Yes, Virginia. There Is A Stupid Claus.

So, there's a bunch of polls out about the federal budget.  TPM has a wrap up.

Here's the gist of it: Americans don't know anything about the federal budget.  They think foreign aid makes up 27% of the budget.  So, naturally, they want to slash it to about 13%.  Problem is, it makes up less than 1% of the budget.  So, you know, facts and stuff...

A majority of Americans don't want to cut defense spending.  But a solid plurality thinks spending more than three times more than any other country is overkill.  Needless to say, we spend way more than three times any other country of defense.

This struck me because of something I was reading about Reagan.  Mark Summer over at Kos makes the point that Reagan's presidency represented the triumph of fiction over fact. The famous welfare queen of Reagan's mythologizing never existed.  It was a classic case of Colbert's "truthiness" in action.  Same goes for foreign aid.

Obama made a decision to punt the fight over taxes until 2012.  Part of that was because the Congressional leadership punted on it before the midterms.  Whatever.

Obama has to begin educating people - those fickle moderate voters - about where the money really goes.  Everyone wants to cut spending that does not benefit them.  I'm sure voters in Florida are incensed about LIHEAP, just as I'm incensed about corn subsidies.  But the fact is, most government programs actually enjoy wide support, so cutting them isn't really an option.

Just look at the contortions and floundering we have seen from the GOP leadership as they try and stuff the Tea Party genie back in its bottle over spending caps and austerity measures.

Ultimately, we will have to raise taxes.  We will have to get rid of the payroll tax cap for Social Security.  We will have to raise taxes on people earning more than $250,000K.  And we will also likely have to raise some taxes on people making less than that.

Tax burdens are the lowest they have been in 60 years.  Since 1950.  And then we launched the military-industrial complex and the interstate highway system and all sorts of other programs.  By 1960, the top marginal tax rate was 93%.  Eisenhower was at least a real conservative, in the sense he cared about a balanced budget.  Nowadays, being a "conservative" means opposing tax increases on anyone, even the super-rich.

Now, there is no evidence that increasing taxes on the super-rich does one damned thing to hurt the economy.

But that's just a fact.  And we live in Reagan's America.

Facts don't mean squat.

Another Day Older...

Yeah, I got nothing, but Vader is everywhere...

Quarter grades being due tomorrow, I spent the day alternately grading and driving to the train station to pick up returning students from long weekend.  After spending some time talking to a nice lady in Bangalore about why our new router won't talk to our Apple products ("Bad racist router!"), I just wanted to watch some schlocky TV.  I couldn't even find that.  And the shows I wanted to watch from F/X don't show up on Hulu.

Eventually, I think we will move to internet based television, but I wonder how fast it will be if shows like "Justified" or "The Walking Dead" aren't available via GoogleTV or whatever.

Anyway, a technological quandry.

Oh, and we are currently very popular in Slovenia!  Go Slovenia!

Deep Thoughts On The Super Bowl

Sad Vader wishes the beer commercials had been funnier.

Not a terribly well played game, but entertaining.  Pittsburgh kept giving the ball away and Green Bay kept making stupid penalties and dropping passes.  But a decently entertaining game.

Which is good, because the peripherals, which are usually the best part, sucked.

The ads were largely forgettable with the exception of a few car spots, notably Volkswagen (sad Vader), BMW and Chrysler.  There was a funny Dorito's ad... Dunno, as I said, forgettable.

The half time show was excellent.  Because I switched over to F/X to watch Kung Fu Panda for the 342,865th time.  As the Most Splendid And Radiant Spouse To Ever Grace God's Green Earth said, "Does anyone sing anymore, or do they just dance?"  I'm trying to think of who I would like to see play the halftime show next year.  Maybe Ryan Adams, because there would be an excellent change he would show up drunk or stoned and throw something at the dancers before urinating off the side of the stage.

Now THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!

Here is Mssr Adams:

And here is Sad Vader pitching Passats, because it's still awesome:

Seriously, that kid/midget deserves an Oscar or something.

The End O'The World

Now is no time to panic...

Some Guy over at Ezra Klein's place cites a piece by Matt Yglesias that say the Constitution will "cease to be operative at some point in our lifetimes."  He then mentions some guy in the Carter Administration who wanted a more Parliamentary system.  Friday night someone else I know was talking about how the American system was doomed.

I don't buy it.

Governments, to use the poli-sci language, are made up of people.  They come and go.

Regimes - and the Constitution constitutes a regime - are very hard to change.  And the longer they stay around, the harder they are to change.  Institutions are sticky, they aren't changed lightly.

The Guy over at Kleins and Yglesias seem to think a new Constitutional Convention would be easy.  Puh-lease.  The only reason to call an amendment convention would be to get around Congress.  So, for campaign finance reform it would make sense.  But add the stupidity that passes for public discourse this day and could you imagine the sort of nincompoops that would attend this thing?  It would not be the "demigods" of Philadelphia, it would be people who read all of Glenn Beck's books.

Look, parliamentary systems are very appealing in times of crisis.  They can act emphatically.  But there are appeals to the presidential system, too.  One being there inherent conservatism.  And there defense of the people's freedoms.

It's just too hard to look at what's happening today as being worse than the 1970s, with Vietnam, Watergate, stagflation and racial tension.  But some people are insistent in seeing the crisis of their day as being the WORSTEST CRISIS EVAH!

So, in a few years, when unemployment is at 6% and falling and almost everyone has health care and Obama is at a summit with the democratically elected president of Egypt (is Shakira eligible?), my guess is that the cries for a new constitution will seem quaint.

The Reagan Myth

As we near the Gipper's centennial, we will hear a bunch of crap - most of it false - about Reagan's legacy.

Read Will Bunch to see how wrong most of it is:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2011/02/04/ST2011020403674.html?hpid=topnews

The fact is that Reagan would be a moderate Republican if he were alive today.  And if Tim Pawlenty were alive today, he would be, too.  (Ba Dump Bump)  For all the incessant fluffing of Reagan by Limbaugh, Palin and every living member of the GOP's right wing, he was a rhetorical conservative, but a governing moderate-conservative.

Now, what he did do was change the acceptable parameters of debate about government.  But he didn't follow through, as Bunch notes, in shrinking anything about the federal government.  In fact, movement conservatives take almost the opposite lessons from Reagan than the historical record suggests.

Take abortion rights.  Via Bunch, Reagan signed legal abortion into law as governor of California, and while he spoke out against it, he didn't make it the centerpiece of his agenda.  Look at the House today.  In the presence of 9% unemployment, a declining infrastructure and faltering education, the House is obsessed with redefining rape to make it harder for victims to get abortions.

Now, maybe if Reagan were a modern Republican, he'd hold the same positions as Jim DeMint or Michelle Bachmann.  Maybe his comparative moderation is a legacy of his being an old New Deal Democrat.  If he were born into Goldwater's Republican party instead of Dewey and Eisenhower's GOP, maybe he'd be a frothing wingnut, too.  But frankly, the contemporary equivalent of Reagan would be Boehner.  Speak Right, but understand that you have to govern.

This speaks to how the times shape attitudes and ideas.  The Right has spent two decades making Reagan into the litmus test of modern conservatism, but they have also shaped his legacy into something more attune with Michael Reagan's ideas than Nancy's.  In fact, the real Father of Modern Conservatism is not Reagan and his deal to save Social Security, but Newt Gingrich and his government shutdown.

And I don't mean to say that Reagan was some swell moderate centrist.  What he did was transfer the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class and created the modern environment of deficits and stagnant wage growth for the overwhelming majority of Americans.  I think his ideas sucked, but they are not the ideas of the Tea Party Express.

In some ways, this is why history and historical accuracy is so important.  We currently have one of our two parties swearing fealty to the ideas of a man who never possessed those ideas.

Reagan is the Man Who Wasn't There.

How To Be A Citizen

I don't know how to format TED videos, so I'll just give you the link to where I saw it:

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/02/04/no-his-mind-is-not-for-rent/

It's a great piece of advice if you want to be important in the civic life of your area.

Snow, Snow, Go Away

There have been many drawbacks to the incessant snow.  First, my shoulders and back are aching from the shoveling, wrestling the snow blower and, today, hacking at six inches of ice with a hatchet.  On the other hand, I've lost about five pounds.

Second, and no less exhausting, is the fact that Thing One and Thing Two have been in school for about an hour and a half since December. On Monday, there was school, but Thing Two was sick and stayed home.

Both of which means you're always tired and can't do some of the things you NEED to do (grading most especially) much less what you WANT to do.

I have one very important ritual.  Every Wednesday after seeing the Things off to school, I go down to Susan's Country Kitchen for a sausage, egg and cheese on a hard roll, a toasted buttery muffin and several cups of perfectly adequate coffee.  The real attraction - besides a very good sausage, egg and cheese - is the book I take with me.

Some time in October or perhaps September, I started Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought as part of my quixotic commitment to reading all of the Oxford Histories of the United States.  The book is long (about 850 pages), the chapters run about 40-50 pages, but each chapter is broken down into subsections that are quite manageable during a Wednesday morning breakfast break.

The book covers the period from 1815-1848.  I finished Gordon Wood's Empire of Liberty, the preceding volume in the Oxford series, and could hardly wait to read the next one.

I'm supposed to be a teacher, not a professor.  I'm not a scholar first.  Or at least, I'm not supposed to be.  Teaching and knowing aren't the same thing, and teaching is supposed to be the priority.

So, my Wednesday morning is my own attempt to be a "knower" as well as a "teacher".  And snow days are killing it.  We have a long weekend and I just spent an hour reading about Lowell mill girls and slaves participation in the market economy and agrarian revolt in upstate New York, while my car was having an oil change.

I have no idea whether that will make me a better "teacher" or even if it will stick in my head enough to improve me as a "knower".  But I figure I have to keep trying.

If only it would stop snowing long enough to have an intellectual moment...

