Bigger is Better

It seems a requirement of modern politics that Democrats criticize big business and Republicans criticize big government.

There is one problem with these shibboleths, these tests of the faithful: they ignore how the interplay between big government and big business has made us prosperous. History suggests that any politician successful at impeding either government or business will effectively slow economic progress.

Some people know the amazing story of Elisha Gray arriving at the patent office just hours after Alexander Graham Bell with his patent application for the phone. Bell went on to fame and fortune and Gray to a life of anonymity. There’s more to it, though. Our founding fathers were intent on creating an accessible, affordable patent system. One might even say it was democratic. Fewer people know that the Italian Antonio Meucci had invented the telephone years – not just hours – before Bell but could not afford to patent it through Italy’s expensive patent system. Had Italy been more visionary about subsidizing the work of its inventors by making it cheaper to file for a patent, it may have hosted the myriad, great inventions that defined the decades around 1900 or had the equivalent of Bell Labs from which communication satellites and transistors emerged as catalyst for huge industries. Our government enabled invention.

In his book The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Robert Gordon shares this story of Bell, Gray and Meucci and gives a host of other examples of government and business interacting to create prosperity.

During the second world war, the federal government led initiatives to increase industrial capacity. The government invested capital equal to half the capital that existed at the start of the war, capital in the form of factories and machine tools (which doubled during the war). Even better was the problem-solving that resulted in better production methods. During the war, Kaiser initially took 8 months to complete a ship; they accelerated that to just a few weeks by the next year. A plane factory of Ford's increased its rate of 75 planes per month in February of 1943 to 432 per month by August of 1944. By D-Day, the Germans could launch only 319 aircraft; the US and its allies launched 12,837. American factories won the war.

After the war, the government turned all this over to private companies. Armed with these investments in capital and knowledge, these companies began making consumer products like cars and TVs. Before the second world war, the economy had lurched in and out of recession. After, it took off. Government regulations helped raise wages and government investment helped raise productivity. Workers both made and bought these new products.

Eisenhower had been a solider during the first world war and was part of a group transporting vehicles across the US. It took them 62 days to go from coast to coast. Head of the Allies’ conquering army, he experienced first-hand the German autobahn and was amazed at the contrast. The interstate highway legislation Eisenhower signed increased American productivity by tens of percent.  Like the railroads the government subsidized a century earlier, the highway system gave customers and producers easier, more affordable access to products and markets. Decades earlier, life expectancy had gone up as a result of similar, local efforts to build out the infrastructure that brought safe water into homes and piped sewage out, another initiative dependent on the cooperation of government and business.

Another outcome of the second world war was increased investment in research and education. In WWII we didn't just pump unprecedented amounts of money into research but FDR asked Vannevar Bush to institutionalize that, which he did with what become the NSF (National Science Foundation) and DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). From DARPA we got the Internet which has enabled the creation of trillions in new wealth and millions of new jobs. The GI Bill was another product of the second world war and it led to a huge increase in college enrollment, creating a new generation of better educated, more productive workers.

Possibly the most important interplay between big government and big corporations comes in R&D. Research is hugely uncertain and most of it results in nothing. If it does result in something cool it may happen a decade or three later than expected. Also, not every cool thing becomes profitable. Because of this, corporations rarely finance basic research and it needs to be heavily funded by institutions like DARPA or the University of California. This research is crucial to corporations' later developments. "The parts of the smart phone that make it smart—GPS, touch screens, the Internet—were advanced by the Defense Department," as Mariana Mazzucato points out in her book The Entrepreneurial State. Corporations try to find a way to translate research that has taken one to two decades into development that takes two to four years. It's a great system and at its best we tax successful corporations to fund the next round of research which could be transformed into new products by corporations. Symantec and Qualcomm were among the new companies funded by The Small Business Innovation Research program - a program started by Ronald Reagan. Google's basic algorithm was funded with a NSF grant.

Of late, our policies seem less reflective of this interdependence. As corporations pay less in taxes the government has less money for initiatives that could help the next generation of companies and workers to prosper. Our productivity, wages and GDP were growing faster during a time when corporate tax rates were maxed out at about 50% and personal income tax rates maxed out at about 70%. The trick is to tax what is successful now to fund what will become successful next.

