Political Philosophy

Subsidized Light Rail and Reactionary Politics

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Jim Miller has an excellent post on Portland, Oregon’s mass-transit boondoggles, and on the religious zeal and overarching intrusiveness of the Pacific Northwest’s political class in support of wasteful programs that most local citizens don’t want:

Some may wonder why I call Seattle reactionary. That seems obvious to me, but may not be to others, especially those on the left. On the whole, the political class in Seattle wants the races to be treated differently, is fond of 19th century technology, such as trollies and light rail, and generally wants to manage every detail of a citizen’s life. All of these, especially the last, are very old ideas. In fact, the last idea goes back to ancient Sumeria. I think it is fair to call their support for outmoded ideas, ideas that have not met the test of time, reactionary.

Worth reading in full.

Down in the Gutter With $30,600 a Year Plus Benefits

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The recent kerfuffle over the middle-class family of Graeme Frost who can’t “afford” medical insurance got me to thinking: Why do we think it unfair that some people must pay rather a lot for medical insurance?

Bonnie Frost works for a medical publishing firm; her husband, Halsey, is a woodworker. They are raising their four children on combined income of about $45,000 a year. Neither gets health insurance through work. Having priced private insurance that would cost more than their mortgage – about $1,200 a month – they continue to rely on the government program

Why do we as society seem to feel that a family who makes $45,000 should not have to accept the loss of lifestyle that paying $14,400 a year for medical insurance would entail?

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Ideology and Adaptation

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I’ve never been one for ideological purity.

For one thing, ideologies represents only imperfect models for how reality works and no real-world model will ever cover all contingencies. So always, in the back of my mind, I look at any given ideology and wonder, “What circumstances will this ideology not account for? When will it work best and when will it not?”

More importantly, though, the science of biology influences all my thinking. In biology, a strategy succeeds based on how well it adapts (from the latin for “to fit”) to the immediate environment. What works for a penguin in the Antarctic won’t work for a camel in the Sahara.

Of course, we don’t like to think of our ideologies as specific adaptations to specific environments. We prefer to think of them as eternal truths that remain the best choices in all times, places and circumstances. We look at solutions that worked in the past and think they will work now. We look at solutions that work now and think they would have worked at some arbitrary point in the past.

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Sharansky Still Gets It

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Few western public officials understand the current geopolitical situation, and especially the rationale for promoting democracy in the Muslim world, as well as Sharansky does. Of those who do understand, I don’t think any can explain things as clearly as he can.

There’s a quite good interview with him now in the Jerusalem Post:

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A Reflection on Watching Krauthammer

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The USA sent Canada its draft dodgers. In exchange, Canada sends us physicians, successful entrepreneurs and other highly productive people. I’d say we have gotten the better of this exchange.