cheese it, the cops!

it's interesting to be re-thinking the role of science in public policy . and in many respects, the bush admin was anomalous in this regard, obviously tilting toward religion in the epistemic struggle. one wants one's policies to be informed by actual knowledge, i agree. however, of course science does not fix policies, and if it starts driving value-judgments it has of course renounced its own self-understanding. science can't tell you whether drawing stem cells from human embryos is bad, though often it seems like it is blandly telling you that it's ok. that's no scientific result.

and dangers lurk in the cult of science: leaving moral questions in the hands of empirical experts in some subject-matter, for example. pretending not to be making value judgments: offloading the real sources and implications of your values onto experts or facts. in many areas, the line betweeen empirical research and policy agendas is purposely obscured. global warming, for example: there no real line between facts and policies at all: everyone's screaming.

the habit of deferring to experts is, overall, not the most admirable or wise human tendency, and scientists are more or less as subject to fads and fits of uncritical unanimity as anyone else. what scientists tell you about human learning or mental health, for example, is going to be soaked in horseshit and contradicted completely in ten years. so make use of it with circumspection, and don't pretend you're not actually doing things to people because you think that's how they ought to be etc.

at any rate, just as the right tends to shuffle off their responsibility for actual moral decision-making on god, the left has the tendency to shuffle it off on "science," as though actual policies could be written by god or by "the facts." that the scientific community has the same politics as american adademics in general - that is, pure democratic party - is too often just disguised at the bottom of the supposedly objective study.

having an eight-year-old who's suddenly getting way into music is providing me with many guilty pleasures, and reminding me that i actually like beautifully-made, though, um, meaningless pop. there's an aesthetic of authenticity and artistic integrity that i admire, of course, and left to my druthers i listen to roots all the time, where the artist and work can be identified in some way, though of course the forms are traditional. but one might think about motown or the sound of philadelphia, or the monkees and sixties/seventies bubblegum etc, where the point is craft, charm, pleasure, and the artist is the production squad. when emma (who's now twenty) was jane's age, it was all ace of base and spice girls: nothing wrong with that at all as long as you don't confuse it with the meaning of life.

jane's tastes are pretty much formed by the disney channel, which is, again, better than it has to be, overall. i don't love the jonas brothers or miley cyrus, though one might do worse than the former's "burning up" or the latter's very excellent "fly on the wall." miley seems like she can actually sing (on "hannah montana" she'll sing trios on the couch with her dad and dolly parton), and will probably be a long-haul artist in a pop country vein. but what's buzzing through my head these days is aly and aj, teenybop blonde twins. "like whoa" is a great pop  anthem for this moment. "bullseye" rocks; aj (or perhaps aly) gives a little faux joan jett growl. "potential breakup song" is about as good as it gets in this vein, and says it all for teeny love: she's breaking up with him because he didn't call her back fast enough on her birthday. she wants her stuff back. or you might check corbin bleu's "run it back again." or on the nick tip, miranda cosgrove's babypunk "i know how i feel about you now."

it's eclectic: sometimes a bit punky, sometimes a bit techno/disco, a little hip hop, a touch of country etc. and it all comes from disney, which of course might be disturbing. the "artists" are really sit-com actors with an autotune button. but it's also the great, perfectly-crafted bubblepop of our era.

terps beat blue devils, win ACC women's basketball tournament in ot!!!!!!!

I had always yearned to belong. That didn't happen. I had been rejected by girls at school, I just wasn't "cool", despite doing well academically.

that's how "nadine stavonnia de montagnac" explains her decision to become a lap-dancer. oy the injustice and cruelty. it could as well explain one's decision to become an axe-murderer or a software tycoon, a suicide or a saint or an average person. in fact, all human behavior from the typical to the extraordinary, good, evil, or indifferent, all psychological health and sickness is to be explained by the high school clique system and everybody's insane though hyper-trivial trauma. here's my advice to you: stop needing to "belong" - i.e. to place yourself in the ownership of others, a formula for universal idiocy - and stop blaming "girls." your low self-esteem causes your desperation which causes your unpopularity which causes your low self-esteem which causes your lap-dancing which causes your low self-esteem which causes you desperation. just one way out: margaritas.

printing money is the right way to get us out of this mess. i suggest this is no more substantive as a way to deal with actual economic problems than consulting the tarot or sacrificing columnists to yottle.or, really, just wishing with all your might.

the anti-federalist standpoint was that the united states should be an association of smaller republics. they drew the basic idea that a republican form of government could only be successful on a small geographical/population scale from aristotle (who argued in book 7 of the politics that a republic shouldn't be larger than you could see from a high point (the acropolis) with a citizenry that could all be in some sense acquainted with each other),and montesquieu, whose spirit of the laws was a bible to all parties in the constitutional debate.

