Open Letter to the Democratic Party

Dear Democratic Party,

What happened with Wasserman Schultz and the DNC is a bit concerning. Clinton nominating Kaine as her VP is concerning. Clinton hiring Wasserman Schultz as an honorary chair is especially concerning.

I am a Sanders supporter and was a Sanders delegate to the Linn County Convention. Over these past few months, when it was clear Sanders was not going to be the nominee, there had been calls for Sanders to drop out and endorse Clinton for the sake of party unity. I am willing to support Clinton, but I know of others that are not. Certainly you are aware of the "Bernie or bust" crowd. And I'll agree with Sarah Silverman that they are "being ridiculous" (warning: autoplay video).

My concern is when can we expect Clinton and her supporters to make consolidations for party unity? The issue I have is that it feels* like a one-way street. It feels like it is always progressives or those who are more grassroots making the sacrifices and never those who might be described as neoliberal (or even neoconservative) or part of the establishment.

I have encountered Clinton supporters who have shown a total disregard for progressives. When progressives threaten not to vote for Clinton, the attitude is "Good riddance." I can somewhat understand the attitude from a mathematical perspective. It's not like those people are going to go vote for whoever the Republican nominee was going to be (that we now know to be Trump). Losing progressives only costs one votes. It makes more sense, then, to go for those in the middle. If you lose their vote, they may go vote for Trump. That costs two votes - the one Clinton loses plus the one Trump gains. It would seem to make sense, then, to go for those middle voters.

But it is then disingenuous to ask for party unity and then forget about the progressives when it comes to the general election. And, unfortunately, I saw some condescending attitudes from Democrats at the convention, one of which was from Elijah Cummings. (Though, to be fair, I heard his speech was disrupted, so he could have been a bit bitter over that, and understandably so.) The attitude is that progressives should be happy as the party platform is, so I have heard (yeah, I should probably read the platform sometime), quite progressive and they (we) got Wasserman Shultz's head served on a platter. Metaphorically, of course.

On that last point, Wasserman Shultz needed to go a long time ago. This email leak wasn't the first time it has been suggested Wasserman Shultz and the DNC were playing favorites. It was believed months ago the debate schedule was set up to give Clinton an edge by reducing Sanders' exposure to the public. No, this email link was just more evidence of the DNC giving progressives the middle finger.

Again, I can agree that some people have gone a bit over-the-top on this, going as far as to suggest that the DNC engaged in illegal activity. The reality is it was probably largely people being driven by their internal biases that led to this problem, but I don't think the frustration that we are observing are over the emails. I cannot even say that the emails are some sort of "smoking gun" as the emails, from what I have read, seem rather tame. No, the problem is with business as usual and the problem doesn't magically disappear just because we get tossed a few bones. For people like Elijah Cummings to suggest that we should be happy with these bones is insulting.

The tone-deafness may be what is most disappointing. Here, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange states the problem more elegantly than I ever could:

It is important for there to be examples of accountability. The resignation was an example of that. Now, of course, Hillary Clinton has tried to immediately produce a counter-example by putting out a statement, within hours, saying that Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a great friend, and she’s incorporating her into her campaign, she’s going to be pushing for her re-election to the Congress. So that’s a very interesting signaling by Hillary Clinton that if you act in a corrupt way that benefits Hillary Clinton, you will be taken care of. Why does she need to put that out? Certainly, it’s not a signal that helps with the public at all. It’s not a signal that helps with unity at the DNC, at the convention. It’s a signal to Hillary Clinton partisans to keep on going on, you’ll be taken care of. But it’s a very destructive signal for a future presidency, because it’s—effectively, it’s expanding the Overton window of corruption. It doesn’t really matter what you do, how you behave; as long as that is going to benefit Hillary Clinton, you’ll be protected.

This, of course, won't bother loyal Clinton supporters a bit. But I think the Democratic party needs to do better. Blind loyalty is part of why the threat of a Trump presidency is still a concern, both on the side of Republicans who will vote for the Republican candidate no matter what and on the side of the Democrats, who scare off less partisan voters with their lack of criticism of Clinton.** I will agree that these couple of email "scandals" are not actually scandals. At the same time, there needs to be the recognition that there was incompetence at play here. Admit the mistakes and learn from them. But one can't learn from mistakes they won't admit they made. Also, please stop claiming that Clinton is the most qualified candidate ever. I will agree she is perhaps one of the most experienced candidate, but experience does not equate with being qualified. Let's not forget that FBI director James Comey described the email behavior as "extremely careless." I realize that emails is a small part of a President's duties,*** but if Clinton is one of the most qualified candidates ever, this tells me we seriously need to find better qualified candidates!

