What makes us stronger

Concordia University American history professor Jim Burkee makes the argument that I plan to make my teaching and writing career.

Liberty-loving Gen-Yers will reshape politics

Do you realize how important it is to have just one person really believe in you? That is the power of teaching and a strong heart.

And that is what will turn the tide on cynical power politics.

That and a genuine commitment to liberal values and the powerfully strong consciences and more honest strength that it produces.

Those who think power politics reflects strength should study its masters. Hitler, Stalin, and every figure who has sought unrivaled predominant power has reasoned this way.

And they have all failed.

Because strength is not found in our power, primarily. It is found in the values that animate that power.

And it is on those values that young people have been nourished, whether those obsessed with power politics like it or not.

And that is exactly how liberal values are supposed to work.

And that is what makes us stronger.

Because I do

I've decided that I don't care what those scared little bitches in the political world, say. I take love seriously.

I'm writing that goddamn book.



Katie Sutherland, the lead for Pearl and the Puppets, is a math teacher in Glasgow, England. You gotta check out her Youtube where her students have shown up to support her. And after watching the incomprehensible mess that more cynical folks have made of the world in the last 8 years, It's refreshing that maybe some people with heart are preparing to right what's wrong.

Why do I care about this stuff so much?

Because I do.

Deal with it, bitches.

Soul music

I think Lily just about sums it up.



Or how about an answer to cynicism in the world of celebrity.



Who'd Have Known runs through my heart all day long every day, at this point.



If you've not had the pleasure of the company of Lily Allen, I would suggest acquainting yourself.

And while you're at it, Joshua Radin might melt your heart if you allow him.



And Pearl and the Puppets will make you smile.



Nice to know that the music world still has a soul.

Making it happen

As the immortal Hoki Poki once said, that's what it's all about.

How 1 Autistic Young Man Runs a Business

"Joe Steffy is off to Overland Park, Kan., this week to do a PowerPoint presentation on his business, Poppin' Joe's Kettle Korn. He's a 23-year-old small-business man with a goal of $100,000 in sales by 2012. Joe also has autism and Down syndrome and is nonverbal. When he gives his talk, he will push buttons on an augmentative speech device to deliver the words. His audience will be parents who fervently hope their own special-needs children will be able to work, too.

Joe's parents, Ray and Janet, didn't agree with the school district assessment in their home town of Louisburg, Kan., that said Joe would never be able to work or live independently. "I'm one who can easily get ticked off,' says Ray. 'That ticked me off. We saw more in Joe than that. We set out to prove to the school that he had capabilities.' They came across kettle corn while on a trip to Alaska and realized that all that popping, scooping, and serving suited Joe's love of work.

The path to Joe Steffy's success was not an easy one; Ray Steffy worked closely with Dave Hammis, an advocate for self-employment for people with disabilities in Middletown, Ohio, who trains business owners, government employees, and parents on how to make use of state and federal programs. The Steffys wrote up a business plan and helped Joe secure $25,000 in grants from programs like Social Security Administration's Plan to Achieve Self-Support program (PASS).

In 2005, Poppin' Joe's Kettle Korn was born. Sales have grown from $16,000 in 2005 to $50,000 in 2008, both from selling at festivals and from delivering popcorn to local outlets. Joe has five part-time employees, and his parents help out with driving and other tasks. Pop and everyone that works with him knows whatever Joe wants to do you let him do, because he's the boss,' Ray says. 'If he wants to pop, he'll shove Dad out of the way and pop...

...'It's been hard work, from the standpoint of physical work,' says Ray Steffy, who is 67. 'But a parent with a child like Joe has a choice. You can either kick in and do this kind of thing, or you can sit and fret emotionally with the amount of energy, worrying about what's going to happen to them.'

The payoff for that effort, as far as the Steffys are concerned, has been priceless. They see their son make a local popcorn delivery, accept payment, fold it, and put it in his pocket. When he walks out, his dad says, Joe looks 3 inches taller than when he walked in."

This is the standard for special education and education, generally, to which I aspire.

With so much to lament in life, it's the Joe Steffy's of the world that inspire me.

Saying thanks (some resolution for cynicism)

I've been dealing with some cynicism, here as of late.

Anyone who has ever had any expectation that the world is going to be any certain or ideal or better way is likely to go through some cynicism in their lives. It's inevitable in a world where people and life often fall short of even our most cherished expectations.

Life is FUBAR. Often. That's why I love that movie, I suppose. Because that's my conclusion, too. If you spend enough time with the roughest edges in life - terrorism and despotism come to mind - you come to realize that life is often incomprehensibly FUBAR and tragic in some places in the world.

And when you deal with gangs and violence and the seedy underside of life as I often do in a job where a good proportion of the kids I work with are either in the criminal justice or family law systems or they are well on their way - a special education school for kids with behavior and mental health issues is often euphemism for "education for kids with the most fucked up problems" - or if you study law enforcement, domestic security, international security or any of the most dangerous matters in the world - you often gain a much greater appreciation for the nicer, more decent parts of the world. You come to appreciate all of those places where people generally behave and treat one another better.

That's the point of Saving Private Ryan, if you're watching carefully.

All kinds of fucked up things in the world. All kinds of things to keep open a clear eye for often harder truthes.

But knowing that there is FUBAR out in the world does not, in the least, mean that we should not appreciate the nice things, the decent things, the good things.

To the contrary.

If you are someone who deals with the rougher edges in life more regularly, as I do, you come to appreciate just how much most of us take those nice things for granted. And how much they really matter in life.

In my life, at least.

And I frankly cannot imagine trying to live a life where they did not.

And, for that, I am grateful to all the decent people in the world who have taught me, raised me, helped me, and kept me safe. Soldiers, cops, teachers, ministers and Sunday School teachers, my parents, friends and family, and everyone who has pitched in to make my life better.

And all of us could stand to appreciate and, perhaps, say thanks to some of those people in our lives, as well.

Overreach

Yessir, I think we have overreach.

U.S. Threatens Bankruptcy for GM, Chrystler

Maybe I'm the amateur, here, but this definitely looks like a shitty way to sustain a domestic auto industry to me.

WWBD? (What Would Buffet Do?)

Know better than me, that's for sure.

All I know is having the Federal government call the shots on the biggest auto manufacturer in America is a sign of the weakness of our industry, not strength.

And no political propaganda to the contrary will make that not so.

No sense at all

I think I've finally made my peace with the fact that life often makes no sense at all. And that is not a fact that I am always able to change. I've wasted much energy mourning that sometimes cruel, often pointless fact of life already.

Time to enjoy life more and worry about it less.

Getting honest with ourselves

Nobody listens to real climate change experts

I generally share the sentiments of this column. I believe that a modest warming is occurring. I am skeptical of catastrophic scenarios. And I am quite confident, at this point, because of the tenor of the debate, that climate change has been so politicized that it has rendered more reasonable policy debates and policy-making nearly impossible.

One of the comments on this column illustrates, tongue-in-cheek, the problem of the modern politics, left and right.

"This is nothing more than vile propaganda.

I really believe climate change denial should be an imprisonable offense. Hundreds of millions of people will die if something isn't done...

I know this because my children are brainwashed/taught these very things in school. If they argue against the 'facts', they'll come home with low grades. And schools (and indeed universities) are hardly the places to make poltical points now, are they?"

Threats and intimidation clearly undermine more open, honest debate.

The problem is that everyone loves them to get what they want.

It needs to end.

If we are ever going to be honest with ourselves, that is.

Spring break

You know why so many of the most serious problems in the world go unresolved?

Because most people would rather fight about them than resolve them.

After awhile, it gets old.

Makes me crave a beer, some vegi phad thai, and a week thinking about nothing special.

Burning the village to save it

On more than just matters of finances, I think Dr. Sowell is correct, here.

Subsidizing Bad Decisions

The bigger tragedy of the world is substituting the ordinary pitfalls of life with political warfare designed to inflict much tragedy to somehow save the village.

I think we can do better than that.

Certainty

I'm fairly convinced, at this point, that an awful lot of politics, and too much of life, is the long psychodrama of people certain that they must be right. About everything, no less. And who are desperate for the power to back up that all too certain assertion.

