Greg Sanders

2013-03-18&19 Tel Aviv Beach and the Trip to Jaffa

Tel Aviv is a beach town, not merely temperate and on the water. It has ample sandy shores immediately adjacent to downtown. Perhaps surprisingly, the beach monuments were among most political ones I noticed during my trip.

Tel Aviv is a young city, barely a hundred years old, but that's long enough. There were monuments to the Aliyah Bet effort from 1934 to 1948 to evacuate Jews from Mediterranean countries in defiance of a British restriction on their then-colony. There was another monument to the Altalena affair, a clash shortly after the British left between the recently formed Israeli Defense Force and a Jewish paramilitary group. The rest of the beach seemed apolitical, so perhaps this was just a coincidence of my hotel placement, but the underlying reality is that shores are often borders.

The other time politics notably intruded from the landscape was a trip to the kibbutz cemetery that took us closer to the West Bank. Like Canada, Israel is a bilingual nation, so there is both Hebrew and Arabic on highway signs. That said, unlike the vehement bilingualism I remember from Quebec, in Tel Aviv I mostly saw Hebrew and English (which seems in keeping with the education system). Guy was generally less political on most matters than I am, although he made clear that he was rather frustrated with the current state of Israeli politics, particularly the current generation of leadership.

However, don't let the politics discussion deter you.  Both of my walks on the beach were lovely and the trip south to Jaffa was delightful. Surfers took advantage of the waves and trained on the beach. Small sailboats dotted the horizon. The buildings of Tel Aviv are a varied architectural backdrop from the skyscrapers of downtown to the mosque down by Jaffa. The last part of the walk was through parkland as the beach gave way to a rocky  shore.  

According to my walk book, the best time to do it would be sunset. That's probably right, but don't let that deter you if the timing doesn't work out. The journey is well worth it during the day, all the more so because it ends in Jaffa: the millennia-old sister to Tel Aviv, historical port to Jerusalem, Turkish-rebuilt hill city, and subject of my next post.

Marylanders: Please tell Senator Cardin not to back down on stopping filibuster abuse

Update: The Baltimore office at least was closed on Thursday 1/3 but will be open tomorrow 1/4. The vote will be on [1/22], post-inauguration, although calling sooner is still probably better.

Senator Cardin apparently may be part of a bipartisan group opposing bringing democracy and effectiveness to the U.S Senate. In doing so, he risks blowing our one opportunity for the next two years to make progress. I had the alarm raised for me via email, but the story checks out according to Ben German of `the Hill:

A bipartisan group is offering Senate leaders a political compromise on filibuster reform as Democrats push to change rules that frequently require 60 votes to pass bills.

The group met Friday morning in the office of Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, and plans to present its idea to the separate caucuses later in the day…

Lawmakers involved in the ad-hoc group, in addition to Kyl, Alexander and Cardin, include Sens. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and, according to The Huffington Post, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

The filibuster as presently constituted does not work with European style parliamentary politics and as a result the Senate can't get anything done. The alternative to an effective legislature is not some panacea of democracy: it is the accrual of power to the executive branch. This is true whether the President is Republican or Democrat.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is leading up a call drive to push for real reform; if you follow this link, they'll get you the phone numbers and information you need.

In summary, I'll hand the floor to Ezra Klein:

[The McCain proposal] is filibuster reform for people who don’t want to reform the filibuster.

In other words, it wouldn’t do much of anything. Unlike Sen. Tom Harkin’sreform proposal, it wouldn’t change the number of votes needed to break a filibuster. Unlike Sen. Jeff Merkley’s reform proposal, it wouldn’t require the minority to actually hold the floor and talk. And perhaps most importantly, it wouldn’t use “the constitutional option,” thus protecting the precedent that changing Senate rules requires a two-thirds vote rather than a simple majority.

If you think the Senate is pretty much working well as is, and the biggest threat are the folks who want to change the rules, then this is the proposal for you. It lets people say they’re doing something to curb the abuse of the filibuster without actually doing anything at all. But if you think the Senate is broken, there’s nothing in here that would even plausibly fix any of its problems.

If you care about this issue, please call soon.

The U.S. Assault death rate is remarkably high

Thankfully, things do seem to be getting better on the overall assault death score. Nonetheless, it's vital to remember that the problem we face is far larger than even the terrible heart rending massacres. The chart below from Keiran Healy includes all assault deaths with gun deaths being a key driver. Of course, guns are not autonomous drones, they don't kill people of their own volition. Instead guns make it easy to kill people.

Ezra Klein has a good round up of facts about gun massacres. Whenever one of these occurs, you see suggestions that the solution is more guns. If that were true, wouldn't the U.S. be safer than other countries because we already have so many guns? Gun massacres, while being increasingly common in the U.S. still make up only a small percentage of the total annual blood toll our gun culture charges. At best, suggestions that we arm everyone would decrease the number of guns massacres while increasing the number of routine assaults which would naturally up the death toll.

But what about Switzerland and Israel?

Ezra Klein: Israel and Switzerland are often mentioned as countries that prove that high rates of gun ownership don’t necessarily lead to high rates of gun crime. In fact, I wrote that on Friday. But you say your research shows that’s not true.

Janet Rosenbaum: First of all, because they don’t have high levels of gun ownership. The gun ownership in Israel and Switzerland has decreased.

For instance, in Israel, they’re very limited in who is able to own a gun. There are only a few tens of thousands of legal guns in Israel, and the only people allowed to own them legally live in the settlements, do business in the settlements, or are in professions at risk of violence.

Both countries require you to have a reason to have a gun. There isn’t this idea that you have a right to a gun. You need a reason. And then you need to go back to the permitting authority every six months or so to assure them the reason is still valid.

The second thing is that there’s this widespread misunderstanding that Israel and Switzerland promote gun ownership. They don’t. Ten years ago, when Israel had the outbreak of violence, there was an expansion of gun ownership, but only to people above a certain rank in the military. There was no sense that having ordinary citizens [carry guns] would make anything safer.

Switzerland has also been moving away from having widespread guns. The laws are done canton by canton, which is like a province. Everyone in Switzerland serves in the army, and the cantons used to let you have the guns at home. They’ve been moving to keeping the guns in depots. That means they’re not in the household, which makes sense because the literature shows us that if the gun is in the household, the risk goes up for everyone in the household.

The line holds and the ceremony of innocence lives another day

The Surpreme Court  decision on universal health care was a frightening near thing. Four justices voted to find the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional and appear to be preparing a judicial assault against the New Deal. Chief Justice Roberts decision stepped us back from the brink of a Supreme Court legitimacy crisis, a change made perhaps at the last minute, although still a decision that will complicate future efforts to improve national programs that are implemented through the states.

The battle now proceeds to the election. This will be a hard one, thanks to difficult worldwide conditions and successful obstructionism by Republicans in Congress since the beginning of the crisis, economic recovery is slow in coming. As Dan Drezner notes, the U.S. is performing above par internationally, but the average American voter doesn't grade on a curve. I have no special insight into how to win that election so instead I"ll look at the topic of how did we win this round?

To answer that question, I turn to Will Wilkerson, a libertarian with liberal sympathies, who seems scornful of the win in a way that strikes me as informative:

Mr Roberts observed the livid reaction to Citizens United, as well as the liberal freak-out over the mere possibility of a ruling striking down Obamacare, and determined that prudent custodianship of the court called for a light, conciliatory touch. Indeed, my hunch (and none shall doubt my amazing intuition!) is that Mr Roberts may well have chosen to join his conservative colleagues had the court not lost so much public goodwill following the Citizens United decision…

Thus, all that was required to avert a looming "crisis of legitimacy" was to uphold Obamacare, for whatever reason, and Mr Roberts seemed to have known it. Mr Chait and his partisan allies clearly dislike the way in which Mr Roberts avoided the "crisis" of their collective tantrum, but the great relief that has now washed over them will be enough to keep them from attacking with full force the "bizarre and implausibly narrow reading" of the commerce clause which Mr Roberts just embedded more firmly in constitutional law.

This is a tradeoff I will gladly take. Achieving universal healthcare is no mere battle in building a more humane, it is the war. As Kevin Drum argues, the distinction between activity and inactivity never came up before and is unlikely to come up again. The practical result is that we will have to call things taxes in the future, scary I know, but the present Democratic party aversion to ever using taxes is on any but the top 1% was already unsustainable. We may yet lose the election, but Roberts had the votes to end it here and now via what James Fallows called a slow motion coup and he choose not to. We are a better country for that and we are a better country because liberal politicians and pundits were taking Michael Tomasky's fine advice and preparing to come out swinging. As Wilkerson notes, this wasn't a one off preparation either, the vehement reaction against Citizens United may not be enough to  overcome the effect of big  money donors but it did better prepare us  for this fight.

In some ways, this recalls the bully  pulpit strategy of presidential leadership: appeal to the public to move popular opinion and pressure members of the legislature. Political science has not found support for that idea. However, in part because supporters are defending an existing law rather than trying to institute change via the court, vehement arguments seem to have helped win the day. I'll keep an eye out for any further research on this matter, as I expect the minority mentioned above will be back for future attempts to roll back the welfare state.

Usual caveat: Speaking for myself, not my employer.

Legend of Korra continues Avatar's tradition of excellent antagonists

Sympathetic antagonists are one of my favorite things in fiction, if for no other reasons then that they add variety to the stories. If the enemy is nihilist or totalitarian evil then their degree of success is just a matter of how dark the pieces is. However, if the threat actually has a sympathetic cause, in this case standing up for ordinary people in a city largely run by those with special bending abilities, then it is far from clear how things will shake out.

I don't want to get into too much speculation at this point. Let me just say instead that if you were a fan of the first series be sure to check out Legend of Korra. This is particularly easy because the episodes are available, with commercials, for free online. Coming in without having seen the first series won't tell you as much about the world and will indirectly spoil some things about the ending. However, if you don't have an easy means to get a hold of it then I'd say that the core plotline should be perfectly enjoyable and the 70 year time skip means that the world in question is a very different one.

Last Train Home

I've been stockpiling these for a while. Some probably merit their own blog posts, but my new years resolution for this year was 'no more backlogs.'

• Sara Robinson argues that we need to return to the 40 hour-week. Yes, techies too. She cites research that notes that we first adopted the forty hour limits for a mix of worker rights and productivity reasons. As a side note, I think it might make sense to extend the school day. However, teacher workloads and student homework assignments should be adjusted accordingly.
• Mike Mitchell cites great artistic advice from Ira Glass. The short version is that when you start on any artistic project your ambitions won't match your taste. However, by completing many projects you can start to close the gap.
• Fredrik DeBoer clips a bloggingheads.tv between Aaron Brady and Mike Konzcal arguing for keeping public universities public. This was in the context of the police crackdown against the occupy movement at UC Davis. This applied to a question at a Purple Line event this past year at the University of Maryland Campus. One of the student reporters had asked whether having the light rail on campus would allow non-students to access the campus at night (there's restrictions on those driving, but not walking, in). Fears about campus crime are not illegitimate, although there are real differences between having a car and coming in via transit such that at very least there's a transit driver that would likely see the riders. With that caveat out of the way, the question failed to recognize that public university campuses aren't a gated community, they are to serve the public.

This blog opposes the Stop Online Piracy Act

 

For reasons why, look to Ezra Klein's interview with Sen. Ron Wyden. The whole interview is worth reading, but here are key excerpts:

EK: What makes PIPA and SOPA cluster bombs? If you agree there is a problem, why aren’t these acceptable solutions?

RW: PIPA and SOPA, at their heart, are censorship bills and blacklisting bills, and they undermine much of the architecture of the internet…  What the bills do is say, when you get a court order, you can’t use the domain-name system to resolve to the IP address.

EK; When you say “resolve to the IP address,” exactly what that means. Let’s say I run EzraTube.com. And someone has uploaded copyrighted content to my site. What happens next?