With all this said, I really just want Democrats to represent the values they claim to represent. When an organization like the DNC claims to be impartial and its not, that causes mistrust. When a political party demands that its progressive members sacrifice for party unity, but the neoliberals seldom have to sacrifice (And when their "great" sacrifice is a more progressive party platform? Shouldn't that be a good thing?), that creates mistrust.

Finally, going back to the search for voters in the "middle," I would like the party to make a decision. With the Republican party self-destructing, it may be that some day, the Democrats could become the dominant party. I know...I know. Republicans control much of our government; that seems a bit odd based on how disorganized they are. Still, there seems an opportunity for the Democrats to pick up people who are dissatisfied with the party. This means the Democratic party could move further to the right, distancing itself further from the progressives in the party. The decision I would like the party to make is on which way it wants to move. Is it going to move further right? I get the sense the party is hesitant to move left, so should we progressives just leave the party now?

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* Yes, I realize that feelings were brought up at the RNC a lot and that what we feel isn't necessarily true. But, when we are talking about bringing a party together, feelings matter.

** Yes, I also realize there is a lot of sexism directed at Clinton and a lot of people who won't vote for Clinton largely because she is a woman. But I am concerned some brush off some of these issues as being non-issues because they think it is just the sexist crowd that wants them to be issues.

*** I sometimes think I myself should get involved with politics, but I know one of my major weaknesses is my communication skills. The point is I do recognize it is hard to have all the necessary qualifications, but can we please recognize Clinton has both strengths and weaknesses?

Official Republican SOTU response, bit by bit

Cathy McMorris Rodgers (who???) delivered the Republican party's official State of the Union response last night. I'm going to go over bits and pieces that capture my attention.



"Where a girl who worked at the McDonald's drive-through to help pay for college can be with you at the state capitol."

Translation: "I've got mine. Fuck you." I say this largely because that does seem to be the conservative attitude toward people. And there is some context missing here that could be important. I worked at a McDonald's, too, to help pay for college. But I didn't really have to. I would have found a way to pay for it without doing that work. What that work perhaps did the most is helped me to have less debt after college. However, there are people out there that have little choice but to work to pay for college. What situation was she in? If I had to guess, I'd guess her experience was more so like mine. In which case, she's trying to give a false impression that she used to be struggling just like a lot of other people.

And even if she did struggle, there is such a big problem with the conservative message. Largely, there is a failure to understand math. The conservative attitude is often one of "I made it out of poverty, so you can too!" But the message totally lacks any recognition for the probability of getting out of poverty. If she did, she's one of the lucky ones and she needs to recognize this. The conservative delusion, however, is to convince themselves that they aren't lucky but rather they got out of poverty through "hard work." Every time I've tried to get a conservative to go into detail of their "hard work," I've found them to be nothing but arrogant about their own abilities.

"...People who come to America because, here, no challenge is too great and no dream too big. That's the genius of America. <New paragraph> Tonight, the President made more promises that sound good but won't actually solve the problems facing America."

*Facepalm* I highlighted what really got to me. She says that immediately after making her good sounding comments on "the genius of America." That's some serious lack of awareness there. Not to mention I have yet to here a Republican proposal that is anything but good sounding. If I hear anything in her speech, I'll be surprised.

"One that empowers you, not the government. One that champions free markets and trusts people to make their own decisions, not a government that decides for you"

I saw others pointing out the typical response that the exception is always women in regards to abortion. You could add other things to that list, too, though, such as LGBT rights. So, translation: "We'll empower you as long as what you decide to do matches what we want you to do. Otherwise, we will take that decision away."

"It helps working families rise above the limits of poverty."

Here is one of those good sounding bits that has nothing substantive to it. Or, what there is that is substantive, Republicans tend to oppose. For example, labor unions. Labor unions, as far as I can tell, are able to fit in to the idea of a free market. At their core, they are a way for people to come together and tell the market what they want. (Wikipedia speaks of "worker cooperatives." These are apparently a bit different than labor unions, but there appear to be many similarities.)

"They taught me to work hard..."

