I know the Irish famine was long ago and far away, but it’s still especially galling to me when someone with an Irish surname believes that the poor need the “incentive” of hunger and homelessness to make them go to work. But Paul Ryan’s “poverty” speech in Ohio yesterday amounted to that. He echoed what the English said when they continued to export food out of Ireland while a million Irish starved to death.

What, then, were the ideologies that held the British political élite and the middle classes in their grip, and largely determined the decisions not to adopt the possible relief measures outlined above? There were three in particular-the economic doctrines of laissez-faire, the Protestant evangelical belief in divine Providence, and the deep-dyed ethnic prejudice against the Catholic Irish to which historians have recently given the name of ‘moralism’.

Laissez-faire, the reigning economic orthodoxy of the day, held that there should be as little government interference with the economy as possible. Under this doctrine, stopping the export of Irish grain was an unacceptable policy alternative, and it was therefore firmly rejected in London, though there were some British relief officials in Ireland who gave contrary advice.

The influence of the doctrine of laissez-faire may also be seen in two other decisions. The first was the decision to terminate the soup-kitchen scheme in September 1847 after only six months of operation. The idea of feeding directly a large proportion of the Irish population violated all of the Whigs’ cherished notions of how government and society should function. The other decision was the refusal of the government to undertake any large scheme of assisted emigration. …

… There was a very widespread belief among members of the British upper and middle classes that the famine was a divine judgment-an act of Providence-against the kind of Irish agrarian regime that was believed to have given rise to the famine. The Irish system of agriculture was perceived in Britain to be riddled with inefficiency and abuse. According to British policy-makers at the time, the workings of divine Providence were disclosed in the unfettered operations of the market economy, and therefore it was positively evil to interfere with its proper functioning. …

… Finally, we come to ‘moralism’-the notion that the fundamental defects from which the Irish suffered were moral rather than financial. Educated Britons of this era saw serious defects in the Irish ‘national character’-disorder or violence, filth, laziness, and worst of all, a lack of self-reliance. This amounted to a kind of racial or cultural stereotyping. The Irish had to be taught to stand on their own feet and to unlearn their dependence on government.

Of course, the biggest reason so many Irish had been reduced to living on little else but potatoes — and on nothing when the potato crops failed — was that the upper classes had rigged the system to keep the Irish Catholic peasants from ever being upwardly mobile.

Back to Paul Ryan — Ed Kilgore wrote,

In other words, Medicaid and food stamps will be block-granted, which in the former case will (along with the repeal of ObamaCare) eliminate health insurance for 31 to 37 million poor people, and in the latter eliminate food assistance for a mere 10 million. And since Medicaid, food stamps and the earned-income-tax-credit (extremely unlikely to survive a Romney administration attack on “tax loopholes”) were key working-poor supports underlying welfare reform, it’s unlikely welfare reform will exactly thrive, either.

And so, the entire Romney/Ryan “poverty” strategy is basically to consign poor people to the bracing independence of relying on an unimaginable boom in jobs that will supposedly be produced by tax and spending cuts.

See also Eight Things To Know Before Paul Ryan’s Speech On Poverty.

New TV ad for the swing states. I think it’s good.

Jennifer Rubin says that President Obama did too go around apologizing for America. Don’t remember that? It helps to understand that “apologizing for America” is another way to say “assuring the world that the George W. Bush administration was over.”

Liberals don’t even see that Obama’s excoriating his predecessor is apologizing for this nation, but of course it is. George W. Bush wasn’t acting as a private citizen, and whatever he actions he took were done in the name of the United States.

As Kevin Drum says, “This pretty much mocks itself, doesn’t it? In any case, Jimmy Carter will certainly be glad to hear that conservatives plan to stop criticizing all the actions he took in the name of the United States.”

See also Paul Waldman.

While I’m still waiting for someone else to notice that Paul Ryan appears to think the modern U.S. Navy commissioned fleet includes battleships — it doesn’t — the Daily Caller has “fact checked” the President’s assertion that the military has less need for horses and bayonets these days.

