A Balancing Act.

For those of us who don't see the debate over the size and role of government as a cosmic battle between good and evil, there was a glimmer of hope in Romney’s debate performance last week. In front of millions of Americans, the Republican candidate for president made a shocking admission: government regulation is not inherently evil:

From NPR's debate transcript: Regulation is essential. You can't have a free market work if you don't have regulation. As a business person, I had to have — I needed to know the regulations. I needed them there. You couldn't have people opening up banks in their — in their garage and making loans. I mean, you have to have regulations so that you can have an economy work. Every free economy has good regulation.

This shouldn’t be that surprising, considering that few Republicans want to do away with all government regulation. But, they often make it sound like they do. Railing against the tyranny of federal regulation is a well-worn page in the conservative playbook.

Frustration with government regulation isn't without cause. For every sensible rule that benefits the marketplace, there's sure to be one that has unintended consequences that more than offset the intended good. But the conservative instinct to dissolve government’s regulatory function, and let corporations roam free, is ultimately destructive. Even more, it reflects an incoherent view of human nature.

Traditionally, conservatives have held a dim view of the human capacity to handle power. Conservatives believe that if too much power is concentrated in the hands of government leaders, it will inevitably be abused, regardless of any good intentions that may be present. Seen through this lense, the inefficiency of America's constitutional government is a feature, not a bug. Better a gridlocked congress than a charismatic leader with the ability to strip away our rights.

The conservative aversion to concentrations of government power is perfectly reasonable. But is government power the only power that can become dangerous? Conservatives may believe that people tend toward corruption in the context of government, but they simultaneously hold that unbridled power in the corporate world will only lead to affordable toasters and joy. This, we are told, is thanks to the power of the marketplace to harness greed for the common good.

In thousands of cases, this works. But what if a factory can save millions of dollars by dumping chemicals into a local river? What if the CEO of an investment firm can make millions in the short term through practices that will likely lead to disaster after he leaves the company? These aren't just rhetorical questions -- companies in the pursuit of profit have done bad things. Sometimes, really bad things. And it's not un-American to acknowledge the reality of capitalism's dark side.

Greed is sometimes good. But, as some guy once said, it can also lead to "all kinds of evil." Neither CEOs or congressmen are angels, and both can wreck havoc if left completely unchecked. The conversation we need to be having isn’t about whether all power should reside in the hands of the public or private sectors, but rather, how genuine public good should be balanced with economic freedom. We don’t need burdensome regulation, but we do need some regulation. Focusing on cutting the size of government alone distracts of from the real question: what regulations are a beneficial and proper exercise of the government’s power, and how can they be enforced in the most efficient way possible? Simply deriding the ineffectiveness of the federal government, and then gutting staff and budgets across the board, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Romney seems to get this, and that makes me kind of happy. Although that might have more to do with the brownies I just pulled out of the oven. BRB.

Election Thoughts.

I haven’t been writing a whole lot for the past couple of months. Or at least, I haven’t been finishing a lot of writing. Stringing together coherent thoughts is hard and tiring.

So, I won’t try to.

As you may know, there's an election going on. Better yet, it's the exciting kind where we get to pick a president! Because I graduated from college, I have many thoughts, or ponderances, when elections occur. I wrote some of these down, and am now putting them on the Internet for you to enjoy. If you don't want to read these thoughts, you can continue staring at the patriotic image above. It will undoubtedly stir the soul of all true patriots, due to its patriotic nature, and I'm very proud that I was able to find it via a simple Google image search.

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VARIOUS THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ELECTION, PRESENTED IN BULLETED POINTS

- Joe Biden’s recent campaign trail gaffes reminded me that Joe Biden is still vice president. That, in turn, made me giggle.

- Does anyone truly believe that Obama personally dislikes people who start businesses, and is actively plotting to make people dependant on the government? Inventing secret motives behind an opponent’s policy is a mainstay of American political discourse, but it still manages to irritate me. See also: Republicans don’t really care about abortion -- they want to turn women into a perpetually pregnant slave-race!

- I think most people in the media were thrilled that Romney chose Paul Ryan as his running mate. Despite the best efforts of the Democrats to paint Romney as a Snidely Whiplash, and the Republicans to portray him as an heir to Reagan, he doesn’t really incite any emotion beyond mild like or dislike. Paul Ryan is a dynamic character in our current political story, and journalists are suckers for narrative. Like 2008, this is going to be an election cycle dominated by discussion of the GOP’s veep-to-be.

- Ryan’s infamous budget plan contains big cuts to almost everything the federal government does. These cuts would be very painful, and a more reasonable approach to reducing the deficit would likely include some sort of revenue increase. On the other hand, such a tough budget would actually tame many of our entitlement-related fiscal problems. Democrats who raise hue & cry over the Ryan plan should be willing to offer their own plan to reign in entitlements. Given the size of the projected deficits in medicare, social security, and other major programs, there will likely be some painful cuts no matter what.

- I am not really an expert on tax policy or entitlements. Luckily, no one in Washington is either, so I can get away with it.

