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That Was Fun...
Nov. 2nd, 2010 09:37 amWell, maybe not. Yesterday's post drew a firestorm of comments, the bulk of which were off-topic. A few meta-thoughts, and then I'll resume my regularly-scheduled programming with discussion of Mary Roach's book Packing for Mars.
WASPs and the Gilded Age
In Anglo-Saxon countries, white and Protestant was important. In Europe, being of the same religion as the rulers was important, which meant being Catholic in France, for example. The point is the same - libertarianism is completely unable to prevent private discrimination. Humans have a tendency to discriminate, and unless something is done to prevent discrimination, it will happen. That "something" doesn't have to be government, but it has to be real.
US defense spending
The Republican Party in particular and conservatives in general don't want to cut defense spending. They also don't want to raise taxes to pay for defense spending, and (at least the elected officials) don't want to cut Social Security and Medicare. This is very much like wanting a pink pony but not having to feed it or shovel its shit.
I'm not particularly advocating cutting defense spending, but something has to give. I also think that in some categories, we have significant excess capacity, while in other categories we don't. The US Navy has 11 aircraft carriers, as many as the rest of the world combined. The smallest of our ships is twice as big as the biggest non-US carrier. Most of those carriers are operated by our allies. Al Qaeda and the Taliban have neither carriers nor fighter jets. Do you really want to argue we couldn't spend less on carrier aviation and more on Army / Marine ground troops?
War on Terror
I've said this before, but treating terrorists like pirates seems to be a better model. Basically, arrest the ones you can, send the military to get / kill the ones you can't arrest, and try the survivors in a court. It's a simple concept, one that doesn't require 100,000 man invasions and decades-long occupations. We didn't have a choice in Afghanistan, but we did in Iraq and do in Somalia and Yemen.
WASPs and the Gilded Age
In Anglo-Saxon countries, white and Protestant was important. In Europe, being of the same religion as the rulers was important, which meant being Catholic in France, for example. The point is the same - libertarianism is completely unable to prevent private discrimination. Humans have a tendency to discriminate, and unless something is done to prevent discrimination, it will happen. That "something" doesn't have to be government, but it has to be real.
US defense spending
The Republican Party in particular and conservatives in general don't want to cut defense spending. They also don't want to raise taxes to pay for defense spending, and (at least the elected officials) don't want to cut Social Security and Medicare. This is very much like wanting a pink pony but not having to feed it or shovel its shit.
I'm not particularly advocating cutting defense spending, but something has to give. I also think that in some categories, we have significant excess capacity, while in other categories we don't. The US Navy has 11 aircraft carriers, as many as the rest of the world combined. The smallest of our ships is twice as big as the biggest non-US carrier. Most of those carriers are operated by our allies. Al Qaeda and the Taliban have neither carriers nor fighter jets. Do you really want to argue we couldn't spend less on carrier aviation and more on Army / Marine ground troops?
War on Terror
I've said this before, but treating terrorists like pirates seems to be a better model. Basically, arrest the ones you can, send the military to get / kill the ones you can't arrest, and try the survivors in a court. It's a simple concept, one that doesn't require 100,000 man invasions and decades-long occupations. We didn't have a choice in Afghanistan, but we did in Iraq and do in Somalia and Yemen.
