by D. Ray Morton
So Rand Paul hasn’t been getting NEARLY as much criticism for his opinions on discrimination as he should be. Over the last few days, clips have surfaced of him aligning himself with the merits of the civil rights movement, while at the same time refusing to specifically denounce a hypotetical situation in which a private business chose not to hire someone based on race. Basically, he is all for desegregation (way to reach out on a hot button issue, Rand), but also doesn’t think the government should be able to force a business to comply with desegregation.
The question at heart is whether his fervent attitude toward keeping the national government out of making decisions for business trumps his need for desegregation to be REALLY upheld, which seems to be what he beleives. In interviews, he paints this picture where you can ideally have it both ways, where the government doesn’t pop in and tell you what you can and cant do AND businesses don't do anything dodgy to begin with. The PROBLEM though is that he’ll only denounce racism on a personal level, and considers it a “first ammendment right” if a business decides not to hire someone based on race. So HE isn’t condoning racism of any kind himself, but he wont take the steps it’s clear we need in this country to make sure no one else condones racism of any kind.
Conservatives love to call liberals idealists who dont really hone in on the real issues in this country, but they they themselves have a penchant for defending a false idealized America, one in which we are never wrong, racism shouldn’t be an issue, and any criticism is “unAmerican”. Sure, companies shouldn’t be racist. But they are in many cases, and we can’t build an arguement based on “shouldn’t”. Shouldn’t there be a government in place to enforce right and wrong? Is it really so terrible a thing to have the government there to make sure we’re all batting for the same team?
I’ve said it before- Conservatives think everything is a slippery slope. If Rand Paul’s need for the government to leave the state’s alone is so great that it allows for racist practices, that means he worries about the hypothetical takeover of big brother more than he worries about actual problems facing this country right now. “Sure, right now it’s oversight on racist hiring practices, but before you know it they’ll be putting tracker chips in our brain and giving us all the food they’ve decided we can eat in pill form and force feeding us those pills in giant stainless steel troughs!” Why don’t conservatives trust that the American people would CATCH a jump like that? We have elections, and we’d never ever let the government get to a point where our freedoms were really hindered to that extreme. The government controls things when it’s clear the states cant, or when there is a moral imperative.
Racism is not expression. It’s not speech. And racism is a problem in this country because people like Rand Paul find it to be the lesser of two evils, the other being this unfounded worry about government control. Is ANYONE really that opposed to the government telling a business not to be racist? Anyone? Free speech allows the Ku Klux Klan to walk down the street, but it doesn’t protect a business to deny someone based on ract. It just doesn’t. It’s easy for Rand Paul to be for civil rights as an ideal 40 years after it passed. It should be just as easy for him to be for the rights ingrained in the act as specific instances.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Arizona and "Papers Please"
by D. Ray Morton
I guess all we need to get the blood pumping through bipartisan veins is the passage of some “abhorrent” law that everyone can agree is a mishandling of our Constitutional rights. Arizona’s “Papers, Please” law certainly has one thing going for it, which is for at least one news cycle, the fake outrage on the right is somewhat disproportionate to the legitimate outrage from both democrats and republicans over this law.
Once again though, I have trouble finding REAL information. If you listen to enough commentary about the law, it would seem to imply police have not only the authority but the EXPECTATION to randomly stop people and ask for their proof of citizenship. A seemingly more rational explanation I heard though states that this isn’t true, and that police can only request documents if the person in question has already been under suspicion for some other illegal activity. Sure, we certainly don’t live in a world where such a suspicion can always been documented as a JUST suspicion, and maybe this law does insight racial profiling, and I’d certainly agree that this is not a positive direction for us to go, but I can’t in good conscience freak out about this bill as much as other people.
In fact, illegal immigration is a topic where I am surpassingly conservative. I have little respect or “slack” that I want to offer for people who are here illegally. It’s the “goodie two shoes” in me, that I’ve had for a long time. For instance, when I was a kid I’d always tattletale on others. Something would happen and I’d get in trouble for something. Then I’d see another kid do the exact same thing, so I’d tell the teacher. Usually then I’d get punched by the other kid who just got caught, but I’d also get reprimanded from the teacher for being a “tattletale”, as if I didn’t just help her do HER job! I never understood that unwritten rule that you don't rat on your friends for doing something wrong. My philosophy as a kid, and today, is “No! You just did something wrong! I saw it! If I am going to get in trouble for doing that exact same thing wrong, then you are too!” There is no “Well, you got by without getting caught, so bravo” to me.
So, with illegal immigration, I just can’t get comfortable defending illegal conduct. I’m not sure of the specifics in what it takes to legally be considered a citizen (i know there is a test I probably wouldn’t pass), but I always come back to the argument that being here illegally is an affront to all the people who took the time to do the process right, and any slack we give to illegals only reinforces them and delegitimizes our actual regulations for being here legally. If you and your family just cant live where you are, and you like our country that much, then have the respect to do what it takes to be here legally. And if you just cant manage that, then find another country with an easier process. And if you did get here illegally, you certainly shouldn’t act surprised or act like your freedoms are compromised if we find out.
And the law itself isn’t a HUGE slap in the face to freedom. Sure, it’s an inconvenience, but if you are not breaking the law, you should have nothing to worry about! And the law isn’t a Nazi-inspired swipe at an entire culture for personal reasons. Rather, it’s a response to the fact that we do have an illegal immigration problem in this country, some DO take advantage of the system, and while the law may not be popular, this might in fact do some good. There’d be no need for the new law if there weren’t a problem. Maybe it wasn’t the best law to make, but comparisons to Naziism imply this law was just created to fan the flame of bigotry. It wasn’t. It was created to fix an abused State.
I don’t know what law I’d put in its place. I do something. I’d find another way. But there is something to be said with how quickly this thing passed, right? I mean, who says government can’t move? And I know my criticisms of illegal immigration are more of a broad declaration against the PROBLEM, and not much of a comment on what to do with all the people who are already here illegally. That’s a different story. And I’ll get there. I guess my point is only that some good can come from laws like this, even if they aren’t everything we want them to be.
I guess all we need to get the blood pumping through bipartisan veins is the passage of some “abhorrent” law that everyone can agree is a mishandling of our Constitutional rights. Arizona’s “Papers, Please” law certainly has one thing going for it, which is for at least one news cycle, the fake outrage on the right is somewhat disproportionate to the legitimate outrage from both democrats and republicans over this law.
Once again though, I have trouble finding REAL information. If you listen to enough commentary about the law, it would seem to imply police have not only the authority but the EXPECTATION to randomly stop people and ask for their proof of citizenship. A seemingly more rational explanation I heard though states that this isn’t true, and that police can only request documents if the person in question has already been under suspicion for some other illegal activity. Sure, we certainly don’t live in a world where such a suspicion can always been documented as a JUST suspicion, and maybe this law does insight racial profiling, and I’d certainly agree that this is not a positive direction for us to go, but I can’t in good conscience freak out about this bill as much as other people.
In fact, illegal immigration is a topic where I am surpassingly conservative. I have little respect or “slack” that I want to offer for people who are here illegally. It’s the “goodie two shoes” in me, that I’ve had for a long time. For instance, when I was a kid I’d always tattletale on others. Something would happen and I’d get in trouble for something. Then I’d see another kid do the exact same thing, so I’d tell the teacher. Usually then I’d get punched by the other kid who just got caught, but I’d also get reprimanded from the teacher for being a “tattletale”, as if I didn’t just help her do HER job! I never understood that unwritten rule that you don't rat on your friends for doing something wrong. My philosophy as a kid, and today, is “No! You just did something wrong! I saw it! If I am going to get in trouble for doing that exact same thing wrong, then you are too!” There is no “Well, you got by without getting caught, so bravo” to me.
