A Republican’s moondoggle

Boondoggle: Work of little or no value done merely to look busy.
Moondoggle: Establishing a Moon colony – work of little or no value done merely to look busy (and appear inspirational).

When a government introduces financing into the economy, John Maynard Keynes terms it “loan expenditure” – for example, public unemployment benefit is partly financed out of government loans. Keynes noted that the reasoning behind types of loan expenditure often seem unclear:

It is curious how common sense, wriggling for an escape from absurd conclusions, has been apt to reach a preference for wholly “wasteful” forms of loan expenditure rather than for partly wasteful forms, which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict “business” principles.
— J M Keynes “Chapter 10. The Marginal Propensity to Consume and the Multiplier (VI)”, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1936 [Keynes’s emphasis]

Free speech, free agents, and societal agencies

In 2010, in a case concerning political speech (Citizens United v Federal Election Commission) the US Supreme Court decided by a large majority of 8-1 that “disclaimer and disclosure requirements are valid” for political communications. Clarence Thomas dissented in this portion of the opinion – he worried

I cannot endorse a view of the  First Amendment that subjects citizens of this Nation to death threats, ruined careers, damaged or defaced property, or pre-emptive and threatening warning letters as the price for engaging  in “core political speech, the ‘primary object of First Amend­ment protection.’” [Thomas is quoting from other opinions.]

Tea Party: noisy but careless

The USA’s so-called “founding fathers” are the subject of much reverence, often uncritical, and often confused supporters of the US Constitution in 1787. These founding fathers are an amorphous, undefined large group, and let us concentrate on just two: Samuel Adams, and Thomas Jefferson – all of whom are quoted repeatedly in many a Tea Party publication. The quotations are often less sagacious sayings and more convenient concoctions, shown by the fact that apart from the supposed author, citations are usually missing.

The libertarian regulation of free enterprise

Free enterprise: An economic system of business governed by the laws of supply and demand with minimal government interference, regulation, or subsidy.
Enterprises range from, for example, Lehman Brothers to a soup kitchen to Occupy Wall Street. Some enterprises are highly structured and highly organized; most enterprises have some structure and some organization; other enterprises are little more than collections of individuals, having no structure and no organization. It is worth noting that realist anarchist enterprises have some structure and some organization even though there are those who believe that idealist anarchist enterprises have no structure and no organization.

Monuments of deficient wisdom

James Madison in Federalist 62 (http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa62.htm) thought the House of Representatives was likely to be composed of people who were too fickle, too ignorant, and who needed to be counterbalanced by the sensible Senate:

Using tax revenues to lobby for more tax revenues (and other things)

US taxpayers are going to pay the Boeing Company at least $30B to supply the US military with air tankers, after extensive lobbying by the company. In 2010, US taxpayers paid Boeing $19.5B (3.7% of total US vendor expenditures) for many different things, the same year that Boeing paid lobbyists almost $18M to influence US lawmakers, plus $2.8M in direct contributions to political candidates and PACs.

Conservative movements defend established privilege by government power

The push to take away the common people’s ability to bargain collectively by some temporary conservative majorities in state governments – by any means possible, the use of power for the sake of power – is reminiscent of other excesses.

The right to decide

An astute observer noted that of those supporting the proposed US constitution “many of them are possessed of high aristocratic ideas, and the most sovereign contempt of the common people” (Brutus Junior, The New York Journal, 8 November 1787, available as Antifederalist 38).
As if to prove Brutus Junior correct, a member of the Southern gentry (an aristocrat without a title) was explaining the purpose of the Senate and, after flattering his readers in The Independent Journal as being of superior vision, the writer had little respect for the ability of the common people (“We, the People”?) to make appropriate decisions:

Trusting other Americans

Stories:

• On a cruise to Scandinavia, an acquaintance was impressed by those countries’ affluence, and even more impressed by their welfare systems. A conservative, he noted that the welfare systems were paid from taxation, a high level of taxation which, he was surprised to find, seemed to be accepted by most people. As a US conservative, he could not understand this acceptance of high taxes until an American guide had suggested that, in general, Scandinavians trusted the government, whereas “Americans don’t trust the government”.

Originalist sin

Antonin Scala was interviewed by Calvin Massey with the main topic being Scalia’s originalist belief in an enduring constitution rather than an evolving constitution in that “the Constitution tells the current society that it cannot do [whatever] it wants to do” (“The Orginalist”,California Lawyer, January 2011) – however not everybody agreed with the original constitution (and Thomas Jefferson thought it would be short-lived). Massey wondered whether, when the 39th Congress was proposing the 14th Amendment, anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or to sexual orientation, and Scalia replied that “the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't.”

The Theory of Evolution Exploded?

Chapter 3 of a book by Charles Carroll (1900) is entitled: The Theory of Evolution Exploded; Man was Created a Man, and did not Develop from an Ape. This sentiment is in keeping with the views of a goodly number of present-day creationists, who believe that the Bible is the true guide to the history of all life on Earth. That is, these creationists believe the Bible is literally true, starting with: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1, King James Version). Earlier, in 1867, just after the end of the US Civil War, Buckner T Payne, writing as Ariel, had produced another creationist tract, which started by claiming “Truth, though sometimes slow in its power, is like itself, always consistent; and like its AUTHOR, will always be triumphant. The Bible is true.”

Why General Motors?

Why does General Motors exist: why do we have GM, and is there any reason why it should continue? Purporting to provide general objectives and principles of operation, a company’s mission statement often tries to answer the question, “Why does this company exist?” and so I looked for the GM mission statement. I was unable to find one on its web site (possibly incompetence on my part).

Tocqueville and Schlesinger

I was looking at the history of people's ideas about the USA's imperial presidency and, as often happens when looking at early US history, people quoted Thomas Jefferson.

The corruption fetish

We can read on the USAID web site (which is “From the American people”) that:

In broad terms, USAID focuses on corruption as the misuse of public office for private gain. It encompasses abuses by government officials such as embezzlement and nepotism, as well as abuses linking public and private actors such as bribery, extortion, influence peddling, and fraud. Corruption arises in both political and bureaucratic offices and can be petty or grand, organized or unorganized. Though corruption often facilitates criminal activities such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and prostitution, it is not restricted to these activities.

Political parties kill themselves

After the elections of November 2006, Karl Rove, Republican Party strategist, left the Bush administration – for many reasons including the losses in November (“to spend more time with my family” was given as the real reason). Rove was a proponent of the “50 percent plus one” school of political advantage, which claimed that all that was important was power.