Cromwell

American children are taught that the Revolution was all about “freedom.” Is that true?

It depends on your definition of “freedom”. The limitations on movement into Indian areas west of the Appalachians, while perfectly reasonable from the British point of view, were undoubtedly viewed as being oppressive by a fair number of enterprising colonists, and disappeared after the end of the war. In addition, the Intolerable Acts were an unjustified measure of collective punishment of residents of Boston after the Tea Party, and the Navigation Acts were designed to benefit the mother country, not the colonists. Otherwise, the British had a light footprint in America. The intensity of government did not really change after 1783.

The point of the Revolution was not to reduce the size of government, but to recognize that America was a separate nation worthy of self-determination. If you view “freedom” solely in terms of degrees of individual freedom from state control, as CLs tend to do, the Revolution was probably counterproductive. If you view freedom as being synonymous with national autonomy, it is a different story; your teacher was right.

The new administration apparently wants to return to the plan to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriett Tubman on the $20 bill. Is that a good idea?

Under other circumstances, probably, but not today. This looks very much like blue team culture war smashmouth politics. It will be a constant and powerful irritant to tens of millions of reactionaries, unlike the opening of the military to transgender personnel, which will mostly be out of sight and out of mind. It’s an initiative that needs to wait for several more years. It’s the opposite of “unity,” by any reasonable definition of the term.

Reactionaries and CLs frequently object to mask mandates on the basis that they inappropriately reduce their “freedom.” If you look solely at negative freedoms, they are clearly correct. Is that the entire story?

Obviously, no. Mask mandates enhance the freedom of people who are particularly vulnerable to the virus. If properly enforced, they make it possible to reopen restaurants, cultural facilities, and schools which would otherwise remain closed due to health risks. These are positive freedoms.

In short, this is a balancing act, but the increased freedoms arising from the wearing of masks far outweigh the inconveniences. It isn’t even close.

Marco Rubio thinks the trial is “stupid.” Is he right?

No. Whether you agree with it or not (I don’t), the trial has a clear and appropriate purpose that is proportionate to the crime. It is not “stupid.”

Rubio is a man of some intellect and principle who, when the chips are down, never lets them get in the way of his ambition to be president. When he says the trial is “stupid,” he really means that he resents having to cast a vote that is either going to look bad to the base or to the donor class.

In other words, he views his best interests as being identical to those of the country. Now, that’s stupid.

In retirement, one of my favorite pastimes is to ride my bike in the neighborhood each morning. Right-wingers would describe my ability to do that as a “negative freedom” attributable to the absence of a government prohibition. Are they right?

It’s more complicated than that. First of all, there is nothing in the Constitution forbidding the federal government from prohibiting my bike rides; the same would be true of state and local governments, as well. The absence of a regulation is a matter of common sense and legislative discretion, not an overriding legal limitation. Second, the bike rides are only possible because the federal, state, and local governments provide the necessary degree of security against crime and external threats; in, say, South Sudan, the situation would be totally different. Third, the neighborhood association, which has regulatory powers even though it is not technically a government, has chosen to permit the rides. Finally, I can afford to engage in the pastime due to the existence of a federal entitlement program–Social Security. No money, no bike, and no rides.

All of these factors are intertwined in the result. The outcome is the product of a combination of positive and negative freedoms, as well as power and common sense. As a practical matter, the apparently clear dichotomy between the two kinds of freedom is illusory.

I was reading an article in Politico yesterday which indicated that Americans valued “freedom” over “equality.” What do these terms mean, as experienced by the average American, and how do they interact in real life? I will be discussing those issues in a series of posts over the next week.

I will start with a working definition: “freedom” is the practical ability to behave in accordance with one’s free will.

The most important part of this definition is “practical ability;” it is not just a legal concept. I will use two examples to illustrate the point. If you visit a significant number of tourist attractions in China, you will see people taking photos all over the place notwithstanding large signs prohibiting the practice and the presence of guards. The Chinese clearly are “free” in that instance regardless of the letter of the law. On the other hand, poor people in America have the same legal right as wealthy people to purchase a Lexus, but no practical ability to do so. In the real world, that is not “freedom.”

Analysts frequently refer to two types of freedom: “negative” freedom from government action; and “positive” freedom assisted by government action. Right-wingers typically extol the former and reject the latter. For the average person in a typical situation, the distinction isn’t really that clean. I will address that in my next post.

On the 45th president Trump.

By our country he finally was dumped.

Exiled in Palm Beach;

Now he’s being impeached

And his fortunes continue to slump.

