Friday, March 31, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Franklyn Nofziger, Reagan spokesman and adviser, dies of cancer at 81
Franklyn Nofziger, Reagan spokesman and adviser, dies of cancer at 81
"Asked why he was leaving the White House, Nofziger replied, 'I don't like government, it's just that simple.' "
"Asked why he was leaving the White House, Nofziger replied, 'I don't like government, it's just that simple.' "
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Scripps Howard News Service
Scripps Howard News Service:
"Does Giuliani call himself a Reaganite?
'Absolutely!' he exclaims. 'He had strong beliefs. He knew what those beliefs were. He stuck to them whether they were popular or unpopular. And he did it in a way in which he was civil and nice to everyone. It was a beautiful combination of tremendous commitment to what he believed in, but not anger.'
'Ronald Reagan was a role model for me,' Rudy Giuliani says. 'I consider him a hero.'"
"Does Giuliani call himself a Reaganite?
'Absolutely!' he exclaims. 'He had strong beliefs. He knew what those beliefs were. He stuck to them whether they were popular or unpopular. And he did it in a way in which he was civil and nice to everyone. It was a beautiful combination of tremendous commitment to what he believed in, but not anger.'
'Ronald Reagan was a role model for me,' Rudy Giuliani says. 'I consider him a hero.'"
Monday, March 20, 2006
Iraq: from Vietnam to Lebanon
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2006/03/19/2003298208
Martin Van Creveld, a prominent Israeli military historian who is the only non-US author on the US Army's required reading list for officers, offered a brutal assessment of the decision to invade Iraq. It was, Van Creveld said, the worst military adventure in 20 centuries. "For misleading the American people and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9BC sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial," Van Creveld wrote in the Forward, a mainly Jewish-readership newspaper in New York.
Martin Van Creveld, a prominent Israeli military historian who is the only non-US author on the US Army's required reading list for officers, offered a brutal assessment of the decision to invade Iraq. It was, Van Creveld said, the worst military adventure in 20 centuries. "For misleading the American people and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9BC sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial," Van Creveld wrote in the Forward, a mainly Jewish-readership newspaper in New York.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Beyond Ridicule, Beyond Lying (Part II)
All right, I raised the issue of whether or not Bush is evil. A lot of the people who oppose the war think he is...
Bush is interested in power, and he has no understanding of democracy.
In the previous post I wrote: Bush and his advisors are not bad leaders because they are bad people, or because they are evil. They are bad leaders because they don't know how to lead. They are incompetent and they have no judgment. I came back to that topic while I was running on Saturday. These thoughts are in the form of a postscript to that post.
I said that Bush and his advisors were not bad people, and I traced their poor leadership to incompetence and poor judgment. But there are two more things about Bush and his group that are more insidious and scary. First, Bush and his inner circle are primarily interested in power, not leadership. Leadership and power are not the same thing. (Hannah Arendt distinguishes between power and authority in On Revolution.) Power gives you the ability to make people do what they don't want to do. Good leaders give people the will and energy to do what they want to do, but find it difficult to do on their own. Good leadership is not coercive, it is persuasive.
Well, back to Bush and company - or I should say, back to Karl Rove and company. Karl Rove and George Bush are not interested in leadership. They are interested in consolidating the power of the Republican party. They do not see a connection between winning the war and uniting the whole country. That is, they do not see uniting the whole country as an essential condition for winning the war. Rather, they use the war to enhance the strength of their own party. You would expect them to use such tactics during the presidential election of 2004. This pattern of behavior extends beyond the reelection campaign, though. Bush would like to unite as many people as he can behind his foreign policy, but his focus has been on Republican unity, not American unity.
The second quality, or failing, grows out of the first. Bush and his advisors do not understand democracy. The two clearest examples of this quality concern torture and warrantless wiretaps. They do not see democratic constraints - natural rights that limit government's power to do certain things - as constraints that balance the imperatives of national security. That is, if national security seems to require a certain course of action, that is it. There is no more argument. National security trumps the limits on governmental power with no more argument necessary.
Well, what can you do in a situation like this? The administration's actions indicate that it doesn't recognize any limits on its power in the area of national security. If that is the case, then we have a terrible case of: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. A sincere desire to protect the American people has led the administration into the corruption of unchecked power. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," is one of the most famous sayings in political thought. If it applies here - and evidence indicates that it does - then our government has suffered the absolute corruption that seemed impossible before 9/11.
I truly don't want to admit that our government is evil. But evil is banal in so many ways. It doesn't always come at you with a blood-drenched scimitar. It shows up in small ways and progresses until you can't escape it...
Back once more to the team that pretends to lead us, but actually does whatever it thinks best, whether or not it is in the country's long-term interest.
Here is the best evidence that the administration is not interested in leadership. It says that its opponents are traitors, that people who disagree with it are helping our enemies. It is ready to turn us against ourselves, to divide us so it may conquer the whole. It can succeed without our friends in Muslim countries. It can succeed without our European allies and without the United Nations. It can succeed without the loyal opposition at home. All of its actions point to one source of success: the power of its own party, the ability to force its way on others.
By letting this government continue, we have reached a true turning point. People still act as if we are living in the democracy we had before 9/11, but we're not. We've allowed our fears to affect the kind of country we are. One of our main qualities in the past was fearlessness. Now we've let fear make us ready to give up our democratic way of life. That's why we have to shrug off 9/11. If we shrug it off, we won't fear our enemies any more. If we shrug it off, we won't care about what they do to us. We'll just destroy them. We'll find out who they are, where they are, and we'll just destroy them.
That's how you have to fight a war - with ruthlessness and with determination. Yes, there's fear, but you shrug that off, too. Where are the leaders who help us face fear and forget it, rather than monger fear for the sake of their own advantage? Where are the leaders who help us face fear and forget it, rather than divide us and make us fear even each other? Where are the leaders who unite us, and help us defeat those who want to destroy us? I tell you, you will not find them among the members of the current administration. They think they are brave and resolute, but they are cowardly incompetents. They think they protect us, but they destroy everything worth protecting. They think they are truthful, but they don't even know what the truth is. They think they will be proven correct in the end, but in fact historians will record a hundred years from now that they caused the loss of our democracy. And we let them do it.
Bush is interested in power, and he has no understanding of democracy.
In the previous post I wrote: Bush and his advisors are not bad leaders because they are bad people, or because they are evil. They are bad leaders because they don't know how to lead. They are incompetent and they have no judgment. I came back to that topic while I was running on Saturday. These thoughts are in the form of a postscript to that post.
I said that Bush and his advisors were not bad people, and I traced their poor leadership to incompetence and poor judgment. But there are two more things about Bush and his group that are more insidious and scary. First, Bush and his inner circle are primarily interested in power, not leadership. Leadership and power are not the same thing. (Hannah Arendt distinguishes between power and authority in On Revolution.) Power gives you the ability to make people do what they don't want to do. Good leaders give people the will and energy to do what they want to do, but find it difficult to do on their own. Good leadership is not coercive, it is persuasive.
