New School Politics

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I have posted three videos which are of significance to the presidential race since last week.

First, is Ann Coulter speaking at CPAC. She has recently made news for announcing that she would support Hillary Clinton over John McCain in a general election. While there are many laughs to around at the prospect of this, it does raise a serious point: whether a general election whooping can discipline and improve the party in the long run; and moreover, whether a party member should vote against their nominee if the nominee shies from their views.

This is likely to be the key question for conservatives this election cycle. My own thoughts are yes; and yes. But in this case I, personally, am still inclined to vote for McCain because I do not think that his taste for reducing (or not) the size of government differs significantly from any other viable candidates who ran for the nomination (save the great Ron Paul). A scenario where I would have voted against the Republican candidate is if Huckabee was nominated for the sake of castigating Republicans for getting too religious.

Anyways, the video is entertaining. Much of it is quite funny, some is not all that “appropriate,” but you should judge for yourself. Lire le reste de cet article »

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No but I shudder at the fact that he actually said it.

Below is the video from Mitt Romney campaigning at a MLK day rally. While taking a photo with a group of young black kids, the Mormon Governor exclamed, “Who let the dogs out! Woof! Woof!” referencing the 2000 one hit wonder of the Baha Men. Apparently, it is the only rap song that Romney has ever heard of.

At the very end of the video you can also hear him pointing out to a young boy, “I see you’ve got some bling-bling there.”

Henceforth, I shall refer to the Governor as “Vanilla Mitt.” Lire le reste de cet article »

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Today, two very interesting revelations have been made about two very different presidential candidates. One was a strange family connection, the other was an announcement that the person would join the race.

Recent genealogical research done by Lynne Cheney for a new book has revealed that the Vice President is indeed related to Democratic Presidential Candidate, Sen. Barack Obama. According to her the two men are 8th cousins and trace their common roots back to an early Maryland settler. A lot has been said about the Bush and Clinton dynasties, but if Barack is on the ticket in ‘08 won’t it be the third straight presidential election with a Cheney on the ticket, too?

The latter news is that Stephen Colbert has stated that he will run for president. He announced this on his show where he enumerated that he would run in both parties primaries, but that he would only be running in his native state of South Carolina. It may be interesting to see how he fares. If you consider that about half of eligible voters do not vote, and that a significant portion of those voters are what we would call cynical, and that moreover Colbert has a very loyal fan base–the type that is known to do anything for their fearless leader–I could imagine a respectable turnout for Colbert. (Think less than Biden but more than Gravel). Then again, I surmise that South Carolina’s isn’t the type of electorate that takes a liking to New York-liberal satire.

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When asked about the legal treatment of gays in Iran at Columbia University, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a one liner to remember–the best part is that he was serious:

In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.” [Laughter] “In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have this.”

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George Mason free market economist Bryan Caplan (thats repetitive; all GMU economists advocate for the free market) had a “funny-cuz-its-true” commentary on EconLog about what he calls the “Jock-Nerd Theory of History”. Certainly worth reading:

One of my pet ideas is the Jock/Nerd Theory of History. If you’re reading this, you probably got a taste of it during your K-12 education, when your high grades and book smarts somehow failed to put you at the top of the social pyramid. Jocks ruled the school. If the nerds were lucky, they did the jocks’ homework in exchange for decent treatment.

According to the Jock/Nerd Theory of History, most historical human societies bore a striking resemblance to K-12 education. In primitive tribes, for instance, the best hunters are on top. If the the village brain knows what’s good for him, he keeps his mouth shut if the best hunter says something stupid. The rise of civilization gave the nerds a better deal, but as long as almost everyone worked in agriculture, brawn continued to pay well.

But then something amazing happened: Nerds got enough breathing room to develop and implement amazing wealth-producing ideas. The process fed on itself, devaluing physical ability and elevating mental ability. Nerds built the modern world - and won handsome financial rewards in the process. (Yes, I’m painting with broad strokes, but bear with me).

