I’m not sure the exchange Eric remarks on in this recent post (following up on this, a few comments appended to it by “Moneyrunner” and me, and this at Moneyrunner’s blog) is interesting, but it’s certainly symptomatic of something. Moneyrunner says in part:

What I find most off-putting when I read a lot of Libertarians is their disdain of Christianity or traditional morality. They seem to find a need to put lots of distance between themselves and the 70+% of the American people that go to church and believe in God. Libertarians want cafeteria style morality: small government, low spending, low taxing, free to flout convention but no social constraints even of an informal nature like social ostracism.

I think there are two points here, one of which I addressed briefly (for me) in Eric’s comments. That one is that the libertarians I know of, pretty much to a person, believe that there are a lot of values that should be enforced by social convention—who, indeed, believe that enforcement by social convention is preferable to enforcement by state power. I think it’s possible to argue that they’re actually too trusting in social convention when it comes to things like drug use. There is a species of anarchist libertarian, and it would be a lie to say that there isn’t, but in my experience most libertarians have no problems with community standards, as long as there’s room for lots of communities people can jump between in search of others who are like-minded.

The major libertarian vice is not libertinism but a head-up-one’s-own-ass obsession with ideological purity. Too many libertarians want to pretend that you don’t have to compromise in order to participate in practical politics. Eavesdrop on a group of libertarians, and you may find yourself privy to a conversation that goes something like this:

“But if we have agreed that it ought to be permissible to sell hand grenades through street-corner vending machines—”

“Produced by private manufacturers.”

“OBVIOUSLY! Anyway, yes, so, now suppose economies of scale made it possible to mass-produce suitcase nukes. Should they be available to private citizens for self-defense purposes?”

“From the same vending machines as the grenades? I don’t know that you could really make them fit. I mean, even though we call them ‘suitcase’ nukes, they’re really kind of—”

“I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT HOW BIG THEY ARE. UNFETTERED BY STATIST, COMPETITION-SUPPRESSING ZONING RESTRICTIONS, WE COULD HAVE A KIOSK THAT TAKES UP HALF A BLOCK INSTEAD OF A VENDING MACHINE. Should ordinary citizens be able to buy nukes?”

“Hmm. And what about registration? We’d have to think about the possibility that someone would propose a nuke registration system.”

“Again with the registration systems? WE CAN THINK ABOUT THAT LATER—WE HAVE TO ESTABLISH A CONSISTENT FRAMEWORK FIRST.”

This is the sort of discussion that usually starts, with the best of intentions, about real-life threats to (in this hypothetical case) real people’s Second Amendment rights. It gets derailed because someone in the room is able to guilt-trip everyone else into thinking that taking a position on the problem at hand is illegitimate unless a principle that would cover every last conceivable, Dad-blamed related issue for all time is developed this very minute. So when Moneyrunner equates libertarianism with “cafeteria morality,” my gut reaction is something along the lines of, Hahahahahahahaha…oh, sweetie, if you only knew!

The second point is related to the “lots of distance between themselves and the 70+% of the American people that go to church and believe in God” part. This makes it sound as if Eric had been freaking out that being lumped in with those nasty Christians would ruin his libertarian street cred or something, which I don’t think was what he was driving at. His point, as I understood it, was that as the popular understanding of what “conservative” means changes, it’s hard to keep up with what beliefs are being attributed to you when you’re tagged with it. Then people get on your case about “inconsistencies” with beliefs you never subscribed to in the first place. Perhaps he could have been less “snarky” about it, but neither the sardonic tone nor the thrust of the argument seems anti-Christian to me. Looking for reasons to tar all libertarians as crazed anything-goes crèche-smashers is no more helpful to the public debate than looking for reasons to tar all Christians as theocrats.

Added later: One last thing: Moneyrunner implies that Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit is somehow more respectful of conservatives than Eric is. Really? I just don’t see it. Eric takes up the subject of political labeling much more frequently than Reynolds does, so you can probably find a greater number of criticisms of conservatives at Classical Values than at Instapundit. I’m not sure there’s more snark per unit of posting, though.

