Or when Thomas Friedman spoke wistfully about how the Chicoms, unemcumbered with representative democracy and a combative two-party system, are able to speed things along and just get stuff done?
Remember when conservatives and classical liberals and, hell, most sentient Americans who remain proud of this country’s ostensible fidelity to individual liberty and a government granted its power by the consent of the governed, were appalled by the authoritarian impulses made manifest by both Obama and Friedman in their praise for the ease of totalitarian dictatorship?
Well, surprise! Seems our “severely conservative” electable GOP frontrunner, who is being backed aggressively by the Republican establishment (of which there really isn’t one, silly Hobbits!) and many of the most prominent “conservative” media outlets and blogs, shares yet another of Obama’s predilections: a kind of profound respect for just how quickly a centralized state with unlimited authority can get things built.
Of course, that Mitt Romney expressed his admiration for the Chicoms while giving a speech praising free market capitalism means that we should excuse him the faux pas. After all, he’s clearly got the talking points of conservatism down, advocating as a businessman for free markets and deregulation and the like.
— Which means that hopefully, with a little full-throated GOP support and some careful behind-the-scenes tutoring, he’ll even come to understand conservatism and free market capitalism in time for his severely conservative presidency.
Fingers crossed!
(h/t George Orwell)
At the risk of getting a facefull of rotten vegetables, I’m going to say what I heard on the video I agree with.
It wasn’t a call to become more like China, but rather China, a freak’in commie country, has less government interference in business than us. And that ain’t right.
Unless I’m really missing something, I don’t see the problem.
“. . . they’re moving quickly because the regulators see their job as encouraging private people and private . . . it’s amazing . . .”
The regulators have the job. Could anything happen without them? Mitt would faint dead away at the thought.
That’s the way I heard it too, Lee.
OT: Why are we “hobbits”? I don’t get that.
“Why are we ‘hobbits’?”
Hobbits, you see, are troglodytes, cave dwellers. John McCain says so, and that should be enough for you.
The Businessman Romney™ would do well to recognize something before embarking on his severely conservative Presidency to rebuild America:
The Chinese built their wealth on a pegged currency. IOW, on an entire rigged economy. Which stands today as the principle, fundamental tenet of their governing philosophy.
On the other hand the US enjoys the fruits of a FIRE economy a quarter quadrillion dollars upside down.
Ow, that’s gotta leave a mark. Unless of course he already grasps this.
he’ll even come to understand conservatism and free market capitalism in time for his severely conservative presidency.
Well, being an auto-didact, I have over the years learned to understand French. That doesn’t mean I use it all that often.
Plus ça change.
Well, if John McCain says so, who am I to argue?
Elevenses, anyone?
It wasn’t a call to become more like China, but rather China, a freak’in commie country, has less government interference in business than us.
I chalk it up to our fundamental mistrust of Romney. Sure, he was saying, “our bureaucracy is worse than friggin China’s, fercrynahtlahd!” But what we hear is “I’ll whip our bureaucrats into shape so that we’re as good as China!”
If Romney could ever bring himself to articulate the idea that we could cut the bureaucracy by two-thirds and not even come close to threatening the core functions for which they were established (and which most of us can agree with), he might enjoy more support from our side. Doubly so if he could do it believably. As it is, he just reinforces the idea that he doesn’t want to make the bureaucracy smaller; he’ll just make it run better.
Yeah sdferr, I don’t quite know what to do with “regulators see their job as encouraging private people”, but I decided to be charitable and imagine he meant there shouldn’t be an adversarial relationship between the two. More like the relationship between a citizen and a police officer, rather than what we have now, a prisoner and a guard.
That’s what I heard when he applauded the encouragement Chinese regulators paid their subjects. That moment sounded like a summarizing endorsement, not a call for reform.
I took him to indicate “Look what beneficent regulators can accomplish! Amazing!” And why not, since that’s apparently what he thinks?
Because we want to destroy the One Ring instead of preserving it for “our side” to use after we destroy Sauron.
