Pity the poor fans standing on line, shivering in the snow, waiting for the midnight release of the latest Jay Homnick column. Suddenly, bleary-eyed, they see a group of elite types being guided through the crowd by a passel of bodyguards.
They look at each other in a resentful flash of recognition: it's those Reform Club guys who always get the early glimpse.
Here's a peek:
A poll, than which no greater intellectual authority in our culture is conceivable, has declared that it is high time for a woman to accede to the Presidency. The mensuration of temporal height is not a discipline I have mastered, but I have scored a high mark or twain in political science. And in that field the time had grown to its full height almost four decades ago.
In 1966 Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister of India and served for fourteen of the next seventeen years; Golda Meir became her counterpart in Israel in 1969, Thatcher in England in '79. When Geraldine Ferraro ran for Vice-President alongside Walter Mondale in 1984, it was a familiar refrain among Republican types that "if Margaret Thatcher would be heading our ticket we'd vote for her in a heartbeat". Although it was kind of lame and pathetic that they felt the need to buttonhole everyone with that information, lest the chauvinist stereotype prove too adhesive, it had the homely virtue of being true.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Larry Summers and Harvard
Mike Rappaport over at The Right Coast
is entirely right about the Larry Summers thing. Once he decided to engage on the big issues (and did he really think the folks around Harvard wouldn't get upset with even a question about women's "innate" abilities?), he had to win. Or, failing that, he had to go down trying. Instead, he just wimped out. Maybe men are just not as able to stand up and fight - or maybe he just didn't want to hit a girl (even if just metaphorically)...
is entirely right about the Larry Summers thing. Once he decided to engage on the big issues (and did he really think the folks around Harvard wouldn't get upset with even a question about women's "innate" abilities?), he had to win. Or, failing that, he had to go down trying. Instead, he just wimped out. Maybe men are just not as able to stand up and fight - or maybe he just didn't want to hit a girl (even if just metaphorically)...
Monday, March 06, 2006
The Religious Right as "American Taliban": Calumny or Just Slander?
Our Burkean-in-training, Connie Deady, asks the right questions, ones that are being asked everywhere right now:
Most everybody does, Ms. Deady, except for those of us who have no mind for such things at all. Actually, it originated with Jesus, with the "render unto Caesar" bit.
I see the argument often these days that Christian thought is founded on superstition ("revelation") alone and that modern secularism is the heir to all human reason, from Aristotle 'til now. But that's simply not accurate.
You'll find the philosophical father of our constitution John Locke's moral and political vocabulary closer to St. Thomas Aquinas' natural law than to modernist philosophy: like Aquinas, Locke does not use the Bible directly to advance his political arguments. And you will find Christianity philosophically and historically in easier accomodation with the Enlightenment and the Founding principles, and frankly, vice-versa. It is in post-Enlightenment thought, "modern" philosophy (as opposed to what we like to call around here "classical liberalism"), the realm of Marx, Rawls, and Freud, where the true radicalism, the modern Jacobins, are to be found.
Theories of natural law do not depend on the Bible, which is why I'm fond of pointing out that the Dalai Lama is also a natural law theorist, his philosophy not dependent on any holy book, but on reason alone. His Holiness is a useful control in our thought experiment: like the Dalai Lama, Christian thought does not reject ordinary moral reasoning. The Bible is nowhere near comprehensive enough to get by without it.
OK, this what makes me start to bristle these days, and I'll tell you why. It's a facile but unfounded equivalency, that "all religions are (somehow) the same," and you're by no means alone in making it. There were 500 Islam-inspired bombings in a single day recently in Bangladesh, a Muslim country that virtually nobody gives a geo-econo-political damn about. There is a phenomenon here that has nothing to do with us.
This is where today's routine equivalencies of Christian and Islamic fundamentalisms fall short: in their founding documents themselves.
The specifics of Islam, that it is not seen (and does not offer itself) merely as a religion (muzdhab), but as a self-contained Tao, a comprehensive way of life (din) both moral and legal, make liberalization ("Enlightenment") far more difficult, especially in accomodation with pluralistic Western secularism, which seeks to pop Islam into its conceptual pigeonhole as mere religion. I wish it were that easy, but the Western mind from neo-con to modernist loses the flavor, nay, the essence, in translation.
Each tradition has its specifics and self-conception, which cannot be ignored and thrown into one amorphous soup. We must understand them as they understand themselves, or else we're left trying to make squares out of circles, wasting our time and cyberink.
In the American debate, Christian moral thought does not claim any special dispensation from the rigors of reason; it holds itself simply equal to any secular system of philosophy.
But not inferior. It does not accept dhimmitude and second-class status. Everything's on the table, and let the most reasonable moral system be the law of the land, as decided by the consciences of the American people, not a minority of legal theorists who use the constitution as a weapon against we the people.
This was the moral choice that confronted the "religious right," Christian fundamentalists, in the wake of Roe v. Wade, a constitutionally brutal decision. They found themselves thrust, as part of a democracy that the Bible never contemplated, into sharing the role of Caesar and with all the burdens and duties of conscience: to accept those burdens and duties, or in embracing the new legal theory of moral neutrality as the only truly constitutional principle of law, shirk them.
