Idea Spout

Make Them Eat Their Words

2006-05-20T05:56:00.000-07:00

Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart regularly uses a very simple and effective rhetorical trick. They play a clip of a public figure making a statement, followed by a clip of the same person completely contradicting himself. After such an undeniable unveiling of hypocracy, Jon Stewart only has to flash his winning smirk to drive the dagger home. Easy, right? Effective, yes?

So why don't mainstream television news shows do it? I have never heard of cable or network news trying this trick. Is it another example of the mainstream press not wanting to be too rude? The press is supposed to be rude! It's supposed to reveal lies, malfeasance and hypocracy. Jon Stewart recently used this trick on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Now Rumsfeld would never appear on the Daily Show, but he would appear on NBC's Meet the Press. Imagine if Tim Russert played for Rummy clips of him saying, "I didn't say we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were" and then "We know where the WMD's are" on the air. Yes it would make awkward television, but it would also make government more accountable, which should always be a chief aim of the press.

Colbert rising

2006-05-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

Stephen Colbert recently delivered an expert, methodical flaying of the pretentions of both the Bush Administration and the Washington press corps right to the president's face at the annual White House correspondant's dinner. It was something to see. Then the mainstream media proved one of Colbert's chief points by blacking out the story, only referencing the self-depracating bit at the dinner where Bush gave a presentation along with a Bush-impersonator.

Here's another tidbit about Colbert's speech that the media is dutifully ignoring. I noticed that the Colbert video actually has been topping the iTunes audibook rankings, surpassing even the audiobook version of Dan Brown's record-breaking blockbuster the Da Vinci Code. This is even more remarkable for the fact that it's beating Da Vinci even right up to the premiere of its wildly-hyped movie. What's more, it's even climbing to the top of the "Top Albums" list of all audio downloads. As of now, it's #2 under the Red Hot Chili Peppers' new album.

Embarrassingly, my fellow libertarian bloggers have also seemed to have ignored the Colbert speech. Given that Bush has been a libertarian nightmare, I do not understand why this is so.

Silly parents, don't you realize we know better?

2006-05-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

At Wired News we have another example of what happens when customers are thought of a recipients of a public service. New York City parents overwhelmingly want their kids to be able to take cell phones to school for reasons of convenience and, primarily, safety. But the mayor and school officials are responding with an categorical "no." Cell phones would be too much a distraction, they say, and we can't have the little monsters taking phone-camera pictures of each other in locker room.

A customer base almost has universally proclaimed to a service provider, "We want a service that is like X." In any consumer-based, competitive industry their demands would have immediately been satisfied, or the service provider would have gone out of business as their client base is drawn off my more amenable companies. But in the nanny-state, tin-eared, bureaucratic world of public service, a universal demand is met by a smug "Sorry, we know better."

Responsible demagogues

2006-03-03T09:00:00.000-08:00

The telegenic and wildly popular Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is talking about slashing city spending and programs to eliminate the city deficit. That's most surprising and impressive. I was wondering what his practical politics would be once he donned the responsibilities of office. And this is a good sign.

It's interesting that in the past few decades populism seems to have actually been the friend of small government. Ever since ancient Roman tribunes played to the mob by increasing the corn dole, populists have been thought to be irresponsible demagogues who use their popularity to increase welfare spending, thus pleasing the masses, and becoming ever more popular (at least until such fiscal irresponsibility bears its fruits). But now that the entire legislative system has become enslaved to pork barrel politics, the only leaders actually willing to tackle spending are the ones whose personal popularity allow them to rise above the fray. Witness Ronald Reagan, John McCain, and even Arnold Schwarzeneggar (who was willing to attempt reform, because of his former popularity, and only failed because the public sector unions managed to destroy that popularity). In a curious twist of political history, it seems that demagogues are the only responsible politicians these days.

Dead roaches

2006-02-01T19:17:00.000-08:00

I commute daily on the Los Angeles Metro rail line, and almost daily, I see a dead cockroach at Union Station. I saw one today on the ramp leading from the platform and was sickened at the sight. I was highly irritated that my morning must be greeted by such a grotesque visual. Then I walked into the main thoroughfare and thought immediately of the thousands of people who traffic it every day: thousands of potential consumers with nothing presented to them but bleak concrete walls. If the train station were run by a for-profit company, it might have the gumption and liberty to sell ad space on its walls. Not only would ads liven the place up, their revenue could fund basic maintenance: like keeping the station clean enough that roaches wouldn't abound. But like so many other services, rail transport is thought of by the left as too sanctified to be sullied by the market.

In contrast, the last leg of my journey to work, an 18-floor elevator ride, is much more pleasant. Every elevator in my building is equipped with a small screen that receives real-time news updates and (horrors!) advertisements. Far from making the elevator feel like a carnevale of depravity and greed, it provides a nice little read for me 2 or 4 times a day. And the management can use the revenue from the ads to keep the building nice (nary a roach is to be seen).

Why can't a train station be as nice of a walk as an outdoor shopping mall, with pleasing movie posters of Reese Witherspoon and bold, artsy Apple Computer ads gracing the walls in clean glass cases? Instead we get surly public-sector train staff, dreary station walls, and dead roaches.

Hamas is in power. Good

2006-01-29T17:11:00.000-08:00

So Hamas is in power in Palestine now. I for one think that's a good thing. The responsibility of being part of an elected government has very positive effects on violent movements. Not only does it give them a non-violent outlet for their aims, but it makes them responsive to the desires of the people (which generally includes peace and stability). This is evidenced in the recent evolution of the IRA. Others would use the continuing beligerance of the revolutionary government in Iran as a counter-example. But that is a weaker comparison, because the theocracy in Iran came to hold power through a revolution, not an election, as did the IRA and Hamas.

Another development is that the U.S. is probably going to eliminate aid to the Palestinian government now that Hamas is in power. Although the U.S. government's reasons for this run counter to my opinion that the ascent of Hamas is a good thing, I find this to also be a positive development. Foreign aid, like all kinds of free money, has a corrupting effect on governments, as was evidenced by the sleaze-ridden PLO (which just was knocked from power by Hamas).

If Hamas is indeed moderated and reformed by being democratically elected, perhaps the U.S. will look more optimistically upon the prospect of democracy in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In these places, the U.S.-supported governments have squashed freedoms, leaving the only place to vent frustrations in religious fundamentalism. And though at first take, a more popularly elected government in these places will have a more Islamic bent, so long as their rise to power is democratic and they remain accountable to the people, the resultant government will look a lot more like the Islamic but liberal administration in Turkey than the raging lunatics in Iran.

Nobody likes a liberal

2005-12-29T19:58:00.000-08:00

One of the most confusing words in politics is "liberal". It means so many different things to different people. But the one thing all of its definitions seem to have in common is that they are unpopular. In America, "liberal" is associated with the further political left. Practically everywhere else, "liberal" retains its classic 19th-century definition, and is largely used to refer to free-market ideology and the espousal of individual rights associated with the political right. Apple OS X's dictionary has 4 definitions of "liberal". The first one is "favorable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms : liberal citizenship laws." The fourth one is "(of a person) giving generously : Sam was too liberal with the wine. These two definitions are the ones that politics is mostly concerned with. The best synonyms I can think of for these words are "non-coercive" (the first definition) and "generous" (the fourth definition). In Europe a "liberal" government is non-coercive, in the home and in the marketplace. In America a liberal person is deemed "generous". But not really. If you think about, an American liberal wants to be "generous" with other people's money (their taxes), and that cannot be true generosity.

The sad coincidence is that both meanings of political liberalism are unpopular in their respective homes. "Liberal" is an insult in Europe and Latin America (it's often termed "neo-liberal" in the latter). It is seen as neglecting the social good in these places. Liberal is also generally an insult in America, where the public dole is unpopular among many. In America it has the secondary definition of moral permissiveness, which is also unpopular. Oddly, the two main definitions would be quite popular if they were to just switch places. Europeans and Latin Americans who are still very much attached to their welfare state, would be proud to be called liberal, if it meant generosity with the public dole. And Americans who love freedom and individualism would quite like the classic definition of liberalism, if they would just learn to use it. I wish they would. It is more specific and accurate than "conservative" and more elegant and catchy than "libertarian".

The most powerful victims in California

2005-12-02T18:54:00.000-08:00

An important arrow in the quiver of public and non-profit sector unions (teachers, nurses, etc) is the public perception of the professionals they purport to represent as victims and martyrs. Since the public often conflates the professionals-at-large with the unions themselves, the unions benefit hugely from the sympathy the public has for their beleaguered "constituents". The most dramatic example of this is the recent special election in California. Governor Schwarzenegger suffered a huge drop in public approval after he criticized public and non-profit sector unions. Many saw his criticisms of the unions as "attacking the teachers" and "taking on the nurses". What nerve this Hollywood millionaire had, directly attacking the underpaid teachers who teach our kids and the overworked nurses who treat our sick! Every Northern Californian who drove through Oakland on the southbound 880 freeway in the past year saw an enormous billboard with a picture of Arnold captioned, "He wheels and deals," and a picture of a weary nurse captioned, "She heals." A complicated and critical debate over how political influence is distributed became a simple narrative of a cocky top dog versus a saintly underdog. And the unions took full advantage of that role, raising and spending record levels of funds to crush the Governor like a girly-man in the polls and at the ballot-box.

The unions have certainly outdone themselves. But they may have also overdone it at the same time. The public and non-profit sector unions have always wielded tremendous political power in California. But until now, they've wielded it with some subtlety. Now after the special election, however, they are recognized far and wide as the big dogs in California politics. And it may prove difficult to blend that image with the image of the martyr and victim. When I talk to union-boosters about their crushing victory, they always seem to be little embarrassed by it.

This embarrassment will only be compounded if the unions are able to replace Schwarzenegger in two years with an "establishment Democrat." With the unions and their cronies fully and VISIBLY in the driver's seat in California, it will become much harder for them to find somebody else to blame for the woeful state of our schools, our health care system, and our state bureaucracy.

Too important to succeed

2005-12-01T20:03:00.001-08:00

On this Global AIDS Day, let's perform a thought experiment. Imagine erectile dysfunction was considered a global humanitarian emergency: an epidemic so terrible that the World Health Organization considered it a top priority. And say it was considered a paramount obstacle to alleviating global poverty. Naturally, any treatment developed couldn't be offered at market value, right? Sure there are thousands and thousands of citizens of industrialized nations who would be willing to pay a premium for such a blockbuster drug. But that wouldn't be fair to limp lovers in sub-Saharan Africa! Any pharmaceutical company considering an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in research would be faced with the reality that as soon as a cure was developed, national governments and international bodies would insist on the moral imperative that, for the greater good, the enterprising company must distribute the drug at cut-rate prices. Even if they were allowed to charge full market prices to rich-world patients, the cheaper pills would inevitably find their way out of Africa. So faced with this reality along with the tremendous financial risk inherent in drug-development, no pharmaceutical company would invest in such a venture. Oh sure, there would be some research done on a humanitarian or governmental basis, but the results would pale in comparison with what competing Fortune 500 pharmaceutical companies could have produced.