Many people die on that alter. Many others are hurt, manipulated, or otherwise maltreated. All of us are poorer for it.

The question is will we settle for it.

How sad if the answer to that question were yes.

Honest, humble, and respecting my intelligence

Christopher Buckley, like all of us, is at his best when he is at his most honest and humble.

The Audacity of Nope

"One feels almost unpatriotic, entertaining negative thoughts about Obama’s grand plan. But it is far from clear that spending oceanic sums of money is the right corrective...

...Now let me say: Unlike Rush Limbaugh, I want President Obama to succeed. I honestly do. We are all in this leaky boat together—did I say 'leaky'? I meant 'sieve-like'—and it would be counterproductive, if not downright suicidal, to want it to go down just to prove a conservative critique of Keynesian economics.

But let’s all be honest about this: No one knows how all this is going to turn out in the end. Do you, really? If we learned one thing during the runup to this rancid enchilada, it is that most of the smartest people in the room were wrong, and the other ones were crooked.

Even today, smart people are still holding spittle-flying debates about what really ended the Great Depression. (That’s reassuring, isn’t it?) Personally, I’m in the camp that maintains it was Pearl Harbor, not FDR’s policies, that actually brought it to an end. Which, I suppose, leaves me to wonder if the best we can hope for is another sneak attack by Japan. Bring it on, as our former president would say. Let’s just pray Japan hasn’t quietly produced The Bomb since 1945. All those centrifuges they said they needed for 'flat-screen plasma TVs'? Uh oh….

I’m all for audacity and all for hope. 'L’audace, l’audace—toujours l’audace!'(Frederick the Great) is an inspiring motto. It worked for Patton. Whatever you think of this leviathan budget, President Obama cannot be accused of being a trimmer, or reticent. And with the New York Times running heart-breaking front-page stories about out-of-work executives now working as $11-an-hour janitors, I’m all for hope, too. Governor Jindal and El Rushbo may not be happy campers, but even Senator John McCain has been sounding positive notes about President Obama’s leadership—while at the same time focusing the nation’s attention on the president’s (ahem) proposed new $11 billion fleet of helicopters. It would be presidential for him to say, as he almost has, that he’ll keep the old model for a few more years.

The strange thing is that one feels almost unpatriotic, entertaining negative thoughts about Mr. Obama’s grand plan, as if one were indulging in—call it—the audacity of nope. It is on the one hand clear that something must be done about our economic woes. But that is very different from saying that spending these vast, oceanic sums of money is the right corrective to a decade of fiscal incontinence.

One thing is certain, however: Government is getting bigger and will stay bigger. Just remember the apothegm that a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.And remember what de Tocqueville told us about a bureaucracy that grows so profuse that not even the most original mind can penetrate it.

If this is what the American people want, so be it, but they ought to have no illusions about the perils of this approach. Mr. Obama is proposing among everything else $1 trillion in new entitlements, and entitlement programs never go away, or in the oddly poetic bureaucratic jargon, “sunset.” He is proposing $1.4 trillion in new taxes, an appetite for which was largely was whetted by the shameful excesses of American CEO corporate culture. And finally, he has proposed $5 trillion in new debt, one-half the total accumulated national debt in all US history. All in one fell swoop.

He tells us that all this is going to work because the economy is going to be growing by 3.2 percent a year from now. Do you believe that? Would you take out a loan based on that? And in the three years following, he predicts that our economy will grow by 4 percent a year.

This is nothing if not audacious hope. If he’s right, then looking back, March 2009 will be the dawn of the Age of Stimulation, or whatever elegant phrase Niall Ferguson comes up with. If he turns out to be wrong, then it will look very different, the entrance ramp to the Road to Serfdom, perhaps, and he will reap the whirlwind that follows, along with the rest of us."

If there is anything I am learning, this political period, it is that a little humility and a little honest debate goes a long way to earning my trust in a democracy. And the kind of grandstanding and dishonest debate we've been having earns my mistrust fairly quickly, as well.

The last time I remember trusting the political process was the last time that discussions were more honest, moderate, and where people seemed more honestly pitching in together to deal with challenges in front of us.

When that is not happening, I just do not trust the process, no matter who runs it.

Honesty and humility are much more persuasive to me than grand theories and ideologies, anymore, all of which are more interested in winning my ballot than persuading me honestly, I'm convinced.

Be nice if people actually respected my intelligence, for once.

Growing up, raising children, and how I look at the world

I don't have any children of my own, yet.

But, as I mature, and think about raising children and what message about the world best prepare them for life, I do think the simplest message is the best one.

Be good. Be honest. Keep your promises. Be someone of integrity. Do your best. Accept failure and success with class, learn from them, and look forward to new opportunities. When life gets tough, you get tougher. Follow the law. Be good to people around you. Take school, church, family, and life seriously. But not too seriously. Do something you're interested in. Love your spouse and your children and be true to them. Take the Ten Commandments seriously. Live a good life more than a famous or rich or any other kind of life. Be worthy of peoples' trust.

Do what you're supposed to do. Love your friends and family. And have a nice life.

The older I get, the more I realize that the complicated answers to life are generally too complicated. The simple ones are better answers, on the big life questions, I think.

And, after that, there are plenty of very nice lives awaiting you. And you get to choose.

Have at it.

Choice and character

Excepting for a more understanding attitude toward the confusion for young people like Michael Phelps making their way in this strange age, I roughly agree with Michael Continetti's analysis in this article.

The Age of Irresponsibility

"Decades from now, historians are going to fill e-tome after e-tome debating when the crisis in American authority began. A good place to start would be the Clinton era. The president of the United States had a tawdry affair, lied about it, and refused to accept any responsibility for his actions. The Republicans correctly pointed out that the president had acted beneath his office. The problem was that many of them were acting beneath their offices, too. In Washington, where the spirit of public service is supposed to reign, both Democrats and Republicans were using positions of power for private indulgence. Many things sprang from the Clinton impeachment. Confidence in authority was not one of them.

We correct for the mistakes of past presidents. George W. Bush (barely) won the White House in part because he promised to restore integrity to the office. And the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, did briefly increase the public's trust in government and its elites. In the tense months following the attacks, the public rallied behind strong leaders like Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and Donald Rumsfeld. These men, who had many private failings, nonetheless were seen to be acting in the interests of the nation as a whole. We seemed to be on the verge of a new era of patriotism and civic renewal.

But it was not to be. The lack of accountability among the elites quickly caught back up. There was George Tenet, whose time as CIA director included two massive intelligence failures. Bush gave Tenet the nation's highest civilian honor in return. There was the FBI, which still hasn't definitively figured out who attacked America with anthrax in late 2001. There was Rumsfeld, who committed too few troops to the fight in Iraq and failed to change strategy when it became clear, early on, that America was losing the war. He stayed in his job until 2006. The generals whom Bush and Rumsfeld tasked with running the war? None of them suffered any consequences for his failures. One of the main opponents of the successful surge strategy in Iraq, George Casey, was promoted to Army chief of staff.

Nor was the crisis in authority limited to politics. There were dramatic instances of public corruption such as the Jack Abramoff scandal, but there were also remarkable examples of private corruption such as the Enron and Arthur Andersen accounting scandals. In the months after September 11, business titan after business titan came under indictment: Enron executives, Martha Stewart, Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski--the list goes on. Chief executives were massively compensated even when they drove their companies into a ditch. No surprise when populism started making a comeback. The private sector and the public sector were failing the common man. Neither acted with any sense of propriety.

The same was true of our cultural elites. The celebrity of the age was Paris Hilton, an exemplar of the inequality and promiscuity that characterize the present moment. Hilton was born into extraordinary wealth but did not achieve true fame until 2003, when her homemade porno movie made it to the Internet. Twenty or even fifteen years ago, Paris Hilton's behavior would have been a scandal. Not today. Why? Because the wealthy, famous, and well-connected can do as they please and suffer no consequences--as long as they possess no shame.

There are moments when it seems as though every figure who waltzes across the public stage is a cheat, a fraud, a liar, or a failure. Child abuse scandals have tarnished the image of Catholic bishops and priests. Steroid scandals have racked Major League Baseball, the Tour de France, and the Olympic games. And then there are the celebrities who write books, make music, and perform in film and television. Where to start?

