The Roll of the Dice

On the eve of the election, let’s take a moment to consider the possibilities and what they would mean for the country.

Scenario 1: The Republicans get destroyed.

All the truly contested districts go to the Democrats, who will now hold majorities in both houses of Congress.

As they have argued to the public, these incoming representatives and senators view the election as a referendum on President Bush. In order to satisfy their constituents, they will issue a wave of subpoenas to key Administration officials. If the gritty details of the country at war are half as interesting as I expect, the resulting media circus and the opportunity for windbaggery it provides will keep the Democrat-controlled Congress from doing anything but talk. They may enact some punitive and purely symbolic legislation aimed at taxing rich people more heavily or regulating drug prices, but these measures will be unhesitatingly vetoed by the President.

If all this comes to pass, I believe the Republican Party will actually emerge stronger. Americans will get a snoot full of the Democrats and they won’t like it. The leadership will look mean when they yell at the administration officials, and they certainly won’t have any legislative accomplishments to speak of in 2008. The Republican Party will be renewed and motivated by its defeat as the election will serve as a purge for the corrupt and worn out members who have allowed the party to drift away from genuine conservatism. I have placed this possibility first because it holds my great hope: that the libertarians and traditional conservatives will realign against the Neocons and the crazy Christians to articulate a more sensible and measured policy than the “permanent revolution” of today’s leaders.

Scenario 2: The Democrats get destroyed.

All the seats that were in play go to the Republicans, and they maintain control of both houses.

This will come as a surprise for Republican lawmakers who have been dodging a new scandal every 2 weeks since summer. If the Democrats are unable to take at least one house of Congress tomorrow, they are finished. It shows that they will never be able to shake the caricature of them drawn by Newt Gingrich and his new Republicans during the 90’s. If they can’t win now, they can’t win ever.

With that said, the Republican party will not be invigorated by a victory, and will face determined obstructionism from the other side of the aisle. There will be no momentum conferred because the same old guard with the same old ideas will remain in Congress. They may attempt some legislative reforms, they may take a stab at some oversight, but the acts will be half-hearted and unconvincing. There will be nothing to talk about but the presidential race, a prospect that I find quite depressing. However, a contest between two utterly bankrupt parties offers the first real opportunity for a third party candidate in many many years.

Scenario 3: It’s a toss up.

This one is the tricky one. The Democrats capture one or both houses of Congress by a slim margin, have no clear mandate, and are forced to govern in cooperation with the Republicans or not at all.

This outcome signals continuing dissatisfaction with both parties and very little slack for political games.

In this case, there are two possibilities. If the leadership of both parties is stupid, there will be total gridlock, daily wild accusations from one corner or the other, and a 2 year period so totally enraging that the American people will be ready to elect anybody, provided he can make Congress shut up. Dissatisfaction not with the politicians of the moment but with politics in general has historically preceded the emergence of authoritarian leaders, and if another large scale terrorist attack takes place the polity will be in a very dangerous position.

If the leaders of Congress asses the situation with some uncharacteristic sobriety, they will realize that the price of continued partisan bickering will be felt in ’08 by the party deemed most responsible. In this case, they will come to negotiating table and play nice. The Republicans will have no choice but to distance themselves from Bush and agree to sideline their more inflammatory social legislation. In return, the Democrats will leave the tax cuts alone and try to refocus the populism that made them a national party in the first place by “doing something for the middle class.”

Predictions anyone?

My Television Has Betrayed Me

If I see one more trashy, poorly shot, lying, weasel faced attack ad I will throw my television out a window. I am seriously considering unplugging it for the next week just so I don’t have to hear any more about how Webb is a misogynist or Allen is a racist or Joe Smith is a dirty terrorist-loving spendthrift who will kick your granny off Social Security and give Bush weekly blowjobs.

I DON'T CARE! IF I DIDN’T KNOW ALREADY I CERTAINLY SUSPECTED AS MUCH.

