Why do we love power so?

DOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD?
by Mark Twain (thanks to Project Gutenberg)

Often a quite assified remark becomes sanctified by use and
petrified by custom; it is then a permanency, its term of activity
a geologic period.

The day after the arrival of Prince Henry I met an English friend,
and he rubbed his hands and broke out with a remark that was charged
to the brim with joy--joy that was evidently a pleasant salve
to an old sore place:

"Many a time I've had to listen without retort to an old saying
that is irritatingly true, and until now seemed to offer no chance
for a return jibe: 'An Englishman does dearly love a lord';
but after this I shall talk back, and say, 'How about the Americans?'"

It is a curious thing, the currency that an idiotic saying can get.
The man that first says it thinks he has made a discovery.
The man he says it to, thinks the same. It departs on its travels,
is received everywhere with admiring acceptance, and not only as
a piece of rare and acute observation, but as being exhaustively
true and profoundly wise; and so it presently takes its place
in the world's list of recognized and established wisdoms,
and after that no one thinks of examining it to see whether it is
really entitled to its high honors or not. I call to mind instances
of this in two well-established proverbs, whose dullness is not
surpassed by the one about the Englishman and his love for a lord:
one of them records the American's Adoration of the Almighty Dollar,
the other the American millionaire-girl's ambition to trade cash for
a title, with a husband thrown in.

It isn't merely the American that adores the Almighty Dollar,
it is the human race. The human race has always adored the hatful
of shells, or the bale of calico, or the half-bushel of brass rings,
or the handful of steel fish-hooks, or the houseful of black wives,
or the zareba full of cattle, or the two-score camels and asses,
or the factory, or the farm, or the block of buildings, or the
railroad bonds, or the bank stock, or the hoarded cash, or
--anything that stands for wealth and consideration and independence,
and can secure to the possessor that most precious of all things,
another man's envy. It was a dull person that invented the idea
that the American's devotion to the dollar is more strenuous than
another's.

Rich American girls do buy titles, but they did not invent that idea;
it had been worn threadbare several hundred centuries before America
was discovered. European girls still exploit it as briskly as ever;
and, when a title is not to be had for the money in hand, they buy
the husband without it. They must put up the "dot," or there is
no trade. The commercialization of brides is substantially universal,
except in America. It exists with us, to some little extent,
but in no degree approaching a custom.

"The Englishman dearly loves a lord."

What is the soul and source of this love? I think the thing could
be more correctly worded:

"The human race dearly envies a lord."

That is to say, it envies the lord's place. Why? On two accounts,
I think: its Power and its Conspicuousness.

Where Conspicuousness carries with it a Power which, by the light
of our own observation and experience, we are able to measure
and comprehend, I think our envy of the possessor is as deep and as
passionate as is that of any other nation. No one can care less
for a lord than the backwoodsman, who has had no personal contact
with lords and has seldom heard them spoken of; but I will not
allow that any Englishman has a profounder envy of a lord than has
the average American who has lived long years in a European capital
and fully learned how immense is the position the lord occupies.

Of any ten thousand Americans who eagerly gather, at vast inconvenience,
to get a glimpse of Prince Henry, all but a couple of hundred
will be there out of an immense curiosity; they are burning up
with desire to see a personage who is so much talked about.
They envy him; but it is Conspicuousness they envy mainly, not the
Power that is lodged in his royal quality and position, for they
have but a vague and spectral knowledge and appreciation of that;
though their environment and associations they have been accustomed
to regard such things lightly, and as not being very real; consequently,
they are not able to value them enough to consumingly envy them.

But, whenever an American (or other human being) is in the presence,
for the first time, of a combination of great Power and Conspicuousness
which he thoroughly understands and appreciates, his eager curiosity
and pleasure will be well-sodden with that other passion--envy
--whether he suspects it or not. At any time, on any day, in any part
of America, you can confer a happiness upon any passing stranger
by calling his attention to any other passing stranger and saying:

"Do you see that gentleman going along there? It is Mr. Rockefeller."

Watch his eye. It is a combination of power and conspicuousness
which the man understands.

When we understand rank, we always like to rub against it.
When a man is conspicuous, we always want to see him. Also, if he
will pay us an attention we will manage to remember it. Also, we
will mention it now and then, casually; sometimes to a friend,
or if a friend is not handy, we will make out with a stranger.

Well, then, what is rank, and what is conspicuousness? At once we
think of kings and aristocracies, and of world-wide celebrities
in soldierships, the arts, letters, etc., and we stop there.
But that is a mistake. Rank holds its court and receives its homage
on every round of the ladder, from the emperor down to the rat-catcher;
and distinction, also, exists on every round of the ladder,
and commands its due of deference and envy.

To worship rank and distinction is the dear and valued privilege
of all the human race, and it is freely and joyfully exercised
in democracies as well as in monarchies--and even, to some extent,
among those creatures whom we impertinently call the Lower Animals.
For even they have some poor little vanities and foibles, though in
this matter they are paupers as compared to us.

A Chinese Emperor has the worship of his four hundred millions
of subjects, but the rest of the world is indifferent to him.
A Christian Emperor has the worship of his subjects and of a large
part of the Christian world outside of his domains; but he is
a matter of indifference to all China. A king, class A, has an
extensive worship; a king, class B, has a less extensive worship;
class C, class D, class E get a steadily diminishing share of worship;
class L (Sultan of Zanzibar), class P (Sultan of Sulu), and class W
(half-king of Samoa), get no worship at all outside their own little
patch of sovereignty.

Take the distinguished people along down. Each has his group
of homage-payers. In the navy, there are many groups; they start
with the Secretary and the Admiral, and go down to the quartermaster
--and below; for there will be groups among the sailors, and each of
these groups will have a tar who is distinguished for his battles,
or his strength, or his daring, or his profanity, and is admired
and envied by his group. The same with the army; the same
with the literary and journalistic craft; the publishing craft;
the cod-fishery craft; Standard Oil; U. S. Steel; the class A hotel
--and the rest of the alphabet in that line; the class A prize-fighter
--and the rest of the alphabet in his line--clear down to the lowest
and obscurest six-boy gang of little gamins, with its one boy
that can thrash the rest, and to whom he is king of Samoa,
bottom of the royal race, but looked up to with a most ardent
admiration and envy.

There is something pathetic, and funny, and pretty, about this
human race's fondness for contact with power and distinction,
and for the reflected glory it gets out of it. The king, class A,
is happy in the state banquet and the military show which the
emperor provides for him, and he goes home and gathers the queen
and the princelings around him in the privacy of the spare room,
and tells them all about it, and says:

"His Imperial Majesty put his hand upon my shoulder in the most
friendly way--just as friendly and familiar, oh, you can't imagine it!
--and everybody SEEING him do it; charming, perfectly charming!"

The king, class G, is happy in the cold collation and the police
parade provided for him by the king, class B, and goes home
and tells the family all about it, and says:

"And His Majesty took me into his own private cabinet for a smoke
and a chat, and there we sat just as sociable, and talking away
and laughing and chatting, just the same as if we had been born
in the same bunk; and all the servants in the anteroom could see
us doing it! Oh, it was too lovely for anything!"

The king, class Q, is happy in the modest entertainment furnished him
by the king, class M, and goes home and tells the household about it,
and is as grateful and joyful over it as were his predecessors
in the gaudier attentions that had fallen to their larger lot.

Emperors, kings, artisans, peasants, big people, little people--at the
bottom we are all alike and all the same; all just alike on the inside,
and when our clothes are off, nobody can tell which of us is which.
We are unanimous in the pride we take in good and genuine compliments
paid us, and distinctions conferred upon us, in attentions shown.
There is not one of us, from the emperor down, but is made like that.
Do I mean attentions shown us by the guest? No, I mean simply
flattering attentions, let them come whence they may. We despise
no source that can pay us a pleasing attention--there is no source
that is humble enough for that. You have heard a dear little girl
say to a frowzy and disreputable dog: "He came right to me and let
me pat him on the head, and he wouldn't let the others touch him!"
and you have seen her eyes dance with pride in that high distinction.
You have often seen that. If the child were a princess, would that
random dog be able to confer the like glory upon her with his
pretty compliment? Yes; and even in her mature life and seated
upon a throne, she would still remember it, still recall it,
still speak of it with frank satisfaction. That charming and
lovable German princess and poet, Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania,
remembers yet that the flowers of the woods and fields "talked to her"
when she was a girl, and she sets it down in her latest book;
and that the squirrels conferred upon her and her father the valued
compliment of not being afraid of them; and "once one of them,
holding a nut between its sharp little teeth, ran right up against
my father"--it has the very note of "He came right to me and let
me pat him on the head"--"and when it saw itself reflected in his
boot it was very much surprised, and stopped for a long time to
contemplate itself in the polished leather"--then it went its way.
And the birds! she still remembers with pride that "they came
boldly into my room," when she had neglected her "duty" and put
no food on the window-sill for them; she knew all the wild birds,
and forgets the royal crown on her head to remember with pride
that they knew her; also that the wasp and the bee were personal
friends of hers, and never forgot that gracious relationship
to her injury: "never have I been stung by a wasp or a bee."
And here is that proud note again that sings in that little child's
elation in being singled out, among all the company of children,
for the random dog's honor-conferring attentions. "Even in the very
worst summer for wasps, when, in lunching out of doors, our table
was covered with them and every one else was stung, they never
hurt me."

When a queen whose qualities of mind and heart and character are
able to add distinction to so distinguished a place as a throne,
remembers with grateful exultation, after thirty years, honors and
distinctions conferred upon her by the humble, wild creatures of
the forest, we are helped to realize that complimentary attentions,
homage, distinctions, are of no caste, but are above all cast
--that they are a nobility-conferring power apart.

We all like these things. When the gate-guard at the railway-station
passes me through unchallenged and examines other people's tickets,
I feel as the king, class A, felt when the emperor put the imperial
hand on his shoulder, "everybody seeing him do it"; and as the child
felt when the random dog allowed her to pat his head and ostracized
the others; and as the princess felt when the wasps spared her
and stung the rest; and I felt just so, four years ago in Vienna
(and remember it yet), when the helmeted police shut me off,
with fifty others, from a street which the Emperor was to pass through,
and the captain of the squad turned and saw the situation and said
indignantly to that guard:

"Can't you see it is the Herr Mark Twain? Let him through!"

It was four years ago; but it will be four hundred before I forget
the wind of self-complacency that rose in me, and strained my
buttons when I marked the deference for me evoked in the faces of my
fellow-rabble, and noted, mingled with it, a puzzled and resentful
expression which said, as plainly as speech could have worded it:
"And who in the nation is the Herr Mark Twain UM GOTTESWILLEN?"