On any given day, any public figure might be arrested, assaulted, admit to infidelity, go bankrupt, or break down emotionally in front of television cameras. Sometimes all of these things happen at once.

The next day the celebrity will be released from incarceration. He will go into a rehabilitation program or 'spend time with the family and emerge, weeks later, with a tell-all book and publicity tour that make him even richer than he was before. The idea of 'rehab' is so ubiquitous that in 2007 it was the title of a hit song. No negative value is attached to poisoning one's body to the point where it requires detoxification. Quite the contrary. 'Rehab' is, in some sense, something to aspire to. To go to rehab implies deep financial resources and a life rich with experience (at least in the areas of alcohol and drug abuse). There are no consequences.

It wasn't until last fall that we saw how widely the rot had spread. Everyone was implicated in the financial meltdown. Everyone who took on a mortgage they couldn't afford, who lent to people who couldn't pay back the loan, who securitized the unpayable debts and resold them in ways even astrophysicists can't understand, and who instituted government policies that spurred a culture of easy money and consumption beyond one's means. All were responsible.

Meanwhile, as the men who brought the financial system to the brink of collapse were cashing in and remodeling their offices, the executives and union officials who bankrupted the American automobile industry were traveling to Washington hat in hand, begging the public sector to give them aid. Bush had no credibility with the American public. Treasury secretary Hank Paulson inspired no one's confidence.

America's political, economic, and cultural elites seem incapable of behaving responsibly and being accountable for their actions. That incapacity is why you wake up in the morning and dread reading the day's headlines. It is why, for years, there seemingly has been nothing but bad news. It is this larger crisis that has driven the public's opinion that the country is headed down the 'wrong track' and fostered the widespread sense that American power has entered a period of decline. This is the age of irresponsibility...

...The failures of the elites aren't related to public expend-iture. They are related to a spiritual torpor afflicting the affluent. In a rich society, as we pursue our individual ends, obligations--both private and public--fall to the wayside. The status game consumes all. Corners are cut. The higher we scale the ladder, the more material possessions become an end in themselves. We chase one pleasure after another. Our mantra is 'eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.' The reigning ethic is every man for himself.

Irving Kristol, in his 1976 essay 'Adam Smith and the Spirit of Capitalism,' anticipated the spirit of our own time:

[H]appiness comes to mean little more than the sovereignty of self-centered hedonism. The emphasis is on the pleasures of consumption rather than on the virtues of work. The ability to defer gratification, which is a prerequisite for a gradual bettering of one's condition, is scorned; "fly now, pay later" becomes, not merely an advertising slogan, but also a popular philosophy of life.

How does more federal money for school construction fix that?

There is no reason Obama can't begin to restore dignity to politics and American life. He just isn't trying very hard. But even if he did try, there is only so much one man can do.

Hence it becomes necessary to identify an alternative vision of society where elites uphold and promote the bourgeois values. Only in this way might we all salve the spiritual crisis behind our age of irresponsibility. Such a task extends far beyond the reach of politics.

Where to begin? Start with some exemplars of decency, professionalism, and ability. US Airways pilot Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger III riveted the nation with his dramatic crash-landing into the Hudson River. -Sullenberger's experience and stoicism meant that not a single life was lost during the dramatic and dangerous touch-down. It is no surprise that he has been lionized in the days since. When everything else seems to be crashing all around us, Sullenberger is a rock of common sense and soft-spoken modesty. Imagine--just imagine--if the men and women who represent us in Congress shared his character?

Then there is General David Petraeus. At the recent Super Bowl, Petraeus received huge applause when he walked on field for the pregame coin toss. The crowd's response was no mystery. They were saluting the man who helped rescue the American war effort in Iraq, the man who did so without mincing words to the American people or their elected representatives. Petraeus has a Ph.D., runs marathons, wins wars, and spends every waking moment trying to become a better soldier and man. It ought to give us hope that our culture--the culture of A-Rod, Madoff, Hilton, and Murtha--is still capable of celebrating someone like Petraeus. Why not boldly and consistently champion the commitment to patriotism and duty expressed in the character of the American soldier--a living refutation to irresponsible living?

The sad fact is that it is difficult to come up with more than a few examples of elite responsibility. Failure breeds apathy. So the age of irresponsibility has spawned a cheap cynicism that says, since everything is broken, why not sit back and laugh at the degradation?

But the cynics are wrong. Things can get a whole lot worse. A failure of accountability not only erodes the foundations of our culture. It also puts our country on unstable fiscal ground. A storm of moral and financial insolvency has been brewing for some time. The populist reaction is only the beginning. We're hearing the thunder. Get ready for the deluge."

The entire article is well worth a read.

As I mature, consider the responsibilities of teaching and parenting and do so coming from a background of social liberalism, my more conservative temper mirrors these concerns. There is work that can and is being done to restore confidence in our public institutions. And it will be choices of character rather than public expenditure that will make the difference.

Progress

For all of our pretensions to dispassionate intellect, when all is said and done, it is all emotion.

Feeling without understanding is humanity at its most destructive.

Feeling with understanding is always what has saved and improved us.

Hearts and minds are forever fallible, complicated things.

But they are all we got.

At least until we have screwed things up, enough, that we turn back to them to find better answers.

In the end, that is what has always moved us forward. It is not power or religion or ideology or any other narrower view of humanity.

It is love and understanding.

Power, religion, ideology, and all the rest can be exercised with love and understanding. Or they can be exercised on behalf of hate, vengeance, greed, envy, wrath, ignorance, and every other ugly impulse that has ever inhabited the human soul. Power, rules, law. None of these have ever been exercised for good or decency or understanding or progress alone. They have always been neutral weapons used for our basest impulses as much as our finest. Law institutionalized slavery, as much as it liberated slaves. Law murdered six million Jews, as much as it convicted their killers. Law crucified great men like Jesus of Nazareth, as much it convicted murderers like Barabus. Law, like money, like intelligence, like morality, like all the rest is and will always be used to advance inhumanity as much as humanity. All of these and every other human creation are subject to our abuse and manipulation as much as to our better angels.

And always will be. Until we commit ourselves, each of us, genuinely, to a better path.

That is why liberal values make for stronger individuals and societies. Because everything else is the illusion that power has made us better than we really are.

Freedom, better than its alternatives, offers us the honest opportunity to be better for real and not as a matter of looking better to others who are not really better either.

And that, and none of the counterfeits, is how we make progress.

Let the learning begin

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

When all is said and done, we just all need to be responsible for our own lives. There is no shortcut around this one.

And there is no magic formula, religion, ideology, or rule that will make that happen. Either we learn or we don't.

And that was all she wrote.

Let the learning begin.

Clever apes

The Economist describes the current financial situation and the subsequent economic consequences quite well.

The spiral of ignorance

"The tide has gone out and, with a very few exceptions, Britain is swimming naked: almost nobody appears to know what he is talking about. The havoc of the financial crisis has stretched and outstripped even most economists. The British political class is befogged. Ordinary people are overwhelmed. And just as the interaction between banking and economic woes is proving poisonous, so the interplay of public and political ignorance is damaging the country’s prospects.

Start with the government, whose ministers are still oscillating between prophesying economic Armageddon and gamely predicting the best of all possible recoveries. Gordon Brown is learned in economic history—indeed, he is at his most animated and endearing when discussing it. But the prime minister’s grip on the history he is living through is less masterful. The government’s implicit strategy is to try something and, when that does not work, try something else: the approach modestly outlined by Barack Obama, but rather less honest.

The Tories are now capitalising on this flakiness; but for much of the past year, they have seemed at least as unconvincing. It was only a few months ago that David Cameron, the Conservative leader, averred that—since the economy was purring so happily—his historic mission was to mend British society. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, clung for too long to his fair-weather formula about sharing the proceeds of non-existent growth. Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are vague about the methods they would employ to repair the public finances in office. That sketchiness might be tactical. Or it might be because they do not know.

The truth is that hardly any MPs in any party have more than a rudimentary grasp of the crisis; indeed, their inability to track the City’s baroque excesses helped to foment it. (The intellectual background of MPs, few of whom have much training in economics or commerce, may contribute to this deficiency.) Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats’ treasury spokesman, has the best record in Parliament of predicting and analysing the debacle—and precisely because he is so lucid, he seems increasingly to be regarded as an impartial pundit rather than a politician.

