McCain and Obama: Do they both preach sacrifice?

Before I proceed I encourage visitors to check out Robert Bidinotto's posts on Sarah Palin at http://bidinotto.journalspace.com/. I posted something there that I'd like to put here as well.

I know we cringe when we hear Republicans like Giuliani and McCain make negative comments about self-interest. But I think we make the mistake of assuming that they have the same concept in mind as we do. We need to ask whether McCain and the others have ever read Rand and, if they have, do they really understand what she is saying? (The same question can be asked about some of her admirers.) I am just starting to read McCain’s Worth Fighting For to get a better feel. In the opening pages he makes a brief reference to individualism versus egotism without explaining the distinction he is making. Furthermore, if McCain and his colleagues were completely dead set again self-interest why do they appeal to ours? By that I mean their proposed programs and policies are aimed at our needs.

We ultimately will have a choice between McCain who believes we should serve our country in order to protect and improve it versus Obama who wants us to sacrifice ourselves to everyone else, both foreign and domestic. On the surface it appears there is no fundamental difference between the two. McCain asks us to serve our country while Obama wants us to serve others in general. I think buried in this is a key distinction. McCain is not denying that we have a right to be happy or to pursue happiness. (At least I haven’t found any quotes to that affect.) I think he believes we need to put the interests of the U.S. first because protecting this framework will ensure our freedom and our ability to pursue our values. I’ll admit that maybe this is wishful thinking and might be too generous but I think his voting record supports what I’m saying.

On the other hand I’m confident that deep down Obama does indeed want to change us … into another more consistent welfare-state with a heavily government regulated market that is more in line with the “enlightened” European-model where we can’t drive our SUVs, have to turn down our thermostats and can’t eat as much. (This is paraphrasing a quote from him.) Kind of intrusive, isn’t it? I think he is ultimately uncomfortable with and ashamed of the self-interest that drives us. It doesn’t take much digging to find the collectivist intellectual influences in Obama’s life that would explain his antipathy to self-interest.

McCain's V.P. Choice

In response to John McCain’s announcement of his choosing Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, Robert Bidinotto posted on August 29 his (as-usual) excellent analysis. My apathy mixed with antipathy for the candidates on both sides prepared me to expect the worst and to be unimpressed with McCain's choice. However I heartily agree with Bidinotto’s assessment of Palin's demeanor and message. I think this is a clever choice on a number of fronts. It does hamper McCain's early criticisms on Obama's lack of experience but I don't think it's a fatal error. As Bidinotto said, Palin has the most experience actually running a government than any of the other candidates.

Below I have provided some snippets from Robert’s excellent analysis. I particularly agree with his comment on Obama as a self-proclaimed agent of “change.” When I read Obama’s Blueprint for Change there is precious little deviation from the traditional liberal mantra that the government is the cure-all for all ills.

Politically, this is a brilliant move. Absolutely brilliant. I say that with the caveat of my abiding philosophical disagreements with both McCain and Palin on certain issues. But the overarching issues of this campaign for me are national security and energy policy, and on these, the GOP wins over the Dems, hands down.

…

If a candidate for president is trying to brand himself as a force for political "change," he shouldn't pick as his running mate an aging liberal fossil who's sat in the Senate for 36 years -- an old-boy-network Washington insider. That completely undercuts his "change" message, communicating instead a desire to pander to the Establishment and a clinging to "business as usual." It informs voters that the "change" message is utterly phony.

By contrast, if you are campaigning as an independent-minded maverick, you'd lose credibility by selecting a standard old-school politician as your running mate. You'd want somebody who underscores your outsider, maverick image and message. And if you select such a person, it communicates to voters: I'm the real deal; I mean what I say; you can trust that my actions will match my words.

Ask yourself, strictly from a branding and marketing standpoint, which candidate now comes across as the authentic and genuine agent of "change" -- McCain or Obama.

…

Obama is increasingly coming across as an empty suit, an ambitious phony with a dubious background; Biden is just another stock liberal. By contrast, McCain is showing independence and daring; his biography backs it up; and so does his running mate.

I’d say McCain’s choice was courageous. We’ll see if it was a brilliant decision after the election.

McCain's Choice of Palin - The Right Move?

