Wow

Wow, we haven't updated in a long long time.

That kind of sucks.

Unfortunately, I really won't be able to post more of an update for about another 3 weeks.

A Quick Update

We haven't posted anything in a month and a half, but we're still here.

Here's a quick thought that's been running through my head:

I have a little saying that I've been using recently. I'm not sure where I got it, but I doubt I'm this creative. It goes like this: Democracy means sometimes you lose.

My point in using it is to suggest that we have to separate out our lower level politics from our high level politics. If we are truly democrats, as I think most Americans are, we have to accept that good democratic process will sometimes produce political outcomes that we disagree with--and that our personal political ends are not always realized is not a fault of democracy, but rather one of its strengths.

But if we take the statement a bit more seriously for a moment, what does it tell us about, say, institutional design? Does it imply that we ought to design institutions such that the losers in normal politics find their loss acceptable? Would it require some form of supermajoritarianism for all issues?

hmmm.

Holy Crap! Bill Frist Reads the News-Leader!

The News-Leader published this "reader letter" a week ago:

On March 2, the Senate approved legislation placing tight restrictions on the purchase of cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, the ingredients used to manufacture methamphetamine. As News-Leader reporters have found, methamphetamine has done tremendous damage throughout the Ozarks.

While some states, including Missouri, already have laws that restrict the sales of medicines that contain meth ingredients, many don't, allowing drug users to cross state lines and purchase unlimited supplies. The federal legislation will close this loophole.

Under the new law, which Missouri's Sen. Jim Talent introduced and advocated for in the Senate, cold medicines containing meth ingredients will be placed behind the counter or in a locked cabinet. People seeking to purchase these products will have to show identification and sign a log book. While law-abiding citizens will still be able to purchase up to 300 typical 30mg cold medicine tablets a month, drug users seeking to use the medication to cook meth will see their plots foiled.

This law should have a particularly significant impact on Springfield: last year, Missouri led the nation in methamphetamine lab seizures while my home state of Tennessee had the dubious honor of coming in second. By helping the Senate pass a tight, tough national methamphetamine law, Jim Talent has made a real difference for Springfield residents and for our country.

Bill Frist, M.D., Majority Leader, United States Senate

Thanks, Bill! You do your best to get Jimmy Boy re-elected. I like how he's still so proud of that M.D. that he puts it before "Majority Leader, United States Senate."

The good news is that with the Republican party image tarnished nationally due to the incompetent leadership of the Prez, and the party's incompetent management in Missouri, it seems likely to me that Talent could be thrown out on his ass with the rest of them.

Here's hoping at least.

To clarify

I really only have two policy concerns.

First, is affirmative action programs. Lots of people think these are unjustifiable in any case, but I can't agree. My hope for this country--for the world really--is that we realize Dr. King's dream: that one day, men will be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. The problem is that we're not there yet. And there's good reason to think that if we don't act to make a difference now, then we may never reach that point. Affirmative action programs are designed to get us there by ensuring that a person's achievement is not limited by societal prejudice. And we accomplish that by distributing goods based on race.

Even my description there is muddied and unclear. But can affirmative action be justified in this way? Is it acceptable to distribute goods based on race?

Second, what about proportional representation? PR is supposed to ensure minority representation. It is my understanding that PR originated as a way of ensuring different economic classes would be guaranteed representation in various European parliaments. Of course, minority does not have to mean economic class, or ethnic or racial minority--it can also mean political minority, i.e. people who maintain political views that are on the margains--the Greens and the Libertarians, for example. So, PR can be repurposed from its oringal goals for and justified for reasons unconnected to group rights.

But I would worry that it's vulnerable to attack.

That's about all I can come up with off the top of my head.

I think you're mostly correct, but it is a very troublesome area since conceptions of group rights have been accepted in a lot of different ways. To give examples, again, of what we talked about, group rights conceptions range from believing that ethnic groups have a right to an independent country to the belief that proportional representation is a better electoral system because it allows lower classes or women to gain seats in parliament to believing that racial or ethnic minorities deserve preferential treatment in admission to college.

Part of my problem is that I'm for some policies that are based on group rights. But I simultaneously have a strong dislike of group rights based on my internal norms regarding individualism and legal equal protection. In short, that all men are created equal.

So, my next question is then how can we separate out policies based on group rights? Can we tidy up our thinking regarding groups rights?

Group Rights

I was thinking about our group rights conversation the other day.
The idea of rights vesting within groups, instead of within individuals, is dangerous for multiple reasons.
As I said in our conversation, I think one of the greatest dangers posed by the idea of group rights is that the rights cannot be universalized without extremely negative consequences. On its face, the notion that certain people should be entitled to rights simple because of their membership within a subset of the larger population seems to be extremely minority friendly. That minority groups could get advantages vis a vis the majority population could help those groups achieve parity with the majority. However, attempting to universalize this concept though would mean that a given majority group should also get the same rights as the minority. This appears to destroy the concept of special protections, in the form of rights, of minority groups, leading to a balkanization of societies.

