Friday, January 27, 2006

And The Not-So-Smart Liberals . . .

Are a problem, too. Conspiracy theories about stolen elections, while perhaps finding a launching pad in reality, end up way out in the stratosphere--and make their proponents sound like refugees from the asylum.

In Election Theft Emergency, Terrence McNally seriously reviews a book that seriously argues that the only reason Republicans have been winning elections all over the place, from the 1994 sweep to 2000 (admittedly, a coin toss, and I can see their complaint there)and 2004, which was an unambiguous and clear victory for Bush from an engaged electorate that showed up in the highest numbers ever. And the margin of victory, both electoral and popular, was clear--with over three million votes over John Kerry, Bush won big. And engineering the theft of three million votes across fifty states would be a trick, even for the Evil Geniuses at the RNC.


That so many on the left treat this sort of foolishness with a gravity that should be reserved for serious ideas is yet one more nail in the coffin of liberal electoral and ideological victory in this country. And it works against them on two levels (well, more than two, but here's the two I'm going to point out right now):

  1. It alienates voters. It makes them appear crazy. It marginalizes them, and pushes them further out on the fringe, even with some true believers--not just left-of-center moderates, but serious liberals who still think Marx had it right can and do find themselves at odds with leftwing loons who think anything and everything, especially if they lose, is a conspiracy. So it alienates them from potential voters, not just folks so far right they would never vote for a liberal or a Democrat, anyway.


  2. It focuses them on the wrong thing. While costing them potential voters, it also keeps them busy on imaginary problems that will not help them on election day. While at the end of the day, they may be able to console themselves with the idea that they lost, again, because the election was stolen, that's the only purpose worrying over stolen elections will serve. It won't help them win.



But wait! Can't elections be stolen? Doesn't it happen? Don't dead people vote and aren't ballot boxes stuffed?
Sure. It happens all the time. Were there fraudulent votes cast in 2004? Yep, on both sides (which also has something of an equalizing effect) and people bused in and sometimes compensated for their votes when they don't have a clue, really, who or what they are voting for. But you can't steal a nation wide election like that, and you sure can't steal three million votes. And you can't steal every GOP house and senate win, either. And if the Republicans were so good at stealing them, why do they occasionally lose? Why can't they steal more of them in liberal enclaves? What's up with that?


With suitable drama, Terrence McNally writes:

For GOP voters, the 2004 presidential election was little short of miraculous: Behind in the Electoral College even on the afternoon of the vote, the Bush-Cheney ticket staged a stunning comeback. Usually reliable exit polls turned out to be wrong by an unprecedented 5 percent in swing states. Conservatives argued, and the media agreed, that "moral values" had made the difference.
First of all, conservatives didn't argue that "moral values" made the difference. It was liberals and Democrats coming to that conclusion (thus, why the media agreed). In fact, most conservatives argued that "moral values" was liberal code language for "gay marriage", and if that if liberals thought that was the only albatross around their electoral necks, they'd be in for a rude awakening in 2006 and 2008. Most conservatives argued it was our policy positions, and the fact that the Democrats couldn't seem to do anything but run against how bad Republicans were, and the fact that John Kerry was a flip-flopping elitist who was both out of touch and absurdly patronizing toward the average American. But, then, I shouldn't be surprised Terrence McNally gets it wrong: the left is prone to tell itself comfortable fictions, especially when it loses.


Usually reliable exit polls, as McNally notes, are just that: usually reliable. But the pollsters themselves claimed they oversampled women, and that doesn't fly. Dick Morris treated the issue here, and concluded that the polls were sabatoge against Bush (which, if one is prone to suspect conspiracies, is certainly more rational one). But the issue is probably random sampling error, in part caused by the large turn out, and is more rationally treated at Moveable Type. Mystery Pollster also treats the issue, and the general conclusion, even from many on the left, is that the exit polls were in error (although folks on the left like to think that Bush voters were ashamed to admit it, thus leading to the under-reported Bush voting, which, again, is another comforting idea that provides them no insight into why they actually lose).



In the article, Terrence McNally is interviewing Mark Crispin, the author of the new "important" book, Fooled Again: How The Right Stole the 2004 Election, and Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them), which, naturally, presumes that people don't actually vote for Republicans, so that elections where conservatives win must be stolen.


Crispin says:
[I]t's also a story about the colossal failure of the American press to do precisely the kind of job that the framers had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment. What they had in mind was that the press would function as a reliable check on executive power.

