insanity

i normally don't bother with engaging what i see as insanity.  but, as i am reminded again and again, it is my responsibility to confront foolishness and untruth wherever i meet it--and also i'm waiting for my fantasy football waivers to process.  erin posted a link to a blog entry that has spurred me to add my voice (such as it is) to those already defending the truth.

so, obama and socialism.  ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME?  are you?  really, are you?  typically, i can find the patience and maturity not to yell at people that don't agree with me.  but, i've finally lost my shit.  i don't even know where to begin the debunking effort.  i mean, do i start with how obviously wrong you are to call any policy of any american politician socialist?  i don't mean wrong in a "don't be mean or throw mud" kind of way.  i mean wrong in a "who did you sleep with in order to get your college degree" kind of way.  or, do i start with how unbelievably desperate someone of john mccain's stature must be in order to resort to something incredulous as this.  or, do i talk about how dumb you must be in order to buy any of this shit? or, do i talk about the utter and crippling hypocrisy mccain must be dealing with in order to say things like this on national television?  fuck me, the possibilities are endless.

let us begin with the general academics.  i think in american politics people (willfully, i believe) confound the welfare state with socialism.  at it's most basic level (in terms of economics), socialism is about who owns the means of production--in broader terms, who owns the means to generate wealth and how are those decisions made.  the welfare state has a high rate of taxation that is used to fund a variety of public programs that everyone uses.  those are the basic, like, eighth grade differences.  can you see how disparate the two are?  if you can see how different these two things are then you have to ask yourself, "well, hell.  then why did they say it?"  because there are a shitload of people in this country that are so intellectually lazy that they won't fucking use wikipedia, maybe?  i mean...there are a lot of reasons, but they all follow that line of reasoning, so i won't bother going through them all.

and, right on the heels of being thunderstruck at how dumb and gullible people can be about language and pigeon-holing, is utter hypocrisy of this whole thing.  i mean...did we or did we not just give the investment banking industry 700B dollars?  that capital B stands for BILLION.  as in almost a trillion dollars.   did we or did we not just buy a majority share in the investment banking industry in one fell swoop?  that represents a redistribution of wealth on an unprecedented scale.  or, the fact that sarah palin is the governor of a state that issues a portion of the profit that private corporations make using the commonly held resources of the state.

but, no, america you're right.  obama says, "...spread the wealth," and it makes sense to go into full blown tail spin tizzy (i just made that phrase up.  ha.)  are you honestly telling yourself that you don't want to vote for him because you think he's a socialist?  you know, i think that i would have a lot more respect for you if you just said, "i don't want to vote for him because he's black and his name scares me."  just say it.  you'll feel better, i'll still think you're stupid, but at least i'll know you're honest.

some thoughts on proposals of change...

just a note or two...

last night i was watching c-span (i know), and newt gingrinch was giving a speech at the american enterprise institute. it was an interesting speech...it was full of thoughtful (if flawed) critique and bold ideas. i was in a listening mood because i had just finished listening to eboo patel talking about pluralism and religion...something that i almost always end up rejecting—not because i don’t agree with that idea; it’s because i don’t think that it’s entirely a workable notion when applied to religion and faith. the very notion of religion and faith seem to contradict the foundational principles of pluralism. however, i find it interesting and strangely satisfying to think and talk about. but, i digest (i love the family guy. i also love thunderlip.)

how about the idea as the american consumer as a consumable product? we’ll talk later...

i caught the last half hour or so of newt’s (heh heh) speech. he was talking about some of the challenges faced in determining the course of our future. specifically, he was talking about economics and culture and how the two inform one another. he talked about the situation in detroit...it’s decline and the policies that led to that decline. i don’t really know much about it—he intimated that it was all the fault of liberals and their desire to manage everything and redistribute wealth and their tendency toward bureaucracy. *shrug* could be...i woke up this morning thinking that there are a few things about which liberals need to be honest. the most important of those being not everything system that we humans encounter can be or even should be managed. economic output, the environment (specifically, wilderness), etc., etc. sometimes, i think that it’s just enough to get out of the way. i digested again.

since i didn’t catch the entire speech i didn’t really understand the point of bringing up detroit. maybe he was saying that since it was the site of so many failed liberal policies that it was time to try something that “makes sense.” anyway, he laid out seven proposals (of which i only remember a couple) to radically change or at least stake out a new direction. ( i think in a lot of ways, he’s making the implicit argument that the “great society” experiment has failed, and it’s time to try something else. though, how he can say that while at the same time our country has experienced the greatest economic expansions in the history of mankind is curious.

