I haven’t been able to write very much in the past few months because my life has been quite topsy-turvy. (It’s now fully on the upside!) Lots of things have happened both in the media world (Sun Times and NYT going pay wall, Time Warner’s ABC blackout) and in the political world (Health Care Passed?!?! And Bibi got smacked) that I haven’t had time to comment on, and it’s a bit late now.

But one meme that has been floating around are bloggers most influential books, and on that note I’d like to share mine.

The Books Everyone Should Read:

White Tiger (Adiga) – A story set in modern day India, it’s a morally and ethically ambiguous story about what it means to be an Entrepreneur in an emerging economy. Extremely funny, it doesn’t pull punches and places the reader face-to-face with the reality of a globalized world. Its Fucking Amazing!

Small Gods (Terry Pratchett) – A wry mocking take on organized religion, its humor is priceless and very very British. Yet, his understanding of faith and devotion are quit sincere.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Series (Adams) – This book more than any other took the mundane and made it fantastic. It puts life into perspective and lets you laugh at it all. Plus, it doles out the greatest pearl of wisdom in the galaxy, no matter what happens: Don’t Panic.

The Books the Made Me Smarter:

Calculus (Stewart) – This text book taught me a new way of looking at math, and revealed the awesome power of mathematical logic and analysis. I can unequivocally say that this book made me ‘smarter’.

The Lives of the Renaissance Painters, Sculptures, and Architects (Vasari) – Discussing not only their biographies but also their techniques, this 2 volume set explains why these people were so special, and what it took to make their master pieces possible.

I Claudius (Graves) – A historical fiction told in the form of an autobiography (which did exist) by the Emperor Claudius. Its masterfully tells the ins-and-out of the Julio-Claudine dynasty from August to Nero.

The Books that Changed the Way I Thought:

Jefferson V Hamilton (Cunningham) – Drawing directly from their own writing the early ideological struggles for the creation of the constitution come into sharp focus, and made me move from a Hamiltonian to a Jeffersonian perspective.

The Prince (Machiavelli) – This changed the way I looked at international relations and politics from one of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ to one of game theory.

Politics and the English Language (Orwell) – In addition to the Prince this book changed the way I view politics. And much like my Calculus book this book revealed the awesome power of words.

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (Rand) – This was the first Rand book I read, and it’s still my favorite.  Far better than her fiction, this book simply lays out her philosophy and makes a rational argument that is impossible to dismiss with ad hominem arguments. (It amounts to Nietzsche-simplified)

Honorable Mentions:

The Iliad and the Odyssey (Homer) – Most of western civilization’s art and literature stem from this set of works. If you aren’t familiar with them, you have a huge gap in your education.

Othello (Shakespeare) – It’s my favorite play, bar none, but I can’t say it really influenced me in anyway; except to read more Shakespeare.

Jonathan Rauch has a piece up in the National Journal in which he, reluctantly, endorses the current Senate Health Care Reform Bill. Clive Crook and Andrew Sullivan both concur, but it’s Rauch who makes the best argument, and he makes it from the Deficit and Cost perspective:

Although long-term budget projections are squishy, the Congressional Budget Office’s are the best we have to go on. Notably, CBO scored the Senate bill as deficit-neutral (actually, it would slightly reduce the deficit) over the reform’s second decade after enactment, which is well beyond the window of cost-shifting and timing gimmicks. We could do worse, and possibly will do worse next time around.

And what about bending the cost curve? Health care inflation devours wages, burdens employers, and could eventually bankrupt the government. A reform that fails to grapple with the cost problem, the critics say, is not worth having. I agree.

…

Most economists believe that two pervasive market distortions fuel health cost inflation. The first is Medicare’s fee-for-service payment system, which pays providers based on the number of procedures they perform, rewarding inefficiency. The second is the tax deductibility of employer-provided health insurance, which subsidizes high-cost policies, hides the costs of those policies from employees, and denies employees the opportunity to shop around.

Both distortions inhibit market discipline, and both originate with bad government policy. If socialized medicine is state payment for most health care, then the country is there already: When the value of the employer tax subsidy is included, the government (federal and state) pays for almost 60 percent of all U.S. health care, according to Paul Van de Water, an analyst with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Dealing with Medicare and the employer tax deduction is therefore crucial to cost control.

…

As for the employer tax break, the Senate bill docks it. Not a ton. Only high-premium policies covering a minority of workers would be taxed. But even the limited tax is very important, for several reasons.

Crucially, the threshold for taxation would not rise as fast as health inflation. Translation: Gradually more and more employer-provided policies would be taxed. The change would be incremental, even glacial — but slow seems to be the only pace with which Americans are comfortable.

Moreover, after reform is enacted, the taboo on taxing employer-provided health benefits will be shattered once and for all. From then on the question will be how much to tax, not whether. A door that had been welded shut will have been pried open. The country will be able to have a new kind of discussion, one in which the tying of health insurance to employment — which is insane, when you think about it — is no longer sacrosanct.

