A Community of Individuals

I woke on Friday to the news that Anders Behring Breivik, a citizen of Norway, bombed a government building in his home country, killing eight people, and then drove to a politically affiliated youth camp, where he proceeded to hunt and kill sixty-eight (68) children and adults. 

Later in the morning I turned on the television to watch President Obama speak about the need for the United States to raise its debt ceiling.  For months the debate has raged whether Congress should extend the debt ceiling, and if so, how.

Refusing to extend the debt ceiling, which close to 50 members of the House of Representatives have refused to do under any circumstances, will have disastrous consequences for every single American and much of the global economy.  The United States will default on its obligations, and I do not exaggerate when I say that the world will face the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression.

This whole debate embarrasses and shames me.  While xenophobic terrorists hunt children in Norway, while U.S. troops fight and die half a world away, while citizens of autocratic regimes die in the streets for the fundamental right to protest, this country debates whether to pay its bills, even when the consequences of not doing so means higher costs, fewer services, and a guaranteed recession for every single American citizen.

Our politicians have become small.  Not, as Speaker Boehner said recently, because of the size of the government, but because of the willingness of those who put ideology before common sense to sacrifice everything, even the well-being of our citizens, to achieve their ends.  When I was younger, such resolve might have seemed brave, even honorable, but now it just seems foolish and destructive.  We are a powerful and influential country reduced to squabbling over scraps when we engage in such an obvious fight.  We waste time and resources that we could use to make the world a better place. 

This debate is just one example of how we risk becoming a nation of small ideas and small people.  Lost is the drive to become a strong community of individuals, to be a model for the rest of the world.  In place is a relentless and misguided attack on anything that borders on finding common cause to work together to achieve something better.  We have become fanatical about individualism.  We are being reduced, simply, to the sum of our parts.


Beyond this embarrassment lies a worthy debate: how we should pay our bills.  Some say spending cuts only, while others argue for a mixture of spending cuts, revenue increases, and reform of our longstanding entitlement programs.  This debate is valid, but its terms have been grossly distorted.  You often hear politicians say "we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem, therefore we should only cut spending."  The implication is that government spending is inherently evil.  That any dollar put into the common pool is wasted.  That any tax dollar paid means the death of another job.  This argument is not only short-sighted, it is patently wrong.

Government, and government spending, is nothing more than people working together to accomplish something that they cannot accomplish on their own.  Few of us have the money to build a road or bridge.  But when we pool our resources and work together, we can build vast interstate systems, dam huge rivers and canyons, and gain access to the farthest reaches of our great nation.  Few of us can afford a battleship, or a stealth fighter, but when we all chip in, we can build the greatest military force in the history of the world, a force that provides security, allows for freedom, and is slowly becoming a force for good outside our borders. 

And we should never forget that free enterprise, commerce, and capitalism can only thrive in nations that respect and enforce the rule of law, respect property rights, and enforce basic standards of quality.  All of these things that require a capable and respected government. 

There is great honor in an active and vigorous government built to serve its citizens.  For too long we have been told that government is not the solution, but instead is the problem.  I fundamentally reject that notion.  More government programs and increased regulations are not always the solution, but nor are they always the problem.  They often fix problems that we cannot or will not fix on our own.

To those who believe that government should simply get out of the way so businesses can create jobs, I ask you, upon whom do you rely to make sure that your contracts are enforced, or that the roads are paved so you can make your deliveries?  Who will come to your aid when your warehouse is on fire, or when you have been robbed? 


When we look back upon our history to understand what makes America unique, we tend to point to a group of people sat down to debate and create, almost from nothing, a new government; a government that would harness our individual strengths and our common bonds in service of a society greater than the sum of its parts.  The fabric holding that together was not then and is not now common culture, it is not religion, it is not wealth.  It is a form of government.  It is a declaration of rights, a balancing of powers, and a healthy tension between ideas that constitute a vigorous and ever-changing society.  And that fabric, the Constitution, is an imperfect and changing product of compromise.

