Brit Hume intervened with the sensible point that Obama and the Democrats made a huge error in insisting on passing Obamacare on a party-line basis, rather than gathering some Republicans through compromise. The TV format didn’t allow for a proper discussion of this point, so let me extend Hume’s remark, which touches on something central to American politics. Since we don’t have a parliamentary system, what I am calling Hayward’s First Postulate of American Politics comes into play: major social policy changes can only be implemented if they have the consent–not the agreement, just the consent–of the minority party. As has often been pointed out, nearly every major social policy change of the last 100 years passed on with some measure of bipartisan support. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Fair Housing Act–all of these had substantial Republican support. In the case of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Republicans voted in favor in a larger proportion of their total numbers in the House and Senate than Democrats did. Reagan’s first tax cut bill passed the Senate 89-11, and the House with something like 40 Democratic votes, despite Democratic leadership attempts to whip their members into line against Reagan. I’m sure many of the Democrats who voted for Reagan’s tax cut didn’t agree with it fully or like it especially much, but they consented to it because they recognized the public consensus behind allowing Reagan a chance to govern. The 1986 Tax Reform Act passed on a truly bipartisan basis. Obama was simply oblivious to the meaning of the Tea Party and related signs that the American people simply did not wish to consent to his health care bill, that there was no consensus for his health care policy. This is why Kristol is sure to be right: Obamacare is going to be dismantled if not repealed outright.

I’m agnostic on a lot of ethical issues, but not a relativist or a subjectivist per se. I simply think that we don’t have very good facilities for detecting objective ethical truth, just as most of us are not very good at factoring large numbers in our heads. Indeed, ethical philosophy hasn’t made a lot of progress in the last two thousand years.

In Syria, they march to protest government. In London (and the U.S.) they pathetically march to protest cuts in government.

Policymakers need more of a sheer willingness to do the right thing, even if it means sacrificing reelection. Selection mechanisms, however, do not much favor that bravery. For a sane, well-adjusted person, the job is neither fun nor well-paying, so the job attracts people who love being in office and thus who fail to do the right thing.

Sensible people understand that a mere preference for a particular outcome is an insufficient reason to empower government to pursue that outcome.

Well, yes, some Americans are stupid, but most are quite intelligent and skilled, despite being ignorant about politics (and some other issues, such as world geography). They don’t invest in political knowledge because the investment doesn’t pay. They have their own lives to lead. They have other valuable things to contribute to society. The political class often lampoons citizens’ lack of knowledge, but citizens often have better things to do (for themselves and for each other) than invest in knowledge that is of no special use to them or to others.

The corruption in high places is getting more and more brazen with every passing day. The only thing that separates the US from conventional banana republic status is that no one leaves keys to new luxury cars on the desks of officials to secure their cooperation. It’s just not enough of an inducement to get anyone to take action.

At the end of last week I couldn’t help tweeting that everything I was seeing in Libya was bringing out my inner foreign policy Realist. And everything I’ve seen this weekend has confirmed me in that view. Indeed, there are so many reasons this strikes me as a bad idea I really hardly know where to start. So let me focus on the three biggest problems I see.