Tea Party Reactions

My first reaction from the tea party rhetoric and electoral success is fear and sadness. The tea party agenda seems to be based on fear and ideological purity. Obama and Pelosi are their enemies who should be fought against not fellow Americans with whom to work and with whom to solve problems in the spirit of compromise. Its depressing because its seems like in many cases the Tea Party candidate will win in the generals as well (we'll see).

Why has the electorate after only two years from the conclusion of the Bush disaster, decided to return to something even further extreme? (Well, they didn't of course, Obama is still in the white house for at least two more years).

Well, the Democrats had the office in two of the most challenging political years in a very long time. And they just didn't have the office, they really had the office. With a pretty transformative president. I continue to believe that every single thing Obama did or attempted to do was pretty moderate considering the circumstances. But he did a lot, and collectively, it added up to something big.

After all, he was governing with overwhelming majorities in both the House and the Senate, so he had the political power to move a lot of agenda quickly. But not only that, I believe the circumstances demanded it. Of course, David Brooks imagines an alternative reality where he vetoes the expensive pork filled budget, passes a more modest stimulus and chooses to tackle energy instead of health care. I'm not sure how that would have worked. Largely, it would have kicked the health care can down the road (to when?) and the states would have received much less money from the stimulus resulting in much more drastic and more painful cuts at the state level.

Instead Obama spent a great deal of his political capital fighting the economic fire that started before he took office. Today is the two year anniversary of Lehman's bankruptcy by the way. But even with all of that political capital spent, he went after health care reform. Arguably, the times called for it. Pre health care reform (well we are still living pre-health care reform, it doesn't really take affect until 20140), we had a health care system that leaned far too heavily on an employer based system propped up with government subsidies and regulation. A recession with unemployment hovering around 10% for closing in on two years now, I think, shows you why this system was always a flawed historical accident. Consider, even with the subsidies, many companies (especially small ones) were not able to keep shouldering the burden of our broken health care system. It needed fixing. Obama's plan was an incremental step in a certain direction. Nonetheless, the bill took everything Obama and the Democrats had to get it passed and there's really nothing left going into the primaries.

Now, we have a landscape of angry voters who just want to throw the bums out. And with the Democrats holding the office and calling the shots for the past two years, they will pay the price for it. I'm not sure how avoidable this was. Unemployment would have been high no matter what the government did - much higher without the bank bailouts, marginally higher with the kind of stimulus Brooks proposes.

So, if the Republican party gets pulled toward the right. If the Tea Party anger gets a lot more representation in Congress, is this a bad thing? Not necessarily.

The Tea Party has spent a lot of time blaming the Great Recession on too much government. The Democratic party has blamed this Recession on an out of control and unregulated free market.

Actually, I think to some extent both sides have a point. Our government has grown and grown, through Democratic and Republican rule. The eight years of Bush were particularly bad and particularly corrupt. Throwing Bush out didn't change this fact, at least not enough.

We're spending too much and getting too little from our government and the poor and middle class and bearing the brunt of the consequences. Which is why people get so fed up when they see bank bailouts that help the ruling class (the bankers and the CEO's) while the lower class continue losing their jobs and their homes.

But its not just a problem of too much government, its also a problem of a broken government. They have too often been ineffective or absent failing to do the work that only a government is capable of doing. And a big reason for the Great Recession wasn't just out of control government, but more importantly, it was an out of control and unregulated financial industry creating an unregulated ponzai scheme of credit layered on top of layers of credit. The housing bubble was the underlying foundation, but the real problem was credit.

So, what should happen if the Tea Party gets more representation in our legislative body? For two years, the Republicans got away with obstructionist behavior because they really didn't have the numbers to truly obstruct. The Democrats didn't get everything they wanted, but they got a lot. After November, if the Republicans obstruct, government will grind to a halt and the electorate will notice. This is not what most people want.

I think the next two years will be telling. Can the newly designed Republican party compromise and work with the president?

If they can, we have a shot at creating a nice balance, moving toward a leaner more effective government that pursues necessary infrastructure projects but also creates space and empowers individuals and industry to innovate and create in the free market. If we succeed, we will be following the foundations America was built on proving that government and its citizens can work together in complementary roles.

So, yes, the Tea Party movement from the right might be just what we need. An angry and fired up legislative body that works to cut out the fat. But if they start going after real government meat (think schools and health care or financial regulation or the Federal Reserve) or if they simply refuse to work with Obama "the socialist", we will have 2 years of painful deadlock and Obama wins in 2014 and the Democrats gets some of those seats back.

Occupy Wall Street == Tea Party

I'm not really qualified to make this kind of statement, but aren't they germinating from the same forces of economic discontent and an anger at the utter unfairness at the way the government has handled this economic downturn?

Which is why this kind of comment is so dumb.  I know I know a lot of this kind of commentary was coming from the left about the Tea Party crowd, but this whole, our protestors are better than yours is kind of tiring nonetheless.