With the Jock/Nerd theory firmly in mind, this sentence takes on a deeper meaning:

We don’t take steps to redress inequalities of looks, friends, or sex life.

Notice: For financial success, the main measure where nerds now excel, governments make quite an effort to equalize differences. But on other margins of social success, where many nerds still struggle, laissez-faire prevails.

It’s suspicious - and if you combine the Jock/Nerd Theory with some evolutionary psych, it makes sense. When the best hunter in the tribe gets rich, his neighbors will probably ask nicely for a share, if they dare to ask at all. But if the biggest nerd in the tribe gets rich, how long will it take before the jocks show up and warn him that “You’d better share and share alike”?

Punchline: Through the lens of the Jock/Nerd Theory of History, the welfare state doesn’t look like a serious effort to “equalize outcomes.” It looks more like a serious effort to block the “revenge of the nerds” - to keep them from using their financial success to unseat the jocks on every dimension of social status.

P.S. If any jocks are reading this, please don’t hurt me! I’ll do your homework!

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The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 is among the greatest laws ever passed by the legislature of the United States. Passed on October 24, 2001 by the House of Representatives, and the next day by the Senate, it was signed into law by President George W. Bush (fittingly, one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States) on October 26. Though typically said to be passed in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11 that same year, the PATRIOT Act was something the government of the United States has needed for a long time. For too many years, the citizens of the United States had been running the government, rather than the other (proper) way around. The citizens and their ACLU lackeys, always bandying about liberal toy phrases like “Congressional inquiry”, “transparency in government”, “human rights”, and worst of all “judicial review”, were collectively running train all over the powers of the executive branch and its agencies. This situation was entirely unacceptable. When citizens control the government, all sorts of bad things can happen - particularly change.

The main problem plaguing the executive branch for the first 200 years or so of its existence was a particularly inconvenient piece of legislation, passed very early in the government’s existence, commonly referred to as the Constitution. This piece of blatantly partisan legislation supposedly enumerates what the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of the federal government of the United States are and are not allowed to do. There is an obvious fundamental problem with legislation such as this. Why is there something the government (especially the executive branch, which is the only part that matters) shouldn’t be allowed to do? Government is supposed to make law, not follow it. If government is supposed to follow law, then why doesn’t it pay taxes? Moreover, whenever the government is not allowed to do something, our enemies, especially our terrorist enemies, can exploit that restriction as a weakness. It would give the terrorists nothing less than pure joy to know that our own citizens are stopping the U.S. government from extracting necessary information from them. Vice-President Dick Cheney wisely notes that a “vital requirement in the war on terror is that we use whatever means are appropriate to try to find out the intentions of the enemy.” Every time we refuse to ‘torture’ an unlawful enemy combatant sitting in Guantanamo Bay, planning the next 9/11, a terrorist celebrates. If we insist on preserving their human rights, their human dignity, and the Geneva Convention which we signed, then they will win. If we do any less than condescend to precisely the measures they use against us, they will win. After all, when they can’t tell the difference between them and us, they won’t be able to attack us. It’s impeccable strategy. The PATRIOT Act gives the government these necessary tools to descend to the level of terrorists and dictators.

As mentioned before, the USA PATRIOT Act was introduced and passed in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In fact, the bill was introduced to the House of Representatives as a whole by F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. on October 23, passed the House the next day, the Senate the day after that, and signed into law by the 26th. The marvelous advantage to the fact that this bill was passed almost immediately after its proximate cause and quite immediately after its introduction is that there was neither the need nor the time for anyone actually to read it. As the misguided individuals who oppose Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism suggest, it is completely unreasonable to expect members of Congress to have staff read 342 pages of legal text overnight, so that they might form a reasonable, well-considered decision for voting the next day. What these critics also realize is that if the representatives actually read the bill, they might be tempted to object, instead of accumulating political brownie points. If they objected, they would be performing their Constitutionally-given duty to exercise due diligence - and as has been mentioned before, the Constitution is not something to which attention should be paid.

Always remember that satire > satyr, and that this work is licensed GFDL.

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