Andrew Sullivan: Obama is also, at his core, a community organiser. Community organisers do not jump into a situation and start bossing people around. They begin by listening, debating, cajoling, inspiring and delegating. Less deciders than ralliers, community organisers explain the options, inspire self-confidence and try to empower others, not themselves. If you think of Obama even on a global stage, this is his mojo. And those community organisers do not tell you to expect instant results. It takes time when you try to build real change from below. But the change is stronger, deeper and more real when it comes.

I trust that the last post demonstrated that I could respond to the above paragraph with cool, arch detachment, yes? Good. Now permit me to give a somewhat more off-the-cuff reaction:

BARF!

BARF!

BARRRRRRRRRRRRRFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!

Why is it that I have the distinct feeling that, had President Obama moved more quickly and decisively on gay issues, Andrew Sullivan would not be complaining that he hadn’t expended enough time and energy on “cajoling” or had betrayed his “instinctive conservatism”?

Also, Sullivan may be right about what community organizers start by doing, but he kind of conveniently leaves out what they usually end by doing: sucking up loads of funding, launching splashy initiatives of dubitable subsequent efficacy, and then sailing on to the next project and leaving others holding the baby. (There are a lot of focused not-for-profit organizations out there that do real good at achieving clearly stated missions; the Annenberg Challenge does not appear to be one of them.)

Added later: About that whole who’s-a-real-conservative thing, Eric has this to say today:

Just to be clear, yes, I supported the war, and yes, I ridiculed the idea that Bush was a Nazi and that 9/11 was an inside job. That being the case, I became tagged with the “conservative” label no matter how many times I said I was a libertarian. This debate (in which my libertarianism was attacked as suspect) is typical, and I lost track of the number of times I was called a conservative (and worse) by lefties. But hey, I’m one of those annoying snots who rejects all labels and refuses to be bound by them, so I contemptuously ignored most of these references.

Times have changed. It now seems that supporting the war, not believing 9/11 was an inside job, and opposing the belief that Bush is a Nazi are no longer conservative positions. Even foot dragging on Gitmo has become suspiciously liberal.

Where does that leave the previously labeled conservatives?

Why, they’re supposed to be dragged into a contest. Something involving “conservative principles.” What are they? Beats me, as it seems to depend on whom you ask. To some, it’s enough simply to be against big government, or statism. But to others, you also have to be against all things which are said to threaten “family values.”

I don’t intrinsically mind labels as much as Eric does, but I do agree that they’re often used as…what’s a good word? Weapons? No, I think more like talismans. Slotting someone into a pre-defined category often seems to mean warding off the possibility that they’ll make you examine your own assumptions too hard. I can’t count the number of times I’ve explained to someone that I’m a libertarian (and for obvious reasons, I’m rarely the one to bring up politics in social situations), only to be answered with a pause, a few blinks, and “Oh. You’re a conservative.”

“Believe me, honey—the conservatives don’t want me on their team. I’m a libertarian. ‘Classical liberal’ works, too.”

“You’re a conservative.”

“If you want to think of me as a conservative, fine. I admire a lot of conservative thinkers, even though I myself am a libertarian. I value existing institutions, but I think the freedom to experiment is way civilization has gotten to—”

“No, but really—you’re a conservative.”

There almost always seems to be some sort of cognitive dissonance going on: I’m gay but I support gun rights, I’ve spent most of my adult life abroad but I supported the Iraq invasion, I majored in comparative literature but I support Israel, or whatever. There has to be an explanation, and the easiest one to to reach for is “conservative.” And it wouldn’t bother me were it not for the fact that I then become accountable for some nasty thing Glenn Beck (whom I don’t listen to) said the other day, or what have you.

Added on 7 July: Thanks to Eric for the links back.

Chris Geidner at Law Dork: Many people would say that we shouldn’t need to “wait” for equality, and they would be right.  But let’s be clear that having the patience to take careful, intentional steps that will best accomplish our goals, which is Andrew’s point,  is not the same thing as being told that our issues don’t matter and that we’ll just need to wait on our changes.  This isn’t waiting for waiting’s sake; this is waiting so that solutions are real and permanent.

People want change and we want it now, but that’s not going to make it reality.  Maybe, just maybe, if we give this President a chance, he could actually come through for us — with real, lasting equality advancements.

When my friends told me you had someone new
I didn’t believe a single word was true
I showed them all I had faith in you
I just kept on sayin’,

“Oh, no—not my baby!
Oh, no—not my sweet baby!”
You’re not like those other guys
Who lead you on and tell you lies

Andrew Sullivan: The more you observe, the clearer it is that Obama is working on an eight-year time cycle. He wants deep structural change, not swift superficial grandstanding and conflict. He is taking his time and keeping his cool. The question is whether a volatile electorate in a terrible economic time will be patient enough to wait.

My mama told me when rumors spread
There’s truth somewhere, and I should use my head
But I didn’t listen to what she said
I kept right on sayin’,

“Oh, no—not my baby!
Oh, no—not my sweet baby!”
You’re not like those other boys
Who play with hearts like they were toys

Andrew Sullivan: Obama is also, at his core, a community organiser. Community organisers do not jump into a situation and start bossing people around. They begin by listening, debating, cajoling, inspiring and delegating. Less deciders than ralliers, community organisers explain the options, inspire self-confidence and try to empower others, not themselves. If you think of Obama even on a global stage, this is his mojo. And those community organisers do not tell you to expect instant results. It takes time when you try to build real change from below. But the change is stronger, deeper and more real when it comes.

Well, you might have had a last-minute fling
But I am sure it didn’t mean a thing
‘Cause yesterday you gave me your ring
And I’m so glad that I kept on sayin’,

Oh, no—not my baby!
Oh, no—not my sweet baby!
Oh, no—not my baby!
No, no, no, no—not my sweet baby!
Oh, no—not my baby!
Oh, no—not my sweet baby!
…

Soundtrack available here.

Via Instapundit.

Claudia Rosett has a one-question quiz up about the DC reaction to the DPRK’s missile firings yesterday:

The above phrase — “not helpful” — is from a U.S. State Department Spokesman, describing:

a) A staffer who forgot to turn off the coffeepot

b) A staffer who spelled Secretary of State Clinton’s first name with only one “l”

c) A cloakroom attendant who lost the spokesman’s coat

d) North Korea’s in-America’s-face test-firing, on July 4th, of yet another round of missiles, following illicit missile tests earlier this week, in May and in April (in that case a long-range rocket), plus a sanctions-busting nuclear test in May

Yesterday Clayton Cramer posted about the size of the average congressional constituency and about its implications:

The Constitution provides that in the lower house of Congress “ the Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative. ” The last change was from “one for every forty Thousand” to “one for every thirty Thousand.”

…

The more people that a legislator represents, the easier it is for him to disregard the interests and concerns of his district — simply because he knows that no single person’s irritation or upset is likely to lead to his removal at the next election. In addition, the more voters there are in a district, the less likely it is that they will know the character of a candidate — because you are not likely to know him.

For more than a century, we stuck with that ratio. The first House of Representatives had 65 members. Every ten years, a growing population meant a growing House — until in 1911, there were 438 members, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for such a large legislative body to operate. Congress went ahead and set the maximum size at 435 members.

…

Today, a member of the House represents almost 700,000 people. If 40,000 people per member of the House in 1787 was “insufficient security for the rights & interests of the people,” why are we surprised that Congress is doing such a horrible job at seventeen times that ratio? Did Americans get seventeen times better at watching our Congresscritters between now and then?

Well, we probably have at least seventeen times the exposure to them. Kind of sad that it’s gotten both more difficult for the average citizen to pressure legislators and more difficult for the same citizen to avoid their attention-whoring and yammering.

Isn’t that sweet? Pyongyang has decided to put on a fireworks show to help us celebrate July 4th:

On the afternoon of 4 July, the DPRK fired off four more ballistic missiles from the vicinity of Gidaeryeong, Gangwon-do, on the Sea of Japan in the country’s southeast. Taken together with the three fired during the morning hours, the total fired sequentially was seven. All missiles fell into the Sea of Japan, but none appeared to have reached Japanese territorial waters. The government of South Korea has captured evidence of preparation to fire the mid-range Nondong missile, the striking distance of which includes Japan, and Japan and Korea are on alert for still further firings.

