Amy - love your blog, and despite being a conservative Christian I'm just as tired of the GOP's harping on gay marriage and religious issues as you are. I think the government has zero place in our religious (or lack thereof), sexual and social lives. I hate the idea of a Mike Huckabee as the face of the GOP. And you had me going just fine with the beginning of your post there about small government.

But then you seemingly couldn't help yourself, throwing in a last jab at the "religious nutters," lumping us all together without a second thought. I'm not trying to preach to you, I don't care what you believe or don't believe, and I'm not trying to force my beliefs down your throat or into your life. But if you're going to attack my beliefs, I'm going to defend them, and myself. Perhaps the GOP's pandering to the "religious nutters" is simply a pushback, a reaction to the vicious attacks lobbed in our direction without a second thought by the left and the right.

I haven't always been happy with the republican party but I typically vote republican because they usually take less of my money than the democrats.

Less money equals less power and less of my money that is being wasted on useless and ineffective social programs.

I vote with my wallet and most Americans should too. Less money less power.

For every "zombie" firm that survives because of government assistance, several innovative start-ups don't get the chance to be born.

A sweeping statement. Is it backed by statistics?

Amen to Luigi - just like conservative Israelis held their noses and voted Netanyahu, I also held my nose while casting my absentee ballot for McCain.

This is not the party of Reagan.

.... regarding religion and politics:

Every book of law represents the values of the society that wrote it.

It is therefore impossible for politics not to intersect with religion at some point, on some points.

In the context of the USA - most of those intersections should not be happening at the federal level.

But they will happen somewhere.

He suggests the solution to the Republican party's malaise is to turn back from being pro-business to being pro-market. I'd add that they need to stop pandering to the religious nutters, which alienates fiscal conservative/libertarians like me.

As a pro-business religious nutter, I agree. In the long run, distorting a market to favor certain businesses might help some people but it hurts the rest. Similarly, attempting to enshrine religious doctrine into law is a recipe for disaster, both legally and morally. Promoting market-friendly and least-common-denominator moral behavior is perfectly compatible with conservative Christianity.

Arguably, Christianity requires that we not deny others their moral choices. A person only gets credit for doing the right thing if they chose to do it. It doesn't honor God to refrain from doing bad things that I've never had the opportunity to do. It's perfectly fine to prohibit behavior that is immoral because it hurts someone else, like murder and fraud, but victimless crimes should be prevented by education not threats of force.

OT (sorry). For all the Californians on here, a funny/depressing look at the pettiness of our politics:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/28/MNBN1ABKB8.DTL

It has to move from a pro-business strategy that defends the interests of existing companies to a pro-market strategy that fosters open competition and freedom of entry.

This is a problem for both parties. K street dollars flow freely to whoever is in power.

I was just reading something that Reynolds linked to about the current economic state of Silicon Valley. The Intels and Intersils of the Valley are recovering, but start-ups are unable to find capital and are failing in record numbers. Similarly, real estate is recovering, but the recovery is being driven by people who are already employed in the Valley and are simply taking the opportunity to buy houses with shorter commutes.

Amy makes a good point in that big business often fails to realize that it's in their own long-term interest to cooperate with small business. When big business uses its influence to twist government arms, that's the dictionary definition of facism. And they don't even have to insist on policies that specifically favor them -- all they have to do is convince the government to throw a bunch of uncertainty into the market, and then the incubation of small business will stop. Which is exactly what's happening now. (Of course, when they do this sort of thing, they are forgetting about the possibility of offshore competition, as Detroit did from the 1960s onward.)

Whatever hit the nail on the head regarding K Steeet. Look at the number of corporations and businesspeople who contribute generously to both parties. They're hedging their bets, and it works both ways: it's both a form of influence buying on the part of the buyer, and a protection racket on the part of the seller. The two conspire to make sure there aren't any other parties to claim a share of the pot. Of course, the problem is that eventually the pot runs dry.

As far as the takeoff on the social conservatives: I'm well aware of Amy's position on supreme beings, and we'll have to agree to disagree on that, because nothing that either one of us says will change the other's mind. However, I also claim that you can view Christianity and Judaism as morality structures, independent of the supernatural aspects. As such, they have worked quite well for Western civilization, and people who simply dismiss that out of hand are flirting with anarchy and/or totalitarianism. So it does not do to simply dismiss the concerns of the social conservatives. Now, having said all that, here's my beef with social conservatism: they are way too quick to advocate authoritarian solutions to the problems that they see. Too often, social conservative debates degrade into whether we're going to have a left-wing authoritarian government, or a right-wing authoritarian government. How about neither? Isn't it possible to have a reasonably orderly society without bring the sledgehammer of government down on every little thing?