…

Taken together, these measures could set in motion a virtuous cycle. As health costs rise, more employer-provided health plans become taxable, giving employers an incentive to find cheaper plans. As employer-provided plans grow less generous, more employees have an incentive to take a tax credit and shop around, and, as premiums rise, more qualify to do so. Little by little, insurance coverage shifts toward an individual-based, consumer-driven market. And the faster health insurance costs rise, the faster the transition happens. The disease triggers its own antibodies.

Again, no guarantees. The transition would be very gradual, and political blowback could easily disrupt it. But the point is that the reform contains a pathway to sanity. No one can say that about the status quo.

This is much better way of making the argument I was attempting to make here.

If the GOP were serious in their Health Care Reform critique, socialism!, they would propose how to slowly END Medicare. But that’s not their position; no Scott Brown, Michael Steel, and Jim deMint have all made defending Medicare, of any cuts, a central tent pole of their argument. I suppose that this is to be expected from the people whom passed Medicare Part D, which as it happens cost MORE than the bill currently before Congress. Yet, Medicare Part D was passed without a funding mechanism, blowing a ‘doughnut’ hole in the deficit.

So our option is pass this bill, or stay with the status quo.

If we pass this bill there is a decent, better than even, chance that Health Care costs can be contained, and those costs will be funded, without a huge and growing deficit. (Yes, taxes will be higher) If we do not, we will ASSURDELY have an exploding deficit, and Health Care related costs will continue to retard the growth of the economy, until most likely, a posse of Bond Traders from China and the Middle East shout ‘No Joy’ and all those economic calamities that the GOP is warning about, dollar collapse, stagnation, inflation, unemployment, ect., come into full fruition.

Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

Building off my earlier post, William D. Eggers & John O’Leary have a piece up at Reason’s Hit-n-Run Blog that really lays out where I think Libertarianism has been hurt by the type of arguments that they make:

1. Bad government leads to bigger, badder government. Today, only 23 percent of Americans trust government to do the right thing. At first blush, this would seem to be an encouraging statistic for those opposed to “big government.” After all, the less citizens trust government, the less willing they should be to give it big new responsibilities, right?

Wrong.

An important recent academic study called “Regulation and Distrust” shows that, paradoxically, the worse government performs, the more citizens demand greater government intervention. The authors’ explanation for this curious finding is that in societies where people distrust large institutions—whether government or big business—the demand for more regulation and for more government is higher, even when government is incompetent or downright corrupt.

2. To shrink government, you need to love government. Most liberals believe deeply in government. As a result, they sit on school boards, city councils, and regional planning boards. They become expert at navigating through the bureaucracy and know which bureaucratic levers to pull to make their policy vision reality.

Many conservatives and libertarians come from the world of business. They don’t particularly like government. They view it as merely a necessary evil. As a consequence, they rarely immerse themselves in the intricacies of governing, preferring to make their case from a safe distance.

Once in power, they tend to have far more difficulty navigating the complex terrain of the public sector. The result? From Ronald Reagan’s Grace Commission to the 1995 government shutdown by a GOP Congress, most high-profile attempts to shrink government fail.

Until small-government types better master the nuts and bolts of the public sector—how to design policies that work in the real world and how to execute on large public undertakings—their initiatives to downsize government will continue to disappoint.

3. Market-based reforms are not self-executing. Fans of limited government are quick to point out the shortcomings of “big government” policy initiatives. But market-oriented policy prescriptions will also fail if they aren’t well implemented.

The deregulation of the airline and trucking industries were two of the biggest and best things done by government in the 1970s. Well-designed and well-executed, they demonstrated the benefits of choice and competition. Consumers saved billions.

In the late 1990s, free-market think tanks were pushing the idea that competition could cut costs in the stodgy, monopolistic world of electricity. So what happened when California actually tried electricity deregulation?

Within just a few years, the new law caused soaring prices, rolling blackouts, and the recall of Gov. Gray Davis. Consumers lost billions.

What went wrong? The short answer is that energy companies such as Enron exploited design flaws in the legislation to game the system. Competition could work in electricity, but California’s poorly designed “deregulation” was a disaster.

Without a keen appreciation of the process by which legislation and programs are designed and implemented, efforts to move from monopoly to markets carry a high risk of failure.

4. Government bashing alienates those you want to reach. According to many libertarians, politicians are corrupt, bureaucrats are lazy, and public unions are a collection of thugs. The whole enterprise of government is a moral cesspool filled with Randian villains scheming to drain every bit of life, cash, and liberty from the noble John Galts of the free market.

This view is so at odds with the daily experience of millions of Americans that libertarians are easily dismissed by the average citizen. The distorted worldview in which government performs no useful functions—ever—is silly.

Incessant government-bashing may make you feel good, but alienates most everybody who knows and loves a police officer, firefighter, teacher, social worker, anyone who has ever collected an unemployment check, and anyone who saw NASA put a man on the moon.

In the short term, a philosophy of “government never works” might sell to the base but it’s not an effective strategy for building a broad-based electoral coalition or actually governing. Voters won’t trust people who hate government with the keys to City Hall.

5. Nobody will care what you know until they know you care. Many voters today may indeed want smaller government, but what they want most of all is competent government. In addition to pointing out the flaws of government, free-marketers also need to communicate a genuine interest in the effective performance of the important duties of government.