How many times in your life have you heard this boastful remark:

"I stood as close to him as I am to you; I could have put out my
hand and touched him."

We have all heard it many and many a time. It was a proud
distinction to be able to say those words. It brought envy to
the speaker, a kind of glory; and he basked in it and was happy
through all his veins. And who was it he stood so close to?
The answer would cover all the grades. Sometimes it was a king;
sometimes it was a renowned highwayman; sometimes it was an unknown
man killed in an extraordinary way and made suddenly famous by it;
always it was a person who was for the moment the subject of public
interest of a village.

"I was there, and I saw it myself." That is a common and
envy-compelling remark. It can refer to a battle; to a handing;
to a coronation; to the killing of Jumbo by the railway-train;
to the arrival of Jenny Lind at the Battery; to the meeting of the
President and Prince Henry; to the chase of a murderous maniac;
to the disaster in the tunnel; to the explosion in the subway;
to a remarkable dog-fight; to a village church struck by lightning.
It will be said, more or less causally, by everybody in America who has
seen Prince Henry do anything, or try to. The man who was absent
and didn't see him to anything, will scoff. It is his privilege;
and he can make capital out of it, too; he will seem, even to himself,
to be different from other Americans, and better. As his opinion
of his superior Americanism grows, and swells, and concentrates
and coagulates, he will go further and try to belittle the distinction
of those that saw the Prince do things, and will spoil their pleasure
in it if he can. My life has been embittered by that kind of person.
If you are able to tell of a special distinction that has fallen
to your lot, it gravels them; they cannot bear it; and they try
to make believe that the thing you took for a special distinction
was nothing of the kind and was meant in quite another way.
Once I was received in private audience by an emperor. Last week
I was telling a jealous person about it, and I could see him wince
under it, see him bite, see him suffer. I revealed the whole episode
to him with considerable elaboration and nice attention to detail.
When I was through, he asked me what had impressed me most.
I said:

"His Majesty's delicacy. They told me to be sure and back
out from the presence, and find the door-knob as best I could;
it was not allowable to face around. Now the Emperor knew it would
be a difficult ordeal for me, because of lack of practice; and so,
when it was time to part, he turned, with exceeding delicacy,
and pretended to fumble with things on his desk, so I could get
out in my own way, without his seeing me."

It went home! It was vitriol! I saw the envy and disgruntlement rise
in the man's face; he couldn't keep it down. I saw him try to fix
up something in his mind to take the bloom off that distinction.
I enjoyed that, for I judged that he had his work cut out for him.
He struggled along inwardly for quite a while; then he said,
with a manner of a person who has to say something and hasn't anything
relevant to say:

"You said he had a handful of special-brand cigars on the table?"

"Yes; _I_ never saw anything to match them."

I had him again. He had to fumble around in his mind as much
as another minute before he could play; then he said in as mean
a way as I ever heard a person say anything:

"He could have been counting the cigars, you know."

I cannot endure a man like that. It is nothing to him how unkind
he is, so long as he takes the bloom off. It is all he cares for.

"An Englishman (or other human being) does dearly love a lord,"
(or other conspicuous person.) It includes us all. We love to be
noticed by the conspicuous person; we love to be associated with such,
or with a conspicuous event, even in a seventh-rate fashion,
even in the forty-seventh, if we cannot do better. This accounts
for some of our curious tastes in mementos. It accounts for the large
private trade in the Prince of Wales's hair, which chambermaids
were able to drive in that article of commerce when the Prince made
the tour of the world in the long ago--hair which probably did
not always come from his brush, since enough of it was marketed
to refurnish a bald comet; it accounts for the fact that the rope
which lynches a negro in the presence of ten thousand Christian
spectators is salable five minutes later at two dollars and inch;
it accounts for the mournful fact that a royal personage does not
venture to wear buttons on his coat in public.

We do love a lord--and by that term I mean any person whose situation
is higher than our own. The lord of the group, for instance:
a group of peers, a group of millionaires, a group of hoodlums,
a group of sailors, a group of newsboys, a group of saloon politicians,
a group of college girls. No royal person has ever been the object
of a more delirious loyalty and slavish adoration than is paid
by the vast Tammany herd to its squalid idol in Wantage. There is
not a bifurcated animal in that menagerie that would not be proud
to appear in a newspaper picture in his company. At the same time,
there are some in that organization who would scoff at the people
who have been daily pictured in company with Prince Henry, and would
say vigorously that THEY would not consent to be photographed
with him--a statement which would not be true in any instance.
There are hundreds of people in America who would frankly say to you
that they would not be proud to be photographed in a group with
the Prince, if invited; and some of these unthinking people would
believe it when they said it; yet in no instance would it be true.
We have a large population, but we have not a large enough one,
by several millions, to furnish that man. He has not yet been begotten,
and in fact he is not begettable.

You may take any of the printed groups, and there isn't a person
in the dim background who isn't visibly trying to be vivid; if it
is a crowd of ten thousand--ten thousand proud, untamed democrats,
horny-handed sons of toil and of politics, and fliers of the eagle
--there isn't one who is trying to keep out of range, there isn't one
who isn't plainly meditating a purchase of the paper in the morning,
with the intention of hunting himself out in the picture and of framing
and keeping it if he shall find so much of his person in it as his
starboard ear.

We all love to get some of the drippings of Conspicuousness, and we
will put up with a single, humble drip, if we can't get any more.
We may pretend otherwise, in conversation; but we can't pretend
it to ourselves privately--and we don't. We do confess in public
that we are the noblest work of God, being moved to it by long habit,
and teaching, and superstition; but deep down in the secret places
of our souls we recognize that, if we ARE the noblest work, the less
said about it the better.

We of the North poke fun at the South for its fondness of titles
--a fondness for titles pure and simple, regardless of whether they
are genuine or pinchbeck. We forget that whatever a Southerner
likes the rest of the human race likes, and that there is no law of
predilection lodged in one people that is absent from another people.
There is no variety in the human race. We are all children,
all children of the one Adam, and we love toys. We can soon acquire
that Southern disease if some one will give it a start. It already
has a start, in fact. I have been personally acquainted with over
eighty-four thousand persons who, at one time or another in their lives,
have served for a year or two on the staffs of our multitudinous
governors, and through that fatality have been generals temporarily,
and colonels temporarily, and judge-advocates temporarily; but I
have known only nine among them who could be hired to let the title
go when it ceased to be legitimate. I know thousands and thousands
of governors who ceased to be governors away back in the last century;
but I am acquainted with only three who would answer your letter
if you failed to call them "Governor" in it. I know acres and acres
of men who have done time in a legislature in prehistoric days,
but among them is not half an acre whose resentment you would not
raise if you addressed them as "Mr." instead of "Hon." The first thing
a legislature does is to convene in an impressive legislative attitude,
and get itself photographed. Each member frames his copy and takes
it to the woods and hangs it up in the most aggressively conspicuous
place in his house; and if you visit the house and fail to inquire
what that accumulation is, the conversation will be brought around
to it by that aforetime legislator, and he will show you a figure
in it which in the course of years he has almost obliterated
with the smut of his finger-marks, and say with a solemn joy, "It's me!"

Have you ever seen a country Congressman enter the hotel breakfast-room
in Washington with his letters?--and sit at his table and let on
to read them?--and wrinkle his brows and frown statesman-like?
--keeping a furtive watch-out over his glasses all the while to see
if he is being observed and admired?--those same old letters
which he fetches in every morning? Have you seen it? Have you
seen him show off? It is THE sight of the national capital.
Except one; a pathetic one. That is the ex-Congressman: the poor
fellow whose life has been ruined by a two-year taste of glory
and of fictitious consequence; who has been superseded, and ought
to take his heartbreak home and hide it, but cannot tear himself
away from the scene of his lost little grandeur; and so he lingers,
and still lingers, year after year, unconsidered, sometimes snubbed,
ashamed of his fallen estate, and valiantly trying to look otherwise;
dreary and depressed, but counterfeiting breeziness and gaiety,
hailing with chummy familiarity, which is not always welcomed,
the more-fortunes who are still in place and were once his mates.
Have you seen him? He clings piteously to the one little shred that
is left of his departed distinction--the "privilege of the floor";
and works it hard and gets what he can out of it. That is the saddest
figure I know of.

Yes, we do so love our little distinctions! And then we loftily
scoff at a Prince for enjoying his larger ones; forgetting that if we
only had his chance--ah! "Senator" is not a legitimate title.
A Senator has no more right to be addressed by it than have you
or I; but, in the several state capitals and in Washington,
there are five thousand Senators who take very kindly to
that fiction, and who purr gratefully when you call them by it
--which you may do quite unrebuked. Then those same Senators smile
at the self-constructed majors and generals and judges of the South!

Indeed, we do love our distinctions, get them how we may.
And we work them for all they are worth. In prayer we call
ourselves "worms of the dust," but it is only on a sort of tacit
understanding that the remark shall not be taken at par. WE
--worms of the dust! Oh, no, we are not that. Except in fact;
and we do not deal much in fact when we are contemplating ourselves.

As a race, we do certainly love a lord--let him be Croker, or a duke,
or a prize-fighter, or whatever other personage shall chance to be the
head of our group. Many years ago, I saw a greasy youth in overalls
standing by the HERALD office, with an expectant look in his face.
Soon a large man passed out, and gave him a pat on the shoulder.
That was what the boy was waiting for--the large man's notice.
The pat made him proud and happy, and the exultation inside of him
shone out through his eyes; and his mates were there to see the pat
and envy it and wish they could have that glory. The boy belonged
down cellar in the press-room, the large man was king of the
upper floors, foreman of the composing-room. The light in the boy's
face was worship, the foreman was his lord, head of his group.
The pat was an accolade. It was as precious to the boy as it would
have been if he had been an aristocrat's son and the accolade had
been delivered by his sovereign with a sword. The quintessence
of the honor was all there; there was no difference in values;
in truth there was no difference present except an artificial one
--clothes.

All the human race loves a lord--that is, loves to look upon
or be noticed by the possessor of Power or Conspicuousness;
and sometimes animals, born to better things and higher ideals,
descend to man's level in this matter. In the Jardin des Plantes
I have see a cat that was so vain of being the personal friend
of an elephant that I was ashamed of her."

It's so sad and curious, isn't it? So much tragedy, so much pain, so much foolish and unnecessary misery caused by this dismal, petty little instinct of ours.

Twain saw it better than anyone I've encountered. It is the source of most of life's piddling and grave sufferings. And, most pitiful of all, it is our own goddamn fault.

