Welcome to Freedom Democrats

The Republican party is dealt their third defeat in a special election this year. Democrat Travis Childers joins Bill Foster and Don Cazayoux as a newly elected member of Congress and members of a small but growing number of Democrats elected by the early edge of the 2008 wave. There may be one more special election up in New York before November, another chance for the Democrats to show momentum heading into the fall. Things are not good in GOP land:

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), issued a somber and self-reflective statement following the loss, saying Republicans were “disappointed” and that they need to prepare to run against Democrats campaigning as conservatives.

“Though the Democrats’ task will be more difficult in a November election, the fact is they have pulled off two special election victories with this strategy” in Louisiana and Mississippi “and it should be a concern to all Republicans,” Cole said.

Cole added that “the political environment is such that voters remain pessimistic about the direction of the country and the Republican Party in general. Therefore, Republicans must undertake bold efforts to define a forward-looking agenda that offers the kind of positive change voters are looking for. This is something we can do in cooperation with our presidential nominee, but time is short.”

From David Sirota, an interesting poll of the voters of Wisconsin:

Who do you think would do a better job reforming the health care system, Wisconsin and the other states, or the federal government?

Wisconsin & Other States: 68%
Federal Government: 22%
Both Equally: 2%
Neither: 3%
Don't Know: 4%
Refused: <1%

Sirota draws from this hope for progressive reform at the state level that would work to push the envelope at the national state over time. Even though I disagree with his specific agenda, I agree with his conclusion about the importance of state politics:

The organization has had to fight an uphill battle not just against conservatives and the health care industry, but also against a conventional wisdom among progressive donors, Beltway elites, and even some blogospheric voices who are so enamored with the Washington game that they cannot see what the Right long ago figured out: namely, that states are often where the real action is, because Washington is rigged to prevent change. Clearly, the public is way ahead of the Washington-centric conventional wisdom - likely because the public lives out here in the real world, far away from the D.C. echo chamber that tells everyone in D.C. that what they are doing is more important than what anyone else is doing.

This post is a "sibling" post to my post on political gatekeepers at The Art of the Possible. Please check it out as well, although the theme is the same the points are different.

For reasons behind my full understanding, I recently stumbled on the ideas of Alexander Bard and Jan Soderqvist as explained in their book "Netocracy." I find it interesting as a way of thinking about the future, I could see ways in which libertarian/agorist class theory could apply to it. For a summary, consider using this site. In the future, Bard and Soderqvist see the political economy structured around a "Netocracy."

In Bard and Soderqvist's model, the post-capitalist situation is an economic mode where the most valuable form of economic wealth is a network of good connections, through which flow information and influence. (Connections can be personal connections to people; or knowledge of resources such as good website)

Consider the role of those with connections when reading a piece of this National Journal article on the high hopes that Democrats have for three South Florida districts with Cuban-American Republican incumbents.

A more intriguing result was in Lincoln Diaz-Balart's 2006 race: Democrat Frank Gonzalez spent just $16,598 compared with the incumbent's $926,106, yet won 41 percent of the vote. Gonzalez actually defeated Diaz-Balart in less Hispanic Broward County, which accounts for a fraction of the district, but lost nearly 2-to-1 in Miami-Dade County.

"Lincoln won Hialeah 5-to-1," Martinez notes. "If it wasn't for Hialeah, Lincoln would have been in trouble.... Now he's going to have to compete with me, having been mayor of Hialeah for 24 years."

DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland agrees that it was the Diaz-Balarts' relative weakness that caught his eye: "Clearly, the fact that in the past election that they didn't get these big votes was one factor."

Frank Gonzalez, a hard working candidate for public office, managed to hold Lincoln Diaz-Balart to less than 60% of the vote despite almost no help from the national party or any major Democratic infrastructure. And this weakness draws the attention of the national Democrats, who recruit Mayor Martinez to run against Congressman Diaz-Balart. And where does this leave Frank Gonzalez? Running as a third party candidate again, just like in 2004.

I firmly believe that Frank Gonzalez could have done significantly better in 2006 if he had the resources. He didn't, Mayor Martinez will. At a time in which the national liberal blogosphere was picking out long shot candidates in Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, California, and elsewhere (and some successfully), Gonzalez was passed over because of his integrity and honesty of views . . . in other words, he wouldn't back away from being a libertarian. As much as I support the Democratic Party as a big tent, liberal gatekeepers will favor liberal candidates. For libertarian candidates to be successful, we're going to need libertarian gatekeepers.

Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic has put together the first found of predictions for the general election between John McCain and Barack Obama.