this picture of decentralized, local democracy (also jefferson's ideal, though he hesitantly supported the constitution with the addition of a bill of rights) was an inspiring, decent vision. but it was profoundly polluted throughout american history by racism. the battle for states rights against federal incursion (for example in the nullification debate in the early 19th century and in the civil rights era) was little more at times than a battle for white supremacy, though of course its proponents took on the mantle of jefferson (well...) and claimed that they were acting in defense of liberty. no. they were acting in defense of oppression.

this has placed american advocates of decentralized government in a profoundly compromised position. in no treason, the great american advocate of liberty lysander spooner found himself obliged to support the right of the southern states to secede. but spooner was an extreme abolitionist, even participating in a plot to free john brown before the latter's execution. he supported both the right of secession and the legitimacy of force to free the slaves. spooner's libertarianism or extreme classical liberalism was perfectly consistent and connected by him beautifully to the american political tradition, but in the circumstances could not but have appeared incoherent.

john c. calhoun was one of the best and most interesting republican political theorists in history. the ideas are really interesting. but every point comes with the implied parenthesis: (and we'll be able to keep our slaves).

if you were talking "state's rights" in the 1960s, you were just a gross, disingenuous racist; if the federal government had supported segregation, you'd have happily been a fan of federal power against integrationist states.

this is just a terrible shame; it has discredited a vision of anti-federalist, small-republic political life. that ideal is nowhere in effect: the globe is covered by grasping mega-states. these have in turn been discredited by the world wars and the genocides and the cold war that raised the specter of nuclear annihilation. but no one noticed.

my secret agent dan comes up with federal spending as a percentage of gdp, obviously a better measure. it's also worth saying that the economy by 1940 was wildly more productive per capita than in 1795, obviously, so in a certain way this understates the presence of the government in individual lives dramatically. i think the 2010 number is likely to be way low, and that if you fairly put everything in the budget, that we're liable to see 30% in the next couple of years, and it will never go down. or it might end up much higher as the economy contracts. that's the kind of sea change in the role of the state that you can see here between 1910 and 1940, due to the new deal. but though the percentage can't triple, there is all the difference in the world between a gov that occupies 24% of gdp and one that takes 40. then you're no longer in anything like a capitalist economy, for one thing. whether or not that's a good thing will emerge. it has its advantages and disadvantages.

Budget as percent of GDP:

1795 -- 2.03 percent
1830 -- 1.69
1870 -- 4.27
1910 -- 2.49
1940 -- 9.92
1970 -- 18.84
1990 -- 21.59
2010 -- 23.84

the extinction of gigantic creatures is always a moving spectacle of trauma, and leaves the pervasive stench of carcass everywhere. here's a piece i wrote for reason mag a few years ago on the theme, in a different context. oops actually here's the reason piece. the gigantic organism looks mighty and invulnerable, but is finally just incredibly slow and stupid. these gigantic corporations are in a symbiotic relation to the american state: they are not fully distinct from one another, as is perfectly clear in the case of aig and will be next week in the case of citigroup. and perhaps what we're witnessing is the end of the age of the dinosaur: a mass extinction of bizarrely huge organisms. the suffering will be immense, deeply sad. but as to the gigantism itself: celebrate its collapse. of course the american state will emerge even more gigantical, for one thing by merger with all these concerns. but it'll soon be clear that its own gigantism is also fatal: it's like the last predator feeding on brontosauri. the best parallel is probably the soviet union.

you can keep saying: do it smart, do it nimble, etc. but you're constituting an insanely large bureaucracy that is going to be unbelievably stupid, mind-numbingly inefficient, unresponsive to stimuli, unbelievably slow. but it will. hence, be temporary.

i focus on the unlimited, coercive power to tax not because i support unbridled capitalism or because i'm some republican-party tax-cut obsessive. i focus on it because it is the very center, the sine qua non of state power: which it makes essentially limitless. you cannot have a vast military or police power without it. it is a necessary condition for the wars and genocides of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. if we end in nuclear conflagration or some bio-weapon disaster, coercive taxation will have been responsible for our extinction. it is the state.

the only "constitutional"-style remedy i can see would be to actually limit federal taxation to a certain percentage of incomes or gdp by constitutional amendment. but i suspect that a thousand roads to avoiding such limitations would be pursued, and i am suspicious anyway of the efficacy of what madison himself termed "parchment barriers." the soviet constitution was a very acme of liberty and democracy. nevertheless if you wanted actually to enshrine some practical barrier to tyranny, that'd be it.

one might, alternatively, constitutionally cap spending, which would also limit debt. hamilton was an enthusiast for government debt: an interesting position.

within the constitutional design, the only checks on federal power as a whole are state governments and the responsiveness of elected officials to the people through elections. now in fact the electoral system has been further democratized. the original document had senators appointed by state legislatures. the system of electors for the presidency which persists vestigially was seriously meant as an attenuation of popular will.