Meanwhile, the bodies and advisers appointed by the politicians to do the understanding for them have been largely discredited. The Bank of England obsessed about monetary policy and neglected financial stability. Sir James Crosby quit as deputy head of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) amid embarrassing questions about risk-taking at the bank he used to run. The involvement of Glen Moreno—chairman of Pearson, which part-owns The Economist—in UK Financial Investments, which manages the government’s new stakes in Britain’s banks, has been undermined by his association with secretive Liechtenstein.

A layman might conclude that there is almost no one in Britain capable of comprehending the financial mess, and at the same time sufficiently uncontaminated by the mistakes and ruses that caused it to be entrusted with the job of fixing it. (Lord Turner, the FSA’s new chairman—who has admitted that financial regulators, among others, missed “an increase in total system risk”—may be a happy exception.) It might help if ministers looked beyond the world of banking, of which they still seem to be in a sort of post-socialist awe, for more of their recruits. The layman, however, may be as much to blame as anyone else.

If financial acumen is limited in the governing classes, it is at least as rare outside them. In surveys, the economy has leapt to the top of voters’ concerns; anxiety is rampant, fed no doubt by the unfortunate trend whereby half the things that “experts” say can never happen come to pass within a fortnight. The public seem to appreciate that the crunch involves both foreign and domestic forces. But to most people the rest is a mystery. Along with the high anxiety, this uncertainty helps to explain the volatile political impact of the downturn: large numbers of people seem to be amenable to whatever explanation seems freshly plausible.

The culprits many have now settled on are the bankers. Some of those—unable to accept the reality of their institutions’ failure—deserve the opprobrium. But the furore over their bonuses has obscured other realities. One is the fact that, now that taxpayers own some of them, they have an interest in the banks being run by clever people; another is the fundamental role banks play in the economy. And because MPs are instinctively populist, as well as bemused themselves, they too have fixated on bonuses.

It is not only banking about which general knowledge seems poor: the same is true of the concept of money. The nasty little secret of the slump is that by overborrowing and making myopic investments, lots of ordinary Britons helped to bring their difficulties on themselves. Low levels of financial literacy (knowing the difference between an ISA and an iPod, and so on) are part of this problem. But so is the cowardly reluctance of politicians to say unpalatable things.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell once remarked that he knew of only six people in the world who had followed his daunting book “Principia Mathematica” to the end. There sometimes seem to be almost as few people in Britain who truly understand the credit crunch and its recessionary consequences. The public is scared and uncertain; the politicians are panicky and confused. They are leading each other around and down a worrying spiral of ignorance."

It's more than this, of course. It is the constant talking down of the economy by liberals. The incessant talk of Depression is meant to give justification for intervention measures, whether they are warranted or not (and most of them, I believe, are not). And more generally it is meant to justify for liberals why they are right on every important question that the world has faced since the inception of progressive ideology and why George Bush is responsible for every evil ever since.

We are, perhaps, the dumbest species that has ever called itself intelligent, I think. We are a bunch of clever apes constantly trying to prove to one another just how clever we have always been. Without fail, no less.

This is why I don't trust my fellow apes to fix the messes for everyone else that, often, they have had a hand in creating. We are just not evolved enough to outsmart our own folly when really a little humility and some lessons learned might be in better order.

Might and right

Thank you to every teacher, writer, family member, and friend who has ever taught me the difference between might and right.

Without you, this world would seem like one long, inexplicable and hopeless tragedy.

It is not, because you had the heart and mind to know the difference.

Pity is for Princeton economists

How, exactly, does this guy still pull down a salary? Anywhere?

Back to Reality After 10 Year Illusion of Wealth

You know what Paul Krugman's problem is? He can't make any distinctions.

Whose wealth?

Paul is convinced that it is all his.

And that is the fuckin' problem, Professor Krugman. You got your wealth. It came with that Nobel Prize, you smug fuck. The rest is not your's. Our our's. Or anyone's except for the people who made it.

It is not good for us to think about wealth in the terms people like Paul Krugman suggest. It suggests to us that we are too weak, too dumb, too lazy, too crazy, too disabled, too what-the-fuck-ever excuse that Paul has for why he knows better how to spend peoples' money that everyone else.

Paul is so full of himself and his dubious conceptions of wealth and the economy that it has not even crossed his mind that maybe, just maybe, Americans and most peoples in the liberal democratic world are far more capable than the Paul Krugmans of the world suggest they are and that thinking otherwise is not good for them.

But you know what the beauty of it all is?

You know who they're still going to be reading a hundred years from now?

I'll give you a clue. It isn't Paul Krugman. And Karl Marx and John Keynes will be a faint memory of a bygone era of failed and foolish policy, the goals of which were better facilitated by people like Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and John Stuart Mill and Lord Acton and Mary Wolstonecraft and Annie Sullivan and people who really cared about them rather than pitying them.

Poor people can settle for Paul Krugman's pity. Or they can go get rich. Or they can go find a life they love and tell Paul Krugman where to put his smug, bullshit analyses of nothin'.

Pity is for people you don't really give a shit about. And Princeton economists.

And Paul Krugman can take his pity and shove it up his big, fat arrogant ass.

Because poor people got better things going for them.

Why do liberal cultures always seem to get more liberal?

I think the failure to resolve these questions, and the liberal commitments of the culture, generally, are exactly why we always move in a more liberal direction.

Obama Won't End the Culture Wars

"Because the cultural left and cultural right hold to irreconcilable orthodoxies on these questions, we find scant cultural consensus. That's life in America. Unless we become a homogenous country, we will continue to struggle to live together, staying true to our deepest beliefs while respecting the liberty of others to stay true to their own.

But we do not live in a libertarian Utopia. We can't have it all. If, for example, courts constitutionalized same-sex marriage, as gay activists seek, that would have a ground-shaking effect on religious liberty, public schooling and other aspects of American life. Without question, it would intensify the culture war, as partisans of the left and right fight for what each considers a sacred principle.

What irritates conservatives is the liberals' groundless conceit that they fight from a values-neutral position, while the right seeks to impose its norms on others. Nonsense. Marriage was a settled issue until liberals began using courts to impose their moral vision on (so far) an unwilling majority. Who fired the first shot there?

Culture war is inevitable, because it's in the nature of democratic, pluralistic society. It only ends when one side wins, by force or force of reason. As all drill sergeants know, you prepare your troops to move in for the kill by first dehumanizing the enemy.

If we keep the humanity of our opponents squarely in front of us - as Obama, to his great credit, seems determined to do - we can keep the culture-war casualty count low. That's about the best we can hope for."

Or we could learn to respect peoples' consciences on most matters.

If not, both sides should get used to a culture, especially of young people, who disrespect the law.

And that is why America persistently becomes more genuinely liberal, without any need for utopias.

Getting what we deserve

It's a more important commitment of American life than we have given credit during this period.

The war over Lincoln

"So who can really claim Lincoln’s mantle? In some ways, both sides can. Both parties embrace Lincoln’s vision of America as a model of democratic government to the world, and both want to be more inclusive. The Republicans do appear to understand that they cannot survive as the party of white southern voters. Mr Bush appointed more members of minorities to his administration than any previous president, including two black secretaries of state in a row. Mr Steele’s election is a sign of the party’s continuing commitment to expanding its base.

But, in other ways, both sides have shortchanged one of Lincoln’s most important ideals: that of self-help and upward mobility. Lincoln was not just content to be a personal example of upward mobility—born, in the poet James Russell Lowell’s phrase, "out of the very earth, unancestried, unprivileged, unknown". He believed that the essence of the promise of American life was “to lift artificial weights from all shoulders" and "afford all an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life."

The truth is that all of the most important debates going on, right now, are about this more fundamental fact of American and liberal democratic life.

Just too many people too proud to admit that maybe all of the "warfare" undermines peoples' opportunities and their confidence in themselves and those opportunities rather than supporting them.

Perhaps we are too stupid and stubborn, all of us, to allow more reasoned discussion and more meritocratic commitments to guide our politics.

Perhaps we are too foolish to reconsider our pride.

If so, we surely deserve the world we get.

Why I hate politics

This is the shit I hate about politics.

