Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Consistently wrong since 2002

In after Baud. Damn.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

People are weird.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2012 / By Way of Introduction

By Way of Introduction

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Hi, I’m Bernard. John recently invited me to begin posting on BJ, and I am excited to join the team. This has long been my favorite blog. I’ve been known to refresh the page obsessively hoping for a new post from any of the wonderful authors, so this is a real thrill for me.

I thought I’d tell you a little about myself, and what I plan to focus on in my posts.

I’m an international relations specialist. I received my Ph.D. from Georgetown in 1997, and have been in and around academia since. I was the Executive Director of the M.A. Program in Security Studies at Georgetown from 2001-2004, and from 2006 to 2010 I was Senior Fellow and Director of Research at the American Security Project.

I am currently a professor at the National War College, in Washington, DC. NWC is, as you may know, a Senior-Level, Department of Defense school. I’ve heard it described as a “finishing school for colonels,” which is a funny, but not wholly inaccurate description. Anyway, as should be clear almost immediately, my views are my own, and do not reflect those of the National War College, National Defense University, or the Department of Defense.

I’ve written pretty widely on international affairs issues. I’m a generalist within the field, jack of all trades, master of none, but my main focus has been on guns and bombs issues: proliferation, terrorism, use of force. Anyway, all of this is Googleable.

My own interests though are broader than my professional publications. On my personal blog, I spend a lot of time ranting about domestic politics. Like John, I am a recovering conservative. I was a Reagan youth, but have become radicalized over the years both by the increasing lunacy of the American right, and also, frankly, by a fair amount of personal growth on various issues. But I also have to say that a lot has changed in terms of context. Transported back to the 1970s/1980s, and facing the problems of that time — rising crime, the challenge of the Soviet Union, inflation, and so on — conservatism had more virtues. This is something worth remembering, I think. A lot of right-wingers are sociopaths… but at least some are just trapped by the past. Just as many of us remain wedded to the same music and films from our youth, a lot of them are stuck in a worldview dominated by those challenges rather than the issues we face today.

Anyway, I digress. There are a few places where I hope I can make an original contribution to discussion here:

First, I’ll be spending some time trying to work through both the substance and politics of national security from a progressive perspective. The challenge is obvious. We’re all patting ourselves on the back for finally having a Democratic President/candidate outpulling the Republican on foreign policy issues. But wow, at what cost? Unilateral Presidential war, kill-lists managed out of the Oval Office, and so on. I’m conflicted on a lot of these issues, and I look forward to hashing them out with you.

Second, I plan to write about criminal justice issues, and in particular about what is essentially systemic abuse of prosecutorial powers. The issue of forensic evidence is just the tip of the iceberg. The bigger issue is the use of prosecutorial discretion to coerce guilty pleas. I don’t think most people realize it, but only about 5% of convicted criminals actually got a trial by jury. The other 95% pled guilty. But then remember that roughly 25% of DNA exoneration cases features false confessions. In school we are taught that our justice system is based on the Blackstone Ratio: “better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” I think it is likely that we are missing that mark by at least an order or magnitude.

Third, and perhaps most important to me, I want to spend some time writing about how tactical political decisions are structurally undermining a progressive agenda. The clearest case is on tax policy. Simply put, Obama’s decision to rule out increasing taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year means that, for the foreable future, we’ll be running large structural deficits, and the political debates will continue to be dominated by calls for cuts in social programs. Yes, this may be a winning argument politically in 2012, but look, it means that progressives are doomed to be on the defensive politically in the future. It means we cede the initiative to the right, and that we need to be constantly scrambling to defend whatever program they seek to target. As a matter of long-term strategy, this is a disastrous posture.

Anyway, I haven’t done justice to any of these issue here. I just wanted to give you a little idea about who I am and what you can expect from me. I look forward to vigorous discussions and debates.

Oh, and here is my dog. Teddy is a five year old yellow Lab. Super sweet and completely devoted to chasing anything you choose to throw.

Reader Interactions

197Comments

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Welcome. Welcome back from the Dark Side.

    Having served myself during the Reagan years, I never found anything to do with his variety of conservatism to have had any virtue whatsoever.

    But that’s just me.

    The rot started in earnest in 1981. One could well argue that it started with “The Speech” in 1964.

  5. 5.

    RP

    Welcome!

    But I also have to say that a lot has changed in terms of context. Transported back to the 1970s/1980s, and facing the problems of that time—rising crime, the challenge of the Soviet Union, inflation, and so on—conservatism had more virtues. This is something worth remembering, I think. A lot of right-wingers are sociopaths… but at least some are just trapped by the past. Just as many of us remain wedded to the same music and films from our youth, a lot of them are stuck in a worldview dominated by those challenges rather than the issues we face today.

    This is a very interesting point that I havent’ seen expressed before.

    Third, and perhaps most important to me, I want to spend some time writing about how tactical political decisions are structurally undermining a progressive agenda. The clearest case is on tax policy. Simply put, Obama’s decision to rule out increasing taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year means that, for the foreable future, we’ll be running large structural deficits, and the political debates will continue to be dominated by calls for cuts in social programs. Yes, this may be a winning argument politically in 2012, but look, it means that progressives are doomed to be on the defensive politically in the future. It means we cede the initiative to the right, and that we need to be constantly scrambling to defend whatever program they seek to target. As a matter of long-term strategy, this is a disastrous posture.

    Don’t really buy this. What are the chances that the GOP will accept his proposal? And if they don’t, the cuts just expire for everyone. I’m not sure this proposals boxes him in in the way you’re suggesting.

  6. 6.

    david mizner

    I like your three core issues — the second especially. On numbers 1 & 3, you sound as if you’ll be too hard on Prez Obama and the Democratic Establishment for most people at this blog, but then maybe that’s why you’re here, to offer a different perspective.

  7. 7.

    Cassidy

    Transported back to the 1970s/1980s, and facing the problems of that time—rising crime, the challenge of the Soviet Union, inflation, and so on—conservatism had more virtues.

    Well, you have definitely done your homework. No one FP’s at Balloon Juice without starting a pissing match on day one. :D

    Welcome and look forward to reading.

  8. 8.

    scav

    @Cris (without an H): Is the next step in the dance the obligatory stalker or is there a general wine about some fault of spelling or grammar first? I get confused, but the Pet Photo is Step One (is the whining step prior to step one usually?).

  9. 9.

    Linda Featheringill

    Hi, Teddy. [scritch, scritch]

    And hello to you, too, human. Welcome aboard. We’d be glad to hear your point of view and look forward to learning some stuff.

    And yes, FRESH MEAT! :-)

  10. 10.

    General Stuck

    Welcome. I am easy on front pagers, except for Cole. It will be interesting how you are received by some of our, shall we say, less enthusiastic commenters on the scholarship of war at the war college.

    I was hoping for the brilliant Glenn Greenwald to front page around here on national security/civil rights issues, as he has been by proxy for a long time. But I guess you’ll do:) Oh, and I like snark a lot. But in all honestly, I’m really not a general of anything, other than general nonsense.

  11. 11.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    Transported back to the 1970s/1980s, and facing the problems of that time—rising crime, the challenge of the Soviet Union, inflation, and so on—conservatism had more virtues.

    [multiple citations needed]

    Simply put, Obama’s decision to rule out increasing taxes on anyone making less than $250,000

    Simple solution – elect a Congress that will pass tax hikes on the wealthy.

  12. 12.

    red dog

    Welcome Bernard. Your dog tells me you are a good guy but I will hold judgement until we determine if your are aware what a bad apple Israel has become. It is time Bibi is reined in by withholding some of the billions we send him. That nation, not it’s people has become the total opposite of what we stand for.

