Today is the day that "Tens of thousands" will turn out in "hundreds of cities" around the US to protest. Something.
It appears that many conservatives are mad and they're not taking it any more. So they're protesting. The Tax Day Tea Party is happening today around the US, apparently (we'll see). They have even set up a website, here.
I get that generally, they're unhappy about the size of gov't (although spending trillions of dollars on a bloated gov't military over the last couple of decades hasn't concerned them, so why start worrying now?) and the bailouts specifically appear to be the point around which they're rallying. Not something I can fault them for, to be honest, I have my concerns, too.
However, from a purely practical point of view, after reviewing their website, I remain unclear about what exactly they are protesting, what they hope to accomplish or what methods they are using. Will they be dumping actual tea into actual public waters? Whose tea? Their own? That will accomplish change, how?
I certainly understand protesting out of frustration, just to make one's voice heard. As best I can tell, that's what this is. There are no apparent specific goals they hope to accomplish, just a general group gripe session. And that's fine. More power to them.
Just as long as they understand that it's not an especially efficient way to bring about change.
They're predicting 1500-5000 here in Louisville, just around the corner from where I work. I'll stop by and do a little on the spot reporting.
I could be way off, but I'd be surprised if they have over 100 people to show up here. We'll see.
61 comments:
It appears to me that, even if they hate his ideals, these conservatives could stand to read some Alinsky, as he DID know something about organizing a smart action.
How odd that, after the single largest increase in the size of our domestic government ever during the Bush administration, they're only now having a problem with the size of government.
But then, Republicans have been teabagging this country for the last 8 years. Why would they stop now?
Ummm, yeah. I had to look up the term, I'll have to admit. And I don't care to repeat my findings...
LOL Sorry 'bout that. But ya gotta admit, it is appropriate.
In similar news, the fundies have launched a new drive for 2 million for marriage. (2 million? that's what, the population of one small city?) Anyway, their acronym, 2M4M is also a common internet abbreviation used by men looking for a three-way. Wow these people are morons. LOL
What will the tea party protests change? By themselves, nothing more than any other protest.
The protests are a start toward a grassroots uprising against government financial excess.
It'll be very important that the movement stay focused on that single issue and not get sidetracked into other issues, such as drug legalization (which will drive off the conservatives) or immigration (which will drive off most libertarians). And even more importantly, the tea party movement should eschew any effort by the GOP to take over. To some extent, they seem to get this. Michael Steele tried to get permission to speak at a rally last week, and was firmly denied.
The movement should focus reigning in government spending, regardless of the party engaging in it (in our case, both).
I would suggest that a fine goal would be to vote out of office every member of Congress who designated an earmark or voted for any of the stimulus packages under Bush or Obama.
I had no idea that all it takes to be a moron is not keeping pace with Alan's apparently limitless fluency in the euphemisms and shorthand of sexual deviancy.
Dan, there's nothing inherently inconsistent with opposing government spending that encroaches on the public sector and the free market, while supporting spending on national defense.
For one thing, bailouts of private businesses are not explicitly enumerated by the Constitution as a role of the federal government; national defense is an enumerated Article-I responsibility.
For another, last year defense accounted for only a fourth of federal spending -- compared to almost 40% just between the big three of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security -- and the current administration's priorities promise to favor social spending even more over the next few years. Despite your blinkered hopes for budget surpluses just around the corner, Obama's own office predicts a doubling and then tripling of the national debt in the next decade -- i.e., deficit spending that is greater then all his predecessors combined, and annual deficits that are routinely multiple times larger than Bush's worst deficits -- and this flood of new spending ain't for national defense.
Though that particular site could be clearer, I don't think it's fair to say it's not clear what's being protested, and I think it's unfair (but unsurprising) that you would talk down the numbers of those protesting before your amateur reporting.
And, I agree that Saul Alinsky's methods of direct action are probably more effective, but I believe they're less moral and they're clearly less institutionally conservative. Because the methods are inherently radical, they deliberately undermine the institutions on which free society depend. We conservatives who care about things like the rule of law have no choice but to fight at a disadvantage against radicals who are indifferent about the rule of law.
While you recommend conservatives consider Alinsky's radical tactics, I would ask, do leftists use these tactics in their own institutions, in their own churches and other political organizations? If they do, do you agree with their use?
If you don't condone the use of Alinsky's rabble-rousing tactics to effect change in institutions you esteem -- like say, during budget meetings at Jeff Street -- perhaps you can understand why we are temperamentally inclined against using those tactics in the political arena.
For the record, it would be my estimate that maybe 200-300 people showed up in Louisville today. Just a guess, based on looking at the crowd from across the street. More than I would expect, but less than the 1200-5000 organizers were estimating.
Also present were the "Obama=Fascist" type signs held by the ignorant and angry class.
Bubba wrote:
If you don't condone the use of Alinsky's rabble-rousing tactics to effect change in institutions you esteem -- like say, during budget meetings at Jeff Street -- perhaps you can understand why we are temperamentally inclined against using those tactics in the political arena.I don't know about Jeff Street, but having been a pastor, I can assure you that Alinksy's tactics would be pacifistic and honorable in comparison to what I've seen.
"I had no idea that all it takes to be a moron is not keeping pace with Alan's apparently limitless fluency in the euphemisms and shorthand of sexual deviancy."
Your phony piety aside, Bubba, given our previous interactions, you should know by now that I think it takes much less than that to be a moron. ;)
I'm all for people getting out and protesting, whether I agree with them or not. People engaged enough with what's going on to take the time to protest something? Excellent. And in this case, I do agree with them. I just think they're 8 years too late, which demonstrates to me that their motivation is probably not what they say it is.
I happen to think people should try to use half a brain if they're going to do those protests. First, try not to make your protest sound like you're a bunch of fancy-pants tea-sipping dweebs. Second, register your website *before* you announce it. (Someone got to the 2M4M.org domain before the anti-gay folks did and now it's a pro-gay marriage website. LOL) Third, get your permits in order (they didn't have the proper permits for their protest in Lafayette Park in DC, for example.) Fourth, don't advertise that you're going to get a zillion people out to protest unless you actually know you're going to get a zillion people out to protest. Otherwise it's way to easy to spin it as a failure.
So no, Bubba, one doesn't have to be a moron to make all those mistakes, but evidently it helps.
