Breaking Up is Hard(ish) to Do

To the readers, friends, and enemies of Boundless Rationality,
You've been great, and we've had a lot of fun together, but I think we need some time apart. It's not you, it's me. I really hope we stay friends, and I just know that someday, we'll be able to put all of this past us. You're a great readership, and someday I'm sure you'll make some blogger very happy. Always yours, DER



just please don't key my car



* In all seriousness, Boundless Rationality will be off until late August due to the author's stay in the People's Republic of China. If he is not back by then, he is most likely dead.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Superiority

awww

Healthcare is already garnering a lot of attention this election cycle, as can be seen in the policy dustoff which briefly animated the last Democratic debate. This makes sense; not only does healthcare represent an increasingly large share of America’s GDP, but it’s a policy issue that is relevant to almost any conceivable voter. Additionally, due to rising costs and (perhaps) shifts in the economy, the number of American’s without health insurance is at a record high, with some 46.6 million lacking coverage. As a result, it is unsurprising that the current situation has seen a spate of proposals coming from both sides of the aisle, advocating various and sundry mixtures of market and government intervention.

Yet what makes this question particularly difficult to deal with is that even if a given policy is proposed and adopted, it seems unlikely to significantly mitigate the challenge healthcare poses. Looking to the economics of healthcare, one finds that market based solutions are particularly fraught when applied to the sector. In order for a competitive market to do its thing, consumers need to have meaningful choice and sufficient knowledge to exercise it. Yet in medicine, one literally needs to go through years of training to be able to assess which medical option is viable. Unlike, say, phone service, which can be compared on a simple heuristic and then acted on, medical care can’t be assessed by any one easy calculation. Additionally, due to the need for rapid care in many of the most critical (and costly) situations, the time to search the market for options is minimal; if you’ve just had a stroke, your family is highly unlikely to “shop around” for the cheapest emergency room.

And beyond the information problem, there is a further difficulty with the health industry, a structural problem known as Baumol’s disease. As mother Wikipedia explains:

In a range of businesses, such as the car manufacturing sector and the retail sector, workers are continually getting more productive due to technological innovations to their tools and equipment. In contrast, in some labor-intensive sectors that rely heavily on human interaction or activities, such as nursing, education, or the performing arts there is little or no growth in productivity over time. As with the string quartet example, it takes nurses the same amount of time to change a bandage, or college professors the same amount of time to mark an essay, in 2006 as it did in 1966.
Baumol's cost disease is often used to describe the lack of growth in productivity in public services such as public hospitals and state colleges. Since many public administration activities are heavily labor-intensive and have a limited desirable provider-customer ratio, there is little growth in productivity over time. As a result, the costs of the bureaucracy will inflate quicker than the growth in the GDP.

Finally, years of good health are generally clamored for regardless of economic costs. Very few people will willingly ever down lifesaving or life extending medical care because it’s too expensive, and no serious politician would ever run on the platform of “sometimes, you just gotta let go" (though in a well written New Atlantis article, Daniel Callahan argues that some day we may need to).

As such, the US and all other nations that seek to provide healthcare to their people are dealing with a sector in which: a: markets tend to fail b: costs tend to rise irrespective (or because of) technology and c: demand is functionally infinite. As a result of this convergence, health costs have risen in both relative and absolute terms in almost every developed nation, and today the costs of health entitlements threaten to crush literally dozens of advanced industrial countries.

So what’s the solution? Unclear. I tried to think of one in these last 15 seconds and couldn’t. Naturally, there are some very good steps that can be taken at the margins, such as better information technology like PDA's as well as some introduction of competitive systems. None of these changes will qualitatively shift the nature of healthcare costs, but they will make them easier to bear. Yet in the long run, such new solutions are grossly insufficient at addressing one of the potential new problems that will soon face polities and policymakers worldwide: the rise of genetic enhancement technologies, specifically the pre-natal or even germ line imprvement of embryos.



sf cave may not be enough


Though still in its infancy (hardeharhar), the field of "designer babies" offers the promise of children that are taller, more intelligent, and better looking than they would otherwise have been. Such products will be snapped up; after all, while compulsory eugenics may carry nasty cultural connotations, optional eugenics would almost certainly find huge support (think of every genocidal parent who pays 50,000 dollars for SAT tutors, and you’ll be on the right track). The problem, however, is that such therapies are likely to be very expensive. The result is that, left unchecked, a scenario could arise in which the rich are capable of having children who are not merely economically superior to their peers but are genetically and chemically superior as well, while death becomes increasingly a lower class phenomenon.