Sorry For No Posts Today

So I leave you with this.  The best Super Bowl commercial this Sunday.

I can only assume that Vader was played by Thing One.

Also, too, because you deserve the best.... This...

Please, Please, Please, Read This

http://www.theonion.com/articles/republicans-vote-to-repeal-obamabacked-bill-that-w,19025/

It's the Onion.  That's all you need to know.

Your Wednesday Morning Takedown

This is a GREAT prank against a Belgian phone company with a terrible record of customer service.

Worth the time and the subtitles.

You're Quote For the Day

“Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong… Wherever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself nor make the provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken,” – The Road To Serfdom (Chapter 9) Friedrich von Hayek

A Not At All Deep Thought

It occurs to me that when Mubarak falls in Egypt, this will put pressure on Israel to finally stop acting like bullies towards Palestinians.  Israel has little to fear from Jordan or Syria, but Egypt could seriously mess up their day militarily.  They would almost certainly win in the end, but Israel hasn't really engaged in full scale war in 25 years.  This has allowed them a certain casual cockiness towards efforts to mediate the Gaza and West Bank situation.

Let's see how arrogantly Bibi dismisses the international community when he might actually need support from someone.

Putting the Lie To CEO Economics

I've been watching a lot of the RSAnimate videos recently, because they are fascinating and really cool to watch.  They take cutting edge ideas and help make them accessible by creating an animated version to accompany the lecture.

This one is worth sharing here:

The basic idea is that money is a VERY poor motivator beyond basic mechanical tasks.  Money does not lead to creativity or better results.  Given that we have been drilled with the idea that we have to pay CEOs massive, even immoral amounts of money because of how awesome they are - which makes the CEOs of the post war economic boom a bunch of chumps - I think this is a necessary antidote.

The reason CEOs need huge, massive, have-their-own-gravity salaries is that they are greedy narcissists.  Not because it creates better results.

I KNEW IT!

Guess what?

America is still the world's leading manufacturer.  We think of China as the world's factory, but we still make more stuff.  It's just that we're more productive in terms of the labor we get from each of our workers.  So less people are making more.

The problem isn't that America doesn't make stuff anymore, it's that we've gotten too efficient at making stuff to keep people employed at doing it.

Proof is here.

A Note On Looting

The curfew is in effect.  Good luck enforcing it.

I consider myself a very minor Katrina-ologist, because I read a book once.  I think what Tom Scocca at Slate says is right.

Looting often does occur when law and order break down.  Now, there are some conspiracy theories in Egypt right now that the looting maybe being done by state security in order to make the police state look more appealing.  I have no idea if that's true.  It's plausible, but it's also classic conspiracy theory stuff, because it fits into the world view of the protestors.  State security = evil, looting = evil, state security = looters.

But it is striking to me that when we see looters in times of chaos, we tend to act with revulsion.  Which is not to say that we should be all "Yay!  Looters!" but in the wake of Katrina, a lot of the "looting" was scavenging for supplies.  I was in LA for the Rodney King riots, and I understood that the anger manifested in the rioting was a product a very racist and repressive police force.  I got to see it in action before and after the riots.  But when the riots degenerated into a free for all looting of TVs and air conditioners, well, that seemed less politically motivated.

In times of chaos, assaults on property are inevitable.  Maybe they are justified, such as the Egyptian protestors attacking the ruling party's HQ or a family scavenging food and water from a Walgreens in New Orleans.  Some times, they are simply acts of greed or nihilism like the attack on the Egyptian museums.

What I saw in LA, Katrina, Tehran and now Egypt is not about property per se, but about the collapse or the non-existence of the social contract.  When Hobbes and Locke and others formulated the philosophy of the social contract, they were talking in large part about property.  Property needed to be protected in order for prosperity and human advancement.  So human beings formed societies to help manage the relationship between people over property.  Where does my property end?  What should I give up in taxes for the common weal?  How do we determine whose property this is in the case of competing claims?

For the African Americans in LA and New Orleans and the Actual Africans in Egypt, there never was a social contract that they were a part of.  There was poverty and political disenfranchisement, but no social contract. There was order, though.  They felt that order every day.  Blacks in the inner cities knew that their lives weren't worth much to the community at large as manifested by police action.  Egyptians knew that they were oppressed.

Once order - or oppression - breaks down, there is no sense of obligation to preserve the social contract in its absence.

And this is why repression never works forever.

If the "mystic chords of memory" aren't there, then there is only force.  And force cannot be maintained indefinitely.  And once force begins to crack, the absence of self-regulating behavior means that looting will take place.  We're buried under a mountain of snow that is stretching the capacity of the government to deal with it.  But we won't loot, because we more or less buy into the idea of the social contract.  Also, we wouldn't be able to drag the HDTV home through the snow.  I mean, DAMN.

But the forces that DID benefit from whatever social contract did exist will inevitably desire to protect the "stuff" that they accumulated under the regime.  And so looting becomes a capital crime and property trumps political change.

Until it doesn't.

Good luck, Egypt.  Blessings be upon you.

You're going to need them.