how bad-ass was david cook the other night on american idol? another reason to love chris cornell, as if i need more.

anyway, the one thing that he said that kind of stuck in my craw was the idea that adolescence was a contrived notion. it was a contrived notion of 19th and 20th century liberals...all of the things to counteract the growing power of monopolistic corporations...labor unions, child labor laws, etc. etc. but, i absolutely disagree with his analysis of social history. i mean, the reason that he addresses adolescence in particular is because of the amount of crime and the amount of leisure associated with the lives of teenagers. i don't disagree with that...i do agree that a great deal of undirected leisure time can lead to some bad stuff. the point of his analysis with which i take umbrage is the notion that somehow the social and economic reforms of the 19th century somehow created a class of people with nothing to do. on the contrary, the growth of the age group called adolescence has more to do with our astounding economic success than any law. it's the same effect that we see in financially successful families. if the parents go to college and do well for themselves, not only will their kids be more likely to do well, but also the parents will have something to leave for the kids and grandkids--and life becomes "easier" for successive generations. makes sense? doesn't it make sense that the same principle could be applied to a society? doesn't it make sense that as the country as a whole (not just a privileged few) became wealthier and moved through demographic transition, children wouldn't have to work to support smaller and more educated families?

our constitution

yesterday, i was talking to my friend, leah the lawyer. somehow we got onto the constitution and it's current state, and she made some compelling observations. i've always been a staunch defendant of the constitution and the bill of rights (all of the rights, not just the ones i like), but we really got to talking about the structure of the constitution and what that has meant for our society over the past 30 years or so.

take my defense over the right to bear arms. i've never really considered any argument that centered around hunting--not because i don't think it's legitimate, but because i don't think that the forefathers would have considered that as something that needed elucidation. it would be like including the right to go grocery shopping in the constitution. no-one would think to do that. no, i've always believed (and i think thomas jefferson believed) that the right to bear arms was fundamental to the inalienable right to revolution. i make this argument to leah the lawyer. she nods her understanding and then asks the following question. "So, when was the last time the US Marines were defeated in combat?" To which I have no response. So we reach a crossroads of the philosophical and the practical. Yes, it is true. the right to bear arms speaks directly to the right of the people to revolt, but how practical is that option when the governing body commands an essentially undefeated military? *ponder*

take due process and all that jazz. in a criminal trial, a defendant has the right to face his accuser. ok, that is something makes sense, right? how does a defendant "face" a crime lab? when the SBI crime lab runs a test, concludes that the white powder is, indeed, cocaine and the ADA presents that report in a trial...how does the defendant "face" his accuser? is it by proxy? you can't cross examine a piece of paper, and what happens to the notion of a "speedy" trial if every single defendant calls a technician or whatever to the stand?

take every single president from abe lincoln to the present. (now i remember how we got onto this subject. there we go.) anyone that has read the constitution will quickly (i hope) notice something ridiculous. the framers of the constitution spent the vast majority of their time focused on the legislative branch of government...then the judicial....then the executive. the thinking being that as the representative of the PEOPLE the legislative branch would and should be the most...active. is that the case now? to whom do we turn when we want to hear talk of tax breaks, or education, or social security, or any other of a host of domestic concerns which should properly be the domain of the congress? we ask the president. since abe lincoln, there has been a gradual but undeniable assumption of power and leadership by the executive branch. mostly because, the powers given to the executive branch are the least defined. is there anywhere in the constitution that gave abe lincoln the authority to issue the emancipation proclamation? no. that's why he issued that order in areas still in active rebellion. the emancipation proclamation as a document held no force in the north. that's why the 13th amendment to the constitution was issued--making slavery illegal. (my history on this is a little fuzzy. forgive me any slight mistakes--they weren't on purpose)

i say all of those things just to make the point that the makeup of our society has changed sufficiently as to be alien to the framers of the constitution. but, is it feasible at this point in our history to revisit the framework of social, economic, and legal systems? who can say?

two things that annoy me...

recently, i've been pondering two things that we should stop doing right now.

