Brian Beutler was trying to convince me to skip the NBA Finals and go with him to see Drag Me To Hell tonight. I objected that, among other things, I don’t like horror movies. First he said it’s not a real horro movie, “it’s a comedic horror movie like Evil Dead, only funnier and less monsters.” Then he corrected himself: “fewer” monsters.

Matthew Yglesias
eh, I think I’ve got a solid plan
never did understand the less/fewer thing though

Brian Beutler
really?
fewer is for countable items
such as
monsters
less is for abstract quantities
you have less milk
or fewer gallons of milk

Matthew Yglesias
yeah, yeah, people always reexplain it to me
then I forget again
sounds like b***s***
if we just abolished the word “fewer” we’d be in good shape

Brian Beutler
i don’t know man

Matthew Yglesias
how does it really help us?

Brian Beutler
“I’ve got less gallons of milk”
sounds weird

Matthew Yglesias
less words!
more easier to learn the language!

I’m prepared to stand behind this view. The less/fewer distinction isn’t really that hard to learn, but it would be much easier to not have to bother. I can’t think of any situations in which the existence of the two different words is actually helpful to our understanding of what’s being communicated. Native speakers of the English language have a perverse tendency to take pride in the difficulty of our language, but it’s not actually a good thing.

White House Photo: Barack Obama speaking in Cairo

One problem that I think we have in terms of trying to build a coalition in support of a less militaristic foreign policy is that often the voices of restraint aren’t willing to give credit where due, unless a politician is willing to go all the way off the reservation of conventional wisdom. So I was glad to see Cato’s Chris Preble offer some appreciative remarks about Obama’s speech in Cairo:

President Obama wisely connected U.S. policy in the 21st century to its founding principles from the earliest days to remind his audience — or perhaps to teach them for the very first time — that the United States was not now, nor ever has been, at war with Islam, or with any other religion. George Washington affirmed the importance of religious equality in his letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island. President Obama quoted John Adams, who saw no reason why the United States could not enjoy good relations with Morocco, the first country to recognize the United States. When signing the Treaty of Tripoli, Adams wrote, “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.”

But the president also drew on the Founders to convey a broader message. They believed that the new nation should advance human rights and the cause of liberty by its example, not by military force. Some of our recent leaders seem to have forgotten that, and a few pundits have actually scorned the suggestion. The president wisely cast his lot with the earlier generation, quoting Thomas Jefferson who said “I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”

It is a good quote. I use it in my book, too.

I think this is a crucial point. Neoconservatives seem to have adopted the belief that American power actually derives from profligate use of force and coercion. A more realistic view recognizes that our power stems from objective factors—our resources, our population, our stock of capital goods, our positive relationships with others—and that this power is actually undermined by throwing it around. Of course, sometimes you have to. But it’s something we should be reluctant to do.

Harry Reid (D-NV)

An item in yesterday’s Congress Daily said that Nancy Pelosi “told the Asian American and Pacific Islander Summit this morning that Congress would tackle immigration reform after finishing with health care and energy.” CD opined that “it seems unlikely that Congress could work through all three mega-issues this year” but Pelosi didn’t say that. Harry Reid, meanwhile, explicitly said he thought immigration could be done this year:

“As far as I’m concerned, we have three major issues we have to do this year, if at all possible: No. 1 is healthcare; No 2 is energy, global warming; No. 3 is immigration reform,” Reid said. “It’s going to happen this session, but I want it this year, if at all possible.”

Obviously, this still may not happen. But it’s good to hear. In the immediate wake of the Sonia Sotomayor announcement, you sometimes heard that now that we’re getting a Latina justice, there’s no need to do immigration reform. The reality, however, is that the presence of huge numbers of undocumented immigrants in the United States is a very real problem that needs to be confronted. Efforts to make any other kind of social policy—be it health care, higher education, labor law reform, whatever—wind up being complicated by the problem. You could try to solve the problem in an impractical and inhumane manner by deporting everyone, or you can try to find a practical way of getting law-abiding people paying taxes on put on a path to citizenship. Just trying to ignore the issue isn’t going to viable.