Category Archives: Politics

The Depressing Election Year of 2016

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Kevin Williamson writes,

the two presidential candidates Americans got most excited about were Donald Trump, a nationalist, and Bernie Sanders, a socialist. Between the two of them, they make a pretty good national socialist.

Jonah Goldberg says pretty much the same thing in this interview with Bill Kristol. I found the long interview worth a listen. One of Goldberg’s points is that he views support for Trump as a reaction to the discrepancy between what was promised and what was delivered by politicians, especially Republican politicians. After they were propelled to victory in the mid-term elections, they came across as losers. This opened the way for an outsider to come in and claim to be a winner.

My thoughts begin with a generalization about how different political persuasions view human nature:

–Conservatives tend to believe that we need traditional institutions and restraints to control the evil impulses that are in everyone.

–Progressives tend to believe that we just need the right leaders to bring out the good that is in everyone.

–Libertarians tend to believe that we just need smaller government to bring out the good that is in everyone.

It seems to me that news events over the past twelve months or so have put a strain on those who are inclined to view human nature as good. Racial conflict and terrorism tend to reinforce the conservative view that human nature is something that needs to be restrained.

Of course, progressives can continue to blame the racial conflict on bad leaders who are not sufficiently attuned to the oppression of black people. And they can blame terrorism on the invasion of Iraq.

And libertarians can blame the racial conflict on cruel laws and their vicious enforcement. Libertarians can blame terrorism on past American intervention.

I am finding myself drifting in a conservative direction. But I still try to keep in mind that when we seek out institutions to restrain evil impulses, we should not put all of our chips, or even very many of them, on government.

What I’ve Been Reading

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Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and its Allies, by Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn. About a week ago, he was mentioned as a potential Trump running mate. His book became available on Tuesday, and I finished it on Thursday, just before the attack in Nice. My thoughts:

1. The ratio of rhetoric to substance is too high for my taste.

2. The endorsement from Michael Ledeen is fitting. Like Ledeen, Flynn views the regime in Iran as the root of much evil.

3. Flynn frequently says that “we are losing” the war against radical Islam, without spelling out his basis for that assessment. At one point, he cites a figure of 30,000 deaths from terror attacks in 2014, compared to fewer than 8,000 in 2011. He also cites figures indicating that there are now 35,000 ISIS fighters in Syria, compared to 20,000 in 2015. Otherwise, I did not find any data, anecdotes, or analysis that justifies the claim that we are losing.

4. He asserts that

contrary to conventional wisdom, Radical Islam played a major role in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq long before our arrival in 2003

He provides support for that contention. Nonetheless, he says that

It was a huge strategic mistake to invade Iraq militarily. . .our primary target should have been Tehran, not Baghdad, and the method should have been political–support of the internal Iranian opposition.

5. He argues that we should use social media against radical Islam.

6. He says that we should call for a reformation of Islam.

7. He argues that we need to gain support of local populations, and what they most value is security. They will join whatever side they believe is winning.

Relative to the goal of gaining the confidence of the local population, I would imagine that the effect of drone strikes is small, and not necessarily positive. I do not believe that Flynn offers an opinion on that issue.

For me, (7) raises the question of whether we should send troops to the Middle East to try to defend local populations against Islamic radicals.

Suppose that we were to follow the libertarian policy of avoiding all foreign intervention. One scenario could be that as a result local populations in the Middle East decide that they have to accommodate the Islamic radicals. Then the radicals become strong enough to destabilize Europe and perhaps even take over some countries there. By the time they get around to attacking the U.S., they could be much closer to parity with us militarily than they are now.

On the other hand, I could argue against intervention by saying that the local populations appear to have too little capability and motivation to defend themselves against Islamic radicals for us to try to do the job for them. I would like to have seen this issue addressed in Flynn’s book.

Here is an op-ed by Flynn.