One of my critiques from the Tea Party crowd is that they were just against a lot of stuff but weren't proffering any solutions.  My sense is the same from the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd as well.  I'm not sure if just outright anger is enough, although there are a lot of justifiable reasons to be frustrated and angry.  What we got from the tea party is a Congress that pushed our government to the brink of default and a lot of nationalism (close the border!) and anti-poor rhetoric that would make a hash situation harsher.  I'm not sure what we'll get from this group.

But one thing I'm certain of, is there cause is more than justified.  Wall Street investment banks are largely responsible for our current mess; the government has become too beholden to them; and we are priming ourselves for enough bubble/crash as our biggest banks have gotten even bigger and more powerful since the crisis.

But both groups are basically about the same thing, that tax payer funds went to bail out rich bankers who refuse to change their ways or to even express an ounce of remorse or regret.  It's the same transaction, tons of government money going directly toward the banks.  The tea party group just vented against the government side of this transaction.

Why can't the two movements coalesce, find common cause, and work together to get the government to work for them. Getting the tea party to unite with rich bankers who are getting, in effect, billions of dollars in corporate welfare has been a coup for the bankers who have used that anger to redirect back at Obama who has been in their back pockets all along. I am rooting for the "Occupy Wall Street" gang, but I think this movement could be much more powerful if the tea party recognized that they were both on the same team. Depicting this group as blue-haired hippies doesn't help things a long on this front.

Some Notes on Tonights Republican Debate

I think this debate marks the beginning of the end of the Herman Cain presidency. I didn't know, did others? that he was the head of the federal reserve in Kansas City in the 1990's. That came out in a rush tonight as he referenced that experience in his support of Allan Greenspan's actions while head of the Federal Reserve.  Yes, that Allan Greenspan, widely blamed for helping the housing bubble along by keeping interest rates too low for too long.  Even Greenspan has admitted mistakes were made. Can an ex-head of the federal reserve really transition to a tea party champion? Maybe, but he should take a hit based on this revelation.

Once he loses his grip on the Republican flavor of the month, we'll relegate the 9-9-9 plan to the back burner which received far too much discussion tonight.  One quick thought, on his unnamed economic advisors who helped him come up with this plan, well, it was just strange that he named some unknown as his chief economic adviser, who turns out not to be an economist at all, and then sited a couple of other people who need to remain anonymous.  This was just strange.

Rick Perry has completely flamed out. He wasn't awful in this debate, I guess, but he just kind of disappeared.  Honestly, he didn't saying much worth remembering. The one concrete idea that he suggested was to open up the energy industry to drill, baby drill.  Yes, this was his only idea on how to get the economy moving.  Really?  Everything else that came out of his mouth was meaningless platitudes. He's done.

The only serious candidate left (with apologies to Huntsman who has yet to break through) is Mitt Romney. He defended TARP, he rightly pointed the finger at China's currency policy, he pointed to education reform, and tax reform. He said some stuff I disagreed with, some really senseless stuff, but I have to believe that much of it has to do with his desire to win the nomination.   He just sounded like he was in command, the smartest (by far) guy in the room, the only real presidential candidate left standing.

Granted, Bachmann, Santorum, and even Gingrich were engaging and smart, but they aren't breaking through.  Gingrich has no chance.  Bachmann was supposed to have been the tea party candidate but inexplicably flamed out.  I'm still not sure why.  She's a great debater.  She's smart and articulate.  She's crazy, but that should fit right in with what the tea party crowd is looking for.  I'm wondering if someone can explain to me why she's slipped.

I'm also not sure why Santorum remains a third-tier candidate as well.  He consistently says a bunch of tea party ideas.  He is the most neo-con one of the group and that may hurt him.  He doesn't have the organization or the name recognition.   Maybe that will change.

A couple of notes about Romney.  During the debate, he defended Romneycare by explaining his plan leaves the current system a lone and simply expands coverage, unlike Obamacare which was a revamp of the entire system.  Ummm, that's just completely false.  Obamacare was modeled almost exactly after Romney's plan and basically does the exact same thing - creating health care exchanges for those who don't currently have health insurance.  Romney's strongest defense is that he plans on leaving health care reform up to the states and doesn't believe the federal government should get involved.

I'm anxiously awaiting an Obama/Romney showdown which seems the most likely scenario after this debate.  We'll see.

The Tea Party's Plot to Undermine America

Ok, that is a pretty incendiary title, and I don't think they mean to, but whether they mean to or not, their ideology is doing exactly that.  Check this article out by the MIT economist, Simon Johnson.

Good credit made the United States the dominant world power of the 20th century. Whether it will ever force the federal government to default or not, the Tea Party and the conservative tax revolt behind it are chipping away at the fiscal foundations built by Hamilton at the dawn of the Republic. Ultimately, this could make us less like 18th-century Great Britain and more like 18th-century France: a country where the people no longer believe in their government and refuse to pay taxes, destroying the sound credit that is still vital to national prosperity and power.