If such an outcome occurred, it would be a disaster for any democracy. The liberal tradition is predicated on the notion that all people are roughly qualitatively equal. When the potential for large segments of society to leap past others on a fundamental biochemical level emerges, however, it threatens to short circuit years of philosophical and political progress and introduce a radical, existential threat to democracy since for the first time all people will NOT have been created equal. Put another way, the arguments for universal suffrage are not as weighty in a populace bifurcated between the unenhanced masses and a supersmart elite.

But fortunately for us, it will never get this far. Well before any long term social crises would emerge, political pressures would surely force the hand of any government to action. They say that our generation is apathetic, but if our children are being outpaced and condemned to lives of stupid servility, we will certainly take to the streets. As a result of such pressure, it seems that ultimately only one of two policies could possibly be adopted. First, (and initially more likely), government could attempt to ban such therapies. Yet such a policy seems unworkable on several grounds. First, the incentive and potential benefits on offer from such technologies is so high that many would simply have such therapies performed abroad. Indeed, in an era of lucrative medical tourism it’s tough to believe that no Thailand, India or China will emerge to accept the dollars of affluent Western parents. Additionally, however, such a ban may not be advisable from a policy point of view. After all, if other nations permit enhancement then their citizens would gain comparative advantage over ours, with a commensurate loss of influence down the road. Finally, however, there’s the notion of parental choice. US courts have long held that parents should be given wide leeway in how they choose to raise their children, and by stepping in and preventing such enhancement a policy of prohibition would infringe greatly upon this tradition.


But if a ban won’t work and an unregulated sector ends democracy, then the only viable solution is state subsidization. Put another way, the government of the future will need to offer the “right to designer babies”, and somehow foot the bill. This will not be easy, but we’ve not been helping ourselves; indeed, to my knowledge, no government or think tank projection has yet figured in the costs of providing politically necessary genetic enhancement. Truth is, no one even knows what such costs would be. But they will exist; depending on the exact combination of technological, economic and social factors involved, one can imagine a situation in which the modern concept of the state is radically redefined to that of hospital first, fortress second. In such a world, liberal democracy could exist only by adopting a social contract protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of superority for all of its people. In light of this developent, more Palm Pilots in hospitals simply isn't going to cut it. And so, while we tune into the debates and squabbles about medicine this election cycle, we must all bear in mind that what’s coming next could prove far, far worse, and that we need to start in on some very hard questions.

BOUNDLESS has added you as a friend

will you accept?

Today I’d like to revisit my occasional dalliances into the consequences of the internet on politics. While I in the past I’ve primarily focused on youtube, I think that based on a certain spate of beachfront photos its best that I turn to the question of social networking sites. No one can deny that facebook and myspace have become facts of life in America; while there are many anecdotes and facts that can attest to this the one that is most stunning is the fact that 61% of 13 to 17 year olds have personal profiles on MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, or other such social networks. Because of this, the social and therefore political ramifications of this medium are enormous, and deserve to be considered fully. In my mind, social networks have two primary effects on politics, both of which stem from the unique nature of the phenomenon but operate on different levels.

First, on a broad level, such websites serve to bring likeminded people together. By reducing the cost of showing one’s political affiliation to 3 or 4 mouse clicks, sites like Facebook allow people to join or create groups that previously could never have existed. Because of this, groups on facebook or myspace that catch fire tend to become quite large quite fast (see Brody Ruckus and his two special friends). For enterprising pols, this may well be a way to build grassroots support on the cheap. Indeed, the wide spread of such networks allows elections down to the level of High School student government to have public web support. Additionally, because invites to such groups or causes nominally come from friends (as opposed to random web banners), they seem more personal, leading to greater response rates.