More than any other country, America is bound together in common cause by the myth of its creation. We look to founding documents that set in place ideals, then principals, and then laws.  We revere these documents as scripture and adhere to them still.  Therefore, we do a great disservice to our history, and our future, when we denigrate the role and  purpose of government, and the importance of compromise.

My request is simple:  Take pride in our ability to work together, to compromise, and to find common ground.  Take pride not only in some abstract idea of our country, but also in ourtangible achievements: Our ability to build the Hoover Dam, to clean up our rivers and our air, to allow free speech for all, and to extend civil rights to all groups. 

Take pride in our country and our government and demand that our leaders do the same, instead of focusing on callous, ideological, self-interested policies that hurt us all. 

We deserve more.

Our Inability to Confront Global Warming

The following quote from an economist at the World Wildlife Federation, which has an excellent climate change team, crystallizes the difference between how the U.S. and China approach global warming and climate change:

“When you speak to the Chinese, climate change is not an ideological issue. It’s just a fact of life. While we debate climate change and the transition to a low carbon economy, the debate is past in China. For them it’s implementation. It’s a growth sector, and they want to capture this sector.”

What this means for the U.S, beyond our ability to capture a significant growth industry, is that global warming has indeed become an ideological issue.  Recent polls have found significant correlations between belief (or disbelief) in global warming and support or opposition for hot-button culture issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.  Think about that for a moment.  Global warming is falling into a basket of issues ruled by emotions,  thousands of years of cultural and religious debate, and human conceptions of right and wrong.  Global warming is a scientific phenomenon.  It is either real or it isn't.  Global warming does not belong in the same discussions as these other topics.

What does this tell us about the United States?  For me, this inability to reach a national consensus about global warming is a serious red flag for our society.  The most successful societies are those that can adapt to changing circumstances.  They must be nimble, open to the truth, and willing to face unpleasant realities.  Most of the world is doing that right now, but the U.S. is not.  I believe it is still an open question as to why, but I have a few thoughts.

First, we have a political system specifically designed to maintain the status quo.  Despite the great changes throughout our history, we have more often faced gridlock.  This was intentional.  One of the chief concerns of our founding fathers was to avoid tyranny and monarchy at all costs, and so they designed a system that not only shared power, but also is prone to slow, methodical deliberation.  China, or its ruling council, can essentially do what it wants, without a national dialogue that often takes decades.  Such a design can have horrific consequences, such as the tens of millions of deaths that occurred during the Great Leap Forward.  It can also allow massive societies to respond with swiftness to imminent threats such as global warming.

Second, this is a huge, massive, gargantuan problem, with an equally massive, complex, and long-term solution required.  For many people, who have bills to pay, children to support, etc, facing its consequences and considering solutions is not an easy task.  And this is important because public opinion is important in our political system.  For such large undertakings, a politician must have public support.  Further, this is a long-term problem, and many people are less interested in fixing problems that will primarily exist in the future, as opposed to tomorrow or next week.  Humans have a short-term approach to dealing with problems and with survival.

Third, the U.S. is a massive user of domestically available fossil fuels.  Even though we import oil, we get most of our natural gas and coal domestically, and much of our oil imports come from Canada.  Despite all of the talk to the contrary, we do not face the same level of energy security issues as other countries (Europe, for example).  These domestic resources also creates jobs and entire industries, and the prospect of having to transition away from such jobs (which will be painful), is daunting, and creates entirely understandable opposition groups that are quite interested in questioning the scientific certainty of global warming.

Many more reasons exist for the surprising amount of skepticism about global warming in the U.S, but I think perhaps the most disheartening is this:  The vested corporate interests that stand to lose from a transition from fossil fuels, and the misinformation they promote, trying with all their might to make global warming a partisan issue.  There is no doubt that making global warming a part of "culture wars" has been a direct goal.  Look at those issues historically; they never resolve.  Meanwhile the rest of the world, especially China, will have shifted away from fossil fuels and captured emerging technology markets.

