jonblogden

I Distrust Centralized Power Because I Am Wrong So Often

2012-01-30T07:29:00.000-08:00

I'll start from the premise that I am often wrong. Each time I post I realize that something I've written is flawed, and I want to edit it to make it right. But then I note that even my edits are wrong, and I leave the post only almost satisfied.

I'm more convinced than ever, especially since I've started reading Thinking, Fast and Slow, that we all get things wrong. That book details the flaws of human reasoning. We support myriad positions based on intuitive thinking rather than deliberate thinking. We mock the positions of others even when our own reasoning is riddled with flaws and biases.

This is why I admire ancient Athens:
They, too, recognized that human reasoning is flawed. Their disdain for hubris led them to reject centralized power and establish instead a pure democracy. I like that idea so much that I want to live in ancient Athens (with suffrage for women, no slaves, and modern conveniences, of course)—a pure democracy on the scale of a city, population 250,000ish.

Think of what we have instead: A bloated corporatocracy that rules over 312 million people. My voice and your voice can't be heard over the moneyed interests.

But what if the federal government were limited to a stricter reading of the Constitution? What if momentous issues weren't decided by nine people on the Supreme Court? What if the federal government voted with a more rigorous interpretation of the tenth amendment?

10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Such changes would not lead to Utopia (Athens still killed Socrates, after all) but it would make politics easier to manage, and it would open the door for more creativity and stronger communities. If the US transferred power from our centralized corporatocracy to communities, we would engage more frequently with our neighbors. We would hire more local journalists to hold more local politicians accountable. You and I would have a greater stake in our nation.

When power is centralized in a corporatocracy, errors can be catastrophic. Think of No Child Left Behind or the War in Iraq. When power is de-centralized, on the other hand, errors still occur, but they are more easily corrected. In addition, decentralized power means more power for each individual. The capacity for human greatness flourishes. Think of Athenian minds like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Aristophanes, Archimedes, etc.—minds superior to those in any civilization contemporary to them, minds that still have a center stage in contemporary universities.

In sum, when we limit federal government and expand communal government, we endorse the humbling idea that human reasoning, even expert reasoning, is flawed. It's an idea that arrogant Republicans and smug Democrats (there are many of both) seem to forget: We want neither side to have much power.

Goviness and Busiment: 5 of the Scariest Venn Diagrams You'll Ever Lay Eyes On

2012-01-25T19:56:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share this single diagram and write a post about it:

http://www.geke.us/VennDiagrams.html

But in the process of looking it up I found others . . .

. . . .and realized I had nothing more to add.

More diagrams at http://www.geke.us/VennDiagrams.html

Gingrich Success Means Tea Party Surrender

2012-01-21T12:16:00.000-08:00

Article here

Almost nothing about this campaign season has puzzled me more than the Tea Party's refusal to endorse Ron Paul. Tea Partiers say their top priority is cutting spending, and yet when a candidate comes along who has laid out a line-by-line plan to cut spending dramatically, they reject him and choose instead an unethical cheat who speaks well. It's puzzling.

The rise of the Tea Party was fronted by men like Jim DeMint and Rand Paul—men who endorse the idea of cutting overseas military spending—but now something has changed. I don't see why that is.

I'm hoping for a third wave, after the Tea Party and OWS, that will finally get it right and focus solely on eliminating crony capitalism in all areas. That idea should be winning. Why isn't it?

The golden rule + 0% income tax

2012-01-18T19:26:00.000-08:00

I didn't watch the GOP debate on Monday night (happy birthday, Becca!), but I've read from people who scoff at Ron Paul for saying that the US should consider the golden rule in foreign policy. Strange they'd scoff, isn't it? Even the nation-building neoconservatives should believe that the golden rule deserves center stage in our national ethics, shouldn't they? Isn't the golden rule the reason they believe we should pursue nation building?

Also, Paul said the income tax should return to its pre-1913 level, the level it was for most of American history: 0%. Stephen Moore comments on Paul's idea.

Europe Envy

2012-01-15T19:54:00.000-08:00

I think most American liberals have some level of Europe envy. Is that fair to say? There's nothing wrong with it; I've lived in Europe twice and think Europeans get many things right—healthier communal support for the arts and museums, for one.

But I wonder if a certain aspect of the European Union fits better with libertarian thought than with liberal thought. That is, the modern European Union—a union of separate governments joined by common ideals—is more like the state-empowered libertarian vision of America than the fed-empowered liberal vision of America. At the very least, no single government in the EU governs anywhere close to 312 million people.

Libertarians typically argue that most current federal powers should be transferred to the states because the tenth amendment declares as much. Opponents to this idea argue that such a shift would lead to a race to the bottom, meaning that if the distinctions between states were more dramatic, governors would become hellbent on stealing jobs from other states.

There's merit to that argument, as outlined in an interview Jon Stewart had with Jennifer Granholm, governor of Michigan. She's rightly worried that Michigan is hurting because other states are sucking jobs from her state. This competition isn't good for the nation as a whole, she argues. It means that some governors are placing the desires of their state above the needs of the nation.

In my mind, that's a valid tradeoff to the libertarian position, but it doesn't negate the libertarian position. Who's to say, after all, that the governor of Michigan can't out-innovate other governors and figure out a way to draw employers to come back or stay? And if she does, and this innovative idea catches on and other governors implement it, then who's to say that it wouldn't eventually help the whole nation?

