Let us review a basic principle here. Bureaucracies exist for two purposes: to continue their existence and to expand their budgets. Any perceived threat will find itself targeted for neutralization. Good luck, Madam Speaker.
Niall Ferguson has a pretty common-sense piece up about the economic crisis. Here's the central argument:
The reality is that crises are more often caused by bad regulation than by deregulation.
My thoughts exactly. But I'm no expert, so nobody listens to me. So listen to him and read the whole thing.
I have occasionally reflected on the issue of "Special Interests", and it's on this topic that I found myself least inclined to take either McCain or Palin seriously back during the campaign. And the reason is that no politician will say what really needs to be said on the subject and McCain is very determined to needlessly restrict political speech (by which I mean the McCain-Feingold legislation) in order to avoid saying it. The point is that American political contests are about special interests. I have interests, you have interests, everybody has interests. We often form groups that are then known as "special interest groups" and are ipso facto "evil" in PC parlance. Which is nonsensical. If special interests are evil, then we are all evil, for it is only voluntary associations of individuals that make up the special interest groups, which are ostensibly protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution. Well, here is Daniel Henninger making the point much better than I ever could. When it comes to "earmarks," the problem is local. Stop demanding that congressmen bring home federal dollars and the earmarks will stop. Simple as that.
And here's Douthat making an interesting point: "You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can’t have both." In some ways, I think this is similar to what Obama's speech to Notre Dame represents. Catholicism in America is being pulled in two directions, and Catholics are having to choose whether they will accept the authority of their bishops on matters that are at once religious, moral, and political, or whether they will make their political identity primary. Increasingly it looks like a choice between church and party, at least on the left. George Weigel has some helpful comments here. I think having to make choices like this tears people up inside--it forces them to fight an internal battle in which some of the things they believe must be rejected and others retained. How it all shakes out will not be obvious for years, even decades, I daresay.
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