critical. I have to say that if Steve Jobs was half as good at taking blunt criticism from others as he was at giving blunt criticism to others, it's no small wonder he was a good business executive. I also have to say that if I were meeting with somebody like Steve Jobs for ideas on how to improve the nation's economy, I would want to hear his actual opinions, not sugar-coated, eager to please, "everything's coming up roses" nonsense. If you want to know what it would take for Apple to open up a manufacturing plant in the United States, it's helpful to know that the CEO perceives a shortage of people with adequate education to oversee workers, and an educational system that is turning out people who are unprepared to be the workers at the plants he would open. His proposed solutions may have been simplistic, and more reflective of his reported propensity to divide people into two camps (the worthy, who will produce ideas and generate wealth, and everybody else) than of viable reforms, but at least you know where he's coming from.

One of the interesting things about major companies is that they have a lot of opportunity to open factories in relatively undesirable locations, with the locals rolling out the welcome mats and competing to offer the most generous incentives. But as the area in which you want to open a plant or put up a large building or warehouse store becomes more desirable, as a general rule, the offers diminish and the obstacles grow. I'm reminded of a Michigan community which had zoned a large tract of land as "light industrial" in the hope of attracting an industrial park, only to have it sit empty. A major retailer made noises about opening a location there - cheap land, close enough to major roads and population centers to be viable. A local store owner who, having spent decades pulling profits out of his store and putting nothing back in, fought tooth and nail to prevent the rezoning and, when it passed, litigated the issue. By the time the dust settled the land was rezoned, but the big box merchant had moved on. In China? The government was behind the redevelopment plan, so it would have happened. (And if the government wasn't behind it, odds are a 'consultant' could have found a way to bribe convince local officials to change their minds.)

Whatever Jobs thought about environmental regulations, I suspect that his objection was more to the inefficiency of local government and the ability of a local business or citizens group to tie things up for years. I suspect he was speaking from comparative experience opening Apple stores in the U.S. versus other nations. And I suspect he was thinking specifically of why the A6 chip was not going to be manufactured in the United States. For somebody in high tech, a six month delay in opening a chip factory may as well be a lifetime. For somebody in consumer electronics, a relatively small increase in production costs can mean the difference between profit and loss.

Jobs was reportedly 'infuriated' by President Obama's "focus on the reasons that things can't get done". That's what you might expect from a man who didn't have to accept excuses from those under him - "If you can't get it done, I'll put somebody else in charge." That's not even the way most industry works, though, and it's certainly not the way our form of government works.

Would I want to reinvent the country in a way that would have pleased Steve Jobs? From what I've been hearing, no, I would not. I believe China would be better off adopting some of our regulations than we would be in adopting their system of... what's the word for a totalitarian state led by a corrupt oligarchy that will treat you like a king if they expect to profit? There's no easy way to avoid problems and delays in rezoning, development and redevelopment that don't trample somebody's toes, and we know how Steve Jobs reacted when it was his own toes that were being trampled.

What Governments Can and Cannot Do

I recognize that it's difficult for a lot of editorial columnists to come up with ideas for their biweekly columns, and that it's anything but unusual to see a weak idea inflated to @800 words by nothing more than hot air, but you would think at some point their employer might say, "Look, if that's the best you can do maybe you should only be writing one column a week, or one a month."

But enough of that. Let's move on to a completely unrelated subject, David Brooks' thoughts on the "power of government". David Brooks opens by telling us that the government of Israel periodically appoints committees to revise public school curricula, that most of the committees don't do their jobs, and the few who belatedly complete their work may find that the government doesn't care about their proposals. To me, that suggests a government that's interested in looking like it's doing something about a problem, real or perceived, but doesn't actually care about taking action. You can find plenty of comparable examples from U.S. school districts and universities. For that matter, you can find similar examples in the form of reports and analyses from inside private businesses. The lesson Brooks draws?

Most people overrate their own abilities and exaggerate their capacity to shape the future. That’s fine. Optimistic people rise in this world. The problem comes when these optimists don’t look at themselves objectively from the outside.

To me, oddly enough, that sounds a lot like a personality profile for a typical nationally syndicated columnist.

