Politics, Government & Public Policy: October 2008 Archives

Maybe I'm living in my own little right-wing bubble, but I see a substantial chance for McCain to win the election. I'll even go so far as to predict a McCain victory. Am I naive or delusional? You make the call.

Does anyone else get the impression that extremist racists are just attention-grabbing contrarians?

“White people are faced with either a negro or a total nutter who happens to have a pale face. Personally I’d prefer the negro. National Socialists are not mindless haters. Here, I see a white man, who is almost dead, who declares he wants to fight endless wars around the globe to make the world safe for Judeo-capitalist exploitation, who supports the invasion of America by illegals -- basically a continuation of the last eight years of Emperor Bush. Then, we have a black man, who loves his own kind, belongs to a Black-Nationalist religion, is married to a black women -- when usually negroes who have ‘made it’ immediately land a white spouse as a kind of prize -- that’s the kind of negro that I can respect. Any time that a prominent person embraces their racial heritage in a positive manner, it’s good for all racially minded folks. Besides, America cares nothing for the interests of the white American worker, while having a love affair with just about every non-white on planet Earth. It’d be poetic justice to have a non-white as titular chief over this decaying modern Sodom and Gomorrah.”

I guess racists are more complex and nuanced than I thought! I take great comfort from the fact that these nuts are supporting the other guy.

(HT: Instapundit.)

If you would be interested in taking an election survey for some researchers at New York University, go here. I've been asked to disable comments on this post so they won't influence the results.

The conviction on corruption charges does little more than emphasize what has been apparent for many years: Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens is an embarrassment to the United States, to Alaska, and to the Republican Party. I'd say he's an embarrassment to the Senate, but he probably fits right in.

The verdict, coming barely a week before Election Day, increased Stevens' difficulty in winning what already was a difficult race against Democratic challenger Mark Begich. Democrats hope to seize the once reliably Republican seat as part of their bid for a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Stevens, 84, was convicted of all the felony charges he faced of lying about free home renovations and other gifts from a wealthy oil contractor.

Because this kind of corruption is so often overlooked in our government, I'm sure Stevens is shocked to be facing jail time for these bribes.

Chris Dodd should be worried, and I'd be pleased if this investigation is the first of many.

It's hard to be more explicit than this.

If you're undecided about Barack Obama and even vaguely open to the idea of not voting for him, you really should check out Gateway Pundit's front page. He has video and audio of Obama advocating socialism, praising foreign and domestic terrorists and terror groups, and bashing white people. Not ancient history, but from the 1990s and 2000s.

You might be surprised and what you see.

Intrade is offering a new kind of contract that allows users to bet on political polling errors.

Intrade has just launched new Polling Error Markets to shed light on the possibility that the final polling averages will significantly misrepresent the final state of the race. ... Intrade's Polling Error Markets will compare the spread between the final Real Clear Politics polling averages for Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain to the final true spread in the popular vote as published by the Federal Election Commission.

These new markets will provide unique information on the likelihood that a candidate will significantly over or underperform the final poll averages.

Here's a link to the baseline contract. It just opened, so there aren't any bids yet.

I should get paid by Intrade, but I don't.

Jeffrey Goldberg and Bruce Schneier demonstrate that airpoint security is a joke by carrying all manner of illegal items through security while using boarding passes they printed on their home computer.

Schnei­er took from his bag a 12-ounce container labeled “saline solution.”

“It’s allowed,” he said. Medical supplies, such as saline solution for contact-lens cleaning, don’t fall under the TSA’s three-ounce rule.

“What’s allowed?” I asked. “Saline solution, or bottles labeled saline solution?”

“Bottles labeled saline solution. They won’t check what’s in it, trust me.”

They did not check. As we gathered our belongings, Schnei­er held up the bottle and said to the nearest security officer, “This is okay, right?” “Yep,” the officer said. “Just have to put it in the tray.”

“Maybe if you lit it on fire, he’d pay attention,” I said, risking arrest for making a joke at airport security. (Later, Schnei­er would carry two bottles labeled saline solution—24 ounces in total—through security. An officer asked him why he needed two bottles. “Two eyes,” he said. He was allowed to keep the bottles.)

That's nice. And how about that no-fly list?

