Don't blame Obama for the economy

In regards to Biden saying they "misread" the extent of the recession, John Boehner and other Republicans are attacking Obama for presiding over the loss of 2 million jobs since he took office.

This is just stupid, for reasons of simple reality and political strategy. Everyone knows that this recession started under the Bush administration. Obama is not responsible for the recession unless you can point to something stupid he did to harm the economy. Since the only candidate policies that might do that(cap and trade, tax increases) haven't gone into effect yet, or even been signed by the President, it's silly to accuse him of economic mismanagement.

The only thing Obama is responsible for is wasting all that stimulus money. That's where the Republicans should be hitting him, especially when you've got prominent liberals calling for a second stimulus before the first one is even half spent. Focus on the failed stimulus like a laser and don't let another one get by you. The nation can't afford it.

Attacking Obama on the economy is just stupid, because voters know Republicans got us into this mess, and because if Obama senses that it is hurting him, he'll do something stupid like sign another stimulus. The stimulus is the failure, not Obama's overall economic management.

The war in Afghanistan

With the war in Iraq winding down after it took a good five years to come up with a winning strategy, the Obama administration is now focusing on winning the war in Afghanistan. This is all good.

However, despite what the Iraq war cost us, I think most of us realize that Afghanistan is a much tougher job. Since the load is being widely shared among NATO, and we have fewer troops over there, the casualties don't seem as high. But at least for the last three years, they have been near Iraq levels. With more troops being committed and us getting more serious about fighting the remnants of the Taliban, our casualties will continue to rise, probably to the point where we're losing as many of our men and women as we did at the height of the Iraqi insurgency. And this may go on for a long time, much longer than it went on in Iraq.

The generals say they don't have enough troops yet. Obama has made a very good decision to raise troop levels to 66,000, but that's just not going to cut it. That's not Obama's fault, that's probably all that can be committed until we are first out of Iraq, and second, our military has had a couple of years to recover from the Iraq debacle. But eventually, we are going to have to ramp up to near 200,000 if we want to actually win this war. That won't happen until 2013 at the earliest. Once we do get to that troop level, we can probably win the war in another four to six years, given good political and military leadership.

I think we're going to have significant forces in Afghanistan until 2020, and I also think we'll incur 10-15K combat fatalities. Iraq has been in the headlines since 2003 while Afghanistan has been a sideshow, but I think when the histories are written, Afghanistan will be the big war and Iraq the sideshow. Iraq will be seen as a blunder that diverted troops from the real battlefield and made our eventual victory that much harder.

For those who think we won't have the political will to expend that much blood and treasure in Afghanistan, think again. 3000 Americans died because of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The threat that they pose still exists. There's no way we can retreat from Afghanistan. It's not an elective war like Iraq was, or the Soviet Afghan war was. We either win, or we are defeated. Al Qaeda and the Taliban cannot win a political victory because political victories are only possible in elective wars like Vietnam or Iraq. So the only question to answer is, how long will it take for us to defeat them, not whether we'll stick it out to the bitter end.

That means that the war in Afghanistan is only just beginning.

Major trade decision coming up for the administration

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/tough-china-trade-decision-for-obama-2009-06-18.html

The Steelworkers' union has succeeded in their petition to a US trade body to determine that Chinese tire exports are hurting our domestic tire industry. What remains is for President Obama to approve the request for relief, which would result in quotas and/or tarriffs on Chinese tires, or to reject it. Bush rejected all four such petitions that he received during his Presidency.

While this is a major decision, I don't see it as a particularly enlightening example of Obama's thinking on the issue, whichever way he comes down. We do not have a free trade agreement with China. China is a very protectionist nation and likely wouldn't be interested in the first place. While I am a big supporter of free trade, I believe it must be on the basis of mutual agreements with our trade partners. Since we don't have an agreement with China, I don't really think it makes Obama a protectionist if he grants the steelworkers' union relief and imposes tarriffs on Chinese tires.

Now if it was a complaint about Mexican tires, I'd be throwing a hissy fit on this blog.

