The View from Right Field

William F. Buckley, Jr., RIP

Much has and will be written on the passing of William F. Buckley, Jr. Let me make three personal comments.

First, I particularly remember Buckley from his "Firing Line" show, especially back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In a paraphrase of a Barbara Mandrell/George Jones duet (not the most apt musical reference for a man who played Bach on a harpsichord), Buckley "was conservative when conservative wasn’t cool". Buckley was a beacon for those of us who did not, at that time, think liberalism and socialism and even communism (at least that with a human face) was the wave of an inevitable future.

Second, Buckley’s life shows the power of ideas and the influence that a person of and with ideas can have, even if not in public office.

Third, mostly, though, I remember the ending of his interview in the May 1970 issue of Playboy:

Playboy: Don’t most dogmas, theological as well as ideological, crumble sooner or later?
Buckley: Most, but not all.
Playboy: How can you be so sure?
Buckley: I know that my Redeemer liveth.

What Was The New York Times Trying to Say?

Wednesday’s post on Iraq led with a Lincoln quotation from August of 1864. Yesterday’s article in The New York Times about … about … about something that happened, or maybe it didn’t happen but somebody thought it might be happening, almost ten years ago involving John McCain, brings to mind another Lincoln quote, this one from Lincoln’s debate with Stephen Douglas in Quincy in 1858.

In talking about Douglas’s attempts to square his theory of popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision, Lincoln said: "Is not that running his popular sovereignty down awfully? Has it not got down as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death?"

"The homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death". That is just about the amount of substance that the Times gave us yesterday.

Iraq: Can We Succeed Before We Quit?

In late August of 1864, Abraham Lincoln wrote the following note to himself in the White House:

"This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards."

At that time, Sherman appeared to be stalemated outside of Atlanta, and Grant was stuck besieging Lee at Petersburg. Ten days later, however, Sherman took Atlanta, and two months after that Lincoln was re-elected.

But the quote is still fascinating, both from an historical perspective and with respect to Iraq today. While Lincoln did win re-election in 1864, thanks in large part to Sherman’s taking of Atlanta, it seems unlikely that any success in Iraq in the next 8+ months (or anything else for that matter) will result in a Republican victory in November.

And so, Bush has eleven months to do whatever he can to achieve success in Iraq, knowing that Clinton or Obama, whichever one of them it is, will have won election on the basis of a policy that cannot achieve success after they are inaugurated.

David Brooks in The New York Times claims that once Obama or Clinton is elected, a combination of "private but powerful opposition from Arab leaders," "opposition from important sections of the military," "criticism from nonpartisan military experts," and "furious opposition from Republicans and many independents" will force the new President to call for a strategic review of Iraq and "a long, slow conditions-based withdrawal".

While that would be a better outcome than the "out now" policy they are both campaigning on now, I do not see it happening. The Arab leaders will just adjust their policies quietly. Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy was not universally popular in the Pentagon when it was proposed; there will be plenty of generals who are happy to abandon it and ease the strain on the troops by getting out. Nonpartisan military experts won’t matter; other experts will support the new policy. And there will be Republicans willing to leave Iraq quickly if that is the way they think the wind is blowing.

In any case, Obama has based just about his entire campaign on the idea he was right from the beginning in opposing the war in Iraq. He will not change his mind. He will not even think that there is a reason he should change his mind. If he cannot see the real progress of the last year in Iraq, there is no reason he will see any progress in the next year.

Clinton might, on the other hand, understand at least some of the criticisms of an "out now" policy, but it won’t matter. Even if she is able to win the nomination and get elected, her relationship with the "out now" wing of the Democratic Party will be so tenuous that she would not be able to do what Brooks suggests. She would, in effect, have to risk her entire Presidency to exit Iraq more slowly. I do not see her doing that.

And so Bush has eleven months to do whatever he can to achieve a victory in Iraq that will last after January 20 of next year. It could be that the pause in troop withdrawals that Defense Secretary Gates has proposed for this summer is part of Bush’s plan. An idea I would suggest is to keep General Petraeus on the job as long as possible. It is unfortunate General Ray Ordierno and his staff are rotating out of Iraq this month, but we need General Petraeus. It might be nice to give General Petraeus a promotion before a new President takes over, but it is more important that we keep him on the job in Iraq, so we can accomplish as much as possible before January 20.