So, with illegal immigration, I just can’t get comfortable defending illegal conduct. I’m not sure of the specifics in what it takes to legally be considered a citizen (i know there is a test I probably wouldn’t pass), but I always come back to the argument that being here illegally is an affront to all the people who took the time to do the process right, and any slack we give to illegals only reinforces them and delegitimizes our actual regulations for being here legally. If you and your family just cant live where you are, and you like our country that much, then have the respect to do what it takes to be here legally. And if you just cant manage that, then find another country with an easier process. And if you did get here illegally, you certainly shouldn’t act surprised or act like your freedoms are compromised if we find out.
And the law itself isn’t a HUGE slap in the face to freedom. Sure, it’s an inconvenience, but if you are not breaking the law, you should have nothing to worry about! And the law isn’t a Nazi-inspired swipe at an entire culture for personal reasons. Rather, it’s a response to the fact that we do have an illegal immigration problem in this country, some DO take advantage of the system, and while the law may not be popular, this might in fact do some good. There’d be no need for the new law if there weren’t a problem. Maybe it wasn’t the best law to make, but comparisons to Naziism imply this law was just created to fan the flame of bigotry. It wasn’t. It was created to fix an abused State.
I don’t know what law I’d put in its place. I do something. I’d find another way. But there is something to be said with how quickly this thing passed, right? I mean, who says government can’t move? And I know my criticisms of illegal immigration are more of a broad declaration against the PROBLEM, and not much of a comment on what to do with all the people who are already here illegally. That’s a different story. And I’ll get there. I guess my point is only that some good can come from laws like this, even if they aren’t everything we want them to be.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Our Cowering Government (repost from December)
by D. Ray Morton
While what follows might be spurred on from my childlike sense of idealism brought on by my joining in on Lauren’s second marathon viewing of the whole series of “West Wing” , I still feel like I’ve been thinking about this for awhile and need to get it out. The latest I guess is that Senate Democrats are soon to be dropping the plan they had put forth to lower the Medicare age requirement from 65 to 55. This was of course after they decided a pussy version of the public option was too hard to pass, which of course was after they decided a REAL public option was too hard to pass. I swear to god I’m running out of metaphors to illustrate how toothless the Democrats are. They are caving on everything, and it’s beginning to look alot like the plot of a bad movie where everyone leaves the theater muttering “There is no way people actually act like that.” To put it another way- Sometimes I see a colorful sunset and muse that it looks like a painting. Then there are some sunsets that look so strange, so odd in color and structure, that they look like they are a BAD painting, like if someone painted that exact sunset I’d say it looked completely unrealistic. But there that sunset is in front of me, struggling to reach a consensus on health care reform.
When I was younger, I didn’t think about politics. When I was a little older, I thought about politics in the abstract, but I scoffed at those that would, in my eyes, paint politics with a broad brush. I didn’t like labels, people claiming to be Republican or Democrat, and I thought anyone who paraded around with a serious opinion, whatever that may be, must just be an asshole. I figured the whole political process was so complicated that anyone who felt they knew enough to have a real opinion must have just found a point where they wanted to stop learning and debating and decided to settle down in a comfort zone. I saw that as lazy. But of course, all that did was save me the trouble of actually LEARNING about the political process myself. I didn’t understand that politics wasn’t something to solve like a Rubix Cube, but was something to observe like a slinky.
But I really wish I could go back to that bubble of mine. I wish I could step back from all this bullshit and just expect my government to work for me again. It was so much fun not to see the gears struggling to turn. At the very heart of my anger with the government is a very simple fact... No one wants to convince me of anything. No one really tries. The best we get are spokesmen, pundits, lobbyists, and the occasional senator on a news show squeezing in the bullet points of the ever evolving Republican or Democratic manifesto, whatever it happens to be that week, in the two and a half minutes on said show allotted to be filler while we wait for the newest information on how many women Tiger Woods fucks who aren’t his wife.
We get the same 15 people, over and over again, preaching to their own choirs instead of trying to convince the rest of us that they have a better idea, which would be fine except we don't live on FACTS anymore. What am I supposed to think when a dickhead with a red tie tells me “Polls say the public option is fiercely unpopular”, and then I can literally flip to another station and just get there in time to hear a dickhead in a blue tie tell me “Polls say the public option is heavily favored by the public”? Lewis Black is right, we live in a world where everyone has different sets of facts, and no one takes the time to check up on it all, because the only number that really counts is... yep, you guessed it, how many women Tiger Woods fucks who aren’t his wife. CNN right now has a news story headline “Chris Brown deletes his Twitter account”, and yet I can’t get one drop of solid information on things that really make the world go round. It’s always unchecked, unsourced, and belied by ulterior motives. It gets to a point where I can’t and don't trust ANYTHING I hear anywhere. Life is a god damn Wikipedia entry. It’s like when Michael Moore comes out with a new documentary. Watch it, marvel at the statistics, and then Google it and find the multitude of websites set out to debunk the statistics, then find the multitude of websites set out to debunk the sites that debunk the statistics... and so on... Till eventually you just want to lie down and never get up.
But that’s fine! I’m fine with not being able to trust polls and statistics as long as you CONVINCE ME on a moral and intellectual level that you’ve got the right idea with how to move this country forward. President Obama during the campaign scratched the surface when he bought time on all major networks and ran a special in which he very simply, very directly, told us about who he is and what he wants to do for the country. It doesn’t matter as much what his batting average is right now as it was to hear a man tell me WHY he believes what he believes. It was exactly what I needed. Conservatives blasted it because McCain didn’t have enough money to put up a counter program, to which I say I think the problem isn’t that Obama went on TV and spoke to us, but that it costs so much money to DO THAT.
THAT’S THE POINT- I want to be bombarded with television and radio programming coming right from the people that write and pass the laws we live by. I would love nothing more than a television program where the only thing between Joe Lieberman and the TV camera is the teleprompter scrolling a brilliant argument against the Democratic health care agenda that he wrote his god damned self. Because that’s what I want. That’s what I need. Then put Harry Reid up there and have him to the same damn thing. Why can’t half my newspaper JUST be op-ed pieces by each member of the Senate and House saying SPECIFICALLY what they want to do and why they want to do it. We live in a world where information is so fucking easy to get, so why aren’t our leaders really FIGHTING for our eyes and ears? Convince me. CONVINCE ME. I’m a practical guy, and I and most of my friends would agree that our opinions are our own until someone convinces me otherwise. Stand up there and show me why we elected you to lead, and believe that you can change some minds while you do it.
I just heard on the radio a recording of Joe Lieberman 3 months ago saying he proposed lowering the age of Medicare from 65 to 55. If it’s not blatant hypocrisy that he’s now blowing the horn in opposition to the idea, then I need him to get in front of a fucking camera and tell me what the difference was 3 months ago. I need him to step up and tell me what he meant when he said what he said then, and why it’s not the same now. I need him to convince me he didn’t just get caught in a bullshit storm. CONVINCE me. And while your at it, tell me why I should listen to you considering your wife is a spokeswoman for the health insurance industry, because that’s what I heard too. Did I hear wrong? Is she? Isn’t she? Do I have a skewed sense of accountability on the matter? Is she a lobbyist, but it’s more complicated and I shouldn’t just assume your word is bullshit because of it? Then CONVINCE ME. Tell me why you think what you think. Because right now the system I’m using to make my opinion is that I hear that you proposed the exact same plan that you are now trying to destroy, and that your wife works for the insurance companies. I hear these things that succinctly. If it’s more complicated than that, then give me a complicated answer. And don't worry if I don't catch all of it, because I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want their leaders to SOUND SMART. I WANT to feel inferior to those leading me, because it helps me sleep at night knowing I can’t possibly do your job better.