Another reason why the concept is dangerous is because the concept of group rights begs the question as to how to define a given group. There are Catholics all over the world, but are American Catholics, Latin American Catholics, Southeast Asian Catholics, African Catholics, and European Catholics alike enough to justify special group rights vesting in "Catholics"? Or are other differences within the broad group of "Catholics" worthy of protection? How the questions of group affliation and identity are defined are extremely important and difficult, such that to attempt to vest rights within a specific "group" seems inordinately difficult to me. A simple answer would be to let groups define themselves, but doing so wouldn't account for differences within groups that could lead to propagation of discriminations based on differences within those groups. I am not sure, and I could do the research on this, but I believe the federal legal structure dealing with American Indians allows for registered Indian tribes to define the members of their tribes how the tribes choose. This could lead to, and I believe has based on a hazy memory of a news article to the same end, situations in which economically and politically enfranchised majorities within tribes could define out members of the tribe, such that for federal legal purposes those disenfranchised members of the group no longer are able to avail themselves of whatever special benefits come from being a member of the tribe. However, as I stated, I am unsure as to the legality of such a move. I am just attempting to use the hypothetical to highlight definitional problems with groups as another problem inherent within the concept of "group rights".

We can talk more about this later.

Declare Victory, Move On

Just a quick thought about the WAR ON TERROR!!!!

(capitals and exclamation points necessary to show how this is used in politics)

Here's what I'd like to see the next Democratic president do with the War on Terror: Declare Victory and Move On.

The long and the short of it is that the United States will likely always be a target for some crazies. We can't stop that through the use of our military against nation states or substantial portions of states.

We do need to support and encourage democracy and democratic transitions around the world. It's just not likely to be successful if we use our military to do it. I actually do think that the lack of democracy in the Middle East is a contributing factor in the existence of Arab and Muslim terrorist groups.

Here's the thing though: even if the entire Middle East democratized, someone somewhere would want to kill us. You and I know, however, that no one can really destroy the United States.

So, what we need to do is jettison this rhetoric of war and the policies that accomany it. But with that we have to explain that we will do everything that is right to do in order to keep people from blowing Americans up.

What's wrong with this position? Anything?

A few thoughts

These are just a few thoughts that have been running around my head for a few days.

1. Our colleges and universities are not dominated by liberals, but it is quite possible for conservatives to feel that they are under attack when they get into a classroom. This is for a very simple reason:

Conservatives believe stupid shit.

For example, there is a right wing nut job in my class on constitutional design. He was angered a couple weeks ago when the Professor was discussing whether or not it is important that a country chooses to include a mention of religion or God in a preamble to a constitution. Apparently, the dipshit thought the Professor was trying to argue that the U.S. is not a Christian nation, which besides being entirely irrelevant to the actual discussion, is a perfect example of the stupid shit that conservatives believe.

A second example comes from said winger, who, in the same discussion, became angry because I characterized the United States as a 'democracy' and not a 'republic.' Of course, I quickly reminded him that there is no difference between the two. See October of 2005 for my history with that argument.

2. Let me now clear up that argument about republics and democracies. First, my understanding from a political science standpoint is that there are really only two regime types: authoritarianism and democracy. Those can be the only two types of government, or possibly conceived of as opposite extremes on a continuum of possible government types.

In any case, authoritarianism is generally defined by a lack of effective popular control. Democracy, on the other hand, can be thought of as having three essential elements: a) free, fair, and regular elections; b) inclusion of all groups or individuals in the political processes and civil society; and c) legal (and effective) protections for civil rights and civil liberties, especially freedom of conscience and freedom of association.

What is noticeably missing from this definition is representation. Of course, there are subtypes of democratic regime types. So, it is possible that the free, fair, and regular elections are not for representatives but for referenda, propositions, or other forms of direct participation. Alternatively, the elections can select representatives who will later make policy. In other words, the above definition works for both direct democracy and representative democracy.

And "representative democracy" is precisely what most people mean when they say 'republic.' Thus, 'republic' is a subtype of 'democracy,' and all republics are democracies.

It is now important to note that, to the best of my knowledge, there is no direct democracy existing in the world. So, although there is a theoretical subset of "democratic regimes" that are direct democracies, no such democracies exist, and therefore, in reality all democracies are representative democracies or 'republics'.

Thus, all democracies are republics, and all republics are democracies. Hence, there is no difference between a republic and a democracy.

3. The nutjob in my class is the type of person who wants the U.S. to be a republic because he is a Republican. That is another example of stupid shit that conservatives believe.

