Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Excellent points, Mr. Matel. I enjoy the thought out discourse that occurs here. I dislike the flame baiting idealogues who are simply looking for a fight, but it takes all kinds and I don’t mind spewing back at them on occasion.

I just hope no one here decides to engage in duels.

Note: am I the only one here who sees odd characters appearing in this and other posts? Is it my machine or something else?

Greg, the odd characters are a problem here at WB. I understand it is being looked into for a fix.

J. Anthony, this was a well conceived article.

The thrust of its conclusion though is simply that parties are not about ideology, and implies what political parties are really about - power, influence, and wealth with one notable exception. When a party is out of power, it suddenly seeks to become ideological. When a party achieves majority party status, it quickly begins abandoning ideology in favor of the perks of power, influence, and wealth for itself and supporters. This is painfully obvious under the current GOP led government which has abandoned small government and fiscal restraint for example. The same of course, was true of the Dem’s when they held the majority power status.

So, while inspirational on its face, your article does not seem to point toward a brighter future for America.

Excellent article, Jack. You had me nodding my head right up to this point:

Democrats trace their party to Jefferson, but his small government, states rights ideas would not go down well today with them.

Too bad you had to throw in the conservative stereotype of Democrats.

Where the Clinton administration trimmed government bureaucracy back to 1950’s levels and kept spending to the lowest levels in recent history, the GOP favors big government (there were months this year where the only reason job growth was positive was because of new government jobs) and massive spending.

Where Democratic governors are trying to strengthen states rights in order to push state-level fuel efficiency, environmental, and social programs, the GOP-led federal government is trying to stop them.

Jack, I know you’re aware that the two major parties have evolved over time. I think we’re in the midst of another such change.

AP

I wasn’t trying to dig at the Dems over Jefferson. What I was actually thinking about was the shift that began in the 1930s and continued at least until Bill Clinton’s time. I think Clinton did a good job, especially in his middle years (1994-8). He accomplished so much by either returning to his party’s decentralized roots or co-opting Republican policies, depending on your historical and/or ideological point of view. In any case, it shows how Jefferson’s legacy has become bipartisan.

David

I see virtue in the ideological flexibility. Power, influence and wealth are mechanisms of politics. The genius of the American system is that is it not very much dependent on (so called) good men, who are usually in short supply. The trick is to align personal interests with national interests. The U.S. system does that fairly well. Historically, it always looks like it is about to collapse, but never does. The ostensibly more rational or moral systems don’t seem to have its staying power or productivity.

Too strong an attachment to ideology almost always gets people into trouble, since no ideology, no matter how subtle and sublime, really works in all practical situations. I am a firm believer in free markets and individual achievement, but I can think of many situations where it just doesn’t work well. I always like to recall that Hitler, Mao and Lenin were idealists. Roosevelt, Reagan and Clinton were pragmatic. Which would you rather have?

Jack, the problem is that ideology can’t be a suit that you can take off and send to the cleaners when the tide of opinion goes out.

I belive thats what we would call hypocrisy.

Rocky

My ideology is pragmatism. I don’t mean it in the generally pejorative sense that I believe we should do only the expedient. On the contrary, pragmatism, is requires of its practitioners and extremely rigorous judgment process. Pragmatism helps you determine how to make decisions, but it doesn’t determine what those decisions should be.

The difference between pragmatism and most other ideologies is exactly that – judgment process. Pragmatism requires that we look at the substantive results of what we do and then analyze the process that got us there to improve it. Most ideologies go the other direction. That is why they get into trouble more often.

A pragmatic approach also allows a transactional relationship. I don’t care if the person selling me my morning coffee is a good person as long as the coffee is good. The same goes for much bigger things. Many people decry the cynicism of all this, until they consider the alternative. Imagine if I required everyone I had dealings with to conform to my ideological idea of purity.

The best book I read on this subject was “the Metaphysical Club” by Louis Menand. The same author has written a couple of other really good books on American studies and pragmatism. William James’ 1906 lecture on pragmatism is available at http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/james.htm.

As for hypocrisy – I don’t have a problem with hypocrisy properly employed. Practical example: your aged aunt comes to visit. You haven’t seen her for a couple of years. She asks, “So, how do I look?” Truthfulness is not an asset in this sort of situation. Ever since I started to see hypocrisy as the tribute that vice pays to virtue, I have begun to see it as something that can be used instrumentally. In other words, hypocrisy itself is neither bad nor good. It depends on the purpose for which it is applied. I am a proud practitioner of hypocrisy every day in my professional and personal life. Next time your wife asks you if her new dress makes butt look big, tell me your not.

Jack, that was a funny comment about historically looking like it is about to collapse, but never does. Very funny.

It is what every champion prize fighter says after a couple wins, “I can’t lose now”, until they do. History is an excellent guide to the future, but, it is a lousy predictor of the future. A maxim Americans should chant like a mantra.

Jack,

While I wasn’t a Kerry supporter, I abhored his evisceration for, as he put it, voting his conscience.
The far right “ideology” in the republican party, takes no prisoners when it comes to pointing out that Kerry voted against defence spending, but has no problem with the fact that many of their own voted against it as well, including Cheney.

That’s the hypocrisy I’m talking about.

