This morning Capt Fogg brought my attention to yet another faux right wing scandal, Liberterrorism? The whole story is very simple: JPMorgan Chase is putting a limit of overseas money transfers for their small business account transfers—$50,000 per month. But this isn’t an actual limit on “small businesses”; it is a limit on “small business accounts.” It’s like a bank that says you can only make 5 account transfers on your economy personal checking account. If you want to do more, you pay for a more expensive checking account. You can get more details on the kerfuffle at Forbes, No, JPM Isn’t Banning International Wire Transfers, No Limits on Withdrawals Either.

I’m not sure that Capt Fogg is quite right to blame this right wing freak out on libertarians, however. It’s true that most of the conspiracy nuts do think of themselves as libertarians. There’s a natural link that runs the other way too (libertarians tend to gravitate toward conspiracies). Most libertarian thought is built on a misguided use of the slippery slope. If the government can demand taxes from people, what can’t they demand? Murder?! But in cases like JPMorgan Chase, most libertarians are especially not concerned.

One of my biggest complaints about libertarians is that they don’t actually care about liberty. They define it in such a way that one can end up a slave as long as one is not a slave to the government. I can’t tell you how many times libertarians have told me that corporate power over individuals doesn’t matter because the corporations don’t have armies. They can’t force you to do as they want. This is a bizarre claim. It assumes that threatened murder is the only kind of coercion that matters. (For more on this, see my article, Property Rights.)

So the idea that JPMorgan Chase might be abusing their customers is no problem at all. The standard libertarian argument goes like this: if the customers don’t like it, they can go with a different bank; if there is no other bank offering it, a great market opportunity will open up and it will become available; and even if not, they don’t have a gun to your head! I actually accept that argument in this case. The problems start when they talk about healthcare or a living wage.

Where this story really impacts with the libertarians is with the Federal Reserve. I’ll admit, what the Fed does is kind of mysterious. But for libertarians, it turns into a kind of Dan Brown novel. For these people, rather than trying to keep the economic system working efficiently, the people at the Fed are just trying to cause inflation to destroy the wealth of the “makers.” (Insert evil laugh here.) The fact that if anything, the Fed too much looks out for the interests of the rich, doesn’t seem to occur to them. As Matt Yglesias said, “If the unemployment and inflation rates were reversed, would the Fed do something about it?” Yes it would! Because it cares a whole lot more about those with money than those without it.

Forbes noted, “The fear is that banks, and indirectly, the federal government have too much control over individuals’ money which sits in the form of deposits.” Of course, this has nothing whatsoever to do with this change at JPMorgan Chase. But it feeds into what is overwhelming ignorance on the part of libertarians about how our monetary system works. Regardless of what conspiracies libertarians may believe in, all their thinking is distorted by focusing on imaginary or at least marginal problems and ignoring huge liberty-killing problems that we face right now.

Here’s the thing and I think it is probably clear if you’ve read this site with any regularity over the past couple of years. I like Anthony Weiner. He’s a good and unapologetic advocate for liberal policies. I’m very sorry about all his personal problems but they don’t mean much to me. I think, as has been clear with my reaction to Rob Ford who I hate politically, I’m always going to be forgiving about people’s personal foibles, whether they be public crack smoking, sexting, or something else.

Last week, Weiner was on Real Time and he was great. Of course he was! Where better to be? That’s where he’s in his element. He’s always been more of a performer than a politician and I hope he goes in that direction. Up against him is Sean Hannity clone David Avella who does nothing but spout conservative talking points and spread as much misinformation as he can. (I especially like when he claims that Republicans do have ideas for fixing our broken system. They do not.) Weiner destroys him.

Weiner also destroys Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, who appears to be one of those self-styled moderates—someone who never fought for single payer before Obamacare but now wants it after it isn’t an option. (This is a standard conservative ploy: why does Obamacare have to be so complex?!) She doesn’t seem unreasonable, however. But she did go off on the usual bullshit about how Obama should have apologized earlier, as though that has any relevance. Weiner and even Maher dispatch her quickly.

Regardless, I’m glad to see Weiner back doing what he does best.

Afterword

Here is a bit more where Weiner and Maher discuss the “elephant in the room.” (Not Chris Christie; He’s just fat.) Needless to say, I agree: about the scandal and about healthcare.

Over at Crooked Timber, John Holbo has written a really interesting article, Overton Straitjacket. In it, he makes the observation that while liberalism in America is spread out fairly evenly over its ideological range, conservatism is bunched at its right extreme. If liberalism were like that, Obama really would be the socialist of Republicans’ frenzied imaginings. So why is liberal ideology something like a normal distribution but conservative ideology is like the distribution of wages, with lots all pressed up again the minimum wage below which it cannot go by law?