Drones, Bombs, and Desecration: How Do Middle Easterners See This?

2012-01-12T18:54:00.000-08:00

How do you think the media in the Middle East is covering these recent events?

1. US drone captured in Iran
2. Iranian nuclear scientist killed in a car bomb (they're calling it a US/Israel attack)
3. US troops urinating on Taliban corpses

I would guess the coverage isn't pro-US. I can also imagine seeing these reports as a Middle Easterner—and feeling some resentment about US intervention.

Here is one reason the world would be better served by a smaller US government: If we weren't intervening in their lands, their media would have a lot less to rile their audience with. In fact, if we were to cut back our military presence, end our sanctions, and trade more openly, then people in the Middle East may eventually have reason to believe that our way of life really is admirable. They might emulate us.

Yet, for wanting to end the wars in the Middle East and return the US military budget to the size it was in 2006, Ron Paul is being labeled as dangerous by his Republican contenders.

I don't see it. Here's what he says,

"Americans have the right to defend themselves against attack; that is not at issue. But that is very different from launching a preemptive war against a country that had not attacked us and could not attack us, that lacked a navy and an air force, and whose military budget was a fraction of a percent of our own." - The Revolution: A Manifesto

Paul is mostly asking Americans to see the issue from the perspective of those we attack. He's asking us to put ourselves in the position of a Middle Easterner watching reports about a lost US drone, a car bomb, and US troops being soulless. From that perspective, it's harder to defend current foreign policy.

Proof (did you need any?) Investigative Journalism is Dead

2012-01-09T09:14:00.000-08:00

A YouTube user named NHLiberty4Paul created an account on January 4th and loaded a single video that mocked Jon Huntsman for adopting a Chinese daughter. The next day, Jon Huntsman's daughters tweeted about the video, and two days later Jon Huntsman denounced Paul for the video, saying Paul should disavow it.

Then nearly every newspaper and TV station ran with the story.

The trouble is that no one seems to have mentioned that this video is the only thing uploaded by NHLiberty4Paul (doing so would render the story pointless). Nor did they research that one of the first referrals to the video came from Jon2012.com.

BuzzFeed.com was the first place to embed the video, but yesterday the Editor-in-Chief spoke against the idea that NHLiberty4Paul is a Paul supporter. He tweeted that Paul's camp: "thinks (not unreasonably) that offensive video was a set-up."

The lesson? If you want to manipulate the press, go ahead and create a racially charged video under an anonymous name. They won't investigate the source; they'll just be happy to cover something sensational.

Update: This sums up the situation well. I'm not too heated about the particulars, but the fact that the media gets away with such sloppy work upsets me. It does collective damage to our national discourse.

Update #2: Rachel Maddow also floats the idea that Huntsman is behind the video, saying, among other things, that Huntsman brought up the video at every place he spoke this past week in New Hampshire.

Brainstorming about US Education

2012-01-08T16:16:00.000-08:00

When I write about politics, it's always an exercise in learning. I draft something, read what I drafted, discuss it, change my mind about sections of it months later, refine it, etc. Here's what I'm thinking about education, which is in some pretty dire straights.

Federal
1. End the Department of Education
2. Transfer the annual $70 billion currently given to the Department of Education to states (for a 5-year transitionary period, no strings attached)

States
1. Use the received portion of the $70 billion to continue Pell Grants and raise the base level of teacher income
2. Raise sales and gas taxes to get teacher income to a competitive level ($70,000-$90,000?)
3. Change to (or keep) a year-round schedule and make the year 200 days
4. End teacher's unions, making it easier to fire the worst of the lot
5. Give hiring preference to those who have a master's degree, and give a stipend to those with a master's degree

After reading Outliers, I'd say that changing to a year-round schedule and making the school year 200 days would be the best and simplest move a state could make. The rest would be nice, but more difficult.

The Rick Santorum that America Doesn't Know

2012-01-06T08:28:00.001-08:00

If only this article could spread through New Hampshire fast enough.

Public Unions and Private Unions

2012-01-06T08:27:00.000-08:00

USA Today Op-Ed on the Wisconsin Public Union Debate

For the reasons listed in this article (and from hearing firsthand about how teacher's unions bully teachers), I'm currently thinking that while private unions are useful, public unions aren't.

Why is this?

2012-01-04T17:24:00.000-08:00

More people in America claim to be conservative than liberal (42% to 20%), but there are 42 million registered Democrats and only 30 million registered Republicans.

Paul's Racist Newsletters

2012-01-02T12:09:00.000-08:00

If anything were to hurt Paul's ideological revolution, it'd be the racist newsletters published under his name in the 80s. His views on foreign policy and the war on drugs won't die out; they'll be endorsed by mainstream conservatives within two decades. But the newsletters will never get mainstream endorsement (as they shouldn't), and they'll diminish the passion of Paul supporters (as they have).

I still haven't been convinced, though, that Paul is racist. That's what is implied by the stories about the newsletters, but I don't see it. There's no racist language in any of Paul's own speeches or writings. Indeed, he's decried how frequently African Americans are specifically targeted by drug laws, and he rejects any worldview that sticks people into groups. He says stereotypes are bogus because the world is made up of individuals who consistently buck the stereotypes.