After all, what is it that gets you so worked up about the current state of affairs? It is the human potential squandered by a government that isn’t the best that it can be. The ultimate goal is the pursuit of happiness, and when a properly limited government does its job well, it fosters freedom, peace, and prosperity. That is a noble goal. Why not embrace it?

All these points have merit, and is a much better way of phrasing my own critique: libertarian minded people can’t let themselves be pigeon-holed as those who ‘hate taxes, but like pot’. A perfect example, since it is still mainly in the news, is healthcare reform.

Many libertarian minded people, specifically those whom gravitated to the Tea Party movement, argued that any reform was tantamount to socialist market control. Conveniently ignoring the fact that the government run healthcare options, Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA, represent the largest single healthcare insurer, as it stands today. First off, it looks like you don’t care, second it ignores the market reality, and third it’s nihilistic alternative would allow great harms (gov’t deficit, death, and bankruptcy) that they themselves raised, but offered no solution towards. Their argument runs mostly, the government programs created the healthcare inflation crisis, so there is no way they can fix it. Nothing they do can be good. Which may be true, but it also doesn’t fix the problem, or answer the question of: what do we do now/next? (that apparently doesn’t matter)

To be clear I am a policy libertarian. Meaning that I think government policy should based on data. Theory is where policy is born, but we promote and empower based on results that can be measured. I agree with Mao, all political power grows from the barrel of a gun, and all political pressure is at base coercion.

But we live in a society where the vast majority has agreed, by consent, to live within and abide by the social contract. Therefore, the government will always exist, and will always respond to the interest of the majority. Our job is to make the best decision as to which policy, such that it limits the amount of coercion, and empowers/benefits the most people. That is the most we can do, and thus is what we ought to do.

As with most people, my introduction to libertarian thought began with Ayn Rand. But unlike many people it didn’t end there either. Rand’s books have always been semi-popular; ranking in the lower triple digits on Amazon and constantly in print. But with the rise of the Tea Party Movement, her books are back in center stage, pushed by the times and by conservative book of the month clubs, that flog Beck, Levitt, Kristol, Palin ect. to the heights of the best-seller lists.

At the time of publication, her work stood athwart global currents that all seemed to be pushing relentlessly towards a centrally controlled economic Leviathan as an ‘ideal’ way to organize society. Because of her vantage point as an economically-advanced Jew living in Ukraine during the rise of Soviet power, her books are filled with a moral indignity that served well to expose the inhumanity of the socialist model and popularize her idealized moral-captain of Industry.

However, Rand had two fatal flaws, which in her lifetime limited her appeal into the political mainstream. One was her personality, which has been noted far and wide for its ability to peel the paint off any room she entered. It drove away admirers and gave critics an easy target to screed against. The other was that she was a dyed in the wool atheist. And this made her untenable to much of the GOP movement, at the time centered on Barry Goldwater, with whom she shared an ardent anti-Communism sentiment.

And thus, Libertarianism was regulated to the ‘other parties’. It became a popular fringe movement that associated, and became associated with, other fringe movements. Like the neo-leftist New Party AND the American National Socialist Workers Party in Delaware! But as allies are apt to do, the shortcomings were overlooked and the movement keeps moving, but never growing.

Meanwhile, in the Ivory Towers libertarian thought took on a new respectability with Hayek winning the Nobel in 1973 and Milton Freedman shortly after that. Other notable academics included the great Ludwig van Mises. Together they started the study of Austrian Economics, funded the Reason Foundation, and opened the CATO Institute.

But alas, two other Academics, Murry Rothbard and Lew Rockwell, saw an opening in 1992, and sought to establish a viable 3^rd party they only way they saw possible, by combining all the ‘fringe groups’ under one banner. And who was the standard bearer of that banner? Pat Buchannan.

And here is my problem with Libertarianism. As an academic, moral, and political philosophy it is very convincing and powerful. I would even argue it is ‘true’. But as a political movement ideology it has toxified itself by association. Far too often libertarian arguments are employed to defend racists and unjust policies. Often times, the speaker isn’t even aware of the full implications what they are saying. Furthermore, Rand, Hayek, Mises, and Friedman all recognized that the government does exist, and should be dealt with as such. To pretend like every government action is a stepping stone to absolute state control is asinine. Ever since Rome, the government has built the roads. Three of the biggest insurers in America are Medicare, Medicaid and the VA. Then to argue that the US Healthcare SQ is great, but that the government should not play a role is to willfully deny reality.

After reading my Rand, following up on Hayek, and understanding what it means to be ‘conceived in liberty’, to me, Libertarianism says that the IDEAL world is one where government is no longer necessary. But we don’t live in that world. And as such, the better libertarian thinkers, like David Freedman, have been proposing libertarian minded policy; like ending the ‘War on Drugs’, reforming our penal system, or proposing Free Trade in both goods and labor to update NAFTA and US immigration. Yet, the people reading Ayn Rand today, who shout Socialism! at the top of their lungs, wouldn’t even consider a single one of those Freedman suggestions. ‘War on Drugs’ is tough on crime, prisoners OUGHT to be raped (it’s a feature not a bug), and why do we need more brown people?