Alan, if you really agree with the tea-party protesters, why do you immediately question their motivations simply because you think they're late-comers?
I would agree with the assessment that Bush believes in big government and governed accordingly, and I think his statism should have been and should still be criticized. I also would agree that, especially because of Bush's foreign policy, too many conservatives were too quick to turn a blind eye to Bush's statism.
(I do think that that partisanship can be overstated. Writers at National Review, for instance, criticized Bush's "compassionate conservatism" even before 2000, and the magazine quickly and routinely criticized Bush and the Congressional Republicans for their statism, from steel tarriffs and farm subsidies to the rush for the bank bailout last year.)
(I would also add that there wasn't a true fiscally conservative alternative to Bush. Compared to Gore and Kerry, Bush was the less-bad option, so even fiscal libertarians would have good reasons to support him, knowing full well his belief that, when someone is hurting, "government has to move.)
Any conservative who gripes about Obama's spending now, as if it's an entirely new thing, should be reminded or informed of the fact that Bush laid the groundwork for this massive expansion of government. The current predicament cannot possibly be solved just by defeating Democrats at the polls: it also requires making the Republican party more fiscally conservative in both word and deed, so that they're better equipped to defend the principles of limited government in the campaign and to govern by those principles after being sworn in.
But their outrage shouldn't be dismissed as inauthentic or dishonest just because it's late.
You say you agree with these protesters.
Well, any successful political movement will have late-comers who arguably should have joined up much sooner. The smart move is to educate them and encourage them to be more principled new members of the ranks.
What's moronic is dismissing them as liars simply for their lack of punctuality.
Nah, it's moronic to think that's the only reason I'm dissing them.
I don't dismiss these Republicans as liars only because they're latecomers, though that should lead anyone to wonder about their motivations. I suppose we could paint all these folks as political neophytes, but it isn't as if the leaders of these protests, Gingrich, Beck, et. al., were in a coma for the last 8 years (well, that's probably debatable.) Yet more reason to doubt what's really behind these protests.
But, in addition to that, there's no evidence Republicans have ever actually been interested in smaller government. The Republican canard of smaller government is empty rhetoric and though Bush II is a great example of that, it isn't like Reagan was really any fan of smaller government, nor Bush I. So that seems to me to be an even better reason to dismiss them.
I also think it's moronic to co-opt a historical event while getting it 100% backwards. The real tea-party was about taxation without representation. As we all know, our representatives have been more than happy to tack on pork-barrel spending for their districts. The folks at these protests are, I'm sure, getting their money's worth and more out of their elected representatives. I know that Newt's degree is in modern European history, not early American history, but you'd think he'd have at least spent a little time learning about the Boston Tea Party in grade school or something.
I also think it's moronic to stage a protest with no real solutions to the problem one is protesting in the first case. Smaller government? Fine. Where's your list of cuts? Going to hand it out to the media? You should have it in bullet point form for them. I think these folks should have spent a little more time honing their message and a little less time buying tea-bags at the Piggly Wiggly.
All protests are political theater, but good ones can be much more than that. Anything else is a waste of time and is indeed moronic for all those reasons.
I agree that these protests could be better organized, and I agree that they're not exact analogues of the Boston Tea Party, but the protesters are not "getting it 100% backwards."
At the most basic level, the Boston Tea Party was a reaction against tyranny. Even though our nation's government is ultimately run by elected politicians, that government is less and less constrained by the Constitution, and its increasing faith in government planning of the economy is taking us further down the road to serfdom.
An instance of getting political symbolism completely backwards would be something really absurd, like voting for a presidential candidate at least partially because of his race, and then acting like doing so is a fulfillment of King's dream of a color-blind society.
"Even though our nation's government is ultimately run by elected politicians,"
... Elected politicians that I suspect most of the protesters would not vote for again if those same politicians didn't bring home the bacon for their own districts.
The underlying notion of these protests, that "government" has gotten out of control, is absurd. Government is us. Stop voting for people if you don't like what they're doing. But, of course, people generally like their own representatives; it's the other guys (who are doing the exact same thing for their own districts) who are the bad guys.
If these folks really wanted to make a statement, they'd come armed with a list of pork and other spending voted on by their *own* representatives that they want cut. Something that would actually demonstrate how self-less they really are.
Otherwise the protest amounts to: We're sick of spending money in your district, but please keep spending it in ours.
Alan, you're doing just a fine, fine job. I agree. You want significant? Make a list of local pork and specifically, the local pork that benefits the person asking for the cuts. Write some checks to pay for your portion of motorist welfare for the trillions of dollars we pour into our roadways for motorists. These would be great starting points to finding this to be something actual and sincere.
Signs of "fascism," "socialism" and monkey-faced Obama's are not.
"Signs of "fascism," "socialism" and monkey-faced Obama's are not."
Well, in the teabagger's defense, all sorts of nutcases show up to liberal protests as well; people who are only tangentially related to the cause of the protest, if at all. (And it is far more common than most people think for folks who disagree with a protest to show up in order to discredit it through stupid stunts.)
If you're going to stage a protest, it's a good idea to do what you can to try to keep those folks away, if possible. But there's only so much you can do.
On the other hand, given that Beck is one of the instigators and he's one of the Obama=socialist=fascist guys, I'm not sure how much slack to cut them ... but I'm willing to cut them a little.
Absolutely, Alan. That's one of the first things I thought when I saw the "fascist" sign - that I had seen those at war protests, too. And I agree, they tend to do more harm than good for the cause.
Although, at least with Bush invading a nation unprovoked with tens of thousands of lives being snuffed out, there was a bit more cause for pulling out the fascist sign than merely disagreeing about how much money is being spent here or there.
We ARE a gov't, not an anarchy. We DO spend money as a gov't and that's to be expected. It's not like the Dems have a history of outspending the GOP, so it seems to me that this is just a disagreement over how much and what sort of spending we ought to do in times of an economic crises and that's to be expected.
No one is dying, no rights being abused, no torture involved, no human rights violations. Hardly cause for "fascism" signs.
"Hardly cause for "fascism" signs."
Right, which is yet another reason I doubt the real motives behind these things. Again, I'm sure the folks with those signs aren't representative, but we've seen all sorts of that rhetoric from some of the "organizers" (and I use that term loosely) of these protests. Glenn Beck, for example, has been completely off the deep end since the election. Hardly surprising then that his rhetoric has ginned up some of the party faithful.