To my mind, they followed the only moral course (with some regrettable and condemnable extremist exceptions)---using moral suasion in the form of protest, and organizing politically to change the composition of the Supreme Court, which was the real author of the inalienable "right" to abortion, not the constitution or the people, and certainly not to their minds, any endowing Creator.
I think they did OK. They respected our social contract in both letter and spirit.
We shall, with your permission, hold for another day the prudence or morality in our present moral dilemma, between accommodating the order that Muslim tyrannies provide their people versus the decimating chaos that accompanies the establishment of political self-determination, and the question of the compatability of democracy with Islam. I first wanted to deal with throwing everyone who believes in anything beyond the material world into the same indifferent soup. I have some charitable things to say about Islam, but charity begins at home.
Was it Aquinas or Augustine that differentiated between the secular and the divine and said that the two should be separate and we should leave the divine to God and the state to be secular? (I always get those two mixed up in my mind.)
Most everybody does, Ms. Deady, except for those of us who have no mind for such things at all. Actually, it originated with Jesus, with the "render unto Caesar" bit.
I see the argument often these days that Christian thought is founded on superstition ("revelation") alone and that modern secularism is the heir to all human reason, from Aristotle 'til now. But that's simply not accurate.
You'll find the philosophical father of our constitution John Locke's moral and political vocabulary closer to St. Thomas Aquinas' natural law than to modernist philosophy: like Aquinas, Locke does not use the Bible directly to advance his political arguments. And you will find Christianity philosophically and historically in easier accomodation with the Enlightenment and the Founding principles, and frankly, vice-versa. It is in post-Enlightenment thought, "modern" philosophy (as opposed to what we like to call around here "classical liberalism"), the realm of Marx, Rawls, and Freud, where the true radicalism, the modern Jacobins, are to be found.
Theories of natural law do not depend on the Bible, which is why I'm fond of pointing out that the Dalai Lama is also a natural law theorist, his philosophy not dependent on any holy book, but on reason alone. His Holiness is a useful control in our thought experiment: like the Dalai Lama, Christian thought does not reject ordinary moral reasoning. The Bible is nowhere near comprehensive enough to get by without it.
It seems to me that one outcome of your position is what we are getting in Iraq and the Mideast, which is complete intermingling of State and Islam. Doesn't that give you pause to worry about letting the divine control the secular laws?
OK, this what makes me start to bristle these days, and I'll tell you why. It's a facile but unfounded equivalency, that "all religions are (somehow) the same," and you're by no means alone in making it. There were 500 Islam-inspired bombings in a single day recently in Bangladesh, a Muslim country that virtually nobody gives a geo-econo-political damn about. There is a phenomenon here that has nothing to do with us.
This is where today's routine equivalencies of Christian and Islamic fundamentalisms fall short: in their founding documents themselves.
The specifics of Islam, that it is not seen (and does not offer itself) merely as a religion (muzdhab), but as a self-contained Tao, a comprehensive way of life (din) both moral and legal, make liberalization ("Enlightenment") far more difficult, especially in accomodation with pluralistic Western secularism, which seeks to pop Islam into its conceptual pigeonhole as mere religion. I wish it were that easy, but the Western mind from neo-con to modernist loses the flavor, nay, the essence, in translation.
Each tradition has its specifics and self-conception, which cannot be ignored and thrown into one amorphous soup. We must understand them as they understand themselves, or else we're left trying to make squares out of circles, wasting our time and cyberink.
In the American debate, Christian moral thought does not claim any special dispensation from the rigors of reason; it holds itself simply equal to any secular system of philosophy.
But not inferior. It does not accept dhimmitude and second-class status. Everything's on the table, and let the most reasonable moral system be the law of the land, as decided by the consciences of the American people, not a minority of legal theorists who use the constitution as a weapon against we the people.
This was the moral choice that confronted the "religious right," Christian fundamentalists, in the wake of Roe v. Wade, a constitutionally brutal decision. They found themselves thrust, as part of a democracy that the Bible never contemplated, into sharing the role of Caesar and with all the burdens and duties of conscience: to accept those burdens and duties, or in embracing the new legal theory of moral neutrality as the only truly constitutional principle of law, shirk them.
To my mind, they followed the only moral course (with some regrettable and condemnable extremist exceptions)---using moral suasion in the form of protest, and organizing politically to change the composition of the Supreme Court, which was the real author of the inalienable "right" to abortion, not the constitution or the people, and certainly not to their minds, any endowing Creator.
I think they did OK. They respected our social contract in both letter and spirit.
We shall, with your permission, hold for another day the prudence or morality in our present moral dilemma, between accommodating the order that Muslim tyrannies provide their people versus the decimating chaos that accompanies the establishment of political self-determination, and the question of the compatability of democracy with Islam. I first wanted to deal with throwing everyone who believes in anything beyond the material world into the same indifferent soup. I have some charitable things to say about Islam, but charity begins at home.
