Captain Obvious To The Rescue!

One of the things I've always found sort of cute about the field of psychology is the tendency of its practictioners to report their findings in the same logical, detached tone used by nuclear physicists to describe new subatomic particles, even when the results of their experiments are utterly unsurprising to anyone with a smidgeon of common sense or understanding of human nature. Case in point - the Dutch researchers who have "discovered" that men tend to get mentally discombobulated when speaking with an attractive woman. It would be one thing if the researchers were doing brain scans to try and tease out the physiological mechanisms that explain this, or determine whether testosterone-addled thinking affected some cognitive functions but not others - that might deepen our knowledge of the universe. As is, this study is like conducting an experiment to determine that most people perceive the sky as blue, or Hershey bars as tasting like chocolate - it doesn't tell as anything that anyone with half a semi-functional brain doesn't already know.

No wonder the newspaper industry is dying

This has to be just about the worst sports column I've ever read. It's insensitive, tasteless and idiotic, sure, but perhaps worst of all, it's indicative of the pathologically skewed priorities that too many people in modern America have. I love sports. To play, they're fun, relaxing, and edifying to both body and spirit. As entertainment, watching a close contest in any sport is far more compelling than most of the formulaic scripted rubbish that comes out of Hollywood, the TV networks, or the record industry. Despite the fact that many athletes, professional and otherwise, are juvenile, narcissistic boors and not at all admirable people, what they do is fantastic entertainment. But it is just entertainment. For this columnist to write about sports as if they have any degree of consequence when considered beside truly important things like war or peace or opportunity or, in the case of Jaycee Dugard, human dignity, exhibits an appaling lack of perspective. It's commonplace for sports commentators to remark that these things are what really matters, that the troops fighting in Afghanistan are the real heroes, etc. I wish it were so that everyone acted as if they really believed that.

Margaret Thatcher, closet Machiavellian

So Margaret Thatcher, idealized as a champion of freedom by the neoconservatives, was actually a pretty cold-blood realist when it came to international affairs, even going so far as to oppose German reunification on the grounds that it would threaten Soviet security and de-stabilize the international balance of power. That's not to criticize Thatcher - it's easy to see from the vantage point of the year 2009 how wrong she was, hindsight being 20-20 and all that - but the story does underscore two key points about international affairs. Firstly, that nobody really knows ahead of the fact how history is going to play out, and that as we act in a fog of ignorance we should take a small-c conservative approach to making decisions and respond with skepticism to soothing visions of the sort offered by proponents of wild chimera-chasing adventures like the invasion of Iraq. And secondly, that no historical person, or movement, or idea, no matter how much true believers of whatever stripe may wish to embellish their memories of it in the aftermath, is ever "pure" or conforms to simplistic, ideological notions of how history works. For conservatives, this means acknowleding that their tendency to romanticize the past as a simpler time in which democratic leaders were stronger and less afraid to take courageously unequivocal moral stands is problematic, and their tendency to equate circumspection with cowardice in our current generation of leaders, even moreso.

Business intrudes

I have been quite busy with preparing lessons and studying Japanese for the past few days - nevertheless, I have been working on a long post about the experience of climbing Mt. Fuji last weekend which I hope to finish by the weekend. In the meantime, a random link of the day for South Park fans and computer haters out there.

The tangled libertarian web

This is an interesting post on the different strands in the libertarian movement. It strikes me that the distinction Manzi draws is essentially between dogmatic (liberty-as-ends) and pragmatic (liberty-as-means) libertarians. I definitely fall into the latter category - while I do value personal autonomy as a good in-and-of-itself, I do not think the set of cases in which the government has a legitimate right to restrict it is limited to laws enforcing contracts and prohibiting actions which directly and materially harm others. There are such things as collective action problems, for which solutions cannot be devised unless people are compelled to cooperate by government action. I don't think, for example, that industrial polluters would have cleaned up their act without government legislation forcing them to do so - as one look out the window at the smog-ridden skies in any of the industrialized regions of China will tell you, markets, being relatively localized phenomena with strong incentives toward self-interested behavior, have a very limited ability to exert pressure on companies to behave in an environmentally responsible way. I also find the tendency of more dogmatic libertarians to fetishize personal liberty as if it were always and everywhere the highest of civic goods rather problematic. There are certain situations where private and public interests are in conflict, and I do not see why the former should always win out. I am instinctually inclined toward the libertarian position on hotly debated topics like drug legalization and prostitution, but opponents of eliminating all restrictions on these behaviors have presented enough persuasive evidence that doing so would have a deleterious effect on society that I am forced to concede that they may have a point. In such cases I continue to argue for the merits of personal liberty, but do so cognizant of the fact that it is not the only consideration and that 100% personal liberty, 0% social consideration may not be the correct balance to strike. I think this sort of non-dogmatic approach is psychologically and politically healthier, as it allows us to adapt to changing circumstances, as well as more likely to result in meaningful movement in the direction of increased personal liberty - it's a lot easier to convince people that a relatively harmless drug like marijuana ought to be legalized if you're not simultaneously insisting that the effects of nasty stuff like crystal meth, which really does destroy peoples' lives and have a disruptive influence on communities, are purely a private concern. The role of libertarianism should be to limit government interference in the lives of citizens to situations where there is a clear and compelling rationale for it, and to make sure it is as unobtrusive as possible - not to oppose it entirely.

