A strange loop.

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August 24, 2004

Blood From a Stone

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They say that strength and fortitude keeps a man from getting screwed; but the future raises so many doubts when you put it in but you can't get it out.

- The Hooters, Blood From a Stone

Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House of Representatives, is calling for replacing the income tax with some other system, probably the "fair tax", and in the process potentially eliminating the IRS.

Before I get to the specific possibilities of different types of alternative taxation, I'd like to approach this in a roundabout way (hey! if you've read this site for any time, you should have expected this!) and start with why we have an income tax in the first place, and why it's so horrible.

There are five characteristics that make the income tax horrible: it is intrusive, and breeds tyranny; it provides for unlimited Federal power; it cannot be avoided by reasonable changes in behavior; it spawns corruption and political favoritism; it distorts the economy and inhibits growth.

The income tax is not horrible because of the amount of money that is taken. The amount of money take is horrible, but it would be horrible to take that amount of money regardless of the system for extracting the money.

One problem with having an income tax is that it leads to extraordinary amounts of tyranny. Consider the following powers that the government has only because of the need to accurately collect income tax:

• The power to compel you and companies that may employ you to disclose the arrangements under which and the amounts which you are paid.
  
• The power to take money from you without your active participation.
  
• The power to fine you for not paying enough at the right times, even if you followed their rules on what to pay and when.
  
• The power to restrict the ways in which you spend your money, and the power to demand proof of how you've spent your money.
  
• The power to examine your financial records at will and without your knowledge, and frequently without any court order (such as going through your bank accounts).
  
• The power to charge you with a crime with no actual evidence, and compel you to prove your innocence.
  
• The power to compel you to participate in programs (such as Social Security) "for your benefit".
  
• The power to require you to identify yourself in virtually all major financial transactions, even those conducted in cash, using a national id number (your SSN).
  
• The power to control what benefits a company may offer and how it may fund them.
  
• The power to prevent you from moving your money overseas.
  
• The power to control ownership of publicly-traded companies.

All of these powers (and many others, equally as odious) are arrogated to the government because of the need to accurately collect a (very complicated) income tax. In sum, the government claims the right to control your finances in many, many particulars. Other forms of taxation could generate the same revenue for the government without the associated tyranny. Note that none of these factors changes with a flat tax, though it would be easier and cheaper to prepare tax returns.

Another problem with the income tax is the removal of limitations on Federal government action. I tend to date the end of the American Republic, and the beginning of the US as a Social Democratic nation, with the 16th and 17th Amendments to the Constitution, which destroyed two of the three primary practical limits on government power: limited income and limited political power (because the States, when they selected the Senators, jealously guarded their own interests). The third limit, by the way, was judicial conservatism, which was destroyed soon afterwards with the activists courts of the Depression and afterwards, and the willingness of the Congress and the people to allow their arrogations of power to stand.

With no ability for the States to check Federal spending, and with no ability for the people to avoid taxes (see below), the Federal government was suddenly able to intrude into virtually every aspect of individual life and of government at any level. Take roadbuilding and education as two examples: the Federal government can raise unlimited money, and can then use it to blackmail the States: either do such and so, or lose the money we are providing you for education or for road building. Thus was the national drinking age instituted. Thus have many dreadful changes in education been instituted. Thus, in short, has power been centralized and individual and State initiative stifled.

It used to be that taxation could be avoided. Assume the government were to put a tax on imports. Should that tax be oppressive, one could use domestic goods as a substitute, and thus avoid the tax. Non-direct taxes tend to be that way: you can avoid them by changing your behavior. With direct taxation, though, this is not possible, unless you choose to starve. (You can't even get out of this by growing your own food, because of property taxes on the land you would have to use to do so.) Since the tax is universal and unavoidable, government has no incentive to keep taxes reasonable. This is why taxation could grow to such levels, which is why in turn the Federal government could afford such massive and wasteful programs, which in turn demand higher tax rates.

With the large amount of income, and the utter intrusiveness, generated by the income tax, it became far more possible for the government to grant and revoke political favors. Consider as one example the wrangling each year over which tax benefits to grant to favored groups (buying their votes with our money), such as subsidies for farmers (which mostly go to large corporations). This is not really corruption, per se, though in certain cases it is corruption, for example where there is trading of subsidy or relief for campaign funds; but generally the problem is just that the public at large is taxed to favor particular groups.