Will Bush be able, in the next eleven months, to achieve enough success in Iraq that the policies of his successor will not forfeit what we have, at long last, finally been able to achieve there? One can only hope.

"My fellow deadbeats …"

So read the headline of the lead editorial in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune. The editorial was a suggestion, tongue-in-cheek, for the governor’s budget address this coming Wednesday. The problem, as the editorial noted, is that the State of Illinois doesn’t pay its bills. Illinois ended fiscal year 2007 with a deficit, i.e., with unpaid bills, of upwards of $3.7 billion. Illinois is apparently the worst in the nation when it comes to paying its bills.

The editorial included this: "How can we [i.e., the governor and the legislature] look taxpayers in the eye if we won't even do what every Illinois household this side of Bankruptcy Court has to do? If we won't pay our bills on time?"

But that misses the point. We can’t blame the governor for what he is doing without blaming ourselves. We knew what the governor was; we knew how he governed; we knew his plan was to pass new programs and worry about paying for them later. We knew all that when we re-elected him in 2006. This is not some new trick the governor is doing. He was doing it before the election, and we re-elected him anyway.

In other words, the deadbeats in Illinois are not just in Springfield. They are all over the State of Illinois. They are us, the voters of Illinois, the people who reelected Rod Blagojevich in 2006.

Northern Illinois University and the Face of Evil

A headline on page 1 of today’s Chicago Tribune read: "Foolproof gun laws elude states". A headline on page 10 read: "Angry parents push for gun control". But gun control was not the problem at Northern Illinois University. While the gunman bought two guns legally, he bought two others illegally. Even outlawing guns would not prevent tragedies such as this – unless we are willing to search every house and take every gun away from every person.

Another headline on page 10 read: "Schools more proactive on mental health". There is a scary thought: University administrators deciding who is mentally healthy enough to attend college.

While it is easy for me to say this since my children were not at NIU, it is still true: A free society involves risks. It is impossible to avoid all risks, and any attempt to reduce risks too far will result in society that is not free. But even life in unfree societies involves risks. They cannot be avoided.

Basically, the tragedy at NIU was not about gun control or mental health or anything like that. It was about evil. The person who shot those students was evil.

We are not supposed to talk about people being good or bad. We are supposed to say what they did was bad, not that they themselves are bad. That is true in many cases. But not this one.

What happened at NIU was not a result of a good person doing a bad thing. It was the result of a bad person doing a bad thing. Some people may find that view hard to accept, but it is the only way what happened at NIU can be understood. It was an evil act of an evil person.

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* This was the headline in the Chicagoland Final print edition.

Of Change, Political Correctness and the Ties that Bind

A couple of Sundays ago at church, the Gospel lesson was a familiar story from Matthew 4:

"As [Jesus] walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’"

Wait a minute, I thought to myself. "I will make you fish for people"? That’s not right. It’s "I will make you fishers of men". Why the change?*

Of course, this is not the only change. At Christmas, we sing "Good Christian Friends Rejoice." On Reformation Sunday "A Mighty Fortress" now talks about losing your "house" and "spouse" instead of you "wife" and "life".

Some of the changes seem to be the result of a political correctness that has gone overboard, at least in my opinion. Other changes may be an attempt to make the church more open and inviting – or at least what those in charge would find more open and inviting if they were looking for a church, which of course, they aren’t since they already have one.

Apparently, to make the church more open and inviting you have to "update" things. So we sing new hymns, instead of the old ones that we remember from when we were young.** The Bible has been translated to bring the language up-to-date, which is why Jesus now says, when Satan tempts him after 40 days in the wilderness, that "one does not live by bread alone" instead of "man shall not live by bread alone." It is also the reason that just about the only place I can hear the King James Version of the nativity story in Luke 2 is on "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

Other changes seem to be the personal preference of those in charge. For example, when our minister came back from a three-month sabbatical, we switched to having communion every Sunday, instead of, in effect, every other Sunday. But what bothered me the most was the rationale he gave for the change. Instead of just saying he personally thought this was better, he quoted things Martin Luther said almost 500 years ago to show why it was theologically right to have communion every Sunday. We had been doing it the other way for years, but now, all of a sudden, what we had been doing was wrong and we had to change. But if it was so obvious that what we had been doing was wrong, why didn’t somebody else figure it out a long time ago? While I didn’t like the change, I don’t think it would have bothered me as much if it hadn’t been for the argument that this new way was the right way and, in effect, that what we had been doing for all those years was wrong.

