One of These Things Is Not Like the Others

So The Nation recently published its list of "The Fifty Most Influential Progressives of the Twentieth Century." Regardless of your political leanings, the list is certainly debatable. (I may write more on some of their selections later.) But one of the last paragraphs of the introduction to the list struck me as offensively off-base:

A few of the people on the list expressed views, at some point in their lives, that progressives consider objectionable, such as Margaret Sanger's endorsement of eugenics, Earl Warren's support for rounding up Japanese-Americans during World War II, Bayard Rustin's support for the Vietnam War and Jackie Robinson's attack on Paul Robeson. They made mistakes, which may be understandable in historical context, but which should be acknowledged as part of their lives and times.

Now, it must be mentioned that Jackie did testify before McCarthy's the House Un-American Activities Committee. That's a big deal. But here's some background on exactly went down:



More here.

What, pray tell, do you suppose would have happened if some uppity nigger baseball player told HUAC, by way of polite declination, to shove it's "invitation"? Yet somehow, this action--the reluctant testimony to separate the fight for racial equality from the looming specter of communism--is mentioned in the same sentence with support for a war that killed over a million soldiers and civilians, Margaret Sanger's enthusiastic genocidal attachment to Eugenics and throwing thousands of American citizens into detention camps for their ethnicity. (Without mentioning FDR's role in it, no less.)

This "attack" was mentioned again in Robinson's profile--as was Warren's culpability in the Japanese internment in his own--but Rustin's and Sanger's "mistakes" are stricken from their laudatory bios. Apparently, to Professor Dreier and The Nation's editors, an effectively coerced statement that illustrates differing civil rights approaches--while maintaining the shared contempt of the United States' criminal and unconstitutional discrimination policies--reflects as poorly on Jackie Robinson as the racist dedication of Margaret Sanger and authorizing the false imprisonment of over 100,000 innocent people.

Unbelievable.

My take on the Senate Health Bill

Surprise surprise: I'm not happy that the Senate health bill passed the House and is about to be signed into law. Friends and family have tried to couch it in terms that "well, it's better than nothing." No, in fact, it's not.

Let's say you have a chronic disease that can be fatal if left untreated. Let's call it, "Debtis Entitlementitis." You have another problem we'll call "Healthus Carus" that you need to solve. If you take the wrong medication for Healthus Carus, it can make you forget about your Debtis Entitlementitis in the short term, but it will actually cripple you in 5-10 years by exacerbating every problem you have including Healthus Carus, Oldus Takecareofus, Roadus Paveus, Poorus Cantaffordus,  Pleasa Dontkillus, etc.

This is what Congress just did. Sure, a lot of people can feel better--but the underlying condition of debt has been made worse and, consequently, Congress and Obama made the problem more intractable than it already was.

It's not conjecture and it's not partisan: it's math. We have committed ourselves to spending much more money that we have. Indeed, according to GAO estimates in the 2008 Financial Report of the United States, our entitlement spending in the infinite horizon--that is, everything we've promised to pay so far--is $101.8 trillion. Yes, that's trillion. (cf. Table 6, pdf page 143; report page 137)

That's seven times the economic output of the entire United States in a given year. No, not our tax revenue--our entire economic output. To call this situation "unsustainable" is to understate the case to tragicomic levels.

Blame Bush. Blame FDR. Blame whomever you like--but the fact of the matter is our entitlement spending is going to bankrupt us. We can either address it like adults and treat the problem, or we can act like children and foolishly pretend the problem will go away by itself without ever having to face the consequences.

Just a Thought

I was thinking about the Stimulus bill today as I was coming into work and thinking that it's proposals are probably so far out of touch with economic necessity that it will not only fail, but fail miserably. The package, from what I have seen and read, consists primarily of tasks for manual labor, much like the jobs programs under the auspices of FDR during the Depression.

The problem being, the people I know who have lost their jobs because of the economic crunch are all white-collar workers. I'm sure this is reflective of my social circles and networks, but nevertheless these are real people who lost real jobs: college-educated 20- and 30-somethings (and some older too) who work in journalism, IT, finance, or other cubicle-type environments. They are not exactly your "salt-of-the-earth" types who can make an easy transition to ditch-digging or construction.

Now while it may sound like I'm making excuses here, think about it. The people of the fattest, laziest country on Earth suddenly expected to perform heavy and difficult labor with no experience, training, or muscle memory capabilities to do so. This isn't the days of the early 20th century where most of the jobs lost were labor-intensive manufacturing, shipping, or any other number of services now obsolete from technological improvements. Many of today's factory workers are simply plug-in, put-on, stamp it jobs. The heavy lifting is often done mechanically and the major job obstacle is tedium.

Sure, it might do a lot of younger people good to get in shape from outdoor work (although, its not like tough labor jobs disappeared--we just gave them to immigrants). But what about the 50 year old father of 4 trying to get his kids through college and still have enough to retire? He's got a bad back--digging a ditch is not in his future. The 45 year old mother who used to be a clerk? Are we just going to give her a shovel and say "have at it"? This bill seems to be targeted on ideas of nearly a century ago, taking little account into how much has changed since then--not least of which is mass employment of women. It does little good for us to create a bunch of heavy labor jobs with a limited supply of heavy laborers.

Again, this is basically me thinking out loud--or on screen, rather--and I have no data to support any grand hypothesis. But this is a troubling notion and, since it appears we're going to do this, I would be interested to see data that shows the supply and demand ratio for the jobs "created."