On top of all of this, the income tax is bad for the economy. Again ignoring the size of the tax to be collected, the amount of money required to comply with the income tax is huge. I've seen estimates of $200 billion a year across the economy. Most of that is actually borne by companies; an individual's $60 tax prep program is minor, but companies can spend millions of dollars to avoid even larger amounts spent to pay fines. These corporate costs are passed on in the cost of goods and services, along with the actual tax paid. Merely reducing the cost of compliance with the code by simplification of the code adds huge amounts of "free" money back into the productive economy.

But not only is the economy dragged down somewhat by the costs of compliance, the remainder of the economy is distorted. Consider the subsidies: if a person is given money to produce, say, dairy products, wouldn't they produce more dairy products? Of course, which means that the supply of dairy products exceeds the natural demand, and the government is forced to allow prices to drop (thus resulting in no net gain to the dairy farmers), or to buy up the surplus product and warehouse it. Don't laugh, it happens.

So, if we are to eliminate the income tax, we have to have a system which eliminates or reduces these five effects (tyranny, unlimited Federal income/power, inability to avoid the tax, favoritism and economic drag) without adding offsetting bad effects.

I don't want to get too much into what is "politically possible," because if you don't ask, the answer's always no: I've seen too many "impossible" things done to credit that argument. (It's at about the same level of credibility as who is "electable" and who is not.) There is one argument, though, which I think is fairly incontrovertible: any system which puts a large burden on the poor - or can be made to appear as if it does to a person who is not paying attention - will fail politically: most Americans would not accept shifting the burden to the poor, and any plan which appears to do that would be rejected, along with the person who proposed it.

Another characteristic required of any replacement for income tax is that it must either be revenue-neutral, or must provide explicitly for the elimination of spending/programs. Given that the latter is unlikely as long as politicians seek power and bureaucrats seek to protect their "kingdoms", it's reasonable to only look at plans which are revenue-neutral.

So, that said, what are the options? Basically, you can only reasonably tax stores of value, or transactions involving stores of value. This means that you can tax things or events like physical property and other tangible assets, payment for services (including salary), sales and rentals, use of government-owned assets, use of government services, transfers of goods, and ownership or transfer of intellectual property grants. Taxing other things, at best, does no good, because the taxes are avoidable by using cash and not keeping records. Assuming you don't want to create tyranny, you want to avoid persecuting people over whether or not they've avoided reporting cash transactions.

Taking each of those items in turn:

• Physical property and tangible assets: Put simply, this is property tax. It taxes the value of physical goods and titles held by a person, more or less in return for the government's protections of one's rights to those goods and titles.

  Little tyranny is involved, because the government has to know what you possess in order to protect your property rights in any case. However, the government could easily become excessively intrusive about how property is registered, used and transferred. Any such tendency would have to be kept carefully in check, perhaps by allowing Federal governments to tax the States based on their total property valuation, and having the States collect the tax as appropriate.

  The tax is avoidable, because property can be sold or abandoned if the taxes exceed the value of the property or goods. Because it can be avoided, Federal power is limited (since raising the tax too high would result in people avoiding the tax, and thus lessening the government's revenue).

  Favoritism is possible, because property could be taxed differentially by such selectors as who owns the property (look, for example, at the local property tax breaks given to large corporations) or what the property is used for. However, the ability of people to avoid the tax (for example, by incorporating or divesting themselves of the property) would limit this in comparison to the income tax.

  The economy would still be distorted, to the extent that private property ownership would be discouraged in relation to other stores of value (like stocks or cash); on the other hand, this distortion is considerably less than that of income tax, because it touches fewer economic activities. In addition, the cost of compliance is relatively small: the property value must be assessed, and the appropriate tax rate applied, and that's it (as long as the Congress resists the power to make the rate schedule Byzantine).

  The tax is not regressive, and couldn't easily be portrayed as such, because inherently poorer people wouldn't own property with valuations as high as those of richer people. Finally, given the large amounts of property and their values, it would be fairly simple to keep the plan revenue neutral without taxing private property ownership out of reach.
  

• Payment for services (including salary): This is the income tax; it's what we are trying to avoid, for the reasons discussed above.
  
• Sales and rentals: Retail sales taxes are commonly used by local governments. The VAT (Value Added Tax), added at each stage of production, is somewhat like a sales tax, but takes place not only at the retail level, but whenever the good or service is transferred. VAT is much used in Europe.

  Sales taxes and VAT are not terribly intrusive, because they are anonymous. It's hard to tyrannize people when you don't know who they are.

  Sales taxes are self-limiting, because excessive rates cause reduced purchasing or switching to tax-preferred alternatives (such as used goods).

