Thoughts on the Mugwumps

I just sent the following email to a colleague who was talking about the Mugwumps. The Mugwumps were a group of elite Republicans who switched sides and voted for Grover Cleveland in 1884.  The name derives from a bastardization of a Native American word for chief, but the above cartoon suggests a different interpretation.

I don't consider them moderates. They switched party because of strong political belief, specifically in rational government. They were laissez faire Republicans, and many had been abolitionists. There was nothing moderate about them even though they switched sides.

The confusion many people have about today's two extremist parties leads to the mistaken impression that if you don't favor either party you are in between.  The crank TV newscaster Bill O'Reilly makes a similar claim.  He is moderate because he splits the opinions of the two big parties.  

The two parties are close, and they are both extreme in their support for big government. By historical standards, today's America occupies the extreme Whig end of the spectrum, and that's true of both parties. Only an extremist can call two parties that both advocated lending as much as $29 trillion to Wall Street to be moderate.  Today's America is an extremist, authoritarian state. There is no Aristotelian mean here.

This is the email to my colleague:

A classic in the study of the Gilded Age is Edward Wiebe, The Search for Order http://www.amazon.com/Search-Order-1877-1920-Robert-Wiebe/dp/0809001047/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427393497&sr=8-1&keywords=wiebe .

The first book I read on the Mugwumps was Nancy Cohen’s Reconstruction of American Liberalism 1865-1914, which is an intellectual history that gives a good overview. You can piece together a libertarian perspective from it.  See http://www.amazon.com/Reconstruction-American-Liberalism-1865-1914/dp/0807853542/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427393591&sr=8-1&keywords=nancy+cohen+progressivism .

The third book I recommend is a little different. It is Burton Bledstein’s Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America. http://www.amazon.com/culture-professionalism-development-education-America/dp/0393055744/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1427393672&sr=8-3&keywords=bledstein . It traces the creation of professionalism in a host of fields.  Professionalism was intimately connected to the Mugwumps’ interest in civil service reform. The impetus for rationalization led directly to Progressivism. Once the commitment to organized professions took hold, it was a small step to building legal standards and regulations for the professions.  That, in turn, was linked to the development of universities. Hence, big government, the organized professions, and universities have always been linked.

The institution of the modern university in 1876 via the founding of Johns Hopkins came near the heart of the Mugwump era, which was in 1884, during the election of Grover Cleveland.  I don’t think historians have a clear understanding of why the Mugwumps opposed James Blaine and turned against their own Republican Party to support Cleveland.  [My colleague] may be right that there was a laissez faire impetus, but showing that would require a new, or at least clearer,  historical treatment of it.  Among the interesting Mugwump figures (see Cohen) were EL Godkin, David Ames Wells, and William Graham Sumner.

I also don’t believe that historians have a clear understanding of the role of the greenbacks in stimulating the expansion of industry in the Civil War era and what the economic effects were on bondholders, so the post-1873 gold deflation, which harmed other asset holders (likely Western and Southern farmers as well as stockholders) and generated Populism and Bryan (and which Friedman calls “the crime of 1873” in an article that was published in the Journal of Economic History), may have been a reaction to the post-Civil War inflation. Godkin writes about his anger at the effects of inflation on redistributing wealth to Jay Gould and others. 

One question that no one has asked is whether there was a relationship between Wall Street and Bryan or the Populists.  Mark Hanna, a high school friend of John D. Rockefeller,  was, of course, McKinley’s close adviser. On the other hand, it may be that the election of McKinley (as propped by Wall Street) was not really opposition to silver, but rather it may have been preemptive and done in the hope for the central bank that was recommended fourteen years later, in 1910, by the same Rockefeller (with Morgan and Kuhn Loeb) interests.  It is unlikely that there is much public information on something like this.

In any case the 1896 election had an opposite dynamic from what today’s pro-inflation banking community offers, and I suspect that something is not being said about who the Populists were and, more importantly, who their opponents were.  Was a central bank being quietly considered by ‘96? 