4. Electoral systems: One argument for Proportional Representation is that it allows political parties to mirror the beliefs of the public, and therefore increases representation. One argument for a first past the post system is that it produces majoritarian governments, i.e. there is one party that is a clear winner and controls the government, and therefore FPTP systems produce more effective government. These two arguments are supposed to be opposed to each other such that PR produces better representation, but less effective government and FPTP produces the reverse--better government but worse representation.

To me, this is a fatal to FPTP. After all, it is not at all clear that our government is more effective for having a single party control a majority in the House or the Senate.

The argument for FPTP, however, often goes that it forces the contending parties to moderate their positions in order to appeal to the widest plurality possible in order to win elections. This is wrong for at least two reasons.

First, FPTP, under normal conditions has a tendency to produce two party systems. This occurs when there are no geographically concentrated interests that cannot be appealed to through general policy goals, and when parties can be relatively strong, i.e. there are high barriers to entry for new parties. Under a two party system, the voter is manipulated by the electoral system in so far as an individual voter is presented with only two options, and they have to decide which the lesser evil.

The point is that even if a particular candidate did not try to "move to the center" in order to appeal to a wide audience, many people would still vote for that candidate because the opposition would look worse.

Second, even when candidates do try to build coalitions before an election in order to establish broad support, there is no protection for those interests after the election. In FPTP systems that produce single party majorities in a congress or parliament, after the candidate has your vote and his party is in the majority, there is no effective check on the party enacting its agenda in congress. Put simply, a candidate may say one thing during the campaign but do another when sitting in Congress.

PR, on the other hand, when it produces multiple parties, ensures that no one party can control congress and unilaterally enact its agenda. Thus, there is a check on a party that would seek to lie to the public in order to get elected.

Just a thought.

New v. Old Progressive Politics, Its called vision...

Jackasses.

Over at the Tpmcafe. there is this article titled In Praise of Illinois.
The article talks about how the progressive "agenda" is "alive and well" in the States. The article also exemplifies the problem with certain members of the left. And by certain members, I mean those that are dragging us down in the "vision" front. What is the problem with the article? Well while the article details admirable policies that have been implemented in Illinois by Blagojevich, the whole thing smacks of the typical old buffet style interest group politics that have consistently failed the left over the past 40 years. Where is the overarching vision? Where is the easily repeatable meme that allows the masses, myself included, to easily explain why we are democrats. I am sorry but I am never going to say: WEll, I am a blagojevich Democrat, He "passed legislation to bring all state workers under federal anti- discrimination laws, voluntarily waiving the state's "sovereign immunity" to counteract bad Supreme Court "states rights" decisions."

Even though I agree with that act, it is a dumb way to go about doing things. Here is another example of what I mean about this failed type of politics. In fact, this is what belies the type of politics it is.

"To protect patient care and ease the burden on overworked nurses..."
And then later
"Limited english speakers were protected in their rights to talk in Spanish"

See, if you like nurses, vote for us! If you like Spanish, vote for us! Rather than developing a cohesive vision about how the country should operate, lets just offer a mish mash of policies that people like! and then when those people realize we support that one little policy they like, they will vote for us right! Yeah! Right! no really, yeah, right....

If the national democratic party, and jackasses like the author of that piece grew a pair, they might realize that there is no reason to wonder why poor midwesterners like those morons over in Kansas vote Troglodyte when the Democratic party supports their economic interests. The fact of the matter is economics don't mean a damn thing to Kansans, but the wholesale slaughter of fetuses does mean something. The reason the Republicans are able to succeed there, despite the obvious economic "incentives" people have to vote Dem? They have an apparently cohesive vision and message that appeals to those upset about abortion. We can either 1) change the debate on abortion by developing a cohesive alternative vision and begin selling said vision, or 2) stop worrying about what's the matter with kansas. (not the book though, good book, I am using the title here for the post modern pop culture reference and just a touch of irony.)

Grocery List Politics don't work, and we need to quit using that style. In a perfect world, morons who do use that style would be subjected to beatings and torture. But we cannot all have the power of Bush!

As one final note, I wonder who super jackass who came up with that "Limited english speakers were protected in their rights to talk in Spanish" phrase. Sure, "english only" requirements for a job might some bothersome but do you really want to call up the say, Police dispatcher and get someone who doesn't speak english. Frankly, the phrase is retarded because it is pretty well assumed that everyone has the right to talk in whatever language they want in this country. It is a right that doesn't need protecting, hell it might not even be a right as much as a practical reality. It is also a practical reality that certain jobs would be almost impossible and businesses could be hurt by not having an english speaker, native or otherwise, in that position. This last little piece encapsulates the problem with the old style of politics. Here you have a questionable at best policy coupled with idiotic counter intuitive rhetoric. We really need a good party purge. Get those morons out, get smart people in.