NPR Tell Fox News: Please Don't Associate Juan Williams With Us

How is it possible for people to be so self-righteous and have so few unchallengeable ideas?

What a man

I'm working, watching Dave Chappelle, and realizing that, when I'm being real, there is one other music crush I had. And it wasn't all for such noble reasons.



Spinderella wants a man whose always got heavy conversation for the mind. And I loved her and this video because that's the man I wanted to be. But also because I just wanted to more than talk with Spinderella. Or Salt. Or Peppa. Or all of En Vogue, for that matter.

A lover and a fighter. And I would knock another out for any of these girls.

True love

I'm such a fuckin' chick. I actually teared up at the end of this story. I think I'm due for my period.

Love's Labor Rewarded, Nearly Two Decades Later

What a great story for Valentines.

This is the kind of story all of us should have.

And if we don't, this is the kind of story, our own version of true love, that we should figure out how to have.

If you're never experienced true love with your sweetheart, I recommend it. There is nothing finer in this lifetime.

And there never has been and never will be anything truer in this world.

The only thing we have to fear

George Will leads from the center.

Runaway Stimulus

My favorite line:

"The president, convinced that the only thing America has to fear is an insufficiency of fear, has warned that 'disaster' and 'catastrophe' are the certain alternatives to swift passage of the stimulus legislation. One marvels at his certitude more than one envies his custody of this adventure."

Ironic, huh? The party of Franklin Roosevelt can now only speak of how afraid America needs to be.

It's pathetic, is what it is. But it's the bread and butter of people who have run out of better ideas.

Hope and change, indeed.

"The free market is dead"

P.J. O'Rourke has an unusually serious and appropriate column for today's financial crisis.

Adam Smith gets the last laugh

"The free market is dead. It was killed by the Bolshevik Revolution, fascist dirigisme, Keynesianism, the Great Depression, the second world war economic controls, the Labour party victory of 1945, Keynesianism again, the Arab oil embargo, Anthony Giddens’s “third way” and the current financial crisis. The free market has died at least 10 times in the past century. And whenever the market expires people want to know what Adam Smith would say. It is a moment of, 'Hello, God, how’s my atheism going?'...

...The idea that The Wealth of Nations puts forth for creating prosperity is more complex. It involves all the baffling intricacies of human liberty. Smith proposed that everyone be free – free of bondage and of political, economic and regulatory oppression (Smith’s principle of 'self-interest'), free in choice of employment (Smith’s principle of 'division of labour'), and free to own and exchange the products of that labour (Smith’s principle of 'free trade'). 'Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence,' Smith told a learned society in Edinburgh (with what degree of sarcasm we can imagine), 'but peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice.'

How then would Adam Smith fix the present mess? Sorry, but it is fixed already. The answer to a decline in the value of speculative assets is to pay less for them. Job done.

We could pump the banks full of our national treasure. But Smith said: 'To attempt to increase the wealth of any country, either by introducing or by detaining in it an unnecessary quantity of gold and silver, is as absurd as it would be to attempt to increase the good cheer of private families, by obliging them to keep an unnecessary number of kitchen utensils.' [440]

We could send in the experts to manage our bail-out. But Smith said: 'I have never known much good done by those who affect to trade for the public good.' [456]

And we could nationalise our economies. But Smith said: “The state cannot be very great of which the sovereign has leisure to carry on the trade of a wine merchant or apothecary”. [818] Or chairman of General Motors."

O'Rourke offers some nice perspective that we have seen this all before. For someone going through it the first time, it's a nice reminder that all is well in Bedlam.

Politics and sex

I think politics is like sex.

You can force me to do all kinds of shit.

But you can't make me like it.

And it's got to suck to have everyone bitch all the time, when you do that, about how you don't know what the fuck you're doing.

Human beings, mistakes, and the political class

This just about sums it up.

Random Thoughts by Thomas Sowell (wasn't that a Saturday Night Live skit?)

"Human beings are going to make mistakes, whether in the market or in the government. The difference is that survival in the market requires recognizing mistakes and changing course before you go bankrupt. But survival in politics requires denying mistakes and sticking with the policies you advocated, while blaming others for the bad results."

I think is possible that Democrats believe that they could never really be wrong about anything important.

That is why Lord Acton said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

"Papal infallibility"

That's what prompted Acton's wise observation about people, power, and human nature. The propensity of people to pretend like they never really make mistakes.

And that is why, though the market is and never will be a perfect arbiter of what is valuable or not in the world, that I trust it more than I will ever trust a politician ever.

Because I don't trust politicians any more than I trust myself. And the more I watch them, the less I trust them.

And that will be true no matter how much power they do or do not have.

Self-respect

No offense to Jeffrey Sachs and the important work he has done in international health and economic development, but I just don't trust these assholes, anymore.

5 Points on the Critical State of the Economy

You know why Democrats think this is a time "Unlike Anything We've Seen Since the Great Depression!"?

Because there are Democrats in office and they want to do some spending.

Except there's a 10, going on 11 trillion dollar, deficit for Federal spending, at this point. And that kind of spending beyond our means is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place.

Here's the bottom line on this.

Democrats say it is most important to get a little more help to people who are going to be going through this nonsense one more cycle down the road, if they don't change their ways.

People like me say it's more important to keep people focussed on getting their spending under control - and Federal spending, as well - to focus on growing their income, and to avoid this kind of situation for themselves in future cycles.

One group is selling you on the idea that you will need them for the rest of your life because where would you be without them?

I'm saying, "Get focused on what will make your life better and not some snake-oil that Democrats are selling you that they will get you generous social welfare benefits and your life will be on easy street."

It's a bullshit message. Don't believe it. If you are spending too much, stop listening to these assholes who are telling you to spend. Get your spending under control and tell every Democrat or Republican who tells you different to fuck off. Start banking on your future and stop banking on these assholes to save you when they won't.

They want more money to spend. They get that money from you. If you want more money to spend, I suggest you get your spending under control and start working on expanding your supply with savings, investment, work, starting a business, cutting an album, anything that will actually make more money for you and grow the economy for real and not the bullshit way that Democrats are proposing that leaves so many people unemployed in Europe.

Stand up. Be a grown up. Learn to tell the difference between those who are selling that they can take care of you and can't and those who are being honest with you and telling you that you will need to take care of yourself in this world.

There is only one path that offers dignity. And it's not the one that relies on the government.

And I am sick and tired, at this point, of Democrats and socialists selling this bullshit to people.

It's an illusion. It's a lie. Noone is ever going to take care of you. Except for you.

And that is where the only real self-respect comes from.

Teaching (and its limits)

Given where I came from, this was probably as good a path as any, that I was going to find to recognize the opportunities and limits of commitments to help others.

I have still much work I can do to help.

But I think that only experience with these limits, given my upbringing and my thinking previous to teaching, especially in a school like mine, could I have learned those limits as thoroughly as I have.

And for that, I can be grateful to have done this work.

The straight and narrow

Note to journalists:

R&B star's image destroyed?

"There are a half a dozen upcoming teen male pop R&B singers signed to major labels who wish they could achieve his success.

But if the allegations are true that Brown assaulted a woman, his career will be in jeopardy."

This kind of coverage, and the coverage of Michael Phelps' marijuana photo, make it harder to convince kids to take a straight path, not easier.

So be it. But expect plenty of kids to be alienated from a cleaner path, in the meantime.

Congratulations on the fruits of your sanctimony.

Manipulative bullshit

This meaningless and manipulative babbling is exactly why I think so little of Mr. Krugman.

The Destructive Center

Some people are so lost in their bullshit, they only know manipulation. Mr. Krugman is one such person.

The world would be far better off without this bullshit.

The peristence of ideology

Maybe I don't need to write that book. This sums up a lot of my thinking.

The Persistence of Ideology

"Ideological thinking is not confined to the Islamists in our midst. The need for a simplifying lens that can screen out the intractabilities of life, and of our own lives in particular, springs eternal; and with the demise of Marxism in the West, at least in its most economistic form, a variety of substitute ideologies have arisen from which the disgruntled may choose.