  Corruption is still possible in subsidies, but it's very difficult to give tax breaks to specific groups on sales taxes, so favoritism is much less of an issue.

  The economic distortion in this case would be to encourage savings and discourage consumption. I don't know enough about economics to determine how damaging this would be in comparison to the income tax. To some degree, this would be offset by the higher immediate incomes, which allows people to determine how to use their money, and thus how they will pay the tax. This is therefore likely to be less of a drag on the economy than the income tax currently is.

  The biggest argument against sales taxes and VATs are that they are regressive. Attempting to craft them as taxes on luxury goods has the effect of killing the market in that luxury good (they are purchased abroad and imported instead) while not bringing in net revenue. In general, it is likely that a VAT could be implemented over this objection, so long as it excludes food and fabric and is not charged at the retail level.

  It would be possible to make this tax revenue neutral, though it would require adjustments for several years as people's behavior changed in response to the initial implementations of the tax.
  

• Use of government-owned assets: These are generally called user fees. They are at best a very small part of the government's revenue stream. While these are, and will continue to be, employed, they do not form a part of the solution to eliminating the income tax.
  
• Use of government services: The Post Office charges for its services, as does the Fed, as does the Patent Office. However, this is at best an offset of the operating expenses of that particular service: how do you charge for, say, the Army as a part of fees on government services, when private-sector services could be procured instead at a much lower cost? Again, this is not part of a solution to eliminating the income tax.
  
• Transfers of goods: Import and export duties fall into this category. Otherwise, this doesn't differ markedly from sales taxes if you include VAT as a sales tax. I don't see this as being a major contributor to government revenue, though these taxes will continue to be imposed.
  
• Ownership or transfer of intellectual property grants: This amounts to a property tax, but with the problem that valuation is extraordinarily difficult. How much is Micky Mouse's copyright worth? How about the patent for a drug, when the patent will expire next year? Certainly, this kind of property could be taxed, but it would be a lot easier to tax this as sales, rather than valuation of the grant of the monopoly.

I know I treated some of those a little briefly, but really, the only two options to taxation of income which would potentially be revenue neutral would be taxation of property values and sales. Some combination of these two would have to be used to replace the income tax.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to tax the States relative to their GDP, and let them figure out how to raise money from their citizens. Of course, then the States would need Congressional representation, so they would have to regain the right to select their Senators. Hmmm...perhaps the real solution is to simply repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments, and let the government raise revenue by taxing the States proportionate to their population, GDP or some other meaningful measure.

Frankly, I'd be happy with some combination of property and sales taxes even if administered by the Federal government, as opposed to the income tax. If President Bush supports this, it won't change my vote for President, but it might change my vote for down-ballot elections.

Comments

A classic example of IRS tyranny is the recent Indianapolis Baptist case, widely covered at the time. The church building was siezed for non-payment of interest on penalties for not being a business; audits of the individual pastors should that everything which was Caesar's was indeed rendered.

Posted by: triticale on August 4, 2004 04:18 PM

Excellent post- well done !

I would add the judicial reinterpretation of the commerce clause to include virtually *everything* as being under Congressional jurisdiction as an important milestone as well.

Posted by: mark safranski on August 8, 2004 09:52 AM

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Posted by jeff at 12:00 AM | TrackBack

"Hello," He Lied

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I was going to fisk this article in detail (hat tip: The Wild Hunt), but I don't have time. As far as I can tell on a first read through, pretty much every statement made is or contains a lie. I don't know - because I haven't researched it - whether the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site is on Shoshone land or not, though I suspect that it would not clear the legal hurdles if it were. But it's pretty hard to take anyone seriously once they start making statements like this:

And it's not as if the genuine terror of Bush is hard to notice. Within hours of coming into office, he'd started approving oil exploration in national parks, cutting support for disadvantaged children, raising the levels of arsenic in drinking water... Being an utter bastard with numbing consistency is his only speciality beyond mangling his native language and playing golf like an unhinged Muppet in times of crisis.

August 23, 2004

John Kerry's Political Epitaph

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I believe that John Kerry's political epitaph may have been penned today by Marius of The Rostra:

So on the same day, John Kerry is telling us that he agrees that the use of force in Iraq was justified, and that he believes the war was unnecessary and entirely optional. Which is it? The frightening thing is this: we cannot and do not know the answer. There is nothing principled about it. The only principle is his own immediate political concern. Luckily for us, given his inability to mask his contradictions, he is a bad politician. A poor sophist.

