Weekly Political Post

I've found myself growing less and less interested in US politics. I still think about ideological matters and the international system, but I think the fact that neither party seems to articulate what I feel to be an ethical foreign policy really makes me disinterested in the system.

But I always get a kick out of reading Ron Paul. The guy is absolutely nuts. And the left's brief infatuation with him last year only further convinced me that my compatriots don't know what the fuck they really believe.

The man is the embodiment of everything I loathe in American politics - unthinking, gut feeling political theory brought on by idiotic outrage and terrible pamphlets. He voted against the intervention in Kosovo. He voted against US recognition of the massacre at Srebrenica. He voted against intervention in Iraq. He wants a gold standard. He wants to deregulate virtually everything. The man is a throwback to the mid-90s survivalists. I mean, I'm a believer in the free-market, too, but only as a means to a greater society down the line (my Marxist roots just won't die, dammit). Capitalism is not a catechism, it is a system born of the interactions of billions of individuals and firms. It is a beautiful thing, but it is more like a Bonzai tree than an oak - it must be nurtured and shaped. Of course, I doubt that the market interventions the Keynsians prefer will amount to much - Friedman was probably right in that the market just can't be shaped that way. But this bailout is necessary, if the US doesn't want to suffer massive economic problems in the coming years.

So CNN gives him a soapbox, upon which he can screech about the impending credit bailout. And he does his typical "Watch out I'm fuckin crazy!" routine.

To be fair, he's largely correct. The federal government's subsidy program helped to make the housing bubble larger and costlier. But this was probably a failure of banking regulatory agencies and the market in general. If Wall Street had not backed a system of mortgage investments the equivalent of junk bonds, we wouldn't be in this mess. This is a market failure created by the interactions of firms, not one created by the government.

And getting rid of "big government" is the exact opposite of what is needed. More regulation is necessary, not less.

Oh, and the inestimable Christopher Hitchens has a great argument about why Obama is a fucking retard. My favorite part:

Obama does not, and perhaps even cannot, represent "change" for the very simple reason that the Democrats are a status quo party.

My thoughts exactly, Hitch.

This country is torn between, on the one hand, a bunch of conservatives who are scared of any real change (demographically, politically, internationally, economically) and, on the other, a group of self-proclaimed "liberals" (they are anything but) who are really just a voice of meaningless pap. The Democratic and Republican parties have once agin become little more than the voice of competing regions - the Democrats now giving voice to the economically declining but politically powerful regions of the West and East coasts, as well as the Rust Belt, while the Republicans representing the economically booming but culturally conservative Sun Belt.

I can tell you what I want: a party that espouses a true ideology of free markets and peoples. No more barriers to free trade across borders, and no more barriers to free movement across them, either. Greater worker representation in the workplace (workplace democracy is the ideal, here) and in the political sphere. A willingness to confront our enemies abroad - whether they be of the Russian imperialist or Iranian fascist varieties. A commitment to support our allies - the Iraqis, Kurds, Israelis, and oppressed peoples everywhere. An ethical treatment of domestic situations - ban executions and abortion, make marijuana legal, make Gay and Lesbian marriages a reality.

The problem, of course, is that no party could come up with this plan. Workers are generally against free-trade plans (it's short-sighted but it's the way things are). The left in America is usually against any sort of intervention abroad (Kosovo was a controversial exception, of course). And the abortion thing always pisses people off.

Meh. Whatcha gonna do?