Yeah...I don't like where this is going... And shortly after this, she starts talking about how she saved her 4-H money. This seems to be going down this path that conservatives like to pretend that people just need to be more fiscally responsible like they are! There is a potential problem with this story, though. Again, I, too, was in 4-H having been a North Dakota farm boy, so I can see the likely flaw. First, she's getting money from the 4-H animals, but did she use her own money to invest in the animals to get to the show? Perhaps some, but I would guess that ma and pa probably chipped in a good chunk of money and didn't expect to get paid back. Second, 4-H animals, in my experience, sell for quite a bit more than actual market value. That is in part because the people buying the animals want to help these kids feel like they accomplished something. Which is great! But the problem is people like her seem to somehow completely forget that people were giving them a helping hand along the way. In other words, she wasn't successful on her own.

Although, alternatively, if they do recognize the helping hands, they'll point out that it was the community and not the government that helped them. This message is problematic in that it ignores the problem of people that don't have a community that is capable of helping them out. I.e, a poor kid in a poor neighborhood where everybody's struggling to get by so they can't offer a helping hand even if they wanted to.

"And to ensure that everyone in this country can find a job. Because a job is so much more than a paycheck. It gives us purpose, dignity, and the foundation to build a future."

Yet more good sounding stuff that's not very well connected to reality. If your job is only paying minimum wage, it simply does not give you a foundation to build a future. Being that there are a lot of people who only make minimum wage, there are a lot of people who recognize this. Some Republicans really need to step out of their bubble.

"But we also know what it's like to face challenges."

Sure. Who doesn't? If she's trying to gain sympathy or understanding, the problem is that a lot of people may face tougher challenges and face them more regularly as well.

"Cole was diagnosed with Down's Syndrome."

Well, that's unfortunate, but she must surely have some pretty good health care coverage being an elected official (not to mention a good salary). Now, try being a parent of a child with Down's that doesn't have healthcare. Now look at how many times the Republicans have tried to repeal the ACA without offering any sort of alternative.

"But when we looked at our son...we saw a gift from God."

So, hey, poor people! Even though you're struggling to make ends meet with your shitty minimum wage job, shitty health care (if any), and a child with Down's, just remember that child is a gift from God and that will make everything better. It's magic! /sarcasm. Yeah, if that's the Republican plan, is it any wonder their party has not been doing so well as of late?

She continues sending out a hidden anti-abortion message in regards to her child.

"Because our mission, not only as Republicans, but as Americans, is to once again ensure that we are not bound on where we come from..."

So we can expect Republicans to back immigration reform now??? Yeah...didn't think so.

"It's the gap we all face — between where you are and where you want to be. The president talks a lot about income inequality, but the real gap we face today is one of opportunity inequality."

Part of that I had seen on the news Wednesday morning. I thought then as I do now, just how stupid is she? How does she figure the two are separate things? This is much the problem I and others like me have with income inequality — it produces this "opportunity inequality." On that, as an engineer, I am not impressed. We have this concept known as "root cause analysis." I've talked about it on this blog before, so I suggest checking that link for more information. The problem here is that the "opportunity inequality" is not the root cause, it is a symptom. So when she says it is "the real gap," she's simply full of crap. She does not help her case at all when she goes into her examples. Hey, that guy working part time could probably do better if his job paid well. Or, similarly with the girl going to college, it would help if her parents had more money. Or, to go back to earlier statements, if her job at McDonalds could help pay for that better.

"Republicans have plans to close the gap."

Of course, we'll likely never see those plans.

"And, yes, it's time to honor our history of legal immigration."

Here's more good sounding stuff. Republicans have been fighting against this. Are we seriously supposed to believe Republicans are going to turn things around here in 2014?

"...making sure America will always attract the best, brightest, and hardest working from around the world."

Again, actions speak louder than words. Republican actions, particularly in areas of science (funding of and promotion of creationism, for example), display the exact opposite.

"We have solutions to help you take home more of your pay. Through lower taxes..."

*facepalm* Really? Need I remind everyone about Romney's 47% comments? Or other Republicans complaining about too many people not paying any federal income taxes? If my taxes are already 0, how are you going to get them any lower? The only thing they can do at that point is give people money. But that would be a "handout," which are bad.

She then goes on to mention cheaper energy costs. What? Through subsidizing the oil and coal industries, by chance? Because you can't touch that hippy solar stuff!

Or affordable health care. See above — where have the Republican plans been thus far? She then says, "No, we shouldn't go back to the way things were." OK, but I've only seen the Republicans try to repeal the ACA. Isn't that exactly what repealing it would do? (Go back to the way things were?)

"We advance these plans everyday."

