In Hillary's Defense

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I don't see why everyone's panties are in a bunch over the fact that people Bill Clinton pardoned are donating to Hillary's campaign. Of course, the right wing blogosphere is engaging in plenty of sarcastic schadenfreude over the incidents. Even the normally sane (but, according to theocrats, "shrill" and "excitable") Andrew Sullivan can't resist. This despite his appropriate defense of Ron Paul's receipt of donations from questionable sources.

Shaminac at Newshoggers has a pretty rational take on the whole thing that manages to explain why there is no problem with this without descending into ad hominems against right-wingers for being hypocrites for one reason or another.

Anyways, this really is a non-issue. Whether or not the circumstances were shady, these people were pardoned. They have a right to political participation just like anyone else. That they would want to participate by assisting the campaign of the wife of the dude who pardoned them isn't exactly surprising. We're also talking an extremely small amount of money in the scheme of things. Forcing Hillary to give it all back will accomplish, what, exactly?

Still, I actually don't like how the campaign responded to the controversy. Essentially they said, "We've raised a ton of money, how are we supposed to care about a couple thousand bucks?" This is just equivocating and pandering in my view- the usual Hillary tack of saying whatever will please people most. It's also probably a lie- with the way campaigns are run nowadays, there's simply no way in hell that her campaign failed to notice these rather prominent names on the donor list.

I'm afraid the best response she could have given- and the response I would have actually respected her for- would have been if she just told the truth. There would have been something almost admirable about coming out and saying: "Yeah, they donated to me. So what? They're free to do whatever they please just like any other American- including unpardoned criminals. I have no right whatsoever to tell them who they can and cannot donate to, and how they can or cannot spend their money."

(via memorandum)

More on the co-opting of libertarianism

After I went after the right-wing neo-libertarians yesterday, Freedom and Whisky goes after the "left libertarians" for co-opting the term libertarian. He's fed up with all of this co-opting of terminology for classical liberals. So he suggests libertarians adopt a name that no one will try to co-opt, ever: Real Fascist Bastards.

I'm amused, but I don't think things are that desperate. As I said yesterday, the left-wing statists have been forced to abandon the word "liberal" because it became a dirty word, and so now are using the less-deceptive "Progressive." This leaves the word "liberal" free for the taking here in the US.

Soccer, Football, and Limited Government

A commenter at Megan McCardle asks:
What's a football game without rules and referees?"

I assume he meant this as a rhetorical question...trouble is, I'm going to answer it anyways.
If by football you mean "soccer," the answer to the question is "American football." In other words, the more you eliminate rules, the more innovation you allow, and the more you can improve the product. People can still choose to play by the eliminated rules (hence the reason soccer is still insanely popular all over the world), but they can also choose to play by the reduced set of rules (hence the reason American football and rugby are increasing in global popularity).

If you don't believe me, then study the history of the evolution of Rugby, American, and Aussie Rules football- the most useful developments have rarely been about adding rules, but far more often about taking them away (until this ridiculous obsession with protecting the quarterbacks and eliminating end zone celebrations, which many think has made the game less enjoyable).

The best things in the evolution of American football from soccer (IMHO) have been:
1. The Rugby School's decision to eliminate the prohibition on touching the ball with one's hands
2. The Rugby School's elimination of the requirement that you can only score by kicking the ball over the end line, through the goal posts, replacing it with a rule that you can score by crossing the end line anywhere, as long as you control the ball OR by kicking the ball over and through the goal posts.
3. Elimination of the prohibition on the forward pass
4. Elimination of the prohibition on holding by offensive linemen.

As for the need for referees...libertarianism has no problem with having lots of referees; in actuality we have a bigger problem with limiting the number of people who can be referees in the first place.

The Permanent Costs of the Iraq War

Coyote Blog raises some important points for the pro-war Right to consider about the long-term political fallout of the war:


1. In 2009 we will have a Democratic Congress and President for the first time since 1994.
2. The next President will use the deficits from the $1.3 billion [sic- should be trillion] in Iraq war spending to justify a lot of new taxes
3. These new taxes, once the war spending is over, will not be used for deficit reduction but for new programs that, once established, will be nearly impossible to eliminate
4. No matter what the next president promises to the electorate, they are not going to reverse precedents for presidential power and secrecy that GWB has established. Politicians never give up power voluntarily. [if the next president is Hillary, she is likely to push the envelope even further]. Republicans are not going to like these things as much when someone of the other party is using them.

Coyote Blog suggests these four things are inevitable, presumably unless there is a dramatic shift in Republican policy between now and the election (ie, a Ron Paul victory or a reversal in positions by the eventual nominee). I agree. GOP popularity is as low as I've ever seen it and some Dems are thinking of nominating Hillary not because she's particularly electable but because they know they're going to win no matter what (and just want to piss off Republicans even more). So it's tough to see how a GOP candidate will win next year without a stunning reversal of some sort. Any Dem President will inevitably- and with some justification- pursue a tax hike to pay for the war deficit. But since Washington is what it is, if and when a surplus comes around, the response will inevitably be to create some new set of programs/entitlements. As Coyote Blog points out- once an entitlement is in place, it's just about impossible to get rid of it.

So, the question for Republicans is this: is the continued prosecution of the Iraq war effort so vital to our nation's security that it is worth the creation of a permanent state of neo-socialism? If the answer is yes, then I would ask that you turn in your Free Market Fan Club cards at the door.

Where is the MSM on this one?

In 2000, one of the key events in the Palestinian 2nd Intifada was footage showing the apparent killing of a young child (Muhammed al-Durrah) by Israeli Defense Forces. For much of the world, including the usually somewhat pro-Israel American media, this event encapsulated the Palestinians' struggle against Israel. As a result, news outlets around the world uncritically picked up the edited footage for broadcast.The event sparked mass outrage and severely hurt Israel's image. It also led directly to the murder of two Israeli soldiers at the hands of Palestinian security forces. You may remember the resulting footage of that event in which the murderers proudly displayed the fresh blood of the victims on their hands.

Anyhow, for the last several years, questions have been raised as to whether the al-Durrah killing was staged or, if real, could have been perpetrated by Israeli forces. The claim that the event was staged has led to a defamation suit by the producers of the footage (who are French). The entire story is far too long to explain myself, but suffice it to say that the questions raised about the footage are very serious and very legitimate. This isn't to say that the footage is necessarily fake or that the IDF is necessarily innocent, as there are plenty of questions to go around about the case.

We will have to wait for the results of the case to find out how much truth there is to the allegations. But, the media's complete silence on this issue is what staggers me. I did a quick search of both CNN and the BBC for stories about al Durrah: not a single hit came up discussing the allegations of fraud or at least of Israeli innocence in the matter. This is how things so often go with the MSM: whenever a story comes out suggesting inaccuracy in their reporting, they duck their heads in the sand and refuse to reopen the issue until and unless it becomes impossible to continue to stand by the story. Even then, the best you will get is a mild retraction. Rarely, if ever, will you get an acknowledgement by the media that they rushed to judgment on the issue (see, e.g., the Duke lacrosse scandal).

If it turns out in February that the French court rules against the producer of the al-Durrah footage, I worry that the best the MSM will do is to make a quick footnote indicating that this story was a hoax. I do not expect that they will make even remotely the big deal about such a verdict as they made about the original footage- and that to me is the big problem with the MSM, which is of course largely a government granted monopoly/semi-monopoly in most places these days. Compare this with the blogosphere, where retractions and self-criticism are readily and publicly made.

Markets Really Do Provide Everything

Via Tyler Cowen.

Cracked has its list of the 25 most baffling toys in the world. Presumably, these toys exist primarily because someone, somewhere, felt there was a demand for them. Cowen is most amazed by numbers 8 and 11.

I disagree. I'm more astonished by the electronic bondage doll (#21) and the penis putter (#13), and the numerous Japanese poop toys (19,18,12,11, and 7- which is actually Swedish).

You'll notice that most of this stuff comes out of Japan. Folks, this is what happens when you combine a free market economy with severe sexual repression: Poop toys.

The Derb at His Cranky Best

I've never met the dude, but is it possible to not have fun talking to a sarcastic old curmudgeon who knows he's a sarcastic old curmudgeon? My favorite quote from this short gem:

"For all I know, Stormfront.org may have quoted me with approval on some topic or other. What does that make me—Derbyshitler?"

On the co-opting of the word "libertarian"

A commenter at Obsidian Wings asks:

"A libertarian can say that they honestly think that we should not have any regulation, but when [Republican politicians] are appealed to, and it turns out that 'not any regulation' means regulation dealing with Enron and not with marijuana, I'm not sure if the libertarian gets a complete pass and should be able to say 'how the heck could I have known those guys were going to do that?'"