Robert Bidinotto has posted some comments on McCain's choice of running mate which I think are worth checking out. In response I posted this comment.

Robert,

I heartily agree with your assessment of Palin's demeanor and message. My ongoing apathy mixed with antipathy for the candidates on both sides prepared me to expect the worst and to be unimpressed with McCain's choice. I think this is a clever choice on a number of fronts. It does hamper McCain's early knocks on Obama's lack of experience but I don't think it's a knock out blow. As you said, Palin has the most experience actually running a government than any of the other candidates. I hope this strategy works!

Obama: Our Savior?

I recall earlier this year Michelle Obama took some heat because she said Obama was going to save our soul (or something to that effect). At the time I figured her comment was just election-year hyperbole, magnified by talk-show hosts who like to create controversy. Well, looks like I was wrong. To see what I mean please check out Robert Bidinotto's excellent analysis of Obama's recent behavior and statements, "Obama the Presumptious continues his premature victory lap" (dated July 31), complete with humorous animation.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae: The New Deal Legacy Coming Home to Roost

With the Fed pondering what to do to stave off credit collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae it’s only a matter of time before the pundits start intoning about yet another alleged failure of the market. The Von Mises Foundation has posted several good articles explaining the history of these institutions and their impact on the financial markets.

Freddie, Fannie, and Curses on FDR

Ludwig von Mises had a theory about interventionism:

It doesn't accomplish its stated ends. Instead it distorts the market. That distortion cries out for a fix. The fix can consist in pulling back and freeing the market or taking further steps toward intervention. The State nearly always chooses the latter course, unless forced to do otherwise. The result is more distortion, leading eventually, by small steps, toward ever more nationalization and its attendant stagnation and bankruptcy.

Government intervention is like a vial of mutating poison in the water supply. We can get by for a long time and no one seems really worse off. One day we wake up and everyone is desperately ill, and blaming not the poison but the water itself. So it is with the housing crisis. Lenders are being blamed for the entire fiasco, and capitalism is going to be subjected to a beating as usual, since Freddie and Fannie are traded in public markets. But the fact remains that there is only one reason that this went on as long as it did and became as bad as it is. It was that vial of government poison.

Freddie Mac: A Mercantilist Enterprise

While these institutions have been privatized to a degree, they still remain tied to the federal government in some important respects. In fact, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have access to a guaranteed line of credit of $2.25 billion with the U.S. treasury. This guarantee, coupled by the perception that federal money would be used beyond the extent of the credit limit, allows both companies to maintain lower borrowing costs than would otherwise be the case. In many cases, the companies are able to sell bonds yielding only a few dozen basis points above U.S. treasury benchmarks. If the government's guarantee disappeared, the borrowing spreads for both companies would widen. Beyond the government's line of credit, these companies are also exempt from state and local income taxation and are exempt from SEC filings. Moreover, their securities are listed as government securities and can be held by banks and thrifts as low-risk bonds. These benefits provide a significant advantage since such privileges are not offered to other financial institutions.

Fannie Mae: Another New Deal Monstrosity

Fannie Mae is not a free-market entity, nor is it a private body that must compete on the same playing field as its competitors. Fannie Mae is representative of all that's wrong with central planning institutions: it is a government-created conduit for carefully crafted financial and market socialism that the bureaucrats uphold for the purpose of propping up their fantasies for pandemic social engineering.

There's nothing "American" about this dream. In the eyes of the Republic's visionaries, this particular dream has turned into a nightmare.

God is Green: Part 2

The Wall Street Journal had an editorial by Bret Stephens titled Global Warming as Mass Neurosis. He touches on how the message of the global warming crowd has strong elements of religiosity to it. Instead of God saving us, we'll find salvation by sacrificing ourselves to a false theory.

Socialism may have failed as an economic theory, but global warming alarmism, with its dire warnings about the consequences of industry and consumerism, is equally a rebuke to capitalism. Take just about any other discredited leftist nostrum of yore – population control, higher taxes, a vast new regulatory regime, global economic redistribution, an enhanced role for the United Nations – and global warming provides a justification. One wonders what the left would make of a scientific "consensus" warning that some looming environmental crisis could only be averted if every college-educated woman bore six children: Thumbs to "patriarchal" science; curtains to the species.