Holbo notes that if a large number of people in the Republican Party became so extreme, that ought to open up acceptable conservative ideology (the “Overton Window”) so that there would be some people even further to the right. For example, if all the Republicans are now for war with Iran, why aren’t there some pushing for a region wide war? He has no compelling answers. I’m not sure that anyone does. I do, however, have a few thoughts.

Primarily, I think this perception is wrong. Just like the conservatives who claim that Obama is a socialist, we tend to conflate different conservative positions. For example, there is a very big difference between people who believe abortions should be illegal in all cases and those that believe in exceptions. So I think it is wrong to assume that conservatives are all rushing to the edge of ideological spectrum. They really are distributed.

But what we clearly do see is that modern conservative ideology is very narrow. And on that question, I am writing a whole book. But very briefly: it’s the New Democrats’ fault. Conservatives are, after all and despite what I say from time to time, not fascists. The existing boundary on the right is the same boundary that has long been there. But on economic issues especially, the New Democrats have taken over vast amounts of Republican ideological territory. This leaves Republicans with two possible actions. They can stay in the Republican Party and complain about how radical it is even though they now fit better in the Democratic Party. That is what’s going on with people like Josh Barro and David Frum. Or they can move to the right, which is more or less the only option if you are a politician.

I think that explains what we see. Of course, from the inside it looks different. This is why Republicans seem to go to intra-party war over what appear to us as minor issues. They aren’t minor issues to them. They are issues that span the entirety of the conservative ideological terrain. It might not be much, but it is all that they have.

Yesterday, I was pushing back against all this nonsense about the poor people not able to keep their existing insurance plans. As I pointed out, these are just Placebo Policies. They make people feel that they have insurance, as long as they don’t use it. And that’s worse than useless. It’s very much like the Loony Tunes short “Fool Coverage.” In that video (which is sadly not available online), Daffy Duck convinces Porky Pig to buy accident insurance that will pay one million dollars for a black eye “as a result of a stampede of wild elephants running through his house between 3:55 and 4 PM on the Fourth of July, during a hailstorm.” When this actually happens, Daffy amends the clause, “A stampede of wild elephants and one baby zebra!” And, of course, a baby Zebra shows up because it’s Loony Tunes and not the actual life of one of the people with one of these placebo policies.

Jonathan Cohn has laid out just what is going on with the Republican plan to help these tragic victims who are being forced to get real insurance. The plan by Republican Representative Fred Upton is all of 235 words. And in that small bill there is the undoing of Obamacare. The problem is that the bill not only says that these useless plans can be sold to the people who already have them, it says they can be sold to anyone. This will cause of the young and healthy people to bail out of the exchanges and get these cheap faux policies. All the older and sicker people will stay in the exchanges because (1) they need actual insurance and (2) the companies would deny them for these plans anyway. Thus the price for everyone else would go up. Goodbye Obamacare.

The obvious question is whether the Democrats are really stupid enough to go along with this. Jonathan Chait wrote a very good overview of the Democratic Party freak out that is going on right now. He noted, “Undermining Obamacare in order to placate angry individual-insurance holders makes no sense even on narrow political terms.” But the Democrats can’t seem to hide their terror. Next year’s elections are a long time off, and none of this is going to mean anything if the exchange website starts working and the television narrative changes from “the website isn’t working” to “everyone is getting great prices on insurance!”

The whole thing makes me want to freak out! After all, I am only grudgingly a Democrat. But I do so identify because it is the liberal(ish) party in a two party system. One can’t expect to get everything; this is politics. But when the actual politicians of the party don’t understand the basics of politics, it is disconcerting. It doesn’t mean anything to “win the week.” It isn’t like the way long term interest rates predict later short term rates. This crisis will likely blow over and mean nothing in the long term. The Republicans seem to understand this. Why can’t the Democrats?

What we most definitely don’t want to do is make the signature legislative accomplishment of the sitting president collapse because of panic over looking bad on the Sunday political talk shows. What’s more, as both Cohn and Chait discuss, these measures aren’t likely to work even at what they intend to do. So they are not helping the 2% they want to help, and they will be hurting ten times as many people the law will be helping as it is. It just makes no sense. I think it is time for Samuel L Jackson to make a video for our Democratic representatives. Calm the fuck down!

I’m sorry about this, but I have to comment. Sarah Palin was back in her natural habitat (Facebook) to walk back her comments to Jake Tapper that Pope Francis surprised her with comments that “sound kind of liberal.” Now she says that she was deceived by the media. After talking to “Catholic friends” (Third on the list after “Black friends” and “Jewish friends.”) she has learned that, “Pope Francis is as sincere and faithful a shepherd of his church as his two [very conservative -FM] predecessors whom I admired.” Oh my.

