Rethinking Abortion

With the upcoming fight for the next member of the Supreme Court, it is worth rethinking our position on abortion. Often Dems appear to just be in favor of abortion without having thought it through while Republicans have clear positions that are easily understandable and communicable.

I came across another blog here at blogspot in which the author asked individuals to provide justifications for their positions on abortion. I took him up on that challenge. Below is an edited version of what I wrote. I'll have some more comments after the quote. You can find the originals here.

First, it is important to understand that rights are not intrinsic in anything. It is certainly possible to have a democratic government that doesn't recognize any broad conception of rights. Take a look at ancient Athens.While we live in a democracy that recognizes rights, there are no such things as natural rights.

“Rights" are a shorthand for talking about legal positions and legal enforceability. When someone says they have a right to free speech that means the government is legally limited in the actions it may take regarding an individual’s speech. When someone says they have a right to life, that means that they cannot be deprived of their life without due process of law--and the only process sufficient is a murder (or treason) trial conducted under specific fair procedural requirements.

Those are just examples, but the point is that natural rights don't exist. Rights are dependent on the existence of a government willing to enforce them.

Second, abortion presents a conflict of rights. On one hand, we have a woman who has a constitutionally protected right to liberty in both the 5th and the 14th Amendments. On the other hand, we have a fertilized egg, an embryo, a fetus, or what may be a human life at any other stage of gestational development. Our government, through the Constitution was instituted to protect both liberty and life. In order to deprive someone of liberty it must be shown that government has a compelling interest in the goal for which it is depriving a person of liberty.

While some people may want the courts to decide when in course of human development a fetus becomes a person, that is not what is at issue in Roe and the Supreme Court’s other abortion decisions. The question is when does the state have a compelling interest in protecting the life of a fetus. Can we honestly say that government has a compelling interest at the time of conception?

I do not see any rational way to get to that point. A zygote or even a fertilized egg may be alive, though like Justice Blackmun I am unable to make that determination when so many people disagree. Even if it is 'alive,' how does that simple fact demand that it is protected in the same way a 5 year old child, or a 30 year old man, or a 70 year old woman is protected?

It is not even terribly likely that the fertilized egg will make it on its own. A lot of them just don't survive. Given the uncertainty, is it really true that the state has a compelling interest in ensuring that it remains alive?

Certainly, the life of a fetus becomes a compelling concern for the state at some point in the development of the child. I personally cannot imagine a rational distinction between a newborn infant and the same child still in the womb five minutes earlier. That is a matter of chance at most. The challenge is to determine at what point between these two extremes the government may begin to regulate abortion in order to protect the life of the fetus.

In the early stages of a pregnancy, a woman's liberty is a actual compelling interest while the life of a fetus or a zygote is only potential until it is recognizably similar to all those persons that we actually protect. This liberty interest is not small.

Consider simply that the statute at issue in Roe was designed to put the full force of the state's criminal law to work against doctors who performed abortions and women who had them. The government was not just going to tell them to stop; it was going to take them out of their houses and communities and place them in prisons. There is no clearer deprivation of liberty than this.

There is a second aspect of liberty at issue in the abortion debate—possibly a more serious problem. Banning abortion in effect uses the full power of the state to force women to undergo the strain and labor of pregnancy, of childbirth, and forces them to spend time, money, and effort until the child is fully grown and can fend for himself. This isn’t to be underestimated.

The liberty concerns here are enormous. The concern for the life of a fetus cannot immediately match the liberty concern at conception. Over time, as it develops into infant, the government’s concern for its life also develops. Thus, the point is not that a woman’s liberty in her pregnancy is unlimited—it can’t be—but neither can the state forcibly deprive her of that liberty until the concern for the child is compelling.

That is the correct balance. Early in a pregnancy, when there is nothing more than a fertilized egg, the state shouldn’t be able to regulate women from having abortions.

The only thing I have to add is that my position is almost exclusively derived from arguments made by Justice Blackmun in Roe v. Wade. It is worth a read, and everyone should really think through it to decide where, if at all, it was wrongly decided. That is why this post is entitled "Rethinking Abortion." It's rethinking it, but only in order to bring to the fore the arguments that already exist.

I personally believe Roe does strike the right balance. Under Roe some abortions are permissible, even for any reason such as emergency contraception. It takes seriously a woman's decision to become pregnant or not--and in doing so takes seriously the scope of what is at stake in a pregnancy. A woman cannot simply have a child. Pregnancy takes time and effort and money and support. If a woman thinks she cannot support a child, or cannot bear the costs and sacrifices of a pregnancy, then it may be the best decision for her not to have the child.

Let me finish by noting the conflict between that concern and parental notification statutes. Here in Texas, a minor must either notify her parents of her intent to have an abortion or, under very strict circumstances, can ask the courts to grant permission without parental notification. The judicial by-pass can only be trigger if the girl demonstrates that she is sufficiently mature and has considered all her choices.

On the face of it, that sounds like it might be acceptable. Unfortunately, a lot of these girls are 13 or 14 years old. There is no way that they can possibly be mature enough, especially in Texas. In one case here, a dissenting judge argued that the minor should not be granted a judicial by-pass to the parental notification requirement on the grounds that she was not mature enough to have an abortion. He reasoned that her immaturity was evidenced by her decision not to tell her parents.

If we are serious about the liberty of the woman being restricted by the burdens of pregnancy and child rearing, we must recognize that those burdens are bigger for younger girls. Teenage pregnancies can be so destructive to a girl's life. I don't think we want the government forcing children to have children. Let these girls decide to terminate their pregnancies so that they have the same chances at a normal life as everyone else.

Parental notification statutes should be subject to a higher scrutiny.

Good Catch, but

When are you going to put up the rest of the stuff we talked about the other day?

Do your edits and get it up!

Woot, sort of

Teddy Kennedy is on point in today's Washington Post.

He says,

The genius of their plan was obvious. If both the president and the Senate must agree on an appointment, there is a strong incentive to select people who can obtain a consensus in the nation and in the Senate. They spoke of the appointment power as a "joint" power, and that's what it's been for 218 years. "Joint" means cooperation and consultation and consensus. It means picking from a list of mainstream lawyers and judges who have demonstrated that they are dedicated to the Constitution and the rights it guarantees. It means avoiding candidates who would come to the court with personal, partisan or ideological agendas. It means ignoring the advice of those who prefer that the president pick fights with the Senate instead of picking judges with the Senate. It means taking seriously the "advice" part of "advice and consent" by sharing the names of prospective nominees with the leadership of both parties in the Senate, the Judiciary Committee, and other senators who will fairly reflect the balance of views in the Senate and the country.

and

The president should reject the pressure of the extreme factions of his party that want litmus tests for his nominee. This process shouldn't just be about whether the next justice would help roll back women's rights by overturning Roe v. Wade , the law of the land. It should be about something much more basic: protecting our core constitutional values for generations to come, the freedoms that we've fought for, bled for and died for. Because of Sandra Day O'Connor, the disabled are guaranteed access to our public courts. Teachers can't be fired for opposing discrimination against girls in our public schools. Patients can get a second opinion when an HMO tries to deny them care. Our water is cleaner and citizens can stop polluters who dump toxins into our waterways.

I like his characterization of the goal as "protecting our core constitutional values." That's great. It means sticking to precedent. It means protecting liberty in the 14th Amendment. It means maintaining our commerce clause doctrine.

Too bad the message had to come from Sen. Kennedy.

Don't Be

Such a defeatist crybaby.

Another side benefit of this is that as you have so aptly pointed out the major parties don't represent most americans. Which means we can use this issue to point out just how much the republicans do not represent most americans. Recently republicans have overreached on just about every issue. The Supreme Court nomination process only provides another chance for them to overreach. What is the possibility they actually will overreach? Very high, because of the fundamental nature of the Republicans.

In fact, Bush's speech today belies the type of overreaching the republicans will most likely attempt because Bush said that he wants a nominee confirmed before the next Court Session begins. This desire is underpinned by the assumption that O'Conner's resignation is effective immediately, which would only be nice if it were true. O'Conner explicitly said she is resigning as soon as her successor can be confirmed. So already you see that Bush is attempting to play mendacious semantic games to attempt to control the nomination process in the hopes of rushing someone like Scalia, or worse, through.

Furthermore, the republican party has a vision for america that is well outside the mainstream. Explicitly, they appear to want some type of pre-New Deal theocracy. The vast majority of americans don't want that type of government. However, within the Republican party, the ideologues demand action taken to impose their nutty vision of america on the rest of us, and if action isn't taken, the right explodes.

