Arianna Huffington Crosses the Aisle to Join David Brooks in Some Bi-Partisan Bashing of the Two Party System

Arianna Huffington has a post on a recent debate in which she joined with conservative David Brooks to defend the proposition that "the two-party system is making America ungovernable" against Zev Chafets and P. J. O'Rourke. What struck me is how gracious Arianna is when talking about the event and the issue being debated, both to a conservative like Brooks and to her opponents; the piece is worth it just for her tone, regardless of content. Perhaps this has something to do with being paired with Brooks, a writer whose chief strength is, following in the tradition of William F. Buckley, in being the gentleman conservative; the sort of conservative that liberals might disagree with, but cannot help respect.

Huffington argues that:


It [the two-party system] has ossified to the point where it can only deliver short-term fixes. It has led to entrenched thinking, complacency, and the deification of conventional wisdom -- all conditions that have made it harder and harder to challenge a broken status quo.


And the two-party system has not just narrowed our choices, it's narrowed our thinking. It has deeply infected our political discourse, our media, and our politicians. To paraphrase Einstein, the problems we are facing today cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.


The hunger for change is evident on both sides of the political spectrum -- from the meteoric rise to power of an outsider candidate like Barack Obama to the lightning in a bottle creation of the Tea Party -- both the result of grassroots, anti-establishment movements. The American people clearly want alternatives.


On practically every level, potential nominees in each party are running away from the establishment label and desperately trying to show their independence from the establishment wings of the two parties that are held in such low esteem.


And the Internet and social media are making the shakeup of the two parties much more likely, with young people less and less aligned with large, established institutions -- and more empowered than ever to connect with each other and cut through the spin perpetrated by politicians and special interests.

I would like to voice my respectful and courteous disagreement, precisely in that, as I see it, it is the two-party system that allows for the thin veneer of political civility we possess. If, as I have argued previously, politics is a means of negotiating as an alternative to violence. The value of politics is, therefore, less in any specific agreements that may be reached but in the fact that all parties have committed themselves to this process and not to violence.

The virtue of our two-party system is that it forces everyone involved to the political center. Get past the political rhetoric and you will see that the two parties are fairly close to each other. Both parties are in principle committed to state-guided capitalism, with private businesses and a welfare system designed to eliminate extreme poverty. Both parties support a large military that involves itself in foreign conflicts. Both parties accept that women are to be involved in the political and social sphere. I might not like all of these principles myself, but no one can operate within our political system without convincing voters that he holds to them. Now there are certainly very real disagreements between the parties, but as all involved see the other as accepting the same principles it becomes possible to create an ethos of compromise. In our legislative system, there are few debates over principles; it is a matter of negotiating a dollar amount, how much you are going to regulate something and what kind of restrictions to put in place.

To be clear this is not to say that the actual policies put out by such a system are particularly good, often they are ridiculous. What is important here is that the various factions in our society are negotiating and not trying to force their will upon everyone else. It is very well that few people actually like how our two-party system operates and the sorts of solutions it comes up with. That being said, no one, barring the likes of the Westboro Baptist Church and Aryan Nations,  is going to point blank reject the system.

Our political system does seem to be in crisis as the divide in our society seems to be widening and the rhetoric is being ratcheted up. More and more we are seeing an "us versus them" rhetoric, the logical consequences of which is violence. Some might blame the internet or talk radio. I blame the statist logic which both parties submit to. The more government interferes with people's lives and becomes the solution to problems the more people have reason to feel threatened by the government and see it as a foreign coercive force, which can only be met by going outside the system; a path whose logical conclusion is violence and the destruction of the political system.

If you wish for a respectful civilized political discourse then you may very well have no choice but to accept the two-party system with all of its very real flaws.                

  

Does the Stimulus Package Discriminate Against Aspergers?

In a recent article, David Brooks outlines two types of business people, princes and grinds.

Princes, who can be male or female, are senior executives at major corporations. They are almost always charming, smart and impressive. They've read interesting books. They've got well-rehearsed takes on the global situation. They can drop impressive names as they tell you about their visits to the White House, Moscow or Beijing. If you're having lunch or dinner with a prince, you're going to have a good time. Grinds, on the other hand, tend to have started their own company or their own hedge fund. They're often too awkward to work in a large organization and too intense to work for anybody but themselves. Over lunch, they can be socially inert. You try to draw them out by probing for one or two subjects of interest to them. But as often as not, you find yourself playing conversational ping-pong with a master of the monosyllabic response.
Every once in a while you'll run into one who can't help but let you know how much smarter he is than you or anybody else in the room. Sitting at this lunch is about as pleasant for him as watching a cockroach crawl up his arm. He'd much rather be back working in front of his computer screen.

