World Government

Despite the massive injections of money into the world’s economy, the situation is still dismal.  No country is really benefiting in the current economic climate.  This problem has come on so suddenly and massively, that it’s forced most leaders to table a lot of issues that also deserve attention.  Climate change, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, sustainability and development are all issues facing leaders acting in a global environment.

Would these problems be better solved by a worldwide government, as opposed to separate ones?  World government may not be essential to solve these problems, but it is interesting to think about.  Most people either envision some sort of evil empire dominating the world through its military might or a loose connection of alliances like the UN when they think about it.  But history says a likely world government won’t look like either.

A government with any real power to do something is going to need legitimacy.  It won’t be a democracy.  There will be too many levels of power in this new federalism to have the individual represented in the same way he’s represented today and in the past.  National governments, through existing institutions, like the Constitution, will need to cede their sovereignty to some new entity.  This state-like body will resemble parliaments in European countries, and have real control over what happens anywhere on our planet.  Coalitions of interests will be formed, which will severely limit what this United States of Earth can actually do.  The will of the people, though on a much grander scale, will still be what ultimately decides what happens.

How we, as citizens, are going to be represented in this supposed parliament, is going to be very interesting.  How will nations that are around today function?  Globalization is pushing the entire world to a more Western model of liberal democracy, but models of government and society still exist that haven’t embraced this idea.  Emerging powers and those who are still lagging behind in development will figure prominently in future solutions.  Though they are slowly catching up economically, catching up ideologically is going to be more of a threat to their stability.  China, India, Africa, Russia and the Middle East have a lot of work to do before they’re ready for their responsibilities in future coalitions.

Is this impossible?  Technology like the internet and better transportation are making the world resemble a global community more and more everyday.  Common problems drive individuals to cede their liberty to a common power for safety.  This base level evolves into a city, a kingdom, a nation and even into our modern-day superpowers and European Unions.  How that power can exercise that responsibility is the eternal question of government, which will never stop being asked.  Especially when it has to be the government for literally everyone.

My Reading List

Xenophon’s Retreat

How Soccer Explains the World

Guns, Germs and Steel

History of Philosophy

Essays in Existentialism (Sartre)

Discourses on Livy (Machiavelli)

The Marx-Engels Reader

His Master’s Voice (Lem)

The Mote in God’s Eye

I don’t know when I’ll get around to reading these, what with my college readings that I don’t do anyway.  But here’s the list as it stands, probably with updates in the future as I see fit.

Gaza

Israel’s recent attack on the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip may have seemed to most people like just another chapter in the long, disappointing history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  I think the reality may be much more nuanced.  This was as much about reestablishing regional deterrence as it was about stopping rockets from Hamas.  Israel’s military machine fumbled through the 2006 Lebanon conflict, and the Israelis would have liked to reassure themselves (as well as their Arab neighbors) that they were able and willing to use massive force when they deemed necessary.

The part of this strategy that is troubling is the use of such massive force in a heavily civilian area.    Israeli strategy since 1948 has always incorporated “shock and awe” to deter attackers and help insure their survival.  But reports of the systematicness of this assault and the amount of civilian death disturbed even Israel’s allies.  Such force may scare off  the current batch of militant Palestinians and their backers, but disregards the next generation of survivors.

Previous assaults have demolished confidence in secular government in Palestine.  They could not protect the people or defeat Israel, which is why so many have since turned to Hamas and Hezbollah.  In this way, Israel has created its own enemies through the means by which they have chosen to protect themselves.  They were angry like they’re angry now.  When someone’s family is dead and their community destroyed, they’re probably not going to vote against the movement that vows revenge against those most visibly responsible.  Hamas as a political force was born from this anger, as well as frustration with the ineptitude and corruption of Fatah.

Hamas should exercise restraint, though, when wielding this anger.  They should take the advice of President Obama, in his inaugural address: “Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.”  Many in Gaza may begin to see Hamas much as they did the secular parties of old.  They are frustrated, as well as angry.  Hopefully voters will finally decide to vote for a reformed party that promises more immediate economic development, rather than a party that promises some mythical destruction of an indestructible enemy.

Hamas could be this party.  They, and their constituents, are poised for an integral change in the direction of their state.  Hamas had taken steps to improve the infrastructure of Gaza before the attack, which should be the focus of the party’s future leaders.  Or they could isolate further and re-arm, renewing the historical cycle of violence characteristic of the region.  America’s approach should be to encourage Israel and other nations to take steps to facilitate a transition in ideology, and find political and economic paths to peace, rather than military ones.

Where the GOP should go now.

No one really expected John McCain to beat Barack Obama towards the end of this year’s long Presidential campaign.  Bush and the Republicans carried far too much baggage with them, both deserved and perceived.  McCain’s punch-line of a campaign strategy did him no favors, but the Senator honestly did as well as any Republican could have hoped for against Obama and the Democratic tide.