I've said said before that the tea party movement was one based on legitimate anger. The problem is the conclusions they are drawing run counter to historical precedent. They are leaning too far on Jefferson and too little on Hamilton, who eventually even informed the way Jefferson guided our presidency - the Louisiana purchase anyone?

What's needed is competence and it's up to us to ensure that by holding them accountable. As we do so, the ability to tax and borrow is a key element of our government especially when the demands of the moment call for it - and we need to make sure they legitimately do. This is much more difficult. It asks more out of our leaders and out of us then the simplistic and mindless dogma coming from the tea party right. We need to make sure our government works, and the ability to tax is a key part of that. If we lose that trust and confidence, we lose a lot of political power and our country weakens. We are the ones to blame for that.

The Republican Party is out of their Mind Lately

Loved this post entitled Republicans The Really Stupid Party.

Brad DeLong is an economists I've been following a lot lately, largely sympathetic of Obama's economic policies of late.

But apparently, the Republican Party has passed a resolution to ask the Democratic party to rename themselves the "Democrat Socialist Party". What?

DeLong says:

"Since Obama is not a socialist--at most he's a Keynesian, and less of a Keynesian than many of us would wish--this is the equivalent for a political party of defecating in its own pants: something that two-year-olds do because they haven't quite got the "you can control your own anal sphincter muscle" business down, something three-year-olds do when mad because it gets your parents' attention and makes them upset, and something four-year-olds and up realize hurts them more than anyone else.

Most disturbing is the absence of Republican push back from politicians and intellectuals. If the Democratic National Committee were to pass a resolution stating "Resolved, that we the members of the Democratic National Committee recognize that the Republican Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along fascist ideals," Democratic office-holders, candidates, and intellectuals would be out there in angry mobs, denouncing the DNC as having done something stupid and false, something damaging to the party and destructive for America. And I would be out there with them, denouncing the DNC in terms that make my views on Hillary Rodham Clinton and Ira Magaziner's stewardship of health care reform in 1993-1994 look like weak toast, or milk tea."

Jerry Lewis for State Senate

Tonight, I crossed party lines to attend a meet and greet for Jerry Lewis who is running as a Republican for the State Senate in my legislative district.  He is the same person who took out immigration pariah Russel Pearce in a recall election.  He wasn't in my district then, but the lines have been re-drawn and he's in my district now.  He'll be running against Ed Ableser in November, someone who I've spent some time canvassing for already.

I went into the event tonight already with some expectations.  I figured Jerry Lewis was a moderate, was substantive, and would be someone I could, in theory vote for.    And I do have some concerns about Ed Ableser.  I've been told he's a pretty down the line liberal and I've read that he has missed 40% of his votes.  From Robb:

The Arizona Capitol Times reported on voting participation by state legislators. Most of them voted a high percentage of the time. I leave to you whether that’s good or bad.

The worst voting record in the Legislature by far belonged to Democratic state Representative Ed Ableser. He missed nearly 40 percent of the House floor votes.

When legislators miss a lot of votes, they usually have good excuses – personal or family illness, unusual business demands. Ableser, who is running for the Senate this year, had one I hadn’t heard before: He doesn’t like the legislators the voters in other districts elected.

The Capitol Times quotes Ableser as saying: “They’re nuts. The Tea Party has taken over the state and made it a complete mockery. I’m not going to participate in that.”

Well, now. Perhaps Ableser should ask that the election in his district be delayed – so he can see who gets elected from other districts and therefore how much time he really wants to spend doing the job.

 Back to Lewis, I admit I was kind of taken by him.  He's incredibly nice and engaging (though at times a bit long-winded).  He has an impressive resume.  He has really smart, authentically sharing views on immigration that I'm totally on board with.   He seemed to have a pretty strong libertarian ideology but tempered by a ton of pragmatism.   He actually spent several minutes talking with me and my wife, which is a precious opportunity for me and I'm grateful for it.

I asked him point blank his opinion on Obamacare.  I did make the mistake of prefacing my question with a disclosure that my daughter has a chronic illness.  He gave a sensible answer:  it's the law, let's work with it to improve it, but until the Republicans come up with something better, this is what we have.  Having said that, I got the impression he had a tendency to say what he felt people wanted to hear.

The person who hosted this house party attends my church congregation and invited many members of the church to attend. Someone, who I respect, stood up and gave a tearful endorsement for this person as someone who has a pure and honest heart.  Also, he was, at one time, a ecclesiastical leader of my parents congregration and knew my parents by name.

I can easily see myself voting for Jerry Lewis, but I would love to get a chance to have a similar discussion with Ed Ableser before this is all said and done.  I also can't wait to watch the upcoming debates.

Central Arizona Water Conservation District

Wow, today in The Arizona Republic on the front page, there is a rather disturbing article.

