Since today seems to be Ron Paul Day here on The Caffeinated Citizens weblog, I figured I’d link to some comments from Noam Chomsky on the candidate. I’ve long believed that Mr. Chomsky is a nutcase whose arguments do not merit response, so I’m going to stay silent on this one. That said, the noted linguist and political dumbass provides excellent proof for why division of labor is a good thing.
Ron Paul just appeared on Meet the Press for the show’s running series of interviews with candidates leading up to the Iowa caucuses. Some video is available here. I hope to get some clips streamed from this blog later today.
I’m not typically a big Russert fan anyway, but I found this interview remarkably unprofessional and condescending, especially in his questions regarding Paul’s earmarks , constitutional interpretation, and the 1964 Civil Rights Acts. That said, Paul’s seeming inability to deflect what really were inane and nonsensical questions does not bode well for the candidate. Especially disconcerting is his usual struggle to bend over backwards to tie everything back to national id cards and foreign intervention. Paul’s not a single-issue candidate, and in my opinion, the man has a strong platform all-around, but he’s turning himself into a Tom Tancredo with his inability to get past one or two issues.
I was particularly disappointed with his softness on Social Security and public schools. Maybe the recent fundraising pull has softened his rhetoric, which would be fair enough, and an increasing likelihood of faring well in at least a few states could be leading Dr. Paul to try to use the outlet to appeal to the unpersuaded, but the product that Paul is peddling is an uncompromising support for the Constitution and limited government, and he cheapens that when he starts talking about “an out for our kids” on Social Security and so forth.
But anyway, I’m providing a quick reply on Paul’s behalf to the three issues mentioned above:
1. Earmarks: although Paul allows some breaks to his constituents, the man himself has refused federal college aid for his children and returns a portion of his office budget to the Treasury every year out of principle. All politicians complain about pork, and all of them continue to bring it home to their constituents, so Paul’s no worse than his colleagues on this one. This is the ultimate collective action problem, and I actually respect Paul for not allowing his personal ideology to bear upon the financial well-being of his constituents.
2. Strict Constructionism: this term, Tim, means you interpret the Constitution as it was written. It does not preclude one from proposing or supporting a constitutional amendment. In fact, a strict constructionist would be more likely to support amendment, as he or she would oppose using statutory law to bypass what the Constitution itself says.
3. Civil Rights Act of 1964: I haven’t read the act and don’t aim to provide a normative analysis of its utility, especially vis-a-vis other options. But when the southern states have to codify segregation in the form of Jim Crow laws, you have to assume that the social trend is otherwise away from such unforgivable violations of basic rights. You don’t legislate what people are doing anyway. This raises an interesting federalism question - I fully believe that such Jim Crow laws at the state or local levels are impermissible in a free society - but as I understand it, the Civil Rights Act goes past that to intrude upon individual property rights. Maybe I’ll post more on this later…
More on the mainstream (well, mainstream social conservatives, at least) catching on to the Ron Paul Revolution:
I’m stricken by Robertson’s claim that incrementalism will no longer work in restoring the Constitution, and the need for revolutionary transformation. Indeed, this argument underlies much of Paul’s campaign (cf. its name). How’s this comport with conservatism’s Burkean roots?
See my previous post on Ron Paul’s growing currency among mainstream Republicans.
This week Congress passed a bill to improve communication between state and federal governments with regards to mentally unstable citizens wishing to buy a gun, most notably, an issue brought to the fore last spring with the tragic Virginia Tech shooting. The Chicago Tribune praises the legislation:
It’s so clearly sensible that the bill elicited no broad opposition. In fact, it won the endorsement of both the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the National Rifle Association. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told Newsweek, “Our position on this is crystal clear: If you are adjudicated by a court to be mentally defective, suicidal, a danger to yourself or to others, you should be prohibited from buying a firearm.”
That’s not to say there was no disagreement. Some groups claiming to speak for the mentally ill said the ban would unfairly punish people for a medical condition. A gun-rights group that parted with the NRA said the change would amount to “a denial of a civil liberty, and it’s being done without due process.”
Fortunately, Congress gave those complaints the short shrift they deserved…
Robert Levy, Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute and co-counsel in DC v. Heller, the controversial 2nd Amendment case currently pending before the Supreme Court, seems to echo the general sentiment in a November 14, 2007 L.A. Times Op-Ed:
Similarly, gun regulations can be imposed on some weapons (e.g., missiles), some people (e.g., preteens) and some uses (e.g., murder). Indeed, the appeals court acknowledged that Washington might be able to justify such things as concealed-carry restrictions, registration requirements and proficiency testing.