I think this is the very reason libertarians have been fleeing the GOP and/or mounting an anti-establishment insurgency for the last couple years. After 25 or so years of being co-opted by the GOP, the Bushies finally pushed us over the line. Unfortunately, elements of the GOP like Glenn Beck have now taken to calling themselves "libertarians at heart" while advancing very un-libertarian arguments. I think this is because it allows them to feel good about themselves, and seem much less manipulative. Consider it the GOP's version of "I have black friends." Of course, it involves a dramatic level of doublethink to make such an argument, but in the process of doing so, they've completely misrepresented the real libertarians.

The way in which the neo-cons have co-opted the term "libertarian" has pretty much left that word with relatively little real meaning. Indeed, we now have self-styled "libertarians" who are ok with water-boarding, imperialism (aka forced democratization), and all sorts of other things that are as un-libertarian as it gets. I'm starting to wonder the extent to which the long-standing alliance with the GOP has had more of an effect on libertarians than on the Republican Party itself. This would be in line with my still-ongoing series on corruption, and the idea of politicians having more of an effect on interest groups than vice versa.

Now that the real libertarians have either left the GOP or are mounting a truly last ditch insurgency with the Ron Paul campaign, we may be faced with an opportunity to finally coalesce under one independent banner. This is something anticipated (at least with respect to left-libertarians) by mattbastard at CFLF.

The Weaknesses of the Gold Standard

Jerry Bowyer has an outstanding column today on the meaning behind the rising price of gold, combined with still-low inflation. He argues against over-reliance on gold prices as an economic prediction model. For those who don't understand the basis for the gold standard and the arguments for and against it (hint, hint, Mr. Neiwert), this article is a terrific place to start, even though it is not specifically about the gold standard.

Bowyer's argument is excellent because it points out the truly great flaw in the gold standard- the gold standard is terrific, but only insofar as gains in overall human production move at roughly the same pace as gains in the production of gold. When human production significantly outpaces the production of gold, as has been the case for the last 25 years or so, an absolute gold standard will result in massive deflation, which is not much better for smoothing the economic cycle than inflation.

I suspect that eventually humans will be able to discover a form of currency that automatically self-adjusts with increases and decreases in production. But until that time, we will have to rely on human best-guesses to manage inflation and deflation, which, unfortunately, makes the Fed a necessary evil. As long as the Fed maintains a goal of staying within a very narrow band of inflation/deflation, it is probably the best currently-known way of smoothing the economic cycle. Unfortunately, the Fed can do little about government deficit spending. As for the things the Fed actually can control, it unfortunately must overcome immense political pressure at times to pursue inflationary policies. This political pressure, as I understand it, is a major concern Greenspan addresses in his new book, which I really need to read.

Why Dick Armey Is Predicting a Hillary Win

This column by former Republican Majority Leader and eventual ACLU consultant Dick Armey argues that not only is Hillary inevitably going to be the Dem nominee, but without something drastic, she will be the next President of the United States.

Kyle at Comments From Left Field wonders why an establishment type Republican like Armey would be writing something like this about Hillary so early in the game.

One thing I think Kyle misses- the Republicans are going after Hillary this early because the Republican Party is in deep shit at the moment, and the specter of Hillary is the one thing that can rally people to the party. On the other hand, Obama is tough to go after for Republicans seeking to rally the troops because so many Republicans in exile have flocked to him.

More importantly than that, though, is the fact that Hillary is the single greatest fundraising tool the Republican Party has, and especially that Giuliani has. It has less to do with her substantive positions than it does with the fact that her substantive positions are slightly to the left of Bush, but they are combined with a Bush-level addiction to secrecy and executive power. I've said before and I'll say it again: Hillary is Bush with a brain and a pantsuit, with slightly more left-leaning politics.

Something else worth pointing out- Armey is himself something of a Republican-in-exile, having joined forces with the ACLU. If you read the whole article closely, you will notice he is engaging in a desperate plea for Republicans to abandon the Hillary-esque style of governing the Bushies have pursued and return to what used to be their bread and butter before Bill Clinton beautifully co-opted it. In that sense, he is demonstrating how he hopes the specter of Hillary will wake the Republicans up and adopt principles that they have long since forgotten.

(HT: memeorandum)

So, I Ask Again- How Are the Terrorists a Threat to Our Way of Life?

When we have people who can put together stuff like this:



Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan

The FCC Wants to "Save" Newspapers

The chairman of the FCC argues that changes in restrictions on media ownership are necessary to "save" the newspaper industry.

But whenever government thinks it needs to "save" an industry, we should all get suspicious. Why is the newspaper industry so inherently worth saving? If the industry is failing, isn't that just because there isn't demand for that industry? If there is insufficient demand to justify producing it, then taking steps to encourage production of that thing amounts to no more and no less than a complete waste of resources that could be used on something more highly valued by a society.

I suppose you could argue- and many have- that newspapers provide a "public good" by giving people the news. But why must this "public good" be provided in a specific, offline, print format? If the demand is for online and television news, then why not allow the market to run its course and meet that demand?

Now, I'm not sure that loosening rules about media ownership in given markets amounts to "corporate welfare" in the traditional sense, as Marty Kaplan argues at HuffPo. After all, eliminating restrictions on free markets is a far cry from subsidizing industries or giving them massive tax credits.

That said, Kaplan hints at an important issue- the FCC gives broadcast licenses away for free- they are not auctioned off as far as I know- and there are a limited number of these licenses. As a result, the primary criteria for granting or maintaining a broadcast license can only be how much "pull" the broadcaster has. As a result, you essentially wind up with something not horribly different from a government-sponsored monopoly, in which only a handful of companies control almost all of the media outlets- this isn't capitalism in any recognizable form.

By removing restrictions on media ownership of newspapers and television stations, the FCC isn't so much allowing for a freer market as it is obtaining greater power for the FCC to give licenses to companies with a lot of political "pull." So while Kaplan may be wrong that the proposal amounts to "corporate welfare", he is at least correct to be concerned with the rule insofar as it allows for more "crony capitalism" in general.

But there is a way to put a stop to issues of "crony capitalism" on the airwaves: stop thinking of them as "public airwaves." If we just auctioned off all the frequencies in all the markets, we would actually have a real free market in the media. I know, I know, it's crazy....but then again, so are all of us "radicals for capitalism"!

(via memeorandum)

The GOP Has an Innovative Idea to Fight Pork

(via memeorandum)
Two of the few Republicans who remain committed to fighting against pork have hit on a concept that maybe shouldn't be unique, except that it is: they are actively recruiting bloggers and the netroots to track down and expose pork. This has to be one of the first times politicians have sought to harness the power of the internet to actual improve the quality of government rather than just organize support or opposition to a particular policy or candidate.

This is a susprisingly (at this point) unique idea that maybe gives people a real opportunity to participate in the political process in a direct and substantive way, rather than just talking about politics.

....This Is Why People Don't Take Ron Paul Seriously Enough

Who needs enemies accusing you of associating with neo-Nazis when you have friends at Lew Rockwell that make statements like this, referring to coverage of Ron Paul by that oh-so-respected commentator Glen Beck:

It is amusing to see Beck having to resort to the likes of David Horowitz - whose political views have been more a reflection of fashion than intellectual
conviction - and the great-grandson of the war-mongering Winston Churchill....

(my emphasis)

So, apparently Neville Chamberlain was a hero, and Churchill- who orchestrated one of the greatest truly defensive campaigns in history and was largely responsible for stopping the spread of the Nazi menace- was a war-monger? I sincerely hope this doesn't mean LewRockwell.com thinks that Hitler was a peacenik who was just responding to "aggression" by the rest of the European continent. This isn't to say Churchill was a non-interventionist libertarian, and his initial support of Mussolini is a bit disturbing- but a war-monger?

Whether or not you can interpret Churchill's post-WWII actions as war-mongering, the context of this accusation would lead the average observer to believe that the writer is arguing in Hitler's favor. With Ron Paul's supporters under increasingly close scrutiny, statements like this are nothing short of careless and it is pretty easy to see why they would give off the impression (rightly or wrongly) that Ron Paul is closely linked with neo-Nazis.

Maybe I'm just misinterpreting the statement, but the way in which the ad hominem against Churchill is made makes my interpretation very easy to reach. How many people predisposed against Ron Paul would make the same interpretation?

Destroying Myths

GMU's Liberty & Power Blog has one hell of a post about the myth that the poor are getting poorer (which is usually used to prove that capitalism is evil and exploitative). I don't see how anyone can read this post and come away holding on to the notion that the statement "the poor are getting poorer" is actually true in any meaningful sense.

