Today we join the following countries that allow gay and lesbian individuals to serve openly in the military:

Albania
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
United Kingdom
Bermuda
Uruguay

Yesterday, we belonged with the following:

Antigua and Barbuda
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belize
Botswana
Brunei
Cameroon
Cuba
Cyprus
Dominica
Egypt
Fiji
Ghana
Grenada
Guyana
Iran
Kenya
Kiribati
Jamaica
Lesotho
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mozambique
Namibia
Nauru
Nigeria
North Korea
Pakistan
Papua New Guinea
Saudi Arabia
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Solomon Islands
South Korea
Sri Lanka
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Lucia
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Swaziland
Syria
Tanzania
Tonga[49]
Trinidad and Tobago
Turkey
Tuvalu
Uganda
Vanuatu
Venezuela
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

Seriously, Digby is the bomb..

The Liberal Dilemma
by digby

Kevin Drum wrote an interesting post yesterday about the Democrats' dilemma in dealing with a hardcore opposition that literally doesn't care if their policies cause human suffering. (Indeed, they actually promote it, only they call it "tough love".)Democrats are always in the position of having to choose between some specific thing that will alleviate some suffering (however temporarily) in exchange for some heinous Galtian thievery and they end up taking the short term relief because they believe they have the responsibility to help people in the best way they can. Unfortunately, when dealing with nihilists, you end up creating more and more circumstances where such deals with the devil are necessary.

Thought #2 comes from Andrew Sabl, who takes on the question of what liberal opponents of the tax deal propose to do next if it's voted down. Andy says he doesn't really have a great answer here, but that his focus is largely on the long term, not the immediate future: "how can we change baseline expectations so as to achieve progressive outcomes in future negotiations?" Dave Dayen makes a similar point here.

I haven't thought this through carefully, but I think there's a big problem with this framing. It assumes that our weakness is mostly with negotiating tactics: Democrats need to demonstrate that they're willing to accept a whole lot of wreckage if they don't get their way, and once they've done that Republicans will realize that they have to start compromising.

But there are two problems with this. First, there's a real asymmetry between liberal and conservative goals. Liberals want active change. This means they can't just obstruct. They have to figure out a way to build a supermajority coalition for complicated legislation, and that means compromise. And everyone knows this. So compromise is baked into the cake. But conservatives, to a much larger extent, are often OK with simply preventing things from changing, either as their first best or second best position. For that, all you have to do is maintain a very simple position among a minority caucus. No real coalition building or compromise is necessary.

Second, political coalitions are simply too public to sustain an artificial bargaining posture. The problem with the Democratic caucus isn't that they negotiate badly, it's that the Democratic caucus is genuinely fractured. And again, everyone knows it. You can't pretend you're willing to go to the mat against high-end tax cuts when there are half a dozen Democratic senators who support high-end tax cuts and Republicans know there are half a dozen Democratic senators who support high-end tax cuts. To fix this, you need more liberal Democrats, not tougher leadership.

In any case, Andy's whole post is worth a read, especially his second point, which I think is a genuine and growing fracture point within the liberal coalition:

Civic republicans vs. non-republican liberals. Civic republicanism (small “r,” of course) is an awkward label for a common position: that the fundamental issue of our time is the ability of the rich, and corporations, to game the political system and prevent the rest of us from exerting true self-governance....In contrast, a non-republican liberal position is that giving material sustenance to the poor is more important than whether the rich get paid off, however regrettable and undeserved that is.

Andy describes himself as "mostly a liberal but with growing sympathies for republicanism," and I'm pretty much in the same place. Maybe a little further along, in fact, though I still find myself nearly always supporting compromise positions that genuinely help people in the here and now. The last couple of years have certainly put a dent in that attitude, though. The rich have rubbed our faces a little too hard in the fact that they simply have no interest in what's good for the country, only what's good for their own bank accounts.

I think that's happening to a lot of people and it's a true moral and ethical dilemma. The result of this constant capitulation though is that liberals are participating in their own defeat and weakening themselves for future battles every time it happens --- and ending up causing more human suffering in the process.