David

Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior for individuals, groups and societies. I think what makes America seem constantly to be teetering is its paradoxical ability to be both ideologically fixed and flexible at the same time. The whole concept of how American works doesn’t now and never really has made intellectual sense because the intellectual models are inadequate to explain either the free market or the free form politics we engage in.

I will indulge myself a little in patriotic blather. I am really impressed with American adaptability. Our industries in the 1980s went through a complete management/cultural revolution, without most people even noticing it. Our population is becoming increasingly diverse, without the kinds of strains that tear countries to pieces. We overcame the loss in Vietnam and the malaise of the Carter time to come back stronger than ever in the 1980s. Even 9/11 is an example. We suffered a body blow to our economy and confidence, but recovered rapidly. My whole life I have been reading predictions of imminent collapse. I grew up with Paul Erlich’s population bomb and the Club of Rome telling me that there would soon be mass starvation and we would run out of everything. We didn’t. I listened Jimmy Carter tell me that we had to limit our horizons and learn to think smaller dreams. He was wrong. I the pundits heard the death knell of American industry every year yet we are still here. For the first half of my life, I worried about these things. Now I worry only about things I can change personally. Some day all these guys will be right, but not today and not tomorrow and probably not very soon.

Rocky

Pragmatism can deteriorate into opportunism, and the opportunists give the pragmatists a bad reputation. My judgment of John Kerry (and I don’t really want to fight this particular battle, so I will emphasize that it is only my judgment) is that he strayed from pragmatism into opportunism on too many occasions.

As for attacking him for it, politics has become toxic in that sense. I don’t like it; I don’t think anyone does, but most of the time people think that the attacks are true or justified against their opponents and vicious and misleading when applied to their own.

If I could address David’s concerns again – If I had one abiding complaint against the U.S. the way it is today, it would be that we have become too nasty and crude. Politics is a symptom of this, but not the only place it is practiced. My kids were watching something called the Chappel Show on Comedy Central. Horrible. This passes for jokes these days.

Jack, I agree with most of your posts in this thread except Jimmy Carter’s analysis.

America IS waning as the economic juggernaut. The EU, Japan, India and China are developing serious muscle. As their share of the pie develops ours will shrink, unless the pie gets much larger. Thus far, we are still a planet of limited resources.

Greg

In the practical sense, the planet actually does not have limited resources. It has resources limited to their social, economic and technological contexts and all these things change. An interesting case study was the long running rivalry between Paul (Population Bomb) Erlich and an economist called Julian Simon. In 1980 they took a basket of commodities worth $1000. Erlich bet that the scarcity (and prices) of these things would rise over the next ten years. Simon said they would go down in price (become less scarce). Whoever was wrong would have to pay the difference to the other. Erlich ended up paying $576.07 in 1990. The prices had dropped more than half. Erlich refused to bet a second time and Simon has died. He would have lost again in 2000 anyway.

Human ingenuity solves problems and allows us either to use less resource or obtain them in a more efficient way, or both. The pie has been growing for more than 250 years and there is no reason to believe it will stop in the future.

Compare a house built in 1970 to a comparable (same sq footage etc) one built today. They are not even in the same league. Not only is the new one more comfortable in almost every way, but also you can heat and cool your 2004 house for a fraction of what it costs to do your 1980 house because furnaces, insulation, glass and materials have become so much better. These things go generally unnoticed, but have a deep impact. Or consider what we are doing right now. You know that we could significantly reduce our energy use and pollution emissions just by getting rid of old houses and old cars. Paradoxically, preserving some old things does not save money or resources.

Most of us work is services and many of us produce almost nothing tangible. In my own job, I produce words and ideas. Most of these are never even printed on paper. Our economies have a large and growing number of these sorts of jobs. Not only that, telecommuters can do many of these jobs. They have almost no resource burden. This shift is recent and we have only begun to feel its impact.

I have no doubt that China and India will grow relative to the U.S. China’s economy will probably be as large as ours by about 2030. The European will never catch up. In fact, relative to the U.S. they have been shrinking since about 1990 and they will probably continue to do so. All these things are RELATIVE. The pie is still growing.

I had a couple of comments . We are all Americans and although we may not agree on all issues there is still the common thread between us all . I am a Moderate and think things are done in moderation . There will always be debate on issues and in government as well . I did think Clinton did some good while he was in office and do not beleive that he was a disaster as some might think . I do know that debate is good and is what our country is based on in our Declaration of Independence .
There aze Democrats who love our country just as much as the Republicans do . I wish that there was a way to find common ground and work from there . The back bitting and under handed stuff is ridiculous to say the list . It reminds me of children who did not get their way . I am not talking about one party over the other here , because it happens on both sides . No one is blameless , and it always takes two sides on things . I know during the election it was very common where I live that people eventually tuned it out . They were sick of the back bitting and negative retoric . Yes , there were yard signs and people talking about the issues , but nothing vicious and under handed . I know most people thought that this was the nastiest election they have ever seen in their lives . I agree on that one !
I will not f9ight on the issues ont worth it to me . I have found people share their views , but that is as far as it goes . I feel that is the adult way to handle anything . It is carried to far when there are personal attacks against the person themselves . I am not talking about one party over the other here either . To me that is childish when you start attacking someones character . To me that shows lack of character and shows me what the person is really all about . That shows nothing , but a lack of integrity no matter what side of the fence you are on .
My thoughts and many others I have talked with whether they are Democrats or Republicans .