Well, back to Bush and company - or I should say, back to Karl Rove and company. Karl Rove and George Bush are not interested in leadership. They are interested in consolidating the power of the Republican party. They do not see a connection between winning the war and uniting the whole country. That is, they do not see uniting the whole country as an essential condition for winning the war. Rather, they use the war to enhance the strength of their own party. You would expect them to use such tactics during the presidential election of 2004. This pattern of behavior extends beyond the reelection campaign, though. Bush would like to unite as many people as he can behind his foreign policy, but his focus has been on Republican unity, not American unity.
The second quality, or failing, grows out of the first. Bush and his advisors do not understand democracy. The two clearest examples of this quality concern torture and warrantless wiretaps. They do not see democratic constraints - natural rights that limit government's power to do certain things - as constraints that balance the imperatives of national security. That is, if national security seems to require a certain course of action, that is it. There is no more argument. National security trumps the limits on governmental power with no more argument necessary.
Well, what can you do in a situation like this? The administration's actions indicate that it doesn't recognize any limits on its power in the area of national security. If that is the case, then we have a terrible case of: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. A sincere desire to protect the American people has led the administration into the corruption of unchecked power. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," is one of the most famous sayings in political thought. If it applies here - and evidence indicates that it does - then our government has suffered the absolute corruption that seemed impossible before 9/11.
I truly don't want to admit that our government is evil. But evil is banal in so many ways. It doesn't always come at you with a blood-drenched scimitar. It shows up in small ways and progresses until you can't escape it...
Back once more to the team that pretends to lead us, but actually does whatever it thinks best, whether or not it is in the country's long-term interest.
Here is the best evidence that the administration is not interested in leadership. It says that its opponents are traitors, that people who disagree with it are helping our enemies. It is ready to turn us against ourselves, to divide us so it may conquer the whole. It can succeed without our friends in Muslim countries. It can succeed without our European allies and without the United Nations. It can succeed without the loyal opposition at home. All of its actions point to one source of success: the power of its own party, the ability to force its way on others.
By letting this government continue, we have reached a true turning point. People still act as if we are living in the democracy we had before 9/11, but we're not. We've allowed our fears to affect the kind of country we are. One of our main qualities in the past was fearlessness. Now we've let fear make us ready to give up our democratic way of life. That's why we have to shrug off 9/11. If we shrug it off, we won't fear our enemies any more. If we shrug it off, we won't care about what they do to us. We'll just destroy them. We'll find out who they are, where they are, and we'll just destroy them.
That's how you have to fight a war - with ruthlessness and with determination. Yes, there's fear, but you shrug that off, too. Where are the leaders who help us face fear and forget it, rather than monger fear for the sake of their own advantage? Where are the leaders who help us face fear and forget it, rather than divide us and make us fear even each other? Where are the leaders who unite us, and help us defeat those who want to destroy us? I tell you, you will not find them among the members of the current administration. They think they are brave and resolute, but they are cowardly incompetents. They think they protect us, but they destroy everything worth protecting. They think they are truthful, but they don't even know what the truth is. They think they will be proven correct in the end, but in fact historians will record a hundred years from now that they caused the loss of our democracy. And we let them do it.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Quotes from Ronald Reagan
Google Groups : alt.politics.usa.republican
Quotes from Ronald Reagan:
When you see all that rhetorical smoke billowing up from the Democrats, well ladies and gentleman, I'd follow the example of their nominee; don't inhale.
~ Ronald Reagan, Republican National Convention, 1992.
The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.
~ Ronald Reagan, Address to the National Alliance of Business, October 5, 1981
We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.
~ Ronald Reagan
There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination and wonder.
~ Ronald Reagan
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
~ Ronald Reagan
The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy. It's the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.
~ Ronald Reagan
Quotes from Ronald Reagan:
When you see all that rhetorical smoke billowing up from the Democrats, well ladies and gentleman, I'd follow the example of their nominee; don't inhale.
~ Ronald Reagan, Republican National Convention, 1992.
The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.
~ Ronald Reagan, Address to the National Alliance of Business, October 5, 1981
We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.
~ Ronald Reagan
There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination and wonder.
~ Ronald Reagan
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
~ Ronald Reagan
The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy. It's the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.
~ Ronald Reagan
Friday, March 10, 2006
Beyond Ridicule, Beyond Lying
We can't blame Bush for 9/11 any more than we can blame FDR for Pearl Harbor. But if FDR had handled the war against Japan as poorly as Bush has handled the war against Al Qaeda, we'd be learning Japanese in all our schools right now. That's what is at stake in this war - leadership of the world. That's where Bush's failure is greatest, He is not a world leader, and it's plain to see.
I still grieve over the loss of the pieces on torture. All right, you know what I mean. Torture's not the current topic now, anyway. Civil war is the current topic. All the questions now are about what we should do if Iraq descends into civil war. Rumsfeld says that the Iraqi security forces will have to deal with a civil war. That's the only chance we have to form a stable, democratic government, he says.
You know what, I'm not going to ridicule our leaders anymore. They are beyond ridicule. I don't even like to ridicule people. It doesn't do any good: it doesn't persuade anybody to see things differently from the way they saw things before. But let me say this: these leaders have no claim on our trust, our loyalty, or even our forgiveness. They are the worst: arrogant, unforgiving, unreflective, and untruthful. One kind of dishonesty implies that you know you are lying. Another kind of dishonesty occurs because you don't care whether what you say is truthful or not. That is the kind of dishonesty we observe in our leaders. They are beyond lying. They are beyond ridicule. Nothing we could say now could describe how bad they are. They are not bad leaders because they are bad people, or because they are evil. They are bad leaders because they don't know how to lead. They are incompetent and they have no judgment. They don't know what they are doing.
I don't really get angry anymore. When Bush comes on the radio, even when it's a pretty short sound bite, I usually turn it off. I can't stand to hear his voice. The thought that he represents our country is horrific. Even though he does not sound very intelligent to me, I don't think he is stupid. The Democrats have harped on that canard - he's an idiot - for so long. It's a substitute for good thinking. President Bush is not stupid. But he's not smart in the ways that he needs to be, given the position that he's in. He may be shrewd and disciplined, but those aren't the qualities he needs now. He needs so many qualities that he does not have, and it's sad to see him so sure that we're doing okay. If we're doing okay, he's doing okay. And we know that he's deceiving himself. We are not doing okay, and neither is he.
A house divided against itself cannot stand. The thought reminds us of Lincoln and the beginning of the Civil War, but Jesus said it first. Who predicted during those weeks that followed 9/11 that we would be so divided now? A good leader would have kept us united. The people who support the war in Iraq are not traitors, no more than the people who oppose it. Yet the two sides in this argument do not listen to each other. Indeed, they don't listen because they don't care that much what the other side has to say. I'm part of the national deafness. I made up my mind on the question when the president first announced his plan to invade Iraq. I had never been more vehement on a question of war or peace, not even during the Vietnam war. I knew I wouldn't change my mind, no matter what the other side said. Lincoln wasn't going to change his mind about human bondage, either.
