Daniel Ruwe's blog

Crossposted at Right Minds

The abortion issue is one of the most controversial and divisive subjects today. Everyone has an opinion about it, and everyone’s opinions are strongly and unshakably held. It divides liberals and conservatives, and also divides many of the different factions in the conservative movement.

Right now, the pro-life position is the dominant one in the Republican party, as it must be, if the GOP wants to win elections. There are a lot of people in the Republican party—Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, as well as millions (perhaps tens of millions) of social conservative voters—who feel strongly about abortion, and would like nothing more than to see it banned.

It won’t be, at least not in the near future. No democratic government can act in advance of the moral will of its people. And the American people support legalized abortion.

A 2006 Rasmussen poll has some revealing findings about America’s attitude towards abortion. A solid majority (55%) believes that abortion is usually morally wrong; a relatively insignificant 32% disagree. (One wonders how the other twenty percent feel—do they have an opinion they are afraid to share, or are they simply unable to decide?). So far, the findings look encouraging for pro-lifers.

But when asked about their feelings towards legalized abortion, people feel differently. Only 47% feel that it is too easy to get an abortion in the United States, and 42% feel that the difficulty of getting an abortion is either “too hard” or “about right.” And bear in mind that the United State’s abortion laws are very lax—it is already quite easy to get an abortion.

Granted, this is only one poll, but it is consistent with other polls on this issue. And it is backed up by the behavior of actual voters. South Dakota, hardly a liberal mecca, has twice (in 2006 and 2008) attempted to pass referendums outlawing abortion. Both failed, by sizeable margins. And South Dakota is a very conservative state.

It seems that most Americans are uncomfortable with the morality of abortion—but like having the option available. In a sense, both the pro- and anti-abortion sides lose—abortion is still considered wrong by most people, but will remain legal for the foreseeable future.

Will abortion ever become illegal? I believe it will, and future Americans will be shocked that it was ever widely accepted. But this will only happen once it becomes obsolete and no longer needed.

It’s a pattern—people awaken to injustice only after whatever use the wrong served is no longer needed. The abolitionist movement existed since our nation’s creation—but only became widespread after advances in technology rendered slavery unnecessary. (True, many of the Founding Fathers personally opposed slavery, but caved when Southern states objected to any proscriptions on the practice). Before the Industrial Revolution (which brought many agricultural innovations), slavery was accepted by most as a necessary evil. After the Industrial Revolution, more and more people came to support abolition.

The same phenomenon can be seen with the history of Jim Crow laws. In the first half of the twentieth century, it was beneficial for white Southerners to keep blacks in poverty—there wasn’t much of an economic pie in the South, and it profited whites to keep blacks from too much prosperity and power.

After World War II, the economy boomed, and there was more to go around. It was at that point that integration became a popular cause with whites. Segregation wasn’t needed anymore, so it was phased out, with a great deal of moral indignation by abruptly morally offended whites.

A final example: environmentalism. People have been concerned about the environment since the advent of technology—it’s not hard to find Victorian writers, for example, complaining about factory pollution. But nobody cared much—until relatively clean energy came along. Suddenly, the survival of our fragile plant became the most pressing issue imaginable.

I believe that we will see a similar pattern with abortion. Eventually, medical advances will make birth control one hundred percent reliable, to the point that there will be almost no unintended pregnancies. Then, people will have their eyes opened, and realize what a horrible and frankly unnecessary crime abortion is. After a short but morally heartening battle, abortion will be prohibited, giving people a valuable chance to feel good about themselves.

I hope I’m wrong. But given our current political climate, it seems like my scenario is all too plausible. 
 

Crossposted at Right Minds

Nastiness and dirty tricks have been a part of politics ever since democracy was invented. In ancient Rome, politics was brutal—Julius Caesar, for instance, was aided in his rise to power by some pretty dodgy voter suppression tactics. John Quincy Adams passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which many believed were enacted in order to silence criticism of his administration. And it’s hard to forget the “mushroom cloud” ads run by the Lyndon Johnson campaign against Barry Goldwater.

So politics have never been particularly ethical or unifying, and polarization isn’t a new phenomenon. But it does seem as though the divisions between left and right in this country are widening to a dangerous extent.

