One of two reasons I haven’t been posting much lately.

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The Onion: Too True To Be Fake

The Onion recently published this hilarious story about the new Republican education plan to close all schools and instead just give students $3,000 to “start their own business.”

Of course, The Onion‘s humor derives from its closeness with the truth, and Eric Cantor’s (undelivered) remarks on income inequality demonstrate how close the Republican Party has veered beyond parody:

I believe that child needs a hand up to help her climb the ladder of success in our country. She needs the advantages of a solid family around her and a community that encourages her to learn and work hard. She needs some semblance of stability. She also needs some guarantees. She needs to know that the rules are the same for everybody. That although she may have to work harder than many of us, she needs to know that she has a fair shot at making it in this country.

OK, so far so good. Children in poverty need help at an equal opportunity for success. So… better schools? Extensive job training? A minimal health insurance plan? Maybe universal early childhood education?

Uh, no:

There are politicians and others who want to demonize people that have earned success in certain sectors of our society. They claim that these people have now made enough, and haven’t paid their fair share. But, pitting Americans against one another tends to deflate the aspirational spirit of our people and fade the American dream. I believe that the most successful among us are positioned to use their talents to help grow our economy and give everyone a hand up the ladder and the dignity of a job. We should encourage them to extend their creativity and generosity to helping build the community infrastructure that provides a hand up and a fair shot to those less fortunate, like that little 9-year-old girl in the inner city.

So, there you have it. The Republican plan to help all children receive equal opportunity is… to wait for benevolent rich people to “give everyone a hand”!

The rest of the speech is mostly a love-letter to entrepreneurs and small business. We’ll just wait for the 9-year-old to start up her business, I suppose.

The Onion couldn’t have written Cantor’s speech any better.

For what it’s worth, Cantor refused to deliver the speech when it became clear that his entire audience would be Occupy Wall Street protestors.

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Why incentives matter

This viral video (Not Safe For Life… seriously, fairly disturbing) of a Chinese toddler getting run over by a van has been making the rounds. Most infuriating, the video shows many bystanders passing the toddler and refusing to help. This has led to substantial discussion about how cold-hearted the Chinese are, as well as other cultural stereotypes.

But one thing worth noting here is that many cultural differences stem from the incentives developed in default rules.

Consider this quote from the driver of the van:

According to reports the van driver had just split up from his girlfriend and was talking on his mobile phone when he hit the girl.

“If she is dead, I may pay only about 20,000 yuan ($3,125). But if she is injured, it may cost me hundreds of thousands yuan,” said the driver over the phone to the media, before he gave himself up to the police.

This sounds like absolutely vile cost-benefit analysis bordering on straight-up murder, but the way that costs are distributed in accidents changes our behavior before and during accidents. Vile though it may be, were the costs shifted differently, and the costs of death higher than the costs of injury, perhaps the driver would have behaved differently.

Similarly, much outrage has been directed towards the “cold-hearted” bystanders who watched for seven minutes before a rag collector moved the girl to the curb. Why a rag-collector and not one of the middle-class shopkeepers and shoppers? China does not have a Good Samaritan law that protects bystanders who help in an accident. As a result, there are cases picked up in the media like this one:

In November of 2006, an elderly woman surnamed Xu in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, suffered two fractures after falling at a bus station. She later successfully sued a man named Peng Yu, who claimed to have voluntarily helped her.

Despite a lack of evidence, a local court ruled that Peng was guilty and ordered him to pay compensation of over 40,000 yuan ($6,184) to the woman. The verdict was based on the “logical thinking” that it was highly possible that Peng had knocked the woman down, otherwise he would not have helped her to hospital. The case was eventually settled out of court with mediation from provincial officials.

Since then, the name “Peng Yu” has become a label for such cases, leading many to believe that helping out an old lady might not be the best idea.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. The reason you would get out of your car to help someone injured in the road has nothing to do with your legal liability. Because of the kind of person you are, you would risk your life, financial standing, etc. to help a person in need.

But we live in a society where that background norm is enforced through Good Samaritan laws, and a strong presumption in favor of the person coming to aid. If the background norm were different, you might behave differently. And if the incentives moved in the other direction, one might expect many fewer Good Samaritans.

Consider a final example. The Japanese famously return stolen and found goods to the authorities (most notably after the recent earthquake and tsunami). Many chalk this up to a cultural norm that the Japanese have of honor, duty, and communal strength. Yet, it is also a reflection of a legal regime that strongly encourages finders to return stolen goods and encourages police to return goods to owners. Police boxes dot Japan for people to place found goods, and finders get a small reward for found property. Furthermore, keeping the found goods counts as embezzlement with a substantial fine. Japan also has firmer policies in place regarding police return of stolen goods. (As James May puts it on Top Gear, “I would have obeyed the speed limit, officer, but frankly, the police never found the TV that was stolen from me.”)

Maybe the Japanese return goods because they are naturally honest and communatarian. Maybe the Chinese commit hit-and-runs and ignore injured toddlers because they are naturally cold-hearted.