Really? I've never seen them. (Does she really mean "plans," or is she getting confused with "goals"? Those mean two different things, but people confuse them all the time.)

"I ask him to listen to you."

Bit of advice, Republicans, you need to stop believing you represent the majority of the people. You don't. I know, I know. You got all those Tea Party wackos elected back in 2010, which has you believing that you do indeed represent the majority. You need to realize that was likely a fluke. You caught people off guard, tricking them into thinking you had a bunch of political "outsiders" that the people wanted. At this point, the con has been well revealed. You can't pull the same stunt again. (But, then, I think Republicans darn well know this — that's why they are fighting for voter ID laws and gerrymandered districts. But why then turn around and tell themselves they represent the majority?)

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Overall, I still get a kick out criticizing Obama for making promises that "sound good," but then does nothing more than that herself. The religious sentiments at the end weren't helping her at all, either. If the Republican plan is to pray??? We're fucked!

If you'd been paying attention, you'd have known the shutdown was going to happen

I'm a little behind on posting this, but I must say I was just a bit bothered by a comment that was apparently left on the Facebook page of a local news station. The comment was in regards to a question about what concerns people had about the potential government shutdown (as this was on the Monday morning prior). The comment was read on-air and said something about how a deal had been reached last minute the last few times, so they were sure the same was going to happen this time.

To me, it was obvious that either this person wasn't paying close attention or that they don't have a good understanding of the state of politics in this country. It should have been obvious to just about anyone paying the slightest attention by Monday morning that the shutdown was going to happen as there weren't even talks about having negotiations! So how could a last minute deal even be made if no one was trying to reach a deal. That would seem to be a crucial prerequisite.

I would also say that events like Ted Cruz's fake filibusterer should have been a good clue that this was really going to happen this time. Then again, as Rachel Maddow discussed on her show last week Monday, many Republicans campaigned back in 2010 on the idea of shutting down government.

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So even with Cruz's dog and pony show, nothing really seems too different than two years ago. So what has changed? I'd suggest that Republicans could back down from a shutdown because they used to have fallbacks. One was the 2012 election where they could potentially gain more negotiating power. Ultimately, they I think they wanted to take back the presidency, but even more control of the Senate was likely in their sights. With more power, they could perhaps get their way while avoiding a shutdown. But they didn't gain power after that election. They actually lost a bit of power. 2014 isn't looking too bright (plus, the presidency isn't an option) and 2016 is too far away. The second was the court system. But that too was lost with last year's decision. (EDIT: Oy! I forgot to mention that this was in reference to the case over the Affordable Care Act.) Now there are no fallbacks that I can see. Shutdown is now the primary option. Hopefully this can be settled before the debt ceiling becomes an issue again!

Can We Please Search for the Root Cause? - Single Mother Edition

   The title of this post is based on the idea of root cause analysis that shows up in engineering and perhaps other professions as well.

Root cause analysis practice tries to solve problems by attempting to identify and correct the root causes of events, as opposed to simply addressing their symptoms. By focusing correction on root causes, problem recurrence can be prevented.

   It would seem this concept gets it's name from weeds. With weeds, if you only remove what can be seen at the surface and you don't remove the roots, the weed will grow back. The same concept generally holds true with other life situations — if you only try to fix the problems that can be seen at the surface and don't address what is causing the problem, the problem will keep coming back.

   Today, I wish to talk about single mothers. This is due to a conversation that I had recently with my mother. She has had it in her head (and so does my father) that women get pregnant so that they can get on welfare. First, before I even get into looking at the root causes, this is such bullshit! Additionally, it frightens and disappoints me a bit when I hear such crap from my parents because this is conservative rhetoric. It's not a far cry from the ideas of 47-49% of the country being "moochers", which is bullshit* I addressed in part back in December. I also addressed a bit of this bullshit about single mothers then as well. I'll quote what I said before, bolding the part about single mothers:

   Take some time to grab a calculator if you need, and let's do some math! Currently, federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Let's say you work 40 hours per week at that wage. In a year's time, you will make $7.25/hour * 40 hours/week * 52 weeks/year which amounts to a whopping $15,080/year. Apparently, this is near the 2012 poverty guideline for a household of two, but... Damn. That's not a lot of money. And what if you were a single parent making that wage? You'd be living in poverty and you would qualify for that dole money. Similarly, if we talk about people who are getting by on unemployment, I have heard the average unemployment benefits are just under $300 per week. At a full year, that again is only about $15,000. Who's going to be chilling on a hammock making that?