Had enough? Have you had enough? Have you had enough of an illegal war, and all the lies that surround such a horrendous enterprise? We don't have to follow this path any longer. We've already done so much damage - yes, to ourselves as well as to Iraq - but we can still turn back. We can't redeem the past three years, but we can still make things turn out for the best. We have to believe that's true, that no matter how bad things seem now, we can turn the dross into something brighter. If we lose that essential hope, then 9/11 and its depressing aftermath will truly have destroyed us.
I still grieve over the loss of the pieces on torture. All right, you know what I mean. Torture's not the current topic now, anyway. Civil war is the current topic. All the questions now are about what we should do if Iraq descends into civil war. Rumsfeld says that the Iraqi security forces will have to deal with a civil war. That's the only chance we have to form a stable, democratic government, he says.
You know what, I'm not going to ridicule our leaders anymore. They are beyond ridicule. I don't even like to ridicule people. It doesn't do any good: it doesn't persuade anybody to see things differently from the way they saw things before. But let me say this: these leaders have no claim on our trust, our loyalty, or even our forgiveness. They are the worst: arrogant, unforgiving, unreflective, and untruthful. One kind of dishonesty implies that you know you are lying. Another kind of dishonesty occurs because you don't care whether what you say is truthful or not. That is the kind of dishonesty we observe in our leaders. They are beyond lying. They are beyond ridicule. Nothing we could say now could describe how bad they are. They are not bad leaders because they are bad people, or because they are evil. They are bad leaders because they don't know how to lead. They are incompetent and they have no judgment. They don't know what they are doing.
I don't really get angry anymore. When Bush comes on the radio, even when it's a pretty short sound bite, I usually turn it off. I can't stand to hear his voice. The thought that he represents our country is horrific. Even though he does not sound very intelligent to me, I don't think he is stupid. The Democrats have harped on that canard - he's an idiot - for so long. It's a substitute for good thinking. President Bush is not stupid. But he's not smart in the ways that he needs to be, given the position that he's in. He may be shrewd and disciplined, but those aren't the qualities he needs now. He needs so many qualities that he does not have, and it's sad to see him so sure that we're doing okay. If we're doing okay, he's doing okay. And we know that he's deceiving himself. We are not doing okay, and neither is he.
A house divided against itself cannot stand. The thought reminds us of Lincoln and the beginning of the Civil War, but Jesus said it first. Who predicted during those weeks that followed 9/11 that we would be so divided now? A good leader would have kept us united. The people who support the war in Iraq are not traitors, no more than the people who oppose it. Yet the two sides in this argument do not listen to each other. Indeed, they don't listen because they don't care that much what the other side has to say. I'm part of the national deafness. I made up my mind on the question when the president first announced his plan to invade Iraq. I had never been more vehement on a question of war or peace, not even during the Vietnam war. I knew I wouldn't change my mind, no matter what the other side said. Lincoln wasn't going to change his mind about human bondage, either.
Had enough? Have you had enough? Have you had enough of an illegal war, and all the lies that surround such a horrendous enterprise? We don't have to follow this path any longer. We've already done so much damage - yes, to ourselves as well as to Iraq - but we can still turn back. We can't redeem the past three years, but we can still make things turn out for the best. We have to believe that's true, that no matter how bad things seem now, we can turn the dross into something brighter. If we lose that essential hope, then 9/11 and its depressing aftermath will truly have destroyed us.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Monday, February 27, 2006
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Saturday, February 25, 2006
What Civil War Could Look Like
What Civil War Could Look Like - New York Times:
"Surveying all the nightmare possibilities in an interview late last week, Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States ambassador to Iraq, said: 'Those are issues that some people should be thinking about, but I do not believe that we are heading that way. The leaders of Iraq know that they came to the brink with the attack on the shrine, and there has been an evolution of their attitudes as a result. I simply believe that the leaders of Iraq do not want a civil war.'
Lincoln, however, said in retrospect that having leaders who do not want war is not enough - that the problem is whether there are things that they want more than war, and are willing to accept war to get. In Iraq, it seems, this will also determine whether the leaders will one day say with satisfaction that they stepped back from the brink or, sadly like Lincoln, that 'the war came.'"
"Surveying all the nightmare possibilities in an interview late last week, Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States ambassador to Iraq, said: 'Those are issues that some people should be thinking about, but I do not believe that we are heading that way. The leaders of Iraq know that they came to the brink with the attack on the shrine, and there has been an evolution of their attitudes as a result. I simply believe that the leaders of Iraq do not want a civil war.'
Lincoln, however, said in retrospect that having leaders who do not want war is not enough - that the problem is whether there are things that they want more than war, and are willing to accept war to get. In Iraq, it seems, this will also determine whether the leaders will one day say with satisfaction that they stepped back from the brink or, sadly like Lincoln, that 'the war came.'"
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Monday, February 20, 2006
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Friday, February 17, 2006
Competence vs. Incompetence
As leaders and as statesmen, the members of the Bush administration are totally, completely incompetent. The only thing they can do well is carry out criminal acts. Criminally competent and civically incompetent is the only way to put it.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Connecting the Dots of Cheney's Crimes - Yahoo! News
Connecting the Dots of Cheney's Crimes - Yahoo! News:
"Ultimately, however, it was 'Daily Show' correspondent Rob Corddry who hit the bullseye, when he reported that: 'The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Wittington's face.'"
"Ultimately, however, it was 'Daily Show' correspondent Rob Corddry who hit the bullseye, when he reported that: 'The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Wittington's face.'"
Connecting the Dots of Cheney's Crimes - Yahoo! News
Connecting the Dots of Cheney's Crimes - Yahoo! News:
"Ultimately, however, it was 'Daily Show' correspondent Rob Corddry who hit the bullseye, when he reported that: 'The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Wittington's face.'"
"Ultimately, however, it was 'Daily Show' correspondent Rob Corddry who hit the bullseye, when he reported that: 'The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Wittington's face.'"
Quotations from Your Success, a Newsletter
"It takes less time to do things right than to
explain why you did it wrong." ─ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"There is one quality which one must possess
to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the
knowledge of what one wants and a burning
desire to possess it." ─ Ronald Reagan
"Let your thoughts be positive for they will
become your words. Let your words be
positive for they will become your actions. Let
your actions be positive for they will become
your values. Let your values be positive for
they will become your destiny." ─ Mahatma Gandhi
explain why you did it wrong." ─ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"There is one quality which one must possess
to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the
knowledge of what one wants and a burning
desire to possess it." ─ Ronald Reagan
"Let your thoughts be positive for they will
become your words. Let your words be
positive for they will become your actions. Let
your actions be positive for they will become
your values. Let your values be positive for
they will become your destiny." ─ Mahatma Gandhi
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Rule of Laws
From The Washington Spectator:
In a 1977 interview, David Frost asked Richard Nixon if he thought the president could act illegally if he believes it is in the best interest of the nation.
Nixon replied, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."