In this coming nomination fight, Bush will be placed between the wacky right and normal people. As the elections come ever closer, Senate republicans don't want to be put in a position of appearing to endorse the wacky right. This will be especially the case for Ohio Senator, and Judiciary Committe member, Mike DeWine who is up for reelection in 06. Given the current state of the Ohio Republican party and the current scandals in Ohio, DeWine could be ripe for a ton of pressure to break from his party. Now, I know NOTHING about Mike DeWine, he may not be in such a position, but if he isn't, we (meaning the Democrats) should put him there. Explicitly: Support the president and lose your seat, or support a moderate nominee and keep your seat.

I am sure this calculus of being able to cram a nutjob down the Senate's throat before the elections in an effort to get both the nutjob on the Court and to help protect the Senate Republicans from political fallout of approving said nutjob is driving Bush's stated desire to get a new Court member approved before the Court returns to session in October, despite the August recess.

This nomination fight also gives the Democrats a chance to move towards arguing for the type of inclusive representative democracy you spoke about earlier because the Constitution says that the president shall have the power "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate" to appoint Justices of the Supreme Court. Consequently, not only are we singularly situated to win an argument that "advice and consent" means real advice. We are also situated to argue that "the Senate" means the whole damn body, and not just the 55 person Republican majority. This was the argument we were beginning to make during the "nuculer" option crisis and that we were winning. Now, you are more familiar with political question doctrine than I am, and I mean the elements here, but I cannot see any court EVER interpreting Art. 2 Sec. 2 Clause 1. Which means that in this case, the Legislature, namely the Senate, and through their Senators, the people of this country, are going to get the opportunity to interpret what a section of the United States Constitution means.

Frankly, these are arguments we can win, we should win, and we must win.

Bah

We're boned.

That's pretty much my only thought right now.

There are a couple ways that this can turn out ok, though. First, if Rehnquist also steps down, at least we'll know what's at stake when it comes time to replace him. We need to fight for both spots, but if he retires, there is a certain flexibility in Dems ability to maintain the ideological balance of the court.

Second, and here's my fatalism: If Bush gets his ideological cronies on the court, then we might just see the constitutional crisis necessary for true reform to this country. When the Supreme Court tries to roll us back to 1791, the country won't stand for it, and we'll get some amendments out of it.

In light of recent events

I am going to hold off on responding to your posts about reforming the government. Also, I am just going to leave well enough alone in regards to your comments on TPMCafe, as I agree enough to not warrant further comment. I will briefly note that one thing I find particularly disgusting about TPMCafe is the air of haughty knowingness that pervades the discussion there. Yuck.

In your last post, you brought up Holmesian conceptions of democracy, but I instead want to focus on Holmesian conceptions of the law. I think it is imperative that the left begin to develop a legal philosophy that makes sense. I say this because I just turned off the CNN there and they were interviewing Robert Bork as to O'Conner's legacy. Bork said that she lacked a judicial philosophy and proceeded in typical right wing fascion (see it is "fashion, but looks like fascist, because that is what most of the modern right truly is, dang I am witty this morning. Really hungover, and dang witty!) to disparage Justice O'Conner's legal opinions. So in response to Bork, I thought it would be good to open up debate space on what is the a good counterweight to the right's, and specifically Bork's, "dead" constitution, originalistic philosophy. Naturally, given my predilection for good ol' OWH, I turned to his opinion in Missouri v. Holland. (just for you law nerds out there: 252 U.S. 416 (1920), although I don't have the pinpoint citation) In discussing the 10th amendment to the Constitution, Holmes states: "We must consider what this country has become in deciding what that amendment has reserved."

I think that lays a foundation for a modern left wing constitutional jurisprudence, except maybe change "amendment" to "constitution". I am also sure that many other people (read as "smarter" people) have arrived at this point and moved past it. However, I think your aforementioned "fetishization" of the constitution and the right's commitment to originalism shows that Holmes' point has not be political powerful, at least not recently. So I am proposing that we begin to discuss ways in which we can make this whole business politically viable. That said, I guess I will reluctantly put down the long desired read of the Central Asian history that I have, and dive headfirst into The Common Law. To paraphrase the Red Stripe advertisements: Hooray! Law!

Also: My predictions for the coming nomination fight(s)
First, I think it is highly likely that Renhquist will also retire soon. Which gives us 2 nominations to work with. Faced with 2 nominations, Bush is going to chortle with glee in that Roscoe P. Coltrane way, while Rove giggles on like Boss Hogg, except not cool. It needs to be stated outright to all national democratic party persons and our 2 maybe 3 readers:

YOU CANNOT TRUST THE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP OR WHITE HOUSE TO DEAL IN GOOD FAITH WITH YOU DURING THE COMING NOMINATION FIGHT.

That said, how will this proceed? How should the left proceed? Well, I heartly agree with Reid's proposal of a list of Republicans that the Democrats in the Senate will support for the high court. That said, don't expect Bush to pick one. Based solely on their track record, and his speech this morning, Bush will nominate whoever he wants and will not listen to ANY "advice" from the Senate, all the while DEMANDING the Senate's "consent". So Bush is going to nominate some nutjob. So in light of a likely Rehnquist resignation, how should we proceed? Give Bush a pass on one of his nutjobs, and fight the other one like hell, all the while proposing moderate republican or conservative democrats as alternatives that would make the fight "all just disappear."

We can win this. (and by win I mean preserve the current ideological balance of the court)

Well . . .

1. It's good because it creates a principled vision of how America should work that is distinct from tired and broken political issues. In part, it's new. In part, it says that we realize things aren't perfect, but we want to do our best to make sure that the views of all Americans have a place in government.

In part, I think it's good because the political middle is practical. They aren't ideologues and they're looking for government to help them make their lives a little better. They're not worried about ideas, but solutions.

Reforming legislative processes is about ensuring that people are actually represented in their government. This is who we are--we're the democratic party. It exposes Republicans who are ideologues. It exposes right wingers who only want to impose their beliefs on the whole of the nation--people who are more interested in their own power than doing what's best for the American people.

In a way, it comes back to a Holmesian conception of a democracy in which the structures of government allow robust political discourse and the people ultimately get to decide, even if we think they're wrong sometimes, and even if sometimes we lose. So, it says that we care about doing what the country wants more than we care about being in power. It's that we care about doing what the American people want, even if we can never control the entire government.

Update: I also think it is good because the polarization right now makes people feel excluded from the government. They're looking around and saying that this system doesn't represent them. It's a way to appeal to people--we're going to bring you back in, give you a say again.

That's part of the reason we started this blog: We're two guys from the Midwest and we're not seeing politicians appealing to what we believe in.

2. I'm not yet sure how to answer this one. My answer would be related to my belief that most people are in the center and are forced to split in favor of candidates who roughly approximate their beliefs at best. It is government for the people, and 'the people' aren't just 51% of the population. The people is the whole of the population. So, in order for a government to be truly democratic, it must be as inclusive as possible.

One of the problems I have had in expressing myself is that there can be an equivocation in the term 'anti-majoritarian.' I believe there exists a natural majority in the middle. That people in the center of the bell curve pretty much agree on most issues. Our system is designed to be against that majority. It's more representative of the extremes than of the actual majority. That's the polarization story, isn't it? So, inclusivity is good because it reaches across the artificial divide created by winner-take-all elections.

Okay

I think I understand a little bit better now, but you are begging a couple of questions:

1) Why is espousing electoral reform in this manner beneficial to the Democratic party, now and in the future?

2) Why is inclusivity an inherent good? You seem to be assuming it is, and not explaining that point. You kind of mention the whole "government for the people" business, but don't really develop it fully.

Deez Nutz!

A Quick Restatement

The Senate may have been an effective manner of countering the will of the majority at the time of ratification. The founders were rightly concerned about citizens being more loyal to their home state and prejudiced against individuals from other states.

But regional factionalism died. I can't pinpoint when, but it did. The Civil War helped, and so did New Deal and the rise of the national economy, and so did the Civil Rights movement. Today, we are a uniform nation and not a federation of sovereign states.

The Senate was designed to stop majorities that wanted to harm people from a different region. We don't have that problem anymore. The problem we have reflects the nation we have. Our nation has specific problems that affect everyone equally, but which we differ on how to address. It really is about politics and not region.

But the Senate doesn't reflect that.

Eh, this post is half-baked. I can't seem to get it out.

Clearing some things up.

I started using shorthand below. It wasn't clear, so let me try again. In part, what I was writing was a thought process. That's why it wasn't clear--I was still thinking through it myself.

Let's start at what may be the end and work backwards.

We have a representative democracy. One could call it a republic, I suppose, but the term democracy is important. In a direct democracy, the people themselves legislate. In ancient Athens, that meant that 6000 citizens got together in one place, anyone could propose legislation, and policy was decided by vote.

Our country is still a democracy, but in place of the 6000 citizens, we have elected representatives. Our representatives stand in for us in the legislative project. Instead of us making the laws, they do it for us.