Added later: Transliteration of name of launch site corrected thanks to Amritas.

Happy Fourth, everyone.

Ever since Michael Jackson died—don’t make a face, I have a very specific purpose in bringing him up one last time, and explicating it won’t take long—I’ve been listening to Janet. It was unconscious on my part, and when I did realize that I was playing Control for the tenth time, it brought me up short. (I may have posted about it on Facebook, actually.) Why would Michael’s death put me on a Janet jag? He made plenty of good music himself after all.

But here’s the thing: Michael weenied out on his own life, and Janet didn’t. Here‘s the way she describes what happened after her second album:

Following the release of Dream Street, Jackson decided to separate her business affairs from her family. She later commented, “I remember trying to tell my father I no longer wanted him to manage me. It would have been easier to have Mother tell him for me, but that was something I had to do for myself.” Jackson also stated, “I just wanted to get out of the house, get out from under my father, which was one of the most difficult things that I had to do, telling him that I didn’t want to work with him again.” A&M Records executive John McClain hired producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to work with Jackson. Within six weeks, Jackson, Jam and Lewis crafted Jackson’s third studio album, Control. Jackson recalled that during the recording of the album, she was threatened by a group of men outside of her hotel in Minneapolis. She stated that “[t]he danger hit home when a couple of guys started stalking me on the street … Instead of running to Jimmy or Terry for protection, I took a stand. I backed them down. That’s how songs like ‘Nasty’ and ‘What Have You Done for Me Lately’ were born, out of a sense of self-defense.”

Michael never did anything like that. He rebelled in compulsive bursts that flared up and died like meteor showers. He retreated into childish fantasies. He wanted to stay protected by other people. He didn’t test himself, in any purposeful and sustained way, to see whether he was better off without his minders.

Now, yes, Janet is one of the most ridiculously rich and powerful celebrities on the planet. Her version of “autonomy” involves bodyguards, an army of personal assistants, and a house that probably has a better security system than most presidential palaces. And she entrusts herself to ace collaborators. (This is not post-Rick Teena Marie, alone at the controls making her singular visions into reality.)

But collaborators, even collaborators of superior talents, are peers. When it mattered, Janet decided that she was a grown-up and didn’t need to be daddied anymore. And she didn’t take the easy out of getting Mom to tell him. I love her for that.

Anyone who’s getting worried that I’ve decided Janet Jackson is just like Thomas Paine can relax. That’s not my point. The Founding Fathers thought and acted on a much, much higher plane, obviously. They made our current way of life possible; Janet did not. But for most of us, it’s within family and work that we have the opportunities to stand up or submit. (The way Washington’s developing, we may soon be getting a chance to do so at the federal-government level again, too, but that’s a topic for other posts.) What matters is whether you capitalize on them. For all the understandable talk about Michael this week, when I’ve wanted to listen to something that buoyed me, I’ve preferred “Control” or “Escapade” or “Enjoy.” Getting out into the world, testing your strengths, learning how to take care of yourself and use what gifts you have to enhance life for others—that’s America. Janet’s made quite a few missteps over the last decade or so, but you never hear speculation that she’s screwing up because she can’t get out from under her “handlers.” Her failings are as much her own as her long suits. And bully for her. If I’m going to be asked to countenance pop-star self-pity, I’ll take “There’s nothing more depressing than having everything and still feeling sad” over “Have you seen my childhood?” any day. Especially today.

Ann Althouse links to a story about British teens who are adopting that look Namie Amuro launched the prototype of a dozen years ago:

Her mother insists that the style is about much more than just “dressing up”.

She tells me she thinks that this is more about creative expression and that she admires her daughter for her interest.

As we all walk out the house and down the street, people look.

Brightly coloured hair, clothes and unusual make-up sets them apart from the crowds who are travelling into London on the underground.

Eilish says that people often don’t want to sit next to them.