Government has an important job as a referee, a role Elizabeth Warren articulates well. Government has an important job of moderating wealth and income inequality. (Trump looked at the world with the biggest gap between rich and poor in history and concluded that the rich were not rich enough and the poor were not poor enough, giving the first a tax break and cutting assistance to the second. Few people would reach such a conclusion.) Those jobs of referee and moderator are important but over the long term, they are not as important as the job of collaborating with business and labor to create the next generation of technologies, products, industries and companies. It is in that direction that lies the kind of progress we had from 1900 to 2000 that increased real incomes by 8X and let us buy myriad objects like airplane tickets, personal computers and antibiotics that did not even exist at the start of the century.

The world is full of communities who would love our problem of big government and big business. Big projects are not done by small organizations. It should be a cliché to say what is too rarely said: progress is not a product of markets or democracies but rather their interaction. Strong companies and strong government go together in vibrant economies. Even within the US, the states that keep taxes and investment lower and have few big companies have lower household income and create fewer jobs. Big businesses and government agencies are not a sign that we’re off the rails. They are, instead, the way we got both the rails and the trains.

The Libertarian Philosophy - A Truth (often ignored) and a Misconception (largely embraced)

Libertarians advocate one thing that seems to me obviously right (but is often resisted) and another obviously wrong (but nonetheless wins the approval of most Americans).

A general trust in markets seems to me the most important thing they get right. Market solutions don't require consensus or bringing along committees and citizen action groups or the popular vote. An entrepreneur can just try something and assuming they can convince the right mix of investors and employees to go along, they have a chance to change how we live. That's pretty cool and the libertarians' trust in individuals seems to me repeatedly justified by the on-going success of entrepreneurs whose success may never have been predicted by any majority opinion.

The problem with market-driven progress is that it blows in on gales of creative destruction. Solar power can close down coal mines; digital photography can close down picture development kiosks. The status quo has a lot of wealth and power and part of what libertarians get right is that because of this power, government tends towards crony capitalism that protects existing industries in order to protect those investors and employees rather than forcing them to respond to the market. Government can become an obstacle to progress. Look at the coal miners in West Virginia, an industry that began in 1740. If we protect the 44 year old miner today, how much longer do we need to save his job? For two more generations? Two more years? What is society's obligation to protect him? Some politicians will say that for as many generations as he'll vote for you to go to DC to protect him and as long as the coal mining investors will fund your political campaign. Industries that would have a rough time getting thousands from a venture capitalist are sometimes successful at getting billions from governments.

Libertarians' belief that we should let markets disrupt and create new wealth and jobs even while eradicating old jobs and wealth is something I think is right. Still, it seems easy to find programs that protect industries (think of our enormous subsidies to farming and oil). This feel likes a truth often ignored.

So what do I think they get obviously wrong? This notion that government should then be small. I believe that successful markets depend on robust government programs in at least two ways. People always want protection and security. If you are not going to protect their jobs and industries, you need to offer them some personal protection. This, to me, means healthy unemployment insurance, jobs retraining and really hefty subsidies to kindergarten through grad school education, among other things. I also believe that we can hardly spend too much on research at places like the Center for Disease Control or National Health Institute or the National Science Foundation.

I have worked with hundreds of product development firms within companies, from startups funding only one project to Fortune 50 firms with thousands of projects. They develop new products. They need a product that can launch soon. The pharmaceutical companies have the longest development window - about a decade - but most target product launches within about 2 to 4 years. You've heard of R&D, research and development? This is D, the development. It's important. It's crucial. As cliche as it sounds, it can change the lives of investors and consumers. The iPhone is an example of development. The rightful focus of private companies is the D in R&D.

Research is hugely uncertain, though. It will probably result in nothing. If it does result in something cool it may happen a decade or three later than you expected. Not every cool thing becomes profitable. Because of this, corporations rarely finance research and it needs to be heavily funded by government, by groups like DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) or the University of California. This research - the R - is crucial to corporations' later development - the D. "The parts of the smart phone that make it smart—GPS, touch screens, the Internet—were advanced by the Defense Department," as Mariana Mazzucato points out in her book The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths. Corporations try to find a way to translate R that has taken one to two decades into D that takes two to four years. It's a pretty cool system.

The libertarian fantasy that communities work well with lean governments is wrong on two counts: a community that learns to sail the gales of creative destruction makes its people feel secure with change rather than resistant to it (which requires a strong welfare state) and getting the research to the point that companies can make it profitable takes considerable public sector leadership.