A Delicious Rant

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by Victor Davis Hanson. He winds up

In matters of deception, ostentatious vulgarity never proves as injurious as the hubris of the mannered establishment. So what I resent most about the Washington hollow men is not the sources and methods through which they parlay wealth, power, and influence, or the values they embrace to exercise and perpetuate their privilege and sense of exalted self, but the feigned outrage that they express when anyone dares suggest, by word or vote, that they are mediocrities and ethical adolescents — and really quite emotional, after all.

He leads up to it with a litany of outrages committed by Washington insiders.

Yet Victor Davis Hanson is a conservative, not some libertarian outsider. He would esteem the right sort of insider.

Intent to Commit Gross Negligence

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My superfluous and uncharitable reaction to the FBI recommendation against prosecuting Hillary Clinton:

How can “intent” ever be a standard determining whether to prosecute someone for gross negligence?

I am not a lawyer, but I think it is almost impossible for gross negligence to be considered intentional. If you include a standard of “intent,” then gross negligence is no longer a crime subject to prosecution. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Just weird.

Commenters: Please avoid sarcasm or generic bashing of Hillary or the FBI director or the system. Try to stick to the narrow point. How best can one reconcile a law against gross negligence with a prosecution standard that requires intent to break such a law?

How Should Europe be Organized?

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In the wake of the Brexit vote, here are my thoughts. I view the issue primarily from a libertarian perspective, which means a bias in favor of free trade and free movement and a bias against centralized bureaucracy.

1. The actual Brexit vote, as I interpret it (and I make no claim to expertise at reading voters’ minds) seemed to rest mostly on hostility to free trade and free movement, with some hostility toward centralized bureaucracy. And if you have not already followed my recommendation and read Martin Gurri’s The Revolt of the Public, the Brexit vote is another reason you should.

2. I think that a common currency is a good thing. As readers of my new book will realize, I don’t subscribe to the sort of monetarist macroeconomics that would lead one to say otherwise.

3. I think that freedom of movement is a good thing. Border checkpoints are a bad thing.

4. However, you have to think about how to reconcile freedom of movement with welfare-state benefits. The libertarian approach is to get rid of the welfare-state benefits. A less radical approach is to clarify which benefits are limited to citizens and specify the qualifications for becoming a citizen.

5. As for terrorism coming from immigrants, it seems that we can choose two of the following three: privacy, open borders, and security. I am willing to toss out privacy, as long as the government actors providing security are not themselves able to hide what they are doing. Few card-carrying libertarians would agree with this view. Before you blast away at it, read or re-read David Brin’s Transparent Society Revisited. In any case, I interpret the voters as saying that we should toss out open borders.

6. Some people equate a strong EU with technocrats being able to solve/avert the sovereign debt crisis that threatens several countries. I do not.

7. Some people see the EU as a force for free trade. I see it as a force for trade that is managed, regulated, and harmonized. Is this more or less free than what we would see if trade policies were left up to individual governments? I would guess it is somewhat less free, particularly as we move through time, and the bureaucratic tentacles of the EU tend to spread.

8. Of all the reasons for selling stocks, I think this was the least compelling. I wonder if the stock market was simply poised for a decline, anyway, but it needed some sort of focal point to get the selling going.

On net, I would have voted “Leave.” But I don’t like the anti-immigrant, anti-trade rationale.

Advice for Gary Johnson

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Shikha Dalmia writes,

He needs to create a bigger agenda based on what’s on voters’ minds. That means focusing on Libertarian solutions for core economic, social, and national security issues—not just bloodless opinions on them when queried, which is what he’s been doing. He has to offer Libertarianism not as an ideology but as a solution.

I disagree. The only realistic scenario by which Johnson wins is one in which both leading Democrats and Republicans start talking him up between now and November, so that the election gets thrown into the House and he emerges as the compromise candidate.

