If the US congress conducted their business in an abandoned hockey rink while sitting on folding chairs, they would do a better job.

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I will publish good rebuttals (profane is OK but abusive is not, coherence is required). If there are too many, I will publish the ones hardest for me to refute.

I am an American. I am really, really fortunate to be one. There’s nothing better to be. But I didn’t actually do anything to become an American. I am proud of my accomplishments, and I am grateful for my good fortune. There are political refugees and immigrants of every stripe who have worked really hard to become Americans. There are people who have taken up arms in defense of this nation and only later become citizens. Many more who are currently defending our freedom are waiting for citizenship.

Those people can be proud to be American. For them it is an achievement. I simply am American. I was born that way. I have not earned the right to be proud. I am thankful to be American, but there’s no source of pride there.

There is another way to be proud to be an American, and that’s to take pride in America’s role—our role—in making a better world. That is the pride in accomplishment. And hell, we’ve accomplished a lot. There was a time in Somalia before it all went to stink that I really thought we had managed to beat swords into plowshares. I thought “this is the role of a great nation, standing as a beacon of freedom and peace.” At that moment I was truly proud to be American. Thought honestly I hadn’t done anything personally (except pay taxes) to deserve that feeling.

It got gray sometime after that. Protecting the Muslim population in Kosovo still feels right, but more timely intervention might have precluded much of the violence. [an aside – why do the factions we support almost always come to resent us? Talk among yourselves.] But still, there was an earnest belief that intervention could save lives and transform those troubled regions. Even if those expeditions were ill-conceived, they were noble of purpose. Something you could be proud of.

Frankly, we don’t have that anymore. I am Accidentally-American, or perhaps Fortunately-American, but I have not pulled off any individual accomplishment to which I can hang the label “proud”, and I am not proud of the actions of my nation (granfalloon) as a whole. At least in the past we believed in our nobility, if no one else did.

I am happy to be an American. I am fortunate to be an American; I did not accomplish being American. I am proud to give to my nation more than blind faith.

1

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First off, let me tell you that the ‘political spectrum’ is a load of crap. No thinking person can be fit under a pat label of ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’. The whole left vs. right conflict is a false dichotomy created by interests who stand to gain from the oversimplification of the issues facing our nation and our world. The whole ‘right vs. left’ debate ignored the possibility that there may be points of view that are neither right nor left.

If you will allow me, I will try to create a diagram of current accepted political wisdom:

<–wacko<—-democrat—-republican—>wacko—>

The biggest flaw in this model is that ‘democrat’ somehow implies Liberal, while Republican is synonymous with conservative. I don’t know how many tax-and-spend republicans we need before we wake up to that lie.

However, the Republican Lie and the Democratic Lie are not the subject of today’s muddled rambling. Instead I would like to discuss why we have governments in the first place. Governments are important, and they are actually good. Tonight is just the first step in developing my political theory. It is inconceivable that I am the first to think of government this way, so if any of you can point me to other references I would be grateful.

So here goes.

There are three major forces in our economy and out way of life. There is Business, Labor, and Government.

Business
Another name for business is ownership. Business has one goal: to make money. Everyone who participates in ownership, which includes everyone in a 401k plan, benefits from the mandate of business to create wealth through the efficient use of resources. Business at its best is a ruthless profit machine.
Contributes: efficiency, growth
Detriments: greed, corruption

Labor
Labor is the representation of the people whose sweat makes business work. The primary goal of labor is to ensure that the profits reaped by business are distributed equitably. Labor stands for fair treatment of workers and proper recognition of their efforts. (I will post later about just how badly labor is doing in the US, and what they can do to improve their lot.)
Contributes: equity
Detriments: inefficiency, corruption

Government
Government represents the needs and goals of society that are not supported by business or labor. For instance, neither business or labor are motivated to protect the environment. Both of them would sacrifice the planet for better return or higher wages. You can’t fault them, but you have to balance them.
Government ideally lies outside the traditional political spectrum. Ensuring the education of our children is not a liberal ideal, it is a pragmatic need of our society. Protecting borders and looking after collective security is another important role for any government.
Contributes: efficiency, education, sustainability, security
Detriments: inefficiency, corruption

Government appears to be a contradiction. How does it simultaneously provide efficiency and inefficiency? I’m glad you asked. There are certain unsung boons, like the bureau of weights and measures, that make business work better, There is antitrust law, which ultimately (when well applied) increases the efficiency of the marketplace and promotes competition. At the same time government is an impediment to efficiency, and well it should be. By recognizing a long-term value on a resource government ultimately makes that resource more expensive.

