American links
Examining why the US does not have (pdf) a European-style welfare state.
Census takers are finding anti-government anger is making their job much more unpleasant.
There was mass anticipation of riots in Oakland when a controversial murder case verdict was to be handed down. Oakland is a troubled place: last year a teenage girl was killed when gunmen shot up a vigil for a slain schoolmate. There was also a march in support of someone who was killed by police after he had killed four police officers.
Polling finds that Americans want budget deficits fixed without raising taxes or cutting spending and have a general preference for smaller government with less services. Current polling suggests substantial gains by the Republicans in the House (where a narrow Republican majority is possible) and in the Senate.
US Presidential approval ratings by President since Truman. All US Presidential election results. Hillary is more popular than her boss.
Arguing that the Administration is not listening and the problem starts at the top.
The US Coastguard is having problems getting its requests consistent when it comes to dealing with the oil spill.
The example of Arizona’s controversial anti-illegal immigrant bill is spreading. Attacking the concept of birthright citizenship:
Well-ordered societies are extended networks of peaceful and productive cooperation, and those networks don't suddenly stop at political borderlines drawn by conquest and colonization. …
It’s worth noting, however, that not a single EU country has a birthright citizenship rule like that in the U.S.
Follow-up. Paper on the 2004 Irish citizenship referendum which revoked birthright citizenship, drawing possible implications for the US..
A libertarian (vice-president of the Cato Institute) attacks a conservative’s (president of the American Enterprise Institute) conception of how to argue for economic freedom
But Brooks' book isn't about policy; it's about ideology and how to engage in politics. And it is, I'm sorry to say, a thoroughly wrongheaded way to approach these questions. The attempt to turn economic policy disputes into a populist cultural crusade rests on deep-seated confusion about the nature of those disputes and how best to effect constructive policy change.
… Governments can effectively stifle enterprise and competition without spending a lot of money, while a large public sector and a vibrant private sector can go hand in hand.
… On four broad categories of economic freedom -- legal structure and security of property rights; access to sound money; freedom to trade internationally; and regulation -- the United States was slightly "freer" than Sweden, the United Kingdom, Austria, Finland, and Switzerland. Meanwhile, Ireland, the Netherlands and, by a wide margin, Denmark were found to have freer markets. Note that the two highest scorers have two of the biggest welfare states in the world -- which just goes to show that blurring issues of regulation and redistribution, as Brooks tries to do, leads to intellectual confusion. …
There's a strong negative relationship between a country's racial heterogeneity and its levels of social spending, and within the U.S., states with larger black populations spend less on welfare programs. "Americans think of the poor as members of some different group than themselves, while Europeans think of the poor as members of their group," the paper concludes. …
In any event, it's not anti-poverty programs that are threatening to send the U.S. budget spiraling out of control. Rather, it's the middle-class entitlements, Social Security, and especially Medicare.
Agreeing and adding another reason to disagree with the culture war approach.
Review of a biography of Barack Obama:
But as a member of Kenya’s emerging elite - or, more pointedly, as one of what the Ghanaian novelist Ayi Kwei Armah called the “been-to generation” who spent quality time in the West - he experienced a kind of schizophrenia as he struggled to reconcile new and old world views. The senior Obama would leave an unfulfilled legacy in both places: his American record is that of a selfish husband and abandoning father, and when the prodigal son returns to Kenya, he discovers that far from preparing him to become a transformative national hero, his exposure to the broader world has somehow ruined him for his own country, where he’ll never quite fit in. He had earned fancy degrees and lost the African art of palaver; no longer could he bring himself to listen or persuade, preferring to bluntly speak his mind instead.
The tragic beauty in this story is that the Obama we know, the abandoned son, seems to have studied his father’s example intently. There is a similar ambition, and even arrogance, and yet the son manages a reverse trajectory, realising his extravagant goals through mastery of his tongue, through sublimation and restraint. …
But the unusual conditions that prevailed in Hawaii during Obama’s childhood cannot alone explain how the United States ended up with a president so hard to pin down: a self-proclaimed admirer of Ronald Reagan and ardent synthesiser of conservative views, who is capable nonetheless of coming off to some as a European-style social democrat; a law professor whose teachings often focused on the bitter experience of race in the United States and who, in public, impresses whites - winningly - as a black without torment; a politician with roots in community organising whose instincts at the summit of power have often worked - as in the country’s financial reforms - to shore up the powerful; and finally, a charismatic seducer whose political style grows out of a determination to surpass, indeed render obsolete, the charismatic styles of the past, and none more than those of the black politicians who preceded him.