Well it's a good thing, that erectile dysfunction is not considered a global humanitarian emergency, otherwise Viagra would have never been developed.

How back-asswards is that! The fight against epidemics is destined to fail, because it's "too important to leave to the market", and thereby TOO IMPORTANT TO SUCCEED. It's the same reason we don't have a universal flu vaccine, a solution to global starvation, or sufficient education systems. Things like toenail fungus, mobile phones, seasonal allergies, and 3D animation aren't that big of a deal; so we can let the market work absolute wonders in those realms. But as for the really critical problems in the world, we feel the need to hobble all efforts to solve them with regulations, subsidies, price controls, and ham-fisted government ventures.

Let's call the following situation Plan B. What if a pharmaceutical company knew it would be able to charge $20,000 for a cure for AIDS without any governmental interference? There are PLENTY of wealthy and middle class AIDS sufferers who would pay such a sum, even if they had scrimp, save, and work weekends to do it. The prospect of that kind of revenue would be a tremendously strong incentive to invest heavily in a cure.

"But wait!" says the moderate liberal would-be-do-gooder, "That's unjust! Sub-Saharan Africa is where a cure is most-needed, and people there can't afford $20,000! Are you going to let them die, just because they're poor? You have to lower the price!"

Just hold on, and put down the "Patients, Not Profits" placard for a second. What you're talking about is what we're doing now: Plan A. Let Plan B play itself out. For once, resist your impulse to solve a problem with a new rule.

Now eventually everyone who has AIDS and can afford $20,000 will buy the "egregiously priced" cure for AIDS. But there would still be lots of AIDS patients who could afford to pay $10,000 a pop. So now it's in the company's own interest to lower the price (smaller profit margins are better than no profits at all). After that market dries up, the company would lower its price perhaps to $5,000, then $2,000, then $1,000. How low would they be willing to go? As low as they can afford to and still make a profit, the level of which would steadily decline as with practice, they became more efficient at making the drug. And since the lowest economic level of AIDS patients is also the most populous level, the company (and its competitors, once its patent expires) would have extra incentive to become cost-efficient enough to offer the drug at ever-lower prices.

So let's review. Plan A (the current plan) has no cure: plenty of good intentions, but no cure. Well at least it's egalitarian. Everybody has an equal amount of AIDS cures: zero.

Plan B has those miserable fat cats in the pharmaceutical industry getting even more filthy rich then they already are. And what's more Magic Johnson gets in the front of the line for the cure, just because he's rich! Tons of impoverished AIDS victims will die before the cure becomes affordable enough for them.

But multiples more would die (which they do) if there were no cure at all (which there isn't) and Plan A were in effect (which it is).

Self-styled progressives wonder why society's priorities are so screwed up: why lawyers and Viagra get more money than teachers and AIDS treatments. Little do they realize that it's their very attempts at improving society's priorities that are distorting the market, thereby preventing it from reflecting our true priorities.

Kill the laws, not the lawyers

2005-10-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

I've heard "kill all the lawyers" jokes since I was a kid. "What do you call 100 dead lawyers? A good start." Heck, even the Eagles song "Get Over It" calls for such a cull.

I understand the source of this sentiment. There are just so many. I recently began working in Los Angeles, and at first it was so nice to see how hard working everybody was. I see many professional-looking people on the train thumbing away on their Blackberries, and talking shop on their cell phones. But then, if I eaves-drop I invariably find that they're talking about court dates, appeals, and other legal affairs.

Is this the proper preoccupation of a productive society? Do we really need such a high proportion of the smartest among us dedicated to sorting out exactly how we use the state to bully and coerce each other?

I think not, and neither, apparently, do the jocular, generally blue collar men who toss around "kill all the lawyers" jokes. They offer a humourous response to a serious problem, but there is a seriously necessary solution. Kill the laws, and the demand for lawyers will dry up. Imagine how much our economy would improve if all these people with a knack for precise writing were writing mechanical engineering literature instead of legalese: or if all these people with an aptitude for complicated systems applied their sharp minds to computer code, instead of legal code .

Could it be?

2005-10-27T12:25:00.000-07:00

Now, I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but since this morning's news of the Miers withdrawel, I've been thinking: what next? It's still Bush's nomination to make. What if he nominates an extremely conservative one? Would Democrats really be able to block that nomination? It seems the general public reaction to any further attempts to block would be "come on, we can't stop two nominations in a row made by a sitting president. That would just be too much." An arch-conservative, that as an initial nominee would have been rejected, might then get onto the bench. Could this entire Miers debacle be playing out exactly as Karl Rove planned it?

Miers Withdraws Nomination

2005-10-27T06:16:00.000-07:00

Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination. Brad over at Unrepentant Individual notified a mailing list, and the Washington Post just posted it on their web site 15 minutes ago (8:58 am).

This is a victory for meritocracy, and a defeat for cronyism.

Hopefully this means lawyers and other professionals throughout America will start working harder and kissing up less.

Worked by Jobs

2005-10-25T21:41:00.000-07:00

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple seems at once cooler and smarter than most any other CEO in corporate America. For someone rather geeky, he has a strong (and profitable) sense of style, exhibited by every product put out by Apple since he returned to the helm. Even his new product presentations are hip and handsome, the last of which was followed by a performance by Wynton Marsalis, the most stylish jazz-man of our day, who himself remarked sincerely, "Nice presentation" before jumping into 15 minutes of un-watered-down jazz.

During the previous new product presentation, Jobs and the CEO of Motorolla introduced the Motorolla Rockr, which was the first mobile phone to run iTunes. The phone held a very limited number of songs, which according to Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, was because Apple demanded it. Apparently Jobs didn't want the Rockr to be so successful that it actually competed with his iPods, as Motorolla probably made the lion's share of any money the Rockr made. It seemed Motorolla was desperate to get a piece of the iPod magic, and was willing to take a sour deal for it. And it seemed Jobs was willing to string them along, perhaps in order to use the new product as limited-term trial-run for a future iPod-phone combo of his own. If that is so, his plan seems to have worked, because the Rockr sales have been dramatically disappointing. The Rockr's controls are also really fiddly according to Mossberg; so fiddly that Jobs himself pressed the wrong button when trying to demonstrate to the audience one of Rockr's special features. Maybe his fingers were too used to those engineering masterpieces, his own iPods. Or maybe, just maybe, he did it on purpose.

It reminded me of the co-branded Hewlett Packard/Apple iPod a couple years back. There was literally nothing special about the HP/Apple iPod other than that it said "HP" on it, which to my estimation was a drawback, given that Apple's brand appeal was so much stronger. It seemed like a desperate reach by the flailing CEO Carly Fiorina, who has since been forced out of HP. And indeed, the plug was recently pulled on the HP/Apple iPod venture after, again, disappointing sales. While I don't know the intricacies of the deal, I'd wager that Jobs drove a hard bargain and got something out of it, even though it failed (perhaps HP shouldered the manufacturing costs), and that HP, just like Motorolla, was willing to sign up just for a piece of the magic.

Hopefully the tech sector will come to realize it's not about "the magic", and that Apple's success comes from innovation, smarts, and style. If Motorolla and HP got played by Jobs it's only their fault for trying to piggyback on his market mojo instead of trying to develop their own.

The mugging medium

2005-10-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

One in a litany of shameful episodes surrounding the Hurrican Katrina disaster was Congressmen balking at giving up their pork projects to fund rebuilding in New Orleans (a notable exception was minority leader Nancy Pelosi from California). As generous as Americans generally feel toward the victims of Katrina, most voters at the ballot box would fail to make the connection between their local projects and the disaster. Congress knows this is true, and that they would sooner be punished for their failure to bring home the bacon than rewarded for any principle they display. Alaskans lobby for their bridge to nowhere, farm-belters lobby for their agriculture subsidies... every region has its own pet transportation project and pet industry. And their representatives shell out the pork to buy their votes. But it's not just Congress. The president basically bought the votes of the elderly with his woefully irresponsible Medicare law. It all brings me to the conclusion that for all the rhetoric about its power to protect and advance society, government has become primarily a medium through which otherwise decent citizens indirectly mug each other. It's an enabler for mugging. Middle-class Granny would never actually reach into the pocket of a Katrina victim for money to pay for her pills. That would be unseemly. But via the indirect means of voting, taxation, and benefit distribution, such a robbery is made to seem a civilized transaction.

HBO subscribers, lend this your eyes

2005-10-09T20:57:00.000-07:00

The one television show I watch every week is Rome, on HBO. The creators of Rome have acheived the remarkable feat of threading one grand story through the lives of generals, soldiers, nobility, and people just trying to get by in an ancient city-state whose reality is turning upside-down. The plot is centered around the rivalry between the great, but aging general Pompey, and the glorified conqueror Julius Caesar. Caesar is threatening the age-old republic and its Senate, which has claimed Pompey as its defender. Caesar's aggression is encouraged by his machiavellian lieutenant Marc Antony. Other characters include a Centurion who is torn between his loyalty to his military duties and to his republic, a young Octavian, the future emperor, and his beautiful, scheming mother. Although the story shifts from prim to plebian plotlines frequently, the realistic connections between these members of Rome's various strata keep the shifts from being jarring.

The first and foremost triumph of this series is its casting. Ciaran Hinds is a perfectly brilliant and patrician Julius Caesar. Polly Walker is at once luscious and wicked as Atia, Octavian's mother and Caesar's neice. Atia's mercenary gaze is only matched James Purefoy's menacing grin as Antony Caesar. And young Max Pirkin's brooding portrayal of Octavian as a lad is pitch-perfect.

As an enthusiast for ancient history, I can vouch for much of the accuracy of the series. The scorn held for mercantilism by the nobility, the analysis of animal entrails to foretell the future, the short swords of the legionairres, and the fascination with Greek legends are all familiar from history tomes.

Everybody knows Julius Caesar's fate. And most know what will come between Octavian and Marc Antony. But week after week, the show's characters are so well fleshed out, that one wants to know exactly how it happens, and what fate awaits the non-historical characters.

After the sword-and-sandal epics Troy and Alexander failed so miserably to live up to the promise of Gladiator, I was afraid that studios had lost their appetite for films set in ancient times. Rome shows that, when done right, there is a wealth of great stories to draw from what came before these times.

California and western Europe: Resting on their laurels

2005-10-07T21:41:00.000-07:00

In his excellent column, Dan Weintraub asks this important question:

Do the voters of California want the kind of fundamental change in their government that Schwarzenegger is seeking to enact? They clearly wanted change two years ago, when they took the extraordinary step of tossing out a governor midterm and replacing him with a Hollywood movie star and businessman who had no prior experience in government. And they seem to still yearn for change today, if polls showing widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo are accurate. But just what kind of change they want remains a mystery.

