A common criticism of business in general is that they use lobbyists to control congress. If this is the case then how does one explain this:

The bill’s centerpiece requires automakers to increase vehicle fuel economy to an industry average of 35 miles per gallon over the next 13 years — a 40 percent increase and the first boost in the federal gas mileage requirement since 1975 when the rules were first enacted.

For years, auto companies have fought successfully any increase in the automobile mileage standard which now is 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.2 mpg for small trucks and SUVs. But an agreement forged with the help of Rep. John Dingell, D-Michigan, the longtime protector of the auto industry in Congress, cleared the way for the new requirements which have bipartisan support.

As far as industries go, automakers are one of the most powerful and yet is helpless to stop the passage of this bill. How does one explain this? My suspicion was that there is enough political support for the bill that pressure by lobbyists was ignored. Lobbyists influence on policy is minimized when people care about the legislation.

Incidentally, I’m against this legislation. Its not entirely clear why the democrats are in favor of supporting a bill that will hurt poor people. Forcing car companies to build in more technologies will result in increased cost for all cars. Personally I object because the federal government has no business telling citizens what kinds of cars they can and can’t buy.

Impresses me with this abortion discussion.

Michael writes in a recent post:

There are many angry people in the middle east, and I agree with Dr. Paul that our occupation of their lands makes the US a focal point of their anger, a lightning rod for their wrath.

I really need to address this exceedingly lame argument.

Prior to 2003, the US did not occupy land in the Middle East. This is problematic to your position given what happened on 9/11.

To be more charitable to your argument, I think you are echoing a common sentiment, typically referred to as isolationism, which goes something like this:

Meddling with other countries affairs is bound to breed discontentment. This discontent can boil over causing the formation of organizations intent on harming our country. Therefore, it’s best to not meddle in other country’s affairs.

Much like Humanism, isolationism is a hopelessly naïve view of the world. Let’s look at it some different reasons why.

First, we have meddled with many countries and yet only a small portion has seen organizations form set on causing direct harm to our country. There are the more obvious examples of our meddling like occupying Japan and Germany after WW2 or more subtle examples like placing high tariffs on certain Chinese imports. If the argument is that meddling in other countries affairs is the controlling variable for violent retaliation you have some explaining to do.

A second problem with isolationism and, it’s the basis for my charge of naivety, is that it’s completely unrealistic in a global economy. The very nature of international trade requires that countries meddle with each other. Often times that meddlesome comes in the form of treaties and agreements in international groups. Its worth noting that the more engaged a country is in global trade, that is the more amenable its to being meddle with, the less likely organizations from that country will form to harm the US. Unless you advocate the US pulls out of international trade it is simply impossible to strictly adhere to a isolationism policy and I don’t know about you but I like my iPods cheap.

The third problem is that isolationism restricts intervention in instances in which a state is committing atrocious acts against another state or it’s own people. Would Ron Paul have intervened in the Second World War? He certainly could not have done so on the basis of stopping the holocaust. How about Kuwait, Sudan, Darfur or Rwanda? Isolationism restricts intervention in any of these instances. Some might like to have the option open to intervene on moral grounds. I would like the option open.

There are more reasons why such a policy is foolish but I don’t want to list all of them.

If you ask me, a much more meaningful explanation for why some organizations do harm is because they live under an oppressive regime that often scapegoats US policy as to why they are oppressed. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Osama argue that his antipathy towards the US was based on his belief that Saudi Arabian oppressive government was able to retain power thanks to the US?

It’s not meddling that causes the problem but oppressive regimes blaming the US for the oppression that is the problem. If you ask me, this is one of the reasons why invading Iraq was prudent. While it’s the case that terrorism was not coming out of that country, the conditions were absolutely ripe for it to occur. By invading and setting up a democracy you nip in the bud the development of fractious organizations that could have been inimical to the US.

In this explanation, the best way to deal with US hatred is to regime change nations that oppress their people. Clearly this is unlikely to work from a political perspective but what you might try and do is set up some free market democracy in some key regions until you run out of political will. Hopefully, over time liberal ideology will spread to the more oppressive regimes leading to bloodless democratic revolution. This seems to be in part the current administration plan in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under this policy, I think it would wise to add Iran to the list. This would allow the three nascent Democracies to form a strong contiguous allied front for liberal values in the Middle East.

With any luck, Iran will continue its efforts to build nuclear weapons giving the next administration the political capital needed to invade and establish democracy in that country. We can only hope for such luck.

Those that are capable of summary judgments report higher rates of excellent mental health.

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls.

Is it possible that nuanced understanding comes from insecurity? Out of fear of being incorrect the nuanced thinker refrains from assertion until they are certain of not being incorrect. The more generalized thinker is less concerned with being incorrect and happily asserts irrespective of being correct.