Here’s another thing about that(ish), by Dan Blumenthal at Weekly Standard: The ‘Beijing Model’ Bubble
Well, except that the reason the Chinese were able to get all that infrastructure done so quickly and efficiently for the Olympics — that is, why their bureaucratic apparatus is so ostensibly less intrusive than ours — is that they don’t really have to worry about private property rights, etc., do they? They can just kind a come in and take shit. And that’s the backdrop of compliance with regulation.
Regulators are what drives industry. With their beneficent technocratic nudgings. Without them, all would be chaos and fail! Plus, government and business work in partnership to get things done!
Competition gets in the way of that. Muddies the water. Holds back great leaps forward, you see.
I’m sure it’s a “friendly” environment for certain favored corporations, no doubt including Coca Cola, and everyone willing to pay to play by Beijing planners’ rules.
But it’s not remotely a friendly environment for *free enterprise*, which is something I’d hope a GOP candidate would have at least a middling grasp of and appreciation for. Along with a faint idea of how corrupt and corrupting the Chinese model truly is.
It’s not quite as horrific as “I’ve seen the future–and it works!” but it’s in the same zip code.
Electable.
The nice thing about ignoring private property rights is that it leaves your regulators plenty of time to ignore workplace safety, materials testing, structural safety, environmental issues…
Which is to say that all the horrible things that Western capitalists are always accused of (callous disregard for worker safety, dumping toxics into the soil and waterways, &c) are things that the Chinese practice as a matter of course. Which, incidentally, is why I don’t necessarily support scrapping the bureaucracy altogether, but merely trimming it by two-thirds.
I like your “One Ring” analogy, McGehee.
OT, kinda: Why do people think that a businessman would know anything about our government? Government is decisively not a business in any sense of the word.
I’ve heard that from “our side” a lot, and I don’t buy it.
Which is to say that all the horrible things that Western capitalists are always accused of (callous disregard for worker safety, dumping toxics into the soil and waterways, &c) are things that the Chinese practice as a matter of course.
Ask and ye shall receive.
http://gizmo.do/wfTalu
Government is decisively not a business in any sense of the word.
I’ve heard that from “our side” a lot, and I don’t buy it.
A businessman cannot legally steal my property, compel me to pay for his expenses, lock me up in a cell, force me to use a weapon to kill other people, or tell me what kind of toilet or lightbulb to buy. We reserve those dandy things for government, the single institution we permit to use coercion against citizens. No business can run by generating continuous losses and deficits. The gubmint is in no way a business, and conservatives should know better.
In the service of scrupulous fairness, we can note Romneybot has not only been a businessman but a governor, so he has experience in both realms.
Just like Jimmy Carter, Warren Harding, and Herbert Hoover.
… regulators see their job as encouraging private people …”
My personal experience with regulators (financial, administrative, and technical) runs rather counter to this. There is an awful lot more of an emphasis on what you can’t do than what you can, and, of course, what the penalties are for being foolhardy enough to go against them.
Mr. Orwell, … and Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush.
Who said the GOP likes free enterprise? Free enterprise implies competition. And that means the chance that the wrong people might win and make more money than the right people, i.e. the people you support and whom support you.
“Well, except that the reason the Chinese were able to get all that infrastructure done so quickly and efficiently for the Olympics “
He wasn’t talking so much about the Olympics except how he came to be in China to make his observations. He mentioned airports and highways. He could also have been thinking massive hydroelectric dams and coal fired power plants by the dozens, I don’t know. The point was, I believe, business in the US is not only over regulated, but regulated badly.
“— that is, why their bureaucratic apparatus is so ostensibly less intrusive than ours — is that they don’t really have to worry about private property rights, etc., do they? They can just kind a come in and take shit.’
Like Kelo.
I just don’t hear Romney (mind you, I’m only going by the video clip inbedded at the link) yearning for a Chinese system.
How national planning works. Or not.
LBascom, I think the problem with Romney is the critical intersection of Regulation and Romneycare
Romney is on Cavuto dissing Santorum’s cred as a fiscal conservative—like him!
Why trim it when you can just make it more just and good and efficient?
