February 12, 2005
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Topic: New York
I’m in NY…enjoying the change in scenery. Trying not to hemmorage money, found myself a Barnes & Nobles, saw a really good show last night, Donovan Frankenreiter, who is Jack Johnson’s roommate from Hawaii played at the Bowery Ballroom, had shabbat dinner w/ my religious cousin and some other family tonight, had good NY pizza last night and NY bagels for lunch, still thinking about the libertarian vs. welfare state debate, getting in touch w/ people i haven’t spoken to in ages, feeling a lot more confident as a person now that I have some direction both job wise and intellectually (especially enjoying the personal attacks about my actions in college, and now having a good understanding of both where I’ve gone since then, and a good understanding of those who make generalized attacks on my life without really knowing a thing about me), windy as hell outside, gonna try to post throughout the week, thank you to all who have made it to my site, and enjoying the varying points of view!
Lekker my bru. (South African for, very good times, my friend).
And…to my debaters…I want to add another question. How have your personal life experiences, encounters, readings, etc. developed you into a liberal/libertarian? Are there any issues where you can see the benefits of the other system? Do you believe your ideology is 100% right, or can you see cases where in reality it does not work so well?
ex) I came across a book, “Give me a break,” byJohn Stossel, who did investigative reporting for 20/20 I believe it was. Became a big name for uncovering corporate wrongdoings. I was actually re-assured by his testament that his time in Princeton was uneventful, he said he didn’t get a whole lot from his classes, and graduated not even thinking he’d go into journalism.
Anyways…he also wasn’t political after college, and you wouldn’t expect this book to be political, but i guess eveyone wants to discuss this stuff. Looks like Stossel has joined the libertarian team, and his book discusses his political evolution. His personal story helped open me up to his political views. Turns out, he was largely responsible for the growth of consumer reports, and even some gov’t agencies that served as corporate watchdogs.
However…he began covering those gov’t agencies, and found them to be not only inefficient, but actually counter-productive. He spoke of the unintended consequences of gov’t regulation as a substitute for the free-market. I grew troubled by his ideology line, giving nasty labels to liberals, praising the free-market for its wonders. It’s interesting (and i’m following right in line) how we observe a few things in the world, and generalize that a certain system is 100% the right system. Stossel made some great observations about how regulations are often less about safety, and more about reducing competition (which i see more as an argument to cut-out corporate influence in regulatory agencies, than proof that the free-market beats gov’t intervention everytime). He observed how it now takes medicine 10+ years to develop, which means that people are dying because regulation makes companies develop “perfectly safe,” products that meet all the regulations.
My roommate keeps reminding me that things tend to be in the middle. Stossel will highlight every example of gov’t inefficiency to oppose regulations, while the left will highlight every example of the harm done by un-regulated corporations. We need to work extra hard to overcome our ideology to see where the other side has made some points, and that’s probably where we’ll discover that there is a common ground that we can both live with.
Proof of ideology run wild is in one of the example Stossel likes to use for the need for personal freedom. He discusses seatbelts as an intrusion in personal freedom. “The gov’t can’t force me to wear a seatbelt.” Now…i don’t think there’s much dispute that seat belts save lives (ok you libertarians…i know you have statistics to show otherwise) so why use that as a primary example of the gov’t taking your freedom away. Do i think it’s stilly that you can get a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt…yeah (although if this acts to encourage people to wear seatbelts, and if your decision to not wear a seatbelt results in you dying, which is a massive social and economical loss, then i can see the point).
And…to show how i think liberals have played the ideology card a bit too much, i think some of the criticisms of the Patriot Act are a bit silly. Michael Moore showed how an FBI agent infiltrated a peace group that baked cookies. I say, “big friggin’ deal.” Does this make the gov’t look stupid, sure, but is the shock of learning that an FBI guy was in your meetings the worst thing in the world? Or the library thing…I personally don’t care if the FBI tracks what I read. If the FBI decides to pull someone in because they’re reading certain books, well, i think the inconvenience sucks, but as long as it’s not front page news, and as long as i was quickly released when they realized that despite whatever books i took out i wasn’t a terrorist, then i really don’t think my privacy is being violated.
So…do i think people should have the freedom to do all kinds of drugs and to commit suicide if they want. Sure. but…i also feel people (and the gov’t acting in the interest of the people) should have the freedom to discourage you from killing yourself. So…for those who thought banning smoking in bars was infringing on freedom, it’s not as if cigarette smoking has been banned. Those elected into office by the people simply decided to ues their freedom to create a healthy smoke-free environment…
and…just to think about foreign policy for a second. As I arrived by Greyhound in NewYork, 9/11 quickly entered my mind. “The terrorists struck the WORLD TRADE center, and the PENTAGON.” I’ve taken a rest from foreign policy for a bit, but it’s clear that 9/11 was not an innocent old lady getting mugged at an ATM. I’m not saying the individuals who died in 9/11 were not innocent, (as a controversial college professor has recently been fired for arguing that they were not) but the targets themselves, world trade, and the US military, were not innocent targets. The fact that 9/11 was limited to those narrow targets is something most in DC have not discussed. I think Bush & Co. have benefited largely from a public that generally suppports the idea that the US has done no wrong in the past, and is incapable of doing wrong, period.
