Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Newt and Malthus
Newt is doing something truly interesting. While the other candidates are busy ginning up millions so they can bash each other over the head for two years, Newt is simply organizing a new party.
He's doing it within the Republican structure, thus avoiding the McCain-Feingold obstacles to a named third party, but it's still a party. His main goal is to run lots of like-minded folks for state, local and federal offices, and then use their power to influence the government.
This is exactly what a party does. 1. Gain a majority. 2. Use it.
Since the Republican club isn't a party by this definition - it gained a majority and the Presidency, and then allowed the Kennedys and Clintons to continue running the country as usual - it's a good 'vacant shell' to build a new organization on. As the informal leader of this new party, Newt will have more genuine power than any Republican president. And if the process of building the organization leads to a groundswell of support, he could become the candidate as well. However: I suspect he understands that no Republican will be allowed to win against Hillary, so it's more important at this time to construct a genuine opposition party.
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Newt's platform is correct on the basics. Focus on rebuilding civilization, bring bureaucracy forward into at least the 20th century if not the 21st, put a leash on lawyers. I don't think he goes far enough on the latter; he's ready to dissolve the 9th Circuit but not the entire Federal court system.
I've got a contrarian thought on the middle point. Maybe we'd do better to bring bureaucracy backward and away from technocracy. It would do a better job of serving the poor and elderly with a more human approach, and just might be more efficient in the ways that really matter.
An example, derived from listening to old radio shows.... In the '40s the Post Office delivered twice a day and took care of finding addresses without any Zip Codes at all. You could send a letter to "March of Dimes, c/o Postmaster", and the local post office would know where to put it. Now we have to put 9-digit Zip Codes on letters; if I were to send a letter to my next-door neighbor, it would have to go to Seattle for sorting and return to Spokane. This is high-tech but it is NOT EFFICIENT. My home-town paper sometimes takes 18 days to reach me from Oklahoma, which is literally horse-and-buggy speed.
The overall point is this: Much of the technocracy was planned on the basis of ever-increasing population. Malthusian theories, implanted by the Left, led government to get ready for exponential increases. We haven't had exponential increases. America now has twice as many people as in 1940, not six times as many.
When our population starts to decrease, as many Euro countries are already seeing, we'll be stuck with a lot of systems planned for a non-existent future. Technology can help, but perhaps government can find a different niche, a more personalized way of doing things.
Another helpful backward move that requires considerable government action, though not strictly a gov't matter: Rejuvenate the railroads. We have allowed them to decline dangerously. Trains are hugely superior to trucks in energy usage, especially because trains can be switched to electric power. Even in America many railroads are already electrified, and the standard diesel locomotive would be easy to convert. There's no way to electrify long-distance trucks.
Rails are somewhat more secure than highways; though nothing is purely terrorist-proof, tracks have limited access by definition, and you can't steer a bomb-carrying train into a destination that isn't on the tracks. Also, building more trains - and building more nuclear reactors to power them - would be an excellent use for the dozens of automobile plants and thousands of workers now abandoned by Ford and GM. A competent wartime government would have started this process on 9/12/2001. ¶ 9:59 AM
He's doing it within the Republican structure, thus avoiding the McCain-Feingold obstacles to a named third party, but it's still a party. His main goal is to run lots of like-minded folks for state, local and federal offices, and then use their power to influence the government.
This is exactly what a party does. 1. Gain a majority. 2. Use it.
Since the Republican club isn't a party by this definition - it gained a majority and the Presidency, and then allowed the Kennedys and Clintons to continue running the country as usual - it's a good 'vacant shell' to build a new organization on. As the informal leader of this new party, Newt will have more genuine power than any Republican president. And if the process of building the organization leads to a groundswell of support, he could become the candidate as well. However: I suspect he understands that no Republican will be allowed to win against Hillary, so it's more important at this time to construct a genuine opposition party.
= = = = =
Newt's platform is correct on the basics. Focus on rebuilding civilization, bring bureaucracy forward into at least the 20th century if not the 21st, put a leash on lawyers. I don't think he goes far enough on the latter; he's ready to dissolve the 9th Circuit but not the entire Federal court system.
I've got a contrarian thought on the middle point. Maybe we'd do better to bring bureaucracy backward and away from technocracy. It would do a better job of serving the poor and elderly with a more human approach, and just might be more efficient in the ways that really matter.
An example, derived from listening to old radio shows.... In the '40s the Post Office delivered twice a day and took care of finding addresses without any Zip Codes at all. You could send a letter to "March of Dimes, c/o Postmaster", and the local post office would know where to put it. Now we have to put 9-digit Zip Codes on letters; if I were to send a letter to my next-door neighbor, it would have to go to Seattle for sorting and return to Spokane. This is high-tech but it is NOT EFFICIENT. My home-town paper sometimes takes 18 days to reach me from Oklahoma, which is literally horse-and-buggy speed.
The overall point is this: Much of the technocracy was planned on the basis of ever-increasing population. Malthusian theories, implanted by the Left, led government to get ready for exponential increases. We haven't had exponential increases. America now has twice as many people as in 1940, not six times as many.
When our population starts to decrease, as many Euro countries are already seeing, we'll be stuck with a lot of systems planned for a non-existent future. Technology can help, but perhaps government can find a different niche, a more personalized way of doing things.
Another helpful backward move that requires considerable government action, though not strictly a gov't matter: Rejuvenate the railroads. We have allowed them to decline dangerously. Trains are hugely superior to trucks in energy usage, especially because trains can be switched to electric power. Even in America many railroads are already electrified, and the standard diesel locomotive would be easy to convert. There's no way to electrify long-distance trucks.
Rails are somewhat more secure than highways; though nothing is purely terrorist-proof, tracks have limited access by definition, and you can't steer a bomb-carrying train into a destination that isn't on the tracks. Also, building more trains - and building more nuclear reactors to power them - would be an excellent use for the dozens of automobile plants and thousands of workers now abandoned by Ford and GM. A competent wartime government would have started this process on 9/12/2001. ¶ 9:59 AM