Huh? I'll have to check that consitution on that. I thought the First Amendment was about making sure that the press was free, not to specifically "provide a check" on executive power. But Crispin is reliably on the leftmost fringe of the radical left wing, because he complains about the current corporate-owned press and the conservative bias of such right-wing stalwarts as Salon and Mother Jones.

Yet the press has for the most part ridiculed those who have come up with very solid evidence of fraud. They've been in the business less of talking about the situation than of preventing anybody else from talking about it. And this includes some of the progressive media as well. In fact, the most hostile reviews that I've received have been in Mother Jones and Salon.

Which should be your first clue that, even to true believers, you sound like a lunatic. Or that the liberals at Mother Jones and Salon don't want the left to be any further marginalized than it is, and would like the left to actually win elections, rather than lose them, and lose them again, while complaining that they were robbed.

But since Watergate the press has preferred to deal with meaningless and trivial scandals like the Clinton scandals. They will not talk about 9/11, they will not talk about the theft of the last three elections.

So we're supposed to believe the Clinton scandals were nothing--like laundered campaign donations from China, fund raising at Buddhist temples (and having Buddhist Monks destroy documents!), and and here's even more on the Clinton/Gores influence-peddling. And let's not forget the pardon of Marc Rich. But the real scandals are how Bush was somehow responsible for 9/11, and how all the elections where Republicans won were stolen! Even there is some hanky-panky on the Republican side of the aisle, it seems that Democrats steal elections, too. In fact, some Republicans suggest that it's their main strategy to deal with the rising tide of Republican wins. Some things like Motor Voter Legislation seems designed to aid, legitimately and perhaps illegitimately, the election fortunes of Democrats. And more on Democrat voter fraud. Or you can find your own, the list is quite long. And that doesn't even include things like slashing the tires and other forms of sabotage directed at Republican "Get out the Vote" efforts. By Democrats no doubt trying to prevent the "stealing" of the election. And frankly, I think I've seen more in the press about questionable Republican victories than I saw about ballot boxes getting stuffed on Indian reservations for Tom Daschle.


Crispin says:

If people want to get a strong sense of what was happening at the grassroots level coast to coast last year, go to a website called the Election Incident Reporting System, EIRS. Then type in the name of a state or a county, and you'll get a transcript of all the complaints that were lodged that day by people who called 1-866-MY-VOTE.
Although he doesn't mention that democrat activists, "anticipating" Republican voter fraud, were coached where to call and what to say, helping drive that number up substantially.

Tom Daschle was supposedly beaten in South Dakota by 4,500 votes. There was so much chicanery going on there, that it's easy to argue that John Thunes should not have won. I know Daschle believes he was robbed.

Apparently, Crispin doesn't feel it's relevant to notice that almost all the chicanery was on the Indian reservations, by people in Daschle's camp, and in Democrat-controlled districts under the auspices of Democrats.

This isn't only a matter of the White House, it's also a matter of the Congress. I don't believe that this government represents the people of this country. The people of this country, however frightened some of them may be by terrorism, are essentially not theocratically inclined. They don't want a Christian republic.

Oh, jeeze. There are more secular folks in public service and in the public eye that ever in the history. Christianity is much more marginalized in the community than a century ago. Christian symbols have been ejected from public places where it used to be integral. And, finally, there are still plenty of Christians in the country--the majority of people in the country self-identify as "Christians". While they may not want a "Christian" republic, they probably don't want God obliterated from public life, think arguments over Nativity scenes at City Hall are foolish, and don't have their paranoid fear of a Christian theocracy as a big influence on who they vote for.


Talking about the exit polls, Crispin says this:

Now a lot of people think that it's not a reliable gauge, it doesn't tell us anything. That's actually the result of propaganda obfuscation.

Who says that? Where is that from? The people most agitated by the wide divergence of the exit polls from the actual election were conservatives and Republicans, and almost all the ones I have read commented that such a divergence is unheard of, and suspect left-leaning manipulation (but I don't think there is much evidence for that view).

And, as is so often with the left, it becomes even more clear what the real problem is, who is really stealing elections and destroying democracy: those damn Christians!

This has to do with the peculiarly paranoid quality of the crusading mindset. I believe this theft was to a great extent carried out thanks to a kind of crusader mentality. I've got plenty of evidence in the book that the religious right played an enormously large role in the theft of the election last year.

In this vein, Crispin reports:

One Democratic election judge tried to observe the vote count in Pima County, Arizona. A roomful of polling personnel who all belonged to the same evangelical church in the area started to call him a liberal demon, a liberal scum.

Sounds suspicious to me. Any other witnesses? Any actual evidence? The interview is not the book, but it certainly does seem long on accusations and short on evidence. While omitting important facts that I'm aware of (which makes me wonder what else they might be omitting . . . hmmm).



The interview goes on (and on and on):

TM: When you talk about a crusader mentality, you basically mean that if you do not support my candidate you are an infidel -- and the ends justify the means?

MCM: Precisely. See, all these crimes that I attest to in the book were committed with impunity by people who regard their political adversaries as demons. And that's not an exaggeration. You know, this government is to a great extent dominated by people who have that metaphysical view of the current political situation.



It is a very serious mistake I believe to think that all of this is happening only because of the excessive greed of certain corporate powers. That greed is decisive It played an enormous role. There is no question about it. But it could not have succeeded without the vigorous grassroots assistance of a lot of people who are religious true believers. And I think that they include the likes of Tom DeLay and others.

Frankly, I think this is projection. I've met more folks on the left with a crusader mentality for their particular politics than I ever have on the right--and I've met a lot more people on the right. I hear a lot more "ends justifies the means" when it comes to getting the right people elected and the right sort of policy in place on the left than I do from the right (I wish I had the time to do a survey of published materials, because it's not, like, private or anything). And "regard their political adversaries" as demons? Jeeze! That's projection if ever I heard it. Whatever else one says about the political left, they are far more prone to demonization, on the whole, than conservatives. I wouldn't have necessarily thought that after the Clinton impeachment, but the subsequent years have proven it to be true. Bush is a Nazi, Bush is a devil. Anybody else see the map showing America as the blue states being America, and the red states being Jesusland? And then, the red states being "Dumbfukistan"? When have you seen anything like that on the right? Yes, there is some, but come on. Jerry Fallwell might have demonized Bill Clinton, but the rank-and-file left finds a money-stealing, war-starting, gun-toting, banjo-playing, black-hating redneck in every Republican they see.


Then, Terrence McNally almost gives me a heart attack by asking an actual question instead of lobbing a softball:

TM: I've read that in New Hampshire, Ralph Nader's Green Party campaign paid for an actual recount. They picked the precincts they thought were suspicious, and the hand recount confirmed the actual vote totals and showed that the exit polls were, in fact, wrong. What do you say to that?



MCM: Well, the recount that they paid for found no evidence of fraud in that particular case.


TM: It confirmed the hand recount, showing that the exit polls were in fact wrong. So how does that fit your analysis of the whole scheme?



MCM: The only thing one can say about that with any scientific certainty is that the particular hand count that they carried out did not reveal any evidence of fraud. That does not mean that no fraud was committed. This is a very fine point, but when we're dealing with questions of electoral honesty and accuracy, I think we have the right to make fine points.

There ya go. No evidence of fraud, in that particular case. Not that that means that there wasn't any fraud, we just can't find it with a fine-tooth comb. Yet the left has money out the wazoo. The the George Soros's of the world really thought there was fraud, wouldn't they pay for recounts everywhere?


Finally, Crispin addresses why he wrote the book:

TM: To the question "What is the point of revisiting the last election?" you point out that there has never been a great reform that was not driven by a major scandal. Do you believe that true election reform is not going to happen until the people and the media finally wake up to this?



MCM: I think it's going to depend on the people. It's going to depend on the people simply and irresistibly insisting that the media finally deal with this subject. That's why I wrote the book.




Frankly, I think the idea that a parnoid, conspiracy-ridden book is going to "wake up the American people" is hubris of the highest order. I believe folks like Crispin, and their wide exposure, do more the Republicans than the Democrats. Because people who lose, and constantly insist that they were robbed, reveal more about themselves than their opponents with their protestations.



So I hope Crispin gets the public exposure he so richly deserves.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Smart Liberals, Foolish Choices, Part II

The left has trouble dealing with the real world: that is, the real views and agenda of their political opponents, and the real world results of both political agendas.

Another problem in terms of advancing themselves both politically, and their philosophy in the hearts and minds of those not yet converted to the faith, is that many of their ideas are flawed and they refuse to even consider that possibility. That so many people so profoundly and verbosely and extensively disagree on many of the fundamental ideas and policies they embrace should inform them, but largely, it does not. The problem is, those foolish people don't understand the "complexity" and the "nuance" of the issues, that's why they make the mistake of not agreeing with liberals--which is, naturally, why a liberal elite needs to run things, to the protect the masses of stupid tax-generators from themselves.


The left in this country argues for tax hikes, more government control of the free markets, less educational choice (it might benefit a private company or, gasp, a religious school, so kill it, kill it, kill it quick--don't, for example, argue for an exclusively secular version of school choice), less spying, less defense spending, and greater protection of the rights of terrorists and criminals (because, heck, you never know when someone might decide you are a terrorist or a criminal). Despite the fact that these positions don't sell well with the public at large, or bring much in the way of positive results they can point to.


I just don't see how, in the twenty-first century, the left can realistically expect to make progress as long as they embrace ideas that clearly don't work and actively oppose things that do. Just one example:


Doug Henwood argues, in Laissez-faire Olympics
, that economic freedom--that would be, say, the right to own property, sell property, save your own money, keep what you earn, and own and start a business--have no relationship to political freedom, or (oh my gosh he did not, did he?) wealth creation. He actually wrote, in March of 2005, that economic freedom doesn't really have much to do with wealth creation? I mean, huh?

But as anyone who lasted a week in a basic statistics course knows, proving a correlation doesn't prove causation; it could be that increasing wealth causes the index to rise, and not vice versa.

While I'm sure Marx would approve, it flies in face of both logic and a century of history. While Henwood makes good points about how the index is calculated, and how any random increase of wealth (from the wealth fairy, I suppose, or from all the wealth that naturally occurs by workers owning the means of production) would impact it favorably, the fundamental implication of Hendwood's piece--that there's no overall relation between economic and political freedom, or economic freedom and wealth generation--is just absurd. Several paragraphs of verbal acrobatics and obfuscation--
Instead of using GDP expressed in U.S. dollars, as is sometimes done, it's better to strip out pure currency market changes by using so-called purchasing-power parity (PPP) values, which attempt to express incomes at exchange rates that correspond to actual buying power. It's not a perfect measure - there's a lot of estimation and imputation involved - but it's become a standard for international economic comparisons. And instead of using aggregate GDP, as the report does, it's more revealing to use per capita figures; if a country's economy is expanding as rapidly as its population, the population isn't materially better off. Of course, GDP per capita is also a highly imperfect measure; it simply divides the monetary value of a country's economic production by its population. It says nothing about how income and wealth are distributed, much less the actual distribution of material welfare. But it too is the orthodox metric of comparison, and not useless as a guide to relative welfare across time and space. It makes good sense to test the economic freedom index against orthodox measures, since it emerges from sources whose only beef with current orthodoxy is that it's not capitalist enough.

While not completely unclear, that such a "proof" ends with the line "It's so much fun being on the right - you're liberated from the tyranny of having to make sense" has a certain ironic ring to it.



Irrespective of a particular index (Henwood's supposed beef is with the index, while implying the more fundamental assertion--with an implication seized upon many of the socialists on the left--that freedom and economic growth have no relationship whatsoever), it is simply common sense that you will have more economic growth in a country where you have more freedom to grow economically, even if that growth is small. Where your borders are more open, you will have more foreign capital and more foreign business investments (sources of economic growth that Henwood appears to discount), and where you can own and start a business, where you can keep more of your own money, where you have greater access to the marketplace, more economic growth will happen. And no amount of statistical contortions, or arguments against one potentially flawed index, will change that fundamental fact. In essence, Henwood and his compatriots are arguing against freedom, economic or otherwise, and though they would (and many often have) suggested that it's simply a lack of nuance, or understanding of complexity, to make such a simplistic accusation (that they are arguing against liberty), that doesn't keep them from coming off that way to pretty much everybody who doesn't already agree with them, a priori.


Some of them seem almost to willfully get the conservative view on economic and political freedom wrong. Jonathan Weiler wrote at the Gadflyer (you'll have to scroll down):
And, as the Harvard economist Dani Rodrik (see, for example, his March 2001 article in Foreign Policy), among others, has argued, studies correlating openness to trade with economic prosperity get the relationship exactly backwards – recent economic success stories, like the Asian Tigers, developed economically behind a protective wall, and then later opened up once they were in a relatively advantageous market position.


I mean, seriously. It makes my face twitch. That's exactly the point. Political freedom is often engendered by economic freedom. When economic freedom (that would be the growth of capitalism and free markets) is present, political freedom often follows. Slowly, and in fits and starts, but it does happen. That's exactly the sort of correlation conservatives argue for. Indeed, political freedom and democracy in an environment where nobody can own property or start a business, is not likely to create wealth. And no conservative has ever argued that it is.

Which goes back to my fundamental premise: that a primary problem liberals and the left have in regards to advancing their agenda politically, and in the hearts and minds of average folks, is that they refuse to accurately consider and understand the position of their ideological opponents, and so they argue against things that conservatives don't believe and policy positions that Republicans don't have. Combined with the fact that they cannot admit that history has proved, again and again, that economic freedom pays dividends, and that tax cuts--that is, keeping more money in the free market economy, rather than in government coffers--is good for the economic welfare of everybody.


But the Democrats still don't like tax cuts, and still like tax hikes. Despite the obvious and substantial increase in tax revenues trailing Bush's tax cuts, they still want to call them "costs", suggesting that somehow that economic growth that led to those increasing revenues was inevitable, and that despite the government having much higher tax revenues now than it did when Democrats were in power and higher taxes ruled the day, important things aren't getting paid for because of the lower taxes. Even though when tax receipts were much lower when taxes were higher, we'd have to assume that important things didn't get paid for to an even greater extent, simply because there's less money. But the left, and the Democrats, weren't complaining then.


Wealth redistribution doesn't work. While conservatives often argue that wealth redistribution is immoral or unfair, and the left argues the opposite, the fact that it doesn't work, especially with practiced in perpetuity, is difficult debate. The fact that socialism fails where capitalism and free markets succeed is largely ignored by liberals, who still want to nationalize healthcare, education, and fight against any private choice, or free market exercise, at all in regards to things like education and Social Security. Yet there is no shortage of evidence that it does not work, does not work well, or works only as a parasite sucking off of much better free market solutions. As Thomas Sowell noted in a recent book review (covering the economic growth of China):
People on the political left make a lot of noise about poverty and advocate all sorts of programs and policies to reduce it but they show little interest in how poverty has actually been reduced, in China or elsewhere ... If the Chinese government hasn't done it, then who has? The Chinese people. They did not rise out of poverty by receiving largess. The only thing that can cure poverty is wealth. The Chinese acquired wealth the old-fashioned way: They created it.

And it's demonstrably true. Only when the government stopped trying to create a workers paradise, and it's opened up it's marketplace and gave it's people a choice about things like what they did for a living and where they decided to live, did the Chinese miracle begin.


But what's happening in the real world appears to inform left-wing political strategy less and less. And if that doesn't constitute a foolish choice, I don't what does.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Smart Liberals, Foolish Choices, Part I

Liberals are smart folks. So why do they keep making such bad political choices?

Liberals, by their own testimony, are smart folks: sometimes the most broadly educated, widely read, erudite folks in the room. And over the past two centuries the left had made a tremendous amount of political progress, much of it a source of great good for humanity.

So why is it that they can't win elections in this country anymore? Why did they just lose, even temporarily, elections in Canada? Why are they finding it so hard to bring the common man, supposedly their raison d'ĂȘtre, around to their point of view?

I think there are a lot of reasons, and the primary one is not the one that most prominent liberals keep pointing to: they think they aren't forceful enough. They don't think they fight conservatives and Republicans hard enough. They don't think they are tough or nasty enough when, oddly, that seems to me to be the one thing they've got in spades.
The examples are plentiful. Before the 2004 elections, a site dedicated to "tough liberalism", http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200603was founded. It's really a blog/online magazine with a different article every week, but the link I point you to above is a great example of their tough liberalism. "Anti-choice" is too "soft", the author says. So how does tough liberal Joshua Holland see conservative, right-to-lifers?
They call us baby-killers and blood-thirsty perpetrators of infanticide. They harass women trying to get a safe, legal medical procedure with horrific insults. They display disgusting photographs of mangled fetuses - the result of emergency, late-term abortions. They blow up clinics and shoot doctors in the head while they're eating breakfast with their families.
Wow, that's some great spine he's showing. Yeah, I'm definitely thinking the problem with the Democrats is that they don't spend enough time talking about how pro-life folks shoot doctors in the head.

And "emergency, late-term abortions" my ass. Unless the emergency is second-thoughts about the cost of day care, or an unexpected break-up with boyfriend or spouse, you could count the real need for emergency, late-term abortions on one hand. If honest appraisals of the issues can't go with that "tough-minded" liberalism, they are going to continue to have problem.

So, what about evangelical Christians? "It's a Christo-fascist death-cult." And what sort of change to the language does he want to make?
It's high time we get off the defensive and start getting tough with these people. So I'm not pro-choice anymore. I'm pro-sanity and anti-fucktard.
Oh, yeah. That's the ticket.

Helen Thomas covers the issue, too. Here we go:
On the domestic side, the Democrats should put on a well-lighted marquee the fact that the Republican-controlled Congress plans to save $50 billion over five years by cutting food stamps and student loans, by slapping new fees on Medicaid recipients and reducing child support enforcement.

So much for compassionate conservatism.
Ah, yes. Only one definition of compassion for the left: wealth redistribution. But, honestly: haven't the democrats touched on these issues? Haven't they come out strong against Bush? Does anyone think the Democrats support the War in Iraq, or NSA spying? Does anyone think they want conservatives on the court? I don't watch the news that much and I've heard Democratic party leaders talk about the "Republican culture of corruption" dozens of times. I've heard the Iraq is a mistake and the Bush lied hundreds, if not thousands, of times. The problem is not that the message isn't getting out: the problem is that the message is not sufficient. It either needs to be something else, or something more.

So, I think we can safely say that what the Democrats think their problem is, it is not.

So, what is it?

I think the first problem is, they are smart, and they know it. So smart that it's unthinkable that any of the positions they may embrace might be wrong, or that they might actually lose in a "fair" election. So smart that the only possible reasons that they aren't in power are because (a) the other side cheats or (b) their message isn't getting out. Such a lack of sobriety when it comes to self-appraisal is going to make future electoral victories difficult, and completely a product of how poorly their opponents perform, relative to them. When they cannot accurately assess themselves and their positions, or their opponents, they are left with no choice but to lose elections, and in the marketplace of ideas, unless those they are competing against royally screw up. And that's not a basis for lasting political and cultural success.

When you can't honestly assess the problem, you can't come up with an actual solution. While Fox News and talk radio have hurt the left, and the Democrats, tremendously, the problem is not that they somehow magically have more influence, or reach more people, than more liberal news media and opinion. Thus, attempts to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine or otherwise curtail the New Media are wrong-headed and self-defeating. Equally, attempts to create a New New Media--with the same old stuff that's available in the old liberal media is also not an answer, but a "solution" enthusiastically pursued by the left. With obviously mixed results: as Air America's ratings might indicate (no ratings info is available, even in opinion form, for Current TV, which sounds a lot more promising and open, when it comes down to it, than Air America ever did . . . but, even if it's wildly popular, Current TV won't teach anybody anything about liberal positions and opinions we didn't already know, which was not the case with talk radio, Fox News, and conservative blogs). With such cultural saturation of the liberal viewpoint, the problem is not that people don't have an idea of what Democrats stand for or the problems and solutions as liberals see them--the problem is, they do.

Tom Cosgrove has some good ideas, but I don't expect it to filter up the Democratic leadership (or, in fact, many of the writers at AlterNet, where his missive was posted).

Among a few other nuggets of wisdom, Cosgrove writes:
Americans may know what group we stand against -- Republicans -- but they do not know what ideas we have for change or what principles and moral values we share as a party.

That's only one of their problems, but it's a big one. That's one place where "the message isn't getting out"--because they don't really have one. Complaining about tax cuts for the rich should never even come up, because most of the people they need to convince to vote for them don't see life as a zero sum game, and they don't see wealth redistribution by the government as the secret to their future success. Advocating research, education funding, government-sponsored job training, head start programs, and that sort of thing--that can really work for them. Higher pay for men and women in the military--that could be a great platform plank. Rolling back taxes on Social Security checks--wouldn't that rock?

Fighting to repeal tax cuts that have apparently improved the economy, and certainly put more money in the voters' pockets, and haven't impeded the government's ability to spend, since tax revenues are up, not down, since the tax cuts took effect. That's not really Cosgrove's take on the details, but we certainly do agree on the central point: that just being against Republicans is not a winning campaign strategy. In fact, just being against things, period, is not a winning strategy.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Democracy Still Works! Thanks, MoveOn.Org!