In a 1977 interview, David Frost asked Richard Nixon if he thought the president could act illegally if he believes it is in the best interest of the nation.
Nixon replied, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."
Doonesbury@Slate - Daily Dose
Doonesbury@Slate - Daily Dose
"I think our motto should be, post-9-11, 'Raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.'" - Ann Coulter
You have to read it to believe it, don't you? My first impression would be the usual: another quote taken out of context. After hearing this woman talk, though, I think she probably meant it just the way it comes across.
"I think our motto should be, post-9-11, 'Raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.'" - Ann Coulter
You have to read it to believe it, don't you? My first impression would be the usual: another quote taken out of context. After hearing this woman talk, though, I think she probably meant it just the way it comes across.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Monday, February 13, 2006
Krugman: Weak on Terror
From Krugman's New York Times Article:
"My most immediate priority," Spain's new leader, José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero, declared yesterday, "will be to fight terrorism." But he and the voters who gave his party a stunning upset victory last Sunday don't believe the war in Iraq is part of that fight.
My brief response:
Here is an article by Paul Krugman in the NYT that agrees with my argument about the larger significance of Bush's war on Iraq. I need to write the arguments, address the opposition, and make the whole case against the war my own.
"My most immediate priority," Spain's new leader, José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero, declared yesterday, "will be to fight terrorism." But he and the voters who gave his party a stunning upset victory last Sunday don't believe the war in Iraq is part of that fight.
My brief response:
Here is an article by Paul Krugman in the NYT that agrees with my argument about the larger significance of Bush's war on Iraq. I need to write the arguments, address the opposition, and make the whole case against the war my own.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
The Years Ahead
Last summer I wrote a three-part personal essay called The Years Ahead. Here are the entries:
August 7, 2005:
So what does make blogging so attractive? It's private, but it's not private. You write for yourself, but you have the possibility of an audience. You can write anything at all, and even your mother won't read it. But she could. It's fun.
I'd like to write about the years ahead. Perhaps when the years ahead are the years behind, people will read this and say that he (meaning me) laid it all out ahead of time. "It's all here," they'll say. They said that about Mein Kampf, too, and look where Hitler wound up. In a bunker with cyanide down his throat.
Well, that's way off topic. The comparison does show that you have to plan ahead a little bit. And that's what I'm going to do. But I sure don't want to write a book like Mein Kampf.
Where's the best place to start? Should I write about myself, or about things outside of myself? I'll write briefly about myself first.
A lot of people think about becoming president of the United States. Only a few people actually become president. But, whether you become president or not, no one can make fun of you for thinking about it. Plenty of people have thought about it, and some of those run for the office. Of those, a few have won enough electoral votes to win the office. In this country, anything can happen. Nothing is impossible. So I have to get past my self-consciousness about these thoughts. Would people make fun of me if they knew what I was thinking? Would they raise their eyebrows? So what? Why shouldn't I think about becoming president? If it makes me happy, who are you to say I shouldn't occupy my thoughts that way?
Here's a more practical way of stating this goal. We have to start work now to elect a president in 2016 who is not a Democrat or a Republican. I've already committed myself to that goal. Well, in our political system, you can't get elected president without some sort of political organization behind you. Call that organization a political party if you like. In a little less than three election cycles, we need to build an organization that's capable of electing a president. I want to help build that organization. And I know enough about working with groups that if you commit yourself to them and work hard to make them grow, you eventually get to lead them. Leadership in the case of a national political party means running for president.
Now let me write about some things outside of myself. America needs a new political party. The country's first two parties, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, were ill-formed groupings. They weren't especially well organized, and the names are more for the labeling convenience of historians than anything else. Out of those two loose groupings, and the conflict that occurred when Jefferson rose to the White House, we had the Democrats - Jefferson's party - and the Whigs - the party that eventually evolved from the Federalists. The Whigs didn't have staying power, though, and as their ability to win votes declined in the years before the Civil War, a new party rose to take their place. That party was the Republican party, and its leader was Abraham Lincoln.
Since the late 1850s, as the country slid toward its awful sectional conflict, we have not had a new, durable political party that was able to win votes in the electoral college.
As much as you like writing this entry, you have to sign off here.
August 8, 2005:
America needs a third party. Actually, it needs a new party that can become a force in American politics, and that can force a realignment in American politics. Let's start with some basics.
America does not have a parliamentary system. You need a parliamentary system with proportional representation for minority parties to flourish. Even in systems with proportional representation, like-minded minority parties tend to form durable coalitions so they can work together and exert more influence on national politics. The Labor and Likud parties in Israel are an example of that phenomenon.
The United States has a federal, winner take all system that favors the formation of two major parties. The basic rules of party competition at the national level won't change, so the structure of party politics won't change either. That means a couple of things. First, the emergence of a new party that can win the only national election we have - the one for the presidency - will cause a realignment in American party politics. We have a lot of instances where three people ran for the presidency and won a lot of votes. We have only one case - Lincoln's victory in 1860 - where the outcome of a three-way race led to a complete realignment. The important point is, even if three-way races are fairly common, the party competition resettles into the familiar two-party pattern pretty quickly. The Civil War disrupted all the usual patterns from 1860 to 1865, and the Republican party came out of the war as an established institution.
The second thing to note in the present situation is that we can't tell what the two parties will look like after the realignment. We don't know who will join what party. The most we can say is that one of the parties - the new one we're talking about here - will coalesce from independents, existing minority parties, disaffected Democrats and disaffected Republicans. The shape of the party that forms in opposition to the new party is anyone's guess. The Republican party is pretty cohesive right now, so a good guess is that the opposition will form from the core of the current Republican party. The realignment won't take place in a week or a month. It'll be a while in coming. But we know that a decade or more from now, party politics in this country won't look the same way they do now.
How do we know that? Some people say that an economic crisis during the next decade will cause profound changes in our party politics. We may in fact have a crisis like that. I would trace the changes we'll undergo to the war. I mean the war in Iraq, of course, but also the broader war that started in September 2001. We are losing the war in Iraq, and we have hardly started to fight the war against Al Qaeda. Lost wars always bring big changes in the politics of the country that loses them. That's what we're going to see here by the election of 2016.
It's a fair bet that the winner of the 2008 presidential election will be a Democrat. It's a fair bet too that the incumbent will lose to a Republican in 2012. That means we'll have Democratic or Republican winners in the White House for the next two election cycles. Then in 2016, our economic weakness and our defeats in war will make people vote for the leader of a new party. They'll say that the old parties have had a chance, and they ddn't come through. It's time for a change. A big one, when they begin to see the consequences of losing the war.
We have to be ready for the election in 2016.
August 9, 2005:
This is getting to be quite a series. Tonight I'm listening to Good Vibrations on the headphones, and I'm sure I may listen to some other songs before the night is done. The question is, can you write while you're listening to the music? Now Daydream Believer is playing, and you want to write about politics?
