I noted yesterday my evolving fascination with the increasingly counter-intuitive nature of the debate over nationalizing U.S. banks — in particular, the openness to this option expressed by a prominent Senate Republican and the outright endorsement of it by two free-market economists.

And now we learn that former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has added fuel to the fire:

”It may be necessary to temporarily nationalise some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring,” he said. “I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do.”

I expect this news will further destabilize the apoplectic commenters on my post yesterday, prompting them to offer additional unequivocal denunciations of the idea. I wonder, however, if they’ll finally drop from their denunciations the assignment of the idea to “lefties,” and recognize that, this time around, it’s a growing number of “righties” who are pushing the concept.

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One additional, albeit tangential note on this debate:

James Surowiecki (to whom I also linked yesterday) argues that we shouldn’t rush to nationalization despite the historic precedents from Sweden and Japan. As I recall, his argument hinges on the (at least partial) irrelevance of that history to our current situation.

It’s an argument worth discussing; however, what struck me about the argument was not its merit but its echo, namely: The argument by many conservatives today that history (primarily New Deal history) “proves” that the stimulus/recovery bill signed into law yesterday will fail/not produce the results Obama and Congressional Dems claim it will produce.

But if Surowiecki’s point is valid — i.e., that we should not over-rely on history to endorse the merits of nationalizing banks — it seems equally valid to suggest we should not over-rely on history to dismiss the potential merits of the current stimulus plan.

As on other subjects where I lack expertise, I don’t have definitive answers on this one, only questions that I think we should be asking and discussing in an intelligent, calm, reasonable manner, rather than hurling partisan bromides at each other.