UPDATE: WSJ's Opinion Journal has much more on this here. (via memeorandum)

I honestly don't understand why this myth that only the rich are better off under capitalism and free markets continues to persist. Time and again, this myth is exploded, but the focus continues to be on comparing the mean earnings of the bottom x percent of wage-earners with the top x percent of wage earners. Rarely does anyone bother to ask if there is more to the numbers than meets the eye, or if it really means what people say it means.

When people do go beyond this one statistic, they usually find mostly legitimate reasons for it, as in (unabashedly left-of-center) Gregg Easterbrook's Progress Paradox, which pointed out that much of the basis for rising "income inequality" in the US was just simply an increase in immigration from countries with far lower wages. In other words, much of the income inequality in the US was just a result of people deciding they'd rather be in the bottom rung of the wealth ladder in the US than in the middle rung of the wealth ladder in their home country. He also cites to some very similar statistics as this new report when it comes to quality of life issues like TVs, home appliances, etc. Yet, the myth persists.

Part of the reason for this persistence- though by no means all- is that the myth is terrific when it comes to advancing the cause of a certain politically power interest group that has seen its membership dwindle steadily over the years. Advancing the notion that so-called "working families" are getting worse off at the same time as membership in this interest group has been declining is a valuable asset if you want to argue that membership in said interest group is a critical means of improving the lifestyle of "working families."

Jonathan Cohn's Flawed Argument for Universal Coverage

TNR's Jonathan Cohn argues today that the only serious opposition to universal health coverage is that it would inhibit medical innovation. He goes on to argue that while this is a possibility, an appropriately structured system would solve this problem. Such a system would maintain a relatively high level of health care spending, and would create a more centralized system in Cohn's view.

While Cohn's argument is more respectful than most, it contains several major flaws:
1. It acknowledges problems with Canada and Great Britain's systems, but then argues that those problems don't exist in places like France, Germany, and Switzerland. Thing is- each of the positively cited examples rely heavily on the free market, private sector and are quite decentralized. In France, for instance, 85% of the population owns supplemental private insurance; similarly, Germany's system is "highly decentralized," and leans heavily on the free market and individual choice amongst state-offered insurance plans (there are about 400 options)(also worth noting is that state control of the health care industry has resulted in a wage freeze on health care workers, not a good thing); Switzerland, on the other hand, has a system that is in some ways more market-based than the current US system.
2. It argues for maintaining high spending on healthcare. But high costs are the primary problem with the US system, as I have argued here. So Cohn's solution is to make the biggest problem the solution!
3. It ignores the fact that the current US system has in many ways little to do with market forces since it relies so heavily on employers to provide health insurance rather than private individuals. Indeed, one could argue that the biggest problem with the current US system is that it has become increasingly over-regulated.

As for his underlying argument that you can have both innovation and universal access to health care- he is, of course, right. The problem is that he fails to understand that market-based solutions are the only way to accomplish that, something that the nations he uses as examples actually do understand.

Some Rare Common-Sense In the Drug Wars

The Sentencing Commission, which is one of the few truly independent bodies around, is recommending a retroactive decrease in sentencing guidelines for crack-cocaine to make them more consistent with regular cocaine.

Of course, the Bushies are opposing it. Actually, the whole issue of crack-cocaine sentencing does a pretty good job of demonstrating Walt Williams' argument that government rather than private business is the real purveyor of racial discrimination.

Where Do Gambling Laws Rank on the Dumb Laws Scale?

I'd say they have to be near the top. To The People and Radley Balko each have posts today talking about state responses to gambling. To sum up: TTP lampoons the newfound support of Maryland Democrats for slot machines now that they hold the governor's mansion; meanwhile, Balko is stunned by Massachussetts Gov. Deval Patrick's support for a bill that gives authority for licensure of more casinos in the state while- at the same time- imposing a 2 year prison sentence on online gamblers.

These two situations demonstrate pretty clearly how arbitrary the gambling laws can be in this country. Which brings me to one of my all time greatest pet peeves about government regulation.

If anything is more arbitrary than the definition of illegal drug, it's the definition of illegal gambling. Indeed, unlike drugs, the relative damages of a particular type of gambling are quite quantifiable- it's quite easy to find out the odds on any given game, and there's no disputing what those odds are.

What is interesting about the gambling laws is that the types of gambling most likely to be legal in a given state are often the games with the worst odds of all gambling games: slot machines and lotteries. Slot machines usually have a house edge of around 6% (higher stakes machines have substantially better odds); lotteries of course have a house edge of, well, a lot. Of course, these two games are usually either state run or give a nice percentage payout to the states. But that's not the point of most anti-gambling legislation, which is usually justified on the grounds of protecting people from becoming gambling addicts or general morality.

Meanwhile, states are far more likely to have absolute prohibitions on table games, where the house edge ranges from 5.6% (roulette) to less than 1% (Blackjack and Craps), with most games well below 4%. Moreover, in poker you are really just paying the house for providing you with a dealer, a table, and an opportunity to play against a group of strangers (in other words, there is no house edge other than what is effectively your "rent" to sit at the table- the house itself theoretically has no interest in the outcome of the game). One of the main differences between most table games and slots/lotteries is also that in most (not all) table games, there is an element of rational decision making involved ("hit or stay" in blackjack being the most obvious example); this is not the case in lotteries/slot games (though it is somewhat the case in video poker), where one can only decide how much to bet- and even that decision is limited.

I suppose an argument in support of slots and lotteries, but against table games, would be that despite the low odds in slot machines and lotteries, they are somehow less likely to cause addictive behavior than table games. The argument presumably goes that since they are also such low stakes games, the effects of addiction are also much less with slots and lotteries.

But such an argument is deeply flawed and, in my opinion, dishonest. One need only walk through the slot machines in Atlantic City and compare them to the craps table to find out which game is more likely to create misery and addiction. Moreover, in slots it's pretty easy to lose track of how you're doing- the repetitive process of "bet max, pull the lever; bet max, pull the lever" is pretty much enough to make you oblivious to just about everything. In the time it takes to play even one blackjack hand, you can easily play probably 5 or 6 spins of the slots, maybe more. At a table game by comparison, you have to wait for everyone to place their bets, for the dealer to deal the cards or spin the wheel, etc. You also have an opportunity to, I don't know, interact with other people, which allows you to be more aware of your surroundings. The nature of table games, with your stacks of chips, also means you are pretty much constantly aware of how you're doing; if you run out of chips, you have to rebuy for a lot, which means you are more likely to feel the burn than in slots, where you only need to rebuy for a couple bucks every time.

The idea that the low stakes of lotteries and slots makes them less problematic is also a fallacy. First, as I suggested above, slot machines can be played at a rate far in excess of any table game; this alone probably makes up for the difference in stakes. Meanwhile, the lottery's house advantage is so far in excess of any other form of gambling that you can pretty much forget about any mitigating factor caused by smaller stakes.

Also worth pointing out: state-sponsored slot games and lottery games are highly regressive as a taxation tool. Someone with a lot of money to begin with is quite unlikely to play the lottery (especially since that person is probably educated enough to realize the long odds of winning), so lotto revenue is going to come primarily from the working poor and lower middle class. Meanwhile slot machines, as I indicated above, have much better odds at higher betting levels. Someone playing the nickel slots because they're poor may be betting the same percentage of their income on the slots as someone playing the $5 slots who is relatively wealthy. But the house edge in the nickel slots is about 4 or 5 times as much as the edge in the $5 slots, meaning that state revenue from slot machines is going to come almost exclusively from people playing the nickel slots. These people, of course, are far more likely to be poor than someone playing the $5 slots.

Update on the Response to Neiwert's Latest

The always intellectually stimulating Glenn Greenwald has an impassioned response to Neiwert's latest attack on Ron Paul here. My less-impassioned response is here.

I still take issue with the way in which Paul handled the flag-burning issue for the reasons described in the comments section to my earlier post, but Greenwald's passionate defense of anyone who places principle above politics is well worth a read. Frankly, it's just nice for once to hear someone point out that a principled conservative does not need to, and for that matter should not, have the same positions as a liberal/Progressive.

Transparency International's Corruption Rankings

(Via Captain Capitalism)

In a note closely related to my ongoing series on the size of government as compared to levels of corruption, I came across this, which shows Transparency International's current corruption index. For the record, TI is pretty much the be all and end all of the global fight against political corruption. I don't know of anyone who disputes their independence, so you can pretty much take their analysis to the bank.

Anyways, if you look at the map, you will notice -with some exceptions- a definite, inverse, correlation between the amount of free market economics in a state and the amount of corruption in the state. More importantly, you will see a close relation between being free of corruption and having strong respect for private property rights. A great comparison exists between the basically economically libertarian Hong Kong (ranked 14th) and its mother state China (ranked 72nd). The case of South America really brings things into perspective as well, with the deep red of socialist Venezuela a far contrast from the 22nd best ranked Chile (the continent's most capitalism-oriented government).

