22/02: TCCTA, 2009
I am back from one of my favorite annual events: the 2009 meeting of the Texas Community College Teachers Association.
The history section featured an outstanding slate of eminent scholars: Eric Foner, David Goldfield, Brian Delay, and H.W. Brands. I hope to offer comment at some point on the provocative presentations offered by those luminaries.
However, as is my wont, I could not help myself from sneaking into the government section to hear one of my favorites: Harvard's Kennedy School of Government Professor of Political Science, Tom Patterson, who, once again, lived up to my incredibly high expectations regarding his cogent and dispassionate analysis of presidential politics.
"Can Obama Succeed in an Era of Impatience?"
Patterson: Barack Obama is obviously an exceptional political talent, but, more importantly, he is a natural executive, which, ironically, turns out to be a fairly rare gift among recent presidents (think Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton).
Evidence?
1. Obama ran a superior presidential campaign (the very best ever, in Patterson's view--and I concur). Perhaps most astounding, he did it with presumably second-tier talent. Of course, his staffers are NOW the first-tier players--but we should NOT forget that the overwhelming favorite in the race for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, flush with cash and the glow of inevitability, bought up all the heavy-hitting pros early on in the contest. Undeterred, Obama found a way to draft an over-achieving cohort of talented personnel in the latter rounds and facilitated their development into a cohesive and ultra-effective organization.
2. Upon election, Obama assembled the presidency first. Prioritizing an executive staff over a cabinet and assembling a team of doers, Obama fielded a highly functioning White House ready for battle the first day in office.
An aside: some of you will be tempted to point out some of the stumbles--but, seriously, this team is in mid-season form already. After only a month, this President is indisputably in command and in control of the national storyline.
Where is Obama now?
He inherits a frightening crisis. Ironically, this precarious situation fraught with peril offers him a pathway to presidential distinction. Every "great" chief executive needs an insurmountable obstacle to overcome. Great triumph only comes after great trial (not surprisingly, Brands and Foner both echoed this manifest fact of presidential scholarship).
On the other hand, crisis presents a double-edged sword for a president. Leaders don't always prevail over adversity; sometimes chief executives do not rise to the occasion.
Will Obama succeed?
Most likely. If Obama is lucky, Patterson observes, he will be Ronald Reagan.
As Patterson notes, the President seems to invite comparisons between himself and former greats such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. However, Patterson asserts that this time and place is more comparable to the late-1970s and early-1980s than the era of the Great Depression. How are we different from 1933? We are a much more demanding and impatient culture today, with a wall-to-wall-twenty-four-hour news cycle, a fiscal situation wholly different from pre-New Deal America, and a post-industrial service economy.
An Aside: on the following day Brands, author of the current best-selling FDR biography, also offered an illuminating discussion regarding similarities and differences between the predicaments that face Obama and the collapse that Roosevelt inherited, which I hope to report on in some depth shortly.
Patterson: like Reagan, Barack Obama won election because of who he was NOT. The Election of 2008, like the Election of 1980, revealed more about the electorate's revulsion and frustration with the ruling party rather than an absolute affinity for the respective challengers. Americans rejected Jimmy Carter much more than they unequivocally elevated Ronald Reagan. Likewise, 2008 voters first and foremost voted against the perceived incompetence of George Bush and the faithless Republicans.
Having said that, like Reagan, Barack Obama is very popular and a vessel of hope. However, Patterson reminds us that Reagan's popularity plummeted as the economy continued to stagnate during the first two years of his presidency, with Democrats making big gains in the 1982 midterms. It was not until the economy began to rebound in 1983 and 1984 that Reagan recovered from his historic low approval ratings. Of course, his resurgence was spectacular (as was the economic recovery), as Reagan rolled onto a landslide reelection in 1984.
The Good News for President Obama?
If we see some brand of upswing in the economy before 2012 (as currently predicted by the Fed), the next quadrennial contest could very well be "Morning in America" for President Obama's reelection campaign.
Moreover, this president has two advantages over RR.
1. Unlike Reagan, Obama will not be restricted by principles or circumstances to supply-side solutions alone. His stimulus will attack the downturn from the demand side, pumping mainline injections into the sluggish economy.