The Joe Lieberman example is what I want from EVERYONE. CONVINCE ME. I’ll believe you if you are good enough of a speaker, I promise you. Hell, I know three or four liberals who got a little misty eyed for Ron Paul during the primaries, because the guy had a really good way of convincing people of hitherto unpopular ideas. Granted I still don’t think we should be an isolationist nation, but I swear to god he got me thinking about it. It’s evidence that I could be a Republican tomorrow if someone only convinced me.
Up till now I’ve been bipartisan in my assessment of how fucked our government is, but I would like to take just a second to say I don’t understand how the Republicans don't think they need to take a stronger stance on healthcare reform. I treat the evolution of our government like a court trial. I think that the creation of laws is innocent until proven guilty. If legislation makes it to the Senate and House, then I assume enough people believe it’s important that it deserves honest debate. Enough time and energy went into it. The legislation in and of itself is innocent. If you however, disagree with it, then it is YOUR DUTY TO CON VICE ME IT IS DEBILITATING OR REDUNDANT OR UNNECESSARY. Prove it guilty. Republicans right now just sit back, as if all they need to do is “react” to what comes at them, instead of either coming up with their own plan or REALLY explaining why the Democrats are wrong. I firmly believe that if the Republicans were the majority, and they introduced legislation that I didn’t agree with, then I would EXPECT from the Democrats a valid exploration into why that legislation is wrong. I wouldn’t be content with just sitting back. Because guess what, the status quo in this country isn’t working. It just isn’t. So anyone who shoots down attempts at changing things without giving their own ideas on the subject gives me the impression that they are fine with how things are going. Which is a bad assumption to be made of our leaders
This is getting long. I just wish I lived with a media culture that could easily allocate time and manpower to letting our leaders REALLY talk to us, with no strings attached. Because right now I think a great many of us, most of us actually, are growing into cynical bags of discord. I hear these things about Joe Lieberman, for example, and then everyone fucking moves on and I don’t get to hear his side of it. So now I live with this assumption that Joe Lieberman is a hypocrite and asshole. Now that’s etched in stone, but only because no one convinced me otherwise. And it’s like that with a thousand and one points of interest for me and everyone I know. It’s what drives us apart. Everyone has their little talking points of why so and so cant be trusted, and why such and such doesn’t work, because they heard something controversial and then the news cycle rushed forward before they could get the real truth about it. So we live with constantly being 60% sure of what we think, because we never got the chance to REALLY sit down and see the other side. I don’t fear the other side, and It don’t think many smart people fear the other side. I’d be much happier being a Republican who was 90% of what he thought than a Democrat who is 60% sure.
And if we lived in that world where our leaders unabashedly spoke to us, burying us with opinion and policy until we can’t breathe, I can’t imagine anyone saying “Yea, can we dumb this down? I know it’s abortion, I know it’s gay rights, I know it’s healthcare, but can you talk LESS about it, please?” And even if it’s not completely about CONVINCING us to change our mind, at least we’d walk around with a better understanding of why the other side thinks what it thinks. That’s the other problem. Right now we hear so little of the argument, that liberals can’t understand how Republicans really think what they think, and vice versa. It makes us subconsciously, or consciously for the more angry of us, dehumanize those we disagree with, which sounds strikingly familiar to an argument I made about our foreign policy a few months ago. Not talking to the enemy, or not really listening to the enemy is the beginning of the end. I’d be so much happier if Joe Lieberman talked to me for hours and hours until there was NOTHING more he wanted say, because then I’d be so much happier with my opinion of him, whatever that would be. Right now I just think he looks like a muppet.
While what follows might be spurred on from my childlike sense of idealism brought on by my joining in on Lauren’s second marathon viewing of the whole series of “West Wing” , I still feel like I’ve been thinking about this for awhile and need to get it out. The latest I guess is that Senate Democrats are soon to be dropping the plan they had put forth to lower the Medicare age requirement from 65 to 55. This was of course after they decided a pussy version of the public option was too hard to pass, which of course was after they decided a REAL public option was too hard to pass. I swear to god I’m running out of metaphors to illustrate how toothless the Democrats are. They are caving on everything, and it’s beginning to look alot like the plot of a bad movie where everyone leaves the theater muttering “There is no way people actually act like that.” To put it another way- Sometimes I see a colorful sunset and muse that it looks like a painting. Then there are some sunsets that look so strange, so odd in color and structure, that they look like they are a BAD painting, like if someone painted that exact sunset I’d say it looked completely unrealistic. But there that sunset is in front of me, struggling to reach a consensus on health care reform.
When I was younger, I didn’t think about politics. When I was a little older, I thought about politics in the abstract, but I scoffed at those that would, in my eyes, paint politics with a broad brush. I didn’t like labels, people claiming to be Republican or Democrat, and I thought anyone who paraded around with a serious opinion, whatever that may be, must just be an asshole. I figured the whole political process was so complicated that anyone who felt they knew enough to have a real opinion must have just found a point where they wanted to stop learning and debating and decided to settle down in a comfort zone. I saw that as lazy. But of course, all that did was save me the trouble of actually LEARNING about the political process myself. I didn’t understand that politics wasn’t something to solve like a Rubix Cube, but was something to observe like a slinky.
But I really wish I could go back to that bubble of mine. I wish I could step back from all this bullshit and just expect my government to work for me again. It was so much fun not to see the gears struggling to turn. At the very heart of my anger with the government is a very simple fact... No one wants to convince me of anything. No one really tries. The best we get are spokesmen, pundits, lobbyists, and the occasional senator on a news show squeezing in the bullet points of the ever evolving Republican or Democratic manifesto, whatever it happens to be that week, in the two and a half minutes on said show allotted to be filler while we wait for the newest information on how many women Tiger Woods fucks who aren’t his wife.
We get the same 15 people, over and over again, preaching to their own choirs instead of trying to convince the rest of us that they have a better idea, which would be fine except we don't live on FACTS anymore. What am I supposed to think when a dickhead with a red tie tells me “Polls say the public option is fiercely unpopular”, and then I can literally flip to another station and just get there in time to hear a dickhead in a blue tie tell me “Polls say the public option is heavily favored by the public”? Lewis Black is right, we live in a world where everyone has different sets of facts, and no one takes the time to check up on it all, because the only number that really counts is... yep, you guessed it, how many women Tiger Woods fucks who aren’t his wife. CNN right now has a news story headline “Chris Brown deletes his Twitter account”, and yet I can’t get one drop of solid information on things that really make the world go round. It’s always unchecked, unsourced, and belied by ulterior motives. It gets to a point where I can’t and don't trust ANYTHING I hear anywhere. Life is a god damn Wikipedia entry. It’s like when Michael Moore comes out with a new documentary. Watch it, marvel at the statistics, and then Google it and find the multitude of websites set out to debunk the statistics, then find the multitude of websites set out to debunk the sites that debunk the statistics... and so on... Till eventually you just want to lie down and never get up.
But that’s fine! I’m fine with not being able to trust polls and statistics as long as you CONVINCE ME on a moral and intellectual level that you’ve got the right idea with how to move this country forward. President Obama during the campaign scratched the surface when he bought time on all major networks and ran a special in which he very simply, very directly, told us about who he is and what he wants to do for the country. It doesn’t matter as much what his batting average is right now as it was to hear a man tell me WHY he believes what he believes. It was exactly what I needed. Conservatives blasted it because McCain didn’t have enough money to put up a counter program, to which I say I think the problem isn’t that Obama went on TV and spoke to us, but that it costs so much money to DO THAT.
THAT’S THE POINT- I want to be bombarded with television and radio programming coming right from the people that write and pass the laws we live by. I would love nothing more than a television program where the only thing between Joe Lieberman and the TV camera is the teleprompter scrolling a brilliant argument against the Democratic health care agenda that he wrote his god damned self. Because that’s what I want. That’s what I need. Then put Harry Reid up there and have him to the same damn thing. Why can’t half my newspaper JUST be op-ed pieces by each member of the Senate and House saying SPECIFICALLY what they want to do and why they want to do it. We live in a world where information is so fucking easy to get, so why aren’t our leaders really FIGHTING for our eyes and ears? Convince me. CONVINCE ME. I’m a practical guy, and I and most of my friends would agree that our opinions are our own until someone convinces me otherwise. Stand up there and show me why we elected you to lead, and believe that you can change some minds while you do it.
I just heard on the radio a recording of Joe Lieberman 3 months ago saying he proposed lowering the age of Medicare from 65 to 55. If it’s not blatant hypocrisy that he’s now blowing the horn in opposition to the idea, then I need him to get in front of a fucking camera and tell me what the difference was 3 months ago. I need him to step up and tell me what he meant when he said what he said then, and why it’s not the same now. I need him to convince me he didn’t just get caught in a bullshit storm. CONVINCE me. And while your at it, tell me why I should listen to you considering your wife is a spokeswoman for the health insurance industry, because that’s what I heard too. Did I hear wrong? Is she? Isn’t she? Do I have a skewed sense of accountability on the matter? Is she a lobbyist, but it’s more complicated and I shouldn’t just assume your word is bullshit because of it? Then CONVINCE ME. Tell me why you think what you think. Because right now the system I’m using to make my opinion is that I hear that you proposed the exact same plan that you are now trying to destroy, and that your wife works for the insurance companies. I hear these things that succinctly. If it’s more complicated than that, then give me a complicated answer. And don't worry if I don't catch all of it, because I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want their leaders to SOUND SMART. I WANT to feel inferior to those leading me, because it helps me sleep at night knowing I can’t possibly do your job better.
The Joe Lieberman example is what I want from EVERYONE. CONVINCE ME. I’ll believe you if you are good enough of a speaker, I promise you. Hell, I know three or four liberals who got a little misty eyed for Ron Paul during the primaries, because the guy had a really good way of convincing people of hitherto unpopular ideas. Granted I still don’t think we should be an isolationist nation, but I swear to god he got me thinking about it. It’s evidence that I could be a Republican tomorrow if someone only convinced me.
Up till now I’ve been bipartisan in my assessment of how fucked our government is, but I would like to take just a second to say I don’t understand how the Republicans don't think they need to take a stronger stance on healthcare reform. I treat the evolution of our government like a court trial. I think that the creation of laws is innocent until proven guilty. If legislation makes it to the Senate and House, then I assume enough people believe it’s important that it deserves honest debate. Enough time and energy went into it. The legislation in and of itself is innocent. If you however, disagree with it, then it is YOUR DUTY TO CON VICE ME IT IS DEBILITATING OR REDUNDANT OR UNNECESSARY. Prove it guilty. Republicans right now just sit back, as if all they need to do is “react” to what comes at them, instead of either coming up with their own plan or REALLY explaining why the Democrats are wrong. I firmly believe that if the Republicans were the majority, and they introduced legislation that I didn’t agree with, then I would EXPECT from the Democrats a valid exploration into why that legislation is wrong. I wouldn’t be content with just sitting back. Because guess what, the status quo in this country isn’t working. It just isn’t. So anyone who shoots down attempts at changing things without giving their own ideas on the subject gives me the impression that they are fine with how things are going. Which is a bad assumption to be made of our leaders
This is getting long. I just wish I lived with a media culture that could easily allocate time and manpower to letting our leaders REALLY talk to us, with no strings attached. Because right now I think a great many of us, most of us actually, are growing into cynical bags of discord. I hear these things about Joe Lieberman, for example, and then everyone fucking moves on and I don’t get to hear his side of it. So now I live with this assumption that Joe Lieberman is a hypocrite and asshole. Now that’s etched in stone, but only because no one convinced me otherwise. And it’s like that with a thousand and one points of interest for me and everyone I know. It’s what drives us apart. Everyone has their little talking points of why so and so cant be trusted, and why such and such doesn’t work, because they heard something controversial and then the news cycle rushed forward before they could get the real truth about it. So we live with constantly being 60% sure of what we think, because we never got the chance to REALLY sit down and see the other side. I don’t fear the other side, and It don’t think many smart people fear the other side. I’d be much happier being a Republican who was 90% of what he thought than a Democrat who is 60% sure.
And if we lived in that world where our leaders unabashedly spoke to us, burying us with opinion and policy until we can’t breathe, I can’t imagine anyone saying “Yea, can we dumb this down? I know it’s abortion, I know it’s gay rights, I know it’s healthcare, but can you talk LESS about it, please?” And even if it’s not completely about CONVINCING us to change our mind, at least we’d walk around with a better understanding of why the other side thinks what it thinks. That’s the other problem. Right now we hear so little of the argument, that liberals can’t understand how Republicans really think what they think, and vice versa. It makes us subconsciously, or consciously for the more angry of us, dehumanize those we disagree with, which sounds strikingly familiar to an argument I made about our foreign policy a few months ago. Not talking to the enemy, or not really listening to the enemy is the beginning of the end. I’d be so much happier if Joe Lieberman talked to me for hours and hours until there was NOTHING more he wanted say, because then I’d be so much happier with my opinion of him, whatever that would be. Right now I just think he looks like a muppet.
Liberal Condescension, or "Sorry GOP, I'll Use Smaller Words In My Rebuttal"
by D. Ray Morton
A whole ago Dennis Miller interviewed a guy who wrote a conservative article, and possibly a book if I’m not mistaken, about growing condescension from liberals toward the GOP. Basically he was making the argument that over the last 20 years, the “intellectual” institutions of the country have become more and more liberal, and combined with the left leaning bias of the media and the entertainment industry, the conservatives are left with an arrogant monster of an opposition party in the democrats. This guy contends that liberals are quicker to place conservatives into a stereotype and present them as either one tooth, “sister kissing” rednecks, or they are corporate money barons who fuck over the rest of the country with dishonest fiscal practices, with nothing in the middle.
I was listening to this interview with mild interest and even milder disagreement, until the guy used an example of how we liberals “paint conservatives with one broad brush”. He made the point that liberals listen to Sarah Palin make a ridiculous comment and then assume that’s the conservative agenda. Then he referenced Glen Beck. At that point I kinda wanted to reach in through my radio and throttle the guy. It’s one thing to say liberals are guilty of stereotypes. Personally I happen to see conservatives do the same thing just as much, as this guy did many times in the interview. (I’m pretty sure the word “elitist” came up a couple times) Is it a problem? Sure. Is it a big problem? No. Is only one side guilty of it? Sure as shit no. But when you suddenly talk about there being fault in liberals judging conservative ideals based on the bullshit that comes from Sara Palin and Glen Beck, I have to scream foul. If either of them represented some isolated extreme of conservative followers, then yeah, of course I’d take issue if liberals picked apart everything they said and held it up as evidence the republicans are retarded. But Sara Palin and Glen Beck are the BIGGEST NAMES IN POPULAR CONSERVATISM. Toss in Rush Limbaugh and you’ve got the unholy trinity. Since she burst onto the scene, Sarah Palin has been IMMENSELY popular with the conservative population in this country... maybe not the conservative media, who either try to either coddle her or not mention her at all, but the PEOPLE, the conservative PEOPLE? They love her. Glen Beck has the biggest audience for political commentary out there. Same with Rush.... so... Given their popularity, when liberals scrutinize their words and find a good argument that Sarah Palin is fucking stupid, then Glen Beck is fucking insane, and Rush Limbaugh is riding high on a long career of being both, it isn’t a stretch to assume some of what they say is more than just one facet of the conservative movement, but is the BULK of the conservative movement. This isn’t to say I think that every senator and representative with an “R” next to his name is a dipshit. My only point is that if a certain person is IMMENSELY popular with the people, and that person says something stupid with every breath, then you cant blame me for judging those people that like her. Smarter conservatives can roll their eyes at Sarah Palin all they want, but until they have her poll numbers and Glen Beck’s audience, I’m not going to trust they know which way the wind is blowing.
And here’s the other thing... Glen Beck, a political commentator, commenting that he thinks Obama is a racist... where are the conservatives coming out of the woodwork to say that’s bullshit? Where are the conservatives who hear Rush Limbaugh spout his hate speech and say it’s bullshit? Where are the conservatives coming out of the woodwork to say, on camera, that Obama WAS born in the United States, he IS the President, he isn't a muslim, he isn’t a socialist, and there is no such thing as death panels? I never see REAL conservatives who want to have honest debate come out and denounce the bullshit. When Rush, Sarah, and Glen all go on their tirades, and then real conservatives just don't talk about it, then what the fuck am I supposed to think? Logic would dictate that I’d have to think one of two things.... Either most conservatives really believe what the three stooges propagate but know they can’t say it themselves because of political retribution, or they DON’T believe them and think it’s not even worth mentioning, which would be sound reasoning if the bullshit weren't coming from names that big.
Obviously, if a HUGE name in liberalism said something stupid, I’d call him on it. The fact is, liberals don’t really have ONE or TWO or THREE demagogues like the conservatives, because I think they are a little more practical with their beliefs. It’s hardly a comparison, but sometimes I completely agree with Keith Olbermann, and sometimes I disagree with him, and if someone asked, I’d tell them so. If Keith Olbermann goes on TV tomorrow and says George Bush is a racist, I’d disagree with that, and I think alot of people would and alot of people would say so.
Look at this this way, the conspiracy theorists are out there on both sides, but the liberal conspiracy theories are much easier to believe, because they are based on motives, money, and actions, while conservatives think Barack Obama wasn’t born in America even after seeing his birth certificate. If a liberal president and his vice president worked for oil companies, made absurd profits, and then started a war under false pretenses in a country where there was oil money to be made... I’d... say... something... about it... and even if I didn’t think it was shady, I certainly wouldn’t think it was ridiculous to have a discussion about it.
It’s just nuts.
A whole ago Dennis Miller interviewed a guy who wrote a conservative article, and possibly a book if I’m not mistaken, about growing condescension from liberals toward the GOP. Basically he was making the argument that over the last 20 years, the “intellectual” institutions of the country have become more and more liberal, and combined with the left leaning bias of the media and the entertainment industry, the conservatives are left with an arrogant monster of an opposition party in the democrats. This guy contends that liberals are quicker to place conservatives into a stereotype and present them as either one tooth, “sister kissing” rednecks, or they are corporate money barons who fuck over the rest of the country with dishonest fiscal practices, with nothing in the middle.
I was listening to this interview with mild interest and even milder disagreement, until the guy used an example of how we liberals “paint conservatives with one broad brush”. He made the point that liberals listen to Sarah Palin make a ridiculous comment and then assume that’s the conservative agenda. Then he referenced Glen Beck. At that point I kinda wanted to reach in through my radio and throttle the guy. It’s one thing to say liberals are guilty of stereotypes. Personally I happen to see conservatives do the same thing just as much, as this guy did many times in the interview. (I’m pretty sure the word “elitist” came up a couple times) Is it a problem? Sure. Is it a big problem? No. Is only one side guilty of it? Sure as shit no. But when you suddenly talk about there being fault in liberals judging conservative ideals based on the bullshit that comes from Sara Palin and Glen Beck, I have to scream foul. If either of them represented some isolated extreme of conservative followers, then yeah, of course I’d take issue if liberals picked apart everything they said and held it up as evidence the republicans are retarded. But Sara Palin and Glen Beck are the BIGGEST NAMES IN POPULAR CONSERVATISM. Toss in Rush Limbaugh and you’ve got the unholy trinity. Since she burst onto the scene, Sarah Palin has been IMMENSELY popular with the conservative population in this country... maybe not the conservative media, who either try to either coddle her or not mention her at all, but the PEOPLE, the conservative PEOPLE? They love her. Glen Beck has the biggest audience for political commentary out there. Same with Rush.... so... Given their popularity, when liberals scrutinize their words and find a good argument that Sarah Palin is fucking stupid, then Glen Beck is fucking insane, and Rush Limbaugh is riding high on a long career of being both, it isn’t a stretch to assume some of what they say is more than just one facet of the conservative movement, but is the BULK of the conservative movement. This isn’t to say I think that every senator and representative with an “R” next to his name is a dipshit. My only point is that if a certain person is IMMENSELY popular with the people, and that person says something stupid with every breath, then you cant blame me for judging those people that like her. Smarter conservatives can roll their eyes at Sarah Palin all they want, but until they have her poll numbers and Glen Beck’s audience, I’m not going to trust they know which way the wind is blowing.
And here’s the other thing... Glen Beck, a political commentator, commenting that he thinks Obama is a racist... where are the conservatives coming out of the woodwork to say that’s bullshit? Where are the conservatives who hear Rush Limbaugh spout his hate speech and say it’s bullshit? Where are the conservatives coming out of the woodwork to say, on camera, that Obama WAS born in the United States, he IS the President, he isn't a muslim, he isn’t a socialist, and there is no such thing as death panels? I never see REAL conservatives who want to have honest debate come out and denounce the bullshit. When Rush, Sarah, and Glen all go on their tirades, and then real conservatives just don't talk about it, then what the fuck am I supposed to think? Logic would dictate that I’d have to think one of two things.... Either most conservatives really believe what the three stooges propagate but know they can’t say it themselves because of political retribution, or they DON’T believe them and think it’s not even worth mentioning, which would be sound reasoning if the bullshit weren't coming from names that big.
Obviously, if a HUGE name in liberalism said something stupid, I’d call him on it. The fact is, liberals don’t really have ONE or TWO or THREE demagogues like the conservatives, because I think they are a little more practical with their beliefs. It’s hardly a comparison, but sometimes I completely agree with Keith Olbermann, and sometimes I disagree with him, and if someone asked, I’d tell them so. If Keith Olbermann goes on TV tomorrow and says George Bush is a racist, I’d disagree with that, and I think alot of people would and alot of people would say so.
Look at this this way, the conspiracy theorists are out there on both sides, but the liberal conspiracy theories are much easier to believe, because they are based on motives, money, and actions, while conservatives think Barack Obama wasn’t born in America even after seeing his birth certificate. If a liberal president and his vice president worked for oil companies, made absurd profits, and then started a war under false pretenses in a country where there was oil money to be made... I’d... say... something... about it... and even if I didn’t think it was shady, I certainly wouldn’t think it was ridiculous to have a discussion about it.
It’s just nuts.
The Thumb of Government
by D. Ray Morton
So last night, in between peach pie and introducing my family to my future mother in law, I found myself whispering politics with my dad from across the dinner table while everyone else talked the wedding. I love our talks, or our “whispers” in this case, and I know I am always in for a conservative rundown of the current state of the Union when we do have them.
The meat of the conversation was about whether someone should either believe the government has the right to control so many aspects of our lives, my father obviously siding on the argument that forcing everyone to have heath care is nearly criminal and definitely unconstitutional, and my siding on the argument that while I agree that extreme government control is bad for the country, I think it’s better than letting the free market run amok.
During our conversation, I equated the country as a giant bolder stuck near the top of a mountain. On one side of the mountain is the valley of socialism, complete control over every choice you make by the government, and on the other side is the valley of complete freedom from the government, in which the free market reigns supreme without any restriction. My argument comes from the fact that I see our country as either rolling down one side or the other. It is impossible to place it right at the top, and no one even seems eager to do so. Instead, we seem to go through cycles of regulation and more regulation and more regulation, letting the boulder slide toward the socialist valley, and then we the majority switches parties and the boulder finds itself rolling the either way. the important visual here is that I concede that it’s a slippery slope either way, and once either party is in power, the boulder just keeps rolling. But my point to my father was that if we acknowledge that we cant get that boulder right on top of the mountain then it all comes down to which side of the mountain we want the boulder to roll. And I, as most liberals or progressives, side with the government regulatory side. I think it’s better for the country, and this is why.
First of all, conservatives really can’t argue that they are against government control as a general practice. After all, they don’t really mind government control when it comes to limiting abortion and teaching creationism in schools, do they? The point is, they are against CERTAIN KINDS of regulation, regulation that speaks against their credo. But the same can be true for democrats and independents and everyone else. Everyone is fine with government control if said control favors their value system. It’s all subjective and dependent on how far you think the Constitution and our morals give flavor to a certain subject. But for some reason conservatives cornered the market on “get the government out of our hair!”, as if a conservative majority would actually lower the government’s role to fixing potholes and mailing our care packages. It’s just not true. The government is always going to be there pushing an agenda forward, the only question is WHICH.
For that matter, a national mandate for healthcare was originally introduced as a republican idea back in the early 90’s, so the argument that this is a sure sign of government takeover is SILLY. It’s hypocrisy. It’s just the team that is not in power throwing stones at the team in power. It isn’t the only recent example, but it is one of the most glaring ones. The conversation SHOULD be about convincing me it isn’t all hypocrisy, but instead republicans just like to brush it aside, like it doesn’t matter, as if I’m not supposed to notice.
The conservative view is that the government shouldn’t be there with a handout for people, coddling them into expecting a national “teat” to suckle at. Food stamps, unemployment... none of these programs should be used to weaken us into lazily expecting the government to keep us going. We should pick ourselves up by own own bootstraps and make something of ourselves, like our ancestors did. The problem is it’s easy to go back to Ellis Island and consider that as a CLEAN slate for all American potential. Right now we live in a very complicated country. Unfortunately we aren’t all created equal. I don’t particularly believe in affirmative action, for instance, but I would also rather live in a country that didn’t discriminate enough to NEED affirmative action. My point is, it’s not a black and white issue. You can’t say the struggles your great grandfather overcame to be a success in this country are the same as now, and therefore require the exact same assistance, or lack thereof, from the government. Do I think people deserve to be coddled? No. Do I think that is what’s happening? Sure, sometimes. But my argument is that I think that is an opportunity for the government to step in EVEN MORE than it already does. Would conservatives have a problem if the government came in and set down harsher regulations for programs aimed at helping those in need? I think that if the President made a speech in which he convinced me that a certain government program wasn’t encouraging people to be their best, if it was doing nothing more than giving a “handout” to people, and that regulation needed to fix it, I’d be for it! I want this country to be build on “DO”, not on “GIMME”. I asked my father if he had a problem with all government intervention, or if he’d be in favor of the hypothetical I produced. What if the government not only laid down restrictions on big business and corrupt corporations, but also on public services that let people take advantage of the system?
Also, during my boulder on the mountain analogy, I compared the American people to a small child, and the government to a parent or guardian. It should be there to guide, support, and help us grow. It should inspire new ways of thinking and be there to point us in the right direction. But just like when we have safeguards when a parent abuses his child, we have safeguards for when the government abuses it’s people. They are called ELECTIONS. Nothing lasts forever, the paradigm shifts, the other side takes power, and the country keeps moving. I’ve never understood how people are so angry with Obama, as if the boulder has already come to a violent stop in the socialism valley. It hasn’t. Progressives don't WANT it to. I trust government in my life because I believe the system will shake off those in power if those in power aren’t good for the system. I believe in government regulation because I believe we as a country wont let it go to far. By contrast, I don’t believe in complete capitalistic freedom, because in my opinion I think we’ve seen we as a country WILL let it go to far. We are too greedy, too insatiable, too gluttonous to trust with the keys, aren’t we? But we as a country have it in us to have a RATIONAL discourse about the limits or freedoms of the Constitution, and once we make a decision on that, then the boulder gets reset somewhere higher up on the mountain. But bringing guns to Obama rallies, hate speech, false accusations about “death panels”... these don't further the national conversation on the subject. I’d love to have a conversation with a conservative about the Constitutionality of government mandated health insurance, but I’d need them to take the gun out of their hand and stop treating the topic with the adrenaline induced defense mechanisms akin to getting slapped in the face when you weren't expecting it.
My point keeps coming back to what the conversation SHOULD be. The conversation is what changes minds, puts people in office and changes things for the better. But the conversation can’t happen if one side doesn’t show up. When Bush was in power, the liberal outrage produced VERY GOOD ARGUMENTS AGAINST BUSH. Where are the conservatives making good arguments? I guess all I want to say is that I live in a country where I am required to have health insurance, and I still feel like I live in a FREE country. If the thumb of government oppression ever found it’s way to my back, I’d rise up against it, as I’m sure we all would, but to conservatives tea party loons who scream “HELL YEAH!! THAT’S WHAT WE ARE DOING! WE ARE RISING UP AGAINST THIS OPPRESSION!”, I just defer to my earlier argument that government mandated healthcare was a republican idea in the early 90’s, then I ask for any documentation they have of their outrage back then, and then when they can’t produce any, I ask them where their REAL argument is, besides floundering in partisan hypocrisy. 15 years ago it was YOUR idea, so your outrage now is bullshit.
I think that if 15 years ago we had a democratic President who took us to war under false pretenses, then yes, I’d have trouble with a liberal outrage now over the Bush administration doing the same thing, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for pointing the hypocrisy out to me. But that’s not the kind of national conversation our country wants to have, and that’s the craziest thing in the world.
