So, in yesterday’s post on USDA school lunch guidelines, I got into a bit of a debate with commenter reflectionephemeral who counters my argument about making reasonable accommodation to anti-Washington sentiment. He writes:
You think that this kind of thing is reasonably perceived as overreach, so why not knock it off and maybe diminish the vague, inchoate sense that “the government is too big”. I’m of the view that as long as there’s a GOP & a right-wing paramedia that feels the need to foment suspicion and hatred of America whenever they’re out of power, it doesn’t much matter what happens around the edges. In a world where Bob Dole & Jesse Helms’ health insurance reform plan can suddenly be decried by everyone in the GOP as unconstitutional fascist tyranny– thereby driving down the plan’s support in public opinion polls– there’s no sense trying to meet in the middle. The point, for Republicans, is the tantrum itself, not the ostensible policy reason for it. And they are great at getting their message out. So now we have greater public concern over the deficit than we did when the Republican Party was busy creating the deficit.
When NPR fired that guy because James O’Keefe released a clip of him saying something that made it sound like he was being mean to the Tea Party, it didn’t result in the right ceasing its highly effective PR campaign against the “liberal media”. They’re gonna keep on saying it no matter what the media does, because it works for them, and it seeps into the public consciousness.
I think this confuses the issue a bit. I fully agree that no amount of accommodation is going to result in reasonable behavior from right-wing ideologues. There is, in the United States, a core of, for lack of a better phrase, “neo-Confederates” committed to nothing short of dismantling the federal government as we know it. This neo-Confederate core is somewhat diverse. Some are effectively white supremacists. Others are just greedy f__ks, looking to do whatever it takes to reduce their tax burden to something approaching zero. And yes, as a practical matter, this neo-Confederate core currently runs the Republican party. But, but, but. Just as there are indeed many “accidental guerillas” in places like Afghanistan, there are also “accidental wingnuts” in the United States.
Look, most people do not pay much attention to politics. Even people with extreme views are often (usually) woefully ill-informed. Most people are heavily influenced by anecdotes, by idiosyncratic experiences. These people are the tacit supporters of right-wing fanaticism. The don’t vote Republican because they consciously want to overturn the civil rights movement. They are just people who are concerned about “reverse racism” because their cousin’s friend’s uncle missed out on a job at the DMV because of a quota. Or something. They don’t know the guy. Don’t know the details. It is just something they heard.
They are the sorts of people who become receptive to anti-DC sentiment when their plumber tells them he can only install a low-flow toilet, that, you know, always clogs. The sort of people who get annoyed when their kids come home from school and announces that the school won’t serve chocolate milk in the cafeteria because of some new government rule. And so on.
I am not saying we can do anything about the radical neo-Confederate core. All we can do with them is fight them tooth and nail. Defeat them in elections. Shame them through exposure. Boycott their businesses. And so on.
But we can do things to reduce their appeal, their surface plausibility. We can isolate them from their tacit supporters, the accidental Confederates, by pushing for a more judicious use of federal power, particularly in cases where the rewards are, at best, small.
An example is school lunches. RE concludes his comments by writing:
In a startling new study from Share Our Strength, a national non-profit dedicated to ending childhood hunger in American, 86% of teachers say that many of their kids are coming to school hungry and 65% say that most kids rely on school meals as their primary source of nutrition.
But, you see, the USDA guideline are designed to REDUCE caloric intake, not increase it. One of the guideline is about sodium intake, which doesn’t even do much about the “plague” of childhood obesity, which, btw, has little to do with school lunches anyway. We’re not talking about setting a minimum standard to alleviate hunger. We’re talking about a silly, one-size-fits-all approach to healthy eating for children. It is unnecessary as a matter of substance, and it is terrible as a matter of politics.
So, on NPR this morning, they had a long story about new USDA standards for student lunches:
Less salt and fat. More whole grains, fruit, veggies and low-fat dairy. This is what kids can expect in the school lunchroom soon, according to new nutrition standards for school meals announced today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and first lady Michelle Obama.
….
The price tag on the changes? $3.2 billion over the next five years, the agency says. But schools will get some help with those costs from the government — included in the package announced today is an increase of 6 cents per meal in reimbursement funds for schools. This is the first increase in reimbursement funds in 30 years.