Case in point: an anti-Proposition 8 ad in California features two smug Mormons storming into a lesbian household, ripping the wedding rings off the inhabitant’s fingers, and ruthlessly ripping their marriage license in half. As they smugly stroll out, they wonder what to ban next, while a voiceover tells Californians not to let a Church (sic) take over their government.

(Apart from the obvious unfairness to Mormons, this ad is notable for its dreadful acting. Apparently, the people making it couldn’t afford good actors, so they went with some decidedly second-rate performers. My favorite parts are the overdone expressions of horror on the lesbian’s faces and the scene where the Mormon thugs take a moment to cackle evilly (bwahahahaha) before starting their dirty work).

This ad is obviously ridiculous—it’s an over-the-top example of the straw man fallacy, and is clearly trying to play on anti-Mormon fears. (Fortunately, it wasn’t very successful, as Proposition 8 passed).

But this ad isn’t only unfair and bigoted—it also reveals a deeper problem. Evidently, many, perhaps most, proponents of gay marriage see Mormon opposition solely as the result of bigotry and hate. It’s arguable, and I argue, that conservatives spend too much time on the issue of gay marriage, far more time than the issue really deserves. But their opposition is based on strongly held moral beliefs, not on irrational bigotry.

Proposition 8’s passage must be stressful for the gay community—but it is disturbing that gay marriage supporters can’t realize this. They attempt to stereotype and demonize opponents of gay marriage as bigots, without even attempting to understand, much less respect, their opponent’s position.

This phenomenon is not, of course, limited to the Left—the Right is equally guilty. A Pew poll taken shortly before the election showed that twelve percent of voters thought that Obama was a Muslim, in spite of the fact that there wasn’t a shred of evidence to support that claim.

How did these voters come to believe this? It could only have been through word of mouth. Over the campaign, I saw dozens of email forwards—from more or less responsible people—pushing claims about Obama that five minutes Googling—or simple common sense—could have instantly debunked.

In this election, many conservatives wanted to believe the worst of Obama. Another myth supporting that statement is the idea that Obama is not fit to be President due to the existence of a picture showing him not putting his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. This was a major point for a lot of people—yet accepted national anthem etiquette says nothing about putting one’s hand over one’s heart. Many conservatives harped endlessly on these two points—and neither had any basis at all in reality. 

After the election Peggy Noonan wrote that she was glad that the election had been decisively settled, as opposed to narrow, litigatious election, as in 2000. I agree. It seems that things are at a point where liberals and conservatives cannot conceive of the other side as being anything but knowingly harmful, objectively immoral agents of destruction. (Would this be a good time to point out that one cannot judge subjective intent by objective consequence? In other words, no matter how poorly the other side performs, that is not sufficient evidence to suggest that they meant for any negative consequences to happen).

America faces some big problems—and in order to have any hope of solving them, both sides will have to reach some degree of cooperation and unity. If they don’t, there is simply no way that the federal government will be able to solve important issues such as the national debt, Social Security, and education.

Sadly, I rather doubt that liberals and conservatives will draw together—on the contrary, I believe that they will draw farther apart. Television, radio, the Internet—all are becoming more opinionated and passionate, and much of that opinion is simply nonsense, which is still regarded as gospel by millions. I hope that things will change—but if the situation continues as it is, then the country will become more and more polarized.
 

Crossposted at Right Minds

With Saxby Chambliss’s win in his Georgia Senate race, the last remaining undecided Senate race is the Minnesota contest between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. It’s important (if not as important as it could have been, as Chambliss’s victory means that the Democrats will not get a filibuster-proof majority), as Coleman is a reliable Republican, while the thought of Senator Al Franken is the stuff of conservative nightmares.

The whole election is a mess. The original vote was close enough (only a few hundred votes separated the candidates) to justify a recount. Then a voting official discovered—whoops—that she had accidently left a couple dozen absentee ballots in the backseat of her car. Most of those ballots favored Franken.

Some voters are idiots for whom the task of deciphering a ballot is like cracking the Rosetta Stone, and Minnesota has its fair share of disputable ballots. So both campaigns hit upon the idea of challenging as many ballots as possible, in the hope that at least some of their challenges would stick. This led to some absolutely absurd challenges, many of which clearly were intended to disqualify legal ballots. (Decide for yourself—here are some disputed ballots).