  15. 15.

    wrb

    @top

    Obama’s decision to rule out increasing taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year means that, for the foreable future, we’ll be running large structural deficits

    Regardless of the tax rates on higher incomes, investments, inheritance and trusts?

    Are you boxing yourself in?

    Not to mention the tax rate on hydrocarbons.

  16. 16.

    Mudge

    The most important thing you said was that a lot of right wingers are sociopaths..your caveat aside, it is becoming a core component to Republican politics. Something as cutesie as “makers and takers” is functionally sociopathic.

    The most important thing you didn’t say is that most Republicans are liars. Sociopathic liars.

  21. 21.

    Jamey

    John: Where’s Bernard’s birth certificate…

    Bernard: I look forward to reading more from you!

  22. 22.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    Welcome. Keep the camera handy, as we’ll require frequent pet updates. That’s how this corner of the Internets works, but I guess you know that.

  24. 24.

    Tim F.

    Welcome.

    You know, what with the head of science writing at MIT and now this, I’m getting worried about gentrification around here. Pretty soon the rest of us are going to start feeling self-conscious about the laundry lines, the camaro on blocks and the pot garden out back.

  25. 25.

    General Stuck

    Third, and perhaps most important to me, I want to spend some time writing about how tactical political decisions are structurally undermining a progressive agenda. The clearest case is on tax policy. Simply put, Obama’s decision to rule out increasing taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year means that, for the foreable future, we’ll be running large structural deficits, and the political debates will continue to be dominated by calls for cuts in social programs.

    Here is the deal right now, on this matter. There are competing progressive/liberal themes on the Bush tax cuts and whether to extend them at this particular time. The structural deficit problem, has always been something I care about. But with our weak economy, letting ALL the Bush tax cuts expire now, would take hundreds of billions of stimulus money out of middle class pay checks. There is no way around this conundrum. You can’t be for both. And ideological dogma to the contrary for raising taxes right now for these lower income people, is not really progressive, imo. It is more the ideal for ideologues. Hope you aren’t one of those. Time will tell.

  26. 26.

    Ash Can

    Welcome, and congratulations on your own personal journey away from the rapidly-devolving right wing.

    And I have to agree with RP — the truly disastrous policy would be to scuttle re-election. This isn’t to say that anything can be excused and the end always justifies the means, but nothing happens without re-election. And specifically, nothing good and much bad happens without re-election.

  27. 27.

    Cassidy

    @scav: All varnish and no grit. Just a couple of them, though. I also had one who’s grit was Army toilet paper.

  28. 28.

    Bernard Finel

    @RP: I guess my argument would be that in politics — as in most things — the final outcome of a dispute is usually bounded by the going-in positions of the parties. So if one side says, “extend the vast majority of the tax cuts,” and the other side says, “no extend them all,” it is hard to see how “extend none” arises.

    I’m not sure Obama will be able to hold Senate Dems on board once the “fiscal cliff” rhetoric really ratchets up. So would he be willing to veto a full extension? Or, say, something which cuts the baby in half, say, an extension up to $500,000-1,000,000? I dunno.

    I guess we’ll see.

  29. 29.

    Spatula

    We’re all patting ourselves on the back for finally having a Democratic President/candidate outpulling the Republican on foreign policy issues. But wow, at what cost? Unilateral Presidential war, kill-lists managed out of the Oval Office, and so on. I’m conflicted on a lot of these issues, and I look forward to hashing them out with you.

    I welcome this perspective from a front pager. It’s rare around here.

  30. 30.

    Cassidy

    I’m getting worried about gentrification around here.

    Do you read the comments? Ron Paul will be POTUS before this place becomes civilized.

  31. 31.

    BGinCHI

    Welcome.

    But this

    Simply put, Obama’s decision to rule out increasing taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year means that, for the foreable future, we’ll be running large structural deficits, and the political debates will continue to be dominated by calls for cuts in social programs.

    is a small part of a much larger set of tax issues. People at lower incomes are getting the shit taxed out of them is so many more ways than just the income tax, and that takes a big bite as a percentage of income.

    In other words, tax issues are more often (or just as often) happening at the local level than just at the federal level. And these two levels are intimately linked, as local taxes go up when federal money isn’t forthcoming.

  33. 33.

    Bernard Finel

    @Ash Can: Yes, indeed. The question in my mind though, is how to avoid losing the future while winning the present.

    Obama could be playing 11 dimensional chess on this, but I do fear he has give a lot of ammo to “starve the beast” dynamics by embracing tax cuts as a central element of his economic policy.

  34. 34.

    peach flavored shampoo

    Like John, I am a recovering conservative

    I smell an ED Kain mindset mixed with a scosh of Freddie’s wordsmithing tainted with a touch of Tim F.’s dog photo fetish.

  35. 35.

    the Conster

    I will never understand very smart people falling for all of Reagan’s obvious bullshit. Jeebus, Bernard, can you explain it to me like I’m five years old? The day he got elected was one of the worst days of my life – the gob, it was smacked, and I still to this day remain such by that traumatic event and the cheerful willingness by so many people to set off down that awful path.

  36. 36.

    BGinCHI

    @Tim F.: Come on, you know Levenson has a pot plant in his office. Those hippy profs are all the same with their elbow patches and pipes.

  41. 41.

    scav

    @BGinCHI: and cinderblock / plank bookcases for sure, cinderblocks, like ramen, are practically universal, the only difference is what’s put on top of them.

  42. 42.

    IrishGirl

    I look forward to your posts about Criminal Justice issues, in which I have some expertise. I think it is one of the crucial systems in determining who we are and who we will become as a nation because changes in it have long-term ripple effects that touch us all. However, it is far too often ignored, mainly because it is so politicized and seems, to many, too difficult to fix. On that note, welcome!

  45. 45.

    Ash Can

    @Bernard Finel: Don’t underestimate the extent of the damage done to this country by the Reagan years. Reagan really did convince people they could get something for nothing, and the American psyche is still mired in his supply-side bullshit. What Obama needs to do is not just to get his own policies away from the starve-the-beast mentality, he has to get the whole fucking country away from that mentality, or no non-austerity measures he’s even able to take will be allowed to stand. And I doubt he can do that himself — it’ll take time, effort, and a modicum of luck to drive it through this nation’s thick skull that Keynesian economics do in fact work.

  47. 47.

    General Stuck

    @the Conster:

    I will never understand very smart people falling for all of Reagan’s obvious bullshit.

    Personally, I blame it on Disco, that flooded the minds of the X gen, with all sorts of sillyness, and none sillier than John Revolta, spinning twirling in a polyester clown suit. Reagan just rode on the coat tails of that abomination /

  49. 49.

    RoonieRoo

    I am looking forward to your posts. The topics I am especially interested the discussions of the national security issues and the taxation problem of politics vs what we really need.

    In addition, your sweet looking lab wins you many points and is your most valuable credential listed.

  50. 50.

    stickler

    On the taxes thing, I agree with a couple of comments above: no way in Hell, during election year, does this GOP House go along with anything Obama wants. So all the Bush tax cuts expire. We probably get a punt on the debt ceiling, too. So, come December 2012, we have fiscal chaos and (re-elected) President Obama can get the tax policy he really wants.

    God willing, the GOP pays for its insanity at the ballot box and we win back the House and keep the Senate, too.

    Obama’s proposal, in this climate, can’t be seen as much more than election year posturing.

  53. 53.

    burnspbesq

    @superking:

    Good catch. On one quick read, I think I have a couple of significant problems with David Cole’s analysis, but it’s generally thoughtful and nuanced, two qualities that are in depressingly short supply when these issues are discussed around here.