In this way California reminds me of western Europe. The electorates in Europe are clearly disaffected by the lack of progress made by the establishment politicians currently in power. But whenever they are faced with the prospect of real reform, they balk. Witness the success of the no campaigns against the EU Constitution in France and the Netherlands (which was largely based on fear of liberalization and globalization) and the surprisingly poor performance of the pro-reform coalition under Angela Merkel in the last German parliamentary elections. In both California and western Europe, the people recognize the need for change, but are too wedded to their belief in the "social model" to actually stomach reform. As pleasant and mild the climate is in both places, they are both hemorrhaging business to their pro-business neighbors in Nevada and eastern Europe. The tax burden in California and the mass unemployment in western Europe may be bearable enough now for both places to trudge along on the strength of their attractiveness and past industrial dynamism. But even the most prosperous economies in the most beautiful locales cannot rest on their laurels forever. And sooner or later, the tough choices will have to be made. If we make them now, by the time many of us reach retirement, our economies might provide us with quite comfortable lives. If we don't, you can find me blogging my golden years away in Nevada, or perhaps Estonia.

My years in the wilderness

2005-10-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I use a lot of what one commenter on my blog called conservative "buzzwords." The biggest villains in my posts are generally folks I call "leftists", "lefties", "liberals", "statists", and "socialists". First of all, I disagree that they are buzzwords. They are simply words that describe people I disagree with in terms of how I disagree with them. When I'm arguing against the proponents of over-reaching government, I call them statists, because in my opinion, they are too enamored with the promise and virtue of the state. When I argue against people who don't believe in the efficacy of markets, I call them socialist. That doesn't mean I think they are all communists, or even extreme socialists.

That said, I don't want my name-tossing to give any leftward readers the impression that I reject their kind of politics out of hand. In fact, I am very familiar with the very same pangs of social consciousness that can lead one down the path of moderate liberal holiness. You can't get much leftier than being appointed to a city commission by the most liberal city councilman in the most liberal city in California. But in 2001-2002, I served for Kriss Worthington on the Community Health Commission of the People's Republic of Berkeley. Back then, I was out there fighting the good fight: campaigning against the state school vouchers initiative, railing in the Daily Cal newspaper against big tobacco, and stridently berating the local hospital management company at Commission meetings. But then I stopped protesting, and I started reading and thinking and reading and thinking. And I grew to realize that the course of history has been one long argument for the efficacy of liberty, and the folly of the over-reaching state.

There is an old political adage that goes something like, "A young conservative has no heart. An old liberal has no brain." I'm fairly proud that my brain overtook my heart at the tender age of 23, long before I had a family, a mortgage, or a mugging to make me conservative. So, I don't think leftists are malevolent, any more than I think I was in back in college. And, if I ever sound like I'm yelling at leftists, I'm partially yelling at myself for my previous naivete, stridency, and intellectual laziness.

So, I implore you, progressives, social democrats, and advocates for the disenfranchised (see, I can use nice "buzzwords" for the political left), to take a step back and just entertain the idea that the bad guys might be right. What if free markets really are better at feeding hungry mouths than forced wealth redistribution? What if welfare and subsidized housing really are keeping the underclass poor? Then take a close look at history, keeping an eye out for actual results in the improvement of human livelihood instead of seeking evidence for "injustice" and inequality. Are you absolutely sure that the facts are on your side? What's more important, the actual prosperity of the populations you advocate for, or consistency with your worldview that profit-seeking is selfish, and people just need to give more? The sooner that more young liberals graduate to become old conservatives, the better it will be for the world's poor and underprivileged (and not to mention for the rest of us, too).

Health care and backfiring egalitarianism

2005-10-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

For my first Health Care Thursday entry, I'm going to discuss a quite personal matter.

My dad took ill recently. And while it looks like he's pulling through, his experience with his hospital has left much to be desired. They seem to be playing defensive medicine by continually checking for TB, in spite of the facts that test after test has proven negative, the TB medicine causes pain, and his physical complaint isn't even pulmonary. Meanwhile, whatever is actually wrong with him is receiving less attention

My dad expressed frustration that there isn't much he can do about this seeming inefficiency of care. "You just have to assume they know what they're doing," he said, "Your fate is in their hands."

Medicine is not a very customer-driven industry. The guild-like pressures of the medical establishment, government regulations, and the tax disadvantage of hospitals going for-profit make it so. The biggest "market pressure" hospitals face is the pressure to not get sued. And yet even the recent mild bout of consumer empowerment, brought on by the liberalizing of prescription drug advertising, is being attacked by establishment liberals as putting to much pressure on doctors. The "power to the people" party largely doesn't want the people to have too much power over their own health care.

Medicine, like education, is an industry that many think is "too important to leave to the free market" Leftits look at America's founding promises: recognition for being "created equal", for "life", and for the "pursuit of happiness", and stitch them together to demand that everyone gets equal "life" (health care) and an equal starting line for the "pursuit of happiness" (education). This egalitarian impulse generally backfires. Look at a generally free-market product like cell phones. There isn't that much of a difference between a lawyer's cell phone and a waitress's. But there is likely a huge difference between the public school that the lawyer's kids go to, and the one that the waitress's kids go to. The same would be true with the health care each receives. Moreover, if cell phones were tightly regulated like education and health care is, even the cheapest Nokias would be much worse than they are now, not better.

My family is in no way wealthy. But I'd rather have the health care that the free market would offer, than the kind we're getting under our current "egalitarian" system.

The science and math education crisis

2005-10-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

From a recent episode of Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria:

Fareed Zakaria: This week like millions of Americans, I took my kids to school. You know that summer is really over when parents start shopping for the new school year and worrying about their kids’ future. Well here’s more to worry about; you’ve heard all about the statistics that show when tested, American kids lag behind those in Britain, France, Germany and Japan. Well they’re now being out-tested by countries like Poland, Ireland, and the Czech Republic. And this is true even at the highest levels. The top five percent of American high school students placed twenty-third of twenty-nine in a recent ranking. And then there’s science; in 1996 only 21 percent of American twelfth graders were considered proficient in math and science. By 2000 that number had dropped to 18 percent; it has almost certainly dropped even further in the last five years. Many Americans continue to believe that their kids are going to superb schools and American school children when polled say that they are confident that they have superior skills. But the statistics increasingly suggest that we have become a lot better at teaching self-esteem than science.

We desperately need to attract more people with backgrounds in science and math to teach- and not the way we've been trying so far: loan forgiveness, recruitment drives, and peace corps-type programs like Teach For America. If we want people to teach math when they have a job offer at Oracle, or teach biology when Genentech is banging on their door, we have to pay them more. There is a scarcity, so their price should go up. Conversely there are plenty of humanities majors who want to teach elementary school, and high school English and social studies. There is a surplus of them, so their price should go down. This may be anathema to teachers unions, but they had better get over themselves quickly (or we need to get over them). Their politics may operate in an economics-free zone, but the future of our kids won't.

StickyBrain: the iTunes for the written word

2005-10-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

For this, my first Tech Tuesday entry, I'm reviewing my favorite piece of software: StickyBrain by Chronos. At first take, StickyBrain seems like just an amped up version of the popular application Stickies, which is basically a digital Post-It app (the company Post-It has its own version as well) . But it is far more than that. In fact it's much more Brain than Sticky. StickyBrain is a powerful personal manager of almost any information that involves the written word. This app makes me pity Windows users all the more, because it is only made for the Mac.

And it shows, too. StickyBrain has features that will be very familiar to OS X users. It has a list of notes on the top, and a preview pane on the bottom very much like Apple's Mail program. But unlike Mail, you can edit any note from the preview pane itself. You can also open multiple preview "tabs", which is much like the tab functionality popularized by Mozilla Firefox and adopted by Apple's Safari web browser. StickyBrain has a "drawer" on the right, that has whatever directory structure you choose to design, much like the multiple calendars in iCal, the albums in iPhoto, the playlists in iTunes, the address groups in AddressBook, the sidebar in Finder... you get the idea. StickyBrain also has the Mac feature whose utility pervades almost every corner of OS X, from "Open File" dialogues to the System Preferences: the Search Bar. If I want to find a note, I just start typing into the Search Bar the first word that comes to my mind when I think about what I'm looking for. Then, bam!, it appears as I'm still typing, and I can start editing it right away. And I don't have to wait for it to load like a bloated Microsoft Word file, which, even when absolutely no text is entered into it, is 20 KB big. Plus you can re-title your notes on the fly, "link" notes together, and put a single note in multiple folders.

StickyBrain is so nimble because it treats your notes, not like discreet "files", but like entries in a database. In this way, it is again like Apple's in-house software. On a Windows you drop pictures and songs in your operating system's folder structure. Then, when you want to get to them, you either fish around in Explorer or the app's "Open File" dialogue ("Let's see, My Computer, C Drive, My Pictures, Family Pictures, 2003, Fourth of July Trip, there it is!"). On a Mac, on the other hand, you add songs and audiobooks to your iTunes library and images to your iPhoto library. And with iTunes and iPhoto, the applications themselves are like great big "Open File" dialogue boxes. They're what I call "immersive apps". They are like miniature operating systems, carefully tailored for music or photos.

In the same way, StickyBrain is like a miniature operating system for the written word. I've taken nearly all my Microsoft Word files (journal entries, notes, lists, research papers, outlines, reference tables, essays, short stories, work reference files, etc) all my Palm OS memos, all my Sticky notes, and all the web sites I've saved onto my hard drive, and eased them into my StickyBrain. Now every useful scrap of word-based data I've ever saved or generated is right at my fingertips. And anytime I come across something interesting on the web, in my e-mail, or in my head I'm just a keyboard shortcut away from registering it in a system that I trust it won't get lost in. I even draft all of my blog entries in StickyBrain (including this one). There are so many useful features in this program (others include Palm sync, iPod sync, integration with AddressBook, iPhoto, and .Mac, a Dashboard Widget, note alarms, and the ability to automatically make a note from selected text), that if you own a Mac, you should at least download StickyBrain for its 30-day trial period. It may very well become a central and essential part of your digital life.

A bit of 6th grade econ

2005-10-03T22:57:00.000-07:00

I was tutoring my 11 year-old neice in math tonight, and she said, "Math's always been my worst subject, ever since I was a little kid." I explained to her that schools don't pay math teachers enough, so people who are good at math go to work at companies that pay them better, and kids get stuck with teachers who don't care that much about math. My neice thought for just a second, and said, "That's stupid, because later companies won't have anyone to hire, because nobody will be good at math. People should think about that"

From the mouths of babes comes economic wisdom that seems to elude the teacher unions who insist on equal teacher pay, regardless of supply and demand.

Objectivity, Shmobjectivity

2005-10-02T23:09:00.000-07:00

Objectivity, along with accuracy, is one of the holy grails of journalism. But is it really that desirable? All of my favorite magazines, The Economist, Wired, and Entertainment Weekly are decidedly partial. And I'm not just talking about the opinion columns and reviews. Throughout all their content, these publications make quite clear what developments in politics, business, and culture they like and dislike. And, unsurprisingly, I tend to agree with them. Does that mean I'm locking myself in an echo chamber, and shielding my eyes from reality with hack journalism? Is there any difference between me, and someone who swears by Fox News or The Workers' Daily?