That basically the tea part coalition is charging into the Central Water Conservation board elections:


"Most of the tea-party-backed candidates lack experience in managing natural resources. They are campaigning almost solely on fiscal issues, arguing that the district needs to cut costs, rein in spending and reduce the property taxes levied in Maricopa, Pima and Pinal counties to support water deliveries in the CAP Canal."


This is incredibly disturbing on so many levels. I understand we want our government operating as efficiently as possible. But isn't it obvious that water management is a government responsibility? Clean, accessible water has to be managed responsibly especially in a desert. We can't play politics with these kind of positions.

In the words of Sharon Megdal:
"'Our board is a nonpartisan board,' said Sharon Megdal, a University of Arizona water researcher who represents Pima County on the board. 'We don't run with any party affiliation, and I think that's for a good reason. The issue of providing reliable water in a responsible manner is not a partisan issue.'"

Obviously.

So, here are some people NOT to vote for. These are people with no relevant experience who are running on a platform of narrow ideology:

Cynthia Moulton - a retired nurse

John Rosado, a retired software engineer

T.C. Bundy, a business consultant

Raymond Johnson, an insurance broker

This is so disturbing to me.

So, more importantly, who should you vote for:

Well, the Arizona Republic has some recommendations.

Here's some information on Jim Holway.

I'm not sure who I'll vote for, but now I know who I won't be voting for.

The Passionate Pragmatist

I loved this post about how weak and feckless moderates in Congress have been.

On economic policy at least, I have what I think are pretty moderate views so I always want to look back fondly on the contributions of self-proclaimed moderate politicians. But while centrist legislators almost invariably end up playing a pivotal role in America's major policy debates, looking back at Olympia Snowe's self-indulgent farewell op-ed in the Washington Post one can't help but be struck by the lack of really meaningful impact that Snowe has had on the course of policy. She complains about the relative disempowerment of moderates in the political system, but the nature of Congress' institutional rules is that generally nothing happens without the agreement of moderates. It's true, as Snowe writes, that the quantity of moderate members has declined but that means that the influence of the remaining ones—i.e., Olympia Snowe—is greater than ever.

How many Senator's can you name? For me, there are many, but I know about Olympia Snowe because she wielded significant power during Obama's first term. She was instrumental in shaping the size and scope of the stimulus and the health care bill, two of Obama's most significant achievements. She also shaped Bush's tax cuts.

Here's the curx of Yglesias's argument:

Taking advantage of the low interest rate environment of the aughts to pass regressive tax cuts was either a good idea or it wasn't. Opinions on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are sharply divided, but approximately zero people believe the Snowe/Collins/Specter/Nelson compromise version of ARRA was the right thing to do. That's not because of "polarization"; it's because their position didn't make any sense on the merits and just reflected a mindless less is better than more mentality.

This is why, maybe, people tend to revile moderates - they seem so weak, feckless and wishy washy. Instead of taking a strong stand on nuanced positions, they always revert to soft-peddling on controversial issues, it becomes mindless.

Rather, to me, the definition of a true pragmatic, moderate is someone who studies each issue independently. Rather than falling back on tired ideology time after time, considering each issue on its merits, making strong decisions, and backing them. These are the people with power and are willing to take ownership of their decisions. These are the swing voters who can be counted on to support people and not party.

Snowe did wield a lot of power, but she chose not to take advantage of it, rather she shrunk from the moment. Weaken a bill rather than support or oppose it. In this way, it seems, she was trying to find a way out from a responsibility the Constitution created exactly for people like her. She couldn't face the pressure and now she's not running for another term - trying to shift blame off herself and onto others.

This last point is crucial, so I want to make it with added emphasis. The Constitution was written to force compromise. Those in the middle, the pragmatists, wield the most power in such a system. Our founders purposely wrote the document to weaken the influence of demagoguery. The extremes of the Tea Party or the Occupy Wall Street, they have a voice, but they usually can only come down on the side of gridlock.

If you want to get a bill to actually pass, you need to find the moderates of both parties and win their support. They have all the true power. It's time we find some moderates out there willing to step up and take it.

100 Billion Dollars of Budget Cuts

The Tea Party wing of the Republican party who ran on a platform of balancing the budget did so without being very specific on what specific programs they cut. They made a very irresponsble promise to cut $100 billion dollars from the discretionary budget and they produced something with devastating cuts to the budget, eliminating programs despite their popularity or effectiveness.

Cutting spending like this in a recession is a very bad idea. We need serious proposals that tackle long-term entitlement growth that finds ways to make our tax code more efficient, raising revenue without significant impact to our economy and ways to slow down the growth of health care costs.

Seriously, where is Mr. Rogers when we need him:

Liberty and Tyranny

There's been a lot of fear and loathing from the tea party crowd about the growing Obama-lead tyrannical government whose sole objective is to rob our freedoms based on sinister, power-hungry motivations. The problem is these elements of the Republican party refuse to believe that the world has changed from Reagan's 1980's. They don't realize that largely George Orwell's 1984 was wrong - there is no big brother. In fact the opposite has been true, technology and globalization has actually reduced the power of government and other large institutions.