I told Leslie tonight: "What would you think if I said I wanted to be the leader of a new political party?" She said in her dry way, "Perhaps you should start with some small steps close to home." Yes, I said, that's just the thing, since politics in this country is organized state by state. You try to organize a party in Texas, and they'll say, "What are you doing here? Why don't you go to your own state?" Indeed, Massachusetts is the place to start.
But I added, I'm not sure why: "This kind of thing affects you, you know. I can't go this way and have it not affect you." She looked at me a little funny, and I finished: "I don't like to start anything, you know, and not think about the obstacles that might come up."
So that was it. I have Leslie's blessing now. She won't mind the invasion of privacy and all the things that go with politics. She'll go with me where I go. And she's got indignation to spare.
So let's move on to some practical steps... The writing is slow while you're listening to the music. What can you do here in Massachusetts? Well, you have to network, just as you have in other areas. Can the WTPC site give you any ideas about who to contact?
Yes, the e-mail posted to your Yahoo inbox contains full return addresses.
August 7, 2005:
So what does make blogging so attractive? It's private, but it's not private. You write for yourself, but you have the possibility of an audience. You can write anything at all, and even your mother won't read it. But she could. It's fun.
I'd like to write about the years ahead. Perhaps when the years ahead are the years behind, people will read this and say that he (meaning me) laid it all out ahead of time. "It's all here," they'll say. They said that about Mein Kampf, too, and look where Hitler wound up. In a bunker with cyanide down his throat.
Well, that's way off topic. The comparison does show that you have to plan ahead a little bit. And that's what I'm going to do. But I sure don't want to write a book like Mein Kampf.
Where's the best place to start? Should I write about myself, or about things outside of myself? I'll write briefly about myself first.
A lot of people think about becoming president of the United States. Only a few people actually become president. But, whether you become president or not, no one can make fun of you for thinking about it. Plenty of people have thought about it, and some of those run for the office. Of those, a few have won enough electoral votes to win the office. In this country, anything can happen. Nothing is impossible. So I have to get past my self-consciousness about these thoughts. Would people make fun of me if they knew what I was thinking? Would they raise their eyebrows? So what? Why shouldn't I think about becoming president? If it makes me happy, who are you to say I shouldn't occupy my thoughts that way?
Here's a more practical way of stating this goal. We have to start work now to elect a president in 2016 who is not a Democrat or a Republican. I've already committed myself to that goal. Well, in our political system, you can't get elected president without some sort of political organization behind you. Call that organization a political party if you like. In a little less than three election cycles, we need to build an organization that's capable of electing a president. I want to help build that organization. And I know enough about working with groups that if you commit yourself to them and work hard to make them grow, you eventually get to lead them. Leadership in the case of a national political party means running for president.
Now let me write about some things outside of myself. America needs a new political party. The country's first two parties, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, were ill-formed groupings. They weren't especially well organized, and the names are more for the labeling convenience of historians than anything else. Out of those two loose groupings, and the conflict that occurred when Jefferson rose to the White House, we had the Democrats - Jefferson's party - and the Whigs - the party that eventually evolved from the Federalists. The Whigs didn't have staying power, though, and as their ability to win votes declined in the years before the Civil War, a new party rose to take their place. That party was the Republican party, and its leader was Abraham Lincoln.
Since the late 1850s, as the country slid toward its awful sectional conflict, we have not had a new, durable political party that was able to win votes in the electoral college.
As much as you like writing this entry, you have to sign off here.
August 8, 2005:
America needs a third party. Actually, it needs a new party that can become a force in American politics, and that can force a realignment in American politics. Let's start with some basics.
America does not have a parliamentary system. You need a parliamentary system with proportional representation for minority parties to flourish. Even in systems with proportional representation, like-minded minority parties tend to form durable coalitions so they can work together and exert more influence on national politics. The Labor and Likud parties in Israel are an example of that phenomenon.
The United States has a federal, winner take all system that favors the formation of two major parties. The basic rules of party competition at the national level won't change, so the structure of party politics won't change either. That means a couple of things. First, the emergence of a new party that can win the only national election we have - the one for the presidency - will cause a realignment in American party politics. We have a lot of instances where three people ran for the presidency and won a lot of votes. We have only one case - Lincoln's victory in 1860 - where the outcome of a three-way race led to a complete realignment. The important point is, even if three-way races are fairly common, the party competition resettles into the familiar two-party pattern pretty quickly. The Civil War disrupted all the usual patterns from 1860 to 1865, and the Republican party came out of the war as an established institution.
The second thing to note in the present situation is that we can't tell what the two parties will look like after the realignment. We don't know who will join what party. The most we can say is that one of the parties - the new one we're talking about here - will coalesce from independents, existing minority parties, disaffected Democrats and disaffected Republicans. The shape of the party that forms in opposition to the new party is anyone's guess. The Republican party is pretty cohesive right now, so a good guess is that the opposition will form from the core of the current Republican party. The realignment won't take place in a week or a month. It'll be a while in coming. But we know that a decade or more from now, party politics in this country won't look the same way they do now.
How do we know that? Some people say that an economic crisis during the next decade will cause profound changes in our party politics. We may in fact have a crisis like that. I would trace the changes we'll undergo to the war. I mean the war in Iraq, of course, but also the broader war that started in September 2001. We are losing the war in Iraq, and we have hardly started to fight the war against Al Qaeda. Lost wars always bring big changes in the politics of the country that loses them. That's what we're going to see here by the election of 2016.
It's a fair bet that the winner of the 2008 presidential election will be a Democrat. It's a fair bet too that the incumbent will lose to a Republican in 2012. That means we'll have Democratic or Republican winners in the White House for the next two election cycles. Then in 2016, our economic weakness and our defeats in war will make people vote for the leader of a new party. They'll say that the old parties have had a chance, and they ddn't come through. It's time for a change. A big one, when they begin to see the consequences of losing the war.
We have to be ready for the election in 2016.
August 9, 2005:
This is getting to be quite a series. Tonight I'm listening to Good Vibrations on the headphones, and I'm sure I may listen to some other songs before the night is done. The question is, can you write while you're listening to the music? Now Daydream Believer is playing, and you want to write about politics?
I told Leslie tonight: "What would you think if I said I wanted to be the leader of a new political party?" She said in her dry way, "Perhaps you should start with some small steps close to home." Yes, I said, that's just the thing, since politics in this country is organized state by state. You try to organize a party in Texas, and they'll say, "What are you doing here? Why don't you go to your own state?" Indeed, Massachusetts is the place to start.
But I added, I'm not sure why: "This kind of thing affects you, you know. I can't go this way and have it not affect you." She looked at me a little funny, and I finished: "I don't like to start anything, you know, and not think about the obstacles that might come up."
So that was it. I have Leslie's blessing now. She won't mind the invasion of privacy and all the things that go with politics. She'll go with me where I go. And she's got indignation to spare.
So let's move on to some practical steps... The writing is slow while you're listening to the music. What can you do here in Massachusetts? Well, you have to network, just as you have in other areas. Can the WTPC site give you any ideas about who to contact?
Yes, the e-mail posted to your Yahoo inbox contains full return addresses.