2. Unlike Reagan, Obama enjoys shockingly unparalleled positive press. As Patterson correctly asserts, the news media powered his victory in the primary, showering him with disproportionately positive reportage, while hammering the front runner with surly negative portrayals and unfriendly analysis. Of course, Patterson reminds us that the media, although no less gushing in the General Election, played a role significantly less instrumental, for the events of 2005 through 2008 formed an irresistible wave of popular enmity for any Republican standard-bearer. That is, 2008 was a year tailor-made for any Democratic nominee.
Bottom Line: never before has a president faced a press corps so friendly and so thoroughly invested in his success. Contra to regular expectations of a mainstream media driving despair about the economy through negative coverage, we can expect this coterie of national reporters to continue their pattern of lending assistance to this president in unprecedented fashion.
On the other hand, regardless of the supportive White House press corps, the reality of the economic situation will settle into the public consciousness. Eventually, real life will overtake the media-created illusion. And, one day not too distant, President Obama will own this economy.
Patterson expects Democrats in the House to lose seats in 2010, which, of course, will completely reconfigure the current conventional wisdom about the GOP as the zombie party.
However, if Obama gets lucky, like Reagan, he gets "Morning in America" Part II.
If he gets an economic upturn after the midterm setback, and he wins another landslide election in 2012, President Obama may well outstrip the second term of Ronald Reagan. Well-positioned to achieve something close to universal health care and a substantial and historic program to counter the affects of global warming by scaling back carbon emissions, Obama will have a shot at finishing as a "near-great" president.
But, Professor Patterson reminds us, there are some less salutary potentialities as well. How could this presidency go down in flames?
There are the THREE BIG IFS:
1. What if the economy does not respond to the stimulus? Very possible. Many analysts are already talking about a SECOND STIMULUS, which would necessitate more money we don't have. More gnashing of teeth. Will there be any one left to borrow money from? This contingency severely dampens the rosiest Obama scenario. Even if one imagines a reelection victory in the midst of the continuing unease (a la FDR), the possibility of achieving big things in the second term virtually vanishes.
2. What if we drop into a deflationary spiral? Unlikely--but not impossible. Economists see this as extremely remote but no longer unthinkable.
3. What if the economy is exhausted? What if we keep the banks and the car companies above ground--but only on life support? We are surely headed toward a national debt that equals our Gross National Product (GDP). We reached that position at the end of World War II, and we expanded our way out of our financial hole, settling into a long period of dynamic growth in which our national debt decreased steadily until it leveled off and averaged about one-third of our GDP for decades. Now our national debt suddenly equals 70 percent of our GDP and seems inevitably on the way to approximately 100 percent once again.
Can we grow our way out of this kind of mammoth debt in our current state of national health? The USA of 2009 is not the America of post-war period, which was characterized by a vibrant manufacturing sector fueled by a nation of consumers with disposable income and pent-up demand for consumer goods. We are well past that vigorous America now. Today we live in a post-industrial society in which most Americans suffer from high personal debt and cannot honestly say that they want for much.
As you know, I worry that the party is over.
On the other hand, Patterson, an extremely talented handicapper, lays odds that the President is most likely on track for the more optimistic recovery scenario. This would be good news for all of us--at least in the near term. On the other hand, Patterson offers no guarantees, warning that the scariest outcomes are not just remote doomsday eventualities.
To borrow a line from the Brands lecture of the following day: the good news is that Obama has the potential to be another FDR. The bad news is that he also faces a danger of being the next Herbert Hoover.
We'll see.
UPDATE: We are grateful to HNN for the link to this post.
The history section featured an outstanding slate of eminent scholars: Eric Foner, David Goldfield, Brian Delay, and H.W. Brands. I hope to offer comment at some point on the provocative presentations offered by those luminaries.
However, as is my wont, I could not help myself from sneaking into the government section to hear one of my favorites: Harvard's Kennedy School of Government Professor of Political Science, Tom Patterson, who, once again, lived up to my incredibly high expectations regarding his cogent and dispassionate analysis of presidential politics.
"Can Obama Succeed in an Era of Impatience?"
Patterson: Barack Obama is obviously an exceptional political talent, but, more importantly, he is a natural executive, which, ironically, turns out to be a fairly rare gift among recent presidents (think Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton).
Evidence?
