Obsidian Wings

An Issue of Integrity

The arguments against drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) are many, but most are idealistic. The arguments in favor of drilling for oil in ANWR are many, but most are practical or economic (not always the same thing). Having suffered defeat in the Senate last time around, the Bush Adminstration now feels safe to announce it's renewing efforts to open up for drilling the area represented by Section 1002 of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980. I say "safe," because we heard little to nothing about this during the campaign. But the campaign is over, and Bush never said he'd drop the matter, so it's no surprise. The only mystery at this point is how much of his new found political capital he'll spend to see this happen.

Strongest among the arguments against drilling are the effects it could have on the environment there. Those anxious to take the oil argue that "We have the technology to develop oil without harming the environment and wildlife." But they don't argue that they'll use that technology. In fact, there are precedents to suggest that once they have the go ahead, the Bush administration will let industry drop their green facades.

But the question for me has never been how greenly the oil can be extracted, but rather how much integrity the concept of a National Wildlife Refuge has for the people of the United States. Pro-drilling enthusiasts like to argue that "The debate in Congress today centers solely on this small section [1.9 million acres]; the remaining 17.5 million acres of ANWR lie in the protected enclave that cannot be developed." Or they faithlessly argue that section 1002 is not pristine (the it's-ugly-so-why-do-you-care argument). This argument is particularly disengenous though, because those offering it surely understand that any impact on section 1002 (which includes the shoreline) has been determined as very likely to have significant effects on the rest of ANWR, which even the Heritage Foundation admits is America's "last true wilderness, a hallowed place, and a pristine environmental area."

[Other candidate's name here] Stole The Election Open Thread

In other places, I've seen commenters suggest that the Republicans cheated, fixed the vote, and handed Bush the election.  Consider this a thread to post your favorite moonbattiness without fear of reprisal.  Diebold delivered Ohio for Bush?  Kerry buried Bush with the dead vote?  Democratic elections supervisors are being deliberately incompetent in order to cast doubt on the vote?  Post your favorite nutty-delicious theory here.

It's ok if you're serious; we'll try to be gentle.  If you're really, really serious then we might have to generate a less frivolous post.

Andrew Sullivan Does Not Understand the Value of a Dollar

Andrew Sullivan writes:

And I oppose punitive or "progressive" taxation, because it means the government discriminates on the basis of personal success. If we're all taxed at the same proportionate rate, the successful still pay far more into the public coffers than the unsuccessful. They're just not penalized even further by a higher rate. If you want to help the disadvantaged, and I do, then focus government spending on programs that help the under-privileged. But don't penalize work. And don't defend unequal treatment.

There are several reasons to oppose a progressive tax, but Sullivan's isn't one of them.  Contrary to Sullivan, a progressive tax is not ipso facto "punitive."  The gap in Sullivan's thinking is marginal utility -- and it's real gap, which he must traverse. 

Here, the theory of marginal utility essentially says that a dollar's value to you depends in part on the number of dollars that you have.  The first dollar you earn is very valuable -- if it's all you have, it's enough to get a snack and keep from starving for the next few moments.  The 1,000th dollar you have (or expect) is less valuable: you're likely no longer in danger of starving, and you can probably also afford a place to sleep.  The 100,000th dollar is even less valuable:  you have the necessities -- food, shelter, clothing -- and you probably have a bit of excess for a car and vacations and a bit 'o fun.  The millionth dollar is even less valuable to you:  your life is likely already quite pleasant (in a material sense); the issues are now investment for the future and luxury goods.

What changed in the course of your accumulation of dollars?  The dollar's nominal value remained the same.  The dollar's value to you, however, slowly and steadily decreased with accumulation.  The last dollar you earned (or inherited) was worth far less to you than the first dollar you earned and inherited.

Progressive taxation takes advantage of marginal utility to impose a lower tax on the dollars that are very valuable to you (the first few) and a higher tax on the dollars that are less valuable to you (the last few).  From the perspective of the real value of the dollars to you (as opposed to their nominal value to you), a progressive tax is actually less punitive than a flat tax, which taxes your more- and less- valuable dollars equally.

