Shrink Rap

As austerity reaches our shores from across the pond, as teabaggRs' forcing of cuts begins to be felt here as it has been in Europe for years now, one can only wonder how those monomaniacal spending-reducers will react; other than to blame it on Obama, of course.

On a political note, it would be nice if this report persuaded some people that government spending really does affect economic growth. Unfortunately, the kind of people who refuse to believe this seem to have a weird, walled-off section in the brains that makes an exception for military expenditures. Higher spending on bombs and aircraft carriers is good for the economy, but higher spending on bridges and electrical grids merely saps business from the private sector. I don't know if the anti-Keynesians really believe this or are only pretending to believe it, but it works out the same either way. A report like this won't change their peculiar views one whit.

How ironic (and idiotic) that Rs are fine with the stimulus package known as defense spending, while absolutely oblivious to the positive effects of domestic spending. It's undeniable; but then denial is what they're about.

We need to spend money at home, and we need the revenues to make it possible. It's not raising taxes that slows the economy: it's cutting spending which means cutting jobs which means people don't have money which means the corporations and their wealthy managers don't have demand for their widgets which means they lose money and the economy retreats. Why is that so hard is for them to understand? It's not as if it's not written in the winds. And every newspaper in Europe.

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Bogeymen

My latest Sunday newspaper column:

Our president’s recent executive actions and legislative recommendations about gun violence are brave and overdue. The orders are no more than common sense, though, and there’s no way Congress will pass the laws; besides which they wouldn’t make much difference, anyway. In the US, dangerous and crazy people will always have access to guns, because guns are everywhere. 

But there’s another kind of crazy going on; and although I have no more optimism about it than I do about mass murders, I spend a lot of time puzzling over it. What explains it? Is there more of it now than there has been? If so, why? I refer to those who defend gun ownership on the basis of their absolute certainty that the government is this close (holding thumb and forefinger about a millimeter apart) to marching onto their property, taking their weapons, and dragging them off to labor camps. What is it with those people? Did no one look under their beds for them when they were kids? 

Yes, the Second Amendment (which, clearly, isn’t going away) was written after a revolution in which armed citizenry came together to fight an unjust government. (It was also a compromise allowing states the means to put down slave rebellions.) But the idea that, today, a bunch of guys in camo gear, bearing no matter how many arms, could hold off the US (or any) military, with its laser-guided bombs, its attack (black?) helicopters, drones, heat-detection devices and who knows what else, seems to me profoundly silly. 

Call me naïve. Other than, maybe, the prospect of a President Huckabee and General Boykin rounding up non-Christians (would those “patriots” take up arms against it?) I can‘t imagine the reality in which such a conflict would come to pass, or, importantly, with which our soldiers would cooperate. Not in our democracy, no matter how dysfunctional it’s become, thanks, in no small measure, to the presence in Congress of compromise-averse ideologues and theocrats whose political views reject the most basic tenets of democracy. Ironic, isn’t it: those most fearful of a far-fetched government takeover are electing representatives who, by their anti-democratic actions and repudiation of the sort of bipartisanship and compromise that birthed the US into being, are more of a threat to our freedom than any gun laws could ever be. 

Which brings me to my point: Large numbers of people are squirreling guns and ammo, spinning tales of Atheist Muslim Nazi Gay Socialist Kenyan U.N.-led troops rolling into town, tossing out Sharia law like Mardi Gras beads, appearing simultaneously in every burg in the U.S. And while they imagine themselves aping John Wayne and Davey Crockett holding off invaders at Alamo-rent-a-car spots all over the country, clear and present dangers to our democracy are being ignored every day. 