The Libertarian Party in the Current Political Environment
Yesterday I received an e-mail request for money from the Libertarian Party to support their current initiatives. I contributed a small amount, and wrote a short note in the online payment form. The party's executive director responded with a short note of his own right away. Here is my response to his message:
I wasn't even sure anyone would read my note. I didn't expect to get a prompt response from the guy in charge!
So, since you wrote that quick note, let me open the gates just a little and write some thoughts back to you. They may or may not be useful to you, depending on how you take them.
First, good work on the letter you sent to solicit donations. The penultimate sentence - "If you have made it this far, I'm relying on you to make a donation of $10 or more" - didn't grab me and make me think, "I have to contribute right now." The small amount requested was a positive factor, and so were your comments about the Democrats. In the middle of the letter, you said they're spineless, and used other severe language. Here's why that language is appropriate, admirable, and motivating, at least in my case.
I've been interested in politics for a long time, and I've been an independent for a long time. I admire Ronald Reagan because I've been a libertarian with a small _l_. I don't admire the Republican party, though. In fact, the Iraq war has made me angrier than I've ever been about our leadership. It's effect on me has been similar to the effect the Missouri Compromise had on Lincoln: it made him want to get involved with politics after attending to his law practice for some years. I sense I'm not the only voter who thinks that way.
The Democrats don't bear the same burden of blame right now that the Republicans do, but their behavior as the opposition party fits your description. How they could fail so miserably in the face of the leadership we have is so strange. It's interesting to see the contrasting reactions people have had to Howard Dean and John Murtha. The stands they've taken are so rare, they easily stand out against the timid backdrop the rest of the Democrats have created.
So what am I getting at here? Like a lot of other voters, I don't feel well represented by either party. Independents and minority party members make up thirty-five percent or more of the electorate, but they don't feel that they have any voice at all. I've been skeptical that the Libertarian party can give people that voice. It's not because I think their ideas are bad, or that they can't overcome some of the real obstacles that minority parties have to face in our political system. I think that the Libertarian party's image is such that not so many people will vote for Libertarian candidates.
My main perspective comes from Massachusetts. It's not my native state, but it's where I live now. (I come from the Upper Midwest, a region that actually has a two-party system.) The two-party system in Massachusetts is not healthy, to say the least. Many, many Democrats, incumbents and new office seekers alike, run unopposed on election day. The Republicans win the governor's race, and that's about it. The latest tally shows that almost fifty percent of the voters in the state are independents - they don't enroll in either party when they register to vote. Yet the Libertarian party lost its ballot access a few years ago because they didn't win 3% of the votes cast.
Why don't the Libertarians win more votes in a state that doesn't feel that comfortable with one-party governance? Well it could be that most voters really are Democrats at heart, and they elect a Republican governor entirely to exercise some restraint on the legislature. Perhaps the Libertarians seem to be extreme here because, given the Democratic sympathies of the electorate, they really are outliers in the state's political belief system.
I keep thinking, though, of the party's tag line - the party of principle - and the message that line conveys to ordinary voters. Its subtext is that Libertarians don't care about winning elections. Or, to put it more precisely: if we have to make a choice between winning votes and sticking with our principles, we'll stick with our principles. We'd rather be right and defeated than wrong and victorious. Well naturally the goal is to be right and victorious, but that's not the message that comes across, either in the tag line or in the rest of the state party's communications.
The Libertarian Party of Massachusetts is only one of fifty state organizations, and I know the flavor of party politics in the other forty-nine states is just as quirky and unique as it is here. You have a hard job, trying to promote the party in a political landscape that's so varied. I much admire the determination the national party has shown over the last several months, to transform itself from a group on the margins of politics into an organization that can compete in elections across the land. I want to believe that it'll be successful, and that the Libertarian party will emerge from the coming political turmoil in a strong position.
To do that, though, I think it has to change the image I've described above. It has to convey that it's open to more than one belief system. The Democrats and Republicans both try to stress, at election time, that their parties are like big tents. They want to welcome as many people as they can. They're right to do that, because in a country that's so pluralistic, and that's bound to have just two major parties because of its election rules, the two major parties have to embrace divergent beliefs and belief systems.
Well, that welcoming attitude only goes so far. A political party is going to have opponents no matter what it does. But the Reagan elections show that people do respond to a well articulated vision. No other president has ever won forty-nine of fifty states, as Reagan did in 1984. That shows that people can be loyal to a certain vision of themselves, and to certain core principles built into our Constitution. It shows that when the circumstances are right, a pluralistic people can achieve a certain degree of unity.
Your remark that the Democratic party is in a panic because it feels so threatened is interesting. The contrasting question is what will happen to the Republicans when people realize what has happened since 9/11 - when the damage the Republicans have done truly sinks in. I said that we're in for a period of turmoil. The grounds for that prediction lie in a pattern of change that's clear from a long view of history. States that lose wars don't survive the loss without going through painful and substantial changes. We've clearly not achieved our aims in Iraq, and we are on the way to losing the other war we should be fighting instead - the war against Al Qaeda that started on September 11.
When these losses begin to have their effects, we'll see changes in our current political system that we can't predict. These changes are already underway, but we can't see their direction yet. The Libertarian party is right to prepare for them, and to see if it can't strengthen itself during the conflict to come. The parties in Washington won't stop sniping at each other, while citizens who aren't part of either party's base get more and more fed up with their representation and leadership. The two parties are so focused on scoring advantages, on finding weaknesses they can exploit, I don’t think they recognize how unhappy their constituents are.
Shortly before the 2000 election, I wrote an article called "Where's a Candidate People Want?" Even then, it seemed to me, the parties had failed in their primary function in national politics, which is to recruit and nominate presidential candidates who can serve and lead Americans well. We have never had leadership as bad as President Bush's has been. Although Gore and Kerry had some strengths, they weren't adequate candidates for the times. That the Republicans managed to put Bush in the office, and then to reelect him, says quite a bit about the ability of the current two-party system to perform well. It is clearly not serving the country.
So what do all of these observations amount to? The Libertarian party has to find some way to appeal to more people. Training candidates, campaign managers and other staff to run effective bids for office is an essential start. The most effective campaign ever can't win votes, though, if people are suspicious or skeptical of the party to begin with. They have to have confidence in the character and competence of their leaders, and they also need to know that their leaders share some assumptions with them about the best way to organize a society. Right now, I think a lot of citizens see Libertarians as people who don't share those assumptions.
We know that the United States will always have two major parties while it has winner-take-all elections in each of the fifty states. We also know that the two-party system has evolved in interesting ways over 225 years, with some dramatic transformations in the system at key points. We are on the threshold of one of those transformations. In ten years, during the presidential election of 2016, we'll be past the threshold and perhaps even past the entry way. It's great that the Libertarian party and its leadership is thinking about how it can grow during the difficult changes that have already started. I hope it succeeds.
I also hope that I and others can lay aside skepticism, and work hard for the changes we want to see. We need hope that the obstacles in our current politics won't always be there: obstacles that block independents' voices, frustrate their efforts before they begin, and make voting seem ineffectual. In this environment, the Libertarian party's bold initiatives to have an effect do deserve respect and support.