While a Kerry presidency would not make me leave the country, it would certainly make me thoroughly reevaluate the value of working downtown in large cities. But I'm not really worried: Kerry is going to lose by a stunning margin.

A Perfect Analysis

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The most amazing thing to me about the blogosphere is the sheer number of creative, intelligent, questing minds in evidence. As an example, for one of the best posts I've ever seen, read Andrew Olmstead's discussion of federalism, freedom, and personal responsibility as opposed to statism, security and shared responsibility. It's a tour de force, and I wish I'd written it. I find I agree with every point Andrew makes. There's too much to excerpt, so please go read.

Bad Experiences

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Francis Porretto has had, sadly, a bad experience with being generous. On a similar (but much less personal and painful) line, I've found the same behavior (of becoming hardened to others in apparent need) in myself while I've been in Chicago. Being in the Dallas suburbs does not expose you to very many homeless - well, to any homeless in fact - while being in downtown Chicago it is an unavoidable part of just walking down the street.

When I first got to Chicago, I was pretty generous: I can afford to be, and the apparent need is great. As I continued being exposed to this several times per day, however, I realized a few things. First, you see the same people panhandling over and over again, in much the same places. Second, you can divide the panhandlers into groups. Third, the head is right: what you subsidize you get more of.

I have stopped giving money to the bums, who are capable of working but don't. Their stories no longer move me: I've become hardened to that. I generally don't give money to the mentally disturbed: Chicago has a lot of resources for helping people who cannot help themselves. About the only group I still consistently give money to are people on the street with young kids: I have so far (thankfully) been unable to become inured to that.

I regret the calluses I've developed. But I have them nonetheless.

How Odd

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In the process of cleaning up spam, a couple of my posts have managed to get their dates changed to today. How odd. What a lovely MT bug. Please pardon the dust.

August 22, 2004

Winning or Not Losing

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Last week I wrote a post on how to win the war, in response to this Stephen Green post. My post got a lot of responses, of which this was somewhat typical of one particular branch of thought.

I suppose it would make some sense to clarify, now that so many people are convinced I'm a hate-filled radical right-winger. There is a difference between winning a war, and not losing it. When you win a war, the result is that you've achieved your objectives, and the enemy has been removed as a threat to you for at least the time being. When you don't lose a war, you may or may not have achieved your objectives, or removed the enemy as a threat, but you have prevented the enemy from achieving his objectives - at least those which were in conflict with yours such that you went to war in the first place.

Stephen Green's analysis was about how to not lose, as we didn't lose the Cold War. In the Cold War, we didn't lose for a long enough period of time that our enemy collapsed and we won by default. That appears to be the plan George Bush is working to now, and it is what Stephen Green was trying to formalize publicly.

I don't have a problem with not losing, under some circumstances: it is a reasonable way to minimize losses overall, and as long as you can outlast your enemy, you may win by default without a big war. Good all around, yes?

But what does not losing mean in this case? It means that we condemn millions to live in stifling oppression and poverty, with their daily life involving indoctrination to hate and kill us (second only to the Jews). "Us" in this case is not just Americans; we are only the face of the West. The jihadis want the whole West subjugated to shari'a law.

Ignoring the classically liberal argument for spreading freedom to all people, not losing also means that we risk the possibility of losing, and losing big. We have a huge military advantage over the jihadis, but that advantage is basically gone the moment that the jihadis have nuclear weapons. At that point, they have a trump card that they can use against the world: we have nuclear weapons hidden in many of your cities, and we are prepared to be totally annihilated if that's what it takes, so if you interfere with us we will kill you by the millions.

I don't want to lose, and that means that I don't want to take the risk of "not losing" turning into losing. A lot of the things I currently advocate for - such as killing imams and ayatollahs who preach the mass murder of Jews and Westerners - make me very uncomfortable. Then again, fire bombing Dresden and Tokyo would have made me very uncomfortable. But when it comes right down to it, I would rather we do these things, than find ourselves in the position of making the choice between genocide and shari'a.

It may be the case that we can not lose long enough for the seeds we planted in Iraq to mature into full-blown representative democracy in the Arab/Muslim world, that we won't have to rip militant Islamism out of the Arabs the way we ripped militant nationalism out of the Germans and Japanese. Or, it may be that, given the fervent pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran and others, we cannot hold on long enough for the Arabs/Muslims to transform by themselves.

And then what?