Or maybe cultural differences have as much to do with legal incentive structures as with innate culture.

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I submit this without comment

Skip to 0:35 for the good stuff.

LYRICS:

Imagine there’s no pizza
I couldn’t if I tried
Eating only tacos
Or Kentucky Fried
Imagine only burgers
It’s frightening and sad

You’re lucky you have pizza
To feed for kids for you
Only frosting or cookies
And no dishes you must do
Imagine eating pizza
Each and every day

You may say that it’s junk food
But to me it’s so much more
It gives my life its meaning
And it makes a lot of dough

Imagine mozzarella
Anchovies on the side
And maybe, pepperoni
Rounds out your pizza pie
Imagine getting pizza
Delivered to your door

You don’t have to give up now
On my skateboard I will go
I’ll be back in 30 minutes
I just bought Dominoes

All I am saying
Is give pizza a chance
All I am saying
Give pizza a chance!
All I am saying
Is give pizza a chance
All I am saying
You’ve got to, got to give pizza a chance!

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Rush Limbaugh aligns himself with a group that abducts children, turns them into soldiers, and forces them to murder their parents

Blind, partisan hatred has become an easy way to describe the entire Republican party. The joke goes that if Obama supports puppies and rainbows, the GOP opposes it. So reflexive is the anti-Obama instinct among them, that for whatever X he proposes, they simply must adopt not-X. It’s a simplistic analysis, but… it’s true almost all the time, isn’t it?

Case in point; the Lord’s Resistance Army now enjoys the support of the figurehead of the GOP: Rush Limbaugh. Of course, I’ve long known that Limbaugh is a fucking prick deserving no attention whatsoever. And so I will not give him a link to his site. But if I were to, you would see that he opposes Obama’s recent decision to send 100 troops into Uganda to combat the LRA. Ok, fine. Reasonable people can disagree about whether it is wise to send troops into yet another country to get involved in yet another local conflict.

But Limbaugh does not stop there. He titles his entry, “Obama invades Uganda, targets Christians.” You see, the LRA describes itself as Christian, and this therefore represents an irresistible opportunity for Limbaugh to cast this as an example of Obama – the secret Muslim – getting involved in Africa to target Christians. Because Obama, after all, represents a threat to the real American way of life. It’s a Holy War, and Obama wants the Christians to lose.

Limbaugh further reads LRA propaganda about their alleged goals of bringing peace and security to Uganda. He ignores the fact that:

They force abducted children to become soldiers and kill their parents.

They slaughter hundreds of civilians, sparing not the men, women, or children.

They force children soldiers to murder other children who try to escape.

Again, reasonable people can disagree over whether the United States should get involved. But for Limbaugh to take the LRA’s side, ignore their depraved mass murders, and cast this as an example of Obama attacking Christians is a new low, even for Limbaugh. Fuck him. But when your reflexive Obama-hatred motivates every political position you take, this is the logical conclusion.

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Most assassination plots are wacky

Some commentators, such as Ceng Ugyur and others (rounded up by On the Media here), have expressed skepticism about the alleged Iranian-planned assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C.

They note that a car salesman isn’t a likely choice for Iranian assassin, and that Iranian intelligence generally looks to its own agents rather than independent contractors. Typical reaction:

Are we to believe that this Texas car seller was a Quds sleeper agent for many years resident in the U.S.? Ridiculous. They (the Iranian command system) never ever use such has-beens or loosely connected people for sensitive plots such as this.

Yet, the fact is that most assassination plots are nutty, ill-conceived, and poorly executed.

Let’s not forget that the CIA tried to enlist the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro (not a joke!).

Let’s not forget that the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln was a loose band of Confederate irregulars and sympathizers.

Russian spies are basically just running real estate scams at this point, and national intelligence agencies increasingly use contractors to avoid their own culpability.

My point is, just because this assassination plot sounds wacky doesn’t mean it didn’t actually happen. Outrageous bullshit and national intelligence agencies go hand in hand.

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Oh, Elizabeth Warren, you fox!

“It’s called empathy.”

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Snobbery for whatever reason is still snobbery

Sometimes it’s good to have a voice pushing back at the critical commentariat that push boomer favorites like Bob Dylan and The Godfather as the “greatest of all time.” Unfortunately, articles like this one by Natasha Vargas-Cooper are going too far in the wrong direction:

History does not inform the value of a film; you need never see a stylized Godard flick or Cary Grant comedy to understand the enthralling power of Fargo or Independence Day. Movies are a mass art and everyone should have opinions on them regardless of if they’ve seen The Deer Hunter or not. We are a generation weaned on television and movies, we were moviesgoers before we were citizens, it’s too long to wait until the purists die off to talk about the accomplishments and missteps of Paul Thomas Anderson in a serious way. So let’s plow our cart over the bones of the dead and take stock of our new frontier.

First, Independence Day? Don’t get me wrong, I did think it was the greatest film ever made when I was 11, but still.