How Is This Rational?

The War On Drugs continues to stagger the imagination, particularly the war against anything resembling the cannabis plant. I know the anti-hemp policy has long been part of the War on Drugs and the war on pot in particular. But you would think that the effect of the war on pot on the hemp industry and through it the agriculture industry would be enough to get us to look at the cannabis plant rationally. As has been pointed out time and again, using hemp as a drug would be the equivalent of trying to get drunk from those little candy liqueur bottles, except even less effective. So the rationale for banning this commercially valuable crop is that it makes enforcement of anti-marijuana laws more difficult and therefore should be just as illegal? Did I miss the part of law school where the ability to earn a living selling a completely harmless crop was less important than the relative ease with which the federal government can enforce the drug laws?

Unfortunately, I guess that's just wishful thinking. But what exactly will it take for us to evaluate the arbitrariness of completely banning a substance that creates a relatively benign high with relatively (I emphasize relatively) few side effects while almost completely legalizing a substance (alcohol) that can cause massive impairment with myriad severe side effects and which can, if taken to excess, cause death? What about the comparison between cannabis and tobacco, which is far more addictive and, despite being a drug, can even be legally ingested while driving (in other words, it's actually less restricted in some ways than talking on a cell phone)? Finally, what about the comparison with psycho-tropic drugs, which have massive documented side effects, and exist for the sole purpose of making people "feel good" (just like a recreational drug would do), but are available with a prescription even though marijuana isn't even available if a doctor thinks it is the best remedy?

Libby at the Newshoggers has more.

A Better Approach to the War on Drugs/GWOT in Afghanistan?

Libby at the Impolitic argues for a new approach to the narco-state problem in Afghanistan: subsidies for poppy farmers to encourage them to produce other crops. This would certainly represent a major departure from the current approach of literally fighting two wars at once in Afghanistan (and losing both in the process), essentially saying "If you can't beat them...."

Now, there are all sorts of problems with subsidies in general. For instance, it will hurt competition in the suddenly subsidized crops on an international level, does nothing to change the inelastic demand for heroin/opium, and to the extent it is successful will mostly just move poppy production to areas where subsidies are not existent (thanks to the inelastic demand problem where the decreased supply of poppy will primarily just increase poppy prices, making it even more lucrative).

Still, if opium production must remain illegal, a subsidy for producing other crops- especially in Afghanistan- strikes me as a sensible approach. At the very least, it would be a more effective use of resources than the current allocation. The money saved on enforcement alone would probably be sufficient to pay for most of the subsidy, so I don't think higher overall spending is as much a concern as it usually is with subsidies.

As for the usual concerns about subsidies, I think there would be a lot of mitigating factors here. Since Afghanistan is already dirt poor, is a tiny country population-wise, and is quite inefficient at production thanks to being dirt poor, a subsidy is unlikely to have much of a negative effect on global markets for the foreseeable future. Even though the subsidy will have little or no effect on global demand, this is no better or worse than the current approach. As for just shifting poppy production to another place, well, this is definitely an important consequence. But, given Afghanistan's importance in the GWOT, which I think most would agree is more important than the War on Drugs, shifting poppy production to an area less important to the GWOT is I think an acceptable outcome in the short run. We just need to keep in mind that we are eventually going to have to deal with the long run consequence of pushing poppy production to another country.

Neiwert Attacks Ron Paul's Record

Dave Neiwert currently has a post up attacking Ron Paul's record and pointing out areas of concern for Progressives on issues other than the war. Now, I have found some of Neiwert's previous attempts to attack Paul to have been far off base, as I argued in the comments to this post by my friends at Comments from Left Field.

Moreover, much of Neiwert's current post on Paul's record is filled with the usual Progressive misunderstanding of small "l" libertarian positions on things ranging from abortion (where there is substantial disagreement amongst many libertarians) to employment discrimination to the electoral college. However, Neiwert's post contains several items that should be of concern to small "l" libertarians when it comes to Paul's record. The more I learn about things like this, the more lukewarm my support of Paul becomes. Frankly, I'm surprised at the extent to which typically reasonable people like Andrew Sullivan have ducked their heads in the sand when it comes to these types of issues.

Anyhow, the more troubling (for libertarians) findings of Neiwert's post:
1. Support of Flag-Burning Amendment to the Constitution
2. Support of a bill to make all Iranian students in the US ineligible for any form of federal aid. While libertarians should be opposed to most forms of federal aid, a libertarian position does not give the government license to discriminate in its provision of the federal aid.
3. Support for Constitutional amendments that would deny citizenship to people born in the US unless their parents were citizens or lawful permanent residents.

As I said above, Neiwert's objections are primarily from a Progressive point of view, and in most cases show a tremendous lack of understanding of the basis for Paul's more libertarian points of view. Still, the above items are cause for concern amongst true libertarians and classical liberals.

Also, something especially worth pointing out again: Neiwert has repeatedly insinuated that the gold standard position is inherently rooted in anti-Semitism, ignoring the fact that there are a number of different types of "goldbugs," only one of which has the roots he associates with the gold standard. Now I myself am not a devotee of the gold standard. However, Neiwert fails to realize that the abandonment of the gold standard is a relatively recent event in history, that the most prominent line of support for the gold standard runs through an ethnic Russian Jew (Ayn Rand) and a refugee of Nazism (Ludwig von Mises). It also ignores the fact that the original President of the NAACP, Moorfield Storey (who later successfully argued the landmark case Buchanan v. Warley), was a critical advocate of the gold standard. Given that Paul named his son after Rand and famously has a portrait of Mises in his Congressional office, I would suggest that it is this strain that most influences his thought on the gold standard.

Also worth pointing out: the most famous early advocate of overthrowing the gold standard in the US was the legendary white supremacist (and creationist) William Jennings Bryan.

Why Free Markets Work Best (aka Reason 429 Small Government is Better)

I know that I'm hardly the first person to ever have this thought, but some of the comments in this thread at Megan McCardle compelled me to point it out again. Specifically, lovers of government planning like to see a problem, cry "market failure", accuse libertarians of wanting to "do nothing" and of "fetishizing markets."

So, for the one hundred millionth time: libertarians don't wish to "do nothing," but instead insist that the market will provide the best solution with the fewest (or at least most limited) unintended consequences. We recognize that short-sighted solutions can and often do create more problems than they solve.

On the other hand, free market solutions combine the wisdom of every interested person in the world and, rather than seeking compromise amongst that wisdom, encourage competition and adaptation . In other words, free market solutions provide a vehicle for making sure that the best ideas out of the entire world will rise to the top and succeed, while bad ideas will fail or be forced to change. Government-based solutions, on the other hand, ensure only that the thinking of a select group of policy-makers is enacted, usually based on political compromise amongst those policy-makers. In some cases, especially in a democracy, those "policy-makers" are really a majority of the voting public, but as we have learned time and again, what is most popular is not necessarily what will work best in practice.

To sum up: the free market ensures that everyone living everywhere within the market has an opportunity to have input on the solution; government-based problem-solving on the other hand ensures that only a portion of people living within the market have an opportunity for input on the solution. So, I ask: which is more democratic?

Oh, one other thing: if a particular government-based solution doesn't work, the people charged with correcting the failure will be the very people who came up with the failed idea in the first place- and good luck getting them to admit they were ever wrong! On the other hand, if a particular market-based solution turns out to be a failure, the people charged with correcting the failure will be the competitors with the superior solutions (who people will start preferring over the failed market competitor).

Light Blogging for a Few Days

It's going to be little to no blogging for me for a few days, as I'm going to be out of pocket. Hopefully I'll get the third part of my series on corruption out before I leave this afternoon. In the meantime, read this article about the myth of campaign finance reform, which is perhaps a bit more militant than I would like but seems to grasp the picture pretty well (and yes, the third part of my series is on campaign finance).

Why Big Government Encourages Corruption (cont'd)

I already posted yesterday afternoon about how big government encourages corruption, especially in our form of government, where politicians and government officials have a lot of ability to give benefits to their biggest supporters, as well as a large incentive to do so (ie, the need to get re-elected in order to do what they believe should be done). I discussed how this conflict results in a very real corruption of ideology such that the government official in many instances actually believes they are doing the right thing within the scope of their ideology. I suggested that one solution to issues of corruption in our system of government is primarily to reduce the size of government (I should point out that other systems of government may be less susceptible to corruption, which is another topic entirely, though their examples may have relevance to making improvements to our own systemic problems).

Of course, most people are unwilling to give up big government, and so they will argue that the problem isn't with the size of government but is instead the result of a lack of appropriate safeguards against corruption. My goal in this series of posts is to show how some particularly prevalent safeguards either create more corruption, legitimize the truly nefarious corruption, or simply have costs that far outweigh the problem. The primary reason for this is that these reforms treat symptoms rather than the disease, and have the effect of driving mitigating/countervailing forces from the market. This all isn't to say that good reforms don't exist short of reducing the size of government; just that most reforms do more harm than good (for instance, I have no problem with most disclosure requirements as a matter of effectiveness, though they have their own set of other concerns).