So is facebook the future of participatory democracy? Alas, I think not. In fact, while it is still early, I would actually argue that in the long run social networks could end up harming political participation. Let me explain. The first problem is what I call the action-gap, namely the disconnect between facebook participation in a cause and real world participation. When someone joins the facebook group End Genocide in Darfur, it remains to be seen how, exactly, they are achieving this end. Now, arguably, such groups serve to facilitate or coordinate real world happenings (see Mark Jia’s brilliant use of facebook in support of Barack Obama). Indeed, without the rise of facebook, Boundless’ regular readership would likely plunge from 7 to 3. Yet even the greatest optimist would have to admit that many, perhaps most, of the people who actually do things in the real world would do so regardless. Its just really tough for me to imagine someone who wasn’t going to go to a rally in DC, then got invited to a facebook group, and then because of that group decided to go.

And against this marginal gain one must consider the potentially devastating effects that facebook et. al. could have on political participation. By bringing likeminded people together into tiny, fragmented communities of interest, such services decrease the time and thought devoted to hearing alternate viewpoints. When I can choose my friends and content across the political spectrum, its quite tempting to tune out other voices. A few years back a Time magazine article referred to this phenomenon as the ipodization of America, a reference to the fact that with the rise of the MP3 player no one has to hear anything they don’t want to. But while the ipod is great for music, its awful for a polity in which compromise needs to be reached. As facebook rises, however, the already severely truncated time that gets spent in the intellectual commons is sure to shrink.

And this is the optimistic scenario. After all, if myspace drives us to polarization, this means that at least its driven us somewhere. What seems even more likely, though, is that this will be yet another distraction that will drive down youth voter rates in the long run. Facebook takes time. While not a full fledged addict, I can safely say that I’ve lost perhaps 2 weeks of my life in aggregate this year to the book. Admit it or not, you’ve probably done the same or worse. Furthermore, I don’t think this is time that is cutting into TV, videogames, or anything else that keeps people from getting engaged. Instead, I think that at least a large part of facebook time came from something productive. As such, it is possible that in the long run even as facebook better coordinates activists it will polarize them as well, while the moderate middle retreats even farther from the political sphere, a seemingly distant place when compared to a glittering retinue of friend requests and pokes.


he won't vote. trust me.

But enough about the broad level; lets talk humiliation. Particularly humiliation of future candidates. Particularly humiliation of future candidates who have embarrassing photos posted online. The second broad consequence of social networking is the surge of information available about anyone who went to college after, say, 2000 (though there are certainly older users out there). Much of this information, furthermore, is in the form of photos that are…umm… somewhat unsuitable for general consumption. The question, then, is this: what happens when the first major senate candidate or congressman has to answer for himself covered in vomit while wearing a dick in a box, or doing cocaine while onlookers do the dirty bird, or any number of other scenarios? Will anyone be “facebooked” the way, say, George Allen was “youtubed” ? Fortunately, the response is more optimistic here; I actually don’t think any serious political damage can be done by any photos and little can be done by written words.

The first cause for relief is the problem of gathering information.. Most people often change the content of their profiles and will sometimes outright delete them when they enter the “real” world. This impermanence, combined with the fact that no one knows just who will be a public figure in 30 years time, means that in order for someone to be “facebooked” someone would need to be out there right now saving digital copies of everyone’s facebook every 2 weeks. Even if one restricted this search to, say, Harvard Yale and Princeton, this means tens of thousands of profiles being constantly checked and copied. Unless someone has software that does such searches automatically ( a possibility, but unlikely), then the sort of search needed for such comprehensive “facebooking” to occur is very, very low. Additionally, even if photos did come to light, most sketch photographs will fall into two categories; youthful indiscretions most of the nation engaged in and will accept, or serious crimes. I think photos of anyone doing anything up to smoking a joint and maybe even using cocaine would be totally non-lethal, especially since social networking will doubtless become very ingrained. By contrast, if its very much worse than that, (I don’t even know…erm…crystal meth party?) said person probably won’t be running anyway. Finally, though, with the advent of photoshop, individual still images won’t be given anywhere near the credit they are now. Any candidate caught in a photo could plausibly claim that the picture was edited and that the crack pipe in his hands was, in fact, a tennis racket. Go figure.