Most started life as legitimate complaints, but as political reforms dealt with reasonable demands, the demands transformed themselves into ideologies, thus illustrating a fact of human psychology: rage is not always proportionate to its occasion but can be a powerful reward in itself. Feminists continued to see every human problem as a manifestation of patriarchy, civil rights activists as a manifestation of racism, homosexual-rights activists as a manifestation of homophobia, anti-globalists as a manifestation of globalization, and radical libertarians as a manifestation of state regulation.

How delightful to have a key to all the miseries, both personal and societal, and to know personal happiness through the single-minded pursuit of an end for the whole of humanity! At all costs, one must keep at bay the realization that came early in life to John Stuart Mill, as he described it in his Autobiography. He asked himself:

'Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?” And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, 'No!' At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for.

This is the question that all ideologists fear, and it explains why reform, far from delighting them, only increases their anxiety and rage. It also explains why traditional religious belief is not an ideology in the sense in which I am using the term, for unlike ideology, it explicitly recognizes the limitations of earthly existence, what we can expect of it, and what we can do by our own unaided efforts. Some ideologies have the flavor of religion; but the absolute certainty of, say, the Anabaptists of Münster, or of today’s Islamists, is ultimately irreligious, since they claimed or claim to know in the very last detail what God requires of us."

I would recommend the entire article.

John Stuart Mill represents the kind of liberalism that I take seriously. I have even become persuaded, as of late, as he believed, that though we should be very careful of its, the death penalty may be necessary in some cases where hardened murderers are not likely to change their ways (we may, perhaps, never be careful enough to use this final and irrevocable penalty and thus should lose the power of its use, but I am open to the idea that there are some people who will not ever allow themselves to be redeemed, at least to the prohibition on murder).

This I am sure of. Ideology is often a false lense that artificially creates a sense of certainty in an uncertain world.

And a more understanding liberalism and a more clear and genuinely compassionate conservativism is the kind to which I subscribe. Independent thought and a commitment to moderate impulses that do not try to substitute ideology for uncertainty is the general commitments that animate my life.

What I know is that the persistent manipulation of democracies by ideologues, terrorists, and others of far too certain perspectives must end if we are to have a world that does not rationalize murder for whatever ends and which does not give young people confidence that the world is a generally good and decent place where bad actors must be dealt with but not at the expense of creating space for good actors to come out of many different places we never expected.

And that world would be one of which we could be proud.

Failing our kids

The more time I spend in special education, the more I see just how badly we are failing our kids.

For every leftist romanticizing the wonders of socialism, special education should be an important corrective.

At many levels, special education has become one long excuse for why children and adults have failed. And built into the assumptions of the field is that noone will ever take responsibility for that fact.

Failure is a part of life. What is not a part of life is being protected from our failure. Because being protected from our failure undermines our ability to be honest about failing and correcting the situation to make things better.

It is very sad, to me, that adults - parents, teachers, administrators, etc. - would rather send the clear message to kids that they are incapable of succeeding in school than to face the much clearer and inevitable failures kids will experience in school and the failures of so many adults - especially those in the political world that feed off of this ideological commitment to their weakness and failure rather than to promote self-respect, self-discipline, self-determination and independent learning for all students, and all of the benefits that come from that learning, independent thought, self-respect, self-discipline, and self-determination.

Surely, this is not all we have to offer our kids. Excuses for why they have failed and why we have failed them. Surely there is something better that we have to offer children that, I believe, those same adults do genuinely care about.

There is only one fundamentally sound way out of this mess and to promote greater responsibility and more serious, successful learning on the part of students, parents, teachers, administrators, and everyone who is responsible for schools: giving them the freedom and the choice to identify schools they believe will help them succeed and to choose to do whatever it will take to succeed in those schools.

Everything else is one more excuse for failure.

I am tired of watching kids and adults make excuses for their failure. It does not serve them. It does not serve any of us.

It is time that we expected something better.

Good question

Crush

I've only had five really serious music crushes in my lifetime.

Sinead O'Connor, when I was a teenager. There was something about Sinead's tragic relationship with her own beauty that really touched me. That and she had the rare quality of meaningful lyrics in popular music.



Chrissy Hynde, after I saw this Pretenders video for Brass in Pocket. The innocent seduction and insight into the whys and wheres of it was too much to resist as a young college student.


Pretenders - Brass In Pocket from Roesje on Vimeo.

For a time, Dar Williams, in grad school. But, really, I was so in love, at the time, that noone was going to compete. So it's appropriate that Dar should sing the single most beautiful break-up song I have ever heard in my life.



Annie Lennox, after I heard this beautiful number on the Red, Hot, and Blue album. This song has been on my heart a million times since I last loved.



And, now, Leslie Feist. Secret Heart knocks me out every single time.



The older I get, the less beauty or brains or any of the rest mean much of anything to me.

It's heart that grabs me. Always has.

Now the question is who has a heart that can grab mine?

That's the answer I'm holding out for.

Pity

Rasmussen Reports: Support for Stimulus Package Falls to 37%

And a dash of humility.

Maybe I underestimate the American people.

Promoting liberal values

Rami Khouri is right. As frustrating as it is for liberal democratic peoples of the world to accept, what will eventually create Arab countries and governments more friendly to liberal values is homegrown efforts that promote the benefits of liberal democracy.

Three demons plague the Arab world

"The stark juxtapositions within the Arab world and the wider Middle East-South Asia region were brought home to me one morning this week in Kuwait, where I am participating in a global gathering that seeks to increase the production of indigenous research in the Middle East in order to better influence policy-making. This noble endeavor contrasts sharply with the morning newspaper headlines of suicide bombings in Somalia and Afghanistan, continued military strikes in Israel and Palestine, and the provincial elections in Iraq that happened during a lull between a string of suicide bombings in that country.

Where, in this range of events, is the center of gravity of the Arab world? It is simultaneously in none and all of these developments, for the Arab world is defined both by rampant violence (home-grown and foreign-instigated) and a deep desire to become democratic, productive, and intellectually and culturally vibrant. A key to moving in that direction is understanding the main constraint and the common denominator in all these events. I believe it is the legacy of autocratic, top-heavy, centralized Arab governments that veer into gentle monarchies on the one hand and hard police states on the other.

The modern Arab security state took hold for good in the early 1970s, and has been challenged only in two ways: by foreign armies that overthrew the Iraqi Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein, and by slow disintegration or domestic challenge from within, in places like Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Yemen. No Arab country has had the luxury of evolving normally and slowly into a modern, balanced nation-state defining itself and fully controlling its own resources.

The legacy of security-dominated states where power is concentrated in the hands of a family or small group of soldiers has led to two extremes: an almost total lack of indigenous production of cultural capital and intellectual knowledge (with very, very few exceptions, these mostly in Beirut and Cairo), and the widespread use of violence and terror by opposition forces trying to overthrow the incumbents.

The issue being addressed at the gathering of the Global Development Network I am attending in Kuwait clarifies a root problem with sustained Arab autocracy. The production of knowledge and research that can influence policy-making is defined by deep tensions in the region, because autocracy and the production of knowledge are violently contradictory. Those who hold power for decades on end do not have an interest in prompting free intellectual enquiry and free scientific research.

A sign of the problem is that all the institutions of knowledge production - universities, research centers, media - must be approved and licensed by governments. Most Arab governments do not want too many nimble minds openly enquiring into how society operates and power is exercised. This is why most of the best Arab journalists and researchers live abroad.

Where there has been a positive move forward, such as in some Arab satellite channels that openly debate important public issues, the problem remains that providing citizens with more information and a variety of views does not impact on the political process. Better informed citizens do not become more politically empowered citizens.

The lack of real politics is reflected in the absence of peaceful contestation of power and peaceful and regular transitions from one government to the next. When some Arab governments do change, policies do not, because policy is set by a higher authority than official governments. The change of policy that normally accompanies a change of government is on show quite brilliantly these days in the United States, as many men and women move into high government office from positions in universities, think tanks and research centers.

No such thing happens in Arab countries, because independent research institutions and think tanks remain very few in number, and limited in their resources and impact. This situation can only change through homegrown evolution into more democratic, pluralistic governance systems, working with likeminded partners worldwide. Foreign armies cannot do the job for us. Iraq's transformation remains a fascinating ongoing process whose ultimate outcome remains to be seen. It was probably a one-time phenomenon that reflected a unique post-9/11 moment in America that will not be repeated (and should not be).