The same is true of the conflict within the Democratic Party between Bryan and the Bourbon Democrats,* of whom Cleveland was the chief representative. Wilson had been a Bourbon Democrat, and I think that he voted for a third party, the Gold Democrats, in 1896.  His connection to Morgan is mentioned in my paper on colleges, and I suspect that his signing of the Federal Reserve Act came from his relationship with Morgan.  An interesting point in the biography of Frank Vanderlip is that Wilson dropped him as a friend, and Wilson would have nothing to do with Vanderlip once Wilson was elected. Wilson did not want to seem to be linked to bankers.  I wonder who thought up that plan of action.  Wilson went from voting for gold in 1896 to refusing to have to do with bankers so he could propose the Federal Reserve Bank.  As a result of secrecy, it may be hard to get data. But was the opposition of the banking community to silver a strategic one?
  

*Wikipedia: Bourbon Democrat was a term used in the United States from 1876 to 1904 to refer to a conservative or classical liberal member of the Democratic Party, especially one who supported Charles O'Conor in 1872, Samuel J. Tilden in 1876, President Grover Cleveland in 1884–1888/1892–1896 and Alton B. Parker in 1904. After 1904, the Bourbons faded away. Woodrow Wilson, who had been a Bourbon, made a deal in 1912 with the leading opponent of the Bourbons, William Jennings Bryan; Bryan endorsed Wilson for the Democratic nomination, and Wilson named Bryan Secretary of State. The term "Bourbon" was mostly used disparagingly, by critics complaining of old-fashioned viewpoints.

Jerry Doyle Slams Faux News--Unfair and Unbalanced

"We're going to invalidate the poll because we didn't like the results"

--Bill O'Reilly, unfair and unbalanced

Bill O'Reilly: Socialist

Newsmax recently reported that Bill O'Reilly says that he despises the way that the media treats President Barack H. Obama with kid gloves but that conservatives are wrong to call President Obama a socialist.

It may surprise Mr. O'Reilly to learn that by 1912 previouly Republican but by then Progressive Theodore Roosevelt's platform had become socialist. Roosevelt favored federal government price setting. Legislation authorizing the federal government's setting of railroad rates had been passed in 1906, during Roosevelt's Republican administration.

Similarly, President Obama has been busily bossing around automobile companies and providing trillions in subsidies to his cronies in investment banks like Goldman Sachs. The American approach to socialism of TR and BO has always been socialism of the rich.

Dictionary.com defines socialism is defined as "a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole". Would not firing the president of General Motors qualify as outright socialism?

Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Jackson would have been shocked at the lumbering Leviathan government that Mr. O'Reilly and his colleagues at Fox favor. Jackson in particular would have been disturbed at Mr. O'Reilly's silence about the role of the socialist Federal Reserve Bank in bleeding and wrecking the American economy. As in Jackson's day, today's Fed is emblematic of American socialism for the rich.

In a recent discussion of libertarianism Mr. O'Reilly claimed that the government must focus on the "public good". But President Jefferson would not have agreed that bailouts, social security or welfare programs contribute to the public good. Not much has changed since. Today, the economic contribution of the majority of contributors to social security is less than the economic value of the benefits they will receive. Social security was a pyramid scheme that transferred wealth from the 21st to the 20th century. And the chief function of Mr. Obama's socialist government, as would have been in Jefferson's day had the Federalists and the Whigs had their way, is to steal from the public in the interest of subsidizing bankers, a policy that the socialist Obama administration and Mr. O'Reilly support.