Likewise, I find it equally as stupid to suggest that women intentionally get pregnant and/or keep their children that result merely so they can live the "high-life" on welfare since that "high-life" does not exist.

   Getting back to the main topic, my mother's "solution" to this single-mother problem seemed to be that single mothers should give their children up for adoption. This was a bit bothersome first in how the point was so casually announced by my mother. It was as though this should be an easy decision. Perhaps it's easy for a woman who herself never had to make such a choise. For some reason, I don't suspect it would have actually been that easy if she had been in such a situatation. Second, it doesn't address the root causes. My mother fails to ask questions like "Why do single women get pregnant?" As suggestd, she seems to think the answer to "Why do single mothers go on welfare?" is that they are lazy mooches who want free gifts. (She also fails to consider the impact on foster homes.) I was able, though, to get the conversation redirected to those root causes, which involves the obstacles that society has set up in women's paths. I'll be going over these obstacles in this list below:

1. Contraception and Sex Education — The very first obstacle is society's resistance to give women the tools they need to prevent pregnancy in the first place. This resistance primarily comes from the religious right. My wife, Amy, picked up a fundamentalist magazine from her place of employment that is somewhat refreshingly (though also frightening) blunt about why this resistance exists:

   With increased access to birth control, and the easy availability of abortion on demand, sexual activity has increased in the last few decades, as men and women alike have come to believe they can avoid the consequences of that activity.**

   If this doesn't make complete sense, I'll help clarify — Many denominations of Christianity disapprove of people having sex particularly outside of marriage and sometimes even within marriage if the couple is not having sex for purely reproductive purposes. When a single woman gets pregnant, that is proof that she was having sex. This allows whatever church to which she may belong to shun her***. But if a woman has access to contraception and proper sex education, then it is less likely she will end up pregnant and the church will not have the proof they need. So they oppose contraception and sex education.
   Having a society that opperates this way makes it more difficult for women to avoid unwanted pregnancy.
   
2. Abortion — Similar to #1, churches oppose abortion because it allows women to not suffer the "consequences" of church-unapproved sex. Also similar to #1, this makes it harder on women to end an unwanted pregnancy.
3. Low Wages — Already discussed above. It is bullshit to say that women get pregnant so that they can be on welfare. The reality is that welfare may seem like a better option because jobs don't pay worth shit. Not to mention who's going to look after the child while the mother is at work? So you have to subtract out child care costs. Let's please not make these stupid accusations until there are better incentives for people to work, shall we? If women had better incentives to work, you may find out that they will then want to work.
   

   So let's, as a society, work on these issues and give women better choices. You'll likely find that things will improve with such changes.

* I cannot help but do a bit of chest-thumping as well. I was addressing the minimum wage problem in this country before Obama brought it up in the State of the Union. Also, I want to take some extra time to say that I am pleased that attention is being payed to the issue. But let's not stop at $9. Also, let's try to start fixing our tip system for restaurants. Preferably, I think we should be like Europe where no such system exists.

** Tomorrow's World; "Sex: Is It Sin?"; Page 11. Edit: Oops! It would seem I forgot to include an issue number...it would be an issue published around the time of this posting, so near March 2013.

*** There are at least two purposes to shunning. One is to make the woman herself feel bad that she then feels the need to ask the church's fictional Jesus for forgiveness, which has to be done at that church. In other words, the shunning has the goal of keeping her in the church. The second purpose is to keep the other parishioners in church. The pregnant woman serves as an example of what will supposedly happen when one strays from the teachings of the church. Since being shunned is an undesirable outcome, people will keep coming to church to avoid such an outcome.

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   I feel I must end by pointing out that in previous discussions with my mother, she claimed that more acceptance of single mothers is leading to more of such pregnancies. This, too, is bullshit. Pregnancy rates have been going down for quite some time. Why could that be? (Could it be the result of improved access to contraception and sex education?)

Thanks for Contributing to Your Ideologies Demise (I hope)!

   A coworker of mine (who, thankfully, I don't actually have to interact with) seems to be quite conservative in his political views. His cubicle is next to mine, so I am able to eavesdrop when he has political conversations. Yesterday (which, by the time I actually got around to publishing this post, was three weeks ago) was one of those days. My attention was grabbed when he said something about how "people are going to have to accept reality." That was ironic, since he has said things in the past to suggest he is an Anthropogenic Global Warming denier.

