How to Lose Friends and Not Influence People

That's the title of this piece by Elliott Abrams regarding the U.S. handling of the current vote at the U.N. Security Council regarding Israel and the peace process.  If you haven't been following, the Palestinian Authority pushed for a resolution condemning Israel for building settlements, not negotiating, etc., etc.; the Obama Administration wanted to preserve its "no-veto" record, so it refused to commit to vetoing that statement, while trying to work out a compromise; partially because of their refusal to publicly declare whether or not they would veto, it came to a vote; and sure enough, it passed, but the U.S. vetoed the resolution.  Abrams takes the administration to task for their handling of the situation, saying, "Its poor handling of the entire episode has left just about everyone angry at the United States , and is therefore a manifest failure of American diplomacy."  I understand his position.

But I don't agree with it.

Abrams never addresses the root cause of why everyone is mad at us.  I agree that it could have been handled better, but there's another alternative:  support the resolution.  Everything that was put forth in it is true, and Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., excoriated Israel in a statement after the proceedings.  Why don't we just support the resolution, gain a world of respect from the rest of the world, and let Israel console themselves with a few billion in aid money?  I really think the administration underperformed here, but not for the reasons Abrams suggests.

As an aside, Obama's record on foreign policy should be judged on issues like this, where he has some control, and not Egypt, where he has almost no input.

Over-regulation

It's nuts what people have to go through to get professional licenses.  I understand some of them, but others?  Why should people have to be a certified barber?  I went to a new haircut place on the recommendation of my father-in-law the other day.  After I made the mistake of saying I'd like the first available stylist, my father-in-law said, "Oh, you don't want her" as he pointed out the girl nearest us.  Sure enough, I got her, and sure enough, I got a bad haircut and a mediocre experience.  I have no doubt that she was licensed to cut hair, but I won't be going back, regardless.  

I was in Florida a couple months ago when the Orlando Sentinel ran a story about a raid the cops conducted on unlicensed barbershops.  Some had other illegal activity going on (mostly misdemeanor possession, that sort of thing), but the majority of them simply didn't have a license.  Crazy.

Here's a couple of articles that sparked this rant:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703445904576118030935929752.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/02/occupational-licensing-out-of-control.html

(The second article references the first.)

"The Big Short" and "Griftopia"

In the last two weeks, I finished both Matt Taibbi's Griftopia and Michael Lewis' The Big Short.  Though both dealt largely with the financial crisis of 2007-8, they are very different books.  Lewis focuses his story on the people who knew something was wrong, and placed their bets accordingly, while Taibbi paints a broader picture of the things that are wrong with America.  

I liked The Big Short a lot more.  It wasn't the best book I've read, but it was technical, morally objective, and informative.  It really justs tells the story, and lets you decide if the characters are the good guys because their bets should have (in theory) forced the big banks to look more closely at the loans and derivatives they were selling, or if they're the bad guys because their bets are part of what caused the banks to run out of cash in 2007 and 2008.  Lewis' writing focused on the people who were doing it, but also took the time to explain the derivatives well.  I highly recommend it.

Griftopia was different.  I'm not sure if it was a collection of articles, but it was written like it.  Every chapter dealt with a different way Americans are getting the shaft, and while I never really disagreed with what he was writing (with the possible exception of monopolies, both in commodity trading and the insurance markets) he sure managed to annoy me.  Taibbi writes like he knows everything, and has all the answers; he uses profanity freely to describe anyone who he doesn't agree with.  (Lewis uses it occasionally, but mostly in quotes; I'm not really offended by profanity, but it seems like Taibbi could have been a bit more creative and not made the f-bomb his go-to insult.)  I also think that Taibbi suffers from a logical fallacy in one of his main thrusts:  as he argues over and over again that regulatory agencies (especially the Federal Reserve and Alan Greenspan) hold the American economy hostage, he still calls for more regulatory oversight and derides Tea Party affiliates as "teabaggers".  Admittedly, I see less need for government intervention than many, but if you devote page after page to the conspiracies between government officials who rotate into lobbying positions or come from the upper levels of Wall Street firms, perhaps your call for more regulation is not the answer.  Taibbi's book will serve to arouse your sense of justice, and I think the stories he tells are fair criticisms (or more) of the American system.  But he falls short of offering any sort of solution that will work.   

What I'm Reading

Diarmid MacCulloch's Christianity:  The First Three Thousand Years.  It's more of an intellectual history, I would say -- not that he skimps on the action, but MacCulloch is fascinated by the undercurrents of theological ideas, especially among those that had a wide acceptance but later were ignored or deemed heretical.  He also gives a lot of time to the Eastern churches -- not even the Orthodox, necessarily, but those who were left out by the Council of Chalcedon in 431.  He doesn't seem to be a "believer", to use the term commonly in parlance in evangelical circles, but, as the son of an Anglican priest, is sympathetic to Christianity and seems to get the overall message correct.  I'm about halfway through (Constantinople has just been taken over by the Ottomans).

Matt Taibbi's Griftopia.  Interesting writer, and a complex subject.  Taibbi does a great job of capturing the public mood after the meltdown in 2008, and often (rightly, in my opinion) points out what the government (especially Alan Greenspan) did to screw things up.  I'm not sure how he makes the leap to discrediting the Tea Party, though, given how badly he admits the government messed up.  Maybe he explains it at the end; I'm only a quarter of the way done.

Personal Responsibility

On my facebook today, I posted a link to satirical "poll results" about who was responsible for the shooting in Arizona.  While obviously not real, the "results" ran:  43% -- Sarah Palin; 34% -- the Tea Party; 21% -- Jared Loughner's favorite video, "Bodies" by Drowning Pool; 2% -- Jared Loughner.  I posted it because, as lefties blame the Tea Party (despite the fact that Jared Loughner loved "Mein Kampf" and "The Communist Manifesto", not exactly high on most libertarian reading lists) and moralists blame social corruption (despite the fact that violence, political or otherwise, remains relatively rare in our culture), what I don't hear being discussed is the existence of evil, or personal responsibility.  

What Jared Loughner did was evil.  Period.  We can discuss whether it was due to a chemical imbalance in his brain, but Jared Loughner is the one ultimately responsible.  We can discuss what the appropriate punishment should be, but he should bear the punishment.  

I read in the news today that Rep. Giffords' brother-in-law said that "we can do better" as a society in preventing these attacks.  (To see the remarks in context, click here, and scroll about halfway through the story.)  At the risk of sounding pessimistic, I'm not sure that we can.  There will always be evil among us, always be people who lash out in irrational ways against society.  Perhaps better gun laws would help (even as a libertarian, I'll admit that Arizona sorta freaks me out in this regard).  Perhaps better reporting and treatment of mental illness would help.  But shifting the blame of the attack from the attacker (Jared Loughner) to the attacked (American society) is wrong.