DISQUS

Nothing wrong with being a muslim, but I do think that Pipes was trying to harm Obama politically by spreading doubts about his religion.

Pipes' column said that Muslim extremists would consider Obama an apostate because his father was a Muslim, even if lapsed. I find that factual argument plausible, even if I don't care particularly if the idiots have another reason to hate America.

Of course, Obama himself referenced this background in his speech in Cairo, and indeed, some people thought it should help Obama politically that he has some sort of connection to the Muslim world through his background and raising. I understand that people are very concerned with the idea of the intent and motive underlying factual arguments. At some point, though, it can seem kind of absurd how the same factual statement can be condemned or praised depending on, for example, whether it's designed to help or harm someone politically.

For example, Lila Ghobady's arguments about the facts on the ground are indeed identical to those made by neocons. I'm somewhat surprised that Will would resist turning his avatar green on Twitter for fear it might aid neocons, and yet give air to Ghobady's arguments-- which, being the same as the ones the neocons made when arguing with liberal internationalists, might be likely to persuade people to the neocon position.

Ghobady's arguments are exactly the sort that might persuade someone who supported engagement and waiting for the elections not for absolute reasons of non-intervention, but for tactical reasons of thinking that the elections were legitimate and a possible means of change, to agree with the neocons.

Indeed, her claims are essentially identical to the ones that necons were making contra liberal internationalists before the election. People who hear the facts as Lila Ghobady has described them might actually be more likely to adopt the neocon recommendation that people who thought that the elections could bring about real change.

There are many positions on Iran. They include:

1) (Many liberal internationalists) Iran is an Islamic Republic, the elections are relatively fair even if the candidates have to be approved, reformers are popular (Ahmadinejad elected only because of boycotts), might be elected, and could make a real difference. Attacking the regime is counter-productive, because it's a real republic. The right sort of outreach could get people to vote for the reformer.

2) (Other liberal internationalists, some realists) Iran is an Islamic Republic. Ahmadinejad and the regime have real majority support. The dream of reforms being elected is mostly a fantasy, but because the regime has popular support, we have to deal with it. Attacking the regime, rhetorically or literally, only upsets the people of Iran.

3) (Neocons) Iran's regime does not have popular support. The election will be a sham; even if a "reformer" is elected, that reformer was prescreened by the Guardian Council and isn't all that different. Even if the reformer wanted reforms, the regime's structure will prevent it. Our only choice is to support revolts. Attacking the regime, whether rhetorically, economically, or even perhaps militarily, will have the support of its people.

4) (Other realists and non-interventionists) Any of the other premises could be true, but I'm sure that doing nothing is the right decision, so the facts don't matter all that much to me.

There are others, to be sure.

Your problem is not the facts as Lila Ghobady has stated them. Your problem is that there were people who agreed with your preferred policy, but not for the same reasons, or who agreed with your preferred policy but had different premises and beliefs about the facts on the ground. With some of their comfortable premises exploded (there is a possibility for reform with the election, so we shouldn't rock the boat, or Ahmadinejad and the regime are really popular, so there's no hope for a revolution and we should engage), they face a decision about whether or not to switch preferred policies.

Yes, things are lining up well for the neocons-- but only because liberal internationalists and others who might agree that there's a time and a place for intervention or support were previously, for tactical reasons, supporting engagement, but have had their tactical reasons and hopes dashed. Support for engaging the Iranian regime was not built solely on realist and non-interventionist grounds, but on tactical ones.

I wanna know!

Do you? What if knowing gives supports to the necons? Would you still want to know? It seems to me that you know your preferred policy regardless of the background facts. As I said, spreading Lila Ghobady's comments around might actually make more people agree with Eli Lake, Daniel Pipes, and other neocons who were saying exactly that before the election, and less with people like Robert Cohen who were arguing that the elections would be fair.

Things really are lining up rather nicely for the neocons, and I don’t think it’s crazy to be wary of helping them, especially when doing nothing but explaining why you’re doing nothing really can’t hurt.