1. Obama ran a superior presidential campaign (the very best ever, in Patterson's view--and I concur). Perhaps most astounding, he did it with presumably second-tier talent. Of course, his staffers are NOW the first-tier players--but we should NOT forget that the overwhelming favorite in the race for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, flush with cash and the glow of inevitability, bought up all the heavy-hitting pros early on in the contest. Undeterred, Obama found a way to draft an over-achieving cohort of talented personnel in the latter rounds and facilitated their development into a cohesive and ultra-effective organization.
2. Upon election, Obama assembled the presidency first. Prioritizing an executive staff over a cabinet and assembling a team of doers, Obama fielded a highly functioning White House ready for battle the first day in office.
An aside: some of you will be tempted to point out some of the stumbles--but, seriously, this team is in mid-season form already. After only a month, this President is indisputably in command and in control of the national storyline.
Where is Obama now?
He inherits a frightening crisis. Ironically, this precarious situation fraught with peril offers him a pathway to presidential distinction. Every "great" chief executive needs an insurmountable obstacle to overcome. Great triumph only comes after great trial (not surprisingly, Brands and Foner both echoed this manifest fact of presidential scholarship).
On the other hand, crisis presents a double-edged sword for a president. Leaders don't always prevail over adversity; sometimes chief executives do not rise to the occasion.
Will Obama succeed?
Most likely. If Obama is lucky, Patterson observes, he will be Ronald Reagan.
As Patterson notes, the President seems to invite comparisons between himself and former greats such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. However, Patterson asserts that this time and place is more comparable to the late-1970s and early-1980s than the era of the Great Depression. How are we different from 1933? We are a much more demanding and impatient culture today, with a wall-to-wall-twenty-four-hour news cycle, a fiscal situation wholly different from pre-New Deal America, and a post-industrial service economy.
An Aside: on the following day Brands, author of the current best-selling FDR biography, also offered an illuminating discussion regarding similarities and differences between the predicaments that face Obama and the collapse that Roosevelt inherited, which I hope to report on in some depth shortly.
Patterson: like Reagan, Barack Obama won election because of who he was NOT. The Election of 2008, like the Election of 1980, revealed more about the electorate's revulsion and frustration with the ruling party rather than an absolute affinity for the respective challengers. Americans rejected Jimmy Carter much more than they unequivocally elevated Ronald Reagan. Likewise, 2008 voters first and foremost voted against the perceived incompetence of George Bush and the faithless Republicans.
Having said that, like Reagan, Barack Obama is very popular and a vessel of hope. However, Patterson reminds us that Reagan's popularity plummeted as the economy continued to stagnate during the first two years of his presidency, with Democrats making big gains in the 1982 midterms. It was not until the economy began to rebound in 1983 and 1984 that Reagan recovered from his historic low approval ratings. Of course, his resurgence was spectacular (as was the economic recovery), as Reagan rolled onto a landslide reelection in 1984.
The Good News for President Obama?
If we see some brand of upswing in the economy before 2012 (as currently predicted by the Fed), the next quadrennial contest could very well be "Morning in America" for President Obama's reelection campaign.
Moreover, this president has two advantages over RR.
1. Unlike Reagan, Obama will not be restricted by principles or circumstances to supply-side solutions alone. His stimulus will attack the downturn from the demand side, pumping mainline injections into the sluggish economy.
2. Unlike Reagan, Obama enjoys shockingly unparalleled positive press. As Patterson correctly asserts, the news media powered his victory in the primary, showering him with disproportionately positive reportage, while hammering the front runner with surly negative portrayals and unfriendly analysis. Of course, Patterson reminds us that the media, although no less gushing in the General Election, played a role significantly less instrumental, for the events of 2005 through 2008 formed an irresistible wave of popular enmity for any Republican standard-bearer. That is, 2008 was a year tailor-made for any Democratic nominee.
Bottom Line: never before has a president faced a press corps so friendly and so thoroughly invested in his success. Contra to regular expectations of a mainstream media driving despair about the economy through negative coverage, we can expect this coterie of national reporters to continue their pattern of lending assistance to this president in unprecedented fashion.
On the other hand, regardless of the supportive White House press corps, the reality of the economic situation will settle into the public consciousness. Eventually, real life will overtake the media-created illusion. And, one day not too distant, President Obama will own this economy.
Patterson expects Democrats in the House to lose seats in 2010, which, of course, will completely reconfigure the current conventional wisdom about the GOP as the zombie party.