Now, there are reasons to say, "to Hell with marginal utility; a dollar is a dollar."  But, if you haven't addressed the marginal utility argument for progressive taxation, you haven't addressed the argument for progressive taxation.  You're a ship passing at night with your lights off; you're a guy who doesn't understand the value of a dollar.

Sing Glad Hosannas!

Ashcroft has resigned! Calico cats everywhere will be relieved, statues can shed their robes, and Justice Department workers will no longer be asked to sing Let the Eagle Soar. (From the Guardian story: "When asked why she opposed the workplace singalong, one of the department's lawyers said: "Have you heard the song? It really sucks."")

And besides all that, Ashcroft told Bush, in his letter of resignation, that "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." Fancy that! I guess that means the War on Terror is over, and we can let all those people out of Guantanamo. I may leave my car and house unlocked just to celebrate.

Then again, maybe not.

It took y'all long enough

Sebastian Holsclaw, permanent ObWi guest poster, has now become a permant ObWi permant poster.  Hurray!  The ObWi Five becomes the ObWi Six:  Edward Underscore, Katherine, Hilzoy, Sebastian, Slartibartfast, and yours truly, Von.

What adventures will we have?  What crimes will we solve?  (More to the point, which will we commit?)  Will Hilzoy finally stop with all the profanity?  Can Slarti get his fjords to work?  Will Edward Underscore ever become the man he hopes to be, Edward Sans Serif Bold?  How many more dirty deeds, done dirt cheap will Katherine uncover?  Will Sebastian be allowed to drive the Mystery Hoverfoil?  And whatever happened to the rest of my name? 

Most importantly, will we ever find our long-lost Far Starblazer, Moe Lane? 

Keep those computer do-hickies gim-jawed to this station, folks.  There are big things a-doin'.

Following my snide remark regarding blogospherian X, I should praise blogospherian Y

See!  I told you he could be funny.*

What?  What's that you say?  You say that blogospherian Y once got into a pissing contest with blogospherian X, and that by praising Y in an attempt to make up for snidery to X, I'm actually committing another snide offense against X?  Horrors!   Maybe I shoulda praised Z instead . . . .

(I'm seeing a trend.)

von

*I found one of Y's prior posts not very funny at all (irony, if this be it, has to be done well -- or it shouldn't be done at all.) 

I am allowed one snide remark regarding others in the Blogosphere.

Well, this certainly explains a lot.  Only a life-long Democrat could embrace the Right with the fervor of a convert and the understanding of a radish.

The first thing you have to do is admit that you have a problem, Part II

It's not entirely unexpected, I suppose.  My suggestion that Democrats should moderate their views generated a bit of heat from the readership (including this thoughtful response by our own Hilzoy) -- most of it from Democrats, and most of it against me.  However perilous, though, I'm gonna continue the fight because I think I'm right:  Democrats need to turn to the right in order to have a chance in the next election.  Here's why:

1.  "Turn to the right" is often taken to mean a turn to the right on social issues -- a problem compounded by the visibility of the gay marriage issue this time around.  But social issues are only a part of it (and not the largest part).

(cont.)

Poll Mania

The meme suggesting that Bush won largely on the strength of anti-gay backlash seems to be undergoing a rather thorough debunking. See for example Kevin Drum, Andrew Sullivan, Slate, and David Brooks (NYT Nov. 6). Andrew puts it most succinctly:

The percentage of people who said in 2004 that their vote was determined by the issue of "moral values" was 22 percent. In 1992, if you add the issues of abortion and family values together, that percentage was 27 percent. In 1996, it was 49 percent. In 2000, it was 49 percent. So the domestic moral focus halved in 2004. Obviously, the war took precedence, especially if you combine the categories of the Iraq war and the war on terrorism more generally. Again: the Republicans should be wary of over-playing their hand. If they believe the entire country is the religious right, the backlash could begin very soon.

I'm not going to try to wade in further. My initial intuition is that the gay issue may have played a slight role in the election, and that in this election every slight role could be looked at as decisive.