As I stood in the bathroom, ripping up boarding passes, waiting for the social network of male bathroom users to report my suspicious behavior, I decided to make myself as nervous as possible. I would try to pass through security with no ID, a fake boarding pass, and an Osama bin Laden T-shirt under my coat. I splashed water on my face to mimic sweat, put on a coat (it was a summer day), hid my driver’s license, and approached security with a bogus boarding pass that Schnei­er had made for me. I told the document checker at security that I had lost my identification but was hoping I would still be able to make my flight. He said I’d have to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor arrived; he looked smart, unfortunately. I was starting to get genuinely nervous, which I hoped would generate incriminating micro-expressions. “I can’t find my driver’s license,” I said. I showed him my fake boarding pass. “I need to get to Washington quickly,” I added. He asked me if I had any other identification. I showed him a credit card with my name on it, a library card, and a health-insurance card. “Nothing else?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“You should really travel with a second picture ID, you know.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“All right, you can go,” he said, pointing me to the X-ray line. “But let this be a lesson for you.”

But on the plus side, the TSA makes flying such a terrible experience that terrorists might not have the patience for it anymore.

The WSJ editorial page posits a terrifying laundry list of new legislation we're in store for under an Obama presidency with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Great. Now I'm really scared of an Obama victory.

Fortunately for my sanity, I'm still predicting a McCain win.

I think Obama and the "mainstream" media are making a big mistake by going after Joe the Plumber. I know it's reflexive and they just can't help destroying people who expose and decry their Marxist redistribution schemes, but I think Joe the Plumber will get a lot of sympathy from Obama's must-win voting blocs.

William Graham Sumner wrote, regarding FDR's New Deal:

They are always under the dominion of the superstition of government, and forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion — that the state cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man.

I don't think people will forget Joe the Plumber for a while.

The MSM is too busy to look into Obama's past, but they're investigating Joe the Plumber. Good question by Allahpundit about Joe's lack of a plumbing license:

Exit question: The law’s the law and it is, after all, his own fault for not having the papers he needs. If, say, an illegal alien had asked McCain a tough question and some righty media source responded by bringing his status to light, would the left feel the same way?

(HT: Tennessee Guerrilla Women, Jonah Goldberg, and Instapundit.)

I thought this was McCain's best debate and that he won every round, even if he didn't get a "knock out" punch.

However, the commentators on FoxNews unanimously thought otherwise. Then the "undecided" voters in the focus group all seemed to think that Obama won the debate.

Maybe I'm crazy.

I just wrote this comparison in a comment on my earlier post about saving society with handcuffs:

Here's how I see it.

Capitalism: high average growth, but with lots of intermediate volatility that enriches some and makes others destitute (generally due to their own choices).

Socialism: low average growth (historically negative) but with less volatility until everything collapses due to demographics.

Basically socialism seems like a graceful way to spend down your societal capital as your society dies off.

I like it enough to it quote myself!

Thinking about the election in a few weeks has really highlighted just how chaotic our Supreme Court Justice appointment process is. I think the intention of the Founding Fathers was to make the Supreme Court less responsive to political pressure by giving the justices lifelong appointments, but this has had at least one very strange consequence: Supreme Court judicial philosophy is chaotic in the sense that it's future has very little relationship to its present.

Voters have short attention spans. Decisions on whom to vote for are often made in the last few weeks before an election and are based on policy preferences that take into account little more than the past year... maybe less. This short time frame is fine for electing officials who serve two-, four-, or even six-year terms, but should e.g. the state of the war in Afghanistan really have a strong influence on a capital punishment case 30 years from now? Should the financial crisis influence abortion law? Should preference for one energy independence plan over another affect free speech law?

When our immediate political concerns are juxtaposed with the kinds of cases the next Supreme Court justices will probably be deciding over the coming decades, the chaotic nature of the system is revealed. If voters support Barack Obama because he wants to pull our troops out of Iraq, they might also get stuck with mandatory "equal pay" for women when he puts Hillary Clinton on the Supreme Court. Or, flip it: voting for John McCain because he was right on the surge doesn't necessarily mean that you'll agree when his appointee overturns Roe v. Wade.

It doesn't make sense for matters that are so unrelated to be tied together politically. I'm not sure I've got a better system in mind, but I bet we can come up with something. Here are some options, but each has problems of its own:

• Shorter terms. Back when the Constitution was written lifespans were much less anyway, so why not limit justices to a single 20-year term?
• Elect justices directly.
• Elect justices regionally. The states in each circuit get to elect one justice together.

I think I like the first the best, what about you?