Our biggest threats to our freedom is not too much governmental power. Our biggest threat is that our government is on the verge of losing its grip. Some of its most egregious forms of overreach consistently include futile attempts to reclaim control over areas where it really has none. Whether it be North Korea's attempt to stay afloat as its people starve or Iran's crackdown after an obvious fraudulent election. Or our own attempt to "control" our border in the face of an increasing violent civil war in Mexico.

I hope its obvious that sources of tyranny does not only come from above. There are plenty examples of bondage coming at us from below - tyranny can be a grass roots phenomenon.

Obvious examples of this is the food industry, marketing addictive food loaded with high sugar, fat and salt. Video games or facebook (yes, I'm guilty) can take over our lives. And the illicit but still legal (albeit regulated) pornography, gambling, tobacco or alcohol industries cab be addictive and destructive. Not mention the massive drug cartel industries and all of the havoc it is causing. A million little ways to bind us down to bad habits restricting our liberty. Addiction is a brilliant marketing strategy. These industries are really difficult to regulate or control because the products are so appealing to so many people and this demand brings plenty of supply with very high profits.

Well, what about China, an emerging economic force still clinging to communism. But our biggest security threats are not coming from China - a country that has shifted toward a more open, free market political and economic environment. Instead our threats come from terrorists living in caves, in pathetically poor countries with weak (or nonexistent) governments plotting very low tech attacks against the US behemoth. Or shadowy drug cartels in Mexico and Latin America whose profits from the drugs are marked in the billions and who continue to persist despite escalations from both the Mexican and the US government.

Being a Mormon, I find the Book of Mormon's warnings are particularly relevant in this climate. The Book of Mormon details the downfall of two civilizations not through some cold war style big government controlling its people, but by the weakening of government over time because of the wickedness of its people collectively. The most serious dangers were criminal ones - secrete mafia societies - Gadiantons, etc. who prospered and gained power compromising the strength of the government ruling those societies. What destroyed those civilizations wasn't oppressive government from above. It was chaos and civil war. People lost their trust in one another. Industry collapsed and their governments did too.

In my view, there are real dangers on both sides of the extremes. Government that is too strong allocates its resources too inefficiently. It can divert resources to the politically connected, people lose incentives to work or to get educated. Society suffers. Government that is too weak is also dangerous. It fails to provide basic infrastructure - transportation, schools, health care, emergency utilities and security. These basic institutions fail to provide a climate of security that an economy vitally needs to grow. Individuals and communities lose their ability to trust in complete strangers and begin to divide up into tribes of trust.

Let me repeat that last point because it means something to me - people lose their ability to trust in complete strangers. I work at PayPal owned by eBay whose business model completely rests on the idea that complete strangers are trustworthy. Of course eBay builds into its model some enhancers to that trust - but its core business ethic from the beginning is that "People are basically good". But I think without a strong and effective government, I'm not so sure eBay is possible. Or PayPal.

And more prescient to me individually, access to good education and health care is vital for personal and collective liberty. The more education a person has, the more freedom they acquire. Government cannot force a person to educate themselves, but they can build up a community where more people are more likely to do just that. Access to health care is also vitally important to liberty. Having a daughter with diabetes brings this home to me. She can live a completely normal (although more inconvenient) life because of advances in medicine - and the fact that insulin is partially subsidized to make it affordable. That's freedom.

The ability to trust in institutions for clean water, food and clean air is vital for personal and collective liberty.

We can get hung up with questions on whether government is in the best position to provide everything that enhances liberty and regulate those areas that don't. But at the very least, I want politicians who understand this concept. That tyranny is not just a problem of too much government, its a problem with too little. I want politicians who understand that government's primary role is to ensure and enhance individual liberty and that sins of omission destroy liberty every bit s much as sins of commision.

Its easy to take the extreme view that government should be as small as possible. Cut taxes and spending and enhance freedom. This is wrong and simplistic.

Getting government right is hard. There are no easy solutions. We need a well informed electorate who are willing to discuss the big ideas. We need politicians who are truly accountable. We should be quick to distrust dogma or pure ideology.

I want politicians who take the long view.

Why this Democrat Might Vote for Mitt Romney

First of all, I don't think Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are that far a part ideoligicall speaking.  However, for a variety of reasons, I was pretty excited about an Obama presidency in 2008.  Reading this rather damning book about the Barack Obama's presidency drains the excitement I had for Obama coming into office. The book's primary point is that Obama lacked executive and management experience to effectively take on the massive undertaking of correcting the worse downturn since the Great Depression. Obama erred, as a result, by trusting too much in a different set of economic advisers than the ones that helped him get elected: Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Rahm Emmanuel, people who did too much to keep those on Wall Street whole, the very people who took massive bets with other people's money and were primarily responsible for the economic downturn.