Oh well, its about time that the other side had the opportunity to be outside looking in for a while. It's good for the soul. Maybe, given a little time, they can figure out a way to make their time useful.
But if it's just going to be handwringing and shouting their stupid facist/socialist rhetoric and spinning out their ridiculous Mad Max nightmare scenarios for the next 8 years, they deserve all the mocking they get.
Alan wrote:
I also think it's moronic to stage a protest with no real solutions to the problem one is protesting in the first case. Smaller government? Fine. Where's your list of cuts?Department of Education
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Agriculture
Department of the Interior
National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Humanities
Social Security Administration
Smithsonian
Just off the top of my head.
But yes, your point is well made that the tea party protests can be amateurish and ineffective in communicating a coherent message.
But cut them a little slack -- a lot of these people have never been to a protest before, and the movement is only two months old.
And I wouldn't recommend that the tea party leaders advocate the cuts that I'm suggesting. I'm far from mainstream in American political discourse. A more sensible list of goals would be to cease additional bailouts and rollback the bailouts we've already passed (if possible). Also, communicate with local members of Congress that supported the bailouts and Porkulus that they should update their resumes. Let district voters tell their representatives point-blank that they desire no pork to be sent their way.
"Let district voters tell their representatives point-blank that they desire no pork to be sent their way."
Whoa now. Let's not go crazy. That's fine for you, maybe, but we need some potholes fixed here in Michigan. Plus, we need some money for the auto industry. (Though, if we don't get the auto money, I guess the pothole problem is moot.) Oh, and if I can find a way to get paid not to grow corn in my back-yard garden, I'd like some of that too.
But I'm pretty sure you don't need a lot of the stuff you're getting, John. :)
This reminds me of a fictional encounter on the show "The West Wing", in which President Bartlett is in a Presidential debate with the fictional governor of Florida (a proxy for GWB), who has spent a bunch of debate time criticizing federal spending. Bartlett observes that Florida gets billions in federal money, paid for by the tax payers of Nebraska, and Michigan, and New Hampshire, etc. Then he asks, "Can we have it back please?"
Newt is one of the folks heading up this teabagging protest. Anyone know if he's called for Georgia to refuse the billions that his state is getting from the stimulus plan? Honest question. I pay as little attention to Newt as possible, so I don't actually know if he's putting his money where his mouth is on this or not.
First of all, I disagree with Alan on protests. Having been in a couple big ones back when I lived in DC - and attended a couple smaller ones as well - even if well run and relatively efficiently organized, they tend to be nothing more than a chance for groups of various sizes to feel like they've "done something". What they have done, usually is stand around for a long time before walking down a street.
In the specific case of the teabaggers, their protests seem almost dreamily unfocused. Are they against higher taxes (which is really nothing more than allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to end, as they are supposed to do, restoring the still-historically-low top tax rates of the Clinton era)? Are they against "wasteful spending" (ill-defined, as usual)? Are they general anti-Obama protests (hard to figure, the dude's pretty popular)? What are they other than a bunch of right-wingers of various kinds getting together and feeling like they've done something?
I have nothing against them, other than a kind of general derision. They won't accomplish much, and this certainly isn't exactly the vanguard of some massive uprising, considering the popularity both of our current President and his policies. Furthermore, they aren't "grassroots", but have been organized by Washington-based right-wing leaders, and funded by right-wing money-men, including anti-Clinton Richard Mellon Scaife (this has been well documented, and in fact is easily available if you go to any number of right-wing websites) and is even being pushed by the cable "news" channel FOXNews.
As for the hilarity of the whole sexual innuendo, well, that's just a bonus.
Alan wrote:
Newt is one of the folks heading up this teabagging protest. Anyone know if he's called for Georgia to refuse the billions that his state is getting from the stimulus plan?If he hasn't, he should.
"they tend to be nothing more than a chance for groups of various sizes to feel like they've "done something". What they have done, usually is stand around for a long time before walking down a street."
I pretty much feel the same way even though I've participated in quite a few. I've been known to freeway blog as well. Haven't done any of it recently, however.
The Don't Mess With Texas Tea Party drew over 1,000 in Austin.
It's interesting to consider the numbers game. Before the Iraq War, in late-winter of 2003, there were m massive world-wide protests; one in Washington, DC was numbered at over a quarter million, probably closer to half a million. Today's teabagging can count maybe a few hundred folks, adding up to less than that total nationally.
Texas is the second-largest state in the country. Even a couple thousand folks in the state capital really don't matter all that much.
I still wonder about all this. Is it fascism? Socialism? Pending sharia implementation? Since the whole message is clouded by a confusion, with the added fun of ignorance, I just don't really take it seriously at all. We have a grown up in the White House who is driven by a desire to do his job, and not really worry what folks think one way or another (his handling of the pirate situation this past weekend is like his approach to everything else; the media hyped it, Obama played it cool and quiet, efficient and clean, no fuss and no muss). While I certainly don't agree with everything the guy has done - and I voted for him - I have to admire his extreme sense of his own collectedness in the light of the hostility of the right and the serious problems the country faces. This doesn't mean he'll succeed; it only means that if he fails, it will be a failure with integrity.
Geoffrey I agree with you.
You know.. It's the first time in a long time that I have felt the certainty that while I am working at my job, my president is also working at his.
The Louisville version drew about 1,000. The messages were mixed and contradictory, but, if I am honest I have to admit that I have seen that at peace rallies, too. (It always bugs me. Protests are most effective when everyone is "on message" and focused on a particular problem. There may be lots of other causes, but they need to wait for another day. ) I will say this for the tea parties--they were not violent like the European economic protests a couple of weeks ago.
But what a mixed group: libertarians, "birthers" (those who STILL aren't convinced that Obama was born in America), those claiming that Obama is a Marxist and those claiming he's a Nazi. Those mad at the bankers (count me among that group) and those mad at the unions (count me way OUT of that group). Those who want to support the troops by cutting taxes (paying them with what?).
The only unifying factor was that they were angry--and they seemed to be mostly angry at having lost the election. Confusing.
Dan, there are two subjects I would like to address.