Since the princes are nicer and more impressive, it is easy to be seduced into the belief that they also are more trustworthy. This is false. During the last few years, for example, the princes at Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers behaved with incredible stupidity while the hedge fund loners often behaved with impressive restraint.


Brooks goes on to note that, despite the failure of the "princes" in the recent economic downturn, it has been these same princes who have been the main beneficiaries of government largess in the various stimulus packages.

 They [Grinds] need a wide-open economy with plenty of creative destruction. They need an atmosphere of general confidence, so bankers will feel secure enough to lend them money, so big companies will feel brave enough to acquire their start-ups, so they themselves will feel the time is ripe to take on their world and show their brilliance to all of humanity.

 The princes can thrive while the government intervenes in the private sector. They've got the lobbyists and the connections. The grinds, needless to say, don't.

This is a basic principle well understood by libertarians that the very act of the government stepping in with rules and regulations benefits those who already are connected to the establishment and know how to work it at the expense of those who are not. As such the notion of the government doing anything to help the needy is a contradiction in terms. This is not to say that there should be no laws. I believe in government and that it should protect people from direct non-consensual physical harm caused by others. That being said, with any government aid program, the wrong thing you can be certain of is that, whatever else it does, it will not go to those who actually need the help.

This notion of princes and grinds also struck me as reflecting those on the spectrum and neurotypicals. Look again at the description of the princes and ask yourself how many of them are Aspergers? Now consider the grinds; these are people who do not do well in social situations, but carry a very narrowly focused intelligence. You can practically sign such people up on the spot. So who do you want to trust the economy to, neurotypical prince, whose talent is to game the system, or the Asperger grind, who may actually know something?

The Place of the Personal in Law

With the recent Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan (See David Brooks for his very classy takedown of her unwillingness to go on the record with any controversial opinions.) we can expect another round of public debate over whether justices should rule simply according to the law or with the desire to see social justice on the ground. President Obama assumedly has nominated someone who shares his vision of judges having the proper "heart" and liberal values to rule in accordance with a "living Constitution." Needless to say I view such sentiments as a betrayal of law. Law can and must only deal with universal principles for it to mean anything. The submission to abstract laws is justice; the submission to the personal opinions of others is tyranny and sic semper tyrannis. This is not because I see the legal system simply as a set of rigid principles; on the contrary I see a lot of room for personal judgment, just not at the level of the Supreme Court. I would propose a sliding scale to law; the higher you are and the more power you have to make laws the more you are restricted in your ability to apply personal judgment. On the flip side those at the bottom of the legal system, who are not in a position to make laws, have full power to apply their judgment as to how the law is carried out.

The policeman on the street does not make laws. It is simply his job to enforce them and cite or arrest those who violate the law. As a libertarian, I personally am opposed to all drug laws. Rational adults should be allowed to put any substance they wish into their bodies. If I were to serve as a policeman I would have no control over the fact that marijuana is illegal to various extents throughout the country. That being said, I am not obligated to arrest every person I catch in possession of the substance. A neighborhood with me on patrol would have fewer drug arrests and more lectures to kids about not using drugs. The law recognizes the existence of my personal judgment and expects me not to willfully destroy the lives of teenagers for making just one mistake and taking a puff of a joint. I do not have to take down the local drug dealer knowing full well that he will be replaced by someone who sells to kids and laces his material with potentially poisonous substances.

When we move up the legal system to the DA and the local judge, we are in a similar position. These people do not make laws nor do they have control over who is arrested. They are left, though, to consider as to what extent they will throw the book at those in the dock. What kind of plea bargains and sentences will they offer? They may have the power to put minors behind bars for possession, but that does not mean that they should. At the top of this part of the system, governors and the President may not make laws either, but they have the power to grant pardons. If I were the Governor or the President I would declare an open house on all those arrested on drug charges and offer pardons.

As a member of Congress or a senator I would have the power to make laws. It would be my job, as entrusted to me by my constituents, to enact laws according to my personal opinion as I think best for the country. I would do my utmost to end the war on drugs and legalize them. That being said, my very office would bar me from having any control over how any of these laws are put into practice. I would have to make the best laws I know and trust others to use their best personal judgment in carrying them out.

