Category Archives: Politics

Reason Roundtable on Reform Conservatism

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Self-recommending.

Ben Domenech writes,

[Yuval] Levin’s lofty governing philosophy is at odds with the incongruent grab bag of policies that reformocons offer.

That pretty much summarizes my reaction to Room to Grow, which took me several blog posts to articulate.

In terms of Jonathan Rauch’s dichotomy, the reform conservatives are closer to professional politicians, who scorn ideological purity that leaves you unable to exercise power. Libertarians behave more like amateurs. It certainly is unrealistic to expect a candidate to appeal to the Republican base by taking a libertarian view of immigration, just as it would be unrealistic to expect a candidate to appeal to the Democratic base by taking a libertarian view of education policy, health care policy, etc.

However, even if I try to think like a “professional,” I have problems with what we have seen from the reform conservatives thus far.

On foreign policy, I would like to see reform conservatives commit to not getting bogged down in another nation-building exercise. Can they stay away from promises to Americanize the Middle East and instead acknowledge that many societies around the world are not ready to become open-access orders (in North-Wallis-Weingast terminology)?

On the issue of domestic security, I have long been influenced by David Brin, and consequently I support government surveillance but with vigorous, independent auditing. Read what I wrote eleven years ago.

On economic issues, I start out by doubting that any collection of econo-wonk policy proposals is going to define the reform conservative “brand.” I certainly cannot get excited by a grab bag of tax credits.

To bring me on board, reform conservatives will have to do more than just play small ball. They will have to come front and center on one or both of two issues. One is fundamental health policy reform that leads to a higher proportion of medical services paid for by the people who obtain those services, rather than by third parties. The other is changing the path of entitlement spending to one which is sustainable.

Amateur Hour?

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What would Jonathan Rauch say about this?

Barack Obama’s ambitions to pass sweeping new free trade agreements with Asia and Europe fell at the first hurdle on Tuesday as Senate Democrats put concerns about US manufacturing jobs ahead of arguments that the deals would boost global economic growth.

It is possible, of course, that in the end the bill will pass. This could just be stage-management on the part of various parties who want to embarrass the President and/or make side deals.

Universal Savings Accounts

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Chris Edwards point out that Canada and Britain have expanded theirs.

Let’s look at Canada first. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government implemented Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) in 2009, and they are creating a broad-based savings revolution north or the border.

Britain’s Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) are just as impressive as the Canadian accounts. All UK residents can put up to 15,240 pounds (about $23,000) per year of after-tax money into ISAs. ISA earnings grow tax-free and can be withdrawn at any time for any reason with no taxes or penalties. Like TFSAs, ISAs enshrine in the tax code the principle that saving for all reasons is important, not just for reasons favored by governments.

I Wish They Had Just Divested

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The Swarthmore College Board of Managers writes,

Following extensive preparation, analysis, and robust discussion and debate by managers on both sides of the issue, the Board of Managers of Swarthmore College reached consensus not to divest from fossil fuels. . .

The Board is fully committed to addressing the threat of climate change, however. To affirm our commitment, the College will intensify its sustainable practices as an institution. Our efforts will cut across all aspects of College operations including new construction, energy consumption, water usage, and recycling, and also the curriculum and investment practices. We will build upon important environmental efforts that have long been underway and expand upon them.

The email notifying alumni of this decision reads, in part,

The managers of Swarthmore College agree that climate change is the most pressing issue of our time and that Swarthmore College can — and must — play a leadership role in helping to curb the seemingly insatiable appetite for fossil fuel.

I think that a good rule of thumb is that if the board of managers of a college insists that something belongs in the curriculum, it doesn’t.

I Wish I Knew More About the Wisconsin John Doe Investigations

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David French writes,

For dozens of conservatives, the years since Scott Walker’s first election as governor of Wisconsin transformed the state — known for pro-football championships, good cheese, and a population with a reputation for being unfailingly polite — into a place where conservatives have faced early-morning raids, multi-year secretive criminal investigations, slanderous and selective leaks to sympathetic media, and intrusive electronic snooping.

That is not the way that the story has been covered elsewhere. For example, here is Wisconsin Public Radio six months ago.

As others were charged and convicted in what eventually became known as “John Doe One,” Democrats increasingly tried to make sure Gov. Scott Walker was politically wounded, partly because the probe grew to include people who were helping Republican election efforts in 2010 while working for Milwaukee County.

The heat on the governor grew again over the past 12 months, after news of “John Doe 2” came out. That second investigation looked into alleged illegal campaign coordination in 2011 and 2012 between Walker, other Republicans and the conservative group Wisconsin Club for Growth.

Obviously, French’s account is meant to arouse libertarian ire. However, there is nothing in the WPR account that would suggest anything other than a legitimate, successful probe into political corruption.

Are there any progressives willing to believe French’s version? Are there any conservatives or libertarians willing to believe WPR’s version?

The Lost Art of Political Dialogue

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Adam Garfinkle writes.

Second, disagreements were understood as natural and healthy; disputes civilly aired were believed to reveal the better way forward. Dialogic discourse rather than dictatorial narratives held pride of place. Socrates, not Plato’s philosopher-king, prevailed.