  55. 55.

    Culture of Truth

    Two top Republicans have sent a letter to Leon Panetta expressing their concern over the “continued sharp decline in the attention and resources invested in U.S. national missile defenses” and asking if Iran can launch an ICBM on the heartland.

  56. 56.

    Culture of Truth

    Two top Republicans have sent a letter to Leon Panetta expressing their concern over the “continued sharp decline in the attention and resources invested in U.S. national missile defenses” and asking if Iran can launch an ICBM on the heartland.

  57. 57.

    Bernard Finel

    @General Stuck: The issue of regressive taxes is an interesting one. I have to admit, I have somewhat mixed feelings here. I know we’d all probably prefer progressive social policy funded through progressive taxation. But just for the sake of argument, let’s say that isn’t possible. Instead, the choice is between a progressive state funded regressively or a regressive state funded progressively. Which would you prefer?

    I hate to say it, but I think a progressive social policy funded regressively is the marginally better answer.

  59. 59.

    General Stuck

    @stickler:

    Obama’s proposal, in this climate, can’t be seen as much more than election year posturing

    At the current time, you are correct, as Obama is simply meeting the wingnut clamor to do something now about the Bush tax cuts. And nothing will come of it, until after the election is over, and Jan 1, 2013 looms. I have underestimated before how far the wingers would go to save the rich from reverting back to Clinton era tax rates, and was wrong.

    But anyhow you cut it, Obama and dems have all the leverage on this one. If Obama is reelected, then in the lame duck session, he has no more worries about facing the voters in an election, and can hold the wingers hostage along with the rich they represent, for all sorts of bargaining power. Same is true with the supercommittee auto cuts scheduled to go into effect on Jan 1 , including the mil cuts the wingers agreed to and now hate. And if he is defeated, he will be president on Jan 1, 2013. And I don’t think he at all wants his legacy to be leaving in place the Bush tax cuts, in total.

  61. 61.

    Citizen_X

    Welcome, but I’ll caution you that you’re not a Made FP’er until you earn your own personal stalker troll.

  62. 62.

    WereBear

    Welcome! Props for the doggie :)

    Have to differ with you here:

    But I also have to say that a lot has changed in terms of context. Transported back to the 1970s/1980s, and facing the problems of that time—rising crime, the challenge of the Soviet Union, inflation, and so on—conservatism had more virtues.

    I can appreciate that it certainly seemed that way at the time. But now we know that crime rates had a lot to do with lead in the environment; not women working. That hawks created at least as many problems with the Soviets as they solved. And the Whip Inflation Now buttons only helped future collectors on Ebay.

    And I’ve never understood the appeal of conservatism to anyone but a straight white guy. There’s nothing wrong with being a straight white guy; it’s just that if a person is any other flavor, conservatism flat out sucks.

  63. 63.

    Ash Can

    @Culture of Truth: Speaking of throwing balls for doggies! How desperate are these Republicans to distract attention away from Romney and his circus act of a campaign, anyway?

  64. 64.

    Gin & Tonic

    Almost 60 posts and nobody said “Fuck you and horse you rode in on”? No “ombudsman” jokes? What’s with all the nice?

  66. 66.

    scav

    @Bernard Finel: Possibly, but still a little too abstract to my mind. I’d personally not argue it’s always better to sacrifice this piece over that piece without seeing the state of the exact chess board.

  67. 67.

    Chris

    I’m an international relations specialist. I received my Ph.D. from Georgetown in 1997, and have been in and around academia since. I was the Executive Director of the M.A. Program in Security Studies at Georgetown from 2001-2004, and from 2006 to 2010 I was Senior Fellow and Director of Research at the American Security Project.

    Holy shit!

    Okay. First of all, a laurel and hearty handshake from me and the entire Balloon Juice community. Welcome!

    Second, sorry to throw this at you on your first thread, but I have a question about exactly that area of expertise:

    Let’s say someone like, oh, hypothetically, me, were going back to grad school for a master’s in security and international (specifically, Middle Eastern) studies… in the hopes of eventually coming back to DC and getting a job with the feds (analyst stuff at Pentagon or Langley, in an ideal world)…

    Which would you recommend: going to a university in the Middle East with a fairly big name and the opportunity to learn Arabic on the spot (AU Beirut) but zero security studies stuff, or a more local university (Florida International U) which isn’t as well known but does have a good and growing security studies program, plus opportunities for internships at places like SOUTHCOM or CENTCOM? Which one will matter more when I’m back to job hunting with federal agencies, I guess is the question, the Middle East cred or the security studies cred? (In the latter case there’s always the possibility of CLS or Boren scholarships/fellowships to make up for the lack of Middle East/language cred, but there’s never any guarantee of getting those…)

    I apologize again for springing it on you on your first thread. I don’t usually come to my favorite political blogs for career advice, but that resume of yours made it hard not to ask.

  68. 68.

    TaMara (BHF)

    Welcome. Great dog. Don’t let them run you off. You are planning on sharing recipes, too, right? Priorities.

    (it’s election season, I find my respite where I can)

  71. 71.

    Martin

    While I welcome Bernard, I oppose Coles continued efforts to reform this blog into a respectable place. This is yet another tactical move that will inevitably result in us not being able to freely tell everyone to fuck off.

    Regarding that tax tactic, I’ve been too busy renovating my wife’s house (acceptance is the first step) to follow the latest tax issue, but previously the under 250k proposal was very temporary – 2 years. At which point they would expire as well – and prior to the 2016 election leaving the blame on Obama. It was sold as a stimulative compromise. That may have changed in the last year, but that was the prior proposal.

  72. 72.

    David Fud

    Though typically anathema to liberals, maybe the solution to the structural problem is to go ahead with a more federalist approach and let the states do their own thing more often. You state governors want to rail about taxes and the feds and such? Fine, balance your own budgets without road money.

    I haven’t though this through too much, but when it comes to roads, maybe putting the responsibility at the doors of the states would help get our auto-centric culture back under control. I would hope that something like that would force a reconsideration of the expense of the car centric culture we have become.

    But, who knows, I guess it is playing with fire to defund roads and bridges, etc. Will look forward to some good ideas from you on the structural problem (if there is indeed a structural problem, the existence of which I am not completely convinced).

  74. 74.

    ericblair

    @Bernard Finel:

    I guess my argument would be that in politics—as in most things—the final outcome of a dispute is usually bounded by the going-in positions of the parties. So if one side says, “extend the vast majority of the tax cuts,” and the other side says, “no extend them all,” it is hard to see how “extend none” arises.

    “Extend none” is the result if there is no deal, correct? Considering the history of this Congress, who’d rather give themselves orchidectomies with a weed whacker than give Obama a win, that seems to be a non-trivial possibility.

    I suppose the going-in positions define the political debate, but in a pretty broad sense. Say you’ve got two people negotiating over buying a ’96 Corolla, and one person’s going-in position is $500, and the other’s is $250,000. The parameters of the debate aren’t “this car is worth between $500 and $250,000”; it’s “one of these guys is a lunatic and this is pointless.”

  76. 76.

    Soonergrunt

    First, welcome aboard. Differing perspectives are always welcome.
    Second, yet another reason for me to feel like the slow child of the front pagers. Of course, that can be liberating, so there’s that.
    Third, great dog picture.

    Oh, and since nobody’s said it yet, fuck you.

  77. 77.

    joel hanes

    Transported back to the 1970s/1980s, and facing the problems of that time—rising crime, the challenge of the Soviet Union, inflation, and so on—conservatism had more virtues.

    Nonsense. You cling to the delusions of your youth.