In Defense of Principle on Campus
Back from Geneva, a third-world backwater where a decent corned beef (sorry, corned boeuf) sandwich is not to be found. Anyway, I see that the Court ruled 8-zip against the campus lefties in
Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, so that a threat to revoke federal funding is not coercion or a threat to free speech, or blah, blah, blah, as the lefties continue to oppose ROTC and miltary recruiting efforts on campus because of don't ask-don't tell policies toward homosexuals. So: Will the campuses deny themselves such federal dollars so as to stand for their principles? Just asking.
Off to Berlin Saturday to talk about China. Corned beef will not be hard to find.
Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, so that a threat to revoke federal funding is not coercion or a threat to free speech, or blah, blah, blah, as the lefties continue to oppose ROTC and miltary recruiting efforts on campus because of don't ask-don't tell policies toward homosexuals. So: Will the campuses deny themselves such federal dollars so as to stand for their principles? Just asking.
Off to Berlin Saturday to talk about China. Corned beef will not be hard to find.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Antidisestablishmentarianism
Oh, it's one of those usual press things, where they highlight a non-story to make stupid Christians look even stupider, but it certainly does seem that
...if we're to believe KMOV's (sic) illiterate and spotty account.
Now, legislatures "consider" all kinds of bills, like proposing to recognize the fact that the earth is flat, illegal Martian aliens killed Nicole Simpson, or that Willie Mays was the greatest baseball player of all time. They usually vote no. (Mays was the 2nd greatest, sorry. Babe Ruth could pitch.)
I like the bill, in its way. The anti-theists can only push so far, and this is the pushback. No Roe v. Wade, no Pat Robertson, and that's a fact. They say you can't impose morality, but you can't impose moral neutrality either. Human beings aren't wired that way.
But let me say I think it's a bad idea for a state to simply declare an "official religion." I think they should put it up for bids, like being the official beer of the NFL. The Mormons would take a pass, but the Scientologists would take a stab at it and the Baha'is could certainly use the exposure. Then again, the UAE would probably just swoop in and buy it for Wahhabism.
The Official Religious Terrorist Cult of Missouri. Now that has a ring to it. Christian Identity skinhead losers* would be really pissed, though. Outsourced again.
*I was going to provide a link to "storm front," for some cheap laughs, but it looks like they've been closed down by their free-website provider. Cleaning up spills on Aisle 4 just doesn't provide much of a revenue base. Not a great act of courage on my part, but come and get me, you bastards. I'm a Republican and that means I've got guns, and enough dough to afford bigger ones than you.
Missouri legislators in Jefferson City considered a bill that would name Christianity the state's official "majority" religion.
House Concurrent Resolution 13 has is pending in the state legislature.
...if we're to believe KMOV's (sic) illiterate and spotty account.
Now, legislatures "consider" all kinds of bills, like proposing to recognize the fact that the earth is flat, illegal Martian aliens killed Nicole Simpson, or that Willie Mays was the greatest baseball player of all time. They usually vote no. (Mays was the 2nd greatest, sorry. Babe Ruth could pitch.)
I like the bill, in its way. The anti-theists can only push so far, and this is the pushback. No Roe v. Wade, no Pat Robertson, and that's a fact. They say you can't impose morality, but you can't impose moral neutrality either. Human beings aren't wired that way.
But let me say I think it's a bad idea for a state to simply declare an "official religion." I think they should put it up for bids, like being the official beer of the NFL. The Mormons would take a pass, but the Scientologists would take a stab at it and the Baha'is could certainly use the exposure. Then again, the UAE would probably just swoop in and buy it for Wahhabism.
The Official Religious Terrorist Cult of Missouri. Now that has a ring to it. Christian Identity skinhead losers* would be really pissed, though. Outsourced again.
*I was going to provide a link to "storm front," for some cheap laughs, but it looks like they've been closed down by their free-website provider. Cleaning up spills on Aisle 4 just doesn't provide much of a revenue base. Not a great act of courage on my part, but come and get me, you bastards. I'm a Republican and that means I've got guns, and enough dough to afford bigger ones than you.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Eye on Islamicism
Today we add a link to the Infidel Bloggers Alliance to our blogroll.
Our occasional commenter "Pastorius" is the blogfather of the IBA, an international group of a dozen or so bloggers reporting on jihad around the world, supplying both first-hand accounts and legitimate news items from the overseas media that don't seem to make the American mainstream press.
Most all the bloggers remain anonymous, admittedly out of fear for their own safety and that of their families. That may sound overly cautious, but just today they report that Abdullah Aziz, "Author of the World Renowned Comic Book, 'Mohammed's Believe It or Else!'" has been driven underground by death threats. And of course, there's Theo van Gogh, among others.
I'd been looking for an old quote from our friend and frequent commenter James Elliott, who observed that a difference between the left and right in this country was that the latter perceived militant Islam as a grave and existential threat, where the former saw a managable crisis. I thought that was pretty accurate, but I also notice recent events in Europe may have even those on the left, Mr. Elliott included, becoming more willing to cast a more critical eye on the extent of the problem.
I have no doubt that the IBA will prove to be a valuable window to the world on this issue. They get a little, um, passionate at times, but the vast majority of their sources are solid and easily confirmed elsewhere. We all, myself included, would like to think that bin Laden is just a splashier version of David Koresh, but there may be more to it than that, and we all need to know.