McCain's base states + his leaners: 245 electoral votes.
Obama's base states + his leaners: 221 electoral votes.

McCain's base states -- 175 electoral votes.

Texas (34), West Virginia (5), Georgia (15), South Carolina (8), Kentucky (8), Tennessee (11), Alabama (9), Mississippi (6), Louisiana (9), Arkansas (6), Wyoming (3), Idaho (4), Utah (5), Arizona (10), Alaska (3), Oklahoma (7), Kansas (6), Nebraska (5), South Dakota (3), North Dakota (3), North Carolina (15)

Tilt McCain states -- 70 electoral votes.

Indiana (11) -- competitive House and GOV races; Obama's college force multiplier; state borders IL
Virginia (13) -- polling shows McCain with lead; McCain will over performing in Tidewater; Obama will overperform in NoVA. Probably will be tossup by the summer as Mark Warner's popularity will stoke Dem enthusiasm.
Missouri (11) -- lack of McCain enthusiasm in rural (Huckabee) areas; state borders IL; Obama overperformed among suburban whites and inner city African Americans in primary.
Montana (3) -- Schweitzer's army and state legislature trending Democratic; probably safe McCain by November.
Florida (27) -- McCain's very popular in South Florida and North Florida; whether Florida is competitive depends a lot on his appeal to Latinos and his overperforming with Jewish voters
Nevada (5) -- Unusual for Latino voters to be up for grabs, although state has more Dem energy than GOP energy (and plenty of infighting on both sides.)

Tossups: Pennsylvania (21), Wisconsin (10), Iowa (7), Ohio (20), New Mexico (5), Colorado (9) -- 72 electoral votes.

Obama's base states -- 172 electoral votes --

Washington, D.C. (3), Maryland (10), California (55), New York (31), Vermont (3), Massachusetts (12), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Rhode Island (4), Illinois (21), Hawaii (4), New Jersey (15), Maine (4)

Tilt Obama States -- 49 electoral votes

New Hampshire (4) -- everything trending Dem, including independents. If McCain's maverick image endures, NH becomes an easy tossup.
Michigan (17) -- An economically depressed Dem union state with an active GOP base and that primary problem;
Minnesota (10) -- If Pawlenty is McCain's veep the state is marginally more in play; the GOP gets the force multiplier of the convention. Else, the state would be safe Obama.
Washington (11) -- McCain campaign wants to contend here
Oregon (7) -- McCain campaign wants to contend here

Overall, a good set of predictions. I'm starting to become more pessimistic about Obama's chance at winning Virginia, but I still think he has the possibility to put some states in play that are not standard swing states.

H/T to Radley Balko

Depressing. In an interview with USA Today, Barack Obama essentially promises not only to use the presidency as a bully pulpit to further promote the Drug War, but vows to pour more money into enforcement as well.

As president, I would use the bully pulpit of my office to warn Americans about the dangers of performance enhancing drugs, and I would put greater resources into enforcement of existing drug laws. I would also convene a summit of the commissioners of the professional sports leagues, as well as university presidents, to explore options for decreasing the use of these drugs.

The USA Today article posed the questions of Title IX and performance enhancement drugs(PEDs) to all 3 candidates and all 3 gave essentially the same answer. This is not "Change we can believe in" but "Same old, same old." I don't care about the Title IX aspect of the article, but Obama's promise to vigorously expand the Drug War into PEDs only promises to unleash the DEA on 15 million Americans who currently use PEDs of some sort. Over at The Art of The Possible, the conceptual theme is a a liberal-libertarian alliance. However, at some point, the liberals have to start living up to their side of the bargain. I'm willing to compromise on economic issues, but not on civil liberty issues. Libertarian principles of the right to self-medicate are beside the point here; there is all the evidence in the world to construct an "a posteriori" argument that any reform on the civil liberties front absolutely requires reform of our Drug Laws. Obama's capitulation on this issue (wasn't "The Wire" supposed be his favorite TV Show?) makes him nothing more than an empty suit on the civil liberties front.

In the latest feature article at Reason (not online yet), Gene Healy looks at the growth of the all powerful, all knowing, all affecting, all healing, all preaching, all nourishing president.

Under the headline on page 21 reads the following:

Who can we blame for the radical expansion of executive power? Look no further than you and me.

Indeed. No other political office has come to mean so much to so many people. It wasn't supposed to be this way. Nonetheless, says Healy:

The chief executive of the United States is no longer a mere constitutional officer. He is a soul nourisher, a hope giver, a living American talisman against hurricanes, terrorism, economic downturns, and spiritual malaise....is America's shrink, a social worker, our very own national talk show host. He's also the Supreme Warlord of the Earth.