James Watt, employee at University
of  Glasgow, the same university that
employed professor Adam Smith

The contest between the public and private sector is not zero sum. A strong public sector can make the private sector healthier, and vice versa. (And obviously by strong I don't mean power over, the power of corporate lobbyists to choke government or for governments agencies to choke corporations. Instead, I mean power to, the way that advances in one lead to advances in the other, each enabling the other.)

When a libertarian talks about how markets are more innovative than government programs and how individuals should be given freedom to pursue what they think will make them happy, nod knowingly and agree with him. (Libertarians are twice as likely to be men, so this is probably a "him" you're talking to.)  Say something like, "Yeah. The pursuit of happiness. It's literally in our founding documents."  

When he tells you that this means governments should be much smaller, laugh at his naivete. (Libertarian men love when you do that because then they chuckle with you and say, "Well, you can't blame me for wanting lower taxes.") 

The formula that has seemed to work for progress is to let entrepreneurs and companies rapidly change our world while funding the cost of their creativity with research and education and then funding the cost of their disruption with welfare, unemployment insurance, universal healthcare and - yep - more education and jobs training. Who pays for those government programs? Everyone, but the ones who pay the most are the ones who succeed the most: those successful entrepreneurs and companies who so benefit from being part of a system that knows how to create and then harness the gales of creative destruction.

What (New) Word Describes Trump's Administration?

It's not enough that Trump has no interest in policy and experience in governance. Today with Tom Price's resignation we're reminded of the incredibly high levels of turnover in this White House and this fact: between Trump's leadership, his lack of patience for learning, and the fact that his staff is in constant turmoil, we're destined to be led by amateurs this whole time.

And actually, amateur is the wrong word. The ama in amateur comes from the Latin word amator, or lover. An amateur does what they do freely, out of love. The Trump administration has contempt for governance and the public they "serve" so this isn't work done out of love. It's not love but contempt that seems to animate them.  It's worth remembering that a climate change denier is head of NASA and a man (former governor Rick Perry) who vowed to eliminate the Energy Department if only he could remember its name is now head of the Energy Department.

Rather than led by amateurs, perhaps we could use the term contemptuaries. Contempt, too, has Latin roots. Temnere means to slight or scorn. Temp also has the connotation of someone who is just a temp, not a real, dedicated employee concerned with the success of the enterprise but instead someone who is just there to complete some tasks and then get out. Trump's administration - with people like Betsey Devos and Ben Carson - is full of contemptuaries who have little interest in policy, are just passing through, and show contempt for the government and the people their agency is supposed to serve.

Trump's contemptuaries. Not even at the level of amateurs.

Thomas More's Utopia - How Poverty Makes for Bad Government

A century ago, Thomas More published Utopia. More was beheaded by Henry VIII when he refused to break with Rome and pledge allegiance to Henry rather than the pope and Erasmus helped him to publish Utopia. 500 years ago the modern nation-state was emerging and it created a thicket of issues that had to do with the question of policies and authority and the very identity of a people. More's Utopia was his way of dealing with this, using a fictional place to model what a country could be. It's an imaginative leap that's not just fanciful but helpful as a way to define what could be but has not yet been experienced. (In Utopia, More argues against private property. Centuries later, the Soviet Union honored him for this early definition of communism.) One of the more fascinating acts of social experimentation since has happened when Utopians have tried to create communities that break with tradition.

One of the arguments that apparently prevailed at the time was over this notion of wealth and poverty. Here, More attacks the notion that it is better to rule a poor people. This is one section of his book that still seems relevant.

19th Century Dancing Utopians

And they think it is the prince's interest, ... as if it were his advantage that his people should have neither riches nor liberty; since these things make them less easy and less willing to submit to a cruel and unjust government; whereas necessity and poverty blunt them, make them patient, beat them down, and break that height of spirit, that might otherwise dispose them to rebel. Now what if after all these propositions were made, I should rise up and assert, that such councils were both unbecoming a king, and mischievous to him: and that not only his honor but his safety consisted more in his people's wealth, than in his own; if I should show that they choose a king for their own sake, and not for his; that by his care and endeavors they may be both easy and safe; and that therefore a prince ought to take more care of his people's happiness than of his own, as a shepherd is to take more care of his flock than of himself."It is also certain that they are much mistaken that think the poverty of a nation is a means of the public safety. Who quarrel more than beggars? Who does more earnestly long for a change, than he that is uneasy in his present circumstances? And who run to create confusions with so desperate a boldness, as those who have nothing to lose hope to gain by them? If a king should fall under such contempt or envy, that he could not keep his subjects in their duty, but by oppression and ill usage, and by rendering them poor and miserable, it were certainly better for him to quit his kingdom, than to retain it by such methods, as makes him while he keeps the name of authority, lose the majesty due to it. Nor is it so becoming the dignity of a king to reign over beggars, as over rich and happy subjects. And therefore Fabricius, a man of a noble and exalted temper, said, he would rather govern rich men than be rich himself; since for one man to abound in wealth and pleasure, when all about him are mourning and groaning, is to be a jailer and not a king.