To put it in a phrase: everyone favors liberty until their privilege is in jeopardy, and then no one does.

After the euphoria of the 2008 elections, Obama’s first year in office was going to feel like the end of a sugar-high no matter what he did or how well it was done. In the era of 20min news cycles a year can seem like an eternity, but in reality it’s a very short-time. Even so, after 12 months of hard slogging Obama’s promise seems quite dulled by political reality. All the while certain segments of American Society either believe the end of America is imminent, or are willing its end to be, if only to hang it on Obama’s (and the liburls) head.

The feeling now might be that Obama is down in the polls and the Dems are heading for a gutting in November. Part of this is simply the magnitude of problems faced upon entering office. But can anyone name one thing that Obama wanted that he didn’t get? (Maybe the public option, but he never fully committed to the idea publicly). A new Supreme Court Justice, a stimulus, and eventually (after 30 years and many months) a landmark healthcare reform; it hasn’t been easy, or neat, or clean, but ‘he will has been done’.

Though far from perfect and incomplete; 2009 seems to be a hugely successful year.

The Domestic Economy

The TARP, the auto-bailout, ‘stress-tests’, and the stimulus were all measures taken to stabilize an economy that was still mostly in a panicked freefall when Obama first entered office last January. That panic has now subsided, the market has rebounded.

This may seem like a small thing but it’s not; namely, because it ‘cost’ almost nothing. The TARP specifically has come back almost in full, with the exception of the money that went towards the Auto-bailout. These measures, combined with the stress test, did one thing: suture the large banks structural wounds.

It was in fact the Treasury and the Fed, under the TAF, that extended the real lifeline to unload trillions of dollars worth of mortgages, aka the transfusion. In a rough and ready sense, the Fed became the new Fannie and Freddie, buying up all of the mortgage securities off the bank’s balance sheets. This allowed them to fix their capital positions, but we have no idea what these MBS’s are worth, or what was paid for them, nor to whom. This is quite worrying, but the Fed’s intransience has been a problem for nearly 100 years now, and this is nothing new. (Though, in light of the unending revelations regarding AIG use of bailout money to pay off counter-parties at 100 cents on the dollar, this problem could come under a bright light very soon, see below.)

Yet, any fears that we ‘spent’ trillions of dollar is simplistic, we lent trillions of dollars, mostly to home owing American Residents. Worst case the Fed *could* hold the mortgages until maturity, and vast majority will pay-out.

Because of its balance sheet expansion, and its Zero-Interest-Rate-Policy (ZIRP) the Fed has also devalued the dollar relative to the rest of the world (save China). This has let housing get a floor under itself, and allowed for the first expansion of American Exports in nearly 20years. Some say that Fed actions have only served to re-inflate a real estate bubble that they largely created themselves. Perhaps true, but the immediate worry is the Fed’s ability to deal with yet ANOTHER crisis, if it doesn’t unload at least some of the assets it has taken onto its balance sheet, and interest rates still at zero, this is an acute worry.

In other words, the fire is out, but smoke and water damage remain and there is no more water in the tower, to fight another fire. This has not been dealt with at all. Many people, from Barry Ritholtz to the Cunning Realist have been livid with the Obama administration’s lack of cleanup in the financial sector. These are the ‘independents’ whom supported Obama last year, but where likely Regan-iets 20 years ago. This to me, is the issue where most of the independent support has left the great Hope-n-Changer, to disillusionment.

Healthcare

The reason why it has not been dealt with was twofold, first the economy is/was still fragile, and second health-reform was put upfront in year one, where it was deemed politically safer to make concessions to get a bill completed.

Healthcare was placed first because it, like the banks, was declared ‘too-big-to-fail’. It was a Dem goal since the 1970’s and was the main unifying feature of the Democratic Primary. It was the one thing all Democrats wanted. But as a result of healthcare being a ‘must-pass’ priority you also allow yourself to be extorted, and that has been the biggest failing of this whole process. Repeatedly, things have been removed (Medicare expansion, public option) or added (no abortion funding for anyone ever from any plan that receives any government money) that make the legislation better for ONE person, regardless of what the other supporters think. Thus, the least committed are the most influential.

Once the tea-party protests in August hit fevered pitch, it became impossible for any member of the GOP to vote in favor or help in anyway. Cutting themselves out has meant that NO GOP proposals entered the legislation. Tort reform, interstate competition, even expanding HAS’s were never mentioned. The GOP believes that this stance will pay dividends in the Congressional races later in 2010, perhaps it will; but it still seems like winning a battle but losing the war.

Healthcare reform will pass and entitlements have this funny habit gaining popularity, see Social Security and Medicare. Furthermore, the crux of the GOP argument has centered on the expense and the deficit. By all accounts, including the CBO, the bill reduces the deficit, and starts to ‘bend-the-cost-curve’. If EITHER happens, the Democratic Party can claim victory, and cast the GOP as a do-nothing party, that would allow us to slowly bleed to death, rather than take corrective action. (Framed as a policy doctor, this will be a damaging line of attack)

The GOP can only win the war, hold POTUS and a majority, if everything fails. But since this was a must win/will win for Democrats this isn’t going to happen. The bill will pass, Obama will sign it, and short of catastrophe will reduce the deficit and will reduce costs. This will be certifiable. The more you yell socialism the less impact it will have, especially in light of expanded coverage/reduced cost reality.