I wasn't even sure anyone would read my note. I didn't expect to get a prompt response from the guy in charge!
So, since you wrote that quick note, let me open the gates just a little and write some thoughts back to you. They may or may not be useful to you, depending on how you take them.
First, good work on the letter you sent to solicit donations. The penultimate sentence - "If you have made it this far, I'm relying on you to make a donation of $10 or more" - didn't grab me and make me think, "I have to contribute right now." The small amount requested was a positive factor, and so were your comments about the Democrats. In the middle of the letter, you said they're spineless, and used other severe language. Here's why that language is appropriate, admirable, and motivating, at least in my case.
I've been interested in politics for a long time, and I've been an independent for a long time. I admire Ronald Reagan because I've been a libertarian with a small _l_. I don't admire the Republican party, though. In fact, the Iraq war has made me angrier than I've ever been about our leadership. It's effect on me has been similar to the effect the Missouri Compromise had on Lincoln: it made him want to get involved with politics after attending to his law practice for some years. I sense I'm not the only voter who thinks that way.
The Democrats don't bear the same burden of blame right now that the Republicans do, but their behavior as the opposition party fits your description. How they could fail so miserably in the face of the leadership we have is so strange. It's interesting to see the contrasting reactions people have had to Howard Dean and John Murtha. The stands they've taken are so rare, they easily stand out against the timid backdrop the rest of the Democrats have created.
So what am I getting at here? Like a lot of other voters, I don't feel well represented by either party. Independents and minority party members make up thirty-five percent or more of the electorate, but they don't feel that they have any voice at all. I've been skeptical that the Libertarian party can give people that voice. It's not because I think their ideas are bad, or that they can't overcome some of the real obstacles that minority parties have to face in our political system. I think that the Libertarian party's image is such that not so many people will vote for Libertarian candidates.
My main perspective comes from Massachusetts. It's not my native state, but it's where I live now. (I come from the Upper Midwest, a region that actually has a two-party system.) The two-party system in Massachusetts is not healthy, to say the least. Many, many Democrats, incumbents and new office seekers alike, run unopposed on election day. The Republicans win the governor's race, and that's about it. The latest tally shows that almost fifty percent of the voters in the state are independents - they don't enroll in either party when they register to vote. Yet the Libertarian party lost its ballot access a few years ago because they didn't win 3% of the votes cast.
Why don't the Libertarians win more votes in a state that doesn't feel that comfortable with one-party governance? Well it could be that most voters really are Democrats at heart, and they elect a Republican governor entirely to exercise some restraint on the legislature. Perhaps the Libertarians seem to be extreme here because, given the Democratic sympathies of the electorate, they really are outliers in the state's political belief system.
I keep thinking, though, of the party's tag line - the party of principle - and the message that line conveys to ordinary voters. Its subtext is that Libertarians don't care about winning elections. Or, to put it more precisely: if we have to make a choice between winning votes and sticking with our principles, we'll stick with our principles. We'd rather be right and defeated than wrong and victorious. Well naturally the goal is to be right and victorious, but that's not the message that comes across, either in the tag line or in the rest of the state party's communications.
The Libertarian Party of Massachusetts is only one of fifty state organizations, and I know the flavor of party politics in the other forty-nine states is just as quirky and unique as it is here. You have a hard job, trying to promote the party in a political landscape that's so varied. I much admire the determination the national party has shown over the last several months, to transform itself from a group on the margins of politics into an organization that can compete in elections across the land. I want to believe that it'll be successful, and that the Libertarian party will emerge from the coming political turmoil in a strong position.
To do that, though, I think it has to change the image I've described above. It has to convey that it's open to more than one belief system. The Democrats and Republicans both try to stress, at election time, that their parties are like big tents. They want to welcome as many people as they can. They're right to do that, because in a country that's so pluralistic, and that's bound to have just two major parties because of its election rules, the two major parties have to embrace divergent beliefs and belief systems.
Well, that welcoming attitude only goes so far. A political party is going to have opponents no matter what it does. But the Reagan elections show that people do respond to a well articulated vision. No other president has ever won forty-nine of fifty states, as Reagan did in 1984. That shows that people can be loyal to a certain vision of themselves, and to certain core principles built into our Constitution. It shows that when the circumstances are right, a pluralistic people can achieve a certain degree of unity.
Your remark that the Democratic party is in a panic because it feels so threatened is interesting. The contrasting question is what will happen to the Republicans when people realize what has happened since 9/11 - when the damage the Republicans have done truly sinks in. I said that we're in for a period of turmoil. The grounds for that prediction lie in a pattern of change that's clear from a long view of history. States that lose wars don't survive the loss without going through painful and substantial changes. We've clearly not achieved our aims in Iraq, and we are on the way to losing the other war we should be fighting instead - the war against Al Qaeda that started on September 11.
When these losses begin to have their effects, we'll see changes in our current political system that we can't predict. These changes are already underway, but we can't see their direction yet. The Libertarian party is right to prepare for them, and to see if it can't strengthen itself during the conflict to come. The parties in Washington won't stop sniping at each other, while citizens who aren't part of either party's base get more and more fed up with their representation and leadership. The two parties are so focused on scoring advantages, on finding weaknesses they can exploit, I don’t think they recognize how unhappy their constituents are.
Shortly before the 2000 election, I wrote an article called "Where's a Candidate People Want?" Even then, it seemed to me, the parties had failed in their primary function in national politics, which is to recruit and nominate presidential candidates who can serve and lead Americans well. We have never had leadership as bad as President Bush's has been. Although Gore and Kerry had some strengths, they weren't adequate candidates for the times. That the Republicans managed to put Bush in the office, and then to reelect him, says quite a bit about the ability of the current two-party system to perform well. It is clearly not serving the country.
So what do all of these observations amount to? The Libertarian party has to find some way to appeal to more people. Training candidates, campaign managers and other staff to run effective bids for office is an essential start. The most effective campaign ever can't win votes, though, if people are suspicious or skeptical of the party to begin with. They have to have confidence in the character and competence of their leaders, and they also need to know that their leaders share some assumptions with them about the best way to organize a society. Right now, I think a lot of citizens see Libertarians as people who don't share those assumptions.
We know that the United States will always have two major parties while it has winner-take-all elections in each of the fifty states. We also know that the two-party system has evolved in interesting ways over 225 years, with some dramatic transformations in the system at key points. We are on the threshold of one of those transformations. In ten years, during the presidential election of 2016, we'll be past the threshold and perhaps even past the entry way. It's great that the Libertarian party and its leadership is thinking about how it can grow during the difficult changes that have already started. I hope it succeeds.