Instead I want to talk about my problems with polls. This may become a quarterly project, but I really want to convey that people put far too much stock in polls. Lots of polls play into our own preconceptions.

For instance look at the poll which asks "Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track?" According to this poll, lots of people, for quite some time, believe that the country is heading on the wrong track. You might look at a poll like that and think: "I believe that the country is on the wrong track, apparently lots of people agree with me." You would almost certainly be wrong if by 'people agree with me' you mean that people have the same reasons for thinking that the country is on the wrong track.

Suppose you think the country is on the wrong track because of our invasion of Iraq. There are some number of people who think we ought to have nuked Iraq. They probably think our invasion put us on the wrong track. Do you agree with them? Some people think that we should never go to war. They think that any war puts us on the wrong track. Do you agree with them. Some people think we should have used quite a bit more force and not worry much about civilian casualties. They probably think we have gone on the wrong track in Iraq. Do you agree with them? My point is that we assume that if people respond to poll questions like that as we would have, that they shared our reasoning. That almost certainly isn't true. My examples show that you could believe a number of wholly contradictory things about Iraq and conclude that our conduct put the US on the 'wrong track'.

Furthermore, you have to realize that huge numbers of people might not agree with Iraq as being an important factor in their 'wrong track' analysis. Maybe lots of people think we are going on the wrong track because states are resisting gay marriage. Maybe even more think that we are on the wrong track because we are even considering gay marriage. A couple of people may think we are on the wrong track because we aren't listening to the messages from Mars carefully enough.

Such problems are enormous in the relatively straight-forward 'wrong track' arena. But ask if 'moral values' are important in an election, and the range of possible reasons for saying "yes" is even more vast. If someone said "yes" were they talking about homosexuality, honesty, steadfastness, resolve, abortion, or some other topic which they personally found important? We don't know. And making assumptions about it because most of the ones who answered "yes" voted for Bush isn't sound analysis.

So when analyzing polls, it is important to remember that matching conclusions might not mean matching reasoning, and that ambiguous terms might not have been interpreted by the answerer in the same way as you would interpret them (or in the same way as the questioner meant for it to be interpreted.

Discussions on Israel

With the election out of the way, some parts of the blogosphere that I could hardly bear to read are becoming interesting again. There is an interesting post over at Crooked Timber where Henry Farrell asks why it is so difficult to have even remotely rational discussions on the subject of Israel. Matthew Yglesias raises an interesting point:

At the end of the day, whether Israel ought to start removing far-flung settlements first or whether the Palestinians ought to start disarming militia/terrorist groups first is not really the grandest clash of principles one can imagine. But people on the pro-Israel side think the Palestinians are lying about their ostensible position and really seek the destruction of Israel. People on the anti-Israel side think the Israelis are lying about their ostenisble position and really seek the destuction of Palestine. Both sides can marshall some non-trivial evidence for their point of view. But it’s impossible to have a reasoned debate if you’re not willing to accept that the people on the other side really mean what they say they mean. The rules of the “civil discussion” game simply require that you take your opponent to be arguing in good faith and not acting as a screen for some other nefarious agenda.

In response to both that and the main post, I wrote:

This is an interesting problem, because it is not a physical impossibility for someone to actually have a position which is a screen for some other nefarious agenda. Once you get to the point where you can credibly suggest that the other side is just engaging in propaganda instead of real peace talks, it isn’t obvious that you shouldn’t point that out. Israel believesthat it got there with the Palestinians either two years after Oslo, or after the rejection of the Clinton proposals. Palestinians think they got there after Oslo and the things that they contest forced them to engage in the first intifada (especially the settlements). Once the debate has broken down to that extent, the question is: what can you do (short of genocide on one side or the other) to bring it back? My guess is that (whichever side you are on) you have to climb down from your own hugely divisive tactic AND do so at such a time where the other side does not or cannot immediately respond by increasing the potency of their hugely divisive tactic (which makes you look like a fool and contributes to the idea that the other side is really just proceeding after their nefarious agenda.)

In the spirit of Henry's original post, I think it would be interesting to think about why it is so difficult to even have a discussion about solving the problem between the Israelis and the Palestinians (much less actually solving the problem).