The democratic aspects of our federal government are not in the elections we hold every two years, but in the actual legislative process. Any democracy, however, can be tyrranical, i.e. if an unchecked majority exercises its legislative power to the detriment of a minority.

Democracy itself does not mean majority rule. To be simple, it is government by and for the people. The second part of that statement implies that whatever government is formed must be as inclusive as possible. This is what I was saying about the parties representing specific positions on a political spectrum. Government for the people can't rationally mean "government for the 51% of the people who voted." That is unrepresentative and undemocratic precisely because it excludes a large portion of the people.

Most people fall into the middle of the political spectrum, and they have to split in an election between two groups that don't really reflect their actual beliefs.

We can drop all the issues with the electoral structures from my analysis, except as historical artifacts. Let me explain: The writers of the basic constitution--not the Bill of Rights or other amendments--were worried about the House of Representatives running amok with democratic fever. They were afraid that the House, as a purely representative body, could become tyrranical--that a majority could control it and harm minorities. In order to counter the tyrrany of the majority, they had to institute specifically anti-majoritarian provisions. They chose to do this by creating the Senate which is not proportionally representative.

It is important to think of the Senate as existing for a reason. When we ask what that reason is, we find that it exists to check the majoritarian design of the House. The crucial point, however, is that we don't need the Senate to do that. We can build anti-majoritarian government (and thus achieve democratic inclusivity) in other ways.

Let me try to clear up what I mean by majoritarian and anti-majoritarian. A governmental structure is majoritarian insofar as it favors the interests of a majority, regardless of the size of the majority, through any means, including through assigning governmental power based on the whim of a shifting polity. A structure is anti-majoritarian if it seeks to limit the will of such a majority and provides protection for minorities who may be out of power for just a moment.

It is clear that the Senate is intended to be anti-majoritarian. Membership of the Senate is not connected to the desires of the majority. Imagine what would happen if each state had three people living in it, except Kansas, and Kansas had 300 million people. In our federal structure, the interests of Kansas would represent the majority, but Kansas would only have 2 votes in the Senate, and the other 49 states could counter Kansas's control of the House.

The House tends to be majoritarian, as should be clear from the example.

So, that's our federal scheme as we have it. What's odd, however, is that our actual legislative processes are purely majoritarian If you consider the House and Senate as direct democracies for a moment, you see that there aren't any anti-majoritarian protections. Both the House and Senate are subject to the tyrranical whims of the majority of their members.

If you take a look at direct democracies, the problem of the tyrrany of the majority arises in the legislative process. That's what we're really concerned about--how the laws are made, not how individuals are selected for office. It seems to me that our founding fathers thought that the method of selecting officers would cure the tyrrany of the majority that arises during actual legislation. This is fallacious.

And furthermore, the structure as it is designed is problematic because the majority of the anti-representative Senate has the same power as the majority of the representative House. A majority of the Senate can represent a tiny majority of the population. Consider the Kansas hypothetical above. In that situation, 147 citizens (3 per 49 states) would have more legislative clout than 300 million. If the 98 senators from the 3 person states didn't want to go along with the House, there wouldn't be anything the House could do about it.

Hm, this could almost be called 'overinclusive,' but that term already means something.

In any case, my point below was to suggest that we need to create inclusive anti-majoritarian protections in the legislature for the simple reason that that is where the action is.

Hope that helps.

Some Thoughts

I am still trying to collect responses to your two latest huge posts. But here is something I have been thinking about lately.

Has the politicization of the military hurt recruiting? Of course, one can take issue with whether or not the military is politicized, but given the recent scandal at the Air Force Academy regarding fundamentalist christians, and the Republican insistence in 2000 that the military vote would swing Florida for them, I think there is evidence that the military is politicized for the republican party. So the point is, what patriotic liberal would want to serve in such a military? Versus republicans, liberals are much more committed to sacrifice, remember conservatives are the ones always bitching about having to pay for the society in which we live through taxes. Many liberals are committed to the idea of service as well. So the question remains as to whether or not the politicization of the military has hurt recruiting.

Personally, I think it has, and I think it will continue to hurt recruiting.

Democracy with a Side of Social Responsibility

What strikes me lately is how normal "social" issues aren't selling. Higher minimum wages, which would help millions of people aren't pulling in the votes. And while Bush's privatization plans aren't popular, neither is an expanded social safety net. There may be play in that idea though depending on actual programs proposed.

So, here's my suggestion: democratic reforms.

At this point, neither party represents a majority of Americans. They just don't. The parties represent specific points on a spectrum of political beliefs. The people, however, fill every other point on that spectrum

Call it polarization. Call it partisanship. Call it whatever you want.

It is only the parties who are polarized though. The people remain in the vast middle of the political spectrum, and every election the parties still fight it out for the middle. Most people in this country are swing voters.

But when they vote, they can't help but elect representatives who don't actually represent their beliefs. One problem is that electoral structures are strongly anti-majoritarian while the actual representative bodies are strongly majoritarian.

The anti-majoritarian aspects of our electoral structures should be viewed in a particularly democratic light. Specifically, both the Senate and the Electoral College are designed to ensure that minority positions are strongly considered in federal politics. Democracy, as an idea, requires inclusivity. A country that does not act in the interests of the people is not democratic. The Senate was supposed to ensure that individuals from smaller states would not be subject to the whims of representatives of larger states. It's anti-majoritarian, but it's not inherently anti-democratic.

The mistake in our constitution, however, lies in giving the Senate the same power as the House of Representatives. The design of the Senate goes too far in enforcing the inclusivity necessary for successful democracy by providing minority positions too much power within the Senate.

Similar criticism can be made for the Electoral College.

What do we do about it though?

As I stated above, the anti-majoritarian electoral structures are problematic in the face of the strongly majoritarian processes of the actual representative bodies.

It may be thought that in order to achieve the right balance, anti-majoritarian electoral structures should be set against majoritiarian political bodies. This can't be correct. In fact, anti-majoritarian electoral structures can only be balanced by anti-majoritarian political structures. Majority/majority leads to tyrrany, but so does Anti-majority/majority. Inclusivity can only be affected by anti/anti; or by majority/anti-majority.

The last of those would be parliamentary, I think.

All this sounds like a constitutional amendment. Ultimately, our constitution needs reform, but I think serious democratic reforms can happen without a constitutional amendment.

Consider reorganizing the internal rules of the Senate. The Constitution defaults to the House and Senate for their own rules of proceeding. So, much of this work could be done by starting with those--without even talking about the Constitution. I have a couple related ideas here.

First, we could make committee chairs selected by lot. Sounds strange, but it would work. Every session of congress, each senator puts his name in a hat and chairs are randomly assigned. The effect, on average, would be to put the percentage of the senate from one party in to the same percentage of leadership positions. If there were 55 senators from one party, they would have 55% of the committee chairs.

This is effectively parliamentarizing (I love making up words) the Senate. So, the same effect could be achieved by selecting Senate leadership positions in a parliamentary manner. If a party gets 55 senators, then they get 55% of the leadership positions.

Third, if selected by lot, minority leadership could be counterbalanced by specific provisions ensuring a minority party doesn't control a majority of the committees.

In any case, the point would be to ensure that a party--however polarized it is--doesn't tyrranically control a powerful part of our government. One party wouldn't be able to kill legislation, and there would be greater incentive to work together.

We've talked a little about tax reform, and I think that's also a good place to start. Government accountability should also mean that you know what you're getting for your tax dollars. I think restructuring and simplifying the tax system is a good place to start. But set that aside for a second.

It's a start at least. The Constitution does need to be amendment. It isn't perfect, and we can't fetishize it any more. The argument shouldn't be that the founders couldn't foresee our problems, it should be that the structures they designed aren't as good at achieving the intended purpose as other structures that we could design.

Well...

To begin, Let's look at the history of this "traditional" view of american politics.

First, the public trusting Republicans more on foreign affairs:This view only really came about since Korea, or perhaps a little before. I say perhaps a little before the Korean war because of the right wing canard that Roosevelt somehow knew of the Pearl Harbor attack, and let it occur. I don't think the reputable evidence lends itself to that conclusion. The point of the attack is that you cannot trust Democrats to defend the country because Roosevelt let us get attacked.