Splitting Hairs, and Texans

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There's an interesting discussion on Daly Thoughts about whether Texas should split into 5 states, as it is Constitutionally entitled to do. Four of the five states would almost certainly be Republican, with the fifth tending somewhat Democrat, so the Republicans would certainly have a short-term incentive in doing this. However, it won't happen.

As one commenter on Daly Thoughts noted, which state would get the Alamo? Besides, there's the fact that the things we love about Texas are usually things we love about Texas, not the particular part of the state that we are in. I love the smell of the prairie when the Spring winds are blowing, and the large amount of personal freedom that is granted and personal responsibility that is expected. I love the bluebonnets and the indian paintbrush. I love the attitude. I love the Alamo, and the Gulf coast, and the desert river with the dinosaur footprints fossilized in the riverbed. I love Austin. I love how everything is huge and new. I love the hills and trees in the trailing edge of the Ozarks. I love the way that the people are friendly and helpful. I love the almost universal patriotism and the limited whining. I love the longhorn cattle and the bison that are pastured, respectively, within two blocks and two miles of my house. I love the food. How much of this would remain in a state cut apart? Some of it, certainly, but not all.

I've thought about it - I suspect most Texans have - but I don't want to see it happen.

The "Unbiased" Media

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I try to be very careful about naming people as enemies, because I believe that no quarter nor respite should be given to enemies: they should be killed, or compelled to surrender, and be quick about it. The BBC is coming very close to being an indisputable enemy in this war.

Goal->Strategy->Plan->Task (again)

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First, go read Dan Drezner's question on "good strategy with bad execution" or "bad strategy with solid process", and the excellent discussion it fostered. Then read my response (also in the comments at Drezner's blog):

The problem with this debate is that it isn't high-level enough. Let's start at the bottom and work up:

At the lowest level are the tasks actually carried out in the field. In most cases, these mesh with the plan created by the executives in charge of various departments. (Notoriously, the State Department often acts in accordance with its own private foreign policy, rather than carrying out that of the President, when it disagrees.) This is largely beyond the direct control of the President or his Cabinet: he is dependent on careerists for good execution. Two examples of tasks in the Terror Wars would be hunting down Osama bin Laden (military, mostly) and influencing neutrals like France to work on our behalf (diplomatic, mostly). Essentially, this is the execution layer.

Above that level is the plan. Ideally, the plan is detailed, and specifies who will do what tasks, in what order, to match the plan. It should also specify how to determine failure, and how to react to it, as well as how to determine and react to success. This is directly under the control of the Cabinet-level officers of government, via the deputy's who oversee the various plans (but still largely beyond the President's direct influence). Each department will have their own plans, and they will infrequently co-ordinate in any meaningful way. Essentially, this is the process layer.

The purpose of the plans is to achieve the next-highest level, the strategy. The strategy is generally made by the President in consultation with his Cabinet and with foreign allies and important domestic political figures (like the leaders of the House and Senate, and key governors in some cases). As the plan specifies the tasks, the strategy drives the plans.

At the highest level, and the least talked about, are the goals of foreign policy. This is purely the President's job to manage, and to communicate to the public. But only when the public buys in does politics "stop at the water's edge". And right now, the Democrats and Republicans don't agree on the goal.

The President stated a goal for the US after 9/11: destroy terrorists able to strike internationally, and the governments which support them, in order to create a stable and peaceful international environment.

The Democrats obviously disagree with the goal as well as the strategy (take out rogue regimes too close to nuclear capability, and democratize them, so that prosperity and representative government and liberty will remove the causes of jihadi terrorism), and thus will viciously criticize our every action. It is this reason which ensures that what is good for American in the Terror Wars is bad for the Democrats.

And that does not need to be a bad thing: it was far from clear in 1950 that the strategy of containment serving the goal of eliminating the threat of Communist revolutions was the right way to go. The problem is that the Democrats now (like the Republicans then) do not have an alternative goal to offer the American people, except to go back to 9/10 and act like everything's OK. It's not, and the Democrats must recognize this and offer a goal to include US security before they can be taken seriously.

They seem to be groping in that direction, offering various orbits around transnational progressivism as their ideas. While this in and of itself scares me - I'm no fan of ever-larger and more intrusive governments being in control - it is at least a groping towards a goal.

The debate over strategy is meaningless until the Democrats either agree to President Bush's goal, or the Republicans agree to some goal the Democrats eventually propagate.

Bad execution is nearly the least of our worries if our strategy is meaningless and reactive.

Every Time I Think the Left has hit Bottom...