One thing for sure is that democratic ideology emphasize non-judgment while conservative ideology emphasize it. Many that are democratic no doubt find it compelling to join a group that is more interested in understanding then judging. Disinclination from being judged indicates insecurity about that which you are to be judge on. Well then, is it any wonder that the party of judgment has a higher rate of self reported excellent mental health? They have the confidence to judge themselves as excellent.

After spending several years trying to force the President to leave Iraq, due to the success of the surge Democrats are changing their rhetoric in Iraq.

Congressional Democrats are reporting a striking change in districts across the country: Voters are shifting their attention away from the Iraq war.

Rep. Jim Cooper, a moderate Democrat from Tennessee, said not a single constituent has asked about the war during his nearly two-week long Thanksgiving recess. Rep. Michael E. Capuano, an anti-war Democrat from Massachusetts, said only three of 64 callers on a town hall teleconference asked about Iraq, a reflection that the war may be losing power as a hot-button issue in his strongly Democratic district.

I never understood why the democrats employed the rhetoric of retreat. I realize they used other words to make it not sound like a retreat but if I was running the democratic party during the height of the anti-war sentiment I would of used the rhetoric of strategy change. Had the democrats been on top of Petreaus plan before Bush brought him in, and applied the necessary political pressure to get Bush to use Petreaus surge strategy they would currently be reaping the fruits of the success of the surge. It would of been a great political coup and resulted in significantly more positive coverage about how Iraq is now working.

As such, they squandered the political will by arguing a defeatist position and leaving open the more much more political palatable change in strategy approach to the GOP. No doubt part of the problem was that the democrats were listening to the far anti-war left and foolishly believed the majority of Americans echo this partisan desire to withdraw from Iraq. This was clearly not the will of the people, which was perfectly captured by the video in which democratic rep. Obey, frustrated by some citizens demanding a vote to withdrawal funding from the war, yells that they don’t the votes.

It was obvious to me that the majority of Americans did not want to leave Iraq but were definitely unhappy with the way things were progressing due in large part to the way the war was being covered. The fact that the democrats were unable to correctly distinguish between these two sentiments is what separates good politicians from bad politicians.

Good politics is finding the rhetorical message that matches the will of the majority. Republicans have consistently beat the Democrats in Iraq by finding the proper rhetorical message. Last night, over dinner, Michael mentioned that he liked Ron Paul because he does not spin his message. Ron Paul ’speaks the truth’ as he said. The problem with speaking the ‘truth’ is that a majority of people rarely share the ‘truth’. Your truth does not get elected with a minority. This is the case with Ron Paul and was most certainly the case with democrats attempting a withdrawal of the troops out of Iraq.

Some have suggested that I favor banning same sex marriage. To clarify my position, unlike many of my readers, I emphatically agree with this statement:

On the whole, banning same sex marriage is bad.

As such I would oppose any kind of constitutional amendment that bans same sex marriage. (Please note the word ‘oppose’ which is in bold so as to insure the word is actually read.)

Given most of my readers do not like to make summary judgments I eagerly await their equivocations on banning same sex marriage. Or wait, maybe they can eagerly aver politically liberal summary judgments but demand nuance when it comes to politically conservative summary judgments. Oh man, I can’t wait to see how this one plays out.

What say you readers? Do you think on the whole banning same sex marriage is bad?

I should also note that as a libertarian, opposing this blatant discrimination is a no brainer. The only way you could possibly think I would support banning same sex marriage is if I’m a republican which I clearly am not. I have stated on countless occasions I’m a libertarian one that takes serious the need to defend liberal values. Banning same sex marriage is clearly a violation of the liberal value that people should be allowed to do as they please provided they do not explicitly harm others in the process.

The most interesting part of Rosencranz’s remarks is a proposal for a constitutional amendment declaring that foreign and international law should not be relied upn to interpret or construe the U.S. Constitution.

Political push for this outcome should be attempted sooner than later since the more judges use international law for justification the less outrage there will be for it.

Michael sends me this link to a Zogby survey showing the viewing preferences of different political groups. Its an interesting read.

Advertisers may be surprised to discover that a great place to capture moderates is on Fox News, where over 27% of moderates tune in daily. Unlike conservatives, though, moderates watch all the broadcast networks, and, like the liberals, NBC is their favorite, with 37% watching daily.

When you read this:

Thompson has an 86.1 percent lifetime (1995–2002) American Conservative Union vote rating, compared to 89.3 for Bill Frist and 82.3 for John McCain.[45][46] Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) characterized her colleague this way: “I believe that Fred is a fearless senator. By that I mean he was never afraid to cast a vote or take a stand, regardless of the political consequences.”[47] Thompson was “on the short end of a couple of 99-1 votes,”[48] voting against those who wanted to federalize matters that he believed were properly left to state and local officials.

You just got to love him. The principle of fighting back federalism is essential to maintaining a healthy democracy.

My left leaning readers should get in line at the tobacco store to play their part in providing infrastructure for poor kids.

Smoke it up.