In the post war period, the Republicans had two competing viewpoints within their party. 1) The traditional conservative isolationism and 2) the desire to "confront" communism in a more aggressive manner, if for no other purpose than to beat up on Democrats who were then in power and whose New Deal policies appeared "red" to the far right. The "Democrats-can't-be-trusted-because-they-let-us-get-attacked" idea was used to discredit the crusading idealism of american intervention in the world that the left in america traditionally espoused. This led to the right attacking Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson with the two apparently contradictory strains of republican thought on foreign affairs. When Korea, and later Vietnam, turned into unwinnable messes, at least unwinnable in the traditional sense, (meaning we weren't going to get unconditional surrenders of our opponents in those wars) the right attacked the Democratic party for getting us into those messes in the first place, representing the traditional isolationism view. The right also attacked the Democratic policy makers for failing to "confront" communism more aggressively. The best examples here are MacArthur's insubordination against Truman and the later lies and attacks that we did not let the generals fight Vietnam the way they wanted to. This represents the second right wing viewpoint. As stated, as Korea, but really more importantly for recent politics, Vietnam, devolved into quagmire, the Republicans attacked the Democrats for the policy failures those wars represented, and argued that they, the republicans, could handle foreign affairs better. On the republicans' "plus" column was Nixon's trip to China and his draw down of forces in Vietnam. This idea repeated itself in the Iranian revolution and later hostage crisis. While I have done an exceptionally poor job outlining the history right now, I hope at least the skeleton is there for a future outline because the point is that these events led to the "traditional" view you describe, namely, that the public trusts the republican party more on foreign affairs.

As to the second point, that the public trusts the Democrats more on domestic issues, well that has really been the case since the Depression, and nothing the republicans have offered since then, except maybe tax cuts, ever garners much public support. My domestic policy analysis is WEAK. I cannot tell you why the public doesn't support the Republican domestic agenda, but they don't. If you, or anyone else can suggest a good book, I will put it on the reading list.

So having analyzed (hahaha because I didn't do any analysis on the domestic front, and there is so much more I could write on the international side) the history of those views, I agree it should be possible to develop a third axis. I think it is incumbent upon the Democrats to do that at this point. We are also uniquely suited to attack the Republicans in the same way they attacked us during the Cold War and Vietnam because this Iraq adventure (I hate doing that by the way, writing something so flippant about a place where our soldiers are living and, more importantly, dying right now.) is turning out to be a mess. We as Democrats and liberals need to develop an alternative foreign policy and attacks that we can use against the current idea that republicans are better at international relations. Iraq presents us with a unique opportunity to accomplish both those goals.

Now, what would this third axis look like? I dunno, we can discuss that more in the future.

Third Axis of American Politics

It is traditionally believed that Americans trust Republicans in foreign affairs and Democrats in domestic affairs. What if there were a third axis of our politics that cut across these distinctions?

I'm beginning to think there is one. I've got some ideas, but they're still incubating.

What do you think, WMD?

Conservatives love that story because it is

the classic "conversion" story. Think about it in terms of the universal messianic nature of Christianity, and you will understand the meme better.

Why is it that . . .

conservatives love the story of the liberal who changed sides?

I seem to regularly come across stories in which there is a person whose criticism of Democrats is bolstered by the fact that he was once a Democrat?

Or the the-author-started-out-to-tear-down-George-Bush-but
-realized-Bush-has-been-right-all-along book.

Is this tendency as widespread on the left? It could be, but I don't seem to see it as much.

The Banality of Political Discourse

Just over two weeks ago, Joshua Michael Marshall of Talking Points Memo fame opened a new website dedicated to liberal political discussion. The website is conveniently titled TPM Café, which serves to note the relationship between the site and his blog, and his intent that the site act as a coffee house where like-minded people come to discuss the events of the day. The site has several blogs, provides topic-specific discussion forums, and allows readers to create their own blogs. And all of that in the creams, rich earth tones, and themes of your local coffee house. In fact, the coffeehouse theme may go a few steps too far—the forums are called ‘tables,’ the main blog is ‘The Coffee House,” and the weekly guest blog is “A Table for One.”

The Coffee House is constructed from the postings of 15 pasty white, East Coast liberals including Ed Kilgore of the DLC, who writes his own blog www.newdonkey.com, and Marshall Wittman who writes www.bullmooseblog.com, and thirteen other people there’s not a chance in hell you will recognize. Six different people contribute to a blog on foreign affairs, ten people contribute to a blog on the middle class, Matthew Iglesias has his own blog on something (Reality-Based Commentary?), and another guy, Kenneth Baer (who?) has another blog entitled “Early Returns from the Political Wilderness” (what?). If you read their bios, though, they should be more than qualified to provide interesting commentary.

Marshall has stated several times that his purpose was to design the site to encourage what he has called open source reporting. Open source reporting means that the readers of the site are primary information providers. This is a model that he has used effectively on his blog during the earlier stages of the Social Security debate. Marshall invited readers of Talking Points Memo to scour their local papers for quotes from their representatives and senators, and to contact those officials directly, and then report that information to him so that he could publicize the officials’ positions on Social Security. This has been an effective strategy of creating near real-time political accountability for Democrats who were considering supporting President Bush’s Social Security privatization plans, and for spreading praise of Republicans who bucked the party line by opposing privatization. Marshall went so far as to create meme-like names for the groups: the Fainthearted Faction and the Conscious Caucus. These categorizations have been apparently successful in helping to ensure accountability for politicians who are not used to this level of scrutiny.

The question, however, is whether this method of reporting can work on a larger scale for all the variety of topics that are being covered at TPM Café. Creating open forums for readers to post issues opens the door a crack, but Marshall has also instituted a system to allow readers to moderate the forums. Anyone can post a thread on one of the forums, and then the thread-starting post can be rated by other readers. The higher the rating, the higher the thread appears on the page. The lower the rating, the lower it appears. This serves to bring the ‘best’ threads directly into the view of people visiting the site and ensures that good discussions aren’t lost beneath new posts. This rating system also applies to comments on threads, and then also to replies to particular comments, and comments (and replies to comments) on the blogs on the site.

This moderation destroys the continuity of the discussion. Suppose Marshall puts up a new post on the main blog. Readers can now comment on that post. A reader may come to the post after several other people have posted comments. If none of the comments have been rated, the comments will appear in the chronological order, and the reader will follow the discussion normally. If the reader finds a comment in the string to his liking, he can rate it highly, and it will immediately jump to the top of the thread, and if other readers have replied to that particular comment, then those replies will be carried to the top with it. If the other commentators were having an on going discussion among themselves without directly replying to each other, the discussion can quickly become disjointed and hard to follow. And the site design doesn’t help since many readers apparently confuse the button for replying to the thread starter/blog poster with the button for replying to a particular comment. It should also be noted that this style of moderation can easily be manipulated through collusion. If you got five people together and all agreed to give each other’s comments the highest ratings, your comments would always remain at the top of the thread. Finally, the rating system is entirely voluntary. So, whether a particular comment is high or low is more dependent on it’s radical nature. A reader is motivated to rate a post only if it is particularly offensive to or confirming of their personal predilections. All told, this is an inefficient and unsatisfying method of running a forum.

And I doubt it’s efficacy in bringing important facts to fore. In a way, this a fault of the larger project. Open source reporting can work, but in order to work, it must be nothing more than reporting. It was successful on Marshall’s blog because he controlled the content of the blog. In short, he acted as editor of the information reported to him. TPM Café, however, invites the reader to act as editor. The reader has control over what is most likely to be read and has control over the content. And each reader of the site has a different political project. Some are liberals, some are left-leaning moderates, some radicals. The diversity leads to schizophrenia. On his blog, Marshall was able to construct the reporting in a useful manner, to direct the output to it’s greatest use. This is impossible on a site designed for freewheel discussions, and I will be surprised if the site gains the strength of his original blog.

Although TPM Café does not have the necessary structural elements to succeed as a site for open source reporting, there is a greater problem that the site illustrates. When it opened, TPM Café started out with very broad strokes; asking grand questions. The intent must have been related to the new beginning it provided. Here was an opportunity to start a new discussion, to rethink old ideas, to breath fresh air. The contributors managed to state the obvious as if it were a revealed truth. The result was condescension.

As a consumer of politics, I want the political sites I read to provide information and not just discourse. I have been a rather long time reader of Marshall’s blog because he had access to information that I did not have, and because it was usually an efficient condensation of recent changes in specific issues, notably Social Security and news about the last election. A site that provides unfounded or uninformative discourse is of no use to me. The goal of any political site must ultimately be to influence policy, to spread ideas. I do not need to spend time on the internet debating random people on issues that we all fundamentally agree about, and I’m having a hard time seeing why other people think they should spend time that way.

As the discussion among the contributors on the site slid into normal political discourse, the condescension left, but the obvious remained. In the writing of these experts, and in the comments of the readers, I found common opinions, common knowledge, and common thought. The posts by the apparently qualified contributors could have been written by anyone, or by me for that matter. (Note this blog). I need more than that. I need something to make me want to visit a website. I don’t know what, but something besides mere commentary. TPM Café does not provide that. All it provides is a large number of people that I wouldn’t want to talk to in a coffee house.