Eventually though, the debate surrounding global warming in the U.S. will resolve. What we will be able to do about it when that time comes is another question entirely.

The Ethics of Violence and War

I have been speaking with a friend recently about violence and war.  When is it justified?  Is it ever justified?  Do hard and fast ethical rules exist, applicable to any situation at any time? Or can we sometimes justify violence by examining the specific circumstances of an event?

My friend, who is thoughtful, logical, religious, and politically liberal, believes in absolutes.  Right is right and wrong is wrong.  Violence, in his estimation, is always wrong.  He believes that natural truth exists beyond the rules that humanity constructs for itself.

I disagree.  I do not believe that there is fundamental law of the universe that says killing is wrong.   Humans live in groups and depend on each other, and as a result it just makes sense, for the well-being of our society, to shun violence.  Conceptions of right and wrong are convenient for maintaining order, stability, and preserving life.  That does not demean these ideas.  That does not make them any less important. 

Ethical codes such as the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them unto you) exist precisely because their broad acceptance is required in order for human civilization to exist.  These values have been created by humans; they have not been handed down from on high.

Many people find this argument terrifying and damaging.  They label it relativism, or the idea that nothing is truly absolute or absolutely true.  As my friend writes:

“One of my professors at [law school] lamented the fact that, in the post-deconstructionist world, we are left with rationales to tear down others' arguments but we have nothing to construct in their place.  Essentially, we deconstruct "natural truths" but then we are left with nothing.”

He disagrees, and so do I, but for different reasons.  I’ll focus on my reasoning: just because the Golden Rule doesn’t come from God doesn’t make it any less true, if by truth we are discussing the most peaceful, free, and prosperous ways to organize humans into societies. 

Aside from the occasional hermit, we live in societies and cannot escape our connections and dependence on others, as John Donne noted several hundred years ago.  Because of this connection then, something similar to the Golden Rule becomes a sort of truth, just not an absolute, universal truth.  In fact, I think it becomes more powerful than an absolute truth, because it is something that we as humans have recognized, nurtured, and passed along throughout our history.  I find that much more compelling than simply accepting an edict from a supernatural being.

We can test the idea of absolutes when it comes to violence by our real-world experiences. I believe that certain actions are wrong in some contexts, while the same action may be considered right, or at least just in other contexts.  The simplest example is an unprovoked violent action versus the same violent action done in self-defense.  We can understand and even justify violence in self-defense, and we do all the time.  Most legal systems have generous exceptions for such situations. 

Yes, humanity has a proud tradition of non-violence, exhibited best by Gandhi and Martin Luther King.  But I would argue that their use of non-violence was a tactic employed to achieve certain ends, as opposed to a fundamental belief system.

My recent conversations on this topic focus on more complex situations, such as the war in Afghanistan, the killing of Bin Laden, or the NATO actions in Libya.  I have generally defended these actions, while my friend has opposed them.  Don’t misunderstand, I find myself opposed to the vast majority of wars.  Iraq, for example is wholly unjust and unjustified. 

But I think that violence and war is justified when the alternative is greater violence, injustice, and human suffering.  I actually supported the war in Afghanistan less because of 9/11 and more because the Taliban and Al Qaeda promote a society that horribly represses women, dissent, and any sort of freedom.  And the violence in Libya, while the rationale seems disjointed, is justified in to stop Qaddafi from engaging in mass killings of those who oppose him.  Granted, we will never know what would have happened in the absence of that intervention, but I would rather have that uncertainty over the certainty of what happened in Rwanda in the 1990’s. 

To me, using violence against someone who uses violence and repression for their own ends is wholly justified.  That person or group, whether it is Hitler, Bin Laden, the Taliban, or any of the colonial powers over recent centuries, has chosen to break the implicit social contract that all humans living in groups enter into. 

