I’m not a fan of John Derbyshire, but his column entitled The Election From Hell pretty much sums up how I feel.

So, Glenn Greenwald, having apparently been in a stupor all his life, has just noticed that U.S. government policies don’t reflect the opinions of the majority of the U.S. people. As an example, he cites U.S policy towards Israel. However, he could have chosen immigration, taxation, or pretty much any other issue. Why he is surprised, I don’t know. First, in a republic, the government will never accurately reflect the direct will of the people. That’s inherent in the design of the system of representation. Secondly, he misses the fact that what is important is not opinion, but commitment. Commitment means that you give money, organize and vote around an opinion. And it is commitment that moves policy, not opinion. Most people have opinions on many issues, but they have commitment towards far fewer.

If Greenwald would bother to do some reading, he would find that his startling new discovery about the power of small, committed groups of people to mold policy was first made about 3,000 years ago. More recently, about 200 years ago, this power was a major concern of the founding fathers of the U.S. when they designed our government. Indeed, James Madison wrote an entire essay on the problem of these “factions,’ which he defined as:

“a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

I’d suggest Greenwald read this essay, but he’s probably too busy blogging about his startling new discovery of how the checks and balances of the U.S. governmental system makes real change hard.

UPDATE: Major mess-up, I wrote Reynolds instead of Greenwald when I originally wrote this piece. Thanks Dag for pointing out my mistake.

Normally, I don’t comment on Sullivan, because he is so philosophically incoherent, but I can’t resist this one time. In Misreading Obama, he makes the common mistake of thinking nostalgia is conservatism. Obama’s idealization of village markets is as bad as the 19th century critics of British industrialization who used to go on about the joys of English village life. Nostalgia is a longing for an ideal that never was. Conservatism is a reluctance to make cultural changes that have uncertain outcomes. True, a lot of conservatives suffer from nostalgia, but that doesn’t make them identical.

If you are ever inclined to ignore government corruption, just think about these poor parents in China. Their children were killed in shoddily constructed schools during the recent earthquake, and they have no chance of getting any justice.

If you really want to understand this year’s election, read this piece in the London Review of Books by David Runciman. As Runciman points out, the election has essentially broken down by demographics. This is no surprise, because that is how politics always works. The number of people who vote on reason is amazingly small. Moreover, everyone is suspicious of the few people who do so, because they appear to have no group loyalty. I’d get depressed, but there’s no point.

I’m boycotting the Beijing Olympics and I urge everyone else to join in doing so. And, join the Facebook Group.

Today is Trent Lott Appreciation Day. According to The Mississippi Press, it’s a “well-deserved honor.” They also note:

Today’s honors may not be as fancy as receptions held in Washington, D.C., but it is very likely Lott is among more friends here.

It’s hard to argue with that. On a related note, January 24th was National Compliment Day.

As always, I urge a write-in vote for William Howard Taft. A policy of trust-busting, dollar diplomacy, an increase in the corporate income tax, and strong tariffs is just what the times demand! It was right in 1908, and it’s right in 2008. So, get out and vote!

I normally avoid political discussions. But, after reading Terry Chay’s post on Ron Paul, I felt compelled to post something. I sympathise with Terry’s frustration with doctrinaire libertarians. Like unreconstructed Marxists, their insistence on finding the solution to all problems in a single principle is a relic of the nineteenth century: a time when the idea of a scientific explanation of society was new enough to excuse this reductionism. Like Marxism, Libertarianism is an excusable enthusiasm in the young, but at some point we all have to grow up. As Terry points out, we have had over one hundred years of development in economics since the nineteenth century, and libertarianism ignores all of them.

In the past, I have compared Ron Paul to Cato the Younger, and I still believe the comparison apt. Like Cato, Paul has never compromised, even when it would have cost him little. It was Cicero’s judgment that Cato’s unwavering commitment to principle did as much, if not more, to destroy the Roman Republic as it contributed to the effort to save it. Similarly, Paul’s intransigence has harmed his cause even as it has led to an unprecedented (for Libertarianism) success. I have no doubt that, should Paul, by some miracle, be elected, he would be an ineffective president. Yet, despite this, as you have probably already noticed, I have a Ron Paul banner in the right-hand column of my blog.

The reason that banner is there is that I believe all politics is contingent: when the house is burning down you don’t advocate pouring on more gasoline. The United States is on a path to bankruptcy, the dollar is debased, and continued foreign interventionism is supported by every major candidate. Paul is the only candidate whose positions would do anything to address these problems. So, in the rather vain hope that he might possibly influence the future path of the country, he has my support.

If you want to know why Ron Paul is the best candidate in the race today, just read “Pimp My Ride” by Tucker Carlson. Tucker spent a couple of days on the road with Ron, and liked what he saw.