I imagine Twain, were he wise to our current situation, would hang his head and laugh. It is America at her most unbearable. And even America, I suppose, it subject to her vanities, pitiable though they may be.

But it'd still be nice to have Mark around to counsel her. If only to console her when her accomplishments don't match her ambition. Bigger they are, the harder they fall, and all that. But someone's got to pick up even a bullying schoolmarm when she falls on her face. At least someone decent would.

And that's why we have Twain.

Sentimentalism

A romantic outlook on the world.

Maintain it without question, and you're a fool.

Maintain it with question, and you're a cynic.

Make peace with it knowing what the world could, must, and will be, with enough courage, and you know wisdom.

Love,
Ben

I wonder why?

Ruth Marcus asks the question with a quite obvious answer, "Why don't the candidates want to talk with us?

Meet the Press

I don't know, Ruth. You think it has something to do with the aggressive, gotcha journalism, activism, and politics that has dominated American politics for the last 6 or 7 years?

And here's the best part.

It will only end, when the gotcha games end.

Meaning: as long as you pursue an approach that makes the problem worse, the problem will persist and/or get worse.

The only solution: changing your ways.

Why government should not be in control of education

A big strike against a President Bloomberg and an indication of the inanity of government running schools.

50 New York Schools Fail Under Rating System

The idea that someone who has never taught in a classroom would understand enough to decide which schools should stay open and which ones shouldn't is just so much inanity and foolishness that I can hardly believe that we live in 21st century America.

This is why we need school choice and a free education market. Adam Smith and Milton Friedman have more to say to create better schools than the whole lot of politicians and bureaucrats in Washington D.C., New York City, and every major city in the country, combined - even politicians committed, in principle, to and who have benefitted from the free market like Michael Blumberg.

Smith and Friedman are right. What America and every liberal democratic country needs is to live up to its liberal ideals, to take liberty seriously, and to set free non-profit and for-profit markets in schools all over the world.

The truth is that illiberal forces in the world will always use everything that goes wrong in education and in any area of life to argue for as much power as they can acquire. We need strong liberal commitments to make our cultures stronger. It is perfectly clear, really, that it is liberalism that makes our cultures stronger since liberal democracies are, by far, the strongest, most vibrant, most decent societies in the world, today. All cultures need stronger liberal commitments, meaning a greater commitment to the freedom of people to choose their destinies and to use that freedom to build all of the best institutions that we take for granted. But liberal cultures, in particular, need to live up to their liberal commitments.

And Milton Friedman was right. The single most important basic institution that needs our strongest liberal commitments - meaning commitments to the freedom of people to choose their destinies and how to live their lives - is education and the schools that support it.

And if Michael Bloomberg, a millionaire made rich beyond most peoples' wildest dreams, cannot be trusted to let schools, teachers, administrators, parents, and students to sort out these matter on their own, then no politician, in all likelihood, can be trusted to do so. Schools should be run by the people closest to their day-to-day operations, and government should only have a say in a law enforcement capacity in situations where there is imminent physical danger that schools cannot possibly be expected to care for on their own. Other than that, the education market should be free, meaning people should figure such matters out on their own. They will make mistakes. But they will be their mistakes. And they can be mistakes on a road to learned lessons rather than no lessons because central school operations are so bound up in district, city, state, and federal regulation.

There is no better case for a free market in the U.S. than public education, today. Because it is the one area of our lives where efforts to create the kinds of opportunities we imagine will only be available once people are free to choose. And, as Milton Friedman was convinced, it is the most important institution for us to set free.

President Bloomberg?

I'd be interested in a Bloomberg run.

How Bloomberg could shake up '08

If Bloomberg ran, he would be my favorite Republican or independent candidate.

Interesting what he has to say in the video interview about Mitt Romney. I've heard this a lot. Mitt does have some important accomplishments in Massachusetts. But running to the right has probably seriously hurt him in terms of general election electability calculations. I happen to think the Massachusetts health care legislation that he helped pass was a bad piece of legislation, despite its decent intentions. But Bloomberg is right that, given his record and how most people feel about the accomplishments that Mitt has as a Governor, it is surprising that he's not doing better nationally. He is a Mormon and he ran hard for that religious right vote, followed the conventional wisdom out of Washington about primary elections, and lost that bet.

Maybe candidates should just be honest? Except that the cynics in Washington are always undermining that route as well.

It would be refreshing to have another more honest candidate in this race. I hope Bloomberg thinks more seriously about a Presidential run than he is now. It'd be good for America and the world if he would, I think.

Newsflash: Hillary Clinton follows political winds; would lick the bottom of ash trays for votes

Whatever the political winds tell her to say in the moment. That is the mantra of the Clinton candidacy.

Jeffrey Lewis, the always brilliant Arms Control Wonk, writes a far too generous piece about Clinton's flip-flops on nuclear policy last Thursday.

More Senator Clinton on Nuclear Weapons

As one of his commenters noted, Clinton shape-shifts so much on the campaign trail, I don't trust her anymore, in office or as a leader, generally. Hillary Clinton wouldn't be the worst President ever (she's got some steep competition with the likes of Ulysses Grant and Richard Nixon). But I'd hardly call her fine Presidential material. She's got work to do to demonstrate that capacity. And that Foreign Affairs article doesn't cut it for me. To be fair, Obama's article is not terribly strong, either, by my lights. But at least Obama is trying to think America out of its foreign policy ruts, right now. If Clinton is thinking, seriously, she's not sharing it. And then she wears her failure to dig deeper for solutions as a badge of ignorance to flatter the pride of every dumbass, foolish, incurious Joe-Schmoe she can hoodwink into voting for her.

That kind of arrogance is scary, it's not just stupid.

People just get used to politicians lying. They forget that's what they're doing. Jeffrey is just too used to the lying.

But I'm not.

And I'll call that lying bitch on her bullshit every fuckin' chance I get. I wouldn't speak that strongly on the matter, except that I don't like it when more honest people get muscled by liars and bullshit artists. And Barack Obama and the rest of the Democratic pack are most definitely getting muscled by the junior Senator from New York.

Hillary Clinton needs to sit out this Presidency. David Geffen is right. The Clintons are far too skilled as liars. And Hillary and Bill need a serious comeupance.

At this point, I don't care who gives it to them. I would prefer Obama. But I might settle for Rudy.

No wonder that pair's relationship is so fucked up. They wouldn't know an honest impulse between people, anymore, if it came up and bit them in their big, fat progressive asses.

You make me choose between the lesser of the two evils, you better make damned sure that you're the lesser. Because in Hillary Clinton's case, there's no way to tell anymore.

Calling the bluff on Iran

How do you handle the Administration's threat to attack Iran? Call the bluff.

Jim Hoagland tries to act like the threat to attack Iran is for real and is, thus, an argument for sanctions to cool off the pressure for military attack.

How to Rein in Iran

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and I both think sanctions would be counterproductive. And we're right. And there is almost 4 years of experience with failure with that strategy to support that point of view of advocates of that approach would just look more squarely at their failure.

I say blow off that threat. I'd call the Administration on that bluff.

They don't have the military manpower. They don't have the political will. They wouldn't have the support from Congress. They wouldn't have the support of the IAEA, the Security Council, the United Nations or the international community.

You can only work off of a bluff for so long.

Bluff called. Hawks lose.

It's a race now

It's bad enough that Obama sounds so confident in his argument about offering better leadership for the country.

Obama Slams Clinton's 'Textbook' Calculations

It's worse, for Ms. Clinton, at least, that he's right.

Maybe, just maybe, more honest leadership might get rewarded at the polls, this time around.

Why Obama might be the best pick

Andrew Sullivan captures well why Obama appeals to me as well.

"[T]he most persuasive case for Obama has less to do with him than with the moment he is meeting. The moment has been a long time coming, and it is the result of a confluence of events, from one traumatizing war in Southeast Asia to another in the most fractious country in the Middle East. The legacy is a cultural climate that stultifies our politics and corrupts our discourse.

Obama’s candidacy in this sense is a potentially transformational one. Unlike any of the other candidates, he could take America—finally—past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us. So much has happened in America in the past seven years, let alone the past 40, that we can be forgiven for focusing on the present and the immediate future. But it is only when you take several large steps back into the long past that the full logic of an Obama presidency stares directly—and uncomfortably—at you.

At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce...

None of this, of course, means that Obama will be the president some are dreaming of. His record in high office is sparse; his performances on the campaign trail have been patchy; his chief rival for the nomination, Senator Clinton, has bested him often with her relentless pursuit of the middle ground, her dogged attention to her own failings, and her much-improved speaking skills. At times, she has even managed to appear more inherently likable than the skinny, crabby, and sometimes morose newcomer from Chicago. Clinton’s most surprising asset has been the sense of security she instills. Her husband—and the good feelings that nostalgics retain for his presidency—have buttressed her case. In dangerous times, popular majorities often seek the conservative option, broadly understood.

The paradox is that Hillary makes far more sense if you believe that times are actually pretty good. If you believe that America’s current crisis is not a deep one, if you think that pragmatism alone will be enough to navigate a world on the verge of even more religious warfare, if you believe that today’s ideological polarization is not dangerous, and that what appears dark today is an illusion fostered by the lingering trauma of the Bush presidency, then the argument for Obama is not that strong. Clinton will do. And a Clinton-Giuliani race could be as invigorating as it is utterly predictable.

But if you sense, as I do, that greater danger lies ahead, and that our divisions and recent history have combined to make the American polity and constitutional order increasingly vulnerable, then the calculus of risk changes. Sometimes, when the world is changing rapidly, the greater risk is caution. Close-up in this election campaign, Obama is unlikely. From a distance, he is necessary. At a time when America’s estrangement from the world risks tipping into dangerous imbalance, when a country at war with lethal enemies is also increasingly at war with itself, when humankind’s spiritual yearnings veer between an excess of certainty and an inability to believe anything at all, and when sectarian and racial divides seem as intractable as ever, a man who is a bridge between these worlds may be indispensable.

We may in fact have finally found that bridge to the 21st century that Bill Clinton told us about. Its name is Obama."

The war Andrew describes of polarized ideological opponents is a self-righteous war fought by hyperaggressive combatants who, like Hamas and Al Queda, seem to care more about propping up their own artificial sense of monopoly on wisdom in human and polical affairs. Obama, unlike Hillary or any of his Democratic opponents, for all of my disagreements with him - and my disagreement with him on the war is a pretty important one, to me and to him - seems to understand better the need to end this dysfunctional and senseless war of propaganda and bring some genuine thought and discussion about the most important policy issues to Washington.