Tell me why I should elect YOU, Candidate X. Tell me, in 100 words or less, how your presence in Washington will do anything but maintain the status quo. Tell me how you will evict the money changers from the temple of democracy. Tell me how you are nice to your pets and enjoy reading erotic fiction. Tell me anything that demonstrates that you are a real human being and not an animatronic doll being operated from off-screen by some Karl Rove wannabe.

But enough of this.

I’m going to let you all in on a secret, oh my loyal readers: I am a conscientious objector in this fight. That’s right, I don’t vote. And do you want to know why?

I have yet to see a candidate for national office that I would trust to fix my car much less run my country. Not in my district anyway.

I refuse to cast the “lesser of two evils” vote because it gives the impression that I support somebody whose character I find flawed and whose platform I abhor. That vote just contributes to the myth that we live in a functioning republic.

Now call me naïve, but I define a functioning republic as an institutional structure that selects the best and most capable people for public office. Our political system fails in this regard not because good people cannot get elected. It fails because the best people realize the senselessness of going into politics.

Who would make a career of banging his head against a wall? Who would willingly undergo the public scrutiny? Who would submit to the financial and psychological punishment entailed in running for office?

People who make this leap fall into three categories: hopeless idealists, remorseless profiteers, and shameless megalomaniacs. The truly successful ones are a bit of each. They cling to the camera, make friends with everyone who has deep pockets, and decry with convincing vocal tremors the injustices perpetrated by the Other Guy.

With each catastrophe that our leaders prove unprepared to confront, they confirm that we live in a demagoguery not a democracy.

Accountability Anyone?

As the November election approaches, it is tempting to believe that we can simply “throw the bums out” to make everything right in Washington. Unfortunately for America, the root of our political trouble is much deeper than a Republican Congress that has been in power a few terms too long.

Putting these people out of jobs may flush the toilet, so to speak, but it’s not going to stop the next Congress from leaving more steaming floaters for us to deal with next January.

The legislative process itself - the unwritten laws of doing business in Washington - are untouched by a change of party. The powerbrokers may be new, the channels of influence flowing through different K Street offices, but the culture of patronage remains intact.

The fate of a bill still depends not on its implications for American society but on the personalities of its proponents. Good law cannot be produced by such a system because legislators have no incentive to pay attention to the text of the bills they pass. In fact, they couldn’t even if they wanted to.

Congress frequently resorts to the use of omnibus bills that are hundreds of pages long, contain amendments added without debate, and remain unavailable in final form to rank-and-file member and the public until after the voting is done.

It should be no surprise that these votes split along party lines and that the bills themselves are incoherent, vague, and riddled with custom made loopholes and special appropriations.

Regardless of party affiliation, Americans can unite behind initiatives that make the legislative process more transparent and that compel Congressmen to review the laws they pass. Only clear and unambiguous legislative reform can return Congress to its rightful place as a respected deliberative and representative body.

To this end, an organization called Downsize DC has drafted a proposal for a new law called the “Read the Bills Act.” This bill would require that each piece of legislation, with all its amendments, must be read aloud to a quorum of physically assembled Congressmen. This would also apply to all bills up for renewal and to the full text of bills being amended. In addition, the final text of the bills along with the list of members in attendance for their reading would be published on the websites of the House and Senate for public review one week before a scheduled vote.

This delay would allow time for careful consideration of new legislation and for the public to voice its concerns before bills become law. It would also make it more difficult to pass the convoluted and nonsensical bills that currently tie up legions of lawyers and judges in a vain attempt to determine what exactly Congress intended.

The only intention I can make out from today’s Congress is the intention to look busy when election time rolls around. Well, the act isn’t working.

As President Bush tells us, “We are a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws.” Fair enough, but that old saying would be much more comforting if somebody, somewhere could tell us what those laws are.

On What Authority?

Disclaimer: I have never gambled online, nor do I enjoy gambling in general.

This week, Congress passed and the President signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, a bill that has already caused several publicly traded companies to pull out of the U.S. market. This bill was slipped in as an amendment to some unrelated port security legislation without serious debate and without a chance for the people impacted to make a case to their representatives. Before the bill, the industry generated $12 billion dollars a year worldwide, half of that in the U.S. Assuming the courts uphold the ban, that revenue will disappear.

The stocks of internet gambling companies are held by law abiding Americans, and millions have chosen to wager their hard-earned money on the websites.

On what legal basis were these people denied their income and entertainment? What is it about internet gambling as a transaction that makes it uniquely subject to regulation and prohibition? I can think of no meaningful distinction.

The prohibition of gambling, like the prohibition of drugs and alcohol and pornography and prostitution before it, is another example of Congress trying to impose its distinctly prudish, sober, straight-laced morality on the rest of us. Apparently this morality is good for us proles, its stiff confines shaping us in to productive citizens, but it obviously does not apply to Congressmen themselves who feel free to fuck children and fill their pockets.

I ask again, where does the authority to enact such legislation come from? What makes legislators believe they have the right to tinker with our lives?

This is the heart of authoritarianism: legislators claim the right to enact any legislation they choose because they are legislators. This logic is circular; it is not the truth and we must ban it from our brains.

This bill has nothing to do with gambling, everything to do with power. It is about the “law and order” types reasserting control over the internet and control over our lives.

To keep us paying our exorbitant taxes and believing that their control is necessary, the government must root out all eccentricity, it must attack at the source all things exciting, risky, bohemian and addictive. Where will we be if too many people start to think “I don’t believe I want 2.3 children, a house in the suburbs, and an 8-6 job working for some asshole”? The racy, sexy and utterly satisfying acts of life must remain taboo, denied to us (so they say) because they are dangerous.

It is your duty as Americans on this week marking yet another defeat for human freedom to do something boldly reckless and senselessly destructive, just for kicks. Go out to the street and feel the blood in your veins. Such action is the only antidote for the stupefying fog being pumped into you living room. I’ll see you out there.

The Moderate Revolution

Why is it that being a moderate in this country has become a radical position? People who know me or read this site will also know that my views about government tend to be anti-establishment, anti-bullshit, and anti-war. Is that really so out there?

While my personal feelings tend toward the anarcho-capitalist/libertarian end of the spectrum, I am the first to admit that if the U.S. Government put up a “Sorry We’re Closed” sign tomorrow morning there would be blood in the streets. As much as I think the occasional revolution might be good for keeping the politicos in line, chaos and widespread violence are not among my political goals.

I do not think that massive dislocations, the destruction of old modes of life and production, or the extermination of whole classes of people are necessary or desirable.

I do not favor a sudden inversion of the social hierarchy, merely its evolution toward a more just one.

I oppose the exercise of coercive power over innocent individuals, whatever its source. I respect the freedom of my fellow men to live whatever lifestyle they choose. I refuse to be brainwashed by politicians, academic institutions and the media when they try to spread hate and fear.

Are these radical ideas? Respect for human rights, a suspicion of authority, and desire to exercise control over my own life?

The parties that have shared power for the last century are the true radicals, committed to violent expansionism outside the country and state control of everything within. They are the ones with grandiose plans and visions for reforming humankind in the image of gods or “good citizens.” They are the big government “progressives,” the big business shills, the secret inheritors of Marx and Trotsky and Machiavelli and Rousseau.

Find me a true liberal in today’s government, a person of moderation, learning, and reason, a person dedicated to public service above his own career. They have been driven out by the hyenas.

The American center has been hung out to dry for too long. The 12% at either political extreme is the most important base for each party, but the vast majority of us are neither socialists nor oligarchs. We are interested in a government that is responsive and responsible, that respects us enough to ignore our most ill-conceived demands, that acts with deliberation and caution in times of peace, power and persistence when attacked.

We demand good government, reasoned reform, safe streets, and the opportunity to make a living. These are the demands of the silent majority across the globe, but the radicals are louder, angrier, and sharper in their rhetoric. How long will we let them dominate the debate before we reclaim the radical centrism of our fathers?

This Party is Boring

Everyone bitches about the partisanship here in Washington, and while the “red team blue team” game gets old fast, the real problem is not so much that people have strongly partisan policy preferences. It’s rather that most have no beliefs at all other than the bone-deep conviction that the other party is evil and wrong. Politicians and voters alike suffer from this syndrome.

Surveys of the American electorate show that, while opinions are nearly impossible to change, most people have stunted political ideologies that extend little beyond party preference. The sad fact is most Americans don’t even know what their own parties stand for. Party preference has almost nothing to do with objective self interest, nothing to do with reasoned assessments of evidence. It has everything to do with how your parents voted and what they told you as a child.

This is not to say that the Average Joe is stupid for not knowing all about political economy or the things his representatives do in office. This information is actually quite boring and difficult to obtain. Far from stupid, Americans are by and large skilled and knowledgeable people who hold highly specialized jobs that other Average Joes would be totally incapable of doing.

Making thoughtful judgments about complex policy issues takes time that people don’t have, energy that they can’t spare. Anybody see where this argument goes yet?

Why don’t we just let the worker bees be worker bees and us natural born leaders will make sure the hive keeps humming along. Most people can’t be expected to know what’s best for them. Just leave it to the experts.

Ok, so every totalitarian movement in the history of the world has made this argument. Politics are dirty. What’s the solution? We’re going to do away with them!

I only go down this intellectual road because the totalitarians, however wacky, really are responding to a fundamental human need. All of us need to be guided and mentored and formed; we are incomplete and incompetent in so many ways.

However the state is just another group of people with all the corresponding flaws – only these people declare their own infallibility and claim the right to shape us as they see fit.

Now we don’t live in a single party totalitarian state (yet) but take a look at the current political parties and try to sort out their philosophies of government, the values that define them. Look inside the cardboard boxes labeled Republican and Democrat and there are lots of odds and ends, but one artifact dominates the jumble.

Both ruling parties (and the bureaucracies and the mainstream media) are absolutely and totally committed to the preservation of the institutional framework of the U.S. Government. It sends them paychecks, it confers power and prestige, it is their forum, their life, their air.

Any group, coalition, person or organization that seriously questions “business as usual” will be crushed from all sides as a traitor or a madman.

While the status quo has always been powerful and there are good arguments for not rocking the boat without a reason, the status quo tendencies of any party are reinforced the longer it stays in power. If the result were mere stasis, I wouldn’t have such a problem.

However, the result of firmly entrenched and evenly opposed parties is much more insidious. It is a sort of decay, both in the quality of policy and in the ability of the population to think critically about it.

I fear our polity is inching toward its demise so slowly that we won’t even be able to identify the moment when it was definitively screwed. We need new parties, fresh blood, clear thinking, and for GOD SAKE some people in office who aren’t career politicians.

Rant off.

"Winning the Long War" and Effective Counterterrorism

I attended a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation this morning, and while normally these events are filled with uber-conservative bobble head dolls, this talk was actually pretty good. It had to do with the emerging intellectual effort intended to balance the needs of homeland security with those of the people who must actually live in the homeland.

James Carafano, author of the recent book "Winning the Long War" moderated the session and gave short pitch for his work. His basic thesis is that, in the early years of the Cold War, the academy and government cooperated closely to create the toolbox necessary to defeat the Soviet Union.

The only problem is, we're still fighting that war; we didn't win it. The third world was and continues to be the battleground between western liberalism and a variety of frighteningly radical political movements. We managed to beat back the Soviets, but once we asserted our hegemony we didn't really know what to do with the billions of people who were now looking to us for hope and help. Throughout the Cold War, we kept telling everyone we had the answers. Unfortunately, our answers were the same ones the Soviets had: huge cash transfers to friendly states and a huge troop presence in the unfriendly ones.

Oops.

The panelists this morning came from military and civilian backgrounds, but their primary gripe was the "stovepipe" problem. This is the notion that solutions, plans, ideas and knowledge about the world are contained within distinct and often antagonistic organizations that are unable to cooperate with one another to achieve shared goals. Department of State, Department of Defense, USAID, Department of Agriculture, FBI, CIA, NSA, state and local law enforcement, the university system, the think tank system, these people typically hate each other and address problems in fundamentally different ways. There is no coordinating body capable of bringing their diffuse information together and making it usable. The National Security Council is supposed to do this job, but in recent years it has simply become its own mini agency, taking part just as aggressively as the others in petty turf wars and interagency bickering.

