Author: J. Arthur Bloom

J. Arthur Bloom is the blog's editor, opinion editor of the Daily Caller, and an occasional contributor to the Umlaut. He was formerly associate editor of the American Conservative and a music reviewer at Tiny Mix Tapes, and graduated from William and Mary in 2011. He lives in Washington, DC, and can be found, far too often, on Twitter.

The limits of the center-right consensus

Every so often, David Brooks comes very close to getting it, but he’s never quite willing to take his arguments to their logical conclusion. Like back in March, he wrote that “The real power in the world is not military or political. It is the power of individuals to withdraw their consent.” Or this week:

The answer is to use Lee Kuan Yew means to achieve Jeffersonian ends — to become less democratic at the national level in order to become more democratic at the local level. At the national level, American politics has become neurotically democratic. Politicians are campaigning all the time and can scarcely think beyond the news cycle. Legislators are terrified of offending this or that industry lobby, activist group or donor faction. Unrepresentative groups have disproportionate power in primary elections.

The quickest way around all this is to use elite Simpson-Bowles-type commissions to push populist reforms.

This is an obvious contradiction, and Larison calls him out for it:

Brooks doesn’t explain how making the federal government even less responsive and accountable than it is now will improve or strengthen local government. It’s just supposed to happen. If Brooks’ idea were ever put into practice, it would likely to generate even stronger resentment of the entire political system, and it would produce a backlash against the concentration of power at the federal level.

 *****

On Tuesday evening Mark and I caught a think-tank salon double feature, starting at AEI to see Economist editors John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge talking about their new book The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State (not to be confused with Herr Dugin’s Fourth Political Theory), followed by F.H. Buckley on his new book about the “rise of crown government in America.”

In a sense the two were polar opposites of one another; in person the two Economist editors had the same eternal optimism that characterizes the magazine’s editorial voice, whereas Buckley’s talk consisted mostly of gloomy aphorisms. On a conceptual level too, though all were deeply concerned about structural deficits and entitlement sustainability, the two Brits’ contention was essentially that Reagans and Thatchers eventually come along to fix these things.

And yet, if the postwar West demonstrates anything, it’s the ability of democracies to decay resiliently. In the Q&A Mark raised the possibility that America could easily muddle on with high inflation and unemployment for years; there isn’t some sort of Reagan kill switch to flip when things get especially bad, and the exigencies of our quadrennial presidential elections mean that the right man for the job could take several cycles to come around.

They claim the challenge for the West — to “get fit,” as they put it, for a competition with Chinese authoritarian capitalism that represents a “much more profound” challenge than the Soviet Union ever did — is an existential one. They pointed, somewhat suspiciously, toward Indian PM-elect Narendra Modi’s stated desire to emulate Chinese growth, as indicating the stakes involved. Shinzo Abe is also concerned.

The trouble is that eventually social-democratic turpitude gets so bad that the inevitable reaction is too immoderate for good classical liberals like Micklethwait and Wooldridge to support — witness the Economist’s hostility to Modi. They’re also somewhat hostile to decentralization in general — during the talk, Micklethwait expressed doubts about the scalability of Singapore-style public services.

So, we seem to have reached an impasse. We are told to wait for a budget-cutting savior — somehow put in power by an electorate that gets more economically left-wing every election — at which time, pace David Brooks, a cadre of expert technocrats will balance the budget, enact populist tax reforms, and deign to grant the states some token of decentralization. Maybe they can set their own drinking ages again, or something.

Does this strike you as a wise course of action? Does it make any sense at all?

In America, what seems clear is that getting out of our social-democratic morass requires a withdrawal of consent at the state level, where political power still lies with the Republicans. The tea party seems to be coming to the conclusion that an Article V convention is the best way to accomplish that, though the devil is in the details (wording of the petitions, exactly what amendments will be up for debate, etc). For what it’s worth, here are some that have been debated; I’m much more enthusiastic about the first four than the last two:

  • Repeal the 17th Amendment to make senators accountable to their states, not parties and special interests.
  • Repeal the Apportionment Act and bring the size of Congress more in line with a country of 300 million people. If progressives object that this would be unruly, that’s simply a reason for them to meet less often.
  • An amendment to allow a majority of state legislatures to veto tax increases.
  • Some sort of repeal amendment, to make sure there is some state-level recourse for things like Obamacare, which has a somewhat dubious provenance.
  • A Niskanen/Amash-style balanced budget amendment that allows some countercyclical spending.
  • Repeal the 26th Amendment — States should be able to set their own voting ages, because screw you kids.