RW: When you type EzraTube.com into your browser, your browser is asking Comcast to ask other servers where that goes. These servers basically act as phonebooks. What the so-called “DNS remedy” in the bill does is enable the attorney general to get a court order that tells Comcast, ‘when people want to find EzraTube.com, don’t send them there. Send them to a Department of Justice site instead.’ People who want to work around this would be able to. There are already third-party tools that use foreign servers or other domain-name servers outside of Comcast’s network. But that’s a problem because, for the last 15 years, we’ve spent all this time building the DNS system into a secure standard…

EK: As I understand it, another element of these bills is that they would move the burden of policing content to the Web sites themselves. Right now, YouTube, if alerted to pirated content, needs to get it down. Under SOPA and PIPA, YouTube would be responsible for making sure it never goes up in the first place, and liable if they missed a video.

RW: You are describing what I call the “turn Web sites into Web cops” provision. This is a provision that has raised concern about what this is going to mean for innovation. If you’re a small Web site trying to get off the ground and you look at that provision, you put people through this kind of legal burden, which will mean a significant amount of money for anyone trying something new, it will do a lot of damage to innovation. That’s one reason the venture capital folks are speaking out.

[Update: Now's a good day to contact your member of Congress. Probably no need to send more than a polite sentence or two or use a form letter, I'm guessing numbers matter more than the specific message at this point. In Maryland, Sen. Cardin at least seems to be responding to SOPA/PIPA concerns.]

Programming note: Since this is a typepad blog and not a wordpress one, I don't see a quick and easy way to down it entirely [and frankly my readership is relatively small so I'm focusing on a call to action rather than get the tech right.]. So this post is my means of solidarity.

What’s an anti-interventionist liberal’s alternative to Paul?

Over at L'Hôte, Freddie argues that the argument over Rep. Ron Paul’s weaknesses has been used as a distraction from the larger critique of American interventions. Robert Farley pushes back some on the specific Indonesian example Freddie raises. While I’m generally anti-occupation I’m not an anti-interventionist, but I think it’s important to keep them part of the discussion.

I’d first like to note a point of disagreement with the post.

Left wing politicians like Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich have embraced discussion of foreign policy and civil liberties, and for their trouble they have been dismissed as unserious by the self-same progressives who now dismiss Ron Paul's ideas…

I do think Rep. Kucinich does tend to be dismissed, but I don't think discussing Sen. Sanders (no relation) is taboo. Ezra Klein interviewed him in August of 2011. Admittedly Klein interviews many politicians, but in May of 2011 he posted video of Sen. Sanders smacking down Sen. Rand Paul. In June of 2011 Klein argued that the moderation of Sen. Sanders proposals, compared to Republican extremism, shows that the national debate is imbalanced. The Senator from Vermont appears to appreciate Klein's work and cited him from the floor of the Senate in June(Source: Fishbowl D.C.). Now that’s just Ezra Klein and is in a domestic context, so perhaps the specific objection is that Sen. Sanders foreign policy views aren’t really discussed.

That objection aside, the question Freddie raises at the end is well worth addressing:

I want those who profess belief in liberalism and egalitarianism to recognize that they are failing those principles every time they ignore our conduct overseas, or ridicule those who criticize it. What I will settle for is an answer to the question: what would they have us do? If you can't find it in you to accept our premises, at least consider what you would do if you did. For those of us who oppose our country's destructive behavior, there is no place to turn that does not result in ridicule…

I think the solution is primary challenges for members of Congress. Matt Yglesias and Freddie have disagreed about this point before but I think the key argument for congressional challenges is that they have a proven track record. The various conservative groups that now make up the Tea Party make regular use of primary challenges and have been rewarded with increasing ideological consistency in Republican Party.

This isn’t to say they haven’t overreached and cost the Republican party seats, it’s a tactic with clear limits. However, I think the experience on the Republican side, see the 1992 election, also indicates that Congressional challenges are far less likely to backfire than Presidential ones. Working on getting state government elected officials is generally a good idea but obviously isn’t that helpful for shifting foreign policy.

I think clear and enforceable red lines are another fairly effective technique. This means picking certain issues where disagreeing with your group means denial of funding or even actively supporting a replacement candidate. Part of the reason there’s such strong pushback against Rep. Paul is that he impressively manages to violate the redlines of almost every member of the liberal coalition. In the 2008 election, I’d say the anti-interventionist made fairly effective use of support for the Iraq war as a redline issue which is part of what got President Obama the nomination. I think that electoral effort deserves part of the credit for the fact that we’re did comply with our treaties and withdrawal the U.S. military (if not contractors) from Iraq.

This is actually an area where a fair amount of popular support is potentially available as both the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan lost popular support well before they lost elite support. Dan Drezner has argued that realism rather than liberal internationalism has more support among the American populace. To be sure, realism is not primarily concerned with preventing U.S. complicity in overseas violence but it is fairly consistently anti-interventionist in a way that does check liberal and neocon hawkery. I’d advise finding one or two policy statements that have support from a strong majority or vehement plurality in a fair number of states or Congressional districts. The anti-war movement probably doesn’t have the clout to raise their own challengers, but such criteria, if publicly applied, could help leverage existing resources by targeting them all at one race.

I think it would also be fair to withhold funding from any candidates, including President Obama, that violate your redlines. While I do have some strong objections to some of President Obama’s actions on civil liberties and foreign policy, I’m still willing to donate to him. However, I think redirecting donations of time or money away from a sitting Presidential candidate, even in a tough race, is a perfectly valid tactic for anti-interventionists. We all have to pick priorities.

Impressions: In the Loop

Perhaps surprisingly, satire isn't really my genre. Nonetheless, I did enjoy In the Loop, a film take on the British series In the Thick of It, which I still have yet to see and really should.

The film covers the period of the lead-in to the Iraq War and thus unsurprisingly depicts a steady series of failures of politics. There's a fair range of personalities, none of whom cover themselves in glory, but who generally manage to ring true. The film also has an interesting comparative politics angle, as it looks at executive branch politics on the U.S. side while looking at the parliamentary politics angle on the British side.

Perhaps one of the better uses of the film is to better prepare ambitious naïfs to as to what they might be getting into. The title gets to the core challenge: staying in the loop, particularly if your tradecraft needs work, has high costs. The petty compromises the characters fall prey to are far more pervasive than even the commonly-depicted adulterous affairs of candidates, let alone the overly complex conspiracy theories of most political thrillers.

On the downside, the film certainly did not leave my wife feeling favorably inclined to my field of study or industry, but again, it's a film about the lead-up to the Iraq War; we know how that one turns out.

Happy Independence Day

I've seen a few comics commenting on the oddity of the date, putting it at the start of the war and noting that it was still a premise and not a realized concept as of July 4th, 1776. I think the former is wrong, as the war had already started by the time of the declaration. The latter misses the point for humorous effect. The success of the Revolutionary war was critical for the U.S., of course. However, it was the principles of the Declaration of Independence, a document that was addressed to a global audience and that has proven a template for subsequent revolutions, that was truly important. While not flawless, I would even say that it would be the founding document most worth of celebration in its original form.

Now, for a song selection inspired by the Capital 4th fireworks tonight. Sadly the Takoma Park ones I'd meant to attend were scuttled by light rain.

Finally, happy second anniversary, Kate.

Passing through Tahrir Square 2011-04-17

Our trip to the Egyptian Museum took us through Tahrir Square twice, due to confusion about which entrance to use. The boundaries were a bit ambiguous: square is more of a figurative term, it is quite active, and there's multiple entrances. That final attribute and its centrality made it a hard-to-cordon-off gathering place. There were also any number of large buildings bordering the area which provide easy roosts for cameras and snipers.

However, that Sunday, it just seemed to be the  vital center for the city's infrastructure, under construction but not revolutionary. As the news accounts have covered, the big protest day was Friday, which corresponds with Islamic services and, as a result, the main day off in Egypt. The prior week's protest had been preempted by the arrest of Mubarak, and I'm told that later this week the long standing and long hated emergency law was finally lifted. I don't know the status of the remaining political prisoners, since I've actually been catching less Egyptian news here than when I was home, but I suspect this should be a fairly effective sign of progress toward a more stable society.

The main exception to a typical city center square was the building that ha been the former home of Mubarak's National Democratic Party which went up in flames after the revolution started. Last I heard, there hasn't been any attribution of responsibility on that one, although the popular theory is that it was self-inflicted to destroy records. I've got no particular insight on that score, but I am rather curious what will happen to the building. It borders the Nile and is visible from the square, an it is obviously on a prime piece of real estate. I suspect whatever happens with the building, it will be a symbol of the larger fortunes of the party. Supposedly, this party has more of a chance in the upcoming elections as they're to be held in only six months.  With the exception of the Muslim Brotherhood, no other group has existing campaign infrastructure. However, that doesn't accord with what I've heard from some of the locals.

Underway to Egypt [2011-04-15/16]

As I write this our Egyptian Air flight is passing south of Barrington en route to Cairo. I'd flown up to JFK, which had a nicer terminal than I expected and an unusual system of check-in desks at terminal four that seemed geared handling large numbers of passengers and easy reassignment of airline slots. As expected, I had to leave and re-enter through security which seems unnecessary but I did enjoy riding the air train between the terminals.

I believe I've managed to pack everything I need, about twenty-five pounds worth in my main bag and fifteen in my backpack, a good portion of that being my laptop. I would have liked to have done a more research on Egypt prior to the trip, although my obsessive following of the recent revolution means I know a reasonable amount about the present situation.

Reading the complimentary copy of the Daily News Egypt does bring home Egypt's status as a country that recently went through a revolution. In the day's news: eight of twenty six governors were fired, former President Mubarak remains detained for questioning despite claims of health issues, the treatment of 35 detained protesters is debated and a range of tycoons and former government leaders find their financial dealings investigated or their ability to leave the country denied. Critically though, it's a state more thrilling than frightening, the future is still unclear but disputes are of critical importance but appear to be handled through political and judicial venues. There's still much to be settled, but there's always something cheering about legal consequences for those once above the law.

While it's doubtless provincial to say so, I'm still impressed by international flights. The Spartan outlook of Southwest, my domestic carrier of choice, means that the TV screens, meals, and excellent features like under-seat outlets still strike me as extraordinary. We got a nice bag of freebies including a practical items like a toothbrush and toothpaste and a sleep mask, the ever popular standby of cheap headphones, and, to my surprise, a set of socks. There's also an under seat Ethernet plug but I have no idea if it's active, I'm told by a friend that I have a shot at wifi on my Lufthansa flight home but for  now I'd say Egyptair has treated me rather well. Now I should probably get some sleep, as at this point it's 4:12 am Cairo time.

[Update: Marriage Equality won't pass this year.]

The debate is on now. Maryland has a website with live proceedings (apparently you need real player for that). Maryland politics watch is live blogging the debate. [Wagner reported last night that the House was still a few votes shy of the 71 needed of passage.]

Theoretically they could end up working out a different compromise, but obviously this would be a huge blow to the momentum. If you want to call or email, here's the info. Here's a set of links to the Maryland Politics watch page on how people voted on amendments. At this point, any messages should probably have the dual purpose of encouraging voting on the final bill and not giving up if this one doesn't make it through. Setbacks can become defeats to easily.

[Update: The bill has been remanded to committee. I'll close off with an excerpt from Del. Heather Mizeur's speech as transcribed over at Maryland Politics Watch:

"425 rights and protections come with a marriage license." Discussing medical decisions in a hospital, riding in an ambulance and other very personal matters. That's all we're asking is to protect our relationships and our commitment."

"Even if this bill doesn't pass, my wife and I will still be married whether [or not] you choose to protect us from tragedy."

"You can't stop us from loving each other. You can't stop us from pledging our love in from of God and each other. All you can do is make it worse for us in challenging times when life throws you curve balls."

"What we're asking for is equal protection under the law."
"Choose love."]

John Wagner calls it for the year:

The Maryland House of Delegates has voted to effectively kill for this year a bill that would have allowed same-sex marriage in the state.

[Update: Trimmed gratuitous number of updates.]

Could the Rifftrax model work for television shows that are purged of their original music?

Freddie over at L'Hôte raises an issue that I've heard of before, even if I haven't encountered it much:

I have recently fallen deeply in love with the British original series Skins, or at least, the first two seasons. (The show goes through different generations every two seasons, which is an admirable alternative to standard Saved by the Bell bullshit where people are in high school for a decade; I just don't know if I can watch different characters... too attached to the originals.) Anyway, this is a show that really needs the music it has in general, but most importantly, there is a use of a song at the very end of the first season that is so brilliant and unexpected and it's apparently just completely purged from the DVDs. Which is just not right.

He's aware of the bit torrent alternative, but prefers not to pirate. This reminds me of the problem encountered by Mystery Science Theater 3k. That classic parody show got the rights to old terrible films and then brutally mocked them. The trouble was, once the DVD era came out the license rights to old films went way up as suddenly reselling them was more of a possibility. The Rifftrax solution to this was to sell a soundtrack that could accompany a popular film that the viewer would buy separately. Thus it became possible to riff on films whose rights they could never afford, because the end-user was the one that did the combining.

I wonder if this could work with DVDs, particularly ones watched on the computer. The shows could provide an alternate soundtrack, sans music, and if  do some virtual DJing to play the relevant music off of the users computer or a separately purchasable soundtrack if they so desired. They're often songs we own anyways in this age of digital music. I suspect, in practice, we aren't yet to the point where it's really practical. I haven't watched that many films at home of late, but even, to my chagrin, I think I've only done one Rifftrax. However, in the long term, that may be a way to finesse this problem within the law. I think most artists are strongly motivated to have their work disseminated in their preferred form, so even if this isn't a solution that would be widely used, it could meet a need for both the viewer and the artist. Alternately, distribution mechanisms like i-tunes could offer two versions of episodes and do the license management on the seller end. It sounds like paying an extra buck to get the original unbowlderized version would be well worth it in this case.

[Update: In theory at least, electronic media provides a range of options for putting the means of production in the hands of the average person, allowing this sort of craziness. In practice, I think the ease of piracy may end up precluding this as a means of remixing existing content. Even if you're wiling to pay, it's easier to just do the illegal thing than to do it right. However, ultimately, music producers are pricing themselves out of a market here so in theory there should be some sort of deal to be made. Back on the first hand, the recent history of copyright doesn't give me much hope as making reasonable deals hasn't been high on the agenda.]

[Second update: A typo fixed.]

Review: Adjustment Bureau

The premise of the Adjustment Bureau is remarkable yet straightforward: a Senate candidate played by Matt Damon meets the potential love of his life played by Emily Blunt, only to be kept separate from her by a group of mysterious hat wearing men trying to keep things according to plan. I'd say the film is smart but not especially deep.

I think the film really works first and foremost because it actually takes the time to develop the characters of the Adjustment Bureau. Bland men in black would be an easy choice, as would scenery chewing, but instead Anthony Mackie, John Slattey, and Terence Stamp play subtle characters with distinct outlooks that are just trying to do their jobs. Similarly the rest of the supporting cast often exhibits more character than you see in primary antagonists in other films. Damon's Senator is quite a distinct character and his love interest Elise has enough depth to avoid the manic pixie dream girl problem. However, for me it was the Bureau that really enamored the film to me.

There were also many funny moments. In some ways, large portions of the film were really a romantic comedy. As with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, there are genuine forces rather than plot-driven idiocy keeping the main characters apart. That intelligence, also shown in how the film plays around with its rules, allows for a fair amount of subtle humor and keeps us sympathetic to the drive of the main characters.

I don't think the film actually says that much about free will, but that's no surprise coming from me. However, I do think it is an interesting meditation on choosing a life in politics, authenticity, chasing greatness, and the opportunity cost of the big choices we make in life. The aspiring senator's political aspirations are fairly content-free, although that's part of the point. To some extent the public, and I definitely include myself and other wonks in that, may play the role of an Adjustment Bureau trying to build our perfect candidate at potentially great cost to themselves. I wonder to what extent that element resonates in countries that don't have a presidential political system.

How to support the same sex marriage bill in Maryland

The news is a bit better than Tuesday, from what I've heard from informed sources, the Speaker of the House of Delegates is now fully engaged and the bill should be able to get out of committee. The Governor has similarly again said he will sign the bill and called on the House of Delegates to pass it. However, that there will also be a floor fight which means that getting additional support from anywhere in Maryland will be valuable. If you want to help get the bill passed, today (Friday) really is the day to call/email and even better to ecnourage others to do so.

How to contact (A repeat from my past post):

Equality Maryland has website that gives call in information for your Delegate (the email option is relevant to the civil marriage bill as well as an anti-discrimination act) they also have one that calls your phone, connects you directly, and gives you a script, but I tend to prefer old fashion calling.  If you don't want to call, the email option is pretty dang easy and gives you a pre-written one. If you prefer going through the Maryland ACLU they also have an email option setup  to allow for quick action.

What to expect when calling/emailing:

There's a big mobilization, so many of the delegates are just letting phone calls go to message. That doesn't man you aren't heard by any means. Doing both phone and email probably puts the most emphasis, but even email does help if you're more comfortable with that. Some Delegates are rather cool about being contacted: one of my own, Delegate James Malone gave a very supportive response and seemed very happy to hear from his constituents. He'll definitely have my support in the future and he has my thanks now, particularly as he'll also be supporting the anti-discrimination bill.

Advice for contacting:

It's best to be polite. People have been known to be switch sides because they don't like to be harassed. Also, specify where you live, as delegates care a lot about people in their own district. The email links above give you a starting email, some alteration at the top, saying why you personally care, results in a more effective argument. That said, I wouldn't agonize over it, these are probably going to be skim so individualize and then send is probably the best way to go.

High value targets:

Apparently Del. Arora will be voting to get the bill out of committee but may be voting no on the floor. So further contacts from District 19 in Montgomery (which goes from south of White Oak to North of Glenmont, check http://mdelect.net/ to be sure about your district. Del. Alston from Prince George's District 24 is probably another good target as she's now talking about only giving civil unions and to be frank this is Maryland, we're one of the more liberal states in the union, second class citizenship for gays and lesbians isn't good enough. [Update: Del. Alston said in an interview with Petula Dvorak that she'd support a switch to  civil unions for everyone, getting the state out of the marriage business. That's a fine compromise but we're rather late in the game for that. This was really a discussion for back when she was co-sponsoring the bill.]. If you've got any friends and family in these areas, or just in a district where you aren't certain of yes votes, convincing them to call in can multiply your leverage on this issue. The House of Delegates is one of the easier bodies for citizens to influence as there's a fair number of members and they don't hear as much from constituents on these kind of issues. Try passing on some of the contact links above to make it as easy as possible but if they prefer to not go through an advocacy group you can always get the info from the House of Delegates website.

Arguments to use:

Maryland politics watch  has a good number as does Equality Maryland. Personal experience carries a lot of wait, especially when convincing other people you know, although obviously you know parents, relative, and friends better than I do. This issue has such momentum as when people get to know gays and lesbians in committed relationships much of the fear mongering just falls away. If you want to make a straight pragmatic episode you can argue to Democrats (and only Democrats), that defying the Speaker and the Governor is probably not the best way to go when it comes to securing other services for their constituents. Similarly, we're already recognizing same sex marriages from other jurisdictions, so there's the economic argument of wanting the money from the marriage-industrial complex to stay in Maryland rather than hopping the border to D.C.

[Update: Saw in an interview that Del. Alston is up for supporting civil unions for everyone, which is just fine, but we're probably too late in the process to make that switch without losing all momentum. But I wanted to properly reflect her position.]

Marriage equality needs calls from Marylanders living in Baltimore, P.G., and Montgomery

Apparently, from someone in the know, getting the bill out of committee in the House of Delegates is going to be harder than expected.

I'm in Howard, so I'm not as key at the moment but I'm calling in. [Update: I'm told that calling Del. Arora in District 19 may be particularly of use, if you live in that district.]

Equality Maryland has website that gives call in information for your Delegate (the email option is relevant to the civil marriage bill as well as an anti-discrimination act) they also have one that calls your phone, connects you directly, and gives you a script, but I tend to prefer old fashion calling.  If you don't want to call, the email option is pretty dang easy and gives you a pre-written one. If you prefer going through the Maryland ACLU they also have an email option setup  to allow for quick action.

It definitely angers me that we have to keep fighting this battle. But that's energy worth channeling into action. Gays and lesbians are people too, they can and do act as parents, and for those that want the full commitment their relationships deserves the acknowledgement of marriage as much as mine does.

[Update: I've called my two delegates. Went to answering machine in both cases. I left a message with my address (which is apparently important for establishing yourself as a constituent, hoping that they'd vote for the Civil Marriage Protection act and giving my own personal anecdote. Probably best to have something in mind like that before calling.]

Multi-member House districts alone won't reduce polarization

Yglesias cites research to knock down the idea that open primaries would get rid of polarization:

Primary challenges are rare, and turnout in primaries is low. Those reasons, it seems to me, explain why primary system dynamics in practice have few consequences for political outcomes. I think the reform that anti-polarizers are looking for is multiple member House constituencies so that we’d have one or two Republicans from New York City, a smallish block of white southern Democrats, a conservative Mexican-American from Texas, etc. Then I think you might find that voting patterns became a bit less systematically correlated.

However, he misses something big. Multi-member alone doesn't do it, you also need a voting system that doesn't work off a simple plurality vote. As the thesis of Flores over at Fair Vote notes:

Simply put, multimember districts, even when fairly drawn, can still dilute minority voting strength. This is due to the fact that a bare plurality could potentially determine the gamut of Representatives for the region, gaining a disproportionate share of political power. Minorities may once again be left without representation, especially when their interests differ sharply from the majority. Therefore, multimember systems can be strikingly similar to at-large elections, as both share the same unsatisfactory sweep tendency.

In the past, Yglesias had correctly noted that single-transferable vote would do the job. The tranferable vote makes it safer to vote for your preferred candidate by transfering your vote to a second-best option if your ideal candidate loses in early rounds; similarly 'excess' votes for candidates elected in early rounds can be transferred. And here I will add a slight caveat to the title, single transferable vote isn't the only way to go proportional, it's just a solid proven method.

For a practical example, look at Maryland's House of Delegates, which elects candidates in three member districts. However, Maryland generally uses  block voting which "is not a system for obtaining proportional representation; instead, the usual result is that the largest single group wins every seat by electing a slate of candidates, resulting in a landslide." Under a proportional system Maryland's House of Delegates would probably have more Republicans elected from the Democratic strongholds and I suspect we'd also see more realistic challenges to the Democratic party from the third parties to the left. [The third party element would add a wild card in terms of polarization, however since we're still talking about districts the system would still have a noteable cut off in terms of popular support needed to get more than a handful of seats unless they were organized on a regional basis. An actual Tea Partybased in the south east might happen, but in turn politicians like Indiana's Sen. Lugar would have an easier time of it in the rest of the country.]

Progress in the battle for Marriage equality in Maryland

My go to source has been Equality Maryland and Maryland Politics Watch. I'm a bit late to the party, but the news on Thursday was excellent:

Sen. Jim Rosapepe became the latest senator to commit to vote for marriage equality when the issue comes before the Maryland Senate. Counting Sen. Rosapepe, the bill now has 24 or 25 votes in the Senate depending on how one counts Sen. Joan Carter Conway with only one senator not yet publicly committed. In short, it should now have the votes needed to pass the Maryland Senate.

Maryland has been on a roll on this issue since Attorney General Gansler ruled that the state would recognize same sex marriages from other states. He's continued to speak out on the issue and in the last election, despite threats to the contrary, he didn't even have a primary or general election challenger.

While we're hardly the first state to take this step, I am still quite proud of Maryland and am glad by the strong support from Montgomery County that includes a variety of Chevy Chase officials that I'm more used to disagreeing with on Purple Line issues.

Beyond the point of no return in Egypt

From what I'm reading from a range of sources, mostly Twitter, it sounds as if the security situation has deteriorated in Egypt with many blaming the former security services for the looting. U.S. citizens are being offered evacuation. From David Kirkpatrick and Alan Cowell's reporting for the NY Times, it sounds like a crackdown order is coming:

But the soldiers refused protesters’ pleas to open fire on the security police. And the police battered the protesters with tear gas, shotguns and rubber bullets. Everywhere in Cairo, soldiers and protesters hugged or snapped pictures together on top of military tanks. With the soldiers’ consent, protesters scrawled graffiti denouncing Mr. Mubarak on many of the tanks. “This is the revolution of all the people,” read a common slogan. “No, no, Mubarak” was another.

By Saturday night, informal brigades of mostly young men armed with bats, kitchen knives and other makeshift weapons had taken control, setting up checkpoints around the city.

Some speculated that the sudden withdrawal of the police from the cities — even some museums and embassies in Cairo were left unguarded — was intended to create chaos that could justify a crackdown.

If enough of the Army cooperates, Mubarak could still get control of the situation. However, it would be a discredited regime that emerged from the rubble. We're now seeing an Egyptian population that is willing to stand up and choose its own destiny. I think John Quiggin is right in that we are seeing the end to the Arab exception [which treats Arabic nations as unready for democracy], although the oil rich emirates can probably buy their people off for some time to come. Yglesias highlights the key point (emphasis Yglesias):

The point applies most obviously in relation to oil. The idea that the US can legitimately use its military power to ensure continued access to oil resources rests, in large measure, on the (not entirely unfounded) assumption that those controlling the resources are a bunch of sheikhs and military adventurers who happened to be in the right place, with guns, at the right time. Without the Arab exception, the idea of oil as a special case, not subject to the ordinary assumption that resources are the property of the people in whose country they are found, will also be hard to sustain.

It is time to say that we will not support a regime that engages in a brutal crackdown and that free and fair elections are the only soft landing available. More important, it's time to call in the chips we have with the military to increase the odds that a crackdown order is not obeyed. The removal of the police forces made this a double or nothing situation; martial law without security services will likely prove reminiscent of the Tiananmen square massacre where police forces were similarly inadequate or unavailable.

[Minor grammar edits and a clarification on the term "Arab exception."]

Start reforming the filibuster

In an attempt to repair the broken Senate, Sens. Tom Harkin, Tom Udall, and Jeff Merkley are proposing a package of modest filibuster reforms that could be past by majority vote at the start of the session. Here's Ezra Klein summarizing the details:

But before we get into what might change, let's say what won't change: The 60-vote requirement to break a filibuster won't change. The right to unlimited debate, to speak until your knees buckle and your voice gives out, won't change. In reality, the rights of the minority won't change at all. In some ways, they'll even be increased.

Here's how the filibuster would change: Motions to proceed can't be filibustered because to do so is filibustering the debate itself. Filibusters themselves have to feature continuous debate and discussion. After a filibuster against a nomination is broken, there will be only two hours of post-cloture debate, as opposed to 30 hours, because nominations don't have amendments that need to be debated.

And there are changes to the Senate rules more broadly, too. Holds can no longer be secret, and the minority gets the right to offer at least three germane amendments on every bill (which addresses the Republican complaint that they are often denied the opportunity to offer amendments)

In essence, these would greatly accelerate the business of the Senate. This could make viable strategies such as forcing the other side to do a genuine filibuster as well as free up time towards any number of governing tasks. Put simply, being a legislature for a country of more than 300 million people is hard work and takes time to do right.

Both Klein and Ruth Marcus note that this may just prove to be the first shot in a set of filibuster changes. Marcus tries to spin this into a horror tale. My comments added in brackets:

Imagine the start of the 113th Congress in January 2013. House Speaker John Boehner's first act, once again, is to repeal what he calls "Obamacare." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, invoking the Udall precedent, moves to change the rules to eliminate the filibuster, and his caucus - over howls from the Democratic minority - agrees. The Republican Senate then votes to repeal the health-care bill, which is promptly signed . . . by President Palin. [This is generally called democracy. Matt Miller can explain more.]

…The filibuster could end up being a useful Democratic tool to block legislation that passes the Republican-controlled House and could, with a few Democratic defections, garner a bare majority in the Senate. [There's this thing called a veto. In addition, rules making is about the long game not the present circumstance.]

…But one little-noticed aspect of the Udall plan is that, as part of eliminating the filibuster on the motion to begin debate, it would guarantee Republicans more opportunity to offer amendments. Sounds fair - except that in practice more amendments translate into more chances to force endangered Democratic senators to take unpleasant votes. In short: more fodder for 30-second campaign ads. [Protecting seats is not a higher priority than implementing good policy. If the Democratic Congress could have done more to improve the economy, that would have swamped the impact of whatever ads the Republicans wanted to run.]

This filibuster fight is about whether we want our country to have a functioning legislative branch again. The new era may be scary but ultimately we have to have confidence in our policies. The last ten years have exposed a broken system, an executive branch that reserves the right to detain off the battlefield without charge, assassinate American citizens, and torture without threat of accountability, and the last two years have shown that it is barely possible to govern this country with a supermajority. As Miller argues, if we do not move towards a majority-rule system now we can see our future in California, budget crisis after budget crisis while no party has the tools necessary to fix things.

“We are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true.”

Unlike that dark day of January, when for a moment just duplicating the Senate bill or passing a new bill through reconciliation seemed like an unlikely best hope, the strategy that emerged of the House passing the Senate bill and fixing it in reconciliation has brought us to the very brink of victory. My Representative supports it so at this point I’m just making a few donations for the final push.

Speaker Pelosi had been my last hope and according to Carrie Budoff Brown and Glenn Thrush in Politico, my faith was vindicated (article via @brianbeutler). This isn’t to say there’s been no mistakes, or even no unforced errors, but by God they’re trying and that’s all I can ask. I’d been worried by the initial summary of Obama’s summit strategy but it appears my assessment after being calmed by friends was correct and the tactic worked. I have to say, I had been disappointed by some of Obama’s choices, but he has re-earned my faith and based on his actions and speeches like the one below has led me to believe he’s found his footing on domestic issues in a way he hadn’t even back during the campaign.

Here’s the text of his speech via Ezra Klein (video from @ebertchicago). I’ll just quote the excerpt I put in the post title:

I have the great pleasure of having a really nice library at the White House. And I was tooling through some of the writings of some previous Presidents and I came upon this quote by Abraham Lincoln: “I am not bound to win, but I’m bound to be true. I’m not bound to succeed, but I’m bound to live up to what light I have.”

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Thank you leaders, that’s all I can ask for.

If you’re looking for where to follow the news tomorrow, Twitter is actually very useful for this purpose I find, my top sources: @brianbeutler, @fivethirtyeight, @jeffreyyoung_hc, @jcohntnr, and @ezraklein are the ones to watch.

[As a final note, I do strongly believe that if we win here, as the President says, good policy is good politics. Dana Milbank does a good job of summarizing why.  Given the economy, we’re likely to take some losses in 2010, but the voters will fight to protect the right to health care once they’ve had the chance to enjoy it.]

Ironic that the lunar bombing happens on the day our President gets a Nobel peace prize

I am actually pretty excited about the moon thing.  I hope we do find some good water sources.  The best take I’ve read so far is from Dan Drezner who I don’t always agree with but I think manages to be the funniest top-tier international relations analyst.  Here’s the start:

CHAIR:  Guys?  Guys!!  It's 2 AM and we've got an award to give later today!  What are we gonna do?    We can't use Jimmy Carter again -- he was our emergency winner the last time we were stumped!  If we don't do this right, we'll have less cedibility than the Grammys!!

MEMBER A (clearly drunk):  Hey, why not Neil Patrick Harris?  For bringing peace to.... umm.....  Hollywood awards shows?! 

Neil Patrick Harris does in fact do excellent work.  I’m also left wondering who Kanye West thinks should have gotten the Nobel.

More seriously, I do tend to agree with Ackerman that he’s got to accept it as a commitment to the destination.  Just be real humble in the speech and donate the money somewhere.

Well played gonzo conservatives

Conor Friedersdorf has been doing a good job taking on some of the crazies on the right, and I’ve greatly enjoyed sharing some of his American Scene entries for that reason.  As a result, I think it’s only fair to link to his Daily Beast piece in which he gives props to James O’Keefe, the guy who took all those Acorn videos and now slowly dribbles them out (the title’s overwrought unfortunately, O’Keefe is no Bob Woodward).  The praise does have a valid caveat:

But it would be folly for news organizations to ignore this story out of pettiness or snobbery. Though everyone involved in producing the ACORN expose had ideological ends, they used journalistic means to achieve them—in fact, hyperpartisan impulses that produce muckraking scoops are the rare variety that should be celebrated. Who cares whether a reporter or an activist happened to do the reporting? Everyone benefits when indefensible deeds are accurately exposed and the perpetrators made accountable…

He added, "But I also know how my journalist friends are going to react. And so my advice to James is this: You can put this thing out your way, but you should also offer the full audio and full transcript so that people can hear and see them in their entirety – sans edits. So they can judge for themselves."

A wise approach—I'm writing this column only after having read the full transcripts. (ACORN has said that the videos were “doctored, edited and in no way the result of the fabricated story being portrayed by conservative activist ‘filmmaker’ James O’Keefe and his partner in crime”—and threatened to sue.)

I’ll reserve judgment until the full audio is out there.  I do assume that there were also a good number of cases where Acorn offices properly rebuffed the guy.  Also, the whole scandal during the election was BS, there were Acorn employees who made money by fabrication registrations but that was registration fraud to rip off Acorn and not election fraud.  On the whole though, the organization does seem to have a genuine problem with people, admittedly often volunteers, acting in an official capacity at their office.  If accurate this is a legit scandal, firing the workers is a good first step but it is a reasonable expectation that an org using federal funds wouldn’t have brought them on in the first place.

In any event Friedersdorf goes on to propose allowing wiretapping of public servants, police, grantees and the like.  He accepts a subsequent suggestion to limit it to their official capacity (see Brits for why this is necessary).  I’d further limit it to only being able to bug your or your phone. 

Even official capacity isn’t that limiting and frankly sometimes negotiations should be private or diplomatic/legislative agreements would never happen.  I am actively considering being a public servant some day and while taping interactions with public seems reasonable, bugging my house, cell phone, or laptop would not be.  Also, national security and spying aside, without such limits it would be rather tempting to bug people for information about how to win a contract or the other side’s political strategy.  The limitation to journalists really doesn’t deal with this problem as that term isn’t necessarily that meaningful limiting in an era of blogs.

Update: Acorn has a press-release stating that in at least one of the videos the Acorn employee was basically satirizing the obviously implausible journalist.  The specifics sound likely to me.  I'd say that approach was likely a mistake, better to toss them out, but not a scandal by any means. (Hat tip, The American Scene commenter.)

RIP Sen. Kennedy

I think Fallows summarizes his life well, see Joe Klein for a longer form version:

A flawed man, who started unimpressively in life -- the college problems, the silver-spoon boy senator, everything involved with Chappaquiddick -- but redeemed himself, in the eyes of all but the committed haters, with his bravery and perseverance and commitment to the long haul. And his big, open heart. A powerful, brave, often-wounded animal at last brought down.

Ezra Klein also has a terrific selection of articles written about him.  Kennedy’s cause, aptly summarized by Harold Meyerson, was looking after the downtrodden and as back in 1980, the year I was born, he was already a forceful advocate for providing health care to all.  Sen. Byrd suggested naming the health care bill after him (via Ezra Klein).  It seems logical.  The best way to honor the dead is not pomp or circumstance but to advance the causes the what they consider the cause of their life.  It’s certainly how I’d want to be remembered.  There will be haters, but as Achenbach noted for all of Kennedy’s polarizing qualities the Senator was one of the best at getting compromises.  I heard on NPR tonight the story of how he helped Sheppard through the sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa, even overcoming Reagan’s veto.

Is multiplayer the key to engaging serious games?

Last was week the Games for Change festival where designers of serious games got together to discuss their nascent industry. One regular topic for discussion at such gathering is whether serious games need to be fun and what fun even means. Michael Abbott of the Brainy Gamer summarizes the discussion:

Perhaps games, and the audience for games, would be better served by design that emphasizes values beyond fun, but it’s clearly a difficult assignment. A notable undercurrent at this year’s festival was a sense that the current crop of games for change aren’t reaching their intended audiences. Most of these games are perceived by players as preachy, and even their developers admit they often fail to match the engaging gameplay offered by commercial games.

He also casts doubt on the idea that a new generation that grew up on games would be more inclined to take games seriously given his experience with some freshmen regarding his class on video games. That said, Abbott found hope in the increasing awareness of the value of connections with commercial developers. From my experience with documentary films, I do think production values definitely matter. This doesn’t mean that serious games should be high budget, that’s impractical, but they should have a professional look.

On the fun breakdown, I’m inclined to think engaging is a better word. To find an audience beyond the equivalent of textbooks and corporate training videos people have to want to play serious games.

Making serious games engaging gets to the mention of multiplayer in my title. Economics and political science both heavily involve themselves in game theory with the classic example being the prisoner’s dilemma. The mechanics there are not particularly impressive, cooperate or betray, but I recall little grumbling when people paired up to experiment with it. I think that’s because the challenge and competition of playing with another person can up the engagement value substantially. This could even be faked I suspect, but probably only for one-off games.

Link round up 4-29-09

Culture

• N’Gai Croal finds a Maureen Dowd column amusing I do as well in this case, though she’s normally not my thing.
• Brainy Gamer discusses Mother 3 (earlier games in English went by Earthbound) The story sounds great and much of it involves one changing community rather than hopping around the world.  Sadly it isn’t officially available in English, but given the raves I might get a bootleg.

Political Economy

• The Monkey Cage notes that Democratic Senators are easy to herd after all and provides the data to back it up.  I think this phenomenon hasn’t been more noticed because as both parties get more unity each defection becomes more important.
• Emmanuel Saez won the Clark Medal for young economists and has done interesting work on equality.  The top 1% had hugely gained of late.  It’s well established that the top percentages tend to gain under Republicans, but I wonder whether that relationship goes both ways and they tend to win more thanks to a larger bankroll.  Such a phenomenon would still be contained by the inevitable crashes brought about by the excesses of inequality.

Rights

• Kevin Drum defends civilization against the torturers.  This might be my favorite tack combined with encouragement to have a stiff upper lip regarding terrorism which isn’t that big of a threat to the U.S. to begin with (See Cold War, WWII).  Manzi notes that countries that torture tend to be losers in their conflicts.
• Andrew Gelman explains that contradictory torture polling might be caused by the fact that people tend to make a lot of exceptions when you offer them specific scenarios.  Thus we probably do better in a big picture debate.
• Justine Fleichner discusses the risks to women from concessions to the Taliban.  I fear some concessions may prove necessary, but we should ensure that Afghan women are at the bargaining table to defend their interests.
• States with more men than women extended the franchise first in case you were wondering, why Wyoming took the lead.  I don’t think political violence was as much of an issue when it came to suffragettes, but we should still probably study our history to learn methods for dealing with Afghanistan.

Power-brokers oppose enforcing laws against the powerful

Michael Gerson admits that coercive interrogation is a mistake, but thinks waterboarding presented a difficult dilemma despite the fact that we’ve prosecuted people for it in the past.  David Broder is similarly happy the torture is done, but thinks that enforcing the law is scapegoating.  Moving away from the relative moderates, Outlook had an embarrassing article that put forth a scenario where we captured Bin Laden and he had vital information about multiple nuclear weapons that were to be used to blow up American cities.  Tom Clancy and the writers of 24 wouldn’t run with such a ridiculous scenario, why is it on the front page of the Outlook section?  Happily Eugene Robinson, who received a well deserved Pulitzer, does make the obvious point that torture is a crime that deserves punishment. 

The basic logic here is straightforward.  American elected leaders and their appointees have the right to be wrong, to break the law when we’re frightened.  Richard Cohen made this argument explicitly, albeit in a manner completely lacking in self-awareness.  Those who favor unaccountability often also praise the pardoning of Nixon who clearly stated his claim that if the President does it, it’s not illegal.  The fact that these measures violate international law is probably not even a secondary consideration here, after all, who is going to make us face accountability?  Spain isn’t really powerful enough to do more than keep people out of Europe .  None of this is especially surprising and I suspect that despite the extraordinary nature of 9/11 the principle of the executive accountable only to the electorate isn’t going to go away.

This is not to say that prosecutions are the best way to sway public opinion.  Mark Danner argued in the Post that investigations, not prosecutions, are what’s needed to keep torture from returning.  He may well be right, enforcing the law is just, but that doesn’t mean it will always be the best tactic. This will not be an easy battle, as John Sides shows public opposition to torture has been dropping in recent month.  Even so, a thin majority to support investigation (Hat tip: Ackerman).  The support levels for torture scare me, but it does provide an opening to release all the information we can find that the CIA hasn’t yet illegally destroyed.

All in all, I pray we can win the fight on torture, but I do not believe that the self-correcting measures on American hegemony can prevent future disastrous mistakes.  A few months ago I attended a great talk by Spencer Ackerman that essentially argued that the tools of military dominance inevitably corrupt and that unless we’re willing to put some of those tools down the cycle will keep repeating itself.  I have no problem with American military superiority, but I think liberals will better spend their energy directing resources away from supremacy than in trying to direct the tools of military supremacy to the greater good of the world.  If torture is giving our elites this much trouble, how are we going to manage the tougher calls?

Defense of Selfishness

Jamelle [of the US of Jamerica] criticizes Andrew Sullivan for making a defense of our current health care system on the basis of innovation.  Sullivan notes that medication to deal with AIDs saved his life, so he’s supportive of that sort of thing.  He similarly knocks Ross Douthat as being overly sanguine about the impact of the crackdown on crime which led to mass imprisonment.

In fact, I’m bothered by Ross Douthat’s output for similar reasons.  Both him and Sullivan have a “gated-community” outlook; “acceptability” is regularly defined as “what’s best for me.”  And again, while this can make for compelling reading on issues which are quite personal, it also leads Douthat to - for example - describe our incarceration heavy approach to crime as “largely vindicated by events,” completely oblivious to the immense costs said approach has had on poor communities and communities of color (Which Ta-Nehisi Coates illustrates with a heartbreaking story of a friend gunned down by police).  Indeed, it’s precisely because of their “gated-community conservativism” that I’m skeptical of their long-term project of revitalizing conservatism by means of turning its attentions to minorities, and working-class American.  Doing so requires approaching policy concerns with a broader public in mind, and neither of them has really reached that point (though, in fairness, Douthat is making progress).

Ta-Nehisi Coates also has done a defense of self-interested politics". I tend to agree with him, although he's a better writer than I am by far so I'll just quote him instead.

I firmly believe that the case against racism is not just that it's unfair to black people, but that it doesn't benefit the country as a whole. When I look at the large numbers of black men in the justice system, I'm not very interested in how much the justice system hates blacks. I'm interested in whether our justice policy is in the best interest of the country. Perhaps, I define "interest" too broadly. I include in that definition, not simply your short and long-term well being, but how you want to live your life. I hear people say that they support "black issues" even when they aren't in their interest. Hmm, I guess. But that's like saying it wasn't in my interest to be a writer. I should have gone to law school. Certainly I would have made more money. But I include in my interest what I want to see out the world, what makes me happy, what makes me smile, what I like and love. I guess it's not in my interest to spend a whole day watching football games--I could be making money. But it certainly makes me happy.

I don't buy Sullivan’s argument that innovation would be sacrificed, but I think wanting innovation in part from personal experience is a perfectly legit motivation. The thing here is that those benefiting from radical new health care innovations are a minority versus those who benefit from being able to rely on health care being available. That's a majority whose interest deserve to be respected, but also kept in perspective. So long as he's honestly and clearly arguing from personal experience and self-interest I've got no problem with it. The problem is stuff like the dishonest No Exit article published when he was editing TNR which was full of lies about Clinton-care.

This isn't to say I don't think some people need to think consistently about the greater good, but I don't think those people will ever be the majority of the public discourse. Also, the ability to try move beyond self-interest is immensely helped by privilege. Hence the Red State, Blue State findings that the culture war tends to among rich voters.

The European Dream

Ross Douthat has a post that concludes in a way that makes me glad he'll be one of the columnist I'll be arguing against over at the NY Times.  (For a far more critical take, check out Armanda Marcotte over at Pandagon or the critics Delong cites.  I think that social conservatives make up a large enough section of the country that there should be some place for them on op-ed pages.  That said, if there's one the critics find that's a better writer or more trustworthy than Douthat, then they should feel free to name said person.)

How much do you prize equality and ease of life? The more you do, the more you'll favor a European approach to the relationship between state and society. How much do you prize voluntarism, entrepreneurship, and the value of lives oriented around service to one's family, and to God? The more you do, the more you'll find to like in the American arrangement. Where this debate is concerned, I'm proud to stand with Charles Murray - but I don't think that we should labor under the false hope that scientific advances are going to tilt the argument dramatically in our direction.

I'd quibble a bit with the wording.  I personally would substitute "alleviation of suffering" for "ease of life."  I tend to think Americans could use more vacation time, but I think work itself is very important.  Below a certain number of hours, let's say 40 per week, including unpaid domestic work and volunteering, we'd be better off increasing the amount of satisfaction than further cutting back the time spent.  People tend to go a bit nuts when they're outright idle for prolonged periods.

Second I question the term voluntarism.  I think it should be qualified to resource voluntarism or something like that.  Economic necessity can be as great a compulsion as laws and taxes. Also, regulating sexual morality doesn't really seem to be consistent with general voluntarism.

The other principles could all use elaboration, but I think as is they describe things pretty well.

On this one, I proudly stand with the European approach.  I also think that Chait easily has the better argument than Charles Murray (here's one of many take downs of his Bell Curve book) for the degree that his favored policies are based on empiricism.  Last time I checked, the American approach just plunged the globe into a devastating recession and America continues to be the only OECD nation that doesn't manage to offer some form of universal health care.  It does come down to what you prefer at some point, but many of our policies are so bizarre and counter productive that there's nearly pareto optimal European alternatives available.

So why aren't we doing something that would benefit postively most everyone?  Because those it wouldn't benefit would be at the top and even if it doesn't hurt their income it would decrease their relative status.  Yglesias explains:

In the US and in Europe, income level is fairly predictive of voting behavior and this is neither a coincidence nor the reflection of an abstract disagreement about the value of “voluntarism.” It reflects the fact that politics is, among other things, a concrete contest over concrete economic interests. In a broad sense, both the American and European models work quite well compared to living standards enjoyed in other parts of the world. But in comparison, the models work differently for different kinds of people because different people have different interests. I don’t think, for example, that America’s high child poverty rate reflects American preference for “service to one’s family” over “ease of life.”

The rich, not the poor, are more likely to vote their values (see Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State).  That holds with traditional religious stuff but I think it might also explain the fervor of some rich egalitarians.  But I think Douthat gets at some of the competing values that are being weighed by the upper middle class.  Note that he says "service to family" not "well being of the family."  There's a difference between the two.  If individuals have access to resources they need to survive without relying on the family, they're likely to value service to family lower, aren't they?  Strictly speaking, we're also talking service to traditional gender roles as well, I didn't quibble with that above because I think even in the defenders formulation we're obviously talking about patriarcy.  In any event, their offering a pattern of service, we're working towards results.  This strikes me as very favorable philisophical ground to argue on.

Ideology and ideological intolerance

Are more religiously traditional people less tolerant of atheists in public life?  Lee Seigalman over at Monkey Cage summarizes the results of a study that indicates yes.

There are some signs that religious Americans have become more tolerant of those who hold different religious views. But by no means has religious intolerance faded away.

That’s the conclusion of a new report by James Gibson, based on a national survey he conducted in 2007. (For an extended overview of the results, click here.) In brief, based on survey respondents’ answers to a series of questions, Gibson created an index of “religious traditionalism,” some defining characteristics of which are frequent attendance at religious services and belief in God and the devil. The respondents were also asked about their willingness to deny one or more political rights (e.g., to give speeches, hold demonstrations, and run for public office) to atheists...

Gibson speculates that the link between religious traditionalism and political intolerance may “become more serious for American politics in the future,” not less so... "Future research should therefore focus on methods by which all citizens — religionists included — can be persuaded to value tolerance more highly.”

Absent changing the mind of religious traditionalists, I think Gibson's speculation was confirmed by a recent survey.  15% (up from 8% in 1990) of the population now says they have no religion meanwhile the rising numbers calling themselves born again or evangelical might indicate a rise in those hewing towards religious conservatism.   I don't think most of those holding no religion will mirror the desire to restrict the organization rights of the religious, although that would be an interesting study to see.  Even if it isn't mirrored, I think Douthat is right to suggest that the survey indicates that the culture war is likely to get hotter in the near future.

However, what I really would like to see is this study done for ideology the restrictions that fanatics are willing to put on athiests, "to give speeches, hold demonstrations, and run for public office," have been deployed against political groups before.  In America that sort of thing has been done to socialists, let alone communists.  Of course in Germany, such rules are presently employed against neo-Nazis.  Their reasons are understandable but doing exluding anyone from participation, rather than vehemently out-competing them, runs against liberal pluralistic ideals.  Not saying Germany is necessarily wrong here, just that I think the burden of proof for that sort of policy should be very high.

I wonder whether ideologues feel this as strongly as religious traditionalists.  I wonder which systems of belief are most prone to it.  Is it consisitently mirrored or does it sometimes hold on only one side?  This issue is truly vital in young democracies but I don't think it's fully understood even in the developed world.

Fighting Fusionism

Over at the American Scene, Jim Manzi provides a helpful internal account of the social-conservatism and libertarian alliance (fusionism).

I think that the prevalence of the social conservative worldview, broadly defined, is on a long-term downward trajectory in the United States...

What this means for traditionalists is that the best they can hope for is a national government with minimum scope of authority, because it will tend to use whatever authority it has for ends that they don’t like.

As I’ve argued previously, I think that a proper understanding of libertarian thought should call for restraint in imposing uniform national rules, even some rules designed to prevent localities from restricting some individual autonomy.

This alliance weakened a bit under Bush, hence talk of liberaltarians.  Libertarians are big on the net, not so big in the electorate, so this isn't really a pressing problem, but it is worth discussing briefly.  The local restrictions on individual autonomy is key, without those I can't imagine the social conservatives being that excited about the alliance.  Many things liberals want aren't the opposite of traditional values, same-sex marriage is in many ways a conservative thing and it in no way restricts the availability of opposite-sex marriages.  To really get excited about something, you either need to be personally repressed or get the chance to repress someone else.

To me, this sounds like a recipe for the Republicans going further down the road of becoming a Southern regional party, assuming social conservatives don't change how they feel about immigration.  I can't imagine the libertarians would be that excited about the social restrictions where they live, so the alliance would really rely on geographical separation.  Since libertarians aren't a major voting block, their influence in other regions would be limited.

So, can't say I'm particularly worried about their alliance continuing on this basis.  Probably good for most of the country, bad for the South, and there's no restrictions on internal migration in the U.S.  I tend to see economic populism as the approach that has both more peril and potential.

Random gaming thoughts

Inspired by this Yglesias post:

Dave Weigel has a neat piece on the “going Galt” fad currently reverberating through the loony-bin known as the conservative movement.

With all this Atlas Shrugged talked going around, Bioshock 2 is really going to be incredibly topical.  Here's hoping they can exploit it properly.

Mutual Benefit

One of the reasons that longstanding conflicts are so hard to resolve is that the militants on both sides both benefit by provoking one another.  Since counter-insurgency tends to rarely result in a decisive elimination of the foe, even though these groups are killing each other they ultimately enable each other.  Both societies are dragged down but the militants get to rule in hell.

So, how can this sort of vicious cycle be used for good?  Well, as everyone is noting, the Democratic leadership and Rush Limbaugh are now both playing this game.   Here's Jason Zengerle explaining how it works:

The thing that makes Rush different from past GOP boogeymen--such as Newt and Bush--is that, because his bottom line is ratings (rather than votes), the Dems' demonization of him is actually kind of good for him...

Which is why Republicans' best move, at this point, is probably just to ignore Limbaugh: don't denounce him (and then inevitably recant), don't praise him; and don't appear on his show. And maybe hope that Clear Channel--which pays Limbaugh his $50 million a year salary and whose parent company just posted a $5 billion loss--goes broke.

I'm guessing Limbaugh is still a profit center for Clear Channel and will continue to be so unless his ego and demands for compensation get bigger than his ratings. 

So what are the logical limits of this strategy?  Limbaugh's listener numbers probably have an upper bound in the current political climate and I have to imagine he's running fairly near it.  There's only so many hours in the day and after a while it isn't news any more.  That said, it should be a repeatable trick after this controversy dies down.  If necessary, one could also switch to a different demagogue, say Ann Coulter, to keep things fresh.  As a side note, if that happens, let's stay away from the misogyny people.  Many of the gender-based cracks against her are not clever and ironic because she's such a hater, they're just lame attacks against an easy target.  And yes, I include Jon Stewart in that, I love you man, but that one C-PAC attack was beneath you and hurt an otherwise brilliant segment.

Limbaugh could easily stop this any time he wants to, but so long as he personally benefits I doubt he'll care about what he's doing to the party.

Normally of course the Republicans could just put a stop to this.  Republicans play this game with Democratic entertainers on a regular basis and it works to a degree.  However, our politicians also know how to play the distancing game.  If anything, I think we tend to go to far in slamming our entertainers but we've moderated that in recent years.  Obama is much more resistant to the urge to Sister Souljah someone than prior leaders.  We're at a point now where the choice to defend or distance goes more to the substance of the remarks, and that's a good thing. 

However, the Republicans haven't manged to distance themselves because anyone who criticizes gets brutally smacked down.  I don't really get why that happens so it's difficult to say how that system can break down.  My best guess as to why this is happening is that the Republican base is sufficiently homogenous that those entertainers in a position to challenge Rush don't have distinct fan bases to carry them through.  On the other hand, I think Jason Zengerle is wrong about the utility of ignoring him.  If enough Republicans ignore him it would break his power, but there's a collective action problem here.  The more people that don't appear on his show, the greater the chance to gain publicity from an alliance with him.  Moderate Republicans are probably best off breaking with the party or ignoring him, but that won't break his power.

Finally, what are the costs and benefits of this strategy for the Dems?  Well we're probably maintaining the radicalism of the Republican base.  That said, the Republicans have already practically maxed out their party unity in the House and with several exceptions in the Senate.  They're getting serious diminishing returns from the radicalization, so this isn't a huge problem so long as the Dittoheads don't go literally militant.  This is probably helping us with moderate and independent voters, but they'll ultimately vote based on the state of the economy so that benefit is short term.  As Nate Silver says this is really about three or four votes in the Senate and I think he's right.  We need to continue to invite Republicans to vote with us and talk with us while influencing their constiuents to pressure them to cooperate.

Right now, the Democratic Party is in the midst of an audacious domestic project.  In addition to dealing with the economic crisis, we're trying to take the high ground and remake America as a solvent social democracy.  The core of this project is health care as it is orders of magnitude easier to defend well designed entitlements than to implement them.  This isn't as true with carbon cap and trade, but if we get a job rich green sector going than there will be powerful interests fighting to defend the new regulatory regime.

In the longer term, sparring with GOP entertainers is fine, but not at this level.  We ultimately are going to have to work to deradicalize the segment of the population that actually thought George W. Bush did a good job.  Changing demographics will help with that of course, but in the medium term a two party system where one of the parties is nuts is an extremely dangerous phenomenon. 

But aside from ambition what's also vital though is that in this blitz we take prisoners and show quarter.  Giving the actual political leaders, not the entertainers, of the other side a respectful hearing is a low cost strategy.  Politics is often personal in the Senate and is far more heterogenous with governors and we should exploit that.  Real concessions should be limited to those cases where we get something real in return but for matters of tone the public likes Obama's outreaches even when they aren't returned.

So on the whole, I like this strategy.  Let Limbaugh have his ratings, we'll be busy implementing a second New Deal.  Sounds like a good trade to me.

Our President is learning

Picked this up from both Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates.  The President is starting to try to go public to pressure Congress to pass the stimulus bill.  He used the opportunity of signing the new S-CHIP bill into law yesterday afternoon to get a start on it. 

"In the past few days, I've heard criticisms of this plan that frankly echo the very same failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis in the first place. The notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems. That we can address this enormous crisis with half steps and piecemeal measures and tinkering around the edges. That we can ignore fundamental challenges like the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive. I reject these theories, and by the way, so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change."

Klein also quotes a few of the good bits on health care, where he also strongly took the offensive and is continues to work to lay the groundwork.  My worry had been that Obama was largely unwilling to go on the attack except for rare occasions.  That had been his campaign tactic and it worked pretty well.  I think it was a mistake that he wasn’t more aggressive, albeit respectively aggressive, with courting public pressure on members of Congress prior to the troubles in the Senate.  As a result, the current bill is probably about as good as we’re going to get.  But I don’t think it’s too late to get something of roughly the same impact as the current bill, even though it’s a flawed one.  This S-Chip speech alone won’t do it, but a series of jabs as good as this one or a few higher profile efforts might just do the job.

Here’s the video:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Do you think you’re what they say you are?

It appears that the stimulus bill can’t get to 60 votes in present form and is going to be pared back by 200 billion and getting closer to a 1:1 spending-tax cut ratio.  Nate Silver has a solid analysis of how this happened:

Still, in essentially passing off both narrative and literal control of the contents of the package to the Congressional Democrats, the Obama administration may have played it too cute by half. Obama is popular; Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid aren't. The trajectory of the bill might have been different if Obama had devoted a prime time speech toward selling it, with graphs and pie charts and the like. But there hasn't been a Big Obama Moment like that -- a show of force -- something that really resonated outside the Beltway. The closest Obama came, oddly enough, was during his inaugural address, but the references to the stimulus there were abstract, oblique.

The upside is that Obama himself is likely to emerge from the whole affair relatively unscathed.

Obama’s real power is the ability to ‘go public,’ a coin termed back to describe Reagan’s techniques for appealing to public opinion to put pressure on his political opponents.  Instead, he played it conservative and let the Republicans outmaneuver Reid in the Senate, big surprise there.  Pelosi got her bill past, though instead of letting her run up the margins and start with a strong point, we made concessions in exchange for no Republican votes.  As Ezra Klein points out, the new era of responsibility has meant losing Daschle and nominating Judd Gregg for Treasury did nothing to help the passage of the stimulus and so far gained very little from a policy perspective.  If the recovery doesn’t start by 2010 the elections results are going to be very bad for the Democrats and rightfully so.

My one source of hope is that the President has been routinely underestimated by basically everyone.  His no drama style has given him a lot of endurance as his adversaries flail and embarrass themselves.  However, people will ultimately judge success by the condition of the economy, not the optics.  Perhaps Obama has written the this fight off as a relative loser and will be focusing on the coming health care debate or the infrastructure bill.  He might be able to achieve some of the economic effects by that means in addition to better management by Treasury officials and such.  However, the clock is now running.

My fear is reflected in the title.  That he thinks bipartisanship will save us.  Fortunately, the President is a very smart man and if he thought that a week ago I’d be surprised if he still thinks it now.

How big should government get?

Obviously the $850 billion dollar surplus will temporarily increase the size of government.  If we succeed in achieving universal health care, even without a single payer system, the size will increase permanently.  Kevin Drum thinks he’d prefer to keep the size of government to 40%-45% of GDP.  Matt Yglesias disagrees:

Where markets work well—primarily in the field of producing consumer goods—they create incredibly efficiencies. But there are lots of fields of endeavor in which markets don’t work well. Since well-functioning markets are the best method we know of creating efficiency, this is a problem. It tends to leave those fields of endeavor plagued by certain kinds of inefficiencies. But since some of these things are very important, they wind up getting taken over by the public sector. Which is, yes, less efficient than the private sector. But not because the public sector “doesn’t work” and its responsibilities need to be turned over to the market but because the things that belong in the public sector are precisely those things for which turning it over to the market isn’t a realistic option.

Meanwhile, one needs to understand that, somewhat counterinuitively, when you have a very efficient economic sector what happens is that it tends to go away… Markets, doing their work, will make those sectors more and more efficient leading them to shrink as a share of the overall economic pie.

Tyler Cowen adds some useful caveats, but they aren’t too relevant to the point I’m going to argue.  I don’t think some sort of hard cap is necessary for overall government spending.  Entitlement spending such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security has mandated amounts and methods of distribution.  Congress can pass bills to change how entitlements work, but otherwise they proceed on auto-pilot.  Interest payments on the debt also work that way, but are tangential to this discussion.  The other main kind of spending is discretionary, which means Congress passes a budget each year saying how it will be allocated.

I think that there’s a practical upper bound to how much of the GDP can be handled via the discretionary budget.  In 2008 we spent 2.8% of the GDP on domestic discretionary spending and another 5.6% on defense & security issues (Hat tip Richard Kogan of CBPP).  I suspect we’re actually over the limit now, so let’s say that our present legislative process can efficiently allocate something like 8% of the GDP via discretionary spending.

I think growth will work better if further expansion comes primarily through mandated forms with dedicated funding streams.  I’m no expert in public choice theory but I think we can often get better results by using political processes to create rules for managing spending rather than managing the spending directly.  Government reforms could increase the amount of discretionary funding that could be handled efficiently, but those are probably necessary just to keep pace with GDP growth.  Instead I think the way to go is a range of somewhat-independent bureaucracies that are each designed to the relevant problem and using market forces or libertarian paternalism when practical.

Designing such programs is a political problem and will require lots of expertise and political capital to do well.  Fortunately, I think current health care efforts show that people are bringing such expertise and will to bear on one of the biggest problems we’re facing.

Dealing with foreign and domestic adversaries

Jonathan Chait recently argued that liberals often seem to favor negotiation with foreign adversaries but oppose concessions to domestic ones.  This resulted in some quick pushback.  Key points from the pushback: negotiating isn’t a concession and that playing hard ball in politics means very different things than playing hardball in an actual war.  Here’s the key points of  his retort:

Certainly, it's a way of thinking about your adversary that's at least somewhat in tension with the kind of thinking liberals prefer on foreign policy. On foreign policy, liberals like to understand that our adversaries' thinking can't simply be defined as the negation of our own values. (I agree, which is why I'm a liberal, albeit a moderate one on foreign policy.) It's fatuous to think that if we believe in freedom, then Islamic radicals must simply hate us for our freedom, or that if we believe in equal rights, then social conservatives must be motivated by a hatred for equal rights. Moreover, our adversaries are not always monolithic, and there are times when concessions can divide or isolate them from the center, not just encourage them to increase their demands.

I think Chait’s summary of how domestic and foreign policy strategy are similar in this regard is accurate.  That said, the pieces he was responding to were more strategic than the excerpt he cited.    So, is there strategic analysis correct?  Well, coming from the other side, here’s Ross Douthat’s read:

If you're an unconflicted supporter of abortion rights, obviously, then you shouldn't support overturning [Roe vs. Wade], period: If second-trimester abortion is really a fundamental human right, then there's no reason to risk it's availability for some nebulous hope of a less polarized America

So, is a lot of the rhetoric about social conservatives hyperbolic?  Sure.   But that’s true of most any set of rhetoric when you’re dealing with an issue you actually care about.  I think Chait may well be right in that liberals should do a better job of practicing what we preach when it comes to domestic strategy.  That said, Obama’s outreach attempts to the House Republicans on stimulus netted him zero votes, so I don’t think this is a problem our leadership suffers from.

To have a meaningful debate, I think Chait needs to throw out an example where liberal strategic logic is flawed rather than one where the rhetoric is overheated.  On this issue, positions don’t flow from your assumptions on human nature, they flow from how strongly you care about abortion rights and how broadly you define them.

Counties unite in support of the Purple Line

This Tuesday, the Montgomery County Council unanimously supported a light rail Purple Line to connect Maryland’s inner Washington suburbs (Nice WaPo summary by Katherine Shaver).  The line runs through Prince George’s county whose Council already fully supports the proposal.  They also approved a study of single tracking for a few parts of the soon to be rail trail.  I don’t see that happening.  There’s a reason the words “single tracking” strike fear in the hearts of Metro commuters.

The decision to go forward with the project is now in the hands of Maryland’s Governor O’Malley.  That said, if we get an infrastructure bill that appreciates transit more than the stimulus, than things definitely get easier.

There’s a lot of people who worked very hard for to reach this step.  Politicians, transit activists, and environmentalists have all made it possible.  I’m grateful to all of them and many are even friends of the family.  But I think they’ll forgive me if I focus for a moment on the work my father has done.  He’s been trying to get the Purple Line, or its earlier incarnation the Georgetown Branch, for most of my life.  Jay Walljasper, writing for the AARP, was kind enough to briefly profile him along with two others in a recent bulletin.  The photo is by Chris Mueller of Redux, I think he did a rather good job.  Amusingly enough that was the location they spent the least time at, because Silver Spring’s Metro platform can get rather cold.  I’ve long watched all the work this has taken, I’ve helped with part of it, I’m proud of my Dad and of all of you.

Will the Attorney General nominee foreswear justice?

The Obama administration hasn’t shown much interest in prosecuting those members of the Bush administration that committed war crimes.  Even so, Republicans in the Senate are delaying Eric Holder’s nomination for Attorney General until they get absolute assurance of that.  Spencer Ackerman found that Sen. Kit Bond (R-Missouri) is claiming that Holder privately assured him that there will be no prosecutions.  Happily, Holder’s aide is denying that claim.  I’m not really too concerned with which one is lying, a private verbal promise publicly denied can easily be broken.

Elena Schor over at TPM notes Holder’s written response to Sen Kyl (R-Arizona)

Prosecutorial and investigative judgments must depend on the facts, and no one is above the law. But where it is clear that a government agent has acted in "reasonable and good-faith reliance on Justice Department legal opinions" authoritatively permitting his conduct, I would find it difficult to justify commencing a full-blown criminal investigation, let alone a prosecution.

I think investigations, not necessarily criminal ones, are key for the agents.  That said, prosecutions should focus on the higher ranking officials absent behavior so egregious it violates the legal standard Holder mentions.  Practically speaking, I think we should probably be willing to trade amnesty for accurate testimony.  I don’t think many of the key perpetrators would take that deal, which would leave them open to later prosecutions when political will was there.  I expect most of the heavy lifting will be done at the behest of Speaker Pelosi.  She’s our best hope at this point for American-based justice.

The Renewal of America will be YouTubed

In his speech at the kick off, President-elect Obama called for everyone to work together to renew America.  Based solely on that event, I think it’s starting to work.  In the old America, I’d never seen U2 live, in Obama’s, I’ve seen them perform two songs (from quite a distance but still live).  That’s change I can believe in.

From the survey, it looks like people want more travel pictures.  I’ll do that one better for now.  My taping of In the Name of Love wasn’t that great.  It’s split between an intro and the body of the song.  Also, more critically, it has me among other people singing along.  I’m not a good singer, at least not in the range of U2 songs.  That said, while I do love the band, in general they can be a bit tricky to sing along.  The crowd was having some trouble with the ooooOOOahooo bits.  Might have been better closer to the stege.

On the other hand, I think the clip of City of Blinding Lights came out pretty well.  It was a theme song for the campaign, so can’t say I’m surprised they played it.  There’s some laughter at the shout-out to Joe Biden, but I think that’s just part of the live music experience.  If you can catch the actual video (I think it’s on HBO but unscrambled) it’s worth doing, Bono has great stage presence and plays around with the song some. 

Anyhow, since this was some combination of a campaign event and government event, I think it might effectively be in the public domain for all anyone cares.  If I’m wrong, it’ll get pulled.

Update: Oh, I’d have to check the video to be sure, but if memory served Bono actually made a gesture that clearly referenced the Black Power salute.  That said the resolution isn’t high enough on this video to judge what’s on the Jumbotron.

Is Bishop Gene Robinson enough to make up for Rick Warren?

I tend to think so.  Nancy Goldstein over at Salon’s Broadsheet disagrees.

So one can hardly say that Team Obama had never dealt with a similar situation before. I’m going to bet that whether we ever deal with it again depends largely on whether we give Obama a pass -- yet again -- for playing the “inclusivity” card, but only when it comes to LGBT people having to tolerate virulent homophobes, or give him hell. I vote for giving him hell.

Politics always makes strange bedfellows and involves tricky calculations. My beef with Obama isn’t that he’s involved in some interesting ménages, or that he does his math -- only that he seems to think the LGBT community is such an easy lay and comes so cheap.

I’m actually a mainline Protestant, so I’m more impressed by the Robinson pick as he was controversial enough to cause a schism and when he wasn’t invited to an Anglican leadership conference in England he proved no shrinking violet.  Similarly, while the kick-off is a lower profile event, there is a definite symbolism to doing it from the Lincoln memorial.  I think the ‘symbolism off’ will ultimately come down to the two speeches and what Obama says of course.  Obama’s victory speech explicitly had a shout out for sexual and gender equality, so I’m hopeful.

That said I’m linking to this because I’m open to disagreement.  I welcome comments on this one if you think one or both of us are wrong.

The inauguration just got a whole lot more inclusive

I hadn’t addressed it yet, but there was a fair amount of controversy regarding the Obama’s choice of mega-church Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration.  Warren had invited Obama to participate in one debate and is willing to work with progressives on some issues.  However, he is still a definite social conservative and actively worked to pass Prop 8 in California.  Particularly the disappointment after Prop 8’s passage, a lot of equality activist were really angry by this pick.  Other’s derided it as concern over a merely symbolic way to pick up political capital.  I’m with the activists, symbolism matters, particularly since during the first year Obama’s probably going to be focusing on the economy and health care and not social issues.

The complaining has paid dividends.  First off, in the hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue category, America Blog noticed that Warren’s website scrubbed some of the homophobic rhetoric (hat tip Eve Fairbanks).  Second, Nate Silver noticed that  back on the 26th, after the controversy over the Warren pick, the transition website got more upfront than the campaign website about equality issues:

In the area of 'Civil Rights', however, there is a significant difference between the campaign website and Change.gov, the transition website. Specifically, the transition website makes a much broader range of commitments to the gay and lesbian community.

