10 Things I Think I Think: Politics

1. Gallup: "The increased conservatism that Gallup first identified among Americans last June persisted throughout the year, so that the final year-end political ideology figures confirm Gallup's initial reporting: conservatives (40%) outnumbered both moderates (36%) and liberals (21%) across the nation in 2009." Personally, I doubt whether 1 in 100 of the self-identified conservatives could name more than 1 in 10 of The Conservative Principles. But I'm feeling grumpy today.
2. I still think Bush 43 pissed away the conservative moment. But the great thing about time, is that there's always a new moment right around the corner.
3. Entrusting to the economy to Chris Dodd by having him take over as Secretary of the Treasury, would be like asking Beavis and Butthead to run the space program. The dude's an empty suit who's spent the last few decades spouting whatever the bankers who bought him told him to say.
4. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is considered a likely replacement for Chris Dodd as Connecticut's next Senator. It's just possible that he'd be even worse than Chris Dodd. certainl;y, our friends over at Overlawyered aren't very fond of him.
5. Hotline: "A poll of GOP insiders suggests that ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has little support among the party's professional class -- and maybe that's just how she wants it." In related news: "Palin is making at least $75,000 and at most $100,000 for her speech" for her speech to the Tea Party convention." Why? I doubt Palin could name 1 in 10 of The Conservative Principles. I really just don't understand why she's so popular.
6. Simple Justice: "As hard as it may be to imagine, the most significant force against the reform of failed criminal justice programs have been the unions, and the politicians who depend on them for financing, representing prison guards." Actually, it's not hard to believe at all. Out here in California, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has been one of the biggest obstacles to reforming our absurd three strikes and mandatory minimum laws.
7. Paul Caron links discussions of whether higher taxes will cause wealthy people to emigrate from the US. I'm wondering: Suppose I decided to retire in Costa Rica so as to avoid the confiscatory taxes that Obamacare and ObamaStimulus will impose on us in the coming decades. P{resumably I could transfer all of my defined contribution retirement funds to foreign funds that will be outside US tax jurisdiction. But what do I do about my US-based UC defined benefit plan? Will the US be able to tax it even if I'm living in Costa Rica? I wonder if Paul will give me some free tax advice.
8. Eric Posner: "Many of us said during the days of the Bush administration that restrictions on civil liberties motivated by the conflict with Al Qaeda would be maintained during any subsequent administration, whether Democratic or Republican, as long as the terrorist threat remained.  This prediction has been amply confirmed."
9. In response to proposals to regulate credit cards, Geoffrey Manne opines that "incessant claims that consumers are idiots, fooled time and again by rapacious capitalists, [are] tiresome."
10.  Melanie Reid: "Snow, I’m now convinced, brings out the inner Tory in all of us. In extreme situations, when forced to decide where shifting responsibilities lie, most of us revert to a doctrine that could be best be described as pragmatic, old-shires, compassionate Conservatism ...."

Comments

[save_the_rustbelt]

Bush did more than piss away the conservative movement, he left us in bad shape probably for a generation.

Sarah Palin? I've been a registered Republican for 40 years but that could finally change. What a goofball.

The current leaders of the GOP remind me of the days when some in the GOP were calling Dwight Eisenhower a communist - the low IQ squad.

Too many conservatives (and libertarians) bitch incessantly about the government until they need the fire department or the police, then they become fervent advocates of government.

[C.E. Petit]

5: Palin is popular because she's not balding, grey-haired, or associated with the Bush family.

9. Professor Manne obviously hasn't met enough of them; Mencken was an optimist ("Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public"). I've actually heard the "I must still have money, because I still have checks" excuse uttered in all seriousness by aircraft mechanics in the AVF... more than once.

[Taeyoung]

"I really just don't understand why she's so popular."

I think it's probably cultural, more than anything about her particular policies or abilities. She's the most clearly and unashamedly middle-class national politician I've seen in the US -- she's not a toff, like Gore, Kerry, Bush I, Bush II, Dean, etc.; and she's not a mandarin from an elite educational system like Obama (posh prep school + Ivies) or Clinton (Ivies). A lot of middle-class people who feel like that privileged, Ivy-educated class screwed up the economy massively as revealed in the 2008 crash and is now screwing up government massively under Obama probably look to her as a kind of tribune of the middle class, a representative of their values and common-sense, as contrasted with the airy ideology and theory that drive the elite. But I think there's also a lot of projection there, more or less in the same way people projected their fantasies onto Obama in 2007-2008, and have spent 2009 getting mugged by reality. She'd be an immense disappointment to her supporters if she became President, I expect.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I've read Kirk's principles before, and I agree with most of them, but a few minutes ago I couldn't have named any of them off the top of my head.

A better question would be how many of Kirk's principles would Palin agree with, or if you asked her to outline her own principles, how many of those would line up with Kirk's.

The ability to parrot theory doesn't impress me even slightly.

[-]

Sorry Prof Bainbridge, Palin's popular because she mirrors the conservative base. I'm not sure how any intelligent Republican/conservative can support their party when they throw out Bush Jr. and then someone like Palin. Seems like a slap in the face to intelligence.