Wrong, says the DC.

“Obama snarked that “we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed.”

“But horses and bayonets both remain vital parts of the U.S. arsenal.”

Horses? I tried to find out how many horses are owned by the Department of Defense these days. And yes, there still are cavalry horses. I learned there is a small ceremonial horse cavalry detachment that is part of the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood. And here they are:

Yes, I can see that the modern military would be crippled without horses.

The Daily Caller recalls that some of the Special Forces in Afghanistan commandeered and rode some local horses at one point in October 2002, but to conclude from that that horses are “a vital part of the U.S. arsenal” is, um, a stretch. And as I recall, they weren’t even our horses.

As far as bayonets are concerned, I defer to John Cole —

Yes, Petunia. A couple hundred special forces guys rode horses in Afghanistan, basically because you can’t take an M1A2 or Hummer up the Khyber pass. Likewise, the Marines do still do carry bayonets (as does the Army!), but I don’t recall the last bayonet charge. The number of combat troops carrying bayonets is a small fraction than the 3.5 million grunts we had in WW1 wearing pith helmets and dying in bayonet charges and mustard gas. Likewise, there were tens of thousands of horses in WW1 in combat, there were a few in Afhanistan.
These people are just insane.

So it’s a plain fact that we do have fewer horses and bayonets, although there are some horses and bayonets. No battleships, though.

See also:

“Eagerly awaiting Romney’s plan to make up our shortfall in Naval Colliers.”

“‘Horses and Bayonets,’ ‘Clear Eyes,’ and ‘Battleships’ at Final Romney-Obama Debate”

“Weaponry on the Cutting Edge“

Last night was the final episode of the reality series “Big Bird, Binders, and Bayonets.” I came away thinking that the President was much more knowledgeable and coherent, but that it wasn’t as decisive as I would have liked. But the fallout says otherwise. The Right is visibly dispirited. The best Brett Stephens of the Wall Street Journal could say is that Mittens would make a “perfectly plausible” President. Basically, he didn’t have a psychotic break and accuse Grandpa Bob of putting ants in the porridge, so he’ll do.

The less stable elements of the Right are not so cautious. Glenn Beck tweeted, “I am glad to know that mitt agrees with Obama so much. No, really. Why vote?” Other tweets show righties going through the five stages of grief.

Charles Pierce:

It was early in the proceedings here on Monday night when I was struck with a horrible vision. It may have been right about that moment in the final presidential debate when Willard Romney — who, for most of the past two years, has been the most bellicose Mormon since they disbanded the Nauvoo Legion — looked deeply into the camera’s eye and, inches from actual sincerity, said, “We can’t kill our way out of this mess.” Or, perhaps, it was when, in a discussion of his newfound dedication to comprehensive solutions to complex problems, he announced his devotion to “a peaceful planet,” or when he cited a group of Arab scholars in support of loosening the grip of theocratic tyranny in the Middle East.

It was the horrible vision of John Bolton in four-point restraints.

Today, the President said Romney suffers from “stage three Romnesia.” See also the “Abbreviated Pundit Roundup” at Daily Kos.

The “horses and bayonets” line is the most talked-about part of the debate. This morning Paul Ryan said he didn’t understand the “bayonets” reference. He was not wearing a T-shirt that said “Because I am a moron,” but he might as well have, because most of the rest of the nation seems to have got it.

[Update: Ryan’s comment was even dumber than I had realized. Ryan said that “to compare modern American battleships and Navy with bayonets, I just don’t understand that comparison.” He thinks we still use battleships?]

(BTW, my dad really was in the horse cavalry, at Fort Riley, nearly 75 years ago. After Pearl Harbor the horses were put out to pasture and the cavalrymen reassigned. My dad ended up being an airplane mechanic. Notice that since then all the battleships have been put out to pasture, too, so to speak. I’m surprised Mittens doesn’t want to bring them back.)