Jack, an appropriate response to your belief in America’s staying power is contradicted both by your assessment of international increases in share of the finite pie, and Ancient Rome, Babylon, Russia, Persia, and the Holy Roman Empire. You are in a catch 22, Jack, either the past does predict future in which case America’s demise is predicted, or history does not predict the future, in which case America’s own history is no assurance of continued success.

Human ingenuity solves problems and allows us either to use less resource or obtain them in a more efficient way, or both. The pie has been growing for more than 250 years and there is no reason to believe it will stop in the future.

There’s also no reason to believe it won’t. “It hasn’t happened yet” is no logical reason to declare “It never will happen.” We simply do not know all the ways we affect the environment through the things we do, nor do we know exactly how far the planet’s resources will extend. So the doomsayers weren’t accurate in their predicted timelines; that doesn’t mean we should throw caution to the wind.

Jack, to add to what Alejo posted.

I am currently selling dinosaur repellent. I know that it works because it has never failed in the past.

David and Alejo

I know the U.S. will eventually fall. Nothing goes on forever. I studied classics and the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. I have visited Rome and Constantinople (I use the old Roman term in this case because of the subject) and am always stuck by the poignancy of these lost worlds. The question is when. Nothing I see on the horizon leads me to believe it will be soon. Of course, they Emperor Valens was surprised when he went out to Adrianople to teach the Visigoths a lesson, but it is true, but not useful, to say that we can’t predict the unpredictable.

Alejo - Caution is a great thing, where warranted. So is risk. We have to seek the proper balance. Both the excessively cautious and those who take unwarranted risks end up in the garbage heap. I don’t see us – as a society – doing either just now.

David - as for the ancient Empires you mention, please refer to the above paragraph. I would add, however all except the Russian Empire are pre-industrial (and the Russians were only semi-industrial). The pie didn’t grow very much (especially per capita) until about 1750. Life in France in 1750 was not that different from life in Roman Gaul in AD 50 for most people. In fact Roman infrastructure was still better than what they were building. A hundred years later, it was very different and a century after that it would have been unrecognizable. We had a major paradigm shift that makes the precise details of the rise and fall of ancient empires less relevant in the technological sphere.

America will decline RELATIVE to many other parts of the world. That is inevitable. America at some time will cease to be. That also is inevitable. America is often gratuitously compared to Rome. I don’t think it is a particularly good fit, but let’s use the analogy. It was more than 600 years from the time when Rome became a dominant power until the time the Empire fell in the West. Even the “decline” lasted for 250 years. The Eastern Empire endured for another 1000 years. The U.S. has been a dominant power for about 50 years.

Jack —

I guess that’s a difference between us: You say it will all go in the crapper eventually anyway, implying we shouldn’t worry too much about it happening down the road, and I see us has having a responsibility as caretakers of the planet to make sure we don’t leave it a mess when we do go. Sure, societies fail. That doesn’t mean we need to leave a toxic desert behind when we do.

I agree, we need to find a balance — which is why it’s good to have two sides (at least) to every argument. I just fear that under the current administration there is no other side.

Alejo

We should worry about what is down the road, but we have to be realistic about what we can do about it. I am talking about a long term. We will ber here a long time.

This administration has a good ecological record, as does the U.S. The air and water in the U.S. is cleaner today than they were last year and will be cleaner this year than last. The U.S. will not leave a toxic desert (although China might). Where we don’t have a good record is talking about our achievements.

JACK, I couldn’t disagree more, and a number of environmental reports couldn’t either. Do you realize one half of the American population does not have save drinking water from their taps. Have you visited LA recently on a hot humid day, or San Antonio, Tx. for that matter? I hear an awful lot of folks tout the line you just did, but, I am 54 years old, born and raised in Detroit, Mi., and I can tell you from personal experience, having travelled this country extensively in the late 60’s, early 70’s, that many aspects of our environment are worse than 40 years ago, while some are better.

I used to be able, just 20 years ago, to go into almost any National Park backpacking and find little to no refuse, and in the mountains, drink from the streams. NOT so today. Our highways, despite all of the Adopt a Highway zones, are trashier than ever before.

And how about all of the RADON gas seeping up into millions of American homes due to the wind swept clouds from nuclear testing back in the 40’s and 50’s?

No, my friend, in many ways, things are not better, and far worse than 3 to 4 decades ago. Now, with the advent of imported foods, we even have to worry about salmanella on our veggies, and potential biological agents introduced into our food supply. Lake Eerie was dead, then cleaned up and revived. The a year ago it was found to be dying again from self-regulated industry.

The big problem with relying on ideology is that no logical system can describe the world in true and complete detail and be self-consistent. Any system, therefore, that claims to be both complete and self consistent is therefore, full of shit.

The reality of human thought is that it’s informal, guided by principles and systems of logic that are incomplete, sometimes contradictory, but that we can shift between as appropriate.

There is always a tension between logic, and the world it describes. The big problem with the Republican party at this point is it’s over-reliance on it’s philosophical systems. I believe I wrote about this in my essay The Option Reserved, saying that it could eventually spell the end of the Republican majority.