Coleman’s lead is around 340 votes with 91% in—but officials have discovered just under two hundred more votes that everyone just kind of forgot about. It seems that the voting machines broke, and the vote counters forgot to reenter these votes. )These votes come from pro-Franken areas).

And Franken is complaining about another twelve thousand (give or take a few thousand) absentee ballots that he thinks were improperly rejected, and should be recounted. here

So this election is a mess. And won’t be decided soon.

Both candidates claim to be confident about their chances—Norm Coleman has declared victory at least three times, and Franken’s campaign claims that it has no doubt that Franken got more votes. For what it’s worth, Coleman is probably right here—his lead has grown in the course of the recount, and Franken is running out of both votes and options. So Coleman is will probably win—but this saga represents a problem bigger than just the results of a Senate race.

One of the foundations of our democracy is the notion that one’s vote matters; that every vote is equal under the law. In the absence of this principle, democracy is meaningless. In order for democracy to function, people must believe that their vote matters, and will be counted. And it seems that many people are becoming skeptical that their votes will be accurately recorded, and with good reason.

In 2000, the Florida recount was a mess—and it is still an open question as to which candidate received the most votes. It is simply embarrassing that a presidential election came down to a legal technicality decided by the Supreme Court. That sort of fiasco undermines voter confidence.

(That fact that the Florida election was mishandled doesn’t mean that Bush shouldn’t have won—according to the letter of the law, he should have, and his victory was legitimate. The fault lay with those who devised Florida’s voting procedures, and made the recount necessary). 

Voter registration is a major issue as well. ACORN managed to sign up thousands of ineligible voters, while escaping any repercussions for years. Granted, the vast majority of those registrations were rejected—but some surely must have slipped past, and those few could make a difference in a close election. But nobody cares—ACORN got a black eye over its voter fraud—but that was due mostly to its relationship with Obama, and it retained enough support to stay in existence.

It’s a standard far-left talking point that voting machines are basically rigged towards the Republican party. This doesn’t seem to be the case, or the Official GOP Vote Riggers really fell down on the job in 2006 and 2008, but there is little doubt that voting machines have some major security holes.

In eight years, there have been no less than two elections for national office decided by extraordinarily sloppy recounts. That isn’t acceptable, especially for the world’s largest democracy. The United States should reform its voting system quickly—or risk seeing the American people lose faith in American democracy.
 
 

Crossposted at Right Minds

Before Barack Obama was elected, conservative pundits spent a lot of time warning that he was a dangerous radical who would shift the country drastically leftward. They warned that he would virtually end the War on Terror, raise taxes dramatically, and expand government to unprecedented levels. Many warned that electing Obama would mean a total shift in U.S. political philosophy, from a center-right governing system to a European style welfare state.

Obama can’t do anything yet, but given his actions so far, he won’t do any of the things his detractors worried about most. He’s appointed pro-war Hillary Clinton Secretary of State. He’s keeping Robert Gates as Defense Secretary. Of Obama’s foreign policy team, not one opposed the Iraq War.

Obama might not be the hawkish president many conservatives would like. But his actions so far indicate that he wouldn’t be the foreign policy disaster that many conservatives feared.

A major part of Obama’s platform was his promise to raise taxes on the rich. It’s almost impossible to imagine him doing so. He hasn’t mentioned the possibility since becoming president, and Keynesian economics frowns heavily on the idea of raising taxes during a recession.

Granted, perhaps Obama is merely waiting to be sworn in before proposing the most radical tax hike in history—but given his willingness to share the other points of his vision for his administration, probably not.

(It should be noted, though, that Bush’s tax cuts will expire in 2010, and it is hard to see Obama pushing to extend them, especially as the country will probably be out of recession by then).

And Obama doesn’t seem to be making expanding welfare a major part of his plans. Granted, that’s due largely to the economic crisis—if the world’s markets are melting down, then universal healthcare will just have to wait its turn. But if Obama’s post-election statements are any indication at all, then government expansions such as universal healthcare are not on the immediate horizon.

And for all those who thought Obama would expand government to unprecedented levels—President Bush’s seven trillion dollar bailout means that Obama would have to work hard to do that. And given that Bush’s government has nationalized a large segment of the banking system, it’s hard to see Obama managing to top Bush’s interference with the private sector.