My own thanks and good wishes to Pastorius and the members of the IBA for doing the investigation and inquiry that needs to be done.
Our occasional commenter "Pastorius" is the blogfather of the IBA, an international group of a dozen or so bloggers reporting on jihad around the world, supplying both first-hand accounts and legitimate news items from the overseas media that don't seem to make the American mainstream press.
Most all the bloggers remain anonymous, admittedly out of fear for their own safety and that of their families. That may sound overly cautious, but just today they report that Abdullah Aziz, "Author of the World Renowned Comic Book, 'Mohammed's Believe It or Else!'" has been driven underground by death threats. And of course, there's Theo van Gogh, among others.
I'd been looking for an old quote from our friend and frequent commenter James Elliott, who observed that a difference between the left and right in this country was that the latter perceived militant Islam as a grave and existential threat, where the former saw a managable crisis. I thought that was pretty accurate, but I also notice recent events in Europe may have even those on the left, Mr. Elliott included, becoming more willing to cast a more critical eye on the extent of the problem.
I have no doubt that the IBA will prove to be a valuable window to the world on this issue. They get a little, um, passionate at times, but the vast majority of their sources are solid and easily confirmed elsewhere. We all, myself included, would like to think that bin Laden is just a splashier version of David Koresh, but there may be more to it than that, and we all need to know.
My own thanks and good wishes to Pastorius and the members of the IBA for doing the investigation and inquiry that needs to be done.
Friday, March 03, 2006
The War on Terror and the Cold War
I remember thinking soon after Sept. 11th that the War on Terror (as it was quickly labeled) would probably end up a lot like the Cold War: it would be a long, "twilight" struggle where some portion of the political Left (and Right, for that matter) would tire and seek to have us leave the field of battle before we could win. The thing that I thought would be truly distinctive is that, unlike in the Cold War, the Islamists did not and likely would not possess the capability to (a) destroy us or (b) come to rule us. The "Cartoon Wars" and riots in France have made me rethink this a bit - and not in a good way.
Though it may be hard for some people to remember this, the Soviet Union had a real opportunity in the aftermath of WWII to essentially rule all of Europe. Communist parties were quite strong, especially in Italy and France, and if the US had not been willing to spend money (and do whatever else it did) to make sure those parties did not get a hold of power, things could have gone very poorly for us. It's pretty easy to imagine a those parties (who took their orders from Moscow) ordering American troops out of the continent and doing what their brethren in the east did after 1948.
After a while, of course, the threat of direct Soviet rule lessened (they had enough trouble hanging on to their own satellite countries), but still Moscow tried to intimidate the West into bending its direction, at least to the point where they would be "neutral" (a la, say, Finland). The blockade of Berlin, use of communist unions to stage strategic strikes, funding of terrorist groups (Baadher Meinhof Gang, IRA) and "peace" movements, and so on were all designed to apply subtle (and not so subtle) pressure on western Europe in an effort to divide them from the US and bend them (ever so slightly) to the Soviet will. (There were, of course, genuinely home-grown movements that wanted the same thing).
It strikes me that this is precisely the same sort of thing that is going on now in regards to Europe and the Islamists. They can't rule outright - there aren't enough of them - but they can intimidate European governments and societies enough such that the US has to consider much of Europe simply unreliable when it comes to policy toward the Middle East. I have no doubt that the Europeans definitely do not want Iran to get a nuke (they are, after all, much closer than we are), but if push comes to shove, can the Europeans be depended upon to help with action (i.e. reducing every Iranian military facility to rubble)? If a few enterprising Imams can intimidate most European governments into helpless sputtering on the basis of some unremarkable cartoons, what do you think they'll do when it becomes clear that we're getting ready to take Iran out?
I'm still convinced that the Islamists don't pose the same degree of strategic threat that the Soviets did - they just don't have 2,000 ICBMs. But they can intimidate our allies (and us) enough to make it easier for them to win control of the Islamic countries in the Middle East. And that's a cause for worry.
Though it may be hard for some people to remember this, the Soviet Union had a real opportunity in the aftermath of WWII to essentially rule all of Europe. Communist parties were quite strong, especially in Italy and France, and if the US had not been willing to spend money (and do whatever else it did) to make sure those parties did not get a hold of power, things could have gone very poorly for us. It's pretty easy to imagine a those parties (who took their orders from Moscow) ordering American troops out of the continent and doing what their brethren in the east did after 1948.
After a while, of course, the threat of direct Soviet rule lessened (they had enough trouble hanging on to their own satellite countries), but still Moscow tried to intimidate the West into bending its direction, at least to the point where they would be "neutral" (a la, say, Finland). The blockade of Berlin, use of communist unions to stage strategic strikes, funding of terrorist groups (Baadher Meinhof Gang, IRA) and "peace" movements, and so on were all designed to apply subtle (and not so subtle) pressure on western Europe in an effort to divide them from the US and bend them (ever so slightly) to the Soviet will. (There were, of course, genuinely home-grown movements that wanted the same thing).