Pragmatically, this sounds great. And as a citizen who attends college in a city, it’s reassuring to know crazies aren’t running around with guns. But from the perspective of natural rights, what role is there for government to act preemptively to prevent an act of violence? We accept that DUI laws are legitimate, even though they often punish those who cause no harm to others, simply for the risk they take. Drug laws are somewhat more controversial, but premised on the same logic that, although no violation of another’s rights have occurred, the fact that the probability of such a violation has risen above a certain “acceptable” threshold is a crime itself.
The case of the mentally ill (and children) have always been difficult for political theorists, especially libertarians. But is it appropriate to deny what is otherwise a universal, constitutionally-protected right to those who have no criminal record, but only have evoked the ill favor of a few “experts” or judges? It’s a tough call, and one that I don’t have a solution to. I just wish commentators such as those above would admit to the issue as such, and not write it off as simple and obvious.
The Lakota Nation of American Indians (aka Sioux) have officially withdrawn from all treaties with the U.S. Government and unilaterally declared independence, sending envoys to such foreign governments as Bolivia and Venezuela, and notifying the United Nations of their newfound statehood. The hubris doesn’t stop there:
Property ownership in the five state area of Lakota now takes center stage. Parts of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana have been illegally homesteaded for years despite knowledge of Lakota as predecessor sovereign [historic owner]. Lakota representatives say if the United States does not enter into immediate diplomatic negotiations, liens will be filed on real estate transactions in the five state region, clouding title over literally thousands of square miles of land and property.
I’m no apologist for America’s policy toward American Indians, but I can’t help but find this to be a bit out there. There’s no way that the U.S. is gonna fold on this, and even though the tribe claims its intent isn’t to embarrass the United States government, it’s clear that nothing else will be gained from the ordeal except that. Furthermore, it may have been a good idea to work on the 85% unemployment, 97% poverty rate, and 44-year lifespan in its population before going it on their own.
What’s really striking, though, is not the respectable attempt to draw attention to a U.S. policy that is completely out of line with America’s stated values, but the absurd philosophy that the movement’s leaders have expounded. I quote Russell Means’ 1980 speech, “For America to Live, Europe Must Die“:
The only possible opening for a statement of this kind is that I detest writing. The process itself epitomizes the European concept of “legitimate” thinking…
And more:
We don’t want power over white institutions; we want white institutions to disappear. That’s revolution.
The speech is radical even compared to the postmodern paradigm from which Means’s argument derives (a paradigm that, ironically, originated in postwar France). And although Daily Kos praises the tribe for “hav[ing] the balls to stand up to them [the Federal Government],” the Lakota leadership isn’t just making a statement against Bush, but against everything that America stands for. Hell, Means even blasts Marxism in his above-linked hate speech, a point the Kossacks must have missed. While a majority of Lakotas are surely peace-loving people seeking a restoration of their dignity and natural rights, the Lakota leadership is so far out there that some of its members even participated in the terrorist takeover of Wounded Knee in 1973.
I hope, not for America but for the peaceful and reasonable members of the Lakota tribe, that this nonsense quickly comes to an end.
The Weekly Standard’s current issue contains an interesting piece on the continuing relevance of social conservatism, despite what mainstream pundits may be saying. In what ends up being more an inquisition of the Left’s godlessness than a defense of the Right’s political acumen or philosophical indispensability, Jeffrey Bell rattles off a list of reasons why the Left is doomed to sit on the benches as the sluggers of social conservatism step up to bat. The most striking argument, however, is this one:
But there are several offsetting factors at work that have made and will continue to make social conservatism hard to marginalize. For one thing, social conservatism is the only mass-based political persuasion that fully believes in the core ideas of the American founding. It has taken over that role from parties, professions, and ideologies that used to perform it, and as a result it is touching a deep chord with millions of American voters.
Most social conservatives believe that the central principle asserted in the Declaration of Independence is true: “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, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” While almost all Americans respect these words at least as a sentiment or metaphor, it is a fact that most–not all–social conservatives believe them to be literally true, while most–not all–opponents of social conservatism do not believe them to be literally true.
As long as these key assertions of our nation’s founding document continue to be taken literally by many Americans, social conservatism will resonate among Americans in a way that competing philosophies cannot–and in a way that, given the very different founding narratives of most countries in Europe and elsewhere, cannot easily be replicated beyond these shores.
Social conservatism the only mass-based political persuasion that fully believes in the core ideas of the American founding? The absurdity of this claim is glaring at every level. First off, what exactly are the “core ideas of the American founding”? Sure, “Life, Liberty, etc.,” but let’s not forget the bitter debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists over how this is best accomplished. I’m sure Thomas Jefferson, renowned Anti-Federalist and actual author of the Declaration of Independence, is turning over in his grave to hear that Jerry Falwell is his intellectual flagbearer.