The panelists believe that new legislation and an overhaul of the executive are needed to fix this problem, but in the meantime, they suggested an extension of professional training in "homeland security" at the undergraduate and graduate levels. These programs would combine training in terrorism, counterinsurgency, human rights, intelligence, conflict resolution, and law enforcement in an effort to create a new generation of thinkers and bureaucrats wrestling with the most important issues in the field.

There's just one problem. The panelists did not seem conscious of the fact that the biggest gap in our knowledge about terrorism is HOW TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM BECOMING TERRORISTS. We know how to kill people really really well. We are so much better at it than they are it's not even funny. What we don't know how to do is save ourselves from the necessity of killing them. We don't know how to actually keep them from wanting to kill us. Until we figure that out, there will still be attacks, there will still be suicide bombings, and there will still be lines of disillusioned young people lining up to be killed until we run out of bullets or our trigger fingers get tired.

That is not how anybody wants this conflict to work out, so put your thinking caps on.

It Could Be Worse

I realize that my posts in the last few weeks have painted a somewhat dark picture of the world. I would like to take a moment to pull my loyal readers back from the brink of suicide.

We’re not all sheep:
A survey conducted in North Carolina during the fall of 2002, the golden age of W’s approval ratings, asked respondents “How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right - just about always, most of the time, only some of the time, or almost never?”

Nearly 2/3 replied “only some of the time” or “almost never.” Approval ratings for the President hover near their all time low, and Americans trust in Congress has been on a downward slide for a generation. In other words, people do notice when their government is corrupt, inept, and – dare I say it – evil. The question is how to channel this dissatisfaction into a meaningful reform movement. Good ideas and good marketing have historically and can still change the world. The revolution is not dead.

We’re in this together:
Somalia, one of the poorest places in the world and a country without an officially recognized government had some 500000 cell phone users in 2004. As borders are broken down by satellite media, the internet, and cellular phones, people all over the world become instantly aware of distant events and act to shape their outcomes. The power of information can help move resources where they are needed both through charity and through commerce. Person to person contact, even mediated by our gadgetry, forces us to recognize that people are people wherever they are.

When a tsunami hits South Asia, video feeds from survivors hit our screens in a matter of hours. In a few hours more the flow of money and relief supplies is already underway.

In ages past, genocides and atrocities went unnoticed by all but the killers and the killed. Today, few despots can afford to ignore the court of international public opinion.

The worse the better:
As much as it pains me to borrow an observation from Lenin, it seems that real political change is only possible at times of crisis. We don’t have to go communist though. In a recent panel at the Cato Institute, Jim Gwartney and Simeon Djankov, both noted economists and advocates of political reform in the developing world were asked to describe the background conditions most favorable to successful reform. Their nearly simultaneous answer: desperation.

Politicians just seem to work better with a mob banging at the door.

While the pep-talk is an art form I have not yet mastered, I think we still have reason to refrain from slitting our wrists. There are millions upon millions of scary brilliant people running around this globe; we just have to get them talking to each other.

Truth, Justice and the American Way

The United States Government has a fetish for large political communities. Its actions in the world demonstrate a belief that big is beautiful; we cajole our friends and enemies alike to align in ever larger groupings, federations, unions, blocs.

This is perhaps a consequence of our attachment to the highly profitable status quo. Large and established groupings almost necessarily abandon radicalism, they are less costly to negotiate with or deter, and the U.S. still believes that it can maintain economic and military primacy in a world of great powers.

These explanations do not go far enough to explain our obsession however. The real reason has to do with the core functions of the state, functions that are at odds with the political philosophy that shapes American thought on so many issues.

We can talk abstractly about the state as a guarantor of rights, a purveyor of public goods, a benevolent and civilizing force in the world, but these noble goals ignore the reality that the primary tool of the state is violence or the threat thereof. The cognitive dissonance that results from these facts – particularly under an American government founded on the idea of natural rights and which selectively and consistently ignores them – can only be calmed by a “great cause,” a purpose more important than the hopelessly violent rat race of human existence.