I mean, sooner or later, you can’t keep everybody on the same page. People don’t want to keep on agreeing, and party members arrange themselves in a circular firing squad.

Pragmatism and idealism must be balanced, or otherwise those in charge become either too rigid or too wrapped up in meaningless debates to exercise good judgement.

Human ingenuity solves problems and allows us either to use less resource or obtain them in a more efficient way, or both. The pie has been growing for more than 250 years and there is no reason to believe it will stop in the future.

I actually have to agree with Jack on this one. With the caveat that, if we are to avoid the fate of Rome and Constantinople, we need to be more proactive in avoiding the looming pitfalls. Unrestrained economic growth is all well and good - if it can be sustained.

In short, I see our dependence on increasingly expensive oil as the biggest threat to our way of life. I’d like to see the administration spending less on research into alternatives and more on commercialization of alternatives.

Americans can handle just about anything, as long as the cheap electricity keeps coming. :)

David

One reason I enjoy this blog so much is that it exposes me to very different perspectives.

Statistic I read point to cleaner air and water in the U.S. since 1970. More importantly, my experience with the environment is completely different. Like you, I have been across the country several times hitchhiking when I was younger, driving now and once from San Francisco to Chicago on the train. The highways are generally cleaner than they used to be. I recall in the 1960s when people just threw things out of their cars. This is much less common now. By the way, a car produced today produces about 1/25 as much pollution as one produced in 1975.

I agree with your backpacking assessment, but that is a function of more people using the parks. It is a success, of sorts, that people want to be in the nature. I don’t think it was ever a good idea to drink from streams. There are a lot of water-bourn diseases even without human presence.

Radon gas has nothing to do with nuclear testing. It is a naturally occurring substance common to certain soil and rock types, especially granite. It has been identified as a greater problem for two reasons. First, people began to recognize it and second people’s homes are better insulated and less air circulates. Anyway, it is easily and cheaply alleviated.

I don’t know about Lake Eire, although I haven’t heard that it is again in trouble. I do know Lake Michigan (where I grew up) is very much cleaner.

The biggest environmental challenges ahead are probably exotic plants and animals. Zebra muscles that filter all the food out of water are assaulting our lakes. We also have trouble with beetles from China. The thing that bothers me the most now is the hemlock woolly adelgid that is killing trees all over the East. The hemlock is a unique niche tree that growing in the cool shade. It lowers the temperature of streams and lakes and is important to maintaining the forest ecosystems, especially in new England and along the Allegany front. No other tree can really fill its place and it may be gone within a couple of decades. And this points to the problem I have with mainstream environmentalism. How many people have heard of the hemlock woolly adelgid? Not many. Why not? My opinion is that there is no villain here. Greenpeace can’t make money off it. There is nobody to blame. It is much more fun to fight yesterday’s battles and pretend that the air and water are still polluted as they were in 1970.

Jack, I knew you would say the pie will get bigger:)

Of course you are right there, but then in a later post you acknowledge my real point that our RELATIVE size is diminishing. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It means that economic prosperity IS expanding.

I know it’s a popular stance to view Jimmy Carter as a horrid president, and I would have to agree he is not particularly good at Washington Politics, but I think his moral leadership is exactly what we need to see at this time. He took responsibility for his failures and while his moral stands on geopolitics were largely criticized, if it had been followed, the Middle East might well have been a different story altogether. Bin Laden may not have found traction.

I would also like to add while I think Paul Ehrlich in writing Silent Spring did a good thing in his time, he is also somewhat diminished as an alarmist that eggagerated quite a bit. There was a while back a Scientific Americn article on the consequences in disease and hunger that banning DDT has wrought, and makes the case for bringing it back in a controlled way. I take moderate approaches to most issues.

David, radon isn’t from Nuke Blast clouds, although there were increased rates of cancer and birth defects in the fallout shadows of the Nevada and Pacific tests. My own father worked on some of these above ground tests and there is an organization (NAAV) that believes many of the workers involved have shown higher rates of disease. Radon is from natural uranium deposits that exist in the soils in high enough concentrations to produce possible biological effects. It isn’t everywhere, that’s people selling solutions saying that.

Paul Ehrlich did not write Silent Spring. That was Rachel Carson.

Statistic I read point to cleaner air and water in the U.S. since 1970.

On average, right Jack? I suspect there are peaks and valleys.

The Environmental Protection Agency is close to issuing new guidelines making it easier for sewage authorities to dump partially treated wastewater during heavy rainfalls, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Is the EPA implementing a novel method to eliminate zebra muscles?

Greg

I worry less about the relative decline because I don’t think it is possible not to decline relatively. The U.S. has been so fantastically predominant for fifty years. It just is not natural for 4-5% of the world population to make about 25% of the worlds products. In the years immediately following World War II we made about 50% of the world GNP. Imagine that, half of all the things produced in all the world were produced by Americans. U.S. policies helped rebuild Europe. The Marshall plan remains the most astonishingly generous act of enlightened self-interest in the history of the world. Some people at the time complained that we were just helping our competitors get back on their feet and we would decline relative to them. Our relative decline made us much richer and prevented wars and Communist takeovers.

Re Jimmy Carter. Carter is probably the best ex-president we ever had. It would have been better for us all if he had just skipped directly to that stage.