Let us now look at the horse race overall. I keep running into news stories that say Romney is still surging, but Sam Wang and Nate Silver have both been saying the surge stalled and began to recede about a week ago. This morning’s tracking polls have Obama in the lead with the exception of Gallup, which has been an outlier lately. But there is no better indicator that Mitt’s recent surge has stopped than the fact righties are starting to fall back on poll denial again (or, at least, Nate Silver denial).

Join us here tonight for running commenting on the last debate.

Update: An omen? Romney blimp crashes.

Well, it’s time, folks. Wish us luck. I’m glad there aren’t any more of these. They wear me out.

* They are back to the blue and red ties, like the first debate. oh noes!

MIDDLE EAST

Part One: Libya

Mittens; Stuff in the Middle East is bad.

Ah Hah. Moderate Mitt is back. We can’t kill our way out of this.

The President: What we are doing.

Romney needs to be pressed to explain what he would do.

The President is recalling the stuff Romney has said over the last few months.

Yes, Mittens, he was accurate.

Mittens is lying about what he said in the past. He’s being the Mitt from the first debate.

Syria

NOW Mitt doesn’t want to go to war with anybody. He’s saying exactly what the President said. Please, ask him what he would do differently.

Mittens seems to think we can replace governments whenever and wherever we like.

I think Obama is hampered by the fact that he understands there are limits to what the United States can do. Mittens doesn’t get that.

Richard Adams: “Funny, for all the Republican rhetoric about what US foreign policy should be in the Middle East, here Mitt Romney is all about bringing everyone together in Syria, holding meetings and so on. Flow charts, maybe? This all sounds suspiciously milque-toast and leading from behindy. He’ll be going to the UN security council next.”

NEWS FLASH! Mittens is in favor of world peace! He’ll be competing for Miss World next.

OMG; he’s blaming American weakness on the debt.

AMERICA’S ROLE IN THE WORLD

Mittens is doing his best to bring the debate back to domestic issues.

OMG; he’s going through his five-point economic plan again. DRINK NOW.

How do you think it is going? To someone who really isn’t knowledgeable I suspect it’s just … confusing. A wall of words.

FYI: Massachusetts has ranked at the top of the education systems for decades. It’s a liberal state full of people willing to pay taxes to support good schools.

Here we go. Mittens is going to scuttle Obamacare to pay for a bigger military.

I think Obama is scoring on this section.

Mittens: Trust me. I’m a businessman.

Fewer horses and bayonets. We have submarines now. Hah! We’re not playing a game of battleship. SCORE.

It’s like the first debate but with roles switched. Mittens is saying how he’d do everything just like the President.

Mittens is struggling to keep smiling.

THE APOLOGY TOUR! Smack him down, Mr. President!

The centrifuges of death are spinning!

Smack him, Mr. President! I think Mittens just looks pathetic.

Mittens is getting irritated. Push him! He blows his cool easily.

AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN

NOW Romney is saying he will withdraw from Afghanistan by 2014. He is saying Afghanistan is successful.

Mittens: Pakistan is important! Brilliant.

Drones. Mittens won’t attack the President on drones, although that’s one thing he could be attacked on.

Is it almost over?

CHINA

Mittens, clue: Government underwrites most of the research that leads to scientific and technological breakthroughs.

Now he’s claiming he wouldn’t have hurt the car industry.

INTERRUPT HIM, DAMMIT!!!

This debate probably won’t help or hurt either candidate that much, but overall I think the President was sharper and firmer than Romney, who was flustered and, well, lied. And he’s going to be called on some of this stuff. Expect some scrutiny of what Mittens just said about the auto industry, which was a flat-out lie.

Now for what we’ve all been waiting for — what does Chris Matthews think?

I’ll say one thing — these debates have been moderated by two (old) men and two women, and the women KICKED ASS. The men appeared to struggle to stay awake. Bob Schieffer was a notch less passive than Jim Lehrer, IMO, but neither one did all that well, and the questions generally were lame.

Update: I see that Obama has won about four flash polls. So I’m going to bed; see you tomorrow. Keep talking if you’re up to it!

Mitt’s foreign policy expertise:

This one hasn’t gotten much attention, but I kind of like it: