perfidy

It has been commonly observed that there are many parallels between Prohibition and the War on Drugs. The lack of any real effect in terms of decreasing alcohol or drug use, or even effecting prices; vast increases in organized crime activity; erosion of civil liberties; increases in government police powers; etc, etc. These problems are well known and not really contested by anyone. Those who are for the war on drugs largely use the same script as the prohibitionists - drugs (alcohol) are destroying our youth, drugs (alcohol) are contributing to the immorality of women, and so on. They argue that the costs to society of not banning these drugs is higher than the costs of fighting them.

But who actually, really benefits from the drug war? Arguably, through our efforts, we have saved children from addiction. Or convinced some who might have used drugs and damaged their lives to take a different course. Those who feel the need to take a moral stand on other people's behavior feel a righteous and warming satisfaction.

But there are two groups who clearly and greatly benefit from the drug war. Drug dealers and federal law enforcement agencies.

If drugs were legalized, the vast drug cartels would be out of business in weeks. Just as the rumrunners and bootleggers had their legs cut out from under them after prohibition was repealed. There is no way that drug dealers could compete with walmart in distribution. Drug dealers are selected for willingness to commit crime or violence, not business or logistical acumen. They have a great deal at stake in keeping drugs illegal.

Federal agencies tasked with prosecuting the drug war also have much at stake. It means budget, personnel and bureaucratic turf. Those who make the most busts get bigger budgets. Possibly even more enforcement power, as was the case with the RICO statutes and civil forfeiture. (And civil foreiture allows agencies to keep some of the money or property that they seize.)

The people who are hurt by taking drugs do so largely out of their own decisions. Much like alcoholics. For them, there should be education and treatment programs like there are for alcoholics. Those who are hurt by the crime that surrounds the drug trade are not - they are hurt by the direct results of government policy. Every innocent bystander killed in drug related violence is the victim of government decisions. And that goes far beyond merely pragmatic arguments for ending the drug war. 

John O'Sullivan of the NRO has a fanciful letter from Machiavelli to Governor Dean. While the letter is interesting, the header is classic:

TO: Governor Howard Dean, The Deanery, Old McGovern Way, Montpelier, Vermont.

FROM Nick Machiavelli, Senior Partner, Machiavelli, O'Blarney, Iago, Alcibiades, and Morris, Political Consultants.

I would like to intern at that firm.

George Will has condemned the misbehavior of both parties, giving an extensive list of both democratic and republican offenses. In describing one outrage, he says, "Nothing this undignified has happened in American politics for, well, two weeks."

Will fears that the overturning of established custom - such as the custom that district boundaries are reset only once a decade, after each census - causes permanent damage to civil society. When custom is overturned, "it is replaced either by yet more laws codifying behavior that should be regulated by good manners, or by a permanent increase in society's level of ongoing aggression."

I find it hard to disagree. In my lifetime, stretching all the way back to the chaos of the late sixties, political discourse has become progressively more polarized and acrimonious. "Each vandal seems to think that his or her passions are their own excuse for existing. As Santayana said, such thinking is the defining trait of barbarians."

Oh well, the world must be coming to an end.

Well, that is the problem, isn't it? The new prescription benefit program will actually help some people, but at the cost of doing enormous damage elsewhere. Including these nuggets of goodness is what allows these abominations to become law. Because some disingenuous senator can point to the one nice bit and say, "but look, we're helping old people get the meds they need and not have to eat cat food! You don't want old people to eat cat food, do you?"

I don't oppose helping people. I do oppose helping people who don't need to be helped. But the AARP and others oppose means testing tooth and nail. And the sad fact is that if a benefit becomes available, people will use it regardless of whether or not they "need" it. Soon after, they will feel entitled to that benefit, and will scream bloody murder if some cold hearted conservative tries to take it away. Every beneficiary of one of these vast entitlement programs becomes an instant, permanent constituent for whoever says they'll continue or expand these programs.

When we create these programs we have to limit the eligibility, and everywhere possible build in mechanisms that encourage people to leave the program. It should never be just a handout. It should never provide everything, otherwise there is never any incentive to provide for yourself. A safety net is just that - something to catch you if you fall. It shouldn't be a place to live permanently. Benefit programs have to be set up with an eye toward personal responsibility. The responsibility to work, to provide for your own retirement, etc. Privatizing Social Security would go a long way towards allowing people to actually provide for their own futures.

Instead of blindly paying a huge chunk of your earnings (matched by your employer, remember) to the government, imagine that that money went into your own account. Every quarter you'd get a statement showing how much money you had. If you die, your family would inherit the cash - unlike the current system where the money largely just disappears into the government black hole. In this scenario, everyone would actually be providing for their own futures, and we wouldn't have to worry about SS going bust, and we'd worry far less about providing for the needs of seniors.

It occurs to me that the question of medical benefits for older people is thornier than I thought. I stand by my comments of yesterday, but a conversation with my sage and oracular wife has reminded me that the Medicare bill will do some concrete good. Namely, it will allow poorer senior citizens without many assets or good insurance to afford and gain access to the drugs that keep them alive. If they're taking say 6 pills a day, and don't have decent coverage, the expense can be crippling. Importation from Canada can help that group of seniors afford BOTH food AND medicine. Unless you are a true Social Darwinian, you cannot fail to see that this is good for them.

Of course, most Boomers and Greatest Generationers are already set up with good insurance and prescription coverage, and probably won't bother with the extra bother of mail-ordering drugs from Canada. A good insurance plan gives you $5/$10/$15 coverage on perscriptions, and there is no conceivable benefit to going to Canada instead of Rite Aid. So, it's possible that the effect of drug importation will be less than I thought, but it remains to be seen how many people take advantage of it.

The damnedest thing about healthcare legislation is that even the most venal and grasping bill contains a nugget of good intentions that will concretely help people that need it badly. Makes it kind of hard to work up a white-hot denunciatory rage, I tell you what. Why can't people just be evil and motives clear? Dang!

While I'm on a roll, commenting on everything Pythagosaurus posts (I'll get my own brain soon, I promise) I thought I'd throw in my thoughts on the whole health care thingy:

The interesting thing about the prescription drug benefit is that it was intended as leverage to get certain elements of Congress to agree to reform Medicare. There is a certain crunchy political compromise sort of goodness to that - in exchange for enacting a hideously expensive piece of crap legislation, we will excise the worst parts of a grotesquely expensive, double-plus crappy abomination of a legislation. Instead, we now have both, which is more stupendously expensive crappiness than you can shake a stick at, plus the stick.

The prescription drug benefit program's only saving grace is that it might not kill the goose that lays the wonderful, groovy new drugs. In every other way, it is an immoral, bald faced, long term mandate for thievery from the younger generations. But the drug benefits are really a side show in the larger catastrophe.

There are three elements that form the center of my perception of the problem:

• The health "industry" constitutes as much as a seventh of the total US economy.
• Old people represent a growing percentage of the whole population. Not as bad as Europe or Japan, but still…
• The Byzantine and corrupt nature of the industry as a whole compromises the effectiveness of the system.

Starting from the bottom, why does it cost $12,000 to get your arm repaired after your neighbor jumps up and down on it? Assuming that your mom drives you to the hospital, what kind of costs are we talking about? A few minutes for the receptionist. A half hour each for a nurse and a doctor, fifteen minutes for the radiologist and the cost of running the x-ray machine, the broken bone kit in the nifty sterile packaging, some overhead costs to keep the nice hospital open, and some powerful narcotics to dull the existential angst of realizing what a dumbass you were to let your neighbor jump on your arm.

I added that up, and came up with about $500. And that was assuming that doctors were charging $300/ hour for their time, and nurses half that. Even assuming that my perception of the costs was off by an order of magnitude, that still leaves you $7,000 short of $12,000. Where does the extra money come from?

Malpractice insurance to protect doctors from the ridiculous lawsuits we as a people are prone to. Also, extra tests as an added safeguard from lawsuits. The bloat of the insurance industries, which encourages doctors to overcharge. And the labyrinthine regulatory hairball that surrounds the entire industry.

I have no problem with doctors making money. They studied far harder and longer than I ever did, and they perform a vital service. I have no problem with drug companies making money - it costs billions to develop and especially get FDA approval for a new medication. They should be able to recoup their costs, and make a little folding money.

I do have a problem with jackholes making millions because they convinced a jury of their jackhole peers that they deserved to get $20 million in punitive damages because of something that no doctor could have prevented, or came up short on the odds. Nothing in life is certain. (Now, if the doctor was drunk, sue away....)

I do have a problem with government setting prices for the whole industry, and for all other kinds of intrusive regulation. My cousin used to work for a hospital, and the nightmare stories he told were unbelievable. The hoops that every part of the industry must jump through are staggering.

There has to be someway to straighten and simplify the whole thing. And tort reform would be a great start, eliminating one of the biggest costs for medical care for everyone.

The second point is the demographic change that will hit full force as the boomers start retiring in large numbers. This single fact dooms every old age entitlement scheme already in existence or merely in the planning stages. Entitlement means that those eligible get their money regardless of whether of any other needs the government or the rest of the country have. When the old reach a certain percentage of the population, the system will as a matter of course bankrupt itself because it will cross the threshold where the working population contributes enough in taxes to fund the outlays to the old.

Unless these programs are fixed, we are screwed. Privatization is one option. Raising the age of eligibility is another idea. Means testing is necessary. But something has to be done, or we will end up by 2050 paying all of our money right into the pockets of the old. Because it is damn certain that the boomers will be there with their hands out.

And we need to do something soon, because of point number one - seeing as the health industry is such a huge part of the economy, if it gets screwed up, the whole effect on the rest of the economy will be, I don't know, large. There are many ways that it could get screwed up: panicky regulation could either regulate it into stagnation or nationalize it. Increasing inefficiency and corruption could bankrupt key parts of it, leaving the system in ruins. Or, there could be piecemeal collapse, for example if malpractice insurance becomes to expensive, there will be no doctors - they will move to where they can practice and make a living.

The health industry must continue to make money in order for it to be the wonderfully effective thing that it is. It must continue to attract the best and brightest. What we need to fix is not the doctors and nurses, or even the drug companies. In principle, health insurance is a viable prospect. What we need to fix is the government side of the beastie, both in terms of regulation and heath related entitlement programs.

In reference to Pythagosaurus' recent post, I have this to say:

There is a list of many things that this administration (or any, for that matter) could do that would be good for business. This item strikes me as being very, very low on that list, if it's on it at all.

I work in the tech industry; and I and many people I know have been screwed by the comp time thingy. Since many techies are salaried, they are already exempt from most of the regulations regarding overtime. If you are an hourly worker, then by all means you should get overtime.

The only way that this suggestion would make sense is if the worker in question could opt between the two, and if he took the comp time, could take the time on his rather than his employer's discretion.

Contrary to received opinion, I am not some sort of conservative robot who automatically says "Labor bad! Business good!" Worker rights are important to me, if only because I'm a worker myself. While I have often complained about unions, especially the teacher's unions (sorry, Mike) it's mostly because they have made nuisances of themselves in recent times. I would certainly not begrudge the labor movement its utility and victories back more than a half century ago, but nowadays they seem to act more as purely special interest groups, lobbying for gains at the expense of the rest of society. Like the AARP.

So, I agree - this proposal is a pile of horseshit.

I love it when Ross gets on a tear .

I went on a little screed a few weeks ago about this very issue of senior citizens voting themselves any benefit they wish, looting the store at the expense of future generations (e.g. yours truly). It's shameful and foolish. But there's another victim which we have not yet explored: the drug companies themselves.

I have long harbored the suspicion that health insurance is mostly a huge vicious scam, feeding alternately on doctors, patients, and medical care facilities and manufacturers. Even factoring in the hideous r&d costs that are required to come up with a new heart pump, the fact that an uninsured person can go into the hospital with a broken bone and come out with a $12,000 bill is unbelievable. The web of mutual back-scratching, rebilling, and cooperative deals is the best built house of cards ever.

But there's a weak side. The Medicare reform proposal before Congress now would allow older Americans to get their drugs from Canada, where prices are cheaper. Well, great, except that Canadian drugs are so cheap because American patients and insurance companies are footing the drug R&D bill for the entire world!

Other nations, including the EU and Canada, have enacted price controls to keep the cost of drugs lower than the cost of production. Despite this wish-based economic policy, there is no way around the high cost of creating, testing, and approving a new medication. If innovation is to continue, that money has to come from somewhere, and currently it is coming from American insurance premium payers, period. The Medicaid reform package would in effect take senior citizens out of the game, further shrinking the R&D money pool and leading to higher drug prices for the rest of us. This is especially galling because seniors typically need far more regular medical care than your average 29-year old nonsmoking yoga enthusiast.

I don't claim to cry for Pfizer and Merck. They can take care of their damn selves. But their expensive American drugs are part of the Great Wheel of Graft that keeps the American medical establishment functioning. By legislating themselves a way out of the great Ponzi scheme of drug research and insurance, senior citizens and their allies in Congress are about to kill the goose that lays the little golden pills. As with Social Security, they will be taking out of the system far, far more than they ever put in, leaving us high and dry. Wonder what will happen then?

Thanks guys. Greatest generation my shiny metal ass.

Diamond John Kerry has begun stumping for an issue with actual, real value! The Boston Globe/AP is reporting that Kerry is attempting to launch a petition against the Bush Administration's changes to overtime regulations.

Whoopee. A damn petition. But it's a good cause, and one that the Democrats have utterly failed to capitalize on in their bumbling assault on Castle Dubya.

In short, the changes to overtime policy allow businesses to reclassify a large chunk of workers (how large? wisdom varies--some say a little over half a million, big labor says 8 million) as exempt from overtime pay. Basically, the new rules would give employers greater latitude in determining whether workers making between $22.1K and $65K per year are vital enough to the function of a business to be exempt from overtime pay.

Instead, employers could choose to issue comp time to workers who work over 40 hours per week.

Though the Department of Labor insists it is not fundamentally changing anything, in separate discussions spokespeople have admitted that it would make it easier for employers to deny lower-paid rank and file workers overtime.

Not such a big deal, right? Weeeeel, I dunno. The 40-hour week plus overtime was one of the great victories of the labor movement in the United States, and any attempt at revising that standard will be naturally met with skepticism. Furthermore, having worked for my share of grasping, greedy, and utterly perfidious employers, I am well aware of the many ways in which business may legally deprive you of your own time. The new rules just make it easier to do so.

The Big Comp Time Scam

Although comp time has been presented as a reasonable alternative to overtime, as it turns out, it isn't such a great deal for workers at all. Although in theory one is able to save up days worked and redeem them almost at will in lieu of spending a vacation day, there are two problems: 1) comp time disappears if an employee is laid off, meaning employers are not obliged to pay for comped hours in severance packages; and 2) comp time is taken at the will of the employer, not the employee.

An example of how this can go wrong: I know of a computer tech at a nonprofit who gives comp time instead of overtime. Currently, he has worked more than 40 hours per week every week for a year straight, and has banked more than 50 days worth of comp time accordingly. But, although he wants and desperately needs time off, his employer will not allow him to use this comp time, arguing "we need you here too badly." They also consistently deny his vacation requests. The upshot is that they employer has gotten an extra ten weeks of work out of this worker for free, and is under no real future obligation to compensate him for this time.

Subheadline #2: obligatory centrist flailing

I'm completely fine with Bush being pro-business-- business makes the world go 'round. But he needs to be verrry careful when making changes to the American work week. Not only is the 40 hour week one of the finest fruits of the labor movement, in more concrete terms a lot of people rely on overtime to survive and raise their families. Changing overtime rules is hitting these good working Americans right where it hurts. Most of the people affected aren't blue-collar workers, but the new-style lowly bluish-white collar administrators and middle managers who are the new Joe Sixpack of the American workforce.

Subheadline #3: a strong stand!

All in all, I don't like the proposed changes because I don't trust business not to exploit the regulations to the limit of the letter. Companies exist to make money, and with few exceptions, there is tension between the need to be far in the black, and the need to retain and treat well good employees. Like in most things, give them an inch and they'll take a mile.

But more importantly, this is the kind of issue the Democrats could really score points on if they could stop drooling on their shirts for a while. If the damn Dems could give up on the "Bush Lied" thing-- which is as endearing now as when the Republicans tried it on Clinton-- and actually got to work on attacking Bush where he's vulnerable, this could turn into an ugly issue. Just harp on the "they're coming for your paycheck" meme a little, and Labor could swing more decisively Democratic than it has for a while.

Not that this will happen. Most of the Democrats presidential contenders are idiots, and even the ones I like (Howard Dean) are silver-spoon babies with no actual affinity for working Americans. Which is why we need Jim Traficant for president!

From the "Free Traficant" site linked below, some pearls of wisdom from the mouth of The Don Of Youngstown, cast before ye swine:

"When I get out I will grab a sword like Maximus Meridius Demidius and as a Gladiator I will stab people in the crotch."

"Think about it. While 60 percent of taxpayer calls to the IRS go unanswered, the IRS agents were watching Marilyn Chambers do the Rotary International. Beam me up here. It is time to pass a flat 15 percent sales tax and abolish this gambling, porno-watching IRS completely. I yield back the internal rectal service of the United States of America. "

"The Pentagon just did not waive the Buy American Act, the Pentagon waved Old Glory the wrong way. Mr. Speaker, I suggest that these Chinese berets be made into suppositories and be used on Pentagon brass. Madam Speaker, I yield back the need for Congress to hire a proctologist to train Pentagon procurement officials on the buy American laws."

"They are officially called unisex restrooms. Unbelievable. What is next? Unisex locker rooms with thong/jock support dispensers? How about Maxipad vending machines in locker rooms? Beam me up. I yield back this higher education business as yet simply getting high."

"If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room!"

"I want you to disregard all the opposing counsel has said. I think they're delusionary. I think they've had something funny for lunch in their meal, I think they should be handcuffed, chained to a fence and flogged, and all of their hearsay evidence should be thrown the hell out. And if they lie again, I'm going to go over there and kick them in the crotch. Thank you very much."

YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! [pumps arm exultantly like Kirk Gibson]

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- James A. Traficant, a former Ohio congressman in prison for bribery and racketeering charges, has given his approval to supporters to form a presidential exploratory committee."

"The battle to free James Traficant and to evict the Socialists and 'free traders' from the Democratic Party is now under way," campaign spokesman Marcus Belk said. "Someone buy the Washington establishment a bottle of Maalox." Belk said the group, which announced Friday that it had gotten Traficant's approval by letter, has raised $10,224 in cash pledges made on Traficant's campaign Web site. The average contribution was $71, he said.

"Traficant, a Democrat who represented northeast Ohio in the House for nine terms, was expelled from Congress in July 2002 after being convicted in a federal court of racketeering, bribery and tax evasion. He is now serving an eight-year prison sentence at the minimum-security Allenwood federal prison in White Deer, Pennsylvania. "

Never mind that in an election between a trained goat and Jim Traficant, I'd go with the goat every time, this is wonderful! Just what this country needs: a corrupt, venal slippery populist demagogue with a talent for making the insane sound reasonable as long as he keeps talking. And an Ohioan to boot!

Let's review: the current headline-making political figures in Ohio right now are Dennis "Burning River" Kucinich, Sideshow Jerry Springer, and James "Beam Me Up!" Traficant. Makes me proud. Those fat cats in Washington better circle the wagons... 2004 is the Year Of The Buckeye!

Right here and now, I am announcing my support for former Representative James A. Traficant for President of the United States in 2004. But first things first... Free Mumia!Traficant

Reagan Conservatism: The New Youth Protest Flavor Of The Year.

I've been an idiot. For years I have been insisting that apathy is the new form of youth protest. With the Boomer Generation firmly in charge of the media, entertainment, and politics, not to mention the families that produced the Youth Of Today, it's a logical conclusion. The Boomers still claim that all youth activism is inspired by their efforts in the 60s, rather cruelly robbing the younger generation of any credit for initiative, drive, or effort. And indeed, so much college protest seems to be warmed-over Aquarian sentimentalism. Consequently, I naturally concluded that, since the neo-hippies aren't so much protesting as rehashing a mis-remembered past, the Apathetic Majority must be the ones taking a stand, in their apathy, against their parents' generation and their monopoly on activism.

But I've been an idiot. No matter what the era, teenagers have responded to politics with apathy - a silent majority of people with better things to do with their time. We (I) tend to forget that fact, given that the Big Boomer Lie has rewritten the 60s so extensively that it seems that every single person who came of age back then was a hippie, nobody voted for Nixon, and the fields of Woodstock NY held countless millions.

But that's bullcrap. Most kids back then were living their lives quite content to ignore the heated political debates of the age. Hell, my own Boomer father spent the late 60s working construction, building hot rods, and drinking Gennesee Cream Ale. My kid sister had to turn him on to Bob Dylan, in 1998! His collection of Johnny Cash records, on the other hand, is quite extensive.

What I have mistaken for a new wave of intelligent apathy among The Youth Of Today is just new wine in old bottles - the same old not giving a damn, dressed up with an inborn ability to see through the sales pitches, spinning, and artifice that politics shares with entertainment and ads.

I've been an idiot not to have seen it sooner: the Big Protest Movement Of Today is Reagan Conservatism. It makes perfect sense. Alex P. Keaton is the perfect icon for a generation of activist youths whose elders harp incessantly on the virtues of the 1960s and the evils of Ronald Reagan. What is more natural than for politically inclined kids to take a look at what pushes their parents’ buttons and gravitate toward that? The hippies are their parents, for god's sake! How embarrassing! Mommm stop waving that sign! People'll see!!

And then they get to college, where far-left liberals outnumber moderate conservatives fifty to one on faculties (I'm making that number up), and the case is sealed. These kids, brought up being told "Liberal=DoublePlusGood" and "Reagan=Eats Babies" are now fed the worst kinds of Liberal Social Theory (whiteness studies, political correctness). Since kids these days have very fine bullshit sensors what with the constant advertising barrage they've grown up with, some see right through the Theory and rhetoric and reject it in favor of a vaguely populist, ostensibly pragmatic, conservatism. If they can find something genuinely appealing in the legacy of Reagan, good for them! I only worry that kids being kids they will idolize Ronnie, warts and all, and elevate him to the political godhead without actually considering the nuances of his legacy. (Well, of course they will... kids....)

I'm such an idiot. For further reading, the Economist has a good article this week on the topic (subscription only), and New York Magazine ran something about three weeks ago which I apparently cannot link to. The NY Times ran a story some months ago on the same topic. Frankly, punditry about the new turn in campus conservatism has been everywhere for the last year or so, and I've been an idiot for not putting two and two together. 

Previously, I had accepted the rise of conservatism on campuses as a sideshow in the larger funhouse of youth activism. Now I begin to see it's becoming the main attraction.

God help us all.

Ross, over at spiral dive, is the only one who showed any interest in my police state post. (Scroll down to the second entry. Unreconstructed luddite Ross doesn't have permalinks for individual entries.) (Wah. Not that he bothered to tell me. I actually had to go read his blog, the bastard.) While I posted a version of this in his comments, I found it sufficiently interesting to post over here. (And remember, I do this for my amusement, not yours.)

Ross says:

The question is, can the system come apart? In the environment and in our political system I believe we are truly faced with the systemic question. Will the system survive the stresses we place upon it?

He then mentions the environment and the brittleness of our political system, as examples that we are skating on the edge of disaster. He continues:

Do you really believe that we can just muddle along on these issues? Do you really believe that there just can't be a downside, that nothing can and ever will befall this country? After all, nothing ever has.

(Read the whole post to get a sense of where he was coming from.)

Not normally one to kick at long term consequences, I have to say that sticking a knife in our economy now on the chance that we may prevent a 1 degree increase in the average world temperature over a century seems a little too forward looking.

In my post, I was talking about the ultimate collapse of government. But to answer your question, yes, I think we will muddle along. Every issue has its downside, every decision has its consequence. This is the core of conservative thinking - the law of unintended consequences. We need to defend the country, that costs money. The boomers want their entire existence subsidized. That will cost a lot of money. The government decrees that cars must be fuel efficient, so people by minivans and SUVs which are classified as light trucks. You can't have a solution just by wishing it so, or because it would be fair, or just, or whatever.

While political systems are not in general fast reacting - dedicated as they are to the status quo - the US has a government whose reaction times have been reduced to a world record generation or less. If something starts going wrong, we can take advantage of our adaptable system to put in a correction. The openness of the system allows people to organize to achieve this.

Over the last two centuries, history shows us that people have always felt that we were on the brink. Somehow we never went over, or maybe we weren't really on the brink after all.

There are problems. Likely, someone has a solution or at least a start on one. None of these problems are catastophic, at least that I can see. So unless we get hit by an asteroid, I think we'll be alright for the time being.

Unless we go to war with China

Many people have been whining lately about how the US is a Police State. This cry has come from several quarters - libertarians worried about privacy and surveillance, leftists worried about whatever they worry about, and fundamentalists trying to immanentize the eschaton. 

Somehow, I have failed to notice that I live in a Police State(tm). Certainly, liberty must be defended. I oppose parts of the Patriot acts, and worry about things like face recognition software and Poindexter's evil laboratory. (A well argued counterpoint to those worries can be found here.)

But what chance, really, is there that the freest nation in the world would come to resemble the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Cuba or even Great Britain?

I was pondering today, "Under what circumstances could there be a coup or totalitarian takeover in the US?" This may seem an odd thing to ponder, but this is how I spend my days.

I came up with several groups that would have at least the desire, if not necessarily the ability to rule the American people with an iron fist.

• Fundamentalists
• the Far left
• Environmentalists
• Charismatic Personality Cult

Another group has the ability, but in all likelihood will never have the desire: The US Military.

The problem with fundamentalists on one side, and with the leftists/greens on the other is that their positions are completely unacceptable to huge numbers of people on the opposite end of the political spectrum. It is unlikely that they could ever get close to the levers of power and pull a Hitler. If they have to get in legitimately, they never will, because the American people are naturally centrist, and because our political structures encourage that.

The only other way that we could have a takeover would for there to be some sort of monumental catastrophe that created a collapse in the existing government, creating a power vacuum that some small group could exploit.

The German Weimar government, weak as it was, was able to resist many attempts on its life - communist, the beer hall and other putsches, and so on. It was only when Hitler gained a significant popular following that we was able to take power - after being legally elected.

The Communists under Lenin were able to take power largely because of the total collapse of almost every cultural and political institution in Russia. And even then, they almost collapsed on several occasions.

The chance, short of massive asteroid strike, of the US government collapsing is very close to nil. Which rules out the shortcut to power.

I have ignored two options. One I mentioned above, and the other is creeping fascism. Libertarians talk about the ratchet effect, where once an invasion of our liberty is in place, it never goes away. In this manner, we slowly stagger towards totalitarian oblivion. I don't think this is really true. In many cases, repressive laws have been removed - especially after both world wars. The experience of the civil rights movement flies in the face of this. For every patriot act, there is a EFF and a hundred other organizations fighting against it. In the society we have, it is so easy to organize to oppose the actions of our government. These two forces will oppose each other, and I think in the end will cancel each other out.

The only chance of creeping fascism actually happening is if the government gets its hands on technology that allows it to suppress the people. David Brin talks about this in his book, The Transparent Society. But the flip side of that argument is that the government is notoriously slow to adopt technology. I work in the government, I should know.

In this era of amazing technological change, it is people in general who will be getting the cool stuff first. For all that the government might spend, there are hundreds of thousands of engineers designing for the consumer market. The military is slowly realizing this, and has begun in the last decade to gear its procurement toward the civilian market. Technology can be abused by governments (see A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge) but if it is also in the hands of the far more numerous public, that cancels out as well.

The last option, now that is the only one that at all worries me. Imagine a combination of a Huey Long's political skills, a Lincoln or Martin Luther King's oratory, the charisma of Washington, set in a Kennedy like charm and vigor (viga), and guided by a ruthless and amoral mind with power as its only goal. Imagine that he is a democrat, but a professed Christian - he is a hard core environmentalist, but calls it "stewardship." He calls for every kind of social program, but uses biblical imagery and Christian charity instead of neo Marxist and class warfare rhetoric. He satisfies the fundamentalists by calling for bans on pornography, but does not offend the left by castigating gays and lesbians. He is a foriegn policy hawk.

Someone like this could convince enough people, and get a big enough following to win an election. If enough of his followers got into congress, he could conceivably pull a Hitler, or at least a Hitler lite, and push through some sort of totalitarian agenda. Every policy could be justified in some part of American society's desire to control other people.

Other than that, I don't think it's possible.

Buckethead, John Cole posted recently about how stupid the Democrats are (actually, he posts on that like twice every ten minutes, but when you strike gold, you mine it, right?), and came up with a loooong list of things he is angry with the President over. I think he and you (and well, I) have some things in common.

There are so many damned things I am pissed off at this administration for that if it were not for the never-ending sniping on the left, I probably wouldn't even think about voting for Bush if there was a credible alternative. In no short order, these issues piss me off royally-

• the stand on stem cell research
• faith based initiatives
• continuing the war on drugs
• the fact that the WMD are probably in terrorist hands or in the hands of other unsavory regimes
• not placing enough pressure on Iran
• failing to increase domestic oil production
• the deficit
• caving on the education bill
• failing to push social security privatization
• caving to Democrats and trying to get the House to pass tax cuts for people who only pay payroll taxes
• putting too much pressure on Israel
• the deficit
• even toying with the notion of a prescription drug plan
• Ashcroft's intervention into state affairs regarding the death penalty and medical marijuana
• the ridiculous Homeland Security Department
• Norm Mineta
• not publicly addressing the failures of Clinton foreign policy, thus providing Democrats with an opportunity to blame Bush for everything
• the deficit and the bloated budgets

I can't say as I agree with all these-- I never do with John Cole-- but man! If a President can do all these things in direct contradiction of the principles he was elected to uphold and the opposition is still more odious to him...

Buckethead, yesterday you wrote:

"Though I have consistently defended the the decision to invade Iraq, and in general support the administration (I am a conservative, after all). . . ."

Are you seriously suggesting that Bush is in general a conservative?! He sure isn't, fiscally, and culturally he sends decidedly mixed messages! Well, he IS pro-business in a big way.

Is that what you mean? (he asked innocently, knowing the dangled bait would be taken)

Instapundit's alterego, Glenn Reynolds, had this to say about the utility of the Homeland Security agency. I agree completely:

Now Tom Ridge is proving me right, with a new plan to pervert Homeland Security from its antiterror mission to an unrelated one: "The initiative, dubbed Operation Predator, will target pornographers, child prostitution rings, Internet predators, immigrant smugglers and other criminals."

What can we learn from this? Two things. One is that the Department of Homeland Security apparently thinks the War on Terror isn't important enough to occupy its full energies anymore, and that -- in the interest of bureaucratic survival -- it's branching out into the kind of operations that have generally been associated with, well, ordinary law enforcement, even if the targets, in this case, are foreigners...

Since Ridge has, with this initiative, essentially admitted that Homeland Security is no longer urgent enough to occupy the Department of Homeland Security, let's abolish the Department, and pass the savings on to the taxpayers. Not only will this save money, but it will serve as a salutary warning to future Tom Ridges that overstepping the bounds of a mandate is politically dangerous.

Of course, that isn't going to happen.

In a recent comment, NDR (loyal reader #0010) says:

However I think that people examining the current scandal need to reflect how scandals are, in general, seldom about specific actions and events but the things they represent. The hubbub over Iraq-Niger focuses the disappointment felt as few of the war?s goals have been met: the Iraqis are not thankful to the US, their plight has worsened, US troops will not be coming home soon, the US commitment to nation-building will be extensive, Hussein did not pose the threat that the government claimed, and that the intelligence community cannot be relied on to safeguard Americans and concentrate activities related to the war on terror itself.

He is certainly right that the people who are exercised over this scandal probably don't really care about the specifics, and likely don't know where Niger is either. Further, I think that Pythagosaurus' complaints about transparency get to the rest of the issue. The administration, while not lying, has not laid out the case very well, and seems reluctant to talk about why it's doing what it's doing.

If this hubbub is indeed the result of this discontent over the factors that NDR mentions, how justified is it, and why are they complaining?
Much has been made of the discontent of the Iraqi people. Most Iraqis probably want us to go home. But the question is really when - right now, or after we have contributed to the formation of a responsible government, fixed the infrastructure, and generally settled things down. I think most Iraqis would prefer the second option. From reports by reporters actually in Iraq, the word is that they are very happy that Saddam is gone, and they recognize that we got rid of him. They are thankful for that. But, like anyone, they don't want to be ruled by someone else. Happily for them, we don't want to be there forever. Much of what is reported as ungratefulness could more properly be termed impatience.

As for claiming that their plight has worsened, I don't think you can make that argument. One, no more brutal fascist dictator. If their electricity went out for a while, that is a hardship - but its back on now. And certainly lacking electricity does not compare to mass graves.

As for Saddam not posing the threat that was claimed, this is closest to being true. But keep in mind how certain elements would have reacted if Bush had said, in effect, "Saddam is a weakling, his army is pathetic, and we are going to go through him like shit through a goose." He would have been called arrogant (well, more arrogant) and contemptuous of Islam and whatever. He was right to err on the side of caution - he said be prepared for a long war, but we're gonna win. Nothing really wrong there.

As for the WMD part of that equation, see my other posts.

The administration has always said that this would be a long war, and that Iraq was but a single aspect of it. Nation building was not a surprise, nor was the lengthy tours of duty for our soldiers. Since the end of "official" hostilities, the media have reported over and over the attacks on US servicemen, and military morale problems, and so on. But considering that 25 million people who until a couple months ago were under the heel of a brutal dictator are now free - they are behaving well, all things considered. Even though there are several attacks a week, this represents an absolutely miniscule portion of the Iraqi population. And, what the media doesn't mention, most of the attacks are in Saddam's home territory. (I plan on addressing the manpower issue sometime soon.)

Finally, we have known that we couldn't rely on our intelligence services since the early morning of September 11, 2001. That nothing serious has been done is abominable.

The administration has failed to tell people the things that they should know. But overall, things are going well in Iraq. The media is going to report on every soldier or marine killed, but the administration needs to make the case better that progress is being made in other areas. Whenever a problem that the media is bleating about is solved, they don't report that, "Hey, there's electricity now!" Instead, they move onto the next disaster.

So, back here in the states, people are upset about the sixteen words in the SOTU because Bush screwed the pooch in Iraq and is generally falling down on the war on terror. Since that isn't really the case, they are either misinformed, for which we can blame both the administration and the media, or they are pursuing purely partisan advantage by picking at nits.

I think that there are serious issues that can be raised, issues that for the Democrats might have a lot more traction with the general public than, ?Bush lied.? For one, the Saudi thingie. Others include the Homeland Security department, the Patriot acts, and so on. The war happened. If Democrats want to be taken seriously on National Security, they should talk about how we are going to rebuild Iraq, where to go next in the war on terror, and how to apply our principles in a coherent foreign policy. And the current administration needs to be a lot more open about what it is doing.

I'm a pretty big fan of Howard Dean, and it frosts my cookies to see the Democratic Leadership Congress dismiss him as "unelectable," by which they mean "not on our payroll."

The New Republic recently ran this "agin' him" piece by Jonathan Chait. I thought it was a mildly foolish article that raises a few good points about the dangers posed by the Dean campaign and the potential for his nomination to candidate to go horribly awry (by "horribly awry" in this context I mean Bush winning in a stroll).

Then I forwarded the article to my friend Bootsy, and received in response this gentle fisking:

Prefaced by: I am a raging Deanite:
1. Dean's followers are NOT largely liberal. This is a fallacy perpetrated throughout the media. (resisting urge for conspiracy theory...)
2. Dean does not diametrically oppose Bush. He was opposed to the war, not opposed to all war. He makes a strong case for where we do need to use our military strength and where we do not. In fact, I really can see why Republicans can support Dean. A lot of the issues that the Republican party says they stand for but have lately ignored, especially fiscal responsibility and state's rights, are solid with Dean.
3. I think they underestimate the public's dislike for the Patriot Act.
4. Dean's positions are not unpopular. Fiscal responsibility, pro-choice, health care reform, education reform? Pretty mainstream to me.
5. As a vermonter, I take offense at their generalization of Vermont politics. This is a state with only two gun laws, civil unions, practically socialized school funding, and a very large libertarian element. It is diverse, not extremely liberal. Just ask the guys my dad has breakfast with about Hillary Clinton.

...all this "too liberal" bullshit is code word for "gay lover" and the DNC is just really disgusting me lately. Not only are they distancing themselves from their base but their strategy has proven that it does NOT win elections, I think they are too stubborn and power hungry to give it up.

All true. And all why I think Dean has a better shot than many people give him credit for at winning the primaries and the general elections. He's irascible, he's smart, he doesn't take or give any BS, and he consistently does his homework, thinks about what he wants to say, and admits when he doesn't have a firm answer to a question.

It's like he's from the moon or something.

(And I would like to say, Bootsy is dead on about the "too liberal" epithet.)

In the news: Gephardt Attacks Bush 'Unilateralism'....

"Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt on Tuesday issued a blistering criticism of the Bush administration's "chest-beating unilateralism" in its handling of the Iraq war, which he said weakened diplomatic alliances and squandered global goodwill following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Foreign policy isn't a John Wayne movie, where we catch the bad guys, hoist a few cold ones and then everything fades to black," Gephardt said in remarks prepared for a speech to the Bar Association of San Francisco. "No matter the surge of momentary machismo - as gratifying as it may be for some - it is shortsighted and wrong to simply go it alone."

Want to know how little I think of Dick Gephardt? I love what he said here-- I've said the same thing myself before-- and I still think he comes off like a jerk.

Also, the Democrats really need to find a way to move beyond the Uranium thingy (thingy!!) and join it up with other trenchant criticisms, because Uranium is like sooo last week.

Oh wait, sorry-- I forgot. Clinton took the party's brains and moral compass with him when he left office. They are currently in a U-Stor-It in Passaic, NJ and are in need of a good cleaning, having sat untouched for eleven years.