It’s possible that Obama will radically shift leftward when in office—but not likely, at least for the first part of his term. His choice of advisors seems to indicate that he is setting a moderate course for his administration, one that Republicans can live with, if not be enthusiastic about.

Obama’s rhetorical shift from radical to moderate is a reminder of one of the most oft forgotten aspects of governing—it’s hard. It’s nearly impossible to advance an agenda in Washington—compromises are necessary to gain sufficient support, and doing too much can scare voters. If Obama wants to promote “change”, it will have to be done gradually and with a measure of bipartisan support.

Neither Bill Clinton nor George W. Bush pushed the country very far to either the right or left—in fact, but taking a look at their accomplishments, it’s a bit hard telling who is the Democrat and who the Republican. (Clinton balanced the budget but raised taxes; Bush cut taxes, brought back the deficit, and promoted an aggressive foreign policy). Both those men, presumably, had visions for the country—Clinton’s vision liberal, Bush’s conservative. Both men tried to make those visions a reality—Clinton tried to implement universal healthcare, Bush tried to privatize Social Security. But both left the country (ideologically) much as it was when they found it. I think it probable that Obama, like those who preceded him, will discover that shifting the country’s political center of gravity isn’t easy.
 

Crossposted at Right Minds

A new report by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute has been getting a lot of attention lately. The Institute administered a civics quiz to a variety of individuals—young people, elected officials, and others, and the results were dreadful. That average score was forty-nine percent; only 0.8 of test takers got an A. Somehow, college educators scored an average of fifty-five. And this wasn’t hard test either—it covered only the most basic aspects of American government. (For the record, I got a 96%. Take the test here)

This would be worrisome, except it only confirms what most people already know, or at least suspect—the majority of Americans have no idea how the country works. It isn’t hard to find evidence of this fact—any “man on the street” segment on TV or radio (think Jay Leno) is a pretty strong indication of that fact (unless it merely shows that the sort of people who want to be on TV enough to appear on those segments aren’t fountains of civic knowledge). And most people can cite numerous examples of incredible ignorance from their own experiences with others. (If you can’t, you either mingle was an unusually intelligent set, or might want to brush up on your American history knowledge).

This ignorance is, of course, deplorable, but it’s also probably not going away. The state of public education might be deplorable, but a lot of people have a stake in preserving the status quo, and since these people also happen to be the people in charge of public education, they’ll probably get their way.

The NEA and AFT are reasonably happy with the way things are. Their membership includes the vast majority of all teachers. Teachers are hard to find, and so wield a lot of power in labor talks. Any real educational reform will be passed over the teachers unions’ dead bodies, and it’s doubtful anyone will have the will to do that. So we’re not very likely to see American civic literacy rise anytime soon.

(Although maybe not knowing who Susan B. Anthony was will be the least of our problems—Americans lag behind other countries is science and math too, which you’d think will be a problem in the future).

The fact that most Americans might as well be living in Estonia for all they know or care has some interesting implications. One is that public opinion is, by and large, massively ill-informed. The majority of Americans support abortion and oppose amnesty for illegal aliens, facts that supporters of abortion and opponents of amnesty take great pride in. But that support means little—most Americans, evidently, don’t take positions on issues based on a broad based understanding of all the factors involved, but take positions based on ignorance. 

Another point—both parties claim to speak for the average guy. If they really do, that might explain much of the incompetence in Washington.

And a final point: many commentators point to Obama’s win over John McCain as proof of an Obama mandate. That’s debatable on many levels—most obviously, I’d think you’d need more than 53% of the vote to claim a mandate. But in American politics, it seems safe to say that nobody can get a real mandate—most voters don’t know, and don’t care, enough about a candidate’s policies to mandate them one way or another. People really do vote on a candidate’s image—they can’t understand his philosophical message.

Conservatives don’t often agree with Michael Moore, but perhaps he’s right on one point-- maybe Americans really are idiots. The fact that Americans lack even the most basic knowledge of our government is disgraceful—and deadly harmful to our democracy.
 

Crossposted at Right Minds

For months, Barack Obama relentlessly outlined his presidential platform. The most important component was change, closely followed by hope. But there were some actual policy proposals too—Obama promised a tighter budget, an end to tax cuts for the rich, universal healthcare, a change from “politics as usual,” and a quick end to the war in Iraq.