Look, this sort of thing does more to promote right-wing, anti-government rhetoric than anything else. Does school lunch menus really need to be controlled from Washington? I’d say no. Sure, mandate educational standards so that local school boards controlled by loons can’t just teach their idiosyncratic beliefs, but come on, let the parents and local boards figure out what to serve in cafetarias. Instead, this sort of thing just feeds into the rhetoric that Washington wants to control everything.
Other examples are low-flow toilets and light-bulbs. If there are negative externalities to the use of those things just tax ‘em. Then people who really want powerful toilets and energy inefficient lights can still have them, while the rest of us respond to market incentives and become greener as a matter of choice rather than mandate. The enforcement costs on that, btw, would be dramatically less, and the surtax on inefficient items would actually increase government revenue.
The problem is that when the government does too much, it ends up delegitimizing those things that it actually ought to be doing. And, in general, I really don’t think liberals are sensitive enough to this dynamic. Pick your fights. Focus on the big issues. Let stuff like school menus remain a local concern. Frankly, better to have school boards spending their time debating chocolate milk rather than mucking around in textbook content.
I wrote this piece three years ago, and while the recession has essentially pushed climate change action off the table because of the associated economic costs, I think this is still a workable way forward for internationalizing a climate change regime. From World Politics Review, January 27, 2009, Linking Climate Change and Trade:
There is a simple solution, however. In order to implement a serious international regime to control carbon emissions, the United States will ultimately need to incorporate emissions reductions into its trade policies, and impose tariffs against countries that refuse to participate. In fact, including climate issues in trade discussions will ensure that the market accurately prices the value of internationally traded goods and services.
As developed nations begin to implement controls on greenhouse gas emissions, the production costs in associated industries will increase. Unless other countries also pass such controls, they will gain a production advantage as a result. In short, if we limit our emissions, but China and India fail to do so, we will ultimately find ourselves exporting production, jobs, and greenhouse gas emissions to those countries.
In addressing this issue, it is important to make the distinction between pollution and climate change. Ultimately, each country has the right to pursue its pollution targets independently. While there are complicated moral issues associated with this kind of trade, if one country places a lower value on clean air and water than another, then it makes sense for the latter to export pollution-causing industries to the former. The advantage of sending pollution abroad is that it does, indeed, help the exporter maintain cleaner air and water.
So how do we solve a problem like Iran? The short answer is that nobody truly knows. President Obama commented in an interview recently that “this isn’t an easy problem, and anybody who claims otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”
But if we are to find the right solution to the Iran Problem, then the standard of the debate needs to rise considerably.
Right, there are no good answers. But then again, I think one of the big reason there are no good answers is that most people are pretty vague on what, precisely, is the problem we’re trying to solve.
I have noted that in the United States, at least, there is a broad consensus that there is an Iranian “threat,” that this consensus is over 30 years old, and that at this point there is sufficient inertia in the argument that it is well nigh impossible to successfully challenge this consensus as part of a policy debate.
But while I think that challenging the Iranian threat construct is sorta pointless, I can’t help by try to understand it. And I think one of the key reasons we continue to see Iran as a threat is that Iran talks a good game. Whether it is ranting at the “Great Satan” or threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz or otherwise retaliating against some action or slight, or threatening/warning about wiping Israel off the map. Well, it all sounds pretty grim.
In a similar way, we were always very focused on Soviet pronouncements — Khrushchev threatening to “bury” us, for instance. Bin Laden and other jihadists expounding on their plans to establish a global caliphate. We’re very attuned to what might be called aspirations. I would argue too attuned.
First of all, not all stated aspirations are real aspirations. In many cases they reflect either just colorful language, or playing to the crowds, or just empty wishes disconnected from policy. Yes, yes, I know, Mein Kampf. Hitler told us what he planned to do, and everyone ignored it, and it turns out, Hitler was serious. But not every politician is Hitler, and while you always want to be heedful of aspirational pronouncements, it is also important to know when to take them with a grain of salt.
Second, aspirations without capabilities are largely meaningless. And that is the issue to focus on with regard to, say, Iran or the jihadist “threat.” What precisely can other actors do? What can they do if unopposed, and what can they they do if actively opposed? Yes, Iran can, temporarily, close the Straits of Hormuz. But that is not the end of the story. How do we respond? What happens then? What is the likely endgame? An assessment of capabilities can’t just be a bean counting exercise, it has to be dynamic and iterative. And it can’t just be a worst-case assessment — though one of those is necessary. The point is, we need to be much more sophisticated about the interaction between aspirations, capabilities, and responses.