Call this mythical purpose God, call it Manifest Destiny, call it Democracy or the American Way, it is psychologically necessary if the nation is to persist. The large state and its great cause reinforce one another, they are complementary and inseparable.

And yet, stripped of its regional coloring and ideological twists, the nationalist lie is essentially the belief that “we” are different from “them.” That is to say, it is right and just and good that certain freedoms are exercised by patriots but denied to non-believers.

A political community is a responsible (justice must be left aside for this discussion) user of coercive power only to the extent that respect for natural human rights is central to decision-making and that its institutions provide for transparency and accountability when abuse invariably takes place.

Large political communities like the United States become dangerous on all three accounts when they begin to believe their own propaganda. The grand lie is used to justify widespread use of force and coercion. The fiction of the homogeneous and unified nation is used to silence dissent. The distance between the people and their agents obscures responsibility.

Individual citizens of the United States are carefully insulated from the violence committed on their behalf. Our television anchor men drone on about the trials and tribulations of war, but the networks are practically forbidden from showing glimpses of its true horror. We see cannons firing into the air, we see bombs explode from a distance, we see tanks rolling through the street. All very impressive, all calculated induce the catatonia of trust and security.

What we do not see however is where the shells land, the scene after the smoke clears, the human faces crushed beneath the tracks of the M-1. We do not see the smoking piles of human meat, we do not smell blood spray in the air, we do not watch the howling families tearing at mangled corpses.

When we hear of “bad guys” being tortured, we are not permitted to watch as the masked and ghoulish men that WE EMPLOY attach car batteries to their screaming victims.

We cannot see, we do not kill, our hands our clean . . . or so our government tells us.

The truth is at your fingertips if you can bear to look.

The Legitimacy Problem

It is amazing to me that a country called into being by cries of “no taxation without representation” can be so oblivious to the international implications of its actions.

The central contradiction facing western democracies, particularly the United States with its global presence and neo-imperial pretensions, is the fact that the people who vote a particular government into office represent a tiny minority of the people directly impacted by the resulting policy change. Taxes do not need to be paid by personal check to the Internal Revenue Service to be very real.

A commitment to democracy, to true rule by the governed, would seem to make our situation untenable, but the west continues to simultaneously argue in favor of democracy and increase its coercive power over non-citizens.

The ability to sustain such a glaring logical inconsistency is almost impressive. It represents a feat of doublethink on par with the old favorites “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.”

Launching wars against distant peoples not just with democratic approval but in the name of democracy itself is perhaps the height of such absurdity, but countless other examples present themselves if we begin to scrutinize the actions of our state.

Even policies that appear purely domestic, subsidies to farmers for instance, have measurable and dramatic effects on non-represented people across the globe. Quotas and restrictions on the flow of goods, people, and money are even more destructive. The provision of foreign aid through multilateral organizations and bilateral arrangements is overtly and obviously an effort to shape policy outcomes abroad, to govern by remote control, if you will.

These actions are usually justified with the following traditional realist argument: because certain states are able to exercise power in the world and because this exertion seems to be of material benefit the states and their citizens, it would be irresponsible not to act. It would be a serious violation of the public trust. These theorists truly believe that “might makes right.” Take the argument or leave it; their consistency at least is admirable.

The new and more insidious face of this old position is shaped by a belief that western democracies are so manifestly and completely correct in their method of government that whatever policy they choose to pursue is necessarily a just one. I will let my previous postings make the argument that this view is incorrect.

To justify a policy by the mechanism which produced it is to go against the skeptical rationalism of the Enlightenment and to cast aside the notion of a limited sphere of legitimate state action. The very core of our democracy is the idea that certain rights are fundamental and inherent in human beings regardless of their class or location.

The fact that people happen to reside outside the borders of the United States makes them no less human, no less deserving of protection, no less qualified to claim their rights. How then can we justify the exercise of coercive power over them?