He promotes a worldview that claims all human beings are equal:

Regarding the newsletters:

"I was not the editor. I was the publisher. And there were some very bad sentences put in. I did not write those. I did not review them. And that is an error on my part. I don't think anybody in the world has been perfect on management, everybody that's ever worked for them. So, yes, it's a flaw. But I think it's a human flaw. I think it is probably shared by a lot more people than myself." (here)

Paine on gov

2011-12-26T11:40:00.001-08:00

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature . . . that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered.

NPR Piece on RP

2011-12-22T07:22:00.000-08:00

Why Do GOP Bosses Fear Ron Paul?

On Foreign Policy, it's Paul vs. GOP + Obama

2011-12-18T13:17:00.000-08:00

Polls in Iowa show that Ron Paul can win the state's primary. If he doesn't win, it will likely be because mainstream Republicans dislike his views on foreign policy. They say he's a RINO (Republican In Name Only), but the core of the accusation is easy to flip on its head: Since Bush, mainstream Republicans have been for limited government in name only. So RINO, in my view, is high praise.

The video above is the best one I've seen about Ron Paul. If you're a mainstream Democrat, the data solidifies your position on foreign policy. If you're a mainstream Republican, the logic reveals that your party isn't fully committed to limited government. Either way, the video is credible, logical, emotional—and worth ten minutes of your time.

When it comes to peaceful foreign policy, what choice do you have?
Obama didn't want to end the Iraq war
Obama reneged on his pledge to veto the defense authorization bill
Obama ordered the death of a US citizen, without trial

Ron Paul stands opposite his Republican contenders and Obama in each of these instances.

The video on YouTube

The Talking Heads Get an F

2011-12-16T10:09:00.000-08:00

I made the mistake of watching the talking heads on FoxNews.com after the Republican presidential debate last night. Those blabbers treat politics like a reality TV show, always focused only on who "won," and assigning letter grades to candidates. So Perry got a high grade because he said he's the Tim Tebow of the Iowa caucus, Romney got a high grade because he looked presidential, and Gingrich got a high grade because the other candidates didn't attack him too much.

While they were the flapping their lips, the online viewers voted on the statement "Gingrich won the debate." (*Update: On second thought, I believe it actually said something like, "Gingrich performed well in the debate." Alas, now I can't find the exact question. Either way—)

60% disagreed. The talking heads saw that number and were all, "Oh, that can't be right" and "The numbers are probably backwards, that can't be right." I disagree. After all, Gingrich didn't properly reconcile receiving $1.6 million from Freddie Mac, and he wants Congress to have the ability to subpoena jurists. Plus, he comes across as pompous. So maybe people had real reasons for disappointment—maybe they really didn't think he deserved an A-.

But all the talking heads seemed to agree that Ron Paul deserved an F for his views on foreign policy, simply because his views on foreign policy don't fit the current mood of the mainstream Republican establishment (which, hallelujah, won't survive much longer).

Here is it's senseless to argue about who won these sound-bite debates: The talking heads are asking, essentially, "Which candidate parroted the stance the majority of voters wanted to hear?" To answer that question takes the intellect required to play Bingo. Match the number on your sheet to the number just called out.

So Ron Paul's views on foreign policy are to the left of Obama's, and therefore the talking heads gave him an F. But where does the notion of "left" come from? Why do we say "left" vs. "right"? This summary says the idea comes from the French Revolution, 1789. Those who supported the king sat to the right of the president of the National Assembly; those who opposed the king sat to the left.

In other words, those on the left wanted blood.

What I mean to say is that "left" and "right" are meaningless terms when it comes to describing warfare. Ron Paul's philosophy, on the other hand, is sound. His reasoning is this: If we don't like one-size-fits-all solutions from the federal government on domestic policy (i.e. No Child Left Behind), what makes us think that foreign countries will like one-size-fits-all solutions from our federal government? That's a question that merits serious thought.

Israel has 300 nukes, Iran might someday get 1. Last night Ron Paul merely argued that we shouldn't overreact to this situation, that we should instead be extremely cautious before we rush into another prolonged, poorly managed, and insanely expensive war. Why fiscal conservatives can't agree to this, I don't know. We can't rush to war with Iran and simultaneously balance the budget.

And who goes to war? Young people. And who will pay off the national debt? Young people. Some talking heads wonder why young people are drawn to Ron Paul. They should stop wondering.

Further readings:
On Foreign Policy, Ron Paul Is More Mainstream Than His Opponents

About That Iraq Withdrawal (Obama didn't want it)

This Grand Old Party Ain't So Grand

2011-12-11T20:09:00.001-08:00

In the first of a nine part series titled "Newt Gingrich is Not a Conservative," Jack Hunter says that the reason people think Gingrich is a conservative is because he has criticized Democrats for decades. "But simply being partisan does not a conservative make," Hunter argues.
"If so, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney could be considered conservatism personified. In a similar mold, Gingrich has rarely, if ever, been for smaller government. He simply believes Republicans can preside over big government more effectively."

This statement from Jack Hunter summarizes a major dilemma I've had during the years I've been interested in politics: I'm drawn to conservative ideas, but I can't stand the GOP. I have never thought highly of Bush, Boehner, McConnell, or any of the GOP leadership. I have never felt at home at all in the Grand Old Party.

I think the quote from Hunter shows why. The GOP doesn't fully embrace conservative ideas. Look at this quote from George Will, wherein he lists many of the conservative ideas that appeal to me. The number of Republicans over the years who fully endorse these ideas and who don't just pay them lip service are few:

“Ask yourself this: Suppose Gingrich or Romney become president and gets re-elected—suppose you had eight years of this. What would the conservative movement be? How would it understand itself after eight years? I think what would have gone away, perhaps forever, is the sense of limited government, the Tenth Amendment, Madisonian government of limited, delegated and enumerated powers—the sense conservatism is indeed tied to limitations on federal authority and the police power wielded by Congress—that would all be gone. It’s hard to know what would be left.”