Experts love to point to September’s economic crisis as proof that one event can completely turn around a presidential race, and leave all the narratives before it wholly irrelevant. It did—before the bailout, McCain and Obama were virtually tied in the polls; after the crisis hit, Obama surged ahead. The worldwide recession might have won Obama the presidency—it certainly helped him a great deal. But it also (along with some other events) meant there is no way that Obama will be able to pass most of the legislation he proposed. The economy may have won Obama the presidency—but it doomed much of what he ran on.

It’s almost impossible to see a way in which Obama will be able to push through nationalized healthcare, at least in his first two years. Universal healthcare would represent a tough and politically risky fight under the best of circumstances (the push for healthcare reform marred Bill Clinton’s first two years, and led to the GOP Congressional takeover in 1994), and Obama will have his hands full with economic matters. And even the Democrats must realize that the government only has so much money—considering that the bailout alone will cost upwards of five trillion, it would be difficult to completely revamp healthcare as well, which would be quite expensive. It’s really hard to see any meaningful healthcare reform happening in an Obama first term.

One of the most remarkable things about the last few years is the way in which the Iraq War has become a defining issue to something only a few of the netroots worry about. The war was a major factor in the 2006 elections, and the early part of the long 2008 campaign. But as the surge started to take its effect, the war dropped out the headlines, and by the time the election rolled around, the economy had taken its place as the key issue.

Now, Obama’s old rhetoric about Iraq—that it was a disaster, an awful mistake—seems dated. Violence in Iraq is down, and the country is approaching a state of relative normalcy (at least for the Middle East). And his new Iraq policy seems to reflect that—while he has never officially changed his old position on leaving Iraq in sixteen months, he hasn’t criticized Bush’s status-of-forces agreement, which would keep troops in Iraq for three more years. Obama ran on a promise to end the war quickly. He won’t, but nobody (except the Democrat party’s left wing) will mind, since there really isn’t much of a war left.

One of Obama’s most used weapons was the accusation that John McCain favored tax cuts for the rich. It was also one of his more effective attacks—many people think, fairly or not, that the rich are especially privileged (which they usually are), and any extra advantage is rarely viewed favorably, particularly when many middle-class people are worrying where their next car will come from.

But there’s one thing stronger for liberals than class warfare, and that is Keynesian economics. And the first thing you learn in Keynesian economics is that tax cuts (and increased government spending) are the prescription for a recession. Obama is a Keynesian.

It goes without saying that Obama probably won’t propose a less costly budget than Bush—and even if he would, the bailout will present enough of a deficit to doom any attempt at even starting to balance the budget.

But perhaps the most laughable Obama promise is the claim that he represents a change from “politics as usual.” To bolster that claim, one of the first appointments Obama made was of Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff. Emanuel, of course, was a high-level advisor to President Bill Clinton.

Obama seems to be getting the rest of his staff from the former Clinton administration as well. He named former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers director of the National Economic Council, and is gave former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson the position of Secretary of Commerce. And, of course, Hillary Clinton will be Obama’s Secretary of State, which would seem to indicate that former Clintonistas will have a great deal of power in the Obama Administration. That’s not exactly “change”.

(Not that Obama deserves blame for reaching out to former Clinton officials—he needs to find advisors for his Cabinet somewhere. But it does underscore the utter emptiness of the “change” message.

Many conservative have pointed out that Obama is extremely liberal. But circumstances (almost) guarantee that the most sweeping of his liberal reforms won’t become law. The bailout is horribly expensive, and dangerously socialistic*, but it will at least keep much of Obama’s platform from becoming the law of the land.

*Yeah, but isn’t the “socialistic” bailout worse than anything Obama is proposing? Maybe, but that isn’t the point here. The point is that Obama’s seemingly radical government won’t actually do any of the things he promised. 
 
 

Crossposted at Right Minds

Back in September, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson convinced Congress that he needed $700 billion in order to bail out failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Paulson promised to use the money to buy up troubled mortgages owned by the two companies, which would eliminate billions of dollars in liabilities for these corporations. Congress passed the bill, and then Paulson announced that he would use the money to buy stock in banks too. And also bail out AIG, and Bear Sterns too while he had the money. And American Express.