Unfortunately, I don't feel that nuanced libertarianism is well represented in contemporary national politics. The only libertarian figures with any degree of national prominence seem to be either "git yer stinkin' librul hands off mah guns n' money" antigovernment cranks (Ron Paul) or political sideshows (Arnold Schwarzenegger). And those two may be the last of a dying breed. The takeover of the GOP by the religious right has left up-and-coming libertarian-leaning politicians without a political home. Hopefully a few years of liberal excess and Republican electoral debacles will change that.

Why I'm not a Republican

This blog post by disaffected former GOP bigwig Bruce Bartlett has me thinking about my own reasons for shunning the party. As someone with an instinctual aversion to statism and an inclination to believe that the free market is generally the best mechanism for creating positive social, economic, and technological innovations, I've never been comfortable with the sort of blunt-instrument big government interventionism favored by old school liberals, and certain elements of the Democratic coalition (teachers' unions, urban political machines, radical pro-choice militants, etc.) I find distasteful, if not actively loathsome. I'm the type of voter who ought to be right in the GOP wheelhouse. And yet, since I've come of voting age I've held my nose and voted for Democrats more often than Republicans. Why?

Many of my reasons are the same as Bartlett's. The contemporary GOP's naked partisanship and complete lack of ideological principle are part of it - for the party to declare reforming Medicare outside debate while simultaneously arguing that Obama's health care proposals will bankrupt the nation is disgraceful, and a first-order insult to the intelligence of conservative-leaning voters. The widespread pandering to the delusional paranoia of lunatics like the birthers, with their unseemly, racially tinged xenophobia, is also an issue. Both are primarily problems created by the pressures of electoral politics, however, problems that the Democratic party also has in spades.

The biggest reason I am not a Republican is that the modern Republican party is intellectually bankrupt. On domestic and foreign policy alike, they have failed to present anything like a coherent set of ideas for tackling the problems of contemporary America, instead choosing to robotically repeat Reagan-era slogans as if they were magic mantras. The problem is that while Reagan was an effective conservative leader for his time, 2009 is not Reagan's time. Domestically, the U.S. does not face the same problems it did when Reagan was elected. Taxes are low. Business is relatively unregulated. Cutting taxes and de-regulating, therefore, are not the winning ideas they once were. While the economy might be just as bad as it was in the late 1970's and early 80's, the causes and nature of the downturn are entirely different. We're now living, working, and doing business in a global, information-based economy. The government must be willing to provide a business climate and infrastructure which enable American companies to compete and thrive in that environment, and in some cases that may mean that more government spending is necessary. Government spending is not in-and-of-itself a bad thing - the idea that government spending in areas other than defense, law enforcement, and bare bones infrastructure must always and everywhere be opposed to tooth-and-nail is irrational, and increasingly obviously incorrect, dogma. The international situation is entirely different as well. Certainly the U.S. still faces threats, but none are as powerful, well-organized, or ideologically unified as Soviet-era communism was, and Reagan's admirably clear rhetoric denouncing the abuses perpetuated by the USSR and its satellites is out of place in the murky, multi-polar world in which we now live. Responding to the threat of militant Islam by announcing a "crusade" against terrorism and invading a Middle Eastern country was, and continues to be, a batshit insane idea. Promoting the idea of bombing a country like Iran, in which a domestically unpopular regime only hangs on to power by appealing to nationalistic sentiment and demonizing the West, is equally wrongheaded. The list goes on. The Democrats' ideas are often wrong and even more often compromised by venal politicking, but at least they have ideas.