Third, we need to be careful about over-estimating the reputational costs of failing to challenge empty aspirational statements. There is an argument that goes something like this, “Yes, Iranian statements may be inflated for domestic political reasons, and indeed they lack the capacity to carry through on their threats, BUT we still need to confront them because failing to do will convey weakness which will further embolden them and increasingly discourage our allies.”
I know I will never be able to convince anyone about this because it runs so completely counter to what is deeply established conventional wisdom. BUT, there is virtually no evidence to suggest that these reputational dynamics actually exist empirically. I will, once again, point to a book everyone needs to read, Jonathan Mercer’s Reputation and International Politics. His argument is not fully definitive, of course, but it is a healthy corrective. And what it does it make one attune to the way in which reputational concerns are often diplomatic tool to manipulate others. What do I mean by that?
Well, one of the most common arguments in support of reputational concerns in the case of Iran is what the Gulf Arabs tell us. See, go to the GCC countries and they will insist that if we fail to confront Iran, they might be forced to be Finlandized. But, of course, they have an incentive to claim that. The more we believe it, the more we’re likely to support their policy preferences vis-a-vis Iran. But the very fact that they have an incentive to lie to us about it should make us wary of using their claims as evidence of the importance of reputation.
I don’t think I’ve been particularly shy in noting that I think that many of Israel’s policies in regards to settlements and the Palestinians are both criminal and criminally stupid. I also don’t think I’ve ever been particularly shy about noting that I don’t particularly have high hopes for the likelihood of a Palestinian state behaving responsibly. The case I’ve made on this score — though, for the life of me, I can’t remember where or when I last did so — is that the smart path forward involves an Israeli withdrawal to essentially the 1967 borders (with very minor modifications to account for current population distributions). Why would I argue this if I think that a Palestinian state would be a problem? Well, because, in that case, the Israelis would at least be on the right side of international law and moral considerations. The Israelis have better claims as the aggrieved party in the context of an interstate dispute rather than an intrastate occupation narrative.
Anyway, that is my view.
Now, today I’ve been mulling over the question of whether Israel — as Jewish state — deserves some special consideration. In a way, this mirrors some of the debates over affirmative action in the United States. The argument in favor has always been that due to a history of systemic discrimination and the resultant structural legacies, that African American deserve receiving affirmative consideration for a variety of things such as education, jobs, and so on. The debate often becomes one of whether “less deserving” African Americans should get stuff instead of “more deserving” whites, but that gets it wrong at least conceptually. At least conceptually, the argument is that these African Americans are not less deserving, but may only appear so because of durable structural impediments. But even if we accept that, you still run into the issue of “how long?” Obviously, this remains contentious.
So, I guess the question I was playing over was, could one argue that Israel deserves some sort of “affirmative action” in terms of adherence to international norms as a result of the history of systemic discrimination against Jews and particularly the legacy of the Holocaust? Emotionally, I am inclined to say, “yes.” Intellectually, I am not sure how to defend that argument coherently. Why am I emotionally biased toward saying “yes”? Well, because as a Jew (albeit an extreme secular one) with a knowledge of history, I see the case for a Jewish homeland, even if I have no interest in the Zionist project myself. But I do have an interest in Israel as, I guess, an insurance policy. So inevitably as I look at Israel, I see it with a certain sympathy, but I also see its policies with a certain anger. But my anger is not just about the mistreatment of the Palestinians, whose case I see as being no more compelling than at least a dozen other national entities currently denied statehood (Kurds, Tibetans, etc.).
My anger is that it seems clear to me that Isreali policy is almost certain to lead to the extinction of Israel as a Jewish state. Israel can only survive in a two-state world. In a one-state world, with Palestinians denied statehood, Israel goes the way of South Africa. It turns into a full blown apartheid state and then collapses under international sanctions. And then where is my insurance policy? When some future President Michelle Bachmann decides that it is time to for the “gathering” to occur, where do I, or my descendants go? I know that is a weird and crazy scenario, but it is one that is often in the back of my mind, and I suspect I am not alone in that regard, or at least something similar where Jews may need a place of refuge.