The Fallacy of the Middle Ground: The Case of the O'Reilly Spin Zone

One of my favorite posters here reads my blog to balance the views of left wing blogs. He believes that if he sees all sides, he can find the moderate view, the happy medium, that is truthful because it takes all views into account. This is something like a Fox television program, the O'Reilly Spin Zone, where the announcer claims to be "balanced". O'Reilly, however, is anything but balanced. He gives two rather extreme points of view, call them the Progressive Republican and the progressive Democratic, then he splits the difference between them. The O'Reilly Spin Zone is characterized by its persistent omission of the most important issues facing the nation, especially monetary policy and the Federal Reserve Bank, which O'Reilly seems to believe is unimportant compared to the activities of shadowy speculators. Given that monetary policy is the one issue of crucial importance to his working class viewers, his claim that he "looks out for his viewers" is especially vicious.

There is no such thing as a happy medium much of the time. O'Reilly's claim is nonsensical. The truth does not lie in the middle. For instance, in the 18th century Dr. Benjamin Rush advocated bleeding as a cure for various illnesses. Today, physicians use antibiotics. Is the truth in the middle? Do you want your doctor to use bleeding half the time and antibiotics the other half? Or is bleeding based on an erroneous theory, so you are hopeful that your doctor dispenses with it?

How about astronomy in ancient Greece? I think it was Parmenides who believed that the universe was a sphere with the earth at the center, while Democritus believed that the earth revolved around the sun. Would a balanced view, that the center of the universe was midway between the earth and the sun, have been accurate? Or was the truth of the matter irrelevant to what either Parmenides or Democritus had to say?

In the 1920s Ludwig von Mises argued for the importance of price in the functioning of an economy, and that socialist coordination would be inefficient because of the absence of price. In the 1930s, Oskar Lange claimed to have disproven von Mises's arguments because socialist planners could equate marginal revenue product and price, but his argument is so laden question begging and circular reasoning that it is difficult to believe that anyone would have take it seriously. Yet, academic economists and sociologists for many years seriously stated that Lange had disproven von Mises. Many prominent scholars, such as Clark Kerr, advocated a "consensus" view of the "convergence" of capitalism and socialism in the 1950s. But this view of a happy medium was patently false. It was an extreme fallacy to say that there would be convergence. Von Mises and Hayek were right, Lange and Kerr were wrong. Kerr's "medium" view of socialism was an extreme one. Von Mises's and Hayek's view of the efficiency of information in a capitalist economy was an accurate and moderate one.

In 1989 the Soviet Union fell for the very reasons that von Mises and Hayek said it would. But not one of the academic economists or sociologists who insisted on the nonsensical convergence theory, the ancient idea of the happy medium, admitted that convergence was wrong because socialism failed. Rather, many continued to advocate socialism and to apologize for Lange's argument.

Today, we see on Fox News continued advocacy of the convergence doctrine, support for the bailout and the like, views which coincidentally favor the interests of Rupert Murdoch and various other contributors to the American Enterprise Institute, interests which do not have O'Reilly's viewers' happiness in mind.

There is no medium. Socialism fails because it interferes with the communication of information. Cognitive limits of socialist managers inhibit innovation. There is no in between. You either reward people fully for their innovation, or you don't. If you don't you get less innovation. You get the bailout, failed firms like Citibank and General Motors receiving massive taxpayer subsidies in the name of the "economy" and economically illiterate bozos on Fox telling us that it is good that the large firms steal from us. We should be grateful because it is midway between what the Republicans say and what the Democrats say. The bailout reflects the middle ground between the two. It must be right.

The fallacy of the middle ground may have evolved from a misinterpretation of Aristotle. In his Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle argues that virtue is typically the mean, so that courage is the mean between cowardice and rashness. There is a difference between ethics and science, though. Aristotle did not claim that truth was the middle ground, only that virtue is. It seems likely that those who believe in "moderation" and "the middle ground" are confused between virtue and truth. The truth depends on an accurate depiction of how the world behaves. The middle ground between two nonsensical views, such as those of the Democrats and the Republicans, is neither moderate nor truthful.

Barney Frank Aims to Soak All Who Can Pay; Mairi Is Angry (and she's not gonna take it anymore!)