This post has been a bit disjointed and long, and I thought about leaving it at that. But I have been using it to think through some of the problems I have with Marshall’s new site and political thought. I have one thing left to say:

I often find myself overwhelmed by information, even without owning a TV. I wonder if this isn’t a problem with our society. It has been too frequently commented on, but to restate it one more time, we have multiple 24 hour news networks on cable, constant access through the internet, and then radio, newspapers, everything. It has been suggested that the internet would fracture our society in certain ways by decentralizing the media. Specifically, individuals could pick the information and news they get on the web, tailoring their intake to satisfy their confirmation bias and their personal politics. Blogs were supposed to do that.

Now we are moving beyond blogs, and I wonder if a limiting principle has been discovered. Discussion of politics that is disconnected from information (evidence) and that has no entry costs can serve very little purpose. In essence TPM Café was designed to create a political internet forum. There are undoubtedly thousands upon thousands of non-political forums on the internet covering everything one can think of—motorcycles, video games, law school, etc. Each of those forums, however, is about something tangible that is itself limited. Knowing what you discoursing about allows for strong discussions on the topic. Without a topic, however, no reasonable discourse is possible.

That may be what we are seeing in TPM Café. Politics just may not work as a large scale topic for discussion.

Electoral Problems

Here's a problem I see:

What makes it worthwhile to go after Florida? We lost Florida by 400,000 or so. We lost Missouri by 200,000; Iowa by 10,000; New Mexico by 6,000; and Colorado by 100,000. The margin of loss in those 4 states combined was smaller than all of Florida. 316<400.

So, is it at all logical then to pursue those four states more than we go after Florida? Obviously, FL is a big prize and we should contest it, but how should the campaign money be allocated?

Of course, we have 3 years for lots of things to change. Everything could be completely different in 2008.

More states

Looking at the 04 map, we could also seek to pick up Nevada, Arkansas, and maybe Virginia.

But again, Hillary doesn't have any qualities that appeal to voters in those states.

Good Question!

The reason is in 2008, the Democrats need to win a minimum of 2 and maybe up to 6 states we did not win in '04 to win the presidency. These states are: 1) Ohio, 2) Florida, 3) Iowa, 4) New Mexico, and two on the outside 5) Missouri, and 6)Colorado.

If we win just the first two, Ohio and FLorida, and we win all others Kerry and Gore won, we win the presidency.

If we were to pick up states 3 through 6, and we still lost Ohio and Florida, we would still win the presidency.

So the goal for the Democratic nominee is to appeal to voters in those 6 states, and frankly, NOTHING about Hillary Clinton provides any indication that she would appeal to those voters. In fact, the cons listed against her are part of the reason she DOES NOT appeal to those voters. I am not trying to make a "the-heartland-is-full-of genuine-americans-who-see-through-fake-politicians-BS" argument. It is just that things like looking unnatural eating barbeque matters to people out here in the middle.

You also might be saying, "but what about the other blue states?" Yeah, what about them? If the Democratic party cannot generate the votes it needs to win in the "blue" states without nominating someone from there, then we are a longer way away from majority than I thought.

Pros/Cons

You got all the pros and cons of Hillary, but why do you think the analysis comes out against her?

She should work with Chris Farley and David Spade

Hillary just reminds me of the governor from Black Sheep.

Stop Hillary!

Drudge has a link to a story about how Hillary Clinton apparently won a South Carolina Straw Poll.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/11905946.htm

In typical Drudge fashion he therefore proclaims her to be the frontrunner for '08. (Sidenote: I wonder how many small donations the RNC will get today? Way to carry water for your masters, Matt!)

While the title of this post is "Stop Hillary!", I really hope to examine the pros and cons of a Hillary for President campaign. Reece, I am looking your way to contribute more as you are signficantly smarter than I am.

Before we begin, I want to explain why I titled the post the way I did. It is not because the fix is in against a Hillary candidacy, but because while being able to objectively discuss the pros and cons of Hillary Clinton as a potential Democratic nominee, she will NEVER have my vote for one simple reason: She reminds me of someone from high school. Uncharacteristically, I am not going to name names, but I will provide a description. Back in the ol' high school, I had a friend who dated this girl who every time I look at Hillary Clinton I cannot stop thinking about. This isn't some long lost love crush. This friend's girlfriend was quite possibly the most annoying woman on the face of the earth. For one, she couldn't curse. I mean she tried to curse, but she couldn't. You know, one of those "oh (thinking space should I say "poo" or "rats", alright I will say it) shit!" type of people. It was disingenuous. It was fake. The girl wasn't true to her upbringing. Her parents were conservative christians who raised their daughter to be an upper middle class suburban housewife, and she was trying ever so hard to be anything but an upper middle class suburban housewife. Watching her though, you could tell she was straining to be something close to what she thought other people would consider "hip". No High school Hillary, be yourself, be genuine. Hillary Clinton is the same way. Look at Reece's previous post regarding her interview on CNN as evidence of this similar behavior. That is the reason Hillary will never have my vote, in a primary or general election. (who am I kidding, I will vote a straight Democratic ticket, like I have every year since 1998)

Moving on.
Let us start with the Pros about a Hillary candidacy.

1) Her negatives may already be maxed.
Folks can't hate her more. Most of those folks wouldn't vote for a Democrat anyway. To some extent this makes her impervious to attacks. Of course, the Republicans will still find a way to attack her, and those of us on the left will need to be ready to deflect those attacks and respond in kind.

2) Incorporated in point 1) is that we already know most of what we need to know about Hillary Clinton. Everyone knows who she is, what she stands for, and where she is coming from. This is a pro because there is no need to waste precious campaign resources on "introducing the candidate" to the people. We just need to find a ways to get the American people to spend their political "money", or their vote, on our candidate. However, there is a pitfall here, any attempt to redefine Hillary is going to make her look disengenuous. That will open up a huge soft spot for republican attack.

3) Knowing what we do about Hillary, she comes off as tough and as a fighter. In the context of the idiotic "war on terror" (idiotic because you cannot have a war on a tactic) the Democrats need to nominate a fighter, someone the American people will trust to "defend the nation" While I personally would rather attack the entire idea of the "war on terror", I don't think it will be an easy sell, so we do what we can with what we have to work with. Hillary comes off as tough and a fighter, and that appears to make it easier to sell the idea of a woman president defending the nation to the american people.

4) this space reserved for future thoughts.

Let us now turn to the negatives

1) Hillary ain't Bill. Hillary doesn't connect with the american people like Bill, she is not from Arkansas, she doesn't have his manner of speaking, she doesn't look natural eating barbeque, she doesn't connect with those in the center-left/center/center-right the same way Bill did. She doesn't come off like a good ol' boy, never meaning no harm, been in trouble with the law since the day she was born. In fact, Hillary comes off to a lot of people exactly like the upper middle class suburban housewife archetype that she undoubtedly was raised to be in the North Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Illinois.

2) She's a senator. I am sorry but I am sick of Senators getting big heads thinking they should run for president. 2004 showed us the essence of why legislators should not run for President straight from the legislature. Namely, Did she vote for it before she voted against it? or is it the other way around. The legislative process is too arcane for most americans to understand, and the process presents situations in which Legislators are forced to make votes that can be used to define who they are, and what kind of president that legislator will be. The arcane nature of the legislative process allows a candidate to get pasted as anti-defense because of a vote in which the candidate votes against a defense spending bill because of a "poison pill", but then votes for the defense spending later in another bill without such "poison pill". Sure one might argue that it is only necessary to make political arguments against such attacks, but guess what happens then! You are bogged down in the minutiae of the legislative process and open to the charge that you lack a "vision" for the country. Either way, bad idea to nominate a Senator.

3) I am sure I have another negative, but this post is huge, so I will come back to it. I need to get some lunch and get to work.

Iraq Disconnect

There seems to be a real disconnect occurring right now in the way the Left looks at where we are in Iraq. I don't really have a citation to prove my point, meaning I don't have a link that will demonstrate what I am talking about, but I am going forward with my point anyway.

If you look at Buzzflash.com, they have been linking stories that on the one hand call for us to pull out of Iraq immediately, or at least bash the Bush administration for getting us in that mess.

On the other hand Buzzflash has been linking to stories bashing the Bush administration for failure to recognize what a mess Iraq has become, given the Bush administrations continued pollyanna-ish views on the current situation in Iraq.

While I acknowledge that bashing the bush administration is a good thing, I fail to understand what Buzzflash's point is. I guess the apparent conflict is just that, apparent. I mean one can recognize that Iraq is a mess with no end in sight, and therefore we must make an end by beginning to withdraw our troops.