    All that education, so much learning; and yet you have not yet noticed that Reagan set the course of plausible deniability, willful self-deception, deliberate racism, and comforting lies that the GOP has followed for lo, these forty years, to the great detriment of the nation.

  79. 79.

    General Stuck

    @Bernard Finel:

    I hate to say it, but I think a progressive social policy funded regressively is the marginally better answer.

    I am very liberal on this issue, and as close to a purist, where on other issues, I rarely am. The problem with accepting regressive taxing philosophy, even for a good cause, like reducing the long term deficits of states, you give the wingnuts an open door to justifying more regressive tax policy into the future.

    I believe that taxation at both the state and federal level, should be done simply and transparently via income tax, for generally running state and federal governments. Politicians have created so many ways to raising revenues by taxing all sort of things, they can hide the regressive nature of these taxes much easier than with income tax. And we are so out of whack on the regressive side of things, that equates out to a lack of demand side econ policy, I can’t support another one right now. Why do you think republicans are so avid for these on line sales taxes? It is because the more revenue they can get via regressive taxation, is that much more they can justify giving bigger tax breaks on income tax to their plutocrat friends.

  81. 81.

    Cermet

    So, when the colonels at the pentagon threatened to resign in mass when the cheney presidency demanded that they develop active plans to nuke Iran, weren’t you proud of them? and what is your favorite academic idea that you present to the young ladies to help them become ‘finished’?

  82. 82.

    shoutingattherain

    Chops. Ya got.

    Welcome. I’m not obsessive about BJ. I drift in and out. Story of my life, really…

  83. 83.

    salacious crumb

    The only relevant question on this blog is: Are you sufficiently in thrall of Obama to the point where any legit criticism of his Presidency is branded as traitorous and/or racist?

    That will be your downfall here on this blog. Criticize Dear Leader Obama and risked getting called names and worse, racist.

  84. 84.

    Betty Cracker

    Welcome, Bernard! I’m a fellow front-pager, though you could be forgiven for not knowing that since I’ve been buried in work and therefore scarce lately. I look forward to learning more about your perspectives.

    PS: Lovely dog!

  85. 85.

    Bernard Finel

    @Chris: Short answer is, it depends. A Mid-East specialist is a different animal than a security studies specialist. As a general rule, intel community values language/regionalists quite highly. But for work in DoD (other than DIA), consulting/contracting, etc., then security studies is often better because security studies program usually have more rigorous attention to analytical methodology. There is disagreement on this front, of course, but at least that is my experience.

    That said, the security studies field, like many others, is all about connections. So interships are HUGE as are networking opportunities.

    In short, no simply answer.

  87. 87.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @salacious crumb: [Citation needed]. Would you please find a comment here, from someone other than our resident trolls, where someone was called racist for criticizing Obama.

    /sc

    Along the taxes front, here in Rockwall, there’s a billboard up for a financial planner, and it goes like this:

    “Are you ready to pay your ‘fair share’? I didn’t think so.”

    I so want to put up a sign that says “Traitor” right in front of it.

  88. 88.

    kideni

    Hi, Teddy! If you’re throwing a stick into the water, my black lab mix my race him for it.

    I appreciate your perspective on what might have been logical reasons to take on a conservative mindset in the 70s/80s, even though I’d’ve never been able to develop anything similar. I was in junior high/high school in those days, and I worried a lot more that Reagan would do something stupid than that the Soviets were actually going to attack us. I also didn’t think about crime much, but I may have been oblivious; even as a girl from the suburbs I managed to ride the El in Chicago at all hours of the night, sometimes alone, without any trouble, so I never got the paranoia about it all (yeah, I was probably lucky).

  90. 90.

    Bernard Finel

    @joel hanes: Well, sure… I’m not part of the Saint Ronald cult. I’m just noting that the set of public policy challenges facing the United States in 1980 were different from those facing us in 2012. Whether conservative arguments were sound responses in 1980 is, I concede, debatable. The fact that those “solutions” are wholly out of whack with current problems is incontestable, however.

    In short, I have more sympathy for conservatives circa 1980 than now. But yeah, look, that is a surely a convenient position to take.

  91. 91.

    reflectionephemeral

    Holy cow. I’m a huge fan of Balloon Juice and of your blog. It’s great to see you here. Can’t wait to see what you have to say!

    From the experience of ED Kain, I think I’d suggest that you take controversial stances, and defend them at length in the comments. Everyone learns things that way, though you probably get a modest number of spitballs hurled at you too.

  92. 92.

    Ruckus

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    Personally I think the current rot started with McCarthy. There has always been, protect the way we were with conservatives even when the way we were wasn’t what is remembered and protecting that mythical time/place destroys the very thing they are wanting to protect. McCarthy took that to asinine limits but he is the embodiment of conservative action.

  93. 93.

    debg

    Welcome aboard, and kisses to your anipal! He’s adorable, and it’s great that he’s got such a strong work ethic.

  94. 94.

    burnspbesq

    @Cassidy:

    Is it true if I stand in front of a mirror and say M_C three times, she’ll come back?

    You could try it, but is it really worth the risk?

  97. 97.

    Interrobang

    @joel hanes: Yeah, I’m with this about 1000%, and also with the commenter above who said “Explain it to me like I’m five years old,” because I was five years old when Reagan was elected the first time, and even I could see that he was completely senile (to begin with) and just an evil fucker to boot. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised just exactly how much damage he did, and not just to the US. I think all of my personal betes a droites here in Soviet Canuckistan (namely Mulroney, Harper, and Mike Harris) wouldn’t have been possible without the Reagan paradigm shift. Bandwagon uber alles!

    I’d also like to say for posterity that I was probably the least surprised human being on Earth when the Soviet Union formally collapsed, and I was only fourteen when that happened.

  98. 98.

    burnspbesq

    @joel hanes:

    Reagan set the course of plausible deniability, willful self-deception, deliberate racism, and comforting lies that the GOP has followed for lo, these forty years, to the great detriment of the nation.

    False. You’ve got the causation backwards. Reagan was effect, not cause.

    Those strains were in the Republican Party as far back as the 1930s. It was only because of Eisenhower’s enormous personal popularity that they didn’t become the mainstream of Republican thought in 1952, and it’s only because of the enormity of Goldwater’s loss in 1964 that they submerged for another 16 years.

  99. 99.

    Cermet

    @Ruckus:Sorry but you are wrong – conservatism’ (and the repug-a-thugs they rode in on) downfall started shortly after the civil war when the confederates won the peace and reestablished their way of life in the south and have been, since then, spreading it like the disease it is throughout the union. Raygun the brain dead really advanced the spread and created the toxic brew the thugs now so worship.

  100. 100.

    Tata

    Handsome doggy.

    I’m still stuck on the idea of a National War College.

    Transported back to the 1970s/1980s, and facing the problems of that time—rising crime, the challenge of the Soviet Union, inflation, and so on—conservatism had more virtues. This is something worth remembering, I think.

    No. It was never true. It was a way for straight white guys to feel like hotshots again after the terrible, emasculating failure that was Vietnam and the subsequent recession. The rest of us saw it for the step by step repression that it was.

    You take a lot of rhetorical flying leaps. You may find a lot of people standing on your cape.

  101. 101.

    Brachiator

    @Bernard Finel: Welcome. Look forward to your contributions.

    Third, and perhaps most important to me, I want to spend some time writing about how tactical political decisions are structurally undermining a progressive agenda.

    Is there a uniform, monolithic progressive agenda? Should there be? Who decided what the progressive agenda should be? Is there only one policy path toward a progressive agenda?