And this social contract goes back far beyond the Mayflower and the French Revolution, back to the earliest days of human civilizations.  It goes back to when humans, or the ancestors of humans, realized that living in groups, helping one another, and depending on one another was mutually beneficial for everyone involved.  Doing so, however, involved a degree of trust.  Trust that others would not seek to harm you, your freedom, or your property. 

So there are some serious, rambling, college sophomore-type thoughts for you.  To be clear, I abhor violence, and I think it should be avoided and used only as last resort.  But it sometimes is justified.  As for the related argument about the existence of natural laws, I find it quite freeing to reject. 

Humans have great power to shape the world around them, and we must take responsibility for shaping the morality of that world as well.  By rejecting natural laws, or laws from on high, we take ownership over them, and we are no longer able to commit horrible acts in someone else’s name.  We still may commit horrible acts, but we will be forced to take responsibility for them.

Global Warming and Uncertainty

Apologies to the eight people who actually read this blog for not writing anything since October.  I really have no good excuses.  On to the next topic...

I recently read an interesting distinction between the phrases "global warming" and climate change."  Global warming is the increase in average global temperature due to humans pouring carbon emissions into the atmosphere.  Climate change, on the other hand, is the more localized effect of global warming.  Climate change can be any number of things: floods, droughts, heatwaves, cold snaps, rising sea levels, hurricanes, monsoons, changing ocean currents and salt or acid levels, etc.  Climate change is the effect of global warming, and that effect will be different around the world.

Will those effects be good or bad?  Depends on the place and the nature of the change, but the one thing we can be sure of about ALL of these effects is that they will increase the uncertainty surrounding weather events.  We may all take it for granted, but weather predictability is extremely important both to human health and safety, as well as to the global economy.  Think of how much the recent snowstorms in the U.S. this winter disrupted the national economy.  One recent study estimates close to $1 billion in losses per state where roads become impassable and state governments shut down.  When such storms hit regions that are typically unprepared for such weather, the effect is even greater.

Uncertainty is the great scourge here.  According to geologists and climatologists, we live in a remarkably stable and predictable climate, and that has contributed to the ability for civilizations to grow and flourish.  We know when to plant and harvest crops, we know when to hunt and when to keep warm, and the extremes of either temperature (hot or cold) are historically rarely enough to immediately threaten human life.  That's no longer true.  Wheat in Russia is devastated one summer, while millions to this day remain homeless in Pakistan due to unprecedented flooding.  When these sorts of weather events occur with increasing frequency, how can we build homes and cities near rivers without taking huge risks?  How can we be sure that the grain for which we have contracted will be delivered?

Uncertainty increases as risk increases.  And risk leads to higher costs.  Higher costs lead to less economic productivity, which leads to a decreased standard of living, for both the rich and the poor.  We often hear that efforts to reduce global warming cannot interfere with economic growth.  But that's the just the thing; stopping global warming, and thereby providing a more stable and predictable environment for our economy, can only help productivity and economic growth.  Allowing business as usual will, in the long-run, cripple the growth and welfare of the economy and human civilization, and create significant political and regional unrest.  And anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something...like a tank of gasoline.

Republicans and Global Warming

Here is an interesting article from Bill McKibben, Middlebury College Professor and founder of 350.org.  McKibben explores the question of why Republicans are so virulently opposed to both the science and solutions surrounding global warming.  During this election cycle, fraught with extremist views from Tea Party candidates, more Republicans than ever are denying the science of global warming, despite the overwhelming (and unfortunate) evidence that it exists.

In particular, I love all the accusations of "hoax" and "conspiracy."  Such fringe theories are even more tenuous than anti-Semitic Illuminati conspiracy theories.  As if thousands of scientists, data stations, studies, reports, physical observations, and the laws of physics themselves were in on it.  But these theories don't come from extremist loners sitting in their basements, they come from extremist crackpots sitting in power, or scarily close to it.  They also, of course, come from vested interests such as the oil and gas industry.  I wonder what they have to gain?