Let’s just leave aside all the religious stuff. Palin apparently knows as much about religion as the average American Christian: nothing. What bothers me is her apparent definition of the word “liberal.” Based upon her comments, “liberal” is a synonym of “evil” or at very least “stupid.” It doesn’t define a way of thinking that she disagrees with. It is, as best I can tell, simply a pejorative or an expletive. “Get away from that liberal PlayStation and come do your homework!”

I shouldn’t be surprised. Conservatives worked very hard for decades to vilify the word “liberal.” And at this point, I’m well aware that the word has lost almost all of its power to scare anyone other than the hardcore conservatives themselves. But I had thought that at least it meant the standard things: a bleeding heart who wants to do the right thing but is totally screwed up. You know: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But I have seen this the last couple of decades. That is what conservatives meant BC (Before Clinton). But since then, they seem to have moved on to thinking that liberals are actively evil people.

This goes along with the modern revolutionary Republican Party. The Democrats don’t just disagree with them on policy; they are actively trying to destroy America. And given that they think that, it is no wonder that every new policy results in calls of Armageddon. There is certainly some of that on the left, but it isn’t the entire Democratic base. As for me, the Republican Party is very simple: a party for the super rich that uses racial and sexual (that is, abortion rights) anxiety to be able to win elections. I don’t think the base of the Republican Party is evil, just terribly manipulated.

What’s more, I have nothing against the idea of conservatism. I too believe in culture and continuity and respect and responsibility. But I don’t see too much of that on display in American conservatism. As I said, it has become a radicalized movement. Most of its proponents don’t want to save the past; they want to invent the past. Only a month ago, I came upon the blog I Am a Black Mother—a website of a white southern woman who has adopted a black child. There, I found one of the most vile discussions (which very much included the “black mother”) about how slave owners treated their slaves well and most slaves were happy. Now, I don’t know of any conservatives who want to go back to that fantasy past, but there are lots and lots who want to go back to the fantasy past when blacks “knew their place” and women were just thrilled to be in a world where “a girl could still cook and still would.”

Palin, of course, if part of a whole new wave of conservative leaders: people who came from the base itself. And the dangerous thing about her is that unlike the traditional Republican elites, she actually believes the propaganda. So clearly: Democrats aren’t just the other major party that Republicans do battle with over policy disputes. The Democrats are evil by nature. In other words, they are liberal. And to call the Pope liberal is the same as calling him the Antichrist.

As happens from time to time, someone I’ve never heard of starts to follow me on Twitter. Now I fully admit: I’m terrible on Twitter. I’ve been trying to follow Andrea’s lead and be something more than a tired series of “Look what I’ve written on Frankly Curious!” But when Jennifer Izaakson followed me, I noticed. She’s written a couple of articles on the Huffington Post. And regardless what they pay, I want a chunk of that. So I clicked over to see what she had written.

Her most recent article is, A Ban on the Veil Is an Attack on Our Freedoms. Well, having read that title, I was immediately impressed—imagining her as a modern day Isabelle Eberhardt. As a first approximation: of course! There’s a reason why “liberal” and “libertarian” share two whole syllables. All else equal, people should be able to do what they want. And if people want to wear the veil, who are I am to disagree? After all, for most women, it is probably more cultural than anything else.

But it isn’t quite that simple. Let’s suppose the issue were not the veil, but genital mutilation. In this case would we really believe that women were demanding genital mutilation out of some cultural affinity with their mothers? I think we would rightly believe that these women had just been brain washed. So the issue is not as black and white as I’m afraid that Izaakson would make it. Although I’m the first to admit that wearing the veil is well on the liberty side of the question.

What this all brings up is the elephant in the room. (Not Chris Christie; he’s just really big.) How do different cultures fuse together to create a new culture? I’m sorry for this, but I have to go all Thomas Friedman on you. I was riding in this taxi with a Sheikh driver. Because I’m very interested in religion, I asked him about his religion, which I knew a bit about—far more than most Americans. Unfortunately, the conversation quickly turned to the question of how American women dress and how they are a bunch of whores. Clearly, he saw things differently from the way I did. I think men are mature enough to see a totally hot young woman in short-shorts without losing all control. In other words, as a man, I put the onus of control on my own gender and he put it on the other gender. Men are helpless when tempted by the nubile figure!

Obviously, I think my cultural perspective is correct. And I’m not just saying that. His attitude was repugnant to me. I feel as sure of my attitude being better than his as I am of mammalian child rearing is to that of alligators. (FYI: alligators eat their own children.) So I have a very real problem with the veil in the sense that it is a symbol of the reptilian belief that men just can’t control themselves when they see a bit of skin. Sadly, that is what is on the other gender side of the veil debate.

