Ezra Klein, Sounding like a Real Dick

Here's Ezra Klein on the senate's configuration of 2 per state:

But now that we've been the United States of America for a while and none of the states seem likely to secede, the fact that California has 69 times more people than Wyoming but the same representation in the Senate is an offensive anachronism, at least to Californians.

What a dick. If California doesn't like it, all they need is to get 2/3 of the states and then the voters of those states to agree with them. Or something like that. Until then, tough shit.

An anachronism is something that belongs to an earlier time. "2 senators per state" belongs in this time, by definition, unless the constitution is amended. That's how it works. Period.

Housing Prices Need to Fall

The 2007 economic collapse was largely caused by the inevitable popping of a real estate bubble fueled by bad lending. As soon as most folks understand this, they come to conclude that real estate prices need to fall. Both to reflect the new reality of demand for home ownership, and to bring prices back in line with, let's say, median household income. Or some other proxy for the amount of housing the average household can afford.

Now, even the NY Times is joining the refrain:

Housing Woes Bring a New Cry: Let the Market Fall

...As the economy again sputters and potential buyers flee — July housing sales sank 26 percent from July 2009 — there is a growing sense of exhaustion with government intervention. Some economists and analysts are now urging a dose of shock therapy that would greatly shift the benefits to future homeowners: Let the housing market crash. When prices are lower, these experts argue, buyers will pour in, creating the elusive stability the government has spent billions upon billions trying to achieve...

The further the market descends, however, the more miserable one group — important both politically and economically — will be: the tens of millions of homeowners who have already seen their home values drop an average of 30 percent. The poorer these owners feel, the less likely they will indulge in the sort of consumer spending the economy needs to recover. If they see an identical house down the street going for half what they owe, the temptation to default might be irresistible. That could make the market’s current malaise seem minor.

Caught in the middle is an administration that gambled on a recovery that is not happening. “The administration made a bet that a rising economy would solve the housing problem and now they are out of chips,” said Howard Glaser, a former Clinton administration housing official with close ties to policy makers in the administration. “They are deeply worried and don’t really know what to do.”

Look folks, we know where we want to get...to a housing market where homes prices reflect demand for homes and the ability of the average person to pay for that home. We're Andy Dufresne in the Shawshank Redemption. Either we crawl through the river of shit now to freedom, letting prices fall. Or we wait and wait until we're old and gray and hope for housing to rebound in a decade or two.

Trying to Call "PARADE!"

We've known for some time that these hard times were generating mucho public dissatisfaction. Politically, that's manifesting as serious anti-incumbent sentiment. Since there are so many more democratic incumbents right now, the GOP is poised to benefit greatly from "sweep these bums out!"


Unable to simply enjoy this good fortune. GOP party leaders are eager to grab a baton, run to the front of the onrolling crowd, and call "PARADE."


GOP Readies Agenda Rollout

Just weeks before House Republican leaders are set to announce the contents of a proposed governing agenda if they retake the majority, some GOP politicians and grasstops activists are growing nervous about those plans....


 Earlier this year, a team of leading House Republicans and their staffs devised a program called America Speaking Out which allows any visitor to the program's Web site to enter ideas about what issues Congress should be legislating. Next, Republicans in the lower chamber were encouraged at the beginning of this August's congressional recess to discuss ideas laid out in a 22-page packet provided to RealClearPolitics, and then return to Washington this month with feedback from their constituents...

The 22-page recess packet of trial balloons does include an explicit ban on all federal funding for abortion. That's one item on Dannenfelser's list, but she has two more: requiring parental notification for abortion-seeking minors, and requiring physicians who perform abortions to notify women who are at least 20 weeks into their pregnancies that fetuses can feel pain in the process. Said Dannenfelser, "The conservative base of the Republican Party is so strong at this moment, the most divisive thing that could happen would be to leave out the family values third of the issue base." Her group has undertaken its own small media blitz, "Life Speaking Out," to lobby the House GOP on abortion issues and prevent the omission.

 Even leaving aside the prospect of featuring pro-life rhetoric and policy prescriptions, this feels like screwing up a free lunch to me. Here's the thing. IMO it's substantively true that the GOP has thus far failed to outline many positive policy prescriptions, aside from chanting "jobs, jobs, jobs."  [duh, btw] Mostly they've focused on negative painting of  Obama as, well, a socialist muslim antichrist.


 But sitting pretty as they are, why answer that criticism if it'll cost votes? Nationally, they need to stick to the real short list of things everyone agrees on: more jobs sooner, and goring someone else's ox. 


 What I expect to see is that most of the trial balloons cause dissent. IFf they are wise, GOP party leaders will decide to keep the national party mouth mostly shut. Let individual candidates look as independent as possible. Let candidates tailor their own platforms to local constituencies. Don't burden them with national platform components that could drag them under in a close race.


Are party leaders ever that wise? I kinda doubt it. As an independent I have no real dog in the hunt. But it would be pretty entertaining if the national party puts some brakes on what looks to be a substantial swing to the right.

Open Thread

Even though I have jacksquat for traffic, I'm cracking open a Tuesday open thread, just for sh!ts and giggles. Maybe if I drop a few invites elsewhere, someone will drive by.

What's on your mind?

A couple things are on my mind, and I hope to have posts later this week. One topic is the currently circulating theme that questions the worth of a college education in the face of the mushrooming cost burden. I'd like to hear what folks think about that. Especially if they've got something more than a yes or no answer to "is it worth it?"