Interesting that Mom there has to justify the style by relating it to her daughter’s “expressiveness.” In Japan, I think people are much more ready to accept that it’s about sheer decoration, using artifice to make yourself look more interesting in a way (this is important) that conforms to a group identity and has a specific external inspiration. It’s funny to hear the look discussed as rebellion in the BBC article because—this just shows that Tokyo is as removed from the rest of Japan as New York is from the rest of the States—the whole time I lived there, I spent most of my time in Shibuya. (My office was there for ten years, and I lived there for six.) To me, that’s just kind of how Japanese teenagers look. IIRC, Amuro-chan, who’s from Okinawa and played up her darker skin tone with fake-bakes, used contrasting bright eye make-up, but she’s not the origin of the white lipstick or punk-ish hair.

Sarah Palin’s stepping down as governor of Alaska. Vodkapundit’s take is this:

I can describe this move in three words: Stupid, stupid, stupid. And the reason doesn’t matter.

She needs more time to run for President? What does she think holding the job is like, time-wise? President Obama could manage to serve as a totally undistinguished Senator while running for the White House; surely Palin could manage to govern half a million people a bit.

She wants to protect her family? Heat, low tolerance, kitchen, stay out of. And again, if she wants to be President, how does she think her family would fare in the White House?

…

No matter the reason, however, Palin made a commitment to the people of Alaska, and she’s turning her back on them. Maybe I’m rash in saying this, but I think that makes her unfit for higher office.

My sense is that Steve Green would normally be correct, but it’s become obvious since her nomination last year that her supporters (like her detractors) don’t apply the same standards to her that they purport to apply to others. It’s possible that if she seems to have been driven out of office by elitist nastiness, the experience could come to be regarded as, for lack of a better word, sanctifying. If she reemerges when her children are older, who knows? We’ll see what develops. Whatever the case, I wish her the best. I’ve doubted whether she was cut out for national office since not long after her famous first speech at the RNC, but no politician deserves the kind of shredding she got.

Added before giving myself wholly over to my inalienable right, with which I’m endowed by my Creator, to more Scotch (because Scotland was a center of the Enlightenment, of course): Heather Mac Donald, unsurprisingly, has commented on the Palin resignation at her current berth at Secular Right:

Now it’s Sarah Palin’s turn.   That icon of right-wing identity politics, revered for her populist authenticity  and lack of any taint of elite intellectualism, shows herself either to be involved in an as-yet-to-be-revealed scandal, or so nakedly ambitious that she lightly breaks her commitment to the people of Alaska.   Can’t wait to see how her apologists will spin this bit of hypocrisy.

She cites her City Journal articles from last year at those links. (Am I prescient, or what?)

The Unreligious Right has a similar take:

I’ve seen nothing to indicate that Palin would be a better candidate in 2012, or that she in any way deserves a presidential or even vice-presidential nomination. Her followers among the base of the party are fanatical worshippers who can’t tolerate any criticism of Palin, no matter how well deserved. They remind me of some Obama-supporters.

A few weeks ago, Freeman Hunt wrote a post about why we may not be able to expect another Reagan or Thatcher, let alone Jefferson:

Who will be the next Reagan? Who will be our Thatcher? Who will show encroaching statism for the tyranny it is and turn the tide against it? Nevermind that Reagan and Thatcher, while they did make great gains, did not turn that tide permanently. We expect some even greater personage. The minute a promising face appears we ask, “Could it be? Is this the one?”

…

He is not coming. And he is not coming because we have not produced him. From whence would he come? We are an ignorant people. Our best and brightest, outside of the hard sciences, are a sorry lot by historical standards. Intelligence, we have. Wit, we have in surplus. But knowledge? Real, discriminating knowledge, where is it? Our standards for knowledge are now so low. Now we are only required to sound as if we know. We are masters of rhetorical style, but of wisdom there is a dearth.

I don’t know that I buy the implication for politics there. That there are far too few comprehensively learned people running about, considering the money and hot air we expend on the educational system, I do agree with wholeheartedly. I suspect, though, that there are enough to go around (especially if you believe in smaller government). The problem is convincing them to leave the private sector, where they’re usefully serving markets and probably deriving immense satisfaction from concrete accomplishments.