the main objection of the anti-federalists was that the sovereignty of state governments would be destroyed under the new constitution. many of the anti-federalists were state officials, including people such as clinton. to a significant extent their fears have been realized, through many many struggles including the civil war. the stimulus package is one site of obvious state dependency on the federal government.as many anti-feds realized would happen, states must come to the feds, hat in hand.

the power of elections is real, even if attenuated constantly by the advantages of incumbency, the two-party system, and other factors. but it was the unlimited power to tax that was fatal, and was the center of hamilton's conception and ambition (embodied, as the antis saw, in the "sweeping clause": "The Congress shall have Power - To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof"). in federalist 23 - the most problematic of them all - hamilton argues that it follows trivially that if you give the government certain powers, it must be able to obtain the resources to exercise those powers, without limitation. that would be a good moment to intervene in the federalist argument, and i keep thinking that madison might have suddenly gotten squeamish right there. he did not, however, jump ship.

the unlimited power to tax was also, as the anti-federalists said over and over, incredibly ironic, insofar as the revolution was a tax revolt, and held the unlimited power to tax to be the acme of tyranny.

usage guide: "is, is that," as in "the truth is, is that..." you hear this all the time these days. it's an obama mannerism: which is odd given his pretty immaculate syntax. i see it occasionally in student papers. obviously, it is redundant: "the truth is that... ." Or, just get on with it.

"brutus" 6 (new york journal, december 27, 1787):

This power, exercised without limitation, will introduce itself into every comer of the city, and country — It will wait upon the ladies at their toilett, and will not leave them in any of their domestic concerns; it will accompany them to the ball, the play, and the assembly; it will go with them when they visit, and will, on all occasions, sit beside them in their carriages, nor will it desert them even at church; it will enter the house of every gentleman, watch over his cellar, wait upon his cook in the kitchen, follow the servants into the parlour, preside over the table, and note down all he eats or drinks; it will attend him to his bed-chamber, and watch him while he sleeps; it will take cognizance of the professional man in his office, or his study; it will watch the merchant in the counting-house, or in his store; it will follow the mechanic to his shop, and in his work, and will haunt him in his family, and in his bed; it will be a constant companion of the industrious farmer in all his labour, it will be with him in the house, and in the field, observe the toil of his hands, and the sweat of his brow; it will penetrate into the most obscure cottage; and finally, it will light upon the head of every person in the United States. To all these different classes of people, and in all these circumstances, in which it will attend them, the language in which it will address them, will be GIVE! GIVE!

total federal spending:
1795: $7.7 million
1830: $17.1 million
1870: $330.7 million
1910: $830.9 million
1940: $10,061 million
1970: $195,649 million
1990: $1,253,130 million
2010: $3,552,000 million

source

"brutus" (robert yates?)(new york journal, oct 18, 1787): "But remember, when the people, once part with power, they can seldom or never resume it again but by force. Many instances can be produced in which the people have voluntarily increased the power of their rulers; but few, if any, in which rulers have willingly abridged their authority."

"cato"  (possibly ny governor george "atomic dog" clinton, new york journal, sep 27 1787): [if you ratify the proposed constitution] "the ambitious and despotic will entrap you in their toils, and bind you with the cord of power from which you, and your posterity, may never be freed."

actually, i'd sort of like to write a new set of anti-federalist papers, and perhaps i will someday.your standard-issue american historian (like, say, cass sunstein in this week's nyrb), of course confirms the inevitable genius of the  american republic, etc. but it's hard not to see that the antis have had their fears borne out to a great extent.

the incredibly elaborate checks and balances suggested by madison and hamilton - not only tripartite branches, but bicameral legislature and a balance between state and federal authority - is all very well. but i suggest to you that it is overwhelmed by the overall concentration of government power constituted by the founding document. the size and scope of power of the federal government has, roughly, increased in every decade since the constitution was ratified. if you had told madison that the state would be absorbing 30% of gdp, he'd be flummoxed, i believe

so you balance various powers against one another. but you explicitly constitute an unlimited power to tax, to take on debt, and, as soon as hamilton getsd his hands on the machinery, a monopoly of currency. now the various branches etc indeed check each other's powers a bit, but all have a motive to increase the power and scope of the federal government as a whole. all have a motive essentially to consolidate the power of the people who, at that moment, constitute the government. all are corrupted - as madison famously argued they would not be - by faction: lobbying, contributions, the desire for personal power and wealth. etc etc.

the sheer fact is that even though there are internal divisions in the government that serve to check one another a bit, there is no effective check on federal power overall to achieve a dependent population, engage in foreign adventures, surveil the citizenry, regulate communications, enrich itself, control the economy to the advantage of faction, and so on and on. the branches have some motivation and obligation to check one another's power. but the motivation they all have together as one big thing, the fact that they all grow together if at all, swamps every other motivation. in other words: the antifederalists were so, so right.

