In a speech this morning (via Ezra) Obama apparently said, in response to the idea that he’s trying to do too much at once.:
President Roosevelt didn’t have the luxury of choosing between ending a depression and fighting a war. President Kennedy didn’t have the luxury of choosing between civil rights and sending us to the moon.
WTF? (1) Roosevelt probably prolonged the depression. (2) Fighting WWII was most certainly a choice, and maybe not the best one. (3) Kennedy did nothing much by way of advancing civil rights other than voting against Eisenhower’s 1957 Civil Rights Act. (4) There was no point whatsoever in going to the moon.
Obama wants us to believe that not accepting his package deal of uneccesary programs is a “luxury” we cannot afford, which is even more ridiculous than the historical examples he picked. When it comes to responding to the basis of the actual crisis and repairing the wreckage of the banking system, the adminstration seems neglectful, ineffectual, and has become the butt of jokes. Maybe that has something to do with the incredible audacity of attempting to slam through an entire presidency’s legislative agenda in two months. But I guess we don’t have the luxury of lavishing attention on the things that actually need fixing.
Um, Japan and Germany declared war on America.
Where was the choice?
Especially after Congress declared war on them?
I think that response deserves a “Meh” more than a “WTF”.
Also, 1) I think you're right but obviously Obama thinks that Roosevelt's handling was heroic. 2) I don't get it. I'm with alphie on this one. 3) I think he invited a black guy to the White House! Or something! 4) I think you're obviously correct. But most people think of the moonshot as equivalent to one of the Wonders of the World. Also it gave us Tang!!!!!
That's a very loose argument, Will. It could be translated “don't do two things at once, because I might not like one or more of them.”
“(4) There was no point whatsoever in going to the moon.”
If we had not gone to the moon, we wouldn't have those awesome pens that write upside down! (I have one of these, although I have not yet had the need to write upside down.)
Never mind. I just googled this, and it turns out the “space pen” wasn't developed by or for NASA. So your point stands: the moon landing was a boondoggle.
I think the larger point is that FDR and JFK did not try to do two big things at once.
WWII happened after FDR had given up on doing more to “fix” the economy.
The moon program was not in the same category as the big things Obama wants to do, and the heavy lifting on civil rights was done by non-government organizations, and what little was done by government mostly happened under LBJ.
How about this choice Mr. Obama, Pres. Bush didn't have the luxury of choosing not to go forward with the surge? Bet that sticks in your ugly small minded craw. Kennedy did have a choice to fund the moon mission as did Presidents Johnson and President Nixon who was President when Neil Armstrong said, One small step for a man, one giant leap for little Barry Obama.
The moon landing wasn't a boondoggle it resulted in advances in computerization and miniaturization that are still benefitting us to this day. It also was psychologically important during the Cold War, and the emphasis on science as a noble national and personal goal cannot be underestimated.
As to whether WWII was a choice:
Before Pearl Harbor, the US had already chosen sides on both wars (lend lease for Great Britain and the Flying Tigers for China).
I do not think FDR knew about Pearl Harbor, nor do I think Japan had any valid justification to attack the US, but FDR should have known his policies would provoke Japan. Japan had waged war against Korea and China on much less “provocation”, and occupied French and Dutch colonies on much less pretext.
(0) Roosevelt took office 8 years before WWII and didn't have to worry about the depression after that started because unemployment basically went to 0 with the draft and the big increase in military procurements?
That might be an easier argument to maintain than 1 & 2, even if both 1 & 2 are correct.
8 years before Americans saw combat in WWII (1941)
Will … you've just staggered into “nut-job” territory.
1) Even if your opinion is that FDR “prolonged the depression”, this doesn't mean he didn't have to confront it. A better line of argument here would be to point out that FDR had a depression at the start of the 1930s, and WWII at the start of the 1940s; hardly co-incident crises.
