If you look around, it turns out that the Anglophone countries, the Nordics, Switzerland, and Netherlands are the oldest established permanent floating constitutional democracies in the world. And they’re also generally the least-corrupt countries. And generally the most-prosperous. I think this is generally a question of joint causation and mutually re-enforcing trends rather than democratic governance leading to the adoption of “good policies.” All these countries are actually full of stupid policies—in Sweden a privately owned store can’t sell Tylenol and the United States invaded Iraq to eliminate a nonexistent nuclear weapons program—but we succeed nonetheless. By contrast I’m not sure having Joseph Kabila call up a bunch of smart policy wonks would do a ton of good. And in general, we’ve had a lot more success having people from badly-governed countries move to better-governed ones than in having people from well-governed countries show up in badly-governed ones and tell them how to do things.

This is pretty much true. Policy is important, but deeper civic and cultural attitudes are more important to the continued well-being of a democratic society. That being said, a lot of the nitty-gritty of policy debate is going to have consequences down the road. Maybe it won’t change the basic fact that the Anglophone countries, the Nordic countries, Switzerland, and the Netherlands are all basically still the most free, liberal societies in the world. But it will effect things like upward mobility, long-term financial stability, and unemployment rates. Likewise, civil liberties are directly impacted by specific policies, and certain policies that either diminish or enhance our civil liberties can have massive social impacts. And yes, the more liberal, democratic countries are going to generally trend toward better civil liberties than many of their counterparts, but the war on terror, the war on drugs, and the rest of our very bad social policies have very real, very direct impacts on our society and citizenry. Policy matters, I think, because it can create sea changes in the very cultural assumptions that helped shape our societies in the first place – assumptions like what level of privacy we should expect in our own homes, bodies, or while traveling. So there’s a bit of a chicken and egg thing going on here.

Yglesias finishes with, “I think democracies do well largely because the norms it takes to keep a democracy going are generally beneficial rather than because democracy leads to smart policies.” This underscores just how viciously untrue the myth is that we can somehow ‘spread democracy’. Unless those social and civic norms are in place already, a society that hasn’t been democratic isn’t going to become democratic overnight. The reason Germany was able to revert to democracy after the fall of the Third Reich was exactly because democracy had already taken root there prior to the rise of Hitler. Fifty years later, the Russians were nowhere near as prepared to accept democracy when communist rule came to an end which is why Russia is nothing at all like an actual democratic state today. And Iraq not only had no history of democratic rule, but not really any cultural or intellectual democratic past either. Iran does, to some degree, but notions of democracy and freedom in Iran would still be almost unintelligible to Westerners. Afghanistan is even less rooted in any familiar traditions, making our continued presence there even more foolish and wrong-headed.

In any case, one last thing to note is that policy is important because it is something we chose to do. We have to debate policy because it’s something we have some control over.

If you’ve enjoyed reading me here, you can also read me and a number of other excellent writers at my primary digs, The League of Ordinary Gentlemen. I also write at the Washington Examiner’s Opinion Zone blog. Or you can follow me on Twitter. Meanwhile – and for now at least – I will have this blog archived here, and will continue it there as well. So lots of places to find me if that’s something you’re interested in doing.

Thanks to all the regular readers and commenters who make this all that much more fun. Your insights, scathing criticisms, and witty banter were all very much appreciated. Come comment and berate me at these other places as well. Keeps me honest.

Adieu, adieu. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Which has been cleverly compared to this famous Al Pacino bit:

I wonder when someone will have the guts to give Mr. Weiner the same treatment over his severely hawkish and – dare I say morally reprehensible – views on Israel?

At issue is the scope of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s power to obtain information from “electronic communications service providers” using national security letters (NLS), which compel private companies to allow government access to communication records without a court order. The administration wants to add four words — “electronic communication transactional records” — to Section 2709 of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which spells out the types of communications data that can be obtained with an NSL. Yet those four little words would make a huge difference, potentially allowing investigators to draw detailed road maps of the online activity of citizens not even suspected of any connection to terrorism.

This has serious implications for our privacy online, and represents a serious expansion of government into our personal lives – giving anyone concerned with government overreach yet another reason to have serious doubts about this administration’s commitment to civil liberties. Unfortunately, the vast majority of progressive activists don’t seem all that concerned with this or any other abuse of power the current administration has carried over from their predecessors or expanded upon.