What draws me to conservatism? The belief that human understanding is incredibly limited. That because of these limitations, it's best to limit the concentration of power and best to be skeptical when people want to change policies impulsively. Traditional conservatism as I understand it recognizes that human beings know very little and therefore should be cautious when handing power over to other human beings.

I don't think the GOP embodies that idea.

Further reading:
"Conservatism in the United States"
(Of the many strains, I favor traditional conservatism and limited government conservatism as defined in this link.)

Why I Want to Give Up on Politics (and why I don't)

2011-12-07T18:41:00.001-08:00

I live in a country of 312 million, and I don't feel like my voice matters. But I feel like it could matter, and this is how: if power shifted from the federal government to local government.

Right now I could get involved in local politics, but I'd be arguing about water lines and zoning laws—stuff that doesn't matter much to me. So I write and debate about national politics instead because the hot national issues
—healthcare, education, inequality—affect me personally. My finances are affected in a big way by the national healthcare debate, the quality of my son's education will be decided by laws like No Child Left Behind, and that honking Wells Fargo bank by my house—that's there largely because of decisions made at the federal level.

So why would I spend time dealing with local politics, when the issues that hit me at my core are national in scope? National politics matter more.

And yet I'm continually at odds with my inner cynic, who goes on chattering about how blogging about national politics is no more useful than playing video games or watching football.

Touché, cynic.

But I want politics to matter because I believe Aristotle when he wrote, "man is by nature a political animal," and because without a healthy society I have nothing. Seriously, take away society and that's hell.

So I want community, and that's why I want power to shift from the federal government to local government. It's not like I do nothing locally now (I go to the farmer's market! caucuses! Heck, I even keep my library books long so I can support the library with fees!), but picture this:

What if local elections could spell a major difference in healthcare? What if local elections could disband the requirements of No Child Left Behind? What if local politicians could implement a steep tax on banks that were too big to fail, or give a tax break to community banks?

Oh, that's idealistic, hyperbolic, and wonky. I don't mean to pretend that life would be cake if there were more at stake in local debates, but I believe that government would be healthier if more of it happened at a local level.

Here's why people—myself included—are angry at federal government and big business: 1% of the population really does have the power. Big government and big business are in cahootz. Really, they are. And concentrated power makes for unhealthy societies.

Giving more power to local governments can safeguard against concentrated power. You might say, though, that cronyism and money corrupts local politics as well as national politics, and you'd be right. Plus, the dearth of local journalists makes it harder for communities to know when local politicians sour over. But what better way to bring back local journalism than to provide local journalists with stories that matter more? If a local election affected the core of my life I'd frequent my local news website—or maybe even subscribe (is that what they call it?) to the local paper.

This is why, as laughable as it can sometimes seem to others, I endorse Ron Paul. No one speaks about the tenth amendment as much as he does, and—more importantly—no one means it like he does. He wants an America with a limited federal government, limited in ways that allow states to act how they will. In my mind, that's the very best hope for community.

Further reading:

Really.

Martha Stewart's Mistake? She Wasn't on The Hill

2011-12-03T08:19:00.001-08:00

You'll remember that Martha Stewart went to prison in 2004 for perjury and investment fraud. She had acted on insider information that her shares of ImClone Systems would drop, and she lied under oath about it. For her cronyism she spent 5 months in prison, 2 years under supervised release, and she paid heavy fines.

This probably won't surprise you, but legislators do the same thing. (And by "the same thing" I don't mean "go to prison.") Here's how it works:
Legislators sit in committee meetings and learn information that will affect the price of stocks they own. They then trade these stocks based on that information—before the information is made public. I don't know enough about the stock market to say that trading on insider information is in itself particularly heinous, but I know enough about justice to assert that what is illegal for citizens should be illegal for legislators (who—hot flub!—are also citizens).

In his book Throw Them All Out Peter Schweizer dishes the details:

John Boehner and John Kerry bought shares in pharmaceutical companies before passing legislation that would drive these stocks up.

Rahm Emanuel, who was involved with the workings of Fannie Mae, sold his stock in the public/private company a few weeks before the stock dropped.

Nancy Pelosi got in on an initial public offering with Visa, and then she kept certain bills at bay that would hamper the stock's value.

The list goes on. That's just a clip of the book's first two chapters. In addition to treating themselves as citizens, Congress could enforce rules for investing only through blind trusts. Or they could (is this too harsh?) make it illegal for lawmakers to invest in stocks. That's not too harsh, is it? To ask Congress to get by on just $174,000 per year?

This problem with insider trading speaks to bigger problems. It speaks to what I view as the single biggest issue in contemporary politics: The union of big business and big government.

As I wrote my ideas for this week, it all quickly became too large for a single post, so on Thursday I'll present the second part about how libertarianism and communal government can serve as a solution to the rampant crony capitalism.

Further reading:

An article about how a bill to ban insider trading is catching people's attention (spread it, support it)

Throw Them All Out (With a caveat: While the book skewers both parties, it focuses more on Democrats. I wish it had been even-handed.)

