Month: May 2010

Cracks In The Cocoon

Kevin Williamson skewers Supply Side dogma in his piece at National Review:

There is no evidence that the [Bush] tax cuts on net produced more revenue than the Treasury would have realized without them. That claim could be true — if we were to credit most or all of the economic growth during the period in question to tax cuts, but that is an awfully big claim, one that no serious economist would be likely to entertain. It’s a just-so story, a bedtime fairy tale Republicans tell themselves to shake off fear of the deficit bogeyman. It’s whistling past the fiscal graveyard. But this kind of talk is distressingly unremarkable in Republican political circles.

See the tea-party know-nothing here. Douthat applauded the piece (as did Nyhan, Yglesias, and Kain). Mark Levin responded in his usual talk-radio manner, which inspired Williamson to write:

When I first read Manzi's much-remarked-upon remarks re: Mark, I thought them unduly harsh. I am revising that opinion, just a little.

Yglesias Award Nominee

"Democrats tend to be more interested in legislating than in managing. They come to office filled with irrational exuberance, pass giant fur balls of legislation — stuff that often sounds fabulous, in principle — and expect a stultified bureaucracy, bereft of the incentives and punishments of the private sector, to manage it all with the efficiency of a bounty hunter. This has always been the strongest conservative argument against government activism. Traditionally, Republicans were more concerned with good management than Democrats — until the Reagan era, when the "government is the problem" mantra took hold. If you don't believe in government, you don't bother much with governing efficiently. You hire political cronies for jobs that professionals should be doing. Eventually, you wind up with the former head of the Arabian Horse Association — the infamous Michael Brown — trying to organize federal aid after Hurricane Katrina," – Joe Klein.

This is an indictment of the press as well. We are much more interested in the ideological fights and the horse race than we are with how new laws are actually implemented. Take health care reform. Much of what is good in the bill requires very careful enforcement, administration, cost-awareness, and fiscal vigilance. Will any of us – apart from Ezra Klein and Jon Cohn – be paying as much attention to the implementation as we did to the fooferaw of its actual legislative process?

I know it's boring. But government is boring – and necessary.

Re-Branding Or Re-Tooling?

768px-Conservative_logo_2006.svg

Jonathan Foreman has a strongly negative view of the Tory re-branding efforts over at FrumForum:

That the party leadership had absorbed the marketing men’s contempt for voters was all too obvious in the Conservatives wretchedly patronizing advertising campaigns. That Cameron and Co. had little apparent understanding of the needs of ordinary people – and were obsessively concerned with the good opinion of small but influential metropolitan elites –  was reflected in their inability or unwillingness to engage boldly with issues like law and order and immigration that could well have won them many votes in the Labour heartland.

It is possible that the Tories, having squandered their lead in the polls earlier this year may still win a majority tomorrow. But if they do, credit is due less to their own efforts than to the failures of their opponents.

I don't think this is that far off-base, but I do know that the Tory brand was in such terrible shape five years ago that even if they had the best and clearest policies in the world, no one would have voted for them. That's why Cameron dedicated himself so passionately to a new image before new policies. The context of this election is three previous elections in which the Tories were creamed, when the rump of MPS had become almost as unhinged as today's GOP, when the Conservatives had begun to seem like an anachronism in a far more multicultural, diverse and restless society that Thatcherism had unwittingly spawned.

This in fact was the great irony of British conservatism in my lifetime.

Thatcher campaigned on smaller government, lower taxes and social conservatism. But the vibrant economy that followed did more to undermine traditional England than anything Labour could have done. Small towns became dependent on nationally branded super-stores, migrants and immigrants poured in, gays became mainstream, the environment became a consensus national issue, cosmopolitanism sank deep into even the most traditional of places. Re-branding was essential if the Tories were going to survive at all in the Britain they had themselves created.

Some of this led to mushy marketing nonsense. But the idea of a campaign that would have appealed mainly to Daily Mail readers and former Labour voters upset by the number of Poles in their neighborhoods was a non-starter. For a long time, I favored a strong Thatcherism as a vital formula. But it was tried three times and failed catastrophically. It made my friend, the immensely gifted and capable William Hagie, an electoral loser of historic proportions. The only reason the Tories have an uphill shot today is that the huge Labour majority that still endured after 13 years – a function of long Tory irrelevance – is such a steep hill to climb.