- Even with Ryan on the ticket, I expect that entitlement reform will be pushed into the background. Old people vote, and they want what the guv’mint owes them, regardless of their political philosophy.

- Commentators say that Paul Ryan’s selection shows that Romney isn’t trying to sway women to his side. Ryan’s abs say otherwise.

- Paul Ryan was (is?) really into Ayn Rand, and her ever-popular novel Atlas Shrugged. This has set many folks in the punditsphere a-twitter. As for myself, I read Atlas Shrugged a few years ago, and it was terrible. To this day, I can’t figure out why it appeals to people, since the characters, plot, and morality of the book are all equally dismal. Even the numerous sex scenes manage to be preachy and disturbing. Gross.

- The fact that Paul Ryan has been selected as VP doesn’t mean Romney has to defend all of Ryan’s policy positions. The president sets the agenda.

- Mitt Romney has never been much of a foreign policy buff. Even worse, he seems to be filling in his gaps in this area with advice from dubious Bush-era hawks. Anyone who would like to avoid the mistakes of that presidency should be troubled by this.

- Fortunately for Romney, this race has never been about foreign policy. Voters seem to prefer picking their presidents based on an imaginary role the president doesn’t actually play (magical jobs fairy), rather than the ones he actually does (commander-in-chief of the armed forces, international head of state). Pity.

- Obama hasn’t made any terrible blunders in the realm of foreign policy and national security. He also hasn’t fundamentally changed the trajectory of Bush’s overall anti-terrorism policies. It seems that Democratic foreign policy boils down to, “the war on terror is a ridiculous construct designed to oppress us, but we can fight it better than Republicans!”

- The fact that Obama has largely pursued Bush’s war on terror policies doesn’t leave Romney with a lot of actual things he can contrast his own positions with. So, it seems that Romney plans to do the same things, but in a more American and assertive manner. Obama, for example, has said that all options (including military force) are on the table in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. Meanwhile, Romney says that all options are REALLY, TRULY, VERY MUCH on the table. I’m not sure what this means in practical terms.

- I could care less that Romney isn’t releasing his tax returns. If you’re wondering what they would reveal, I can give you some spoilers: Romney made a truckload of money, and like every other taxpayer, he paid as little as he could within the confines of the law.

- As a PR thing, maybe it would it would make sense for Romney to release his tax returns. But really, this is his choice to make.

- Note to the American public: Obama is not like you. Romney is not like you. People who become president are not normal, and that’s okay. An average Joe has no business running the most powerful nation on earth. Isn’t time we celebrated elitism? Just a little?

- "Celebrate Elitism" will be the name of an annual banquet, hosted by me, as soon as I become wealthy and powerful. If you think this sounds awesome, I'll gladly take donations to hasten my ascent to wealth and power. I accept Paypal.

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That is all, for now.

In Good Spirits.

I’m not much of a liquor connoisseur.

But I’m definitely a liquor review connoisseur.

Liquor reviews are wonderful, because they are also ridiculous, and written by crazy people.

You see, when I evaluate something, I try to follow the Kind of Baffling First Principle of Reviewable Attributes:

Any object of evaluation shall be evaluated based on properties of an evaluatable nature within said object, with which that object may be evaluated in light of... those properties. Of the object.

For example, a review of an apple might involve references to its levels of crispness and sweetness, because those are actual things your mouth notices when an apple is inside of it.

If, however, I were to compare the apple’s flavor to, say, a rare steak or a garlic-roasted turnip, that would not be acceptable. Those flavors just don’t exist within the context of an apple.

Meanwhile, over in liqourland, such rules of reality are routinely cast aside, allowing the whiskey-soaked elite to craft odes to the distillery’s bounty that soar somewhere between the stratosphere, and Dick Cheney’s armored moon-home.

(Dick Cheney was once our vice president. If you haven’t heard much about him lately, you can probably chalk it up to his residence in said moon-home.)

To get a clearer picture of this phenomenon, let us examine one particular member of the liquor family: American bourbon whiskey.

Bourbon is the stuff you get when you distill alcohol from a corn-majority blend of grains, and let it mellow in new oak barrels for a while. It’s pretty decent, all things considered.

Taste-wise, bourbon is very, well, bourbon-y. It’s about 50% ethyl alcohol, so you have that flavor/burn going on in a big way. The barrel any given bourbon is aged in lends some flavor, usually an oakiness or slight smokiness. (Rhyming!) But basically, we’re not getting too fancy here. This is something good American farmers invented to get drunk on, because it’s sure as heck easier than wine-making, which despite California’s peculiar insistence, is for French people and Bacchus.

Bourbon enthusiasts, however, do not burden themselves with the dull physical reality that has been poured into their thick glass tumblers. As a slightly inebriated Yoda was known to remark, “luminous libations are these, not this crude whisky!”

Hiding beneath the caramel-colored surface of America’s native spirit, true bourbon lovers find... things.

Things like vanilla, cardamom, cinnamon, pepper, leather, grapefruit, toffee, blueberries, mushrooms, orange rind, freshly-baked bread, and, I swear, persimmons.

Freakin’ PERSIMMONS.