<added after posting>
Wow. I managed to talk about the inefficiencies of government like they were all good. I left out a bit. Bureaucracy. Red tape. You know the drill. I guess that’s the risk you take with stream-of-conscious political journalism.

I don’t always mark my updates so obviously, but that was a big omission.
</added after posting>

The idea of short-term hardship for greater long-term gain are lost on both business and labor. That is why we ask people from amongst us, people we trust to be wise and far-seeing, to represent our less tangible goals. It is also why we are disappointed with our representatives so often. It is why I am running for president.

All three vertices of my social triangle contribute corruption. Man, I’m a cynical bastard, but I really think I’m right. Another contradiction of government is the pursuit and reduction of corruption. You look at successful economies around the world, and the one thing they have in common is that everyone is held to the rule of law.*

I have a really neat diagram that shows the tension between the vertices of the triangle, but I’m just too damn tired to get it in here.

Before you get too carried away, my description of the idea role of government is not meant to be an endorsement or a criticism of current governments. I’ll leave that for another day. Trust me, I have plenty of beefs with the way things are going now. I feel it is important, however, to have an open discussion of just what the heck the role of government is. Only when we come to some kind of understanding why we have a government in the first place can we criticize the way our current government is being run. Any criticism or praise of current policy should ultimately be founded on such ideals.

———–

* Aaaaaaaaagh! I have to say it. I wanted to stay away from discussion of any specific policy, instead examining the higher ideals. But I have to say it. I can’t stop myself. Do you remember why you’re reading this footnote? If not go back and review real quick. Ready? OK, here we go, then. We’re doomed. Starting with Reagan, the US government has shown increasing disdain for the law. There’s a reason Dub has delayed the release of his dad’s records. Being above the law is also not a partisan issue. When our leaders stop answering to the law, we lose everything.

Sweet!

Thanks!

I’ve been bashing Bush for several reasons lately, which can be summarized as:

1) He’s an idiot.
2) Big business owns him, especially big oil.
3) He pursues policies that seem frighteningly disconnected from reality.
4) He’s an idiot.

But by now we know all that, don’t we? What of the other guy, John Kerry, the man that almost everyone assumes is the only alternative to Bush? Well, one thing we know is that he promises to keep jobs from going overseas. Uh, huh. He’s standing up in front of unions and laborers promising to keep their jobs safe. There are only two problems with that plan. He can’t, and even is he could he shouldn’t.

Starting with can’t, the president of the United States just doesn’t have the power to tell companies how to run their businesses. Businesses are going to find ways to cut costs or they’re going to go out of business. He may try to penalize companies for using offshore labor, but in the end the trend is too big unless he closes the border completely to imports. That would see him sitting out on Pennsylvania Avenue with his suitcases piled around him.

And well it should. Our economy depends on that cheap labor. Everyone is in favor of keeping the jobs here until they see the price of their shoes double. Technology at home and cheap labor abroad are the two things keeping our economy growing virtually inflation-free, and both are bad for unskilled and low-skilled domestic labor.

Another reason to avoid protectionism (and that is what Kerry is proposing, job protectionism) is that the only way to equalize labor markets worldwide is to let the work flow between countries. Creating jobs in those countries where labor is currently extremely cheap (which is synonymous with abusive to the workers) will eventually lead to better work conditions and higher wages, as workers gain power and have more choice. Only where jobs are plentiful can a person earn a decent wage.

As an aside, this does not mean I endorse US companies tolerating inhuman conditions in their supplier’s factories overseas. The amount of money that moves through some of those empires dwarfs the economies of some nations*. Our corporations could do a great deal more to end suffering than they do, and without much effect on the bottom line. However, it is consumer activism, not the government, that has the power to alter the behavior of multinational corporations.

How do we keep America employed? The same way we always have, by having the best-educated, most productive workers in the world. Not the cheapest, the best. That means taking all that money we’re flushing down the toilet in Iraq and defending Western Europe and putting it into schools and training programs here in the US. It was not long ago that technology companies simply could not find enough qualified workers. That has returned to a more rational keel lately, but the supply of skilled workers will continue to be an important factor to any company choosing where to open its next plant.

Finally, there is national security. Poverty in the third world, exploding populations, and dwindling resources are the biggest threats our nation faces. We’ll forget all about Iraq if Mexico begins to falter. Prosperity is the worst enemy of tyranny. It is no accident that despots keep their citizens poor and ill-educated. We need to spread prosperity, and that means spreading jobs. That fact that it makes us more prosperous as a whole also is just one of those miracles of free trade.

*If anyone wants to fact-check me on that, I’d like to hear from you. I’m just kind of assuming.

Sweet!

Thanks!