First, on the subject of "significant" spending, you suggest the following:
Write some checks to pay for your portion of motorist welfare for the trillions of dollars we pour into our roadways for motorists.I wonder how that computer you use for blogging got to you. Was it strictly by ship and by train? Or did its delivery also involve horse and carrier pigeon?
Or did it involve trucks?
The fact of the matter is, everyone in this country who participates in modern society -- i.e., everyone but those who have their own Walden -- relies on our country's network of roads for the inexpensive delivery of goods and services. Even people who choose to commute strictly by bicycle still buy food and clothing, trucks deliver those goods to the stores they frequent, and those trucks need roads. When a man who sneers at "motorists" calls for a plumber or a paramedic, they don't get to his house by walking.
Your criticism of "motorist welfare" ignores the fact that the people who are more likely to support the privatization of roads are those fiscal libertarians on my side of the aisle. But, more importantly, it ignores the fact that nearly EVERYONE in this country depends on roads for their current lifestyle. There are some who drive 40 miles to work everyday whose dependence on this so-called "welfare" is more direct and obvious, but EVERYONE who buys goods that weren't wholly and hermetically produced within thirty miles depends on that same system of roads.
More than that, you praised Obama very recently for his apparent commitment to federal funding for public roads.
"We do need to use common money to maintain the commonwealth. If we're going to have roads and water systems and wastewater systems, etc, then we also have to maintain them..."
I will reiterate (again) that under Bush spending on highways rose, so the premise is inaccurate, that Obama is "doing some necessary work that has been left untended for too long."
But what I don't understand is how you can praise Obama for increasing public spending for roads while suggesting that conservatives should oppose public roads first and foremost in order to offer "significant" and "actual and sincere" opposition to government largesse.
For one thing, compared to actual welfare programs, roads are, like dams and bridges, FAR more obviously general spending for the public's benefit, spending that is permissible (at least at the local level) within a limited, classically liberal conception of government. For another, the Dept of Transportation's entire budget is only about $64 billion (source) compared to $624 billion for Medicare and Medicaid, to say nothing of every other social welfare program. Building the occasional eight-lane highway is hardly a big reason the government is going into debt.
Since you occasionally appeal to conservative principles, you should understand that there's nothing unreasonable or unconservative in supporting public funding for roads while opposing bailouts and welfare programs that cost literally ten times more.
More in a moment...
The amount of roadway needed for transportation is MUCH less than what is needed for transportation. The infrastructure needed for cycling is MUCH less than what is needed for the personal auto (something like, $100,000/mile for bike infrastructure vs $5,000,000/mile for auto infrastructure - I could locate a better number if you'd like).
Beyond that, we could much more efficiently transport our goods by rail if the road infrastructure were cut back and we invested money in rails like we do roads. Beyond that, we could much more efficiently buy locally and not need as much road infrastructure.
I'll gladly concede some small percentage of infrastructure is needed for the commonwealth, though, as long as you recognize that the vast majority of road infrastructure is basically motorist welfare.
And when I praised Obama's investment in infrastructure, I was predominantly thinking of our water, wastewater, etc infrastructure, which is badly funded. Also, I'm not opposed to maintaining road infrastructure where we have it, but we need to begin to look at the question more reasonably and with an eye to fiscal responsibility. Let user's pay their own way, predominantly and end motorist welfare.
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Ketchum and Komanoff also point out that drug abuse has been condemned for costing the U.S. at least $300 billion a year in health, crime, productivity, and other social costs....Meanwhile, their analysis indicates that non-motorists alone lose close to $300 billion a year due to the external costs (ie, not purchase price or maintenance, but infrastructure, environmental, etc. costs) of motor vehicle use.
From "Divorce Your Car," by Katie Alvord, which is probably a decade or more old by now
Dan, if you really were "predominantly thinking of our water, wastewater, etc infrastructure," it doesn't help me understand you when you explicitly mention roads:
"We do need to use common money to maintain the commonwealth. If we're going to have roads and water systems and wastewater systems, etc, then we also have to maintain them..." [emphasis mine]
I'll grant that roadways are more expensive than bikepaths, but very little wealth can be transported by bicycle.
I'll also allow for the possibility that we could be more efficent by using rail more, and I would support increased privatization of both roads and rails, and increased liberalization (i.e., deregulation) of the markets to let the free market find the most efficient methods to transport goods. If you're really for efficiency, you should support free markets more, because the difference between rail and roads in terms of efficiency is nothing compared to the difference between the market and government diktat.
I'm actually not convinced that producing locally is more efficent: it's easier (and therefore cheaper) to grow oranges in Florida and make maple syrup in Vermont. I don't see how either region benefits by being forced to produce these things locally or simply do without. The principle that works at the micro level still holds at the macro level: specialization and trade tends to benefit everyone involved. If a truly freer market imposed greater costs on global trade, I would still support a freer market, but it's not clear that those higher costs would force truly local economies: there was global tea trade in colonial times, the Silk Road between Europe and East Asia in medieval times, and Mediterranean salt trade before that.
Just because the Left fetishizes localism doesn't mean it's actually more efficient, at least not in every case even if global trade weren't subsidized to the degree that it is.
The bottom line, Dan, is that modern American conservatives have very good reasons to focus on social spending rather than roads:
1) From the perspective of a classically liberal philosophy of limited government, roadwork is far more obviously a reasonable responsibility of the state, than is social welfare.
2) In terms of actual expenditures, social welfare spending is greater than roadwork by factors of tens and hundreds.
Criticizing public funding for roads is obviously a pet project of yours, but it doesn't logically follow that conservatives should tie themselves to your causes in order to be effective or even philosophically consistent.
Blah, blah, blah...
Now we see the old Bubba trick of going from discussion of one topic (actually a mostly reasonable discussion), to his multitude of obsessions.
And such a subtle segue it was. Non-sequitur much?
Sheesh. Give it a rest already. That hobby horse must be plumb tuckered out by now.
Anyway back to the TOPIC (*ahem* hint, hint), it looks like we maybe had 100 teabaggers in A2, they were around for about half an hour around noon. They protested on campus, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Particularly when we have a perfectly good Federal Building downtown. I don't think the A2 (s)News even bothered covering it, which is unusual for them to miss an opportunity to show how conservative they are in this town.
Anyway, that was it. I've seen more lively protests by grannies trying to save historic houses on the old west side. Seriously, those old women will kick your butt if you try to remodel a 40s bungalow.