The question is what do the Republicans do now?  President Bush’s electoral gains for his party in the 2000 and 2004 elections disappeared on November 4th as quickly as the stock market fell in October.  The Republicans ignored issues salient to the immediate present, such as the economy and even foreign policy, in favor of secondary social issues.  This misplacement of priorities was further highlighted by their ineffective attacks on Obama himself.  Obama carried himself too well for ‘inexperienced’ to hold convincingly, and ‘socialist’ isn’t quite as ugly of a word as it used to be.

They won’t win again if they stick to this plan.    McCain abandoned many promising positions in his attempts to get the Republican right excited about him.  Real immigration reform was frowned upon, and no constructive arguments were brought to the national debate on conservation and climate change.  And where were the innovative conservative ideas on the economy?  Republicans can’t allow the Democrats to get a monopoly on ideas to weather the recession, especially if they work.

The so-called social conservatives are still going to be an important part of the party.  Recent marriage proposition votes this year strongly indicate that these issues are not going away.  However, such Republicans should play sidekick to the new intellectual conservatives, who are now tasked with switching the main focus of their party to more pressing issues.  Red-staters hoping for victory in 2012 should probably shed their ‘President Palin’ dreams now.

A restructuring of policy and outlook is sorely needed by the GOP.  There is room for small-government arguments, always popular around the country.  But such fear-mongering should be tempered with actual policies and new ideas that actually help our country.  New ideologies must arise that address problems and offer solutions.  This probably means cooperating and assisting the Obama administration while the Republicans are out of power.  The worst thing possible for Republicans in four years would be if things are going great and the Democrats can legitimately claim responsibility for most of it.

Perhaps the most disturbing election statistic for Republicans should be how soundly they were beaten among minorities.  They lost Asian and Hispanic voters 2 to 1 and won no significant portion of the African-American community.  Our country is getting more diverse, not less.  These populations are rising faster than populations that traditionally vote more Republican.  Conservatives should be courting these demographics, not alienating them.  This means more McCain-like ideas on issues like immigration reform.  It also means new leadership, with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a strong candidate to help shed his party’s unpopular image with minorities.  Young people need to be mobilized, as well.  The party can no longer just drift right and hope for white, old and religious votes to sustain them.  They’re going to have to move left and get independents.  How the Republicans address these challenges will ultimately decide how electable they’ll be in 2012.

Why McCain is losing.

Much has been said this week about McCain’s behavior in the debate last Tuesday.  There was smirking, mocking, pacing around and other little quirks that many pundits say showed the Senator’s contempt for his democratic opponent.  They also were cited as the main reason he appears to have lost this second debate by a fairly solid media consensus.  I don’t know whether his attitude indicated contempt, but it did indicate the overarching problem with his campaign strategy.

Our country is facing serious problems.  I won’t enumerate them here, because they’re fairly obvious unless you happen to have been buried alive this past year.  The Republicans should be talking about these issues.  They should be listing out policy proposals and talking about specifics.  They should talk about change.  They should specify the differences that they would actually implement under a McCain administration.  All of this should be entrenched in an actual conservative government philosophy that is in complete accord with the Republican ideals that Bush had strayed so far away from.

Any cursory glance at any media outlet makes it obvious that htey are relating no such message.  Or at least it’s obvious that no such message is being made clear to the electorate.  What they are getting from Senator McCain and Governor Palin is small attacks on Obama’s credibility, experience and patriotism.  They link him to unsavory figures from his past, take his quotes out of context and simplify his policy plan and voting record to the point of hyperbole.  Obama may be inexperienced and liberal, both of which are valid reasons for people not to vote for him.  But McCain’s strategy of trying to get people not to vote for Obama is alienating those that are looking for reasons to vote for him.

Obama’s plans are more fleshed out and receive far more media attention, whether praise or criticism, than McCain’s.  The democratic plans and philosophies are getting out to the general public, and people are making decisions based on them.  People are deciding to vote for Obama based off of his policies.  The problem is that people are also choosing to vote for McCain off of Obama’s policies.  That should not sit well with any campaign, and I’m surprised that it does seem to sit well with McCain.

In parliamentary democracies, such as England, parties that receive a majority of votes form a government with a Prime Minister at its head.  Parties that don’t are called the opposition.  They have a very important job.  They must question the ruling parties’ actions and policies.  Every week in London that Parliament is in session, the Prime Minister must come before the legislature and ask questions posed to him by the head of the opposition (the “Shadow” Prime Minister), as well as other members of parliament (MPs).  This serves the purpose of keeping the majority in check, and helps to insure that the government implements better policy.

Does this behavior sound familiar?  Obama, by making the plan that at least a majority appears willing to adopt, is playing the role of government.  McCain, instead of coming up with a coherent plan that people can independently debate the merits of, is acting as the opposition.  His nitpicking has helped the Obama campaign by making his plan better.  But it has done nothing to get McCain elected himself.

The Bolshevik Bailout

So it finally passed.  I’m a little behind on this post, as far as the bailout is concerned, I know.  It was passed quite a few days ago.  Along with the tax breaks, new banking insurance system and all the other little additions designed to make House Republicans reluctantly raise their hands when they ask for Yays, the whole package cost about $850 billion.