… one senses a lost opportunity on the part of the biographer, to give greater consideration to other factors in interpreting Obama’s life. A possibility that resonates powerfully for this reader is to see the man as America’s first post-colonial leader; a black man, to be sure, but perhaps just as significantly a figure whose parents each emerged abroad in the world in the early post-independence era. … Barack had come to Columbia - and went later to Harvard - not just for their academic excellence, but to enter the American mainstream.
… For all of Barack Obama’s intelligence and charisma, if one could somehow strip race out of his life’s equation, would he have ever made it to the national stage, much less the presidency? Would we even care about him? To ask this question is not to lament Obama’s emergence or declare him undeserving. But it seems a natural query in response to an approach that all but declares the man’s race the most interesting thing about him.
The Tea Party as a revolt against intellectuals:
Those who a generation earlier might have expected their leaders to do the right thing have now become convinced that their leaders will inevitably do the wrong thing. Suspicion and paranoia have replaced confidence and trust. The attitude of citizens towards those handling the nation is no longer more power to them, but rather, take away the powers they have stolen from us. …
Gramsci argued that what led people to discard their native language was the greater prestige of the conqueror’s language. The idea of prestige, which had never played a role in classical Marxism, became the key to Gramsci’s most famous concept, cultural hegemony. …
For Orwell the basis of cultural hegemony was terror. For Gramsci, on the other hand, it was prestige. Cultural hegemony, according to Gramsci, did not have to be imposed on the people through threats and intimidation. It didn’t need to be imposed at all. Conquered subjects sought to emulate the prestigious language of their conquerors, while they simultaneously came to look down on their own native tongue as gross, defective, and inferior. In modern liberal societies the same principle has been at work, but with different players. … That is the beauty of prestige: It doesn’t need to lift a finger. It can just sit back and relax, confident that people will flock to its feet, begging for the crumbs from its luxuriant table.
A governing elite that has a monopoly over the allocation of prestige has immense power over a culture. It can decide what ideas, thinkers, and movements merit attention, while it can also determine what ideas, thinkers, and movements should be dismissed with scorn and contempt - assuming that the elite even condescends to notice their existence. …
The only truly effective check on elite rule is the fear that the people will become fed up with it. … This formidable check on elite power does not arise from flimsy constitutional safeguards, which can always be circumvented, but from the suspicious, even paranoid attitude of defiance displayed by ordinary citizens, which is much harder to get around.
The lesson of history is stark and simple. People who are easy to govern lose their freedom. People who are difficult to govern retain theirs. What makes the difference is not an ideology, but an attitude.
Census takers are finding anti-government anger is making their job much more unpleasant.
There was mass anticipation of riots in Oakland when a controversial murder case verdict was to be handed down. Oakland is a troubled place: last year a teenage girl was killed when gunmen shot up a vigil for a slain schoolmate. There was also a march in support of someone who was killed by police after he had killed four police officers.
Polling finds that Americans want budget deficits fixed without raising taxes or cutting spending and have a general preference for smaller government with less services. Current polling suggests substantial gains by the Republicans in the House (where a narrow Republican majority is possible) and in the Senate.
US Presidential approval ratings by President since Truman. All US Presidential election results. Hillary is more popular than her boss.
Arguing that the Administration is not listening and the problem starts at the top.
The US Coastguard is having problems getting its requests consistent when it comes to dealing with the oil spill.
The example of Arizona’s controversial anti-illegal immigrant bill is spreading. Attacking the concept of birthright citizenship:
Well-ordered societies are extended networks of peaceful and productive cooperation, and those networks don't suddenly stop at political borderlines drawn by conquest and colonization. …
It’s worth noting, however, that not a single EU country has a birthright citizenship rule like that in the U.S.
Follow-up. Paper on the 2004 Irish citizenship referendum which revoked birthright citizenship, drawing possible implications for the US..
A libertarian (vice-president of the Cato Institute) attacks a conservative’s (president of the American Enterprise Institute) conception of how to argue for economic freedom
But Brooks' book isn't about policy; it's about ideology and how to engage in politics. And it is, I'm sorry to say, a thoroughly wrongheaded way to approach these questions. The attempt to turn economic policy disputes into a populist cultural crusade rests on deep-seated confusion about the nature of those disputes and how best to effect constructive policy change.
… Governments can effectively stifle enterprise and competition without spending a lot of money, while a large public sector and a vibrant private sector can go hand in hand.
… On four broad categories of economic freedom -- legal structure and security of property rights; access to sound money; freedom to trade internationally; and regulation -- the United States was slightly "freer" than Sweden, the United Kingdom, Austria, Finland, and Switzerland. Meanwhile, Ireland, the Netherlands and, by a wide margin, Denmark were found to have freer markets. Note that the two highest scorers have two of the biggest welfare states in the world -- which just goes to show that blurring issues of regulation and redistribution, as Brooks tries to do, leads to intellectual confusion. …
There's a strong negative relationship between a country's racial heterogeneity and its levels of social spending, and within the U.S., states with larger black populations spend less on welfare programs. "Americans think of the poor as members of some different group than themselves, while Europeans think of the poor as members of their group," the paper concludes. …
In any event, it's not anti-poverty programs that are threatening to send the U.S. budget spiraling out of control. Rather, it's the middle-class entitlements, Social Security, and especially Medicare.