New Yorker Exposes David Koch

In a recent article in the New Yorker, reporter Jane Mayer writes about Koch Industries and the covert, self-interested political operations to simply expand their company's profit margin.  Favorite tactics include subverting scientific conclusions, pouring money into supposed "grassroots campaigns" and using heavy handed influence on supposedly independent boards and non-profit groups to control findings, reports, and manipulate decisions.  Oh, also stealing from Native Americans.

The Hypocrisy of the Bush Tax Cuts

Like most of us, the United States owes money, except its debt is a bit larger than ours. About 13 trillion dollars larger. That number is the national debt: the total amount of money that the United States owes to its investors (anyone who has purchased a Treasury bill or a federally-backed bond).

The deficit is something different. It is the difference between money that the U.S. spends in a given year and the money that it takes in from taxes and other sources of revenue in that year. Every year the amount of the deficit gets added to the national debt. If the U.S. spends less money than it takes in, then it has a surplus. The United States had a budget surplus three times under President Clinton. The previous most recent budget surplus occurred 29 years before that.

In 1999 Alan Viard, Senior Economist for the Dallas Federal Reserve, wrote “If current policies are maintained, surpluses are expected to continue for 20 years, completely retiring the outstanding federal debt. However, deficits are expected to reappear after 2020 due to rising Social Security and medical spending.”

So what happened? There is no easy answer of course. September 11th, war, housing bubbles, natural disasters, and the financial crisis all contributed to changing economic conditions that affected U.S. expenditures and revenues. But one of the main reasons was the expiration of an obscure Congressional rule, and the subsequent fiscal irresponsibility of the most recent Bush administration. PAYGO, enacted in 1990 under President H.W. Bush essentially required the government to finance new expenditures with currently available money, instead of borrowing it. It’s a concept with which we are all familiar: use your debit card instead of your credit card. You may get less instant gratification, but you know you won’t go into debt. Plus, you have your whole line of credit available for an emergency.

This rule, along with a booming economy, put our spending in line with income and produced three years of budget surpluses. Then, under the Bush administration, the government decided to cut taxes (a major source of revenue) while increasing spending (example: the pointless war in Iraq). It would be as if you took a pay cut while simultaneously buying a summer home in Maine. Between 2003 and 2007 the national debt increased by over half a trillion dollars each year, and increased over 1 trillion dollars during 2008 (primarily due to the bank bailouts). During the entirety of George W. Bush’s presidency the national debt increased by almost five trillion dollars, and we entered the greatest financial and economic crisis since the great depression.

So let us be clear. In the previous two decades, it has been Democrats, not Republicans, who have handled the nation’s finances better (Credit should go also to George H.W. Bush for enacting PAYGO and raising taxes when necessary). Despite this fact, it has been conservatives who have consistently demanded that the United States reduce its annual budget shortfalls and its national debt, eagerly cutting taxes while refusing to cut costs.

Since the government spent billions upon billions of dollars injecting money into the economy in 2009, Conservatives have been yelling even louder that the country must reign in its ballooning debt. Three times this summer, Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would have provided, among other necessary services, unemployment benefits to Americans who have been out of work for an extended period of time. They voted against it because the spending was not offset (it would have added to the deficit).

Congress has the authority to spend without paying for that spending in emergency situations. One might assume that during a period of 10% unemployment, Republicans might consider extending unemployment benefits an emergency. But no. They continued to block. And here’s the rub: when the highly irresponsible Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the this year, Republicans want to extend all tax cuts, even to the richest Americans who can most afford them without – you guessed it – paying for them. Tax cuts cost money. They mean a significant loss of revenue to the federal government.

This is a black and white situation. Republicans are willing to give tax cuts to the richest Americans, but they are not willing to give even the most basic unemployment benefits to Americans hit hardest by the financial crisis (which was essentially caused by the richest Americans).

The question is, why? Is it an academic difference of opinion about how to best invigorate an economy? Or is it a more self-serving ideological motive to starve the government of resources and revenue, despite the costs to the citizens of this country? I think we already know the answer.