The R-Party also supports $200 billion a year in rural subsidies and a huge parasitic military complex. I poop down on the R-Party

A sweeping statement. Is it backed by statistics?

How would you develop a statistic on firms that never come to exist?

I poop down on the R-Party

From an earlier i-hole post: It was fun for while, but what [am I] accomplishing? ... Nothing.

Well, you've managed to repeatedly use the words "poop" and "catamite" on a public forum. For someone with as infantile a mentality as you've displayed thus far, that's a big accomplishment.

I am not one man with three personalisties.

I'll agree with you on that one. You're not a man. And what you've displayed so far on this blog is not as much a "personality" as a peurile obession with bodily functions and pederasty.

"A sweeping statement. Is it backed by statistics?

How would you develop a statistic on firms that never come to exist?"

The statist trope that most annoys me is "We're a rich country, surely we can afford X for Y". "Paid for by Z" is always elided, as is deconstruction of "we".

Somewhere there's a company that fails, somewhere a kid doesn't go to college, for each and every single extra dollar sucked away by this or that public policy designed (as it always is) to benefit some easily identified government clients. Marginal companies and people who might have recovered instead fail. That's the meaning of "marginal". Right on the edge. Move the edge, damage unidentifiable people. Cool, eh? No comebacks!
--
phunctor

How would you develop a statistic on firms that never come to exist?

I don't know, although I imagine there could be some way to work some up by looking at loan applications for new businesses, applications to companies that do venture capital, etc. Point is, though, that if the author's not basing it on stats, it's nothing but his pet theory. Big deal.

A conundrum...

Having seen what the Democrats want to do if given control of the government, you have to prefer the alternative.

But, the Republican screwed up last time they were in charge, growing non-defense spending & refining earmarks to a high art.

Also, the “Conservative Movement” thinks that Republicans will return to power only if they run “True Conservatives”.

A traditional element of the Republican Party has always been the “Republican Libertarians” who are small government fiscal conservatives and social moderates. Here in Illinois, that’s what many of the suburban Republicans were. Then the conservatives wrested control of the party from the Libertarian heathens, ran “true” conservatives and turned Illinois from a swing state into a blue state. This “return to our true (social) conservative roots” business is nonsense, clearly demonstrated by the fact that McCain outpolled “true conservative” republicans running for senator or governor across the board in 2008.

In order to win, republicans need to …

1)Apologize for screwing up the last time we gave them the ball and promise not to do it again.
2)Realize they need “Republican Libertarians” and stop scaring the crap out of them with candidates like Huckabee.

If the Republicans don’t do what’s needed and Social Conservatives don’t realize that they are more likely to get what they want from a McCain than an Obama, then I guess I’ll have to vote Libertarian in the hope that, somewhere down the line, things might improve. Although it’s bound to get worse before that happens.

> tired of the GOP's "harping on
> gay marriage

It's the proponents who are harping. GOP's aren't agitating for change.

Obama signed a $680 billion defense bill today.
No nation on the planet even has the ability to invade the USA. No other nation has a blue-water fleet.
Afghanistan is a landlocked nation of 30 million people, posing no threat to us. (BTW, the globe has about 7 billion people. There is no region more remote from USA than Afghanistan. We are spending so much money there?)
Iraq did not even have an Air Force or Navy, so it posed no threat to us.
Terrorists can hide in any nation. Indeed the 9/11 terrorist punks were Saudi Arabians living in the United States. Remember?
The eleven aircraft carrier strike forces of the US Navy could do nothing against terrorists who enter the USA, either legally or otherwise. Terrorism (sadly) is cheaply done, and requires no state support. Punks with box-cutters, and you have terrorist. And a $1 trillion response from the USA, which has accomplished nothing.
We are wasting huge gobs of taxpayer money, on the feverish visions of Bush and now Obama. A military industrial complex has enbedded itself permanently into the federal budget, alongside the Department of Agriculture, as permanent apparitions of extremely dubious worth. One from the Dust Bowl, and the other from WWII-Cold War. Both events long past.
Traditionally, Americans detested standing armies, as did Thomas Jefferson. Our forefathers, who actually fought int he Revolution against an invading and occupying army, were right to detest permanent armies.
And must we be permanently mobilized? Odd, we mobilized and crushed Japan and Germany in less time than we have spent in Afghantisn, about half, I would say.
Permanent mobilization leads to an expensive, slothful, top-heavy, techno-crap military.
Libertarians, where are you? Or, are you just a bunch of Republicans who want to smoke pot and never serve in uniform? The BOTU poops down on you, and your catamite mascot, Conan the Grammarian.