These same people who got bailout after tax-payer funded bailout. Ironically enough, as Obama basically turned over the keys of the government to Goldman Sachs, et. al, these same bankers then turned on him and undermined everything Obama has tried to do to reign them in. On top of all of this, the tea party movement, a populist movement inspired by the bank bailouts, has turned hard against Obama and left Wall Street completely unchecked.

I've already gone into quite a bit of detail of what Obama could have done differently in his first term. Here are some reasons Mitt Romney stands apart from the other Republican candidates.  In addition, Mitt Romney has a much stronger executive background than Obama, although now Obama has his first term as a US president as experience, so he's better now than four years ago.  And having a Republican president would take the wind out of the sails of a Congress hell-bent on saying no. Perhaps Romney could institute some Wall Street regulation with teeth? And really tackle our tax code? And institute more stimulus?

It's a long shot, and there's a better chance Obama would be better in term two than in term one.  But he now has a much more hostile country and much more hostile Congress than he did coming in that will prevent him from doing many of things he really needs to do.  

Ross Douthat's Almost Identical Argument on Gay Marriage as Mine

Here is Ross Douthat's article in the NY Times.

Its almost the identical argument I made, but he blows me away in his ability to express it. I guess that's why he's getting the big bucks.

UPDATE:

Douthat furthers his point in his blog here.


"This means that if the ideology that justifies defining marriage as lifelong heterosexual monogamy gets swept into history’s dustbin, we won’t suddenly be flung into a landscape where the only real things are people and the people they love. We’ll just get a different ideology of marriage in its place, one that makes a different set of assumptions and generalizations and invests the institution with a different kind of purpose. And we don’t need a judge’s ruling (though Judge Vaughn Walker’s analysis was certainly clarifying!) to know what that ideology will look like: It’s the increasingly commonplace theory that marriage exists to celebrate romantic love and provide public recognition for mutually-supportive couples, with no inherent connection of any kind to gender difference and/or procreation, and with only a rhetorical connection to the ideal of permanence.

Since this is basically the theory that much of our society already holds, redefining marriage to include gay relationships is unlikely to have anything like the kind of impact on American life that, say, the divorce revolution of the 1960s and 1970s did. But again, I think it’s a little naive to assume that it will have no impact at all — that legal changes don’t beget further cultural changes, and that public definitions don’t influence private conduct. Maybe the potential consequences are so vanishingly minimal that they’re easily outweighed by the benefits to gay couples; that’s certainly a reasonable position. But looking out across America’ landscape of heterosexual dysfunction, it’s still a little hard for me to accept that what this moment demands of us is the legal formalization — indeed, the constitutionalization, if Judge Walker has his way — of the ideological conceit that marriage has no necessary connection to gender difference, procreation or childrearing."

By the way Andrew Sullivan has a pretty powerful rebute to Douthat here.

"If you have total gay freedom and no gay institutions that can channel love and desire into commitment and support, you end up in San Francisco in the 1970s. That way of life - however benignly expressed, however defensible as the pent-up unleashed liberation of a finally free people - helped kill 300,000 young human beings in this country in our lifetime. Ross may think that toll is unimportant, or that it was their fault, but I would argue that a Catholic's indifference to this level of death and suffering and utter refusal to do anything constructive to prevent it happening again, indeed a resort to cruel stigmatization of gay people that helps lead to self-destructive tendencies, is morally evil."

SECOND UPDATE:

Douthat, has another follow up post that's worth recording, right here.

"Culture shapes law, of course: Judge Walker’s decision last week would be unimaginable without the cultural shift that’s made gay marriage seem first plausible and then necessary to many people. But law tends to turn around and shape culture right back. And this is particularly true when the law in question is constitutional law, because constitutional rights carry a distinctive legal weight and an even more distinctive cultural freight. (To take just one example, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the cultural space for making a moral critique of pornography has shrunk apace in the decades since the Supreme Court expanded First Amendment protections for pornographers, and limited the reach of obscenity laws.)"

I mention this because it focuses on something fundamental about what it means to be a cultural conservative that has always been at odds with the libertarianism that is at root of the tea party movement. That government has a role to play in shaping cultural down a direction that is fundamentally better for society. In the blogpost, Douthat cites cigarettes as a positive example of this, pornography as a negative one.

I identify with these lines of reasoning because they defined me as a Republican for so many years and these beliefs are still within me even though I've switched parties.

Occupy Wall Street == Tea Party Part II

Just wanted to push this picture out there for general consumption, pulled from here and commented on here. So, I'm not the only one that believes the two groups have something in common. However, I do think the issue is more complex than people maybe get. I think the complaint is not about big corporations per se, but more about the biggest banks, and there are plenty of reasons to complain.