As church leaders change things in ways that they think will make the church more up-to-date and welcoming and inclusive, what they risk is those who liked the old way. While church membership is mostly about faith in God, some part of it is about a feeling of comfort and belonging. Singing the songs we have sung for years. Hearing the Scripture readings we heard when we were young. These give us a feeling of comfort and security – and belonging. I do not mean to be irreligious, but it is like being a fan of a sports team. Being a fan gives you a chance to be part of a group, to be part of something bigger than yourself, all rooting for the same thing. It gives you a shared history with other people, even people you do not know. They may be strangers, but when you root for the same team, they are no longer strangers. They are just friends you haven’t met.

Part of belonging to a church is like that, too. But when things are constantly being changed, that feeling isn’t there as much. When the Bible readings jar you because of the way they have been reworded, when the songs you loved as a child aren’t sung as often any more, your feeling of connectedness is lessened. You don’t feel a part of it in the way you used to. The ties that bind seem to loosen.

I understand it is difficult for church leaders. They want to bring new people in. That is, after all, one of our charges from Jesus. They hope that if they change things to stay up-to-date, more people will come. For many people, the changes won’t matter. Either they like them or they have been members for so long that they will keep coming because their connectedness will always be there. For others, however, that is not so true. The quandary then is how to stay connected with those people who don’t like the changes while still changing things to try to stay up-to-date and attract new people.

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* Not only does the new wording sound stilted, at least to me, it also seems to have a different meaning. When Jesus said that he would make Peter and Andrew "fishers of men," he was saying he would change them; he would make them into something better than they were before. But when Jesus says that he will "make [them] fish for people," it sounds like he is going to force them to do something instead of changing them into something better.

** I do not know if the decision to sing new songs instead of the old ones is because of a desire for variety, an attempt to broaden our musical tastes, or an effort to attract new people. A couple of years ago, our church was trying out a new liturgy. We were sort of a beta site for a new liturgy the national group was considering. The very first Sunday we tried it, every hymn we sang was an old favorite. I commented on this to our minister, saying that we could keep using the new liturgy as long as we got to sing the old songs. He said they deliberately sang the old songs because the liturgy was new. Unfortunately, as we learned the new liturgy, and later when we stopped using it because the test period was over, the number of old songs was cut back to what it was before.

Of Bubbles and Busts

A few thoughts on bubbles, busts, markets, and the role of government:

Some people ask how markets can be trusted to be rational when so many people aren’t. Or they use examples of irrational decisions by people to claim that markets can’t and don’t work right. Market theory is based on people pursing their own economic self-interest, they say, so how can markets work if people can’t figure out their own self-interest or don’t properly pursue it?

The fact is markets can be rational, and in fact usually are rational, even though individual people are often irrational and short-sighted. The reason this works is that the irrationalities and short-sightedness of individual people disappear when they are all averaged together in the market.

But what about bubbles? A bubble can occur when too many people are irrational or short-sighted in the same direction, thus throwing the average off. The question is what government can or should do in such a situation. The proper answer is: not much.

If government sees irrationality and shortsightedness pushing the market too far in one direction, in theory it could try to lean the other way to balance things out. But that expects too much of government. If that many people are irrational or shortsighted in one direction, government will probably be that way too. Therefore, as a general rule, the best thing for government to do is nothing, since, more likely than not, if government does try to do something, it will do the wrong thing.

But what about after the bubble bursts?  What government should do then? The most important thing is for government to not make things worse. One way government can make things worse is by bailing out those people whose irrationality and shortsightedness caused the bubble, and the bust, in the first place. If people get bailed out and don’t suffer at least some of the consequences of their mistakes, they won’t learn anything – or even worse, they will expect to get bailed out the next time, too. Then they will continue, and probably even increase, the risky behavior that caused the bubble and bust in the first place, which will make the next bubble even bigger and the next bust even worse.

