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Tuesday, December 10, 2002
I am reassured in my support of Joe Lieberman after reading the article about him in this week’s New Yorker. Lieberman is a hawk on foreign policy, a union supporter, a market enthusiast, and an ethical and principled man. The New Yorker has done some great articles on the possible Democratic candidates for the 2004 election and this one on Connecticut’s Senator made me into a more ardent supporter. He is the only candidate that can bring centrists and moderates back to the Democratic Party and force the Naderites out. I’m afraid the so-called “base” of the party is going to nominate someone like Kerry or Edwards and I will be pushed in to a “Reagan Democrat” position and vote for the GOP.
11:42 AM
Tuesday, December 03, 2002
I really liked Novak’s farewell column to the retiring Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX.) Gramm is a great advocate of classical capitalism and will be missed in the next session of Congress.
Novak and Gramm say that he was a terrible candidate in ’96, but withhold their opinions about what kind of president he would have made. I think he would have been terrible. A free-market specialist, who wants to limit government intervention into almost all aspects of life, which is what Gramm would have been, doesn’t inspire people. Graphs on growth won’t rally people to a leader in times of crisis.
However, he was a great Senator and spokesman for capitalism. He holds a doctorate in economics and tried to pass as many market-oriented bills as possible. He differed from most Republicans in the fact that he was not a supply-sider. He argued against the absurd belief that the lower taxes go, the higher government revenue rises. There are some great moments from the ’96 debates where Gramm fought against nerd Steve Forbes’ supply-side proposals that made no sense in the time of unbalanced budgets. He didn’t object to a proposed flat-tax if spending were low, but as a deficit hawk, he knew that the budget deficit would balloon or the poor would be unfairly taxed.
Since his defeat in ’96, he has maintained his capitalist credentials in the Senate. He has openly criticized his party for its anti-capitalist decisions in the past two years, even though many influential members of the establishment have shunned him for it. He opposed the steel tariffs and the farm bill, which were terrible trades to special interest groups for votes in the Midwest, and recently voted against pork loaded energy and prescription drug bills.
It’s unfortunate that he was forced out of the Democratic Party in the 1980’s for siding with Republicans in economic issues. He would have been a great capitalist spokesman for the party that seems to have very little faith in the market system, even though they claim to support it right before elections.
Fortunately the Senate will have freshman Senator John E. Sununu to uphold the principles supported by Gramm all of these years. I hope the administration listens to Novak’s suggestion and makes Gramm an economic official.
4:07 PM
Sunday, November 17, 2002
Oops! He did it again.
7:57 PM
Tuesday, September 17, 2002
James Swan, the outdoors columnist for National Review has a good piece today on how privatization can help protect endangered species and make a profit. I have been reading on this in my Public Economics class and the results are very interesting and could be helpful in America for preserving Bears and Buffalo in the Mountain West and Great Plains regions.
12:12 PM
Sunday, September 15, 2002
Conservatives do it for money. Liberals do it for sex.
7:48 PM
Shoulder length hair, Hawaiian shirt…..looks suspicious.
7:43 PM
WWTD:
(What Would Thucydides Do)
About Iraq?
“Those who are tempted by pride of strength to attack their neighbors usually march confidently against those who keep still and only defend themselves in their own country. But they think twice before they grapple with those who meet them outside the frontier and strike the first blow if opportunity offers.” [4.92]
7:37 PM
Thursday, September 12, 2002
Is Mary McGrory As Dumb As She Sounds?
Is it just me or is Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory’s (9/12) piece very misguided? I get her point about making sure that our civil liberties are protected from government tyranny, but the way she presents her case is abominable. Her example of a good president who watches over the Constitution is Franklin Pierce!
“Franklin Pierce, whose name is a synonym for obscurity, was the only New Hampshire man to make it to the Oval Office. He was a calamity of a president and even worse as an ex-president. The only reason to give him a thought now is that he had one redeeming feature: a passion for the Constitution, learned at the knee of his father, a Revolutionary War veteran -- and that is a quality we could use now.
Pierce excoriated his successor, Abraham Lincoln, for suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War. At a Fourth of July celebration he declared that "the mere arbitrary will of the president takes the place of the Constitution." Pierce's attacks are detailed in "In the Memory House," a book by New Hampshire writer Howard Mansfield.”
Fortunately, she says his Presidency was a “calamity,” but she doesn’t mention Pierce’s “passion for the Constitution” included strict support for the Dread Scott decision and trying to get New Hampshire to secede during the Civil War! I’ve never liked McGrory’s writing and now I know why.
1:04 PM
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Is This Enough of a “Case?”
One of the biggest excuses of anti-war senators is that the president “has not made a case for going to war.” I concur that he should make an argument for invasion to Congress and the American people. But just because the Bush administration hasn’t come straight out in an organized speech and made a case, doesn’t mean that these particular senators can’t do some research on their own and make up their own minds. If all of the good articles in The New Republic and National Review weren’t enough, then this piece in today’s New York Post by John Keegan should help make the case.
“Saddam is deeply anti-Western, if only because it is the western States, particularly America, which frustrate his ambition to become a regional warlord and leader of the Arab Middle East. He has undoubtedly financed terror in the past, finances and supports the Palestinian suicide bombers and covertly endorses terrorism as an anti-Western program.
Moreover, if allowed to proceed to the development of nuclear weapons, Iraq could be enabled to support terrorism with impunity. Hence the urgency of the Bush program to overthrow the Saddam regime while the opportunity still exists.
Once the Iraqi nuclear program is complete, invasion of the country will become perhaps impossible and certainly very difficult and fraught with terrible risk. Saddam would then possess the means to devastate any sort of ground force launched against him, either from land bases or by an amphibious operation in the Gulf.
He already possesses the necessary rocket launchers, crude and relatively short-range as they are. He only needs the warheads, which he may soon possess.”
Keegan is one of the world’s premier experts on military history and teaches strategy to the top military cadets in Britain. He tends to be unbiased in politics and his beliefs should be taken seriously. I especially like his concluding reminder to opponents:
“Words of caution may seem wise at the moment. How will they sound when Saddam has the bomb? It will be too late then for the opponents of action now to say that they meant well. Saddam does not mean well at all.”
2:19 PM
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