Granting the existence of a unified “core idea(s)” that comport with social conservatives’ values, how did they become the exclusive heirs to this intellectual tradition? While I did catch the important “most — not all” qualification in there, let’s remember that evangelicals and fundamentalists take the Bible, not Locke’s Second Treatise, to be literal and beyond reproach. Although social conservatives may take the core ideas of America’s founding to be important, they do not take them as their core ideas.
And to what extent do social conservatives’ core ideas even mesh with their own policy preferences? If social conservatives hold the admirable goal of promoting community and tradition as a guiding factor in individuals’ value systems as expressed in political and legal code, how did it become the role of Washington bureaucrats to oversee this? Bell admittedly throws a bone to the Full Faith and Credit Clause that could nationalize a single state’s decision, but all in all, I trust my pastor more than my Senator’s chief of staff to promote community values.
I contend that the true modern exponent of America’s core principles - and the only political movement consistent with a Christian ethics - is libertarianism, not the bastardized “conservatism” of right wing demagogues. But more on this another time.
Tucker Carlson’s latest piece for The New Republic shows the renegade Republican candidate Ron Paul gaining currency among the party’s mainstream figures. Carlson explains his Road to Damascus-like conversion that occurred while traveling the campaign trail with Dr. Paul through Nevada:
The first time I heard Paul talk about monetary policy, I’d felt like a hostage, the only person in the room who didn’t buy into the program. Then, slowly, like so many hostages, I started to open my mind and listen. By the time we got to Reno, unfamiliar thoughts were beginning to occur: Why shouldn’t we worry about the soundness of the currency? What exactly is the dollar backed by anyway? And, if the gold standard is crazy, is it really any crazier than hedge funds? I’d become Patty Hearst, ready to take up arms for the cause, or at least call my accountant and tell him to buy Krugerrands. I looked over at Dennis and the girls. They looked like they might be having the same thoughts.
[...]
…There wasn’t much left to say, so Dennis and the girls and I left and went downtown to a casino for pancakes. There were no hard feelings. They wore their Ron Paul stickers all through breakfast. If I’d had one, I would have worn it too.
And Glenn Beck’s recent hour-long interview had a similarly welcoming view toward Paul’s seeming aberrations from the party’s mainstream:
What this means for Paul’s acceptability to mainstream conservatives is a little unclear to me. On the one hand, Paul’s recent fundraising successes could be showing him to be a more potent and popular candidate than once believed, and his supporters an untapped market that should be courted for ratings (or at least to avoid the hate mail spam for which Paul supporters are infamous). On the other hand, perhaps the timidity of the other candidates has led the pundits to be attracted to the commitment, passion, and philosophical vision of Paul’s campaign, qualities that haven’t been seen in the Republican party since the Reagan, or perhaps even Goldwater, days. Even in this latter case their support may be less-than-sincere on the policy level; nevertheless, the positive press from the talking heads with some degree of respect within mainstream conservative commentary is sure to help Paul in the primaries.
Harvard made headlines a week and a half ago when it announced a sweeping reform of its financial aid disbursements, increasing assistance to middle class families which had previously been largely ignored by such elite institutions. The reform included a measure ensuring that all families earning less than $180,000/year would pay no more than 10% of their annual income, a transition from loans to grants, and the elimination of home equity as a factor in determining the aid a student will receive.
The announcement has been a PR boon for Harvard, which has received praise from the New York Times, Washington Post, and Mother Jones. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal saw through the hype:
Drew Gilpin Faust, the school’s new president, said the policy is designed to help families facing “increasing pressures as middle-class lives have become more stressed.” Before applauding Harvard’s altruism too loudly, however, readers should know that the school also had its back against a wall. In September, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley held hearings on whether colleges should be forced to spend a higher percentage of their endowments each year.
This fact was clear enough, however, and even admitted by Ms. Faust (a hilariously appropriate name for a Harvard president, but I digress). As the article continues, the real problem is the existence of government handouts for education. By constantly increasing tuition aid to college students (in what amounts to a corporate welfare racket on par with monthly kickback checks to Halliburton), students are no longer incurring the costs of college, and so there is no check on university’s tuition hikes:
Ironically, these government handouts are creating the tuition problem. Tuition has risen about three percentage points faster than inflation every year for the past quarter-century. At the same time, the feds have put more and more money behind student loans and other financial aid. The government is slowly becoming a third-party tuition payer, with all the price distortions one would expect. Every time tuition rises, the government makes up the difference; colleges thus cheerfully raise tuition (and budgets), knowing the government will step in.
A well-stated argument, overall; the article merits a full read. But I ‘d like to posit another, less feel-good explanation for Harvard’s “generous” restructuring of its financial aid. As anyone that’s applied to college, had a relative applying, or even driven by a university campus in the past 10 to 15 years knows, the role of rankings such as US News & World Report’s is unavoidable. And just like high schoolers pad their resumes to look good for all the elite schools, the elite schools send all the right signals back.