no one will believe this actually took place

Interestingly, the more deleterious harms to candidates may actually come from written comments. With the casual use of “gay” and “fag” and general pejoratives, for instance, it seems likely that some future candidate could have to answer for statements that, while not necessarily homophobic, certainly won’t endear him to the gay community. There are many other such examples, but it seems like if reliable text could be proven it may have more of an impact. On the other hand, words and phrases are even easier to fake and thus some sort of very impressive proof of their veracity would be needed for them to stick.

So ultimately, while facebook may harm our polity and the broader level it seems candidates have nothing to fear. In a made up world, no one really believes anything, and thus the very medium that threatens the candidates creates the social conditions where that threat could plausibly be ignored. Phew.

Hill's Big Win

hill is the dawg, the bid bad dawwwggg


Today I would unsurprisingly like to talk about last night’s presidential debate. On the whole, the most striking feature of this round of rhetorical fisticuffs was the improvement almost every candidate displayed. The dems stepped up, and as a group there were some fairly impressive displays. Some of my favorites:

Chris Dodd on healthcare: Yes, that Chris Dodd. While so far relatively undistinguished in this race, Dodd’s response here was brilliant and merits further attention. While other candidates went into the (relative) nuances of their healthcare plans, Chris was the only one to talk about the United State’s pitiful infant mortality statistics and life expectancy when compared to the rest of the developed world. Whoever wins in 2008 should never stop hammering this home; not only is it a glaring, visceral indictment of the crises at hand, but it also allows Democrats a potentially devastating response against pro-life opponents. By styling themselves as the true party of life and infant rights, democrats could turn the familiar rhetoric of the GOP against it and in the process return the debate about healthcare to the foreground, as opposed to a policy issue that often seems somewhat dry and removed. Great work Dodd.


Kucinich on healthcare: Though his calls for a single payer system aren’t as politically useful or tactically exciting as Dodd’s response, they drew far more applause. For someone who is not considered a mainstream candidate Dennis gave a cogent, compact response that was fairly impressive.


Richardson on gay marriage: While on a whole the Dems were fairly impressive in support of gay rights (at least with regard to don’t ask don’t tell), it was Richardson who went all out, calling for hate crimes legislation and full equality. Obviously, being a governor allowed Richardson some leeway in terms of never facing votes on such issues, but his response here was very brave nonetheless.

Obama’s interruption: When the field was asked to raise their hands if they thought English should be America’s official language (a throwaway question given the makeup of the primary electorate), Obama turned what could’ve been a fairly dead moment to his advantage by stepping in and attacking the question itself as divisive and unhelpful. This line drew applause but, more importantly, allowed Obama to appear to have taken the momentum in the debate. Indeed, if one watches carefully, they can even see Hillary trying to interject after Barack has spoken, suggesting that she recognizes the coup that has just been executed and wants desperately to follow up.

Biden on Darfur: Joe Biden was very much on his game, and while he may have put off the audience with the style of his Darfur response, the substance was daring and largely correct. Pledging to boycott the Olympics and contemplate direct military action is a brave stance, and I really hope he is rewarded for it.


field

Of course, no debate is perfect, and I was disappointed with some minor things and major candidates. In order:

Edwards generally: A fine job, but nothing spectacular. Edwards is showing himself to be a proficient candidate, but he did not do what he needed to do in terms of breaking the top two dynamic of Clinton and Obama. Despite his usual polish, I was strangely uninspired.

Gravel: Uggghhh…unlike Ron Paul, who is often correct and offers something interesting and substantive to the debate, the Democrats resident fringe-monkey just seems like a very, very bad candidate. He’s not sticking it to the man, just doing a mediocre job of imitating him.