AP

There are peaks and valleys to pollution. That is not a surprise. Too often we talk about the peaks and ignore the valleys. I always like the common journalistic trick when they say something like, “the average pollution level is low, but sometimes it is much higher.” That is true, but as misleading as saying, “the average pollution level is low and sometimes even very low.”

I am concerned about sewerage treatment, but it all depends on the levels. At some levels, it is harmless and a waste of money to process. We should concentrate on the things that cause the most problems and/or are easiest to address. I would prefer to spend some money on the hemlock wooly adelgid. Sewerage tends to be a mixed problem anyway in that it can be used as fertilizer. I know people who actually want to have sludge sprayed on their land. It is especially useful in reclaiming areas that were strip mined or otherwise mistreated. The problem is that it tends to smell bad, which annoys exurbanites and summer-home owners whose idea of the countryside comes from watching made for TV movies.

re zebra mussels. If only it were so easy to be rid of the little pests.

Jack —

You’re right, there are a lot of human-introduced aliens that we never hear about, like wood borers. There’s a wildlife preserve near me that’s built on a reclaimed strip mine, which is a great idea except that multiflora rose was used to help hold the topsoil in place and now much of the efforts of the park go toward containing the rose instead of fostering the endangered species living there. (Anyone interested, it’s www.thewilds.org.)

Again, however, I have to disagree about the direction we’re going. Bush loves to say things are cleaner than before he took office, but that’s merely because his corporate-friendly pollution control rollbacks haven’t had a chance to do their damage yet. Just wait, by the time Bush is through and there’s a Democrat in office, the Republicans will be saying, “Look, look — the air is dirtier because there’s a LIBERAL in the White House!”

The problem is that yes, most of the pollutants we measure are down — but the key part of that is “measure.” Industry comes up with new chemicals and polymers every day, and the effects of most of them on people and the environment are unknown. For example: The chemicals used to make furniture and clothing flame retardant are now found in abundant quantities in most people’s bodies, simply building up there and never being broken down. Will those chemicals hurt us? We don’t know, and we may never know if Bush continues selling the EPA to the highest bidder.

No, the world isn’t ending tomorrow. Or the next day. But we still need to fund the organizations that exist to make sure that doesn’t happen and we need to let them do their jobs. Appointing a timber lobbyist as Interior Secretary is NOT going to accomplish that.

Greg and Jack, I believe you are misinformed and duped by the US cover up of the sources of Radon. While it is true, volcanic upwellings produce increased levels of uranium deposits in the soils and increase radon gas emissions for very, very long periods thereafter.

BUT, if you look at the EPA’s national map of radon gas emissions, and then overlay a historical variability map of the jet stream which governs wind directs across the nation, there is a very tight correlation between the prevailing wind patterns from the S.W., the source of atomic testing, and the increased elevations of radon emissions.

I live in central Texas. Low radon emissions. Look a the jet stream map, and Central and S. Texas are virtually free of wind patterns from the S.W. Alaska, with very high volcanic deposits is in the low category. We did testing too in the Pacific, you should check out the Hawaii map. It appears clear to me that wind directions from atomic testing point of origins determine whether areas are low or high in Radon emissions. Of course, being a growing public health issue, (January is Radon awareness month) it is predictable that the Government would avoid revealing any correlations with government activities in the past with current public health issues. It is an old story replayed again and again.

Well written article. Some good comments in general.

The Odd character problem that is appearing on the site is due to the text being UTF8 encoding. by default, browsers render ISO (ASCII). there are meta tags that can be added to the header of the HTML that will solve this problem. also, right clicking on the page, go to Encoding, and select UTF8 will cause the odd characters to dissappear.

The following link explains the problem and shows a way of correcting this issue (near the bottom of the page) Unicode and HTML (by adding <meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=utf-8”> to the header…)

I have noticed in this thread that people are always talking about the things we can’t measures, dangers we can’t foresee or problems about which we are unaware.

Natural selection probably favored early humans who were vigilant, distrustful and inclined to assume the worst about each other. Most of human history has been a dog eats dog, hand to mouth existence. Life, in the famous phrase, was nasty, brutish and short. That is probably the reason we worry and complain so much when life if pretty good for most of us.

There is no inconsistency about knowing that everything will eventually end and being happy today. In many ways, the primitive jungle fighting tendencies of our ancestors are out dated. I am not advocating a lack of vigilance, but let’s be vigilant against the right things and recognize that we live better than most of the people who ever inhabited this planet and I am not talking primarily about material things. We all have access to education, books and cultural activities that only the most privileged had in the past. How many people in the past would have the opportunity to hear a Beethoven symphony more than once or see a Shakespeare play three or four times? Sitting right here at our computer, we have access to more literature, art and information than any king or president of a generation ago.

At some point in everyone’s education, he becomes cynical and looks back at his earlier beliefs as childish and naïve. But if he keeps on going, he comes back to where he started, but at a higher level of understanding. The naive makes sense. It takes a smart man to be cynical, but a wise man not to be.

I know this is a little off the thread, but it is the thought that strikes me as I read some of the comments. Let’s just step back and thank God for all the things we have today and acknowledge our good fortune before we start to worry about what we might lose.

