Spreading the Love

I’d like to direct your attention to two worthy blogs. One is about a blatant lie and another is about a long string of subtle lies.

The first is Government is Good , subtitled “An Unapologetic Defense of a Vital Institution” and “A web project of Douglas J. Amy, Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College.” Professor Amy, in clear, simple prose, explains why “governments are instituted among men” (See: Declaration of Independence) and why the knee-jerk critics of government qua government are wrong. It warms my heretical heart to read cogent, well supported articles with titles such as “The case FOR Bureaucracy” and “How Govt. is Good for Business.”

Bashing government is the national pastime, not baseball. And yet, as I have written before, what people really dislike about government is based on either the effect of corporate interference in government or our own misunderstanding of the rule of law.

Most of the regulatory absurdity, wasteful spending, and foreign policy blundering is the result of legislators being dependent upon corporate charity to run their reelection campaigns. On a personal level, we’d all like the law to let us do what we want to do, while preventing our neighbors from doing those annoying things that they want to do. There is a necessary symmetry to the law. You are supposed to be treated equally to the person you most despise. As Professor Amy points out, we are peeved when we deal with a bureaucrat who rigidly follows the rules, but we would be even more disturbed if that same bureaucrat had arbitrary power over us.

We are like fish in the sea, not noticing the water that sustains us. Professor Amy points out the water and its life-giving properties. It is refreshing.

The second site is BAGnews Notes, subtitled “How Politicians and the Media Spin Political Pictures.” This site chronicles and comments upon the use of images in the media, particularly political images. I find this fascinating and important because the most effective bias is the bias of background. Making a direct statement imperils the propagandist, because a direct statement can be fact-checked. The insinuation of a cleverly selected photograph is harder to confront.

The BAGnews home page presently has photos from recent Tea Party rallies, President Obama’s nuclear materials control summit, and the riots in Kyrgyzstan. All have something to say, more powerful for the absence of text. BAGnews provides the text, often an invitation to analysis as much as analysis itself.

I’m going to be frequenting these sites, and I hope you do as well.