So last night, in between peach pie and introducing my family to my future mother in law, I found myself whispering politics with my dad from across the dinner table while everyone else talked the wedding. I love our talks, or our “whispers” in this case, and I know I am always in for a conservative rundown of the current state of the Union when we do have them.
The meat of the conversation was about whether someone should either believe the government has the right to control so many aspects of our lives, my father obviously siding on the argument that forcing everyone to have heath care is nearly criminal and definitely unconstitutional, and my siding on the argument that while I agree that extreme government control is bad for the country, I think it’s better than letting the free market run amok.
During our conversation, I equated the country as a giant bolder stuck near the top of a mountain. On one side of the mountain is the valley of socialism, complete control over every choice you make by the government, and on the other side is the valley of complete freedom from the government, in which the free market reigns supreme without any restriction. My argument comes from the fact that I see our country as either rolling down one side or the other. It is impossible to place it right at the top, and no one even seems eager to do so. Instead, we seem to go through cycles of regulation and more regulation and more regulation, letting the boulder slide toward the socialist valley, and then we the majority switches parties and the boulder finds itself rolling the either way. the important visual here is that I concede that it’s a slippery slope either way, and once either party is in power, the boulder just keeps rolling. But my point to my father was that if we acknowledge that we cant get that boulder right on top of the mountain then it all comes down to which side of the mountain we want the boulder to roll. And I, as most liberals or progressives, side with the government regulatory side. I think it’s better for the country, and this is why.
First of all, conservatives really can’t argue that they are against government control as a general practice. After all, they don’t really mind government control when it comes to limiting abortion and teaching creationism in schools, do they? The point is, they are against CERTAIN KINDS of regulation, regulation that speaks against their credo. But the same can be true for democrats and independents and everyone else. Everyone is fine with government control if said control favors their value system. It’s all subjective and dependent on how far you think the Constitution and our morals give flavor to a certain subject. But for some reason conservatives cornered the market on “get the government out of our hair!”, as if a conservative majority would actually lower the government’s role to fixing potholes and mailing our care packages. It’s just not true. The government is always going to be there pushing an agenda forward, the only question is WHICH.
For that matter, a national mandate for healthcare was originally introduced as a republican idea back in the early 90’s, so the argument that this is a sure sign of government takeover is SILLY. It’s hypocrisy. It’s just the team that is not in power throwing stones at the team in power. It isn’t the only recent example, but it is one of the most glaring ones. The conversation SHOULD be about convincing me it isn’t all hypocrisy, but instead republicans just like to brush it aside, like it doesn’t matter, as if I’m not supposed to notice.
The conservative view is that the government shouldn’t be there with a handout for people, coddling them into expecting a national “teat” to suckle at. Food stamps, unemployment... none of these programs should be used to weaken us into lazily expecting the government to keep us going. We should pick ourselves up by own own bootstraps and make something of ourselves, like our ancestors did. The problem is it’s easy to go back to Ellis Island and consider that as a CLEAN slate for all American potential. Right now we live in a very complicated country. Unfortunately we aren’t all created equal. I don’t particularly believe in affirmative action, for instance, but I would also rather live in a country that didn’t discriminate enough to NEED affirmative action. My point is, it’s not a black and white issue. You can’t say the struggles your great grandfather overcame to be a success in this country are the same as now, and therefore require the exact same assistance, or lack thereof, from the government. Do I think people deserve to be coddled? No. Do I think that is what’s happening? Sure, sometimes. But my argument is that I think that is an opportunity for the government to step in EVEN MORE than it already does. Would conservatives have a problem if the government came in and set down harsher regulations for programs aimed at helping those in need? I think that if the President made a speech in which he convinced me that a certain government program wasn’t encouraging people to be their best, if it was doing nothing more than giving a “handout” to people, and that regulation needed to fix it, I’d be for it! I want this country to be build on “DO”, not on “GIMME”. I asked my father if he had a problem with all government intervention, or if he’d be in favor of the hypothetical I produced. What if the government not only laid down restrictions on big business and corrupt corporations, but also on public services that let people take advantage of the system?
Also, during my boulder on the mountain analogy, I compared the American people to a small child, and the government to a parent or guardian. It should be there to guide, support, and help us grow. It should inspire new ways of thinking and be there to point us in the right direction. But just like when we have safeguards when a parent abuses his child, we have safeguards for when the government abuses it’s people. They are called ELECTIONS. Nothing lasts forever, the paradigm shifts, the other side takes power, and the country keeps moving. I’ve never understood how people are so angry with Obama, as if the boulder has already come to a violent stop in the socialism valley. It hasn’t. Progressives don't WANT it to. I trust government in my life because I believe the system will shake off those in power if those in power aren’t good for the system. I believe in government regulation because I believe we as a country wont let it go to far. By contrast, I don’t believe in complete capitalistic freedom, because in my opinion I think we’ve seen we as a country WILL let it go to far. We are too greedy, too insatiable, too gluttonous to trust with the keys, aren’t we? But we as a country have it in us to have a RATIONAL discourse about the limits or freedoms of the Constitution, and once we make a decision on that, then the boulder gets reset somewhere higher up on the mountain. But bringing guns to Obama rallies, hate speech, false accusations about “death panels”... these don't further the national conversation on the subject. I’d love to have a conversation with a conservative about the Constitutionality of government mandated health insurance, but I’d need them to take the gun out of their hand and stop treating the topic with the adrenaline induced defense mechanisms akin to getting slapped in the face when you weren't expecting it.
My point keeps coming back to what the conversation SHOULD be. The conversation is what changes minds, puts people in office and changes things for the better. But the conversation can’t happen if one side doesn’t show up. When Bush was in power, the liberal outrage produced VERY GOOD ARGUMENTS AGAINST BUSH. Where are the conservatives making good arguments? I guess all I want to say is that I live in a country where I am required to have health insurance, and I still feel like I live in a FREE country. If the thumb of government oppression ever found it’s way to my back, I’d rise up against it, as I’m sure we all would, but to conservatives tea party loons who scream “HELL YEAH!! THAT’S WHAT WE ARE DOING! WE ARE RISING UP AGAINST THIS OPPRESSION!”, I just defer to my earlier argument that government mandated healthcare was a republican idea in the early 90’s, then I ask for any documentation they have of their outrage back then, and then when they can’t produce any, I ask them where their REAL argument is, besides floundering in partisan hypocrisy. 15 years ago it was YOUR idea, so your outrage now is bullshit.
I think that if 15 years ago we had a democratic President who took us to war under false pretenses, then yes, I’d have trouble with a liberal outrage now over the Bush administration doing the same thing, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for pointing the hypocrisy out to me. But that’s not the kind of national conversation our country wants to have, and that’s the craziest thing in the world.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Another Crack At The Political Ad Problem
by Piker
A while back I floated the idea of banning political ads on TV, because it's the single biggest eater of money in political campaigns (and consequently the reason why politicians have to rely on special interest donations to get elected) and because the issues are never adequately covered in 30 second spots. And I admitted that banning is an imperfect solution because there are obvious free speech problems.
So okay, I've taken the bill into committee and come back with a watered down compromise: Allow television advertising, but no political ad can be less than 15 minutes in length.