The problem is that people want government to do something about the busts that follow the bubbles. But there is a fine line between not letting those who do dumb things escape the consequences of their behavior on the one hand and, on the other hand, trying to minimize the harmful effects of busts on the economy as a whole and trying to help those people who had nothing to do with the risky behaviors in the first place.

Unfortunately, the balance probably needs to come down more on the side of letting those who do risky things suffer the consequences of their actions. Otherwise, those who take irrational risks will continue to do so, and their actions will get riskier and riskier and the bubbles will get bigger and bigger, until finally a bust comes along that nobody can do anything about, a bust that will be so much worse because of all that government did before.

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For more information, see these articles by Martin Wolf (from the Financial Times), Amity Shlaes (on Bloomberg.com) and Robert Samuelson (from Newsweek).

My Money. Your Money. It's All Our Money.

The Mainstream Media has shown a fascinating lack of interest in the source of that $5,000,000 loan Hillary Clinton made to her campaign last month. I say fascinating because the MSM is normally all over stories about how money allegedly distorts politics and how critical campaign financing laws are.

The reason this is important is because of the scope of the exception that the Supreme Court wrote into the campaign financing laws with its Buckley v. Valeo decision. The Court upheld the restrictions on campaign contributions – except when a candidate is contributing his or her own money. The Court said that was too much of an infringement on the First Amendment, and they voided it.

But the exception was for using your own money. It did not include your cousin’s money, your children’s money, or, most importantly in this case, your spouse’s money. During the 2004 campaign, John Kerrey jumped through some hoops to make it very clear the money he was giving to his campaign was his money and not his wife’s. Obviously, that was of some importance because Teresa Heinz Kerrey had a lot of money, to say the least. But in another way, it wasn’t as important as the present situation because hers was old money (or at least it was her first husband’s old money). It was not money coming in now, coming in through the back door to bypass restrictions on campaign contributions.

Senator Clinton said the loan was made from her money. Her advisers were quoted as saying: "[t]he loan was made on Jan. 28 from Mrs. Clinton’s share of her personal funds that she has with Mr. Clinton." Huh? Her "share" of funds "she has with Mr. Clinton"? Does that mean she just took it out of their joint bank account? If so, how do we know it was her money? Do they keep an Excel spreadsheet showing who puts in what and who takes out what? Or do they do it by hand on green accounting paper?

The point is that "Mr. Clinton" has been going all over the world making speeches for big money. Where does he put that money? Does it go into that joint account? How is it kept separate from the Senator’s? My wife and I keep our money in just one account. We both put into it; we both take out it. You can’t tell whose money is whose. But it doesn’t matter because neither of us is running for President.

It does matter in Senator Clinton’s case. She is running for President, and there are laws she is supposed to obey. Is she obeying them? We cannot tell from what she has said, and since she is a Democrat, a good part of the MSM doesn’t seem interested in trying to find out.

Responsibility for Kenya

An article in The Wall Street Journal last week (January 30), headlined "Violence in Kenya Exposes Tribes’ Widening Wealth Gap," says this about the violence and killing there*:

"The tribal violence ripping through Kenya has shocked international observers and many Kenyans. Ethnic tensions had eased in recent years, so why have they now erupted with such horrific force?

Part of the answer: an economic boom.

Sharp economic growth benefited one tribe at the expense of others, helping reignite long-simmering animosity. Kenya now has among the world’s least-equal distributions of wealth. Opposition politicians have been accused of playing up the disparity, which set off a powder key after last month’s disputed election results."

The article focused almost entirely on the economic disparities between various tribes in Kenya as the cause of the ethnic tensions and violence. I wonder if this is the right focus. Economic disparities are important, but it seems to me they would not have resulted in this violence without some spark, some cause, setting them off. While the politicians will say it was the close vote and allegedly stolen election, I would suggest a different answer: I think the spark was the politicians themselves.

I touched on this issue back in October, when I wrote about the chance my wife and I had to talk with a Slovenian lawyer about the break up of Yugoslavia. He talked about how the politicians, when they could no longer use communism to appeal for votes, switched to nationalism. The nationalism turned bad, and thousands, if not tens of thousands, died.