I also hope that I and others can lay aside skepticism, and work hard for the changes we want to see. We need hope that the obstacles in our current politics won't always be there: obstacles that block independents' voices, frustrate their efforts before they begin, and make voting seem ineffectual. In this environment, the Libertarian party's bold initiatives to have an effect do deserve respect and support.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Loose Lips Sink Spies - New York Times
Loose Lips Sink Spies - New York Times
What a huge, huge gap exists now! So many things that Goss says in this article make sense, or rather used to make sense. Coming from the head of the CIA in this administration, though, they are scary. Standard arguments about the tradeoff between national security and open democracy don't make sense anymore, when the source of the arguments is the government itself. These guys are willing to commit crimes wherever they look. No crime is too egregious for them. National security justifies anything they want to do. Now the head of the CIA announces his determination to bring criminal charges against anyone who tries to stop them. That's scary.
What a huge, huge gap exists now! So many things that Goss says in this article make sense, or rather used to make sense. Coming from the head of the CIA in this administration, though, they are scary. Standard arguments about the tradeoff between national security and open democracy don't make sense anymore, when the source of the arguments is the government itself. These guys are willing to commit crimes wherever they look. No crime is too egregious for them. National security justifies anything they want to do. Now the head of the CIA announces his determination to bring criminal charges against anyone who tries to stop them. That's scary.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Monday, February 06, 2006
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
Friday, January 27, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
The President's Latest Q & A Session
So now we have to ask, Mr. President, what wouldn't you do?
Say again?
Well, you've authorized warrantless domestic wiretaps, which are clearly illegal. You simply can't do domestic searches without a warrant. When you violate a law that's so clear-cut, I'd like to ask, what wouldn't you do? It's useful to know what you think the limits on your executive power are.
Okay, I'll give you some good examples. I wouldn't authorize torture for people we want to interrogate and intimidate.
You've already done that.
I wouldn't set up a system of prisons outside of the United States where we can keep our prisoners of war.
You've already done that.
I certainly wouldn't leak the name of one our intelligence agents to the domestic press in order to discredit my opponents. You could even call that treason.
You've already done that, too, Mr. President.
Give me a break here. How about this? The president's powers as commander in chief are pretty broad, but to launch an attack on a country that's not an immediate threat to us would go beyond my power. It would violate the UN charter as well.
But sir, you did that, too.
You've got me pinned down pretty well now. Can you think of anything I haven't done yet?
Well, you could drop a nuclear bomb on North Korea to make it give up its nuclear weapons. You'd teach them a lesson.
Yes.
And you could drop another bomb on Harvard University to quiet Alan Dershowitz and all those other people on the faculty who keep criticizing you.
I don't think Ted Kennedy would like that very much.
Mr. President, what's one university in the War on Terror? If it's necessary to protect the American people, you should do it.
How about if I just roll some tanks into Harvard Square? That wouldn't be so drastic. Maybe not as effective, either.
Come on, Mr. President, you have a reputation to maintain here. You don't want Dick Cheney to call you a namby pamby behind your back, do you?
Of course not, but I don't want to destroy America. I want to save it. Pretty soon you and your friends will say that I want to destroy America in order to save it.
You've already done that.
Say again?
Well, you've authorized warrantless domestic wiretaps, which are clearly illegal. You simply can't do domestic searches without a warrant. When you violate a law that's so clear-cut, I'd like to ask, what wouldn't you do? It's useful to know what you think the limits on your executive power are.
Okay, I'll give you some good examples. I wouldn't authorize torture for people we want to interrogate and intimidate.
You've already done that.
I wouldn't set up a system of prisons outside of the United States where we can keep our prisoners of war.
You've already done that.
I certainly wouldn't leak the name of one our intelligence agents to the domestic press in order to discredit my opponents. You could even call that treason.
You've already done that, too, Mr. President.
Give me a break here. How about this? The president's powers as commander in chief are pretty broad, but to launch an attack on a country that's not an immediate threat to us would go beyond my power. It would violate the UN charter as well.
But sir, you did that, too.
You've got me pinned down pretty well now. Can you think of anything I haven't done yet?
Well, you could drop a nuclear bomb on North Korea to make it give up its nuclear weapons. You'd teach them a lesson.
Yes.
And you could drop another bomb on Harvard University to quiet Alan Dershowitz and all those other people on the faculty who keep criticizing you.
I don't think Ted Kennedy would like that very much.
Mr. President, what's one university in the War on Terror? If it's necessary to protect the American people, you should do it.
How about if I just roll some tanks into Harvard Square? That wouldn't be so drastic. Maybe not as effective, either.
Come on, Mr. President, you have a reputation to maintain here. You don't want Dick Cheney to call you a namby pamby behind your back, do you?
Of course not, but I don't want to destroy America. I want to save it. Pretty soon you and your friends will say that I want to destroy America in order to save it.
You've already done that.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Biographer Richard Reeves examines President Reagan, a masterful rhetorician
Wichita Eagle | 01/22/2006 | Biographer Richard Reeves examines President Reagan, a masterful rhetorician:
"Did Reagan's brainy White House staff members manipulate him? No way, Reeves says. As White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III commented, 'He treats us all the same, as hired help.' A later chief of staff, Donald Regan, told Reeves that everybody working in the White House 'thought he was smarter than the president.' Reeves responded, 'Including you?' Regan's reply: 'Especially me.' But it was Reagan, not Baker or Regan, who managed to persuade power brokers to more than double the federal tax dollars devoted to the military, to decrease taxation of the wealthy, and to substantially neutralize the Soviet Union's influence in a worldwide Cold War."
"Did Reagan's brainy White House staff members manipulate him? No way, Reeves says. As White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III commented, 'He treats us all the same, as hired help.' A later chief of staff, Donald Regan, told Reeves that everybody working in the White House 'thought he was smarter than the president.' Reeves responded, 'Including you?' Regan's reply: 'Especially me.' But it was Reagan, not Baker or Regan, who managed to persuade power brokers to more than double the federal tax dollars devoted to the military, to decrease taxation of the wealthy, and to substantially neutralize the Soviet Union's influence in a worldwide Cold War."
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Friday, January 20, 2006
Legal Rationale by Justice Dept. on Spying Effort - New York Times
Legal Rationale by Justice Dept. on Spying Effort - New York Times
This proves it then, that we have an unconstitutional presidency that will operate outside the law. Any person who says that a wiretap in the United States without a warrant is justified can't be right. National security requires some secrecy, but a warrantless wiretap can't be justified under any legal doctrine. To make such a wiretap permissible, we would have to change the law. The president's defense of his actions shows that if the law conflicts with his beliefs about what national security requires, he'll go with his beliefs.
This proves it then, that we have an unconstitutional presidency that will operate outside the law. Any person who says that a wiretap in the United States without a warrant is justified can't be right. National security requires some secrecy, but a warrantless wiretap can't be justified under any legal doctrine. To make such a wiretap permissible, we would have to change the law. The president's defense of his actions shows that if the law conflicts with his beliefs about what national security requires, he'll go with his beliefs.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Friday, January 13, 2006
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
http://www-internal.mathworks.com: News
http://www-internal.mathworks.com: News
What is the relationship between the war in Iraq and this action by Iran? Do you see one?
What is the relationship between the war in Iraq and this action by Iran? Do you see one?