2) Japan declared war on the United States on Dec. 7th, 1941. On December 11th, 1941, Germany, Italy and a number of smaller states declare war on the United States. Before Pearl Habor Japan had been conducting a prolonged war in China, and simultaneously invaded the Dutch Indies and French Indo China. The only way to maintain WWII was “most certainly</> a war of choice” is to adopt a very peculiar position with respect to what the words “certainly”, “war” and “choice” mean.
3) Kennedy was a lagging indicator on civil rights in many ways, but to say he “did nothing much” is to ignore things like i. ending federal housing discrimination, ii. using federal troops to support freedom riders in '61, iii. making racial preferences in federal hiring illegal, iv. putting rhetorical and legislative weight behind the civil rights protest movement and it's proposals, etc. You might argue he could have done more, but saying he did “nothing much” commits a rather profound violence on the historical record.
4) The 'point' of going to the moon wasn't to 'go to the moon'. It was to give a focus and direction to the space race; to set up for the world a contrast between the US and the USSR. Now, you might argue that the moon wasn't the best tactic to achieve that strategic goal, but it's simply not the case that “there was no point”.
Now certainly, Obama might have been more accurate to say Kennedy had no choice by to confront the twin crises of Soviet expansionism and the civil rights movement, but how many kids these days equate Kennedy with the pragmatism and statesmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis? No. They remember Kennedy as the President who took us to the moon!
It seems to me that Obama's right on the merits. We currently face (at least) two crises. First, a collapse of employment, spending and asset values. And second, a breakdown of the financial system. I'm also puzzled by the relative lack of action on the financial crises. I can only attribute it either to the administration's desire to let the crisis progress to the point that nationalization becomes fait accompli when the FDIC needs to step in to cover depositors in the face of a liquidity crunch (which will happen, given the bank's insolvency) or because the nature of the counter-party liabilities should the administration choose to nationalize is so vast, complex and global that before they can act they need some kind of internationalization of the solution.
As for “incredible audacity of attempting to slam through an entire presidency’s legislative agenda in two months” – really? Front loading your agenda is utterly standard operating procedure in a modern Presidency. In a meeting with Rupert Murdoch (of all people) in Sept, 2008, Obama was told:
“Murdoch, for his part, had a simple thought to share with Obama. He had known possibly as many heads of state as anyone living today–had met every American president from Harry Truman on–and this is what he understood: nobody got much time to make an impression. Leadership was about what you did in the first six months.”
Google (“Murdoch Obama Meeting”) for multiple reports with the same, basic theme.
And one final note. The first sentence of your last paragraph here is god-awful. A double negative (“”not accepting” and “cannot afford”). The sentence hinges on the “, which”, begging the question; What is more ridiculous? The 'not accepting'? Or the 'cannot afford?'.
In today's lesson, I will be explaining how to close a HTML italics please tag.
Please Will? A “preview” button?
I like the idea that Kennedy had no choice but to send us to the moon.
“Oh no, I want to cut back on government spending but I AM COMPELLED BY POWERFUL IMPERSONAL FORCES THAT ARE BEYOND MY CONTROL to develop a space program!”
I agree that #2 (WWII) is a pretty crazypants position.
I am sure that at the appropriate time, President Obama will bring up painful choices of other great presidents like Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson.
While we're spending money, could we allocate a Billion or so for the Obama library? We'll want it ready in 2017!
Nevermind that there's some time lag here. The depression started over a decade before WWII.
The US had an oil embargo against Japan that forced the Japanese to decide between losing the war the war they were fighting in Asia or attacking the US. The US was also giving supplies and equipment to the English. If the US had chosen to end the oil embargo and to cut off England, it could have stayed out of WW2. FDR knew this and chose to follow policies which he knew would lead to war. After Pearl Harbor war was inevitable, before Pearl Harbor it could have been avoided very easily.
I should add that being overrated and charasmatic are 2 attributes that Obama, Kennedy and Roosevelt share.
In Bryan Caplan's Book “The Myth of the Rational Voter,” he suggests that politicians use the “slack” afforded to them to implement policies that will help us all, but that an ignorant and irrational public will not demand (and may be against).
