The Message, pt VI

Michael Barone wrote in December of last year that Obama's electoral success was the result of a top-and-bottom coalition of the American electorate, roughly speaking the rich and destitute against the upper-middle class. He further notes that top-and-bottom coalitions tend to be unstable, and not just because there is too much divergence of interests but also because the establishment put in place by such a coalition only gets access to a very distorted picture of the reality around them.

We'll think about how this affects the Obama Administration some other time, but for now let's consider the opponents of the various Democratic health care plans circulating around. If not exactly top-and-bottom, we are definitely both ends against the middle. Mainstream conservatives want to reform and reduce the welfare state as much as is prudent. Medicare beneficiaries are want to keep the status quo. This is flying under radar a little bit now because in the media all the opponents get mushed together. But people will be figuring it out soon enough. Reihan has a piece on this today.

We need to make clear, that for the sake of the opposing the Obama bill, the old people are joining us, we're not joining them. So when people want to know what we would do, we have to be ready to tell them.

Stop The World And Melt With You

One interesting twist in the global warming debate is, for all that we've heard that the "science is indisputable", we've heard very little about the engineering. As far as I know, until the public debate over global warming, there was never any serious consideration to the idea that the earth's overall climate patterns were a plausible object for engineering to our specifications.

But of course that's exactly what most of the anti-global warming agenda is. Through cap-and-trade, Kyoto, carbon taxes, or something else, the proposition is that we have reasonably direct control over the trajectory of the climate. I have grave doubts about this, and largely for that reason I oppose cap-and-trade and all the rest.

Having said that, there is such a thing as geo-engineering, which is usually taken to describe less drastic measures to affect the climate in ways that we supposedly prefer. Most of this discussion tends to take place on the Right, like today's piece by Reihan, as an end-run around draconian controls over the economy. I have no idea whether any of it is going to work, though I hope that it does. However, I'd much prefer to see it come from the other team. If they want to stop global warming, here's their chance. The other team could actually spend their energy on something useful for a change.

Robert Novak, RIP

It's been published in many places that Robert Novak died today. RIP.

I wish very much that David Frum could have found a way to apologize for his unfortunate accusations against Novak while he was still alive.

Let's You And Him Fight

As for the second question, this is where I realize that liberals often really just do not grok what libertarians are about. For them, this is a battle between people who like health care companies, and want to defend them, and people who like the government. But I don't care about the pharmaceutical companies qua pharmaceutical companies. The pharmaceutical companies are interested in what is good for pharmaceutical companies. I am interest in what is good for society. - Megan McArdle

Oddly enough, I'm with the liberals on this one, at least as far as Megan characterizes the difference between liberals and libertarians. As Megan writes elsewhere, the business model of Big Pharma is contingent on the idea that somebody has to pay full retail. The way this has worked over time, that somebody turns out to be the US consumer. Other countries with various forms of collectivized medicine bully Big Pharma into selling its intellectual property cheap, and Big Pharma folds every time. That, in turn, puts substantial pressure on the American political establishment toward some kind of collectivized medicine here, and Surprise!, here we are. Those of us who might otherwise be supportive of Big Pharma shouldn't put ourselves in a situation we're defending Big Pharma's interest when it's not willing to defend itself.

The Message, pt V

David Frum is following the money on the health care front. He seems to be worried that the Big Pharma's money on the airwaves is about to change the tide. I don't think so. I agree with Patrick Ruffini that in today's environment, message beats money. Money might be the deciding factor where the difference of opinion sways between the 40-yard lines on the political football field, but this particular game is going up and down the field.

This is especially interesting in the case of Big Pharma's ads in favor of health care reform. Liberals hate Big Pharma and the terms of this deal, that the liberals will not force price reductions on prescription drugs and Big Pharma will carry the political water for getting a bill through Congress, are not ones that I would trust holding up on either side.

You And Who's Army?

There's another small point worth making relating to Spengler's essay. As much as we are conditioned to think that Jews and Muslims are now and are eternally destined to be at war like Oceania and Eurasia from 1984, historically it's just hasn't been that way. There were thousands or millions of Jews who lived more or less peacefully as a minority in the Muslim Ottoman Empire until the end of World War I. In fact, Spengler points out that most Jewish Israelis today are not descended from the refugees of the Holocaust, but instead refugees from Arab lands formerly under Ottoman rule.

The radicalization of Palestinian Muslims against the Jews dates from the interwar period and was achieved largely through the efforts of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, with a substantial assist from Adolf Hitler himself. As circumstances mandate, we may have to deal with such people, but we cannot afford to legitimize them as the authentic voice of the region.