This messianic campaign rhetoric merely reflects what the office has evolved into after decades of public clamoring. The vision of the president as a national guardian and a spiritual redeemer is so ubiquitous that it virtually goes unnoticed.It's difficult for 21st century Americans to imagine things any other way....Americans appear deeply ambivalent about results, alternately cursing the king and pining for Camelot. But executive power will continue to grow and threats to civil liberties increase, until citizens reconsider the incentives we have given a post that started out so humble.

After recalling some drab and tired quotes and ideas about separation of powers, humility and caution from yesteryear by the likes of Madison, Jefferson and even Hamilton and John Jay, Healy rightly traces the roots of this shift chief officer of the executive branch to larger-than-life omnipotent, omnipresent overlord to the Progressive era....the period of backlash after the massive societal shifts...good, bad and yet to be fully understood (at the time)...of the Industrial Revolution. The "Progressives" were, according to a 2003 book, The Presidency and Political Science, "the nearest to presidential absolutists of any theorists or practitioners of the presidency". A leading light of this era was Teddy Roosevelt. Progressive era journalist and founder of the The New Republic, Herbert Croly ominously described Teddy as "a sledgehammer in the cause national righteousness". His relative popularity with liberals and conservatives speaks volumes on how influential Teddy and this era was in our modern political thought.

Indeed, the traces of Obama's hope, hosanna and Yes we CAN! and McCain's push to serve a cause "greater than self-interest" and promises of national redemption, greatness and defeat to all enemies of the state, within and without, can trace their roots back to Teddy's original bully pulpit at the 1912 Progressive Party Convention when he cried:

"To you who strive in a spirit of brotherhood for the betterment of our Nation, to you who gird yourselves for this great new fight in the never-ending warfare for the good of mankind, I say in closing...WE STAND AT ARMAGEDDON AND WE BATTLE FOR THE LORD!".

Sheesh. Get a grip, Teddy.

Two world wars and a depression (Fed created in 1913) were more than enough to solidify the new found all-powerful office of President of the United States of America. And rather than gulp with pause and reflexion on the God-like figure we've created, Americans seem ever more insistent and impassioned in capturing the prize for themselves via their party leader in the hopes of having all their dreams for a better world, a brighter tomorrow and salvation and redemption for all mankind...and the children...come true.

Pardon my over-the-toppiness. I just caught up in the moment. ;)

Kevin reviews a book I confess I have not read, The Mind and the Market by Michael Shermer. See interviewed at Reason TV if you are so inclined.

BTW, it is not my intention to defend Shermer here and I don't want to. Shermer's book is actually irrelevant here. I actually agree with many of Carson's criticisms...but not all. And therein lies the basis for this post.

Anyway, as a periodic reader of Kevin's stuff, I have always found his views insightful, interesting and worth pondering. In general, I'm usually in agreement with much of what he says and most certainly with the spirit of what he says. And I probably agree a lot more than with him than may lead on in the rest of this post.

Without getting in too deep, there are some fundamental tenets to his views that I simply find puzzling and almost "incongruent" with libertarianism...not vulgar libertarianism or right libertarianism (his pet peeve...which I also think he defines to widely at times)...but just basic general libertarianism 101 and free markets in realistic and practical setting that takes everyday human action into account.

First of all, he once again shows his contempt for "the corporation" as legal structure...I assume because it's a creation of the state and therefore a validation of the state's unfounded legitimacy in a true free market? If so, fair enough. Personally, I'm indifferent to the legal structure of a corporation. Perhaps the implications of even saying this shows a fundamental rift in our views because my view accepts (or at least tolerates as acceptable) the legitimacy of the state as an enforcer/arbiter of law and property issues. I'm not sure on this for Carson.

Beyond that, what I find puzzling is how any defense of capitalism that has corporations is instantly "vulgar" or necessarily a defense of crony capitalism.

Having said that, I agree whole-heartedly with his critiques of privilege, entrenched interests, subsidies and all that state coddling and interference that drives most any libertarian mad...whether right, left, "vulgar" or what have you.

I'll stop there for now. Any thoughts?

But it would seem that in Carson's view, such views are mutually exclusive.

Republicans are jumping on board the "gas tax holiday" train, and I really hope that Democrats will clobber them on this issue before the summer passes and it becomes irrelevant.

On Thursday, House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he's supporting a bill by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., to suspend the gasoline tax this summer.