FOX News is more entertainment than news

Admittedly, this is a pretty uninformed statement because I really never watch FOX news. But on occasion I do watch Jon Stewart who spends a lot of time making fun of FOX news. Consider this clip, where Stewart points out the hypocrisy of FOX news condemning the Kingdom Foundation for funding the Imam of the controversial mosque, the same foundation by the way who is a part owner of FOX news:

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So, Jon Stewart's humor driven narrative is often to make fun of Fox's "fear driven narrative". And Stewart often doesn't play very fair in order to tell his joke. He'll cut clips out of context and present only his point of view. But his larger agenda is to entertain, to get a laugh. He does it largely within a context of a left-biased political point of view, granted. But if Stewart's not funny, he won't keep his audience.

I feel like FOX is doing something similar. There objective is to not to be objective nor is it really to really inform. Their real agenda is to entertain and to keep their ratings high. They found that if they peddle fear and inspire anger, they keep their audience. It gets ratings and its entertaining for many people. And just like Jon Stewart this kind of entertainment should be more or less harmless if people realize that neither FOX news nor Jon Stewart can be counted on for objective investigative reporting. Use FOX news as a way to entertain, but find other avenues to stay informed. Similarly, Jon Stewart is obviously not a substantive news source.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid there are many people who use Jon Stewart as their sole news source (I've heard that anyway). More sinister, FOX news portrays themselves as a serious journalism when they actually peddle entertainment. Nobody should consider FOX news as serious journalism and definitely be sure to find other ways to keep informed.

What We Need is A Competent Government

I've been commenting on Mises a bit lately. If you're not familiar with Mises it's a website filled with scholars from the Austrian school of economics, whose thinking has been gaining a ton of favor from the tea party crowds lately.

Their basic tenants, as far as I understand them, well, just listen to Ron Paul, or his son Rand. It's anti-fed, pro-gold standard, anti-government in practically every sense of the word. It seems they would like to shrink government's role down to simply one of contract enforcement between property owners and bend over backwards to show how literally every problem can be solved in this way. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying, but not by much.

They make solid points and it would be wrong to dismiss them completely. But I think this worldview is problematic in the same way any extreme view is: the world is too complex to be explained away so easily.

One of the strongest arguments libertarians make is to point out how badly central governments have messed up throughout history. The list is long - Hitler's Germany, Mao's China, Stalin's Russia. And you can literally go on and on throughout the world's history. People in power tend to abuse it and even well intentioned dictators from above can never properly manage the world's affairs.

Their answer, it seems, is to go to the other extreme - give all the power to the people. But this has it's problems as well. Most notably, populations ultimately get segmented between rich and poor, the weak and the powerful. There will always be ways for those with power to build up institutions (corporations) and use them to exploit others either explicitly or subtlety.

There are other problems as well. Obviously, it's really hard to imagine how our environment would be preserved through the markets. All it takes is one polluter to take short cuts on cleanliness so they can offer their goods at a cheaper price than that of another company trying to be green.

But so what that libertarianism has its problems, it's way better than the alternatives. At least, the people have freedom and no one is getting shipped off to Siberia.

But, I'm not sure people really understand how bad things can be without a government actively doing what it should be doing. Global warming, in theory and in fact most scientists agree, can lead to catastrophe and there is simply not a viable market solution for it. People have literally died because of poorly enforced or inadequate regulation. The economic meltdown we're experiencing now and the one we experienced in the 1930's was because the government fell asleep at the wheel allowing the markets to spin out of control.

There are a thousand reasons catastrophe can happen. Mostly we live in a world of black swans where extreme events that have enormous consequences are more common than people think. This happens no matter what simply because the world is complicated and unpredictable.

What we need is something more complex and admittedly tougher to get right in order to deal with a difficult world. We need good people in government and good people keeping those in government accountable. We need both a top down and a bottom up economy. We need a Central Bank, but we also need people generally to be responsible consumers, lenders and borrowers. We need accountability and responsibility, but we also need a safety net. We need charities to allow people to help others without compulsion because many problems will only be solved at the ground level. But we also need adequate taxation so that the government can provide resources and support in a way that would never be possible otherwise.

In short, we need something like we've got now, we just need to find ways to do it better. And for all of our problems, well, it's much better than the alternatives.

My Ballot Picks

I've been trying really hard this election to stay up to speed on the candidates and I've been doing pretty well. The night before the election I thought I'd might finalize my picks in one post.


My general strategy is to vote Democrat, although in this post I'll tell you the elections I think where the candidates are pretty even.


For reference, here are my propositions.

