Month: September 2009

Joshua Tucker is in favor of the Obama administration scrapping the missile shield but offers one caveat:

[T]his is not a costless decision. Anytime we change our mind on military commitments to allies, [there] are costs down the road to doing so. And both the Polish and Czech governments have borne serious costs to move this program along to where it now stands with their own populations – which were far from uniformly enthusiastic about these proposals, especially in the Czech Republic – so we want to be very careful about the impression that we have left these important allies hanging in the wind. I would hope the administration would take damage control in this regard very seriously, and I expect to see details coming out over the next few days about what exactly we are doing to ameliorate the Poles and the Czechs.

AtlanticWire rounds up more commentary in support of ending the program and records the Cold War nostalgia on the right. I happened to catch part of Fox News last night when Krauthammer and Barnes were in full mid-1980s mode. When will they wake up and realize that communism isn't around any more?

Contra Fred Kaplan and Fareed Zakaria, Joanna Nathan says it's a bad idea to nation-build in Afghanistan through bribes:

Rented allies are not reliable allies. Simply buying or bribing more commanders of whatever ilk will mean more instability in an environment where entrenched interests in a war economy are already playing the international community — not the other way around. Money is leverage and the populations of both Afghanistan and the U.S. need to be involved in debating how it is spent, rather than grubby backhanders. This must include clearly agreed public standards and measures — and sanctions if they are not met. I am not saying this is easy, but simply blindly backing individuals has already been tried and failed. The top priority must be a real commitment to nation-building and trying to ensure an administration and institutions worth joining.

In other words, long-term neo-imperialism in Muslim countries. It's what this war has led us to. It's that or withdrawal. I know what I think is the saner, cheaper option, though neither one guarantees our safety.

The anti-gay forces are pounding Maine with exactly the same scare tactics that worked in California. Most of the pro-gay ads are as lame as they were in California as well – and the vote is close. Sigh. In New Jersey, however, Corzine just said he hoped to sign marriage equality legislation later this year. And in the strange, diverse world that is America, George Takei and husband will be the first gay couple on the Newlywed Game.

Americans still buy the idea that Obama has genuinely reached out to his opponents. I know many liberals are frustrated, but Obama's reasonableness is critical to his presidency. And although it is countered by a thousand attacks, it isn't lost on many. 56 percent of Independents believe this.

"I've always been a Republican for the traditional principles that have been associated with the Republican party since I became a Republican, when I registered to vote. And that is limited government, individual opportunities, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense. So I think those principles have always been a part of the Republican party heritage. And I believe that I reflect those views and I haven't changed as a Republican. I think more that my party has changed," – Senator Olympia Snowe. 

James Kwak calls the Baucus bill's CBO estimate a "meaningless number, for two reasons":

The first is that this is just the cost side; it doesn’t take into account how those expenses are financed. The House bill has a net cost of $239 billion, not $1 trillion; why everyone focuses on the $1 trillion number while talking ominously about government deficits makes no sense to me. So if you really want to be selling the Baucus bill, you should be pointing to the $49 billion that the CBO says the bill will save the government over the next ten years.

The second is that the cost number is an accounting fiction. One reason the Baucus bill is “cheaper” than the House bill is that it has lower subsidies. For illustration, let’s assume that the whole $140 billion difference is due to lower subsidies. Relative to the House bill, then, the Baucus bill costs the government $140 billion less; but it costs middle-income people exactly $140 billion more, since they have to buy health insurance. The difference is that in the House bill, the money comes from taxes on the very rich; in the Baucus bill, it comes out of the pockets of the middle-class people who are getting smaller subsidies. Put another way, the Baucus bill is the House bill, plus a $140 billion tax on people making around $40-80,000 per year. That’ s not only stupid policy; it’s stupid politics.

A reader writes:

It sounds as if you think that the two forces, Atheism and Religion, need to be kept from fighting.  But the idea that some 'middle ground' can be reached and held is fallacious.  This conflict is going to happen.  Both sides hopefully will keep civil of course, but promoting a middle ground here is similar to saying gays shouldn't demand marriage when they can settle for the easier civil unions.  Or that African Americans should accept segregation instead of fighting for full freedoms and equality.

As an atheist I'd be very happy if all theists took up Armstrong's fluffy definition of God, we'd all be safer for sure, but Dawkins point

isn't that compromise is bad, the point is that it is untenable.

Our disagreement is with the dangerous parts of religion, but you and I come to different conclusions with how to defeat them.  You think they can be convinced that their God is more abstract then they think so they'll be less judgmental, and we think they should let go if it completely like many of us have done happily.

Either position, however, is just as opposed to a serious theist.  It is natural and expected in social conflicts like this for there to be peacemakers like Armstrong who hope to diffuse the conflict by recasting the terms of the debate.  But Dawkin's criticism is not because Armstrong wants to play peacemaker, but because her abstract concept of God will not end the conflict.  Armstrong's position is weak theology, and weak theology is easily used by fanatics to 'purify' the faith and return to the fundamentals.  Dawkins is trying to promote a world view that many think is much better suited to protect against man's ability to delude himself that a Supernatural wants him to save the world from 'the others'.  This conflict, like gay rights, will play out over decades upon decades, but to try hush the debate by offering up confusing and poorly defined middle ground is in the end not helpful, even if well intentioned.

I understand where you're coming from I really do, but Dawkins is staring down a monster and Armstrong thinks we should just put it in a cage for display.  But a cage will not hold forever.

I have Armstrong's book and will say more once I've read it.

Austin Considine wants to refocus the health care debate. The first video in a series:

Faces of American Health Care, Part 1 from austin considine o Rich Text n Vimeo.

Ackerman weighs the pros and cons.