Angina Monologue 19

I woke to the sound of His Majesty cackling happily. He was up early and feeding nips to the cats.

My first thought was: He’s finally gone senile.

No such luck. He seems to have gotten over whatever has been eating him for the last couple of weeks. The malicious gleam was back in his eyes and the sharp was back in his tongue, and he attacked his breakfast kefir and porridge with positive gusto.

I believe he has been reading the financial section of the newspaper.

See here, Lord Vader. If Odin, Cthulu, the Sweet Meteor of Death, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and Donald Trump can all run for President, I don’t see why you can’t throw your helmet in the ring.

Because I would rather be skinned alive and left on an ant hill to die? *

Hmm. Inasmuch as you’re the only person I know who has actually experienced something approximating that, I foresee a problem.

If you will not run, then perhaps I will.

Angels and ministers of grace defend us.

My platform will be based on a few simple principles:

1. Equal justice under the law.

This is a significant political gamble, of course. In a mass democracy, one might do better to adopt “the greatest good for the greatest number” as one’s slogan. However,  a decisive minority of voters may recognize the quote, and Bentham’s is not an entirely happy legacy. A principle like his can easily be used to justify feeding the occasional innocent virgin to the dragon in order to protect everyone else’s livestock and crops.

I miss Caitlin Clarke, too.

One might appeal to the other fringe with “providing the greatest individual liberty consistent with respecting other’s rights.” Unfortunately, there is no agreement among voters over what constitutes a right. In the language of economics, all actions have external costs. Libertarians tend to blind themselves to external costs, while progressives tend to conflate rights with entitlements in order to exaggerate external costs — which, paradoxically, reduces the protections afforded by more traditional rights.

For example, a classical liberal would be baffled that any right-minded person could think that it was the government’s business to tell anyone in a competitive market who his customers have to be, let alone compel a baker to bake a wedding cake for a wedding that grossly violates his religious beliefs. A progressive would be baffled that any right-minded person could think that the government should not protect the right of a customer to be free from discrimination based on his sexual orientation. Of course, the classical liberal has the far better argument, particularly if one restricts rights to negative rights. But a substantial portion of the electorate, perhaps even a large majority, are unwilling to do that.

Thus, “providing the greatest individual liberty consistent with respecting other’s rights” is a vacuous statement, surprisingly devoid of objective meaning.

So it’s the perfect plank for a political platform in 21st-century America.

It also is too big a mouthful, requiring too much explanation. “Equal justice under the law” is much shorter, everyone is under the illusion that they know what it means, and the two buzzwords “equal” and “justice” more than offset the mildly negative connotations, for many voters, of “law.” The slogan has the further merit that it has a fairly objective meaning, which meaning I agree with, but it can (by assuming politically corrupted meanings for “equal” and “justice”) masquerade as having other meanings that appeal to different constituencies. For example, “justice” might be taken to mean “social justice”, which of course is anything but. “Equal” might be confused with “egalitarian”, at least if you mumble the “under the law” part, though of course equal justice under the law is the only kind of equality that we can even approximate in any realistic system of government.

Now, it may be the case that under a government promoting equal justice under the law, there will, in fact, be more of what people mean by “social justice”, and more practical equality, than under any other governing principle, but it will be because the government leaves civil society free to create these things, not because the government creates them itself. Given the current state of civil society, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Holding my breath hasn’t actually been an option for me for many years now.

2. Reality isn’t optional.

This might seem self-evident, but only if it has been some time since you have talked with an average voter for more than five minutes. Law professor Ilya Somin likes to point out that a majority of voters have polled in favor of reduced taxes, increased government services, and a balanced budget — simultaneously — since Gallup began polling in the 1930s. I could have as easily phrased this plank as “Trade-offs are inevitable” or “Government can’t do everything”, except that many a voter who nods his head at “Reality isn’t optional” actually believes that trade-offs are unnecessary and government can do just about anything.

