The Basic role of government is to protect its citizens. What this means has changed over time, originally it was not more than protection from foreign marauders. Let's see how the administration brought in by the Gingrich "revolution" has done.

Here's my thesis: the US public alternates between a desire for a "strong" president and a "weak" one.

By strong and weak I mean the assessment that people make of the person's personality type. One is a take-charge type and the other is more of a consensus builder. Whether their presidency can be considered strong is influenced by other factors such as the makeup of congress.

I've learned that whatever I say, there are those who only will read the nouns and thus go off on their own tangent. So, even though I'm putting up a disclaimer here I expect it to be ignored.

I think all the Dem candidates (including those who have dropped out) would make fine presidents. I think any of them would be better than any from the GOP. I also think the differences between them are smaller than their partisans understand. We are not voting in American Idol, we are voting to pick someone to try to steer a huge, slow moving social system with lots of entrenched interests.

The irrational dislike of candidate A by those who favor B on this site has now gotten to the point where it is damaging the overall chances of a Dem win.

Here's the ugly truth: Clinton or Obama is going to have a hard time getting elected. There is just too much prejudice still rampant in this country. We can expect to see a very close election, perhaps within 1%. The prejudice will trump the economic issues and the sleaze of the GOP for many.

In addition the balance in the Senate is not going to shift enough to give the Dems real control. Picking up 2-3 seats will not prevent the GOP from continuing to block progressive legislation. Many incumbent Dems are DINO's or are beholding to the big business that finance their campaigns. So a Dem president is going to need a "mandate" if he or she is going to be able to twist the arms of these DINO's. A mandate does not mean winning 51% to 49%.

Marx was wrong it's not that religion is the opiate of the masses, it that fear is the catnip for the masses.

Fear has several effects. First, it makes people passive. Second, it makes them easily led by those who promise to remove the source of fear. Third, it diverts them from consideration of more pressing problems.

Fear and hatred have been a feature of European history for hundreds of years and have led to repeated wars, pogroms, genocides and millions of deaths. Even in the "enlightened" 21st Century areas of Europe are still battling with their neighbors.

One of the efforts over the past decade or so has been to blame the educational establishment (that is the public educational establishment) with the lackluster attainments of poor and minority students.

To cement this theme in the mind of the public, which likes public education, it was necessary to come up with some "proof" of this failure. When bogus books and articles didn't work the right came up with the federal "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) law. The key aspect of this law is that it imposes rigid testing requirements on schools. Those that don't show adequate "progress" are subject to various punishments. The thesis being that if the students aren't doing well enough it is the teachers or administrators who are at fault. A corollary is that the teachers are especially at fault because their strong unions are preventing progress and defending weak teachers.

I suppose I should be asking this on a conservative forum, but I've yet to find one which is open to discussing abstract principles.

Here are some of what one commonly hears are conservative principles. I will discuss why I don't think some of them are below.

Fiscal

1. Low taxes

2. Small government

3. Laissez faire commerce policies

4. Free trade

5. Regulation by the market

Social

1. Support for the traditional family structure

2. Belief in a hierarchical structure for social organizations

3. Strict regulation of human behavior

4. Personal liberty

5. Opposition to compensatory programs for the disadvantaged

I'm starting a competition to describe the most wasteful product or packaging that you have observed recently. I'll split this into two parts, you can enter either or both and as many times as you wish. One is actual wasteful packaging and the other is imaginary products that you propose that are even more wasteful. Extra points if one of your outrageous ideas actually turns up for sale in the future.

I'll start off with a couple of my own examples to give the flavor (but don't think you have to restrict yours to grocery items).

*The "millions in prizes" are the millions of kudos you gain from those who read and vote for your contributions to this diary. Some things are just worth more than money - praise is one of them.

When I retired early I thought I would be able to live on a much lower income. There were the obvious savings: no commuting costs, one car instead of two, fewer expenses for clothing and lunches.

In addition I decided to enter what I call my "post-materialist" phase. This means buying fewer things like books and CD's. So it's now been seven years - how have I done?

Choosing a candidate is not the same as backing a baseball team. One choice can determine the fate of much of the planet. The other may get you bragging rights around the water cooler.

Many sites (and especially ones like this) have turned into political fan clubs. Perhaps there is some value in this as it may energize the marginally interested and get them to pay more attention to politics.

However...

What with wildfires and baseball the fact the population of the world is going to come to an end soon got pushed to page 16 in today's NY Times.

I had one of my comments removed from a discussion yesterday. This is not the first time, but it is part of a pattern I want to draw attention to.

Lately I've been spending more time on blogs run by economists. This fits in with my preference to discuss policy matters rather than the political events of the day, and I think it is especially important at this time because there seems to be a swing in what the prevailing economic viewpoint is. This will have great importance if the Dems win political control in 2008.

Since there seems to be a continuing interest in language and "framing" I'm trying again...

This time I'd like to address the way unexamined words can force thinking along a certain path without anyone even taking notice. Here are some recent examples I've run across in my visits to blogs by economists and social philosophers.

The first essay in this series is here:
Does Language Make Policy?

Having just been involved in a discussion where the meaning of the word "cautious" was the point of misunderstanding, I've become re-sensitized to how words matter.

I'm thinking of starting an irregular (or is it occasional) posting on the topic.

Here's the first installment.

The NY Times has the results of their latest poll on attitudes about the Iraq war listed today.
Americans Feel Military Is Best at Ending the War

To my mind every question is flawed. I give the details below of just the questions featured in the article.

With the beginning of the school year and the coming debate over no child left behind (NCLB) it seems like a good time to discuss educational philosophy.

I'm going to split this into two sections. What to teach and why teach.

Let's start with the why first.

One of the fundamental ideas of economics is Pareto efficiency. Wikipedia has a good summary. This will suffice:

"Given a set of alternative allocations and a set of individuals, a movement from one allocation to another that can make at least one individual better off, without making any other individual worse off..."

The key words are "better" and "worse".

David Ricardo is responsible for another fundamental idea, comparative advantage.

"...it can be beneficial for two parties (countries, regions, individuals and so on) to trade if one has a lower relative cost of producing some good. What matters is not the absolute cost of production but the opportunity cost, which measures how much production of one good is reduced to produce one more unit of the other good."

The key word in this case is "beneficial".

I propose to give some little scenarios and see where they lead.

One of my hobby horses is going after libertarians. There are several reasons for this, but lets just condense it to their philosophy has been (mis?)used to justify greed and plutocracy.

The criticism falls into three classes:

1. It is an incoherent utopian philosophy

2. It is anti-democratic and breeds selfishness

3. It is a tool of the super wealthy to foster plutocracy