I. Bidding Requirements

The first type of reform that I will address is that of bidding requirements. For the most part, these requirements evolved as a response to bribery of both elected and unelected officials. Bribery is obviously a major and legitimate concern. It is particularly concerning because it provides a personal financial incentive to do a political favor that has nothing to do with the concern for re-election or currying favor with a public employee's superiors. So the need for reform on issues of public contracts and public expenditures was pretty clear.

The problem is that the institution of bidding requirements has at least one of several effects, depending on the relevant requirement: 1. Monopolization of government-obtained services (and in the case of most privatization, government-provided services as well); 2. Has, somewhat counterintuitively, limited competition to a relatively small slice of potential vendors; 3. Has created an illusion of a sanitized process when in fact the process is just as corrupt as it always was, or 4. Have simply added to the government's cost of doing business while having little or no effect on the actual selection of vendors.

In my experience, most bidding requirements can be summed up as the government entity being required to select one of the following methods of awarding contracts, depending on the amount and type of contract:

1. Informal oral or written quote from multiple vendors/contractors
2. Formal "catalog" bid, wherein either one vendor's catalog is selected for nearly everything or, just as commonly, any compliant bidder is awarded the "contract", permitting local officials to order from any awarded vendor at will.
3. Formal bid for specific items or services- item is awarded to lowest bidder on each item or service.
4. "Sole Source"- item or service is awarded automatically to one vendor without any competitive bid on the grounds that the item or service can only be provided by one vendor.

Trouble is, each of these "solutions" actually has its own problems that encourage, rather than discourage corruption. Worse, these "solutions" typically result in higher transaction costs for smaller contractors/vendors, making it very difficult for them to get involved in the process. (To solve this problem, the government tries to implement set-asides for small or minority businesses in most contracts- but these set-asides usually have their own set of problems, which I won't address here).

So, here are the problems:
1. Informal verbal or written quotes- in some ways, this method seems fairly straightforward, and yet it still has major problems. First, this option is usually limited to relatively low-value contracts, meaning that its benefits are limited to the types of transactions that are relatively unlikely to be the subject of bribery. Second, the relevant government official gets to choose which vendors he contacts for pricing. Once the required number of vendors have been contacted, the government official is in the clear. As a result, a corrupt official could just contact vendors he knows beforehand will be unable to compete with the bribing contractor. And this says nothing of the rather small benefit obtained by using this process as compared with the not insignificant expense of obtaining informal quotes, keeping in mind that this process is used only for smaller contracts to begin with.

2. Formal "catalog" bids- this option is almost certainly the least troubling of the methods. In this bidding system, the government advertises for bids; any vendor responding to the advertisement and complying with the terms of the bid gets awarded the bid. One problem with this method, though, is that it succeeds only in limiting the potential pool of vendors to those vendors who are fortunate enough to be aware of the advertisement for bids. Another problem is that the vendors most likely to respond are often the very vendors who would be most able and willing to engage in the corrupt activity to begin with, since those vendors will be the ones most likely to be familiar with the inner workings of the government entity. As a result, once awarded the bid, the corrupt vendors are able to engage in malfeasance almost with impunity, since their actions are less likely to raise red flags once they have the government's tacit approval to deal with whomever will deal with them within the entity. To the extent this method of government bidding represents an improvement, though, it's applicability is extremely limited to vendors providing a wide array of goods. Moreover, a corrupt official can easily influence the process by choosing advertising methods unlikely to reach potential competitors to the preferred, bribing vendor- since the process will be followed, there will be little cause for suspicion of the corrupt official, and the corrupt parties will be able to get away with things.

3. Formal bids for specific items or services- this is the method that the public traditionally associates with government bidding. The concept is very simple- whoever bids the lowest price for the relevant good or service gets the contract for that good or service. It sounds great on paper, of course, but as usual there are major trade-offs involved, and there are plenty of loopholes and ways around the lowest-bidder concept.

First off, when it comes to goods, this is an extremely time-consuming and expensive process; there is almost no possible way that the amount saved by soliciting competitive bids will in many cases be greater than the administrative costs of issuing, reviewing, and awarding the bid. The process of issuing a bid alone requires the purchasing official (who often has little or no understanding of the technical value of the relevant product or service) to obtain information from the relevant government agency as to which products it wishes to procure; in some cases, this may involve questioning dozens of different officials within an agency.

The official then must draft a description for each of usually dozens of products- often, this involves naming a specific product line or even a specific vendor with no appreciation for whether the vendor is the actual manufacturer of the product. When a vendor is named as a manufacturer, that vendor may often have a leg-up on the competition because a corrupt official can simply claim that they didn't think competitors' products met the specifications of the bid- even though the competitor's product is identical in every respect including manufacturer. Moreover, product descriptions are often vague, resulting in a situation where only one bidder (the intended awardee) has sufficient information to actually bid on the product. But even in the ordinary circumstance where a bid for goods is done completely ethically, the government official still has to go through the additional steps of reviewing each line of each bid, comparing each such line to the equivalent line on all other bids; additionally, the government official must then research whether the lowest bid on a given line item actually complies with the bid's specifications. Once this has been done, the official may need to factor in any discounts that bidders have offered should the bidder be awarded all the items they have bid. And all this says nothing of the fact that the official must first review the formalities of each bid to make sure those formalities have been met.

Finally, once an award has been decided, the official must prepare a notification for each bidder indicating what, if any, lines they have been awarded. But this doesn't end the process, necessarily- in some cases, a disgruntled vendor may then choose to protest the bid award, requiring a full-on legal proceeding of some sort. In more common cases, a disgruntled vendor may just seek additional information as to why they were not awarded a line item or as to why someone else was. Point is, this is a much more convoluted process than the average person may perceive, and yet it still leaves plenty of areas for corrupt activity. Indeed, this corrupt activity may be worse than it otherwise would be in some cases, since the size of the contracts awarded are often much larger than they would be if the contracts were awarded on an as-needed basis in which individual officials could easily switch between vendors from one project to the next rather than having to operate under a blanket contract award; moreover, contracts like this (when they are for goods, at least) are usually coordinated by a separate government entity on behalf of multiple other government entities, meaning that the awarded contractor gets monopoly power to deal with multiple agencies, rather than having to negotiate with each agency individually.

As for service contracts- and particularly construction service contracts- the low-bidder formula creates its own set of problem. Specifically, it assumes that any contractor can do just as good a job as any other contractor, so quality of work becomes irrelevant, and the winning bidder is probably nearly as likely to be the winner because of a willingness to cut corners as he is to be the winner because he's just more talented and efficient than the other bidders.

Also- and here is where I probably differ from many conservatives and libertarians- it is somewhat silly to assume that a private company awarded a contract to provide government services, and which is monitored by a bureacracy will be more cost-effective than if the government bureacracy were to provide the service on its own. In other words, competitive bidding out of privatization contracts often creates more, not less, bureacracy. Also worth remembering is that the awarded vendor's customer isn't the taxpayer- it's the government official or agency who awarded the contract, and the interests between the taxpayer and the government official are not necessarily mutual. This isn't to say I'm opposed to privatization per se- just that I'm opposed to privatization where the government is paying the private company to provide the service, rather than the private company paying the government for the privilege of providing the service.

4. Sole Source- ahh, now we come to the worst of the group. The concept behind sole source bidding is simple and common sense- why waste valuable resources on bidding a contract out competitively if there is only one vendor who can provide it? Trouble is that it turns out it's pretty easy for a government official to claim a product or- especially - a service can only be provided by one contractor/vendor. Indeed, "sole-sourcing" can be met in many cases merely by providing a letter stating that no one else provides the vendor's services in exactly the way the vendor does. Since any company wishing to succeed must distinguish itself from its competitors to begin with, you can imagine that it's not very difficult to meet the "sole source" test. It's pretty easy to imagine a situation where a company makes a payoff to a corrupt official so that the official signs off that the company's services qualify as "sole source." Indeed, the existence of the sole source requirement represents a tremendously easy avenue around any restrictions placed by the first three types of government bidding. But the sole source exception pretty much needs to exist. As I think I showed in the previous points, a "sole source" exception effectively exists even if competitive bidding is required, since the government will always get to define the parameters of the item or service sought in a way that either limits or maximizes competition.

The end result of all these bidding requirements is that they only create an appearance that contract awards are immune from corrupting influences. In fact, the bidding requirements may provide additional avenues for corrupting influences; worse, the very existence of the requirements results in less scrutiny and oversight, as long as the requirements were ostensibly followed.

