Month: September 2011

Alexander Downes sees patterns:

The reasons for consistent failure are straightforward. Regime change often produces violence because it inevitably privileges some individuals or groups and alienates others. Intervening forces seek to install their preferred leadership but usually have little knowledge of the politics of the target country or of the backlash their preference is likely to engender. Moreover, interveners often lack the will or commitment to remain indefinitely in the face of violent resistance, which encourages opponents to keep fighting. Regime change generally fails to promote democracy because installing pliable dictators is in the intervener’s interest and because many target states lack the necessary preconditions for democracy.

A collection of responses to Downes' argument can be found here. James Fearon thinks Downes is missing an essential point about the motivation for American interventions:

Is it true that U.S. leaders typically don’t realize that intervention for regime change can increase the risk of civil war, that today’s puppet may not last long and subsequent ones may be less pliable, and that democracy may not flourish as a result? I doubt it. I suspect that when these considerations do not dissuade policymakers from attempting regime change, they typically go ahead for some combination of three other reasons: they don’t care, they think there are other benefits that regime change will most effectively realize, and they think the alternatives are even worse.

Because it's not over:

Nothing:

Staff Sergeant Rebecca Grant toured overseas in Bosnia and Iraq. In 2009, a fellow soldier revealed that Grant is transgender, leading to her official discharge earlier this month. While she told WFPL News in Louisville, Ky., that getting rid of "don't ask, don't tell" is a positive step in the right direction, she added that there's still no protection for transgender people serving in the military…Currently, eight U.S. allies permit transgender people to serve openly, including the Czech Republic, Israel, and Great Britain. U.S. Army regulations state that transgender people are unfit to serve. Grant was discharged because of gender identity disorder. 

Bruno Frey and Margit Osterloh assemble the case against pay-for-performance:

The idea that people are solely self-interested and materially orientated has been thrown overboard by leading scholars. Empirical research, in particular experimental research, has shown that under suitable conditions human beings care for the wellbeing of other persons. Above all, they are not solely interested in material gains. Recognition by co-workers is greatly important. Many workers are intrinsically motivated, ie they perform work for its own sake because it is found challenging and worth undertaking. 

Arnold King focuses on the implications for public policy:

When a remote authority sets incentives, people respond by manipulating the system. This fact is poorly understood by education reformers who are fond of pay-for-performance and national standards, by health care reformers who are fond of paying for quality, and by financial regulators. … The Hayekian story here is that effective compensation practices require local knowledge and tacit knowledge.

Not really:

There is no well-designed research showing that single-sex (SS) education improves students’ academic performance, but there is evidence that sex segregation increases gender stereotyping and legitimizes institutional sexism.

Kay Steiger is unsurprised:

I think a lot of the reasons we are inclined toward single-sex education in the first place has are rooted in our stereotypes about gender. You see single-sex education advocates throwing around generalizations like, “boys are good at X,” or “girls learn better by doing Y.”

Penelope Truck anticipates that the "future of the Internet is design": 

[I]f you don’t get on the brevity bandwagon, no one will listen. And presenting information visually is one of the most reliable ways to present it with brevity.

Our latest infograph, on the dismal state of the American workforce, here.

(Hat tip: The Browser. Detail from "Infographic of Infographics" via Ivan Cash.) 

A reader gets creative:

The $1 coin is a great idea – but it cannot succeed in isolation. We need to do three things together:  get rid of the penny, put the $1 coin into wide circulation, and bring back the (long-neglected) $2 Jefferson note. This solution solves the problem of what to do with cash registers. The slot for the pennies is replaced with dollar coins.  And the place for Washington dollars is replaced with $2 bills.  When getting change for a $10 bill, wouldn't you prefer four $2 notes and a couple of coins?  

But whatever we do, we should get rid of the penny, which is a ridiculously small unit of exchange. I've traveled extensively in Indonesia, for example, where the per capital income is the equivalent of about $4,000 per year.  Even in the places where tourists rarely visit, the smallest unit of currency typically used is worth about 11 cents.  Sometimes, you'll see coins that are worth about a nickel. But below that, the merchant will usually either round it to your benefit or hand you a little sweet to make up the difference.  

If the powers that be want to use decimalization for pricing securities, commercial-sized orders of textiles, or even for card payments, fine. But for cash transactions, let's at least agree we can get rid of the penny.  

 

Today on the Dish, Andrew despaired that Obama's attempt Israeli diplomacy couldn't achieve a Palestinian state, but reflected on the relative peace of modern times. Contra Corey Robin, Andrew contemplated why moderation can be conservative in the right time and place, and the National Review went cruising. Andrew praised the English garden in today's video feature and Saleh's return to Yemen didn't bode well for civil war there. Thomas P.M. Barnett wanted the US to ingratiate itself to other countries in the Mideast by disassociating with Pakistan, but mediation between India and Pakistan could help.

On the election front, we were still waiting for Perry's economic plan to materialize, while Perry's tuition policy for immigrants makes total economic sense, if he'd only defend it. David Brooks lost faith in Huntsman, we counted down the days till Palin's decision, and she revealed her insecurity by dissing the presidency. We weighed Chris Christie's charisma and weight, pizza-man Cain pulled head-to-head with Perry and Romney in the race, and Tom Tancredo seized on Perry's Norquist relationship. Dan Amira argued for Florida's right to an early vote, and Perry-campaign hathos alert here. Teaparty.com didn't look like a good investment when you consider the bad Canadian rock that birthed it, at least McGinniss got a fair trial up north, and we examined the demands of the Wall Street protests.

Balko called the US out for sanitizing the death penalty by using unreliable injections rather than the firing squad and the jury is still out about the death penalty's ability to deter crime. Obamacare was headed for the Supreme Court, and Frum believed Romney is the only candidate with a reasonable approach to reforming the ACA. Suspect sketches mess with our images of the perpetrator, the DEA knocked on the wrong door, and you should treat the First Amendment like you treat your penis. Dental care remained a luxury for most Americans, and the US wins the honor of the only country without legally mandated vacation days. Readers lobbied for the best way to raise kids in either cities or suburbs and Reihan wanted the gas tax to work more like a metro card. Traffic congestion isn't cheap, Keith Boyea offered a Camus-view of DC bureaucracy, and gay gangs in DC fought back. Amazon, Google and Apple fought for the tablet market, Google caught itself in a win-win feedback loop of data, and opticians reconsidered the impact of lasers on airline pilots. Hanna Brooks Olsen defended the right of young women to get their tubes tied, and evangelical Christians weren't waiting for marriage to do the deed.

Email of the day here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

–Z.P.

A reader writes:

Just a reminder of Oakeshott's view of Burke, from "On Being Conservative":

"And, in my opinion, there is more to be learnt about this disposition from Montaigne, Pascal, Hobbes and Hume than from Burke or Bentham."

And, furthermore, let us recall that Hayek rejected the term conservative. See his essay titled …"Why I am not a Conservative."