Now Congress is thinking of bailing out the Big Three automakers in order to rescue them from the consequences of years of mismanagement. And recently, the federal government has assured Citigroup that it will try to shore it up by injecting another twenty billion dollars into the company, in addition to the twenty-five billion it put into it a few weeks ago .

It’s a key tenet of Keynesian economics that raising taxes during a recession is very harmful, so it’s a mystery where Congress thinks it will find the money to pay for all these bailouts. The deficit was high enough before the bailout (around a half trillion); now, some estimates put the 2009 deficit at over a trillion dollars. Apparently, Congress has just given up on ever controlling the national debt, and will spend with absolutely no consideration for what its resources are.

Apart from the financing of the bailout, conservatives should oppose it on the grounds that it represents a massive and unwarranted government intrusion into the economy. (It might be a bit of an exaggeration to say an “unprecedented” intrusion into the economy—the saving and loans bailout, the Great Society, and the New Deal spring to mind—but it’s close). It should be quite unbelievable that a Republican president favors partially nationalizing financial institutions, or supports spending what will almost certainly be well over a trillion dollars at one go. The bailout represents George W. Bush’s final betrayal of conservatives.

Conservatives should (and for the most part, do) reject Paulson’s heavy-handed efforts. So should liberals. The implementation of the bailout is an unholy alliance between big business and big government—it combines the worst aspects of capitalism and socialism.

The bailout is, in essence, a massive insurance policy for corporations. It destroys the concept of moral hazard, that a firm that takes a gamble risks losing everything. In our current climate, any firm that is in any danger of bankruptcy needs only to ask the federal government for a spot of help, and it will be rescued at taxpayer expense. This arrangement is a blatant abuse of power by both business and government.

Defenders of the bailout claim that the companies being bailed out are “too big to fail,” and that their size and role in the economy make bailing them out less painful than not doing so. That was, possibly, true for Fannie and Freddie—they were massive corporations partly controlled by the government. But there can’t be many more—there is simply no possible way that American Express, GM, Citigroup, and AIG were all too big to fail.

Even if we accept that every company bailed out was, in fact, too big to fail (and if, say, GM, were to fail, the consequences would undoubtedly be horrible), the bailout would still be unjustified. If our economy is so fragile that over five crucial corporations can fail within three months, then any bailout is a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. Injecting money into the system won’t address any of the underlying reason any of these corporations went under, and in most cases is only throwing good money after bad.
 

Crossposted at Right Minds

Does anyone know precisely what caused the economic crisis? That question can’t be answered, at least right now—the matter is far too complex and multifaceted for anyone to fully understand its causes. The sheer number of players involved (banks, mortgage lenders, Fannie and Freddie, and Congress, just to name a few) and the inherent difficulties of economics make comprehending all the causes and reasons for the worldwide credit crunch immensely difficult for even for experts, and virtually impossible for laypeople.

Unless you happen to be a liberal. Then, all the reasons for the crisis can be summed up in one word—deregulation. If a liberal wants to expand on the root causes of the recession, he might mention George Bush, or maybe Wall Street greed. On the Left, there is no doubt that it was laissez-faire economics and deregulation that brought down Wall Street. Barack Obama said that the recession was a “final verdict” on the policies of the Bush Administration.

Deregulation (or perhaps more accurately, poor regulation) undoubtedly played a part in Wall Street’s collapse. But to saddle deregulation with all the blame in to grossly oversimplify the reasons for the current economic situation. 

In reality, government is as much responsible as big business for the mess we’re in. At the root of the problem are former mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—and both were originally created by the federal government. Eventually, both became hybrid corporations—owned by both private individuals and the federal government. So the federal government had a great deal of control over Fannie and Freddie.

Congressmen like homeowners—homeowners tend to be content, and contented voters mean reelection. Fannie and Freddie were in the business of buying mortgages, which meant that the number of mortgages sold was closely connected to the number they would buy. So Congress pressured Fannie and Freddie to accept risky subprime mortgages, thus allowing more Americans to realize the American Dream of owning a house. And Fannie and Freddie did as Congress wanted—both unveiled programs to ensure that low-income buyers could get mortgages, and spent billions on risky subprime mortgages.