Obama’s fluency: So this is the speech junky in me, but if Obama never says “um” or “uh” again, it will be too soon. While some speculate that he is doing this to be” one of the people” (looking at you Dave Christie), he’s coming off not as humble but as uninformed and unprepared. The fact is that the set watching right now are hardcore activists and their hapless relatives; as such, its far more important to demonstrate command of rhetoric and policy then to express aw-shucksisms. Dramatic pauses and verbal crutches may help you seem authentic during a 50-minute policy speech at UNH, but when you need to get through in 30 prime time seconds they are an unaffordable liability.

But of course, I’m dodging the elephant in the room, namely Hillary Clinton. While I hesitate to say it, Hillary is a spectacular debater. Her performance was awesome, and has eclipsed Romney’s in my mind. As a speaker she almost never broke her flow, drew more laughs than her opponents, turned every question to her advantage, and had more applause than anyone else on the stage. Among the many moments that broke her way, however, I was particularly impressed by her responses to don’t ask don’t tell and to the question of whether she would bomb Bin Laden even if it meant killing civilians. When asked if she thought don’t ask don’t tell was wrong ( a not so subtle trap designed to turn her against her husband), Hillary’s explanation that don’t ask don’t tell was a transition and that now times have changed was a textbook example of a nuanced answer expressed concisely and effectively. Her answer here was so effective, in fact, that she had time left over to wax eloquent on the contributions of gay and lesbian warriors to the fight, praise that seemed less stilted then much of what followed. Yet the most devastatingly effective moment came when the field was asked whether they would bomb Bin Laden even if it meant killing civilians. While some candidates instinctively jumped up to say yes, and others gave their best impressions of children caught robbing a cookie jar, Hillary spoke up and said “ well it depends how many”, then seized the moment and attacked all such hypothetical questions as unfair. This drew applause. That Clinton was able to call out an overly simplistic question as unrealistic AND get crowd recognition is extraordinary, and displays a talent that I previously did not expect of Ms. Clinton.


O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He liked Hillary Clinton.

So what does all this mean? Staring at the field, I could not help but get the feeling that the race may soon be Clinton’s to lose. Basically, the scenario in which I’d envisioned an Obama/Edwards/Richardson surprise involved the debates being turning points in favor of the underdog that would shift the punditocracy and tear away once and for all the aura of inevitability. Indeed, prior to the first debate the stage was set for Obama to take the lead, with some polls actually showing him ahead of Clinton just before. But all such narratives depended on one thing; Hillary losing a debate. So far she’s 0-2, and if anyone else wants the nod in 2008, they’re going to have to become much better rhetoricians or find some way to win at the grassroots level and circumvent the national debates.

This post represents my work in capacity with the Princeton College Democrats.

Terrorism: Ron Paul vs. Giuliani @ SC Debate

Video to the post

5 things I learned from Rudy and Ron

lessons from rudy's day of glory


1 month into the GOP debate season, we've already seen quite a few meaningful/disconcerting/hilarious encounters. Of these, however, none has had the same purchase as New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's scathing rebuttal to congressman and perpetual court jester Ron Paul. The video clip in question is above, but the transcript of the encounter is:

MR. GOLER: Congressman Paul, I believe you are the only man on the stage who opposes the war in Iraq, who would bring the troops home as quickly as -- almost immediately, sir. Are you out of step with your party? Is your party out of step with the rest of the world? If either of those is the case, why are you seeking its nomination?

REP. PAUL: Well, I think the party has lost its way, because the conservative wing of the Republican Party always advocated a noninterventionist foreign policy.

Senator Robert Taft didn't even want to be in NATO. George Bush won the election in the year 2000 campaigning on a humble foreign policy -- no nation-building, no policing of the world. Republicans were elected to end the Korean War. The Republicans were elected to end the Vietnam War. There's a strong tradition of being anti-war in the Republican party. It is the constitutional position. It is the advice of the Founders to follow a non-interventionist foreign policy, stay out of entangling alliances, be friends with countries, negotiate and talk with them and trade with them.

Just think of the tremendous improvement -- relationships with Vietnam. We lost 60,000 men. We came home in defeat. Now we go over there and invest in Vietnam. So there's a lot of merit to the advice of the Founders and following the Constitution.