   The irony didn't stop there, to no surprise. At this point, I must pause to say that I am getting posts out of order. I've been meaning to respond to Mitt Romney's 47% comments (and now his "gifts" comment), but have not done so. Some of the things I am about to say should have links to reference my sources. I'm linking things in that other post, so watch for that later. (Update: Ehh...so I'm getting quite lazy about this whole blogging thing. That post is bound to never show up.) As you can figure out, my cubicle neighbor was spouting off similar comments.

   At the time, I found it frustrating. Honestly, I felt that way for a few hours. Then I considered how immoral it all was. Those thoughts helped turn that frown upside down! I think there are a lot of people, such as myself, who see the hideousness of the conservative propaganda when we realize that the means conservatives propose don't match the claimed goal. Eventually, we can conclude that the conservatives may not be sincere with what they claim those goals to be.

   Now what the hell am I talking about? It is this idea that a large portion of the population are lazy and are just mooching* off the government and want to continue government programs so that they can continue to mooch. This is much what my cubicle neighbor was claiming. The phrasing he used a couple of times was that the "social safety nets have become a hammock**."

   There are many problems with this. One being that a lot of that safety net money goes to states that tend to vote Republican. It should be the other way around. (Sure, Republicans could claim that it must be all the people who vote Democratic in their state that receive that money, but I don't buy it. This is in part because Social Security and Medicare make up a lot of that "moocher" money, which goes to senior citizens who tend to vote Republican. And it fails to explain why the states with larger numbers of liberal voters aren't bigger on the "moocher" money.) The biggest problem is that this is simply a lie. Now, I grant that there are indeed people who do live off the "government dole," as he put it. I have met such people***. But they seem to be a small minority. There are a number of people who do work, but don't earn enough to make a living.

   Take some time to grab a calculator if you need, and let's do some math! Currently, federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Let's say you work 40 hours per week at that wage. In a year's time, you will make $7.25/hour * 40 hours/week * 52 weeks/year which amounts to a whopping $15,080/year. Apparently, this is near the 2012 poverty guideline for a household of two, but... Damn. That's not a lot of money****. And what if you were a single parent making that wage? You'd be living in poverty and you would qualify for that dole money. Similarly, if we talk about people who are getting by on unemployment, I have heard the average unemployment benefits are just under $300 per week. At a full year, that again is only about $15,000. Who's going to be chilling on a hammock making that?

   So the conservative propaganda begins by painting a picture that does not match reality. This in itself could be forgiven if the conservative were willing to be educated on what life really is like for those supposedly mooching on the dole. But it gets worse. I sometimes hear conservatives demand that people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps (as Steven Colbert often says to satirize conservative ideology), but they then take away a person's bootstraps! I wrote above about the minimum wage. You could be trying to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, but if the best job you can get (if you can get one at all) only pays that minimum wage, that is going to be extra difficult. Wouldn't it help if the minimum wage were higher? Yet, conservatives tend to be against increasing the minimum wage or sometimes even having a minimum wage. (Admittedly, I do not know the views of my coworker on this issue.) I could perhaps forgive this, too, if the argument were that people need to demand better wages for themselves instead of having the government set wages for them. Well, one of the best ways to do this is to form unions. But guess what? Conservatives tend to be against unions, too!

   This is the hideousness of conservatism. If a poor person receives any government assistance, they are considered a moocher and are told to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. But then conservatives turn around and make that task more difficult! It's as though they don't really want these people to pick themselves up at all. That, my reader, is the immorality of conservatism. I think there are a lot of people out there that have picked up on this. Unfortunately, it may be because so many have been impacted directly by this immorality.

* This should have been the first clue that their ideology is immoral. Calling poor people lazy is their way of justifying their ideology. They realize that it is immoral not to help people, so they have to paint the picture that these poor people don't actually want help to explain why they won't help.

** When originally telling my wife this story, I claimed he said it was a cot. My memory is thus not completely reliable. But I find it safe to conclude that he must have either said or intended to say hammock.

*** And I wouldn't necessarily call what they do "living." For those who truly are living on the dole, it's not the cozy lifestyle of relaxing in a hammock that he implies.

**** It is important to consider, too, that this guy is a senior engineer...been with the company for years. I don't know exactly which level he is at, but it looks like he could be making anywhere from $63,800 to $142,100. I expect his earnings would be more in the middle of that. So here is this guy perhaps making $100,000 a year (plus he has health care!) calling the people who make $15,000 a year (who may not have health care) moochers. Fuck that shit.