Buddy Roemer

Single-Payer System with a High Deductible, Managed on a Local Level

2011-11-27T10:53:00.001-08:00

I have a friend who works the night shift at a nearby hospital, and this is what he sees. At 10:00 pm the front doors close and only the ER is open. Then, on average, around 10 patients walk in for ER care, and 9 of the 10 are there for very simple problems—a cold, the flu, etc. These patients generally don’t have insurance, so the government or independent donors pick up the tab, and it’s a very large tab compared to a check up (4-5x as large). But by law a doctor can’t reject patients in the ER, so some of these patients get ER care for the common cold.

The average US citizen could brainstorm for 5 minutes and draft a better way of doing things.

You probably have your own hospital/insurance horror story. Mine is that
the hospital where Leo was born charged $480 per night for the room where Becca and Leo slept. That cost didn’t include any medicine, nurse visits, or doctor visits (which were all additional expenses), but it did include meals for Becca. We'd previously been paying $395 per month for a studio apartment that was bigger than the room at the hospital, so paying theequivalent of $14,440 per month for the cramped room seemed excessive.

There is a better way to run things. In The Revolution, Ron Paul tells the story of Dr. Robert Berry, a doctor who doesn’t accept Medicaid payments and can therefore charge a very reasonable fee at the moment of service,including laboratory tests for just $25. Here’s a man who is helping people who can’t afford insurance. I like that guy.

Admittedly, someone like Dr. Berry can’t run chemotherapy treatments or perform 9-hour surgeries. The out-of-pocket cost for such treatments would be too high for most people, and Dr. Berry isn’t a specialist. This leads me to ask what can be done for those who need catastrophic coverage.

The solution I see is a single-payer system with a highdeductible, managed on a local level. I think we need this system for 3reasons:

1. Private insurance is unsustainable.

Private insurance works well when insurers willingly cover everyone. But that day isn’t here anymore. Withgenetic testing and precise computer calculations, insurance companies have anedge on who they will and won’t cover—and they cut whomever isn't cost effective (which is why maternity coverage from a private insurer is next to non-existent in Utah).

2. Insurance should be for catastrophic events only.

Just like car insurance is for car wrecks, health insurance should only be for unforeseen health emergencies—not for check ups,pregnancy, or minor health problems. So all minor problems should be paid for at the time of service (like Dr. Berrydoes it: $40 for a single ear infection; simple cuts with suture removal for$95). This would remove overhead, thereby reducing costs (like hospital rooms) to a reasonable rate. (Low overhead is one reason licensed midwives—even those who deliver babies in a clinic—are far cheaper than obstetricians.)

3. Local governments know the needs of their citizens.

This is the key, and it’s where Ron Paul comes in. Dr. Paul wants to shift power to the states. That’s a good step. I support the Empower States to Innovate Act and any other proposal that gives states more power. Some states would make horrible health care choices as a result, butthe status quo is horrible. I’d rather see many states succeed than a whole nation produce botched healthcare.

Further reading:Article on Dr. Berry's clinic

NPR article on Ron Paul's moral integrity as an obstetrician

Section in Naked Economics, a book by a conservative-leaning author, that convinced me of the inevitable shortcomings of private health insurance (starting with "Any insurance question . . .")

Why—should I blush?—I Bought a Ron Paul Bumper Sticker

2011-11-20T21:01:00.001-08:00

The bumper sticker is the sign, isn’t it? Thesign I’m a nutcase voting for a nutcase?

Three months ago, the thought of supporting Ron Paul was as far from my mind asstarting a Boyz II Men revival group. I'd assumed for years that Paul was merely a laughingstock. He’s gangly, rambly, and outrageous. And then I read Liberty Defined and The Revolution: A Manifesto and whilereading I became, oh dear, bumper-sticker committed. Ron Paul supports states rights, he hasn’t sold his soul to lobbyists, and—most importantly of all—he stridently opposes crony capitalism.

So I’m restructuring this blog, which has been stagnant for a while, to wrestle with whyI’m a Pauliever even though I wouldn't label myself a libertarian.

Each Monday I’ll post a short ditty on why I support two positionsthat seem contradictory: libertarianism and communal government.

Basically, I want to see power shift from the federal government to state and localgovernments—and then I’d like to live in a place that supports communalprograms. Mass transit, single-payer healthcare, homeless shelters, libraries,etc.

Ron Paul’s fervent belief in the 10^th amendment paves the way forsuch a shift in power. He believes, as do I, that the federal government shouldbe less powerful and less intrusive because it is distant and because itconsists of a bought Congress. I believe, as Paul does not, that smallcommunities should then embrace communal government.

Further readings:

The Revolution: A Manifesto

Aljazeera article on why liberals should support Ron Paul

Marriage and Dan Savage

2011-07-04T06:12:00.000-07:00

The most emailed piece in the New York Times right now is an exposé on Dan Savage's stance that infidelity can be healthy for marriage—so long as both partners are honest about the infidelity.

Savage claims that this is how things were intended to be:

“The mistake that straight people made,” Savage says, “was imposing the monogamous expectation on men. Men were never expected to be monogamous. Men had concubines, mistresses and access to prostitutes, until everybody decided marriage had to be egalitarian and fairsey.”

The subtext here (though I'm sure Savage would deny it) is "to hell with women."

Think of the situation Savage is petitioning for: a husband tells his wife that in order to be fulfilled he needs to sleep with other women, and so he and his wife agree that they'll both accept adultery as part of their relationship.