What are the advantages? The most obvious one is that it prevents the advertiser from picking a single lie and jamming it into your cranium every hour all day long. Instead, at worst a political advertiser (this would be for people AND propositions) could attempt to get 15 minutes a day in prime time, and even if they repeated the single lie in that slot, most people would note the message and switch channels after a few minutes. Probably in order to hold your attention the slot would have to go into detail, which is fine because there is nothing in politics that can be summed up in 30 seconds. 15 minutes is inadequate too of course, but it's a start.
And since there is practically nothing on American TV that starts or ends on the 15-minute mark, programmers would probably book a slot of two ads, hopefully opposing. Or one advertiser would buy the full half hour. Or a whole hour, in Obama's case. Yes, I'm talking about infomercial programming here. And this is another reason why this compromise is easier to swallow than my original plan: it doesn't yank a huge revenue stream from the TV industry. Also a half hour of television shouldn't be any more expensive than 8 minutes of it. Typically that's how much commercial time a network sells, and they could charge half that because they don't have to support the expense of that troublesome sitcom that they put between the ads.
You could argue that this would be bad for ratings, but if it's a choice between ACCORDING TO JIM and competing bond measures, I'm flipping a coin.
The main problem with this compromise is that it doesn't save enough money. At first. But honestly, this kind of advertising wouldn't be nearly as effective (i.e. wouldn't sucker as many potential voters) and therefore would gradually be dropped in favor of internet advertising, which is at least cheaper. Again, at first. But in the big picture, probably a lot of people who vote now wouldn't be bothered to next time? Is this bad? Not if it's birthers. Not if it's people who think Bush was behind 9/11. It's just like the stock bubble - most of the problems were caused by people investing who had no idea what they were doing. You should know a little before you vote.
Okay, so that's that idea out there. Anybody have anything to add?
A while back I floated the idea of banning political ads on TV, because it's the single biggest eater of money in political campaigns (and consequently the reason why politicians have to rely on special interest donations to get elected) and because the issues are never adequately covered in 30 second spots. And I admitted that banning is an imperfect solution because there are obvious free speech problems.
So okay, I've taken the bill into committee and come back with a watered down compromise: Allow television advertising, but no political ad can be less than 15 minutes in length.
What are the advantages? The most obvious one is that it prevents the advertiser from picking a single lie and jamming it into your cranium every hour all day long. Instead, at worst a political advertiser (this would be for people AND propositions) could attempt to get 15 minutes a day in prime time, and even if they repeated the single lie in that slot, most people would note the message and switch channels after a few minutes. Probably in order to hold your attention the slot would have to go into detail, which is fine because there is nothing in politics that can be summed up in 30 seconds. 15 minutes is inadequate too of course, but it's a start.
And since there is practically nothing on American TV that starts or ends on the 15-minute mark, programmers would probably book a slot of two ads, hopefully opposing. Or one advertiser would buy the full half hour. Or a whole hour, in Obama's case. Yes, I'm talking about infomercial programming here. And this is another reason why this compromise is easier to swallow than my original plan: it doesn't yank a huge revenue stream from the TV industry. Also a half hour of television shouldn't be any more expensive than 8 minutes of it. Typically that's how much commercial time a network sells, and they could charge half that because they don't have to support the expense of that troublesome sitcom that they put between the ads.
You could argue that this would be bad for ratings, but if it's a choice between ACCORDING TO JIM and competing bond measures, I'm flipping a coin.
The main problem with this compromise is that it doesn't save enough money. At first. But honestly, this kind of advertising wouldn't be nearly as effective (i.e. wouldn't sucker as many potential voters) and therefore would gradually be dropped in favor of internet advertising, which is at least cheaper. Again, at first. But in the big picture, probably a lot of people who vote now wouldn't be bothered to next time? Is this bad? Not if it's birthers. Not if it's people who think Bush was behind 9/11. It's just like the stock bubble - most of the problems were caused by people investing who had no idea what they were doing. You should know a little before you vote.
Okay, so that's that idea out there. Anybody have anything to add?
Monday, August 17, 2009
Initial Thoughts on Health Care and the Conservative Reaction
by D. Ray Morton
I can't begin to describe how difficult it is to thoughtfully engage someone on the other side of the heathcare debate, not out of frustration with their opinion so much as a combination of my own ignorance on the subject and my struggle to justify my sometimes very general and idealistic opinions on the matter. It's hard when I'm talking to someone who is ready to stock up on ammo and canned goods as if the world is ending, and the burden of proof is suddenly on me to prove to him things AREN'T going to hell, instead of the burden of proof being on him to prove to me the world is going to end if Obama's health care bill passes.
If in the last 8 years you happened to nod along to the suspension of habeus corpus and our rights to privacy, I have a hard time believing your outrage that suddenly we all might have to buy health care is an unnacceptable encroachment of our freedom. Annoying? Sure. A financial burdon? More than likely. But let's try to look outside our own window and think of it as something we might have to buy into so that millions more can afford it themselves.
We always forgo the societal good for our own selfishness.
Clearly conservatives and liberals are hardwired to wonder how the hell the other side can rationalize their arguments, but DAMN. After everything we experienced with the last administration, doesn't it seem strained to treat the introduction of new healthcare reform as the last straw?
There are a couple of things I've never understood. It seems to me that the conservative exremist view is that Obama is after power and wants to cripple the country. It's this "He wants to fuck up what we love" mentality. I just don't get that. What the fuck is he, a Bond villain? He wants to destroy the world? What does he gain? If nothing else, the reaction to Bush being a fuckup at least took into account that we as liberals were aware he was doing "what he thinks is right", even if it was misguided and irrational. But it seems the more ridiculous arguments against Obama and his health care plan paint him as someone who doesn't care if the world crashes down around him, which to me is proves just how bad conservatives are at propaganda. It's always seems to be an argument more obtuse, over the top, or life-and-death.
More soon.
I can't begin to describe how difficult it is to thoughtfully engage someone on the other side of the heathcare debate, not out of frustration with their opinion so much as a combination of my own ignorance on the subject and my struggle to justify my sometimes very general and idealistic opinions on the matter. It's hard when I'm talking to someone who is ready to stock up on ammo and canned goods as if the world is ending, and the burden of proof is suddenly on me to prove to him things AREN'T going to hell, instead of the burden of proof being on him to prove to me the world is going to end if Obama's health care bill passes.
If in the last 8 years you happened to nod along to the suspension of habeus corpus and our rights to privacy, I have a hard time believing your outrage that suddenly we all might have to buy health care is an unnacceptable encroachment of our freedom. Annoying? Sure. A financial burdon? More than likely. But let's try to look outside our own window and think of it as something we might have to buy into so that millions more can afford it themselves.
We always forgo the societal good for our own selfishness.
Clearly conservatives and liberals are hardwired to wonder how the hell the other side can rationalize their arguments, but DAMN. After everything we experienced with the last administration, doesn't it seem strained to treat the introduction of new healthcare reform as the last straw?
There are a couple of things I've never understood. It seems to me that the conservative exremist view is that Obama is after power and wants to cripple the country. It's this "He wants to fuck up what we love" mentality. I just don't get that. What the fuck is he, a Bond villain? He wants to destroy the world? What does he gain? If nothing else, the reaction to Bush being a fuckup at least took into account that we as liberals were aware he was doing "what he thinks is right", even if it was misguided and irrational. But it seems the more ridiculous arguments against Obama and his health care plan paint him as someone who doesn't care if the world crashes down around him, which to me is proves just how bad conservatives are at propaganda. It's always seems to be an argument more obtuse, over the top, or life-and-death.
More soon.
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