The top of the legal system is the Supreme Court. They have the unchecked power to declare laws to be unconstitutional and there is no higher authority to appeal to. This greatest of all powers must place the greatest of all limitations. Not only do justices have no control over how laws are carried out, they should not even have the right to use their personal judgments. Their very power stems from the fact that they are perceived as ciphers for the principles contained in the Constitution. If were to go on the Supreme Court, I would lose the ability to fight against the drug war. There is nothing in the Constitution that says that the government cannot do foolish things like ban adults from engaging in actions that do not cause direct physical harm to others. Actually, since liberal justices were kind enough to invent a right to privacy, I would be free to apply this law across the board, including drugs, but that is a side issue.

Articles of Interest (AJS, Georgia, Conversos, Brooks, Catholic Anglicans, Female Male Novelists)

I was not able to attend the recent AJS conference in Los Angeles. Thankfully Menachem Mendel and Drew Kaplan both posted on it. A pity we could not get something more extensive. This just goes to show that someone needs to fly me out to the next conference so I can blog on it properly.

My uncle, Rabbi Dovid Landesman, has Georgia on his mind over at Cross Currents as he talks about his recent trip to the Former Soviet Union and meeting Jews who have returned to Judaism after seventy years of Communism.

The Jews of the Former Soviet Union may be the modern day conversos, but Sandee Brawarsky gets to meet up with some modern old time conversos from Mallorca Spain, returning to Judaism after five hundred years.

For plain old converts to Judaism, Jennifer Medina writes in the New York Times about converts to Judaism and Christmas. The article features Aliza Hausman of Jewminicana, who criticizes the article for its mistakes.

David Brooks once again offers a principled conservative defense of the Obama administration, this time on their failure to foresee the recent attempted terrorist attack. To expect the government to be able to stop all terrorist attacks means that we have to invest more and more in expanding government programs. Conservatives who believe that government is imperfect, and should be limited, need to be careful what they say about this administration.

George Will discusses the recent offer by the Catholic Church to allow Anglicans to join while maintaining their particular traditions. Back in Elizabethan England you could still be Catholic as long as you did not attend a Catholic mass and recognized Queen Elizabeth I as the head of the Church of England. So now can you be an Anglican Catholic who holds on to the old traditions of believing that the Pope is the anti-Christ, trying to destroy the true English Church, the right to burn papist "spies" (Jesuits) and celebrate the Oxford martyrs?

Julianna Baggott advises women who wish to succeed as novelists to be men or at least write like them. Good thing I am a man writing about an eleven-year-old man with guns, blood, medieval surgery and Talmudic dialectics to boot.

Articles of Interest (Harry Potter Economics, Asperger Vampires, Coming Back to Judaism, Jewish Gospel Music and Conservative Health Care)

The Economist has an article on Harry Potter, dealing with, with what else, the economic side of Potter. In particular, the article looks to the future of Potter now that the films are about to be finished. Are you looking forward to Harry Potter: The Theme Park? To the people at Bloomsbury and Scholastic, who were transformed into giants of the book publishing industry, may I humbly suggest a musket and magic fantasy series being written on a blog near you?

Speaking of novels being written on the blogosphere, Miss. S. has started posting her Eternal series. This is a story about vampires in the spirit of Twilight and True Blood. (She is another person that I converted to the Gospel According to Stephenie Meyer.) This is not a horror story; this is a story that has some great characters, some of whom happen to be vampires. (Do these vampires have Asperger syndrome?) I unashamedly admit that Miss. S. is the more polished writer than yours truly and I think she has a real shot at being able to turn this into a published novel. I would not solicit readers and comments for myself, though that would be nice too but please give Miss S. your support; she deserves it.

Kosher Academic has a guest post on In the Pink about being the child of a mother who converted out of Judaism and coming to Judaism as an adult. Steven Levitt of Freakonomics has a somewhat similar background. It is the subject of his book Turbulent Souls.

Kerri Macdonald writes, in the New York Times, about Joshua Nelson, a black Jewish gospel singer. No, he is not a convert. According to the article: "When he was growing up, Mr. Nelson and his family went to a black Orthodox synagogue in Brooklyn on holidays." I am curious if anyone knows what synagogue they are referring to.

David Brooks is one of my favorite columnists for his ability to make the case for conservative principles (something different from the Republican Party) and doing it in a judicious and moderate fashion. This is once again on display as he examines his mixed feelings about Health Care Reform. As a Libertarian, I do not support any government involvement in health care. I do not support Medicare; I do not even support a Food and Drug Administration. That being said if we are going to have government health care we might as well try to have good government health care. As of right now we already have government run health care. You will not be refused care in a hospital because you are not capable of paying for it. Our government health care system, though, is simply horrendous. The question for me is that, recognizing that the sort of Libertarian health care reforms I support are not going to happen, not even if Republicans get back into power, should I support President Obama's plan which is relatively sane and moderate as far as government health care plans go?