Here’s what I’m betting will happen at the trial:

1. No more than five Republicans will vote to convict.
2. There will be little effort on the part of the rest to justify his conduct on this occasion.
3. The senators voting to acquit will either parse Trump’s words or argue that impeaching someone who is out of office is unconstitutional.
4. Their real motivation will be to suck up to the base (particularly if they didn’t vote to overturn the election), while trying to look respectable to the donor class.
5. Trump will say that he has been vindicated, and that he was the victim of yet another hoax. The base, encouraged by Fox News, will believe him.
6. Once again, impeachment has been shown to be a completely ineffectual remedy. The GOP won’t support it regardless of the severity of the violation.
7. The Democrats will claim that they won a moral victory by getting a few Republican votes and standing up for an important principle. They didn’t. There are no moral victories at this stage of the process.

On the man that they call 45.

Without tweets, is he even alive?

An American Lear,

The Republicans fear

That his anger helps Democrats thrive.

Looking at photos of the rioters in their various outrageous costumes, I couldn’t help wondering: what would a true GOP superhero look like? Here are some ideas:

1. IDENTITY: He would have to be an old white guy, of course.
2. SUPER POWERS: Turning back time and baffling his opponents with a blizzard of lies.
3. MISSION: To own the libs. What else?
4. NAME: There can only be one choice–Con Man!

Any resemblance to Donald Trump is purely coincidental.

Like Obama before him, Biden has chosen “unity” as his brand. Predictably, the GOP has already started to use it against him. Their objective will be to try to force him to govern to the lowest common denominator, which, as the 2009 precedent shows, is very low, indeed. They may even try to argue that their belated acceptance of his legitimacy entitles them to a legislative program that looks something like Trump without tweets.

The ultimate purpose of this, of course, is to try to show that left-center government can’t work, thereby demoralizing the Democrats and winning GOP majorities in 2022. It is important for Biden to resist this. “Unity” means not treating your opponents as mortal enemies and working hard to solve problems like the pandemic that are as significant to the right as to the left. It also, in my opinion, means dialing back on the culture wars. It does not mean abandoning Democratic priorities on health care, the environment, and inequality just because the GOP opposes them, either out of principle or (more likely) opportunism.

Trump is in exile in Palm Beach. He can’t even tweet. It’s as if he has fallen off the face of the planet, which is better off for it.

Will Mar-a-Lago prove to be more analogous to Elba or St. Helena? We’ll know in a few years.

What does Biden mean by “unity?” Here’s my take on it:

1. It includes toning down the harshness of rhetoric in order to avoid demonizing one’s opponents and arousing hatred;
2. It definitely does not include reducing your program to the lowest common denominator in order to prevent disagreement; some level of disagreement, particularly as to means, is normal and healthy in a liberal democratic state; and
3. It involves emphasizing those issues, such as ending the pandemic, growing the economy, improving access to reasonably-priced health care, and meeting the Chinese challenge, on which there is substantial bipartisan agreement.

The difficult part of “unity” is dealing with the fact that the Democrats and the extremists in the GOP have completely different ideas of the just society. There is no real common ground between a white Christian authoritarian state and a multi-ethnic liberal democracy. Realistically, the best Biden can hope for is to speak to the portion of the GOP that is still willing to defend the liberal democratic state, and to show it that government is, in fact, capable of solving its problems. If he can do that, you should consider him a success.

The rioters in Portland are providing Biden with the perfect opportunity to make it clear to the center and the right that he’s not some sort of puppet for the extreme left. Expect him to take it, with gusto.

My thoughts are as follows:

1. The absence of a crowd wasn’t really felt during the swearing-in ceremony, but it was during the parade. What’s a parade without a crowd?
2. Lady Gaga and J Lo were excellent. I particularly appreciated Lady Gaga’s clear allusion to the events of January 6 when she looked back at the flags on the Capitol.
3. The Biden speech was pretty much as I expected, but he was more forceful than I anticipated on the evils of lies and Trumpism, which was a good thing.
4. Some of the images of last night’s TV show–Bruce Springsteen playing an acoustic guitar by himself on the Lincoln Memorial, and Katy Perry performing in front of a huge fireworks display–will stay with me for a long time. It shows we still can do some things right.
5. Mostly, I’m just glad it happened. Can you imagine how you would feel today if we were looking forward to four more years of Trump, knowing that there were no adults in the room? Just think how frightening that prospect would be.

Normalcy, here we come. Thank God.