How else are you going to spur growth without efficient regulators and a government with the capability to move things along and Get Important Stuff Done?
If Romney was a fiscal conservative, he wouldn’t need to diss anyone’s credibility, would he?
Too bad he doesn’t have as much regard for his Republican rivals as he does for the Democrat they all want to oppose.
The thing people notice is that Romney is not heard to say anything in praise of a lack of regulators in that clip. He praises business friendly — or apparently business friendly — regulators, without giving any thought to the possibility of a world with vastly fewer regulators to start, since it oughtn’t to be the business of government to meddle in business in the first place (he is talking to Americans after all, isn’t he?). Ours is an entirely different set-up, or system (should there be any praiseworthiness in naming the tyrannical behavior of the Obamagang systematic), where government is the venture capitalist of choice. With Romney, we’re down to merely haggling over the costs, he’s such a whore.
Yes, but unless he says that directly, he’s not really saying that. Instead, he’s praising free markets!
“I think the problem with Romney is the critical intersection of Regulation and Romneycare”
Blake, it kills me so many on our side fail to see Obamacare as the menace to society it is, and blindly support an early practitioner of the thing. That Republicans would push the only republican in history to have a mandated healthcare scheme named after him shows the level of contempt they feel for “we the people”, otherwise known as the working class. Their base.
The bastards.
Regulators will forever be with us, like the tax man. For good or bad…
Who said the GOP likes free enterprise? Free enterprise implies competition. And that means the chance that the wrong people might win and make more money than the right people, i.e. the people you support and whom support you.
I’m being disabused of that increasingly-naive notion, in steady steps. Please note the “hope” part of the sentence. TARP should have been my first clue, but I plead to being a slow learner.
Really the only difference between the Romney wing of the GOP and the Democrats is that the former don’t feel the need to conceal their contempt for “the little people” beneath a layer of condescension.
link
“The thing people notice is that Romney is not heard to say anything in praise of a lack of regulators in that clip. He praises business friendly — or apparently business friendly — regulators, without giving any thought to the possibility of a world with vastly fewer regulators to start”
Listening again, that is what I missed sdferr. There was a sense almost he was struggling NOT to say cut regulations, just make the regulators “friendlier”.
For what it’s worth, he did say “We have to slay the government beast” at the end there.
Kill it with kindness I guess.
Romneycare = fiscal conservatism.
You betcha.
I’m sure Simon Legree saw it as his job to encourage people too.
Bush and Reagan were not primarily businessmen before entering the Presidency. Reagan was an actor, then a governor for long years, then finally won nationwide office after losing the nomination once. Bush 41 had a long political career beginning in 1964, so when he became VP and then Prez he was not primarily a businessman. Bush 43 (Bush the Spender) became governor of Texas in 1994, so he was hardly a businessman first by the time he became President.
As noted, Romneybot did actually serve as governor once, so he isn’t a true novice to the game. He’s been running for President since before 2007, anyway.
Well, here’s another option:
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/03/11/exclusive-gingrich-perry-pre-convention-ticket-works
Romneycare = fiscal conservatism.
Willard phones to say “Gosh darn it, it is fiscally conservative. I worked my mittens threadbare making sure lots of federal money went to fill Massachusetts’s fiscal gaps in my proud medical legislation. If that ain’t conservative, nothing is.”
Mr. Orwell, in addition to being an actor Reagan was head of the SAG and I have seen numerous references to that as a trial by fire in learning how to deal with the business side of show business. Bush 43 was the managing general partner for the Texas Rangers for five years. I think that qualifies.
Oh, and I did not reference Bush 41 since I think his “business” street cred isn’t all that great and despite his long record of public service he never was a governor.
Unfortunately, though, Romney doesn’t quite get that there is more than one way to slay the beast of government and it doesn’t count as “slaying the beast” if the beast is slayed by going bankrupt.
Lee, my impression is that in societies like that the regulators are real friendly provided you have spare cash or spare good-looking daughters (or sons; I’m all about teh equal opportunity). Heck, look at the friendly regulators in NYC or Chicago or….