Personally, I think it would be disasterous for us to withdraw now. I also think it is disasterous that we are not doing more to pacify the country. I realize the shortages of manpower the U.S. military has, but I don't know how effective we can be relying on barely trained Iraqi units to pacify the country. This doubt is further encouraged by the fact that Iraqi policemen and military recruits seem to be the prime targets of the insurgency at the moment. It just makes sense to me that United States soldiers should be doing the jobs of the Iraqi police and military units we are training until the insurgency is defeated. Put more bluntly, why are we trusting native allies to help us in our colonial experiment when it would be better for the long term stability of the country if we just did things ourselves? I realize that I am essentialy calling for more U.S. troops to be put in harm's way, and that a higher U.S. body count would result from my position, but we are in this mess up to our necks and something must be done to insure we win.

Fun at nytimes.com

I love these face-the-enemy pieces they do occasionally.


The Next Generation of Conservatives (By the Dormful)

Politics involves

the careful use of language. Failure to use language effectively results in a marginalization of oneself and one's political beliefs.

Why?

I don't understand why the left should bother attempting to engage those who are absolutist in their thought processes. More specifically, why is the burden upon liberals to seek out right wingers, read their blogs, and talk with them? Why is the burden not on the right to seek out left wingers, read our blogs, and talk with us in the hope of greater understanding?

If you read the responses to the your posts, 90 percent of the right's reaction to you is ad hominem attacks. While not quoting directly, you were called things like "brainwashed", "confused", or a liar. Sure we need to know their arguments so we can properly attack those arguments, but that presupposes that political discourse in this country is anywhere near a rational debate.

Blogs for Bush Update

This comment page is all my fault. Forty responses of people arguing with me and me arguing back. Probably about as long as they've had.

When I started doing this yesterday, they're webpage initially didn't allow me to post by just putting my name and email address. If you do that, after you post, the site tells you that your comments will have to be approved by the site administrators before it will show up. I posted like that a few times.

The site also allows you to get a 'typekey' identity. Apparently typekey is just a site that verifies identities so that bloggers can get to know the person who is commenting. So, I signed up for that, and was able to start posting comments without the comments being approved by administrators.

Now, however, my last two comments have been intercepted and are being approved by the administrators even though I was signed in under my typekey account. I guess we'll see what this amounts to.

Counterblogging

Slate has a regular media review for blogs entitled, simply enough, Todays Blogs. The article that is up now is about political bloggers talking to people of different political persuasions.

The quick summary: Cass Sunstein argued that the internet would decrease dialogue between people of different views because they could simply go to whatever site (or blog) they wanted to get news and opinion that confirmed their already held beliefs. Apparently, there is a new study out that tends to disconfirm that hypothesis, and does so by measuring the number of times that a political blogger links to a blog of a different ideology.

What I found interesting was the critique of the study. According to Slate's article, a professor of political science thinks the study does not accurately reflect the quality of the interactions that people have when they read a political blog.

And the article suggests that it would be more impressive to study how often liberals post comments on conservative blogs.

I find that an interesting challenge. I often just read 'liberal' sources like TPM, New Donkey, the NY Times, etc. And I often don't spend time on conservative sources like Foxnews, etc.

So, I picked a conservative blog off the list of blogs in the study cited by Slate and decided to see what would come of it if I started posting there. I chose Blogs for Bush I have already commented several times on the top few posts they have. The first comment I have is on the post entitled "Conservative Ideas." So no need to look below that.

Following up on High School Students

Maybe this moves me from the left wing camp, but I am sorry if I am not concerned about high school kids rights. More specifically, they are KIDS. There is an all too disturbing cultural idea best incapsulated as "out of the mouths of babes". And we aren't talking about attractive women. Just because children, even high school age CHILDREN, say or do something doesn't make it worthwhile. As satire of the Bush administration goes, making Bush look like Groucho Marx isn't very good. In fact, one might go so far as to say it is juvenile. I kill myself, of course it is juvenile, they are high school kids.
Recently, in a great decision on a case out of Missouri the Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for minors. Crucial to this decision was the determination by the Court that children, even those in high school, cannot make fully reasoned decisions. This determination by the Court was backed up by a number of scientific studies. Which brings me to my point: WHY should ANYTHING regurgitated out of the mouth of someone who cannot make a fully reasoned decision be given any creedence as some how more revealing of the "truth" or worthwhile as political discourse? I am going to make a judgment call here and come down against the "rights", inasmuch as they are political "rights", of high school kids.

Dear Readers

To our two readers: Wyatt is disconnected from the internet right now as he moves. That's why he hasn't been posting.

So, as long as he's away, here's another thing that pisses me off:

Some high school students in LA had to take down posters advertising their school play because the posters had an image of George Bush that made him look like Groucho Marx.

Apparently one, single student was offended by the association between the President and one of the great comedians of the early part of last century. And the Principal of the school thus thought it necessary to remove the posters.

The students replaced the Groucho W. Marx posters with posters saying, "Free Expression for All (unless you are in high school)" and "What First Amendment?"

The Principal's reaction to these posters? "'They're good,' Lee said. 'I like the follow-ups.'"

No, no, no. That's so evil.

He takes down the posters that are genuine political expression but when the kids put up posters implicitly criticizing his taking down of the original posters and harmlessly asserting their rights, he says that those posters are acceptable thereby implicitly asserting his ability to censor the messages they put up.

It's circular and hurts my mind.

The Bible as Literature

The LA Times has an Guest Column today suggesting that "the great secularist tide that swept the Bible out of public schools is about to turn."

It's a bit of a weird editorial. The author, David Gelernter (I've never heard of him either), first tells us that Bible Literacy classes are legal, and then tells us that the Bible is about to be swept back into public schools, and this is a good thing.

The Bible was never taken out of public schools when taught as literature, though. So, it's a bit weird to say that it's about to retake schools. Unless, of course, Bible Literacy courses are code for religious indoctrination.

I don't think they are, or at least that they don't have to be. And I generally agree with his point in the editorial. Mr. Gelernter is arguing that a full understanding of American culture requires understanding the Bible. I think that's true, but I think he also overstates the case.

It is simply not true that "you can't begin to understand English literature or American history" without having some knowledge of the Bible.

The question I have is whether Bible as literature courses are necessary. Surely a high school teacher can't teach you to understand the bible in the way your pastor, preach or priest would. The fact is that most people in the US grow up in Protestant Christian households and probably will have some general knowledge of Biblical stories. My point is simply that extracurricular sources of knowledge about the Bible exist and most Americans are exposed to them. They're a little thing called church.

He cites a study, however, that shows that students don't understand the Bible. The study was commissioned by the Bible Literacy Project. And if you can't tell by the name, they aren't a disinterested party. According to their website, they are an "endeavor to encourage and facilitate the academic study of the Bible in public schools." They may not be pushing religion in public schools, but they could certainly be suffering from confirmation bias.

Furthermore, the study was funded by the John Templeton Foundation. This foundation seems to support cross-disciplinary studies of issues like "Science and Religion," "Spirituality and Health" and "Free Enterprise." In short, probably not a disinterested party either.

So, what is really going on here? If it's not necessary, why create a bible as literature class? How much do you need to know about St. Paul and the Road to Damascus in order to understand English Literature and American History?

Play-By-Play on Hillary Clinton

CNN.com has a new poll showing that support for Mrs. Bill Clinton has apparently increased recently, and and accompanying 11 minute interview with her by Judy Woodruff. To see the video, go to CNN's video page and select the video entitled "Hillary Clinton interview."

I'm not a big Hillary fan, and I think Dems should avoid this dynastic tendency to run someone with a recognizable name. But it's becoming more and more difficult to deny that she's trying to position herself to run for President in 2008.

That interview seems to prove the point. Woodruff presents her with a quote from Zell Miller, yes that Zell Miller, in which he says that she may win the Presidency in '08 because she will position herself towards the middle better than other candidates. Does Sen. Clinton say she isn't running? Does she deny a desire to be President?

Nope. She "appreciates" the compliment. Then she goes ahead and tells us how she's been a centrist and non-partisan while in the Senate. True as that may be, isn't she just taking the opportunity to position herself towards the middle? It is very difficult, given her answer to that question, to say with a straight face that she is not running for President. Skip Ahead to 4:40 in the interview to see this.

Next up in the interview: Abortion. . . and absolute lunacy.

Sen. Clinton made headlines a few months back when she said that abortion should be rare. What to you and me may sound like political positioning with an eye to a distant election is apparently a deeply held belief not just by Clinton, but by all Democrats. Woodruff states that in discussing abortion most Democrats are primarily concerned with maintaining legal abortion.
Clinton responds that she doesn't know which Democrats are talking about abortion rights, because she's not talking about it. Gee, when did Hillary Clinton become the entire Democratic Party? The conceit is harder to pass than a gall stone.

Does anyone really believe that Sen. Clinton is so disconnected from the rest of her party that she doesn't know the Democrats generally support legalized abortion? No, certainly not this wife of A FORMER PRESIDENT and ELECTED SENATOR FROM A LIBERAL STATE. People, this is the reason we keep getting screwed: Dems are trying to 'position' themselves 'in the middle' and find stances that are appealing to lots of people.