the first thing that we must do is stop looking for human hypocrisy in order to invalidate human ideas. what i mean is the trend (not even a little bit new by the way--just perfected) of attacking the person presenting the idea rather than understanding the idea itself on its own merits. i was listening to the sean hannity radio show again the other day, and he was almost giddy with delight about a report he had put together about environmentalists. not about environmentalism, but about environmentalists. he made allusions to some people who talked about carbon footprints or global warming or something along those lines but flew around the world in private jets rather than flying commercial. but, it doesn't stop there. i haven't listened in a long time, but i'm sure that commentators on air america radio are having a field day with the recent spate of republican elected officials having sex scandals. party of family values? i think not. anyway, rather than taking these cases on individual basis, both sides are guilty of making sweeping judgments about (in this case) all people who call themselves environmentalists, but also about the ideas espoused by those same people.

i think this is patently different than questioning someone's motive--say, in the case of profit or power. this is saying because you flew on a private jet all environmentalists are nuts and, oh by the way, your ideas are bullshit. i think that it's important to know who is talking to you and for whom they work. it's important to understand you have to understand the money trail for particular think tanks, authors, lobbyists and talking heads in general. but, it is something entirely different to reduce the substance of someone's ideas to character issues.

the other thing that annoys and is closely related is the manner in which many arguments are framed. i caught the tail end of the neil/neal boortz broadcast one day last week, and i was struck by the absurdity of what he was saying. he was talking about why the consumer tax would never be passed, and he was talking to someone that had called in to the show. anyway, he was saying that the reason we would never see the consumer tax enacted was because liberals in government don't want to give up the power they have over the population. the argument being that the manipulation of the tax code to induce certain behaviors is an intoxicating power to liberals--only. the thing that is preposterous isn't the obviousness of that incredulous lie. the thing that is preposterous is that instead of focusing on revamping the idea, you subvert the concept of the marketplace of ideas (where ideas "compete" with one another, and, as the theory goes, the best idea "wins"). rather than allowing the idea to flourish on its own, you focus on the acquisition of power in order to force your idea down the collective throat of america. you also subvert part of that evolutionary process...the process where ideas come into contact with different philosophies and are changed for the better.

i feel that i've lost my train of thought here...i'll refine and extend these arguments in posts to come. nodnod

redemption

redemption is a powerful word and is a powerful concept. i have a question about it tonight though. can redemption exist in a society that has nearly perfected the storage and access of information? i mean forgive and forget is a phrase that meant something in the past. think about the things we do for a minute. we're inundated right now with video clips and photos and sound bites of princess diana on this, the ten year anniversary of her death. her kids see her on tv or on the front pages of newspapers on a very regular basis. what must it be like to be bombarded with images of your mother constantly? we used to be ABLE to forget. i never thought it would be a luxury to be able to forget something or someone. photos will fade with time. you can even forget the sound of someone's voice with time. can you ever get to a place of peace or do you just become desensitized?

what does that mean for people in the public (most notably, most recently, michael vick) who screw up? can they ever redeem themselves in the public eye when anyone with an ax to grind can set up a website splashing their crimes all over the public discourse? jail in america is not meant to be therapeutic. we don't send people to jail here to cure them of addictions or compulsions. we don't send people to jail to give them an opportunity to better their lives. it is pure punishment. but, i thought that part of the deal with punishment is that once you do suffer the consequences of your actions that was it. you're done. your slate is wiped clean (except that you can't vote, can't get a decent job, don't have much of a shot to get into college unless you lie on your application...but set all of that aside), and you start again.

wait, i'm mixing topics. i don't want to talk about the penal code in america and how we treat those who transgress against us. i want to talk about the persistence of information and what that does to us.

um, right...splashing their crimes all over the public discourse? this line of thought started weeks ago when the vick story broke, but it really applies to anyone who (for whatever reason) draws a great deal of media attention to themselves--actor, athlete, politician, whatever. there are some things that are unforgivable, sure. lying about the reasons for starting a war. that's unforgivable. i don't mean to be...disingenuous? is that the word i want? i guess...i don't mean to denigrate the things that dumb celebrities do by comparing them to what i think the bush administration did. i don't mean that. i just mean we should collectively apply some perspective.