Dan wrote:
And when I praised Obama's investment in infrastructure, I was predominantly thinking of our water, wastewater, etc infrastructure, which is badly funded. Also, I'm not opposed to maintaining road infrastructure where we have it, but we need to begin to look at the question more reasonably and with an eye to fiscal responsibility. Let user's pay their own way, predominantly and end motorist welfare.I wouldn't support federal intervention to change transportation, but yeah, there's something very wasteful and weird about the American practice that everyone needs a car. This isn't the way that other highly-developed countries operate.
My paragraph breaks keep on screwing up. I don't know why. Sorry about any resulting confusion.
For what it's worth, I think Blogger is fouling up whitespace for paragraphs that end in italics.
(And, FWIW, Alan, I wouldn't bring up Dan's definition of fascism if he either actually adhered to the definition he invokes or wasn't so nit-picky in insisting that others stick to dictionary definitions. The other examples of what I believe constitutes hypocrisy on Dan's part were just that: examples, illustrating what I believe to be a consistent pattern of inconsistency, apparently guided only by what's immediately useful in advancing his own partisan positions.)
John, I'm not sure Americans' automobile use is "wasteful and weird." For one thing, we have three states in the contiguous 48 that are larger than Germany: our individual states are comparable in size to entire European countries.
More than that, Europe and Japan have fallen far below the replacement rate of 2.1 babies per woman, and we have not.
Mark Steyn notices that Americans have bigger cars, and he argues that there is a "demographic element to the automobile question."
Europeans often ask, "Why do Americans need those big cars?" The short answer is: Because Americans have kids and Europeans don't. So Italians and Spaniards and Germans (and Japanese) can drive around in things the size of a Chevy Suburban's cupholder because they've got nothing to put in them.
If you're a soccer mom schlepping three kids plus little Jimmy from next door around, you need a vehicle of a certain size. In the old days, you could just toss 'em all in there and they'd roll around as you took the hairpin bends in fourth gear. But now you can't stick kids in the front and you need baby seats for the youngest and booster seats for the oldest and soon nanny-state regulation will require every American under 37 to be in a rear-facing child seat, which is a pretty good metaphor for where the country's going.
And, if you mandate small cars and child-seat regulations, don't be surprised if the size of the American family starts heading south, too. The difference between U.S. and European vehicles isn't an emblem of environmental irresponsibility or American corpulence but of something more basic and important.
I don't have much time, but quickly...
Bubba said:
I wouldn't bring up Dan's definition of fascism if he either actually adhered to the definition he invokes or wasn't so nit-picky in insisting that others stick to dictionary definitions.I will note what I said earlier:
"That's one of the first things I thought when I saw the "fascist" sign - that I had seen those at war protests, too. And I agree, they tend to do more harm than good for the cause."That is, those liberals who used the fascist signs tended to do more harm than good because they're using terms inaccurately and giving a nutty flavor to the protesters and, by extension, the cause.
I just indicated SOME sympathy (not saying they were right) for the liberal misusers of the term because the actions of Bush were so deadly and appalling.
Sorry if you misunderstood my meaning.
Dang! that white space/break problem with blogger is annoying!
Dan, when you write that, because of the invasion of Iraq that "there was a bit more cause for pulling out the fascist sign than merely disagreeing about how much money is being spent here or there," that doesn't seem to imply a recognition that they're "pulling out" an innacurate term.
When you wrote that the left's use of the word was unhelpful, it doesn't necessarily entail that it's unhelpful BECAUSE it's inaccurate. (Indeed, it's entirely possible to infer the opposite, that the person DOES think the term is true, just not politically useful.)
If your position is that it's inaccurate to call Bush a fascist, good. If you don't make that position more clear, you do open yourself to the criticism of being inconsistent for demanding adherence to strict dictionary definitions from your political opponents, but not your allies or yourself.
Bubba said:
but very little wealth can be transported by bicycle. I suppose that would depend upon how much value you put on human life and life on earth in general...
Dan wrote:
I suppose that would depend upon how much value you put on human life and life on earth in general...Well, Dan, if you're trying to raise the standard of living, then the ability to transport stuff -- even excess, consumerist stuff -- is a fair evaluation.
Let's remember that the problem of poverty isn't that the wealthy have too much, but that the poor have too little.
Sometimes. Sometimes not.
Are not the rich oppressing you? And do they themselves not haul you off to court?
Is it not they who blaspheme the noble name that was invoked over you?James clearly thought that at least sometimes, the problem was the rich having too much of what did not belong to them. That can certainly still be the case today.
My point was mostly to make a little joke, though. Suggesting that he who carries himself or his children by bicycle is carrying a great deal of wealth. Not only in the innate sense of the wealth of humans, but in the more broad sense that those of us who travel by car tend to do so at a great and terrible cost to the common wealth.
Dan, there is no "great and terrible" cost to driving a Ford. Even your occasional reference to auto-related fatalities never includes an effort to adjust that gross cost to find the net effect by counting those lives that have been saved by the automobile, specifically the easy access to an emergency room even in rural areas.
There certainly is no great cost compared to the efforts over the last century or so to bring about the so-called economic justice that you so desire: the murder of literally tens of millions of people, and the enslavement of hundreds of millions more.
I know you will say what you will to reassure us that you don't have a problem, in theory, with freedom or the wealth that results from it.
It's clear that you loathe individual economic freedom in practice, and you despise the prosperity that it brings.
(Where exactly did James actually argue that wealth itself was the problem? That "the problem was the rich having too much of what did not belong to them"? If James thought that the rich were uniformly wicked, he would have taught us to be partial to the poor; instead, in James 2:10, he taught IMPARTIALITY, that "if you show partiality, you commit sin." And, if James thought wealth was inherently bad, he had no problem commending the righteousness of Abraham, who -- like Joseph, like Job, like David, like Solomon, and presumably Joseph of Aramathea -- was quite well off for his time.)
Even as a joke, it's absurd to treat my observation of the bicycle's severely limited cargo capacity as an indictment against some hidden indifference toward the value of humanity on my part.
I love human life, and I especially love human freedom. So long as my neighbor doesn't steal, lie, or kill, I don't want to impose on him my opinion on how he is to make a living and how he spends what he makes. I hope he has a good life and a good relationship with God, but I don't try to use coercive force to tell him how to live, because I respect his humanity too much to enslave him.