Congress just quashed a law requiring a search warrant to read our emails. Indefinite detentions are still occurring, rendering habeas corpus null and void. And if, because of terrorism, you’re O.K. with that, democracy is endangered in more insidious ways, too: states enacting laws designed to suppress legal voting; education – the cornerstone of an informed electorate, which is, in turn, democracy’s most powerful safeguard – is being undermined and underfunded everywhere. Attacks on teaching science, which, not coincidentally, helps people learn how to evaluate bogus claims, are increasing. Not to mention that it also causes us to fall further behind other countries in innovation and research. Threats to our freedom? There they are, even as those who arm themselves against figments are the ones, by their electoral choices, imperiling our existence without a shot being fired. 

I’m not much for conspiracy theories, but since they’re out there like potholes lately, consider this one: Those who have the most to gain from government ignoring the needs of its citizens, i.e., the tax-averse wealthy and those corporations that hate regulation, have highjacked right-wing media, to peddle fear about the Second Amendment and other diversions (New Black Panthers! Hitler in the White House!!) keeping credulous people voting against themselves, frightened of that which isn’t, blind to that which is. Thus, the Tea Party, produced and directed by the Koch brothers, kept constantly befuddled and distracted by Fox “news;” while “patriot” groups, curiously easily convinced, buy arms by the bushel, standing watch in the wrong direction. 

How’s that for a Doocy of a theory?

Craig versus Rosenberg

Theist philosopher William Lane Craig debated atheist philosopher Alex Rosenberg at Purdue University on February 1.  You can watch the debate here.  I put forward my own detailed critique of Rosenberg’s book The Atheist’s Guide to Reality in a ten-part series of posts, of which you can find a roundup here.  As I’ve said before, one of Rosenberg’s strengths is that he is willing consistently to follow out the implications of scientism (however absurd and self-defeating, as we saw in the series of posts just referred to) in a way many other atheists do not.  Another is that, as this event indicates, he has (as a certain other prominent atheist famously appears not to have) the courage and intellectual honesty to debate the most formidable defenders of theism.

How It Works, Who Makes The Rules

This comes as no surprise, but it's useful to keep in mind to whom our national leaders are really beholden. It ain't us.

The National Rifle Association’s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, spoke Wednesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun safety. There, he came face to face with a number of Republican Senators who have benefited from his organization’s spending in recent years. 

According to Public Campaign, a non-profit supporting campaign finance reform and public campaign finance, the Republicans on the committee have in recent years benefited from at least $700,000 in various forms from the NRA, the NRA’s PAC, or the organization’s employees.

I guess it's the best we can have, but it's a lot less than we can hope for. You'd think that of all people, teabaggers would be outraged at this sort of stuff. Democracy lovers, and all that. Power to the... oh well. It's a long-gone concept.

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Old Man, Wrong Again

Much is being made of this exchange at the confirmation hearing for Chuck Hagel. Some see it as Hagel dodging the question. Others (let's call them realists, or intelligent) see it as a sad attempt by Senator McPOW to justify himself after he's done everything he can, even well before choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, to destroy whatever credibility he might have, at one time, had. Or deserved.

Of course, Hagel's original statement was hyperbolic. The surge wasn't the worst foreign policy mistake since Vietnam; invading Iraq in the first place was.

So if McCain was talking syntax and word-choice, okay, it's arguable that he's right. But if the point was to get Hagel to admit the surge "worked," it's impossible for any clear-headed, non-ideologic (or, in this case, non-self-aggrandizing and defensive) person to say. For one thing, as Hagel was trying to get in through the hectoring, the surge occurred simultaneously with the so-called "Sunni awakening." So who's to say how important either factor was? For another, at this point in history, we really have no idea of the outcome of our adventure there. "Worked?" In what sense? Hagel points out that it's murky; McCain wants a yes or no answer to an as yet unanswered and maybe always unanswerable question.

And to think that there was a time I admired the man.

And the rest of the Rs on the committee took their swings, too, seemingly blind to the fact that the SecDef is not the SecState. Like everything else political nowadays, people can't see things for what they are; rather they see what they prefer to see. If neither side, myself included, can claim total clarity, there's none so blind as a teabagger or their representatives. I think it was a pretty sad showing by our esteemed members of the upper chamber.