School Vouchers and Issue Framing

A report was recently released which tends to show that students are private schools are not getting a better education than students at public schools. This report naturally calls into question the utility of school vouchers and conservative plans for our public school system.

But that is not the real problem.

The thing that really gets me is the false dichotomy that conservatives have forced on us regarding schools. Vouchers are a beautiful example of how framing the issue produces outcomes.

The rhetoric on the issue goes something like this: Schools aren't performing very well, based on some measure. In order to improve performance, you would have to bring every school with low funding up to the level of schools with high funding, which are the ones that do better, presumably. But more public funding won't help schools that don't perform well. The only other option is to introduce market-based reforms into the school system.

I recently noted a version of this argument in the The Daily Texan, the undergraduate student newspaper at the University of Texas:

Given the strong evidence that Texas education is in dire straights, the question then becomes, "How can we fix this broken system?" Our state's children are far too important to leave many of them languishing in poorly run and ineffective public schools. Some claim the solution lies in funding: If only the Texas government pours enough money into the insatiable education bureaucracy, our children will receive the education they deserve.

As the numbers indicate, this is a pipe dream that attempts to merely cover the gaping problems in our education system with green paper. The most logical solution is not to feed the bureaucratic beast but to train it and make it more limber by introducing market forces into public education and giving our lowest income families some control over their children's educational fate.

My italics.

The problem, of course, is that this is an entirely false dichotomy. The issue is framed such that the only two choices are "pouring more funding into the system" and "introducing market forces."

The most obvious reforms are excluded from the debate. I am not an education policy wonk, but it seems clear to me that there are a lot of things we can do to change the way the public school systems work, and improve them, without turning it over to markets. Very broadly, we could change the way schools use public money in order to ensure that is used as effectively as possible. We could change employment rules to ensure that bad teachers are weeded out. We could change how the school year is organized so that kids spend more time in school. And we could introduce public vocational training in the place of traditional high schools after the German model.

I have to give credit to a conservative friend of mine who inadvertently brought this to my attention. We were discussing the report released last week, and I wanted to deny the premise that schools are failing on the basis that private schools were doing no better. He naturally pointed out that American students compare poorly to students from other countries. The problem--for him--is that many of the countries that do better than us (likely) have robust public school systems that succeed even without market forces.

Thus, I would suggest that every one of us first get our heads out of the grooves created by the conservative framing of the issue, and second that we take a look around for ways to improve our schools that are related to neither significantly increased spending nor introducing markets.

The Daily Meme #1

I can't promise that it will actually be daily, but I am going to try to update regularly with short rhetorical blurbs.

Today's Issue: NSA Wiretaps.

The Problem: Requiring warrants on wiretaps between American Citizens and foreigners reduces the ability of the President to keep the country safe and secure.

We are neither safe nor secure when liberty is trampelled by the executive.

Nuclear Iran

First, I don't really know what to say about whether or not a Nuclear Iran is a good or bad thing for "american interests". Mostly because I don't know what the hell all the knee jerk washington types mean by that. Do they mean that if Iran is nuclear we won't be able to invade Iran sometime later without running the risk of a nuclear strike? Do they mean that a Nuclear Iran will be a more aggressive nation in the future, less susceptible to American pressure? Either way, talk about what is in or not in our interests seems somewhat silly on this point. I can develop this more later, which means I probably won't cause I will forget about it.

What I really wanted to talk about today is the fact that Israel is apparently preparing for some type of military action against Iran's nuke program. Not being a smart man on one of the coasts, or more specifically the only one that matters for U.S. foreign policy, the East Coast, I fail to see how this type of action by Israel, if it happens or it is threatened, is not a "threat to international peace and security", falling within the definition of types or problems the U.N. Security Council is supposed to deal with. There will probably be a lot of talk about the supposed failure of the U.N. in addressing the "problem" of Iran's nuke program. However, all that talk will be wrong headed because the U.N. hasn't necessarily failed simply because it did not reach a solution to the "problem". Just because some U.N. members, namely, Russia and China, have refused to allow the Security Council to address the "problem" doesn't mean the U.N. has failed. Analoguously the U.S. Senate doesn't "fail" every time a bill gets filibustered by political parties who disagree with the bill. My point would be that "failure" of the U.N. is a political failure on the part of the participants in the Security Council, NOT a failure of the institution itself. The inability of the members of the Security Council to address the problem together means those members should find ways to work together better, not that the institution should be scrapped. Americans all too often, and by americans I mean the political leadership and cognizenti in Washington and New York, believe that anytime the U.N. doesn't do exactly what we want it has "failed". That thinking is childish and moronic. Do Mom and Dad "fail" their children every time Mom and Dad refuse to let the children sit around eating cookies and McDonalds all day while the kids watch T.V. unsupervised?

Grow up America, and again when I say "america" I mean the Coastal Foreign Policy Elite.