almost any way the legislative and executive branches spend money is in their own interests: it increases the power of the incumbents, the dependence of people on them, and their ability to create debts to themselves. hence taxation and spending and deficit spending will, other things being equal, always increase, and with them the size and power of the central government and the unresposiveness of it to democratic procedures: the power of incumbency etc. and also, its corruption. this has overwhelmed every constitutional check, as patrick henry or "brutus" predicted.

you might check this out: a panel including me, on beauty, circa 2006.

i'm teaching the debate over the ratification of the constitution right now. a few observations. the federalist papers, by madison and hamilton, are probably the greatest bits of advocacy journalism ever printed: it's unimaginable that these were, like, newspaper op-ed pieces. the writing is beautifully clear but also subtle, the arguments extremely convincing. it is to be regretted that the anti-federalists had no one comparable. reading the speeches of patrick henry, or luther martin etc is reading disorganized blowhards, though there were important points. regrettable too is that the objections were not more fundamental, and that they were above all concerned with preservation of state sovereignty, partly for various nefarious purposes such as preservation of the slave trade and dominance of westward expansion/speculation. henry gets up in front of the virginia legislature and declares that the thing should begin "we the states" instead of "we the people." this was an amazing opportunity to make a world, as it were, and had there been intellects and pens of the caliber of madison and hamilton on the other side, it might have had a better, a freer, outcome (though the antis must be credited with the bill of rights, and deserve much gratitude for that).

probably the best anti-federalist material is from "centinel" (samuel bryan of pennsylvania) and, especially, "brutus" (robert yates? of new york). the library of america two-volume set the debate on the constitution is quite something.

the volume i'm actually teaching has an extremely solid intro, excellent selection from the federalist. i feel the anti-fed selection could be sharper. much more doable than the sprawling volumes above.

if i were advising the republicans in this moment of their chaos, i'd say: chillax. you don't need to do much of anything right now, certainly this writhing and twitching incoherence is not going to help. lay low. in a year, the terrain will be completely different. let the admin take shape and the disaster unfold. then the shape of an effective opposition will be clear.

my, um, friend joan is taking a class on the human brain. i just want to declare without equivocation that i am unalterably opposed to the human brain. this magnificent adaptation - nature's crowning, final achievement - will end up destroying all life on earth, leaving it a barren rock careening meaninglessly through the infinite void. it's like if you had giraffes with hundred-foot necks: they could reach really high leaves, but eventually they'd tip over, crushing everything. this is an excellent demonstration that darwinian evolution is wrong. not false. wrong.

this notion that rush limbaugh is the leader of the republican party is one of those mindless pr talking points (from the dems this time of course) that gets repeated by everyone as though they were parrots or digital sampling devices and then becomes a "story," because, like, cnn, salon, and msnbc can't seem to distinguish news from idiot lockstep propaganda. but one interesting thing to think about: there really is no distinction, now, between politics and mass-media entertainment, between politicians and celebrities (as mccain pointed out with regard to obama). obviously being good on tv and radio is essential. ok. did radio talk-show host al franken run for senate etc? obviously, rush limbaugh is an important spokeman for american conservatism. why shouldn't he be?

however, the formulation "i want obama to fail" or "i want obama to succeed" is again just this empty nattering. "i want obama to fail" can't mean anything except "i oppose his policies" etc. but this is all just manufactured crap: ultra-simplistic verbal emptiness. why not talk about healthcare or debt, instead of manufacturing these verbal pseudo-issues?

if you think you can establish your cleverness or something by mindlessly repeating some empty catchphrase that everyone in your little category is yapping...i guess it looks like you're right.

as perhaps this shows, the concept of copyright is in its last stage of twitching unto death. there are of course problems, among them coming up with a new "biz model" for newspapers. the paper thing is very sad. the rocky mountain news is done. the  philadelphia inquirer, for which i wrote a lot for many years, is bankrupt. it was tremendously sad when the washington evening star went down, way back in 1981 (though it's worth pointing out that the decline of the daily started long before the internet): that's where my dad worked, and i was a copy boy there when it died. but whatever the biz model is, if any, it can't be cutting off quotations and links. there's no future in legally controlling all uses of content. it's too late for that, and if it could be accomplished, it would be incompatible with a free press and with the function of the press in a democracy, one portion of which is facilitating public dialogue. no doubt the blogosphere etc depends to a certain extent on the msm. but the msm depends, more and more, on the blogosphere. asserting ownership of content is likely to kill the msm entirely: just keep reducing its audience and making it irrelevant. i realize it's a rock and a hard place, but the information anarchy of the future is the best thing we've got going.