But what does that look like?

Child, age 7: "Mom, where's Dad?"

Mom: "He's sleeping at Elizabeth's for a few nights."

Child: "Who's Elizabeth?"

Savage seems to think that couples and children can just cordon off the emotional ties to sexuality—after all, it's worked for the many times he's slept with men other than his partner. His relationships are still intact.

So men shouldn't be expected to be monogamous, and neither should women.

Q. But what happens if a wife is pregnant and her husband still wants to fulfill his extramarital fetishes?

A. The pregnant wife will lie peacefully in bed, unable to find a willing extramarital partner while she's got a baby in her belly, as her husband calls another lover from the living room.

Q. What if the wife has the baby and then decides that she's going to spend time with other men for a while?

A. The husband will be home, just happy to be of service while his wife is sleeping with someone else, as the baby screams all night.

Q. Or if the woman gets pregnant with another man?

A. The husband will fondly raise the child.

Savage's theory has purportedly worked for him (though I'd guess he's hiding its ensuing real-world difficulties—we all like to downplay the worst aspects of our own theories, don't we?), but his idea won't work well for women or children. And in the end, it won't really work well for men, either, since men receive increased well-being through stability just as women do, and there's really no way to nurture stability but to give stability. That is to say, to be faithful.

***

Ross Douthat published an article today that also criticizes Savage's argument. Douthat claims that we've already tried Savage's theory and know that it fails:

Forty years ago, Savage’s perspective temporarily took upper-middle-class America by storm. In the mid-1970s, only 51 percent of well-educated Americans agreed that adultery was always wrong. But far from being strengthened by this outbreak of realism, their marriages went on to dissolve in record numbers.

This trend eventually reversed itself. Heterosexual marriage has had a tough few decades, but its one success story is the declining divorce rate among the upper middle class. This decline, tellingly, has gone hand in hand with steadily rising disapproval of adultery.

There’s a lesson here. Institutions tend to be strongest when they make significant moral demands, and weaker when they pre-emptively accommodate themselves to human nature.

Critics of gay marriage see this as one of the great dangers in severing the link between marriage and the two realities — gender difference and procreation — that it originally evolved to address. A successful marital culture depends not only on a general ideal of love and commitment, but on specific promises, exclusions and taboos. And the less specific and more inclusive an institution becomes, the more likely people are to approach it casually, if they enter it at all.

Perhaps the most troubling thing to me about the gay marriage debate is that I have never—not once—had a proponent of gay marriage tell me that I have a legitimate reason for my stance. That's close-minded, in the simplest terms. I can admit the myriad downsides to my position, but I've yet to read something from a proponent of gay marriage that admits even one downside to their position. Douthat shows us one, and there are others out there.

Be in the World

2011-04-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

A Facebook friend recently complained that she/he didn't like the musical Les Miserables. "It wasn't the acting," she/he wrote. "It was the cursing and the inappropriate songs." I watched the musical a few years ago, and while it wasn't the most revolutionary theater experience I've had, I remember being moved (how cheesy —"being moved") by the revolution song and the finale. I cried, even (a moderately common experience with me and film/theater).

I suppose this friend found the prostitute song distasteful (I think they sing the word "a$$" [not the word "A-dollar-sign, dollar-sign," but the word "ass"]). True, it's a blasé song, and it does emphasize prostitution more than the book does, but I don't understand how an audience member could watch the entire play and dislike the whole thing because it included a swear word (or two?). The central storyline—about a prisoner reformed by the kindness of a priest—seems genuinely good to me. Same with the love story.

While I don't completely understand this friend's thought process here, I think she/he might be using a phrase like "be in the world but not of the world" to justify her position. I'm unfamiliar with where the cliche originated (and a cursory Googling didn't yield an answer), but she/he might be thinking that this phrase means something like "face it, you're on earth, but while you're here you should avoid the lusts of the flesh." But what about the first half of the phrase? Be in the world. It's in the imperative, like a commandment. The whole phrase is a commandment with a caveat, rather than just a simple injunction to avoid evil.

Be in the world. Meaning that it's important to be with people who aren't polished—some who are vulgar and distasteful, some who are worldly, even some, perhaps, who are fictional prostitutes. And if you're not? Then you're not in the world.

Of course, there's still that caveat there: don't be of the world. "Of" meaning "originate"—meaning "don't let your thoughts or attitudes originate from worldly motives." Meaning, perhaps, it's not right to become worldly, but yes, it's right to be with the worldly.

Krauthammer on SS Reform

2011-03-11T09:10:00.000-08:00

Might as well keep the blog focused for a bit: Krauthammer on Obama's Social Security decision.

"Everyone knows that the U.S. budget is being devoured by entitlements. Everyone also knows that of the Big Three — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — Social Security is the most solvable.

Back-of-an-envelope solvable: Raise the retirement age, tweak the indexing formula (from wage inflation to price inflation) and means-test so that Warren Buffett's check gets redirected to a senior in need."

Budge it, Baby Boomers—Petition for Retirement Reform

2011-03-05T13:32:00.001-08:00

Image from The Atlantic

I'm no numbers whiz, but it don't matter: it doesn't take a whiz to see that politicians on both sides aren't really staving off budget deficits. (My cousin Tim posted this link that illustrates what I've been thinking for a while.)

