Articles: Anglosphere Archives

The Joke's On Us in the 110th Congress

Filed under: Anglosphere

2007 was the first year since 1994 that the Democrats, led by speaker Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives, controlled both houses of Congress. Yet, after a record-breaking number of votes on legislation (1,186) less than 13% of initiatives ended up becoming law (146) -- a pathetic record of failure for the Democrats.

On her website, Speaker Pelosi claims a number of accomplishments. Let's review them, shall we?

1. First minimum wage increase in 10 years

It was raised from $5.15 to $5.85 per hour. The starting wage at Mickey D's is $7.00. Less than half of one percent of the American workforce is affected by the $0.70/hour raise.

2. 9/11 Commission recommendations to screen all air cargo and overseas port cargo, improving communications between first responders

A recommendation is not law, is it?

3. Congressional ethics reform

Just name me one unethical thing Congress has been prevented from doing. I dare you. I double DOG dare you.

4. Overdue disaster aid to farmers and ranchers

George Will states: "Rebuffing George W. Bush, who advocates halting farm subsidies to those with adjusted gross incomes of more than $200,000, the Senate also rejected -- more bipartisanship -- a cap at $750,000. This, in spite of the fact that farm income has soared to record levels, partly because Congress shares the president's loopy enthusiasm for ethanol and wants more corn and other agricultural matter turned into fuel."

5. Emergency assistance to protect children's health coverage

Pelosi chooses not to mention that the only way this measure will be paid for is if smoking increases, because cigarette taxes are the basis Congress has provided for its funding.

6. Pay-as-you-go budget discipline restored to end six years of deficit spending with a balanced budget by 2012

It's wonderful that Nancy is proud of this. It's a Republican law. It's Clintonian in its Republicanness. It's also a boldfaced lie that it was done. Will states: "In January, with much preening, House Democrats embraced 'pay-go,' the pay-as-you-go rule that any tax cut must be 'paid for' by compensatory tax increases or spending cuts. In December, Democrats abandoned it because of the alternative minimum tax."

7. A comprehensive Innovation and Competitiveness agenda to double basic research & development and reinvest in math and science education

An agenda is not a law, is it?

8. Emergency funding to support and equip troops, including tripling Mine-Resistant Ambush, protected (MRAP) vehicles in Iraq

Will: "Representatives passed a bill containing money for the war in Afghanistan but not for the one in Iraq. The Senate added money for Iraq. House Democrats then voted 141 to 78 against final passage, but House Republicans and moderate Democrats passed it and liberals headed home to brag about having voted against funding the war."

9. Tighter rules against foreign investment that weaken national security, after the Dubai Ports scandal

It took Pelosi's Congress well over a year after the Dubai scandal to get this bill to the White House. If she's proud of that, she's a mental case.

10. Reduction of backlog on passports after 9/11 requirement through hiring boost

Congress caused this problem in the first place by passing a law requiring passports for travel to places they hadn't been needed before like Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean without making provisions for new demand. Notice how Nancy doesn't tell you that? And notice how she doesn't say how much "reduction" in backlog occurred?

11. Benchmarks and progress report required on Iraq

Osama bin Laden might just as well have been the sponsor of this measure.

12. Overdue hurricane aid to rebuild Gulf Coast housing, hospitals, schools, and levees

It's quite strange that Pelosi and the Democrats would want to take credit for this, since back in September when it passed they decried it as woefully inadequate.

13. Emergency funding to fight wildfires

How about avoiding wildfires in the first place? How about helping the people who've been burned out? Nothing for that, Nancy?

14. U.S. Attorney appointments protected from political influence

Blocking Bush's nominees isn't the same as passing a law, is it? Notice how she doesn't care to say how many were actually blocked?

15. Vigorous Congressional oversight restored after six years, saving billions of taxpayer dollars, exposing corruption and incompetence

Umm, not exactly. Will writes: "Hellbent on driving its approval rating into single digits, Congress adjourned after passing an omnibus spending bill larded with at least 8,993 earmarks costing at least $7.4 billion -- the precise number and amount will be unclear until implications of some obscure provisions are deciphered. The gusher of earmarks was a triumph of bipartisanship, which often is a synonym for kleptocracy."

16. Green the Capitol plan launched to cut carbon footprint 50%

A plan is not a law, is it?

17. National Summit on America's Children to align policies with latest science

A summit is not a law, is it?

Surprisingly, there are a few accomplishments that Nancy chooses to omit from her list: She chooses not to take "credit" for laws allowing unions to organize by "card check" rather than actual elections and to leave in place a gigantic restrictive tariff on cheap Brazilian ethanol, thus dissuading people from using green vehicles. She also doesn't care to mention that she is ordering us to stop using incandescent light bulbs and to drive only cars that get at least 35 mpg by 2020.