NEWSFLASH: People who disagree with Bush's stances and positions vote for him anyway because they think he genuinely believes what he says. Let's state our principles and stand behind them. Voters see Democrats as wishy-washy precisely because Democrats appear to lack strong principles. And even if you are the most competent person, a lot of people will prefer someone who has firm beliefs over a candidate who has similar beliefs because they think they can trust the person with strong principles.

Anyway, here's a moment for Clinton to talk about the important balance between the state's interest, individual freedom, etc, etc. And she seizes the opportunity to attack . . . judicial activists! Let me speak just to Sen. Clinton for a moment: Hillary, WTF.

Apparently, judicial activism "isn't talked about enough." Clinton then goes on to tell us that this Court has invalidated more democratically enacted legislation than any other court. Her position here is so disingenuous as to be sickening. It's perfectly crafted.

Listen to what she's saying: to the right she's saying, "Yes, judicial activism is a problem. All those concerns you have about social issues--I share them. Yes, we should be able to criminalize abortion and gay sex if that's what the legislature actually votes for."

To the left she's saying, "This court made of Republicans and has been turning back the advances of the Great Society and the New Deal."

The Right--the base of the right--doesn't know that the Supreme Court is 7/9 Republican appointees. The Right doesn't care. It just doesn't. This is an issue the right wingers control. They've won the public debate on judicial activism. So, Clinton's statement against judicial activism won't sound to the Right like she is in favor of progessive or liberal politics. It'll sound like she's in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade.

Ugh. Just what I needed. A nice gut punch.

Woodruff tries to bring it back around to reality in a short cut away. So, what's Clinton's program for dealing with abortion?

1. To reduce unwanted pregnancies. Sounds good. To the social conservatives it means Abstinence Only Sex Ed in public schools. To the left it means real sex ed and condoms.
2. To make sure that adoption is available for women who carry to term. Hey, Hillary, um, is adoption going somewhere? Or am I to take this as code for ensuring that homosexuals get to adopt? Everything else she says in this interview is code for something. I just want to know what the code is here.
   
3. To "talk sensibly" about providing emergency contraception when a woman is raped. Safe position? Looks like she's trying. To the Left this sounds like emergency contraception pills for everyone. For the Right this sounds like emergency contraception only when a woman has been the victim of what the Right thinks should be a hanging offense. "Talk sensibly"? What the hell does that mean?

Then she comes out against criminalizing abortion. Wow. Bold. Thanks.

Oh, by the way, during her husband's presidency fewer abortions than under this Bush administration. Whoopee! I'm sure the Southern Baptists will endorse you, Hillary Clinton.

What other conservative positions do you hold, Sen. Clinton? Did someone say gay marriage? Oh you don't support same-sex marriage, but you're ok with same-sex civil unions?

Alright, time out. I have to say that I think the Senator has it right on this one. In my dream world the government wouldn't have anything to do with marriage, but civil unions would create property rights between people. The state in one area, namely property and other secular concerns, and non-governmental institutions like religion in the other aspects, namely morality and the association of hearts and minds. But forget all that. By this time in the interview, Clinton has so frustrated me by not genuinely believing in anything that I can't trust that she actually believes this. It falls off her tongue. Just another attempt to position herself in the center.

This is what I was talking about above. I agree with her stated position, but I can't vote for her because I don't think she has a sound reason for believing it. I don't trust her.

Now, Woodruff lobs one at Clinton and asks her in very clear terms to tell us what principles Democrats stand for. What 'narrative' do the Democrats have?

And she muffs it. It's an answer, but it's not particularly good. Essentially, everything good in the 20th Century was done by Democrats, and Republicans really want to get rid of all that. Ok, but you haven't told us what Democrats stand for today. In fact, she's stated precisely the problem: Democrats are in favor of the status quo. They want to protect everything they did in the last century. It's her use of the past tense in this section that really turns me off.

"It is the Democratic Party that fought and stood for democracy and freedom. It is the Democratic Party that created the ladders of opportunity that enabled millions of people to lift themselves into the middle class and fulfill their god-given potential. And it is the Democratic Party that battered-down the obstacles that stood in the way of women and minorities and others having the opportunity to fully participate in American life."

uggh. Don't we stand for those things now? Won't we fight for democracy now? Don't we now want to create opportunities for people to raise themselves out of poverty? Don't we now want to batter down barriers of exclusion?

And finally the last two questions of the interview:

1. In running for reelection to the Senate in 2006, if she were asked to pledge to serve out that six-year term (i.e. pledge not to run for President in 2008 in case you didn't catch that subtext), what would she say?

Well, she would say that she is focussed on winning re-election, and that she has worked hard for New York. And for no reason she mentions 9/11. Wait, did she say she would definitely serve the entire six year term? Hint: No.

2. Is she considering running in 2008?

Not even remotely, says Senator Lying Face. Apparently, her life has never been 'planned.' She just goes with the flow. And that's that.

Watch the video yourself. Feel the pain.

The Message

Here's the question for you: If Democrats need a new message and that message would contain some of the things we've discussed, how would you craft that message so that Repubs can't co-opt it?

We've talked a bit about responsibility, but can't republicans just come back and say that they're in favor of responsibility? Or anything else we've talked about?

We don't seem to have the strong wedge issues that they do. What are we in favor of that they aren't? If the level of abstraction is taken too far we all want the same things. Then the question is about method and not goal.

Advertising

Alright, sounds good.

You know, after 2 semesters of law school, it seems like I've lost some important part of myself.

Tip to anyone who reads this: Don't go to law school.

You know what the Democrats need? They need the guys behind the promotion of the Xbox. Watch them introduce the new Xbox here.

The hyperbole is something else.

"The Democrats are the best party in the history of politics. Not just American Politics, but all politics since the beginning of time.

"Democrats are bringing you a whole new governmental experience unlike anything you've ever seen before.

"We'll be able to run 50,000 independent governmental programs simultaneously with our three core branches of government."

You know, stuff like that.

Fight Back.

I am not arguing that the primary voters were mistaken in choosing Kerry. That is not the step in the process where Democratic candidates get into trouble. Where the last two Democratic nominees got into trouble was not recognizing what was going to happen to them and not attacking the Republican first. Trouble also arises for Democratic candidates when the don't respond to attacks.

As to where name-calling gets you? There really is a simple answer to that: The White House.

Of course, and you knew this was coming, it is extremely important to define what is name-calling. When I speak of name-calling, I am referring to the light hearted, unserious labelling of most republicans as "douchebags", but also as labelling republicans as "out-of-touch". Both statements are essentially ad hominem attacks, and while the first is not really helpful, the second won Democrats 2 elections.(See, 1992 and 1996) The other thing name-calling does, and this is seen repeatedly being done by Republicans, is then allows a bunch of people to "vote for the better man". From my own, unscientific, experience, there was a certain percentage of the electorate who did NOT vote for Gore in key swing states because they just didn't trust him. The statements from these people usually went like this: "I am an independent, and I always vote for the better man, and while I like Al Gore on the issues, I am voting for bush because he is the better man." One of the few reasons someone would say that is because of the amount of character attacks, name-calling at its heart, that republicans engaged in against Gore.

Ok, but what do we do about it?

Name calling's fun, but where does it get you?

Even if primary voters were mistaken, Dean still didn't win the primaries. I mean, the calculus that individuals voters go through in choosing a candidate didn't work out in Dean's favor.

I can't say I'm too interested in debating the value of the candidates, but why should people have voted for Dean? If John Kerry weren't a veteran, he probably would have still won the primaries.

I can't tell you what Dean had to offer, and most people who follow normal media probably can't either. The press that Dean got was about his fundraising and his presumptive lead due to the money he had. It was rarely about his views on anything.

I hate "Progressives"

A progressive is a liberal who is too chicken shit to call himself a liberal.

I on the other hand am a liberal.

Calling yourself progressive is typical left wing thinking, and emblematic of why we keep losing.
The left thinks like this:"Conservatives have made 'liberal' a bad word by smearing liberals with all sorts of bad connotations. So instead of being liberals, we will change our name, and then people will not think all those bad things about us."

Well guess what smarty pants! Conservatives will just start smearing "progressives" too, and you will look like a wimp for changing your name.

What would be better is to DEFEND yourself, and your name, and then ATTACK conservatives for being the Darwin hating, flat earth believin', outtatouch douchebags* that they are.

Don't go around changing your name. Defend yourself and your positions.

This thinking is the same that everyone saw with the nomination of John Kerry. It is almost as if the Left group think was: "Kerry is a war hero, therefore the Right wouldn't DARE attack his national security credentials, and if they do, well the charges won't stick."