    The clearest case is on tax policy. Simply put, Obama’s decision to rule out increasing taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year means that, for the foreable future, we’ll be running large structural deficits, and the political debates will continue to be dominated by calls for cuts in social programs

    Is this necessarily true? Is there no way that increasing economic activity can also affect taxes or spending? Given the history of stagnant wages and job losses, wouldn’t the impact of increasing taxes on those making less than $250,000 be magnified and create a larger burden than if tax rates were maintained or lowered for this group?

    I hate to say it, but I think a progressive social policy funded regressively is the marginally better answer.

    What does this mean?

  102. 102.

    Tata

    I hate to say it, but I think a progressive social policy funded regressively is the marginally better answer.

    This is a neo-liberal position and has nothing in common with progressive thinking.

  103. 103.

    Cassidy

    @burnspbesq: I actually miss her. She was crazy and definitely the kind of girl you don’t give your phone number to, but sometimes she was pretty cool.

  104. 104.

    brantl

    The current Republicans weren’t ever right about national security Cheney and Rumsfeld spent an awful lot of time lying that microwave communications relays were weapons. They jinned up a fake menace, and you bought it.

  105. 105.

    burnspbesq

    @Brachiator:

    What does this mean?

    The short answer, I think, is that it means that the Irish approach to tax policy is on the table. Crank corporate income tax rates down to “promote international competitiveness,” and fund the government using individual income taxes and a VAT.

  106. 106.

    RareSanity

    Bernard, welcome to the eternal, 24hr a day, bar fight known as Balloon Juice. I look forward to your posts, regarding your specific areas of expertise.

    @General Stuck:

    Personally, I blame it on Disco, that flooded the minds of the X gen, with all sorts of sillyness, and none sillier than John Revolta, spinning twirling in a polyester clown suit. Reagan just rode on the coat tails of that abomination

    General, I beg your pardon, Sir. With all due respect to one of the elders around these parts, Gen Xers (of which I’m a member), were too young for disco. I mean we heard it, but it wasn’t the soundtrack of our early years. Now if you would have blamed it on Duran-Duran, WHAM!, Men At Work, Journey or Culture Club, then I would have been with you.

  107. 107.

    Mino

    @Brachiator: He means flat tax or consumption tax

    Maybe I prefer a dedicated transactional tax. Let the ones who broke it pay for it??? Humm?? The House is not getting its share of the Big Casino right now.

  108. 108.

    Mino

    Brachiator: I think he’s talking about flat tax. Of course the loopholes will certainly come.

    How about a deficit-dedicated transactional tax that makes the ones who broke it pay for it?? Humm?? Right now the House is certainly not getting its percentage from WS’s Big Cas ino.

  109. 109.

    joel hanes

    @burnspbesq:

    Apologies for not writing more clearly.
    Of course the GOP had strains of rankest wingnuttery leading back to the opposition to FDR.

    But Reagan championed them, made them the soul of the party identity, fused them with a triumphalist valorization of neo-aristocratic elites and a set of delusory ideas about economics, and sold the toxic package to much of the nation (and to our new front-pager).

  115. 115.

    Steve

    @General Stuck: Not making Amazon pay sales tax just helps them drive brick & mortar retailers and small businesses out of business. Maybe if we were setting up a society from scratch, there would be no sales tax, but at a minimum the playing field needs to be level.

  116. 116.

    dmbeaster

    @Mudge: Reagan happens to be the gold standard for Republican liars. Realize how much the deficits of the last thirty years are his prime legacy, and how his Laffer Curve b.s. was at the core of it.

    He remains the one president since Nixon who merited impeachment for his little gun-running affair (using stolen US funds) that was run right out of the White House. The idea that the leader gets a pass for allegedly being out of the loop never quite worked for me.

  117. 117.

    Politically Lost

    Welcome, Bernard!

    Other than occasional complaining about my health issues, I rarely engage in full debates in the comments. But, this is far and away my favorite blog and I spend a lot of time reading the posts and the comments. Your short introduction has definitely perked my interest and I look forward to reading your posts.

    And, thanks to Cole for being a great blog host.

    That is all.

  119. 119.

    Brandon

    Are you a poor mans Mark Kleiman? Sounds like we are going to get a firm dose of VSP view points. But I hope to be proven wrong.

  121. 121.

    RP

    I can appreciate that it certainly seemed that way at the time. But now we know that crime rates had a lot to do with lead in the environment; not women working. That hawks created at least as many problems with the Soviets as they solved. And the Whip Inflation Now buttons only helped future collectors on Ebay.

    To me, the issue isn’t that the Reagan conservatives were right on all or even some of the issues. I mostly agree that their fears were overblown and their solutions were wrong. But their perceptions of that time period are real, and we need to do a better job of understanding and responding to those perceptions if we’re going to reach more of those people (granted, we’ll never reach most of them, and will simply have to wait for them to exit stage right).

  124. 124.

    General Stuck

    @Steve:

    That’s decent point. But Amazon is not the only on line place to buy things. I see the playing field as far as on line competitors as on equal footing for taxation. Amazon was just one of the first and most successful online retailer when the internet started. If Amazon and the like of big players were the only ones to have to start collecting sales taxes, then I would agree with you. but it will affect all of these virtual places of business.

    Though this fact does help your argument more/

    And a lot of midsize companies have been collecting state sales tax already, from having a meat space outlet in a state.

    They are still regressive in nature, all sales taxes. And why republicans love them. I can’t be for that right now.

  126. 126.

    Mino

    @RP: I think your chances of changing the minds of 60+ yr old grumpy old men is about zero. About anything.

    Better to go after the younguns.

  127. 127.

    Maude

    The U.S. Navy shot at a boat in the Gulf. The boat had ignored the warnings. There’s one on the boat that is dead.
    Who’s gonna scream about this first? Left or right.
    Welcome Bernard.
    Betty Cracker is the one with the chickens and the wine bottle foil art.

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    @burnspbesq:

    The short answer, I think, is that it means that the Irish approach to tax policy is on the table. Crank corporate income tax rates down to “promote international competitiveness,” and fund the government using individual income taxes and a VAT.

    Interesting. Is the US really having a problem with “international competitiveness?” Yeah, I know Apple is practically broke, and Microsoft is reeling, but still.

    More seriously, some of the corporate tax breaks recently passed (100 percent bonus depreciation, enhanced NOL rules) have effectively lower business taxes but have done little to jumpstart the economy. I don’t know why anyone would expect lowered rates to help tremendously.

    Is the Irish approach still working for Ireland?

    @Mino:

    I think he’s talking about flat tax.

    Hope not. This would be fiscal insanity.

  129. 129.

    RP

    @Mino: Right, which is why I said that we need to wait for many of them to, uh, not be around. But there are a lot of people in their 40s and early 50s who were fairly young when Reagan was elected. We might be able to reach some of those people.

  132. 132.

    dww44

    @General Stuck: The wingnut governors are pushing for revenue from any regressive tax they can latch onto. The more regressive the better. In this state we are about to vote on a T-Splost for the whole state which is supposed to relieve the congestion in our major metropolitan area while throwing some projects and sops to the more depressed areas of the state. Forces are aligned. If voted down, the next step is a wholesale move toward toll roads in that congested area. At the same time the governor and legislature have reduced property taxes and virtually eliminated corporate tax while cutting medicaid, healthcare for kids, and education.

  133. 133.

    General Stuck

    @Steve:

    Maybe if we were setting up a society from scratch, there would be no sales tax, but at a minimum the playing field needs to be level.

    We don’t have to start society from scratch, all we have to do is support policies of lower sales tax all around. I don’t think taxing more regressively leads to anything good, at least until there is some more progressive policies implemented in all areas. To balance things out.

  135. 135.

    Mino

    @Brachiator: As you say, there is little economic pressure from consumers, so take more money away from them. That is sure to help.