Third, on Change.gov, on the ninth Kevin Drum noticed that Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs reaffirmed that the new administration was planning to get rid of Don’t ask Don’t Tell.

Finally, this morning, Mike Allen at Politico reported that openly gay Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of the Episcopal Church, will give the invocation at the Sunday kickoff event for the inauguration.  In a nice bit of synergy with existing symbolism, that kick off will be at the Lincoln Memorial, the location of the “I have a Dream” speech.

Ezra Klein notes the strategic implications of all this:

This is, incidentally, why it's useful for progressives to criticize the president. Politicians respond to incentives. To noise. To anger. Warren, on some level, was a response to the loud protestations of evangelicals who believed the Democratic Party had no place for them. It's hard to see Robinson is anything but a response to progressive activists who sense that Obama was more willing to risk cross those who supported him than those who opposed him... If it was the plan all along, the Obama administration sure did a good job keeping the secret. And if it wasn't, then equality activists have something to be proud of this morning. They changed the incentives.

Related: GQ's profile "Let God Love Gene Robinson." Will really help convey the symbolism of this choice.

Good work people.  Think I might try to make the kickoff now.  Also, bizarrely, I had a dream last night that involved driving and seeing the Saddleback church on a somewhat distant hill side.  It was actually shaped saddle-like, but I quick Google image search found that my imagination was wrong. 

Meh, seat Burris

So I do tend to think the allegations against Illinois governor compelling.  He’s now picked Burris, an African American former opponent for the Senate seat and is trying to play the race card to get him in.  I think Ta-Nehisi Coates effectively demolishes that argument.

What I do find persuasive is Sandy Levinson’s argument:

I suppose it's true that the Senate could/should consider the bona fides of a gubernatorial appointment if there is good evidence that it was procured by criminal means, including bribery. The problem is that there is not a scintilla of such evidence in this case. Governor B. might well be guilty of "attempted sale of the Senate seat," but it's clear that it didn't work, and that he, clever politician that he is, reached out to strengthen himself with a key constituency and, an added bonus, to discomfort many of his erstwhile Democratic Party allies. I don't see how one can mount a good-faith argument against seating Burris unless one is willing to open each and every gubernatorial appointment to some kind of "good-government" scrutiny. Consider, for example, the shameful appointment of Lisa Murkowski to the Senate by her father, the former Senator who became Governor of Alaska. There is no plausible evidence that anything other than nepostism explains the appointment…

If one feels "stuck" by that incredibly stupid clause, with consequences far, far worse than allowing a presumptively competent, if somewhat superannuated Illinois politician to serve a couple of years in the Senate, then I think we should recognize that the 17th Amendment, too, generates a relatively hard-wired rule that limits the possibilities of further Senate scrutiny and the political mischief it invites. (Imagine, for starters, that the Senate is closely divided and that accepting the appointment would change the political control of the Senate (as in 2001) or provide/prevent a "filibuster-proof" majority.)

I’d say seat the Senator and let the Illinois legislature decide whether to remove the governor.  In the longer term, I think Yglesias is right and we should switch over all Senators to being picked by special election (absent rather short period of service or national emergency).

December 16th Link round-up

Spencer Ackerman notes that Muntader al-Zaidi, the guy who threw his shoes at President Bush, is still being interrogated in Baghdad by the Maliki government which probably means he’s being tortured.  Sounds like he’s got a lot of credibility on the streets though so I’d expect Maliki to back off once they realize they can’t effectively discredit the guy.

Also, my friend Lirazel (let me know if you want a link) who answers the question of whether people ever throw shoes in a non-insulting manner:

I did a little poking... in addition to tying shoes to the vehicles of the newly married as a symbol of fertility, apparently in the North of England the wives of fishermen used to throw old shoes at their husband's departing boats as a charm to bring them back safely!"

Robert Wright and Joel Achenbach did another fun blogging heads on Thanksgiving.  Good for people that like banter.

Apparently the presence of the American flag tends to strengthen nationalism more than patriotism in Americans.  Those findings come courtesy of the Lee Sigelman. Wonder if that’s true of other flags.  Also, before I acknowledge the validity of the nationalism/patriotism distinction, I’d like to see more research about how much of the population just have patriotism.

Brad Delong notes that even with perfect information, traders tend not to be rational in their valuing of assets.  Why?  Because if you buy an overpriced good, you can still make money selling it to someone willing to buy it at an even greater mark-up.  Apparently the people who make the most money are those that buy a lot at the beginning of declining resources a sim and sell mid-way through.  Momentum traders, those who buy when things rise and sell when they fall, do worst.  In other words, now is probably a good time to buy stock.

The difference between national interest and national security

So, does the U.S. still care if Osama bin Laden is alive or dead?  Robert Baer argues no in Time and Hanna Ludqvist over at Democracy arsenal disagrees with him and argues yes.

The most interesting part of Baer's piece comes at the end, however, when he asks:

But what if bin Laden really is dead, buried under a hundred tons of rock at Tora Bora or so weakened that he might as well be dead? Indefinitely crashing around Afghanistan and Pakistan's wild, mountainous tribal region on a ghost hunt cannot serve our interests. The longer we leave troops in Afghanistan the worse the civil war there will become. One day Obama will need to give up the hunt — declare bin Laden either dead or irrelevant. He has more important enemies to deal with, from Iran to Russia.

Baer seems to be saying here that terrorism, specifically from al Qaeda and the Af-Pak region, is no longer the greatest threat to the United States. Wow, that's bold. Also wrong, according to CIA director Hayden, who also said last week that "If there is a major strike on [the United States], it will bear the fingerprints of al Qaeda" and that al Qaeda "remains a determined, adaptive enemy unlike any our nation has ever faced... The war is far from over." While the United States has not been attacked since 9/11, Europe has and numerous al Qaeda plots have been uncovered. Those al Qaeda actions came from safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Part of this is a discussion of the importance of Bin Laden.  I don’t buy that he’s irrelevant, though he may well be dead and we should continue to raise that issue regularly.  Either he’ll release another video at some point or we can work on making him much more irrelevant by encouraging speculation as to his survival.

That said, regardless of the best tactics in handling that particular villain, it is rather odd to think of a group like Al Qaeda, ruthless though they may be, as the greatest threat to the U.S.  In determining a threat, you’ve got to balance odds of a problem with magnitude.  Russia’s nuclear arsenal means it’s still the greatest magnitude threat, but even with Putin’s nostalgic turn full fledged conflict is fairly unlikely.  Same with China.  The magnitude of a potential Al Qaeda attack is definitely much smaller, but unlike any nation at the moment they’re actually likely to throw all they can at us.

That said, even after 9/11 it seems fairly odd to think that a bunch of guys primarily living in the mountains of Afghanistan are really the main thing the U.S. needs to be worried about.  Between fixing the economy and defeating Al Qaeda, I think it’s safe to say that the economy is the higher priority.  The trouble is that national security often acts as a trump card in debates.  We don’t have an industrial policy, because that would be an affront to capitalism, except when it comes to defense. 

Often people try to challenge this view by describing environmentalism or economic prosperity as a security issue.  However, that still leads to a warped definition of our national interests.  We’re a superpower that spends as much on our military as the rest of the world does and the number block is the EU, not China or Russia.  A monomaniacal focus on security is more likely to cause problems like Iraq than to make our lives even marginally safer.  I think liberals and progressives ultimately have to be willing to talk about America’s national interests and that security issues will generally make the top 10 but not necessarily the top three.

Two areas where I give libertarians some credit

First local housing regs.  Many of the things wrong with the suburbs and exurbs are not the result of free market forces so much as single-use zoning regs, minimum parking requirements, and uncapped mortgage tax deductions.  Communities that evolve more naturally are often walker friendly with a greater mix of shops and housing rather than just vast stretches of ‘burbs with occasional mini-malls.  On the micro level, the local governments sometimes make inexplicable decisions like Metro offering free parking on inauguration day.  That will obviously lead to even more demand for the lots and provide no incentive for those who live in walking distance to leave the car at home.  Oddly enough even people who oppose universal healthcare seem to believe in a right to free parking.  That said, I do tend to think that contracts can lead to neighborhoods with discriminatory policies even without any government policies.  I think such policies can slip in much the way anti-competitive cartels can.

The other area where I give them so credit is the war on drugs.  I’m perfectly happily with heavily regulated tobacco companies and even tougher regs, but I wouldn’t support a ban.  I do see Democratic candidates saying some good things about criminal justice reforms and focusing on harm minimization strategies, but at the national level we’ve been largely unwilling to take on the ‘war on drugs’ to the degree that we’ve been willing to take on the ‘war on terror’ (could have done more there too obviously).  Thus I’m a bit worried that the proposed Attorney General, Eric Holder, supported mandatory minimums for drugs.  Hopefully that’s not his current stance.

Question of the Day: VP showdown

Aaron Burr vs. Dick Cheney.  Who would you bet on.  Burr is presumably the better duelist but Cheney is much more subtle and you may not see it coming.  Seems like the classic fighter vs. rogue conflict.

Light posting this weekend as I’ll be in Virginia beach.

Only Waxman can save a planet in peril!

The current head of the House Energy and Commerce committee is Rep. John Dingell, D-Michigan.  Not surprisingly he takes a great interest in the health of the auto industry but isn’t always the most reliable vote on environmental issues.  Waxman has been doing a great job on oversight and after reading one of his reports on government contracting I was tempted to try for a staffer job as he then wouldn’t have to rely on contractors to run the data.

Yglesais reports that Waxman is apparently doing better than some expected with his challenge:

Rep. Henry Waxman won a round in his quest to chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee as the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee recommended that he chair it. The issue is destined to go to the full caucus for a vote, since this is too important to be handled at this level, but for the challenger any kind of win can help build momentum.

If Waxman pulls this off, I wonder who gets oversight.

[Update: Waxman wins it!]

Dancing in the Streets

After volunteering at a MD precinct I headed down to Front Page, a Dupont Circle bar where a bunch of my work friends were gathered. I’d also been there for the first debate and as then, the place was packed and each CNN projection for Obama was greeted with cheers. I put enough faith in Nate Silver that I rested easy after Pennsylvania was called, but it was still exhilarating to stay through the whole process. Being without a watch or cell phone, I was actually in the bathroom close to 11 eastern when I heard some cheers from upstairs. Rushed up after I heard cheers starting. Thankfully, I managed to get there while they were still calling states, got back to my friends in time for it to be come official. President Elect Barack Hussein Obama.

Stuck around for the speeches, McCain’s gracious, Obama’s inspiring. While we were waiting it was thrilling each time I heard President Elect Obama. Everyone was hugging one another, taking pictures with themselves and the announcement, toasting the results, and of course cheering like mad. Normally staid think tankers were in tears or waxing poetic about the moment, this is our chance to wipe the slate clean, the chance to awaken from an eight year national nightmare.

When we spilled out into the streets the city was alive. Cars driving in the circle were honking their horns and drawing cheers in response. Chants were being started at any giving minute. First time I’ve ever high-fived a passing stranger and I think I did it at least a dozen times. One image that will particularly stick with me was a passing Mack Truck blowing his horn to a "Yes, We Can" beat. On the streets people went with that, "Yes, We Did" or just a simple "Obama!"

I’ve never seen anything like it in person. I didn’t tend to participate when UMD had post-victory sports riots celebrations, but I doubt those weren’t as oriented on the country and they certainly weren’t as broadly based. The closest I’ve seen on TV were World Cup victories or the celebration of a newly emerging, or reemerging democracy after the fall of a hated leader.

For me, the occasion was only slightly dampened by the realization that the Metro closed, I had no easy way to get back to Silver Spring, and there were scores of people in the same predicament trying to get taxis. Fortunately I was able to get a hold of a friend who was kind enough to let me crash on her couch. Thanks again!

I didn’t bring my camera, but check out the DCist (via Monica) or Joel Achenbach for a description of the gathering at the White House.