As you may know the members of the Watcher’s Council each nominate one of his or her own posts and one non-Council post for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week’s Council nominations is here.
The Colossus of Rhodey, “Is Human Moral Progress Inevitable?”
In an interesting coincidence Hube’s post responds to the non-Council post I nominated this week. I think that Hube’s position rests on a fundamentally flawed notion of moral conduct but a complete response is worth a post. I’ll try to get to that later today.
Done With Mirrors, “Net Loss”
Callimachus takes note of two distressing stories on Internet use, the first the highly publicized story of a woman who drove a young woman to suicide by faking a friendly online relationship with her and the other one of tracking links for targeted advertising.
Bookworm Room, “Renaming the Paradigm *UPDATED*”
Bookworm relates a conversation with her mom about the differences between Left and Right in politics, noting, correctly, that the nomenclature is flawed. Considering that it relates to how the political factions in Les États-Généraux were seated in 1789 it’s not too surprising. Unfortunately, I think she’s mistaken. I see no evidence whatever that Republicans, generally, are less statist than Democrats, generally. They just want to use the power of the state for different purposes. I also wonder if she can find any Democratic officeholder to whom to attribute her quote, â€the state will take care of youâ€.
Hillbilly White Trash, “No One Will Solve Our Energy Problems For Us”
In his submitted post for this week Lemuel Calhoon comments on something I posted on myself, the Saudis’ demurral to pump more oil in response to the President’s request. I agree with LC that we should be exploiting domestic resources more than we are (although I wonder if he’s aware of the relative cost of development and how that affects price) but I also note that he doesn’t mention conservation and efficiency. When oil executives are talking about the role of conservation, efficiency, and renewable sources of energy in our energy future, I think it behooves the rest of us to take note.
Soccer Dad, “George Bush Isolationist”
Soccer Dad explores how George W. Bush came around to the Gore-Lieberman viewpoint on foreign policy.
Cheat Seeking Missiles, “Time To Remember The “Global” In The War On Terror”
Laer urges increased military activity against terrorists. We’re going to need a larger army.
Rhymes With Right, “Seattle Times Writer Defends Hitler’s Aggression!”
I confess to being an unreformed Westphalian (have I mentioned I lived in Westphalia for a while?). I think that nation states should will have enough utility for the foreseeable future that they should be strengthened and bolstered at the expense of international institutions if necessary. But when you’re living in the age of identity politics and a widespread belief that states are old-fashioned outmoded ideas the views of the Seattle Times writer that Greg takes to task in his post this week are perfectly understandable.
Wolf Howling, “Republicans Ponder The Abyss”
I hate to tell GW this but there are only two reasons to pursue political office: power and rent-seeking. If you eschew both, what’s the point? That’s the reason that Republicans in power look very much like Democrats in power. Will Republicans lose more power and influence in November? Probably. But they won’t get it back by pledging things that are beyond their power (reducing the price of oil) or things that are not in our national interest (invading Iran).
The Glittering Eye, “Death Toll Continues to Mount”
If it’s not clear from the post I submitted this week, I don’t believe the Chinese can continue their economic growth without cultivating a domestic market and I don’t believe they can cultivate a domestic market without democratization. They’ve been able to come this far without doing so only because the base from which they started was so terribly low.
The Education Wonks, “Hillary’s Fuzzy Math”
EdWonk suggests that Republicans should be thankful they aren’t likely to be running against Hillary Clinton in November and quotes at length an article by Adam Nagourney chronicling the reasons for her presumed failure to win her party’s nomination. I think the reason is simple. Lincoln said. You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Obviously, she couldn’t fool a majority of Democratic primary voters all of the time. Or even long enough to get the nomination.
Joshuapundit, “Would You Buy An ObamaMobile From Tom Friedman?”
Freedom Fighter fisks a column from Friedman. I have no idea whether Jews in the United States are as chary of the foreign policy approaches Sen. Obama is proposing and Tom Friedman is seconding as FF thinks they should be but I strongly suspect that it will make some differences at the margins and in an election decided at the margins that can make for some surprising results.
Well, I’ve decided which posts I’ll vote for this week. Which posts would get your votes?