Fannie and Freddie both bought and sold mortgages. They didn’t actually sell mortgages to future homeowners, but rather bought them from mortgage lenders. They then kept some, and sold the rest to third-party investors. Fannie and Freddie were seen as safe, reliable investments.

So on one end, Fannie and Freddie determined (in large part) the habits of mortgage companies (and so the housing market), on the other, they sold billions of dollars worth of mortgages, including many to banks and large corporations. Given their size and reach, these institutions were cornerstones of our economy.

Congress thought so too—when billions in subprime loans started worrying banks and other financial institutions, Congress stepped in to help—by pressuring Fannie Mae to buy tens of billions worth of bad debts. That kind of risk (and given the subprime market, this was a disastrous investment) is a horrible way to run a company, and contributed to Fannie Mae’s collapse. But it was a result of government intervention, not regulation run amuck.

 But deregulation was to blame for the fact that no one saw the collapse coming, right? Not so much. Early in 2008, Henry Paulson noticed Fannie’s and Freddie’s instability, so he sent Robert K. Steel to deal with the problem. Steel failed miserably—he was unable to get either company to raise any meaningful amount of money to cover bad loans. Had the federal government (or the leadership of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, for that matter) done something then, perhaps much of the resulting crisis might have been forestalled.

Finally, in July, Paulson asked Congress for authority to take over Fannie and Freddie should the situation require it. He thought the prospect of a takeover alone should stabilize the situation—he compared the takeover authority to a bazooka—“ff you’ve got a bazooka and people know you’ve got it, you may not have to take it out”—but the idea of a takeover did nothing to stabilize the situation.

After Fannie’s and Freddie’s stock became worthless, banks realized that any mortgages they had bought to shore up their portfolios were now virtually worthless. Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s collapse sent ripples throughout the economy.

Would better regulation have, possibly, prevented the economic meltdown? Maybe.
But had the federal government not mishandled Fannie and Freddie so terribly, perhaps the economy could have avoided recession, or at least the horribly lengthy and expensive sort we’re in. (Either way, a lot of blame still attaches itself to the Bush Administration—it both pushed deregulation and pressured Fannie and Freddie to accept risky mortgages). Deregulation was certainly not solely, and probably not even primarily, responsible for the economy’s failure.
 

Crossposted at Right Minds

There is a lot of worrying in conservative circles about the liberal dominance of the Internet. It’s hard to argue that that is not the case—the Huffington Post is a major Internet player, and sites like the Daily Kos and MyDD get many more visitors than equivalent conservative sites. And the difference in tone between liberal and conservative sites are striking—conservative websites usually consist of commentary and analysis, while liberal sites take a more strategic, what-you-can-do tone. Basically, the conservative web presence consists of aspiring George Will’s, while the liberal side is full of David Alexrod’s.

This worries many conservatives, who feel that the conservative movement is being left behind by technology. Barack Obama’s web campaign was much better than McCain’s—he got hundreds of millions of dollars from online donors, and created a whole network of like minded people. McCain’s web organization was reasonably good (it released some clever web ads and featured Michael Goldfarb), but was nowhere near as effective as Obama’s. McCain’s web presence seemed to be a secondary part of his campaign, while Obama made the Internet one of the cornerstones of his.

Many, such as Patrick Ruffini, think that the Right needs to shift direction. Ruffini (as anyone who reads The Next Right knows) distains punditry and thinks that conservative bloggers need to think strategically, as opposed to analytically, in order to make up the web gap.

It’s impossible to know for sure, but it seems to me likely that the web gap isn’t a product of ideology, but rather of demographics. The Internet population is composed disproportionally of young people. The most popular websites (Facebook, ESPN.com, YouTube) cater to a youthful audience. Internet memes (LOLcats, ninjas, pirates) are the sort of things that are the product of a less mature generation. Even writing styles used by bloggers is characteristic of young people—short, punchy posts, lots of lists, plenty of variety.

And young people tend to be Democrats. So naturally, they gravitate to sites like the Huffington Post and Daily Kos, where they can find similar points of view. The Democrat dominance of the Internet is inevitable as long as it consists mostly of young people.

A similar situation can be found in the case of talk radio. The Republican base consists largely of middle-aged people with jobs and senior citizens. Talk radio fills both of those niches—old folks don’t have anything better to do, and middle-aged people have fairly set schedules. Liberal talk radio will never (at least in the near future) succeed, and not just because it can’t seem to find any talented hosts. The demographics are wrong.