A second explanation is theological. Surely it is no accident that the principal catastrophe predicted by global warming alarmists is diluvian in nature. Surely it is not a coincidence that modern-day environmentalists are awfully biblical in their critique of the depredations of modern society: "And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." That's Genesis, but it sounds like Jim Hansen.

And surely it is in keeping with this essentially religious outlook that the "solutions" chiefly offered to global warming involve radical changes to personal behavior, all of them with an ascetic, virtue-centric bent: drive less, buy less, walk lightly upon the earth and so on. A light carbon footprint has become the 21st-century equivalent of sexual abstinence.

Finally, there is a psychological explanation. Listen carefully to the global warming alarmists, and the main theme that emerges is that what the developed world needs is a large dose of penance. What's remarkable is the extent to which penance sells among a mostly secular audience. What is there to be penitent about?

As it turns out, a lot, at least if you're inclined to believe that our successes are undeserved and that prosperity is morally suspect. In this view, global warming is nature's great comeuppance, affirming as nothing else our guilty conscience for our worldly success.

Stephens doesn't use the word but there is a key concept behind this antipathy towards the West in general and specifically towards capitalism: altruism, the belief that we don't have the right to exist for our own sake and our own happiness. Because capitalism is based on the profit motive it is considered morally inferior to socialism where everyone is supposed to live from everyone else. Therefore I have a quibble with his use of the word neurosis in the title. The problems inherent in the behavior of the global warming advocates are not psychological. They're philosophical.

Review of The World is Flat 3.0

Do you ever debate buying a book? You know what I mean. Something about the cover or title catches your eye. You pick up the book, skim it a bit then put it back onto the shelf. The next time you go back to the store you go through the routine again. And again. Finally you break down and buy the book. After reading it you wonder why you didn’t buy the book the first time. That’s the story of The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman. I must have picked up the book five times before buying it. I wish I had bought it sooner.

Not that this book is perfect. A 100 or more pages could easily be trimmed with tighter editing and removing repetitive passages and Friedman’s name-dropping stories. But his premise is interesting and particularly applicable to individualists. By “flat” Friedman “means equalizing, because the flattening forces are empowering more and more individuals today to reach farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before, and that is equalizing power.”

Friedman contends we are in the third version of globalization.
In Globalization 1.0 countries were the key agents in the world.
Globalization 2.0 shifts from countries to international companies;
Globalization 3.0 shifts again with individuals becoming the focal point.

The World is Flat identifies ten flatteners behind this evolution. While I won’t discuss each one they fall into three categories: political, business practices and individual empowerment. The key political flattener was literal: the flattening of the Berlin Wall in 1989 which enhanced the free movement of best practices. Most of the other nine flatteners deal with corporate practices such as work flow software, outsourcing and off shoring which drew formerly isolated countries such as India, China, Mexico and others into the world market. As the corporate practices lowered barriers between countries other developments occurred to enhance the ability of individuals to obtain information and, more important, to express their ideas that normally would have no outlet. Of course, we’re talking about the Internet, search engines and blogging. Traditional media outlets like TV and radio (except call-in talk shows) are just that: outlets in which the participants passively receive media output with limited ability to have their voices heard.

Blogging, personal web pages, etc. allow individuals to express themselves and to form collaborative virtual communities. In addition, as Friedman notes, small and medium size companies hire the most people, not the mega-corporations. Flattening allows these small businesses to compete better with the big boys. All of these developments provide tools to empower individuals like no other time in history.

These developments also could bode well for preventing wars. While some conservative thinkers fear (appropriately) the growth of Islamic terrorism and the rebirth of totalitarianism, Friedman shares something both interesting and hopeful: the Dell theory of conflict prevention. “No two countries that are both part of a major global supply chain, like Dell’s, will ever fight a war against each other as long as they are both part of the same global supply chain.” In other words, economic interdependence can trump political agendas. One can only hope that this theory is true! Of course there are no guarantees. Political leaders can force their agenda onto an unwilling citizenry. However the ease of being able to do this is getting more difficult as the world flattens.

Returning back to the individual, Friedman offers some advice to succeed. “The most important competition is now with oneself – making sure that you are always striving to get the most out of your imagination and then acting on it.”