Yes, things are lining up rather nicely for the necons because they've been proven right in an assumption. Neocons were largely arguing exactly what you've laid out in your "History Repeats Itself" post. Of course, they weren't the only ones doing so. There were quite a few different strands of opinions before the elections:

1) (Many liberal internationalists) Iran is an Islamic Republic, the elections are relatively fair even if the candidates have to be approved, reformers are popular (Ahmadinejad elected only because of boycotts), might be elected, and could make a real difference. Attacking the regime is counter-productive, because it's a real republic. The right sort of outreach could get people to vote for the reformer.

2) (Other liberal internationalists, some realists) Iran is an Islamic Republic. Ahmadinejad has real majority support. The dream of reforms being elected is mostly a fantasy, but because the regime has popular support, we have to deal with it. Attacking the regime, rhetorically or literally, only upsets the people of Iran.

3) (Neocons) Iran's regime does not have popular support. The election will be a sham; even if a "reformer" is elected, that reformer was prescreened by the Guardian Council and isn't all that different. Even if the reformer wanted reforms, the regime's structure will prevent it. Our only choice is to support revolts. Attacking the regime, whether rhetorically, economically, or even perhaps militarily, will have the support of its people.

4) (Other realists and non-interventionists) Any of the other premises could be true, but I'm sure that doing nothing is the right decision, so the facts don't matter all that much to me.

The first two groups of people are somewhat discredited right now. The neocons made a prediction-- "if there is any chance of reform, the regime will make sure that it won't happen." Stealing the election really strengthens their position because their prediction was right, as opposed to those liberal internationalists who before the election assured us that Iran had a flawed Republic, but a Republic all the same.

And then you go on to discuss how no matter what happens, the neocons will have an argument-- just as people who oppose them will have an argument. So then what's the point? There's always still a non-interventionist argument.

The problem for the non-interventionist position is that people who believed that the elections could force real change are upset about what happen, and might fall into the neocon camp rather than stay non-interventionist but for other reasons.

This is generally true. This, indeed, was Daniel Pipes's claim before and since the Iranian election. So you're agreeing with (one set) of neocons, then.

All the candidates were pre-selected, and he believed that, even if (which he doubted) someone who wanted real reform would be elected, then that person wouldn't be able to do anything. For that reason he favored the "honesty" of Ahmadinejad to a reform candidate who would not be able to make any changes at all but who would attract Western media sympathy. He finds the result of an Ahmadinejad victory that appears stolen and arouses outrage in Iran even better, though.

Of course, Daniel Pipes, whom you've just largely agreed with, is also accused of being a neocon who wants a war with Iran. This just goes to show that nearly any position you can take can be claimed to be a "useful idiot" for those who want a war with Iran. To me, that means that your claim, already suspect from attacking motives, isn't that useful as a guideline at all.

Bah. People knew during the election that Obama did this:

The press corps, most of us, don't even bother raising our hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of correspondents who've been advised they will be called upon that day.

Dana's just upset because it was the Huffington Post instead of a mainstream outlet called upon.

I would like to meet the 3% who favor taxing health benefits (they almost surely do not have them).

They're almost surely economists who believe that employer-paid health insurance should have the same tax treatment as individually purchased insurance.

I believe that employer-paid health insurance should be taxed, and an individual tax credit should be used in its place.

Deeds, while not known nationally like the other two (Moran thanks to his brother), is the only one who had actually run statewide in Virginia before. (For atty general, against McDonnell in a close one.)

Robert Scheer defending Reagan? Wonder if he feels dirty?

I guess it shows that for him, policy does run deeper than personality. (Unlike Krugman?) Scheer has to support the idea of low and no down payment mortgages.

In general, economists adopt a utilitarian framework. In service of political goals, they are often drafted to produce reports that ignore one form of cost or benefits. Even in adopting a utilitarian framework, they make other choices, such as considering only the wishes of (often adult) humans.

As has the death of the Seniora government in Lebanon, no? Hezbollah did not receive their majority.

I assume that means that Brazil isn't Third World, because I knowingly board Embraer jets all the time. I prefer them, as regional jets, to the Canadian Bombardier ones.

No, because some proportion of the sun's energy reflected into the atmosphere will escape. Not all of it, but some. Absorbing the energy would keep somewhat more of it on the earth-- absorbed heat energy would still be emitted later as blackbody radiation.

I'm not sure that it would overall reduce bills in, say, New Hampshire, since it would increase heating costs in winter. Makes sense in warmer areas, though presumably people could do it without a government mandate if it makes sense.

Obviously people can lie with economics just as they can lie with statistics. Most of that lying occurs in the assumptions, though. Even if I may suspect, e.g., that Ryan Avent will invent externalities and costs and benefits to justify trains everywhere no matter what the cost, but having a framework to discuss that is still very useful.

Economics is also another one of those disciplines where the media, the public, and politicians are most interested in hearing economists on issues where economists disagree, not where they agree.

And I think it gets even worse: economists have almost no competence whatsoever in telling us what counts as a cost or a benefit. That’s pretty important, isn’t it?

Economists tend to operate by a moral rule that anything that people view as a cost or benefit, is one. A strict utilitarianism. However, economists are certainly known to produce reports for political bean-counting that ignore these things.

And certainly it's a moral claim that doesn't answer questions of whether non-humans (or babies or fetuses) have any sort of moral claim outside of what adults can put on it.

The Nixonite establishment is a bipartisan one. It has the firm support of the bureaucracy as well, one notes.

The GOP seems to have approved of nearly every American projection of power overseas, no matter which party is behind it.

Odd that Senator Bob Dole was given to cracks about "Democrat wars," despite being one of those old Nixon hands.

But in any case, "seems to have approved?" The GOP split as much or more on Bosnia and Kosovo than the Democrats did on Iraq (both times). Of course, both times under Clinton a solid Democratic voting block joined a number of "responsible" "moderate," yes, "Nixonian" Republicans to vote for it.

Surely you would have to amend the thesis to point out that the interventionist wings of both parties combine to support every military action.

To put it another way, the civil rights movement certainly did lead to a tremendous net increase in liberty. Some of those gains of liberty preceded the one particular piece of legislation, and some were afterwards. Whether that particular egg had to be broken to make an omelette is a difficult question.

I think part of the problem is that if you hold up the Civil Rights Act as an example of libertarian success, most libertarians will deny that you are one. I think both the Civil Rights Act and the women’s movement did in fact lead to tremendous net increases in liberty.

And another part of the problem is that if you show a picture of various graphs of metrics that would measure racial progress (income and wage parity, etc.) against time but without the years labeled on the appropriate axis, it would be nearly impossible to pinpoint on the graph when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. The social and economic situation for blacks was improving before the Civil Rights Act of 1964-- indeed, in some ways it was only politically possible to pass the act because the situation had already improved.

Looking at those graphs, you can't even see that the rate of improvement quickened with the passage of the Act. Would it have been slower? Perhaps, but it's a counterfactual that's hard to prove. Did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 make no real difference, help consolidate gains that had already begun, give a push to a process that would have stalled, or what? It's extremely difficult to tell, and your answer to that question will affect your opinion on the Act.

Sir,

I assume then that you're not the sort of person who makes the argument that "these people can't complain about proposed spending since they didn't do so about the somewhat smaller amount under Bush." After all, I think there's a logical contradiction between saying that they're complaining about too little (but you oppose more significant tax increases) and the previously mentioned argument (where people didn't complain about a smaller increase in spending.)

In any case, for my part, it's not the 3% marginal tax rate increase. It's the fact that even in 2012-2019, deficits are projected by the CBO, under full recovery, to be so much larger than even under Bush that it would take a 10-15% marginal tax rate increase to reduce them to Bushian levels. (Assuming that Obama's promise about only raising income taxes of the rich holds.)

I also assume you also had equal disdain for antiwar rallies, which had equal amounts of bullshit, as indeed all protests do.

You’d think you’d wait to learn something about this before saying something about her, but no. People just proceeded to go crazy on cue.

Not just Republicans, though. Libertarians.

In fact, you cite Damon Root's article. But you didn't site his "crazy" instant reaction to the nomination.