The debate last night was pretty boring, but Barack Obama had one of his dumbest moments ever. When asked if health care is a right, responsibility, or privilege, Obama answered "it's a right". Let's look at all the ways that's stupid.

First, what level if health care is required by Obama's "right"? Top-of-the-line Western medicine? Such health care is a right for whom? Just Americans? Or everyone in the world? Are we violating the rights of Chinese peasants by not invading China and providing Western style health care? Or would Obama do this if he thought he could?

Second, setting aside what Obama thinks would be nice in an ideal world, where in the Constitution is this right to health care established? He's running for President, not philosopher-in-chief, so I assume when he says "right" he means it within the American Constitutional framework and not any other moral or legal construction. So, where's the health care clause of the Constitution? Obama is supposedly a Constitutional scholar, so maybe he can enlighten me. When did the people and the states write health care into our national compact?

Third, think about what it would mean for health care to be a right. When you consider the ramifications even an inch beneath the surface you run into all sorts of problems.

Every right one person has imposes an obligation on someone else:

• Right: Free speech. Obligation: We have to let you talk, even when you stay stupid or dangerous things.
• Right: Free religion. Obligation: We have to let you go to any church you want, or none at all, even if we think you're corrupting our country.
• Right: Free assembly. Obligation: We have to let you meet with your dumb friends.
• Right: Due process. Obligation: We have to give you a trial, even when it's clear that you're guilty.
• Right: Jury trial. Obligation: We have to take time out of our lives to serve on juries.

You get the point. With the exception of the right to trial-by-jury, I think all the rights specified in the Constitution create negative obligations on the rest of society. Your right obligates me and the government to not do anything to impede it. In contrast, positive obligations require me not just to leave you alone, but to actually do something for your benefit.

So, back to health care. Does Obama mean that we have a right to buy whatever health care we can afford, without interference from the government? Doubtful. What he really means is that people (only Americans? Africans? who?) have a "right" to have other people pay for their health care. Obama's health care right creates a whole host of obligations on the rest of us, not merely to refrain from interference with the right, but to act positively to enable it.

• Taxpayers will be obligated to pay for others' health care under threat of force
• Doctors will be obligated to provide health care at the government's direction
• Insurance companies will be obligated to cover or not cover people or ailments at the government's direction
• Employers will be obligated to pay for health care of whatever kind mandated by the government

The issue of health care really cuts to the core of the difference between leftists and conservatives.

Conservatives believe that "rights" express our fundamental freedoms that cannot be taken away by anyone. The only obligations created by conservative "rights" are negative obligations that require you to stay out of my business.

Leftists believe that "rights" express obligations that the government can impose on us by force. Leftist "rights" create obligations on us to spend our time, money, and effort on other people regardless of our own desires. That's not freedom, that's slavery.

Sure, the title is overwrought, but Representative Barney Frank deserves (along with Senator Chris Dodd) a plurality of the blame for the present financial meltdown. Instead of accepting responsibility though, he's blaming "racist" Republicans for pointing the finger at him.

Rep. Barney Frank said Monday that Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation's housing crisis is a veiled attack on the poor that's racially motivated.

The Massachusetts Democrat, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the GOP is appealing to its base by blaming the country's mortgage foreclosure problem on efforts to expand affordable housing through the Community Reinvestment Act. ...

Frank also dismissed charges the Democrats failed on their own or blocked Republican efforts to rein in the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The federal government recently took control of both entities.

No discussion of Frank's involvement in the mortgage crisis can be complete without mentioning that he was in a long-term relationship with the Fannie Mae executive in charge of subprime loans, which the Associated Press mysteriously forgets to mention in its story.

Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.

"It’s absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?

"If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard."

A top GOP House aide agreed.

"C’mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank’s political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley’s wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain’s wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation’s housing and banking laws."

The Democrats desperately want to pin this crisis on President Bush, but most of the fault lies with Congress. There's plenty of blame to go around, but the lion's share belongs to Congressional Democrats, and particularly to Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.

I haven't seen a grin like these since OJ heard "not guilty".

Were I in their shoes, I'd be a little more somber and a lot more humble.

(HT: Michael Silence.)

Blah.

I only watched the first half because it was so boring and frustrating.

Or maybe I'm just upset by the money I've lost in the past couple of weeks. I understand the socialist urge: someone do something! If I believed that our government was capable of any beneficial action at least I'd have some hope.

Blah.