Health Care and Porcupines, pt II

Fundamentally, however, the difference between the systems is psychological. In Britain you worry what will happen when you fall ill; many Americans worry about what will happen if you fall ill. - Alex Massie (HT:Rod Dreher)

Another way to put this is that Britons' health anxieties tend to be about the availability of treatment, whereas Americans' health anxieties are financial. And our financial anxieties over health care are going to continue (and most likely increase in intensity) until there is substantial change in our health care system. Therefore, we should all understand that the defeat of the Obama plans is a means, not at end.

The Message, pt IV

It is here that I think the seeds of a Republican political recovery in 2010 are born. Republicans don't need to convince the electorate that Obama is the second coming of Karl Marx. They need merely to establish that if one has any doubt that the stimulus, or Government Motors, or health care will work out exactly as planned, the only prudent thing is to vote Republican as a hedge. - Patrick Ruffini

This is okay for the moment, where the Obama health plan is running into a firestorm of public disapproval. It may even be smart, for the sake of bandwidth, wrt something like health care where we'll have to admit we don't have all the answers either when people start to care again. But ultimately they will, we'll have to show something concrete so we might as well get started on it now.

The Message, pt III

As a campaign manager, I'd much, much rather be running the guy with a message and no money versus the guy with money and no message. Why? Because the guy with a message will eventually find momentum, which will deliver all the money he needs when he needs it. - Patrick Ruffini

There's more at stake in the political process now than there has been in recent history. Whereas before the voters were happy to let the political establishment run on autopilot, now they want to assert more input. Therefore they're willing to take on more of the spadework themselves if their favored candidate has a message that's strong and clear.

The New Alinskyites, pt II

It's pretty amusing that after mocking community organizers during the presidential campaign, conservatives have enthusiastically adopted Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky's community organizing how-to, as a guide for mounting an effective opposition. - Ezra Klein

You heard it here first.

Health Care and Porcupines

There's a cliche about how porcupines have sex (answer: very carefully) that's topical to the current problems with health care, especially as far as the Republicans are concerned. Even if we agree that the various iterations of the Obama health care plan ought to be defeated, Stacy McCain is wrong to criticize David Frum for looking at the bigger picture.

I'm not exactly sure if Frum is trying to say we should acquiesce to some kind of health care reform for the sake of exploding the third-rail status of the big entitlements. If he is, I don't necessarily agree with it. But, we do have to acknowledge that the cost of health care is creating substantial pressure against the status quo and that the GOP currently operates in a very limited bandwidth environment. Therefore it must conserve it's message as best as it can. In particular,

1. Health care costs are a very serious problem.
2. Just because the status quo is unsatisfactory, it does not follow that any change is an improvement.
3. So far we have no reason to be sure that any of the Democratic plans are better than the status quo.
4. The Democrats are in the majority so we have to respond on their terms.
5. As soon as the Democrats have a coherent explanation for why their plan improves the status quo, we'll consider it.
6. If the Democrats want to know how we'd attack the issue, we'll tell them.
7. So far, the Democrats haven't shown any interest in that.

I'm afraid this might already be too complicated, but on balance I don't think it is. The key is not to get distracted trying to push our own polemic.

Well...How Did I Get Here?

Spenger has a very interesting new post up at Asia Times today. I want to take it in a little bit and decide what I think about it later. I do have one immediate quibble though.

The Vatican's Middle East "foreign policy" has been soft-headed for at least a couple of decades now. But I don't think the Vatican has any nostalgia for some pre-1948 Israel-free period of Christian ascendancy in the Middle East. If anything, the Church is nostalgic for the apostolic period when these local Churches were founded.

The Vatican wants to think of the Middle East in a pre-Islamic context. Of course the Middle East was pre-Islamic in the apostolic period and thinking in this way subconsciously emphasizes that the Christian apologetic is some ways palpable and tangible. The Coptics and the Maronites and various Christian communities came into being through the historically contingent acts of real people. In an indirect way we are reminded that Jesus Christ was a real person who walked the earth and His disciples really did carry His Word among the nations.

Chicago Writ Large

David Goldman (ie, "Spengler") has a new post up wherein he argues that a GOP revival based on Obama's overreach is mostly wishful thinking. His thesis is distressingly plausible but IMO ultimately wrong. In Chicago, people who vote Democrat fall into two groups. The first are those who want to make the clout-based spoils system work for them. The other are those who want to associate themselves culturally with blue-state America.

For the purposes of extrapolation, it's this latter group which is important. For liberal urban professionals, the machine politics of the Daleys are a just a tax, not one that they're particularly happy with but a tolerable one. More than that, it's one that they can't do anything about. Even if they were willing to vote Republican, the party here runs at such a huge organizational deficit that disillusionment with the Democrats is more likely to turn to apathy than anger.

For America at large, the opposite is true. The financial burdens of welfare-state America are onerous, and getting worse under Obama. And the American people are for now still sovereign, and the expression of their sovereignty is the ability to veto the apparatchiks of government by voting Republican. Furthermore, even though it's not necessarily being expressed this way, the feeling of sovereignty being lost is growing among the voters. It's a close-run thing but I wouldn't be writing the GOP's obituary quite yet.