One peril with this slogan is that there are so many realities that a majority, or at least a large minority, of the voters disbelieve. One reality is that immigrants, legal or otherwise, are not a significant drain on our economy and we will not experience an economic renaissance merely by deporting them all. The Donald’s supporters are struggling with this reality. (I have no idea whether Donald believes his own effusions.) There may be excellent reasons for getting a better handle on immigration, which I will cheerfully acknowledge on the stump, but this isn’t one of them.

Likewise, auditing the Fed will accomplish nothing but enriching a few CPAs. The notion that this will stop banks from enriching themselves at our expense is as silly as the notion that banks are enriching themselves at our expense.

At this point, His Majesty paused and fixed his bloodshot gaze on me, to see if he had provoked any reaction. He really should know better.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Bankers are, of course, always looking for ways to enrich themselves, like every other human on the planet. But no other sector of the economy is more carefully regulated. No doubt some fine tuning is in order. But the recent financial crisis was a case of the banks trying to find a way to digest a flood of junk mortgages forced on them by the government, and failing badly. You might as well get angry at your stomach for vomiting up the two-week-old potato salad you forced down.

Everyone you do business with is trying to enrich themselves at your expense. (And there is no group this is more true of than political radicals.) Adam Smith demonstrated that people trying to enrich themselves at each others’ expense typically end up enriching everyone. The beauty of it is that no good intentions are required.

Then there’s organic evolution. I have no idea why a candidate for President has to have a position on organic evolution, unless it’s because the federal government has taken far too much interest in education. The interest is unwelcome,  not because education is unimportant, but because historically the outcome of the federal government taking an interest in something has almost never been good.

I saw what you did there.

Which brings up the next point:

3. The federal government is the low-cost producer of only one good, and that good is public order.

This covers both national defense and interstate law enforcement. Uniform rules of bankruptcy, uniform weights and measures, regulation of the value of money, regulation of goods and services that actually cross state lines, fine.

This statement of a limited scope of government will appeal to those libertarians who don’t examine it too carefully. It is, of course, no statement in favor of a tiny government, as the grateful citizens of the Galactic Empire, weary of disorder until I took power, could attest.

4. You can only grow rich so fast, but poverty is quick and easy.

Voters will nod sagely while privately wondering what on earth this actually means. It is actually a call for being very conservative about what government does, because we have a lot more to lose through a misstep than we are likely to gain. Burke was right: Prudence is the cardinal virtue of statesman. Prudence is not, of course, very entertaining, so I am thinking of acquiring a disreputable mistress or taking up a dangerous hobby to create the illusion that I am the same kind of reckless, happy-go-lucky, good times Sith that every voter under 40 (and a good many older) flatter themselves as being.

This is one of the three reasons Romney succeeded in becoming the most qualified candidate for President, compared with his opponent, to ever lose the general election. Romney is completely trustworthy and completely safe, a serious impediment to high office in our celebrity culture.

I wonder if Lady Gaga is as weak-minded as she looks? It seems like a natural pairing …

5. Concentrated benefits do not justify diffuse costs, and vice versa.

I think the dragon analogy already put paid to the idea of giving modest benefits to the many if they come at a hideous cost to the few. We are justified in putting soldiers into combat and police into the inner city only because international and internal disorder are existential threats. This is also a powerful argument against too progressive a tax scheme — I intend to flatten the tax structure considerably once in office, though I’m going to be very careful how I say so from the stump.

But the opposite is also true. Two words: Crony capitalism.

This is, of course, Trump’s Achilles heel. I plant to hammer on Kelo hard. Trump as the rich man taking his neighbor’s ewe to serve up to a visiting guest will make a lively and resonant story.

At this point, His Majesty fell silent and began thoughtfully perusing the entertainment section of the paper. I heard the dachshund whimpering and realized she had not yet been let out, and then I was off to Death Star, Inc., to whup up some more international order.

It’s going to be an interesting race.

*This is the only part I actually said out loud. Not that it matters; His Majesty seems to always know what I’m thinking.