But, leaving aside my own weird psychological issues, and returning to an attempt at some sort of coherence… Is there a case for special consideration for Israel? If so, what precisely does that special consideration entail? And for how long does this special consideration last, assuming it has not already passed? And is this case that can be ground in fundamental normative principles so that they do not appeal solely, or even mostly to Jews?
I’ll be damned if I know the answers to those questions.
Actually, that post title is a tease. I can’t actually explain how Newt beat Romney in South Carolina, much less how he managed to blow him away. I mean, Newt is crazy. He’s washed up. He has more baggage than Imelda Marco. He’s unelectable, right?
Gingrich’s favorability among general election voters — the metric that many pollsters argue is the key to understanding how the public feels about a candidate — is not high. It certainly improved when Newt surged nationally in early December, gaining more media attention as Republicans and GOP-leaning independents started to feel better about him. But since he was crushed by negative ads in Iowa, leading to a fourth place finish there and in New Hampshire, Newt’s favorability numbers have again plunged — his unfavorability score hit 58 in a CNN poll, 56 in a Fox News survey, and 60 in Public Policy Polling (D) data.
But you see, you have to remember the GOP is a Bizarro party. For the GOP, cutting taxes increases revenue. Increasing government spending leads to economic contraction. Racism is a problem faced by white men. Up is down, left is right, hot is cold, and, as TPM notes: “Exit polls showed that Republicans voting for the ‘best candidate to beat Obama’ actually went for Gingrich.”
See, for the GOP base, the fact that Gingrich is massively unpopular is a positive. I mean, they don’t really believe he is unpopular, anyway. That is a just a Lamestream media lie anyway. But it is the same thing we heard over and over from Palin supporters. See, the reason the rest of us made fun of her wasn’t because, you know, she’s a clown. No, it was because we feared her. Well, okay maybe. But even if he is unpopular that is a reason to like him.
Just fascinating. Though I have to say, the amount of glee I seeing from left-leaning commentators worries me. Yes, it is sort of fun to see the GOP tying itself in knots. And yet, this whole thing is symptomatic of a really, really deep dysfunction in our political system. Sooner or later, one of these cats is going to win. It is just a matter of time. It is fun to laugh at all of this now, but in the longer run, it makes it almost certain that we will end up with a President Bachmann or President Rand Paul… and that is going to be ugly rather than funny.
That said, I still think Romney pulls it out, and I still think he beats Obama in November. But we’ll see.
Look, if you look at the 99% movement wants what you find is, yes, a handful of people who’d like to see us be more like Europe. Germany maybe. Maybe Sweden. But what the vast majority of us are saying is that we just want things to be a little more like they were a generation ago — during, say, the Reagan years, or the Clinton years. Years during which economic growth was more robust, income inequality a little less obscene, and taxes across the board (but mostly on the wealthy) a but higher.
Have you heard anyone suggest Cuba or North Korea as a model? I sure as hell haven’t. I haven’t heard anyone say we should be more like China, either… or wait. I have:
Yup, Michelle Bachmann, the voice of Occupy Wall Street.
Asking the wealthy to pay 39.6% rather than 35%. Asking that loopholes like “carried interest” that allow salaries to be disguised as investment income. Asking that inter-generational wealth transfers be taxed at a reasonable rate — not to punish success, but simply as a slight brake on the creation of an hereditary aristocracy of wealth. None of these are socialism, much less communism.
But look at Mitt’s face. His tone. This isn’t just a stupid cynical ploy. He’s angry. He believes this crap. And that makes him a moron.
Over at Fabius Maximus, guest author Kevin Jon Heller takes a hack at the question of whether killing Iranian nuclear scientists is “terrorism.” It is a thoughtful piece, and it concludes:
Under international human rights law, a targeted killing must be “strictly necessary,” understood to mean that killing the target was the only way to avoid an imminent attack. For the reasons just mentioned, it is impossible to claim that killing the nuclear scientists was necessary to prevent Iran from launching an imminent nuclear attack on Israel or on another country.
That is certainly correct. The attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists — even if they are involved in illegal activities — is itself illegal.
But then he adds:
The bottom line: the attacks on the nuclear scientists were not, by any stretch of the imagination, legitimate targeted killings.
And here, he is on shakier ground.
This is the oldest issue in the book, and yet too often lawyers don’t seem to understand it. Legal and legitimate are not synonyms. Rosa Parks’ refusal to move to the back of the bus was illegal, and yet it was legitimate. Legality and “justice” are also not synonyms.