That, among many reasons, is why I am so unenamoured by Ms. Clinton. Because she doesn't seem to understand or have ideas for resolving this and many other much deeper problems of politics and policy-making in Washington, right now. She is symptomatic of all of its larger problems. She thinks positioning as a winner in this self-righteous battle will effectively work at resolving this schism. And she reflects the cynicism of self-righteous liberal baby-boomers and elders, alike, yearning for the days of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal when progressives could just argue that they were right about every policy issue and conservatives were wrong and there was no use having the discussion or engaging more serious thought about resolving our most serious policy schisms, anyway, because those who disagreed with her were never going to fully comprehend her infinite wisdom and "experience" anyway. It's arrogance grabbing for power. And it is the reason that Hillary Clinton needs serious humbling, right now. And why Obama is a better alternative.

That is why Obama offers more real hope. Because he is genuinely committed to finding a way past all this ugliness. And what many party loyalists like in Hillary is validation of their own cynical inclination that others could never fully comprehend why they are right on every issue, anyway, no matter how much historical and empirical evidence indicates any number of serious cracks in the progressive project. And that kind of arrogance does not need validation. It needs humbling.

A country or ideology must know that its ideas are bankrupt when it relies on force rather than ideas to articulate their vision for the world. That intellectual bankruptcy cannot possibly lead anywhere, which is why real progress will only come with that more genuine and engaged discussion and debate. Because everything else will leave us stuck in the same dysfunctional, hyperaggressive, unsuccessful, stubborn mess Washington and the various party and ideological warriors have us in, today.

Obama offers some hope out of that mess, as imperfect as his and every candidate's brand of hope may be.

Whether the country chooses that kind of hope or the cynicism that is the oxygen for the arrogance and corruption that power tempts will depend on whether Americans are committed to a genuinely confident, strong, thoughtful future or whether they will pretend that the way things are going is just a-ok, if only a Democrat and a winner were in office. The latter will not lead to our ruin. But neither will it lead us forward.

And that is the uselessly sad fate that awaits an America that will not face up to the consequences of its cynicism around matters of liberal democratic policy and politics.

And like every other generation of ascendant and final authority, people will move forward even as governments fight their quite predictable loss of influence and power and as those governments who aspire for the most power suffer the biggest losses. America may not be in decline. But the power of her government is. And that is the positive development that will come out of this historical period, no matter who gets elected.

Now the key is electing leadership who can make use of the limited power that government should be afforded to use it more effectively, equitably, respectfully, and with more thought and engagement and less hubris and dominance.

Barack Obama would be the best pick among Democrats for that kind of future, I think. Hillary Clinton would only stall that future. Ron Paul represents the need for limits on that power without an appreciation for the positive uses for that power. Rudy Giuliani understands those positive uses with some but still not enough appreciation for the limits that power needs.

Perhaps someone like Barack Obama might best lead a discussion about how to lead with all of America's and the world's best qualities and ideas getting a voice in the discussion.

For my health

The Economist publishes a great synopsis of findings of the World Cancer Research Fund about avoiding cancer.

To avoid the Big C, stay small

I calculated my Body Mass Index at 27 tonight. The best cancer risk is an ideal BMI of 21 to 23. I have exercise to do (I love exercise; I just need to build it into my schedule over more petty work concerns).

A nice check-up for me, of what I need to do to get healthier. I eat well - lowfat and vegitariant. But I need to exercise regularly and wear sunscreen regularly when I'm out in the sun. And I need to schedule a physical and a dental visit soon and regular each year.

But it's a nice reality check on what I need to do to live a long life.

Enjoy.

A Mighty Heart

If you have not seen the Michael Winterbottom/Angelina Jolie/Dan Futterman film depiction of Mariane Pearl's recounting of her husband's brutal murder by Pakistani terrorists, I highly recommend it.

I rented this movie wondering whether any kind of public service work mattered when the prevailing conventional wisdom has centered around the heart of illiberalism - force - as some kind of governing philosophy befitting liberal societies.

Judea Pearl, Daniel's father, has something to say about that at Daniel's memorial service on March 10, 2002.

"Thrity eight years ago, Ruth and I had the great fortune of observing a unique biological phenomenon. The child that we brought home had a peculiar syndrome: he had not one shred of malice in his bones.

This child grew into a young man who filled our lives with joy, humor, love, and meaning. We feel fortunate to have been influenced by him so profoundly, and we are lucky to have beautiful memories to guide us into the future...

Kids sought his company not because he was outgoing - he wasn't - but because he was secure, unassuming, and unintimdated. He was not intimidated by bullies, or by rules, or by teachers - not even by his parents.

He was not intimidated even when one teacher stuck a swastika in his face and said, "You are wearing a Star of David, Danny. Look at what I am wearing!" As Israelis, we were terribly upset. This was our first exposure to Anti-Semitism, and we were sure that Danny would be scarred for life. We even called experts from the Anti-Defamation League to assess the damage.

But Danny just narrated this incident in a matter-of-fact way, as if to say, "Upset? Why would I get upset if a teacher make a fool of himself?"

One day, Danny came home from school with a booklet full of new safety instructions. Among them, we found one popular rule of the 1970's:

"Don't talk to strangers."

After some discussion, we decided that we would not press the rule too seriously with Danny.

Little did we know then that "talking to strangers" would become Danny's hobby, then his profession, and, eventually, his mission and ideology...

We know now that the last strangers Danny talked to were strangers of a different breed, from a different planet. They were strangers who knew no talking.

They have silenced Danny's voice, but not his spirit. The legacy of Danny's lifelong "talking with strangers" will be forever in our heart."

In April of 2002, Mariane Pearl, Danny's wife, had this to say in the forward to the book of his collected writings, At Home in the World:

"It was in London that I first stepped into one of Danny's offices.

The office floor was divided into little cubicles. Danny wore a stylish suit topped with a splashy tie pulled from his trademark crazy collection. He introduced me to his cramped space, inviting me to lounge in a beach chair that sat beside him, a totally inappropriate piece of office furniture filling most of his cubicle. I sat in that beach chair and took a good hard look at the man of my life as he spun out a tale from another of his reporting adventures in the Middle East, quickly sweeping his fingers over the keyboard without looking at the keys, surrounded by mountains of papers and books. Touchstones from his travels surrounded him. He had spread a big black tapestry that said "Allahu Akbar" -- "God is great" -- in scrolling red Arabic letters. He had propped a larger-than-life-sized picture of Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini, brought back from one of his countless trips to Iran. He also had the most amazing collection of little monster figurines perched on a shelf.

I could tell he was a fast thinker, constantly synthesizing new ideas. He was a man who was going to illuminate my life. Sharing his existence would be like turning the pages of a comic book packed with lots of fun, unexpected turns of events and plenty of plane rides. Most important, I felt I had met the man who shared my approach toward the world and stood committed to change the world for the better. Lying in his beach chair, an exotic spot in London's gray, I felt great respect and trust in him.

As a journalist and sojourner of the world, Danny held no prejudices about the people we interviewed and met. He first and foremost considered the human being in front of him, regardless of religion, race or social status. Very suspicious of groups and organizations, he had a natural tendency to trust individuals. Once he started to work on an article, he would literally throw himself at it, working days and nights, tracking facts for weeks and experiencing pure delight when he found the littlest detail that would make the story livelier. He liked to walk on beaten paths and discover tales of the unexpected. He was a hunter of human contradictions, as well as of the small and immense absurdities of existence. In reporting from mosques and villages, deserts and world capitals, he was witness to the difficulties of communication between humans. He was like a tightrope walker, a funamble, happily linking worlds with his writings.

As journalists, Danny and I traveled so much that we began to live without acknowledging borders. We were truly citizens of the globe. We were beyond cosmopolitan. Danny was Jewish; I am Buddhist. Danny was born in Princeton, New Jersey; I was born in Paris, France. Danny's father was born in Israel, his mother in Baghdad, Iraq; my mother was born in Havana, Cuba, my father in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We last lived together in Bombay, India, and last traveled together in Pakistan.

Our commitment to journalism as our means of changing the world deepened every day. The world often seemed to be a mess, but it was our world and somehow our mess. It became clear to us that we enjoyed a privileged position. That enabled us to expose corruption, injustice and ignorance. It empowered us to question vested interests, fundamentalism and untruths. For us -- for Danny -- journalism epitomized the path for charting a better world future. Danny cherished truth more than anything. He called it his religion. He had undertaken a lifelong struggle against conventional wisdom. In all those respects, Danny was a hero -- an ordinary hero.

We were legitimate citizens of the 21st century.

I can only hope that more individuals will think independently, give voice to their thoughts and take responsible action so that this world starts belonging to its people. It is our task to educate, inform and provide keys to people so that they will not be held hostage to the ignorance bred in every corner of the world. It takes courage.

Danny's kidnappers tried to behead freedom. The absurdity of his death belied the life we lived together. We were journalists. We were free. We met people and told their tales to the world. Nobody could harm us. Why would they? We were open-minded and respectful. We were not corrupt. We were not running after power or fame. We were not political or militants. We needn't hide anything. We were ambitious. We believed ordinary people like us could change the world by changing the way people think about each other. We believed you only had to be a journalist armed with intellectual courage, curiosity, a writing talent, a solid sense of humor and a genuine willingness to fight your own limits.

The terrorists who killed Danny stood at the other extreme of what Danny represents. They could only wield their knife and cowardice against Danny's intellectual courage and bold spirit. Danny died holding only a pen. They stole his life but were unable to seize his soul. By killing Danny, terrorists took my life as well but could not lay claim to my spirit. Dead and alive we will never let them win."

That is the kind of spirit that animates what is best in a liberal democracy. If only the world had a thousand more Daniel Pearls.

The movie reminded me why public service work is important, even when bad ideas dominate the public discourse and democratic politics. Because without the Daniel Pearls of the world, the only alternative people would have would be the cynicism that is the source of terrorist thinking as much as more cynical democratic politics. And there would be no honest reality check for how ugly that thinking can be without people like Daniel Pearl to stand for something better.

Love,
Ben

Leaning towards Obama

If Barak Obama keeps thinking in these more deeply-considered ways and in directions that could move us out of our foreign policy ruts, I may vote for him.

This is an excellent article on Obama's foreign policy thinking and the campaign by James Traub in the International Herald Tribune today.

Obama's guide to leading a "post-post-9/11" America

I need to hear him say that he'll stick with the war until the Iraqis say they are ready for us to leave. But the debate is shifting in that direction, anyway, I believe, so this may become a mute point.

And can I say that I have grown increasingly disappointed with Joe Nye over the course of this war. He says he didn't support the war up front. The New York Times says different. I'm less concerned with that than I am with the fact that everything I've ever heard him say on behalf of Hillary Clinton has lacked much real substance. Which wouldn't bother me so much if Hillary Clinton, herself, had something more substantive to say about foreign policy.