I'd also like to do something on education reform in general, both in public schools and college.

And as always, chat about music, beer, movies, and so on is always welcome. How was your Labor Day weekend?

Who Decides What America's Common Core Values Are?

At this writing I have yet to locate the full text of Glenn Beck's speech about restoring America's traditional values, the one with a special guest appearance from co-conservative darling Sara Palin. So for now, I'll work with summary coverage of it. I don't think it'll harm my point. Be sure to read it all for the whole story>Here are excerpts indicating the apparent gist of the Beck-Palin message, which is what I want to focus on:

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck and tea party champion Sarah Palin appealed Saturday to a vast, predominantly white crowd on the National Mall to help restore traditional American values ...Beck billed his event as nonpolitical.... conservative activists said their show of strength was a clear sign that they can swing elections because much of the country is angry...

Palin told the tens of thousands ...that calls to transform the country weren't enough. "We must restore America and restore her honor," ...Palin and Beck repeatedly cited King and made references to the Founding Fathers. Beck put a heavy religious cast on nearly all his remarks, sounding at times like an evangelical preacher....: "America today begins to turn back to God."..." "For too long, this country has wandered in darkness. ... Today we are going to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished — and the things that we can do tomorrow." 

Clarence B. Jones, who served as King's personal attorney and his speechwriter, said he believes King would not be offended by Beck's rally but "pleased and honored" that a diverse group of people would come together, almost five decades later, to discuss the future of America. Jones said the Beck rally seemed to be tasteful and did not appear to distort King's message, which included a recommitment to religious values.

So. Who decides what America's common core values are? It's really not that hard for open-minded folks to acknowledge that big chunks of this message include ideas with real merit. A large part of Glenn Beck's success is due to his constant recitations of simple ideas that no one really disagrees. That's the truthiness, right?

But is it really the case that we need a "restoration," that most Americans have departed from a common sense path, and that conservatives are the only remaining protectors of American virtue?

Or is it the case that:

•  Americans in the middle share a whole bunch of common values
• these common values are often obscured by how partisans spin them
• we think the areas of disagreement are bigger than they are because political opportunists relentless highlight them

I mean, who is anti-hard-work? Who thinks that children are not the future? Who doesn't believe that you should treat people the way you want to be treated? Who is against life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Who hates the idea of guaranteeing some sort of equality of opportunity? Who really thinks we should turn away from God once it's understood that God can be conceived as no more than the personification of the idea of good?

Even though I think Glenn Beck is a schticky, phony opportunist,  I am fine with Glenn  Beck exhorting Americans as he has done, insofar as it helps us all focus on our better nature. What I am not fine with is Glenn Beck appointing himself as the arbiter of America's core cultural values. Because at the same time as he wraps himself in God and the flag, he sells anger and divisiveness.  He profits from a narrow antagonistic spin on values that extols conservatism as the source of  good, and liberalism as the source of bad. We ALL get to say something about what these values are, and Glenn Beck doesn't get to play leader or moderator. His act is such that his credibility outside one subset of Americans is nil. Nil. How could such a person be a leader for us?

Consider that he encourages people not to even consider the concept of social justice. What, Americans can't have a discussion and decide for each of ourselves what that might or might not mean? Justice is a long-term core American value. We're all of us stuck re-determining every day how to balance liberty with equality, whether we like it or not. If Beck doesn't get that, he needs to get off the stage. Period.

Consider how the messages at this rally include a desire to "bring God back into the public square." What is that supposed to mean? How come this idea so often leads to a quick leap to things like bringing prayer back into schools and government meetings, and so on. 

Sure, we can argue about what precisely was original meant by the antiestablishment clause of the constitution. But it's safe to presume that the founders sensed the wisdom of reluctance when it came to mixing government and religion. And it's hard to miss how well-served American has been by sticking with this reluctance, especially when we compare American political life to the political life in places where they like to mix the politics, government, and religion into a toxic brew.

Know any religious conservatives who also love liberty? If you seek out such folks, it's not hard to find ones who are extremely supportive of of the antiestablishment deal: the religions stay out of the government's business, and the government stays out of thew religion's business. God gets his, and Caesar gets his.

I'm a firm believer that there's a really solid way forward for values in our country if we search for common ground among the values of our many different faiths, and extol them in an inclusive way. And that's where I think this message of Beck (and to some extent Palin) fails.

Zombies and Partisans

From Daniel Drezner in a book review

All intellectual movements start with trenchant ways of understanding the world. As these ideas gain currency, they are used to explain more and more disparate phenomena, until the explanation starts to lose its predictive power. As time passes, the original ideas become obscured by ideology, caricature and ad hoc efforts to explain away emerging anomalies. Finally, enough contradictions build up to crash the paradigm, although current adherents often continue to advance the ideas in zombielike form.

Sound familiar?

A Sane Accounting of Facts Surrounding the Ground Zero Mosque

One of my very favorite writers and critical thinkers, Cathy Young, has composed a very sane and thoughtful accounting of the facts surrounding the proposed construction of the "ground zero mosque." Thanks, Cathy.

No excerpts. Do yourself a favor. Click through and read the whole thing.

Cathy has a long time affiliation with Reason magazine. She used to be a columnist at the Boston Globe but was downsized out a few years back. Probably not inflammatory enough. She writes for RealClearPolitics these days too.