There are at least four sets of issues to consider before making a judgment as to legitimacy or justice in this case:
(1) What do we know, really know, about the Iranian nuclear program? Fabius Maximus summarizes the issue nicely here (What does the IAEA know about Iran’s nuclear program? Enough to start a war?). The big picture is this: Our information — at least that available in the public domain — is very, very spotty. We have supposed documents. We have some defector information. We have evidence of at least some problematic Iranian industrial activity. And we have a variety of Iranian statements, all of which are open to interpretation various scores.
Here is the bottom line: We understand less, I think, about Iran’s nuclear program today than we did Saddam’s on the eve of the Iraq War. And our judgments of Iraq’s programs were essentially dead wrong.
That said, Iran, like Iraq, finds itself in a weird position. True, we cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. But must we? Where does the burden of proof lie? Faced with allegations that have at least a certain prima facie credibility, doesn’t Iran, as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty have an affirmative duty to refute those allegation through transparent accountability? I’d argue it does. Iran, right now, is clearly in the wrong vis-a-vis its international obligations. At best it is engaged in a weird sham to create doubt about its commitment to the NPT in order to serve either domestic political motives or in a misguided effort to bolster international influence of deterrence.
But, here is the bottom line on this point: Iran is in violation of transparency obligations, but it is not clear whether it is actually violating its non-proliferation obligations. They may be in violation of the latter as well. But I think any fair-minded reading of the available evidence has to recognize the relatively thin evidence on that score. This certainly counts against the targeted killings.
(2) Regardless of legal analysis, what is state practice on targeted killings? This topic is too complex for a full analysis in a blog post. But suffice it to say that there is a gap between legal obligations and practice here. States of various stripes have engaged, and continue to engage, in targeted killings. Russia currently uses assassinations abroad of political critics, and it seems likely was behind the 2004 dioxin poisoning of Belarus Ukrainian then-presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko. There is a long history of spy vs. spy stuff throughout the world. And, of course, the United States is engaged in a systematic campaign of targeted killings of al Qaeda and affiliates around the world.
I am not sure, then, as a practical matter whether the campaign against Iranian nuclear scientists is particularly out of th ordinary. It certainly does not jump out at me as a dramatic violation of state practice.
(3) Would such attacks meet a proportionality test? Would this be a reasonable response to a perceived threat? I think the answer here is, yes, as well. The attacks — aside from the plane crash in Russia that killed 44 and may not have been the result of foul play – have been quite discriminant. There isn’t a ton of collateral damage. Covert attacks on men engaged in a clandestine, potentially hostile, nuclear program strikes me as a pretty minimalist use of force. Certainly, I am not sure how the alternative of not molesting the Iranian nuclear program, but using military force instead would be better. Indeed, it seems to me that this sort of targeted killing is a relatively low-cost approach to heading off a more dangerous and unstable future.
In short, from a utilitarian and consequentialist perspective, it seems to me these attacks are defensible.
(4) Is there a moral hazard in accepting the legitimacy of these attacks. Well, yes. Though, I would argue that we’ve already crossed the Rubicon on this one. Look, we live in a world where the leading global power (the United States) has arrogated to itself the right to seize and hold without trial, target and execute, any individual on the basis of secret evidence that this person is a potential terrorist threat. I can’t see how anyone can argue that these attacks on Iranian scientists are any more corrosive to international order. Indeed, to the extend that these attacks are reflective of a shadowy form of inter-state competition, it is more constrained than the American position (and indeed, the Israeli position on targeted killing of Palestinian terrorists and sympathizers).
But that said, I think we need to realize it does set a precedent. What is going to be out position if the Chinese wage a similar campaign on Taiwanese scientists? North Korea on South Korean ones? Iran on Saudi ones? There are going to be a lot of flashpoints if/when the NPT regime unwinds over the next few decades.
My bottom line on this is that while the killing of Iranian scientists is unquestionably unlawful, it is also defensible on both ethical and policy grounds. It is messy and ugly. I don’t like it. I wish we didn’t live in a world where this sort of thing happened. But we do, and frankly, both Israel and the United States (the two most likely suspects) do many worse things. It may be illegal, but I think, in the final analysis, these attacks are legitimate, if only by a whisker.
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