Micklethwait and Wooldridge suggest to today’s right-thinking progressive that today’s overburdened social democracies raise the question of, ‘what is the state for?’ In other words, what is the minimum amount of services we expect it to provide for people. This is inherently threatening to the sort of person whose answer is always ‘more’ and ‘by any means necessary.’ And in a country as notoriously moderate and deliberative as the U.K., maybe that conversation is possible, but neither American party seems interested in having it.

The Article V-ers are asking a very different, nomocratic question: How can we arrange the structure of American government to produce better outcomes in the long-run, and mitigate the short-term bias problems of democracy? I’m not sure our center-right thought leaders are quite as serious. To the extent that those in power aren’t willing to talk about this kind of structural reform, extraconstitutional means of withdrawing consent do start to become more attractive.

Secession lagniappe

From Office of Hawaiian Affairs Kamana’opono Crabbe’s remarks at a press conference on Monday:

A second reason for my questions to Secretary Kerry stems from our Hawaiian community. My staff and I have held some 30 community meetings in the past two months regarding our proposed process to rebuild our nation. In that same period we also held two governance summits with key community leaders. At these gatherings, and in other virtual contexts, we heard repeatedly concerns about engaging in a process of rebuilding a nation when-following the research of many legal, historical, and political experts-our nation continues to exist in the context of international law.

Such concerns have led our community to request more time in the nation rebuilding process to have questions– such as I raised with Secretary Kerry– fully explored and shared with our people so that they can make well-informed decisions throughout the process.

The Hawaiian community needed to know that I was inquiring about the very matters they sought to bring forward. And this is the reason I felt it was imperative not only that I ask the questions but that the community be aware of the inquiry.

However, recognizing the gravity of the questions posed, I met with Chair Machado before making the letter public. I explained that my questions were a matter of due diligence and risk management to avoid OHA missteps in its nation rebuilding facilitation. I believed I had her consent to proceed with sharing publicly my letter to Secretary Kerry. Unfortunately, it is now apparent that we walked away from that meeting with a misunderstanding and misinformation.

Despite disagreements that will need to be worked out between myself and OHA’s trustees, I am certain that the Board and I stand firmly together in our commitment to do all that we appropriately can to reestablish a Hawaiian nation. I look forward to engaging with the trustees in the ho’oponopono, which Chair Machado graciously suggested, so that we can work collectively to Ho’oulu Uihui Aloha, to Rebuild a Beloved Nation.

We must succeed in our efforts for the good of our lahui, our community, and our families for generations to come.

Chairwoman Machado disputes that he consulted with her before sending the letter. The OHA trustees had a very interesting meeting on Thursday, with a big crowd supporting Crabbe. Related: The militarized Pacific.

From one of the translated letters of Tibetan prisoner Goshul Lobsang, written in prison, September 2012. He died on March 19:

I have no regrets, although all of a sudden, I may be compelled to separate from the path of life that [I have been treading along] with my beloved mother, siblings, wife and children. I may have to depart with [feelings] of cold, heavy sadness, but I have no sense of guilt in my heart.
My clear conscience is my only asset in this world. I don’t possess anything other than this, and I don’t need anything other than this.
[But] my only regret that weighs heavily on my heart is the lack of profound sense of solidarity among our people, because of which we are unable to achieve a strong unified stand.

*****

In the Salt Lake Tribune yesterday, a letter to the editor written by a Republican name-checks Lincoln and asks:

The right-wing fanatics who would have the federal government hand over all public lands in Utah, Nevada, etc., remind me of the pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. When would they like to hold the referendum on secession from the United States?

Chris Roth says the Cliven Bundy standoff is the harbinger of a new “silly season.” State legislators from a number of states are getting involved, including Matt Shea:

Four more county committees forming for the Jefferson statehood effort, one is working with Tea Party Patriots.

*****

Nationalia looks at Yorkshire autonomy, the Bavarian Party’s attempt to get a representative in the European Parliament, and the Occitan Nation Party’s pro-stateless peoples (and pro-EU) message.

Ukrainian oligarch says no to secession.

Timothy Snyder and Leon Wieseltier are in Kiev this weekend.

Scottish Tory MEP says in an address supporting a Spanish unionist MEP that Scottish independence “would trigger a wave of secessionist movements across the EU.”

