Pity Obama's Speechwriter...

...he had to write a speech explaining why we should continue to escalate the war in Afghanistan just a few days ago; now he's got to write Obama's Peace Prize acceptance speech for next Thursday.

Sounds like a bit above his pay scale...

They say, “Peace, Peace,” but there is no Peace

On October 9th, 2009, President Barack Obama was announced as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Apparently acknowledging that he had not yet done anything to deserve it, he said, "Throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action.”

On December 1st, 2009, President Barack Obama answered this call to action, announcing plans to send 30,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan.

As incongruous as this may seem, it fits the Bismarck-esque model of American foreign policy--the mailed fist is the surest path to peace. What better way to bring peace than with the superior firepower of 30,000 more troops?

Unfortunately, history fails to bear out this hopeful hypothesis. It wasn’t so long ago that a president named Lyndon B. Johnson ordered more US troops into Asia to counter an insurgency, promising quick withdrawal. Moreover, the war in Afghanistan is now eight years old, just one year short of eclipsing Russia’s nine-year-long futile occupation of Afghanistan. Of course, in the Russians’ defense, the US was funding the opposition, which made their job considerably more difficult. (Hey, there’s an idea for the Pentagon spin-machine--maybe the Russians are funding the Taliban!)

Turns out that a leading Southern Baptist ethicist shares my anxiety about this decision, but for him, it was because Obama wasn't sending enough troops to "defend our freedom in a difficult and dangerous world." Oh please. The way this guy talks, you'd think he was George Bush's Press Secretary. Why is it, why, why, why, I ask, that the more "born-again" you are, the more pro-war you are? And we wonder why we're losing the "culture war."

Finally, Some Common Sense Politics

My friend and erstwhile pastor Toby Sumpter just posted some excellent thoughts about why Republicans aren't prolife--"Muslim school kids aren’t as cute as American babies," why Obama's not much to worry about--"I don’t trust Obama, but I didn’t trust any of his predecessors either," and not much to get excited about either--"Obama was elected primarily for his smooth words and good looks," and why Sarah Palin might actually be better than the alternatives--"It would be a human in office and not a machine. It would be a person for a change."

I took issue with him on the last point, but it's definitely worth checking out.

Refusing to Jump on the Anti-Bailout Bandwagon

It occurs to me that my recent alarmist posts about national and global bankruptcy might give the wrong impression, for example, the impression that I am dead-set against Obama's deficit spending and bailout policies.
A very well-researched reader commented on my recent post to point out that, in percentage terms, our deficit was not yet unprecedented, and suggested that my concern was only warranted if I was against the idea of deficit spending, period. Many conservatives would be, but I am not necessarily, at least from a pragmatic standpoint. But before going into that, a brief remark to my well-researched reader. He raises an important point about the need to keep these numbers in perspective, and I am aware that our deficit spending in WWII was worse. The reason I see such cause for alarm is
1) That was a war, the largest war in history. Deficits were understandable, and ought to end as soon as the war did.. This isn't a war, and it's far from clear when the deficits might end.
2) The total national debt in WWII was much lower, so huge deficits were not quite as much cause for concern. Having several big leaks in an empty boat is not nearly as scary as having them in a boat already half-underwater.
3) As I posted last week, the official national debt is only a fraction of the real debt, which is pretty close to insurmountable. As a cynic who believes the American Empire is fast dooming itself to the kind of bankruptcy that all other empires have suffered, I tend to think that Obama's deficit spending is helping us drive off the brink.

All that said, though, I don't necessarily think Obama's doing the wrong thing, at least from a pragmatic standpoint. My general philosophy is that we're driving off the brink almost no matter what, not that Obama in particular is driving us off the brink. And so I actually want to speak up, maybe not quite in defense of his recent policies, but at least against loud detractors on the right. Many of these detractors, including most everyone I know, have a knee-jerk reaction against "more big government," "more wasteful bailouts," "fearmongering as an excuse for more government power," and so on. This, to me, is rather shortsighted and ignorant. To me, the claim that government intervention is always worse than a private-sector solution is only tenable on the basis of a priori philosophical/ethical commitments.
As a consistent Christian, I am very suspicious about government action on any front, but I am equally suspicious of the free market's actions. And so it is hard for me to see how a government solution is automatically stupid, incompetent, and certain to compound the problem. So what if the government is bureaucratic, inefficient, and wasteful? I'm sure it is. I'm sure it's a very clumsy tool for resolving economic problems. And so normally, the private sector will offer better solutions. If you've got a car in a ditch, then you want to call the tow truck that can get there quickly and get it out cheaply and safely. But if you've got an eighteen-wheeler in a deep ravine, you're going to need to call in the only tow truck that's got a massive crane, even if it's slow and expensive. If a problem is big enough, the government may simply be the only entity capable of resolving it, however inefficient the solution may be.

And so it is in this case. Conservatives who decry the bailouts also tend to downplay the problem. For example, Dr. Leithart said in a recent blog post,

"The Commerce Department tells us this morning that the GDP grew during 2008, though at the slowest pace since 2001. It shrank faster during the fourth quarter than at any time since 1982.

Funny, nobody in Congress is raising the spectre of 1982 to describe our economic woes. It’s always 1929. They must have long memories.

Or maybe they find some value in blowing up the scale of the crisis? Maybe they’ve found some uses for panic."

I don't mean to pick on Dr. Leithart particularly, for this is a sentiment you find everywhere in conservative circles. But this simply shows ignorance about what's going on. If anything, those in the government have been trying to downplay the crisis, because they know that if they can boost sentiment enough, the crisis will start improving. Those in the Bush administration spent all last year denying what all good economists knew--that we were royally screwed. And the Commerce Department's report that Dr. Leithart alluded to was its earlier report that GDP had shrunk by 3.8%, which anyone who'd been watching them revise numbers for the past year could've known was a sham. Sure enough, they just revised it to a 6.2% contraction. And of course that hasn't passed the 1982 numbers yet--we're still in the early stages of this collapse. Some numbers don't lie, such as the astounding 53% fall of the stock market, which really is unparalleled since 1929, and the staggering hundreds of billions of continuing losses at financial institutions that have been repeatedly rescued.

I agree with the general philosophy of doubt toward government bailouts and stimulus packages, but the fact is, we are in much deeper than it seems many people yet realize. So, while I might critique details of the policies with which our leaders are trying to save the situation, and I'm skeptical of the results of any plan, I'm willing to grant that there really is nothing else to do but attempt massive governmnent rescues. To continue to mock the whole idea of such rescues, as stupid, useless, or alarmist is simply to continue ignoring the kind of problem we have on our hands.

Great News!

So my earlier post about worldwide bankruptcy was apparently alarmist. Obama has just assured us that he plans to cut the budget deficit to only $550 billion by the end of his first term. Well, that's just lovely news.

Never mind that that number is still higher than any budget deficit until this year's, which should run around $2 trillion. Assuming an arithmetic rate of reduction, that means that Obama will only leave us about $4.5 trillion deeper in debt than when he started, by the end of his first term. Even Bush was only able to do about $1.1 trillion of damage in his first term.