Ezra Klein Is Right

Those are words I'd never thought I'd write.

"Imagine Barack Obama was born in Kenya. So what?
This isn't like Bill Clinton murdering Vince Foster and running drugs through the Arkansas airport.It's not like George W. Bush having foreknowledge of 9/11. As I understand it, the argument here is that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, but that his mother said he was born in the United States and even had relatives lie to that effect. Presumably, she also told young Barack that he was born in Hawaii. The big reveal here is...what?" - Ezra Klein

Healthcare Horserace

The health care debate has been in sort of a holding pattern for a couple of weeks now: the Democrats don't know exactly what problem they're trying to solve. Some days they want cost reduction, on others they want to guarantee access to low-income Americans (frankly, I don't think they can make progress on either count but I'm just a skeptic). In any case, they know that they want to pass a health care bill of some kind to claim a political victory.

In the last couple of days, there have been a couple of developments. The Blue Dog (ie, centrist) Democrats in the House supposedly cut a deal with Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman to make the "public option" health care plan contingent on this or that and set the doctor reimbursement rates at this instead of that. In response, the liberals on the committee revolted. They are threatening to walk if they don't get the public option they want.

From the pov of preventing the further collectivization of medicine, this is a bad tactical development. Once we get to the point of being accountable for accomplishing something useful, the liberals don't have a plausible story to sell to the American people. More than anyone, they have to be able to book a political win for its own sake. They have to give the centrists whatever they want to get a bill through Congress, and they will. As I see it, this maneuver is a preemptive attempt to save face now in order vote for half a loaf later. Thus, I'd say we're in more danger of getting the camel's nose under the tent now than earlier in the week.

I Used To Be An Anglophile, pt II

When the supposed right to health care is widely recognized, as in the United Kingdom, it tends to reduce moral imagination. Whenever I deny the existence of a right to health care to a Briton who asserts it, he replies, “So you think it is all right for people to be left to die in the street?” - Theodore Dalrymple (HT: The Corner)

This phenomenon is sadly familiar to anyone who has watched Prime Minister's Questions on C-Span for the last decade or so. No matter what the question, Tony and Gordon's answer is always, "Which nurses (or schools or police) are you going to cut?" In the end, the joke is on the taxpayer because the Tories (like the GOP over here) don't really intend to cut very much.

More than that, the moral imagination is tied to the practical imagination, and the UK is lacking in both.

Gettin' Paid

"Information wants to be free." This is something of a cliche among hackers and futurists.

Because information can be copied and propagated much faster than real things, intellectual property is never exactly the same thing as real property. And because the development of private property was such an important building block in the history of economic development, we tried to put extend the concept we developed for land, horses, and bushels of grain to software and naming rights. But this is an abstraction, and abstractions leak.

One result of this is a quasi-Marxist exploitation of capital in an anti-matter universe. Instead of the capitalist denying to the laborer the fruit of his work, the consumer gets the benefit of millions of dollars in various kinds of technological development without having to compensate the capital that funded it. The moral of this story isn't to feel sorry for the capitalists. Among other things, for the most part developers of intellectual property couldn't have developed it without access to other intellectual property which may not have been compsenated either.

It's just that the inability to monetize intellectual achievements tends to retard their growth. As society gets wealthier it gets tech-ier, and this problem gets bigger. It would have been nice to confront it in better economic circumstances. The current economic crisis has suffered from really bad timing, on many different levels.

The Heartfelt Heart

The course of human progress is not very predictable. But inasmuch as it can be predicted, I forsee the next several decades to be substantially about the unwinding of Cartesian mind-body dualism. Rod Dreher provides a useful data point here.

Variations On A Theme

From James Pethokoukis: corporate America is successfully paring down its cost structure, and in some cases making money doing it. For its next trick it needs to figure out how to make things people want to buy.

My Party, pt II

If we stipulate that, historically speaking, loyalties to political parties in America have largely been a matter of tribal allegiance (and I think we should), then what now? Certainly generations of votes from residents of Vermont and Illinois haven't stopped the current residents of those states from voting for the other team.

There's two explanations for this: the first is that party loyalties are still tribal, it's just that the members of the tribes are different. The other one is that whereas party loyalties have been tribal for most of America's history, they are ideological now. It may be some of both. This is an odd situation in American politics, but as Robinson points out that there is at least one clear antecedent for it: the founding era of the Republican party. Was the GOP the political expression of the abolition movement, or the successor the Whigs and Federalists in the North and Midwest? Well, both.

Ultimately the regional differences of that era weren't settled until the Civil War (and to some extent not even then). That might be a bad omen for us today. But you also could say that the unification of America into the truly United States was hard enough to come by, therefore not to be given up easily.