First, Harvard has steadily risen tuition, a trend observed in schools of all qualities. On the one hand, this is due to a higher and higher volume of applications being received. But also, raising tuition sends a signal of higher quality to parents and students who have no comprehensive understanding of a school’s teaching and research credentials. These increased revenues are then essentially rebated to students in the form of increased financial aid, resulting in little net change in cost, but sending a positive message to prospectives: “This school is on the rise, and we want you to be a part of it.” As the NY Times reported last December:
The recognition that families associate price with quality, and that a tuition rise, accompanied by discounts, can lure more applicants and revenue, has helped produce an economy in academe something like that in the health care system, with prices rising faster than inflation but with many consumers paying less than full price.
Average tuition at private, nonprofit four-year colleges — the price leaders — rose 81 percent from 1993 to 2004 , more than double the inflation rate, according to the College Board, while campus-based financial aid rose 135 percent.
Meanwhile, increasing aid means increasing your applicant pool without increasing the class’s seats. The result: greater selectivity, one of the biggest factors in determining those omnipresent college rankings. The more applicants a university turns away, the higher it moves in the rankings, and in the fiercely competitive world of elite academia, this could be well worth the tens of millions of dollars invested.
So in short, the government’s tuition aid programs artificially inflate the price of college. This is exacerbated by a marketing theory that encourages universities to increase tuition while increasing aid at least as much, enhancing the perceived prestige of the school while simultaneously allowing students to feel more privileged and wanted when offered what seems to be a generous break on tuition. Meanwhile, the increased number of applicants this process creates results in more rejections, raising universities in the rankings.
Then again, maybe Harvard is just really super-nice.
Props are due to Tom Bevan over at Real Clear Politics for calling out NY Times columnist and Princeton “economist” Paul Krugman on a recent column he published. Criticizing Barack Obama’s spineless reasonableness, Krugman draws attention to the very representative issue of health care reform to illustrate the clash between the real world and the virtual world of uncompromising progressive blogs and naive utopianism (can you guess which side Krugman falls on?):
O.K., more seriously, it’s actually Mr. Obama who’s being unrealistic here, believing that the insurance and drug industries — which are, in large part, the cause of our health care problems — will be willing to play a constructive role in health reform. The fact is that there’s no way to reduce the gross wastefulness of our health system without also reducing the profits of the industries that generate the waste.
As a result, drug and insurance companies — backed by the conservative movement as a whole — will be implacably opposed to any significant reforms. And what would Mr. Obama do then? “I’ll get on television and say Harry and Louise are lying,” he says. I’m sure the lobbyists are terrified.
As health care goes, so goes the rest of the progressive agenda. Anyone who thinks that the next president can achieve real change without bitter confrontation is living in a fantasy world.
As with most arguments coming from the Left these days, it completely and devastatingly contradicts other arguments being made by the same pundits. As Bevan notes:
How ironic: Krugman wants America’s president to sit at the “big table” and negotiate with our enemies and foreign dictators, but when it comes to having a discussion with American corporations about healthcare he says anything less than “bitter confrontation” is “naive” and “unrealistic.”
Its a quite legitimate counterpoint to Bevan that there’s a big difference between a drug company and al-Qaeda, yet I’m unsure this argument cuts the way Krugman and other Democrats would like. At least Big Health is accountable in some way to America and American citizens, and thus would be more willing to compromise, even if not to the extent of giving up all their profits for the political benefit of a few. But perhaps we could get Obama to concede to let the United Nations do the talking, at least. I’m sure that would persuade the drug companies…
Really though, I’ve been quite surprised at Mr. Krugman’s pandering to the “progressives,” namely the off-their-rocker netroots at MoveOn and DailyKos that even openly-liberal NY Times Magazine writer Matt Bai considers loonier than Bugs Bunny in a dress (by the way, his book - The Argument - is wonderfully insightful, and a review on this blog is forthcoming). Russell Roberts of Cafe Hayek calls out Krugman on the same column, though this fellow economist has a different way of seeing the issue:
Maybe. Or is it Mr. Krugman who is naive? Surely Obama knows that sitting around and being congenial won’t bring about change. But he’s running for President. He says what he thinks voters want to hear. How naive can Krugman be to think that Obama really thinks that change simply requires playing nice with everybody.
Or maybe I’m being naive. I actually think sometimes that Paul Krugman writes what he believes rather than what appeals to his readership in the New York Times. Surely he knows that Obama isn’t being naive but clever. Or does he?
Oh the unfalsifiability of strategic decision-making paradigms…