Biased vs. Balanced

   Bias seems to be something some people just don't understand. First, the definition (as found using a Google search with Mozilla Firefox browser):

Prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

   The mistake I have seen a couple people clearly make is that if you have two sides of an issue and each side is not treated 50/50, then there is bias. The first time I saw this was in a review for the book Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) where the reviewer was claiming the book to be biased because it was critical of more conservatives than liberals. It may have been from this review (I thought I had left a comment on the review at the time...but maybe a mistake is being made by me!):

Interesting but has a definite liberal bias,

By 

J. Kehoe

The book is interesting. The subject of the book is our "blind spots." Unfortunately, the authors seem to have a few blind spots of their own, which is not surprising. Unfortunately, it makes the book annoying to those of us who don't buy into the liberal political view. Specifically, almost every time the authors pick a public figure as an example of bad behavior, they almost invariably pick a conservative or republican. Dick Cheney, George W Bush, Antonin Scalia, etc etc. Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton get mentioned, but in a much softer light. It seems that liberals just don't make as many mistakes as us conservatives. I expected better, especially since the authors spend a lot of time talking about the importance of unbiased psychological experiments.

   The latest example is from a blog post on Dispatches I saw today:

And they have “definitive proof” that Politifact is biased, which is going to crack you up. Their proof is that they added up all the times Politifact had called a political claim a “pants on fire” lie and — shock and horror — conservatives were more likely to receive that designation than liberals. They don’t dispute a single one of those “pants on fire” calls; in fact, they don’t even discuss any of them. All that matters to them are the numbers.

To have any semblance of fairness, PolitiFact should play it 50/50 and present an equal number of lies from both sides. They clearly are not concerned with any pretense.

Ed asks what should be the obvious question: "Well that might be true, if both sides lied equally often. Do they?"

   The possible confusion* in both of these cases is thinking that treatment needs to be 50/50 in order to be unbiased. But this is not the case. Seeing that I had not left a comment to that review above, I added one in which I said the following:

Let's say for the sake of argument that liberals make twice as many mistakes as conservatives. For a book to be unbiased, then it better have twice as many liberal examples as conservative examples, because that would reflect reality. But if a book were balanced with examples (same number of liberal examples as conservative examples, or 50/50), then that book would actually contain a liberal bias since it under-represents liberal mistakes in regards to reality.

   To restate the above, reporting incidents at a 50/50 rate is only unbiased if such incidents occur at that 50/50 rate. If the rate is actually 60/40, for example, then reporting must also be 60/40 to be unbiased. This is not to say that the book or Politifact are not biased, but before such a claim of bias can be made, the person making the claim needs to know the real-life rates of the reported incidents.

* Or it could be the case that these people do understand the difference between bias and balance, but rather they are incorrectly making the assumption that reality is going to be 50/50.

---

   As an aside, here's an interesting tidbit from the second example as to why Michelle Bachmann has been treated unfairly:

They also unfairly tarnish Michele Bachmann as a liar, when anybody who follows her already understands that many of her statements aren’t meant to be truthful in the first place — she simply says what she feels.

So...if what she says is a lie, we are not to call her out on her lie because she is speaking from the heart...or something? OhhhhhhhhhhhhK.

Election Post-Mortum

   Well, it's mostly good news coming out of the election. Let's see what I can all remember.

National

Good news!

• Obama wins!!!
  
• Voter suppression efforts in Ohio fail. I had some concerns that Obama supporters would get frustrated with the long lines, no thanks to early voting having been cut. I was confident that a majority of Ohioans supported Obama; it was just a matter of securing those votes. I was quite sure Romney shot any chance he may have had with his "Jeep moves manufacturing to China" ads. (It is important to note that those were his ads and not those of a supportive Super PAC.)
  
• Elizabeth Warren will be in the Senate! This is good as she should be a voice for the 99% and should be supportive of policies that reign in big banks. The problem will be getting such policies to the floor.
  
• Alan Grayson is back in da House! He's another good voice for the 99%.
  
• Some Tea Partiers have been (or likely will be) sent home or were asked to stay home: Allen West, Joe Walsh, Richard Mourdock, and Todd Akin who was served up a double-whammy as he had to surrender his House seat to run for the Senate.
  

Bad news :(

• Wingnuttia High School prom king and queen (Steve King and Michelle Bachmann) held on to their seats.
  