To the degree that you sneer at even an activity as benign as driving a car, and to the degree that you obviously crave the political power to impose your vision of the good life on others, I think it's entirely appropriate to question how much you love, not only freedom or even Western civilization, but humanity itself.
God made us free. Who do you think you are to revoke that freedom?
God made us equal. Who do you think you are to control other people's lives?
You are not divine enough to bring about utopia, Dan. You're not, and neither is anyone else in the long line of radical, collectivist wannabe tyrants.
[rolls eyes].
Think what you want, Brother Bubba. Suffice to say that you're way off in too many ways. About what I think, about what I've said, about facts and definitions.
So, think what you want about me and mine. We are not answerable to you, nor your mistaken, mischaracterized understanding of our positions.
Peace.
If I'm off about facts, I welcome substantive proof to correct my mistakes. If I'm off about definitions, I welcome links to relevant dictionary entries.
And if I'm off about what you believe, I welcome a clarification on your part.
You routinely claim that I misunderstand you. I routinely claim that you engage in frequent and broad hypocrisy.
Regardless of whether either of these claims are true or at least sincerely held -- for my part, I sincerely believe you are consistently inconsistent -- I see no way to move our dialogue forward if we continue to stand by these claims, which I think is very likely.
I think it suffices to say that I do think you have shown an antipathy to the free market which entails an intrisic distrust of individual economic freedom: you cannot constrain the market except by constraining individual actors within it.
I think your general solidarity with more honest statists like Geoffrey and Michael would tell us all that we need to know about your economic philosophy, but there's far more than that. The ONLY thing that speaks against your statism is the vague, defensive, half-hearted lip-service you pay to freedom, platitudes which are most plausibly interpreted as cover for the collectivism for which you advocate so passionately, if sometimes obliquely.
I would love to see evidence of your love for economic freedom -- or, for that matter, esteem for traditional institutions beyond their usefulness for your cause. Until I do, I will not pretend to believe that you are anything other than the radical collectivist that I sincerely believe your writing very strongly suggests.
"It's clear that you loathe individual economic freedom in practice, and you despise the prosperity that it brings."
Oh for crying out loud, who writes like that? Is this meant to be taken seriously? Really? It's like something off of Desperate Housewives, but with less import.
I never believe for a moment that a person is actually what I read from them in blog comments. And this is one of those times that I hope I'm right on that.
You're a joke, "Bubba". You can actually write reasonable stuff. I've seen it, even right here in this conversation. And then you go completely off the deep end.
Crap like that is why I think you're a joke. And you shouldn't care, because I'm just some random guy typing some words carried by some random electrons. But that's exactly the same reason I can't imagine why anyone might care about your opinions either. If you wrote things that mattered, things that were backed up by some sort of rational human thought, that might be reason enough to take you seriously. But when you write like a staffer on the "Young and the Restless" it makes it pretty tough to take anything you write seriously at all.
Your cronies are crazy, and it's amusing to make fun of them. But I think there's more to you than that. I think I've seen it. Rarely, but occasionally, you have a good point. I don't agree most of the time, but at least you can write like a normal, thinking human being. But then you go careening off a cliff.
Stick to real points and not silly melodrama.
Otherwise it's good for a laugh, but that's it.
I didn't know I had cronies.
Alan, however much our online paths cross in the future, I hope you'll find me reasonable more often than not, but I didn't think my comment was all that melodramatic.
Hell, it's not the most over-the-top thing that's been written in this one thread, not by a long shot.
"... those of us who travel by car tend to do so at a great and terrible cost to the common wealth."
Bubba, we have wandered all over the place here and not stayed to the topic. I'm not blaming you, I probably encouraged it. But I'm trying to rein it back in to the topic of the post.
Anytime you want to ask me to start a new post on a specific topic, feel free to ask and I will likely oblige.
Now, having said that, I will address one thing you said and I'm doing it because Alan is right. Much of the time, you seem like a reasonable person, then you write a bunch baloney and it causes us to cast you aside with the loonies as not being really worth the time to address.
Case in point, you say:
Hell, it's not the most over-the-top thing that's been written in this one thread, not by a long shot.
"... those of us who travel by car tend to do so at a great and terrible cost to the common wealth." [referencing my comment]
This is just a nutty sort of comment to make. Cars DO factually come at an incredibly high cost societally, ecologically, economically, sociologically, physically and spiritually.
* 3 million people die each year globally from car wrecks.
* 1 million people die each year from pollution, a large portion of which comes from the personal auto.
* TENS of millions (hundreds?) are injured or sickened each and every year due to (or at least partially due to) the prevalence of the personal auto.
* ALL of these deaths and injuries come at a HUGE financial cost to societies.
* The prevalence of the personal auto goes a long way towards degrading and destroy our environment/God's Creation.
Now, it may well be that someone could reasonably make the case that the benefits of the personal auto outweigh ALL this massive cost. But, it is just out of touch with reality to suggest that there is no "great and terrible cost" to the prevalence of the personal auto. Millions dead, tens of millions damaged, at a cost of trillions of dollars is a great and terrible cost, no matter how you weigh it.
Is it the case that you don't believe figures like these or is it the case that you don't think that all of that cost is great and terrible? Or is there some other reasonable explanation for what sounds like an insane statement?
Since National Bike Month is coming up, I will be posting a "Cost of Autos" post here soon, so if you really want to go on about this, you can do so there. If not, you can just answer the question (or not).
Bubba, I don't think you're making the argument you think you're making.
I am sure that even you agree that millions of lives damaged and snuffed out is a bad cost. YOUR argument, it seems, is that the benefits outweigh the costs. Fine, that's debatable, but it's a reasonable argument to make.
But that's different than saying there are no costs, which is just goofy.
Beyond that point, we can save the rest of the discussion (if you wish) for a day when I post on that topic. Suffice to say, again, that most of your arguments against my supposed position are not actually my position, just a strawman to knock down.
Not only are you not arguing the argument that you appear to think you're arguing, but I'm not arguing the argument that you think I'm arguing.
When we get around to it, let's talk about actual positions, okay?
I will have to say, again echoing Alan's comments earlier, that if you truly think that there are no costs associated with the prevalence of the personal auto, then folk like myself have to wonder if it's really worth having a discussion with you.
