Ross Douthat has an post up on the problems that conservatives in America face when courting the so-called Black Vote.  Douthat argues that although conservatives should not compromise their core vision nor their criticism of liberalism’s stranglehold on the minority vote (as, he alleges, George W Bush did), conservatives should try to find innovative pragmatic policy solutions that can make a big difference to those on the ground while not compromising on conservatism itself.

I agree with this point on a policy level insofar that making people happier is generally a good thing.  But more broadly speaking, I think Douthat misses the meat of the political problem.  The rift between the black vote and conservatism cannot be solved by innovative conservative policy solutions, because conservatives wouldn’t get the credit for any progress on race issues.  That’s a bad thing from a strictly policy perspective, but it’s unfortunate from a political perspective.

A consequence of both ideological beliefs and partisan allegiance is that people are likely to read their own biases into their interpretation of causality.  In my more libertarian mind, the current economic crisis was based in large part on the government encouraging bad lending practices through legislation like the Community Reinvestment Act and the government encouraging bad spending practices through the social programs jump-started under Johnson’s Great Society.  In other words, there was too much government.  This crisis has strengthened my faith in conservatism.  In the minds of  my more paternalistic acquaintances, the current economic crisis was caused by a lack of government intervention and greedy bankers running amok.  This crisis has strengthened their faith in liberalism.

As long as Republicans are seen as “tough on crime”, liberals will perceive any police brutality, any perceived injustice in law enforcement, and any racial disparities in sentencing to be just the overzealous reach of  conservatism gone wrong.

“More New Math” defines a Ponzi Scheme.

I got an email regarding my recent column in the YDN – I have reproduced it below along with my response (formatting intact, email address redacted).

On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 1:22 PM, <M—–@aol.com> wrote:
Assuming that you are not practicing for a job at The Onion, I find it ridiculous that a Yalie should write such a dumb defense of Wall Street at the moment it has collapsed from its own incompetence, greed and criminality.
The sole purpose of the finance sector is to make the most possible money with money rather than providing any tangible product or service. This is accomplished by endlessly leveraging real or fake financial instruments. The result, invariably and predictably, is an asset bubble which eventually bursts bringing pain and destitution to innocent people.  In other words, the finance sector is  self-destructing.  To the extent that they have made their fortunes, those in the finance sector don’t give a damn about the wreck and ruin they leave behind.  Vultures and hyenas work hard, too. Your notion of the American dream reads like something out of the Sopranos.
G. Merner, one of the mob

My response below the fold.

Den ganzen Beitrag lesen…

Ross Douthat attacks the prevailing notion that the Church’s anti-condom policy hurts Africans.  I’d tend to agree with him, on the basis of the following two arguments.

First, the argument from adherence:

Premise 1: Only some (fairly religious) Catholics will follow the Pope’s suggestions on condoms.  Non-Catholics obviously will not.

Premise 2: As a tenet of Catholicism, premarital abstinence falls much higher on the heirarchy than condom use.  The types of Catholics who will know the Pope’s teachings on the matter will be far more likely than average to live a lifestyle of premarital abstinence.

Conclusion: People will not have unprotected sex with multiple partners because of anything the Pope said.

To blame the Pope for the spread of AIDS is like a teenager blaming his parents for buying him a car when you get drunk and hop behind the wheel  – it’s pretty obvious that selectively following the rules leads to ruin.

Second, the argument from culture:

Premise 1: The availability of condoms (and other contraception) contributed to the widening of the so-called sexual revolution and normalized the maintenance of multiple sexual partners.

Conclusion 1: Cultural barriers to engaging in high-risk sexual behaviors – such as societal disapproval and community ostracism – have been lowered as an effect of the availability of condoms and contraception.

Conclusion 2: The normalization of high-risk sexual behaviors has encouraged the spread of HIV/AIDS.

I had a guest column appear in the Yale Daily News this morning.

The Nico on the TSA blog suggests it’s a bad idea to fly with home-made electronic devices because altoid tins with wires in them look pretty suspicious when packed into someone’s luggage.

He’s right, but he completely misses that anyone with half a brain can put their altoid tin inside the shell of an external hard drive.  I’ve often wondered how screeners at the TSA can tell the different between the legitimate devices and plastic shells with dangerous innards.  The reality is that they probably can’t make the distinction.  I was once asked to take my iHome alarm clock out of my backpack for additional screening – they simply did a cursory physical inspection of it and would have missed anything non-typical about it.  Even if the TSA can see inside electronics, they will be limited by their knowledge of electronics.  So although they might know what the innards of a Macbook look like, they might not have a clue as to what a wireless router, Sega Saturn, or Keepon looks like on the inside.

The latest viral video making the rounds on the internet belongs to a British MEP named Daniel Hannan.  He puts American political rhetoric to shame.

In the New York Times yesterday, with the tagline “The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G.”, perhaps the most powerful piece to come out of this entire recession.

Via Ross Douthat, an excellent piece on the religion of superstar philosopher John Rawls.  Read the whole thing.

Robert Li has a great piece in the YDN today focusing on the lack of corporate recruiters at Yale and other Ivy League schools.  Robert argues that more Yalies need to be targeting corporate positions.  While he does make an excellent point – that Yale’s UCS focuses on consulting and investment banking positions to the detriment of students looking to explore other avenues – I think he does overstate his argument a bit.

Sadly, the University seems to care little in helping students clear those clouds. Maybe they themselves understand little better.  President Levin told the News in the same December 2005 article that “if industrial companies really want to attract Yale-quality caliber, they’re going to have to pay more to make their jobs competitive.” So many of us follow the same logic when it comes to a career choice.

Robert proceeds to argue that there are jobs in other sectors that can impart students with the same benefits as the glamorous careers in i-banking and consulting.  This, however, doesn’t seem to jive with reality.  This current recession notwithstanding, there seems to be a sizeable gap between how much someone can earn off-the-bat at a place like McKinsey or Boston Consulting Group (darlings of the consulting world), and a company like Coca-Cola or Nike (traditionally considered top destinations among employers in the Consumer Products space).  There are other interesting problems to consider – many consultants choose to jump ship when enticed by lucrative offers from these same large corporations that they eschew upon graduation.  Similarly, the ease of transitioning from a consulting company or bulge-bracket hedge fund to a specific corporation is easier than the reverse; in other words, the choices made by Yalies are made to preserve their flexibility later on in their careers.

This is not to denigrate the larger point of Robert’s article, nor the tangible benefits of working at a Coca-Cola or Nike rather than a BCG or a JP Morgan.  The shifting economy will certainly realign incentives; the degree to which this occurs remains to be seen.