Sanchez ends on a chilling note:

We increasingly live online. We flirt, shop, read, speak out, and organize in a virtual space where nearly every action leaves a digital trace — and where those breadcrumb bits often track us through the physical world as well. If the Obama administration gets its way, an agency that has already proved itself utterly unable to respect the limits of its authority will have discretion to map our digital lives in potentially astonishing detail, with no judge looking over their shoulders. That the administration and the FBI would seek such power under the guise of a “technical clarification” is proof enough that they cannot be trusted with it.

As I’m fond of saying, things will get worse before they get better.

First off, should bloggers face lawsuits for posting misleading information about political figures or anyone else for that matter?

In Britain, libel laws are so lax that bloggers and others in the media are effectively censored by the threat posed by potential lawsuits. Often just the threat of a lawsuit is enough to shut down a potentially controversial report. Whether or not Breitbart was right or wrong to post the video, should he face civil penalties for doing so? What repercussions might this have on the blogosphere and the American media writ large? What does this say about the state of free speech in America?

Second, Sherrod is very unlikely to win her suit in the first place. As a public figure making public remarks, suing for defamation becomes extremely difficult and with good reason. As Ed Morrissey notes:

Sherrod is a public official, which makes that kind of lawsuit darned near impossible.  Breitbart used the clip to criticize the NAACP, not Sherrod directly, although she certainly came into the line of fire.  People are allowed to criticize public officials in harsh and even unfair terms, especially when they make public remarks.

A court is not likely to look favorably on this for another reason — Sherrod’s public statements about Breitbart. She accused him of being pro-slavery, which is a ridiculous and demagogic attack.  Even if a court somehow found that Breitbart acted with malice specifically towards Sherrod to a level that overcomes the right to criticize public officials and that he lied about Sherrod specifically in doing so, under those same terms Breitbart would have a countercase against Sherrod.  Otherwise, Breitbart has become enough of a public figure that Sherrod’s statements about him would probably not be actionable, either.

Which leaves us with a whole lot of sound and fury. Breitbart will come out of the mess with more publicity and a stronger brand. Sherrod will have her extended fifteen minutes of fame. And the Obama administration will try to quietly navigate the sidelines, hoping desperately that the focus stays on Breitbart and not on the fact that it was the USDA that actually forced Sherrod out.

In the end, I doubt this will add up to anything more than some extra filler for the chattering class’s slow summer.

Last night the United States Senate voted to double the penalties for the nation’s newest existential threat: brownies made with marijuana!

The Senate unanimously passed Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)’s “Saving Kids from Dangerous Drugs Act of 2009″ (S. 258) that targets pot brownies and other marijuana edibles preferred by some medical marijuana patients. The bill next moves to the House; if it passes that chamber, anyone making pot brownies or similar products could be subject to double the fines and jail time for regular marijuana.

Marijuana prohibitionists often hide behind vague threats to children, and DiFi’s bill is no different. Her “Saving Kids from Dangerous Drugs Act” is framed to make politicians afraid to oppose. “How dare you voted against saving kids from dangerous drugs?” But DiFi doubled down on the “Reefer Madness”-style hysteria. In championing this bill, Feinstein raised the spectre of “candy flavored meth“ as the target of her bill.

Andrew writes:

Candy-flavored meth? 

Here’s the invaluable Snopes (admittedly from 2007, but that’s when Feinstein first started peddling this nonsense — in partnership, needless to say, with a Republican co-conspirator, Chuck Grassley) on this menace to the nation. Read it and ponder again the foolishness that is Washington, D.C.

The good news? I’m quoting the ultra-left-wing Firedoglaker and the right-wing National Review, both agreeing that this is absurd, stupid, nonsense. We have consensus, people!

The bad news is that the nonsense itself is also bipartisan, and the Senators have a bit more power than bloggers.

They’ve got the guns, as they say, but we’ve got the numbers.

Well that’s not exactly true. I don’t typically blog on Saturdays, so I will likely sign off some time today. But not yet!

The war on drugs has made not one iota of difference on the consumption of drugs in America. It has stripped Americans of our liberties, robbed us of our tax dollars, and sent countless young men and women, many of whom are non-violent offenders, into jails and prisons across the country. The countless other side effects of the drug wars are too many to list, but it’s a tragedy for this country and I hope we’ll elect brave enough politicians in the future to bring an end to this farce.

(Via the Dish)