It's just a nutty position to hold and I don't think you hold it, as it just isn't in contact with the real world.
Dan, I do not believe that there are "no costs" related to automobiles, and I don't believe I said anything that suggests that. What I reject, rather, is your claim that the costs are "great and terrible." Skepticism at the claim that the costs are great, does not imply a denial that the costs exist altogether.
If you want to talk actual positions, make an effort to get my position correct before you dismiss it as "nutty."
While I have your attention, I do want to point out one thing about your claim that "3 million people die each year globally from car wrecks."
As I reported, the US has fewer than 45,000 auto-related fatalities per year. We have a population of 300 million, and the world has a population of 6.79 billion; that ratio would suggest a worldwide total of only ONE million, not three.
There are surely regions that have fewer cars per capita or simply have less of a car culture -- Europe, Japan, and Hong Knog come to mind. There are also undeveloped regions where cars aren't yet to be expected in great numbers.
If, globally, the world experiences THREE TIMES a greater fatality rate than our supposedly car-obsessed culture, maybe the problem isn't entirely with the cars.
Maybe it's the culture, so that other countries would be safer if their people had a greater respect, for instance, for the rule of law.
Or maybe it's that damnable "motorist welfare." Our cars kill fewer people because our roads are safer, because they're better maintained.
Either way, while I do not necessarily question the figure of three million worldwide, I question the conclusion that cars alone are the cause.
Well, central to my perspective is that government is essentially a criminal enterprise, and so the small vs. large is a good debate, and efficiency is something unacheivable and not necessarily desireable in a government.
Even if a particular official is not a crook, power always corrupts the corruptable human nature. So it is prudent for citizens to assume that all political leaders are liars and thieves, and cannot be trusted.
I also see government as inevitability, and so it should be tighly controlled within republican (small r) frameworks.
But that's just me.
Thanks, Michael, John.
John, are you joking by saying gov't is a "criminal enterprise"? If not, what do you mean?
No, I'm quite serious. Government does things to people without their direct consent. It may be necessary at times, but that violation of consent remains A Bad Thing.
The greater the government power, the more obvious this criminality becomes: Hitler, Mao, Stalin, etc. Just as the criminality of a murderer is more obvious than that of a shoplifter. But the violation of consent persists, however minimal.
But I can leave it with that since I'm driving us off topic.
Michael, by statism I mean the broad collection of philosophies -- such variations of Marxism, including half-measures in the name of pragmatism -- that believe in a large, active (and largely unconstrained) government, in contrast to the classically liberal notions of a limited government, limited in both its means and ends.
It's not just that you believe in the notion of a state or in a government that ensures, for instance, the rule of law on which the free market depends -- it is arguable whether currency cannot be provided by competing private firms -- but also Keynesian deficit-spending and nationalizing companies.
(About the "Econ 101" lesson on the brilliance of Keynesian economics, you didn't explain where the government gets the money it uses to prime the pump. It can only get this money by taxing people now, by borrowing money to be paid by taxes later, or by the hidden tax of inflation that results from printing money, NONE of which helps a demand-side problem even in the short run -- or will borrowing trillions of dollars have absolutely no effect on interest rates? I don't believe Keynes ever substantively addressed the long-term problems of his economic theories; instead, I believe all he did was dismiss them. "In the long run, we're all dead.")
(And, about history being this great laboratory, you're drawing the wrong lessons because your facts are wrong: Hoover was an interventionist, just like FDR. It wasn't that FDR reversed Hoover's approach, he just ramped it up. As a result, what was merely a depression in the rest of the world was a "great" depression that was never made better by government largesse.)
Michael, your criticism of Obama isn't proof that you're not an advocate of big government whose economic philosophy barely differs from outright socialism (if at all), because your criticism comes from the hard left: "He should have simply nationalized the banks... [in order to] make banks like regulated utilities."
The argument between big government and small government is PRECISELY the argument to be had, because it's not as if everyone agrees that we should nationalize sectors of the economy here and there, but you in your wisdom advocate "efficient/smart/functioning" while those who disagree with you actually support the opposite.
You think a genuinely free market brings about Somalia-like chaos (never mind that Somalia doesn't enjoin the rule of law that fiscal conservatives see as an absolutely essential condition of free markets, and never mind that African warlords tend to benefit from billions in aid that comes from Western government spending), and you openly admit your support for "government regulated markets" that explicitly entails massive spending and nationalizing entire sectors of the economy.
To make this an issue of efficiency and inefficiency, and to position your side as the sole defenders of efficiency, is clever, but really dishonest.
OK, so Bubba calls me a "statist", and attempts to define what he means, and only confuses the issue.
Apparently, because I think that the government should do stuff, I'm a statist.
Bubba, I'm sorry, but I'm going to just be blunt. You're an ignoramus. Please leave my name out of your discussions. I feel sullied.
Actually, Bubba, I believe in limited government--constrained by laws and checks and balances. That's why I want to prosecute torturers, the authors of memos authorizing same, and warrantless wiretapping, etc. Of course, this makes my criticism of Obama "hard left."
I have NEVER been a Marxist. I believe in a mixed economy. Nationalizing banks is routine: we call it receivership and it happens all the time. My criticism is that the FDIC is doing it for small banks (and then putting them back into private hands) but we're propping up the huge banks, instead. We briefly nationalized the Savings and Loans prior to re-privatizing in the '80s. By failing to do this we get "lemon socialism": socialized risks for those "too big to fail" and privatized profit. If something is too big to fail, it's too big and needs to be broken up.
Yes, to prime the pump we will have to borrow money. That's a problem. Blame Bush who blew the largest surpluses in history. We'll have to print and, yes, inflation will become a problem in 2011 at the latest. And, yes, we'll have to tax to get rid of the debt later. There are no easy answers. These ARE problems. But if we forget the lessons of Keynes and the new deal, we'll have more problems. As Nobel winning economisst Stiglitz put it, "Worrying about inflation NOW is like worrying about who'll cut the grass later while the house is burning down. First, put out the fire."
There are no easy fixes for problems we let happen over decades: We bought the illusion that we could do without a manufacturing base and let that be outsourced forever. We let infrastructure go to !@#$ for decades. We abolished the regulations on finance that would have contained damage. We promoted greed and debt and overconsumption and a house of cards based on low taxes for the rich and said there would never be any consequences.
