Young Sentinel--Politics by the younger generation

Gun Control: Why It Makes Sense

noreply@blogger.com (GBucello) — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 22:20:00 +0000

by WashDCDemocrat

Did you guys miss me? I know I've already posted an article on this, but after the Florida School Board Shooting and other recent events, I thought this issue needed revisiting and that critics needed to be refuted.

Argument: Allowing more people to own weapons gives them better protection against violent crime. When assaulted, a person has more of an ability to respond.

While it's true that the wide availability of firearms allows more people to own weapons, it also allows more weapons to go into the hands of people with ill intent. The Department of Justice reported that, in 1993, 29% of victims of violent crimes faced an offender with a firearm. In addition, "most of the guns used in crimes originated as legally sold items" (Steve Steel of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms office in Dallas, qtd. in the Houston Chronicle 1997).

Argument: Controlling weapons does nothing to counter the illegal guns that criminals can acquire. Outlawing guns means that only outlaws will have guns.

Common sense ought to tell us that if fewer people are buying guns (as fewer people would with gun control), output of guns would go down, and prices would go up. If that is the case, the number of illegal guns ought to remain the same. A recent incident in France, where several school children were held hostage by a sword-weilding youth, drew the normal snide remarks of "enstate a sword ban!" The fact is, however, without strict gun laws, the story could've just as easily been one of a youth weilding two handguns rather than two swords.

Argument: Criminalizing or controlling guns is the action of a government fearful of its people. It is the first step towards ensuring that civil liberties can be violated without any response of the citizens.

The fact is, the government does fear its citizens - but not in the sence that there will be a revolution. The fear is that a person may follow the path of the Florida School Board shooter, using a legal gun to commit illegal acts and put innocent lives at risk, which is a valid fear. What isn't valid is hyper-paranoia of government actions impeding on ordinary life. As people, we have to understand that our drunk neighbor toting a shotgun is a much (if not more) of a threat than a nameless, faceless FBI agent.

I don't, by any means, support an outright ban on gun ownership (though that would solve a number of problems I outlined above) simply because of the difficulty involved in enacting such a policy. However, nothing stops us from maintaining and enforcing current gun control laws - a responsibility that we owe to our communities and our fellow citizens.

Restoring Truthiness

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 00:04:00 +0000

by Eyck Freymann

via Slashdot: A grassroots campaign has begun to get Stephen Colbert to hold a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to counter Glenn Beck's recent 'Restoring Honor' event. The would-be rally has been dubbed 'Restoring Truthiness' and was inspired by a recent post on Reddit, where a young woman wondered if the only way to point out the absurdity of the Tea Party's rally would be if Colbert mirrored it with his own Colbert Nation

I'm in.

Eugene Robinson Speaks Wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:20:00 +0000

by Eyck Freymann

Eugene Robinson has an excellent article in the Washington Post today called The spoiled-brat American electorate. I don't want to misrepresent his argument, so I'm not going to paraphrase. Here it is in full.

According to polls, Americans are in a mood to hold their breath until they turn blue. Voters appear to be so fed up with the Democrats that they're ready to toss them out in favor of the Republicans -- for whom, according to those same polls, the nation has even greater contempt. This isn't an "electoral wave," it's a temper tantrum.
It's bad enough that the Democratic Party's "favorable" rating has fallen to an abysmal 33 percent, according to a recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll. It's worse that the Republican Party's favorability has plunged to just 24 percent. But incredibly, according to Gallup, registered voters say they intend to vote for Republicans over Democrats by an astounding 10-point margin. Respected analysts reckon that the GOP has a chance of gaining 45 to 60 seats in the House, which would bring Minority Leader John Boehner into the speaker's office.
My guess is that with a decided advantage in campaign funds, along with the other advantages of incumbency, Democrats will be able to mitigate these prospective losses -- perhaps even relieving Nancy Pelosi of the hassles of moving. But there's no mistaking the public mood, and the truth is that it makes no sense.
In the punditry business, it's considered bad form to question the essential wisdom of the American people. But at this point, it's impossible to ignore the obvious: The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.
This is not, I repeat not, a partisan argument. My own political leanings are well-known, but the refusal of Americans to look seriously at the nation's situation -- and its prospects -- is an equal-opportunity scourge. Republicans got the back of the electorate's hand in 2006 and 2008; Democrats will feel the sting this November. By 2012, it will probably be the GOP's turn to get slapped around again.
The nation demands the impossible: quick, painless solutions to long-term, structural problems. While they're running for office, politicians of both parties encourage this kind of magical thinking. When they get into office, they're forced to try to explain that things aren't quite so simple -- that restructuring our economy, renewing the nation's increasingly rickety infrastructure, reforming an unsustainable system of entitlements, redefining America's position in the world and all the other massive challenges that face the country are going to require years of effort. But the American people don't want to hear any of this. They want somebody to make it all better. Now.
President Obama can point to any number of occasions on which he has told Americans that getting our nation back on track is a long-range project. But his campaign stump speech ended with the exhortation, "Let's go change the world" -- not, "Let's go change the world slowly and incrementally, waiting years before we see the fruits of our labor."
And one thing he really hasn't done is frame the hard work that lies ahead as a national crusade that will require a degree of sacrifice from every one of us. It's obvious, for example, that the solution to our economic woes is not just to reinflate the housing bubble. New foundations have to be laid for a 21st-century economy, starting with weaning the nation off of its dependence on fossil fuels, which means there will have to be an increase in the price of oil. I don't want to pay more to fill my gas tank, but I know that it would be good for the nation if I did.
The richest Americans need to pay higher taxes -- not because they're bad people who deserve to be punished but because they earn a much bigger share of the nation's income and hold a bigger share of its overall wealth. If they don't pay more, there won't be enough revenue to maintain, much less improve, the kind of infrastructure that fosters economic growth. Think of what the interstate highway system has meant to this country. Now imagine trying to build it today.
Fixing Social Security for future generations, working steadily to improve the schools, charting a reasonable path on immigration -- none of this is what the American people want to hear. They're in the market for quick and easy solutions that won't hurt a bit. It's easy to blame politicians for selling a bunch of snake oil. But the truth is that all they're doing is offering what the public wants to buy.

Consistency

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:47:00 +0000

by Eyck Freymann

There are a lot of things you can say about Ron Paul, but at least he's consistent:

As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined. --Ron Paul

To the tea partiers who support the wars and advocate cutting spending, "Big Government" must mean the parts of the budget that go to Social Security, Medicare, and non-defense discretionary spending.

Oh, so no Medicare cuts. Apparently ditto for Social Security privatization. So "Big Government" is the remaining non-security discretionary spending. Problem is, that's $447 billion. A lot, but less than 15% of a $3.5 trillion budget. And Obama, defying liberals, capped this "Big Government spending" at 2010 levels for the remainder of his term.

My question is: if we must cut spending, what programs must go? The National Cancer Institute? Air Traffic Control? VA hospitals? Flood control at the Army Corps of Engineers?

Which government windows must be smashed? Tim Pawlenty stands at the ready with a golf club.