    I want a $25.00 minimum wage, dammit. Buy your own insurance, since employee morality is so fragile. Don’t rely on your employee for retirement either. Those days are gone.

  137. 137.

    Mino

    @dww44: Municipalities have shot fines into the stratisphere, too, to finance tax breaks. A poor person can be sunk with one seatbelt fine of $200+.

  139. 139.

    The Moar You Know

    But Reagan championed them, made them the soul of the party identity, fused them with a triumphalist valorization of neo-aristocratic elites and a set of delusory ideas about economics, and sold the toxic package to much of the nation (and to our new front-pager).

    @joel hanes: Reagan actually did none of these things; he was pretty much the walking template for George W. Bush (figurehead, sleeping president, behind the sceners running the entire show from start to finish). The folks running Reagan’s presidency behind the scenes are the people who you want to focus on, and sadly, there’s just not been that much research on them.

    The whole toxic hellbrew formed in the 1930s with a bunch of furious 1%ers looking to roll back FDRs reforms, but thanks to (as noted above) Eisenhower and then Goldwater’s disaster, those folks couldn’t get any traction until 1980 and it was just about too late for them at that point. Unfortunately, their last shot worked. Too well.

    We could have led the entire world into a future so amazing that we can’t even imagine it now. We had that potential in 1980.

    But we sold it for a pile of blow and a new car.

  141. 141.

    BruceFromOhio

    @WereBear:

    And I’ve never understood the appeal of conservatism to anyone but a straight white guy. There’s nothing wrong with being a straight white guy; it’s just that if a person is any other flavor, conservatism flat out sucks.

    As a life-long straight white guy, I never really cared for it.

    Welcome Dr. Finel! It’s nice to know someone remembers the Cold War and all its trappings, and how MAD strategy colored so many things political. I like your first and second, not too sure about your third topic, if there’s flack to be had, it will be from there, my $0.02.

    And don’t take any hooey from the commenters. Some are pretty good, most seem like just folks, and a rather vocal minority are just plain batshit whacked.

  142. 142.

    Brachiator

    @Steve:

    Not making Amazon pay sales tax just helps them drive brick & mortar retailers and small businesses out of business. Maybe if we were setting up a society from scratch, there would be no sales tax, but at a minimum the playing field needs to be level.

    Sates and the federal government deliberately let online retailers avoid sales taxes in order to stimulate Internet business. It was never a matter of giving companies like amazon a special break.

    But it may be too late to save many brick and mortar stores. People are used to buying online, and amazon is pressing an advantage. They are saying that they will collect sales taxes, and will compete by offering same day delivery in major markets.

    See the excellent story in Slate on this (How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail.)

    It’s hard to overstate how thoroughly this move will shake up the retail industry. Same-day delivery has long been the holy grail of Internet retailers, something that dozens of startups have tried and failed to accomplish. (Remember Kozmo.com?) But Amazon is investing billions to make next-day delivery standard, and same-day delivery an option for lots of customers. If it can pull that off, the company will permanently alter how we shop. To put it more bluntly: Physical retailers will be hosed.

    Why bother driving to the mall to shop when you can order it and have it delivered when you get home? Especially when you don’t have to worry that the store may not have what you want?

    By the way, amazon is agreeing to collect sales taxes. In most states, people are theoretically obligated to pay a use tax for online purchases. But there was no rigorous mechanism for enforcing this.

  144. 144.

    dww44

    @Mino: Exactly. Every single fine in this state has been increased since 2010. They’ve even tripled some of the vanity tag costs, like the one that supports wildlife and conversation and have virtually killed those worthwhile programs. Not so with the gun licensing fees.

  146. 146.

    Chris

    @The Moar You Know:

    Who were the folks really running it, then? I know Cheney and Rumsfeld were around, but they didn’t have the power then that they did in the Bush years, did they?

  147. 147.

    liberal

    @Steve:

    Not making Amazon pay sales tax just helps them drive brick & mortar retailers and small businesses out of business. Maybe if we were setting up a society from scratch, there would be no sales tax, but at a minimum the playing field needs to be level.

    What—someone around here who has enough brain cells to understand that there’s more to tax equity than just “regressive/progressive”?

  149. 149.

    dww44

    @Brachiator:As one who shops, there is still great appeal to going out and seeing what’s on offer in the brick and mortar outlets, including the positive benefits of getting out of one’s home. It takes a LOT of time to shop on the internet and some products just have to be tried on for size, like shoes for people like me who must try them on before purchasing.

  150. 150.

    liberal

    @Brachiator:

    Sates and the federal government deliberately let online retailers avoid sales taxes in order to stimulate Internet business. It was never a matter of giving companies like amazon a special break.

    Have you checked your calendar lately? It’s 2012, not 1996.

  151. 151.

    liberal

    @Brachiator:

    See the excellent story in Slate on this (How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail.)

    If they continue to use the same “local delivery” services they’ve been using recently, I’d say this prediction is on pretty shaky ground.

  153. 153.

    burnspbesq

    @Brachiator:

    Is the Irish approach still working for Ireland

    I would say “mostly yes.” IMO, tax policy has little or nothing to do with Ireland’s current problems. It didn’t have much to do with inflating or popping the Irish real estate bubble. The skilled manufacturing jobs that moved to Ireland in order to take advantage of the 12.5 percent tax rate on trading profits aren’t going anywhere.

    The Fianna Fail government made a disastrous decision when it effectively guaranteed the non-deposit liabilities of the big Irish banks. If they had been allowed to fail, Ireland would be much better off than it is.

  154. 154.

    johnny suislaw

    @Brachiator:

    I hate to say it, but I think a progressive social policy funded regressively is the marginally better answer.

    What does this mean?

    I think it means “Make the poors fund the programs for their social and economic justice when they buy their skittles and sweet tea”.

  155. 155.

    The Moar You Know

    Who were the folks really running it, then?

    @Chris: I don’t know. James Baker would be someone to look at, he seemed to pull a lot more weight than a SoS should. Given that he was the veep, H.W. Bush seemed to have at best minimal involvement in what they did. Cheney’s name became shit with all the Reagan defense guys after his work killing the A-12, he wasn’t liked before that, he was minimally involved if at all as far as I can tell. A person looking to tell the story of those years would pretty much want to start with the defense industry and with Reagan’s backers at GE. That’s where the votes and money came from, and that’s where the goodies and benefits went.

    Not a lot of academic work has been done on Reagan’s administration, and they were a very secretive lot of bastards on top of that. That really needs to change. They’re almost all dead and it would be good for society if we could figure out what happened back then.

  156. 156.

    Ivan Ivanovich Renko

    @WereBear:

    And I’ve never understood the appeal of conservatism to anyone but a straight white guy. There’s nothing wrong with being a straight white guy; it’s just that if a person is any other flavor, conservatism flat out sucks.

    QFT. When Mr. Reagan announced his candidacy in Philadelphia Mississippi on a platform of state’s rights; he solidified himself amongst straight white men– and they’re still lining up to defend/deify him to this day.

  157. 157.

    Brachiator

    @dww44:

    As one who shops, there is still great appeal to going out and seeing what’s on offer in the brick and mortar outlets, including the positive benefits of getting out of one’s home. It takes a LOT of time to shop on the internet and some products just have to be tried on for size, like shoes for people like me who must try them on before purchasing.

    I see your point, but I get the feeling that a lot of people, especially younger and tech savvy folk, are doing more shopping online.

    And brick and mortar stores are just buckling under the pressure. I once went out of my way to go to a department store to buy an advertised piece of luggage. Had a hard time finding a sales person, and when I did they seemed bored and unhelpful. The store had sold out of the sale item I wanted; worse, no one offered to check to see if it were at any of the nearby branches of the same store. Went home, ordered it with one click and had it two days later.