Jack, note the following from RadonSeal

The explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine evaporated 8 tons of nuclear fuel and ejected radioactive graphite and dust high into the atmosphere. Winds spread radioactive iodine and cesium over most of the Northern Hemisphere. The accident, kept secret by the Soviet government, was discovered when workers entering a nuclear plant in Sweden triggered radioactivity alarms. The total radioactive release out of the bounds of Chernobyl was estimated at 50 million Curies. …

Avoid radioactive rain from radon clouds!

Workers entering the Super Collider at the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago used to trigger radioactivity alarms when it rained. It was discovered that rainwater deposited on their shoes and hands carried radioactive decay products of radon. The laboratory developed special radiation monitors to detect the specific gamma rays emitted by radon progeny in rain clouds. During the first year of operation the alarm was triggered nine times. Since the radon alarms occurred simultaneously at two monitors approximately 1,000 meters apart, it proved that large radon-saturated clouds are regularly passing over populated areas. It confirmed that radon released by wastes from uranium mines in the West can travel hundreds of miles across America.
Source: Health Physics, November 1999
Government disputes the dangers of radioactivity

About 600,000 workers were exposed to radioactive materials in 14 nuclear weapons plants since the beginning of the Manhattan Project. Their radiation exposure was within the official “safety limits.” However, increased rates of leukemia, cancers, vision difficulties, chronic fatigue syndrome and other health problems have been observed. The identified 22 types of cancers include cancer of the lung, prostate, bladder, kidney, and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Some scientists believe that radiation damages the human immune system, leaving people vulnerable to a wide range of other diseases.

Until 1999, the U.S. government disputed reports that low-level ionizing radiation is harmful. DOE and DOD waged media campaigns against “fear mongers” and spent tens of millions of dollars on lawyers. Then, after decades of denials, the government finally conceded that the radiation exposure to workers at nuclear weapons plants caused a wide range of cancers. President Clinton apologized to the “heroes of the nuclear age.” But by then, many have died. The US Congress agreed to pay out $150.000 to each of the sick survivors, but denied them unlimited healthcare. Although private companies ran many of these plants for profit, the U.S. taxpayers will pick up the tab.

Source: The New York Times, January 29, 2000
(Comments: There is no plan to change the old safety limits - paying out compensation is much more cost-effective than lowering the limits throughout the whole nuclear complex. However, being a homeowner is still riskier - the radiation exposure of an average worker over several years of employment is lower than the cumulative radiation received by an average American from radon at home.)

David

I don’t know about all that radon. What I do know is that I lived in Wisconsin, Minnesota and New Hampshire. All of these places radon is a problem but only in places were the base rock is granite. The northern part of Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota are part of the so-called granite shield and New Hampshire is the granite state – hence radon.

If the wind blew from the nuclear sites, presumably the debris would fall on all soil types, not just granite. The other thing that is true is that it is very easy to remedy with ventilation and/or some kind of a sink pump. Radon testing adds a couple of dollars to every home inspection and may require remediation. Those are not necessarily insignificant, but besides that, radon isn’t really a big problem.

OOps, Steven you’re absolutely right. It’s been a long time since I read that. If I remember correctly, she did credit Paul with inspiring her. ( I don’t have copy of that any more.)

I totally mischaracterized his work and stances. Sorry, I was confused. Thanks, Steven.

David, I must confess I’ve never heard that about Radon. It’s news to me. There is a fallout pattern that runs from the Trinity and Nevada test sites through the midwest through Ohio.(where I grew up) I’ve never heard it conected to radon though.

You are correct in asserting the government has always downplayed radioactive consequences of the Nuke tests. My father instrumented several of these test sites and their monitors went off scale even when the sites were supposedly safe. The military actually exposed soldiers and sailors in human guinea pig experiments to see how themen would react in “hot” conditions.I think that was patently immoral. Many of my fathers’ coworkers died of Thyroid Cancer, well above expected rates.

Jimmy Carter might not have made you feel better,Jack, but I never worried about him lying and passing the buck, or robbing us blind. Sometimes perception and substance are different things.

I suppose Carter was a good and honest man, and an intelligent one. The problem was, he couldn’t manage and couldn’t run the country. It just wasn’t the right job for him. It is actually a good lesson. Compare Carter to Clinton as men. Carter rarely lied. Clinton rarely told the whole truth. Carter wins. Now compare them as presidents. I think it is an equally clear win for Clinton.

Carter had a lot of bad luck, but a lot of the bad luck was because of things he let happen. The Iran situation, in abler hands, may never have come to such a sorry state. He was a very uninspiring leader who deepened the economic malaise. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan because they figured they could get away with it under Jimmy Carter. All these things are subject to different interpretations, but the American people at the time agreed that he should become an ex-president as soon as possible and I have never heard anyone wax nostalgic about the good old days under Carter.

Jack —

Just for the record, I consider myself more a skeptic than a cynic. I don’t believe humanity is doomed or that there’s nothing we can do to stop it, but I’m also mistrustful of people who say, “Hey, look, the sun is shining and the grass is green! How could anything be wrong?” As I said before, it’s a balance that needs to be struck, between growth and conservation, regulations and freedoms, optimism and cynicism, left and right.

I think a realistic view acknowledges problems, but also appreciates the astonishing progress we have made. Both excessive pessimism and over done optimism interfere with good decision-making. You can’t build on your strengths unless you recognize what they are.