And my argument is that we shouldn't go to war so carelessly. (Bell rings.) When we do, the wars don't end.

MR. GOLER: Congressman, you don't think that changed with the 9/11 attacks, sir?

REP. PAUL: What changed?

MR. GOLER: The non-interventionist policies.

REP. PAUL: No. Non-intervention was a major contributing factor. Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we've been over there; we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East -- I think Reagan was right.

We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. So right now we're building an embassy in Iraq that's bigger than the Vatican. We're building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us. (Applause.)

MR. GOLER: Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attack, sir?

REP. PAUL: I'm suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it, and they are delighted that we're over there because Osama bin Laden has said, "I am glad you're over on our sand because we can target you so much easier." They have already now since that time -- (bell rings) -- have killed 3,400 of our men, and I don't think it was necessary.

MR. GIULIANI: Wendell, may I comment on that? That's really an extraordinary statement. That's an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. (Applause, cheers.)

And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that. (Applause.)

MR. GOLER: Congressman?

REP. PAUL: I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about blowback. When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the shah, yes, there was blowback. A reaction to that was the taking of our hostages and that persists. And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk. If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem.

They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free. They come and they attack us because we're over there. I mean, what would we think if we were -- if other foreign countries were doing that to us?

MR. GIULIANI: Can I have 30 seconds, please?

MR. : No, no, no, wait a second. Let's -- we'll all get 30 seconds.

(Cross talk.)

MR. GIULIANI: They are coming --

(Cross talk.)

MR. : We all want 30 seconds of time --

For the truly bored, full transcript can be found here.




rudy giuliani


Generally speaking, this entanglement has been seen as a huge win for Giuliani. Having been perceived as a loser in the first debate, Rudy needed to make up for lost time. Indeed, poll numbers have of late shown McCain creeping ahead, leading many to wonder if Giuliani’s once stratospheric lead was about to be neutralized. With this pivot, however, Rudy was said to have shown himself to be tough on terrorism while revealing Ron Paul to be a coot. That said, there are other crucial details that merit attention beyond the broad narrative of this event that should probably be considered. Five, to be precise:

I. Rules are made to be broken: The first lesson of this exchange is that judicious rule breaking can work in your favor. Giuliani’s behavior during this exchange was an egregious violation of protocol…and the fans loved him for it. Note how at the end of the clip he even asks for another 30 seconds, leading the commentators to outright chastise him. But no matter. People like rebellion, they like spontaneity, and they like passion. Incidentally, Jim Cramer (of “Mad Money” fame), recently wrote a dead on piece in New York magazine along similar lines, saying that the popularity of his show is due in large part to a desire to move away from the scripted and toward the insane. At this point, I could wax eloquent on the profound connection between the Real World Road Rules and the GOP field, but this is neither the time nor the place (yet).

II. Except when they’re not (and they won’t be for quite some time): But one of the other lessons of this exchange is the need to wait for the right moment before breaking the rules. There’s a fine, fine line between being seen as passionate and righteously outraged and being seen as pushy, arrogant, or domineering. Trust me on this one. Right off the bat, this means that a candidate must be exceedingly careful when deciding when to jump ship and do something outside normal bounds. Generally speaking, the only sorts of statements that would allow this are ad hom or personal attacks, i.e. if Romney faces bigotry at some point. Here Rudy had the unique advantage of being able to use 9/11 as a personal issue, one so personal that no one would suspect that this response had doubtless been planned prior to the debate. What makes the Giuliani move especially brilliant, though, is that no one else can break the rules “spontaneously” again. Even if McCain overhears a dumb response to torture or Brownback hears someone defend evolution as “science”, they won’t dare call out for fear of being perceived as trying to “pull a Rudy”. And when spontaneous acts don’t appear spontaneous, they invariably turn people off. Just ask Castiglione...