Why Power Corrupts (aka Reason 858 Why Small Government Is Best)

Mick at Comments From Left Field attacks Fred Thompson - and Republicans more generally- over his buddy who was convicted of some drug dealing felonies 25 years ago. He then goes on to make this statement:

The arrogance, corruption, and just plain stoopidity in the GOP has reached monumental proportions. I suppose there must be a Republican somewhere who isn’t a crook, a friend of crooks, a sexual hypocrite, a would-be dictator, or an extremist religious whacko, but I couldn’t tell you where to find them. One gets the feeling that the the ones not currently under indictment or otherwise embarrassed by revelations of thievery, calumny, greed, or cruelty just haven’t been investigated yet.

First of all: so the guy has a close adviser who was convicted of some felonies related to the War on Drugs 25 years ago- so what? Given the size of the US' prison population and the number of hangers-on that all politicians have (especially presidential candidates), I'd tend to think that most politicians, who are in a shady business to begin with, have close connections to criminals of various stripes. The bigger question when things like this come out is what does it say about the War on Drugs, other than that it's made drug dealing a very lucrative business.

More importantly though, the ad hominem suggesting that all Republicans are crooks, etc. strikes me as particularly out of line. Not so long ago, I remember the Dems being the ones who were most frequently coming up in scandals of various sorts: Abscam, the Keating Five (four of whom were Dems, including all three found to have acted most inappropriately), Bob Torricelli, Marion Barry, the various "Gates" of the Clinton years (some of which were very real), Gary Hart, the political machines in several major US cities, and countless others.

Fact is, the Republicans are a political party dedicated to getting party members elected, just as the Dems are. That is the only purpose for either party; it just so happens that at this moment in history conservatives tend to be Republicans and Progressives tend to be Dems- but those ideologies exist independent of the parties. The problem occurs when people conflate the ideology (which is really a personal philosophy about the role of government) with party dogma (which is geared towards electing and empowering candidates). The result of doing so is usually that the party dogma infects the ideology, and the ideology eventually becomes incoherent.

Rather than making corruption and criminal behavior by politicians a partisan issue, maybe we should be asking what it is about government more generally that creates corruption and attracts criminals. In other words, maybe we should be asking why we continue to be surprised when the old maxim that "power corrupts" proves true, and why we don't do something to diffuse that power. The politician's first duty will always be re-election and maintenance of power since power is what is needed to implement the politician's ideology; problem is, of course, that the ideology will over time become increasingly corrupted by the need to get re-elected or gain more power. And so, over time, policy becomes increasingly driven by doing favors for those who are most useful to keeping you in power or getting you more power.

Since most people think they are good and honest, they rationalize this behavior by adjusting their ideology such that, say, a capitalist ideology (which in the post-New Deal era meant that business groups were the most important constituency for such ideologues) is transformed into a pro-business ideology (which has relatively little to do with a free market ideology). Similarly, an ideology roughly rooted in FDR's Four Freedoms (which meant that labor unions were the most important constituency) becomes transformed into an ideology that is explicitly pro-union and anti-business (which has relatively little to do with the Four Freedoms). Of course, you still pay lip service to your root ideology, but in the process you've changed the meaning of your root ideology.

But when government is small and relatively weak, there is little incentive for your core constituencies to demand favors from you, since there are few favors that you can grant them. It's tough to have even an implicit quid pro quo when there is no quid. To the extent government is necessary, greater decentralization reduces the size of any given quid, thereby limiting the effects of any resulting ideological change to a local area. For the record, this is essentially Madison's legendary argument about faction in his Federalist 10. Of course, the Constitution has no possible relevance 220 years later, so abandoning core Constitutional principles couldn't have possibly had anything to do with the increasing occurence of corruption, could it?

So, Fred Thompson Doubts He'll Win

In a level of candor that is highly unusual for a candidate considered to be in the "top-tier" in a relatively wide-open race, Fred Thompson made some comments acknowledging that he doesn't think he's going to win.

The overall tone of the article is anything but sympathetic to Thompson, suggesting this was a big gaffe on his part, and repeating the accusations that he is lazy. To me, though, the article actually makes Thompson more appealing, and I'm really starting to warm to the guy.

Frankly, after 8 years of an extremely active executive, maybe a lazy man is exactly what we need, if only for one term. Indeed, despite accusations to the contrary, the man who thinks we don't need to do very much is the man who is likely to be the most genuine optimist. Certainly, a generally lazy attitude towards the use of executive power is as fundamentally libertarian as you can get- even if Thompson isn't a real libertarian himself. On top of all that, his candor about his chances is refreshing- it suggests someone who really is playing the role of the reluctant candidate and is thus not willing to sacrifice who he is at heart in order to get something he doesn't really want in the first place; when it comes to power, frequently the best man for the job is the man who wants it the least.

I still prefer Paul, but oddly enough, my personal willingness to support Thompson is increasing proportionally to the willingness of most others to begin abandoning him. For my preferences, the gap between Thompson and Paul has decreased dramatically these last few weeks.

Romney's Big Endorsement

This is interesting. Influential conservative Paul Weyrich, original lynchpin of the Heritage Foundation and the Moral Majority, has come out and endorsed Mitt Romney. This is just the latest in a string of endorsements for Romney from the theo-con base of the Republican Party, most notably including Hugh Hewitt's endorsement.

But...Weyrich's endorsement may not be as solid as it is being portrayed. In an interview also published yesterday by Newsmax, Weyrich indicates his primary goal is simply stopping Giuliani at all costs. His support of Romney in this interview seems, frankly, lukewarm at best:

I think [Romney] is somebody who is rushing toward the movement trying to present himself as a conservative and in some ways it's more useful to have somebody like that. I think he could be supported.

In other words, Weyrich acknowledges Romney's flip-flopping, but thinks it's the type of flip-flopping that would be primarily beneficial to the Religious Right. More importantly, he also has this to say about Romney as compared to Fred Thompson:

Newsmax: Who would you consider of all these candidates in the Republican
primary race to be the best?
Weyrich: If you mean by that who’s the best campaigner, I think Romney is if you look at his lead in the early states as a result of arduous campaigning. I'd be more comfortable if Fred Thompson were, but he’s a poor campaigner.

This is particularly interesting- it suggests that Weyrich's support of Romney is borne more out of necessity than actual ideological agreement. So, while this is certainly a coup for Romney, it seems to be something of a hollow victory- essentially a decision on Weyrich's part to endorse the lesser of several evils (in the theocons' eyes), while maintaining some hope that the Religious Right will maintain its recent influence on the Republican Party.

Anyways, while I'm not particularly fond of Weyrich's logic, and I am most certainly not one to agree with him on many (if any) social issues, I find some of his rhetoric to be refreshing in its realism (ie, the upcoming election cycle is likely to be a disaster for Republicans), and in its implicit acknowledgement that Republicans by and large deserve what has happened to them and what is likely to happen to them in 2008.

Moreover, I'm impressed to hear a theo-con make statements like this about Iraq:

I felt that it was a mistake to go in there in the first place. We should not be taking initiatives like that with NATO. We're only supposed to defend if attacked. We should not be making initiatives when not attacked.
....
[I]if we were going to go we should have very carefully examined the Baath party people to determine which ones were there because they were really Saddam's Murder Inc., and which ones were there because they were competent people who knew how to run a country.

And this about Iran:

Bombing would turn the population against us whereas now in Iran they are probably more pro-American than any other place on earth.

Sometimes, it's just good to remember that not all theo-cons are unhinged, and actually still remember why they were conservatives in the first place.

Apology

I just wanted to prominently retract my suggestion, originally made in this post that Second Hand Conjecture was both a conservative and trivializing the waterboarding issue. More details about the error are contained in the updated post.

Ashcroft Is Wrong About Telecom Immunity

This morning John Ashcroft has a piece in the NYT arguing for telecom immunity. Since he has earned some credibility since he left the Administration on issues of integrity, it's worth taking his arguments somewhat seriously. However, his arguments are strikingly similar to the arguments made by several other former AG's in the Wall Street Journal last week, which I discussed at length here.

As with the argument in the WSJ, Ashcroft's argument is deeply flawed because existing law already grants sufficient immunity to cover his concerns about a chilling effect on private cooperation with the government. The telecom companies are not small businesses with limited access to legal help; instead they are massive corporations with armies of lawyers on their payroll, not to mention the private firms they keep on retainer. A quick perusal of existing law easily turns up the fact that the telecoms already have immunity- as long as the government provided them with a formal certification (not a particularly high bar to meet).

If the government did not provide them with such formal certification, then even a summer associate would have understood that no immunity would exist. The solution to this dilemma would be easy- demand the government provide appropriate certification; if the government refused to do so, then it would be a pretty easy inference that the government's request lacks a real basis and was thus unnecessary.