However, if Obama gets lucky, like Reagan, he gets "Morning in America" Part II.
If he gets an economic upturn after the midterm setback, and he wins another landslide election in 2012, President Obama may well outstrip the second term of Ronald Reagan. Well-positioned to achieve something close to universal health care and a substantial and historic program to counter the affects of global warming by scaling back carbon emissions, Obama will have a shot at finishing as a "near-great" president.
But, Professor Patterson reminds us, there are some less salutary potentialities as well. How could this presidency go down in flames?
There are the THREE BIG IFS:
1. What if the economy does not respond to the stimulus? Very possible. Many analysts are already talking about a SECOND STIMULUS, which would necessitate more money we don't have. More gnashing of teeth. Will there be any one left to borrow money from? This contingency severely dampens the rosiest Obama scenario. Even if one imagines a reelection victory in the midst of the continuing unease (a la FDR), the possibility of achieving big things in the second term virtually vanishes.
2. What if we drop into a deflationary spiral? Unlikely--but not impossible. Economists see this as extremely remote but no longer unthinkable.
3. What if the economy is exhausted? What if we keep the banks and the car companies above ground--but only on life support? We are surely headed toward a national debt that equals our Gross National Product (GDP). We reached that position at the end of World War II, and we expanded our way out of our financial hole, settling into a long period of dynamic growth in which our national debt decreased steadily until it leveled off and averaged about one-third of our GDP for decades. Now our national debt suddenly equals 70 percent of our GDP and seems inevitably on the way to approximately 100 percent once again.
Can we grow our way out of this kind of mammoth debt in our current state of national health? The USA of 2009 is not the America of post-war period, which was characterized by a vibrant manufacturing sector fueled by a nation of consumers with disposable income and pent-up demand for consumer goods. We are well past that vigorous America now. Today we live in a post-industrial society in which most Americans suffer from high personal debt and cannot honestly say that they want for much.
As you know, I worry that the party is over.
On the other hand, Patterson, an extremely talented handicapper, lays odds that the President is most likely on track for the more optimistic recovery scenario. This would be good news for all of us--at least in the near term. On the other hand, Patterson offers no guarantees, warning that the scariest outcomes are not just remote doomsday eventualities.
To borrow a line from the Brands lecture of the following day: the good news is that Obama has the potential to be another FDR. The bad news is that he also faces a danger of being the next Herbert Hoover.
We'll see.
UPDATE: We are grateful to HNN for the link to this post.
22/02: In Defense of Rush
Recently we have expressed some problems with Rush Limbaugh and some of his views.
We regard him as irrationally wedded to the idea of the absolutely Free Market. I think most of us who blog here regard the Free Market as a good thing, so long as it is not absolutly free, that is, we see the need for some rational regulation. Similarly on the related ideas of free trade and Capitalism.
We regard him as over emphasizing "Rugged Individualism," taking insufficient note of the role of communities in the good life.
We regard him as too quick to see conspiracy at work among those he opposes.
I regard him as too cavelier regarding the environment.
Photognome and Martian Mariner also expressed problems with his ability to analyze a problem rationally and to present comment in rational form. I understand their complaint.
Having said all of this, I wish to speak a word in Rush's defense.
First, while I disagree with him on the items listed above, I think that for someone who makes a living talking live for 15 hours per week, he manages to get most things right. Sometimes he spots trends or issues before anyone else seems to notice.
Second, he understands that rationality is only a part of the human make-up. And, that many, many people are not dominated by their rational side. He makes great use of humor, and emotion, in his presentation.
Third, Rush is an ideologue. He has a philosophy, a variety of conservatism, and he views the world through this ideology. He knows what his beliefs are, can explain them coherently, and can persuade others of the truth of his world-view.
As a Christian, and a preacher, I understand what he does. I operate from an ideology also, try to persuade people to see things according to a Christian world-view, and use more than rationality in my rhetoric. I just wish Rush would take a sabbatical and immerse himself in The Institutes of the Christian Religion, or in Church Dogmatics. Since Rush is nominally Roman Catholic, I would settle gladly for Thomas Aquinas as Rush's bedtime reading.
We regard him as irrationally wedded to the idea of the absolutely Free Market. I think most of us who blog here regard the Free Market as a good thing, so long as it is not absolutly free, that is, we see the need for some rational regulation. Similarly on the related ideas of free trade and Capitalism.