Brooks attempts to relate the lessons of failed high school curriculum committees to the world in general:

The planning fallacy is failing to think realistically about where you fit in the distribution of people like you.... Over the past three years, the United States has been committing the planning fallacy on stilts. The world economy has been slammed by a financial crisis. Countries that are afflicted with these crises typically experience several years of high unemployment. They go deep into debt to end the stagnation, but the turnaround takes a while

So, according to David Brooks, history dictates that the government should engage in a lot of stimulus spending to ease the country through its financial problems, worry about how to lower unemployment and misery, not to worry too much about deficit spending during the time of crisis, and that eventually the country will pull through. Reading that alone, you might think he's finally started to read Paul Krugman's columns. But, alas, agree or disagree, that's the last coherent thought in his editorial.

The Democrats, besotted by the myth that the New Deal ended the Great Depression, have consistently overestimated their ability to turn the economy around. They regard the Greek crackup as a freakish, unlucky break, even though this sort of thing is a typical feature of a financial crisis.

Brooks just got through telling us that part of the history of this type of crisis is that countries will "go deep into debt to end the stagnation". Apparently he now believes that can be done without actually spending any money? In one paragraph he embraces the "myth" and in almost the next attacks the Democratic Party for agreeing with him?

More than that, other than hyperbole, what does Greece have to do with the economic problems of the U.S. economy. You don't have to look at Greece's situation for very long to see significant differences between their crisis and ours. Their government overextended itself to the point that it cannot service its debt. Our government has done what Brooks suggests to be the right thing by going "into debt to end the stagnation", but to the extent that we have a deficit crisis it's a crisis of will - a significant faction of the Democratic party and the overwhelming majority of Republicans won't raise taxes to pay our nation's bills. We could go a long way toward fiscal sanity simply by ending the Bush Tax cuts - the ones that were scheduled by the Republican Party to expire. The Republican Party won't let that happen, because the richest Americans (who are doing very well, thank you very much) would experience a modest tax increase.

As for the Democratic Party's supposed overestimation of its "ability to turn the economy around", it's only the Democrats who have embraced the notion that the government can quickly and easily fix an economic catastrophe? Then, pray tell, which of the candidates for the Republican nomination is singing a different tune and telling us, "No, don't blame Obama or the Democrats - the government is pretty powerless and we just have to wait this thing out"? Which past Republican President has shrugged off economic growth and argued, "It's just the business cycle - I don't deserve any credit"?

Republicans, who should know better, also have an inflated sense of the power of government. In the presidential debates, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman argue about which one oversaw the most job creation during his term as governor, as if governors have an immediate and definable impact on employers’ hiring decisions.

In other words, Brooks is looking at equivalent rhetoric from politicians, "Everything good that happens from the day I'm sworn into office is my accomplishment, everything bad is the other party's fault," and imagining (or pretending) that it reflects deep and meaningful differences between the parties.

Brooks' attempt at a takeaway is that wise politicians should

...make the distinction between discrete good and systemic good. When you are in the grip of a big, complex mess, you have the power to do discrete good [such as paving roads or hiring teachers] but probably not systemic good [transforming the whole situation]....

[Their] discrete goods might contribute to an overall turnaround, but that turnaround will be beyond your comprehension and control. 

But when the crisis is large enough it can only be solved through large-scale government intervention. If Brooks dismisses the New Deal as contributing to the end of the Great Depression, perhaps he noticed the contribution of WWII? A huge government response to a huge problem. Similarly, whether or not you believe that the U.S. government bailout of the financial or auto industries was a good idea, Brooks' example of Greece is one in which but for a huge intervention by Eurozone nations, Greece would likely have already defaulted on its debt.

If Brooks is taking a big picture view, perhaps he's thinking, "Yes, and the suffering may have been a lot worse in the short-term, but five, ten, twenty years down the line the world won't look much different," he has a point. But that is not an argument that, when faced with unprecedented crises, a government cannot effect a systemic good. Would Brooks have allowed Greece to default? Would Brooks have allowed Ford and G.M. to go into liquidation? Would he have sat on the sidelines and watched as the world's largest banking institutions and insurance companies went into receivership? Does he believe that the outcome, or level of suffering, would be the same no matter which path the involved governments chose?

Brooks closes with the assertion,

Over the past decades, Americans have developed an absurd view of the power of government. Many voters seem to think that government has the power to protect them from the consequences of their sins. Then they get angry and cynical when it turns out that it can’t.

What does that claim have to do with anything that preceded it? (I would love to hear Brooks share a few examples, as it's usually his party of choice that's keen on regulating human behavior.)