III. Ron Paul is crazy: In every conventional way possible, Ron Paul is a man unhinged. He often appears to have little to no political experience, isn’t particularly charismatic and seems often to literally be in the wrong party. When he attributed 9/11 to the bombing of Iraq in the 1990’s, he made a statement that seemed, and felt, insane. I don’t know why he’s running for president, but I doubt its to win. Others are having their own doubts as well, and many GOP strategists are suggesting that he be bolted off stage and hushed. But this would be a terrible idea; beyond strengthening the other candidates on stage I’ve no doubt that Paul’s low level insanity brings in or holds literally millions of viewers who would otherwise be watching My Super Sweet 16 or setting fires outside (including yours truly)

IV. Ron Paul is not as crazy as you think: Earlier this month a friend of mine said that if you actually listen to what Ron Paul says, he’s not as crazy as he seemed at first. Incredulous, I decided to see for myself (in fact, this intellectual excursion was the initial impetus for this post). Much to my chagrin, I found that much of what Paul said in the debate was, in fact, logical, and that many of his views deserve to be seriously considered. Let’s start with Paul’s thought experiment, which asked us to imagine that China was building bases in Mexico instead of the US building them in Iraq before asking us how we would feel about it. The notion that we should evaluate foreign policy decisions through the eyes of others, at least as one factor in the process, is one that is sorely neglected in public debates. Such a viewpoint isn’t just about popularity contests at the UN lunch room, its about American dollars and lives. If the US is hated worldwide, then our “soft power” or ability to influence other nations to go along with our policies, is greatly reduced. For the importance of soft power, see any of Joseph Nye’s works (including, of course, Soft Power). As to the idea of non-intervention, while it is not a platform I personally believe in, I think that it is one of the more defensible foreign policy directions that someone could take. Implicit in Paul’s rant is the notion that, given time, free markets will liberalize without creating hatred (see Vietnam). As such, the idea that the US should avoid any major wars, keep up its power and defend global capitalism is an alluring vision, especially for those who are one with the Friedman (Thomas, not Milton). Yet even Paul’s most outlandish statement, the idea that US intervention in the middle east contributed to terrorism, is one that is worthy of at least some discussion. After all, Bin Laden’s initial demands were focused heavily on the US presence in Saudi Arabia, a presence necessitated by (you guessed it) the need for constant bombing of Iraq during the 1990’s/



don't. use. meth.


Of course, this is in no way a suggestion that the US deserved the attacks of September 11th, or that those attacks can in any way be morally or politically justified. Yet from where I sit, it seems that Paul’s real sin isn’t his viewpoint but his inability to phrase it correctly. In many ways, this is structural; the fact is that in a 30 second response one can’t express Joseph Nye’s entire book or explain the nuance of global public opinion. As such, candidates basically have 2 choices in foreign policy responses when they stand on the stage; go simple, or go home. Unfortunately, anything that even implies that September 11th was in any way okay has a whole lot of explaining to do, and if any such statements get made in 30 seconds, they will doubtless appear, well, crazy.

V. Debates don’t matter yet: But finally, and most importantly, Giuliani’s decline has not been reversed. Though in the past few days he has held relatively steady, Rudy’s slip from his high in March continues unabated. There are several possibilities. It is possible, for instance, that Giuliani would have slipped even farther if not for his brilliant response or that his newfound abortion position trumps even terrorism as an influential political factor. Yet while all of these are possible I think the most obvious, and likely, explanation is that people by and large don’t yet care. Think about who tunes in to a presidential debate a year and a half before the fact and 10 months before the primaries; generally speaking, these will be party activists or dedicated observers who will be making their decisions based on many factors, of which the debate is just one. Because of this, no matter what sort of verbal smackdown a candidate applies, there simply aren’t many voters who are a. interested enough in the race to watch this early and b. fickle enough to decide who to vote for based on one youtube moment. As such, the true lesson here may well be that even as the punditocracy titters and gawks at every moment of the race, the American public isn’t quite ready or willing to tune in.


With that, I and the rest of the political junkies avidly await the next debate, whether to learn new lessons or to see Paul finally get bear-maced and dragged off stage by Dog the Bounty Hunter. Cheers, DER

This post represents my work in capacity with the Princeton college democrats.