To watch these flavors unfold through the written word is like witnessing a delicate ballet I do not yet understand, and likely never will.

Case in point: I recently bought a bottle of Old Grand Dad bourbon, because I wanted to make mint juleps, which in turn was because I wanted to pretend to be a fancy southern person like that guy from Gone with the Wind, or Colonel Sanders. If I were to write my thoughts on this comfortingly-retro-looking bottle of whiskey, they would be roughly as follows:

Old Grand-Dad seems pretty good to me. It didn’t cost very much, which is something I like, as I do not yet have very much money. It doesn’t burn in your throat too much, and it doesn’t have an unpleasant aftertaste. Sometimes, whiskey makes your mouth feel gross, and that wasn’t going on here. Props, Old Grand-Dad.


It made a heckuva julep, which made me feel adequately fancy, although not quite so much as I had hoped. The fanciest southern men I know of have what I refer to as “signature facial hair,” and I feel like this could be a missing piece in the puzzle. Will explore further.


Overall Score: 4 out of 5

If I were a bourbon enthusiast with a website called something like downthewhiskeyriver.com, things would be quite different:

Upon opening the bottle, I was enraptured by the heady aroma that filled my nostrils with pleasuresome vapours. It was like the calm of a field recently soaked by rain -- a well-needed respite from a drought, if I’m not mistaken. Also noted were mixed hints of a cherry pie cooling on a nearby window sill, and rich shampoo lather. After the first sip, I detected a robust flavor, like an entire grilled chicken stuffed with pine-nuts and quinoa. This was followed by the rich sweetness of a fudge-covered brownie, and the tart sting of a salt-encrusted lime. The viscosity was excellent, with a mouthfeel akin to a fresh ocean surf foaming betwixt my teeth. On the throat, I felt the soothing mellowness of a tiny cherub and his angelic cohorts massaging my uvula with gifted hands. The finish was strong, starting with a bushel of pomegranates, and then followed by the tears of a small child who has just learned a disillusioning truth about life, which left me emotionally drained, but eager for future tastings.


Overall Score: 3.8694 out of 4.94

To truly review a whiskey, one must transcend the immediate reality, and enter into a strange form of free-association poetry that reveals the deeper spiritual nature of booze some guy made from corn. The results are breathtaking, and in this writer’s opinion, should be extended to other fields.

Specifically, politics.

It’s only June, and we’re already sick of reading the same dull write-ups of each candidate’s performance on the stump:

Romney spoke to a small but enthusiastic crowd, in the wake of a new poll showing, blah, blah, momentum, etc.

You get it.

It’s time to whiskey-up some real journalism:

Romney’s voice wafted like the aroma of my late great-aunt Dorothy’s famous pecan crisp bars. The crowd was distinctly Mezozoic, and one could very clearly perceive a tension in the air, like the moment before a litter of kittens is born. This comes in sharp contrast to Obama, whose recent public appearances have evoked a mixture of grass clippings and slightly-burnt sage.


Altogether, a refreshing day, but one that lacked the strongly pronounced notes of unicorn and honeysuckle so prevalent in recent weeks.

The general populace will be unable to glean any useful information from these stories, thus maintaining the status quo. But the politically inclined among us would be able to have delightful debates over whether the correct random labels were attached to events, and then offer colorful-sounding, meaningless descriptions of our own to counter them. Then, instead of dealing with boring, weighty issues, political discourse could become an endless game for the amusement of the well-educated.

Completely different from the system we have today.

I’ll let the journalist-types sort out the details. My julep’s getting warm, and this “signature facial hair” isn’t going to grow itself.

Not S'Mitten.

Mitt Romney's belly-flop in the South is yet another demonstration of Romney's inability to purchase the hearts and minds of GOP voters. The delegate math is still in his favor, but votes for Romney tend to be more motivated by antipathy toward Obama than anything else. Romney isn't oozing toward a presidential nomination because he's loved. It's because he's electable.

But the logic behind the electability assumption seems a little flawed. Is a man really electable if he can't muster enthusiasm among his own supporters? If flooding media markets with absurd amounts of cash still results in narrow wins alternating with narrow losses?

A politician has a lot of jobs, and being likeable is one of them. It's not as trivial as you may think. Presidents aren't elected by a neutral council of performance analysts who sit in a dark room crunching numbers. They're elected by humans, with human emotions, and human reasons for the votes they cast. Connecting matters. Being liked matters. In races where less than half the population votes, the deciding factor is generally the level of enthusiasm behind either side.

So if Romney can't fire up his own party, what does that say about his electability? Yes, some of the things that make Republicans hesitant about Mitt -- like his moderate record -- will be assets in the general election. But let's be honest: Willard Romney will never be confused with Slick Willy. He does not regularly charm tiny birds from their nests. When Romney opens his mouth, he tends to say things that alienate normal people. No one likes his style, and activists from both sides of the political spectrum dislike his substance. If the economy continues to improve, the single issue he's based his campaign on could be swept from under his feet.

Electability is important. But being less crazy than other candidates isn't necessarily the same thing as being electable. Just ask President Dole, or President McCain.