What Government Does Well: Basic, Market Changing Research

There is a fascinating book review by Jeff Madrick that undermines so many of the casually inaccurate claims made by libertarians in the course of exploring The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths by Mariana Mazzucato and Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy: Markets, Speculation and the State by William H. Janeway.

These titles buttress my suspicion that to be a libertarian requires a special blend of intelligence and naivete. Specifically, a naivete about the history of government's role in economic progress to date. These authors argue that economies move forward on a dance between government innovation (usually for basic research) and private innovation (usually for products that apply these innovations).

"Government can't do anything well," libertarians say. They've said it so much that it begins to sound like truth, in the same way that the Greeks' repetition of Homer's myths made Athena seem real. But what are the facts?

Despite protestations that government should not pick winners or losers, even including Solyndra it's only about 2% of the projects partly financed by government that go bankrupt. Symantec and Qualcomm were among the new companies funded by The Small Business Innovation Research program - a program started by Ronald Reagan. Google's basic algorithm was funded with a National Science Foundation grant. The iPod - and essentially every computing device - depends on technology that came out of US and European government-funded research labs.

It seems silly to say that the government should not choose research projects or companies or industries to invest in. The government - in the form of universities - regularly chooses which kids to invest in for undergraduate and graduate studies. The government chooses who goes to prison and who goes free. The government chooses who pays taxes and who gets subsidies. Governments inescapably make big decisions.

The real criticism of government is that they're likely to invest in projects, technologies and even companies that the market would not finance. I think this is accurate. I also think that such an accusation is actually an argument for such investment. Taking the lead on research can give a country an advantage for decades (look, for instance, at what the spending on computer chip and Internet research did for the US). Better to spend on 10 technologies, only a couple of which change the economy, than to spend on no technologies and watch another country take the lead on an important new industry or technology.

Yet because of recent cuts, funding for government research programs is at its lowest rate - as a percentage of GDP - in 40 years. Back to the level it was at before the personal computer, the Internet, bio-tech, and nanotech. (All, by the way, products of basic research initially funded by government programs.)

We're about to enter a period of even more rapid technological and economic change, not less. We can listen to the historically naive and continue to cut our funding on basic research. Or we can assume that even with all the change we're living through,the one thing that hasn't changed is that investment now determines income later, and in no area does that investment have more potential than basic research or even subsidies to startups.

Obama and McCain Unqualified to be CEO?

Carly Fiorina, former CEO of an $80 billion company, said that the presidential and vice presidential candidates competing to run a $3 trillion federal budget would not be qualified to be CEO. (Curiously, the market seems to have had a similar opinion about Fiorina. During her tenure, HP’s market value dropped in half. After she left in 2005, the stock rose by 224%)

My initial reaction to this was scorn for Fiorina. Here, I thought, is another CEO who actually believes her own compensation package. But then I woke up this morning to news of the bailout of AIG – something that will cost taxpayers $85 billion. It is true, I thought. Any president who could nod his head at that kind of a bill would not be able to run an $80 billion a year company.

Zone Defense: Strip Malls with Actual Strippers

A guest post by Daryl Morey

For the second time ever, I have a guest blogger - and this one I did not have to sleep with as an inducement to post. My buddy Daryl has generously offered to write something for R World and I eagerly agreed. I've written about Daryl (in his first season as the Houston Rockets GM, the team put together the second longest winning streak in NBA history) and how much I enjoy him. Daryl is one person I never feel as though I have to slow down for when I'm engaged in conversation. He's quick, but he also loves big ideas, and he is not afraid to go deep or silly on any number of subjects. I'm delighted to share a little bit of him for you all here at R World. Enjoy!

As Ron has stated eloquently in his blog before (Rockets Win Again with Rookie GM), "I go where the data goes". This tendency, along with the fact that "I doubt the deep doubts" (Socrates) makes life a bit of an adventure as I might change a belief at any moment. To demonstrate my willingness to change, I will provide one recent anecdote.