The Osbourne decision

The Supreme Court recently ruled, 5-4, that a person in prison does not necessarily have a constitutional right to potentially expulcatory DNA evidence. The voting broke down along ideological lines, with the conservatives maintaining no constitutional right and the liberals dissenting.

Many liberal blogs are attacking the decision and taking a swipe at conservative jurisprudence in general as always favoring prosecution over defense, corporations over the little guy, etc.

Hate to say it, but it's true. But the solution isn't the one liberals favor: more liberal justices. While liberal judges are excellent on issues of criminal justice, and have established extremely important precedents on search and seizure, legal representation, and the rights of the accused, liberals have a big blind spot: they favor the powerful over the weak when the powerful is the government.

While this decision is troubling, it's not nearly as far-reaching as two cases decided in the last few years: Kelo and Raich:

The Kelo decision allowed state governments to take private land under eminent domain in order to transfer the land to another private party. An extremely broad reading of the "public use" clause. That case was also decided along ideological lines: the liberals plus Anthony Kennedy, the court's swing vote, chose government power over individuals.

The Raich decision stated that the federal government could regulate medical marijuana use, even though the marijuana was not part of interstate commerce and was being grown only for personal use. This decision was handed down 6-3, with Scalia joining the liberal bloc and Kennedy. O'Connor and conservative justices Thomas and Rehnquist dissented. Another case of government being favored over the little guy, courtesy of liberal jurisprudence.

What we need are Alex Kozinski and Randy Barnett on SCOTUS. Glenn Reynolds and Douglas Ginsburg. Justices who will interpret the powers of the government narrowly, and the rights of the people expansively.

A theory of religion and morality

Liberals love to post studies about how religious people are more likely to get divorced, have kids out of wedlock, etc. Well, a new study now shows that girls who attended a religious school are more likely to have abortions than girls who did not.

But statistics have little meaning if you can't figure out the "why". Why do religous people tend to be less moral, assuming the statistics are correct?

First, you have to distinguish between different types of religion. I'm not talking about Christianity vs. Islam, or Judaism vs. Buddhism, but levels of religious devoutness. Lots of people go to church. Different churches have different levels of devoutness among the congregations. A mainstream Baptist church is going to have a different congregation than a born again church like Cavalry Chapel.

Here's my theory: it's all about the commitment in your beliefs, not necessarily what you believe. Atheists tend to be the least likely to be criminal, tend to be the most educated, yada yada. But although I can't back it up with statistics because no one has ever asked the right question, so are those Christians who are born again, who have freely chosen the faith and are motivated to live by it. You just can't compare someone who has a belief system based on what they were told to believe by their parents, and someone who considered the matter themselves and came to a certain conclusion.

So, to put this in the most offensive, non-PC way possible, those individuals who are nominally Christian or Jewish or whatever, who occasionally go to church and have a passing familiarity with the Bible, are the ones most likely to fall into moral decay. They don't have a set of morals because they probably don't really think about morals much. Spending time thinking about what you believe is inextricably linked to thinking about what constitutes moral behavior. If you've never given your religion any thought, you probably haven't given your morals much thought either. Very few people are born atheist. They arrive at atheism through a lot of soul-searching and thinking. Neither are people born into some of the less mainstream churches. They freely choose to abandon the sect of their parents and go to the new church, which they feel is more true to Scripture. A person who was born a Baptist or a Catholic and remains one without thinking much about what it all means or even whether it's valid given what they know about Scripture probably also hasn't thought about right and wrong much.

Atheists tend to have a very humanist perspective. They tend to have a firm moral grounding based on not doing harm to others, accepting differences, and recognizing that this life is all you get, so don't screw it up for yourself or other people.

Devout religious followers tend to have a firm moral grounding based on God's law(or whatever applies to their religion). As long as their beliefs about what God requires aren't nuts, which can happen with some religious fanatics, they will lead a moral life. Because they love and fear God.

But people who are not devout, who just practice churchianity or go to the synagogue primarily for social networking, what is their moral basis? They sorta believe in God, but it's not reflected in their actions because the belief isn't firm. They just fall into narcissism.