I have a sneaking feeling that the Republican party will need to absorb a few more sound electoral beatings before the fact that they are no longer connecting with a majority of American voters begins to sink in. As someone who readily self-identifies as a conservative and considers a great many of the ascendant left's initiatives deeply problematic, I find this distressing. American politics needs a sane, sober, reflective, and intellectually sound conservatism. What it has is the contemporary Republican party. The gulf between the two has never been wider.

What about the Lions?

Peter King claims that the NFC North might be the best division in football this year. In the words of the immortal Bill Lumbergh, I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree there. It's true that the Packers were crippled by injuries last year and are a much better team than the 6-10 record they finished with indicates. It's also true that the Bears have upgraded significantly at quarterback by acquiring Jay Cutler, and that the Vikings have also upgraded, albeit less significantly, by signing the Man Who Wouldn't Retire. But to claim that this makes the NFC North better than, say, the NFC East, which put two teams in the playoffs last year and had three above .500, or the NFC South, which had two of the AFC's best regular season teams in Tennessee and Indianapolis, an injury-ravaged preseason contender of its own in Jacksonville, and a tough out in also-ran Houston, is ridiculous. Just a few of the problems I see with King's assertion:

1.)Chicago still lacks offensive talent. Matt Forte is an emerging star at running back, true, and Greg Olsen is a solid tight end, but the team's receivers are still sub-mediocre. And they're depending on oft-injured graybeard Orlando Pace to protect Cutler's backside. Something tells me ol' Jay is not going to put up the same numbers this year as he did last year with one of the best lines in football protecting him and arguably the best young receiving duo in the game catching his passes. And if he gets hurt? His backup is the immortal Caleb Hanie. Yikes.

2.)Speaking of da' Bears, some of their key defensive players are getting old. Brian Urlacher didn't have a great year last year, and as he's over 30 years old it might not have been a coincidence. Alex Brown and Adewale Ogunleye are also over 30. And Tommie Harris, while not old, is severely injury-prone. As good as they are on paper, I don't think they make it through the season intact.

3.)Brett Favre is 40 years old, and broke down like an old hatchback with a leaky radiator once the weather got cold last year. Why should I believe the same won't happen this year? He's already playing with a bad shoulder, and he bruised his ribs blocking in his second game back. Even if he doesn't get hurt, he's certain to throw a few costly interceptions - perhaps more than his oft-maligned backups would have. He's not the same quarterback he was ten or even five years ago, and at this point he may prove to be only a marginal improvement over what the Vikings had. And that's without even considering the circus atmosphere his arrival has created in Minnesota.

4.)The StarCaps case has yet to be settled. If/when the Vikings' star defensive tackles are suspended, their fearsome run defense becomes a thing of the past. Their pass defense wasn't that good to begin with.

5.)Brad Childress still coaches Minnesota. He did a great job as the Eagles' offensive coordinator, but he's a mediocre head man at best. That's going to hurt the Vikings at some point.

6.)Green Bay's defense is switching to a new system. They've looked good in the preseason, but as nobody gameplans in the preseason, anyone using preseason performance to judge regular season potential does so at his peril. History indicates that teams switching from a 4-3 to a 3-4 rarely excel in their first year in the new defense, and I don't see any reason to think the Packers will be different.

7.)The schedule is tough. These teams play each of the others twice, and if they're all as improved as King thinks, those games become commensurately tougher than they were last year. Out of division, they all play AFC north powers Baltimore and Pittsburgh, and the defending NFC champion in the Cardinals. And their other NFC matchups - Atlanta and Philadelphia for the Bears, Tampa Bay and Dallas for the Packers, and Carolina and the New York Giants for the Vikings - aren't exactly easy street either.

8.)The Lions still play here. No division with a team coming off the first 0-16 season in NFL history deserves to be considered in a conversation about the toughest divisions in the league.

It's possible, as King says, that any of the top 3 teams in this division might go 12-4 - but far more likely that one will go 10-6 or 11-5, with the other two hovering around .500. Certainly, to claim authoritatively that this division has the edge over the NFC East or AFC South is absurd. But then, throwing out absurd assertions without much evidence to back them up is something of a Peter King specialty.