I think there are indeed very important differences. If Fox News seemed to truly want to make the world safe for small government, free trade, or Christian values, and their coverage was filtered through that lens, then more power to them. As long as their values don't lead them to outright lying, I don't see anything wrong with bias in journalism: especially now in the information age, when "the media" is so far from being monolithic. Fox News being conservatively biased is not going to brainwash the masses, as so many leftists fret. What makes Fox News an absolute tool is that it does not seem to truly care that much about small government, free trade, or Christian values. The only thing Fox News seems to want to make the world safe for is the Republican Party, and particularly the Bush administration. Bush tends to receive Fox News' toadyish support even when he's swelling government bureaucracy or establishing protectionist tariffs. The Economist, on the other hand, while it wears its conservative heart on its sleeve, will not refrain from praising the Labor Party when it implements pro-market reforms, or chastising the Tories when they promote excessive limitations on economic immigration.

And what sets publications like The Workers' Daily apart, is that, while they are ideologically consistent, they are also too "on-message." Wired may be libertarian and futurist. But you don't get the impression that every article is geared toward a certain agenda.

A good media source is like a good friend who shares interesting things he's learned. As a human with a brain, he has a certain world view, and certain opinions. That doesn't mean he's being dishonest or cynical in his motivations for sharing his info with you. And just as people are apt to find friends who have similar world views, in the diversified media market of today, it is likely that people can find media sources that jibe with their views.

I'm a classic liberal and so is The Economist. I'm interested in what an organization that has similar views to mine, and vastly superior information gathering resources has to say about the world. I believe strongly in private technological advancement, as does Wired. So I'd rather hear about private space travel from Wired, than from NPR, which is clearly pro-NASA. And I tend to like my music, television, and movies to be smart, fresh, and a little edgy. So I don't mind that Entertainment Weekly will harshly criticize the lame TV show According to Jim, even in a feature article about its star, while a magazine like Time would only find nice things to say.

The "don't offend anybody, but don't inspire anybody either" form of objectivity one finds in USA Today, network morning shows, and most small-town newspapers is not only boring, but intellectually deadening. Most Americans don't have thought-out opinions on very many subjects, because they are never challenged by their media sources. People should bounce back and forth between media sources that offend or annoy them, until they find one that inspires them. And with the explosion of blogs and other web sites, niche magazines, satellite radio, podcasts, and cable channels, that smart and targeted way of learning about the world around us is finally possible.

So, mainstream media, don't be objective. Just be honest. Global discourse would be much more fruitful for it.

The Open Source Movement and Liberty

2005-10-01T19:03:00.000-07:00

For my first Liberty Saturday post, I'd like to ask the question: Where does the Open Source Movement stand on the continuum between statism and liberty?

First, for the uninitiated: what is the Open Source Movement (OSM)?

The term "open source" originated in computer programming jargon. Software is made up of code. The source code is what underlies everything in a program. An open source program is one for which the programmers have made the source code publicly available, free of charge. Other programmers are largely free to mess with the code however they like, sometimes with the stipulation that they release their version of the program in an open source manner as well. The two most famous examples of open source programs are the operating system Linux and the web browser Firefox. The open source ethos has also been extended to other kinds of information like writings, music, images, and movies. Other popular open source ventures are Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, the Creative Commons license under which many blogs are written, and the image sharing web site Flickr.

At first take, the OSM seems to have a collectivist, anti-private property tinge to it. Indeed many of its prominent adherents having something of the 60s in them. The Google founders harp on more about not being "evil" than profit models. And Tim O'Reilly, who promotes an OSM-related meme called Web 2.0, and is featured in this month's Wired, had his start as a "human consciousness" teacher in Northern California. But it's not that simple.

Consider their mode of collectivism. They do tend to favor cooperation over competition. And they favor open standards over owned standards. But that doesn't mean they're all calling for the government to enforce that cooperation and generate those standards. In fact I have yet to observe any prominent OSM pundit doing so. If a bunch of programmers across the world want to contribute their free time to building a better browser than Internet Explorer, there is nothing coercive about that. Liberty isn't about doing what you like as long as it makes a profit; it's about doing what you like, period.

Now consider their seeming stance against private property. Let's be straight that we're not talking about knocking over record stores, because they should be open source. We're talking about intellectual property. And more than a few libertarians think intellectual property is a completely artificial and unnecessary construction. My rule of thumb when deciding if liberty has been transgressed or not is violence. Can one really make a strong claim that getting paid for covering someone else's song without paying royalties is actually committing violence against the original artist? We have to be careful about extending the definition of violence too far to justify government action, because that is exactly what statists do when they define "labor exploitation" and "inequality" as forms of violence. Other libertarians encompass deceit in their set of justifications for government action. Under this conception, it should be illegal to pass off someone else's work as your own, thereby justifying intellectual property. But I think non-governmental systems of accountability, utilizing reputation and non-coercive rating agencies would naturally arise to combat such abuse, if governments would just get out of the way. Moreover, I think because consumers really don't want to get ripped off, there would be such a strong market demand for these systems, that the innovation stimulated by that demand would bring about accountability mechanisms much more rigorous than the unresponsive, inefficient government watchdogs we have now.

So on the whole, the Open Source Movement is much more friend than foe to liberty. And it makes sense when you consider the generation it has sprung from. Most techies are not baby boomers (in this, the fifty-something Tim O'Reilly is quite the exception). Most techies are still in their twenties and thirties. They know that the prosperity of their times did not come from the wars on poverty and social injustice of their parents, and that it has more to do with the high tech of the 90s, and perhaps even the high finance of the 80s "me" generation.

So until the Open Source Movement starts lobbying for Firefox subsidies or demanding that Wal-Mart be considered part of the "Creative Commons", consider me an OSM supporter.

Daniel blogged while Simi burned

2005-09-30T19:28:00.000-07:00

For my first California Friday entry, I'll write about some big state news that hit close to home. I live in Simi Valley, where a large brushfire was finally extinguished recently. It was blazing in full force when I tried to drive home. Fortunately only one home was lost (last I heard), and nobody was hurt by the fire (a rock did fall on one fireman's head). The drive home the next day looked pretty cool. It looked to a dork like myself as if orcs had torched a Middle Earth hillside. My housemate said that the firefighting planes were pretty effective. As soon as a bigger, blacker cloud billowed up, a plane would zoom in and drop its payload on it. The libertarian in me would like to think a private plane would have zoomed faster and dropped more stuff. But that's the more churlish part of the libertarian in me.

Daily topics for Ideaspout

2005-09-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

I feel the need to add a little structure to my blogging. So I'm going to write about a particular subject that interests me according to the day of the week.

Miscellaneous Monday: On Mondays, I'll write about whatever strikes my fancy.
Tech Tuesday: I love gadgets! Tuesdays will be when I write about my favorite toys.
Ed Wednesday: Ed as in Education. Education is my industry (and yes it is an industry, just one that has been horribly socialized).
Health Thursday: Health care is tied with education as the top-most industry that we desperately need to pry out of government hands.
California Friday: On Fridays I'll write about state and local issues.
Liberty Saturday: I want to reserve my day with the most free time to discuss sweet, sweet freedom.
Culture Sunday: On Sunday, I'll write about the movies, shows, records, and books I've consumed during the week prior.

Since today is California Friday, I'll write about the Ventura County fires, which I can see from my block.

Apple Care-a-lot

2005-09-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

My optical disc drive in my precious I-Book wouldn't eject. I'm not sure, but I think it's because I somehow managed to put two discs in there. But I couldn't be happier with my experience getting it repaired by Apple.

First of all, it gave me an excuse to visit a two-story Apple Store in Los Angeles. Normally having to wait an hour to see a technician would have been a major inconvenience. But, for me it just gave me a great excuse to play with one of the new Ipod nanos, scope out my next software purchases, and ogle all big screen displays there. The technician was super nice and informative. And my ibook was whisked away.

I missed my ibook more than was probably healthy for an adult to miss his toy. Part of it was I was just barely starting to integrate StickyBrain into my systems when the disc drive went on the fritz. And I was a little worried they would have to wipe the hard drive (although I backed up most of my stuff).

But every step of the repair process was documented in a log on the Apple Care web site (see below), which eased my anxiety. And as you can see from the log, the turnaround was remarkably quick. I dropped it off on a Monday afternoon, and they shipped it out that Thursday morning. And somehow it got to my office the very same morning they shipped it! Plus, I got e-mail status updates, they didn't have to erase anything, I got a brand new optical drive, and it was all covered by the warranty, even though I may have caused the malfunction!

Altogether a customer service experience entirely befitting Apple's reputation.

Repair Status Detail
Hello, Daniel Sanchez | help | logout

Date Case Number Dispatch Number Name Status
09/26/2005 53295068 R5586319 Daniel Sanchez Repair Requested
09/26/2005 53295068 R5586319 Daniel Sanchez Request Acknowledged
09/28/2005 53295068 R5586319 Daniel Sanchez Unit Received
09/28/2005 53295068 R5586319 Daniel Sanchez Begin Repair
09/28/2005 53295068 R5586319 Daniel Sanchez Begin Testing
09/29/2005 53295068 R5586319 Daniel Sanchez Ready to Ship
09/29/2005 53295068 R5586319 Daniel Sanchez Unit Shippped/Completed
09/29/2005 53295068 R5586319 Daniel Sanchez Closed

Many Germans say "Nein" to reform

2005-09-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

I meant to post about this when it happened. But the left did surprisingly well in the German elections. This shows that, in stark contrast with the Japanese electorate which recently showed strong support for Prime Minister Koizumi's efforts to privatize the Japanese Post, the Germans seem very skeptical about market reforms. It will be an interesting experiment to see, after these landmark elections, where the paths chosen will lead these two giant economies.

Did socialism bring down Rome?

2005-09-15T19:37:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to an audiobook version of the History of Ancient Rome by Cyril Robinson, and in it I heard a refreshingly different take on the fall of Rome. Most history's blame invading armies and internal corruption for Rome's decline and fall. Many who want to draw parallels with the "excesses" of modern America blame Rome's arrogance and expansionism. But Robinson points out that, in the face of economic challenges, the Empire set price seriously low price ceilings, prevented merchants from changing their professions and produced huge amounts of currency to fund a swelling government beuaracracy. It was only then that the Empire was unable to heal itself. The Carthaginians and Celts couldn't do it. Caligula and Nero couldn't do it. Apparently, the industry of Romans was enough to overcome anything except its own government trying to micromanage its economy at swordpoint.

One giant leap for Japan

2005-09-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

Japan Post, an odd quasi-governmental entity, which is actually the largest financial institution in the world, looks set to be split up and privatized. This has long been a primary goal of Junichiro Koizumi, Japan's prime minister. He faced a heavy impediment when in August, members of his own Liberal Democratic Party broke ranks and opposed his Post privatization bill. In what now seems like a brilliant strategem, the prime minister dissolved the lower house of Parliament and called a special election. On Sunday, the new coalition Koizumi created out of pro-reform LDP members and a Buddhist party, won a landslide victory. This paves the way for the Post, which controls a staggering $3 trillion in financial assets to be pried out of government hands. This election was a turning point for Japan. It could have buckled under the pressure of entrenched political interests. But instead it is striding boldly into the global marketplace. Indeed, after 4 years under Koizumi revised GDP figures show Japan's economy to have grown a thumping 3.3% in the second quarter. While old Europe's rejection of the EU constitution showed it to be in a severe case of future-shock, it looks like Japan has placed itself firmly in the winner's column of the world economy.