I think that as long as Mrs. Clinton is heavily favored to win, the Democrats will not budge in their support for her. However, suppose that Mr. Trump moves up in the polls, perhaps because of some exogenous event. Once Democrats become frightened that Mr. Trump could win, they may be willing to deal with Johnson. And if they signal such a willingness, that could in turn convince some #neverTrump Republicans to endorse Johnson. Perhaps he could win enough states to throw the election into the House.

At that point, even if Republicans have a majority in the House, I do not think that they would unite behind Johnson. Instead, he would have to promise enough to Democrats (say, no Supreme Court nominees that lack bipartisan support) and enough to Republicans (say, that he won’t single-handedly abolish the NSA) to convince a bipartisan coalition to elect him President.

No, I did not say that this is realistic enough to bet on, even at generous odds.

On a related note, Jennifer Rubin suggests questions for reporters to ask Johnson.

How much government do we need? Can we afford? In contrast with the presumptive GOP nominee, they may have something enlightening to say.

Illiberalism

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Sohrab Ahmari writes,

there are common patterns that range vastly different geographies and political contexts, suggesting that this illiberal ascendance will be a defining feature of the 21st century.

…These are the three psychological planks on which all such movements rest…

…The restoration of a prouder, more wholesome, more coherent past…

…Collective grievance and a desire for national recognition

…a desire that politics reflect the dark realities of the present. That means: a recognition that enmity can be permanent, that bad actors cannot be transformed into good ones…

This sounds to me like the recipe for Nazism. Germans wanted to recover their pride, they felt a sense of collective grievance, and they saw permanent emnity all around (Jews, Russia, France, Britain).

Why is this now being felt,as the essay argues, in the U.S., Arab countries, European countries and Russia?

The author suggest a dynamic in which elites do not trust their populations and vice-versa. So the elites look to non-democratic means to enact policies, and the populations see this happening and rebel. In the U.S., we have courts and regulatory agencies. In Europe, they have the EU institutions.

The author suggests that the forces of liberalism, meaning something closer to classical liberalism, require someone who believes in liberal ideals and yet who also can connect with ordinary people. Whatever charitable you might say about President Obama, Winston Churchill he is not.

Stability Leads to Instability

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What Hyman Minsky said about finance, others say about global politics. Stephen M. Walt writes,

prolonged periods of peace may also have a downside: They allow divisions within different societies to grow and deepen. Even worse, they may eventually drive the world back toward war.

A book I recently finished reading, Peter Turchin’s War Peace and War, offers a similar thesis.

It is an idea that puts libertarians in a bind. A progressive can advocate for “the moral equivalent of war” to try to hold together a strong state. Libertarians do not want a strong state to begin with. On the other hand, we do not want to see violence among ethnic groups or populist illiberalism, either.

Michael Barone praises my new book

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At the end of his piece, He writes,

Donald Trump’s promise to “make America great again” promises restoration of a rosily remembered but largely mythical past. Abrogating trade agreements won’t create half a million auto and steel jobs. Trump’s penchant for deal-making and crony capitalism means propping up insiders and preventing job creation.

Kling says he’s voting for Gary Johnson. You can see why.

So evidently he reads the blog, also.

By the way, there are only two reviews of the book on Amazon, and both are rather terse. So when you’re finished reading it, . . .

The FBI Did Its Job?

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This story disturbed me.

Abell added that they thought the man was “very suspicious,” so they called the local FBI office in West Palm Beach and reported the incident. But they didn’t have the man’s name, since no sale was made, and the only surveillance footage they had was grainy.

So the gun dealer did not give the FBI the name of the guy who a few weeks later became the Orlando shooter. To me, that does not excuse the FBI. If you are called by a gun dealer, there ought to be procedures in place to make the issue a priority. And there ought to have been a way to go back and look at everyone else in the area who had been reported in recent years.

This guy says that the FBI did its job.

I disagree. I admit that it probably is hard to prevent a lot of killings. But this is one incident that was eminently preventable. If the FBI does not think it needs to change, that is wrong.

There were not just dots to be connected here. There were gigantic arrows pointing to the shooter, and the FBI missed those.

My $.02