The 2010 Elections

Lastly, Obama decision to move healthcare first, and let financial reform wait until 2010 has a brilliant political strategy implication; true the economy was weak this past year, and yes healthcare reform was more politically fraught, but financial reform has a wonderful populist feel to it.

Healthcare had to be passed by Congress; it’s simply the name of the game, and rules we live by. But Obama runs the executive branch and all its departments. Many things can be changed by executive order and fiate through the SEC, the FTC, Treasury, FDIC, ect. Congress on the other hand gets to play the role of vender of constituent anger. A few round of banker-bashing and popular sentiment is apt to switch sides rather quickly. If the GOP joins in the bashing fine, but the Dems still control congress and will be running the show. If they don’t, and play defenders of the rich (or defenders of capitalism, or fighters of socialism) it would square nicely with a narrative of protecting corp interest, along with their obstinacy on healthcare reform.

In other words, the GOP will have to be onboard with the Dem financial reform agenda or risk a rift within the party between the Tea Party and the GOP faithful. (Which they may face anyway if they go along with the Democrats) The point is this: financial reform is Uber-popular and populist. By pushing it to 2010, Obama has given the Dem a rallying call to unite behind after the monumental effort it took for healthcare. But this particular call helps to not only gin-up the Dem base, but it places the GOP on tenuous footing. Go along and lose the Tea Party Base, or fight and most likely lose independents.

It’s a beautiful divide and conquer strategy.

Of course one should still account for the unknowns. Namely, that Obama has Ben up for reappointment to the Fed, and Tim Geithner was his first choice to head up Treasury. It the hearings start to tarnish those two and their major roles in putting out the fire, this could al backfire on the Dems and the Administration. Only time will tell.

Check, but not Mate

As the out party the GOP has made quite a stir in the media, and whipped their base into activity on par with what Obama was able to achieve in his campaign run. Yet, policy wise they have stopped, improved, and hindered nothing. Furthermore, by stoking the base as they have, base elements have come to personify the party in the public imagination. Old and white are the adjectives most likely to be used to describe the GOP. In 1980, that won the election, in 2009 your John McCain.

Based to pure political tectonics, the GOP will pickup seats in 2010. It will be a limited victory. But look to 2012 and the picture darkens again. The one true leader of the GOP, is giving the Keynote at the 1^st ever Tea Party Convention, which is looking more-and-more 3^rd party, everyday. Then you have Mittens, Huck, and Tim each of whom is untenable to at least one major GOP constituency. Suddenly, in a flash of neon colors it says 1992 all over again.

I saw this on Andrew Sullivan, who got it from Radley Balko; it’s something I have been trying to point out and argue for a long time, but this graph says it all quite succinctly:

[Sex crime] laws are not so much protecting children from predators as they are turning them into predators. Look at this chart. Individuals who are legally defined as sex offenders. When you look at the ages of the offenders you see that 14-year-olds are apparently the most sexually dangerous group in America. The rate declines from there, but throughout adolescence the law is far more likely to deem kids as offenders. You may imagine the dirty old man down the street. But with age people are less likely to “offend”. One reason is that they are more mature. But another reason is clear. Once you reach a certain age, having sex with people your own age is normally not considered a crime. The explosion of “youthful sex offenders” is not the result of our kids becoming perverts. It is the result of the law criminalizing what is a normal part of growing up.

People often ask me: why do I care so much about Prison Reform, why I ‘defend the rights of criminals’, isn’t prison supposed to be a punishment? This is EXACTLY WHY.

Prison should be a punishment, for real crimes, that deserve to be punished. However, here in the USA, land of Freedom, we lockup kids for being kids. As the post continues:

These kids are criminals, not necessarily because they violated the life, liberty or property of another person. They are criminals because the politicians defined them as criminals. These damned “family values” conservatives, and compassionate feminist Leftists, who banded together to “save the children,” turned America’s kids into sex offenders by fiat. And they feel good about it. They are satisfied by it and only wish more had been rounded up earlier. The Left wants everyone in therapy and under the perpetual care of the state, and the Right wants everyone in prison, or in fear of the law, and under the thumb of the police. And that is what is happening….

…

It takes so little for this happen to a child. A girl in school has oral sex with a boy in school. She becomes a sex offender for the rest of her life. Streaking a school event, as a practical joke, becomes a sex crime in the new America. Two kids “moon” a passerby and are incarcerated in jail as sex offenders, where they may well learn a lesson or two about rape. A teenager, who takes a sexy of photo of him, or herself, is paraded around the community as a “child pornographer” for the rest of his or her life. Two kids in the back seat of a car have fumbling sex. The law says one is an offender because the other is a “victim.” One week later, a birthday passes, and it is no longer a crime. One week’s difference and a life is ruined. In other cases an act that is legal on Monday is illegal on Tuesday because the older of the two turned one year older. That becomes enough to qualify him, or her, as an offender.