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Kim Zigfeld · December 23, 2007 8:42 AM · Comments (5) · TrackBacks (0)

Reading Bill Clinton's "Mind"

Filed under: Anglosphere

The hard fact is that so long as Saddam Hussein remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world. The best way to end that threat once and for all is with the new Iraqi government, a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people. Heavy as they are, the costs of inaction must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors; he will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them.

I betcha think that's old George "Dubya" Bush talkin', dontcha partner? Well twernt. That was nobody else but me, your old pal William J. Clinton. Maybe you don't remember, but back in early 1998, I signed a little something called the Iraq Liberation Act, which stated: "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." On February 17th, I warned: "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." Then on December 16th I announced: "Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors" And that was before 9/11!

Now I know what you're thinking. You've got two questions: (1) How can I or anybody else attack George Bush for going after Iraq (especially without a "broad coalition" when certainly I didn't have one for my air strikes, it was just me and the /Brits) when the policy was put in place by my administration, and (2) Why didn't I finish the job in 1998. Well, that's what I'm here to explain, partner. But you just keep this between the two of us, okay?

Do you like to watch movies? I sure do. Ever seen that Color of Money by Marty Scorsese? I loved that one. Especially the part where they explained about how you can make more money by missing pool shots and losing games than you can by making and winning 'em. I especially liked the part where Tom Cruise explained how cool it was to be so damn good that you could miss a shot by just the tiniest little hair, so nobody'd possibly be able to tell you missed it on purpose. The Producers by Mel Brooks was another good one. Remember how they showed you could make more money with a show that closed after the first performance than one that ran for a decade? Boy, I could watch that a hundred times.

So you see, it's like this. I'm a pretty smart feller, as you may've heard tell (did you hear about how I managed to squash an attack article about my wife Hillary in GQ magazine?), and I knew that although the U.S. was going to have to invade Iraq and take out Hussein, it was going to be really messy. I knew that whichever party undertook such a policy was sure to get mixed up in a quagmire like Vietnam, and pay a heavy electoral price for it. And I decided it wouldn't be me and mine. So I did the least that I could do, and made it look like a lot, and bided my time.

And the thing of it was, it all worked out so perfectly. Because, you see, despite all my well-known fidelity problems, I love my wife Hillary to no end (I just don't love to have sex with the bitch), and I wanted her to become president some day, which was her dream. And I knew that whichever president succeeded me was going to have to face the Iraq problem, and his party would take the blame. I knew something was going to happen that would force his hand, because that Hussein was just such a goldarn fire-breathing madman. I sure didn't want Hillary in that position, and besides she'd never have got elected without first making some kind of political progress on her own. If Al Gore got elected after me, then he'd be in the hot seat, the Democrats would get the blame, and Hillary wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding Gore or ever becoming president.

But if the Republicans took over, then they'd get the blame, and Hillary could come right after. See? Meanwhile, assuming the Republicans could ride the sympathy vote from whatever evil deed Saddam might cook up, to a two-term presidency that goes bad in the second term, just like Nixon, just like, well, hell, me even, why then Hillary'd have just enough time to win a seat in the Senate and get reelected, and that would be all the resume she'd need for the Oval Office. Meantime, the backlash against the Republicans might even shift the Congress back to the Democrats after I lost it for them, and when Hillary got in she'd preside over a united government.

So you see, I pulled a little Color of Money. I didn't do quite enough, but not so's anybody could tell, to get Gore in. Try if you can to remember something dramatic I did to help his cause. Hard, isn't it? He lost by the skin of his teeth, and I got lucky with all that stuff down in Florida distracting everybody's attention. Never anticipated it, but it was the perfect scapegoat; nobody blamed me, they blamed them Republicans! Nobody had the slightest clue. That's why they call me Slick Willy. And given what happened to Bush, you could say I did Gore a big favor. Well, you could.

Now, I know what you're thinking: How could I know that the American people would forget all about what I'd done in 1998 and blame the Republicans instead of me and mine? Well, let me turn around and ask you this: How could the American people elect an unqualified hillbilly redneck like me president in the first place, even after knowing how I'd cheated on my wife and lied about it and smoked marijuana and dodged the draft and so forth? How could they elect my wife, with no qualifications and who came from Arkansas of all places, a Senator in New York City? And hey, How much of what YOU did back in 1998 do you remember, much less what somebody else did? Just simple human nature, and I'm a pretty good judge of it. Except that darned ol' Monica Lewinsky, of course. I thought the fat old pig would be so grateful she'd never say a word no matter what, but I guess I underestimated the power of my own charms. That'll happen.

The beauty part of it is, the whole scheme is so wild nobody would believe it, which I've learned makes it the perfect thing to try.

NOTE: This essay was not actually written by Bill Clinton, but by the author named below in an effort to read his "mind." Mr. Clinton was not consulted.

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Kim Zigfeld · September 28, 2007 1:58 PM · Comments (5) · TrackBacks (0)

Take Our Poll: Whither Democracy?

Filed under: Anglosphere

For the first time in human history, the illusion of global democracy is present -- due to the power of the Internet. How you react to this illusion tells you a lot about who you are.

