Barnett Today

Judging the Global War on Terrorism. Synopsis: It's been successful because there haven't been any attacks in America since 9/11. We've made this into an away game contested by our professionals instead of a home game with casualties to our home crowd (to torture the metaphor). The Department of Homeland Security is 'vast overkill' and we haven't done very well at the nation-building part. Our civil liberties have been cut back, but not aggregiously so.

I agree with most everything he's saying, as least to some degree. He's pushing me on the War in Iraq. I do think the DHS is an overreaction and that the money could be better spent (with some similar jobs by pre-existing agencies, of course).

Everybody take a deep breath and relax on election day. Some historical reflection from George Will on similar situations and a positive view of early voting. An interesting quote:

At the dinner I attended last night to discuss PNM, a lot of angst was raised about the red state/blue state polarization of American politics. My answer was that this was not that unusual if you look back over the length of American political history. Plus, when you look at what we are so jacked up about concerning the Supreme Court, that cluster of issues is awfully narrow and removed from much of daily life (the nexus of abortion, stem cells, etc.). This is not so much a hugely divided electorate but one that squabbles incessantly over relatively small issues (historically speaking) on the margin.

Barnett's an economic determinist, so he views these divisive issues as marginal. I accept that from an ecnomic and security standpoint, but I feel I

9/11's most pervasive new rule set is classified.

On a superficial level, the hush-hush treatment of this issue on the fall campaign trail might seem perversely fitting. But Mr. Bush's unilateral rollback of laws and practices designed to promote government accountability surely rates further scrutiny by voters. We've learned over the last four years that what we don't know can hurt us.

New Core economies: where is the action is....

Isn't it amazing—as well as counter-intuitive—to remember back to the time when our policy towards the old Soviet bloc was: "For God's sake, don't let them get their hands on information technology!" When—in the end—that was the very thing (that Information Revolution) that served as the downfall of the socialist, centrally-planned economic system?