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They do something like this, and I have to realize that while I am a cynic, I am not nearly cynical enough.

What bothers me most is how childish this is, in a very serious time. Right now, thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands, of jihadi terrorists are trying their best to kill all of us. Right now, the Iranians are closing in on developing nuclear weapons, and if they do so they will likely attack Israel with them. Right now, North Korea has already obtained a nuclear capability, and might be willing to sell some of those weapons to terrorists or unfriendly countries in exchange for desperately-needed cash. Right now, the best the Left can do is sit in the back of the class and snigger at their crude drawings of the teacher shouting.

Laugh it up, monkey boy, while you still can, because you are no less a target of our enemies than I am.

August 21, 2004

Pesky Questions

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If you were wondering if, say, the New York Times had any kind of journalism skills, the answer is "no". For example, Jay Tea has some pesky questions for the Times to answer about one of its stories.

MT 3.1

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Version 3.1 of Movable Type will be released shortly. Unlike 3.0, which was not a new-feature release, 3.1 will have a raft of new features. Of those announced in the linked post, the ones that most interest me are a per-template option of whether publishing should be static or dynamic, post scheduling, and the notifier plug-in (which may be available separately for earlier versions of MT - I haven't checked). Considering the pricing and terms, this may be a worthwhile upgrade.

In terms of my wishlist, features that won't be implemented - or at least haven't been talked about yet, include:

• better anti-spam capabilities, such as the ability to delete a comment and block by IP at the same time, and the ability to ban comments based on keywords, poster email addresses and the like
  
• a better interface - particularly for managing comments and trackbacks without having to go into individual posts (assuming they've dropped off the last five)
  
• some kind of statistical reporting (such as how many comments have been posted by a given user and how many times a given post has been shown, which would make "most popular post" lists easy)
  
• blogrolling tools, including the ability to keep track of recently-updated blogs
  
• a "who links to me" feature, using the integration with Google and possibly integrating with Technorati and/or the ecosystem as well

August 20, 2004

The Moral Bankruptcy of the Left

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Michael Ubaldi's post on the Left's essential selfishness and particularly their indifference to liberty is excellent.

Tax Cut Effect

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Here is some interesting information on tax burdens and how they fall. That's right: the top 20% of income earners pay 82.1% of the taxes, while the bottom 40% not only don't pay taxes, but because of credits actually get money (on net) from their "taxes".

Perhaps the Democrats could stop whining about the "greedy rich" and just say "thanks for paying all of this money and not taking up arms to end this confiscatory and tyrannical system". Or even just "thanks".

August 19, 2004

Kerry's Foreign Policy

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Actually, let me emphasize the point of this post on Kerry's probable foreign policy.

There are four components to undertaking an action: goal, strategy, plan and task. If agreement is not reached on the goal, the strategy to achieve the goal is meaningless to those who don't concur with the goal. Similarly, if the strategy is not agreed upon, then the plan is irrelevant at best. Changing goals requires changing strategies, which in turn requires changing plans.

For example, in the Cold War, the consensus goal, developed starting with Truman and Churchill, was that Communism represented a threat to the US and the West and had to be defeated. The strategy, developed soon after, was containment: the USSR and China would not be allowed to spread Communism further than it already had spread. (This is why Viet Nam was a lost war: Communism spread. The fact that S. Viet Nam was not a democracy was irrelevant to any measurement of victory.) In the Cold War, President Carter was judged largely on his failures in implementing that strategy. (Reagan, by the way, changed not just the strategy, but also the goal: from containment to economic collapse.)

Now, with the Terror Wars, history will likely start this period with the fall of the Shah of Iran, overlapping the end of the Cold War. But we did not even think of it as a war until 9/11, and some people (apparently including much of the policy wonks and high political officials of the Democrat Party) still do not see us as being at war in any meaningful sense. So the Presidents of this period, starting primarily with George H.W. Bush, will be judged in the end by their reaction to the threat of Islamist terrorism. Both Bush 41 and Clinton will be judged somewhat harshly for not seeing the rise of Islamist terrorism as the threat it is (though Clinton will likely suffer more, largely because both the end of the Cold War and Desert Storm occurred on Bush's watch): they did not grapple with the problem and espouse a goal.

Bush 43 has set a national goal: the destruction of terrorists with international reach and of all states which support such terrorists. The strategy is not entirely clear, but it seems that "shrinking the Gap" by democracy promotion in formerly terrorist supporting States, combined with absolute containment of nuclear proliferation beyond where it was at the start of the century, is the most likely contender. The Democrats will not help with the enumeration of a national strategy, because they fundamentally disagree with the goal that President Bush has set out.