Did you just learn the word 'catamite' yesterday? Make sure you use it in fifty more sentences before tomorrow, so you don't forget your shiny new word. Then get over your obsession with poop. That's what I called shit when I was five years old, you little bitch.

But, the Republican party isn't the party of small government, they just say so. They turn legislators like Jeff Flake, the former head of the Barry Goldwater Institute, who goes after the earmarks and earmarkers, into outcasts.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at October 28, 2009 7:06 AM
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I didn't say they were the party of small government. I said they cost me less money.

I'm voting for the lesser of two evils.

It's like someone saying do you want to be hit over the head with a stick or a hammer.

Serious question: Are the butthole guy and the I-holi guy the same person?

Also, are any of those people the same guy as 'Whatever' or 'whatever', who are (apparently) two different people?

Also, what does it mean about blogs when all of the sudden commenters start describing themselves as 'whatever', as if they've been beaten down by life to the point where they'll accept anything that the world wants to throw at them? And what does it mean when people call themselves 'Butthole' or 'Holier-than-thou' with insincere (or insufficient) irony?

Also, what does it mean about Amy's blog when –all of the sudden– a bunch of these guys (well, somewhere between one and four of them) all show up at once and start offering the same seemingly drunken, half-considered opinions?

A shit-parade?

"Serious question: Are the butthole guy and the I-holi guy the same person? "

Yeah, I think so. I-hole disappeared about the time B-hole started posting.

"Also, are any of those people the same guy as 'Whatever' or 'whatever', who are (apparently) two different people?"

I don't think so. I may disagree with Whatever, but he seems to be sincere in most of his comments. Whereas I/B-hole is clearly trolling.

BillB writes: This “return to our true (social) conservative roots” business is nonsense, clearly demonstrated by the fact that McCain outpolled “true conservative” republicans running for senator or governor across the board in 2008."

Yeah, and how well did that work out in the general election? McCain lost to a lightweight feel-good candidate with no credentials and no coherent policy statements on any issue. He was the GOP's John Kerry. Mock all you want, but the fact is that no Republican nominee can win without the conservative base. And might I suggest that you might be surprised at who some of those people are and who they believe.

(BTW, I've seen some data that suggests that McCain won the nomination due to Democrat crossover votes. Leftist sites like Kos and Atrios were openly organizing Democrats to cross over and vote for the weakest Republican candidate, and it's pretty clear who they thought that was. Those same crossover votes might have cost Hillary the nomination on her side.)

Oh, I am completely sincere when I say right-winger-libertarians are completely barking up the wrong trees, when they are looking for federal subsidies and waste.
Try the Pentagon and the Department of Agriculture.
Did my friend write catamite? He meant to write "catamount mascot."
Sorry Conan. Buttover and out!

"echoing something I've long thought -- that the Republicans aren't the party of small government"

You damn right!

And must we be permanently mobilized? Odd, we mobilized and crushed Japan and Germany....

So, you'll be the first to head into battle with obsolete equipment while the military-industrial complex you demonize builds up-to-date equipment?

At the beginning of World War II, thousands of US servicemen died due to having to use obsolete and outdated equipment (some dating from World War I). Thousands died in the Philipines, Wake Island, Guam, Kasserine Pass, Pearl Harbor, the North Atlantic, Guadalcanal, Coral Sea, and Midway due to inadequate equipment, training, experience, and leadership.

At Pearl Harbor, soldiers and sailors were trying to fight back against the Japanese attack using ammunition and weapons left over from World War I. Machine gun ammunition belts fell apart, guns mis-fired, and shells failed to explode.

It took more than a year for the US to develop a reliable marine torpedo.

At Midway, 38 of 42 TBDs were shot down with the loss of all crewmen (3) aboard. The aircraft was removed from service immediately after Midway. Marine F2A pilots taking off from Midway were told to write their wills beforehand because they would not be coming back. 20 out of 20 F2As were lost in the first day of the battle.