Why aren't all pacifists libertarian?

2005-09-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

The two ideologies are actually remarkably compatible. When you think about it, if libertarians hate any one thing it's violence. The only justification a libertarian would accept for curtailing a person's right to do what he pleases, is if that action would harm another person. Even some non-libertarian leftists have this viewpoint, except that they have a broader definition of "harm". If Wal-Mart elbows out a mom-and-pop grocery store, that's harm to them. To a libertarian, harm only means direct physical injury, or coercion under the threat of physical injury. "The right to swing my fist, ends at your nose," the maxim goes. This philosophy also underpins the libertarian's opposition to government action in general, even if it's not prima facie curtailing someone's rights. If you think about it every government action involves a gun. Say a person wants to open a store without the "proper" permit. What's stopping him? There's a law against it. What if he ignores it? They'll take him to court. What if he ignores that? He'll lose the case, and the government will tell him to shut the store down. What if he ignores that? The government will try to take control of the property and arrest him. What if he locks the door? They'll break it down. What if he tries to push them out? They'll beat him. What if he uses a weapon to force them out? They'll shoot him. And it's not just laws against behaviors either. It's all government programs too, because they all depend on tax money, that if a citizen tried to not pay, he would be thrown in jail or shot. Every law is enforced at the barrel of a gun: under threat of physical injury. And the only justification a libertarian will accept for such violence is if it is to directly prevent citizens having violence done upon them by other citizens. So at the core of the two tenets of libertarian thought: individual liberty and minimalisation of government, is a strong opposition to violence.

So again, why aren't all pacifists libertarian? It strikes me as odd that so many of the same people who are so dead-set against any war, no matter what, are so willing and eager to use the threat of deadly violence against their own fellow citizens to ensure proper behavior.

How leftists kill babies (and I'm not talking about abortion)

2005-09-06T21:36:00.000-07:00

...rather, I'm talking about market interference. In a globalized economy, economic inefficiency in any part of the world reduces global wealth. In a world with so many human beings living right at the threshold of starvation, such reductions are bound to knock some humans out of the survival column. And study after study has shown that market interference causes economic inefficiency. Leftists think we should all accept that for the greater good. But what good is greater than people not starving!-- especially when so many of those people in question are innocent children. Foreign aid, peace-keeping missions, social safety nets: none of these things have come even close to saving the amount of innocent young lives as freeing up markets, especially in places like China. The precipitous drop in Chinese infant mortality brought on by trade liberalisation should have been front page news every day for the past 20 years. How could such a dramatic increase in the welfare of humankind have gone so unheralded? Every single selfish, pointless government regulation or program that gets in the way of that kind of progress literally sickens adults and starves children throughout the world. I'm talking about cotton subsidies, textile tarrifs, and corporate welfare. And yes I'm also talking about artificially affordable housing, socialized education, and the ordinary type of welfare. These programs not only dull and hinder our own populace, but by slowing down the global engines of prosperity, they are actually costing countless lives. Where is the outrage over that? Where are the bleeding-heart celebrities, and the chest-beating protesters? They're so eager to join battles for the oppressed, why aren't they participating in this one? Well, they are, just on the wrong side. It is their attempts to fix the world's problems that are creating those problems in the first place. And why is this so? Not because they are immoral or two-faced. It's simply a case of economic illiteracy. Strident activists can understand factories paying workers too little for their liking or big chains elbowing out local stores. But, freedom to pursue profit leading to competition, leading to efficiency, leading to greater global wealth, leading to more babies not starving is perhaps one or two plot points too long for the average do-gooder. And that is a shame. More than that, it's a tragedy.

Life, Liberty, and Property

2005-09-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

I am very happy to be joining the Life, Liberty, Property blog community. The LLP was started by Eric over at Grumbles Before the Grave in response to the notorious Kelo V. New London Supreme Court Decision. As I've expressed, that court decision greatly apalled me. Check out the LLP button and blogroll in my sidebar.

What's the stupid law behind that?

2005-08-31T21:15:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of time on the L.A. freeways commuting now, and I've yet to find a good NPR station. So I've been listening to commercial radio, and putting up with the ads. I hate those rapid-fire disclaimers at the ends of the commercials. At first it makes me annoyed at the companies themselves. But then I realize that they almost certainly have no choice in the matter. They are probably just abiding by some pointless law mandating that they say so if there are additional restrictions, if participation may vary, or if the offer is not available in some areas, or whatever. Again, the government is assuming the general populace is a mass of dolts who can't manage their own purchasing choices. I personally assume that not every detail of an offer is spelled out in a 30 second ad, and that if I want to go through with the purchase, I should look further into the matter.

This is just the latest in a long string of serious problems and lesser annoyances that I've pondered, about which I've come to the conclusion that there is an ill-conceived law behind the malady. I think when people take a look at the world's problems, we'd be much better off if everybody started asking, "What's the stupid law behind that?" I think most people would find that to be a surprisingly fruitful inquiry.

Isolation doesn't work

2005-08-19T22:21:00.000-07:00

Fareed Zakaria closed this week's episode of his PBS show Foreign Exchange with the following editorial gem (click here for full transcript):

We’ve had a policy of regime change against Fidel Castro for the last four decades and it isn’t working. There’s a lesson here; take Cuba and Iran. We’ve tried isolation and punishment and sanctions on both for years--decades. Yet, both regimes remain firmly in power thumbing their noses at Uncle Sam.
By contrast, look at Libya and Vietnam. Washington has taken a strikingly different tact towards them normalizing relations with Vietnam, nudging Libya towards reform; both are still dictatorships to be sure, but Vietnam is opening and slowly and Libya has renounced terrorism and welcomed tourists and trade.
By piling on sanctions and keeping a country totally isolated, the United States only insures that the state becomes more powerful and civil society remains weak. But to change a regime short of war, you actually have to do the opposite--empower society--not the state, and it is commerce, contact, and information that are the most powerful agents of change in today’s world. This Administration should have more faith in the power of capitalism.

Don't leave Iraq to the Jihadis

2005-08-18T09:48:00.000-07:00

Another interesting moment in Jon Stewart's interview with crackpot journalist Seymour Hersh, was when Stewar expressed his belief that we can and should keep trying to clean up the mess we made in Iraq, but not with the current administration. An odd reverse of that sentiment is apparently growing in the U.S. heartland. Reuters reports that many voters in Broken Bow, Nebraska still support the president, but want to cut our losses and get out of Iraq.

As much as I'm frustrated with the incompetence of the Bush administration with the Iraq occupation, I still think pulling out would be disastrous. If we left Iraq to the Jihadis, we would have only succeeded in replacing a contained, secular dictator with an uncontrollable, rabid theocracy. Whether or not Iraq had been a potential source of global terror before we invaded, it would certainly become so if we let the Jihadis rule the roost. For the sake of innocents in Iraq and innocents at home, we must see this war through, until we figure out a way to win.

Infitada and Balushistran

2005-08-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

For the second time Jon Stewart gave quack journalist Seymour Hersh(streaming video) from the New Yorker a platform. This is unfortunate. Both times Hersh spouted rapid-fire loony predictions about global crises. He sounds like Woody Allen playing a conspiracy theorist. Last time he predicted an American attack on Iran. This time he was blurting out nonsense about an Iraqi "Tet Offensive" and a "Battle for Baghdad". He also made the ridiculous claim that the ascension of former Crown Prince Abdullah to the throne of Saudi Arabia was a big deal, because Abdullah would bring on an oil spike since he didn't like the way America was dealing with the Palestinian "infitada" (read inTIFAda), as he put it. Stewart, who is often refreshingly impartial with his barbs, challenged him on that point by pointing out correctly that Abdullah has been holding true power anyway (ever since King Fahd had a stroke). Unfortunately he butchered the Latin language to do it, calling Abdullah the "ipso de facto" ruler. Steward also didn't let his fellow liberal of the hook when Hersh rambled something about "Balushistran" (Don't check your map. You won't find it.). "Now you're just making cities up. Balushistan!" Stewart corrected him. It's actually none of what either of them said. It's Baluchistan, and it's a region.

I am pleased that Stewart didn't let Hersh walk away unmocked. But while it's par-for-the-course that a wooly old mag like the New Yorker would give Hersh a platform, I'd hope an honest, sharp, clever show like the Daily Show would be as hard on Hersh as it is on other hack journalists like Robert Novak and Tucker Carlson.

Insect V. Mollusk

2005-08-17T17:16:00.000-07:00

Businesses running Windows 2000 computers all over the world, including the farm equipment maker Caterpillar, have been beset by a worm, which is malicious code that travels directly through internet connections, instead of e-mail, allowing Wired to construct this marvelous sentence:

"Caterpillar worked Tuesday to clean up effects from the worm"

It makes the business and IT world seem like some strange biosphere. Funny thing is, as ironic as Wired is, I don't think they meant it as a joke, judging from the context.

On Roberts: Let's cut to the chase

2005-07-20T10:54:00.000-07:00

The mainstream media, and even many bloggers, have been trying to be "mature" by not jumping to conclusions about John Roberts, President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, and not talking too much about Roe V. Waid. It's been less than 24 hours, and I'm already sick of hearing about his intellectualism and how much Democrats respect him.

This is the real story that the news media should be reporting.

1. Roberts will vote to overturn Roe if given the chance, as evidenced by his past writings.
2. Roberts replacing the pro-Roe Justice O'Connor shifts the court one step in the anti-Roe direction.
3. The Supreme Court will need just one more such step to overturn Roe.
4. Pro-Roe Justice John Paul Stevens is 85 years old.

In my view, that leaves 4 possible scenarios:
1. Stevens retires before Bush's second term ends.
1.1 Bush appoints another anti-Roe justice. Roe is overturned.
1.2 Bush appoints Roberto Gonzales, because of loyalty. Roe is not overturned.

2. Stevens retires after Bush's second term ends.
2.1 The next president is pro-life. Roe is overturned.
2.2 The next president is pro-choice. Roe is not overturned.

It's all well and good to hear that Roberts gets a lump in his throat when he thinks about the Supreme Court and that he's "anchored in modern law" (New York Times). But we've got ourselves a ballgame here, with big-time consequences. The mainstream media would do us a lot of good by not being obtuse about it.

Religion and "public" life

2005-07-15T21:31:00.001-07:00

In his recent New York Times column Mr. Bush, Pick a Genius , David Brooks (who I often agree with) endorses Michael McConnell as a potential Supreme Court nominee. In his writings and rulings, McConnell has resisted religion-state separationism, because...

The problem with the Separationist view, he has argued in essays and briefs, is that it's not practical. As government grows and becomes more involved in health, charity, education and culture issues, it begins pushing religion out of those spheres. The Separationist doctrine leads inevitably to discrimination against religion. The state ends up punishing people who are exercising a constitutional right.

Right problem, David, wrong answer. If government instead shrunk and became less involved in health, charity, education and culture issues, then people would be able to freely consider religion when choosing how to deal with illness, who to donate to, how to educate their kids, and what to do on a weekend. Moreover, without a big fat state distorting the markets in these realms, people would have more and better choices in regards to non-religous issues as well, like value and methodology.