This problem has been ongoing for years, but no one, especially not a politician, is going to make friends ’standing up for criminals’. But ask yourself, if you were a teenager today, how many things you did then could land you in jail, or on a sex offender list FOR LIFE, today.

Read the whole post it’s worth your time. And for a more policy oriented view this Economist Editorial was quite on point.

I’ve said this before, but let me repeat it once more, I voted for Obama on Foreign Policy grounds. While I like him on that front, and him personally, I am not a fan of his domestic agenda. I think the stimulus was needed to an extent, especially in stabilizing state and local government budgets. But the banks, autos, and the Fed actions have been unsurprisingly depressing.

Currently, another big part of Obama’s domestic agenda is winding its way through Congress, and after only taking 50 years, Democrats finally have a health care reform bill in both the House and Senate out of committee and ready for a floor vote. I can’t express how much I had hoped this day won’t actually come, and yet here it is.

Let me start by saying that regardless of what anyone says we have a de facto national healthcare system. We have Medicare and Medicaid for the poor and elderly, on-demand ER care, and SCHIP for the kids. Of the 45Million people who do not have health insurance, about 1/3 would qualify for one of the above programs, another 1/3 could afford health insurance, but doesn’t buy it; leaving around 15million who have no access to Health Care, and depend entirely on ER’s. Meaning that today over 30 million people are covered by the de facto national health care.

I would agree, and I think most people agree with me, that in a society with as much wealth as ours, leaving sick people to fend for themselves, and potentially die from inadequate care, is wrong. That’s why ER’s are legally required to admit all people, regardless of ability to pay. So yes, something should be done. But the devil is always in the details.

The biggest problem with health care in general, and government run care in particular, is the ability to control costs. It was this cost argument, which Obama made during the election that had me starting to acquiesce to the idea of national health care. If health care costs could be contained, government could combine and extend its proper medical care programs (SHIP, Medicare ect) to the uninsured, which would result in fixing the structural budget deficit in the US. It makes perfect sense.

However, it’s been Congress who has actually been writing the Health Care Bill, and both Senate and House Bills are crap. Neither has anything in it to control costs, nothing. The Senate version is really the worst option, because like Medicare Part D, the government actually cedes its power to set prices. Yes, it extends coverage, and for that extension they pile everything onto a 2% subset of society, creating an inverse pyramid of funders-to-beneficiaries.

I could live with a more progressive bill, which included a robust public-option, and paid by higher payroll taxes across the board, with an additional helping of sin taxes on booze, cigarettes, coffee, sugar, and other un-healthy products. Or I could live with a more conservative plan, that uncoupled corporate tax deductions from health care benefits, and de-regulated parts of the state-level malpractice industry, so doctors wouldn’t been as litigiously targeted. Or I could even accept a full-Monty single-payer system, where the government gains monopsony power to set prices.

But I can’t accept something that extends coverage, is paid for by a narrow section of society, and still does nothing about health care costs.

I must say this has been Obama’s biggest disappointment so far, and it ain’t even over yet.

For another take down on similar grounds see Megan McArdle

I am not a big fan of writing about small-ball political happenings, but I think Obama’s speech yesterday is going to reverberate for awhile.
First off the moment couldn’t be better, evidence of which can be seen in the al-Qaida reaction from Zawahiri and bin Laden. Obama hit on every major issue in the Middle East, and rather than skit the issue he addressed the elephants in fairly stark terms, at least by international diplomatic standards. My personal interest was piqued on three main issues:

Iran

They have a presidential election in less than a week. Much of the demonization of Iran has been a direct result of the inflammatory language that Ahmadinejad uses in his speeches. Much of which, similar to the GOP in the US or Lukid in Israel, is a populist distraction from other domestic and economic concerns. Areas which Ahmadinejad won on before, but have not improved during his administration, and are now weighting him down in the polls. His bellicosity can be described as ‘a mouse that roared’ for all the power he actually wields in terms of foreign policy. Iran is ruled by the council of clerics, and in particular Khomeini. Before when Iran had a reformer president in Khatami Iran’s President was a nothing. Now that they have a crazy, he’s presented as the guy with the launch codes.
Part of the problem is that, especially in the US, this type of bellicosity feeds on itself. It’s in the hard-right’s (GOP, Lukid) best electoral interests, enabled by various media outlets around the world, to play up the most inflammatory examples of Muslim leadership. The solution to which, in their formulation, is ‘leadership through strength’. Human self-preservation instincts are powerful motivators.
When you compound this political media landscape with the real and legitimate concern over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, untying the knot is significantly more complex as a result. And in three graphs, Obama acknowledges our conflicting past, speaks to the crux of our concerns, and offers a way past it:

This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is indeed a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I have made it clear to Iran’s leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward. The question, now, is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.

It will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude and resolve. There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect. But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is not simply about America’s interests. It is about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.

I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. And any nation – including Iran – should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the Treaty, and it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I am hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal.

