The hierarchy of antipodean violence. Be afraid.

There was a curious Peter Robinson post on the Corner the other day attacking David Brooks and other apostles of changing the nature of the conservative movement away from dogmatic tax cutting that, it seems, his fellow NROniks deemed very intelligent. I found it to display a curious lack of familiarity with the intellectual giants of the right:

Milton Friedman argued that government spending will always prove pernicious for the simple but profound reason that “nobody spends somebody else’s money as well as he spends his own.” Has Brooks ever refuted Friedman? No. He writes instead as if Friedman had simply never existed. Hayek argued that government intervention in the economy will always prove grossly inefficient because government planners can never acquire all the information they’d need to do a good job of allocating resources.

As John Holbo says “if Friedman proved that, and if no one has refuted him, then Milton Friedman proved that all forms of government should be abolished – including the American system of government, presumably.” I think Friedman just offered a quip that’s not really supported by the bulk of his work or by any serious position in political philosophy — the irrefuted line, if taken seriously, would be a universal acid that dissolves the police and fire departments, the sidewalks, the army, everything. And Robinson is clearly searching here for a defense of orthodox American conservatism, not some novel radical doctrine.

Hayek, meanwhile, argued that Hayek argued that central planning as in the Soviet Union will always prove grossly inefficient because government planners can never acquire all the information they’d need to do a good job of allocating resources. It’s an important argument. But it hardly applies to all possible intervention int he economy. It doesn’t show that the provision of subsidies to the poor so as to improve their quality of life are doomed to fail. Nor does it show that there are no negative externalities that can be usefully taxed or that there are no activities featuring positive externalities that can be usefully subsidized. The point about central planning was crucially important when many people and many governments were enthusiastic about central planning. These days, in part because of the influence of Hayek’s arguments, you don’t see nearly so many such people and arguments tend to be about issues where Hayek’s planning argument is less clearly relevant. Certainly I take it that David Brooks isn’t a Communist.

Lindsay Beyerstein has some great additional reporting on McCain foreign policy guru Randy Scheuneman’s dubious dealings based on her possession of a 44-page pre-prospectus for Worldwide Strategic Energy, a firm headed by Stephen Payne (the lobbyist caught offering access to the Bush administration in exchange for library donations) and which lists Scheuneman as a member of the executive team.

WSE’s basic pitch, if I may be allowed to paraphrase, is that you may be the dictator of a country with some energy resources and your hold on power — due to opponents foreign or domestic — may be somewhat tenuous. At the same time, you would really like to exploit your country’s resource wealth for personal gain and to bolster your regime. But foreign firms are reluctant to provide the necessary investment capital, because there’s no telling how long you’ll maintain your grip on power. And that’s where World Strategic Energy comes in since thanks to their “strong business and political connections, WSE will be able to capitalize financially by continuing to offer geopolitical and business development assistance to a host government while acquiring leases and lease options.” Basically WSE will try to ensure that US foreign policy in your region doesn’t advance the American national interest or universal ethical considerations but, rather, seeks to bolster your hold on power and give would-be hydrocarbon investors confidence in your business deals. In short, “the lease-holding government will receive the additional benefit of our strong business and political knowledge in the U.S. and around the world, while at the same time still receive the usual royalties associated with passing on a hydrocarbon field to a developer.”

The pitch emphasizes that Scheunemann has big-time juice, and is willing to manipulate US public policy on behalf of all kinds of nutty causes:

Randy Scheunemann was a key player in the U.S. involvement in the Iraq war through his role as the President of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq where he coordinated the White House’s “Outside the Government” public relations campaign on Iraq while administering relationships with key Iraqi leaders in exile. Randy’s work with the then-exiled Iraqis developed close relationships with many elements of the elected Iraqi leadership. The team has also worked very closely with leaders of the Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish parties.

Lindsay reports that “The brochure features a picture of Stephen Payne, Ahmed Chalabi, and Randy Scheunemann.” Thus far, there’s been little attention paid in the press to Scheunemann’s close ties to Chalabi and, more generally, his role in mounting the propaganda campaign for the war. Perhaps the revelations that he was actually bragging for financial gain about his skill in subverting American interests on behalf of foreign agents with dubious agendas will change that around.

I haven’t written about the interesting scandal prompted by longtime Bush associate Stephen Payne being caught on tape talking about how he could provide access to the administration in exchange for access to the Bush library, but suffice it to say that Randy Scheunemann, one of John McCain’s top national security dudes and a frequent spokesman for McCain, is now revealed to have close links to the shady dealings in question. Of course a little run of the mill corruption couldn’t possibly do as much harm to the country as Scheunemann’s past associations with Ahmed Chalabi have, but there seems to have been a collective decision that everyone who worked with Chalabi on swindling the country into a disastrous war deserves a free pass.

Quinnipiac poll shows that the public is more inclined to call the current Supreme Court too conservative than too liberal by a 31-25 margin. The liberal lead follows earlier Quinnipiac results, but they show a declining number of people calling the Court about right. Also the number of people who say they’ve never heard of John Roberts is on the rise.

Austin, Texas, as you’ve probably heard, is a pretty fun town that lots of people like. Washington, DC by contrast certainly has its defenders and apologists, but isn’t generally viewed in the same light. And while I don’t necessarily see the gap as quite as big as most folks seem to (to this born-and-raised New Yorker, one’s much greater ability to get around DC without a car is a big consideration) the conventional wisdom isn’t far from the truth here. But one thing I always find extremely frustrating about talk about how one town is awesome and another sucks is that even though folks spend a lot of time talking about such matters, they spend exceedingly little time trying to understand the actual reasons that places differ and things that could be done to change them.

As an example, Friday night I took in a movie at the famous Alamo Draft House Cinema where, among other things, a server comes and brings you food and beer orders as you watch. It’s totally awesome. But the failure of such a theater to exist in DC doesn’t come about because of some stubborn DC unwillingness to open anything cool, it comes about in large part because the regulatory hurdles facing someone who wanted to open such an establishment would be gargantuan. And movie theaters aside DC would, in general, have more bars that feature nice outdoor areas (a) easier to get a license to open a bar, and (b) easier to get a license to establish outdoor tables.

A relatively strict licensing regime keeps the number of drinking establishments relatively low. That reduces one’s set of options. But beyond that, it makes for a less competitive environment with higher prices and less effort going into making an establishment appealing. Laxer licensing regimes and more liberal zoning policies about where you can open retail would produce lower prices and more options. To make that observation is to begin rather than to end the argument about whether we should prefer the “plentiful, cheap bars” equilibrium to the “rare, expensive bars” equilibrium. But the point is that instead of just vaguely complaining about this or that aspect of the place where they live, or musing about moving elsewhere, it would serve people well to educate themselves about policy in their own communities and make things better. When we don’t do that, the policy just gets set by incumbent interest groups whose main concern is to block competition rather than build a livable community.