Contrairimairi just forwarded this video :



Mairi writes:

Good Ole Barney........if BO gets elected with THIS albatross hanging around his neck, then I am VERY, VERY afraid for the America we know and love.

In his exchange with O'Reilly, Barney refused to accept ANY responsibility for his part in the Market collapse. I ask you......after we saw a republican Senator dragged through the press and courts for "pussy-footin'" in restrooms, why do we NOT see Barney tarred, feathered, and run out of Washington on a rail for his part in concealing the dirty dealings of his homosexual partner's part in nearly destroying America?

Intead, Barney states that there are plenty of rich people still out there to drain of MORE tax dollars. He's already planning a "hit" on them in the near future.
I am so angry I could scream!

I WISH John and Sarah would widen the horizon on what DOES make a difference in this campaign! They barely skirt the edges of what is important. Contrary to the MSM, these topics are not "angry, hate speak"......they are the FACTS! Like it or not!
We saw the poll results start climbing for McCain/Palin when they bagan challenging BO on his relationship with Ayers. Then.......they switched focus and began focusing almost solely on "Joe the Plumber". Well.......Joe is great, but Americans are still angry........I am still angry........and John and Sarah are still the best outlet for our voices to be heard when it comes to BO's "allegiances".

They state just a few of the facts about BO's "neighbors", and then leave us hanging. WHY haven't they come forward with the correspondence and tax records that PROVE BO and Ayers shared an office for at least three years? Do you think most Americans will ever find out? HOW.......WHERE.......? If people are not savvy enough to know how to find the info online, it just might as well remain a secret.
In recent discussions with acquaintances, I have found VERY FEW of them know many of the recently surfacing facts. They don't know Farrakhan referred to BO as the "Messiah". They don't know BO and Ayers shared an office in Chicago for at least three years..........many don't even know there are lawsuits filed demanding proof of citizenship.

I have to tell you, I am REALLY frightened. As much as conservative blog sites are trying to avail people of the facts, there are still far too many Americans who just don't know.........for that alone, there is no way we can expect a "fair election". If Americans widely knew some of these facts, I think we would be looking at a whole different set of polling numbers.

I appreciate all the hard work that conservative bloggers do to get out the message, but John and Sarah are still the best bet, and I hope more people will visit their campaign sites and continue pressing them to carry our message.

Nancy Razik Calls for Petition to Oust Barney Frank

Aloha,

Please send out a petition we can all sign to oust Barney Frank, and the other
offenders who put our country at risk.

These people will get away with murder unless the American people stop them.
Please help!!!

Maybe you can work out something with Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck. They
are ready as we all are to see some heads roll!!!

If you don't rally the American people to action, who will?

Thank you very much!

Nancy Razik

Citizens' Welfare Preferable to Bankers'

Contrairimairi sent me an e-mail from TJ Birkheimer, part of which is copied below. Here's an alternative idea along the same lines as Birkheimer's. Rather than bail out failing banks and insurance companies, combine and liquidate them, spinning off the non-performing mortgages and going after all current and former officers for restitution.

Break the financial institutions' assets up into 250 parts, producing 250 smaller banks and insurance companies. Choose the CEOs of the new banks and insurance companies randomly from the Yahoo! people search page. Subsidize the 250 new banks to the degree necessary to make them solvent. Use the remainder of the $750 billion bailout money to provide unemployment insurance to any employees who lose their jobs and need to be on the dole.

This plan would have several advantages. First, by hiring new CEOs out of the phone book, more competent management would be obtained than through the firms' HR systems.

Second, instead of a few large firms that are too difficult for their present managers to run, there will be 250 smaller, more nimble firms with better leadership.

Third, rather than subsidize mismanaged businesses, citizens' welfare would be directly protected.

In addition, the public might consider whether commercial banking ought to be phased out and replaced by Savings & Loan (non-fractional reserve) style banking. The public ought to look at the root cause of this problem, the Federal Reserve Bank, and abolish it in place of a gold standard.