Now of course this doesn't mean that all soft religious believers are immoral. I think it just explains why members of mainstream denominations are more likely to fall into immorality than atheists or devout believers.

Everyone should subject their beliefs to rigorous analysis. that doesn't mean abandoning faith. You can't prove certain things, such as the existence of God. But if your pastor says one thing, and the Bible says another, you might be in the wrong church. And if you've never given it any thought, but just accept wrong teachings, then you probably also allow yourself to be convinced that lying, stealing, cheating, fornication, etc. are okay. After all, if your pastor says divorce is a-okay despite Jesus saying the exact opposite, then it doesn't take much at all for a friend to convince you that it's okay to snort cocaine.

How health care will be rationed

http://www.fresh-thinking.org/publications/JAMA_perfect_storm.pdf


Dr. Emmanuel, Rahm's brother, by the way, should be credited for his honesty.

The ways costs will have to be cut:

1) Less amenities in health care. The hospital rooms are too nice.
2) Less use of the newest treatments
3) Doctors are currently too thorough. He even manages to criticize the Hippocratic oath, as it encourages doctors to go above and beyond to help a patient. This of course, is inconsistent with social justice, since not everyone can receive this time-consuming and expensive care.
4) Pharma companies need to stop advertising to consumers. If consumers know what's available, they'll demand it. If they don't know, then "There's nothing we can do" becomes much more plausible.

Oh, and one last one fro last year. Dr. Emmanuel wrote this in the Lancet:

“Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination.”

In plain English, it means that it's okay to deny certain treatments to the aged. Which of course is correct if you're going to provide good treatment to the young. But I don't think Medicare beneficiaries will willingly give up their Grade A care so that the young poor can get better care.



Of course, Dr. Emmanuel is right that we have an overutilization problem. There is some money to be saved in using older, effective treatments rather than always going for the newest one. I've gotten prescriptions myself for drugs that could be bought cheaper over the counter. One doctor gave me a prescription for Naproxen that was lower than the dosage in a single Aleve tablet. Naturally, I tossed the prescription and bought a bottle of Aleve. I was once prescribed Paridex for a gum problem that Listerine was actually more effective for. And I once got a prescription for ringworm that was cured by OTC Tinactin. So encouraging doctors to prescribe OTC stuff first where possible would probably be a good start. and yes, heroic, end-of-life care will have to stop except for those who can pay for it themselves. Sorry, Medicare folks.

The point of this is to understand just what will be involved with a government health care plan. the government will try to sell it as everyone getting gold-plated care. The reality is that it will be a heck of a lot better than having no insurance, but don't kid yourself into thinking it will be better than a decent, much less, a gold-plated, insurance plan. Understand what you're buying as a taxpayer, and judge the value of it vs. the cost. Oh, and keep in mind that they will lie about the cost, so at least double the expected cost before deciding if it's worth it.

A better money-saving idea for Pres. Obama

Tax preparation costs $300 billion per year. A fairly large minority of workers work for the federal government.

Instead of having them pay taxes on taxpayer dollars, why not have the government simply offer less pay in the first place and make that pay tax free?

I realize that taxes are different for everyone, but that's another problem that needs to be addressed. But we can make a good start by imposing a no-deductions tax on all federal employees, which would be paid simply by pay cuts, thus saving them the trouble of paying taxes ,and taxpayers the expense of processing those taxes. and since as many as 10-15% of federal employees fail to file and even more claim fraudulent deductions, it would increase tax revenues.

As a gesture to our men in uniform, we could just make their current pay tax-free. All civilian employees would receive a 20% pay cut.

Who watches the watchers, and why lobbyist restrictions are dumb

Lobbyists don't vote on legislation. In the end, it's the politician who foists bad legislation on us, not the lobbyist. Blaming lobbyists for bad lawmaking infantilizes our Congressmen. They can't control themselves, they got a free plane ride and had to vote a certain way on a bill!

Whether it's the lobbyists fault, because Congressmen are children with no self-control, or whether it is Congressmens' fault, controls on lobbyists solve nothing. We need controls on Congress.