I guess what bothers me is that so many people think it is a sign of sophistication to be pessimistic. Maybe it goes back to our puritan roots. We don’t want to seem too happy or maybe it is superstition that the spirits will be jealous and punish us. More likely is that it is always easier to find fault and wax poetic about the best possible outcomes than to work to achieve reasonable results here and now.

I heard an article on the radio about people who were lucky. The research showed that they were actually not lucky in any meaningful statistical sense. Good and bad things happened to them at about the same rate as the unlucky people. The difference was that the lucky people ignored or overcame the bad luck. A prosaic example: two students get an F in class. The unlucky people respond by saying, “the professor gave me an F. I guess there is nothing I can do.” The lucky people respond with, “I got an F. I wonder how I can change it.” Lucky people also sometimes just ignored the bad things. Anyway, there is a correlation between achievement and optimism. It becomes auto-correlated after a while.

Jack, I don’t think it is sophistication that leads to cynicism or pessimism as much as how a broad and general education formal and informal reveal how very difficult it is keep things optimal. A small oversight here, another there, and things can go completely awry. National government is a lot like engineering. You can apply all the right principles, and diligently attend their application, but, one person transposing one number, can bring an entire building or bridge to rubble.

Getting it right is immensely difficult, and those who don’t believe in divine intervention in the daily affairs of humans are acutely aware of human fallibility, since, there is no divine safety net to catch the errors and make them right before wars and devastation take place. Optimism is a commodity primarily consummable by those who believe in divine intervention. It is one of the schisms that exist between those on the left and the right. It is not that those on the left are atheists, most are not atheists. But, most do not believe God jumps in to save them each time they are about to fall. A great many more on the right do believe just that if they are duly righteous and humble in their prayers and obedient to the word.

David

I don’t count on God to save me. I am not vain enough to believe that God arranges his schedule around my needs. If the belief in God makes people more optimistic, that is good. It is not my reason.

I am optimistic for good, practical reasons: it works and makes everyone happier. That does not mean I don’t go through the due diligence needed. It does not mean I don’t try to anticipate everything that can go wrong. It does mean that when something goes wrong (as it inevitably does) I look for solutions and believe that I will find them.

My observation is that successful people are more often optimists. I think there is a causal relationship. People like optimists better and they get more done. I repeat – being optimistic doesn’t mean you ignore problems. It means you believe you can deal with them successfully. You don’t always get what you deserve from life, but you often get what you expect. Pessimists get that.

Everyone should be realistic in their assessments - neither optimistic nor pessimistic. But once the decision is made, you have to pursue it with optimism, or you certainly will lose. The pessimist says, “it may not impossible, but it’s difficult.” The optimist says, “it may be difficult, but it’s not impossible.” We all win sometimes and lose sometimes. Optimists win more often and they are happier most of the time. That is all there is to it.

It’s hard to overcome bad luck when a Mack truck runs you over:) I don’t believe in fate or luck, really: but, control is an illusion. Entropy reigns.

I wouldn’t mind a guy like Carter in the White House. Who’s fault is it Russia invaded Chechnya? As to Iran, how about Ike,Kennedy,Johnson, Nixon and Ford who supported the Shah’s reign of terror on Iran? As to Inflation remember Ford’s WIN? A little thing in SE Asia might have had something to do with that. Carter cleaned up the mess and didn’t sweer it under the rug.In my opinion, Reagan commited treason or at least completely illegal dealings with Iran before he was elected by dealing with Iran. Remember Lebanon? or Somalia? Carter wasn’t so good at blaming everything and everyone else, which didn’t help him in the election, but his actions did help America.I’ll admit Iran did divert him too much. He shoulda launched an attack on Iran which woulda killed a lot of people. It would have made him look strong, got him relected. But I guess he chose a moral thing like finding a path that kept everyone alive.

Reagan and Bush only prove to me that Americans like a good western. It doesn’t necessarily make good government.

There are peaks and valleys to pollution. That is not a surprise.

Of course. The way too subtle point I was making is, I’d bet money it got worse over the last four years even though it’s better than the 70’s.

The thing that bugs me about the rosy-glasses set is, sure mankind will survive severe climate change, toxic pollution, and global recession. I totally agree. I just don’t think we should have to do so if we can stop it or mitigate the effects.

Just out of curiosity Jack, what if switching to a hydrogen energy economy based on renewable energy sources didn’t cause any economic drag or major change to our status or way of life, would you lead the charge? How about if it only caused a little change? :)

AP

I just finished writing a little about hydrogen on the post above.

Hydrogen is my fuel of choice. I lost thousands of dollars betting on it too soon, but I don’t mind because I figure it helped push the concept in a small way.

The air and water in the U.S. is cleaner today than when Bush took the presidency and will be cleaner still next year. Bush’s initiative will aslo help. I was and remain a committed environmentalist. I ride my bike to work in the summer and take the metro in winter. I give thousands of dollars to environmental causes each year and I personally plant trees where people will let me at my own expense. I am right now looking for land on the Allegheny front so that I can try to grow hybrid American chestnuts (the dominant tree of the region wiped out by blight about 100 years ago.) I am confident that I have done more practical things to clean and restore the environment than 99% of environmental activists. But environmentalism falls into two groups: political and non-political. I am the non-political type, often referred to somewhat derisively as a “conservationist.” Despite my lifestyle and charitable habits, the cognoscenti do not consider me an environmentalist because I am not left wing. I am more interested in a clean environment than the collectivist crap and fund raising that goes with it. When hydrogen power comes (and it will) it will come through the efforts of investor and capitalists working through the free market. Those tofu eating grungy guys chewing on their limp carrots and celebrities flying around in their private jets (one cross country flight is probably worth years of driving) are just scruffy commentary on the main story.