First, a little background. I generally have libertarian views and believe the government should basically only do roads, courts, police, the army, and tax externalities. Otherwise, stay out of our lives please.

When I moved to Houston, I was excited to hear they had no zoning. I was very curious to see how well this worked, independent folks finally able to make free choice in how to use land! Long story short, I have basically come to the conclusion that it does not work and the list of what Guvment should do is now reluctantly one longer.

Exhibit number one into evidence is probably this picture. This spot is about 4 miles from our house. The sex shop is apparent but what is not apparent is that the unlabeled building behind said shop is actually a Niemen Marcus that is connected to the most high end mall in the city. One stop shopping for sure!

Actually, it is not this particular arrangement that caused me to now support zoning, as I find it mostly humorous. What made me a supporter of zoning is the fact that nothing in Houston makes any logical sense and it contributes to a host of negative outcomes: longer commute times, confusion, and general waste of both public and private space.

[Editor's note: Daryl's post is, for those of you keeping score, the 800th here at R World.]

Bernard & Mandelbrot on the Future of Government

"Mandelbrot has it all figured out and he doesn't even know he figured it out!" Bernard looked triumphant. It warmed my heart just to see him so enthused.

"Who is Mandelbroth?" I asked.

"Mandelbrot," he corrected, "invented a new math that works for computers and their capacity for near infinite recursion. But he explained the natural outcome of government. He's predicted it and didn't even notice it." Bernard took another sip from his mug, licking his lips as he savored the flavor. I was almost positive that his eyes rolled back for an instant.

"New math predicts the future of government?" I was a little incredulous. I hadn't known Bernard to be particularly mathematical.

"Are you going to listen or just ask irrelevant questions?" Bernard was speaking fast - very fast. I let my silence be my answer.

"Mandelbrot," he continued, "posed this seemingly simple problem. Measure the coast of Britain. It's a simple problem, right?”

"Yeah. You might get some variation, but yeah, it should be pretty simple, no?"

"Exactly. You'd think. But it isn't like that. If you measure the coast of Britain by, say, map, tracing the periphery of the coast, you might discover that the coastline is about 1,200 miles.”

“Okay,” I slowly answer, just trying to get time to think. Bernard is not just taking fast - he's uncharacteristically talking about math.

“But let’s say that you now want to get more precise, so you use satellite photos. Now you can trace the various coves and small peninsulas a little better. Given you are tracing around more detail, you find that the coastline expands, the value grows. You might find now that the coastline is about 1,500 miles.”

“But if you take a variety of measures, the value will start to converge around some central value, right? I mean, there is variation but it wouldn’t be that great.”

“No. That’s the whole problem, according to Mandelbrot. As you take care to measure more precisely, the length of the coastline explodes towards infinity.”

“Infinity?” I try arching my eyebrow in what I hope passes for inquisitiveness and not confusion.

“Infinity. After the satellite photos, you send someone down to walk the coast, tracing the rise and fall of the cliffs and beaches along with getting a more precise measure of the ins and outs of the coast. Now, the coastline is closer to 2,000 miles. You get more detail and the coast gets longer. Suspicious, you keep looking more and more closely, finally going down to the point of measuring by a powerful microscope, tracing the contours and periphery of the molecules that make up the sands and rocks that make up the coastline. At this point, the value explodes exponentially - explodes towards infinity.”

“So, how long is the coast of Britain?”

“Nobody knows. All you can know for sure is that the value grows as you look more at the detail. It becomes more difficult – even impossible – to measure it as we move down further from the abstraction of it into the reality of it.”

"Okay," I say dubiously. "Let's say I agree. Let's go even farther and say I that understand. But Bernard," I lean forward, "what does this have to do with government?"

"Well think about it. We're living in a time of information explosion and self actualization. Never before has there been so much information to assimilate and so many lives headed in unique directions. As we have more information and more individuals actualize, the value explodes. Government is about gross generalizations, about approximations and universal truths. All that collapses when you drill down to more precise measures of the coastline, when you delve into the particulars of real lives, real people."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that in the future, government will collapse. If the individualization continues, lives will become unique in ways that can't be measured - like the molecules that add up to light years of distance along the coast. There is no way to get the measure of that. No way to encompass that by any value. This means that it’ll defy generalizations! No one will know the length of the coast! No one will know how to govern such an individuated mass. No government could!”

"Bernard ...” I drift off, watching him enthusiastically drain his mug.