Is Germany Tied to China's Recovery?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:28:00 +0000

by Eyck Freymann

Der Spiegel has a long but worth-reading piece on the difficult trade relationship between Germany and China. Interesting tidbits:

Germany, more than most other Western industrialized countries, is currently tying its economic well-being to China's recovery. Trade with Beijing is the most important driving force behind the current German upswing. It also explains why economists also foresee a bright future for the German economy in the medium term.
Beijing tends to react very sensitively to any form of criticism.
There is a growing tendency among the Chinese to blatantly demand the divulgence of industrial know-how in return for the right to do business in China.
Volkswagen, for example, now sells almost one in four of its cars in China.

The article is mainly on Germany's growing dependence on Chinese markets. China rebounded from the global recession and is back up to extremely rapid 10% annual growth. Germany's growth is up to 4%, the highest in the E.U., while the US' remains a sluggish 1.6%. David Brooks used Germany's success in the past two quarters in his last column to demonstrate why the American stimulus bill was ill-advised.

Brooks, irritatingly vague as usual, claims that Germany has weathered the storm by touching its bases. He claims, "Germany is surging, in part, because America is borrowing." The more you think about that statement, the less sense it makes. The stimulus consisted of tax cuts, aid to states, and investment on infrastructure in America.

In fact, the German economy is booming because China is now buying hundreds of billions of dollars of high-end German products. While Brooks has a point that we didn't cover all our bases (Germany still has a vibrant manufacturing sector, while the US does not), he commits a very grievous post hoc fallacy when he turns to stimulus. The Spiegel article makes it very clear that Germany's economy has bounced leaning heavily--overdependently--on China purchasing German goods.

China, you will recall, had a stimulus. A huge stimulus: $586 billion USD, or 14% of GDP. Down for a quarter or two, the Chinese threw a pile of money at domestic infrastructure and picked themselves back up to 12% annual growth while scarcely missing a beat.

Germany isn't wisely passing on Keynsian economics. They're piggybacking on Chinese stimulus.

'Judicial restraint' as a talking point

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:08:00 +0000

by Eyck Freymann

Kakofonous makes a very good point in response to my previous post on judicial activism. He cites the studies showing that conservative judges are more likely to overturn precedent than their liberal colleagues--effectively destroying the myth of the liberal 'activist judge'--but goes on to conclude that the correct question should be whether a judge is true to the spirit of the law and the times. He also notes that the philosophy of judicial restraint is not hollow.

To respond, I would clarify my previous statement:

Conservatives can never be 'activist judges,' even when they overturn established precedent and wreak havoc in the scientific community. It quickly becomes clear that the phrase doesn't actually mean anything at all, doesn't stand for any pure ideology within the GOP. The term 'activist judge' is as hollow as the philosophy it depicts.

My conclusion was not that the philosophy was meaningless in itself, but that it held no special value to the GOP. 'Judicial restraint' was an excuse to oppose liberal nominees and blast progressive decisions. Conservatives used the tactic cynically and selectively, only raising the question when it helped them, and ignoring it when it was not. Ultimately, the Republican party was not interested in judges not overreaching. They were interested in decisions in their favor. That's all there is to the clamoring for judicial restraint. If the tactic isn't hollow, it's certainly transparent.

More on judicial activism

noreply@blogger.com (elinn) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:40:00 +0000

by Kakofonous

I had a few things to add on the heels of Eyck's recent post. One, an article published in the New York Times about a month ago has some excellent data and analysis of the Court's changes in ideology and so-called "activism" over the past 60 years or so. Two, I have to take some issue with Eyck's contention that the concept of judicial activism is meaningless and "hollow." While of course I agree that the term (and thus the idea it represents) has been politicized and therefore oversimplified, I can't agree that the underlying concept is vacuous. It may be naive, however.

In his 2008 book How Judges Think, Richard Posner, an eminent judge and legal thinker, discusses several views of legal decision-making, and finds most to be rather lacking. To a hard-core originalist like Justice Antonin Scalia, who believes a judge's job can be reduced to following rules set by precedent and a pretty iron-clad interpretation of the Constitution, Posner responds that, if this were all a judge were meant to do, he could be replaced by artificial intelligence designed to follow the rules of precedent exactly. Since this would be patently absurd, it seems plain that judges must be "active" at least in some situations. Otherwise, their job is no more complicated than executing an algorithm that a robot might execute better. Originalism is thus neither an adequate explanation of what judges actually do, nor should it be upheld as an ideal of what judges are meant to be doing—there's obviously much more to a judge's job than blindly following precedent. Highly important factors independent from precedent, like the real-world consequences of a law, are and should be integral elements to a judge's decision. Some degree of activism is necessary—it isn't always the corrupting influence on the legal system that so many commentators contend it is.

In light of Posner's criticism, the conservative establishment's general disdain of "judicial activism" (at least in the rather narrow sense I've used above) seems rather weakly grounded. However, setting aside the blatant hypocrisy of deriding judicial activism while the Roberts court is busy making decisions like Citizens United, (which, as Stevens noted in his dissent, was rather flagrantly activist) criticism of judicial activism isn't always in bad faith. It is certainly important that judges don't overstep their boundaries and become full-fledged legislators. We have Congress for that. Yet defining these boundaries, and understanding when and where they should be applied, is a far more complex and intellectually demanding exercise than can be encapsulated in a sound bite. Cries of "judicial activism" simply cheapen the judicial profession and add nothing to the important debate about the role and scope our judiciary should have.

Activist Judges

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 03:59:00 +0000

by Eyck Freymann

It's not a surprise that this week's stunning decision to overturn President Obama's executive order and ban federal funding for stem cell research comes so closely on the heels of Prop 8 being overturned. Judge Walker Vaughn didn't realize it at the time, but he's probably opened the door for a lot more judges to overturn precedent.

For years, every time a conservative issue lost in court, the right began tossing around the term "activist judges." The implication of course is that the extremist liberal judge is grossly abusing his power by overturning something he or she has no right to rule on. Of course, as Tom Schaller compellingly demonstrated last year, there is substantial evidence that conservative courts and judges are more likely to overturn precedents than their liberal counterparts. No one is surprised by the stem cell decision, and no conservatives are bemoaning the encroaching power of the judiciary.

Vaughn's decision to overturn Prop 8 was less surprising than the GOP's reaction, which was decidedly muted. This is a subject for a longer post and a debate on the gay marriage "tipping point," but it is clear that the mention of homosexuality does not provoke the fear and anger it did on the 2004 campaign trail. After the decision there were a few cries of "activist judge" and a failed campaign to question Vaughn's own sexual orientation, but the counter-assault was weak, fragmented, and uncoordinated.

The Republican party is not going to do or say anything right now that could anger left-leaning young people enough to come to the polls in November. They like their momentum right now. But with these last two decisions in mind, it's worth re-examining the hackneyed 'activist judge'. Conservatives can never be 'activist judges,' even when they overturn established precedent and wreak havoc in the scientific community. It quickly becomes clear that the phrase doesn't actually mean anything at all, doesn't stand for any pure ideology within the GOP. The term 'activist judge' is as hollow as the philosophy it depicts.