For now, cross-fertilization between politics and the world of ideas remains weak in the Arab world, which is one reason why our region counts more indigenous terrorists and exiled intellectuals than it does respected resident researchers and public policy analysts. The fact that so many Arabs and their friends abroad insist on reversing this picture is a reason to remain hopeful, and to keep working hard for change, while rejecting the ways of the three demons that continue to plague us: security state autocrats, local terrorists, and foreign armies."

If liberal democracies want insight into how power corrupts free inquiry, the Arab governments that liberal democrats are so rightly wary of provide an opportunity to see our own illiberal practices in a mirror.

Since the beginning of humanity, every group has wanted to challenge the freedom of their competitors. We are no different. We just pretend to be, most days. And it is the pretending that gets us in trouble.

If liberal democrats want more people to take liberal values more seriously around the globe, we need to let those values spread the way that they do best: by the independent consciences of would-be liberal democrats. Governments must be created that promote liberal values. But they must do so by the most liberal means possible, not by the rationalization of illiberalism, either in liberal democracies or in the rest of the world.

Those with power are perpetually invested in the notion that they have, finally, learned how to exercise it wisely. But the only exercise of power that is consistent with a liberal society is one that takes freedom seriously and respects it as much as possible.

We must practice what we preach. And we must allow citizens in illiberal parts of the world to follow their consciences as well.

Everything else is the long repetition of the same tragic mistake of power over and over and over again.

If people want, by their own self-determination, help in establishing liberal democracies, then military force might be useful. And, of course, military force is always necessary in self-defense (thus the complication of the Israeli-Palestinian situation). Most other uses of military force are rationalizations for power and exactly why we have checks and balances to challenge such abuses.

Were liberal peoples to decide that power, and not freedom, were what animated their values, we would be witnessing the slow, tragic death of liberal values, until we choose otherwise, which we will, I am confident.

Because otherwise liberal values become meaningless.

And that is not a fate that those with liberal commitments could ever take lying down.

Sign a deal

I am very skeptical of a military solution in Israel and Palestine, because of so many of the issues Mr. Pearl cites, here, as much as the issues between the combatants.

But Judea Pearl is fundamentally right about this problem of the rationalization of terror in the West.

Judea Pearl: Daniel Pearl and the Normalization of Evil

This nonsense between Israel and Palestine needs to end. Innocent people dying for land, religious holy sites, and historical bitterness and hostilities is beyond absurd. It is time it ended. It will take an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians for it to work. There would never be political support for a post-WWII Japan or Germany scenario (although I would consider these, at this point, if there was political support and Palestinians will not sign a deal).

Here's the bottom line: sign a fuckin' deal. I'm tired of watching people die for this shit.

If you don't, good luck surviving the bloodbath. You're gonna need it.

Adam Smith, or the next best thing

Davos 2009: Beware the Tide of Groupthink

"We understand some of the factors that contributed to the mess we're now in. But I suspect that -- in part to comfort ourselves, as well as to choose villains, and possibly a few heroes -- we are oversimplifying the story line and assuming we know more than we do. There's still much more to be learned, and the exploration of something so complicated requires a good deal of skepticism and humility.

It's true that many business leaders triggered or at least helped facilitate the wild risk-taking that preceded the collapse; many should be faulted for that. And it's true that regulators and regulations failed to protect the public; they should be faulted for that. It doesn't follow that we should entirely disregard the experience, creativity, and even good will within the private sector and replace the professionals' business judgments with those of Congress and government employees. The fact that smart people were wrong doesn't mean there's no value to brainpower and accumulated knowledge, not to mention innovation. Of course smarter, more effective regulation is needed, but we may be fighting the last war -- and reverting to old, unsuccessful models -- if we conclude that because business hasn't behaved wisely, government necessarily will. We need to be as skeptical of one as of the other, and remain open to meaningful, practical solutions from either sector.

The conventional wisdom at Davos in 2007 was that private equity and hedge fund managers were the new power players and therefore knew more than everyone else. The conventional wisdom in 2008 was that sovereign wealth funds were ascendant and would be exerting enormous influence over global businesses. Are this year's collective certainties any more reliable?"

If there is anything that the last 8 years of politics and this financial crash should have taught us, by now, it is this lesson.

Politics is full of people who are too certain of everything. That is the problem. Adam Smith is the best corrective for this tendency in economic matters. In the meantime, a dash of our own humility might be the next best thing.

Valentines and love songs

Because Valentines is coming up and there's not enough of this stuff on the radio.



Never enough love songs. If you got a sweetie, remember that.

What we know

I think most of us think we know more than the good Lord gave us sense to believe. That goes double for intellectuals. And it should be manditorily stamped on the forehead of every politician.

Love and hope

New love songs are what keep me going, these days. That and kids.



Love, like hope, springs eternal.

Here's to love and hope.

Hope and humility

What should those who believe in economic freedom do about the stimulus?

Economic stimulus or opportunism?

Exactly what we do because we believe in economic freedom. Be humble. Let the marketplace of ideas sort this out (I can only hope).

More seriously than at any moment of my life I am considering that maybe I am wrong. About all of it.

Let's hope that's the case.

Who is to blame for freedom's retreat?

Freedom Beats a Global Retreat

This has actually been true for awhile, now. We just keep rationalizing an ugly direction. It's not a liberal thing. It's not a conservative thing. It is all of us.

And we are giving cover, and have been, for some time, to the repressive instincts of despotic regimes around the world.

Perhaps we are too foolish to ever face up.

If so, as my man from Nazareth said, we know where to go to pluck the beam.

Ignorance

I did not realize the extent to which I was an idiot in my youth. It took years and years of practice for me to perfect my stupidity. I am assured that I have not plumbed its depths.

Every day that I think my ignorance has reached its outer limits, I am reminded that my stupidity has no end.

Evidence for our faith

Bill Gates discusses the markets and his efforts to address critical public issues through his foundation.



If we need evidence for faith in people and markets to address our needs effectively, this is a good discussion. We are more capable than we give ourselves credit. We should have confidence in that fact.

"After all, the day will come when we will want to try to heal the wounds that we have just inflicted"

David Grossman has a beautiful and poignant reflection, in the Washington Post, today, on the Gaza war and the need for peace and talk "to heal the wounds that we have just inflicted."

Israel must stop fanning the flames that will consume us

That very moving and honest piece in toto:

"Like the pairs of foxes in the biblical story of Samson, tied together by the tail with a flaming torch between them, we and the Palestinians are dragging each other into disaster -- despite our disparate strength, and even when we try very hard to separate. And as we do, we burn the one who is bound to us, our double, our nemesis, ourselves.

So, a month after the war began, in the midst of the wave of nationalist invective now sweeping Israel, it would not hurt to keep in mind that this latest military operation in Gaza was, when all is said and done, just one more way-station on a road paved with fire, violence and hatred. On this road, you sometimes win and you sometimes lose, but in the end it leads to ruin.

As both Israel and Hamas declared their own cease-fires, we Israelis rejoiced at how this campaign has rectified Israel's military failures in the Second Lebanon War of 2006. But we should listen to the voice that says that the Israel Defense Forces' achievements are not indubitable proof that Israel was right to set out on an operation of such huge proportions; they certainly do not justify the way our army pursued its mission. The IDF's success confirms only that Israel is much stronger than Hamas, and that under certain circumstances it can be very tough and cruel.

But as the magnitude of the killing and the devastation has become apparent to all, perhaps Israeli society will, for a brief moment, put its sophisticated mechanisms of repression and self-righteousness on hold. And then perhaps a lesson of some sort will be etched into the Israeli consciousness. Maybe then we will finally understand something deep and fundamental -- that our conduct here in this region has, for a long time, been flawed, immoral and unwise. Time and again, it fans the flames that are consuming us.

Of course, the Palestinians cannot be absolved of culpability for their errors and crimes. To do so would show contempt and condescension toward them, as if they were not rational adults responsible for their mistakes and oversights. True, the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip were in large measure "strangled" by Israel, but they, too, had other options, other ways of protesting, voicing and displaying their difficult plight. Firing thousands of rockets at innocent civilians in Israel was not their only choice. We must not forget that. We must not be forgiving of the Palestinians, as if it goes without saying that when they are in distress, their almost automatic response must be violence.