More importantly, though, I don’t think cinephiles that have watched The Deer Hunter necessarily dislike Paul Thomas Anderson movies (or Independence Day, for that matter). In fact, watching more movies gives you more perspective on the movies you have seen, are seeing, and will see, in the same way that reading more books or meeting more people informs the books/people that you encounter.

This reminds me of Sarah Palin’s “Real America” snobbery. Refusing to read Foucault or listen to Puccini because of the reputations of the people who do such things (“non-Real-Americans”) is exactly as snobbish as refusing to read Guns & Ammo or listen to Brooks & Dunn because it’s beneath your station. I can’t even believe that someone would voluntarily choose not to experience something and then use that experience as a source of pride:

The rules of the game (Ha! That’s the name of a classic movie I have never seen. Eat it ,1939!): Both low and highbrow movies are allowed in.

Really? Eat it, 1939? Of all the film snobs I know, none of them would say “Eat it, 2011!” as if no good films worth discussing were released this year. They might lament about overall quality, or complain about 3-D, but no one would write off a whole year.

Being a snob is not any better if you’re just a snob about lowbrow/recent culture.

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The real problem with Occupy Wall Street

It’s not that they’re rudderless, or that they have few defined principles. I think they do have defined principles, so that’s not my beef.

My thing is — they’re not radical enough.

Here’s an abridged list of demands (cobbled from various sources):

• Remove the influence of money in government, presumably by campaign-finance legislation (but see Citizens United?)
• Return to Glass-Steagall
• Raise taxes on the rich
• Raise taxes on corporations
• Eliminate corporate welfare
• Keep Medicare and Social Security benefits at current levels

By contrast, here’s a list of Tea Party demands:

1. Identify constitutionality of every new law
2. Reject emissions trading
3. Demand a balanced federal budget
4. Simplify the tax system
5. Audit federal government agencies for waste and constitutionality
6. Limit annual growth in federal spending
7. Repeal the healthcare legislation passed on March 23, 2010
8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above’ Energy Policy
9. Reduce Earmarks
10. Reduce Taxes

One of these agendas contains relatively sensible policy; one of them is totally bonkers. One group is essentially pushing for what was conservative U.S. policy as recently as the Bush I administration; the other group is pushing for a complete reimagining of the purpose of the federal government not seen since the New Deal (or possibly the Civil War). The problem is that the two are now being equated; in fact, the Tea Party is given more credence by the media because they’re old (and actually vote).

Instead of actually calling for radical things (say, nationalizing and breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks, or creating massive public works programs akin to the New Deal, or a financial transactions tax), the Occupy Wall Street movement is pushing for normal sensible policy.

If anything, this puts Obama further into a box; now he will want to appear as if his plan is not merely appeasing the protestors. If the Occupy Wall Street marks the radical position on the American left, we’re even more fucked than I thought.

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In defense of: Hank Williams Jr.

After Hank Williams Jr.’s comparison of President Barack Obama to Hitler (which, honestly, was less idiotic than the things he said afterwards to justify it), his contract with ESPN to open Monday Night Football ended. He promptly complained about his First Amendment rights, and was promptly ridiculed by various commentators.

Steve Benen sums up the overall sentiment:

In a statement, Williams said the network stepped on his First Amendment rights, apparently confusing the right to free speech with the right to an ESPN contract.

Yet, this is more complicated than the immediate facts suggest. Consider the response of country music’s establishment to the Dixie Chicks’ famous “ashamed” comments about George W. Bush. There was a massive concerted effort to crush their success, including radio stations that refused to play the Dixie Chicks’ music and assorted boycotts. The Dixie Chicks lost some endorsements, but not their jobs. And yet, the scrutiny and criticism they received definitely chilled the willingness of others to engage in free speech at a time when it was desperately needed.

Obviously, everyone was well within their rights to do this: endorsers had no obligation to sponsor the Dixie Chicks, and consumers had no obligation to buy their product. But employment rights in particular can often be an important hurdle to active political speech, and the fact that at-will termination exists for almost any job for any speech, no matter the content, creates chilling effects on free speech. If your employer can terminate you for your speech or associations outside of the workplace, even if done privately, you probably won’t feel like expressing certain views. For example, if your employer told you that your attendance of the “Occupy Wall Street” rallies would result in the loss of your job, would you do still attend? There are limited free speech exceptions to the at-will doctrine (notably whistleblower protections), but these are definitely the exception rather than the rule. Your employer in that situation would be almost completely protected. Even without state action, your company’s statement certainly curtails the kind of speech you feel free exercising.

The spirit of the First Amendment right to free speech and association is clear, but its application will always be muddy (the Supreme Court’s wacky jurisprudence on the First Amendment suggests as much). Maybe Hank Williams’s termination is just an example of the hard elbows in the marketplace of ideas. And Williams’s position was somewhat different — he was an independent contractor, and his role as entertainer theoretically put him in a kind of PR role for ESPN that he clearly bungled. But there’s no denying that the threat of loss of employment for one’s constitutional speech outside of the workplace setting can be damaging to the spirit of free speech.

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