Although it may be practically difficult to extend equal rights to the people of the world, we can certainly refrain from actions that have demonstrable negative consequences for them.

We cannot yet afford to forget what the liberal mission was about.

If we accept that our power confers license to act as we please, we do not just profane the name of democracy. We may also discover to our great misfortune that power used is power lost.

Truth and Politics

A professor of mine, an avowed anarchist and 1960’s activist, once said to me “politics is the battle over the definition of reality.” At the time, this struck me as a profound observation, but years and experience have changed my understanding of the matter.

As a description of the way some idealistic political agents view their careers, I think Professor Ward was quite right. As a description of fact, an epistemological theory if you will, I can think of few things more disturbing than the idea that the political process itself is a truth-producing enterprise. Collective bargaining, dispute resolution, mobilization of resources, these are problems which can be solved through politicking.

To suggest for even a moment that politicians are or should be engaged with defining reality strikes me as not only incorrect but terrifying in its implications. Political acts are by definition divorced from the truth; they are inherently deceitful.

To make themselves palatable to diverse audiences, politicians abuse our language and our psychological weaknesses to make us believe that we share their opinions; on the basis of this “popular consensus,” they claim a mandate to wield power.

Upon closer inspection, the apparent consensus dissolves immediately.

Political agents not only do but must conceal their true beliefs from the pubic at large to attain and maintain power. Even if their parties did not openly demand it of them, the subjective nature of most political questions renders true consensus technically impossible. National consensus is a convenient fiction that has propped up the governments of the world for generations.

Asserting true national unity is akin to claiming in philosophical debate that one has once and for all proved the triumph of free will over determinism. Both assertions are usually accompanied by appeals to some deity or other and arguments that loop back on themselves with dizzying speed.

Truth is the result of conflict only in the sense that it is arrived at when the exhausted combatants see the absurdity of their battle and lay down their arms. Far from troubling, I find voter apathy in the U.S. a heartening sign that most people have noticed just how petty and pointless the political discourse in this country has become.

Now if everybody would just stop paying their taxes as well we might get somewhere. . .

Fun with Crack

Hey Crackhead

While this rant is set in San Fran rather than DC, it is still hillarious.

Enjoy.

A Kinder, Gentler Fascism

http://bureaucrash.com/blog/could_it_be_true

The Next World War

With people like Newt Gingrich announcing the beginning of World War III, the current conflict in the Middle East deserves at least some comment.

Let us for a moment concede that World War III is real. None the less, the interpretation of the conflict that America’s Republicans advance is all backwards and upside down.

What we are seeing is not the “Islamo-Fascists” against the “Free World.” These terms themselves are devoid of content; the vocabulary is purely persuasive rather than descriptive.

Fascists evil. Terror bad. Islamists wrong.

Freedom good. War necessary. America great.

Ya, ya, we all get it already.

The forces arrayed against the United States Government certainly do reject the “U.S. model,” but this rejection has very little to do with rejecting the values that supposedly define us. For some time now, our politicians have paid lip service to the values of market capitalism and representative democracy while increasing the role of the state both at home and abroad in allocating resources and directing economic activity. The state does these things poorly, and as a result, most of the world has stayed poor.

U.S. policy both assumes and attempts to create stable and sovereign states with fixed borders and the capacity to control their territory. These states are viewed as the only legitimate intermediaries between the populations they represent, the only legitimate conduits for goods and services, the eyes, ears, and voices of the people. This view has been bypassed by reality. The world is increasingly integrated and interdependent despite the best efforts of nationalists everywhere to maintain the provincial system that they inherited.

The statist/nationalist bent that infects the U.S. policy community is incompatible with true freedom because it implies that there is a legitimate role for the state in restricting the flow of goods, people, and ideas. The state as we know it is conservative and repressive by definition. Its employs violence and coercion as it sees fit, and maintains itself as sovereign to the exclusion of other goals.

U.S. policy is schizophrenic because it claims to want both strong states and individual rights. The tension between these goals is evident in the history of our policy toward the developing world.