I think we all know how that worked out... Swift Boat Veterans anyone?

We could nominate Christ as our candidate for President, and the Republican political message machine would still attack Him for His Character.

*namecalling rules!

Yay!

Yay! Go go Harry Reid!!

I had my doubts about this guy, but this is the type of fighter we need.

Now, if he just keeps his eyes off the White House and his ass in the Senate!

Watch him kick ass in this story in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The thing I love is his "apology"

"You know the president is in Europe, probably sleeping," Reid said in an interview this afternoon. "But I called (Karl) Rove and apologized for what I said."

I hope to have more on why Democratic Senators should give up being the next JFK, because they likely will be the next JFK, just not the JFK they want to be.

Two Bits of the News

1. How to be a liberal moron.
This Slate article is the type of condescending BS that hurts liberals in the out here in the middle. Some choice quotes:

But after watching The Million Dollar Recipe, Bravo's documentary about the 2004 Pillsbury Bake-Off, I have come to suspect that for much of Middle America, the great ameliorator is canned dough.

Nice job, Lady. In one sentence you managed to tell us that you watch Bravo (home of Queer Eye), that you revel in not knowing about "Middle America," and that you think "middle Americans" believe everything is better with processed food. Thanks for hurting America.

Among the finalists—each of whom had his or her recipe selected from tens of thousands of submissions—there is a truly diverse range of socially conservative white Americans.

I didn't watch this program that she is reviewing, but is it really possible that she could tell the political beliefs of people she saw in a baking documentary? Amazing powers, Deducto!

There are a couple other gems in there. The point: Condescension = bad.

2. Kansas hates their Uncle Monkey.

According to CNN, Kansas will be holding some sort of mock trial/policy debate to see if evolution should be taught in the public schools.

The interesting part about this to me is that "[m]any prominent U.S. scientific groups have denounced the debate as founded on fallacy and have promised to boycott the hearings."

What the hell people?

This ties right into luthering among the left. Look, we can't just sit back and say we're right all the time, even when we are right. Boycotting this hurts Kansans. Science needs an advocate at this 'trial' but the scientific community refuses to participate. Screw that. If they are going to attack science, fight fucking back.

So, Mr. Pedro Irigonegaray, who will be evolution's counsel at the trial deserves a lot of respect.

And so does Sue Gamble, a member of the Kansas board holding the hearings, because she tells it like it is:

"I think it is a desire by a minority... to establish a theocracy, both within Kansas and growing to a national level," Gamble said.

One final note: speaking of scary mock trials: Abraham Lincoln was in a recently found to be a war criminal at a trial at Liberty University. Liberty University is Jerry Falwell's fundamentalist* Baptist school located in Lynchburg, VA.

*They happily call themselves fundamentalists. I'm not trying to insult anyone.

The Truth Revealed

"For example, time and again, I hear left wingers talk about how if only the american people knew the truth about Bush, then they would not support him anymore. Bush's reelection has shown this not to be the case. "

I must admit that I often fall into the fallacy you describe below. The thing about the election that really killed me was that people weren't fooled. The voters weren't conned into voting for Bush. No one tricked them. They knew exactly what Bush stood for and they voted for him anyway -- because they agree.

That's a kick to throat.

The Agenda

That's kind of a scary thought because it might be true. And we love lowering our taxes--gotta get da gubment off our backs.

Part of what I find interesting about the push for SS reform is how it just demonstrated Thomas Frank's thesis. The 'story' of the '04 election was that values voters came out in force to vote for Bush, and that's what put him back in the White House.

That thesis is certainly debatable, and it probably doesn't stand up to scrutiny. But, thanks to the media, it is what everyone believes.

Going with that idea, it is telling that Bush, after being re-elected 'by' values voters, decides that his first major policy goal will be to dismantle a program that is geared to keep people out of poverty in their old age.

Promise the overturn of Roe, but give 'em social security privatization . . . and bankruptcy "reform" . . . and class action "reform". All of these serve the interests of large, wealthy companies at the expense of poor families and individuals.

It's kind of disgusting actually. What do the fundamentalists get? A law for Terri Shiavo that didn't even have the bite to make the courts do anything.

Give a dog a bone, I guess.

The Republican Agenda From Now Until Mid-Terms

If you are looking for great truth in this post, you won't find it. I figure that the obvious just sometimes needs to be stated.

Social Security Reform is proving to be a huge loser for the Republicans. It is only a matter of time till they back away from it completely. Being well in the heart of the midwest, I can only speculate as to what the Washington "buzz" is on when the status of Social Security "reform". It probably has been dead for weeks. But out here in the flyovers it appears that Bush is still pushing hard for it. Whether it goes forward or not is irrelevant, because it is such a big loser for the Republicans.

Accordingly the Republicans will move to what I am sure they think is a grand master plan. Specifically, Karl Rove probably figured, "in 05 we will push SS "reform", and if we lose, we will push in tax reform in 06 right before the elections. Yeah, that will win! The public's anger over Social Security will be placated by the public's happiness with Tax Reform, and we will triumph yet again! Mwuhahahahahahaha....." Of course George was laughing along with him, not knowing why they were laughing...

My point? No one knows how much longer the Republicans will push Social Security, but I am guessing that after the summer recess from August 1st to Sept. 2nd, the Republicans will come back pushing hard on Taxes and ignoring Social Security reform. What did Andy Card say about selling the Iraq war? Well, I don't remember either, but it was something about how you don't do product launches in August.

I am also just trying to give fair warning, so next year when it seems the media has gone nuts and won't shut up about TAXES TAXES TAXES, and you are a left wondering what happened to Social Security Reform, you can look back here and take solace in knowing that the media discussion is all part of a plan. Maybe not your plan, but a plan.

Who Luthered?

A common mistake many people make is believing that if only the "truth" were revealed, everyone in the world agree on a given topic.

This just isn't the case. For a large variety of reasons people have varying political viewpoints. It doesn't help the left, or the right, or the center for that matter, to simply expect that others will agree with them when those others are shown what the left/right/center believes to be the "truth". For example, time and again, I hear left wingers talk about how if only the american people knew the truth about Bush, then they would not support him anymore. Bush's reelection has shown this not to be the case. Bush's support only started to wane after he came out with any number of unpopular policies, not because people finally started figuring out the "truth" about this administration.

While this strain of thought in american politics probably goes back to "these truths to be self evident", I think there is a more underlying behavioral trait at work. Consequently, we need a good verb for this type of thinking. Therefore I am proposing "Luthered" as this verb, in honor of Martin Luther and his 95 theses. This way we can say, "those hippies thought everyone would agree with them when they had their protest to shed light on that thing they care about, but in reality no one agreed with them at all. Man those hippies luthered that issue pretty badly."

Sometime later, I will explain how propaganda* is good and those on the left should use it instead of Luthering issues all the time.

*I meant to say "advertising" not "propaganda", my bad.

Kristof

I'm not a huge Kristof fan because of his columns like this. Maybe I just don't read enough columns in general, but it seems like Kristof has a talent for stating the obvious.

This column just isn't that interesting to me. We all know that Boomers are selfish. We all know that retired people have more time on their hands. We all know that running up debt is not a good thing.

Kristof seems to just be asking Boomers to take some responsibility for themselves. That may be an interesting point, but its not just about Boomers.

So, here's my chance to state the obvious: We don't live separately from each other. We have competing goals, competing policy interests, and a lot of the time, the game is near zero sum.

If we want things to be better, sometimes we have to give up what we want as individuals. It's not just personal responsibility, but responsibility to the community.

And taxes are a perfect example of that: In a very real way, people who benefit from the rules and organization of society have a responsibility to the community that allowed them the opportunity to gain the benefits. To be explicit, no one has become wealthy on their own. Not only does everyone receive help at some point, but the accumulation of wealth occurs only within the context of a pre-existing society.

Given that, taxes are appropriate, and higher taxes for people of more wealth are appropriate. The more you benefit, the greater your responsibility.

Edit: As Garrison Keillor recently said, it's best to think of taxes as "user fees."

Lets play Generational Politics!

There is a good op-ed in the New York Times today by Nicholas Kristof about the baby boom generation.

This article made me think about that obnoxious adage about being a young liberal and as one ages, becoming a conservative, as if conservatism is the only mature political philosophy one could have.

I would argue quite the opposite. Namely, conservatism unabashedly claims that selfishness is a virtue. You know, the standard greed is good line. I don't know how a political philosophy rooted in selfishness can be "mature".

Is it really mature to complain about your taxes? Complaining about one's taxes and all the things one would spend one's money on if not for those pesky taxes strikes me a lot like complaining about all the cool toys one would get if only one's allowance were bigger.

I guess I would just like to say: Stop whining about taxes and grow the #%@! up!

P.S. Happy May Day! or Happy International Workers' Day!