Album Review: Demon Days by Gorillaz

2005-06-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

When the Gorillaz first hit MTV in 2001 it was a revelation. The music video, tinged with elements of anime and horror films, was dazzling and stylish. Damon Albarn's trippy Beck-like vocals was a perfectly bizzare compliment to the rump-moving super-annunciated rapping of Del the Funky Homosapien. Later I learned that the characters in the video weren't just a gimmick for a real-live band. They were the band. Blur front-man Damon Albarn did much of the music, along with various rappers and producers. But all the promotion, videos, and even tours would be solely about the quartet of strange musicians designed by comic book artist Jamie Hewlett (the creator of the comic series "Tank Girl"). The lead singer is a bedraggled Brit named 2-D who looks no more than two weeks out of rehab. The guitar player is Noodle, a diminuitive Japanese girl. The bass player is a sinister-looking bloke named Murdock. And the drummer is a gi-normous black gentleman named Russel. Each of their designs are savagely stylish and just beg to be plastered across dorm room walls.

The whole package had me completely sold. After listening to their self-titled first album however, I found myself disappointed. Only one other song had a rapper, and without that punch, the rest of the songs were a bit plodding and flat.

A few weeks ago, Apple started running a new Ipod commercial with a Gorillaz song from their new album, "Demon Days". I really dug it, so I checked out the whole album on Rhapsody. For the first two songs I was worried it would be more of the same. It sounded like Albarn just dicking around in the studio. The first full song, Last Living Souls had Albarn doing Bob Dylan-ish vocals over an Atari video-game-sounding drum beat. There was a Coldplay-ish interlude in the track that sounded promising. But the song soon went back to sounding rinky-dinky, and never had any rapping. The next track "Kids With Guns" had me getting really tired of Albarn's voice, just as did most of the previous album. But with the third track "O Green World" the album finally kicked into gear. It was this song where I finally heard the influence of the new producer Danger Mouse, who made waves a while back by mixing the Beatles' "White Album" with Jay-Z's "Black Album" to make his own "Grey Album". "O Green World" is a kick-ass collage of eclectic melodic and rhythmic lines underneath Albarn's interestingly distorted voice. Danger Mouse's sample-heavy style fit perfectly with the Gorillaz. And the album just got better from there. "Dirty Harry" started with a joyful mix of wah guitar, funk bass, Albarn's doubled-up voice, and a children's choir (believe me, it works). Then half-way through, rapper Bootie Brown crashed into the track elevating the song to cross-over greatness. The next song was the hit single "Feel Good, Inc." I watched the video for it online, and it was every bit as draw-dropping as their first video. The video alternates between a sweat drenched dance club and a pure blue sky traversed by a Miyazaki-style floating island. In this song, Albarn sounds particularly Beck-like and it totally works. And the maniacally laughing veteran rappers De La Soul added the same kind of jolt to the song that Del did to "Clint Eastwood". "El Manana" focused on Albarn's voice, but it didn't grow wearisome at all this time, because it had a break in it throughout the song that sounded really mournful and nice. "Every Planet We Reach Is Dead", as well as having an incredibly intriguing title, alternated between an aggressive wah guitar lick and a dreamy melody. This interplay really worked. At the end the instrumentals descended into chaotic guitar noise before smoothing out into a jazzy piano figure: pure headphone joy. "November Has Come" featured rapper MF Doom whose grimy sound was a neat change-up. "All Alone" gave the mic to rapper Roots Manuva. This track was fascinating because it was so rhythmically fluid. And it had an angelic vocal interlude by Martina Topley-Bird. "White Light" was fun little dance-punk ditty: not too much to it, though. Then out of nowhere, the Gorillaz achieve pure pop majesty with my favorite song on the album, "Dare". This song was like a cross between Abba and Prince, with all the infectiousness that implies. Albarn's falsettos, backup singer Rosie Wilson's silky voice, and Shaun Ryder's rapping made an oddly perfect blend that will hopefully tear up the charts when (as rumor has it) it will be released as a single in August. The last three tracks transitioned into each other like a mini- rock opera. It started with "Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head", a creepy-cool fable told by Dennis Hopper, the king of creepy-cool. The sing-song "Don't Get Lost In Heaven" introduced a gospel choir, which really started belting in the final track "Demon Days".

In the album "Demon Days", Damon Albarn, Danger Mouse, and their collaborators have produced a masterpiece of myriad styles and sonic experimentation. The Gorillaz mix some of the best elements of hip-hop, funk, dance-pop, gospel, and folk-rock. And while other musicians seem to think the mere novelty of mixing styles is enough, the talents behind the Gorillaz have clearly treated the practice as an exercise in artistry.

For more Gorillaz goodness, check out the interview-made-in-heaven in this month's Wired with Neil Gaiman (yes, that Neil Gaiman) and Gorillaz creators Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett.

Daniel on the airwaves

2005-06-28T21:12:00.000-07:00

Today I was broadcast on KQED Public Radio, which is heard by thousands of people in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, and all over the SF Bay Area.

For KQED's series called Perspectives, I read a two-minute piece I wrote about re-districting reform that was based on one of my previous blog posts.

You can listen to the entire piece in streaming audio in the KQED Perspectives Archive here.

Below is the transcript of what I read, which I think is an improvement on my original post:

In the last film of our governor's previous career, the only thing that could kill a terminator was another terminator. It now appears that the only thing that can solve the ills of direct democracy is direct democracy itself.

Propositions and recalls proliferate in our state because Californians don't trust the legislature to get things done. Here's why. Legislators decide where voting district lines are drawn. Naturally, they pick and choose populations they know will vote for their party. This is called gerrymandering. So what we end up with is a bunch of strictly Democratic or strictly Republican districts.

Since it’s a foregone conclusion which party is going to win each district, the real battle is in the primary, where politicians only have to appeal to the party base to win. They don't need to moderate their positions. This gives us a polarized legislature of left-wing Democrats and right-wing Republicans, which doesn’t accurately represent most Californians who are proudly centrist. It's no wonder the legislature can't get anything done. And it's no wonder Californians have to go through the flawed initiative process to accomplish anything. Think about the last regular election for governor. Richard Riordan, a moderate Republican, could have easily defeated Gray Davis, but couldn't get past the right-wing Bill Simon in the primary. The moderate Schwarzenegger could only win because he skipped the primary entirely, through the recall.

Some of Schwarzenegger’s ideas are good and would have been tried already if we didn't have such a polarized government. But he's getting so much flak from the entrenched unions , that he’s getting nowhere.

So Californians who care about reform need to focus not on the symptoms of the problem, but the cause. We need to fix redistricting and kill gerrymandering. The governor’s upcoming initiative has retired judges, insulated from political pressures, drawing the district lines. If Schwarzenegger can accomplish this one reform, it will do more good for California’s future than any number of other reforms. In general, recalls, initiatives and other direct democracy measures lead to half-baked, policies. But through the recall-spawned Schwarzenegger and his re-districting initiative, direct democracy could actually eliminate the need for itself by establishing a functional government that is bi-partisan instead of bi-polar. Like the gift that keeps on giving, fixing re-districting would be the reform that keeps on reforming.

With a perspective, I’m Daniel Sanchez.

Brown for Supreme Court

2005-06-27T15:47:00.000-07:00

The precedent of past decisions is not legally everything. If people can discuss the possibility of Roe V. Waid being overturned (as David Brooks did), then it's not unreasonable to consider a K.O. for Kelo. But we'll need a libertarian and originalist Supreme Court justice replacing the soon-to-retire Justice Rehnquist to do it: a justice like Janice Rogers Brown. Wouldn't she be great? Eric at Grumbles discussed her classic liberal credentials here, here, and here, as did Scott at Catallarchy there, there, and there. President Bush obviously thinks positively of her. And since she's not a fundamental religionist judge, she'd probably be palatable to the Democrats (heck, they already agreed not to filibuster her for her recent appointment). Maybe her firm presence and intellectualism would prevent other conservative justices from wobbling on individual rights, as Justice Kennedy did. The only potential problem would be if she is required to serve on the federal appeals court for a certain amount of time. This I do not know.

Both fan and foe of public broadcasting

2005-06-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

Public broadcasting has been a bit of a quandry for me. As a free-market libertarian I chafe at the idea of socialized television and radio. Also, given that I find much of American leftist politics to be soft-headed and backwards, one might expect me to rail against my tax dollars supporting the alleged bias of public media. Indeed, there is much of public media I steer clear of. I've learned that on KQED radio in the San Francisco Bay area, the late nights and much of the weekend are when the lefties are allowed to let it all hang out. Despite that, I actually willingly spend much of my life listening to KQED. I really love listening to American Public Media's "Marketplace" and Public Radio International's "The World." I also find the main NPR news shows (Morning Edition, All Things Considered) to be quite balanced. If it leans any direction, it surely is left. But, on the whole, compared to much of private media, NPR is an exemplar of journalistic quality and balance.

So, as a free-marketeer I ask with such high quality why there can't be a market for such a product. The obvious answer is that there is a market. The bulk of the public broadcasting audience is quite well-heeled. This provides support in two ways that dwarf the government's contribution: donations and ads. Yes, as anyone who consumes public media knows, PBS and NPR are no longer ad-free. They don't call the "brought to you by" announcements ads, but really that's what they are. And because of the well-heeled audience, the advertisers ("sponsors" in public broadcasting parlance) are of the well-paying breed: large multi-national corporations. The talking point response to this argument is that what is really at risk are rural stations, which do depend on government money. But the type of people who consume public broadcasting in rural areas can probably afford to listen to that content on satellite radio anyway.

NPR, I love ya, so I'll donate of my own volition. But please stop forcing me to pay through my taxes.

Libertarianism on Wikipedia

2005-06-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

Libertarianism is the featured article of the day on Wikipedia! I've read it before, and I highly recommend it. It's part of a collection articles listed on the left of the main article that usefully distinquish between different threads of libertarianism, like minarchism, anarcho-capitalism, paleo-libertarianism, and neo-libertarianism.

A city is not a person

2005-06-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

After I thought the Kelo V. City of New London ruling couldn’t anger me more, I read this quote from Thomas J. Londregan, the lawyer for New London in the NY Times:

“I’m here to tell you that this case was never about the taking of property from one person and giving it to another,” Mr. Londregan said. “This case was not some type of land grab. This case was about the City of New London, its six square miles and its economic survival.”

A city is not a person! If a city does not economically survive, no widows will mourn. No soul will leave its body. If people have to move elsewhere for economic reasons, that’s life. If they have to move for political reasons, that’s theft.

Leftists have a tendency to moralize about abstract concepts as if they were human. Protectionists whine about the death of industries. Industries aren't people either. Time goes on, and economies change. Careers should change, too. Anthropologists promote preserving native culture, even if that means not correcting backwards economic or social practices keeping them in abject poverty. Record and preserve the memory of the culture for posterity: yes. But don't try to freeze a people in one point of their history for your own academic interests.