But both of them seem to be tacking cautiously with more attention to a Democratic victory than to a more effective and thoughtful international policy. And that is a sure sign that you are going to fuck up. Because you're more focussed on your own ambitions than you are on doing a good job. And that is what bugs me about Hillary Clinton.

And anytime that you have a leader who prioritizes power over knowing better what to do with that power, you know you're in trouble.

It's not a good sign for an international policy thinker when a political candidate, like Obama, is thinking more out loud and more substantively than you are. And it's a good sign for Obama that so many international policy thinkers in and outside of America are favorable to what I have to say are, generally - with exception for this thinking on the war, which has not impressed me - refreshingly open-minded and thoughtful.

And his skepticism about the use of force articulated in this article is exactly the kind of thing I need to hear from an American head of state, right now, given the American propensity to bully the world on whatever issues Americans face, right now.

None of the candidates are thinking as broadly and with as much willingness to question and rethink their own conventional wisdom as well as the conventional wisdom of others as I want. But I do have to say that Obama is doing so more than the other candidates, even as I'm disappointed with his shortsightedness on the war, and moving in the right directions, generally.

We'll see.

Michael Gerson is my hero, right now

Can I just say that I am impressed with almost everything that Michael Gerson writes, these days. Another great column today.

A Second Home for Religious Voters?

And David Brooks has this hilarious, if imaginary, dialogue between the would be Democratic candidates.

Feel the Love

At a time when liberal columnists seem to never cease to get on my nerves, it is refreshing to read something thoughtful. Perhaps when liberal columnists get over their fetish with force and their self-righteous notions on the war, they might write something that might have something to say, again.

In the meantime, I'm reminded that thoughtful commentary is hardly a commodity where anyone has a monopoly.

Because I can. And because you told me not to."

You know what the motivating force behind most of the bullshit in the world is?

"Because I can. And because you told me not to."

Pretty fuckin' sad, ain't it?

Same goes for all my dumbass bullshit.

So much ugliness and cynicism and destructiveness in the world created by this rationalization. All because people can. And because people told them they can't.

I've had that fight. I know what it's like to tell the world to fuck off because they tell you you can't.

And I'd have more sympathy, even for myself, if it weren't so fuckin' sad and dumbass.

What's this world fuckin' coming to?

Sad and dumbass, same as it ever was.

Now if only we could make it less sad and dumbass.

I think I may have one or two ideas.

Love,
Ben

Why power politics drives me crazy

Because it persistently overwhelms better arguments and ideas.

I don't have time to go into all the fine details at this particular moment. But here's the crux of this problem in a nutshell.

Eugene Robinson writes this really weak criticism of Rudy Guliani's New Hampshire ad talking about rates of diagnosis for colon cancer in America and Great Britain, illustrating the relative strength of America's free market health system over the socialized system of the United Kingdom.

Guliani's Bogus Diagnosis

And the bottom line of Eugene's argument is: the British system isn't as bad as he says it is, even if it's still weaker than the U.S. system.

Do you know how often a scholarly consensus would ever develop around an argument like that? Do you know how often that kind of argument would bring some kind of final resolution to something as serious as how to handle inequities and the quality of a health care system in a liberal democracy? Do you know how many debate rounds you would win with that weak-ass argument: ZERO. And you would deserve to. Because you got nothin'. And you're trying to pretend it's something. I've seen it a million times over the course of my speech and debate and academic careers.

And the fact that it was the strongest argument you could think of is a sign that your arguments are in trouble on their merits.

David Gratzer of The Manhattan Institute, the doctor who wrote the article that support Giuliani's claim in his ad, clarifies his data in a follow-up article.

Malignant Rumor

Neither of these articles end the debate about health care in America by a long shot. There is a long and involved discussion and debate that America needs to have.

But one thing is for sure: this is what fuckin' drives me crazy about politics. That people with bad arguments are constantly trying to overwhelm people with better ideas with force rather than with better arguments and ideas. It is the essence of illiberalism and it is an affront to every basic ideal of a liberal democracy.

And that is the essence of what has been wrong with this political era.

And that will never, ever, ever be corrected with enough force. Not even if the proponents of force as a governing philosophy over rigorous thought could keep up their battle till the ends of humanity. It would still be wrong, as a matter of fact completly independent of those arguing about the facts.

That is the nature of an empirical political reality independent of ideology, party, or those arguing about that reality. The reality just is, whether we like it or not.

And no amount of force could ever change that.

Taking time to appreciate people

It's beginning to occur to me, today, as I work with teenagers and all of their teenager ways...

Most of us spend a lot of time thinking about all the ways that people around us disappoint us. I do it. Regularly. It can be a good thing, because it gives me an idea of things I want to avoid and things I want to do better.

But it's occurring to me, today, that none of us, me included, take nearly enough time to just enjoy and appreciate the people in our lives when they are with us. We get so caught up in how they disappoint us, how they make us angry, how they makes us sad, how they hurt us, that we lose track of just appreciating them as they are, right now, and not 10 years down the road when we hope their not so flaky or have such a bad attitude or such a jerk. But just right now, when they are as they are, good and bad.

It's a good reflection to have when you're working with kids. But it's really just a good thought to have with the people you care about in your life.

Most, if not all, of the family, friends, colleagues, kids, and other people in your life are going to disappoint you and fall short of your expectations. All the time. It seems like more often than not, when you think about it, really.

But the truth is that all of them, for the most part, are doing their best. Even when they're slacking or falling down on the job, as I've done a million times, they are generally learning or trying to learn some lesson that you just aren't aware of or clear about. Because you're not them. And you wouldn't have the foggiest idea what it is to be them, until they tell you what their experience of life is. That doesn't mean that we all get a free pass. It just means that we all do better and worse in our lives, and, as a general rule, most people are trying to get life figured out the best they know how.

I have some kids I work with who just seem incomparably arrogant and foolish and sometimes mean and too often whiny and aggressive and lame all at once. They are kids who would be easy for people to give up on.

If they weren't also kids. Human beings. Kids I like, even when they're being such shitheads. Kids who I want to do well, even when they're pissing me off royally which is every day with someone and most days with all of them.

But I love 'em anyway. And though they aren't grown and mature and take school and life seriously the way I want them to take school and life seriously, I care about them an awful lot, is the truth. I want them to have decent lives. I want them to have bright futures and big dreams just like other kids. I just want them to learn how to handle themselves more decently and responsibly and with much more compassion and sensitivity for others, so that they're lives can be productive and meaningful and so they can realize some of their dreams, even with so many obstacles they will face, many of which even they are not really fully aware of yet.

I want to appreciate them for who they are, and not just who I want them to be someday. Although I want to take seriously and I want them to take seriously their need and aspiration to be better people their whole lives.

I want to appreciate them just as they are at 14 or 15 or 16 or 17, just as I wanted to be appreciated for just who I was at the same age and not just who I could be.

It gives me some perspective as I one day have kids of my own. I want to appreciate them just as they are. And not just who I want them to be.

It's my most serious regret from grad school, other than fucking up my relationship with Brandi. That I got so caught up in who I wanted my teachers to be, that I lost track of just appreciating them for who they were. Brandi too. They did the same, in the end, I suppose. As have plenty of people in my life, sadly for them almost more than me, it seems.

I don't want to do that anymore. I've got a good number of decades on this earth, I hope. And I want to enjoy them and the people who I get to spend them with. For who they are. And not just for whom I want them to be.

What a waste of our lives we make wishing for the day that people will be better than they are instead of hoping for better and appreciating people, more, for just who they are in our lives, today, shitheads or not.

That's why I'm more Twain than Mencken. I just like people. Even when they're shitheads. And I miss them when they're gone. Even when they're not everything I want them to be all the time.

And isn't that what we all hope that everyone thinks about us and will think about us when we're gone? That they'll miss us, even with all our faults and mistakes and foolishness.

Loving people for who they are. People who can do that are the people I respect the most. Above smart or accomplished, any day of the week. Though having a big heart and being smart and being accomplished is to be someone I admire. And those folks are too rare and special to ignore.

I better get to bed, here, soon.

I have kids to teach tomorrow. And it's hard to appreciate them when I'm cranky.

It's harder to appreciate them when they're being little shitheads. But it gets easier the more I remember that even when some of them are being dumbasses and shitheads, they're just kids trying to find they're way in the a world that, for many of my kids, at least, has been unkind, topsy-turvy, ungrounded, and generally not stable enough for kids, at this point in their lives. And my hope is to provide them with a life that offers them a bit more wholesomeness and steadiness and genuine concern for their long-term welfare above the more self-centered concerns that occupy too many of the people in their lives, and even too many of the folks who could probably give two shits about them, most days.

Anyway, I got to be up for them, in the morning. And they count on me to be in good shape, mentally. Otherwise it's harder to appreciate them and my time with them.

Love,
Ben

Attention U.S. Presidential candidates:

This is what real courage looks like.

100 monks head back to the streets in Myanmar

Now that is the heart and essence of democracy.

Democratic and Presidential candidates, Ms. Clinton, in particular, take notice:

This is the quality we call courage. It means taking responsibility whether it is popular or not and doing it despite the consequences. It is rare. All too rare in this Presidential election. And it involves doing it out of your own free will whether people force you to do it or not.

This is the lead you need to follow.

And if you can't figure that out, you're not worthy of that office.

So get worthy.

Love,
Ben

P.S. I say that knowing that I need to get worthy, too. I have a long way to go. Most people do, I think. And most public servants - politicians and teachers and cops and military personnel and judges and all sorts of people serving and leading us - especially. Because, like it or not, we look to them for leadership. And so leadership, not confusing our basest impulses with our most worthy, is what we need them to provide.

I'll keep doing my best. They'll keep doing theirs', I assume. But the bottom line is that we all need to do better.

Only 774?

China arrests 774 in product crackdown

Surely it will take more to really put the pressure on.

Could we maybe arrest family members so the pressure encompasses their entire social support network? You know, kind of like Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, but with real teeth.

Are summary executions still legal in China? Because if there was anything that warranted the kind of pressure that a good old fashioned hanging offers, this would seem to be the case.

What I don't understand is why is China and the world going so easy on these merchants of death? Do we want our children to die of dog food poisoning or dangerous toy parts? Are we serious about ending this threat once and for all or not?

I don't think 774 is going to do it. I'm thinking more like a 100,000. For starters. And I'm thinking that the quicker we cut their throats, the surer that these murdering capitalist pigs will get the message.

I just don't think we'll ever be serious about this threat until the blood is flowing up to our armpits. And even then, I'm pretty sure there will still be someone out there threatening to kill my children.