It strikes me that this is precisely the same sort of thing that is going on now in regards to Europe and the Islamists. They can't rule outright - there aren't enough of them - but they can intimidate European governments and societies enough such that the US has to consider much of Europe simply unreliable when it comes to policy toward the Middle East. I have no doubt that the Europeans definitely do not want Iran to get a nuke (they are, after all, much closer than we are), but if push comes to shove, can the Europeans be depended upon to help with action (i.e. reducing every Iranian military facility to rubble)? If a few enterprising Imams can intimidate most European governments into helpless sputtering on the basis of some unremarkable cartoons, what do you think they'll do when it becomes clear that we're getting ready to take Iran out?
I'm still convinced that the Islamists don't pose the same degree of strategic threat that the Soviets did - they just don't have 2,000 ICBMs. But they can intimidate our allies (and us) enough to make it easier for them to win control of the Islamic countries in the Middle East. And that's a cause for worry.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Strayed From the Heart
Often the great rabbis become so inundated by pilgrims seeking advice and prayers that they must designate a receiving secretary to serve as a buffer and a filter. This creates a potential for abuse, as that control over access can be parlayed into various advantages. Once, the rabbi of Belzyce, Poland, was told by some congregants that his secretary was selling appointments to the highest bidder and pocketing these ill-gotten gains. But the rabbi refused to fire him.
“This much I know,” he explained. “I chose the most honest man in the city. If the job corrupted him, why should I replace him with some other poor fellow and ruin his morals as well?”
No Abramoff apologist I. More than a year ago I administered – in the pages of The American Spectator – a proper scourging. Yet the fact remains that he was not a bad guy who descended upon Washington to game the system and pad his wallet. He came with a heart brimful with good intentions that eventually paved the road to brimstone. As a leader of the national College Republicans while at Brandeis, he was imbued with the Reaganite spirit. He entered D.C. to help steward “The Contraction With America”, the effort to put Boss Tweed on a diet, to shrink bloated government. How did all that good will come undone?
And, as a corollary, is it unavoidable? Is the corruption so pervasive as to be insuperable? Inevitable, ineluctable, ineludible and inexorable? Is it impossible to be a lobbyist without dirtying your hands?
The answer must be no. And yes. No, it is not necessary to be crooked. Yes, it is possible to lobby honestly and be effective. Why, then, are many good people tempted into going by the book – without giving it a second glance?
There are motives of expediency, to be sure. It is easier to catch a Congressman’s attention if you’re dropping campaign dollars into his hat. And what better way to get someone’s ear than getting some air with him on a long lazy “fact-finding” trip to Maui?
Still, that is not a sufficient lure to make a man lose his religion. My theory is that the most powerful force that moves a person off the perch of virtue is a pernicious cocktail of social pressure by the bad guys and cynicism by the good folks.
Here’s how it works. Say you come to Washington as a lobbyist for a company or a cause that is dear to your heart, and naturally you have a big expense account to facilitate your work. Or say you come to Hollywood to produce a movie about some matter of injustice that is searing into your soul, and you bring a big bankroll to make it happen. You determine that you are not going to succumb to the temptation of turning your money into illicit favors of any sort.
When you arrive, you find that the predators who predated you there, the abusers whom you are committed to abjure, seem like very swell guys. They greet you with open arms, eager to show you the ropes… or rope you into the show. The message becomes very clear very soon: play by our rules and you’re welcome. Try to go it on your own, buddy, and you’re on your own, buddy.
It is in the nature of people who are in the wrong to seduce you into their midst even if you offer them no direct advantage. The presence of virtue causes them discomfort. The film Serpico was based on a true story, but many other films like Midnight Run and Vanishing Point have described the same scenario; the honest cop who won’t take a piece of the graft money and is shunned by his brethren in blue.
This forced choice between group acceptance and righteous isolation is a powerful trap for a man. King David begins his Psalms with this message, perhaps to offer solace in poetry to the person faced with that fork in the road: “Fortunate is the man who did not go with the counsel of the wicked, did not stand on the path of the sinners nor sat in the sessions of the mockers.”
But an awful contributing factor is when the solid people are cynical. Bonnie Raitt’s song, Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About, brilliantly highlighted this phenomenon. She describes how a rumor of an affair that wasn’t happening actually caused the affair to happen. Once all the coworkers believed that these two people were getting together, it seemed pointless to stay apart. In like fashion, if everyone winks at you when you say you’re a lobbyist, assuming nefarious monkeyshines, or elbows you in the ribs when you say you’re a producer, anticipating licentious adventures, they unwittingly erode your defenses against impropriety.
Ironically, by not thinking the worst of humanity we can sometimes help to bring out the best.
“This much I know,” he explained. “I chose the most honest man in the city. If the job corrupted him, why should I replace him with some other poor fellow and ruin his morals as well?”
No Abramoff apologist I. More than a year ago I administered – in the pages of The American Spectator – a proper scourging. Yet the fact remains that he was not a bad guy who descended upon Washington to game the system and pad his wallet. He came with a heart brimful with good intentions that eventually paved the road to brimstone. As a leader of the national College Republicans while at Brandeis, he was imbued with the Reaganite spirit. He entered D.C. to help steward “The Contraction With America”, the effort to put Boss Tweed on a diet, to shrink bloated government. How did all that good will come undone?