Comments (5)
Enjoy the city… check out The Gates!
It’s a good question Dan. I guess I think, at first, that saying I’m a “European-style Social Democrat” already puts me in the middle of “Western Economic Thought,” because obviously I think “the marketplace” has advantages in broad sectors of the economy, within reason. I’ll come back later with more but I surely do think that the American system successfully stimulates a certain percentage of the population to do well: There is a segment of people most successfully driven to succeed by either greed or fear. That also allows economic functioning with a less educated population and a less reliable government system: to do Euro-socialism well clearly requires a more competent government (selected by a wiser population) than one in which the government plays a much smaller role. There is also no doubt that some things can happen faster and cheaper if there are less rules: If you don’t have to prove a drug’s effectiveness or safety it can get to the market faster. If cars were accepted (as they were pre-”Great Society”) with no air-bags, no seat-belts, steel dashboards, straight (non-collapsing) steering columns, dual-braking systems, exposed gas tanks, etc – they might surely be cheaper. If there were no minimum-wage laws or child-labor laws Alabama would be more successfully competing with Bangladesh for jobs. I’m not being funny with those examples either: those things all have benefits, because who wouldn’t rather pay $12 for a soccer ball than $30? or pay $8,000 for a cheap car than $14,000? or get a medicine that’ll make them feel better sooner?
And it’s not like I can’t understand where someone like craig is coming from (I have much more trouble with thatliberalmedia). He sees evidence of success around him. He may even be evidence that hard work in what he imagines is an individually developed environment has succeeded for him. But the question is this: If he had been killed at 8 because the car he’d been in was manifestly unsafe (as it would have been without government regulation), would he be a success? If thatliberalmedia’s family had traveled to America on a “pre-government regulation” transportation system (remember JP Morgan buying the White Star Line so he could evade US safety regulations when he built his super-liners, including The Titanic), and he had drowned, would he be a success? If either had been killed by bad drugs, or by a polio epidemic, or because there is no police force available or in a fire when no public water system or fire department were available, would they be a success? So, to me, they’re survival and success is closely tied to the success and structures of the society they live in, and thus the question becomes: where’s the balance?
Surely I can also understand how you can see all sorts of problems in government run agencies. Just as I can wonder how efficient it is for H-P to give someone they’ve just fired $42 million as a going away gift. I know that Medicare is more efficient than Blue Cross, that’s provable. I know that Daimler can develop a new vehicle faster than the Pentagon. I know that public power agencies produce electricity more efficiently than private ones and that Germans and Canadians are healthier than Americans. I also know that the British government sucked at making light-bulbs and refrigerators.
And just a note on 9/11 (and the previous WTC attack): One of the ways we split our actions from our our opponents actions is to shift words. As much as the 9/11 attack is personal to me, I would simply say it was an act of war, and the kind of act of war I deplore no matter who does it. I can’t comprehend the morality behind Coventry, or Dresden, or 9/11, acts of war where the goal is a maximum civilian body count. But to simply label it “terrorism” is to claim that Dresden was “more moral” simply because we owned the planes. And to imagine it as “completely unprovoked” is to ignore the impact of the policies of our nation. I don’t like Pearl Harbor either, but it was not like FDR didn’t fully understand that US policies of the time were provoking a very dangerous “organization.” This is why I’m obviously a “war as a very last resort” kind of person, because it is unbelievably cruel. We melted Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, for example, not for traditional military purposes, but to make a point to the Japanese government. al Qaeda destroyed the Trade Center to make a point as well. I can look back and see a nuanced difference, see Harry Truman struggling to get a war over and bin Laden starting one and easily think of one as “making a very hard decision” and the other as “the essence of evil.” But then I have to wonder if I’d see those differences the same way if I was growing up as an orphan in 1946 Hiroshima or in 2000 Palestine.
This stossel seems like a pretty smart guy!
“i don’t think there’s much dispute that seat belts save lives “
Yeah, but there is not much dispute that eating heathily can save my life, but should I be forced too?
like seatbelts, you can eat what you want, and you can not wear a seatbelt. but if obesity is becoming a leading killer, and also an economic healthcare drain, than, i think we should do things to encourage healthy eating. we’re not banning donuts or mcdonald’s, i just think we as a society should make it clear that certain foods aren’t good for us if we keep eating them the way we are.
I disagree, if someone wants to be a fatass, that’s their right. We should be allowed to discriminate against their healthcare costs.