Thank God for the Chinese government. It's nice to know that someone knows how to take charge and force some change on the world.

Freedom and why we're so scared of it

I've been reflecting tonight and this weekend.

Freedom is clearly a better path for people to live better lives, ones where they do more genuine good, ones where they are happy, ones that are more consistent with our best and stronger liberal democratic values. After several years of thinking about this, doing this work, and living a life that takes freedom more seriously, it's so clear to me, today, that freedom and the learning that come with it are the means for thinking about and generating solutions and creating what needs to be created in the world that are the basis for lives and a world that better cares for us and those we love.

People are just scared of it, is the problem. They're scared it means a free-for-all where all their worst nightmares get realized, certain in their belief that it is the controls and repression of their freedom and the freedom of others that keeps all the boogeymen at bay.

It's a foolish notion that has animated much of human history, tragically, and animates far too much of the world, liberal and illiberal, today.

And no matter how ugly, indecent, mean-spirited, barbaric, and tragic the illiberal forces in the world are, people stubbornly and foolishly hold onto their fear that it is all the freedom in the world that makes all those ugly things possible.

It's insanity is what it is. And its tragic consequences have including tens, hundreds of millions of people dead, enslaved, imprisoned, censored, and otherwise frightened in the 20th century and for the length of humanity.

All because people so often and tragically choose fear to animate their lives rather than the possibility and opportunities that freedom provides. All because people are more afraid of the mistakes that freedom inevitably involves, whether we choose liberal or illiberal pathes, than wise and appreciative to the advantages that freedom brings.

And much, if not most, of that because of the pain that comes with failure or trouble or punishment or consequences that freedom can often bring as people learn to use it more wisely.

It's the craziest goddamn thing I've ever seen in my life. And my day job, special education - the kind of special education that is concerned with kids and people who are struggling in school and in life, distinguished from (though with some overlap with) the kind of special education that wants to help kids and people with clear, biologically-derived cognitive and physical disabilities - is the living embodiment of that craziness and the fear that it is borne of.

It is the most serious source of dysfunctional and insane behavior that the whole world is subject to. And no matter how many times we are asked to choose between a world more like Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Afghanistan under the Taliban; Communist China, Cuba, or North Korea; Palestine, Iran, Syria or Libya; Sudan, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Somalia or the Congo; Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy or any number of totalitarian or dictatorial regimes; or a world more like our own liberal democratic lives, people persistently and irrationally still far too often choose the more repressive direction.

Because they are afraid. And because they are too often led by their fears rather than by their hopes and the possibilities that freedom brings.

I don't know why people hold onto such nonsense. I am becoming more confident that they begin to let it go, over time.

And in the meantime, I am learning to embrace the freedom and the learning that make for a much stronger, happier, more grounded life for me, and potentially for others, for those who learn to embrace it.

I have work to do.

Here's to a world of less fear. And less reasons to be afraid. And the freedom that affords us that world.

Love,
Ben

More reasons to be wary of Rudy

Rudy a Lefty? Yeah, Right.

Though I have to say, that Rudy's support for school choice is one of the more genuinely liberal - meaning valuing liberty - positions that he maintains. And his support for abortion and gay rights are pretty important to me, actually, no matter how much David Greenberg's fine piece tries to minimize those positions. Rudy, as much as anything, represents a changing electorate and a liberalization of attitudes among the American people as much as attitudes by Rudy.

But this is a very good reminder, nonetheless, of the illiberal baggage that Hizzoner brings to the 2008 Presidential race and, potentially, to the White House and Washington.

How refreshing...

...to see something real get said in a university classroom.



Props to the digital ethnography from Michael Wesch and his students at Kansas State University.

"Hillary Goes for the Kill"

You heard it first from The Huffington Post:

Hillary Goes for the Kill

It's amazing.

It's as if politics is a professional wrestling match. Or an action movie. Or a day at the carnival.

Notice any substance in this coverage or in much at all in any of the discussions or debates leading up to the election? Not really. Not serious substance.

One of the many reasons I don't like Hillary Clinton. Because she's too caught up in the grudge match philosophy of American politics. She thinks too little. And she thinks playing politics like it's professional boxing is an adequate substitute. As long as you're winning, that is. It's the biggest reason I don't trust either of the Clintons, these days, with as many good things as I've had to say about Bill Clinton in the past.

Because they seem to relish the grudge match. And take way too seriously both the fighting, itself, as if one ideology or party really is going to come out on top and be recognized as the winner by serious historians, and take way too seriously their role as the truer messiahs of their parties and their causes.

I don't trust people who think that highly of themselves. And I trust them less when they have a gaggle of party faithful certain of their ability to save the world from the evil that is their opponents.

There's plenty not to like about American politics, right now. Like imperialism at the turn of the 20th century, hyper-aggressive, hyper-competitive and dominance-centered democratic politics in the early 21st century is Lord Acton's concerns about power over a hundred years ago played out all over again for an audience that is all-too-easily convinced that they are in on the gag.

Does this really look like thoughtful engagement to anyone?

I learned something different about politics in college, I suppose, in all those political science and history and philosophy and scholarly discussions. I learned it was about humble conversations around the most serious issues that we face today, with people genuinely committed to seeking out the deepest and most honest answers to the problems we experience together. I had heard it was about people putting aside their more self-centered pursuits to wrestle with problems that face all of us, some of us more than others, sadly, and seeking out the most genuine and decent and honorable and enlightened solutions for those issues.

I suppose that was naive. I suppose that the best that politics has to offer is the language and practice of predation. I suppose the best that politics has to offer is going for the kill.

I suppose Hillary Clinton has one or two things to teach Barack and me and all the rest of us about politics.

Politics is about power. And if you doubt that, just ask Stalin. Or Hitler. They'll let you in on the dirty little secret that the sweet, naive, wholesome people of Kansas just could never fathom.

Hillary Clinton is going to teach Barack Obama what people have been trying to get through my thick and quaint but foolish little soul my whole life. Cynicism is not a sin. Cynicism is just a more honest accounting of reality. And if you doubt that, just watch while Hillary Clinton pushes Barack Obama's face into the sand. And then tell me that politics is not about power, you whiny little baby.

The truth is that Barack Obama and Joe Biden and John McCain and Rudy Giuliani and all the rest of us have something to learn about power from Ms. Clinton. And she's going to teach it to us.

And if you doubt that, just wait till she steamrolls you. And then you'll know something about smart power.

And thank God we all have Hillary to teach us that lesson. Because what would we do with without that kind of wisdom in office?

We might just find ourselves expecting something better.

Love,
Ben

Progress and the human heart

The Dalai Lama seems to understand the motivations driving much of the world's chaos, violence, and ideological clash and confusion, right now. It is so refreshing reading an important political figure talking so openly about compassion as a central virtue of humanity and a more realistic and constructive political outlook.

My Vision of a Compassionate Future

The current and quickly passing political period asserts that it is figures like Malcolm X and Osama Bin Laden, ideologues who flank their moderate brethren and impose or threaten their will with force, who drive progress in the world.

The Dalai Lama thinks it is leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King who understand more deeply the human condition and work out of compassion and ideas rather than with force and violence.

Something tells me the political and cultural warriors are full of shit and that there is more to the Dalai Lama's fruity, naive, sissy-boy - soft - compassion than the ideologues either understand or appreciate.

But they will appreciate it. Because their efforts will continue to falter and fail until they do.

And how refreshing to have one person with the courage and heart to say so out loud.

Love,
Ben

The most serious reason to be concerned about a Giuliani presidency

Obviously a lot of Republicans have learned the wrong lesson from this war in Iraq.

Where is a Democrat or a Republican with courage and more serious thought when you need them?

Does America really believe that that they can attack and intimidate the world into submission? Could we possibly be tempted into such hubris?

Just once, I'd like to hear one Presidential candidate this election say:

"We're gonna stick it out in Iraq until they're ready for us to leave. We started this mess. We're gonna finish cleaning it up until Iraqis responsible for the security of their country tell us their ready for us to go.

But, as a rule, we're going to engage diplomatically, because we have learned that there are limits to power and our capacity to bludgeon others, even petty and potentially dangerous dictators, into our way of thinking.

We believe in our ideals. We believe in liberal democracy and liberal values. We believe in the liberal educations we all got that taught us so much about the values that we live but take for granted today. And we believe in our capacity, our commitment, and in a more realistic analysis of the necessity of persuading others rather than abusing any and all power that we might get our hands on. Because we know our propensity for human weakness. We know our propensity for arrogance. We know our propensity for how how small and weak and petty and foolish and mean-spirited we can be with all that power.

And most important of all, we know how often and how likely it is that we are wrong. We know how important it is to engage those who disagree with us, even if we have good reason to be suspicious of their good faith. And we know the long, tragic, and sordid history of humanity imposing its convictions on one another rather than engaging one another, learning from one another, understanding one another better, and persuading one another when we think others are wrong.

We know the limits of our power, of our capacity to force others to believe as we believe and to do as we want them to do.

And, instead of fighting that reality, we are wise enough to come to terms with it and to work more constructively to make our lives safer, more decent, freer, more prosperous, and a more peaceful place for us to live, fighting only when we need to and not out of our more fundamental and forever unsatiated fears and insecurities that boogeymen are perpetually around the corner.

We are confident. Because we are Americans. Because we are liberal democratic peoples. Because we know that our values really mean something. And that our muscle will never compensate for those values nor substitute as a means of protecting them.

We are confident because we are that strong and the values we believe in are that strong. And no amount of force could ever replace that kind of strength."

Just once I'd like to hear a Presidential candidate say something like that. Just once I'd like to hear a Presidential candidate with real strength and not the pretend kind that we perpetually have to settle for.

Cause faking it, no matter how much we bullshit ourselves, will never come close to the real thing. And what we all yearn for, in politics and in life, is people who have real courage and real thought and effort to help us face the most serious problems in the world we face.

Love,
Ben

The best health care proposal I have read to date

Freedom Works by John McCain

John McCain just became a much stronger candidate in my eyes. The more candidates talk about freedom, the more likely they get my vote.

There are many different directions that helping those with health care needs can come from and have sustainable, responsible financing to support them. Breaking up state-backed monopolies on health insurance sounds like a brilliant idea. A tax credit would be an impressive opportunity to purchase affordable health insurance. Churches, non-profits, employers, and private insurance programs are all opportunities that a liberal democratic non-profit and for-profit market offers and in a way that does not undercut the opportunities that Americans and those with robust health care markets are uniquely able to access.