*sigh* off track again.

i just would like for us to take a minute and think about what it means that a person can't leave the past in the past. what does it mean for the concept of redemption when a person literally cannot ever again enjoy the luxury of simply forgetting the dumb shit they did in the past? i think that it means we leave the idea of redemption behind and shift to the control of information and who has access to it. recently, walmart was burned for editing it's own wikipedia entries. not that they don't have the right to edit factual content about them in a public forum. they had walmart employees posing as unaffiliated denizens of the net leaving positive remarks on their wikipedia entry (to combat the thousands of negative rants that had been posted). instead of seeking to REDEEM themselves in the public eye, they simply go about trying to change information. they (and others like them) are stuck in this absolutely EVIL catch22 situation--they can't redeem themselves because of the persistence of information (perhaps justified in this case), but if they're caught pursuing the one avenue left open--the manipulation of information--then they are vilified as a corrupt entity.

how often do we see this on talking head shows on TV? i heard some shit the other day on the sean hannity radio show that almost made me total the car. i don't think that i am misrepresenting his position when i say that sean hannity is a STAUNCH supporter of the bush administration...and, it's policies, including the use of torture in the interrogation of suspected (not proven, suspected) terrorists or those linked to terroism. we can quibble over what he meant by the word 'torture,' but he did say it. i actually listen to his show more than i should. so, bear all of that in mind. he's talking on the radio the other day about the soon to be ex-senator craig because apparently, the police release a tape of his interrogation. hannity talks about the ALLEGED (his words) crime despite the fact that craig plead guilty in a court of law. hannity says, and i quote, "i'm uncomfortable with the aggressiveness of the interrogation..." implying that the senator was bullied into pleading guilty to a crime he didn't commit? obviously, the officer conducting the interrogation was standing far too close for comfort. how ridiculous is it for hannity to sincerely make this argument when his record on related issues is clearly right-wing? hell, his stance helps define the right-wing.

i say all of that to make this point. there isn't the possibility of redemption in this case. there is no possibility that craig is going to come out and say, "yep. i did it. i'll pay the fine and do some community service. what i do in my bedroom is my business. butt out." there's no way he is going to admit that he did anything wrong because that is yielding in the battle to control information or at least the perception of information--which is what hannity was doing a fine job of on his radio show on that almost fateful day. they are waging word-war over our perception of the facts.

so, true spiritual transformation and redemption or cynical (and not even a little bit subtle) manipulation of the public's perception of factual information. *shrug* who can say?

every week...

over the past few days there have been four articles in our local newspaper about the rising sea level. the article made one argument that i found compelling. it doesn't really matter why the seas are rising or why the climate is changing. what's most important to our (humanity--the Earth will be fine. freshwater marshes will become saltwater marshes but we'll starve) short term survival is that it IS changing. there aren't any policy changes we can make in the near term that will affect climate in the next 50 years or so (at least, i wouldn't think, i'm no expert), so why are we in such a bind over green taxes and fuel efficiency and the like? right now, it just doesn't matter. at the very least, the changes underfoot now are inevitable. we've missed the tipping point in terms of talking about reversing climate change or the rising seas. those things are happening and will run their full course--we should be talking now about how we're going to adapt to those changes.

the two biggest obstacles to our finding balance with the environment is population growth/movement and the exportation of pollution. i've talked about population as a social and economic issue before in an earlier post, but (as with all human activity) there is an environmental component as well. in countries that progressed through demographic transition, the populations are relatively stable. the birth rate and the death rate (barring significant social upheaval) are equal. now, take a country like mexico that seems to be stuck in a cycle of poverty and skyrocketing birth rates. not only does the mass exodus of mexican citizens to the north ameliorate a lot of social/economic problems, but also, mexico (or any 3rd world country with population mobility) as an entity will never have to face issues of inherent carrying capacity and population stability.

our half-assed policies with regard to pollution control will simply turn pollution into a commodity. any regional policy that attempts to control pollution will simply move that polluting process to a less regulated area. i mean...that seems pretty straightforward, right? how is it possible to have a pollution control policy that isn't world-wide? how can you turn down kyoto in favor of regional pollution credits and lukewarm tax incentives?...

i've been "working" on this entry for awhile now. i think that i'll go ahead and publish it--it's never going to be perfect. *chuckle*

...to be continued.

common sense on immigration policy

we don't have a bit of it.

i can't really glean a great deal of actual information from the recent blathering about the new immigration bill. most talking heads spend all of their time whining about how bad it is without actually going into details. i don't have the energy to actually find the bill on the net to read it--i'm sure that i can predict what's in it. let's see, my guess is there is a section on dealing with the illegal aliens in the country now. prol'ly a combination of the two extreme positions in america now--some sort of slow forgiveness process with some punitive tax paying and whatnot. then an entire section about increasing the size of the border patrol, some money thrown at the fence idea...just a smorgsaborg of ideas and half-formed bits of policy. ultimately, we'll end up throwing billions of dollars at the situation and end up an unstable dynamic equilibrium that will last another 10 years or so and then we'll have the same "discussion" again.