Israel clears up a rumor that they were going to transfer sovereignty of the tomb of David and the Cenacle to the Vatican.

*****

Adam Gurri, “The Morality of Futility“:

 Our moral sphere should not be stretched beyond the scale appropriate for an individual human life. That does not mean that we are indifferent to suffering outside that scale, nor that there’s something wrong with giving to charity or volunteering. Telescopic as an adjective is meant more pejoratively than categorically; to reject telescopic morality is not to say that our concern for far matters should be reduced to zero, just as rejecting gluttony does not mean that we should stop eating entirely.

Nevertheless, I am very pessimistic about our ability to have a non-negligible impact on large scale and distant matters.

First Things on Quebec:

While generations of Québécois had felt estranged from a spiritually apostate France after the 1789 Revolution, this antirevolutionary ethos vanished during the 1960s. The French Revolution had begun when Louis XVI had convoked the Estates General. Shortly thereafter, the Third Estate, consisting of commoners, rose up and abolished the first two estates, representing the clergy and nobility, declaring itself l’Assemblée nationale, that is, the National Assembly.

In 1968, in an eerie echo of the events of nearly two centuries earlier, Québec similarly abolished the upper chamber of its provincial legislature, le Conseil legislatif, while the lower chamber, l’Assemblée legislative, changed its name to – you guessed it – l’Assemblée nationale! The French Revolution had finally caught up with La Belle Province. That same year saw the formation of the Parti québécois, which sought a wholly French-speaking nation separate from Canada.

David Harvey is extremely skeptical of Thomas Piketty’s Capital.

Trotskyite blames Indian communist parties for Modi’s election.

D.G. Hart on Ulster Presbyterians and protestant radicalism:

Political philosophers and historians have given lots of attention to Calvinism as an engine of modern liberal (read constitutional) politics. Whether it’s resistance theory, the Dutch rebellion, or the so-called Presbyterian revolution of the British colonies in North America, students of Calvinism believe they have a firm read on Reformed Protestant politics as an inherently rebellious outlook, one that won’t let any human authority encroach on the Lordship of Christ. (Why we didn’t celebrate 1861 along with 1776, 1689, and 1567 prior to getting right with race is a bit of an inconsistency.)

That sounds good in theory, and it certainly turns out Calvinist (New, Neo, or Denominational) in large numbers for Fox News. But it doesn’t make sense of history where context matters.

Justin Raimondo on the NSA:

The NSA’s “new collection posture,” as shown in the NSA documents reproduced in Greenwald’s book, is: “Sniff it all, know it all, collect it all, process it all, exploit it all, partner it all.” In short, they aim to abolish the concept of privacy – and if they are now targeting political “radicalizers,” as one of their documents puts it – not Al Qaeda, but American political dissidents – then our old republic is no more. The Constitution means nothing: the Bill of Rights is abolished, and we are living under a de facto “democratic” dictatorship. …

As it stands … anyone in America who has ever expressed a “radical” idea is now a potential target.

Nothing short of a revolution is going to reverse this monstrous reality. Whether it comes in a peaceful form – perhaps some combination of electoral and legislative action – in which the warlords of Washington are thrown out on their ears, or some other way is not for me to say. No one can know the future. What I do know, however, is this: one way or another, the monster must be slain.

Mark Meckler on the John Doe raids in Wisconsin:

… a partisan prosecutor launched “secret John Doe” investigations to terrify the entire conservative community and to remove them from the political conversation. Even though these Wisconsinites have been charged with nothing, they’ve been subjected to pre-dawn raids, warrants, subpoenas, and other harassment.

Committee For The Republic’s 80th Birthday Tribute to Jon Utley

Video is now online of the Committee for the Republic’s tribute to American Conservative publisher Jon Utley back in March, for his 80th birthday, which I had the great pleasure of attending.

If there’s ever been a meeting of the good guys in a Washington salon, this was it, featuring (quoting from the YouTube description): “John Henry, Chairman of the Committee, fundraising giant Richard Viguerie, Lee Edwards of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Dan McCarthy, editor of The American Conservative, Allan Brownfeld of the American Council for Judaism, Alex Chafuen, President of the Atlas Economic Research foundation, Norman Birnbaum, Georgetown University Professor emeritus, British writer Francis Beckett, author of Stalin’s British Victims, and Fran Griffin, President of Griffin Communications, who also read a message from Pat Buchanan.”