If, like the link says, the budget is made up of roughly 1/5 non-defense discretionary spending, 1/5 defense, 1/5 social security, 1/5 Medicare(/Medicaid?), and 1/5 interest on the debt then the question we should be asking is, What would be the least painful thing to cut?

Two years ago I finally started gunning for cuts to defense, but then Obama ruled to send more troops to Afghanistan and I second guessed my gunning. I mean, if Obama (who campaigned with buckets of anti-Iraq-war rhetoric) felt that it was necessary to keep defense spending high then maybe there are legitimate reasons for us to spend astronomical amounts on war.

So what else? We still need to cut the costs of Medicare and Medicaid, but it seems that the prominent solutions we have in place—both to revoke last year's health care bill and to keep last year's health care bill—won't really solve the budgetary problems. Many say the Obama bill won't stop us from facing bankruptcy, but the status quo was already leading us there, so we'll have to keep working on that—and anyway, substantial health care cuts come with horribly painful consequences.

But what else can be done? I think we should focus on retirement reform. It'd be a good place to start, at least. Raising the retirement age would be hard on people, certainly, but it seems that it would be the least harmful of the big cuts. I'm reminded of a compelling article I read late last year in The Atlantic where Michael Kinsley argues that the baby boomers still have a chance to do something great for the nation. If they'd vote to raise the retirement age and cut down on social security payments—especially for the rich—they'd be making a sacrifice that history would remember them for.

It's currently like this: When I was a bank teller I'd do transactions for a vibrant couple in their early 70s with thousands and tens of thousands—more than a million bucks in their accounts, to be honest—and they'd come in and deposit checks for social security. I harbor no ill feelings toward the couple, but the system does seem botched, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, politicians fear offending older crowds (crowds that house the most tenacious voters) so they back away from big reforms on retirement. But if the baby boomers petitioned for these changes . . .

The Interview I've Seen in a While

2010-11-15T15:50:00.000-08:00

Rachel Maddow interviews Jon Stewart, and Jon Stewart interviews Chris Wallace. Stewart tells Maddow that he likes her show, and he tells Wallace that he likes his show. In other words, he's respectful of both.

But what I like best is that Stewart calls for a new political paradigm, a paradigm other than red states vs. blue states. He asks Maddow to view the political situation not as left vs. right, but as corrupt vs. not-corrupt. He urges her to nail corruption on both sides of the political divide rather than always bashing the right (he calls her out on her lopsided scathings of Bush and the tea partiers).

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Exclusive - Chris Wallace Extended Interview

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Rally to Restore Sanity

Lessons from Toy Story 3 or: Questions about Experience (answers not included)

2010-06-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
- Robert Frost, on experiencing art

We are, as it were, introduced into a world beyond this world.
- John Dewey, on experiencing art

The last scene of Toy Story 3 changed me for good. I won't be cruel and give away the ending here, but I'll say this: as I walked out of the theater I felt kinder than when I went in. I thought better of the other people in the theater. I had the impulse to open the car door for my wife, something I should do always but don't.

It's pretty simple, but that's what happened. And I think I know why it happened. Toy Story 3 promoted positive themes (friendship, family, sacrifice) through the means of smart storytelling. The movie was a positive aesthetic and ethical experience. The same shift in attitude occurred for me, now that I reflect on it, in the first fifteen minutes of Up.

I'd like to have more experiences like that.

I wonder if I could better figure out how that happens.

It seems to be a worthwhile endeavor, to spin theories on how storytelling can better transfer positive emotions. "The artist begins with his emotion," literary critic Kenneth Burke writes, "he translates this emotion into a mechanism for arousing emotion in others." That's not terribly heady stuff, but it's true, isn't it? Art is a means, perhaps the best means, of translating emotion from human to human.

I remember the first time I experienced Shakespeare. I'd been a high school skeptic, apathetic to class readings of Hamlet, apathetic to Othello. One night I'd taken a date to see The Two Gentlemen of Verona and towards the end of the play the girl I went with was crying. I didn't even understand what was going on in the play, why this woman and that woman were dressing like men, much less what there was to cry about. Afterwords she said that Shakespeare seemed to understand her exactly, that he seemed to know her life. That wasn't the moment I first experienced Shakespeare, just the moment I first realized Shakespeare was capable of affecting emotion.

My first experience with Shakespeare came as I was reading Richard III out loud in an empty house. It came during the scene where Elizabeth accuses Richard of killing his two young cousins:

KING RICHARD III
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

QUEEN ELIZABETH
Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle cozen'd
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hand soever lanced their tender hearts,
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction:
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;

Till that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes! The power builds in part from the tête-à-tête before the speech, too lengthy to include here, but the speech alone (with its alliteration and vervy metaphors) launched me from a state of neutrality and compelled me to feel deeper. There was something in the language as I spoke it out loud—stood up and shouted it out loud, I was so carried away by it— that translated me. It propped me with such anger for Richard that I became for a moment Elizabeth. I inhabited her emotions.

That is, I left earth awhile and then came back to it and began over.

But when I began over, what good had I done? I had inhabited someone searing with anger after all. I experienced Shakespeare, but was the experience positive? I don't know yet, exactly. I know it was a remarkably different experience than my experience with Toy Story 3 . . .

Whether these experiences are positive or negative, they've been too rare for me. I've spent the last six years studying literature in college, but I've somewhat shortchanged myself. I mostly read for the purpose of handing in a passable paper; I mostly read so I'd have something to say in class, some tidbit that would signify I'd figured out something new about the piece. I read too quickly, eager to just finish the homework. I didn't ask, "what can I do to experience this story?" I asked, "how much do I need to read to say something new about this story?"