"THAT is good," he said, smacking his lips like a child with hot chocolate. "Waitress!" he hollers.

"I think she's called a barista," I correct him.

"Whatever," he says. "Waitress what is this called again?"

"It's a double espresso," she said with a smile. "You liked it?"

"I loved it! My synapses are firing like Chinese firecrackers. This is great! I'll take one more, please." At this point he wasn't even looking at the barista but was, instead, running his finger around the inside of the mug, joyously licking off the foam. He looked up at me, "And to think that I let you talk me into green tea for all those years," he shook his head.

"Bernard," I sighed. "Mandelbrot and government. I still don't understand."

He looked intently at me, not saying a word. I almost began to squirm. "Unless you start drinking these," he said, "I don't think you ever will."

Ben Franklin's Dark Prophecy

"I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of government but what may be a Blessing to People if well-administered; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a Course of Years and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other."
- Benjamin Franklin's review of the U.S. Constitution in 1787 (from Gore Vidal's Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson).

A friend of mine came from Iran shortly after the revolution that catapulted the Ayatollah Khomeini into power. I asked him what was most remarkable about the transition from Iran to the U.S. He said, "All the things that are being taken away. Liberty. Freedom. Privacy. Refusal to torture. In Iran, they used religion to intimidate and to support law."

Perhaps Ben Franklin was right that we will simply become too corrupt to maintain a great government. But for me this kind of thing is so unnecessary. There are a lot of problems we haven't yet solved. For instance, how to create a thriving economy without creating lots of green house gases. Or how to ensure a sense of meaning to employees and citizens within large companies or countries. But the problems of individual liberties, of keeping religion out of government, of privacy - these are problems that we've solved. It is the worst kind of idiocy to turn our backs on those already provided solutions and retreat from progress.

The Fuss (about Imus) & Hush (about corporate censorship)

I had a surreal moment in Osaka. Standing in a department store, I was watching a number of demure and modestly dressed Japanese women paw through sweaters and blouses. I was carefully watching them for some reaction, any expression indicating that they understood the lyrics playing in the store. "Where are my bitches? Where are my ho's?" asked the rapper on the store's sound system to an audience that seemed completely unconcerned about his loss. Apparently, someone had simply thought it hip to play this music, the latest fad to sweep over from the States. The result was, for me, like a moment in a hidden camera skit.

I don't pretend to understand the misogyny in rap. It's obvious that Imus didn't either -his attempt to be cool by borrowing from its vocabulary failing as spectacularly as if he'd tried break dancing. But I also don’t understand how his atonal attempt at humor became a cause to be fired. Pity the poor fool tied to the tracks when the American self-righteous train has worked up a good head of steam.

I quite dislike this notion of someone sanctimoniously deciding what audiences can hear. Whether the censorship comes from the government or heads of corporations, it is censorship. Comedy is dangerous. Duds and offensive comments are an inescapable part of comedy. Can you imagine if everyone weighed his or her words as carefully as a politician running for audience? We’d lose an entire generation to drugs, a desperate attempt to escape the monotony of monotone.

I don’t like the race to politically correct speech. Some topics can’t be discussed in measured tones. I have yet to find a polite way to express my outrage at our former boy cheerleader’s obvious and egregious policies, for instance. It is not for the big institutions or moral police to decide which topics deserve language that might offend most. Imus’ audience has a right to listen to the man, even if it offends people in power.

One day the church or government or corporation legitimately spares the congregation from something 98% of them agree is egregious. The congregation applauds. Then, the next day, it protects them from disconcerting messages that point out that the church, state, or corporation is abusing its power over the congregation. If the dominant institution is censoring the message, the dominant institution is never called on its excesses, it mission, its power. Whoever controls the message to the people controls the people.

Historically, people find themselves imprisoned after fierce battles. The next generation may awake in chains, lulled to sleep by the measured and boring tones of a media designed to assure its audience that everything is fine and there is no cause for outrage.

But the truth is, there are worse things than outrageous comments. There are, in fact, some events that can be described no other way. It doesn’t end outrage if we censor outrageous comments – it simply ends our ability to discuss it.

Government Secrecy

I have a simple equation for good government. A good government is very transparent and allows individual citizens privacy. A bad government reveals very little about its decisions and operations and can peer into the lives of its citizenry at will. (Think USSR or Orwell's 1984.)

This graph suggests that our government is getting worse, not better.

[Yellow line is the number of classified government documents and the blue line is the number of documents being declassified.]