Now, I have no knowledge whether the government did provide a formal certification in this case- if it did, then this is all much ado about nothing. But the fact that the intelligence committees, with their superior access to information, feel compelled to issue this specific immunity says to me that the government did not provide proper certification. So prosecution of these law suits should have no effect on future cooperation with the government other than to the extent private companies will need to insist on formal certification. To change the standard from formal certification to "explicit assurances" is to lower an already low bar. Even worse, this reduces the potential liability of government officials since it effectively eliminates the certification requirement and replaces it with a letter merely stating the President authorized the program and determined it to be legal.

Ashcroft also argues that accountability-based arguments for the lawsuits are flawed because, "for domestic purposes" the intelligence committees have oversight, and they are the people's elected representatives, and they are therefore a more appropriate venue for oversight than the courts. A few problems exist with this line of argument, though. First, the people do not have any direct influence on who gets to be on the intelligence committees. Second, the Congress is not what you would call a neutral arbiter, but is instead largely concerned with re-election; the Dems' concerns about being labeled "soft on terror" creates a huge impediment to their independence in evaluating the arguments for immunity. Third, who oversees the intelligence committees? No one. Finally, the intelligence committees are much closer to a grand jury than a trial jury or judge- there is little or no adversarial process involved, so the Administration can selectively choose what it provides to the committees with no questions asked. In the end, his argument amounts to "Just trust us," these are sensitive secrets.

Cato Stands Up For Itself

In this semi-amusing, mostly serious rant against accusations that it has been too soft on the war in Iraq. Also- good to see Cato saying "Good riddance!" to Glenn Reynolds.

Whither Ron Paul?

I know Kucinich is crazy, but sometimes it takes a crazy man to do the right thing. I'm amazed it took this long for a Dem- any Dem- to grow a spine and realize that things like this were why they won the House last year- not SCHIP, not card check ballots for labor unions, and certainly not higher taxes. Instead they've largely chosen to ignore the fact that more Americans want to see Bush/Cheney impeached than ever wanted to see Clinton impeached. But where does Ron Paul, bane of Executive Power, stand on this? And yes, it makes my skin crawl that I'm agreeing with Sheila Jackson-Lee and Jim Moran (my former scumbag of a Congressman) on this.

Teddy Roosevelt on Torture

When Bush and Cheney run into opposition on issues of executive abuse of power and especially waterboarding from that weak-willed anti-authoritarian, anti-imperialist President Theodore Rex (enough sarcasm for ya?), you would think conservatives would finally acknowledge that maybe waterboarding is going a bit too far.

**UPDATE- My original post incorrectly suggested that Second Hand Conjecture was a conservative and was trivializing the debate. I misread the post at Second Hand Conjecture, which was in fact taking a much more nuanced view. Additionally, as Lance points out, he is not a conservative. I apologize for the error, and plea guilty by reason of fatigue brought about by posting at 2:30 in the morning after sleeping for exactly 3 hours before waking up to catch an early flight.

Please, for the love of all that is holy, stop her!

Michelle Malkin is currently leading this contest for best blog of 2007. Please try to help out her competition. For the record, the anti-Malkin, Andrew Sullivan, is currently in 2nd (hint, hint).

**UPDATE, 11/6/2007** Okay, crisis averted. "PostSecret"- which I've never heard of and which has seemingly nothing to do about politics- has now come out of nowhere to build an insurmountable lead. HuffPost has taken a slight lead over Malkin, and Sully has fallen way behind.

Westboro Baptist Church, the Common Law, and the Limits of Free Speech

So, one of the relatively few truly despicable groups of people in the world now has to pay millions- far beyond its assets- as restitution for one of its "God Hates Fags" protests of a military funeral. I hope this doesn't destroy my libertarian street cred too much, but I'm not exactly getting ready to burn the courthouse down over this one.

Actually, I don't think this case implicated freedom of speech all that much to begin with. The primary claims in the case were for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED). For the privacy claim, the issue is highly factual, and I don't think the media provides enough facts to make a truly worthwhile evaluation of the claim; in other words, I think you have to trust the jury's fact-finding that this was an invasion of privacy implicating no free speech rights.

But the IIED claim clearly implicates no free speech rights in my view. IIED is an intentional tort that primarily evolved through the common law- it is not a result, by and large, of legislative action and findings, especially in Maryland if I remember correctly. The common law will rarely implicate free speech because it develops on a case by case basis; moreover, common law rules are usually highly fact-dependent, involving consideration of the entire circumstances surrounding the case. In other words, common law rules are usually trustworthy because they avoid one-size-fits-all prior restraints.

Just as important is the fact that the golden rule of libertarianism is that a person should be allowed to do just about anything, as long as they are doing no harm to others. Well, the central point of IIED is that the conduct in question actually causes harm to others. For those without a legal background, to be found liable for IIED, a person must meet several factors- (1) Intentional or reckless conduct, that is (2) extreme or outrageous, (3) resulting in (4) severe emotional distress. Usually, the emotional distress must be so severe as to be medically diagnosable. However, the more extreme and intentional the conduct the smaller the amount of distress required for liability. Either way the central point of the claim is that the defendant intended to cause real harm to the plaintiff. Actions of any stripe that are intended to cause actual harm to another person are actions that libertarians usually find appropriate for punishment.

In this case, I don't think there's any question that protesting the funeral of a private (as opposed to a public) person while also attacking the deceased's character is "extreme or outrageous." There is also little doubt that only a complete moron would think such conduct would be unlikely to cause severe harm to the family of the deceased. In other words- the Phelpses knew or should have known that their conduct was extremely likely to cause very real injury to the soldier's family, and yet engaged in the conduct anyways. Intentional infliction of physical harm implicates no free speech concerns in my view.

This isn't to say that the Westboro Baptist Church is forbidden from running around claiming that soldiers are getting killed because "God hates fags." Instead, it is to say that they are going beyond the realm of speech when they do so within the context of a funeral where grieving friends and family members are present. It's not quite yelling "fire" in a crowded theater- but it's close.

Why Telecom Immunity Is a Bad Idea

Today's Wall Street Journal features a column by several former Attorneys General arguing for immunity for the telecoms for their role in the Administration's warrantless wiretapping program. The Attorneys General argue that immunity is necessary because of a need to encourage private cooperation with the government on national security matters- even if the program in question was unconstitutional. Their argument hinges on this paragraph:

Whether the government has acted properly is a different question from whether a private person has acted properly in responding to the government's call for help. From its earliest days, the common law recognized that when a public official calls on a citizen to help protect the community in an emergency, the person has a duty to help and should be immune from being hauled into court unless it was clear beyond doubt that the public official was acting illegally. Because a private person cannot have all the information necessary to assess the propriety of the government's actions, he must be able to rely on official assurances about need and legality. Immunity is designed to avoid the burden of protracted litigation, because the prospect of such litigation itself is enough to deter citizens from providing critically needed assistance.

There are, however, several major flaws in this argument.

1. They seem to make a misstatement (or at least I hope it's a misstatement) in saying that "when a public official calls on a citizen to help protect the community in an emergency, the person has a duty to help." The use of the word "duty" is troubling to me- it implies not only a moral, but also a legal obligation to do whatever the government asks if there is an emergency, unless the person knows to an absolute certainty that an official is lying or just wrong. This is a recipe for totalitarianism; I can only hope and assume that the use of the word "duty" was just a poor word choice.

2. They argue that immunity was granted at common law in situations like this, and therefore the legislature is correct in creating additional statutory immunity. Problem is, Congress has already passed a statute (18 USC 2511) dealing with telecom immunity in this specific situation, ie, national security wiretapping. Immunity is allowed under this statute- but only if the administration issues appropriate certification or a warrant. The telecoms are massive companies with armies of lawyers- to argue that they were somehow unaware of the requirement for certification is, to say the least, disingenuous. Moreover, if the government failed to provide appropriate certification, that would suggest a pretty strong inference of bad faith action by the government (and thus by the telecoms). (For the record, it's worth noting that there is a good possibility that appropriate certification was issued- but this would obviate any need for additional immunity). By passing additional immunity for this specific instance, Congress is doing something perilously close to a bill of attainder; moreover, it is essentially making the relevant provisions of FISA totally worthless.

3. If the lawsuits were to be successful, but Congress still felt that the telecoms acted in good faith, then Congress could simply vote to indemnify the telecoms for their actions. In essence, the federal government would be admitting primary liability for the telecoms' actions. On the other hand, if there would be a finding of bad faith action by the telecoms, any prior grant of immunity would in effect rob victims of those bad faith actions of just restitution.