Obama seems to have taken the notion of political slack to the extreme–and unfortunately, he is using the slack to push for the enactment of policies that have a very low probability of increasing aggregate utility (and unless your political philosophy holds up interest-group politics as the pinnacle of just society, there is a low probability that “justice” requires these actions).
We shouldn't forget that Congress is voting in favor of this stuff though. Finally, it would make my year if some member of Congress told Obama to shut up about legislation and worry about executing the federal law & commanding the military.
Obama isn't very bright.
I do wish he would release his standardized test scores. He is nowhere near as smart as people think he is, nor is he as smart as he thinks he is.
Here is a study highlighting how FDR's stupid government policies prolonged the Great Depression:
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Poli…
The notion that WWII was a war we could have avoided is considerably more defensible than the idea that Kennedy did nothing to advance civil rights.
The general narrative that commenters here seem to be embracing is that we were just sitting here minding our own business when suddenly the Japanese came and bombed us (and then Italy and Germany declared war on us). This is asinine. Roosevelt was doing everything he could *short* of war to try to hamper the Japanese and aid the British, and it's a fair reading to say that he was trying to drag the American public kicking and screaming towards a conflict he felt was inevitable. See for example our embargos on Japan, the military fleets we sent for cruises in their area, our support for the British and the Chinese (already mentioned), and so on. If Roosevelt had been determined to avoid war, he would have made very different choices.
Good thing the moon landing was faked then!
I kid, I kid. Seriously, excellent post, Will.
I wonder at people who think the President has to “confront” this or that problem. That if you think the government should not act on a problem you are thereby saying that nothing should be done about it. For example, in his speech to Congress he refered to rejecting the people who think “our problems will solve themselves” or some such. Or that doing nothing is the answer.
Well, obv. I don't think the problem is going to go away if we do “nothing” where “nothing” is defined as actually having everyone in the country continue on as they were before the crisis. But I see a great possibility that the problem will go away if Obama or the government do “nothing” where “nothing” is defined as not fighting the people who actually make up the economy and the nation as they make the adjustments necessary to correct for the imbalances and problems and get back to productive work and growth.
It seems like lots of people believe that only govermental action counts. Clearly, there will be a response to the problem regardless of what the government does. Everyone will be making adjustments and trying to ameliorate the crisis's impact in their own lives. The question is whether a particular governmental action — or even any governmental action at all — helps that process or harms it.
So far by effectively promoting uncertainty by not presenting clear plans and devoting massive amounts of time to pushing completely unrelated initiatives, I'd say Obama has — by “doing something” — exacerbated the problem.
“Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take.”
Hearts and minds.
Also:
“Third, an additional 50 million dollars will make the most of our present leadership, by accelerating the use of space satellites for world-wide communications. “
Oh, yeah…and this, too:
“Fourth, an additional 75 million dollars–of which 53 million dollars is for the Weather Bureau–will help give us at the earliest possible time a satellite system for world-wide weather observation. “
-John F. Adolescent
“WTF? (1) Roosevelt probably prolonged the depression. (2) Fighting WWII was most certainly a choice, and maybe not the best one. (3) Kennedy did nothing much by way of advancing civil rights other than voting against Eisenhower’s 1957 Civil Rights Act. (4) There was no point whatsoever in going to the moon.”
There's some real libertarianism, the autism in all its glory.
- historical figures judged against theoretically perfect counterfactuals only knowable in hindsight
- then you have WW2 and the moon. This is the autism. Your value system is fatally crippled if you can't think beyond economics, about winning the war of ideas and ideals. Your value system argues against just about every substantive, historical classically liberal action that got the west to where it is today. It zeroes out the value of Russian and Jewish lives, their cultural and national traditions. When the colonists were gearing up to kick the Brits out, you would be the ones arguing against it on bean-counting “principle”.
Grand, non-quantifiable vision, ala Paine, scares you – you can only deal in the small-bore.