But even when the Palestinians act with reckless belligerence -- with suicide bombings and Qassam missiles -- Israel, which is many times stronger than they are, has tremendous power to control the level of violence in the conflict as a whole. As such, it can also have a profound influence on calming the conflict and extricating both sides from its cycle of destruction. This most recent military action indicates that there does not seem to be anyone in the Israeli leadership who grasps that, who fully appreciates this critical aspect of the dispute.

After all, the day will come when we will want to try to heal the wounds that we have just inflicted. How can that day come if we do not understand that our military might cannot be our principal tool for establishing our presence here, across from and among the Arab nations? How can those days come if we do not grasp the gravity of the responsibility imposed on us by our multifarious, fateful ties and connections, past and future, with the Palestinian nation in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and inside Israel itself?

When the clouds of smoke clear, when the politicians' declarations of comprehensive, decisive victory fade, when we realize what this operation has really achieved, when we see how large the gap is between those declarations and what we really need to know in order to live a normal life in this region, when we acknowledge that an entire nation eagerly hypnotized itself because it needed so badly to believe that Gaza would cure its Lebanon malady -- then we can turn our attention to those who time and again have incited Israeli society's hubris and its exaltation of power. To those who have, for so many years, taught us to scorn belief in peace and hope for any change at all in our relations with the Arabs. To those who have persuaded us that the Arabs understand only force, and that we can speak to them only in that language.

Since we have spoken that way to them so often, and only that way, we have forgotten that there are other languages that can be used to communicate with other human beings, even enemies, even enemies as bitter as Hamas -- languages that are mother tongues to us, the Israelis, no less so than the language of the jet and the tank.

To talk to the Palestinians. That must be the central conclusion we reach from this last, bloody round of war. To talk even with those who do not recognize our right to exist here. Instead of ignoring Hamas now, we must take advantage of the new situation and enter into a dialogue to enable an accommodation with the Palestinian people as a whole. To talk, in order to understand that reality is not just the hermetically sealed story that we and the Palestinians have been telling ourselves for generations, the story that we are imprisoned within, no small part of which consists of fantasies, wishes and nightmares. To talk in order to devise, within this opaque, unhearing reality, an opportunity for speech, for that alternative -- so scorned and forlorn today -- for which, in the tempest of war, there is almost no place, no hope, no believers.

To talk as a well-considered strategy, to initiate dialogue, to insist on speech, to talk to the wall, to talk even if it seems fruitless. In the long term, this stubbornness may do far more for our future than hundreds of airplanes dropping bombs on a city and its people. To talk out of the understanding, born of the recent horrors we have seen, that the destruction we, each people in its own way, are able to cause one another is a huge and corrupting force. If we surrender to it and its logic, it will, in the end, destroy us all.

To talk, because what has taken place in Gaza over the past three weeks places before us in Israel a mirror that reflects a face that would horrify us were we to gaze on it for one moment from the outside, or if we were to see it on another nation. We would understand then that our victory is no real victory, and that the war in Gaza has not brought us any healing in that place where we desperately need a cure.

David Grossman is a leading Israeli novelist and peace activist. A version of this article first appeared in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. It was translated from the Hebrew by Haim Watzman."

This is a final word on this conflict, as far as I am concerned, save for the words that finally end the bloodshed. There is much practical security work that must be done to finally bring a peace. But words must come first.

Let us pray that pointless tragedy and the bonfire of their vanities will not continue to consume these foolish, foolish neighbors.

Warren Buffett on the economy

This is why I love this guy.

"SG: But there is debate about whether there should be fiscal stimulus, whether tax cuts work or not. There is all of this academic debate among economists. What do you think? Is that the right way to go with stimulus and tax cuts?

WB: The answer is nobody knows. The economists don’t know. All you know is you throw everything at it and whether it’s more effective if you’re fighting a fire to be concentrating the water flow on this part or that part. You’re going to use every weapon you have in fighting it. And people, they do not know exactly what the effects are. Economists like to talk about it, but in the end they’ve been very, very wrong and most of them in recent years on this. We don’t know the perfect answers on it. What we do know is to stand by and do nothing is a terrible mistake or to follow Hoover-like policies would be a mistake and we don’t know how effective in the short run we don’t know how effective this will be and how quickly things will right themselves. We do know over time the American machine works wonderfully and it will work wonderfully again.

SG: But are we creating new problems?

WB: Always."

Man, if there is any guy that I would love to have a beer with and pick his brain, this is the guy.

Warren, if you're out there, anytime you want to head out to a minor league ballgame and have some dinner and just gab about whatever, you give me a call and it's on me.

I bet the richest man in the world gets tired of picking up the tab all the time. And I swear to God a night of chit-chat with you would be worth it.

And it has not a lick to do with money.

A question of first principles

Jacob Weisberg has a valuable and insightful criticism of what I believe is an admirable and thoughtful quality on the part of President Obama: his grounded sense of pragmatism on questions of governance.

Obama's Big-Picture Problem

"In 2009, looking out over the largest crowd ever assembled in Washington, D.C., Barack Obama framed the issue in terms of simple efficacy. 'The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works—whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified,' he said. 'Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.'

This view is in keeping with Obama's non-ideological approach to politics. To most of those listening, it came across as an expression of our new president's unsentimental good sense. Yet on rereading the speech in the less euphoric light of the next day, that passage seemed insufficient as a governing philosophy. "Whatever works' is less a vision of the public sector's proper role than a placeholder for someone who has yet to figure out what he thinks that role should be.

Obama's pragmatic liberalism risks blurring execution with intention, means with ends. To take his illustrations, it is either up to the commonweal to provide a minimum income to retired people, to offer health insurance to everybody and to increase income equality—or it isn't. Most liberals would say these are legitimate responsibilities of government. Most conservatives would argue they aren't. On income security for the elderly, we've had a social consensus since the New Deal. On health care, a consensus may be emerging after decades of national ambivalence. When it comes to growing income inequality, a newer problem, there is no consensus. But Obama must decide what government's goals are before considering the subordinate questions of what works and how much we can afford.

Obama's vagueness about the federal role comes at a moment when clarity is especially needed. Our government is about to become bigger, more powerful and more expensive in order to deal with a sprawling economic crisis. Washington will take on responsibilities it hasn't shouldered in 75 years, such as directly alleviating unemployment and perhaps nationalizing banks. Many who would ordinarily reject such interventions on principle can justify them as misery relief, Keynesian stimulus or emergency management. But some see in the expansion something further-reaching—a redefinition of the government's relationship to markets transcending the current crisis.

A president facing this situation needs to know what's temporary and what's permanent, if only because of the tendency for the one to become the other. Urgent measures are liable to stick around long after the precipitating emergency is passed. There aren't many American homes left without electricity, but we retain a renamed version of the Rural Electrification Administration, a program created by Franklin Roosevelt as part of the New Deal. The Tennessee Valley Authority, created in 1933 to modernize a region of the country still afflicted by malaria, remains with us as well. Expanding government is easy, shrinking it nearly impossible.

On the broader question of what Washington should and shouldn't do, Obama remains hard to read. He inclines simultaneously toward activist government and limited government, which is a tension, though not a contradiction. He favors universal health coverage, but without government taking direct responsibility for it. He is poised to propose cutbacks in our most expensive entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare, to ensure their survival. Language elsewhere in his Inaugural Address suggests that he sees government as a guarantor of opportunity rather than a provider of benefits, more Clinton's way than LBJ's.

But as he navigates the crisis, Obama would do well to figure out what he thinks about the fundamental question of government's responsibilities. He might begin by pondering some words of his role model, Abraham Lincoln, who in 1854 wrote, 'The legitimate object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves.' Obama's test of practicality comes after Lincoln's test of principle."

It is a wise observation for what looks, at this point, like equally wise, if ever imperfect, leadership from our new President.

I have some suggestions for the new President. I'm sure many people do.

The test of leadership that Barack Obama is likely to pass, I believe, is will he listen with an open heart and an open mind?

That is the test for all Americans, right now. It is the test of our faith in our liberal values, our independent consciences, and ourselves.

And it is a test that, every day, I grow more confident that we will pass.