Purity or Compromise

I had a very interesting, very provocative article sent to me, covering the political suicide that is ideological purity. Check this out, on Frum Forum:

One thing political parties and partisans seem never to learn: the purer you are, the more you lose.

The divisions of Red and Green parties in ancient Rome, where heads literally rolled, have manifested themselves in the blog beheadings by the two greatest proponents of purity in American politics today: the “progressive” left of the Democratic Party and the “purifier” forces in the Republican Party. So far, the great achievements of these two forces has been two-fold: the Progressives have been able to help President Obama’s approval ratings tank; and, the Republican purists have been able to facilitate the Republican loss of the 23rd House District of New York and help push Sen. Arlen Specter over to the Democratic Party. But, MoveOn.org and the Club for Growth have so much more work to do. After all, the theological nature of these two groups demands that they drive out apostasy even if it means that they defeat the very policies they purport to support.

For a tidy case in point, check out this urgent article on the need for Massachusetts progressives to defeat Coakley:

It is very important that progressives help defeat Coakley. Please read my explanation. The more power the folks in the Democratic Corporate Suck Up wing of the party gain, the more we will have to fight to make the party move to the left. I do not think that many progressive Democrats understand that putting such people as Coakley into power is worse than having a Republican in the seat. Just being in the Democratic Party does not and will not ensure a progressive agenda. Do you not see that? So, if you get her into the seat, what makes you think she will be any better than Lincoln, or Nelson, or Lieberman! It will, in fact, ensure that there will be NO progressive agenda. It was not the Republicans who failed us of late. It was the Democrats. We will never succeed as long as the Dem’s can talk liberal and vote corporate.

One lesson I learned by observation was that when politics becomes an all or nothing game, you are bound to get nothing. At the same time, look at Ron Paul. He ran a very ideologically pure campaign, and sparked great interest. Maybe not votes in the primaries, but a real following, and a development of his ideas. Barry Goldwater didn't win in 1964, but he set the stage. Etc. If some of Paul's bills advance and are passed, that marks a win for purity. For now...

In my own case, I consider myself a fairly radical libertarian. This may shock some of the folks who declined to back my campaign in 2006 on the basis of my running as a moderate Libertarian. That was my campaign strategy. All or nothing? I wasn't in it for nothing.

I also learned a lot from observing Ted Kennedy. He never came out and declared himself a socialist, although I believe that is exactly what he was. He always called for ever more incremental movements in his direction. Damned if he really didn't take tremendous gains over the life of his Senate career.

Going back to the Frum article, there are a few things I take issue with. Calling Ronald Reagan a libertarian? Check his war record as President and then get back to me. (Oh, was I being too pure there?) Then this:

If we were to scratch most of the Tea Party protesters, we would probably find just as many libertarians as social conservatives, if not more. Indeed, the battle within the GOP won't be among so-called moderates, social conservatives, and populists. The real battle will be between the pro-Ayn Rand Club for Growth (which supports the right of any banker in New York City to make any amount of money he or she can) and the populist Tea Party gang (which wants to hang every banker in New York City). The present marriage of convenience between these two forces cannot last. Can one imagine a true Tea Party member supporting the right of Goldman Sachs' employees to make as much money as they can, regardless of the consequences to society? Or the Club for Growth insisting that their members absolutely condemn abortion in any circumstance?

It's a lot grayer than that. I reckon there are a lot of Tea Party folks who don't care how much bankers make, but care deeply about how much money Congress throws to the banks. They surely do react to the bonuses that come out of public largess, but if those bonuses were private money, many (most?) wouldn't fuss a whit. Also, many of the staunchest anti-abortion social conservatives reserve judgment on abortion in the cases of rape and incest.

The bulk of the article rings true to me, but sadly. The sad thing really, is that it points to more of this Bush-Obama morph, running to the center on no ideology at all, but the mere expedience of the moment which consists little more than of sticking one's finger in the air to see which way the wind blows. That ain't leadership. Look at what it's doing to us with this corporatist war-state.

(Big h/t to Wainstead!)

Keynesian Spending Is Practical?

A recent comment asserted that free market advocates are idealogues, while Keynesian advocates are realists. I think that's crap. Both are idealogues. That's okay with me. If you don't have ideals to draw from, what is your compass? One has to solve a problem by some means, and I think for most people, their idealism becomes their realism. Certainly, it does for me. But in our goofy world, one is deemed practical when they cross their ideology.

The real outcomes are what matters. So, what of the stimulus spending? First off, let's not forget that stimulus spending is both a Bush and Obama solution. From Chris Edwards, at the Cato Institute:

In his Brookings Institution speech yesterday, President Obama called for more Keynesian-style spending stimulus for the economy, including increased investment on government projects and expanded subsidy payments to the unemployed and state governments. The package might cost $150 billion or more.

The president said that we’ve had to “spend our way out of this recession.” We’ve certainly had massive spending, but it doesn’t seemed to have helped the economy, as the 10 percent unemployment rate attests to.

It’s not just that the Obama “stimulus” package from February has apparently failed. The total Keynesian stimulus is not measured by the spending in that bill only, but by the total size of federal government deficits.

I'm struck by the chart... which I cannot seem to add right now. It's worth clicking through to.

I would argue that Keynesian economics is dogma for Democrats, (and for the liberal Republicans like Bush) but doesn't appear very practical in terms of boosting the economy. We haven't even seen the inflation yet. Look out! Perhaps it has been very practical in boosting this President's poularity, even while it did nothing for Bush. It's all very curious. In any case, maybe it's time for Obama to become truly practical by today's odd standard of the word, and start adopting some market solutions.

Restrained Foreign Policy - Idealism or Realism?

Back in my college days, I took a political science course that had me tied up in knots, because it repeatedly asked the question, "was the particular policy idealistic or realistic"?

In most cases, I was tempted to label policy idealistic, because you could point to a president having laid out a plainly ideological campaign platform. But the more I looked, the more policy seemed informed by events, to the point that I wanted to call it reactionary. Two examples:

FDR condemned Hitler's invasion, but didn't declare war on Germany until after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and Hitler declared war on the US subsequent to our declaration of war on Japan.

Lincoln was plainly an abolitionist candidate. But as president, he didn't talk about emancipation as a cause for war. It was in reaction to the Confederacy's attack on Fort Sumter, and an effort to preserve the Union. The Emancipation Proclamation isn't issued until after Gettysburg, and Lincoln the politician felt the time was at last right to bring it up.

I know that I even waver on the idealism/realism question with regard to my own foreign policy positions. Yes, I do subscribe to the 'no foreign entanglements, peaceful commerce with all' policy of George Washington as a matter of ideology. On the other hand, it seems to make so much sense to not pay out of American pockets to pay for the defense of Japan, Germany, and so many other nations capable of their own defense, merely as a practical matter- especially when the US is borrowing such vast sums from China and other nations, partly to pay for extra-national defense.

The Cato Daily Podcast for July 16th is an interesting listen. It mentions Russia in the pre-Georgia context, which really stirs up the idealism/realism consideration.

Here's the link to Cato's Daily Podcast archive. Click the item titled, "A Strategy of Restraint Overseas" to listen.

It just isn't easy to put these things into neat little categories.