And, as a corollary, is it unavoidable? Is the corruption so pervasive as to be insuperable? Inevitable, ineluctable, ineludible and inexorable? Is it impossible to be a lobbyist without dirtying your hands?
The answer must be no. And yes. No, it is not necessary to be crooked. Yes, it is possible to lobby honestly and be effective. Why, then, are many good people tempted into going by the book – without giving it a second glance?
There are motives of expediency, to be sure. It is easier to catch a Congressman’s attention if you’re dropping campaign dollars into his hat. And what better way to get someone’s ear than getting some air with him on a long lazy “fact-finding” trip to Maui?
Still, that is not a sufficient lure to make a man lose his religion. My theory is that the most powerful force that moves a person off the perch of virtue is a pernicious cocktail of social pressure by the bad guys and cynicism by the good folks.
Here’s how it works. Say you come to Washington as a lobbyist for a company or a cause that is dear to your heart, and naturally you have a big expense account to facilitate your work. Or say you come to Hollywood to produce a movie about some matter of injustice that is searing into your soul, and you bring a big bankroll to make it happen. You determine that you are not going to succumb to the temptation of turning your money into illicit favors of any sort.
When you arrive, you find that the predators who predated you there, the abusers whom you are committed to abjure, seem like very swell guys. They greet you with open arms, eager to show you the ropes… or rope you into the show. The message becomes very clear very soon: play by our rules and you’re welcome. Try to go it on your own, buddy, and you’re on your own, buddy.
It is in the nature of people who are in the wrong to seduce you into their midst even if you offer them no direct advantage. The presence of virtue causes them discomfort. The film Serpico was based on a true story, but many other films like Midnight Run and Vanishing Point have described the same scenario; the honest cop who won’t take a piece of the graft money and is shunned by his brethren in blue.
This forced choice between group acceptance and righteous isolation is a powerful trap for a man. King David begins his Psalms with this message, perhaps to offer solace in poetry to the person faced with that fork in the road: “Fortunate is the man who did not go with the counsel of the wicked, did not stand on the path of the sinners nor sat in the sessions of the mockers.”
But an awful contributing factor is when the solid people are cynical. Bonnie Raitt’s song, Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About, brilliantly highlighted this phenomenon. She describes how a rumor of an affair that wasn’t happening actually caused the affair to happen. Once all the coworkers believed that these two people were getting together, it seemed pointless to stay apart. In like fashion, if everyone winks at you when you say you’re a lobbyist, assuming nefarious monkeyshines, or elbows you in the ribs when you say you’re a producer, anticipating licentious adventures, they unwittingly erode your defenses against impropriety.
Ironically, by not thinking the worst of humanity we can sometimes help to bring out the best.
Charlie Rose, but I Sank
Thinking perhaps to expand my horizons by introducing myself to pulse-quickening liberal themes and personalities, I tuned into Charlie Rose. He was leaning forward in his chair, breathless with excitement, "So then you were just a student at Stamford... and what happened next?"
I'm figuring wow this guy must be some really famous major entrepreneur with a Bill Gates-like epiphany story wherein his drab collegiate days at Stamford were transformed into a life throbbing with high drama as...
...the camera pans to the guest, sitting ever so smugly, with the pleased smile of a cat who has licked clean the cream wrapped around Hercule Poirot 'moustaches' and the SNL Church-lady's pursed lips. The caption reads "Azim Premji, President of WIPRO".
My mind is now racing at 90 mph: "What kind of political commentator am I, who has never heard of Azim Premji and so unlettered that WIPRO strikes me as gibberish?"
Suddenly I'm flashing back 35 years, I'm 12 years old listening to the Jean Shepherd Show on WOR 710-AM in New York City. I'm remembering how he would salute all the self-important ponces who live on the fringe of the political world, crying "Look at me".
So I'm taking out the kazoo and the Jew's-harp; here goes the Shepherd treatment:
"Bzhzh, bzhzh, I salute you, Azim Premji. Bvvvv, bvvvv, we salute you, WIPRO. Bzhzh, bzhzh, bvvvv, bvvvv, bring us world peace, bzhbzh bzhzh."
I'm figuring wow this guy must be some really famous major entrepreneur with a Bill Gates-like epiphany story wherein his drab collegiate days at Stamford were transformed into a life throbbing with high drama as...
...the camera pans to the guest, sitting ever so smugly, with the pleased smile of a cat who has licked clean the cream wrapped around Hercule Poirot 'moustaches' and the SNL Church-lady's pursed lips. The caption reads "Azim Premji, President of WIPRO".
My mind is now racing at 90 mph: "What kind of political commentator am I, who has never heard of Azim Premji and so unlettered that WIPRO strikes me as gibberish?"
Suddenly I'm flashing back 35 years, I'm 12 years old listening to the Jean Shepherd Show on WOR 710-AM in New York City. I'm remembering how he would salute all the self-important ponces who live on the fringe of the political world, crying "Look at me".
So I'm taking out the kazoo and the Jew's-harp; here goes the Shepherd treatment:
"Bzhzh, bzhzh, I salute you, Azim Premji. Bvvvv, bvvvv, we salute you, WIPRO. Bzhzh, bzhzh, bvvvv, bvvvv, bring us world peace, bzhbzh bzhzh."