We regard him as over emphasizing "Rugged Individualism," taking insufficient note of the role of communities in the good life.
We regard him as too quick to see conspiracy at work among those he opposes.
I regard him as too cavelier regarding the environment.
Photognome and Martian Mariner also expressed problems with his ability to analyze a problem rationally and to present comment in rational form. I understand their complaint.
Having said all of this, I wish to speak a word in Rush's defense.
First, while I disagree with him on the items listed above, I think that for someone who makes a living talking live for 15 hours per week, he manages to get most things right. Sometimes he spots trends or issues before anyone else seems to notice.
Second, he understands that rationality is only a part of the human make-up. And, that many, many people are not dominated by their rational side. He makes great use of humor, and emotion, in his presentation.
Third, Rush is an ideologue. He has a philosophy, a variety of conservatism, and he views the world through this ideology. He knows what his beliefs are, can explain them coherently, and can persuade others of the truth of his world-view.
As a Christian, and a preacher, I understand what he does. I operate from an ideology also, try to persuade people to see things according to a Christian world-view, and use more than rationality in my rhetoric. I just wish Rush would take a sabbatical and immerse himself in The Institutes of the Christian Religion, or in Church Dogmatics. Since Rush is nominally Roman Catholic, I would settle gladly for Thomas Aquinas as Rush's bedtime reading.
22/02: Monkey Business
Remember those CareerBuilder.com commercials featuring a hapless employee forced to work with monkeys?
Were those ads playing on deeply coded racial symbols? Were those spots designed to appeal to frustrated white employees forced to work with incompetent African American colleagues? Or was the "monkey business" of those commercials a symbol for working with a bunch of frivolous and mischievous "clowns"?
Pretty obvious answer--and, for the record, they were hilarious.
Just in case you do not know, the New York Post ran a cartoon last week in which two cops shot down a monkey (playing off an actual incident in the news earlier in the week), and the caption reads: “They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
The most reasonable point to infer? The stimulus bill was so egregiously ridiculous, it could have only been written by a monkey (figuratively speaking).
A less reasonable inference? The Post advocates the assassination of Barack Obama.
I can only surmise that those who sincerely charged that the cartoon depicted President Obama as a chimpanzee were the ones who did not follow the news very carefully. Key word: write.
“They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
Who wrote the stimulus bill? Not the President, unfortunately, or any of his braintrust. The most frustrating and disappointing element of the entire stimulus melodrama was the absence of the President and his economic council of wise men in the drafting of this abominable legislation. As I noted weeks ago, the great ironic travesty of this trillion-dollar bill was that it was farmed out to the lower branches of the Democratic Party's political tree.
If I had to pick one of two options, I would have to choose misogyny over racism--but that accusation rings equally hollow.
However, there are actually two things wrong with this cartoon.
1. It is not hilarious. The gag was not nearly obvious or powerful enough. If this thing had made somebody somewhere laugh (or even smirk), it would have gone down much smoother.
2. No matter how innocent (or plausibly deniable) the cartoon may be, a depiction of a monkey that can be placed any where near this first African American president definitely deserved more deliberation than the editorial board of the NY Post evidently saw fit to grant it.
Really Obvious Observation: this is the last monkey we will see in a political cartoon or any other media for the next eight years.
Having said that, even if the Post should have known better, this firestorm of misplaced indignation does not diminish the sadly obvious fact that we live in a world gone mad.
Were those ads playing on deeply coded racial symbols? Were those spots designed to appeal to frustrated white employees forced to work with incompetent African American colleagues? Or was the "monkey business" of those commercials a symbol for working with a bunch of frivolous and mischievous "clowns"?
Pretty obvious answer--and, for the record, they were hilarious.
Just in case you do not know, the New York Post ran a cartoon last week in which two cops shot down a monkey (playing off an actual incident in the news earlier in the week), and the caption reads: “They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
The most reasonable point to infer? The stimulus bill was so egregiously ridiculous, it could have only been written by a monkey (figuratively speaking).
A less reasonable inference? The Post advocates the assassination of Barack Obama.
I can only surmise that those who sincerely charged that the cartoon depicted President Obama as a chimpanzee were the ones who did not follow the news very carefully. Key word: write.