For most Democrat leaders, Kerry clearly included, the national strategy in foreign policy is to use the military for showboating and tinkering around the margins, largely at the behest of the UN and Old Europe, and only when our national security interests are not truly on the line. The reason for this is that the Democrats largely do not have a foreign policy goal (that is seen as a distraction from the "real work" here at home on advancing towards Social(ist) Democracy in particular and Statism generally). To the extent the Democrat leaders have thought about foreign policy in positive terms (ie: what they will do rather than what the Republicans are doing wrong), they seem to be of the opinion that transnational progressivism - fundamentally the transfer of sovereignty from States to an international government - is the proper policy.

Because there is no agreement between Democrats and Republicans on the goals of foreign policy, there can be no agreement on strategy. And to some extent, the discussion of foreign policy right now is very disingenuous, because the Democrats don't agree with the Bush Doctrine goal (defeat the terrorists and States that sponsor them) but don't want to say so publicly because the public by and large agrees with that goal.

Here's the kicker: if President Bush is re-elected, it is likely that the strategy he has been following will work: we will have a much more stable and free Iraq in four years than now, and likely will have invaded Iran and/or Syria as well, and will have gone a great way to reducing terrorism; while if Kerry is elected, it is likely that we will be where we were at the end of the Carter administration: dispirited, wandering, leaderless and deeply in malaise - and will have suffered many, many more casualties than if we were actively making war on the terrorists.

Again, vote as if your life depends on it.

August 18, 2004

How to be a New Blogger

Note: this is a post recovered from my old blog, before it died of an insufficient backup. Any comments/trackbacks on it have not been brought over, but can be seen with the original. The date is that of the original posting.

Kim du Toit has an interesting post about starting blogging, competition, page views and similar stuff. It's something I've been thinking about lately, actually.

When I started this blog, Steph tried to tell me to not expect a big audience. I think she thought I was doing it for ego - a reasonable thought for anyone who knows how big my head can get. I told her at the time that I would be thrilled to have 100 readers in a year.

It's about a year and a half later, and I am amazed and stunned to get an average of about 750 readers a day - about 1000 each weekday and commensurately less on weekends. Thank you, all; it actually makes me feel really good to be thought of as important enough for you to take your time reading. Largely, I judge my blog successful because I am enjoying writing it, and I have an amazing readership, judging by the comments and this.

I don't ask for links on others' blogs, nor do I try to write according to the tips many wonderful and giving bloggers have posted. For me, it's either get this out of my head by writing, or bore my wife and friends silly.

Thanks for reading.

August 17, 2004

Trust Me

Note: this is a post recovered from my old blog, before it died of an insufficient backup. Any comments/trackbacks on it have not been brought over, but can be seen with the original. The date is that of the original posting.

According to the Washington Post, John Kerry has a secret plan for withdrawal from Iraq (and thus for likely US catastrophe, but the article doesn't mention that). A secret plan? Let's not even start with the comparisons with Nixon, whose secret plan for US withdrawal from Viet Nam was to sell out our allies and snatch political defeat from the jaws of military victory. Let's look instead at what is known, or at least what is conveyed in the article, about Kerry's plan:

John F. Kerry pledged Sunday he would substantially reduce U.S. troop strength in Iraq by the end of his first term in office but declined to offer any details of what he said is his plan to attract significantly more allied military and financial support there.

In interviews on television talk shows, the Democratic presidential nominee said that he saw no reason to send more troops to Iraq and that he would seek allied support to draw down U.S. forces there.

[snip]

"I've been involved in this for a long time, longer than George Bush," he said. "I've spent 20 years negotiating, working, fighting for different kinds of treaties and different relationships around the world. I know that as president there's huge leverage that will be available to me, enormous cards to play, and I'm not going to play them in public. I'm not going to play them before I'm president."

[snip]

Kerry previously has discussed his desire to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq but declined to attach any timetable to that goal. He spoke more extensively about Iraq after his acceptance speech, suggesting he has an exit strategy.

[snip]

The Massachusetts senator said the administration had failed diplomatically, and he asserted that a change in presidents would produce more international support for the United States in Iraq.

"I think that a fresh start changes the equation . . . for leaders in other countries who have great difficulty right now associating themselves with our policy and with the United States because of the way this administration has burned those bridges," Kerry said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Kerry defended his and Edwards's votes against an $87 billion authorization for military and reconstruction costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, which the Bush campaign has used repeatedly to question Kerry's commitment to U.S. forces. Kerry said he learned in Vietnam that presidents should not get a blank check for policies that do not work.