Universal, State-Provided Pre-K—Pah!
The discussion of my post on how California's high tax rates and regulatory mania are chasing the best and brightest out of the state has evolved into a fascinatingly fatuous debate over whether it makes sense for the government to pay for preschool for all children. Matt Huisman's astute criticism of the "logic" (and it really does need quotation marks in this case) behind this proposal reminds me of a phrase I've written before and think worth reviving here:
The American K-12 education system is so bad that every effort to fix it only manages to make it worse.
As Matt's comment makes clear, the movement for universal, state-provided pre-K is another evidence of the truth of this principle.
The American K-12 education system is so bad that every effort to fix it only manages to make it worse.
As Matt's comment makes clear, the movement for universal, state-provided pre-K is another evidence of the truth of this principle.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
The BMW Report: The Permanent Campaign vs. The Loyal Opposition
"The Permanent Campaign" is thought of as a Dick Morris notion, and he certainly believed in it, that the president always be out among the people, selling his agenda. Dick Morris likes polls. He even polled on when the president should take a vacation.
So, it's no surprise that it was (unappreciated genius) Democrat pollster Pat Caddell who came up with the idea, and sent it to Jimmy Carter just before his inauguration in 1977:
There's a certain virtue to the permanent campaign, keeping Americans on the same page and from each other's throats, not entirely different from FDR's unifying fireside chats. Although it didn't help the dour Carter, whose temperament was as ill-fitted to the role as his dopey sweaters during the energy crisis, the permanent campaign was tailor-made for Bill Clinton's personality: it was said that if there was one person in a roomful of supporters who didn't dig Clinton's act, Clinton would spend the entire evening getting him or her to come around. The permanent campaign probably saved Clinton from the Hounds of Impeachment.
Indeed, the permanent campaigner Bill Clinton had won the presidency largely because a reasonably good fellow and president, George HW Bush, after a creditable stewardship in the job, rather saw campaigning even during an actual election campaign as demeaning to his record.
Enter George Dubya Bush, whose worthy political skills lay somewhere between style and substance. It can scarcely be denied that, for good or ill, he brings more substance to the job than either of his predecessors, and enough attention to campaigning to get elected twice (which his father failed to do), although not enough permanent campaigning to keep us from each other's throats, as Clinton in fact did:
Although there was quite a bit of anti-Clinton vociferousness from the GOP side, the polls did not support his removal from office over his technically grave but ultimately harmless violations of the law. And so, the "loyal opposition," the GOP-controlled Senate and specifically John McCain and Bob Dole, put the fix in and kept the impeachment trial down to a bare minimum and a dull roar. They let Mr. Clinton skate, and that was a good thing.
Subsequently, McCain and Dole got Clinton's back on his Kosovo adventure and whipped their party into line once we had troops committed. That's how a loyal opposition functions.
Fast forward. Not that I'm a fan across the board of John Zogby, but it seems reasonable that his latest poll reflects the truth about our current state of the union:
With only 6% saying Democrats should fight the GOP congress tooth and nail. (And that's just Democrats who were polled.)
So, at one of the more dangerous crossroads of our history, a president who mostly doesn't give a hang about convincing the American people of the rightness of our course as a nation, and an opposition that mostly doesn't give a hang about working for the betterment of the country if it will cost them partisan advantage.
We no longer have the permanent campaign, nor a loyal opposition. The 90s were the good old days in their way, and now they're gone, leaving the American public to BMW: Bitch, Moan, Whine. That's the way it is on this, the first of March, 2006.
So, it's no surprise that it was (unappreciated genius) Democrat pollster Pat Caddell who came up with the idea, and sent it to Jimmy Carter just before his inauguration in 1977:
"The old cliche about mistaking style for substance usually works the reverse in politics. Too many good people have been defeated because they tried to substitute substance for style; they forgot to give the public the kind of visible signals that it needs to understand what is happening...Essentially, it is my thesis governing with public approval requires a continuing political campaign."
There's a certain virtue to the permanent campaign, keeping Americans on the same page and from each other's throats, not entirely different from FDR's unifying fireside chats. Although it didn't help the dour Carter, whose temperament was as ill-fitted to the role as his dopey sweaters during the energy crisis, the permanent campaign was tailor-made for Bill Clinton's personality: it was said that if there was one person in a roomful of supporters who didn't dig Clinton's act, Clinton would spend the entire evening getting him or her to come around. The permanent campaign probably saved Clinton from the Hounds of Impeachment.
Indeed, the permanent campaigner Bill Clinton had won the presidency largely because a reasonably good fellow and president, George HW Bush, after a creditable stewardship in the job, rather saw campaigning even during an actual election campaign as demeaning to his record.