Besides, the Tories have offered the most credible commitment to fiscal sanity in the near future – and that, in this climate, is enough.

Interrogator #1

Ackerman witnesses the testimony of a Gitmo guard accused of threatening a 20 year-old Canadian with rape and death if he did not tell him what he wanted to hear:

Interrogator #1 would tell the detainee, “I know you’re lying about something.” And so, for an instruction about the consequences of lying, Khadr learned that lying “not so seriously” wouldn’t land him in a place like “Cuba” — meaning, presumably, Guantanamo Bay — but an American prison instead. And this one time, a “poor little 20-year-old kid” sent from Afghanistan ended up in an American prison for lying to an American. “A bunch of big black guys and big Nazis noticed the little Afghan didn’t speak their language, and prayed five times a day — he’s Muslim,” Interrogator #1 said. Although the fictitious inmates were criminals, “they’re still patriotic,” and the guards “can’t be everywhere at once.”

“So this one unfortunate time, he’s in the shower by himself, and these four big black guys show up — and it’s terrible something would happen — but they caught him in the shower and raped him. And it’s terrible that these things happen, the kid got hurt and ended up dying,” Interrogator #1 said. […]

This interrogator was the only one who found Omar Khadr “uncooperative.” He was later court-martialed and jailed for detainee abuse.

The Contemptible “Small Government” Fraud Of The Tea Party, Ctd

A reader writes:

Re:

"These people are thoroughgoing frauds – a bunch of right-wing victim-mongers whining about something they have no actual ideas about confronting. They are not something new. They are the decaying stench of the Republican corpse. If they get into power somehow, it will be Weekend At Bernie's for conservatism."

I'd offer one slight alteration — the Bush administration was Weekend at Bernie's for conservatism; if they return to power, it will just be the Weekend at Bernie's sequel that never should have happened.

“Ritual Genital Cutting Of Female Minors”

As euphemisms go, it’s not as powerful as “circumcision” but its potential to legitimize the mutilation of young girls’ genitals seems horrifying to me. PZ Myers brings to light the fact that the American Academy Of Pediatrics – yes, the American Academy of Pediatrics – is endorsing a kinder, gentler version of female genital mutilation for cultural reasons in America:

Most forms of FGC are decidedly harmful, and pediatricians should decline to perform them, even in the absence of any legal constraints. However, the ritual nick suggested by some pediatricians is not physically harmful and is much less extensive than routine newborn male genital cutting. There is reason to believe that offering such a compromise may build trust between hospitals and immigrant communities, save some girls from undergoing disfiguring and life- threatening procedures in their native countries, and play a role in the eventual eradication of FGC. It might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm.

PZ notes this particularly loathesome passage from the AAP’s statement:

“Mutilation” is an inflammatory term that tends to foreclose communication and that fails to respect the experience of the many women who have had their genitals altered and who do not perceive themselves as “mutilated.” It is paradoxical to recommend “culturally sensitive counseling” while using culturally insensitive language. “Female genital cutting” is a neutral, descriptive term.

I heartily second PZ’s endorsement of Equality Now, a group I’ve donated to and supported in the past, and which is a vanguard in defending core human rights, with respect to women. Equality Now is horrified by this concession to political correctness – check out their alert page here.

What I find particularly troubling is the slow adoption of attitudes toward female genital mutilation that still adhere to male genital mutilation. FGM in its severest forms is far, far worse. But MGM is an indefensible denial of core human integrity and autonomy – and yet its widespread acceptance has helped make “female genital cutting” more acceptable. If men or women wish to mutilate their own genitals as adults, that it their choice. But forcing this onto infants, male and female, even if it is just a cut or a nick, is a form of barbarism.

The Hubris Of Greenspan

A staggering quote from a man who later confessed he had no idea what had happened in the financial collapse of 2008:

"We run the risk, by laying out the pros and cons of a particular argument, of inducing people to join in on the debate, and in this regard it is possible to lose control of a process that only we fully understand."

This man is a Hayekian?