This is not to imply that conservative shouldn’t bother with the Internet—it’s a wonderful resource, and not all Internet inhabitants are Democrats. Sites like National Review Online, Drudge Report, and Instapundit, while lacking (with the exception of Drudge) the impressive hit totals of their liberal counterparts, still have the ability to drive stories and provide analysis. Sites like the The Next Right can be effectively create new strategies for the GOP. The Web can be a useful tool for conservatives—but it’s unreasonable to expect it to be as effective for Republicans as it is for Democrats.

And fortunately, eventually the two sides will even out. As the Internet becomes more ubiquitous, more and more older people will realize its possiblies. And as first-generation Internet users will get older, and some will inevitably slide over to the Republican side. Eventually, most of the population will be online, and then the Internet population will reflect the population-at-large’s political views.

Crossposted at Right Minds

For the past eight years, conservatives have been fairly easy on President George W. Bush. They’ve complained a bit about his massive budgets, and have occasionally pointed out examples of his poor communication skills, but overall, the conservative movement and George Bush have gotten along. Bush has received more criticism than any president since Nixon—but the conservative movement has always been there to defend his record.

In less than two months, Bush will no longer be president. It’s time to take a realistic look at Bush’s presidency. There is no longer anything to be gained by denying that it has been anything but a failure.

The Iraq War will probably be remembered as the defining event of Bush’s presidency. The wisdom of going into Iraq is doubtful in hindsight. (Saddam Hussien had no WMDs, and no—or few—connections to terrorism) When one looks at the information Bush had at the time (which is, really, the only way to judge the decision), Bush looks a little better—but not much. Even the most worrisome pre-war intelligence did not show any immediate threat from Iraq—Iraq’s WMD program, if it had one, could only have been in the planning stages.

Many liberals have charged Bush with falsely linking Al-Qaeda and Saddam. He didn’t. But there can be little doubt that Bush used 9/11 as a reminder of what could happen should we not invade Iraq. And Iraq had nowhere near the capabilities to inflict another 9/11 on America.

The intelligence failure was excusable—it’s difficult to judge future threats. Bush’s handling of Iraq was not. Our initial strike was a clear victory. Things went downhill from there as Iraqi insurgents mastered guerrilla tactics. America spent a far-too-large amount of blood and treasure in Iraq, futilely attempting to destroy an enemy who could not—at least using the strategies we were using—be destroyed. It took Bush three years to realize that a change in strategy was needed. That amount of time was much too long.

Possibly even worse than Bush’s handling of Iraq has been his management of economic matters. When Bush took office, the national debt was around five trillion. Now, it’s nearly ten trillion. Bush’s domestic policies represented the greatest expansion of government since the Great Society. That is simply inexcusable, especially for a president who claims to support fiscal responsibility.

It isn’t fair to lay responsibility for the current financial crisis solely on Bush’s shoulders. But then, Jimmy Carter wasn’t wholly responsible for stagflation—but that hasn’t stopped people from blaming him. Bush deserves blame for our situation today, as his policies are largely responsible for it.

His administration (and the Republican-controlled Congress) pressured Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to accept risky mortgages. Under his watch, the Fed lowered interest rates far below market rates. (Granted, the Fed operates outside the executive branch—but it’s hard to imagine that Bush didn’t have influence). When Fannie’s and Freddie’s financial situation became obvious earlier this year, Bush’s Treasury Department did nothing productive.

Even if we assume that some sort of bailout was necessary to protect the lending markets, Bush still mishandled the issue (although to be fair, he had plenty of help from Congress). The bailout put far too much money in the hands of Henry Paulson, and Paulson’s allocation of it doesn’t seem to have helped the situation much. Paulson has spent about half of the $700 billion he got from Congress. It’s hard to see where spending another $350 billion will help. Bush tried to spend his way out of a crisis he helped cause. He failed.

Voters were right to reject Bush’s Republican party (although they probably jumped straight into the fire). There is nothing to be gained from defending Bush, or looking to his administration for guidance (unless, perhaps, as a guide of what not to do). As conservatives seek a new direction in which to take the party, they should simply admit Bush’s failure and look for a new national GOP leader.