But art isn't a frog to be splayed and dissected or a timed test to be swiftly gorged.

Modern Dogma and the Open Mind

2010-01-19T12:14:00.001-08:00

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." - C.K. Chesterton

"There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people." - Buddha

As I noted previously, one of the best books I read last year was Wayne Booth's Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent. While Booth criticizes many modern dogmas throughout the book, the one he refutes most frequently is the dogma that "the job of thought is to doubt whatever can be doubted."

Booth argues that since the time of Descartes (who promoted unrelenting doubt with his claim "I think, therefore I am"), it has become increasingly fashionable to doubt everything.

We see this dogma today. It's frequently behind the now-hackneyed slogans "be true to yourself," "open your mind," "think for yourself," "question everything," "don't be so close-minded" and "stick it to The Man."

In Modern Dogma Booth doesn't argue that we should never doubt, never dissent, or never promote individualism, but he does question the limits of doubt. He asks us to consider when we should assent rather than doubt. Booth claims that to fall wholesale to this modern dogma (i.e. "doubt everything") is fantastically damaging to human communities and, in turn, to human beings.

He responds directly to the individualistic hippie thinking that was alive and well the year he wrote the book (1974). Booth says that he never hears such groups "admit to what a puny thing, what an imaginably subhuman thing one's precious self would be if one had not been surrounded by, embedded in, made through other selves in social institutions." He says

"we [Americans] all believe, passionately, in the right of every person to assert and defend his values; about such matters as freedom and equality and justice. We are indeed moral absolutists, even those of us who will in the same breath chant, 'There are no absolutes.' The whole country cries 'Freedom now!'—meaning my freedom now." (132)

In other words, modern dogma, or our attempt to stick it to The Man, has often led us from communal to self-centered thinking. (It's the story of James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as Young Man.)

That is why Booth thought the rhetoric of assent was such a key idea. The rhetoric of assent requires individuals to recognize that the best way to live life is in communities. Therefore, while the rhetoric of assent works against the indomitable faith and traditional thinking of religious fundamentalists, it also works against the indomitable doubt and "open-mindedness" of modern dogmatists, people who reject traditional communities simply because they find that those communities hold dubious beliefs.

What these dogmatists seldom admit is that there are no communities that are free of dubious beliefs. Because every community is made up of half-witted and measly-hearted humans, belonging to any community requires each individual within that community to put some doubts on hold, to practice hypocrisy upwards. No community, good or bad, ecumenical or exclusive, can withstand unrelenting doubt.

To illustrate, look at Roger Williams, founder of the first Baptist church in America. At one point in his life, according to a Williams biography by Emeritus Yale professor Edmund Morgan, Williams doubted every one of the local religious communities so strongly that he believed his version of Christianity was the only true version. The problem was that only he and possibly his wife agreed exactly with his version of Christianity. That's a lonely church.

This isn't to say that all doubt is damaging, or even that most of it is: Descartes's proclivity towards doubt has rid the modern world of myriad lame superstitions. Nor is it to say that individuals should never break from communities, since it cannot be true, as cultural relativists assert, that all communities are equally true and false. (Just compare the fruits of Jonestown to the fruits of the United Way.)

Booth's claim is merely that all communities require give and take. They require assent. They require us to play the believing game. Booth asks that rather than set out alone to discover "our truth," we set out to discover truth communally through mutual inquiry.

In sum, this is why the rhetoric of assent, or rhetorology, is so powerful: by requiring us to cooperate peaceably and humbly in and between communities, it simultaneously critiques traditional religious dogma and modern individualistic dogma. Rhetorology requires us to commit to some community somewhere rather than to remain alone. It requires us to open our minds and then, after we can articulate a more solid truth, to close them.

.

Adam Lambert, Katy Perry, and Other Soft-Core Puppets

2009-12-09T16:33:00.000-08:00

"The music suffers / the music business thrives." - Paul Simon

A post on Rhombus Magazine about Adam Lambert's antics at the American Music Awards reminded me how little patience I have for rock spectacle.

While rock has graced us with some of the best music in world history, too many chart-toppers in the 2000s were predictably shocking. It's been the same script for years: "Guess what (new sexual innuendo) (new artist) did last night at (new music award ceremony)?"

Let's be honest: these "music awards ceremonies" are nothing more than fashion shows accompanied by manufactured songs from hack songwriters. Shock pop, soft porn for tweens, is about as genuine as an infomercial.

And yet, for some reason it's difficult to argue publicly against staged sexual deviancy like this—you're dismissed as a loony prude if you do, even if you're just pointing out how many tweens recite Katy Perry lyrics in mantra. One can only hope to unveil the spectacle, to call these musicians out for who they are: puppets for the music industry. Behind every one of these "daring" performers is a slew of songwriters, costume designers, and music moguls manufacturing a pretty dollar. If one of the puppets gets chewed up in the cogs (hello, Madonna), no matter—there'll be more.

Fortunately there are still hundreds of songwriters who really care about the craft. They don't get the attention from most tweens, though, because they don't have the sex appeal or the big-businesses backing them.

A sampling: Sufjan Stevens, Chris Rice, Fleet Foxes, George Winston, Bonnie Prince Billy, Deb Talan, Yusuf Islam, Sigur Ros, and, of course, Paul Simon and Paul Simon.