You may well ask, “Does he believe in banning the veil?” Not at all! I believe not only in culture but in the clash of cultures. I believe different peoples who combine become better, in the same way that genetic diversity improves the species. And I have no doubt that over time the veil will become a cultural signifier rather than a scarlet letter. But let us not fool ourselves into believe that the veil does not have a pernicious symbolism for many (Especially men!) in many non-western cultures throughout the world.

Updated to non-drunk standards.

Robert Reich is angry at fellow Democrats for—What else?!—wimping out on healthcare standards. I’m right with him. In fact, I’ve spent most of the day being angry about the whole Obamacare situation. Everywhere I look, pundits are second guessing whether the website will really be up and running properly by the end of the month. Can there possible be any more useless speculation? We should just be letting the people do their work. But of course, we’re not, and it is a lot worse than just pundits.

Today, Darrell Issa has Henry Chao, the chief project officer for Healthcare.gov, testifying. And what is Issa concerned about? That a completely marginal feature of the website has been delayed for political reasons. This feature, called “anonymous shopper,” allows people to shop for coverage without setting up an account. It would be a nice feature, but regardless, it isn’t a linchpin of the system. According to Chao (who ought to know), there was nothing political about the decision; it was just that the system failed tests. Regardless, is the middle of a war the right time for yet another Darrell Issa political witch hunt?

None of this matters to me. I’m going to wait another two weeks to really worry about it. Now is about the time that we should start seeing notable improvements in the website if things are on track. “No change” up to this point really means anything. I understand why conservatives would be talking incessantly about these problems. What I don’t understand is all the hysteria from liberals.

The other, more worrying aspect of the Obamacare situation is the obsessive concern over Obama’s claim that people would be able to keep their health insurance if they liked it. Well, for a small percentage of people, this is not going to be true. And guess what? That’s the good thing! Most of these people have terrible insurance that is either (1) a policy that covers next to nothing or (2) a policy that would have been canceled as soon it started to be used. The only reason these people were happy with the policies was that they never needed to use them. Let’s just call these things what they are: placebo policies.

This brings us to Robert Reich who is focused on what Democratic Party politicians are doing, Having the Backbone to Set Minimum Standards for Health Insurance. As usual, with the smallest raindrops in the political world, large parts of the Democratic Party turn tail and run. Now there are two camps that are trying to push some kind of legislation that would allow people to keep their old placebo policies. This is the wrong way to deal with the problem.

But how big is this problem, anyway? I’m not clear on it because every time there is some news report about “sticker shock,” it turns out that the person didn’t know what they were talking about and that they’ll get a really good deal through the exchanges. To me, this is just modified Shirley Sherrod. The media are going to town on these stories and the Republicans are demagoguing them, so the Democrats just give up. Reich explains it perfectly:

That’s right. Obamacare is designed to fix a number of problems. One of them is the hidden costs associated with the uninsured, which we pay for now even though we don’t get a direct bill. People with placebo policies are effectively uninsured. And this problem is one that was bound to come up when we decided to go with the Republican “free market” leave-no-insurance-company-behind approach to healthcare reform. But there are solutions to this issue that will help those who “like” their placebo policies—for example, special temporary subsidies for those few affected to get real policies. But gutting health insurance standards is an awful idea for the individuals with these useless plans and for the nation as a whole.

Democrats and liberals of the nation: it is time to join the Vertebrate subphylum!

Yesterday, I had a little fun with Richard Cohen’s reference to the offensive Merle Haggard song “Are the Good Times Really Over (I Wish a Buck Was Still Silver).” It was part of Cohen’s own offensive column, Chris Christie’s Tea Party Problem. The thing about the column is that it is effectively an apologia of the most vile of modern racist thought.

Cohen first claims, “Today’s GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party…” But then he goes on to say, “People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York—a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children.” That is a jaw dropping statement. In other words: gagging at the thought of interracial marriage is not racist. Ta-Nehisi Coates lays it out exactly right:

This made me think of the murder of Willie Edwards, who I discussed this morning (he would be 81 today). He was killed in 1957 in Alabama because some white bigots thought he was having an affair with a white woman. There has never been a greater emotional resonance for white racists than the idea that blacks (and other minorities, most notably Chinese) would have their way with “our white women.” Look at the film Stagecoach where the southern gentleman Hatfield almost kills Mrs Mallory rather than allow her to live as an Indian bride. This is powerful stuff.

What is deeply concerning is that Cohen and his many apologists don’t recognize this. It’s a bizarre world we live in where using racial epithets (rightly) makes one a racist, but breaking out in a panicked sweat over the idea of whites and blacks marrying is not. Richard Cohen needs to take a serious look at his thinking about race in America. But then, we all do.

H/T: Ed Kilgore