Home, seized home

2005-06-23T22:38:00.000-07:00

In Zimbabwe right now, private land is being seized by the government for capricious reasons and homeowners are being forced to burn down their own houses.

And in America, the land of the free... well at least the second part isn't true.

The Supreme Court ruled today that the government can seize private property in order to hand it over to OTHER PRIVATE OWNERS for the sake of economic development. For decades, city governments have used "eminent domain" to clear the way for highways and other public uses. They've even been allowed to do so for the sake of eliminating "blight." Now they can do it if Wal-Mart wants to build a Sam's Club on those 4 acres you managed to save up for on a teacher's salary.

I cannot express how angry and sick this makes me feel.

You're a freak, and this is wrong

2005-06-15T18:11:00.000-07:00

That's what Shepard Smith of Fox News shouted angrily while actually pounding on his desk after the Michael Jackson acquittal was announced.

It was not only childish, but revealing. The fact that Smith felt compelled to insert the petty insult, "You're a freak", into his rant indicated to me that part of his absolute certainty of Jackson's guilt was his revulsion at Jackson's appearance and manner. What really gets under Smith's skin is Jackson's culture, not his alleged crime.

The best news show on television

2005-05-26T22:18:00.000-07:00

My favorite journalist now has a show on PBS. Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria | Where America Meets the World is just as smart and suave as the host himself. Zakaria is an editor at Newsweek, is a regular guest on This Week with George Stephanopoulis, and was Editor-in-Chief at Foreign Affairs. He also wrote the book The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad which should be read by anybody who believes in liberty (or doesn't yet).

It's odd, yet refreshing to see interviews in which the host is smarter than the guest experts. The show is like a TV version of an article in The Economist; it has great depth and breadth, yet it's brisk and polished. Television journalism desperately needed something like this. Most national news shows on TV fit one or more of the following categories:

1. An excuse for a pig-headed conservative and a strident, whiny liberal to yell at each other (O'Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, Crossfire).
2. An excuse for newsmakers to swing at thoughtless softballs (Larry King)
3. An excuse for policy makers to get their message out (Meet the Press, Face the Nation)
4. Lowest-common-denominator attempts to exploit the fears and worries of "average Americans" (Dateline)
5. An excuse to air whatever the most eye-grabbing footage of whatever the day's biggest headlines are (Nightline)

Even the News Hour, which was probably the best until Zakaria's show came along, is quite flawed. It's very dull, and often falls into the #3 problem above.

In Foreign Affairs with Fareed Zakaria, the arguments are strong, but the tone is civil. The show credits the viewer to be someone who can comprehend complex points. At the same time it has some serious production value, without being garish like Fox News. This show finally proves that you don't have to be dowdy to be smart, and you don't have to be simple-minded to be accessible. I hope young people especially will tune in to this show. And I hope more TV news shows will try to emulate it.

All 8 of the weekly shows broadcast thus far can be seen on the web site (see link above).

Slay the gerrymander

2005-05-04T10:28:00.000-07:00

It's all falling apart.

Arnold Schwarzeneggar, believe it or not, seemed to be our best hope for making California’s government work. But now our dysfunctional system looks like it's going to chew him up and spit him out.

Here's the way the system currently works. Legislators get to decide where voting district lines are drawn. Naturally, they form the districts in such a way that picks and chooses populations they know will vote for their party. This is called gerrymandering. So what we have is a bunch of districts that are either strictly Democrat or strictly Republican. Since it’s a foregone conclusion which party is going to win each district, the real battle isn’t in the general election; it’s in the primary election. So politicians only have to appeal to the base of their party to win, and they don't need to moderate their positions. This gives us a polarized legislature comprised of far-left Democrats and far-right Republicans, which doesn’t accurately represent the majority of Californians who are proudly centrist. It's no wonder the legislature can't get anything done. And it's no wonder Californians have to go through the flawed initiative process to accomplish anything. Think about the last regular election for governor. Richard Riordan, a moderate Republican, who could have easily defeated Gray Davis, couldn't get past the far-right Bill Simon in the primary. The only reason the moderate Schwarzeneggar was able to win was because he skipped the primary through the initiative process.

Schwarzeneggar has a lot of new ideas in his initiatives. Some of them are really good, and would have been tried already if we didn't have such a polarized government. But he's getting so much flak from the far-left unions who have sway over the far-left legislators, that he might not get them passed.

So Californians who care about reform need to focus their efforts, not on the symptoms of the problem, but the cause. We need to fix redistricting and kill gerrymandering. If Schwarzeneggar can get this one goal accomplished, it will do more good for the future of California than any number of other reforms. Like the gift that keeps on giving, it would be the reform that keeps on reforming.

The worst of both worlds

2005-04-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

President Bush is insisting that Social Security is in a crisis. It's a problem, to be sure, but a relatively fixable and distant one. Social Security won't even have a deficit until 2018. Medicare, on the other hand, is already in the red. It's Medicare, not Social Security, that threatens our economy the most, as Fareed Zakaria argues in a recent column.

There are two philosophically opposed models of health care: socialized and privatized. They each have upsides and downsides. It's possible to have elements of one model in a system dominated by the other. But America's particular blend of socialized and privatized health care is extremely dysfunctional and obscenely expensive by its very nature.

Canada's health care system is largely socialized. The big downside of that is how Canadians don't have much incentive to restrain their use of medical services (or even to shop around for better prices), because they're not spending their own money. But the upside is that as an enormous single purchaser of health care, the Canadian government has great bargaining power to get low prices.

America's system has Canada's downside, but not its upside. A great many Americans receive socialized health care through Medicare, Medicaid, and state programs. They, like Canadians, have a lack of incentive for restraint (although this is not complete because of co-payments and other measures). This problem has been made worse by President Bush's addition of prescription drug benefits to Medicare, and his threat to veto any attempt to pare it down. Also, unlike Canada, America can't take advantage of its monopsony position (the opposite of a monopoly), because, as Zakaria observes, "in America the government cannot (often by law) exercise its clout as a buyer to drive down costs."

In a system more like an "ownership society," citizens would pony up their own money for health care. These citizens would have every incentive to spend that money wisely. Health care providers would then have to compete for the money of very discriminating customers by lowering prices and improving quality. The upside is that health care as a whole would become cheaper and better. The downside is that, no matter how much prices drop, there will always be some people too poor to afford to pay.

America doesn't have the benefits of a free market in health care because it's largely socialized and anti-competitive. And, since even our socialized health care isn't universal, it still leaves some completely without health insurance. Again, it's all downside and no upside.

As I see it America has two good health care policy choices. It could have a monopsony-strengthened socialized system, tempered with "privatization" measures like co-payments. Or, (and this is my strong preference) it could have a competition-strengthened privatized system, tempered with "socialization" measures like a "welfare-to-work" version of Medicaid. The system's current blend is a lose-lose situation. As more and more baby boomers qualify for Medicare, unless the system is wisely reformed, it will soon present a true crisis.

What "Sin" means to me

2005-04-09T18:39:00.000-07:00

I saw "Sin City" in Hanford, California, because what the hell else was I going to do in Hanford, California? While it is closer to good than great, Robert Rodriguez's adaptation of Frank Miller's comic series is grisly and gorgeous. It was worth every penny of the price of admission, which is quite an accomplishment to me, given that most Hollywood movies make me feel ripped off of even the time invested.

Mickey Rourke was excellent in the role of a psycho-killer brick of an anti-hero. Bruce Willis was in top form as yet another, if edgier, permutation of his Die Hard character. Clive Owen was compelling as ever as he continues to take Rupert Everett's place in Hollywood.

The three actors mentioned are the leads of three connected, but independent stories which make up the film. While each character has a different profession (Rourke's low-life do-gooder, Willis' ailing cop, Owen's private investigator), they are all essentially the same character. Not only that, but the character template they share is the same which has dominated film and literature storylines ever since being distilled by Hemingway. The "Hemingway hero" is experienced, no-nonsense, quiet, noble, hyper-competent, and male. He is usually accompanied by women who are much more prone to emotion and mistakes. The kick-ass hookers of "Sin City" are a notable exception. Fortunately the homogeneity of the heroes is in no way distracting in "Sin City". There is a good reason for the success of the "Hemingway hero"; he is eternally compelling to men, because he's what we all want to be on some level.

Besides, the real draw of the film is what Peter Travers of Rolling Stone calls it's "bold, uncompromised vision". That vision is the result of the skill and creative spirit of Robert Rodriguez and his fidelity to the style of Frank Miller's source material. Together they have created a world that is as dank as Middle Earth according to Peter Jackson is majestic. The film has a climate of perpetual menace that stuck with me long after I left the theater.

That "Sin City" is a hit indicates some truths to me. One truth is that America is not as puritanical as many claim. Some values-voters quite like gratuitous sex and violence as long as it doesn't have "any of that queer stuff".

It also proves to me how wrong-headed the conglomerates who own comic book companies are. They demand that their comic-book publishing subsidiaries turn a decent profit, which is usually a reasonable expectation. In the case of this industry, that means turning out large numbers of titles revolving around the established, iconic characters: Superman, X-men, etc. These are strong characters to be sure, but such a strategy is very limiting creatively. So a lot of the top talent tell the stories they want to tell at independent labels. Meanwhile, the big labels still can't make big profits, even with their hard-nosed strategies. What makes it all worthwhile are the successful movies that are based on comic-book characters. Many of these lately have been from the scrappy independents, including "Sin City", "Hellboy", and "Ghost World". Even the successful "known quantity" movies (Spider-Man, Batman, etc) are based on stories told back when the big labels were small and scrappy themselves. If I were in charge of Marvel or DC Comics, I'd make the comics-publishing business a money-losing breeding ground for great stories, the best of which would be licensed for movies, cartoons, and other media that actually have a strong inherent profit model.

And finally, the success of "Sin City" proves to me how unforgivably stupid Disney (the parent company of Miramax which produced "Sin City") is. Every success that keeps this giant company afloat seems to be in spite of its management. Disney's string of traditional animation flops contrasts sharply with Pixar's perfect record. So you'd think Disney would cling desperately to their profit-sharing deal with Pixar. Instead they're on the verge of losing Pixar, because Michael Eisner refused to make nice with Steve Jobs. When the upcoming head of Disney Bob Iger was responsible for ABC, he tried to deep-six "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" before they went on the air. He even went so far as to fire the executives who were promoting the two shows, which later became ABC's only saving graces of the new season. And finally, there's Miramax. Disney bought out Miramax with the idea that Miramax would continue to make low-budget artsy movies. Instead, Harvey and Bob Weinstein showed Eisner that it's not about high- versus low-budget. It's about high- versus low-quality. Miramax put out an unprecedented string of Oscar-conquering epics like "The English Patient" and "The Aviator". Eisner got mad, because they were competing with his simple-minded shlock like "The Alamo" and "Pearl Harbor". Now the Weinsteins are being forced out and both Miramax and Disney are much poorer for it. The success of "Sin City" is like the Weinstein brothers giving one last jab in the gut to the Walt Disney Corporation: Hollywood's big, fat, stupid, rich kid on the block.

Worse than starving?