There is a very interesting book called “A Moment on the Earth” by New Republic author Gregg Easterbrook. He also writes a blog. It is very interesting. Below is one entry. http://www.tnr.com/easterbrook.mhtml?week=2004-01-27

Jack, I’m sorry you had such a bitter experience with the tofu eaters (I can’t stand the stuff, myself), and I salute your conservationism.

My point is, market forces (such as they actually exist in the energy market) will not force a switch as soon as is necessary because the “hidden costs” of fossil fuels are not passed on to the public. Our oil industry is heavily subsidized by the government, and there is no clear connection made between the taxes used to clean up and mitigate the heat and emissions byproducts generated - the public is oblivious.

If these “hidden costs” were to be factored in at the gas pump, we’d be paying another $2-$3 per gallon of gas.

I’m not advocating raising the cost of gas, but the public - and our representatives - should be aware that we’re getting it at artificially low prices and act accordingly.

The air and water in the U.S. is cleaner today than when Bush took the presidency and will be cleaner still next year.

I’m curious where you got that fact. My understanding is that quality levels are peaking, if not actually trending downward.

The only resource that is not limited is knowledge

AP

Look at the link re clean air ect.

There is also the link within the link at http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309089328?OpenDocument

If you read carefully the Bush opponents they don’t say that the air is dirtier. They say that it would be cleaner with other policies. That is arguable and they are probably wrong.

If I were in charge of the world, I would drive the gas price up to about $6 a gallon. But I don’t think that is politically possible for either democrats or republicans.

I’m not quite sure I agree with your analysis, Jack.

I applaud your conservancy, but you say that you would raise gasoline up to $6 a gallon. and that there are $2-$3 in hidden costs that the gov’t pays.

Your math seems a little fuzzy. If you raised gasoline, would you also raise other oil products?

Raising Gas an additional $4 rapidly would send our economy into a tailspin on the scale of 1929, but this could be offset by a $3 tax cut.

I agree there are hidden costs in everything, but I’m curious how you come up with those numbers.

I do think we should raise taxes on oil products to fund research into alternatives, but at a very slow rate. That, to me, would be sensible energy policy and would eventually help the middle east issues we are facing.

I certainly wasn’t advocating raising gas prices. But here’s an article that explains the “hidden costs” a little further.

Jack, that article says some states aren’t meeting targets, and that the Clean Air Act doesn’t cover some toxic emissions at all.

It’s basically a good news/bad news report. But thanks. I also think your assessment about other poicies not resulting in cleaner air is wrong, but I don’t want to get in a slugging match over it. :)

Greg

I didn’t do any figuring on the hidden costs of using gas. That was AP. I was just agreeing that gas prices are too low. I would like to see taxes on gas raised significantly. I would offset this with cuts on income taxes. You could phase it in. The price of gas goes up and down. Each time it goes up, let it alone. When it starts to go down, put in taxes that keep it at that same level. It would ratchet the price up, and the leftists could blame big oil.

I don’t know that numbers involved for cost/benefit but consider some of the costs of too much reliance on private autos.

Middle East dictators are stronger and we have to pay attention to that region of the world. This costs literally billions of dollars.

Roads and parking lots extend all across our open lands. I don’t know what the dollar cost is, but the spiritual cost is very high.

People are encouraged to make longer commuted, which keeps them away from home and makes them unpleasant when they do get home. The dollar costs are probably significant, but the psychological costs are higher.

Americans get fat, unhealthy and unattractive from spending too much time behind the wheel.

Gas taxes are extremely unpopular because almost everyone drives a car. But they do work to shift demand. All these guys whining about SUVs would find their time better spent going after the root enabler – cheap gas. Those who don’t like urban sprawl would find the same thing.

Thanks for the link, AP. I agree there are hidden costs and that we need to be forward looking at other sources than oil, primarily because of the geopolitical consequences.

Jack, as long as the taxes are efficiently spent and don’t become part of more pork,I wouldn’t mind. I just don’t trust D.C. to do that.

By the way, I’m fat and unattractive, but I blame that on genetics, not my car.

The car is to blame for many of societies maladies including weight.

Genetics is overrated on this one. I lived in Wisconsin among Norwegian Americans and then lived in Norway among Norwegians. The genetic stock is the same, and both groups are fairly big and tall. Yet the Norwegians are the fittest people I have ever seen. The hike, they cross country ski and the walk a lot. Norwegian Americans are very different. The drive, the ride snow mobiles and they don’t walk very far. The Norwegians had a joke, “What do you call a fat guy walking down the street in Oslo?” “An American tourist.”

…we need to be forward looking at other sources than oil, primarily because of the geopolitical consequences.

Yeah, OPECs decision to keep prices high by cutting back production and bin Laden’s latest exhortations to deny oil to the US just underscore that.

You haven’t seen my relatives, Jack:)