Does Size (Of Government) Really Matter?

**Warning:  The Following Blog May Pose a Choking Hazard to Readers Who Are Fond of Tea**

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you won't be surprised when I say that I am old enough to remember vividly the Vietnam War era.  It was a time of tremendous social and political upheaval in the U.S.  Many people of my age deeply distrusted government when it became clear that politicians were lying about the justification for entering the war, and misleading us regarding its course.   The conduct of the war included atrocities and tactics that were contradictory to America's claim to being the world's "good guys."  Youth culture upset established values and ethics.  We were torn by the assassinations of the John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  The arguments about the issues of the day became more and more polarized, with a lot of pressure to identify with extreme positions even if you didn't agree with them -- slogans of the day were things like "You're either with us or against us"  "America, love it or leave it"  "If you're not part of the solution then you're part of the problem"  "If you're not my ally then you're my enemy."  It really seemed like the country was coming apart at the seams.

I'm not sure that things are as bad now as they were then, but I think we're getting close.  And of course added to today's malaise is the economic melt down and a growing feeling that our financial system can no longer be the source of pride it was once.  Just as assumptions about the sanctity of American's fundamental institutions were questioned during the Vietnam era, today we are also questioning the legitimacy of how we generate and distribute wealth.  And we are again in an era of extremism, in which our debates on these questions are framed in terms of exclusionary choices that for many of us are unpalatable in both directions -- "X" versus "Y" with no middle ground, where neither "X" nor "Y"  truly reflect many people's personal values and beliefs.

The current wave of anti-government sentiment, exemplified by the rise of the "Tea Party" and by the positions of the most vocal conservatives,  is frequently cast as a question of how large we want government to be and what level of control we want it to have in our lives.  Liberals, progressives, and socialists want big, powerful government that regulates all aspects of our lives.  Clear thinking patriots and conservatives want minimal government with little regulatory power.

I think this distinction is overly simplistic in two ways.  First, it can be argued that the question is as much about values as it is about size and power.  Many conservatives have no qualms endorsing a large and costly military establishment, or spending billions building a fence across our southern border, or allowing governmental intrusion into our private lives in an effort to protect us from terrorists or illegal aliens.  Big, powerful, expensive government can be very, very good, as long as it is seen as a manifestation of the "correct" values and priorities.

Second, the distinction is misleading because it characterizes all those who currently have anti-government feelings as having the same conservative philosophical position.  As the liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, Jr. wrote recently:

The more important and dynamic force behind the current disillusionment with government comes instead from those who actually believe it can and should be effective. They do not think that the market is automatically rational or that the government has to be dumb. They are fed up with government not because their ideology or philosophy tells them to be but because they don't think government has been doing a proper job of promoting prosperity, equity and fair-dealing.

 I readily identify with the group Dionne is referring to, and it is very irritating to be grouped with people like Tim Bridgewater, Sara Palin, and the Tea Partiers because the solutions they offer are fundamentally unpalatable to me.  My beliefs about the proper role of government are nicely captured by another quote from Dionne's recent column:

The central tasks of democratic government, after all, typically involve standing up for the many against the few, the less powerful against the more powerful. Government is supposed to make sure that corporations are properly supervised when they turn public resources (the environment in the Gulf of Mexico, say) into private gain. It is charged with protecting those with weaker bargaining positions (coal miners, for example) against the harm that those in stronger bargaining positions might inflict.

Its duty is to keep the private economy running smoothly by preventing fraud, shady dealing and self-interested behavior that threaten the entire system. And yes, it's supposed to keep us safe from physical harm, as it did in New York [the recent attempted terrorist attack in Times Square].

I'd add that I want government to approach these tasks efficiently and economically, with minimal intrusion into my private life and with due regard for the civil rights of all Americans.  I accept that there are a variety of ways these tasks can be accomplished,  and that no one party or individual has all the answers.  Solutions to our problems require cooperation, compromise, and coordination among our lawmakers.  That is why I am so dismayed to see government in its current dysfunctional state.

 Coffee, anyone?

Does Your Pokemon Have Rectitude??

A regular weekly feature in the Washington Post for many years has been Style Invitational, in which readers are challenged to submit clever or humorous entries in several different word-play contests. For example, a recent challenge was to "'Spoonerize' a single word or a name by transposing different parts of the word (more than two adjacent letters), and define the resultant new term." Examples of solutions given in the column as illustrations:

• Bootlicker > Lootbicker: To argue in Congress over who gets the earmarks.
• Whappersnipper: Someone who assaults a mohel.
• Lugachug: To carry a cooler full of beer.
  

