Making everybody happy

Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy has an interesting article on Quebec separatism and Conservatives in Canada:

Canadian Conservatives prefer relatively pro-market policies. Quebec is the most statist province in the country and its political influence drives Canada's economic policies well to the left of where they would be in a separate anglophone Canada. Canadian Conservatives hate paying for federal government subsidies to Quebec (Quebec is a major net recipient of transfer payments from the federal government). Obviously, there would be no such subsidies if Quebec were an independent nation. In the long run, secession might even lead to relatively more market-oriented policies within Quebec itself, since an independent Quebec government could no longer rely on Ottawa transfer payments to finance its statism. Finally, Quebec secession would be a major political boon for the Conservative Party. In the recent election, the Conservatives won 133 of 233 parliament seats in the anglophone provinces, but only 10 of 75 in Quebec. The Tories won't necessarily do this well in the "rest of Canada" every time; but their odds of getting a majority would be greatly improved if Quebec were to secede.

One of the readers at the Volokh conspiracy answers Ilya's question by saying:

Being a "federalist" party in the Canadian sense (that is, anti-secessionist) is the sine qua non for support in English Canada. There might be some number of western voters who would cheer Quebec's departure and be happy that the ideological median in their new country had moved a long way right. But the Conservatives would sacrifice something close to all their votes in Ontario (the largest province)-- many of whom have no identity-commitment to being Conservative but have a massive investment in the idea of Canada.... Ontario is far from solidly conservative or culturally conservative, and it would electorally cut off at the knees any party that abandoned federalism. Whatever Conservative leaders might wish in their hearts, it's a political non-starter.

How about America, Canada, Conservatives and Liberals come together and give everybody a little of what they want? Quebec gets its own nation. Liberals get a nation made up of the following Canadian provinces and American states: Ontario, Newfoundland and Labradour, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Washington, DC, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, California, Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii. Conservative get a nation made up of the following Canadian provinces and American states: Alaska, Yukon Territories, Northwest Territories, Nunavet, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. The following American states would go with whatever nation they prefer to join: Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri.


I know it is not going to happen, but it would be a solution that should leave everybody better off.

Thank you John McCain

Jake Tapper reports:

On Saturday, advisers to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told the Politico's Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin that McCain was "considering additional economic measures aimed directly at the middle class that are likely to be rolled out this week...

Late Sunday, McCain decided no new economic proposals would be forthcoming after all.

John McCain, my friend, thank you for getting my hopes up that you were actually going to attempt to explain to the American people why conservative policies are better than liberal policies for the economy.

William Buckley's son endorse Obama

William Buckley's son has endorsed Obama:

Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon.

...

President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.

Well, most conservatives will be praying for the same thing if Obama is elected. The difference is that most conservatives are going to vote for the candidate who has spent a career fighting for the policies that Christopher Buckley wants Obama to pursue, while Christopher Buckley is going to vote for the candidate who has been fighting against those policies for his entire career.

Christopher Buckley should take a long look in the mirror before the next time he wishes to opine that it is “'the bleeding obvious'... that Sarah Palin is an embarrassment".

Moral Humility

A speech by Jonathan Haidt

America's future

America's future is at stake. The bailout has changed America's financial standing, and both sides of the ideological spectrum need to adjust their arguments to these new conditions. Larry Summers (via Glenn Reynolds) is offering the liberal position on how America should move forward:

A time when confidence is lagging in the consumer, financial and business sectors is not a time for government to step back.

Well-designed policies are essential to support the economy and, given the seriousness of health-care, energy, education and inequality issues, can make a longer-term contribution as well.

Where is the new conservative vision for America? Here is my vision, but I am blogging in obscurity.

Update: Howard Fineman is also espousing the new liberal view that capitalism in America is dead. If conservatives do not stand up and fight for capitalism, it might very well die.

Update II: Howard Fineman wrote "The era of cowboy capitalism has died, largely of self-inflicted wounds." The video belows shows that Howard Fineman does not know what he is talking about. For those who are unaware, Fannie May and Fredie Mac are not free market institutions. They are government created and subsidized institutions.


The video is via Glenn Reynolds.