An independent oversight board made up of people from the private sector should be set up, appointed by all three branches evenly(say, three appointed by the President, three by Congress, and three by er, maybe the Chief Justice.) They would serve as long as desired. They would have the power to investigate ethics infractions by Congressmen by majority vote, and the power to remove Congressmen from office by 2/3rds vote.

Congress constantly screams about oversight of everything. Of the executive branch, of the private sector, but never of themselves. Yet Congress contains a higher percentage of corrupt members than the business world, the executive branch, or anywhere else. They have proven themselves unable to self-regulate. Outside regulation must be established over Congress.

A viable third party

I've been thinking about what a viable third party in this country would look like. Many say that a successful third party is impossible due to our winner take all electoral system. I would agree that it would be hard to sustain three viable parties for the long term. What would have to happen is that either one of the major parties would go away(as happened to the Whigs in the 19th century) or various ideas of the third party would be coopted by the major parties(as happened to Ross Perot's movement).

It's passe to say that voters are disgusted with both parties. There's always been a lot of truth to that statement and to say it now as if things are worse than ever probably wouldn't be accurate. However, I do think that there are some issues that many Americans care about but which aren't represented adequately by either party. So let's look at what issues are being ignored, and what kind of third party could fill that empty space.

The first thing a third party would have to be is moderate. Most of America's existing third parties are radical, fringe parties. The only way third parties get significant support is by squeezing in between the two major parties, as Ross Perot did in the 1992 election and Jesse Ventura did in the 1998 Minnesota election.

But what does that consist of? Well, for starters, thinking in broad terms:

1) The party would be fiscally conservative but socially liberal. Right now the Democratic party is fiscally liberal and socially liberal, while the Republican party is(in theory) fiscally conservative and socially conservative. In this case, the new party wouldn't occupy the middle ground, so much as a more libertarian ground than either party.

2) The party would be moderate on foreign policy issues. Right now, the Democrats are too weak on foreign policy, to reflexively accomodationist. The Republicans are too reflexively hawkish and insult our allies. We need a party that strikes a good balance. In this case, the new party would exist in the middle ground.

3) The party would be skeptical of government and not seek to expand the government's powers. It would be favorable to individual rights, and place the burden of proof on those who would limit freedom to prove that it is absolutely necessary. Currently, we have the Democrats constantly seeking to expand federal power at the expense of states and individuals, and grab a larger and larger piece of the economic pie for them to distribute as they see fit. They believe there should be few limits on Congressional power. The Republicans have set up a national security apparatus that violates our privacy. They believe that the executive branch should have supreme power.

4) The party would be reformist. It would attempt to sever the connection between campaign donations and earmarks. It would end subsidies to favored businesses and also end confiscatory tax policy towards unfavored businesses.

5) The party would be a unifying force in politics, rather than a divisive force. Both parties try to divide us and make us hate one another. Republicans demagogue against gays, illegal immigrants, liberal academics, and the law profession. Democrats stereotype businessmen as greedy and corrupt. Both parties use this to convince us that we need to give the government more powers to protect us from these threats. The new third party would never try to spread hatred against others, no matter how useful a caricature they were for campaigning purposes.

6) The party would take seriously its elected members oaths to protect and defend the Constitution. Of course, there are often differences about interpretation. However, what we're seeing now in Washington is Congressmen and even the last two Presidents not even caring about whether legislation is constitutional, or seeking ways to narrowly craft legislation so that it is technically constitutional but violates the spirit of the supreme law of the land.

If this sounds like a moderate libertarian party, it's because it is. The official Libertarian Party likes to cite various polls showing that anywhere from 40% to 60% of the public leans libertarian. I think those polls are probably accurate, but it doesn't follow that Americans want to do away with Medicare, public schools, and retreat to isolationism. It's a shame too, because since WWII, neither major party has stopped the headlong rush towards greater centralization. They've only differed in their reasons and methods. We need a third party that won't want to dismantle the entire apparatus as the official Libertarian Party does, but one that wants to make government simply become less of a burden over time and recognizes that we live in a globalized marketplace.