Palinception

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:15:00 +0000

by Eyck Freymann

Inception is excellent, and anyone who hasn't seen it definitely should. Here (by way of Bits and Pieces) is Palinception, where two Democratic operatives try to convince Palin to run so Obama will get reelected.

This Dog Just Watched Inception.

The Most Corrupt State

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:05:00 +0000

by Eyck Freymann

"Our place, in terms of being considered one of or the most corrupt state in terms of politics, is pretty secure. It's almost like we've kind of relegated New Jersey to second place, and Louisiana's kind of like on injured reserve or something.

-- Former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar (R), quoted by the AP, on being the last elected governor in the state not to face criminal charges.

Political Wire's Quote of the Day today brings up a question I have for the conservatives and Tea Partiers who bemoan the evils of the Federal Government. For all their chanting "States' Rights! States' Rights!," do they really want to hand over all the power to their governors and state legislators?

Back in February, Gail Collins in the New York Times devoted a column to deciding whether Illinois or New York had a more corrupt political culture. The response was astounding. Readers from states all over the country, red and blue, wrote in to make the case for their own state as the most corrupt. Collins herself was shocked by the responses, published in her next piece, "There's Always California." It's hilarious and horrifying reading.

Yes, there is plenty of corruption in the federal government, but at least there is an army of investigative journalists who are somewhat interested in exposing graft and lies and scandals. There's a big national market for sensational national scandals. But on the state level there's not even any media oversight. And as Collins points out, "Picking the worst political culture is tricky since you always wonder if the states with the most politicians in handcuffs are the most corrupt or just the ones with the most efficient law enforcement system."

So here's my question for conservatives, especially conservatives in my home state of New York: who would you rather have running your government: Barack Obama and the deadlocked Congress, or David Paterson and the New York state senate?

Wikileaks

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac Berkowitz) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 02:03:00 +0000

By iBerk
In a move that seems as though it will evoke debate for months, the whistleblower organization WikiLeaks disclosed 6 years of classified Afghan War documents today. These reports paint the picture of a struggling war effort, of the rising strength of the Taliban. In addition, the relationship between the Pakistani spy agency and the Afghan insurgency is shown to be well established, lending discomfort to the fact that the United States provides well over $1 Billion aid each year to the Pakistani government. Further details have been published by the New York Times here, note that the Times gained access to the files one month ago.

This article is not, however, designed to be a synthesis of the consequences of the release of this information, but rather as a look at the organization Wikileaks. That being said, it is not as though there was no evidence of a link between Pakistan and Afghan insurgents, and the reports end at the point when the Obama Administration instituted a new strategy in Afghanistan.

Wikileaks first caught my attention perhaps 18 months ago. It is an organization dedicated to the publication of classified or secret information. However at that time, its mission seemed much more clear. As I understood it, Wikileaks had been founded on the principle of Freedom of Information, as a way for whistleblowers to publish information whilst minimizing their chances of discovery and retribution. It seemed to advocate and provide a substrate for openness as a pathway for activism, however it seemed unbiased in its reporting. It seemed that its sole priority was the dissemination of classified and secret information. If it had a bias, it was towards itself, towards its absolute freedom to leak information based on freedom of speech. It seemed as though it was inherently opposed to reporting this information in a biased manner, in showing any bias itself. Instead, Wikileaks wanted to appear as a third party whose sole purpose was to allow information to be spread.

Personally, I remain unsure of my feelings on this policy, disclosure for the sake of disclosure. I feel as though there are certain cases where information should not be available for consumption by the entire world, merely because it is information.

As evidenced in its current attitudes, however, this original intent has degraded into activism and a distinct political bias in the recent actions and disclosures of Wikileaks. The site was down for a period of almost 6 months at the beginning of 2010 as it attempted to raise the funds necessary for continuation of its services. When it came back from this break, however, a bias could be seen in not necessarily the selection of leaks, but in their self generated press releases. In particular, this bias can be seen in their twitter feed. From July 13, "The covert smear campaign against WikiLeaks: what you need to know". Clearly, Wikileaks has become much more inflammatory and aggressive in its own self defense. In a period when it published little else, despite admitting to possessing thousands of pages of documents, they chose to publish a United States Intelligence Report that they had obtained on themselves.

Aside from this self-aggrandizing bias, which is perhaps excusable, there is a noticeable trait towards Wikileaks introducing bias in relation to the actual content of its reports. In a recent publication of a video depicting the slaughter of a Reuters journalist by a US assault helicopter, Wikileaks clearly introduced spin, releasing with greater publicity an edited and annotated version of the film, entitled "Collateral Murder". In keeping with their original mission, it seems as though Wikileaks should have simply published the original video, perhaps accompanied by an unbiased analysis, and allowed the world of journalism to decide what was important, whether the killing comprised absolute cold-blooded murder. Having seen the video, at least in part, I can say that the actions and attitudes of the Americans flying the helicopter were despicable, however I do not believe that Wikileaks should ideally be making these decisions.

In their latest leak, Wikileaks continues to editorialize between the lines. A recent tweet illustrates: "Let the spin begin: White House offers 'advice' on Wikileaks to reporters". In fact, this can be seen as true; a White House memo commenting on the release can be seen as the introduction of editorializing and spin. At the same time, however, the wording of that post is clearly demonstrative of a bias against the White House, against the US establishment. It is not as though the US Administration was the first to comment on the release, indeed, it would have been shocking if it had remained silent.

Please note, I am not criticizing the release of this information. I am not attempting to defend the US Government, or suggesting in any way that the situation in Afghanistan is not grim. Rather, I am stating that I believe that Wikileaks does not serve itself well by self editorializing. Their original mission seemed positive, the exposure of classified information. I hope that they have not abandoned this goal in favor of overt activism.

I believe that an analysis of the meaning of the information disclosed by Wikileaks will take time. I do not believe there will be no conflict, or disagreement in this analysis. That is why the decision to disclose the information to the New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel was a valuable decision. The Guardian did importantly note that the Obama Administration had instituted a change in US policy in December 2009, the same time at which the memos stop. In addition, the Guardian has relegated some of the memos as absolutely absurd, as patently untrue. Whatever the case, the memos should be read with a discerning eye, and attention should be paid to numerous analyses.

Wikileaks does offer a potentially valuable service, provided they do not take their mission too far. However, I believe that editorializing their releases does not help their cause, and serves no service to the global community.

On Statism

noreply@blogger.com (H. Goldman) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 22:45:00 +0000

by H. Goldman

In a recent post, E. Soltas asserted that neoliberals (who he calls classical liberals, the names being interchangeable) "have had their name usurped by statists in sheep's clothing." While this may be partially true, since modern progressives have come to be called liberals while neoliberalism has been absorbed by modern conservatism/libertarianism in popular jargon (although neoliberal is still widely used in academia), a similar and even greater fallacy is made in implying that progressivism (modern liberalism) is somehow interchangeable with statism. For one, progressivism is a highly complex system of thinking, having branches ranging from modern anarchism at one extreme to extreme communism at the other. It encompasses ideas and forms of epistemology (i.e. ways that people come to conclusions and produce ideas) that are irreconcilable. Just like any other ideological framework, progressivism is a fractured whole, but statism is not one of its essential tenets. In fact, statism itself is hard to place in any specific framework.