“They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
Who wrote the stimulus bill? Not the President, unfortunately, or any of his braintrust. The most frustrating and disappointing element of the entire stimulus melodrama was the absence of the President and his economic council of wise men in the drafting of this abominable legislation. As I noted weeks ago, the great ironic travesty of this trillion-dollar bill was that it was farmed out to the lower branches of the Democratic Party's political tree.
If I had to pick one of two options, I would have to choose misogyny over racism--but that accusation rings equally hollow.
However, there are actually two things wrong with this cartoon.
1. It is not hilarious. The gag was not nearly obvious or powerful enough. If this thing had made somebody somewhere laugh (or even smirk), it would have gone down much smoother.
2. No matter how innocent (or plausibly deniable) the cartoon may be, a depiction of a monkey that can be placed any where near this first African American president definitely deserved more deliberation than the editorial board of the NY Post evidently saw fit to grant it.
Really Obvious Observation: this is the last monkey we will see in a political cartoon or any other media for the next eight years.
Having said that, even if the Post should have known better, this firestorm of misplaced indignation does not diminish the sadly obvious fact that we live in a world gone mad.
Category: Religion and History
Posted by: an okie gardener
Essay, originally in The American Spectator, reprinted in the Institute for Religion and Democracy
20/02: Bet You Can't Hold Still
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
Listen to this embed video and just try not to move. Make even clumsy white guys like me boogie in the office chair. Juke-joint pedal steel supreme. From the Infidel Bloggers' Alliance.
Here are a couple of tracks from my favorite juke-joint band: The North Mississippi All-Stars.
From the 2006 Blues Festival in Clarksdale.
From Bonnaroo 2007.
Here are a couple of tracks from my favorite juke-joint band: The North Mississippi All-Stars.
From the 2006 Blues Festival in Clarksdale.
From Bonnaroo 2007.
Category: American History and Politics
Posted by: an okie gardener
Interesting. Here, video embed from the Rott.
Okie Gardner recently pointed out that The Market Is Not God. I'm pleased to see the note of caution on pure reliance on "the market." Smith calls pricing (supply/demand) the "Invisible Hand," and claims that when individuals act in self-interest they end up working in society's interest. He never said anything about the "Infallible Hand."
Another issue we've got to look at is that Smith's conception of "society" is no longer synonymous with "nation." It was understood early on that while self-interested capitalist action would be beneficial to society overall, it would certainly be more beneficial to some than to others. When a market is wholly contained within a state, the government can regulate these "market failures." The problem now is the markets, particularly the oil market as pointed out by okie gardner, are world-wide rather than national. Therefore, the disproportional accrual of benefits is not just going to the Rockefellers, but to the al-Sauds and the Nevzlins.
And that's the way the market works. Those with the capital, resources, and entrepreneurship are going to get the big bucks, which, the way our international political economy is structured, equals power. An honest advocate for a purely free-market must accept that (and all it means) and move on.
The bigger problem comes when we look to market principles and expect that the market should and always will favor America. Yes, it has for a long time in a lot of areas. But it won't always, and it certainly won't in all sectors. I'd cite a few examples, but I take it you've turned on the news sometime this year.
So, I'd tag a modifier to Gardener's statement - The market is not God, and it is most certainly not a god who prefers America over all others. So if regarding the "Market" as absolute borders on idolatry, holding un-regulated market solutions invariably to be the best policy is also unpatriotic.
[I may tackle Gardener's other topic, which economists politely label as "negative externalities" in another post. Needless to say, this is another area in which market regulation is a net benefit.]
Another issue we've got to look at is that Smith's conception of "society" is no longer synonymous with "nation." It was understood early on that while self-interested capitalist action would be beneficial to society overall, it would certainly be more beneficial to some than to others. When a market is wholly contained within a state, the government can regulate these "market failures." The problem now is the markets, particularly the oil market as pointed out by okie gardner, are world-wide rather than national. Therefore, the disproportional accrual of benefits is not just going to the Rockefellers, but to the al-Sauds and the Nevzlins.
And that's the way the market works. Those with the capital, resources, and entrepreneurship are going to get the big bucks, which, the way our international political economy is structured, equals power. An honest advocate for a purely free-market must accept that (and all it means) and move on.
The bigger problem comes when we look to market principles and expect that the market should and always will favor America. Yes, it has for a long time in a lot of areas. But it won't always, and it certainly won't in all sectors. I'd cite a few examples, but I take it you've turned on the news sometime this year.