I forget which one it was that comments that the thing that distinguished Utley from the other anti-communists is that he never held his own government to a double standard.

Here are Jim Bovard’s remarks:

Jon has been in the forefront of the antiwar movement since 1990, when he spearheaded a group to oppose George H.W. Bush’s war against Iraq.  He has been a rare voice of reason and grace in conservative circles, patiently pointing out how foreign warring was destroying American freedom – as well as wreaking pointless havoc abroad.  He has also been a generous supporter of groups ranging from the Future of Freedom Foundation to Antiwar.com, where his columns continue to trounce bloodthirsty politicians of all stripes.

Jon has always been kind in his comments and encouragement on my writing. Some years ago, I saw that he was heading to an ACLU awards dinner that featured some fashionable left-wing keynoter who didn’t seem truly concerned with freedom. I asked why he was going to the ACLU event.

Jon replied, “So that somebody will care when government agents take us away.”

Hearing that line from someone whose father vanished in the Gulag makes it impossible to forget.

Happy birthday, Jon, and thanks for all you’ve done for freedom for 60+ years!

Check out the documentary, “Return To the Gulag,” about Jon’s search for his father here.

Reconstructing the New York Times

Just a thought: the editor of the New York Times is a Southerner for the first time since Howell Raines, and the editor of the New York Times Magazine, while not technically from the South, was educated in Virginia and has spent most of his career in Texas. In any case, Silverstein’s hiring has been characterized as bold and slightly exotic; a line like this is typical, “an eyebrow-raising choice that brings a bit of Southwestern swagger to a position traditionally held by New York media insiders.”

Richard Fossey also hopes the elevation of Baquet, who is from New Orleans and went to Catholic school, means they’ll lighten up on the Catholic-baiting.

Then again, Richmond roots for the Yankees.

Grayson and Whittier: ‘He is Coming to Us Dead’

Do not treat him harshly, boys / It contains our darling Jack
He went away as you boys are  / This way he’s coming back
He broke his poor old mother’s heart / Her fears have all come true
She said, it’s the way that he’d come back  / If he joined the boys in blue

A bit of down-home peacenikery from the famous fiddle-guitar duo. I love the jawing at the end — “a lotta them come back that way too!”

The collection of sides the pair recorded is online. Song by Gussie Lord Davis, 1899.

Nicholas Wade vs. the anthropologists

This sort of thing has a lot to do with why, if I could do it over again, I wouldn’t have bothered with anthropology. Reading a review like Jon Marks on A Troublesome Inheritance, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that refusing to consider the implications of Wade’s argument has everything to do with protecting the academic turf anthropologists have carved out, and nothing to do with scientific inquiry or truth.

It would be one thing if Marks just thought Wade was wrong; he’s a geneticist (as is Greg Cochran, who was also unnerved by some of the sources), Wade isn’t. But he doesn’t even bother to argue with the thing, he just calls it “idiocy,” “fundamentally anti-intellectual,” and “as crassly anti-science as any work of climate-change denial or creationism.”

If you’re paying attention, Marks tells us what this is actually about: “Wade’s book is of a piece with a long tradition of disreputable attempts to rationalize visible class distinctions by recourse to invisible natural properties.”

What really chaps the good professor’s ass is that Wade has violated political dogmas, not scientific ones — because genetics itself, to Marks, is a political dogma. I’m not exaggerating.

Note that the review also appears in a labor rag. And that he once tried to get someone fired over Wade’s invitation to speak at a Leakey Foundation audience on one of his earlier books. And that Savage Minds has declared war on A Troublesome Inheritance, in between unbelievably stupid posts about anthropologists as “scholarly hipsters.”

Further Reading

The AAA debate between Wade and Agustín Fuentes is online, and can be streamed here. It’s worth a watch. More debate here, and here’s Steve Sailer’s old piece on reading Marks’ Human Biodiversity: Genes, Race, and History.

I also can’t resist linking to this epic rant from A.J. West back in January on why he regrets studying socio-cultural anthropology:

I want to emphasise that I am not in any way a political conservative and I don’t oppose the social and political aims that have become entrenched parts of anthropology departments.  But I don’t think those aims are what anthropology is about, I don’t think obscurantist pseudo-philosophy is a good way to achieve them, and I don’t think writing obscure academic texts about how humans are now trans-human feminist cyborgs empowers minority groups or the working class, or achieves any worthwhile aim in any sphere of human activity.