It appears the same thing may have happened in Kenya. Politicians, in an effort to get elected, appealed to things such as tribalism (the main opposition candidate said that America was more likely elect a President from the Luo tribe {Barack Obama’s father was a Luo} than was Kenya) and envy (he said that "for every shilling the poor earns, the rich get 66").

When a campaign is based on appeals such as this, it is not surprising that a close election could result in violence. Not only might those whose grievances were appealed to turn to violence if the outcome goes against them, but also the other side might use violence to hold onto power for fear of what could otherwise happen to them.

While problems of inequality and lack of opportunity must be addressed, politicians have a responsibility to do so in a way that does not increase tensions and result in violence. Politicians who frame issues as us-against-them bear a responsibility for what happens when people are disappointed. It is not just inequality (or whatever else) that causes violence. It is politicians who demagogue such problems in a way that appeals to the darker side of human nature. When politicians appeal to fear and prejudice, it shouldn’t be surprising when things happen like in Kenya.

While we must address the problems, we must also hold our politicians responsible for the results of their campaign rhetoric. They cannot just say they are stating facts or responding to the people. They have a duty to campaign, to appeal for votes, in a responsible way, in a way that does not increase the chances for serious problems if the election does not go their way.

We in the United States are lucky that bad election results do not result in violence and bloodshed. We are lucky in this because appeals to envy and us-against-them-ism happen too often in our politics. Too much of our politics is little more than appeals to the darker side of human nature. Too many of our politicians make these kinds of appeals, apparently because they think it is a way to win and because winning is all that matters to them.

The fact what is happening in Kenya and what happened in Yugoslavia does not happen in the United States is no reason for us to be complacent about our politicians making irresponsible appeals that increase resentments among people and rub the sores of prejudice and hate. We must demand of our politicians that they talk about the good they will do, about how their ideas are better than the ideas of their opponents, and not about the evil and greed and bad that they somehow see inside their opponents.

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* Subscription required. However, it would be easy to find articles saying the same thing in lots of other places.

Is John McCain A Conservative?

Mitt Romney is going for the vote of the "true conservatives" on Super Tuesday, and for some reason I do not fully understand, he is having some success. Romney is certainly talking a true conservative line. The problem that he talked a true moderate line when he ran for and served as governor of Massachusetts. I understand people can change their views, but when the change seems to fit the next office you are running for so nicely, it makes me wonder how committed you are to what you are now saying.

I certainly disagree with McCain on some important issues. He was wrong on immigration reform, Securing the borders has to come first, and he just did not get it. I think he does now. So he learned something.

He is wrong on global warming. I prefer Bjorn Lomborg’s view, but so many other people are wrong on global warming it cannot be the deciding issue.

There was some concern about his position on Supreme Court nominees, but if Ted Olsen, Steven Calabresi, and Charles Fried are endorsing McCain now that Rudy Giuliani has dropped out, that is good enough for me.

He was wrong on Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, too, but he favors making them permanent them now. Several years ago he was reported to have said that he does not know enough about economics. At least he realizes it. Also, reports are that Phil Gramm will be his Secretary of Treasury.* That’s good.

McCain-Feingold is still a problem (a big problem), but I don’t know who is running who would fight for its repeal. For example, Fred Thompson, who the true conservatives liked for a while, supported McCain-Feingold when he was in the Senate. Our best bet on protecting the First Amendment is the Supreme Court, and as I said before, McCain is good enough on that issue.

The bottom line is, as Robert Robb said (following what Bill Buckley said about the Presidents Bush), McCain is conservative but he is not "a" conservative. But we don’t have "a" conservative running this time. We have what we have, and you have to pick one – because if you don’t, whoever somebody else picks will be a whole lot worse.

One final comment: Huge increases in federal aid to elementary and secondary education. Drug benefits for seniors that will bust the Medicare budget even quicker than before. Earmarks becoming an art form. No vetoes of spending bills until 2007. Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. That is the last seven years. I would hope that anybody who says they can’t support John McCain because he is not a true conservative, has not been a big supporter of George W. Bush.

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* Wall Street Journal's "Political Diary", January 29, 2008 (subscription required)
[Update 2/2/2008 (10:30 a.m.): Correct misspelling of Steven Calabresi's name.]