And what defines "Democracy Working"? Why, the left getting what it wants! Surprise, surprise.


As you may have noticed (all five of you that read my rantings), I am often drawn to pointing out the underlying template of those on the left, the core beliefs that inform their assumptions in politics and beyond. And this is no different. I just got a fund raising solicitation from MoveOn.org (unfortunately, I just don't have anything to give them this year--perhaps they can ask George Soros) and it starts by letting me know that "democracy still can work".


And how do they define democracy "still" working? Why, they got what they want: ANWR defeated, the Patriot Act down (and if they think that's a lasting win for them, I've got a nice bridge in Brooklyn they might want to buy) and, they seem to suggest, they've done something to defeat the "reverse robin hood budget" (and don't get me started on how in Robin Hood, the poor were poor because of the excessive taxation of the government, and Robin Hood was stealing from the government's treasury to give the money back to the over-taxed citizens, making their whole "reverse Robin Hood" poll-tested catch-phrase awfully ironic).


The fundamental logical problem they are suffering here (as the left so often does) is the idea that, when they lose on issues, it's a failure of democracy. That's an infantile, egregiously self-centered way of looking at the larger world. While I, personally, was for drilling in ANWR, think letting the Patriot Act lapse was probably not a real accomplishment, and fully support more tax cuts and less government spending (i.e., the "reverse Robin Hood" budget of the historically illiterate folks at MoveOn.org), I don't see democracy as "broken" just because what I wanted didn't happen, this time around. It isn't a failure of the system simply because I don't get my desired outcome, when the system is designed to modulate numerous competing interests over time. The system is working fine, even when liberals get exactly what they want.


Thomas Sowell refers to the structure of the underlying belief system of the left (in general terms) as "the unconstrained vision", and one of the features of the unconstrained vision is that it's focused on outcomes rather than processes (i.e., "equal treatment" for conservatives, or those with a "constrained vision", means that the process is the same for everybody, while "equal treatment" for liberals means that the outcome is the same, or largely the same, for everybody, and that the processes, such as they are, are adjusted or dismissed so that being with different "natural advantages" can all be modulated, or equalized, into the same, "fair" and "just" result).


And the idea that democracy (a process) is "broken" when liberals don't get there way (the desired outcomes), and is working when they do, is a perfect illustration of this orientation. Although nothing whatsoever has changed about the democratic process bettween, say, the 1994 Republican sweep of congress, the 2004 election of George W. Bush, or the 2005 successes of liberals in frustrating the Republican agenda, the only time democracy has been "working" and not "broken" (either via problems inherent, and not correctly adjusted for, in the democratic process, or by outright manipulation and cheating by the opposition) is when Democrats and the political left get their way.


I have recommended before, and will again, that if you want a solid understanding of the fundamental, underlying differences of right and left, forget the goofy liberal meandering of Thomas Franks (What's The Matter With Kansas, see my excellent review here) go straight for Thomas Sowell. I recommend A Conflict of Visions, a more academic treatment of the subject, and Visions of the Annointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, a book that covers the basics of the different visions, but also is full of facts, statistics, and real-world examples as to how those visions conflict in the real world, and how you often don't know the whole story (i.e., the outcome of much liberal social activism), because the negative outcomes from their good-intentioned initiatives is, for liberals, beside the point. As such, it's rarely covered or acknowledged, but Sowell takes on liberal touchstones like Unsafe at Any Speed and Silent Spring, and demonstrates how these efforts at self-congratulatory activism had results that were almost wholly negative. It is truly a great book.


The rest of the email covers the many ways in which MoveOn.org members have helped accomplish their goals, thus ensuring that "democracy still can work". While it's about what I'd expect (lambasts Republicans for doing things like attaching ANWR to the defense spending bill, something that all politicians from the farthest left to the farthest right have done, but you'd think the Republicans had only just invented this dastardly strategy, at this moment, to try and pass ANWR) it is interesting how hard they make the argument that their members helped make the difference. I wonder if they are losing cash and/or volunteers? If so, it's the right time to try and make up the difference: nothing succeeds like success.


However, I think their successes may be short-lived, and at least some of them (for example, just letting the Patriot Act lapse ain't going to last through the next session) are going to be largely reversed. And then, no doubt--at least, to the fine folks at MoveOn.org--democracy will be broken again.