We have toppled stable sovereign states because they were not sufficiently free, yet for decades we refused to approve of freedom-augmenting reforms across the developing world because they might have upset the highly profitable status-quo.

This is a vulnerable and hypocritical position. The problem as I see it is not that the “U.S. model” is under siege. In fact, our foreign and domestic policy demand immediate reform. Rather, the problem is that the opposition so far has come from the wrong direction.

The most serious and dedicated critics of U.S. policy in the modern world believe that the problem with the U.S. model is not that it advocates structures that are inimical to human freedom. Rather, they criticize it on the grounds that it does not permit the sort of centralized command and control they deem necessary to overcome poverty and resist foreign influence. They see the strengthening of the nation state, the augmentation of its ability to coerce its citizens and mediate their interaction with the outside world, as the objective of their resistance to the U.S.

The hyper-nationalists have dominated the world stage in part because their tactics and rhetoric are hyper-dramatic (martial parades, fiery speeches, and shiny new government programs). Unfortunately for the vast majority of humankind, the humanists of the world have been asleep at the wheel, unwilling since the 1960’s to say anything truly radical and unable to frame their objections in terms that capture the imagination of the silent majority. Unless we humanists wake up and make ourselves heard, the nationalists may succeed in carving up the globe once again.

This all too seductive path is one of ignorance, war, and decline. The current international order is dysfunctional and will be reformed or replaced one way or another, but we must decide now if we will push forward with the integration of the world or fall back into the comfortable and deadly provincialism that dominated for some many millennia. This is the next World War, and we are losing it already.

Can You Say Gerrymandering Boys and Girls? There, I Knew That You Could.

In this era of shrill partisan bickering, the one issue that draws the politicians of this country together, the one task that is confronted with true bipartisan effort, with sustained and focused attention is not securing the nation’s borders, not Medicare reform, not even increasing Congressional salaries.

No, it is Congressional redistricting that brings our legislators to the bargaining table sober and calm, their wind bags safely at home, their discourse respectful and honest.

Why, you might ask, would something so mundane create this reaction when the threats of economic decline and catastrophic war do nothing to halt the ceaseless point-scoring and self aggrandizement?

The answer is quite simple. However much any individual Congressman might wish to dance on the ashes of the other party’s delegation, the imperative he faces is to preserve his own place in the legislature.

The only way to do this – short of changing one’s views to align with the interests of the district that one represents of course – is for Congressmen to exchange opposition strongholds in their own districts for pieces of territory in their neighbor’s districts that consistently vote against their representatives. This is a true win-win situation for the Congressmen involved.

Even more than the complex problem of campaign finance reform, gerrymandering is responsible for the fact that it is almost impossible to oust incumbent legislators or to win on a third-party ticket in this country.

As one unusually candid and responsible congressman friend commented when asked if he though he would win reelection, “Well, unless they find me in bed with a live boy or a dead girl...”

The terrifying fact is, gross incompetence and bold disregard for the most pressing issues facing the nation are no longer enough to merit removal from state’s highest assembly. Our lawmakers lead long and illustrious careers based on character traits that would have a 7-11 clerk pounding the pavement in a week.

The vast majority of our politicians are not legal scholars, not skilled statesmen, not even wise observers of human nature. Most lack even the most basic understanding of economics, and habitually avoid philosophical debates about the proper role of the state they command. The dirty secret of Congress is that, after all the schmoozing, pandering, kissing babies, and being taken to lunch, representatives haven’t the time to even read legislation before voting on it (much less make solemn deliberations about its merits).

They have become professional election winners who are qualified to do little else.

Allow me to propose a very simple constitutional amendment that will never ever be put into law but which would solve our incumbency problem overnight. Rather than allowing congressmen to carve up the country however they like, the law would state that all congressional districts must approximate contiguous squares with the precise boundaries determined only by state boundaries, major roads, bodies of water, and topographical contours.

These districts would be sufficiently diverse to put the traditional political class out of business. This would allow the return of true representatives, citizens who take a few years from their real careers to serve their fellow men.

This was the idea of a house of representatives in the first place, but without proper control and oversight, the temptation was too strong for our Congressmen to resist.