Now if you didn't find those at least mildly amusing, there's no reason to read any further, because it gets much worse.

An email widely circulating in cyberspace for over 10 years mistakenly reports the results of two of the Post's challenges as being from yearly events sponsored by Mensa, the high IQ society, and though this has been clearly denied by the author of the Post's column, the error still persists. In fact, my wife and I received a forwarded email just the other day claiming to list the winning entries of this year's contests. Even though the source is incorrectly identified, the results are legitimate and very amusing, depending on your taste in humor. The first challenge was to supply alternate meanings for common words. Here are the wacky winning entries:

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.


2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.


3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.


4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.


5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.


6. Negligent, adj.. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.


7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.


8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.


9. Flatulence, n.. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.


10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.


11. Testicle n. A humorous question on an exam.


12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.


13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.


14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with yiddishisms.

15. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Ok, that was the warm-up. The second contest asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who is both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidental ly walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

I've written before about my sense of humor, and so I realize many of you may not share my enthusiasm for these nuggets. But if you do and you want more, go to the Washington Post and sign up for a free subscription. I did.

The Reluctant Carnivore Diet

** Warning: The Following Blog Contains Hypocrisy, Contradictory Logic, and Downright Flaky Conclusions **


Motivated by our love of animals and by some documentaries depicting the conditions under which many animals are raised for food, my wife and I tried to be vegetarian a number of years ago. We lasted about a week and then had a big, juicy steak.

Intellectually I support the idea of vegetarianism. It seems to me that eating another sentient being for food when we can choose to not to do so (and still survive) just isn't the right thing to do. Other carnivores don't have a choice because they don't have the mental capacity to derive an alternative diet that still supplies the necessary nutritional requirements for survival. We humans do have that capacity and many of us live in circumstances where the abundance of other food would cause no hardship if we were to say, "I know I'm a carnivore, but I choose to exercise my uniquely human intellect not to behave like one."

But tell that to my stomach. I was raised during a time when having meat at every meal, and plenty of it, was considered a healthy diet. My father worked in the meat department of a supermarket, and felt proud of his ability to supply his family with steaks, roasts, and chops (maybe slightly out of date, of course). And in those days beef was prized for its "marbling," or network of fat in the meat, which gave it added flavor and lots of cholesterol. I grew up thinking a meal without meat was just not a proper meal.

And so, despite the intellectual abhorrence of eating meat, I still honestly really, really like it. I find that it's possible to just not think about those pesky little moral or ethical issues as I sink my teeth into that medium rare hunk of cow. Still, it is fair to say that I'm a reluctant carnivore.

Some time ago my wife and I came up with a way to reconcile our inner carnivore with our inner animal lover. We call it the reluctant carnivore diet . Here's how it came about.

We had been snorkeling one day when we came upon a group of 20-30 small squid, all lined up facing us with their tentacles gathered together in a neat point. Something about this formation and the way they behaved was quite endearing. As we swam toward them the formation broke like a chorus line and swung open to allow us to pass through, then slowly closed and all the squid pivoted in place to face us again. We repeated this several times, and it was almost as if we were dancing a ballet with them.

At this point we had never eaten squid, but later that day we saw squid listed on the restaurant menu where we ate dinner. We looked at each other and simultaneously said, "No way!" We had just met these creatures in the wild and we simply couldn't eat them now. I'm sure squid is delicious and we may be missing a wonderful culinary treat, but we have decided that we don't need to eat squid and we can choose not to do so.

The reluctant carnivore diet grew out of this experience, and we have followed it pretty well for quite some time. The principle is simple -- all meat and fish we have eaten in the past is still ok, but if we "meet" a new creature we haven't eaten we choose not to start. We also try to avoid eating new animals we haven't encountered in person, but we have sometimes waffled on this. Besides squid, some other examples on our do-not-eat list include most African game animals, guinea pig, octopus, and some real easy ones -- dogs, cats, squirrels, etc.

We readily admit the philosophical wimpiness of this "personal encounter" principle -- it really doesn't have the moral imperative or logical consistency that underpins true vegetarianism. And we still have to wrestle with the fact that we continue to eat critters that are just as cute and endearing as the ones we now refuse.

But it makes us feel better.