Category: folly

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folly ideological culture national politics & policies

Saving the World

Tonight, President Obama will address the nation — perchance to explain the parameters, if there be any, to our nation’s military intervention in Libya. Certainly, no one else in his administration has yet successfully done so, and not for lack of babbling on.

“The bottom line and the president’s view on this,” explained Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough on CNN, “is it’s important to bring the country along.” (Gee, thanks.) “Obviously the president, ah, is solely, ah, has this, ah, responsibility to deploy our troops overseas.…”

“We would welcome congressional support,” offered Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on ABC’s This Week, “but I don’t think that this kind of internationally authorized intervention … is the kind of unilateral action that either I or President Obama were speaking of several years ago.”

A long, long time ago, there were no “humanitarian bombing” campaigns. Had such a cause been proposed, it would have been called war. Our president would have had to not only phone a couple congressmen to chat them up, but actually secure their votes on a declaration of war. 

As we wade into our third war in the Middle East, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says, “No, I don’t think it’s a vital interest for the United States.”

Whether you are a dove or a hawk, Republican or Democrat or sane, how is it working out for us that one man can so easily decide to embroil 300 million Americans in war? 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
folly free trade & free markets national politics & policies Tenth Amendment federalism too much government

Derailing Washington’s Train Fixation

The great age of trains — the 19th century — spawned a few amazing political careers, not excluding the railway lawyer, Abraham Lincoln. Many major railroads depended on moving politicians first, earth and iron second. 

More than ever, today’s passenger rail lines are creatures of the state. Amtrak loses money, and could only be successful as a private operation were politicians able to let its unprofitable lines go.

Congress insists, instead, on putting up more money-​losing railways in as many places as possible. President Obama even tried to get a bullet train put through between Tampa and Orlando, despite the fact that the two Florida cities were too close to each other for a super-​fast train to make any sense. 

Worse for the bullet was the politics.

In 2000, Floridians had voted in high-​speed monorail; in 2004, they voted in greater numbers to kill their own project. Voters realized that, with politicians in charge, railroad projects tended to go runaway.

Perhaps that helped convince Rick Scott, the new governor, to reject the federal government’s offer to pay $2.4 billion of a $2.6 billion bullet train. The billions of “free money” that the Obama Administration promised began to seem, well, costly.

So, of course, the federal government sued. In early March, a Florida court ruled that the governor did indeed have the power to tell the feds to play with trains elsewhere.

A minor victory for railway sanity. A major victory for federalism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability folly initiative, referendum, and recall

A Modest Proposal for Madison

“Ninety percent of life is just showing up.”

Well, Woody, tell that to Democratic state senators in Wisconsin. Or, should I say, in Rockford, Illinois … hiding from the Wisconsin police.

They’re not wanted for any crime. Wisconsin state troopers would simply take them into custody and deliver them to their worksite: the state capitol in Madison.

Unemployment soars, and folks with cushy jobs go underground. I hate to be so boringly practical, but people should show up for work or let their employer(s) know that they are resigning. Not showing up is irresponsible. (Of course, these are politicians.)

And the whole biz is about responsibility. Wisconsin Democrats don’t want to vote on Republican Governor Scott Walker’s proposals to make government employees contribute 5.8 percent of their pay toward their lucrative pensions and 12.6 percent toward their medical insurance premiums, and to end collective bargaining for benefits and work rules, while keeping it for pay.

These are legitimate issues for the legislature. Democracy is about voting on them — even when you won’t win. But by lurking next door in the Land of Lincoln, Democrats can deny the quorum necessary for the legislature to do business.

Citizens have one immediate recourse: Recall.

Under Wisconsin law, no elected official can be recalled in their first year in office. But eight of the 14 shirking senators could be recalled right now. Were a mere two of them recalled, Republican senators would alone constitute a quorum.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability folly too much government

Our Limited Abilities Require Other Limits

Last week I asked, in effect, Who regulates the regulators?

It does no good to say “the people,” because — as much as I want government to be ultimately controlled by the people — if you’re like me, you don’t know enough to micro-​regulate high finance.

But there’s something I didn’t mention last Wednesday: The regulators don’t have that knowledge, either.

Even keeping eyeballs on simple fraud turns out to be difficult. Trying to micromanage high finance? Much harder.

But the congenital inability of regulators properly to regulate doesn’t mean that we must consign ourselves to a never-​ending, Sisyphean cycle of boom and bust. 

Many of the instruments of the modern federal government try to do too much. These very institutions, because they hubristically attempt to regulate away boom bust deliver just the opposite. They make sure booms go bust in messy ways. 

Here’s a fresh example: “Lack of regulation” wasn’t the main reason for this latest bust. More important? The “too big to fail” subsidy. By giving Wall Street, big bankers, and financial intermediaries the impression that they would be bailed out in case of implosion, those very same folks behaved in such a way to risk said implosion, and thus needing the bailouts.

Which happened.

Which started the cycle all over.

Only by going back to basics can we improve our long-​term economic outlook — not by government micromanaging the economy.

Nicely, citizens like you and me can understand these “basics.”

And defend them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
folly

The Candy-​Cane Killers

Tragic holiday horror! Diabolical kids with bad sweaters, scheming with Grinch-​like dastardliness to stab at the heart of the season! Openly distributing thinly disguised blades …

Openly! Well, the school administrators were on the case in a jiffy.

The ten culpable kids at the Haymarket, Virginia, high school — called, by a cruel joke of destiny, Battlefield High — belonged to the secret commando unit “Christmas Sweater Club,” so-​called because they wear “the craziest sweaters they can find.”

Just the kind of loosely-​knit cover story you’d expect from such warped-​and-​woofed yarn spinners.

On the fateful morning, before classes began, club members ruthlessly tossed two-​inch candy canes to arriving schoolmates. These student instigators told Channel 9 that school officials charged them with trying to “maliciously maim” their fellow students. “They said the candy canes are weapons because you can sharpen them with your mouth and stab people with them.”

By the time disciplinary notices were issued, however, the complaint had lapsed into something about “creating a disturbance.” Mom Kathleen Flannery related an administrator’s earnest appraisal: “Not everyone wants Christmas cheer.”

Lesson? Obviously, tiny candy canes in the wrong hands are dangerous, especially if converted by frenetic licking into ferocious little shivs that could turn a playground into a killing field! 

Also, tiny brains in the wrong school officials’ heads can be dangerous, too … especially when they can’t be sharpened at all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
folly free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Madison’s Angels to the Rescue?

Something called “behavioral economics” has arisen in recent decades, testing and probing many of the assumptions-​cum-​postulates of basic microeconomics. Researchers have discovered that human beings are prone to biases, cognitive errors, and a whole bevy of choice glitches. We are not perfectly rational.

Shocking, I know.

Some people draw an odd moral from this: Since people are such fools, they require the help of government to regulate them from utter folly and ruin.

Economist David Henderson quotes one of his Facebook friends, TV creative director John Papola, as supplying the “most succinct criticism” of this tack: “Why in the world do behavioral economists who study our flaws and irrational quirks advocate centralized power in the hands of a small group of flawed overlords? If people are irrational, so are government regulators, only they have corrupting monopoly power.”

You’ve seen this kind of argument before, in political theory. James Madison famously noted that 

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

Just so: Were we entirely rational, no regulation would be necessary — no laws would. But, given universal human limitations, the regulators themselves require regulation, and a (non-​existent) supply of non-​biased, error-​resistant rationality, to boot. 

Forget vast reams of regulations and huge teams of bureaucrats. Instead, perfect the basic rule of law, regulating markets by a well-​conceived basic set of rules. 

And expect some imperfection. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.