Here are the Arizona Republic's picks

On to my picks:

My Ballot

Position	My Vote	Arizona Republic's Opinon	Brief Explanation
Senate	Rodney Glassman	John McCain	Rodney Glassman is young, inexperienced, from a rich family, has some question marks in his past, but he's also smart, energetic, polished, and confident. John McCain brought Sarah Palin to the world and may do his part to end it if for some odd chance Palin wins the presidency in 2012. His presidential campaign, in a word, was awful. He's also changing course on a number of issues, trying desperately to reincarnate himself into the Rush Limbaugh of the Senate. This is really more of a no vote against McCain than a yes vote for Glassman (McCain is someone I've really, really liked in the past, so I'm sad to see McCain's career turn this way).
Congressional District 5	Harry Mitchell	David Schweikert	This is one of those elections where two really pretty good candidates are running against each other. Harry Mitchell has a long, deep and substantive record in local politics. A longtime teacher at Tempe High, the mayor of Tempe, a state legislature, and a Congressman for two terms. He's a moderate all the way, every bill he's authored has had Republican co-signers. I'm voting for him because he voted for Obamacare, despite some of his misgivings, he did what was right. Schweikert is young, energetic and a fiscal conservative. I trust (though not sure) he would be sincere in his attempts to act as a counter-weight to Obama's spending. I'm voting for Mitchell, but Schweikert should be a better representative than J.D. Hayworth (who Mitchell beat in 2006) if he were to win. For now, I believe the election is too close to call.
Governor	Terry Goddard	Jan Brewer	Jan Brewer was not prepared to take over when Napolitano left, but after a slow start she's been competent. I abhorred the 1070b signing, but she did defend it with passion. Goddard, though, is a much more competent governor who would defend our schools in the face of a legislature who will try their hardest to cut its funding. The state is facing hard times right now. The schools are already scraping by. Goddard is in a better position to do the right thing.
Secretary of State	Chris Deschene	Ken Bennett	This one is a tossup election for me and admittedly Ken Bennett has more direct experience and is better prepared to take over as governor if for some reason he's called upon. Both seem qualified to assume the responsibilities of Secretary of State. I want greater participation in the elections and I trust Deschene will work harder to reach out to the disenfranchised. I'm going with Deschene.
Treasurer	Andrei Cherney	Doug Ducey	I agree with Ducey ideologically more than I do with Cherney. I just trust Cherney more than I do Ducey. My heart and gut over rule my head on this one.
Attorney General	Felicia Rotellini	Felicia Rotellini	Wow, the Arizona Republic finally agrees with me :-). This is a no-brainer. Tom Horne is a strong candidate, although he does have a lifetime ban from the SEC (for something he did 40 years ago - but still). But this is more about Rotellini - she's incredible, highly qualified, with a sterling record. Arizona would really muff this one if they chose Horne over Rotellini.
School Superintendent	Penny Kotterman	John Huppenthal	Another no brainer. If you're a school reform ideologue with no faith in teachers or administrators and all it takes to run our schools is in-depth knowledge on the latest research (no matter how sketchy or politicized) - Huppenthal is your guy. He's never taught school, but has a long record writing legislative bills on school policy. Kotterman has been an instructor and a administrator, has a deep knowledge of school issues and a comprehensive view on how to improve them. This choice should also be a no brainer.
Corporation Commision	Gary Pierce and David Bradley	Gary Pierce and Brenda Burns	There are three really qualified candidates running from my view (the second Democrat unfortunately passed away). I prefer a little more emphasis on renewable energy than the Republicans will bring to the table, but I'll be happy no matter what happens here I'm sure.
Central Arizona Water Conservation District	"Tim Bray, Frank Fairbanks, Jim Holway, Arif Kazmi, Sid Wilson	Same	I'm placing my trust in the AZ Republic on this one. There are some tea-party candidates running who just want to cut costs and have no background or experience with water. Be sure to avoid those folks.
State Mining Inspector	Manuel Cruz	Joe Hart	Two good candidates - one is focused more on advocacy for mining in the state, the other is more focused on regulation and safety. I'm going for the second.
Legislative District 17 - Senate	David Schapira	David Schapira	David Shapira is much more qualified and knowledgeable on the issues than Wendy Rogers. Rogers skipped their one debate and has a pretty narrow view of the issues facing Arizona generally. Shapira is by far the better choice.
Legislative District 17 - House	Ed Ableser and Ben Arredondo	Ed Ableser and Ben Arredondo	I never did getting around to blogging about this race. The Republicans did not field anybody even worth mentioning once Steve May dropped out (he was kind of a joke as well). Its inexplicable - this district has plenty of Republicans living in it and we've had substantive Republicans representing it in the past. Ben Arredondo is a rock and the better of the two. Ed Ableser is energetic although a bit idealistic apparently.
County Attorney	Bill Montgomery	Bill Montgomery	I really like Rick Romley who lost to him in the primaries. There are no Democrats running. Montgomery was endored by Arpiro which is a big negative for me, but I'm assuming he's competent enough for the position.
Clerk of the Superior Court	Michael Jeanes	Michael Jeanes	Going with the AZ Republic on this one
Justice of the Peace - Kyrene	Elizabeth Rogers	Unknown	She's the incumbent and the Democrat
Constable	Jon Levenson	Unknown	I've met him and his sign is in my yard.
High School Governing Board	Dave Wells and David Schapira	Unknown	Dave Wells is a professor at ASU and seems knowledgeable and energetic. Schapira is also running for the the Senate (part time position) and can use his influence to help Tempe High schools