The US Army went up against the German heavy tanks armed with the Sherman [medium] tank. It was the end of 1944 before the US developed a heavy tank capable of fighting head-to-head against the Werhacht's heavy battle tanks. Too many guys needlessly burned to death when their Shermans were hit by the vastly superior German tanks. The Sherman tended to burn when hit and was nicknamed "Ronson" by the soldiers.

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And, as for the founding fathers, i-hole, I notice that after I corrected your statement on Madison, you left him off your list of founding fathers opposed to a standing military.

Well, Madison wasn't the only one who got a rude awakening about the value of a standing military. Jefferson learned his lesson in 1801 when he found he had no military forces to send against the Barbary pirates. It was Jefferson who established the permanent US Navy and established the US Military Academy at West Point.

So, even Jefferson had to change his viewpoint when confronted with the reality of trying to keep his country safe in a hostile world.

describing themselves as 'whatever', as if they've been beaten down by life to the point where they'll accept anything that the world wants to throw at them?

Analysis is a bit too deep here. I just thought, since everyone posting is more or less anonymous here, what does it matter the nom de blog?

the same seemingly drunken, half-considered opinions?

I'm frequently sober when I post!

I think I found this place via a link at Pajamas Media a while ago. Saw some interesting posts, made some comments. No conspiracy.

I may disagree with Whatever, but he seems to be sincere in most of his comments

That's about right. I'm not here to troll. Debate, discuss, argue, but not just stir the pot for the lulz.

Large banks, for instance, benefit from trading derivatives (such as credit default swaps) over the counter, rather than in an organized exchange: they can charge wider spreads that way, and they can afford to post less collateral by using their credit ratings. For this reason, they oppose moving such trades to organized exchanges, where transactions would be conducted with greater transparency, liquidity, and collateralization--and so with greater financial stability. This is where a pro-market party needs the courage to take on the financial industry on behalf of everyone else.

I missed this on my earlier read. This is a fantastic idea. Hard to sell people on because it doesn't lend itself to sloganeering, but a great idea, nonetheless.

I'd also suggest reimposing an updated form of Glass-Steagall. I'd like to see retail banking operations intelligently separated from investment banking. It would greatly help to minimize the "too big to fail" issue associated with behemoths like Citi and BofA.

i personally picked a blah name because i was in a blah mood at the time. i may have since regretted it, but it seems rather stupid to change it now.

you will notice that Whatever uses proper grammar and capital letters. i don't. unless i'm yelling at crid.

i like botu. i don't necessarily agree with him, but i do find him amusing. i'm not him, though, by the way, and i'm not this other i-hole either, or whatever his name is.

and i did not know those things about military history, conan. thanks.

no i didn't have an actual point. but i wish i had been drunk when i was posting.

Cousin Dave,

"Yeah, and how well did that work out in the general election? "

He lost. Huckabee would have lost by more.

"no Republican nominee can win without the conservative base"

Clearly. Though, you can see if winning over the base alienates the libertarians and independents, you'll lose that way too. That's why the base needs to get a grip and realize that they need to compromise if they ever want to get many of thier policies enacted into law. And they don't need to compromise with liberals, they need to compromise with libertatians who share many of their beliefs and, even if they don't share the same social positions, they aren't going to be actively working against them.

I'd also suggest reimposing an updated form of Glass-Steagall. I'd like to see retail banking operations intelligently separated from investment banking. It would greatly help to minimize the "too big to fail" issue associated with behemoths like Citi and BofA.

I have had similar thoughts, for the same reasons. I'm not crazy about arbitrary regulation, but requiring what are now different divisions of the same company to be separated a little more doesn't hurt the market much and can help during disastrous situations such as this.

Conan-I don't know if you are reading anymore, but there was discussion --serious discussion by founders such as George Mason (ironically, Mason University)--about putting into the Constitution a provision starkly forbidding standing armies. Jefferson also wished the ban be explicit--and made exception for a very small officer corps. So would I.

The compromise was the much-cited 2nd amendment, which gives to the citizenry the right to form well-regulated militias, and carry single-shot rifles (if you are a true originalist).

The danger of permanently mobilized military is becoming abundantly clear. It is bankrupting the country, and allows demogogues to get us into foreign entanglement (very expensively from which we cannot extract ourselves).

Our permanently mobilized military, frightfully expensive, bloated, not tailored for reality (Cold War format still), still has not prevailed in Afghanie, and no one seems sure they ever can.
Jefferson and Monroe held their nose and tolerated a standing army of officers due to the threat of invasion of the United States, not to invade foreign countries on the opposite end of the globe.