    By the way, the Brits are seeing some of the same online vs high steet shopping dilemmas (Can anyone save our high streets?).

    I think that brick and mortar stores could find ways to exploit smart phones and tablets to lure shoppers. For example, grocery stores have apps that let shoppers load up coupons and special offers. And I enjoy watching the remote control husbands who are guided through the supermarket by their wives via a smart phone. I’ve even seen at least one guy use the facetime camera to verify that he was getting the right item.

    More seriously, the increasing disappearance of brick and mortar stores kills jobs and reduces a city’s tax base, adding to our economic woes, so it is an ongoing issue.

  158. 158.

    Koios

    Welcome to the fray!!

    We live with the consequences of Reaganism every day; just having a nominee like Mittens is proof of that and that was obvious in the 80s.

    Much will be forgiven if you post dog pix regularly.

  159. 159.

    Mino

    @Brachiator: Boutique stores are finding an online presence supplements their brick and mortar. I guess retail is evolving and we’ll have to see what emerges.

  160. 160.

    cat

    Transported back to the 1970s/1980s, and facing the problems of that time—rising crime, the challenge of the Soviet Union, inflation, and so on—conservatism had more virtues.

    Just to pile on, the GOP is still saying the exact same thing today just with a different tune. Crime is to high because of the illegals when it used to be because of the inner city youths. The current phantom threat to our complete existance is radical muslims when it used to be USSR/Communism. They are still yelling about inflation, confidence fairies, and national debt.

    The GOP solutions are all exactly the same as the used to be, the only reason you don’t want to be considered a republican is because the racist underbelly that is the modern republican party is to powerful to hide like it used to be. You still believe in all that Reagen era voodoo economic BS based on your “regressive taxiation” comment.

    But I guess the other coventional wisdeom VSIPped front pagers were mostly run off so its time for a new one.

  161. 161.

    Ruckus

    @Cermet:
    I said the current rot. Of course conservatives have been bat shit crazy fuckers for ever, willing to screw over everyone not them. But the current, ongoing trend that everyone says started with raygun, really started 30ish yrs before that at the end of WWII. And you are correct it didn’t start with McCarthy, he was just the crazy front man of all the back room thieves. And 20ish yrs before that there were conservatives stinking up the place big time. And so on…

  164. 164.

    Mino

    @Ruckus: I’ve read some theory that NE Conservatives (who were mostly patriarchial egalitarians) lost out to Dixi-cons and the evil we see today is the modern expression of slavery.

  165. 165.

    mclaren

    Finel is the real deal and an outstanding foreign policy analyst. Looking forward to his posts.

  166. 166.

    Brachiator

    @liberal:
    RE: Sates and the federal government deliberately let online retailers avoid sales taxes in order to stimulate Internet business. It was never a matter of giving companies like amazon a special break.

    Have you checked your calendar lately? It’s 2012, not 1996.

    The point is that more and more people are used to shopping on line, for convenience, to avoid crowds, etc. The sale tax forgiveness laws shifted habits. It may not matter whether the sales taxes are imposed again. Also, I am not sure that the California sales taxes collected will benefit cities in the same way as before. So, for example, hordes of people might go to an outlet mall in Glendale, bringing much sales tax revenue specifically to that city. If people from various zip codes order from amazon online, how would the sales taxes collected be divided? Would it be based on the location of amazon’s shipping center, or the location of the shoppers?

    RE: See the excellent story in Slate on this (How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail.)

    If they continue to use the same “local delivery” services they’ve been using recently, I’d say this prediction is on pretty shaky ground.

    Read the article. Amazon is adjusting their operations to account for changes. And then you have Wal Mart promising that people can buy online and pay cash and pick up at a physical store. In both cases, you have big retailers looking for new ways to outdo traditional brick and mortar stores.

  169. 169.

    Brachiator

    @burnspbesq: RE: Is the Irish approach still working for Ireland

    I would say “mostly yes.” IMO, tax policy has little or nothing to do with Ireland’s current problems. It didn’t have much to do with inflating or popping the Irish real estate bubble. The skilled manufacturing jobs that moved to Ireland in order to take advantage of the 12.5 percent tax rate on trading profits aren’t going anywhere.

    Makes sense, although I have read that skilled people are leaving and businesses are closing. But I don’t I don’t know the extent of this, and have not followed this area closely.

    The Fianna Fail government made a disastrous decision when it effectively guaranteed the non-deposit liabilities of the big Irish banks. If they had been allowed to fail, Ireland would be much better off than it is.

    I presume that the pressure was great to push the government to make the decisions that it did. Very unfortunate.

  170. 170.

    Chris

    @The Moar You Know:

    Ah, OK. Sorry, when you said “not much research on them,” I thought it meant “we don’t know a lot about what they did,” not “we’re not even sure who they were.” (We did know who was pulling the strings in the Bush years, for example, at least on foreign and national security policy).

  171. 171.

    Haydnseek

    @wrb: Also, too, Kansas. When the book “What’s the matter with Kansas? came out, I thought it was about the band.

  172. 172.

    Chris

    @cat:

    Just to pile on, the GOP is still saying the exact same thing today just with a different tune. Crime is to high because of the illegals when it used to be because of the inner city youths. The current phantom threat to our complete existance is radical muslims when it used to be USSR/Communism. They are still yelling about inflation, confidence fairies, and national debt.

    Yeah, the only difference is that their bogeymen have gotten so obviously delusional these days as opposed to thirty years ago.

    Given the crime rates thirty years ago, I can see how it would’ve been a big political issue back then, even if they were milking it for all it was worth, placing the blame where it didn’t belong and proposing solutions that didn’t work. These days, though, crime rates haven’t looked this good since – what? Eisenhower? So the whole message of “beware, that scary swarthy person is going to stab your kids and take your women!” is fairly ridiculous whether you’re blaming it on illegals or inner-city youth.

    Ditto foreign policy. The Soviet Union was a superpower, the only one that came close to matching America’s global reach and military power. I can see why that would be considered a major threat, the kind that could justify the ludicrously-sized defense industry that sprang up in these years. These days, they’re trying to recapture that sense of awe and dread, but instead of a superpower, we’re supposed to be terrified of a Caliphate that a few groups of KKK wannabes are supposedly going to impose in the free world even though mostly they can’t even take over their own countries. It’s ridiculous.

  174. 174.

    kuvasz

    So, the bottom line is that you used to be a stupid fool, and now you’re not? Sorry, Dr. Finel, that dog won’t hunt. I don’t give a flying fuck about someone who finally found the light. I’d rather spend time with someone who was never wandering around blind.

    There are a lot of us who were right from the get-go; going back several decades, about Reagan, Bush, and the rest, so it takes balls as big as church bells to tell another person to listen-up ’cause “now I got smart.”

  175. 175.

    wrb

    @Haydnseek:

    Yes, I thought of Kansas but decided that they were only second string awful when Journey and Styx were playing.

    However the fact that it was the latter two with which the engineers across the hall in freshman dorm would sing might bias me.

  176. 176.

    chuck butcher

    I understood the emotional appeal of St Ronnie, he hit the right keys and a lot of people were stirred up. The problem is that while the emotional was there, it was straight up bullshit. Take trickle down econ, they acted as though it had never been tried, somehow missing the “gilded-age” or more accurately “robber baron era.”

    By St Ronnie’s run, people were getting tired of Democrats, and for some pretty good reasons along with so pretty sad ones.

    What ails the GOP is pretty straight up co-opted party – see their almost complete dominance following the Civil War and the attraction of power to money. Crossing those interests is what happened to TR so you have to take a look at what it took to break that hold.