So, I'd tag a modifier to Gardener's statement - The market is not God, and it is most certainly not a god who prefers America over all others. So if regarding the "Market" as absolute borders on idolatry, holding un-regulated market solutions invariably to be the best policy is also unpatriotic.
[I may tackle Gardener's other topic, which economists politely label as "negative externalities" in another post. Needless to say, this is another area in which market regulation is a net benefit.]
19/02: The Democracy of the Dead
Are tradition and democracy necessarily opposed to one another? G.K. Chesterton concluded just the opposite. In a chapter entitled "The Ethics of Elfland" in his book Orthodoxy, Chesterton wrote the following:
But there is one thing that I have never from my youth up been able to understand. I have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record. The man who quotes some German historian against the tradition of the Catholic Church, for instance, is strictly appealing to aristocracy. He is appealing to the superiority of one expert against the awful authority of a mob. It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad. Those who urge against tradition that men in the past were ignorant may go and urge it at the Carlton Club, along with the statement that voters in the slums are ignorant. It will not do for us. If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters, there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable. Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea.
What do you think?
But there is one thing that I have never from my youth up been able to understand. I have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record. The man who quotes some German historian against the tradition of the Catholic Church, for instance, is strictly appealing to aristocracy. He is appealing to the superiority of one expert against the awful authority of a mob. It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad. Those who urge against tradition that men in the past were ignorant may go and urge it at the Carlton Club, along with the statement that voters in the slums are ignorant. It will not do for us. If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters, there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable. Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea.
What do you think?
18/02: Don't Miss This
Category: Honeymoon Over?
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
Thomas Sowell on NRO today explains why the "honeymoon" may never end for President Obama:
“the will to believe.”
“the will to believe.”
My "Forgotten English" word today is gardyloo. Citations from two old dictionaries define the word as a warning cry given when the contents of chamber pots were thrown from windows into the street or alley below.
For those of you born in the latter 20th century, a chamber pot is a bucket with a lid kept in the house, perhaps in the bedroom, so that one need not make the trip to the outhouse in the dark. An outhouse, or privy, for those of you in ignorance of pre-indoor plumbing architecture, is a small building built over a pit for the purpose of relieving oneself.
Growing up when and where I did (the 19th century lingered late in Sullivan County, Missouri) I am familiar both with outhouses and chamber pots.
The greatest health-care breakthrough in human history was the development of sanitary sewers and waste-water treatment. Before then, all cities were subject to regular outbreaks of disease carried by sewage. In early America when traveling, cities could be smelled before seen if the wind were right. Sanitary sewers and waste-water treatment, along with clean drinking water treatment and delivery systems, have saved more lives than perhaps any other single idea.
Water and sewer services must be community based. It makes no sense to speak of "rugged individualism" when considering clean water and sewage treatment for New York City. America is a nation built upon communities just as much or more than on "rugged individualism", contra Rush. Traditional Mainstreet Midwest Conservatism has always known this.
The History of Sanitary Sewers
How Sewer Systems Work
A History of Drinking Water Treatment
For those of you born in the latter 20th century, a chamber pot is a bucket with a lid kept in the house, perhaps in the bedroom, so that one need not make the trip to the outhouse in the dark. An outhouse, or privy, for those of you in ignorance of pre-indoor plumbing architecture, is a small building built over a pit for the purpose of relieving oneself.
Growing up when and where I did (the 19th century lingered late in Sullivan County, Missouri) I am familiar both with outhouses and chamber pots.
The greatest health-care breakthrough in human history was the development of sanitary sewers and waste-water treatment. Before then, all cities were subject to regular outbreaks of disease carried by sewage. In early America when traveling, cities could be smelled before seen if the wind were right. Sanitary sewers and waste-water treatment, along with clean drinking water treatment and delivery systems, have saved more lives than perhaps any other single idea.
Water and sewer services must be community based. It makes no sense to speak of "rugged individualism" when considering clean water and sewage treatment for New York City. America is a nation built upon communities just as much or more than on "rugged individualism", contra Rush. Traditional Mainstreet Midwest Conservatism has always known this.
The History of Sanitary Sewers
How Sewer Systems Work
A History of Drinking Water Treatment