Now that the threat of anyone ever invading the United States has been removed, the need to the 2nd Amendment to be appreciated in its original sentiment is much heightened.

A citizen army, composed of draftees by state, makes more sense, and I can guarantee you if we had to draft soldiers w/o favor, we never would have gone into Iraq.

Oddly enough, modern warfare (what is left of it) is low-tech. Guys with rifles on patrol. The drones maybe make sense, and they are hi-tech, but can be made cheaply (not the US contractors make anything cheaply. We should buy from Israel).

Wow, a coherent and logically-argued comment from i-hole. Whodathunk?

Your argument is not without merit. However, in its utopian idealism, it ignores certain realities.

--------------------

A standing military, as incompatible as that is with pure democratic principals, is a necessity for the protection of the citizens of that democracy.

As Jefferson discovered in the 1801 conflict with the Barbary Pirates, sometimes protecting American citizens requires the ability to project power into foreign lands.

And, as Madison discovered in the War of 1812 (1812-1815), a trained and prepared military is generally superior in discipline and fighting ability to a hastily recruited and assembled militia.

And, as we discovered in the Civil War (1861-1865), military auxilliary units (state militias) are often political instruments. A large portion of the Union's incompetence and high death toll in the early years of the war was due to politicians with no military training or experience appointing themselves commanders of the state militia units.

And, as we also discovered in the Civil War, there will always be an opt out in any draft for the rich guy who doesn't want to serve (and potentially a riot by those who cannot afford the opt out).

Today it takes 2+ years to train an infantry soldier in small unit tactics, weapons use and maintenance, etc. That's why the standard enlistment is 4 years. Try getting a draft passed with a 4 year hitch and no opt out.

--------------------

Using a milita of drafted citizens who bring their own weapons made some sense in Mason and Jefferson's day. The difference then between a hunting weapon and a military weapon was a matter of degrees.

Manpower equaled firepower then. Everyone had the same weapons. So, having more guys on the field of battle meant having more firepower.

As weapons advanced, the disparity in firepower on the battlefield became more pronounced. Late in the Civil War, Union forces equipped with Henry repeating rifles ("that damned Yankee rifle you load on Sunday and fire all week") easily overpowered Confederate forces still equipped with single-shot weapons.

Today, firepower is not measured by the number of armed men on the field, but by what can be brought to bear. And that often means equipment and weaponry that is not comparable to anything you have at home - unless you've got a Mach 5 jet in your backyard or an Abrams tank in your garage. Most military equipment today requires specialized skills to be operated effectively.

That requires advanced training.

--------------------

And having a draft is not going to limit politicians involving the US in foreign wars. Having a draft is no guarantee that folks won't be willing to march off and fight - and that those staying behind won't be cheering and waving flags.

At the beginning of any conflict draftees and/or volunteers have marched off, eager to fight. Singing songs, they set out to fight in the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the Philipine Insurrection, World War I, the Red-White Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and countless other conflicts around the world.

The resolution authorizing force in Iraq passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. Public opinion was strongly in favor of it. People were chomping at the bit to get in there and give it to Saddam. Military recruitment soared.

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The arguments made by Jefferson, Madison, and Mason were not invalid arguments. The warning issued by Eisenhower was a wise one.

Unfortunately, a democracy (even a hybrid one like ours) needs a standing military. Orwell put it best, "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to deal violence to those who would do us harm."

i'm all for a standing army. but couldn't there be some kind of a compromise, so we don't end up where we are now in iraq/afghanistan indefinitely? i don't have any ideas. i just think that if someone did, it would be a good thing. i think, for example, going to iraq was all fine and good, but it should have been planned better. i know what they say about the best laid plans and all, but it's better to have a plan to deviate from than to just go without one at all.
anyway despite all the best intentions and beliefs of jefferson etc., regardless of whether or not their beliefs changed over time (and who's doesn't?), it is no longer the 17-1800's. we should consider the original intent when drafting our laws and such, but we cannot allow ourselves to be limited to what was done at that time. belief always comes with context. when the context changes, you can't continue to hold the same belief.

I think someone on this thread is suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder...

No, he's just a douchebag with too much time on his hands.

Must be one of the new funemployed that the NYT is on about.

why is it that none of you can handle disagreeing with people without being nasty about it?