Jack Balkin makes the argument that the "parliamentarization" of our politics, with the Republicans establishing ideological cohesion, makes it inevitable that Democrats will also coalesce into a parliamentary-style party and do the same things when they get in the minority. If that's true then I suppose one could anticipate that it would mean most liberal policy would advance from a minority position as they "hold hostage" the Republicans in the same way the Republicans are holding Democrats hostage today. But even assuming you could get ideological cohesion among the Dems (which I doubt) I'm afraid this moral dilemma would preclude them from being successful. You have to be willing to kill some hostages to be successful at this game.

The question is then, what to do? Bill Black and David Cay Johnson have some ideas. They say you have to deal with the Republicans like you deal with bullies -- confront or outsmart. Of course, I think we all know situation where you find out that the people you think are your friends really side with the bullies (or in girl world --- the popular girls) instead of you.

Anyway, this is a central problem for liberals and progressives as we try to go forward dealing with the Republican wrecking crew and their allies in the Democratic Party. I don't know what the answer is.

It is obvious to me that the Irish-British model is the way of the future

Never, ever, bring up Friedman to me in a conversation.

Germany and France are trying to protect their welfare capitalism with defense. Ireland is generating its own sustainable model of social capitalism by playing offense. I'll bet on the offense.

T.Friedman July 1st, 2005

I think it [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie.

...

We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big state right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.

...


What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?"

You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna to let it grow?

Well, Suck. On. This.

Okay.

That Charlie was what this war was about. We could've hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.

If only he wasnt so funny looking.

Photbooth fun.

I guess we shouldnt have used the whiteboards..

All Hail Marty Moose

Well I'll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna have fun. We're all gonna have so much fucking fun we'll need plastic surgeory to remove our godamn smiles. You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of you're assholes! I gotta be crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose

"If Christie weren't governor, you'd be home by now."

Governor of New Jersey Kills $8.7 Billion Train Tunnel:

The largest public transit project in the nation, a commuter train tunnel under the Hudson River connecting New Jersey to Manhattan, was halted on Thursday by Gov. Chris Christie because, he said, the state could not afford its share of the project’s rising cost.

Mr. Christie’s decision stunned other government officials and advocates of public transportation because work on the tunnel was under way and $3 billion of federal financing had already been arranged — more money than had been committed to any other transit project in America.

It has taken 20 years to design and get the funding which includes over $3 billion from the fed government which now will go elsewhere. The only rail link from New Jersey to midtown Manhattan is a 2-track tunnel, built 100 years ago and is at capacity. Now hundreds of jobs will move elsewhere as there will no longer be capacity to bring any additional NJ commuters into midtown. And 6,000 anticipated construction jobs will now vanish. What do you think this does to property values in northern new jersey?

Years of work by transit advocates, planners and collaboration between 2 states, a bi-state agency, and the federal govt has all been trashed because Chris Christie wants to run for president, or at least hang out in thinktanks when he stops being governor.


How about this billboard?
"If Christie weren't governor, you'd be home by now."

The the Regional Plan Association, the perhaps most-respected nonpartisan planning organization in the New York Metro Area issued the following statement on Christie's idiocy:

RPA STATEMENT ON CANCELLATION OF ARC

(New York, NY) - Regional Plan Association, an independent planning organization representing the tri-state region, today released the following statement regarding the cancellation of the Access to the Region's Core project:

Governor Chris Christie today announced he would cancel the Access to the Region's Core tunnel project - the largest public transit project underway in the nation - citing potential cost overrun concerns.

The decision casts a dark shadow over the economic future of New Jersey. The State will lose out on an astonishing $6 billion matching contributions from the federal government and Port Authority. The tunnel would have opened New Jerseyans' access to Manhattan's lucrative job market, raised tax revenues for the state and local governments, boosted property values, provided a more reliable and faster commute to hundreds of thousands of NJ TRANSIT commuters and drivers, and saved on greenhouse gas emissions.

As Krugman says, even if roads did pay for themselves through gas and other fees (they don't, not even close), there's still a basic economic argument for subsidizing mass transit, because it ameliorates congestion. From an economic standpoint, there's "too much" congestion because congestion is an externality. You can reduce it by adding a toll, or by making an alternative route more attractive by subsidizing it.


This project was about the one thing which gave me some confidence in the idea that this country could actually do anything.