Safeguards against Tyranny

The recent Boumedienne opinion from the Supreme Court corrects another folly of the Bush regime: holding captive men who were suspected of being terrorists or combatants with no proof that they were such. This means that some dangerous individuals are likely to be released due to insufficient evidence against them, which is a price we can and must pay. Sometimes there is evidence that they had planned to become combatants (letters or email messages saying so, for example). Practically, it is difficult to find sufficient evidence in many cases; and a further difficulty arises in the form of evidence that may be decisive, but threatens national security if provided to the court.

However, the Bush administration's solution of arbitrarily imprisoning anyone who in their unsupervised and unaccountable opinion might pose a risk to America is not a defensible proposition--as the Supreme Court finally indicated. Without this judicial check upon executive authority we give the President the option to exercise tyrannical power. In fact, this is the very definition of tyranny: unchecked executive authority. Contra Bush, we must exchange this exacerbated risk of tyranny for the certain contingency of facing some of the released prisoners on the battlefield. Of course, a further benefit to doing justice is that a competent public relations machine will ensure that we are also seen to be doing it.

I would define my position as intelligence reinforced by skepticism, spiced with some misanthropy. I do not trust our government; nor do I trust the people running it. I never have and I never will. Consequently, I favor the imposition of transparency and accountability upon government actions and agents whenever this is practical.

Some might reject the Court's decision as too charitable to our enemies. But, in terms of altruistic sacrifice for our principles--is it simply altruism? By flaunting its brutality and injustices, the Bush administration encourages anti-American sentiment around the world, and even at home. This costs lives, and not only money and power. Apparently, the critics adopt a more cynical perspective on this issue and assume that our actions and our image in the world have no impact upon this anti-American sentiment. I am not so pessimistic as to believe that we have no control over international perceptions of America. And such perceptions, among our allies and our enemies, absolutely matter. They matter economically, militarily, politically, culturally--and their importance increases apace as the world becomes ever more interconnected and interdependent.

Romney on Detroit

His prescription runs counter to mine, and he fails to answer my main objection to bankruptcy: it will frighten off too many customers for the automakers to survive. Otherwise, he makes an intelligent argument. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html?_r=1&hp

The Question of Climatic Certainty

I've long said that the climate system is only partially understood--and, due to the complexity of it, the number of unknown variables and unknown interactions among them--it will never be fully understood. Mathematical theory makes it sufficiently clear that some problems are insoluble. This is one of them. But, finding the precise answer and estimating an approximation to it are different challenges. The former will never be possible, since it is prevented by mathematical laws (which tend not change)--however, an approximation appears to be possible even now. On climate change, thousands of scientists have invested several decades of effort to generate these approximations. In response, we ought to undertake such actions as are justified by their assessed accuracy and by the risk level they foretell.

Detroit's Sinking Fleet

The best option to handle the Big Three would probably be for the federal government to negotiate serious concessions in return for some type of bailout. Those concessions would include major environmental advances (higher fuel economy, recyclability of vehicles, intensified research, possibly obligations to pursue other transportation priorities like electric streetcars), new management (preferably a combination of private equity managers, venture capitalists, and engineers), a non-voting equity stake for the government, renegotiation of the union contract to bring their wages down to market-competitive levels (along the lines of Reagan's negotiation with the air traffic controllers' union). Bankruptcy would cause major defections to other automakers to avoid the risk of owning a car made by a defunct company (which would kill resale value and increase repair costs). Bankruptcy would be a circle sufficiently vicious to kill off at least one or two of them. This would accelerate and perpetuate the recession to little positive purpose.

Biden the Clown

We've had a lot of politicians with communication issues recently. Biden talks faster than he can think, Bush gets lost in the forbidding jungles of English syntax, Slick Willy lies compulsively, Obama pauses to emit at least 3 ahs or ums before he can finish a given sentence, Palin has such poor apprehension of rhetorical evasions as to provide the public with several clear views of her ignorance, and McCain was once so naive as to actually try to tell the truth while running for public office.

Ergo, either the talent tends to avoid politics or in politics the scum rises to the top.

Health Costs

The fundamental problem in the health system is a gross misalignment of incentives. Neither the patient nor the doctor directly bears the burden of the medical expenses they incur. Consequently, their incentive to minimize the expense, or at least to recognize the notion of a cost-benefit trade-off, is heavily diluted. The failure to recognize a cost-benefit paradigm by juries at malpractice trials also distorts incentives and causes doctors and patients to demand too many medical services. Socialization will not correct this incentive issue; instead of a better alignment of incentives, it will only create a different misalignment.

Given the pace and nature of technological advance in this field (which is the prime cause of the vast increase in health costs) over the last few decades, assuming technology fails to provide any significant countervailing trends that reduce costs (eg, automation), America is on a path to becoming a well-armed nursing home.

But, we should bear in mind that we are by far the greatest source of innovation in this tremendously important field. And a vital part of this competitive advantage is clearly attributable to the element of private sector profit-seeking. This innovation benefits America enormously and its influence in the world is actually one of the greatest practical forms of American philanthropy. The two primary costs of socialization (and financial realities make this virtually inevitable sometime in the next 20 years) that we should seek to minimize are the diminution of personal liberty and the slow death of the culture of innovation.