Enter George Dubya Bush, whose worthy political skills lay somewhere between style and substance. It can scarcely be denied that, for good or ill, he brings more substance to the job than either of his predecessors, and enough attention to campaigning to get elected twice (which his father failed to do), although not enough permanent campaigning to keep us from each other's throats, as Clinton in fact did:
Although there was quite a bit of anti-Clinton vociferousness from the GOP side, the polls did not support his removal from office over his technically grave but ultimately harmless violations of the law. And so, the "loyal opposition," the GOP-controlled Senate and specifically John McCain and Bob Dole, put the fix in and kept the impeachment trial down to a bare minimum and a dull roar. They let Mr. Clinton skate, and that was a good thing.
Subsequently, McCain and Dole got Clinton's back on his Kosovo adventure and whipped their party into line once we had troops committed. That's how a loyal opposition functions.
Fast forward. Not that I'm a fan across the board of John Zogby, but it seems reasonable that his latest poll reflects the truth about our current state of the union:
The survey also contained troubling news for Democrats. While high-profile Democrats in Washington, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, spar with GOP adversaries, 58% of self-described Democrats said they think their leaders should “accept their lower position in Congress and work together with Republicans to craft the best legislation possible.”
With only 6% saying Democrats should fight the GOP congress tooth and nail. (And that's just Democrats who were polled.)
So, at one of the more dangerous crossroads of our history, a president who mostly doesn't give a hang about convincing the American people of the rightness of our course as a nation, and an opposition that mostly doesn't give a hang about working for the betterment of the country if it will cost them partisan advantage.
We no longer have the permanent campaign, nor a loyal opposition. The 90s were the good old days in their way, and now they're gone, leaving the American public to BMW: Bitch, Moan, Whine. That's the way it is on this, the first of March, 2006.
Taxing Californians Out
The great state of California has long been known as a land of opportunity—but also as the corner of the country to which all the sleaziness, greed, and stupidity of the nation eventually slide. Politically, it has been exactly that for about the past two decades.
As the Opinion Journal notes in an editorial in today's edition, California pols have done their level best to destroy the state's economy by abusing everyone who actually succeeds in fulfilling the economic promise laid down by the state in years past, in an endless stream of harassment done in the name of fairness, equality, economic justice, and other fine things. As the Journal editorial notes, the consequences of California's high and ever-increasing taxes and strangling regulatory apparatus are resulting in a turnaround of immigration patterns:
The latest Census Bureau data indicate that, in 2005, 239,416 more native-born Americans left the state than moved in. California is also on pace to lose domestic population (not counting immigrants) this year. The outmigration is such that the cost to rent a U-Haul trailer to move from Los Angeles to Boise, Idaho, is $2,090--or some eight times more than the cost of moving in the opposite direction.
What's gone wrong? A big part of the story is a tax and regulatory culture that treats the most productive businesses and workers as if they were ATMs. The cost to businesses of complying with California's rules, regulations and paperwork is more than twice as high as in other Western states.
But the worst growth killer may well be California's tax system. The business tax rate of 8.8% is the highest in the West, and its steeply "progressive" personal income tax has an effective top marginal rate of 10.3%, or second highest in the nation. CalTax, the state's taxpayer advocacy group, reports that the richest 10% of earners pay almost 75% of the entire income-tax revenue in the state, and most of these are small-business owners, i.e., the people who create jobs.
Of course, some will argue that this reversal of immigration is a good thing, as it will reduce overpopulation, etc., and reduce pressure on the state's resources. But Hongkong and Amsterdam are much more crowded than any part of California, and have almost no natural resources, yet they do just fine. No, regardless of any small good that may come of it, this demonstrates a huge and preventable failure on the part of the leadership of the state of California—and a stern warning to others.
As the Opinion Journal notes in an editorial in today's edition, California pols have done their level best to destroy the state's economy by abusing everyone who actually succeeds in fulfilling the economic promise laid down by the state in years past, in an endless stream of harassment done in the name of fairness, equality, economic justice, and other fine things. As the Journal editorial notes, the consequences of California's high and ever-increasing taxes and strangling regulatory apparatus are resulting in a turnaround of immigration patterns:
The latest Census Bureau data indicate that, in 2005, 239,416 more native-born Americans left the state than moved in. California is also on pace to lose domestic population (not counting immigrants) this year. The outmigration is such that the cost to rent a U-Haul trailer to move from Los Angeles to Boise, Idaho, is $2,090--or some eight times more than the cost of moving in the opposite direction.
What's gone wrong? A big part of the story is a tax and regulatory culture that treats the most productive businesses and workers as if they were ATMs. The cost to businesses of complying with California's rules, regulations and paperwork is more than twice as high as in other Western states.
But the worst growth killer may well be California's tax system. The business tax rate of 8.8% is the highest in the West, and its steeply "progressive" personal income tax has an effective top marginal rate of 10.3%, or second highest in the nation. CalTax, the state's taxpayer advocacy group, reports that the richest 10% of earners pay almost 75% of the entire income-tax revenue in the state, and most of these are small-business owners, i.e., the people who create jobs.
Of course, some will argue that this reversal of immigration is a good thing, as it will reduce overpopulation, etc., and reduce pressure on the state's resources. But Hongkong and Amsterdam are much more crowded than any part of California, and have almost no natural resources, yet they do just fine. No, regardless of any small good that may come of it, this demonstrates a huge and preventable failure on the part of the leadership of the state of California—and a stern warning to others.
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