Continued. Click "read more".

In many respects, the statism that is mentioned by E. Soltas
can be derived from a certain reading of Georg Wilhelm Hegel's Philosophy of Right, in which Hegel says:

The State is absolutely rational inasmuch as it is the actuality of the substantial will which it possesses in the particular self-consciousness once that consciousness has been raised to consciousness of its universality. This substantial unity is an absolute unmoved end in itself, in which freedom comes into its supreme right. On the other hand this final end has supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the State.

Read in the context of Hegel's idea of the end of history (that individual freedom has reached its maximum and the prevailing model of the state has reached its point of perfection or become monolithic), the above conclusion (that the individual's supreme duty is to be a member of the State) is perfectly warranted. However, it is the very belief that we have reached the end of history that complicates things. Obviously, many Prussian/German progressives, who took to Hegel's analogous idea that the progression of history promised to expand freedom, found the end of history to contradict the more idealistic aspects of Hegel's thought and tossed it aside as a bad conclusion and nothing more. They believed that the state/community must continually provide for individual freedom, not against it. These progressives ultimately came to be known as left Hegelians (as opposed to the right Hegelians, who were the original statists in my view), and they even came to include Marx and Engels, the fathers of Marxist communism.

This, of course, is one way to show that Marxism, the justification for the formation of the statist Soviet Union, is not itself statist (and that progressivism is not either). Rather, it was the utopian idea of the end of history that resulted in the USSR's statism. Lenin, and even more so Stalin, believed the Soviet Union to be the perfect state, one that would never be equaled. In effect, the idealism and belief in the community as an agent to increase freedom present in Marxist communism were overshadowed by Soviet statism: they were coupled together. This is where the problem with assigning statism to any ideological framework appears. Statism comes from a specific idea, the end of history, that must be believed in order to be coupled with any progressive or conservative framework. It is not a part of an axiomatic structure of progressivism because it is too specific and leaves no room for the idea that the government, state, community, etc. (depending on the form of progressivism in question) should act to maximize individual freedom with no right against it (which is vital to many systems of thought that fall under the progressive umbrella).

In fact, by this logic, a progressive regulatory system is not statist at all. For instance, the government assumed that the regulatory legislation that it had passed long before the Gulf oil spill was sufficient to prevent oil spills. It assumed, in a kind of statist end-of-history hubris, that its regulatory system did not need to extend its reach to deep water drilling because such drilling was far off and seemingly safe. That is statism, whereas reformation of regulatory practices is equivalent to reformation of the state, is a part of a continual attempt by government to expand freedom (or get infinitely close to it, depending on whether one believes in the existence of free will) of the individual in opposition to outside corporate forces, and is, therefore, the antithesis to statism.

Loose Lips Kill Careers

noreply@blogger.com (GBucello) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:12:00 +0000

by WashDCDemocrat

Free speech? Not if you're important.

Washington was recently shocked with the resignation of two key figures: first, on June 7, Helen Thomas resigned from the White House Press Corps following years of presidential coverage. More recently, Gen. Stanley McChrystal resigned from his post as Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan (USFOR-A) and as Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Both Thomas and McChrystal were excellent in their fields of work, but their words destroyed their careers. Helen Thomas remarked that Israel needed to "get the Hell out of Palestine," to go "home" to "Poland...Germany...and America and everywhere else." McChrystal and his aides gave divisive and disparaging remarks to a Rolling Stone reporter, which called out Joe Biden and many top officials.

So, why does this matter so much? For one thing, we are losing a skilled reporter and a veteran general. More importantly, however, we now have two more case studies to show that the more high profile you are, the less you can say. These are only the latest in a long series of gaffes by people in high places. Have we forgotten Barack Obama and his "special Olympics" remark? Or Gordon Brown's complaints about meeting a "bigoted woman" on the campaign trail? What about George W. Bush and the "Major League A**hole" comment during his campaign? (Actually, we could say quite a bit about Bush.)

The famous always are under the microscope. The successful must keep in mind that their careers - or the end of those careers - depend on what they say

China and the tug-of-war in Afghanistan

noreply@blogger.com (elinn) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 01:43:00 +0000

by Kakofonous

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According to a recent article in The New York Times, geologists employed by the US government have discovered enormous mineral deposits in Afghanistan, in such amounts that they will be "enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself." With this discovery, it seems, Afghanistan can look forward to foreign investment aimed at developing the newfound resources. One of the more prominent sources of this investment will be China, which, according to the article, has been developing a copper mine in Logar Province and is looking for further opportunities in Afghanistan.

Continued: Click "Read More"

This is in keeping with China's general strategy for the region: stay out of military confrontation, but focus intensely on economic cooperation and development. Two reasons are immediately apparent for China to focus on developing Afghan resources: mining potentially represents excellent opportunities for Afghan economic development, which looks attractive from a security standpoint; and/or China wishes to consolidate its already impressive (indeed, fairly frightening) hold on resources in the area—according to a Times article from August of last year, it produces 93 percent of the world's rare earth metals, which are essential for a wide variety of products including consumer electronics. A hold this tight makes growth in China's already monstrous manufacturing industry dirt-cheap and essentially inevitable. It also gives the country a powerful bargaining chip in economic or diplomatic negotiations.

One of the many reasons that the war in Afghanistan has been intractable is that the nation has figured unpleasantly in regional security strategy. For example, Pakistan has cultivated relationships with the Taliban (at least until recently; it is not entirely clear what events like the capture of Abdul Ghani Baradar signify about current policy) in order to provide it with a so-called "hedge" against India—that is, supposedly reducing its chance of being held in a pincer grip between India and an Afghanistan close to India.

What does this have to do with Chinese mining ventures in Afghanistan? Perhaps not much. However, any move by China in Afghanistan is bound to get at least India and Pakistan interested. China has to maintain a delicate balance in relations between the two nations, since a move in favor of one is invariably perceived as being against the other. Recently, Sino-Indian relations have not been so friendly. China claims that Arunachal Pradesh, an area in northern India, is actually Southern Tibet; Kashmir, long a pressure point in regional geopolitics, was the site of a confrontation between Indian workers and Chinese forces in October 2009. China has also invested significantly in Pakistan; one of its larger projects is the Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea. (This article on Gwadar from the Atlantic makes for interesting reading.)

Thus, the New York Times story doesn't warrant unconditional optimism. While any possibility of Afghan economic growth should certainly be welcomed, that isn't all the discovery will bring. Heightened Chinese influence in Afghanistan could lead to increased tension between India and China, and perhaps between India and Pakistan as well. It is hard to say which way power and relationships will shift, when a third player enters the regional tug-of-war for Afghanistan. One BBC article has quoted Robert Kaplan (who wrote the Atlantic piece linked above) as saying "Afghanistan has been a prize that Pakistan and India have fought over directly and indirectly for decades"; if China joins in the fight, there is no telling how geopolitics and economics in southern Asia will be changed.

Plus: A look at the relations between Afghanistan and China from Foreign Affairs: "Kabul's New Patron?"