Here's a test question: Which world would you prefer to live in?

WORLD A: There are 10 widgets. 9 are great, 1 is appalling.

WORLD B: There are 1,000 widgets, 500 are great, 500 are appalling.

In World A, you have a 100 times smaller chance of being able to get your hands on a widget than in World B (assume a widget is something you want, that a great one will improve the quality of your life significantly). But in World B, you have five times more chance of receiving a bad widget than in World A. Please cast your vote now:

Now, let's reflect on the consequences of your vote. Maybe you don't realize it (or maybe you realize it only too well): You've just decided between democracy and dictatorship.

A recent story in the New York Times reveals how ordinary people are now able to do something that previously only a tiny elite cadre of experts could accomplish -- map-making. The Times quotes one map expert staying: "Some people are potentially going to do really stupid things with these tools."

This is, of course, the illusion and not the reality of global democracy. The vast majority of the world's citizens have no access to the Internet, much less do they have the inclination to make maps. However, it's a powerful illusion, because in fact far more people are making maps now than used to. And that means that far more maps are going to be available, and far more people can get a map, and far more people can get a bad one. Even though it's an illusion, it presents the fundamental conundrum of democracy very neatly.

"Some people are potentially going to do really stupid things with these tools" is an understatement. Thousands, perhaps millions, will do so. All sorts of totally bogus information will flood us, information we would never have had to avoid if the centralized control over map-making had persisted. Bogus choices and their consequences are the price we pay for democracy. But at the same time, of course, lots more perfectly valid information will be made available, and people who never had maps before will get them.

There's more, of course, to making the choice between democracy and dictatorship than just that. An economist from George Mason University named Brian Caplan recently published a book called The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Politics (Princeton; $29.95). It was reviewed in the New Yorker magazine by English professor Louis Menand. Caplan's weird thesis (he also publishes weird graphic novels, refers to himself as "a well known anarchist and libertarian," hosts the "Museum of Communism," is a proud athiest and fully looks the part of a weirdo) is that people can't be trusted to govern themselves, they're too stupid (in fact, irrational) so they shouldn't be allowed to. It's not exactly a new idea, of course, we've heard it from folks like Hitler, Stalin and Mao for ages now, but Caplan tries to bring the analytical techniques of economics to bear in order to prove they were right. It's an odd thing for him to be doing since he's a sharp critic of the profession in general. Odd, too, that he doesn't seem to realize he is a person (well, sort of) and stupid like the rest of us, making his advice, by his own admission, inherently bogus.

As Menand writes:

Negotiating the tension between "rational" policy choices and "irrational" preferences and anxieties -- between the desirability of more productivity and the desire to preserve a way of life -- is what democratic politics is all about. It is a messy negotiation. Having the franchise be universal makes it even messier. If all policy decisions were straightforward economic calculations, it might be simpler and better for everyone if only people who had a grasp of economics participated in the political process. But many policy decisions don't have an optimal answer. They involve values that are deeply contested: when life begins, whether liberty is more important than equality, how racial integration is best achieved (and what would count as genuine integration). In the end, the group that loses these contests must abide by the outcome, must regard the wishes of the majority as legitimate. The only way it can be expected to do so is if it has been made to feel that it had a voice in the process, even if that voice is, in practical terms, symbolic. A great virtue of democratic polities is stability. The toleration of silly opinions is (to speak like an economist) a small price to pay for it.

To put it another way Caplan, being an "economist" and "philosopher" doesn't know a thing about history. He seems to be surprised and disappointed that America's political system is dysfunctional, when in fact that's exactly what it was intended to be by our founding fathers. The whole point of the U.S. Constitution is to create a government that doesn't work, and hence can't oppress people. Our founding fathers had no difficulty answering our poll question, because unlike Caplan they actually lived under tyranny. Caplan, obviously a ridiculously immature child, has never spent one single day living the horror of life under a tyrant like Josef Stalin. Therefore, he overestimates the cost of democracy, the only cost he's ever had to pay.

What's more, who says dictatorship is functional? Russia's political system today is about as undemocratic as you can get, yet it's not a success. No free media, no opposition parties, no debates, rubber-stamp political activity from top to bottom. Yet time after time, international ratings give Russia's government failing marks. Yet, up to 1 million are lost from the population every year. Yet, the average wage is $3/hour. And Russia is a democratic paradise compared to the old USSR, which imploded after less than a century. Apparently, the goofy Caplan thinks it would have been even worse if Russians had been allowed to vote.

And in the end, even if the costs of democracy were greater than for dictatorship, Caplan seems utterly unfamiliar with the concept of morality. By what right does one person decide he can take control of another person's life, to "save" him from himself? By Caplan's "logic," the majority-religious population of the U.S. should be able to grab him by his godless collar and torture him until he sees the light of religion, in order to save him from an eternity of damnation.

Now there's an idea.

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Kim Zigfeld · July 27, 2007 4:51 AM · Comments (7) · TrackBacks (0)