And here’s a great way conservatives can ensure that tough-minded persons of deep learning about history and deep commitment to applying them to the American enterprise stay as far away from politics as possible: keep pulling the crap you did with Palin. Like Eric, I’m a libertarian rather than a conservative myself, but one issue on which I was always willing to get behind the right was the value of encouraging people to strive for such greatness as they could achieve in whatever they did. The highest possible standards.

Then Sarah Palin came along, and all that lofty stuff went straight out the window because she was the right kind of person. I found Palin’s family charming and her story inspiring, but it was most assuredly not charming to see commentators on the right attributing any aspersions cast on Palin’s qualifications to envy or secret leftist sympathies. That’s the kind of flim-flamming that convinces Independents that conservatives are as manipulative and unprincipled as liberals.

The MOF has been looking into some of the projects Tokyo’s funding, and—surprise!—there’s waste:

The Finance Ministry said Friday it found wasteful or inefficient spending for all 57 government projects it has examined, including 11 projects that simply are not needed.

The 57 projects, worth 2.1 trillion yen, are among 73 projects at 14 ministries and agencies that the Finance Ministry is examining this fiscal year concerning budget allocations.

“A thorough checking is done when the budget is formed, but some of the wasted spending turns up due to differences in value judgment,” Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said at a news conference Friday. “We will thoroughly remove the obvious wasteful spending.”

…

The ministry will ask the Defense Ministry to find a more efficient way to buy weapons and other equipment.

Inefficient spending was found in all eight projects involving contracts with outside businesses.

The Finance Ministry will order corrections to the Fisheries Agency’s project to research next-generation fishing boats because it may unfairly restrict entries of new business operators in the project.

…

The ministry said its fiscal 2008 examination led to savings of 32.4 billion yen, which was carried over to the current fiscal year’s budget.

In a weirdly complementary way, dead and non-existent people have been wasting their money, too…on donations to the DPJ (the major opposition party).

Yukio Hatoyama, president of opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), on Tuesday acknowledged fabricated donations and apologized.

Dead people and people who had never made political donations were listed as individual donors in his political fund reports, Hatoyama said.

…

Hatoyama’s state-funded aide in charge of accounting used part of the opposition leader’s own money for the nonexistent donations. The aide did so to conceal his failure to collect donations from individuals, Hatoyama said.

Hatoyama claimed the aide, who had served the politician for over 20 years, acted on his own without the knowledge of the Minshuto chief.

Even so, Hatoyama’s political fund reports clearly contained false information about donations in violation of the Political Fund Control Law. Hatoyama bears a heavy responsibility for the wrongdoing.

Between 4 million yen and 7 million yen of Hatoyama’s money was diverted every year for the misdeed.

Although he is known for his immense personal wealth, Hatoyama’s annual income is less than 30 million yen, according to data published Tuesday.

Hatoyama entrusted more than 10 million yen to his aide to cover his personal expenses. But was the money really Hatoyama’s? Or did it contain illegal donations whose sources had to be kept secret? There are many other questions that remain unanswered.

Happily, there’s always a new dirty-money scandal to wick away attention from the current one. The latest, fortunately for the DPJ, involves the ruling coalition (as it usually does, of course, since it’s the LDP and its partners that have power to sell). Indeed, it involves a new cabinet member:

The LDP’s local chapter in the 10th constituency in Chiba Prefecture did not report 200,000 yen donated by a local civil engineering company in its political funding report for fiscal 2005.

…

While admitting the negligence in the financial records and that he had been personally acquainted with the company president, Hayashi denied personally receiving any funds.

The problem was covered in the July 12 issue of the Sunday Mainichi weekly magazine, in which the 56-year-old president of the civil contractor revealed that he had been footing the accommodation and meal costs for Hayashi’s secretary under his own name, in a bid for Hayashi’s assistance in securing a Haneda Airport project contract.

“It’s nothing but fraud. They just took money and gave us no contract,” said the president in another interview with the Mainichi Shimbun Thursday.

JPY200000 is only about USD2000, so we’re not talking huge amounts of money here. I do like, however, the contractor’s bald-faced admission that he was trying to buy a government contract and froth of righteous indignation that it didn’t work.