"We voted to change the policy," he said on CNN's "Late Edition." "We voted in order to get it right."

Kerry supported an amendment that would have paid for the $87 billion by reducing some of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The amendment did not require significant policy changes.

[snip]

On domestic issues, Kerry gave a "rock hard" pledge not to raise middle-class taxes if he becomes president, though he said a national emergency or war could change that.

Reminded that the country is at war already, Kerry said, "We're going to reduce the burden in this war, and if we do what we need to do for our economy, we're going to grow the tax base of our country."

• How does my policy differ from that of my predecessor?
• What are the problems with my predecessor's policy?
• What parts of my predecessor's policy are improved on in my policy?
• How does my policy ensure that it does not result in worse outcomes than my predecessor's policy in other areas?

What the above makes clear is that John Kerry has no intent of winning the peace in Iraq. His goal is to withdraw our forces without regard to the end state in Iraq (that is what "exit strategy" means as distinct from "strategy to win the war"), to use disagreement with France and others as the rationale for this policy ("seek allied support to draw down U.S. forces" can have no other meaning, since we need no support to pull out or add our own forces and since France, et al, have no forces to add and no will to add them; only diplomatic cover about what good puppies we are can be forthcoming), and to blame President Bush for the inevitable defeat Kerry would have created ("Kerry accused President Bush of misleading the country before the war in Iraq, burning bridges with U.S. allies and having no plan to win peace.").

Kerry plans to lose, and the only reason he is saying it obliquely instead of outright is that he knows saying it outright would win him no votes and would lose him many. This is in easy accord to his past as a Viet Nam war protestor and with his past votes on military and intelligence matters, so it's not terribly surprising.

It would be terrible, though, if carried out, because we would have lost any chance of victory in the Terror Wars for a long time to come: our allies would not trust us any further, so forget about all of the countries currently contributing troops; opposing neutrals (like France, Germany and Russia) would give us nothing but scorn and contempt; our enemies would be proven right, and new terrorists would flock to the cause; our potential allies in any future intervention in the Arab/Muslim world would melt away, knowing they would be betrayed in the end.

That is why Kerry's answers to the four questions above amount to, "Trust me." Because if Kerry said what he plans in plain language, he would be finished politically.

This November, vote as if your life depends on it.

John Kerry is a Fool

Note: this is a post recovered from my old blog, before it died of an insufficient backup. Any comments/trackbacks on it have not been brought over, but can be seen with the original. The date is that of the original posting.

Evidence: if you knew that your service in Viet Nam was short; that your combat record was, while not dishonorable, open to question; that you claimed things over the years in relation to that combat record that were demonstrably false; that you yourself immediately after your time in Viet Nam called those whom you served with "war criminals" and worse; that you and your supporters accused the President, who served honorably in the National Guard (in a unit that had aircraft in Viet Nam at the time he joined it, and when he had tried to volunteer to serve in Viet Nam) of being AWOL, and in some cases even of desertion - if you knew all of these things, would you make your Viet Nam service the central issue in your campaign for president? If you did decide to make your service the central campaign issue, wouldn't you spend a little time figuring out answers to the accusations which would clearly come up?

John Kerry has made this the central theme of his campaign, and he has clearly not thought through how to respond to the inevitable critics.

On a more depressing note, it's possible that Kerry is not a fool, and that his military service is the most honorable and unquestionable part of his public life, despite serving as Lt. Governor of Massachusetts, and as a Senator for 20 years. In either case, I may have been too pessimistic of George Bush's chances of re-election.

UPDATE: Or, maybe the Kerry campaign did plan for this. (Considering the partisan source (note the domain name, I hope they're wrong. This would be below any kind of dignity or shame.)

The Case Against College

Note: this is a post recovered from my old blog, before it died of an insufficient backup. Any comments/trackbacks on it have not been brought over, but can be seen with the original. The date is that of the original posting.

In general, I think college/university has the potential to be of great benefit in one's life. However, the case against that generally begins and ends with the idiots that all too frequently get hired to teach at them. (hat tip: Transterrestrial Musings

Best of the Lot

Note: this is a post recovered from my old blog, before it died of an insufficient backup. Any comments/trackbacks on it have not been brought over, but can be seen with the original. The date is that of the original posting.

People just keep writing things I agree with so that I don't have to. Blogs are great that way.