Jerold Kayden offers up a profoundly dull thesis about urban policy in response to Joel Kotkin — to be successful, cities need “cool” urban amenities and good basic infrastructure. Even more boringly, virtually all big city politicians know this perfectly well. Some mayors succeed whereas other fail largely because of different objective circumstances that make it difficult for older rust belt cities to adopt to contemporary tastes, the contemporary economy, and a federal policy environment that isn’t very favorable to their pre-existing urban designs.

I don’t know anything about so-called “trans fats” so I’m afraid I don’t have a real view on whether or not they should be banned. It does occur to me, however, to say something about the general structure of these arguments. Namely, that in the realm of food-consumption, there are oftentimes tradeoffs between deliciousness and health. But it’s not a symmetrical relationship. We can quantify the unhealthiness of, say, Swedish fish much more precisely than we can quantify the tastiness of said candies.

One result of this is oftentimes to unduly bias policy in favor of health and away from fun. You can see this especially in the discussion of, say, marijuana. Personally, I don’t care for the stuff. Obviously, though, many people do enjoy it. Under the circumstances, reducing marijuana consumption is both a cost and a benefit of marijuana prohibition — making people healthier, but also leading people to have less fun. But while scientists can tell us something about the ill health consequences of pot smoking, it’s hard to say exactly what the “fun cost” of making it harder for people to get high is. Which is where liberty tends to enter the picture — people are left to muddle-through on their own terms trying to decide how much fun is worth how much ill-health and, as you can see from the large amount of food-and-exercise-related guilt we see among high-SES Americans, often not muddling-through in a way they find completely satisfactory.

Ah, Fred Hiatt, we hardly knew ye. . . .

Seriously, a love letter to Augusto Pinochet and Jeanne Kirkpatrick on The Washington Post editorial page? Even worse, the quality of argumentation is terrible.

It’s hard not to notice, however, that the evil dictator leaves behind the most successful country in Latin America. In the past 15 years, Chile’s economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It’s leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired.

Seriously? The justification of Pinochet’s 1973 coup and subsequent seventeen-year dictatorship is Chile’s strong economic growth record after Pinochet left office? Then we learn that Pinochet was a good guy because Fidel Castro is a bad guy, which I think is the moral philosophy of six year-olds. And then Kirkpatrick: “Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.”

I don’t really see what’s obvious about this. Communist regimes in Central Europe were replaced by liberal democracies, much as Pinochet’s right-authoritarianism was replaced by liberal democracy in Chile. But Communist regimes elsewhere have often been replaced by non-Communist authoritarianisms. But then again, right-wing authoritarianism in, say, Venezuela doesn’t seem to have paved the road for liberal democracy. And, of course, Communism arose in Russia in the wake of the Czar’s right-wing authoritarianism and, indeed, Communism arose in Cuba as the aftermath of right-wing authoritarianism under Battista.

UPDATE: Sorry, Venezuala’s a bad example; I thought the military was in charge there in the 80s. Consider, say, Haiti where the Duvaliers hardly seem to have paved the road for a smooth transition to liberalism.
IT IS ONLY half true that the coup in Chile, 10 years ago today, ended Latin America’s longest democratic tradition. The elected president, Salvador Allende, was already losing control of his government to Marxist revolutionaries who did not in the slightest share his democratic commitment. That is why, in the beginning, many Chileans applauded or at least accepted Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s intervention. Alarmed by the disintegration around them, they counted on him to return their country to its heritage in a reasonable time.

What they did not count on was that he would abuse his patriotic mandate and thrust on Chile a regime that went far beyond dealing with the emergency at hand and established a harsh police state. Some tens of thousands of Chileans were killed outside the law, many others were imprisoned and exiled, the natural political tendencies of the country were suppressed, and an economic system was imposed that has meant extreme hardship for most of the people. For turning a national crisis into an excuse for personal dictatorship, Gen. Pinochet will not be forgiven. It explains why most of his countrymen, believing his continuance in power to be a national disgrace, have turned against him now.

Gen. Pinochet appears to think that by superficial concessions he can end the now-common mass demonstrations, still political unrest and prolong his power for another six years. Meanwhile, he has sent his police into action against demonstrators, peaceful as well as violent. The other day, the police fired a water cannon to block the delivery of a statement demanding his resignation by Christian Democratic leader Gabriel Valdes, who heads the newly organized Democratic Alliance of non-communist parties. Police also beat Genaro Arriagada, another leading Christian Democrat. And Gen. Pinochet wants to know why the opposition doubts his good faith.

Gen. Pinochet’s days, it would appear, are numbered. His policies do not even command the full support of the armed forces. When he goes, it will be through the working of Chilean forces. It is encouraging, however, that the United States, while it is not driving events, has finally stepped back publicly from Gen. Pinochet and taken a position in favor of a prompt and peaceful return to democracy.

Unquestionably the Reagan administration, often criticized for tilting toward authoritarian regimes like Gen. Pinochet’s, would dearly like to see a transition occur on its watch. It would allow the administration to come forward in Latin America and in general ideological debate as a sponsor of democracy. It would prove its point that authoritarian regimes, unlike totalitarian ones, can move back to democratic rule.

Such results, if they come, are unlikely to erase the widespread impression–much of it myth, Nathaniel Davis, then the American ambassador, suggests on the opposite page today–that it was the United States that undid the democratic order of Chile in 1973. We accept that the American role was secondary then; Chilean democracy was being grossly abused by Chileans. All the same, the United States made its own distinct and cynical contribution to Chile’s breakdown. It would be deeply satisfying to see democracy restored in Chile now–and to see the United States cheering the process on.