ultimately, i believe that most folks are trying to deny the essential nature of our system here. the disparity in standard of living between our country and mexico is so large that for all intents and purposes we can regard mexico as a third world country. i don't understand how some of the smartest people in the world could look at a deal like NAFTA and NOT understand what it meant for our two economies. mexico always had a comparative advantage over us in terms of inexpensive labor, and we absolutely exacerbated the situation with NAFTA. with the passing of NAFTA, unfortunately for mexico, labor became a fungible commodity. i mean...that's all they had. a few years ago...well, the last presidential election, the huge economic issue was the outsourcing of jobs to mexico and other places, but primarily mexico. now, i think we are witnessing the logical economic progression given our relative economic positions. it only stands to reason that instead of staying in mexico and working for local wages at jobs that were originally american, those that can leave their homes and make their way north will do so.

we can talk all day long about punishing employers that utilize illegals, or expanding and modernizing guess worker programs, or expanding ICE and letting them arrest busloads of illegals and sending them home but we will NOT come one step closer to solving the immigration problem because we refuse to recognize the economic imbalance that creates the immigration pressure in the first place. *shrug* in a lot of ways, it is just as ignorant as our approach to drug policies in this country. putting addicts in jail is not solving the problem, and we just don't seem to be willing to face that. in order to create a situation where the population centers of our two countries are relatively stable, we must redress the economic imbalance between our countries.

technology transfers, infrastructure, significant financial investment in mexico...everyone benefits from a stronger, more economically independent mexico. population centers will stabilize, manufactored goods will become cheaper, soybeans will compete with poppy as a cash crop, peace and harmony will spread throughout the land. tra-la-la-la. i don't know. it seems that we need to take a step back and acknowledge the breadth and width of the problem and the accompanying breadth and width of the solution. this is something that is 10 or 15 years down the road, but i believe that the dividends are immeasurable and go far beyond the obvious economic benefits.

we'll see...

republican presidential candidate debates

ok, so yeah. i watched the debate the other night. *shrug* it was a lot like the democratic debate...no one really wanted to say anything that would separate them from the pack in a significant way. there was a great deal of agreeing and backslapping and whatnot. it was the first time i had the opportunity though to listen to folks like rudy guiliani (sp?) articulate some ideas. he was the only person in the debate that seemed to have a nuanced stance on abortion. there weren't really any original or even slightly interesting ideas on how to deal with iraq. most of them spent the bulk of their time saying what went wrong (like, duh) and how if they had been running things they wouldn't have done it that way (*gag*). again, not much different from what the dems had to say on iraq, but at least there were a couple of individuals who didn't mind cutting loose on their colleagues. i really got tired of the ronald reagan love fest that was unfolding on the stage. *GAG* again, i understand that they are pandering to their audience, and i didn't really expect much substance from them--but, geez. reagan this and reagan that.

one thing i found surprising was the considerable talk about flat/fair taxes. taxes based on consumption rather than an income tax. *shrug* that would put a lot mom & pop tax firms out of business...a lot of software designers would go hungry. um, i have not really read a lot about the so-called consumption tax. as a matter of theory though, i wonder about the inherent ... is unfairness the right word...of such a tax. i understand that low wage earners would take home a larger paycheck, but a larger portion of their disposable income would be taken up by the consumption tax as opposed to someone making a higher wage...perhaps someone with a higher savings rate versus their overall income and consumption rate. i mean the saving grace for low income earners now is the number of deductions they can take or simply being exempt from taxation altogether. i don't really see how you can mimic something like that at the cash register. i mean...would devise a system to pay back taxes to low wage earners on a quarterly basis? the point is if you're already living hand to mouth you are prol'ly not paying a lot in taxes and the extra you take home will not offset the extra you now have to pay the register. it won't do any good to get that money back on a quarterly basis because you are having trouble affording basic necessities NOW. i've not yet heard anyone address issues like that...i'm all for pay as you go though. i think you would have to do something like that if you switched income streams from something fairly predictable to something based on our consumption habits. i would shop a LOT less.

i'm watching fist of fury while i'm typing this, and i just have to say that bruce is a bad, bad man.

i saw three educated adult males indicate that they did not believe in evolution. it was at that point that i stopped taking any of them seriously.

ok, i actually have to work tonight, so later.

peace