Incumbents and Partisanship

noreply@blogger.com (Nora) — Thu, 27 May 2010 17:04:00 +0000

Regardless of whether you view the recent passage of the health care overhaul bill as a heaven-sent reform, or the beginning of the United States' path to evil socialism, it is impossible to ignore the fact that partisan forces were hard at work before, and even during, the historic vote.

With midterm elections looming, the 34 Democratic Representatives who voted against the health care bill are being specifically targeted by much of the Democratic leadership. To summarize a recent Politico article, Nancy Pelosi has been solicited to pressure Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) to cancel his trip to Georgia, the apparent purpose of which is to emphasize fellow Democrat Rep. John Barrow's "nay" vote on the health care bill. The Georgia Dem's supporters worry that Clyburn's trip will prevent Barrow's re-nomination in the upcoming primary.

I have two issues concerning this particular situation: the incumbency advantage and the persistent pressure to obey party lines in all voting cases.

The Congressional practice of seniority-based leadership is founded entirely upon re-election every two (or six) years. While many incumbents on both sides of the aisle have become nationally admired (the late Ted Kennedy, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and former presidential candidate John McCain, to name a few), the writers of the Constitution did not advocate that members of Congress serve for decades at time. The problem with the consistent re-election of incumbents is two fold: freshmen Senators and Representatives lose much of the idealism that they originally held when they arrived in Washington (which Terence Samuel explores in his new book The Upper House, which I am eager to read); and, very often, these members of Congress who have served for two decades become out of touch with the current political problems of the day. Through constituent out-reach, and the casework of their Congressional staffs, long-term incumbents attempt to negate their dated political expertise. However, the platform that brought a Representative to office in 1986 has little political relevance to the issues facing the nation in 2010.

On the other side of the situation presented by the above article, I must ask, what is so wrong with breaking party lines?! While I, of course, wholeheartedly supported the health care reform bill (and believe that every member of Congress should have voted in favor of it), almost three dozen House Democrats did not agree with me. Clyburn is, in essence, punishing Barrow for voting against the health care bill, seemingly in hopes that it will damage Barrow's chances in the Democratic primary. Candidates are elected to Congress because voters trust them to make national decisions, not just follow party leadership and party leadership needs to learn to let their fellow Congress(wo)men do just that. While gaining "yay" or "nay" votes is an obvious necessity in the House or Senate, our elected officials should be allowed to vote according to their own political values, not those of a specific party. However, as a result of the current Congressional environment, the influence of leadership makes the actual floor voting process much less democratic.

Kagan and the lack of integrity in Supreme Court nominations

noreply@blogger.com (elinn) — Thu, 13 May 2010 00:37:00 +0000

by Kakofonous

The nomination of current Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court of the United States on Monday came as no surprise to anyone. It had been widely rumored for weeks beforehand, even months, as Kagan was also on the shortlist to replace the retiring Justice Souter in 2009. Like Sonia Sotomayor, the judge who ended up replacing Souter, Kagan is expected to be confirmed relatively easily by the Senate. However, there has been some notable opposition to her appointment.

Glenn Greenwald, a Salon.com blogger who opposes Kagan’s nomination, has written extensively about why the former Dean of Harvard Law School should not be given a seat on the Supreme Court. Basically, his argument boils down to this: Kagan has not published or spoken widely about her views on consititutional law, and thus does not have much public evidence available regarding her judicial philosophy. If we cannot divine her judicial philosophy, says Greenwald, she cannot be nominated—she may end up becoming a traitor to the Obama Justice Department, a nightmare to the left wing. However, he does make some important criticisms, particularly of Kagan’s seemingly broad acceptance of executive power, yet these are based (as far as I can see) on cursory comments from other legal scholars, one article published in the Harvard Law Review in 2001, and a brief section from Kagan’s nomination hearing for Solicitor General. Therefore, I want to address his general claim that a nominee’s ideology should be central to the nomination process. Since President Obama is a “liberal,” the argument goes, he should nominate a reliably “liberal” judge to the Court in order to secure his “liberal” legacy for decades.

Politically, this argument makes perfect sense. To someone genuinely invested in the health of the judicial institution, it does not. Tokenism is denounced in other circumstances, yet somehow it is often supported in Supreme Court nominations. Ideology is seen as key. Commentators tell us that the balance of the Court must be maintained, or shifted to one side or the other, as Presidents are confronted with absences on the Court. But this idea undermines the view of the judge as an independent, sharp thinker. What we really should be looking for is a perceptive legal mind who distrusts overarching judicial philosophy and political ideology, who examines each case without foregone conclusions, who reasons and does not just rationalize.

The Supreme Court, and the judging profession at large, should disdain political influence. A judge must cast a deeply critical eye upon the cases that come before him. He must make a decision grounded in logic and precedent. Rigid ideology does not make for a good judge, because it constrains the logical path he can take down to very few, closely related options. He becomes unable to think critically or (God forbid) change his mind, as he is irretrieveably tied to the positions of a given political camp. It should not be possible to reduce a judge’s record to a single word—“libertarian,” “paleoconservative,” “socialist”—because doing the job right means making decisions that cannot always be labeled. It means thinking. Not of politics, not of petty ideological squabbles, but of the law, above all else.

Thought of the day: Internet intellectualism

noreply@blogger.com (elinn) — Sat, 08 May 2010 23:33:00 +0000

by Kakofonous

I am disappointed that the new wave of intellectuals (think Andrew Sullivan, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias) has chosen the blog, at least as it is presently conceived, as a primary medium. I don't blame them, though: there was no other choice. Print is dying, and, unless esteemed publications like the Washington Post or the Atlantic (the homes of Klein and Sullivan, respectively) wish to market their columnists through Twitter or Facebook, hosting a blog is the only legitimate way to disseminate opinion online. For independent commentators like Yglesias, the blog is simply the most practical means of reaching the public: it's fast, it's easy, it's visible. However, the blog format demands short, topical posts delivered on an hourly basis, at least. While we certainly should take advantage of the speed that Internet publishing offers, it must not be at the expense of losing cherished elements of the intellectual past like the essay. The Internet speeds up communication, not the speed of thought. Bloggers cannot be expected to produce nuggets of brilliance every hour on the hour. They must balance their day-to-day output with longer, more nuanced pieces removed from the so-called "lifestream." The intellectual's place in society is not merely to blather on in public about the people and events of the times. It is to provide unique, unconventional insight, to remember the past and scrutinize the present. This is a tall order, one that blogging can't fill in its current form. So I ask the bloggers—even, I suppose, those on this site—to remember that the blog cannot become the intellectual's sole means of reaching the public. Hard criticism and informed commentary don't appear overnight, much less over Twitter.

This pseudo-rant was inspired in part by Jon Meacham's recent appearance on the Daily Show.

Update: I just found an article from Dædalus that speaks somewhat to what I said above. It's called "The case for wisdom journalism–and for journalists surrendering the pursuit of news." You can find it here; worth a read, though lengthy.

"Drill Baby Drill"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 05:44:00 +0000

by Eyck Freymann

This week's tragic and destructive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is merely a projection of more serious national issues. Given the massive amounts of public attention paid to our national energy dependency, one would think Americans by now would have a pretty sound understanding of the issues and possible solutions.

Think again. Most Americans have no idea that we consume five times as much oil per capita than the rest of the world (nearly 25% of the worldwide total), even after all the public debates over energy policy and oil exploration in the Arctic. It would come as a shock to most Americans that despite our massive consumption, a third of American oil consumption is produced domestically. This simple lack of understanding causes politicians to both understate and overstate the issue, with neither side doing it justice.

During the 2008 campaign, the Right (led by poster girl Sarah Palin) ran under the slogan "drill, baby, drill!" The words represented a craving for self-sufficiency, as well as isolationism. The ANWR debate of the early 2000s left most Americans under the impression that we had vast reservoirs of oil buried right off our shores. Based on the facts in the air, it seemed the only rational choice to drill. But the facts were wrong. Drilling has been banned off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts not because of evil Federal Meddling, but because the states on those seaboards forcefully rejected it at every opportunity. The costs to the ecology, the scenery, and everything else would simply outweigh the benefits.

Things are different off of Texas and Louisiana. The Gulf has always been open for oil exploration, and between oil and toxic industrial/agricultural runoff from the Mississippi River has become one of the most polluted bodies of water on the planet. Before last week's disastrous spill, there was already a growing dead zone in the Gulf--several hundreds of square miles in area--where the water was too toxic to sustain any life.

Oil in the Gulf, even before Obama's blank check for exploration, is not an unlimited resource. Yet, legislators use it as a crutch. Our supposedly vast domestic supplies allow us to take the easy way out, ending our dependency on foreign oil (how tired those words are!) without making the sacrifices to actually change the way we power our nation. "Drill, baby, drill" only postpones for a few years the inevitable and painful transition to a green economy.

The drilling euphoria--something Obama has unfortunately been caught up in--is more than just a misreading of the facts. It is a powerful symbol of the short term results-driven thinking that just eighteen months ago led speculators to bet our economy over a cliff. It is a calculus of instant gratification, of noisy and feel-good development, of a handsome profit in the next earnings report. It is a sense that a free market let loose can do no evil and use scarce resources indiscriminately. From both political and policy perspectives, the "drill, baby, drill" plan is a cheap tactic for short-term points masquerading as long-term planning.

This spill rightly comes as a shock to our nation. I've been twice to Louisiana. I've toured the Bayou and New Orleans, and I can only imagine the horrendous consequences for the fragile region and ecology that are only slowly recovering. Tourism will suffer, and many will be pushed back into poverty. As in the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, the taxpayer will probably end up paying for most of the cleanup. The spill will show us how vulnerable our coastal communities really are.

But more than anything, it is a sign like the ones we studiously ignored in the delirious run-up to financial catastrophe. It is a flashing warning light (as if we needed another one) that our actions have consequences and that instant gratification fails as a long-term strategy. Today, Congress and Wall Street thrive on this short-term thinking. After this recession, when so many Americans have suffered so acutely for our mistakes, we have yet to see a change in thinking. We are psychologically in the same place we were two years ago, and we have still not given up on the dream of the free lunch.

This spill will be as messy as any, but soon it will fade from public view without a whisper, just as Haiti did. The cultural pathology will remain: social pressure to live in the moment and plan only for the short-term. History tells us that this is a path for failure, and staying the course will yield us the same results.

I fear for my country and its leadership. I fear that we have lost the ability to learn from our mistakes, and that even after this Great Recession, nothing has changed.

Eyck Freymann, editor of www.YoungSentinel.com, is a sixteen-year-old student in New York City. He writes about politics, international relations, and occasionally domestic policy.

Legalized racism: the new Arizona immigration law

noreply@blogger.com (Zach Resnick) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:40:00 +0000

This bill lets and more importantly encourages police officers to make a judgment based on appearance/race. No Mexican/Latino should feel safe under this law; to them it is literally living under a police state.

To those of you who say this is merely enforcing the law, it is not. Immigration is a federal matter for the INS. As someone who actually believes in states' rights (not just when it's convenient), I don't want anyone but the INS enforcing (our backwards) immigration laws. When they do enforce the laws though, it needs to be done not through racial profiling.

Anyone serious about civil rights and civil liberties should be appalled and working to fight this bill.

Laugh of the Day: Attack of the Vuvuzuelas

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 16:20:00 +0000

Foreign Policy reports: From the captain obvious department: a study in the latest issue of South Africa's Medical Journal claimed that vuvuzelas, the obnoxiously loud trumpet played at football matches in South Africa, can cause permanent hearing damage:

Participants in the stadium study were "exposed to high-intensity sound far exceeding the current legislated average exposure and peak exposure levels for occupational noise".

Tests on the 11 after the match showed a "significant" decrease in hearing sensitivity.

Worse, the study used stadiums that simulated the noise of only 30,000 people -- many of the crowds expected at World Cup matches are expected to be three times that amount.

Progressives: the NEW New Democrats?

noreply@blogger.com (Nora) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:06:00 +0000

In my most recent post, I considered the ideological split currently defining the Republican party. I mentioned a similar issue concerning the Democrats, but didn't plan on writing about it in depth. However, today's Huffington Post article has changed my mind. While it is a bit long for anyone but political junkies, the HuffPo is on point as usual, detailing the rift between Blue Dog Dems and the progressives in Congress.

On page 6 of the article, a video clip is included of Krystal Ball, the progressive Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives from Fredericksburg, VA (about an hour south of Washington, D.C.). I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Ball a little more than a year ago, shortly before she announced her candidacy. She is young and able; her daughter is adorable; her husband is supportive. In light of the recent conservative backlash, I am hoping for the best for her in November because she represents exactly what we need to see more of in Congress (and what we were promised during the last presidential campaign).

Blue Dog Democrats are notably anti-abortion and New Democrats are generally pro-business (though it is often difficult to discern if there are any true ideological differences between the two). Ms. Ball is pro-small business and very socially progressive. This liberal candidate appears to be championing the same positions that Obama did, though many lefty-liberals (myself included) have been disappointed that a testy political environment has prevented the president from following through on many of his goals (health care exempted, though it passed sans public option). I hope that if (when?) Ms. Ball is elected, she does not have to compromise her ideals -- often-conservative Virginia (my home state) could stand for a bit of shaking up.

The conventional wisdom is that being a progressive Democrat will alienate some Republicans. But didn't Barack Obama win in 2008 because he was offering change? That is certainly a progressive value but significant numbers of moderates -- and even Republicans -- voted for him, despite his liberal platform. Let's cross our fingers that the same happens for Ms. Ball and her fellow progressives in November.

N.Biettetimmons is a seventeen-year-old from Arlington, VA. She worked on the Deeds for Virginia campaign and will be attending Bowdoin College in the fall.

Scandal Caught by Wikileaks

noreply@blogger.com (Zach Resnick) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 22:50:00 +0000

by Zach Resnick

This is what war really looks like. The mass media and government are doing their job correctly if it is a shocker to you. Their job is to keep public opinion high of the war and denounce any critique of the methods and strategies as 'hating the troops'. This is frankly doublespeak because often the critiques are because people care do deeply about the soldiers on both sides as well as the innocent civilians. If one truly support the troops, they wouldn't be ok with sending them to die for special interests.

Why an organization like The Sunshine Press is so important is because it keeps the institutional powers in check by showing us what war is. If there was more transparency in war, America might not be at war.

Here is Glenn Greenwald on the subject. It is much more in depth and comprehensive; if there is a point I didn't address in my short post, he addresses with lots of evidence: (my favorite piece I've read since the video was released).

Update - Evidence of the commonality of this incident

Asleep at the Wheel - Enforcers Aren't Enforcing

noreply@blogger.com (GBucello) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:36:00 +0000

by WashDCDemocrat

Toyota got away with months of sticky pedal problems before their company's reputation was driven into the ground. So where was the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)?

Massey Energy faced down a number of citations for lack of safety at their mining facilities, paying only a fraction of their fines. Only when the worst mining accident in a quarter-century left 25 miners dead would they even consider owning up to their responsibilities. Where was the Mining Safety and Health Administration (MSHA)?

After accidents and corporate misdeeds, interest groups are the first to rally for more regulations. Loopholes and loose regulations, they argue, allow companies to operate with impunity while the public suffers. This is true. But regulations are worthless if they can't be enforced effectively. Regulation is only the first step.

Consider, for example, the NHTSA, an organization allocated $870 million, and hired 635 employees at last count. Not bad, right? Compare that to the Federal Aviation Administration, hiring an excess of 17,000 employees and granted $16 billion dollars (Washington Post, 2/10/2010). How is the NHTSA expected to keep tabs on automakers with such a dismal budget?

MSHA also is woefully underfunded, receiving a lowly $354 million in funding this year. Significant portions of their work are geared towards public awareness, telling non-miners to keep clear of abandoned mining areas. They regularly impose fines - over 175,000 citations were issued in 2009, with over 100,000 of them going to coal mines. In 2009, the violations per inspection hour was at .21, which means that mines committed a violation every five hours. Despite the issuing of citations, however, corporations have the right to appeal the issuing of citations and delay the payment process, making unsafe mines a danger to those inside.

The dangers of relaxed enforcement could become far worse. Imagine, if you will, the dangers of untested public water, unsupervised hospitals, or un-inspected restaurants. The safety of the public will be in grave danger if we lose sight of the tools we need to ensure our own safety. The passage of law is not the last step, but rather the first.

The Road to a Real European Union

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:48:00 +0000

by Eyck Freymann

Der Spiegel, a leading German daily, has an interesting piece on the relationship between Barack Obama and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. Sarkozy is facing political difficulties at home after losing a number of seats last week in regional elections. France is fascinated by Obama, and Sarkozy has long sought a personal friendship with him. The Spiegel article goes on:

By comparison to that, his dinner in the Obama's residential quarters looks to be a pretty modest affair. It's also symbolic of the disillusionment right now in trans-Atlantic relations. The Americans are disappointed that, even after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty -- which was meant to give the European Union's common foreign policy more clout -- the individual European countries are continuing to pursue their own interests abroad. The question, former senior US diplomat and current Harvard professor Nicholas Burns argued in an interview with the New York Times, is whether Europe can "develop a collective European idea of global power? They talk about it a lot, but they don't do it."

At the same time, the Europeans have been irritated by the cold shoulder Obama has shown them. The US president hardly seems to even pay attention to France's reintegration last year into NATO's structures. The Washington Post has even criticized Obama for this, noting that in contrast to his predecessors, he hasn't established close ties to a single European leader.''

European Union

It's no mystery why Obama is giving European leaders the cold shoulder. The US would rather negotiate with a unified European Union (which would for a number of reasons be generally friendly to the US) than to hammer out individual friendships with more than twenty countries, each with its own litany of domestic problems. The EU faces a number of challenges in centralizing its political and economic authority, but it seems inevitable that this will happen. The largest EU economy is Germany, with a GDP of $2.8 trillion, ranking sixth in the world. As a bloc, the union has a GDP of $14-15 trillion, in a tie with the US for world's largest economy. Together, the US and EU comprise 40% of the global economy. Freer trade, immigration, economic cooperation, etc. would benefit all involved.

NATO Alliance

Furthermore, most members of the EU are members of NATO, and therefore protected by the American nuclear umbrella.

We can only speculate on the economic and political future of developing nations like China, India, and Brazil. Maybe their meteoric rises will continue indefinitely, and maybe high growth rates will cause their economies to overheat and collapse in speculation bubbles. The US should reach out to these countries--it's never good to keep all your eggs in one basket--but for the forseeable future this is our bloc. That's why we need the EU to get its act together. The NATO alliance brought Western countries together and won us the Cold War. The single best thing that could happen for America in Europe is the formation of a strong, centralized, unified, friendly European government.

When Obama refuses to dine with Sarkozy, he doesn't mean it personally. Just like any astute strategic thinker, he knows what side his diplomatic bread is buttered on. And it's not the side of individual relationships with Sarko and Brown and Merkel and Berlusconi and Zapatero. It's one relationship with this guy.

Economics: A Critical Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Isaac Berkowitz) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 05:13:00 +0000

by Iberk

Please apologize for any grammatical or spelling mistakes.

Economics: the study of the allocation of scarce resources among alternative uses. Contemporary society has seen the academic pursuit of economics as a science unto itself. However economics can alternatively be seen as a set of rules governing human behavior, these guidelines predating any study thereof.

In a sense, economics has failed. It failed to predict the “Great Recession” that we are currently in the midst of (or recovering from, depending on who is asked). More importantly, conventional economics has utterly failed at providing an escape from this recession. In the United States, a relatively liberal government has resorted to the use of almost Keynesian spending; injecting money into the economy in the hope of stimulating growth. This is coupled with the use of monetary policy designed to promote spending. Not all economists, however, agree that stimulus spending is an effective tactic.

Continued: Click "Read More"

Paul Krugman describes the differences between the major economic schools of thought in the United States as the conflict between “Saltwater” and “Freshwater” economics. Freshwater economics is concentrated towards the central US, and has historically been particularly strong at the University of Chicago, leading to an alternative title as the Chicago School. This Chicago School is itself based upon the ideals of Austrian economics, on the absolute supremacy of the market. Freshwater economists tend to completely dismiss the ideals of Keynes as totally absurd. In itself, this is demonstrative of discontinuity in economic ideals: at saltwater universities Keynes is taught, not necessarily as truth; however his ideals are not completely dismissed as lunacy. In the context of American society today, the broader lesson that can be taken from this conflict is whether the free market should be considered absolutely supreme, and above all regulation. There are those who believe that, left to its own devices a truly free market will come to an optimal equilibrium; where the greatest total utility is achieved. This theory is flawed in its own right; however there are certain lessons that may be taken from it.

A belief in market supremacy is interesting when considering single-individual economies. In this case, the broader concept of a market can be specified to indicate the choices that this individual will make in optimizing his or her total utility. The assumptions of a “Robinson Crusoe” model are based upon that of the “Economic Man”, who makes decisions with perfect knowledge of his general environment, able to quantify how each may affect himself. This assumption of the economic man is flawed; no one can have perfect knowledge of their surroundings and the consequences of their actions. Even in a simple model, if variables that even approximate the complexity of life are introduced, it seems impossible that anyone could possibly keep up. Even with the theory of the true “Economic Man” debunked, however, lessons may be taken from it. It seems probable that, if he were to remain on the island for long enough, Crusoe would eventually optimize his labor, creating a situation of maximal utility. This lesson, which still can be viewed in keeping with a true free enterprise system without external regulation does have broad reaching implications on today’s society; even if individuals are not consciously aware of their tendency to optimize, these traits still exist. It seems that most individuals will act in their own self-interest, even if not consciously.

This perhaps raises an interesting progression of thought. Economics assumes that individuals will act in their own self-interest. The concept of an Economic Man is often coupled with this dogma. As shown however, even if an individual does not have or even desire perfect knowledge of their surroundings, they will still make decisions that will optimize their total utility. Pure market theory states that optimal utility will be found with every individual pursuing his or her own self-interest. Maybe this can be seen as even a natural state of being, where individuals do not think about what will give them the maximum utility, but subconsciously act in their own behalf. This society clearly does not exist; human selfishness leads to a conscious acceptance of self-aggrandizement as a goal. Economic anthropology points to hunter-gatherer society as a low point in this selfishness; however it seems doubtful that human nature has actually been fundamentally altered.

An economic anthropological study of Hunter-Gatherer societies offers an interesting commentary as to the nature of our own civilization. A distinguishing feature of these societies is found in Gowdy’s title: Limited Wants, Unlimited Means. Hunter-Gatherers were able to account for their own subsistence with relative ease; they were at no risk of exhausting their surrounding natural resources. This is not to say that life as a Hunter-Gatherer was not without risk. If each individual attained resources absolutely for themselves, then if they were unsuccessful for a day, it is conceivable that they not eat for that day. This led to the creation of insurance pools. If one individual were to be unsuccessful for a day, the entire pool would compensate, maintaining the well being of the entire pool. This is quite parallel to systems of insurance today, in particular healthcare seems relevant. Everyone contributes to a mutual pool which pays for the instances where a certain individual needs assistance. A key flaw with this concept is that of Adverse Selection. In the hunter-gatherer model, if an individual is a particularly proficient hunter, they may chose to remain outside of the insurance pool. This may serve his individual self interest, yet when in aggregate it creates a cyclical effect. The average product of the insurance pool drops, and suddenly the next highest individuals drop out. In all examples, this could lead to a collapse of the insurance system, so some control must be in place to ensure that everyone participates. In hunter-gatherer times, this was simply that there was no added prestige, no added power in acting individualistically.

Society imposed the expectation that everyone act in the mutual self interest, yet what was this self interest. Central to hunter-gatherers was the problem of storage. There was no object to accumulating meat if there were no efficient means of storage. Because portability was at a premium, the fewer material goods an individual possessed the better. In today’s society, the accumulation of material wealth is looked upon as a good thing. In hunter-gatherer times, it would have been viewed in contrary, because of its counter-efficient tendencies. If an individual did choose to not share a catch with their group, it was not merely impractical and therefore contrary to self interest, but also looked down upon. Because there was no practical application to food storage, or to the amassing of wealth, there was no prestige associated with such accumulation.

The question therefore becomes whether individuals of that time were actually less selfish than the individuals of today. Fundamentally, it seems that human nature has not been altered. Individuals of that time acted as selfishly we they do now, however the nature of society has evolved. In a hunter-gatherer civilization, the selfish desires of an individual were aligned for the most part with the self interests of society. This yields an appearance of selflessness. Given what has been previously discussed about the nature of economic thinking and behavior, however, this display is an illusion. Even if the individual is not consciously thinking about what will maximize their total utility, they will eventually arrive at optima, which in this case will be close to that of society.

In considering the evolution of society, one must wonder why we changed from this self sufficient economy. It seems that the best answer is found in grains, which can apparently act as a mild opiate. Farming offered a detriment in quality of life, yet it seems as though there was a perceived benefit to consumption. Drugs skew logic, and it seems that the existence of this simple opiate effect changed society forever. Agriculture and, later, industrialization allowed for increased selfishness. Roles of economic producers and consumers could be created, laying the roots for economic inequality. Most importantly, the interest of societies and individuals were no longer aligned. Insurance groups no longer had to span entire bands as farming itself offered a form of insurance. If nothing was produced in a season, the product of other seasons could theoretically make up for a loss of production. Alternatively, the time-line was altered, from day to day subsistence to a seasonal pattern. Whatever the reason for this shift, however, society can no longer return to the days of hunting and gathering. Civilization has gotten too big; the natural, undomesticated resources of the earth could in no way support the 6.5 Billion+ population of earth.

The economy of human society continued to evolve, into the monstrously complex system of today. Perhaps born out of the Romantic ideal of the Noble Savage, the hunter gatherer is held up as a selfless example; however this is clearly not true. It appears that individuals will act in their own self interest, whether or not they are trying to. It is only through purposeful altruism or external control that this psychological truth can be beat, yet as evidenced by our current crisis altruism is not enough. The best explanation for the Great Recession is that a lack of regulation led to runaway lending. Mortgages were given to individuals that never should have been allowed to take them, and this persisted until the bubble burst. A secondary flaw of our economic system is the use of credit. The entire economy is seemingly based on borrowing, on individuals living above their means. More importantly, we as a society are living above the means of our planet. This is what the free market has done; it has many benefits, yet externalities must be internalized, record levels of inequality should not be allowed to remain, and we should begin to return to an economic reality.

The industrialization of society disconnected individual welfare from the overall welfare of a society; however governments have a fundamental duty to all members of that society, not just those that possess all of the money. A frequent refrain of the economic right is that, in our society, every individual is uniquely able to make their own fortune, to improve their own lives. This is fundamentally untrue. We are each born into an economic reality, a reality that is becoming increasingly polarized. In feudal Europe, the monarch would frequently forgive all debts, and redistribute wealth, ensuing relative equality. In today’s world this would be impossible. Most importantly, most debts are not owed to the government, so the government could not easily forgive them. However, we like to say that our society does not have a class structure, that the free market allows any individual to rise to a position comparable to their level of talent. This is obviously not true. There is a fundamental reaction against any program that “redistributes wealth” and perhaps such a program is not just. However the current level of inequality, where individuals are denied basic human rights is unacceptable. Society does not have to be completely leveled, the government does not have to exercise absolute control over the market; but it should act to ensure that every individual is guaranteed an acceptable standard of living. It can be said that what is considered within our society an acceptable standard of living is much better than any other society in the world, or in history. Ultimately, this does not necessarily matter. There is no reason that such inequality should exist within a society. It is counterproductive, and few would argue that it is actually moral.

From a more concrete stance, we are still left without a concrete solution to the Great Recession. Economics offers a valuable perspective in the study of human interactions, and in the distribution of resources. In the complexities of today’s society, it must be remembered that analyses should not start with a fully developed model, but should consider the fundamentals, building from the ground up. By utilizing such a perspective, valuable insight stands to be gained, hopefully insight that can guide society to a solution of both equality and efficiency, not one where the two are mutually exclusive.