4. If the concern is that allowing the suits to move forward will have a chilling effect on future cooperation with government national security investigations, there is a simple fix: amend the existing statute for future actions. But, this should not be retroactive- as I pointed out above, the telecoms were well aware of the requirements for immunity; if they chose to disregard those requirements, then they knew the risk involved. Moreover, there is increasing evidence, as I argued here, that the program began at a time when no emergency existed. If true, this would negate any claim that the telecoms' actions were justified regardless of the statutory immunity requirements due to the existence of an imminent threat.

Which of our Global Wars Is More Important?

The War on Drugs or the (legitimate part of the) War on Terror? This recent post at Back Talk suggests that the Administration has placed the War on Drugs ahead of the War on Terror in Afghanistan. That sounds about right.

Of course, they'll tell you that in this case the two are intrinsically linked- by fighting the War on Drugs, they'll say, we're depriving the Taliban of their funding and thus fighting the War on Terror. But, as usual with the War on Drugs, this argument fails Econ 101. For the millionth time: drugs (especially opiates) have inelastic demand; this means that the more you restrict supply, the higher prices go- but with almost no effect on demand. When you have higher prices combined with high demand, you have what might be called a lucrative business opportunity. By fighting the War on Drugs in Afghanistan, all you are doing is increasing the profitability of the opium trade; since the Taliban appears to be getting more and more into that trade, you can pretty much rest assured that the reason they are doing so is because of the high profitability brought about by the War on Drugs. Moreover, the Taliban are already fighting a war to begin with, so fear of drug enforcement officers isn't exactly going to affect their willingness to engage in the opium trade (meaning that, over time, the Taliban will gain an increasing market share of the opium trade- not a good thing).

I know, I know, unintended consequences are a bitch.

(Hat Tip: To The People)

Zakaria Gets His Talking Points From PE

...Ok, maybe not. But in this debate with NPod, Fareed Zakaria sounds an awful lot like I did in my posts here, and here. The transcript of the debate is worth reading, but the thrust of Zakaria's argument is that Iran has, for the last 25 years, shown no signs of acting counter to their rational interest, and is in no way, shape, or form crazier than Kim Jong Il or Mao Tse-Tung. Zakaria's best line? " When the Iranians elected a moderate, a man called Khatami, as the president, conservatives kept telling us the president has no powers....Now they elect Ahmadinejad, and they say he's got his finger on the button."

NPod responds with the tired old Neville Chamberlain/Hitler comparison, and the newer, but still tired, argument that Iran is more irrational than Jong Il and Mao because it is motivated by religious fervor (of course, our own President's religious zeal is irrelevant). NPod so understands the degree to which Zakaria is winning the debate that he tries to cut Zakaria and Woodruff off on at least 6 occasions. Realizing he can't win on an appeal to logos, NPod makes repeated appeals to fear and pathos, including the closing line of "God help us if we follow that counsel." And the Iranians are the ones who are irrational?

Anyhow, George Ajjan had an excellent post earlier this month on this issue that provides far better information than even the Zakaria discussion (based on information from someone who, I don't know, actually lives in Iran) here.

The key information from Ajjan's source:

The President in Iran does not have the authority to declare war nor does he control the regular Army or the Revolutionary Guards. There may be individuals or groups in both that support him but that does not mean that he commands a major allegiance which would allow him to use the military for his own purposes. Also, the Supreme Leader has used reshuffles in the IRGC and the Army to ensure that people do not remain long enough to establish power bases or to establish alliances with other political actors.One interesting thing that most people don't know is that the President in Iran doesn't even control the police forces, since the national chief of police is appointed by the Supreme Leader and the law enforcement forces broadly answer to him. This was one of the things that [former President Mohamed] Khatami was trying to change, i.e. to get the police to be accountable to the Interior Ministry rather than to the General Staff of the Armed Forces.To Question 1:There has been no indication whatsoever that Supreme Leader Khamenei wants to go to war with Israel. In fact, just a few days after Ahmadinejad first made his remarks about Israel in 2005, Khamenei gathered the main actors of the regime and made a very public speech in which he stated that:
1. Iran's policy vis-à-vis Israel has not changed (i.e. Iran continues to oppose the "oppression of the Palestinian people" and support their demands for their own rights)

2. Iran would "never carry out aggressive acts against any country". Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Leader's comments, which carry much more weight in policy matters in Iran, where not widely reported by the international media.

Why the neocons insist on ignoring Khamenei and instead choose to demonstrate fear of Ahmadinejad is beyond me. It's as if they don't realize that doing this just makes Ahmadinejad relevant on an international scale even though he is on the verge of irrelevance within his own country.

Ron Silver's Incoherent Rant

This has got to be one of the most incoherent rants I've ever read in my life. I honestly have no idea who holds the positions he is attacking here- for example, he includes financial aid and international programs for Palestinians as "isolationist." Apparently, "isolationist" now just means "anyone who is not a neo-con." If he's attacking the Ron Paul/Old Right position of non-interventionism, then he's making no sense (since Ron Paul would not support international aid to anyone and since non-interventionism is anything but cultural relativism). If he's attacking the "Hollywood liberal" position, then who in Hollywood is advocating non-intervention in Darfur and Africa? Who in Hollywood is opposed to "nation-building," which was the brainchild of their beloved Bill Clinton? I mean, I'm all in favor of getting into debates that you can't lose- but it's not very worthwhile if you're not actually debating a real person.

I'm left totally confused by this one- I would love to know who he is attacking. Moreover, I love how he assumes that there's only one possible result of each of the straw-men positions he is attacking. You have to love it when people just refuse to ask the questions "Why?" and "How?"

Most importantly of all, though- Ron Silver is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations? Really? When did this happen? Does being a porn king in a short-lived TV knockoff of Romeo & Juliet now qualify one for joining the CFR? What about being a real-life porn king- can Larry Flynt become a member of the CFR?

Yes, there is a crisis

Atrios claims that not only is there no Social Security crisis (something I'm inclined to agree with, if only on linguistic grounds), but that:

"[H]aving [Obama] suggest that Social Security is a problem which needs to be dealt with by any serious candidate is like the bat signal for people like me. There is no problem with Social Security. None at all. Whatever broader fiscal time bombs exist have absolutely nothing to do with Social Security."

This "ostrich-neck syndrome" when it comes to New Deal and Great Society programs on the left is the equivalent of the Right's "ostrich-neck syndrome" when it comes to the War on Drugs. It shows a fundamentally gawdawful understanding of simple economics. The argument that Social Security faces no fundamental problems amounts to an argument that you can take a system designed for people living for x years after they retire (and which is theoretically funded by the salaries those people made), and maintain it when those people are, on average, living x+y years after they retire. Simple common sense, logic, etc., will tell you that this is impossible.

Moreover, we already have a pretty good example of a similar system collapsing under its own weight. At this point, it's pretty well understood that one of the biggest reasons Detroit is becoming increasingly less competitive in the global auto industry is its pension plan system, which creates an additional $1500 (I've actually seen this number a bit higher from other sources) in overhead for every car produced. I've seen the Left complain increasingly about "disappearing pensions" in the private sector more generally; unfortunately, the belief is usually that these plans are disappearing because of theft and greed. Unfortunately, it's emotionally easier to blame theft and greed rather than deal with the simpler, Ocham's razor explanation: just as you can't consume more than you produce, you can't take out more than you put in.

Of course, the retort is simply going to be "well, raise taxes to pay for the increased costs," as if you can raise taxes ad infinitum without ever having a negative effect on the economy as a whole. We can disagree about the point at which that negative effect will begin, but the fact is that simply raising taxes does nothing to solve the underlying problem, which means that you will have to continue to raise taxes every so often as people continue to live longer and longer. Eventually- whether 10, 25, 50, 100, or 200 years from now- you will get to a point where you can't increase taxes any more.

Religious Political Correctness

Things like this always amuse me:

"[True conservatives] unashamedly love their country and have reached the point of no return with regard to political correctness and pandering politicians..."

Followed by- in the very next sentence:

"[True conservatives] have a deep and abiding belief in God. A belief that is under a daily, escalating and obscene assault from those on the left who only use the word “Christian” as an insult, a punch line, or as an identifier to be added to a blacklist to deny employment at most schools, colleges, newspapers, and television networks. [The Republican nominee] needs to understand that this is a belief that must be acknowledged, respected, and defended."

So, I guess this means some forms of political correctness are more equal than others, right?

On unintended consequences

Thomas Sowell's column today does a great job of illustrating the law of unintended consequences. His argument is definitely an oversimplification (you can't blame the wildfires entirely or even mostly on open space laws, for instance) but it still does a pretty good job of showing the inability of government to know everything or foresee all the consequences of its actions. A better understanding in government that you can never know all the consequences of a policy and that every policy has tradeoffs would at the very least, create a bit more humility in the government (and a little less hubris).