Well, now we have to pay the piper. We have to have govt. spending to recover and create jobs. And we need new regulations to prevent future meltdowns (until another Phil Gramm, with Larry Summer cheerleading comes along and guts them again). And, yes, it will have to be paid for eventually by higher taxes, deep cuts in the military budget (and an end to subsidies for agribusiness, the largest millionaire welfare cheats in the country).
Even when we start seeing unemployment decline late this year or early next year, the way out of this mess will be slow. Obama INHERITED this mess. My criticisms of him do come from the left.
If that makes me a statist, so be it. Without a state, you can't have a modern economy. Libertarians are great on civil liberties--and lousy at economics.
1 more thing on the deficits, the national debt, and inflation. When Democrats, progressive economists, and others pointed this out during the Bush years, we were told by Dick Cheney that "Deficits Don't Matter." That claim was also made by Greenspan and by Hank Paulsen and GOP leadership.
So, where were the tea parties, then?
When Democrats tried to put back into place the "paygo" rules in '07 to try to put some curbs on Bush spending and began to warn of the impending recession looming, Fox News denounced it loudly--and now they promoted the Tea Parties.
BEFORE a recession would have been a GREAT time to curb deficits and stop inflation. So why did "conservatives" go along with it and dismis Democratic concerns as "20th C. economic thinking?"
Michael wrote:
"Yes, to prime the pump we will have to borrow money. That's a problem. Blame Bush who blew the largest surpluses in history. We'll have to print and, yes, inflation will become a problem in 2011 at the latest. And, yes, we'll have to tax to get rid of the debt later."
And:
"1 more thing on the deficits, the national debt, and inflation. When Democrats, progressive economists, and others pointed this out during the Bush years, we were told by Dick Cheney that "Deficits Don't Matter." That claim was also made by Greenspan and by Hank Paulsen and GOP leadership.
So, where were the tea parties, then?"
Michael, I'm confused about your position. Are you saying that budget deficits and national debt are good or bad? Please clarify.
Budget deficits and debt can be bad and are usually bad over the long haul. But in a recession/depression when the govt is the only source left of monetary liquidity it may have to run up deficits and debt until the recession is over.
The faster the economy recovers, creating new businesses with new jobs (and therefore new tax revenue), the sooner this can be addressed. (And today's news is that Obama is ordering his Cabinet heads to begin trimming budgets even while we're recovering.) But if we cannot use the stimulus money to help the economy recover, the deficit and debt are the least of our problems.
Thanks for clarifying. I disagree, and see indebtedness as always a bad idea (investors tend to shy away from banana republics). Anyway, the economy will recover on its own without government interference, and recover slower with it, just as the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression.
John said:
Anyway, the economy will recover on its own without government interference, and recover slower with it, just as the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. ? Says who? What makes you think the economy will recover on its own?
This is the problem I have with the more capitalistic out there: They seem to have a faith in "the Market," that defies easy explanation. And often, this is at the same time that they have a rabid distrust and even hatred for gov't.
I wonder: Why the faith in one human creation (the one that's based on greed) and antipathy towards another?
For my part, I hold both suspect. They both have problems, they both are prone to human corruption and error, and they both have good aspects. I do tend to think that the market can do some things quite well. But I certainly don't have the faith in it that others out there do, and I'm just not clear on why the more conservative do so.
Dan wrote:
"Says who? What makes you think the economy will recover on its own?"
We've had economic depressions before that resulted in little to no government interference, and lasted briefer. Examples: the Panic of 1837, the Panic of 1873, and the Panic of 1896. The responses to none of these depressions included major government intervention or any bailouts of ailing companies. And yet the national economy recovered.
When there was a massive government attempt to spend away a depression -- the New Deal -- the economic suffering continued for eight more years.
Advocates of the New Deal should explain why, if it was such a benefit to the nation, did the depression continue longer after its implementation than any other depression in America's history.
Perhaps Michael, who has given vigorous support for the New Deal on this blog, could address this question directly.
Briefly, Geoffrey, if you don't support a large, powerful, intrusive government, I apologize for wrongly believing that the term "statist," as I have tried to explain it, applies to your position.
It wasn't intended as an insult, only an accurate description of what you believe. In fact, I mentioned you because I think (or, at least, did think) you're quite honest about your statism.
It's not simply, "because [you] think that the government should do stuff" that I think you're a statist. I'm not an anarchist; I believe there should be a government and that it should it have certain responsibilities.
I just believe that those responsibilities should be limited, preferably in a written constitution. The state should be limited in its means and ends, not altogether abolished.
That's why I explicitly compared statism, not to anarchism, but to "the classically liberal notions of a limited government, limited in both its means and ends."
Michael, I didn't intend to call you a Marxist. Looking back, I may not have been entirely clear, but my intent was to write that statism includes Marxism: all Marxists are statists, but not all statists are Marxists. Those "pragmatists" who support half-measures in terms of government intervention are statists, but not necessarily Marxists, and I may not have been clear enough on that point.
I think it suffices to say that I disagree with your summary of what caused the current credit crisis; we can go into details some other time.
One thing I would briefly dispute is the substance of those Democrats who opposed Bush's tax cuts and spending: so far as I know, no Democrat proposed a "rainy day" fund to use against any eventual recession -- and certainly not a fund that would actually be left intact, as opposed to the mythical Social Security trust fund. Democrats had different spending priorities, certainly, but I don't remember that accumulating surpluses for later Keynesian pump-priming was one of them.
(And on the budget-trimming side, Obama's Cabinet meeting was to recommend tens of millions in cuts over 10-15 years. That's negligible compared to the literal trillions he wants to spend now, and it provides political cover for his spending only for those who want to find whatever cover they can, or those who don't do the math.)
Finally:
As Nobel winning economisst Stiglitz put it, "Worrying about inflation NOW is like worrying about who'll cut the grass later while the house is burning down. First, put out the fire."Obama projects literally trillions dollars in new deficit spending over the next few years -- three trillion over the next two years alone -- when the country's annual GDP is about $14 trillion.
The government is going to borrow or print about ONE TENTH of our GDP to spend our way into economic growth. To dismiss as insignificant the detrimental effects of that level of either rising interest rates, inflation, or both is not serious.
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