2005-04-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

I just attended a speech by Robert Reich, a very prominent pundit and Secretary of Labor under President Clinton. He opened by asking the audience to suppose he was a genie. As a genie, he could snap his fingers and automatically create a new world order in which there is more inequality of wealth, but everyone, even at the lowest level, is more wealthy than they otherwise would have been. He asked the audience if they would want the genie to bring that about. Being an audience in Berkeley, a very small minority (including myself) raised hands. This scenario, he argued, would be dangerous because people generally care more about their wealth in comparison with others than about their absolute level of wealth. So resentment over inequality would fester, and eventually would burst.

After his speech I went up to the stage to talk to him. I asked him to consider his genie scenario on a global scale. In the third world there are millions of people on the brink of starvation. For them, a change in their absolute level of wealth could be a matter of life and death. I asked him, "Isn't actual starvation in the third world more important than resentment over inequality in the first?" He responded that there are real ways that inequality can harm a person. Before he could continue, I asked, "Are they worse than starving?" Mr. Reich was uncharacteristically speechless, momentarily. Then, my friend who, unbeknownst to me had come up to the stage too, blurted out, "Well, yes, in some cases." Then some others in the crowd said some things, and instead of answering my question, Robert Reich said, "I'll let you guys argue it out," and moved on to other audience members.

I was extremely frustrated. Robert Reich is one of the most influential economic thinkers on the left. He's on National Public Radio every week, and he's regularly featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and innumerable other publications. If economic policy drastically lurches to the left, it will largely be because of him and other thought-leaders, like NY Times columnist Paul Krugman. So, for him it's not necessarily an academic question. If he convinces enough people from his media pulpit, he could actually bring about a huge change. And the change he wants is to reduce absolute wealth for the sake of greater equality. Since absolute, not relative, poverty is a matter of life and death to millions of people, such a change would push a great many people off the starvation brink. Given the stakes involved, and given his position, Robert Reich should have had a ready answer to my question.

Spitzer dope-slaps the Journal

2005-04-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

Some in Wall Street are now using New York Attorney-General Elliot Spitzer's name as a verb. Your car breaks down? You got Spitzered. You accidentally hit Reply-All for a sensitive e-mail? You just Spitzered yourself. You've been indicted for deliberately misleading investors? You were probably Spitzered by Spitzer himself. Now the Wall Street Journal, that paragon of publications, has been Spitzered (subscription required), in its own op-ed pages no less. And boy, was it satisfying to observe.

I've had a subscription to the Wall Street Journal for over a year. For the most part I'm pleased with its quality. I especially like when its articles discuss entrepreneurs, innovation, and market trends. I'm also a big fan of Walter Mossberg, the Journal's personal technology correspondent. But my stomach consistently turns whenever I venture to the back pages of section A, where its op-ed material resides. While, I am fervently pro-business and side with Republicans on many issues, the WSJ editorial columns take it to an ugly extreme.

For one thing, they are extremely partisan. Of course newspapers are not supposed to be impartial on their op-ed pages. But there is a difference between partiality and partisanship. The columns are so invariably in favor of Republicans and disdainful of Democrats, and so shrill in their tone, that they read like they were written by lobbyists instead of editors with strong, reasoned opinions. This compares poorly with other conservative publications, like The Economist, which will freely denounce conservatives, whether they be Republican or Tory, if they are acting corrupt, bigoted, or otherwise unseemly.

The Journal op-ed pages are also blindly supportive in their promotion of business interests. I believe strongly in letting businesses freely pursue profit, just as I believe in letting individuals freely pursue happiness. And I'm staunchly opposed to governments meddling in those pursuits excessively. However, businesses, just like individuals, are capable of stealing; and stealing is not okay. The Securities and Exchange Commission and other federal watchdogs have been lax in their enforcement of white collar crime; although they've improved after the Enron scandal. Elliot Spitzer has picked up the slack by prosecuting investment banks for tainted stock research, mutual funds for illegal trading practices, and now the insurance industry for price-fixing and improper accounting (just to name a few). On behalf of honest business-people and deceived investors everywhere, The Wall Street Journal should be aghast at the criminals and thankful to the Attorney General. Instead they accuse him of "overreach", and excuse the wrongdoers for just conducting business as usual. Spitzer finally struck back in a letter to the Journal, which to their credit, the editors printed today. He had four broad points:

"First, rather than "killing the goose that laid the golden egg,"...enforcement of the rules has helped level the playing field for honest corporations and has encouraged competition based on performance and value, not impropriety. The evidence is clear that the companies involved in these scandals were well aware of their wrongdoing. In fact, they had consciously decided to descend to the lowest common denominator based on the belief that competitors would violate the rules even if they didn't It was only when government stepped in to enforce legal and ethical boundaries that this downward spiral was stopped and true competition was restored.

Second, enforcement of the rules has helped prevent continued misallocation of capital. One of the less obvious effects of the investment banking scandal was the harm done to large, well-established corporations. The stocks of these companies languished in the face of competition from unfairly hyped dot-com stocks. These companies were reporting honest numbers and playing fairly, but they just couldn't attract the capital they needed to grow and create jobs. That wasn't good for them or for the economy overall...

Third, enforcement of the rules has helped maintain investor confidence. If people think the market is rigged, if they feel victimized by fraud and anticompetitive behavior, they simply won't invest. They'll pull out of the markets as quickly as they can...

Fourth, balanced enforcement has strengthened individual companies as well as the markets. This may seem counterintuitive, but many of the companies that were the targets of enforcement actions by my office in the last several years have emerged stronger after reforms were implemented."

While government shouldn't put undue constraints on business, we do need it to, as Spitzer wrote, "ensure that there is integrity, transparency, and fair play in the markets." There is a strong precedent for this. Spitzer compared his enforcement today with the trust-busting of Theodore Roosevelt at the beginning of the 20th century. Heck, even Adam Smith, the father of modern capitalism, thought governments should prevent monopolies and other market-distorting maladies. So why is the Journal so quick to defend the insurance industry's price-fixing?

The Wall Street Journal op-ed department needs to break out of its "team sports" attitude toward public discourse. We already gets enough of that from cable news (read Fareed Zakaria's excellent column on the matter). Meanwhile, the London-based Financial Times is looking more and more appealing.

Arrogant and out of control

2005-04-01T09:51:00.000-08:00

Reuters AlertNet - DeLay vows judiciary changes after Schiavo case

Tom DeLay reached the summit of hypocrisy yesterday when he called "the judiciary" (which presumably means the entire judicial branch of the U.S. government) "arrogant" and "out of control" (words which could be used to title his biography).

This is gruff stuff, even coming from a legislator known as "the hammer". Not satisfied with demolishing checks and balances within the Texas and U.S. legislatures, DeLay turned his hammer on the separation of powers by trying to force his will on the courts. Now he wants to hold the courts accountable for having dared to stand in his way as he attempted to trample the Constitution.

I for one am relieved that the judiciary remains (for the time being) "out of control". Should the courts ever fall under the sway of the Executive or Legislative branch, an essential safeguard against tyranny will be eliminated.

Tom DeLay needs to freshen up on his high school civics. He needs to understand that a Republican government majority with a strong streak of religious populism must not trump the separation of powers, or moreover, the rule of law. I personally think the judiciary made the wrong decision in the Schiavo case. But courts don't make decisions based on opinion polls; nor should they. Judges are held indirectly accountable to the democratic process, because they are either appointed by elected officials or elected themselves. However, they are intentionally sheltered from public opinion. I and much of the rest of the public may be correct in differing with the courts in this case. But we will not always be right, especially given the complexities of the law and frequent swings in the public mood.

Republicans not stricken with myopia might envision a future with fiercely independent conservative judges defending rights they hold inviolable against an arrogant and out of control Democratic President and Congress. Let those Republicans come to the fore. And let Mr. DeLay be pressured to resign by a bi-partisan Congressional ethics committee. That would be just lovely.

Of deals, new and otherwise

2005-03-29T13:47:00.000-08:00

As supportive as I am of America becoming more of an "ownership society", I am very skeptical of President Bush's social security reform plans. Borrowing billions of dollars to put into private accounts doesn't seem wise. It's akin to an individual building credit card debt to invest in the stock market. The only meaninful difference is that we're using the full faith and credit of the United States government to get good rates on that debt. With our twin deficits (trade and budget) continuing to climb with no sign of leveling, piling on the debt necessary to finance private social security accounts would put undue strain on the faith and credit we're depending on.

Rather we should get over the enormous baby boomer hump by reducing government spending, broadening the tax base, and cutting benefits. Eventually there will come a time, generations from now, when social security will have a surplus again. Only then can we safely shift into a private account system. The Bushies may be fearful that, by that time, new New Deal Democrats could be in power. But if Bush sinks our economy by taking on too much debt, he might bring about exactly what he fears, just as the last depression spawned the first New Deal.

France's multi-polar world

2005-03-21T18:07:00.000-08:00

FT.com / World / UK - EU support ebbs for ending China arms ban

Britain seems to be coming to its senses about lifting the EU ban on arms sales to China. I've been wondering why Britain was going along with this in the first place. I know that France wants a "multi-polar" world, with America's might checked by real competition. France doesn't want to bulk up militarily itself. So lifting the embargo may be France's way of empowering China to create a better "balance." I figured that Britain at least would realize the folly and danger of such a scheme. The Cold War was certainly multi-polar. The hundreds of years European countries tore each other apart were certainly multi-polar. Is that really what France wants?

Wolfowitz, aid and extreme poverty

2005-03-21T10:58:00.000-08:00

President Bush's appointment of Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank makes me think the President either thinks very hard about his appointments or not at all.

Part of me thinks he just wants to plug his buddies into whatever high post is available. Then again, it might be an astute maneuver to get the World Bank to focus more on encouraging democracy through its aid.

Some think money given to non-democracies only ends up in the pockets of corrupt officials or otherwise wasted. In The Education of Paul Wolfowitz by Fareed Zakaria, the Newsweek columnist reminds us that Taiwan, Indonesia, and South Korea were all under authoritarian regimes when they achieved some of the greatest strides in history at relieving extreme poverty. And they all have since become democracies.

But I wonder about North Korea. North Korea gets a substantial amount of food aid, although many of its people starve nonetheless. What if that aid were stopped? Certainly many more would starve in the immediate aftermath. But if North Koreans were to bear the full brunt of their government's policies, would they then finally shake off the despots? Would such a calculated strategy be immoral, even if it resulted in a net decrease in starvation?

The birth of my blog

2005-03-20T22:49:00.000-08:00

Hello, readers in the distant future (I can only assume you're reading this in the archive, since it will likely take a while for this blog to pick up steam).

My name is Daniel Sanchez, and this is the new home for my ideas. Your ideas are always welcome to visit.

My posts will be largely political, but I reserve the right to muse about broader culture.

First off, I am what is now called classic liberal or libertarian (although certainly not a driver's licence-burning extremist), and what used to be called just plain liberal.

That means I believe in freedom in broad terms: free people and free markets (both of which I see as impossible without the other).

I'll elucidate quite a bit in the future, as this will be a recurring theme in my writings.

Regards,
Daniel