Cuba may have a commitment to universal care, but they have none of the technology, drugs, specialization, research and development and growth within their health care fields, and certainly none of the freedom and choices that are available in their freer and more democratic neighboring states. And, worse, it all comes at the expense of dissidents, homosexuals, and other democratic-minded free-thinkers to challenge their government or to act in ways that their totalitarian state does not approve of and for which governance they are given no real alternative. Most Europeans democracies with socialist health care systems do so with a constant fight over limited resources, slow-moving and under-performing systems that leave many peoples' needs unmet and no real alternative to getting them met, far less developed markets for technology, drugs, research and development and the like, and unsustainable bureaucracies that are constantly facing the need for cuts or alternative ways to improve revenue. They are not the worst way to receive health care in the world. But they are not the best, either.

I'll deal with not having the most premium health care insurance available - given a teacher's income - to have all of the opportunities available to me that a more robust market makes more affordable for more people.

Making things happen in a world of uncertainty

Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes this thoughtful and reassuring article about the propensity for progress to come from tinkering and trial and error in a world of uncertainty rather than controlled environments that should caution against our more repressive insticts.

And gives me hope that my efforts have not been in vain.

You Can't Predict Who Will Change the World

That article in its entirety:

"Before the discovery of Australia, Europeans thought that all swans were white, and it would have been considered completely unreasonable to imagine swans of any other color. The first sighting of a black swan in Australia, where black swans are, in fact, rather common, shattered that notion. The moral of this story is that there are exceptions out there, hidden away from our eyes and imagination, waiting to be discovered by complete accident. What I call a "Black Swan" is an exceptional unpredictable event that, unlike the bird, carries a huge impact.

It's impossible to predict who will change the world, because major changes are Black Swans, the result of accidents and luck. But we do know who society's winners will be: those who are prepared to face Black Swans, to be exposed to them, to recognize them when they show up and to rigorously exploit them.

Things, it turns out, are all too often discovered by accident--but we don't see that when we look at history in our rear-view mirrors. The technologies that run the world today (like the Internet, the computer and the laser) are not used in the way intended by those who invented them. Even academics are starting to realize that a considerable component of medical discovery comes from the fringes, where people find what they are not exactly looking for.

It is not just that hypertension drugs led to Viagra or that angiogenesis drugs led to the treatment of macular degeneration, but that even discoveries we claim come from research are themselves highly accidental. They are the result of undirected tinkering narrated after the fact, when it is dressed up as controlled research. The high rate of failure in scientific research should be sufficient to convince us of the lack of effectiveness in its design.

If the success rate of directed research is very low, though, it is true that the more we search, the more likely we are to find things "by accident," outside the original plan. Only a disproportionately minute number of discoveries traditionally came from directed academic research. What academia seems more masterful at is public relations and fund-raising.

This is good news--for some. Ignore what you were told by your college economics professor and consider the following puzzle. Whenever you hear a snotty European presenting his stereotypes about Americans, he will often describe them as "unintellectual," "uneducated" and "poor in math," because, unlike European schooling, American education is not based on equation drills and memorization.

Yet the person making these statements will likely be addicted to his iPod, wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans and using Microsoft Word to jot down his "cultural" statements on his Intel-based PC, with some Google searches on the Internet here and there interrupting his composition. If old enough, he might also be using Viagra.

America's primary export, it appears, is trial and error, and the innovative knowledge attained in such a way. Trial and error has error in it; and most top-down traditional rational and academic environments do not like the fallibility of "error" and the embarrassment of not quite knowing where they're going. The U.S. fosters entrepreneurs and creators, not exam-takers, bureaucrats or, worse, deluded economists. So the perceived weakness of the American pupil in conventional studies is where his or her very strength may lie.

The American system of trial and error produces doers: Black Swan-hunting, dream-chasing entrepreneurs, with a tolerance for a certain class of risk-taking and for making plenty of small errors on the road to success or knowledge. This environment also attracts aggressive tinkering foreigners like this author.

Globalization allowed the U.S. to specialize in the creative aspect of things, the risk-taking production of concepts and ideas--that is, the scalable part of production, in which more income can be generated from the same fixed assets through innovation. By exporting jobs, the U.S. has outsourced the less scalable and more linear components of production, assigning them to the citizens of more mathematical and culturally rigid states, who are happy to be paid by the hour to work on other people's ideas.

Let us go one step further. It is high time to recognize that we humans are far better at doing than understanding, and better at tinkering than inventing. But we don't know it. We truly live under the illusion of order, believing that planning and forecasting are possible. We are scared of the random, yet we live from its fruits. We are so scared of the random that we create disciplines that try to make sense of the past--but we ultimately fail to understand it, just as we fail to see the future.

The current discourse in economics, for example, is antiquated. American undirected free-enterprise works because it aggressively allows us to capture the randomness of the environment--the cheap Black Swans. This works not just because of competition, and even less because of material incentives. Neither the followers of Adam Smith nor those of Karl Marx seem to be conscious of the prevalence and effect of wild randomness. They are too bathed in enlightenment-style cause-and-effect, and cannot accept that skills and payoffs may have nothing to do with one another.

Nor can they swallow the argument that it is not necessarily the better technology that wins, but rather, the luckiest one. And, sadly, even those who accept this fundamental uncertainty often fail to see that it is a good thing.

Random tinkering is the path to success. And fortunately, we are increasingly learning to practice it without knowing it--thanks to overconfident entrepreneurs, naive investors, greedy investment bankers, confused scientists and aggressive venture capitalists brought together by the free-market system.

We need more tinkering: uninhibited, aggressive, proud tinkering. We need to make our own luck. We can be scared and worried about the future, or we can look at it as a collection of happy surprises that lie outside the path of our imagination.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is an applied statistician and derivatives trader-turned-philosopher, and author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable."

Amazing and makes sense, doesn't it, that many of the most insightful articles, lately, are coming from Ph.D.'s? Reaffirms my faith that smart people help us get things figured out despite our perpetually foolish errors of judgment.

And he's right. Even a Ph.D. is no guarantee. Innovation is very hard to predict. It just gets done. And when it gets done, smart people know it when they see it.

Ideology and economic policy

Charles Calomiris writes a really insightful review of a new book that I will be sure to check out, when I get a chance, he Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes.

Calomiris' review highlights the dangers of political tinkering with economic issues that is the temptation of both parties, but particularly Democrats, today, and which were likely largely responsible for the length and severity of the very period where they won so much support: The Great Depression

From that review:

"A DEPRESSING RECOVERY

Some readers -- those whose prior knowledge of the economic history of the Depression comes from high school or college textbooks -- may find the basic facts about the economy and economic policy reviewed by Shlaes a bit surprising. Most basic treatments of the Depression and the New Deal are written by social and political historians with limited knowledge of economics. They tend to view the Depression as an inevitable consequence of alleged market excesses of the 1920s and see the New Deal as having substantially aided economic recovery. (A notable exception to this rule is the recent best-selling textbook A Patriot's History of the United States, by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, which offers a detailed review of the deficiencies of other textbook treatments of the Depression and the New Deal.) However, the research of economists and economic historians tells a very different story, one consistent with Shlaes' account. The Depression resulted primarily from poor monetary policy by central banks, including the Federal Reserve, and was perpetuated by a combination of disastrous fixed-exchange-rate policies (which transmitted deflation around the world), protectionism, and the severe problems with the balance sheets of banks and firms. In the United States, added damage was done by the wrong-headed policy responses of the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations, including New Deal policies that raised prices and wages (phase 1 of the New Deal, before 1936) and those that raised taxes and increased the costs of hiring laborers (phase 2, after 1936). Whatever the desirability of the New Deal policies from other perspectives, they did not provide an effective boost to the economy.

Shlaes' criticisms of these policies will be familiar to economists and economic historians who have studied the Depression. (For a recent overview of the academic literature, see Randall Parker's The Economics of the Great Depression and Michael Bordo, Claudia Goldin, and Eugene White's The Defining Moment.) It is well known among scholars of the Depression that there was no consistent theme or philosophy underlying New Deal policies but rather that Roosevelt and his changing team of experts innovated in ways that were hard to predict and impossible to explain from the perspective of any coherent macroeconomic theory. Even economists at the time, including Irving Fisher and Keynes, recognized this.

Economists and economic historians today, echoing Fisher and Keynes in the 1930s, generally see the abandonment of the gold standard in 1933, which allowed the money supply and the economy to begin to grow, as Roosevelt's major contribution to economic recovery. Other New Deal policies are generally understood to have set back the recovery of production, employment, and asset prices, as Shlaes argues. The National Recovery Administration's price and wage hikes have long been seen as mistakes (and a continuation of Hoover's bad policies) that contributed to unemployment and the slow recovery of production from 1933 to 1935. The tax hikes and labor legislation of 1935-37 have been widely considered by scholars as having prolonged the economy's slow recovery and meager job growth during those years and as having helped caused the relapse into recession in 1937. Shlaes' contention that policy errors -- and, more important, the unpredictability of policy -- fed economic uncertainty and discouraged businesses and consumers from investing and consuming is not a new view of the New Deal.

A few scholars may quibble with some of Shlaes' claims. She argues that Roosevelt's ad hoc management of the dollar's value after March 1933 and his decision to abandon multilateral efforts to reestablish the international gold standard created unnecessary price-level uncertainty. This may be true, but the point seems a bit overemphasized in light of the positive effects of abandoning gold parity -- namely, the growth that came from decoupling monetary policy from worldwide deflation. Similarly, Shlaes' mainly tangential discussion of banking crises in the early 1930s exaggerates the impact of depositor panic, underestimates the difficulty of solving the problems that were then gripping banks, and overstates the ability the Federal Reserve had to prevent financial distress by pumping more liquidity into the system. The abolition of gold clauses in bonds in 1933 (which allowed creditors to repay their debts in depreciated paper dollars rather than in a fixed quantity of gold) was not, as Shlaes argues, merely a redistribution of wealth from creditors to debtors; as the economist and current Federal Reserve governor, Randall Kroszner, has shown, the measure benefited creditors -- and the whole economy -- by increasing the likelihood that depreciated debt would be repaid.

In spite of these few shortcomings, however, Shlaes' overall analysis of the economic history of the Depression is remarkably well informed and balanced. Her emphasis on the disastrous effects of higher taxation of corporate profits and retained earnings in the mid-1930s is especially incisive. In the areas where the analysis is a bit weak (especially pertaining to financial-sector issues), the controversies surrounding those matters are largely beside the point of the book.