The message of this is two-fold: one is for the Iranian people, ‘move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect’ (aka elect a less inflammatory leader) and the other is to Iran’s true rulers ‘any nation – including Iran – should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power’. He could have also said, if you build the bridge I will be the one to cross over to you. Minus Ahmadinejad, Iran can be dealt with; the Mullah’s are totalitarian autocrats, but they’re not suicidal. Before any deal can be made, and I for one defiantly think the Persian’s are game for a deal, Obama needs to defuse US and Israeli domestic fears over Iran, specifically their President. And that is exactly where he put the pressure with this passage, on the people and power brokers in Iran whom can facilitate that change… in less than a week.

Israel

During the campaign many Jewish voters were concerned about Obama, in small part because of the Obama-is-a-Manchurian-Muslim meme, but mainly because no one knew how Obama would work with Israel. Even after the election and during the transition, when the IDF entered Gaza in late December, Obama was very quiet. It wasn’t until AFTER the Israeli election was over, Bini was clearly the winner, and the players were set, that Obama started to speak on this issue.
The new Public message was pretty straightforward: we’re behind Israel 100%, but you have to listen us. Perhaps paradoxically, given the right-wing collation formed between Lieberman and Netanyahu, Obama choose to take issue with the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem first and foremost. Those expansionist settlers were a key voting block for the Israeli administration.
My suspicion is that Obama is gearing up to make an offer the Arab countries won’t refuse, which the Israelis then can’t refuse. Just to be clear, by ‘deal’ I mean sovereign recognition, which is viewed by most Arab governments as a concession.
Even though many from the right-wing have, and will, yell and scream that Obama is rewarding ‘60 years of Arab lies and aggression over Jewish Truth’, the reality is the Israel is the strongest country in the Middle East by a good margin. Thus, as Obama said himself,” It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.” It’s from a position of strength that one can give concessions without appearing to be weak. And weakness, or at least the appearance of it, has derailed the Israeli-Arab Peace process time and time again. The US relationship with Israel, since 1967, has made every other country in the Middle East look weak by comparison, making it all but impossible for anyone to strike a deal, without the impression that they were forced into it by the US. The only way an Arab country can recognize Israel, is if it looks like the US pressured Israel into such a compromise.
Most of what Obama said about Israel and Palestine is convention wisdom among foreign policy thinkers; the difference is how and where this is said. In private, most everyone agrees that Israel needs to end its expansionist settlements in the West Bank, Hamas must end its infidata, the PLO must establish itself in terms of governance, and the Palestinian state must recognize Israel’s right to exist (Right of return and Jesrulam are still both sticky issues). The difference is that Obama says all of this in Public and in fairly plain language.
AIPAC, in particular, has been making some uncharacteristically bold moves of late to counter this candor, the most notable was blocking Chas Freedman’s appointment, but even in the previous week they published an open letter, signed by 328 representatives and 76 senators, voicing concern over Obama’s recent Public admonishment of Israeli settlements. Specifically is reads: The proven best way forward is to work closely and privately together both on areas of agreement and especially on areas of disagreement. (Emphasis mine)
That letter seemed to have been precipitated by Netanyahu’s disappointment with Obama in their recent meetings in Washington. Under the Bush administration Israel, apparently, had a number of gentlemanly agreements in place regarding what could and could not be said publicly. Obama doesn’t seem to agree with that agreement.
That backdrop has been fascinating, and it was this public pressure that allowed Obama to make this statement:

“America’s strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied,”
Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

I do not think anyone else could have made that statement, with any creditability at all, except Mr. Obama. The implication of this is quite powerful, but Jerry Goldberg sums it up best when he says:

An African-American President with Muslim roots stands before the Muslim world and defends the right of Jews to a nation of their own in their ancestral homeland, and then denounces in vociferous terms the evil of Holocaust denial, and right-wing Israelis go forth and complain that the President is unsympathetic to the housing needs of settlers. Incredible, just incredible.

The most important part is that this speech is that the points are made all the time in the Israeli press, in interviews with Arab leaders, and in private diplomatic discussions, but this level of frankness has not existed in the US public discourse for a longtime. Doing so has empowered the Israeli Peace Movement, especially Gush Shalom, and allows Arabs to view the US as an even handed arbiter, willing to speak hard truth, even to our friends. The courage to state the blindingly obvious is the first, absolutely necessary, step towards rebalancing the Middle East.

The US & the Muslim World

The quote that will live on the longest, and it directly answers many of the questions above, is this section:

I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, “Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.” That is what I will try to do – to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

A speech is just a speech if it isn’t followed through with action, but in this case the speech is the first action. Obama has immense popularity, in some countries he has more popular support then the countries own government; when he speaks people will listen, even if they don’t agree. Knowing this, and being the tech savvy group that they are, the White House broadcast the speech live over the internet, AND distributed official translations direct to the public in 7 languages, including Arabic, Farsi, Hindi, Urdu, and Mandarin, by passing the state media filter altogether, and delivering a complex yet frank argument to the peoples of Middle East.
‘The Obama Tone’, as it were, is quite Socratic. It’s not a lecture; it’s a discussion which is filled with positions and arguments. It is most definitely not a list of talking points. Its most definitely is an explanation, which seeks to be read whole.
Most famous political speeches are famous for a line or phrase that lives on afterwards, and is quoted ad infinitum. Obama’s best speeches, almost purposefully, try and avoid the one-liner. His Philadelphia Speech on race is a brilliant piece on the whole, but no single sentence sums up the whole. His recent speech at Notre Dame’s commencement addressed deep issues surrounding life, and a person’s place in the world, but gave not one symbolic phrase to be rerun on the nightly news.
And that seems to be the point. In the search for truth, there are no simple easy answers, and I think with this speech he makes that clear to one more audience. This is a particularly important point to make when we are trying to win the ideological battle with religious fundamentalist in the Muslim world. The contrast between the statements made by Obama and Osama is fucking-stark. While Osama admonishes and lectures people on loose morals, and primacy of Islamic Sharia; Obama recognizes plurality not only for Western Values, but also for traditional Muslim values. It was a very conservative speech aimed at a very conservative audience.
Above all though, Obama extorted Western values, but did so in Muslim terms; not only peppering in Koran versus and Arabic words, but focusing on quality of life issues that translate universally. When he said the following:

Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose.

Those issues of transparency, corruption, and a say in the government are the bed rocks of the pro-democracy movements in the Middle East. It’s these issues that are most dogging Ahmadinejad right now. But these values are many times extorted by Islamic political parties, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, or the Justice and Development Party in Turkey. It represents a new realism in how the US approaches democracy in the Middle East. In essence saying, religious parties are good, as long as they continue to hold elections, and are non-violent.

UPDATE:

A few DAYS later Lebanon had an election that resulted in a strong showing for the Senora, ‘pro-western’, government, and as we all know, two week later Iran erupted into massive protests. Now I don’t think that this speech set off either, but I think the Obama strategy works increasingly well in light of these developments. “The Arab-Street’ (Yes I know Iran is Persian), has never liked their governments, by taking the US rhetoric into a different direction, he has removed the US as a whipping boy for Middle Eastern problems. We shall see what happens next, and I would have liked to see more concrete action on the part of the Obama administration: polices, programs, ect. But for now, I will be happy that the board has shifted into a more favorable angle.

As an update to my post He Said… She Said… Glenn Greenwald sings praise upon Jim Webb for also taking a politically uncertian stand on prison reform and the US War on Drugs:

Let’s start with a premise that I don’t think a lot of Americans are aware of. We have 5% of the world’s population; we have 25% of the world’s known prison population. We have an incarceration rate in the United States, the world’s greatest democracy, that is five times as high as the average incarceration rate of the rest of the world. There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice. . . .

The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the criminal justice system is the sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200%. The blue disks represent the numbers in 1980; the red disks represent the numbers in 2007 and a significant percentage of those incarcerated are for possession or nonviolent offenses stemming from drug addiction and those sorts of related behavioral issues. . . .

In many cases these issues involve people’s ability to have proper counsel and other issues, but there are stunning statistics with respect to drugs that we all must come to terms with. African-Americans are about 12% of our population; contrary to a lot of thought and rhetoric, their drug use rate in terms of frequent drug use rate is about the same as all other elements of our society, about 14%. But they end up being 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison by the numbers that have been provided by us. . . .

Another piece of this issue that I hope we will address with this National Criminal Justice Commission is what happens inside our prisons. . . . We also have a situation in this country with respect to prison violence and sexual victimization that is off the charts and we must get our arms around this problem. We also have many people in our prisons who are among what are called the criminally ill, many suffering from hepatitis and HIV who are not getting the sorts of treatment they deserve.

Importantly, what are we going to do about drug policy – the whole area of drug policy in this country?

And how does that affect sentencing procedures and other alternatives that we might look at?

Webb added that ”America’s criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace” and “we are locking up too many people who do not belong in jail.”

Webb’s actions here underscore a broader point.  Our political class has trained so many citizens not only to tolerate, but to endorse, cowardly behavior on the part of their political leaders.  When politicians take bad positions, ones that are opposed by large numbers of their supporters, it is not only the politicians, but also huge numbers of their supporters, who step forward to offer excuses and justifications:  well, they have to take that position because it’s too politically risky not to; they have no choice and it’s the smart thing to do….

Political leaders have the ability to change public opinion by engaging in leadership and persuasive advocacy.  Any cowardly politician can take only those positions that reside safely within the majoritiarian consensus.

Webb is exactly the kind of guy that we need to fight this fight. Someone who can’t be dismissed as a crackpot or stoner. Someone who sees the glaring inconsistancy of our prison system, is willing to admit there is a problem, and not make simplistic excuses for the state of affairs.

On this issue, i see the emergence of people like Webb, as spokes people for prison reform, indicative of an already changed mindset in the greater public. In other words, Webb knows the ground has shifted on this issue. From Pineapple Express to the Wire, people have seen that tougher crackdowns on drugs have not stymied the flow and prevalence of drugs in the least. Rather profits today have never been higher for drugs. The complexity of drug use in modern day America is not clean-cut, and most people, depending on age, recognize that, and are willing to deal with problems as they are, rather then as some might wish to view them.

We still have a long way to go, but as a rule politicians always walk forward on firm ground. Don’t think any politician is going to take a position unless then can see both an upside and an exit. On this issue, outside the beltway, there is nothing but upside.

So go Webb, fight the good fight, because it needs to be fought… and you have already won.