Agreeing and adding another reason to disagree with the culture war approach.
Review of a biography of Barack Obama:
But as a member of Kenya’s emerging elite - or, more pointedly, as one of what the Ghanaian novelist Ayi Kwei Armah called the “been-to generation” who spent quality time in the West - he experienced a kind of schizophrenia as he struggled to reconcile new and old world views. The senior Obama would leave an unfulfilled legacy in both places: his American record is that of a selfish husband and abandoning father, and when the prodigal son returns to Kenya, he discovers that far from preparing him to become a transformative national hero, his exposure to the broader world has somehow ruined him for his own country, where he’ll never quite fit in. He had earned fancy degrees and lost the African art of palaver; no longer could he bring himself to listen or persuade, preferring to bluntly speak his mind instead.
The tragic beauty in this story is that the Obama we know, the abandoned son, seems to have studied his father’s example intently. There is a similar ambition, and even arrogance, and yet the son manages a reverse trajectory, realising his extravagant goals through mastery of his tongue, through sublimation and restraint. …
But the unusual conditions that prevailed in Hawaii during Obama’s childhood cannot alone explain how the United States ended up with a president so hard to pin down: a self-proclaimed admirer of Ronald Reagan and ardent synthesiser of conservative views, who is capable nonetheless of coming off to some as a European-style social democrat; a law professor whose teachings often focused on the bitter experience of race in the United States and who, in public, impresses whites - winningly - as a black without torment; a politician with roots in community organising whose instincts at the summit of power have often worked - as in the country’s financial reforms - to shore up the powerful; and finally, a charismatic seducer whose political style grows out of a determination to surpass, indeed render obsolete, the charismatic styles of the past, and none more than those of the black politicians who preceded him.
… one senses a lost opportunity on the part of the biographer, to give greater consideration to other factors in interpreting Obama’s life. A possibility that resonates powerfully for this reader is to see the man as America’s first post-colonial leader; a black man, to be sure, but perhaps just as significantly a figure whose parents each emerged abroad in the world in the early post-independence era. … Barack had come to Columbia - and went later to Harvard - not just for their academic excellence, but to enter the American mainstream.
… For all of Barack Obama’s intelligence and charisma, if one could somehow strip race out of his life’s equation, would he have ever made it to the national stage, much less the presidency? Would we even care about him? To ask this question is not to lament Obama’s emergence or declare him undeserving. But it seems a natural query in response to an approach that all but declares the man’s race the most interesting thing about him.
The Tea Party as a revolt against intellectuals:
Those who a generation earlier might have expected their leaders to do the right thing have now become convinced that their leaders will inevitably do the wrong thing. Suspicion and paranoia have replaced confidence and trust. The attitude of citizens towards those handling the nation is no longer more power to them, but rather, take away the powers they have stolen from us. …
Gramsci argued that what led people to discard their native language was the greater prestige of the conqueror’s language. The idea of prestige, which had never played a role in classical Marxism, became the key to Gramsci’s most famous concept, cultural hegemony. …
For Orwell the basis of cultural hegemony was terror. For Gramsci, on the other hand, it was prestige. Cultural hegemony, according to Gramsci, did not have to be imposed on the people through threats and intimidation. It didn’t need to be imposed at all. Conquered subjects sought to emulate the prestigious language of their conquerors, while they simultaneously came to look down on their own native tongue as gross, defective, and inferior. In modern liberal societies the same principle has been at work, but with different players. … That is the beauty of prestige: It doesn’t need to lift a finger. It can just sit back and relax, confident that people will flock to its feet, begging for the crumbs from its luxuriant table.
A governing elite that has a monopoly over the allocation of prestige has immense power over a culture. It can decide what ideas, thinkers, and movements merit attention, while it can also determine what ideas, thinkers, and movements should be dismissed with scorn and contempt - assuming that the elite even condescends to notice their existence. …
The only truly effective check on elite rule is the fear that the people will become fed up with it. … This formidable check on elite power does not arise from flimsy constitutional safeguards, which can always be circumvented, but from the suspicious, even paranoid attitude of defiance displayed by ordinary citizens, which is much harder to get around.
The lesson of history is stark and simple. People who are easy to govern lose their freedom. People who are difficult to govern retain theirs. What makes the difference is not an ideology, but an attitude.