Third, defeat in political contests came to be seen as inherently provisional and temporary; there is always the next election. That realization, in turn, conduces to compromise and conciliation, other means of rendering politics something other than a continuously zero-sum proposition.

I strongly recommend reading the whole thing.

It is possible for people who disagree about politics to conduct a dialogue in order to clarify the nature of the disagreement. However, that notion has been discarded. Instead, the objective is to get the other guy to shut up. This intellectually inferior and divisive approach pervades the culture on campus and on line.

Conservatarian Dilemmas 3: Israel

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This is my third and final post prompted by the dialogue between Nick Gillespie and Charles C.W. Cooke. The issue is foreign policy, and although they did not discuss Israel, I think that it is about that country that conservatives and libertarians get most confrontational–and uncharitable–with one another.

Conservatives want a strong national defense, and some libertarians (seemingly including Gillespie) are ok with that. However, conservatives often want to intervene in this barbarous world, and libertarians are against intervention.

One libertarian argument against interventionism is that the U.S. government that is our agent to perform such intervention is the same flawed, bumbling entity whose intervention in domestic affairs we fear. Cooke concedes that point. However, he does not regard it as a decisive argument against any and all intervention.

There are more than a few libertarians whose vehemence against Israel makes it difficult for me to picture them joining a conservatarian coalition. The most charitable interpretation that I can come up with for the libertarian antipathy toward Israel is the following:

American libertarians are anti-interventionist. Israel is a country that wants America to intervene in ways to protect its interests. America has sometimes (often?) done so. Without Israel there would be less American intervention, and because of that Israel deserves to be singled out for opprobrium.

The conservative view might be the following:

Israel’s and America’s interests generally align. Along the civilization vs. barbarism axis, Israel is far more civilized than its enemies. American intervention is constructive and appropriate.

Some libertarians and progressives blame Israel for the costly, counter-productive attempt to force democracy on Iraq. I think it is unfair to hold Israel responsible. While some Israelis, notably Natan Sharansky, indeed were keen on spreading democracy, his views were much more popular in the U.S. than in Israel. Faith in democracy as a solution to the problems in the Middle East is as American as apple pie. If anything, President Obama took that faith even farther than President Bush.

My own feelings about Israel are similar to those expressed by George Gilder in The Israel Test, which I wrote about a couple years ago. Gilder sees hostility to Israel as reflecting a dislike for dynamism and entrepreneurial success. Progressives can seem nostalgic for the socialist poverty that Israelis shared before the liberalizations that took place over the past 30 years or so.

For some American Christian conservatives, support for Israel has a religious basis that is off-putting to more secular people (and to many Jews). Otherwise, I think that American support for Israel among conservatives is based more on Israel’s circumstances than on its diplomacy or lobbying. If there were as many medieval fanatics surrounding Singapore or Switzerland, my guess is that the conservatives who see America as the Indispensable Nation would want us to be heavily involved in those areas as well.

Another possible argument for leaning against Israel is that one should do so in order to counter Jewish political pressure. However, my sense is that most Jews feel a stronger affinity to the cause of progressivism than to Israel’s government, particularly with a conservative at its head.

Yes, there are American Jews who advocate for the U.S. to pursue hawkish policies in the Middle East, but they are far outnumbered by other American Jews who loathe the hawks. My guess is that if Binyamin Netanyahu wanted to get into a popularity contest in America with Barack Obama, he would do better if American Jews were excluded from taking part in the poll.

Finally, I have to say that I have concluded that this is a topic on which people have a hard time disagreeing with one another charitably. If you (or I) want to voice an opinion on Israel in order to vent, then fine. But you (or I) should not expect that someone’s mind is going to change as a result. Instead, expect an uncharitable response.

While I expressed some of my views on Israel, they are beside the main point, and feel free to ignore them. The main point in this post is simply the observation that Israel profoundly divides conservatives from a significant group of libertarians. If you disagree with that, or you think that the divide is caused by something I have not mentioned, then by all means weigh in.

Congratulations, Razib Khan

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He was chosen as one of twenty online opinion writers for the NYT. His gene expression blog is over my head, but I often read versions distilled elsewhere.

It will be interesting to see how the NYT generates traffic for these writers. In particular, will liberals who read the NYT, and whose idea of ideological diversity is David Brooks, be steered toward the new crew of writers, some of whom are outside the range of opinion usually found at the NYT?

Timothy Taylor on Media Bias

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He writes,

There’s lots of political bias in the media, mainly because media outlets are trying to attract customers with similar bias. But in the world of the Internet, at least, people of all beliefs do surf readily between news websites with different kind of bias. The growth of television to some extent displaced the role of newspapers and lowered the extent of voting. For the future, a central question is whether a population that gets its news from a mixture of websites and social media becomes better-informed or more willing to vote, or whether it becomes a population that instead becomes expert at selfiesm, cat videos, World of Goo, Candy Crush, Angry Birds, and the celebrity-du-jour.

I see no reason to fear the second outcome more than the first.