"The common sense plan unveiled today by Rep. Ryan helps bring down gas prices by eliminating the federal gas tax during the summer months so American families can take their summer vacations with less strain on their budgets," Boehner said in a statement Thursday.

Boehner's probably heard that economists don't think it'll amount to much, and he may not put much stock in their pronouncements.

 I can think of two motivations behind this temporary suspection of the gasoline tax: either to bring down prices at the pump, or to hand billions of dollars to the gasoline industry.

Economists have bashed this idea, in large part because its duration is too short for it to stimulate an increase in gasoline supply, meaning that consumer prices will not come down as a result of the tax holiday. This would lead us to believe that this proposal is intended as a give-away to the gasoline industry, but Hillary provides an alternative. She insists that is the President were willing to use all of the powers at his disposal, then he/she could force prices to come down over the summer. Is she referring to price controls?

If a politician is proposing that they can lower gasoline prices in a time-frame as near as this summer, then we basically have to conclude that they are proposing price controls. Since the Republicans are championing these price controls, we have to assume that they expect Americans to behave like Iranians, Nigerians, or the French -- who protest/riot whenever the prices of basic commodities rise.

I had always felt comfortable that Americans were exceptional in having a slightly more sophisticated view of economics, where we allowed the markets to handle economic details (like setting commodity prices) while politics focused on the big picture issues (like poverty). This is part of why I consider Obama's emphasis on a middle-class tax cut to be far superior to Clinton's and the Republican's emphasis on the price of gasoline.

As much as the Republicans thrive on national chauvinism,  they really go out of their way to undermine America's unique heritage and turn us into just another old-world nation (with a national language, a national religion, and government-controlled commodity prices).

And I thank the Austrian Economists website for the tip. I had no idea.

He would be 109 today. Wiki entry here. An influential economist, he was a contemporary, intellectual adversary and friend of Keynes and gained notoriety for his famous book, The Road to Serfdom, which warned of the gradual decent toward fascism via idealistic and flawed socialism. In his later years, he turned more to social philosophy and received a Nobel Prize in Economics.

Few people have had as profound an effect on my thinking as Hayek. I suppose I could say that the single biggest effect is the frame of mind he puts the reader in the The Fatal Conceit, one of my favorite books...the theme of the "Fatal Conceit" is a more in depth version, IMO, of his famous paper The Use of Knowledge in Society, the basis for his Nobel Prize. The influence on one's thinking upon internalizing the message is one of humility and caution when faced with the complexity of society and possible "solutions". Ironic, when one considers the distorted assumption of arrogance that is placed at the feet of many of people of a Hayekian/libertarian persuasion.

I suppose the best and briefest way to convey the Fatal Conceit is a choice quote used Horwitz in the above link:

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." (The Fatal Conceit, p. 76)

and here is another along the same lines:

"The problem [of the economy] is precisely how to extend the span of our utilization of resources beyond the span of the control of any one mind; and therefore, how to dispense with the need of conscious control, and how to provide inducements which will make the individuals do the desirable things without anyone having to tell them what to do."

The effect is similar to change in perspective one gets when they realize the earth's true place in the universe as opposed to the flawed idea that it lies at the center.

This is all based on the nature of knowledge and customs according to Hayek, which are developed spontaneously from experience, customs and evolution and not rational or deliberate design. The implications of this, and they are many, are huge and form the bedrock of Hayek's contribution to social science as well as many of the obstacles economists have tried to grapple with since (whether they realize it or not). Indeed, last year's Nobel Prize winner received it for ground breaking work in trying to show it was possible to do or know something that Hayek claimed was impossible. Many Hayekians dispute the true value of the research and say it's so rudimentary as to be almost useless. Nevertheless, and ironically, if anyone ever does definitely prove Hayek wrong on these matters, it will be a great day because man will have truly leaped forward...not just in his mind but in reality. But I'm not holding my breath. :)

And Horwitz shares a wish for the approach and conduct of future debate...an approach which Hayek lived by:

We need more people willing to start with the assumption that those who disagree with them are only guilty of intellectual error rather than maliciousness or stupidity.

Indeed and Amen. Seeing thinkers harshly criticized and having their general view scorned to the core is something we see everyday. I take exception to seeing it done to Hayek more than almost any other because to negatively question his intent, where he was coming from and why is to totally miss the spirit of his life's work, what he thought and what drove him. He was a true liberal in the purest and truest sense of the word.

A wonderfully in depth video on the Cory Maye saga in Mississippi. Thank you Reason.tv and Drew Carey.