A Libertarian Race rEVOLution:

What libertarians should do after the Ron Paul Newsletters

In the wake of the racially divisive “revelations” surrounding the Ron Paul rEVOLution, libertarians should reevaluate the methods by which they make themselves and, even more importantly, their ideas palatable both to the electorate as a whole and to black voters specifically.

Selling libertarianism as a brand to the general population is a difficult enough proposition. To attempt to sell it to African-Americans is to buck seventy years of political socialization. From FDR’s New Deal to LBJ’s signing of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, the federal government has been viewed by many blacks as the guarantor of collective economic well-being and individual rights.

This view of government is complicated by the electoral shift and the courting of the Southern vote by the Republican Party, the traditional—if very strained—political allies of fiscal libertarians. Circumstances from Barry Goldwater’s vote against the Civil Rights Act to Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign kickoff in Neshoba County, Mississippi —a hotbed of racial tension— make a wholesale political shift of blacks to the right a pipe-dream. Yet, it does not follow that libertarians and the GOP should shirk black issues altogether.

Ron Paul’s most recent racial misstep is merely the latest in an always-growing list of offenses committed by the right. This is particularly problematic because of the groundswell of support Paul received, albeit of little electoral significance. The libertarian base of that support made the error usually reserved for supporters of more mainstream candidates — putting the man before the message. The general mistrust of politicians with a healthy and reliable contrarian approach to their more troublesome policies (e.g., Paul’s stance on immigration) were conspicuously absent around much of the rEVOLution. If libertarian activists wish to further the ideas of liberty, they must begin by abandoning this flawed “libertarian” campaign and re-embrace the ideas that, perhaps imperfect, can be debated without being compromised by the (glaring) faults of any single individual.

In the short term, this would serve as a public relations salve to African-Americans and a more racially sensitive general public. In the longer run, and more importantly, libertarian ideas will be separated from a marginalizing figure —to be heard by black people still looking for political answers to many problems. While the full package of libertarian ideas will not be accepted, certain topics would have special resonance among African-Americans and can gain traction:

1. War on Drugs. There is hardly an aspect of the ‘War on Drugs’ that doesn’t affect blacks disproportionately. From the extended criminal sentences on ‘crack’ cocaine, to the violence that invariably accompanies prohibition and the relative percentage of black men in prison, this policy has been nothing short of disastrous for black individuals and families across the country. The debate on the harshness and effects of the drug war ought to be hashed out not just in the marble halls and plush auditoriums within the beltway, but in the neighborhoods and churches suffering from virtual lockdown by gang violence and a rising police state. Where liberals and conservatives have failed in addressing these problems, libertarians are in the unique position as the voice of reason.

2. School Choice. The terrible state of American schools is no secret. Government at all levels is failing to provide adequate public education —and urban blacks often face the worst of circumstances. For example, while Maryland and Virginia are among the best public school systems in the country, Washington, D.C. schools rank 51^st —dead last among all the states plus the District. The ability to opt out of local public schools to other regional or private schools would provide the education necessary for upward mobility and increased lifetime wealth across the younger generations in black neighborhoods. Libertarians have long been the champions of school choice in its various forms.

3. Eminent Domain. After the Kelo decision in 2005, property rights have been in greater jeopardy from private interests. Given that poorer and middle-class blacks live in segregated areas often with depressed property values —which make the land a prime target for developers— and that the property owners and renters will be less able to afford adequate counsel to defend against seizure, blacks are certainly among those whom face the greatest threat from eminent domain abuse. Eminent domain serves as an excellent example of how government, with the blessing of the “liberal” members of the Supreme Court, oversteps its constitutional bounds and invades the solemn rights of its citizens. Framing this argument properly could win solid allies among black property owners and the middle class.

These are but three examples of policies that libertarians can highlight to at least begin a political rapprochement with African-Americans. Such a move probably irritates more traditional libertarians whom prefer broad-based messages to the public. Yet, it only makes sense that if certain policies more directly affect a particular demographic (e.g., farm subsidies and farmers), libertarians should tailor these issues —which are not exclusively black issues— to the particular (and considerably larger) audience which can most benefit from libertarian reform.

The libertarian policy elites need to take this opportunity to reach out to black America. Continuing to embrace Ron Paul in light of the newsletters will further marginalize an already weakened movement — ultimately impeding liberty for all Americans.

St. Reagan, Race, and the Right

A very good piece by Publius, over at Obsidian Wings:

Others just flat-out ignore race and pretend that things like grinding poverty rooted in historical discrimination doesn’t exist. They squeeze the contradiction out from the ideal. Every now and then, though, the contradiction comes bubbling up to our gated-community eyes, Masque of the Red Death-style – just like it did in New Orleans. But that's the exception - many of us can go about our daily lives, blissfully ignorant.

The piece concentrates on David Brooks and many others in the Right who beatify our 40th President and dismiss the more seedy methods of courting the Southern electorate. Publius insists that the Right just needs to own up to the racist past and demonstrate that its current messages are not double-speak for more racist policies.

My problem is this -- while probably outside of the scope of the piece, Publius infers that it is primarily the Right that needs to come to terms with the past. Yet, the last time I checked, racism does not respect party lines or political ideologies.

LBJ, for example, was a racist and ardent segregationist who pushed Civil Rights for political reasons -- and his 'War on Poverty' left more black families destitute, living in urban squalor, and welfare dependent than any other program in U.S. history. So, I think there is plenty of reckoning to go around than to just place it on Reaganites.

Let us not forget FDR's internment of Japanese during WWII, JFK's wiretapping of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a subversive, and Sen. Robert Byrd's high position in the Ku Klux Klan -- hollow, after-the-fact apologies notwithstanding.

Racism is an American problem, not just a Republican one.