The Conservative within

The schizoid ideology of the left and right leave me confused. The right believes in individual responsibility, but wants keys to my bedroom door. The left believes in personal freedom but wants to mitigate consequences for every bad decision I make.

Unfortunately for the left, without consequences there are no rational incentives. Even worse for the left, they will have to watch as a few generations are wasted, because it takes that long for consequences to take root and modify behavior.

Unfortunately for the right, bad things happen to good people. Even worse for the right, there is benefit for the entire society if together we provide opportunity for individuals, and not doing so guarantees decline for the very society that provides for their wealth.

I ran across three articles in rapid succession today in the New York Times. The first was a mild little piece on free will. The second was a Krugman opinion on opportunity. The third was about what the right gets right ("That ought to be a short one," snort my snotty leftist friends).

That they snort is part of the problem. Because the right snorts back, the argument becomes one of finger pointing and probing for vulnerability. If neither side is willing to listen, we have a shout down, no progress and everybody goes to bed angry.

One place where idealogues might find common ground, albeit a long way from where each sits, is around the concept of opportunity: America has some, used to have more, and needs as much as she can get.

Opportunity is the life force, opportunity is the dream that creates the energy, opportunity is the engine that pulls the train to a higher standard of living.

I believe the left and the right have a vested interest in creating opportunity. This starts with education in America, which has fallen to an abysmal state. The right blames the left for polluting the classroom with polemic and letting it become a sinecure for mediocrity. The left blames the right, for shunting education onto a side street in pursuit of the perfect consumer.

To fix this, the left has to quit trying to be everything for everybody and accept that there are consequences, often nasty ones, for certain behaviors, including failure by students as well as teachers in the classroom.

The right has to give up the idea that they have no stake in what happens to others, accept that a world of gated communities of the spirit will ruin the environment for everybody. We have to fund more than just police and fire departments.

I don't want to talk about income inequality in and of itself. I don't find inequality by itself to be a sin, nor do I hate other people's money as so many on the left seem to do. But if inequality perpetuates itself through an inheritocracy, it damages opportunity. We need to do what we need to do so that a farm boy in Idaho can share the same dream as a street kid in Buffalo. Then we might see a reversal of America's decline.

We spend more per capita on education than any other nation and we do so poorly. We spend more than any nation on health care and it is pretty lousy. So money, by itself, is not the answer here, and everyone has to accept there are limits to what we can spend.

But it is unAmerican to accept that this is the best we can do, and accept the status quo. If we continue this path, and if "We the People" do not believe there is opportunity, if not for themselves but for their children, they will get angry and will want to take it back, by ballot or by bullet.

Shut up, Peter

Oregon's Peter DeFazio has always been a loose canon, to be sure, and often off target. But he threatens the interests of those who agree with him when he gets it as wrong as he did yesterday.

Introducing Barak Obama, Defazio said of John McCain: "He says we need less regulation," said DeFazio in his introduction of Obama. "Hello! Wall Street mortgage meltdown, Bear Stearns taxpayer bailout, Enron, but, you know, I guess maybe for a guy who was up to his neck in the Keating Five and savings and loan scandal less regulation is better."

Defazio's ignorance of economics is striking. Especially for a member of congress who was in office during each of these issues, even if in the minority party.

Let's deal with Bear Stearns. The Fed did not "bail out" Bear Stearns, which was sold to another company for what, $10 per share and ceased to exist. Investors and employees of Bear Stearns got creamed. That's not a bail out.

By facilitating the sale for pennies on the dollar, the fed did make sure that those who had dealt with Bear Stearns were able to have contracts honored. This in turn helped others know that contracts would be honored. This probably kept the entire banking system from freezing up at a time when there were some serious concerns.

That's the problem with liberals Like DeFazio who are ignorant of economics: They are willing to destroy a system and ruin lives for the sake of their ideology.

Enron? A company run amuck. But as any cop or District Attorney will tell you, sometimes you can't prevent crime, you have to punish it. Especially true when the laws are gray, the economy is changing. There will always be bad guys willing to scam the system.

The American people voted in a president and especially a vice president willing to collude with Enron. Enron too, blew up, evaporated, died. The company got caught, ceased to exist (corporate capial punishment?) accounting standards improved, federal laws were passed.

Pre-regulation may have helped, but it may also have come at a cost even greater than that finally paid. It would have been even worse if great minds in economics like Peter Defazio were in charge.

The mortgage mess? Mr. Defazio, we need transcripts of all the speeches you made identifying the problems with mortgage backed securities and other derivatives when the asset bubble began in real estate. Thank you.

In the mean time, others will be analyzing the actual issues and crafting the minimum laws, probably reserve requirements for investment banks and greater disclosure, needed to deal with it.

Defazio helps no one when he shoots off his mouth, and his tendency toward self-righteousness makes him one of the less effective members of Congress. But right now, it could hurt the best candidate for president the left has had in a generation.

Shut up, Peter.

Obama in '08.