Quick Roundup 58

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Bad Premises Drive out Good

Dick Morris, an often astute political observer, has been giving the Republicans bad advice lately about high oil prices. He partially explains why in this recent column.

All voters say that [the price of gas] is set by oil companies by 52 percent to 42 percent; Republicans say that the energy companies set the price by 49-43.

Thus there is a fundamental disjuncture between what Republican politicians and policy types think is at work in the escalation of gas prices and what the voters think is happening.

And also different answers. GOP politicians, and White House operatives, try to address the gas price issue by encouraging increased oil production -- drilling in Alaska, off shore, under the bed. Indeed, Democrats also look at supply and demand -- though they emphasize conservation, slow driving and increasing fuel-efficiency standards for cars.

But most voters don't buy into either end of the supply/demand equation as the explanation for high prices. For them, it's just the oil companies ripping us off. So, in the view of the American people, the pols' market-oriented remedies miss the point. [bold added]
Based on this, Morris urges Bush to take the lead in making our country less dependent on oil.

I wonder what Morris would advise politicians to do if a poll found that a majority of voters thought the earth was flat....

Morris's basic error is to take the misconceptions of voters as a primary, and advise politicians to run for elections by pandering to these errors. Damn the long-range consequences.

This causes Morris and many politicians to miss the big picture, and thus a big opportunity to win more than just the next election, and to affect real change in government policy for the long haul.

Why not try presenting facts, and making an articulate case for policies that will actually work? Graphs like this (HT: Cox and Forkum), more focused conduct of the war, and a coherent case against environmental regulations would help.

Voters are tired of Republicans and Democrats trying to outdo each other on how involved they can get the government in their lives. Why not instead point out how years of foreign appeasement and environmentalist regulations have caused our fuel prices -- not that they are all that high once inflation is accounted for -- to skyrocket recently? And why not respond by promising a more vigorously-fought war abroad, and less -- not more -- government interference in the energy sector?

Sounds somewhat Reaganesque to me. Oh! But didn't that guy win an election or two?

Of course, I see the deeper problem as philosophical, as the acceptance, by many Americans, of the idea that that the government ought to be involved in the economy. But even in the culture as it is, I think a more principled campaign than Morris advocates could still win an election.

Prager Ignores History

Dennis Prager on why we need to name our current war more accurately:
Karsh defines imperialism as "conquering foreign lands and subjugating their populations." Whenever possible, Muslims from the time of Muhammad have done that. Now, the Church also subjugated peoples to Christianity, and Europe suffered from prolonged religious wars. But as Karsh notes, from its inception, Christianity acknowledged a separation of the religious and the political, rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's and to G-d what is G-d's.

No such division was allowed for in Islam. That is why the nation-state developed in the Christian world but not in the Muslim world.
Has this man ever heard of the Divine Right of Kings, or of a certain obscure early Christian named "Saint Augustine" for that matter? And as for why the secular nation-state developed in the Christian world, it was after years of bloody persecution caused precisely by religious involvement in the state that people realized that the best way to prevent future occurrences was to end such involvement.

The more I read Prager, the clearer it is to me that he either is a total ignoramus or a very dishonest man.

Bush to feed "Palestinians" ...

... until they self-detonate, I suppose. This just makes me sick.
Yielding to pressure from its allies, the Bush administration endorsed a European proposal on Tuesday to increase aid to the Palestinian territories, including money that could pay the salaries of some civil servants working under Hamas. [link dropped]
So much for Bush making the Hamastani people face the consequences for choosing sides against America during a war.

Venezuela: Russia's New Client State

Reader Hannes Hacker sent me a link pertaining to why it has suddenly become hard for American gun enthusiasts to buy ammunition for AK-47s.
According to [an ammo dealer]: Syria ordered a billion rounds from Russia, and Venezuela ordered the same number. So that doesn't leave much to be sold to us lousy capitalists in the U.S.
Thinking there would be some sort of oil deal with Russia, I did some googling and found that to indeed be the case -- but with a twist!
Due to the growing gap between Venezuela's declining domestic output and its expanding contractual obligations to international customers, Venezuela's government made a $2 billion deal with Russia to start buying 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Russia this month until the end of the year. [bold added]
It seems that Hugo Chavez, through his own mismanagement, might not have to do anything to carry out his occasional threats to cut off oil to "Mr. Danger", as he calls President Bush! According to the first link above, The Financial Times has stated that, PDVSA's "oil output has declined by about 60 per cent, a trend analysts say has accelerated in the past year because of poor technical management."

So I am left with similar questions to Firehand's: How will Venezuela pay for its ammo? Or its imported oil?

-- CAV

Updates

5-11-06: Correction: The output of PDVSA, the state-owned oil company of Venezuela (as opposed to that of the entire country) dropped by 60%.

3 comments:

Gideon said...

Hmm... perhaps I was too generous to Prager in my own commentary. Still, I think Prager has a point in that supporters of church/state separation within Christianity can at least point to the "render unto Ceasar" passage as evidence that the religion does not have to be linked to the state, whereas I don't think the equivalent exists in the Koran. Of course, in practice and in history, as you point out, that didn't seem to stop anyone.

Anonymous said...

I have noticed that many Christians (and Jews as well) are not seeing the savagery of muslims as an indictment of religion (how could they and be consistent?). But instead are seeing this as an indictiment of Islam alone. The arguments they are using can be misleading because they do have some validity. For example they will argue that Islam's founder and chief role model was a conqueror and murderer (as well as a pedophile) whereas Christianity's prophet was a martyr and a peaceful man. This for them is one important reason why Muslims can be so violent while most Christians aren't.

As I say, I think that there are many good points in these comparitive religious arguments but they all overlook (willingly) the neccessary connection between faith and force. For example, read the comments on any of the better conservative sites; LGF, Jihad Watch, etc. Or even read the comments of Jason Papas' Liberty and Culture blog. They will go on for pages discussing the details of Mohammed's life (peace be with him) and the history of Islam's conquests (which cover 1400 years). But then you'll read how Christianity has come to "co-exist" with the Enlightenment influenced West. The arguments are all Christian apologist in essence. Prager is just one example.

D. Eastbrook

Gus Van Horn said...

Gideon,

You do have a point, in that the Christians at least concede that church and state ought to be separate.

Your blog entry -- on the same column! -- is good, although I would say that where Prager claims that the different Christian sects differ on many important points, he is wrong. They all agree on the same, most fundamental point: that faith is the primary means of knowledge. In fact, since faith tells no one anything, they end up differing on many points since they all ultimately argue nothing and posit everything arbitrarily.

Ultimately, I think we're in agreement on that, but differ in our estimations of Prager as a man, something for which there is arguably room for debate. For starters, now that I think of it: Is it all that reasonable to expect a Jew to know about Saint Augustine?

One thing Prager said that I like is that Jews don't need the whole world to be Jewish. Indeed, I don't care whether everyone is Objectivist -- so long as they respect my rights. But that seems a tall order for many these days.

D.,

Your point is well-taken, and is the main reason many incorrectly see this as a religious war between Christians and Moslems and not between the fundamentally religious outlook and the secular.
Gus