Progressivism is so dominant that public discussion about nonsensical cries of "depression" and "crisis" proceeds on silly assumptions.

Here is an excerpt from Birkenmeier's e-mail:

>Hi Pals,
I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG.
Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a "We Deserve It Dividend".
As for AIG - liquidate it.
Sell off its parts.
Let American General go back to being American General.
Sell off the real estate.
Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.
Birk

T. J. Birkenmeier, A Creative Guy & Citizen of the Republic

Bob Robbins Asks O'Reilly -- Where is the Birth Certificate?

Bob Robbins sent this letter to Bill O'Reilly. I just wrote a follow up. The O'Reilly interview is tonight.

Bob Robbins writes:

Mr. O'Reilly -

While you're on the air on Sep. 4th, 2008, please ask Barack Obama to soon show his real birth certificate to the U.S. public at large.

Many of us are not willing to accept what clearly shows to be an image of a phony Certificate Of Live Birth for him on some internet sites.


As the media seems to be doing the vetting process on Sarah Palin, - ... please do your media part tomorrow to do this vetting of Mr. Obama.

I followed up:

I have been trying to obtain a copy of Senator Obama's actual birth certificate for several months. I have blogged about this quest repeatedly. What concerns me is not only the Obama campaign's method of handling my and others' requests--posting a digital copy of a certificate of live birth on an unofficial website (which has been alleged to be a forgery) but also the government offices' refusal to collect this information on a systematic basis from all candidates. Of the 15,000 elected state and federal officials around the country (not to mention another 500,000 local officials) are we certain that not one has committed identity theft? I have submitted a petition with over 5,400 signatures to the FEC, but Mr. Donald McGahan has not replied. If Mr. Obama is serious about openness and change, he will allow all Americans to see his actual birth certificate, not a digital copy of his certificate of live birth.

See:

http://mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com/2008/08/democracy-in-inaction-where-is-don.html

http://www.showusthecertificate.blogspot.com/

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Federal-Elections-Commssion/index.html


Please pass this message on to MANY others, -
... and ask each receiver to send a message to Bill O'Reilly, - ... just to show many Americans care.

O'Reilly and Hannity and Colmes Drop the Ball on Oil Speculation

Dick Morris was on Hannity and Colmes tonight to discuss oil speculators' influence on oil prices. Last night, O'Reilly claimed that high oil prices are due to "greedy speculators" This is spin. If speculators are causing high oil prices, then the mechanism needs to be clarified.

For a subject this important, Hannity and Colmes and O'Reilly should have economists from the CATO institute and perhaps the Brookings Institution debate regulation of commodities speculation. Part of the discussion would explain what makes this situation different from the rest of the 300-year history of commodity speculation. Who are these shadowy speculators? What is the mechanism by which they supposedly drive up prices? Why doesn't real demand by consumers drive down the speculators' inflation of oil prices? Unlike the coverage on Fox heretofore, the debate would need to be specific, clear and avoid double talk.

Dick Morris is a nice fellow but he lacks understanding of economics or of futures markets. I don't doubt that markets can become inflated as we saw with the tech bubble and housing, but such asset holders risk a crash. There is every reason to think that this would happen and, if so, there would be no need for regulation.

Regulation is the wrong idea, but there is nothing wrong with debating it. In particular, such a debate would clarify why speculation has or has not caused the price increase in oil and why the market will not correct on its own. Morris did not explain this. He could barely say the word "futures contract" and I doubt if he could define the term. There has been futures trading since tulip bulbs went through a price bubble in 17th century Holland and then crashed.

Futures holders must sell their oil when the future contract expires. If consumer demand has been reduced because of high prices, when the contracts expire the oil price will decline.

If this basic pattern is to be violated, O'Reilly, Hannity and Colmes owe it to their viewers to explain the reason clearly instead of putting spin on it like saying "greedy speculators" or having an economic illiterate like Morris say that "paper trading" is causing price increases.