    What ails the Democrats? Same equation applies.

    Beranard, welcome – just don’t expect an easy ride, and I guess welcome back from the conservative abyss.

  177. 177.

    Chris

    @Ruckus:

    “Conscience of a Liberal” by Krugman is pretty good at tracing back what he calls “movement conservatism” through the past half-century or so. In its modern form, MC goes back to the fifties, with the McCarthyists and the John Birch Society, their atheist cousin Ayn Rand, and their “respectable” relative William F. Buckley, who managed to package most of the same delusions into a somewhat more respectable setting. Over time, it grew in power by attracting other factions angry at post-FDR American society.

    The fact that it’s a coalition whose members all signed on for different reasons isn’t nearly as apparent there as it is with the Democrats, but still regularly makes an impact on politics, e.g. whenever Republicans propose the latest version of Social Security privatization and their base shrinks away from it, or when the True Believers threaten to do something insane like playing games with the debt ceiling and the big money gets freaked out.

  178. 178.

    Haydnseek

    @joel hanes: Exactly. Reagan made all this not only possible, but gave political cover to the wingnuts in waiting that up to now had been inhabiting their own Crazytown echo chamber, to little effect. Reagan was governor of California for two terms, and even then he was as insane as a rat in a coffee can. He practically invented the homeless epidemic in California when he decided that state funded mental hospitals were a waste of money, managed to get them de-funded, and threw thousands of emotionally disturbed patients out in the street. When he was elected president, California progressives predicted disaster. We weren’t disappointed.

  180. 180.

    Haydnseek

    @wrb: Ha! I know what you mean about second stringers. Back in the day, I was a bass player in a decent band until they changed musical direction fit current FM Radio trends. The band immediately started to suck. I was fired for continually referring to our front man as “Mario Speedwagon.”

  181. 181.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @kuvasz:

    There are a lot of us who were right from the get-go; going back several decades, about Reagan, Bush, and the rest, so it takes balls as big as church bells to tell another person to listen-up ‘cause “now I got smart.”

    This is the part that drives me crazy too. But it was a long time ago with Bernard so I’m willing to let it go. Less so when he attempts to justify it.

  182. 182.

    JoyfulA

    @Steve: Many thousands of small businesses are located on Amazon.

    I don’t think many online retailers object to collecting sales taxes, except for the mess of figuring out what local tax district applies (zip codes don’t follow political boundaries; is a person ordering from home or from work in a different tax district? etc.) and the following mess of sending tiny payments to a multitude of tax authorities. And then keeping track of all the changes in sales tax rates. Solve the administrative problem first.

  183. 183.

    mcmullje

    I seek out writers that will educate rather than spew rhetoric – it’s the reason I love this blog and it looks like you will be a wonderful addition. Welcome!

  184. 184.

    Frivolous

    Hello and congratulations, Dr. Pinel. Hope you have a good time writing here at Balloon Juice.

  185. 185.

    Anne Laurie

    Welcome to the front page, Bernard. I look forward to reading posts about national security and criminal justice issues from someone with a depth of both credentials and experience in these areas.

    Seriously. I look forward.

    And you’re already helping individual readers, which by my estimates is the best use of this blog anyways!

  186. 186.

    General Stuck

    @Anne Laurie:

    And you’re already helping individual readers, which by my estimates is the best use of this blog anyways!

    Amen. Us po readers wouldn’t know what to do without the wisdom imparted by BJ front pagers keeping us readers on the path of twoof, justice, and the American way. Specially AL, with all that genius poured out on these pages daily. Ask her about the drones and Trayvon Martin connection. Brilliant stuff.

  187. 187.

    NotMax

    Transported back to the 1970s/1980s, and facing the problems of that time—rising crime, the challenge of the Soviet Union, inflation, and so on—conservatism had more virtues.

    Pure malarkey.

    Especially when proffered as bald fact without the slightest bit of substantiation.

    Even more so when using incomplete (it was stagflation in the 70s and early 80s, not solely inflation; the encompassing and cynical use of racism (See: busing, for example) and jingoism in the conservatism of the time cited) or selective (the Soviet Union was a dominant topic of the 50s and 60s as well; rising crime did not occur in a vacuum – societal instability and the abrupt upheaval of traditionalism was taking place on multiple fronts) or undefined (name the “virtues” or at the least explain why they were virtuous) data points.

    I bid you welcome, but expect better than broad or ill-supported propaganda.

  188. 188.

    Mark Erickson

    for the foreable future, we’ll be running large structural deficits, and the political debates will continue to be dominated by calls for cuts in social programs

    Only because progressives have come to love the security state since their guy controls it. Even modest cuts in our bloated “defense” budget – say to 2001 levels – would allow social spending to increase, not just stay status quo.

    And when is the last time progressive concerns have dominated political debates? LBJ?

  189. 189.

    SaltyDawg

    Why do Colonels need a “finishing school” more than, say, generals or captains?

  191. 191.

    nastybrutishntall

    @Interrobang: I was 6 at the time, and got in trouble in 1st grade for defacing a picture of him on some civics lesson poster by turning him into a pig. OTH, this was Newton, MA, so they were professionally very disapproving, but probably thought it was a riot.

  193. 193.

    nastybrutishntall

    @Cassidy: FOS had nice post-punk guitar riffs and expressive hair. Hating them is like hating “hipsters”: it signifies a certain anti-fashion, anti-synth Gen-Xer “real music” fetish and 70’s country-rock / 90’s commercial altrock nostalgia. It’s similar in structure to the hatred of disco. I suspect it’s repressed homophobia.

  194. 194.

    BruceFromOhio

    Hating them is like hating “hipsters”

    Really? There weren’t any hipsters around back then where I ran, ran so far away from music that just plain fucking sucked. Tie the tail of the Flock to the tail of Men Without Hats, hang them over a tree limb, and see who survives.

    Now, Wall of Voodoo? Thomas Dolby? Duran Duran? Pure undiluted genius. And Chryssie Hynde was pretending to be a perfect stranger, and just rocking the house instead. There wasn’t a lot of redemption in the big hair suck sound of the early 80’s New Wave, but after jumping off the bar you could, maybe, just hear it in the distance.

  195. 195.

    Ronzoni Rigatoni

    @The Moar You Know: “The folks running Reagan’s presidency behind the scenes are the people who you want to focus on, and sadly, there’s just not been that much research on them.”

    Oh, but there has been. Robert Timberg’s “The Nightingale’s Song” details the foreign policy corruption within the Reagan Adm. and the absolute dolt who happened to be President at the time. His focus on the political careers of 5 Annapolis grads (Poindexter, McFarlane, Oliver North, James Webb, and [gasp!] John McCain)during the Reagan years prepared me for a hagiographic approach to the era. It definitely was not. Perhaps James Webb came off as a semi-hero. The rest were absolute idiots if not actual criminals.

  196. 196.

    PanurgeATL

    @nastybrutishntall:

    I’m not exactly Mr. Heterosexual, and I’m not into the hipster scene, either. But then I hate what the “gay” scene has become.

    Journey’s not so bad, but they’re not so good, either. Even now, much of that stuff seems kind of bland, though some of it’s a matter of context. The idea behind “new wave” seemed to be “better bad than bland”, or at least “herky jerky quirky smirky”. But I don’t like that, either. To resort to that kind of stance is to say that “good” is impossible.

    (Besides which, why does Journey get lumped in so often with “commercial new wave” when their heritage is clearly late-70s AOR? Speaking of which, why does no one ever discuss that stuff when it was at least as popular as disco and more popular than punk or new wave? Or did I already answer that?)

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