Grand, non-quantifiable vision, ala Paine, scares you – you can only deal in the small-bore.
Actually I think not taking grand, non-quantifiable visions seriously is a feature, not a bug.
WW2 is easy, I'll defend the Moon.
- I like it that we have national monuments we can be proud of. The government uses guns to extract money from people in order to build and maintain these monuments – awesome! More please!
- We have a presidential inauguration that costs a lot of money, extracted from people in the same fashion.
- The moon landing showed the world what capitalist democracy can achieve. It makes me proud of my country. It cost a lot of money, and I'm glad the government used force to extract it from hard-working Americans, including heroic entrepreneurs and libertarians.
Even people who only admit to the existence of profit and loss – the small-minded – have to chip in for the less-tangible efforts to keep the American meme going. To aide in the spread of western values and ultimately push the world forward.
Your ideological predecessors no doubt predicted ruin and squalor should we pursue national projects like the moon landing, but here we are – doing pretty well (I say that without irony).
Right, so you would certainly have to agree that America was an error.
More of an accident, than an error.
Happy accident though.
I usually don't bother to comment on these things, but I think we're witnessing a prime example of selective bias here. You do realize that former President Bush was the center of a near constant stream of jokes at the expense of both his intelligence and his policies. It is only natural for comedians to make fun of whomever is in office.
It would be interesting if opposition parties presented some sort of counter plan as an alternative for the American people. The constant and counterproductive railing on the Obama plan is wearing thin on most people's patience. To be clear, I would not mind productive railing.
It used to be that Obama revealed himself to be an empty suit every time he went off script. What is scary is how quickly he is doing so even in a controlled environment.
That probably means that Obama and his advisers are just as isolated from reality as Bush and his gang used to be.
On the contrary, I think Obama knows exactly what he is doing. He probably realizes that FDR's policies hurt more than they helped, but that is a tertiary concern for him. FDR is still ranked by most historians as one of the greatest presidents of all time, and most people still gush when asked about him. Most people think the New Deal was absolutely necessary to “save” the country. Obama understands this. He is modeling his presidency after FDR's “First 100 Days.” He knows about the “do something bias” and is setting himself up to be FDR II, and Bush to play Hoover II.
I think Obama also knows full well that this is a perfect opportunity to drastically increase the size and scope of government, and he is doing all he can to make this happen. He knows that doing so shifts the baseline, and that the size of government never shrinks back to its former size. He sees what the New Deal did for Big Government, and he's trying to make it happen again.
Obama is not an idiot, but very clever actually. He talked like a moderate on the campaign, but he's in full progressive/socialist mode in office. Has he chosen to support bad policies? Yes. Is what he's doing immoral? I think so, because I find collectivism to be immoral. Is he an idiot? No.
If you do not consider productive Jim Cramer's call for fixing the banks, reapplying the uptick rule and getting rid of mark to market first, before fiddling about with new social engineering, carbon taxes or Democratic party special interest pork, what exactly would you consider productive?
Choosing bad policies makes you an idiot.
The impulse to “do something” is one thing, but going overboard is quite another. Obama wants to do lots of things so he can be heroically remembered for doing lots of things; he doesn't care if those things actually make the country a worse place.
Libertarian response:
Hearts and minds: worth $0
Weather & communications satellites: sitting here in my chair, I just thought up a theory about how this could have been privatized, therefore it was a bad idea.
Why was it a happy accident?
What do you think the the difference between your system of values, vs “most people” that leads you to say that Will is obviously correct about the moon?
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I am going to add into the general chorus and say that I would like to see an elaboration on how WWII was not war we had to go into, and why there would have been benefits to just sitting on the sidelines and seeing either Hitler dominate Europe, or seeing the USSR defeat Hitler and dominate Europe.
I am going to add into the general chorus and say that I would like to see an elaboration on how WWII was not war we had to go into, and why there would have been benefits to just sitting on the sidelines and seeing either Hitler dominate Europe, or seeing the USSR defeat Hitler and dominate Europe.