This is a massively large amount of money.  It is extremely bad that Congress has to pass this legislation.  What is surprising was that it actually took this long.  America has a spineless legislature, and one would of course expect them to cave in to the Executive demand for money.  I was somewhat proud of Congress when they refused to give the President this blank check, instead allowing the money in installments, a large portion of which is subject to Congressional veto.  This is of course unconstitutional, but I kind of doubt that the Supreme Court would grant a hearing in this instance.  There’s too much at stake with too much money involved, no matter how strict the Court.

I was listening to the Economist podcast today, and they were interviewing some distinguished representative of the London School of Economics.  He claimed the United States was socializing extrememely fast.  Every day, he said, we look more and more like the old Soviet Union.  Within a year, the entire financial system of greater Europe and North America would be controlled by the State.  This nationalization has already occured around Europe, and were daily headlines on Wall Street before the big bailout passed.  Now there are only three large banking groups (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup) that are treading extremely lightly with the threat of market contraction, national recession and now strict government oversight.

Europe’s banking structure is extremely complicated.  It involves multiple currencies and different treatments of the financial system ranging from a free market in the UK to state control in Germany.  A multinational approach via the European Union similar to the approach the Benelux nations have taken historically.  How willing non-Union countries with large banking structures, such as Switzerland, are willing to cooperate remains to be seen.

The overall trend is global socialization.  Stock Markets won’t be as large, banks won’t be as powerful and the state will here on out play a much larger role in financial management.  Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac represented around half of the American housing market.  They now are the government.  This trend will continue unless the Bailout succeeds beyond all our wildest expectations.  This nationalization is required, no matter how hard it is to swallow.  What will be interesting is how governments reprivatize the financial sector after world economies recover from global recession.  Or if they do.  Depending on circumstances, the historic course of capitalism and economic liberalism could be fundamentally altered.

I didn’t like Ike.

My house has been without power since last Sunday.  Around 4 pm we got 75 mph winds throughout central Ohio, knocking out power for about a third of the county.  We were lucky enough to have a giant old tree in our neighbors yard fall on the power lines, which blew out the transformer in our backyard.  The shock of that incident split transformer’s pole, and they’ve just gotten around to putting a new one in today.  That means a full four days without power.

My neighbors found parts of the transformer as much as 30 feet away, so it was a pretty big blast.  Also, we’re on a well, which means that without power, we’re also fortunate enough to be without water.  One of our neighbors is an electrician, who kindly let us piggyback off of his generator to power our water pump and our fridge for a few hours each day.  When we don’t have it on, I’ve been going to the YMCA to shower and such.

One of the reasons it took so long was that the vast majority of AEP employees (the main power provider in our area) were down in Houston and Galveston working on the situation in those parts.  They had the same problems we did, but with the added bonus of 20 feet of water.  Now there’s around 3,000 electrical employees working double time to get Columbus back up and running.  As of this morning (Thursday), there were still 130,000 homes without power.  Crews from all over the Midwest and out East have been called in to help.  The guys working on our transformer pole today were from Indiana (or so I deduced from the truck plates and the Colts hats).  I’ve been going to our local library, where I am now, to charge up our electronics essentials (cell phones, laptop, portable DVD player, etc.) after they had power.  My main means of entertainment has been reading during the day, my iPod when it’s charged and my dad’s 5 inch black and white camping TV; it gets NBC, ABC and CBS.  Period.  This means I had to endure the tragedy of missing the premiere of Season 5 of my favorite TV show, House.  It stupidly airs on FOX, for whatever reason.  On the other hand, this also means I didn’t watch any ESPN this week, which means I avoided the dismal analysis of the Buckeyes poor showing against USC last weekend.

Today about 11 or 12 AEP vehicles were on our street clearing debris and foliage to make way for the new pole and re-setting up the wire.  We’ve tried to be nice to them and get as much out of their way as we can.  The sooner they can do their job the better, as far as I’m concerned.  Bit I’ve also heard reports of people angry about their lack of power yelling at AEP employees to leave their property, verbally abusing them, spitting at them and at least one gun threat.  I can understand frustration, but what’s the point of all that?  And how is that going to get your power back any quicker?

Meteorologically, at least, the winds were interesting.  The low pressure front from Ike sped north, dumping all its remaining moisture in northern Illinois and Indiana.  These heavy rains were present at the Michigan-Notre Dame football game, where Fighting Irish coach Charlie Weis looked the most miserable I’ve ever seen a person.  He was drenched while trying to coach through the game with a torn ACL and MCL.  This front hit an oncoming Canadian cold front, which became the gale force winds when the sun came out from behind the clouds in Ohio.  This heat started the storm going like a match sets gasoline going.  It was a “perfect storm” situation.

My parents should have power back tonight, and hopefully phones, internet and cable shortly after that.  I go back up to OSU to live on campus this upcoming Sunday, and I can’t help but wish that all of this could have occured a week later, while I was up there.  Then I could just pretend to emphasize with my family, while enjoyed internet, cable, lights, A/C and all the other things that most of the developed world takes for granted.