Shlaes' main contribution is not the novelty of any one of her views about economic policy but rather her ability to synthesize the story of policy failure with a cultural and ideological history. In doing so, she tells the tale of the Depression in a way that allows readers to understand how leaders as intelligent as Hoover and Roosevelt could have failed to get the economy back on track for so long. Inconsistencies in economic policy over time reflected political leaders' basic lack of understanding of economics, upheaval in the composition of President Roosevelt's pool of most influential advisers, and the schizophrenic nature of those advisers' political and economic ideologies (alternating as they did between budget balancing and aggressive spending, between attacking big business and supporting corporate consolidation). Moreover, Supreme Court rulings that rejected the constitutionality of many actions from the first wave of the New Deal and, later, partisan strategies designed to favor particular groups that Roosevelt believed would deliver his reelection further hampered meaningful reform and economic recovery.

Shlaes properly attributes the persistence of the Depression in part to a new ideological orientation toward government intervention that gained credence in the 1930s: the idea that there is great potential gain and little harm in ad hoc policy experiments designed to plan and shape the economy. Shlaes believes that this ideology reflected a lack of understanding of the damage that state intervention can wreak on the economy -- especially when applied in an incoherent and unpredictable way -- and a failure to appreciate the ability of the market to successfully respond to economic challenges on its own when it is permitted to do so. Ill-advised government plans during the Depression were often destructive to recovery and damaged private-sector initiative either willfully or unwittingly by imposing high taxes and creating an environment of high political and regulatory risk.

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

As the 2008 presidential election nears, Shlaes' book will make good bedtime reading. During the campaign, the candidates will offer hundreds of new policy ideas for ways to make the economy perform better and to help the new generation of "forgotten" men and women. The Forgotten Man offers the useful reminder that seemingly bright new government initiatives can cause harm as well as good. It especially highlights the unintended risks of class warfare in the formulation of public policy. Policies that cater to disadvantaged constituencies, perhaps, as in 1936, as part of a political strategy for electoral victory, can sour the economy and end up harming those whom they were intended to help. A protectionist backlash against China, for example, could result in a major global growth slowdown and the destruction of millions of U.S. jobs.

The Forgotten Man is history with a point of view -- a moral history in the best sense of the term. For economists and economic historians, the book offers a synthetic view that places the myriad policy errors of the 1930s within a coherent narrative about the evolution of U.S. culture and ideology and that is full of insightful commentary about the main players in this drama. For nonspecialists, many of whom may be suffering from fundamental misconceptions about the New Deal, the book will be an eye opener."

It is the field of economics, as much as the field of psychology that is the discipline that my work in special education most draws upon, that should caution our romanticism of power, force, and state intervention, right now.

Ironically, we have spent the entire 20th century slowly learning that lesson only to take several steps back at the turn of the 21st century. I can only hope that this is the last gasp of such regressive foolishness that is perpetually refuted by empirical analysis of its effectiveness, nevertheless its relationship to the principles of self-governance and self-determination of independent citizens that the title of this book, The Forgotten Man, alludes to.

Power, I am learning, if far too often the refuge of self-centered and cowardly interests conspiring against the merits of most matters in the world best decided and shaped by independent consciences rather than group imposition.

And this period better than any other I have encountered in this world, reflects this most serious shortcoming of those engaged in the field that I care so much about.

More stupid than evil

The most impressive and hilarious Charles Krauthammer piece I have ever read.

Pelosi's Armenian Gambit

And impressive for exactly what I have always wanted to see in a Krauthammer piece: an appreciation for the fact that most people are more stupid than evil.

Love,
Ben

Genocide and coming to terms with its legacy

Soli Ozel, professor of international relations and political science at Bilgi University in Istanbul, Turkey, writes the most thoughtful piece I have read, to date, about the controversy over whether Turks committed genocide against Armenians in 1915.

Politicians, Stay Out of Our History

"Some Turkish historians decided that what happened in 1915 was indeed genocide, while others accepted the catastrophe but did not define it as such. Two years ago, after bitter judicial battles, a conference was finally held in Istanbul that brought together those who had an alternative view of the fate of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. The issue was being normalized and a process of digging deep into history and into the nation’s soul began. Some of those who did not accept the Armenian case wanted to go to the International Court of Justice and have a proper judicial verdict - a course of action the Armenian side did not favor. Yet there were, and are, restrictions on having a truly open debate. Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which punishes those who insult Turkishness, is a Sword of Damocles to those who dare challenge the official version of things.

The Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was tried and sentenced under 301. His murder was a symbol of the intense fight within the country, and it catalyzed a movement. He was targeted and threatened by ultranationalists and, though he was under considerable danger, he was not given protection. His was a murder foretold. Officials in security services connived. The judicial process is a travesty so far.

Yet, close to 200,000 people marched silently at his funeral, holding banners that read, “We are all Hrant,” and “We are all Armenians.” As expected, this infuriated the nationalists and they struck back. The pressure on Turkey by foreign politicians only exacerbated the tension, polarized the country and poisoned the atmosphere. In such a politicized environment even those who may be inclined to look at history differently will refrain from doing so. They see their country and themselves as a nation being subjected to a vicious attack. The Diaspora and their allies are seen to want the Turks to accept the label of genocide and then begin a debate.

Understandably, most Turks believe this is akin to hanging first and asking questions later. The politicization of the issue is now closing the space for debate and freedom of expression. It intensifies a xenophobic nationalism, undermining liberal political openings and further democratization. The current government will not move against 301, even though it is at best profound embarrassment and at worst a sign of obstructionism.

So if the aim was to get to the bottom of the historical truth, to understand what had happened and how it had happened, to set the historical record straight despite all sorts of obfuscation and denial on the part of official historians – if that was the aim, then that aim is now far removed. That is a shame.

Under these circumstances the Congressional resolution is an unnecessary, counterproductive and wrongheaded initiative. It is written with a revanchist intent and gives every indication that the resolution will be used to further political goals. Even those who voted against it did so not because they don’t believe a genocide was committed, but because Turkey is strategically too important for the United States. That certainly does not do Turkey much honor. It’s what I would call cynicism."

There is so much to this discussion that could inform contemporary historical and political understandings, not least of which is the role that more genuine and honest liberal democratic discussion is central to coming to terms with our past and forging our future, and how such an honest discussion is the heart of liberal democratic progress. And, as Ozel argues, it is progress that can only happen as people come to terms with their actions of their own independent accord, not under public or political pressure.

That, in fact, is the most important lesson that liberal democracies have to learn, today. And our failure to do so makes for useless and counterproductive tragedy, not justice or righteousness.

And it is refreshing to read someone reflect on that fact of life honestly, when there is so much bullshit and denial bound up in the language of force and coercion and imposition, these days, to obfuscate that honest fact of life.

At some point, we have to face this fact of life.

And doing so is the only way forward. Because everything else is a lie.

And it means the world to have someone like Soli Ozel to share that deeper truth.

Love,
Ben

Too true

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

Take that to the bank

Maybe it's because I'm watching Joe versus the Volcano, right now.

Maybe it's because I'm working with a such a nice crowd - the teachers I work with at Capital City, not the students; although sometimes, like today, the students - at this point in my life.

Maybe it's because I'm at a time in my life when I've been shitty enough in my life and know well enough what freedom we all have to be shitty or decent and have no interest in being any shittier than I've already been in my life.

Maybe it's because the more I've seen the just how fucked up people can treat one another - that is the essence of studying politics, too often, sadly - the more I really appreciate people who treat others and me decently.

But for whatever reasons, I'm completely clear, at this point in my life, that the best that life has to offers is not found in money or position or power and certainly not in sex or drugs or even rock-n-roll, as fun as I'm sure all of these things are and as fun as I've had with each of them.

The best that life has to offer is found in the feeling of being with decent people who treat me and others with compassion, love, genuine concern, and an appreciation for something other than themselves.

Everything else is bullshit. And there's not a goddamn thing in the world that has ever taken the place of this feeling in my life, ever. Ever. Not even once.

And if you think differently, you have lived a sad little life bereft of any of the deeper, more intimate pleasures that come from loving others and being loved by others more than your selfish, petty little desires.

And having seen that life from a distance many, many times, and making choices in that direction more often that I am proud to say, I could never live that life if you paid me a million dollars to do it (ok, maybe I'd try it out for a week or so, and then I'd feel like I was a waste of life if I didn't return to a life of more meaning).

I've had enough of both to know that a life loving people and being loved by people more than a more self-centered life could afford is by far a better life and one where I feel better to be alive than anything that cynicism or money or power or whatever bullshit others may center their lives around could ever afford anyone.

And I will no longer listen to any asshole who says differently. Because it's completely clear to me, today, that the reason they say differently is because they are such self-centered and miserable schmucks. And boo-fucking-hoo for them until they face up.

In the meantime, a life of deep meaning and connection and a life where I am and feel loved because I have so much love in return is better than any paycheck you could offer me.

And you can take that to the bank.

Love,
Ben

Nice guys finish last

You know why the mythology (and all too often, the reality, at times) goes that nice guys finish last?

Because so many people, perhaps most, are such shitheads, and they reward people like themselves far more than they are worth.

And their cynicism preys on the fears of all people that being good doesn't pay.

That fact of life fucks up the world more than any other. That and all of the excuses that we've created for what shitheads we are rather than just facing up. And noone takes responsibility, of course, because shitheads don't take responsibility for their fuckups. That's the nature of being a shithead.

And all of that would be forever true if being good didn't pay, of course. But the trick is that it does pay. Just long after all of the fucking up that gets in the way, in the meantime. And being good pays in ways that are important but not always material.

And nice guys (and girls) often finish last on material measures because they care more about the intangibles than they do the material. It's shitheads who care more about money or power or whatever bullshit they pursue instead of being a decent person and spending their time with other decent people and doing good for all kinds of people, decent or not. And, as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates demonstrate, nice guys working with money often finish first too.

Cynicism can take you only so far in this world.

And where it will never take you is in the direction of more genuine happiness.

That comes with being a decent person and spending your time with people who treat you well.

And, in that respect, nice guys and gals generally finish first every time.

And shitheads just never know what they're missing. Because they never bothered to look into what life was like on the other side. And, by that measure, it's pretty fuckin' clear to me just who comes in last.

Love,
Ben

Being good or getting what you want

For many people, perhaps most people, it is more important to get what they want than it is to do good. And, as a part of that outlook, they will mock, snipe, and otherwise defend their self-centeredness.

I don't happen to be one of those people. And I take seriously the idea that everyone needs to behave better - in great part by embracing, honestly, their propensity to behave badly - and face up to the cynicism and work harder at being better.

So if you have more cynical input to offer me, be prepared that I am well aware that there are plenty of people who care more about themselves than about doing good.

I just don't listen to your sorry-ass excuses for what a shithead your being. Neither do I listen to my own, by way. At least not long.

Love,
Ben