"Damon W. Root on Why Libertarians—and anyone who favors limited government—Should Be Worried About Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's Supreme Court Nominee

When it comes to the Second Amendment and race-based preferences, however, Sonia Sotomayor has a decidedly illiberal vision of constitutional law.
...
As a respected jurist with an impressive legal resume, Sotomayor appears just as qualified to sit on the Supreme Court as any recent nominee. But from the standpoint of individual liberty and limited constitutional government, there are significant reasons to be wary of her nomination."

The "reflex" was not limited to Republicans and conservatives. Within instants of her nomination, prominent libertarians were attacking her. Mostly because they had already done research on her since she had been shortlisted for a long time.

Will, at the very least, consistency begs that you attack libertarians as well. If you stand with Damon Root's expression of what he wants in a judge, you should acknowledge that he attacked her immediately as well.

Will, do you respect the opinions of libertarians like Richard Epstein and Ilya Somin?

They certainly came out of the gate attacking her, and specifically find something very troubling in her total lack of openness to the "merit in libertarian arguments, especially about the protection of economic rights."

For me, Didden is disqualifying. Granting that Kelo was a recent precedent that was binding, the decision went clearly beyond what even Kelo required.

So I was hoping for a relatively centrist liberal who sees some merit in libertarian arguments, especially about the protection of economic rights. As far as I can tell, there is nothing especially worrying about Sotomayor.

I'm sorry, you don't think that the Didden v. Port Chester decision is especially worrying? I can see saying that it isn't enough by itself, but I would think that it would be worrying at least.

She pretty blatantly sided with a politically connected developer getting a town to use eminent domain on a plot of land because the owners wouldn't pay extortion. The decision went far beyond Kelo, because even under Kelo the majority agreed that mere pretext was not sufficient to condemn. The pretext here was that the politically connected developer wanted to build a Walgreens instead of the CVS that the property owners would build.

I'm sure that there are other cases in her record, but Didden really is especially worrying to me.

Ryan,

Someone who claims that private toll roads are much more difficult to organize than world peace hardly has a reasonable claim to be more intelligent than National Review, yet isn't that what Ryan Avent is doing below:

Unsurprisingly, it’s very difficult to get millions of urban denizens to voluntarily come together to build and fund a road network or transit system in the absence of a coercive mechanism. The benefits are too broadly shared, and the incentive to free ride too great.

And yet private toll roads predated world peace. Fancy that.

"I assume that you think America leading to lower trade barriers was a good idea."

Of course I do, but, Craig, if you think that the only benefit of lowering trade barriers is to get other countries to lower theirs, then you completely fail to understand the argument for free trade. Certainly it's a complicated one, and politicians generally fail to make it. But unilateral free trade has powerful benefits to us even if other countries don't lower their trade barriers. Or perhaps you believe that the New Zealand and Australian agricultural industries are weak?

"For instance even if you thought global warming was a myth you could still make a strong case that China needs a cap and trade system on the other toxic emissions from their power plants."

Yes, but the other toxic emissions have a powerful difference-- their negative effects are concentrated locally and regionally. When the US limits SO2 emissions, the benefits accrue locally. (There's some spillover to Canada, but the vast majority of benefits stay in the US.) If industry goes to China as a result, we still get the environmental benefits. That makes it easy to regulate on a national scale. With CO2, the harms are global. If we regulate CO2 and the industry moves to China and still emits, we get absolutely no benefit whatsoever. That's VERY different from toxic pollutants.

If we limit our CO2, then we actually make it MORE valuable for China to NOT limit their own CO2, because we increase the potential flow of industry there if they don't. That would seem to make it less likely that they'd do so, not more. (Unless we use retaliatory tariffs.)

"If we fail to do this now then it will be two or three decades before we get another chance."

Really? That's unbelievably unpersuasive. That's not how politics works either. I'd say it would be even more reasonable to argue that "if we do this wrong, it will be two or three decades before we get a chance to fix it."

ic, you misread.

It's saying the 1 in 7 have become militants since going back. No indication of how many were militants before.

This won't change a thing. To some, it will merely indicate that being held prisoner turned them into militants.