• Democrats really didn't make any gains in the House like I would have hoped. There are 13 toss-ups yet, but the Republicans have the majority. From 2010, they outnumbered Dems 242-193. Dems only have 191 right now, but are expected to have 198 based on current results from those toss-ups. That's a whopping gain of 5. (Or it can be looked at as a 10 point swing when counting the seats Republicans lost...which are not necessarily the same seats. Redistricting — some seats went away, such as IA-5, while new seats have been added, such as AZ-9.)
  

Iowa

Good news!

• My soon-to-be Congressmanperson, Bruce Braley, was reelected. And it wasn't very close like it was in 2010 (same opponent then, too).
  
• My soon-to-be former Congressmanperson, Dave Loebsack, handily defeated his opponent, too...an opponent who reeked of Tea.
  
• Justice Wiggins was retained!
  Extra thoughts: As I said earlier, I think 2010 was a wake-up call. Another factor that I had not fully considered is that it has been two more years...two more years for people to realize that gay marriage is no big deal and that the apocalypse is not coming as a result. Also, the other judges were retained by about 40 points more than Wiggins. So it would seem many of the "No" voters indeed knew who they were targeting.
  
• Democrats look to make a reasonable gain in the Iowa House, including in my district. It may not be enough to take over the House, but the Republicans won't have as large of a majority.
  

Bad news :(

• As previously mentioned, Steve King getting reelected.
  
• In the "merged" district that had a Republican incumbent vs. a Democratic incumbent, the Republican prevailed. So now Iowa is split 50/50 on representation, for both House and Senate, between Democrats and Republican, whereas the split used to be 57/43 (4 to 3) in favor of the Democrats.
  

Other (mostly good news here):

• Gay marriage wins support in Maryland and Maine. Washington (the state), which apparently has only mail-in voting, still has a lot of counting to do, but the results thus far look promising. Minnesota, which had an amendment to define marriage between a man and a woman, has lost. (My understanding is that this will not make gay marriage legal in Minnesota, but a win for the amendment could have added a hurdle.) The issue of gay marriage was 4/4 last night. Awesome!
  
• Marijuana for recreational use wins support in Colorado and Washington (the state). This is good because the so-called "War on Drugs" has been quite costly and ineffective. This could put pressure on the Obama administration to ease federal restrictions. Some other states failed to approve marijuana for either recreational or medicinal purposes, so we may not be quite there yet this election. This is an issue to watch the next 4 years.
  
• I have learned today that Florida had some awful measures on its ballot, including one that would give government funds to religious organizations (I hear it would repeal a ban on such funding...either way you look at it, it was a bad idea). The three bad ones I heard about have all been defeated.
  
• OK, this one is mixed. I learned yesterday that California had a measure to end the death penalty. Sadly, this was defeated. But they also had a measure to revise the three-strikes law. This, I hear, passed!
  

UPDATE: Also, Puerto Rico wants to be a State. I cannot see this desire happening with the current state of Congress, though. (Too many raciest Republicans.) END UPDATE

UPDATE 2: Also worth noting — more female representatives. It's progress...no where near 50%, though. Interestingly, the article I linked points out that all of New Hampshire's representatives (both Senators and their 2 Congresspersons (hmmmm...I feel like I need to make some corrections up above)) are women. Looks like they elected a female Governor, too! END UPDATE 2

Sorry I am slow on the binders!

   I did not watch much of the second presidential debate. I thought I'd just catch up on the highlights that Wednesday morning. It took me off-guard that the highlight from the debate was Mitt Romney speaking about "binders full of women." When shown the context in which the statement was made, it was clear that he was trying to say something more along the lines of "binders full of women's resumes" and that he had a slip of the tongue. I could see the humor behind such a slip, but — come on! — this is supposed to be serious. I initially felt that Romney could have been given a break. The bigger concern was whether or not the story were true, which it is not.

   And for not getting it, I am sorry. I consider myself a feminist, so equal rights (and equal pay) for women is important to me. Unfortunately, I am still blinded by my male privilege. Mitt Romney, and especially the Republican party in general, have been quite horrible toward women's rights this election cycle. They have displayed such a disregard for women that they've run out of breaks. This is something I should have realized. But, again, male privilege. I don't have to suffer the consequences of policies that hurt women. (Or rather my suffering is much less visible/obvious. The reality is that we all suffer from inequality, but many don't realize we are suffering because we don't have a state where there is no suffering with which to compare.) More important to this particular issue, I never have to deal with being treated as a non-person. Or, in other words, as an object. So when Romney said something that objectifies women, I was slow to grasp why the outrage because he wasn't objectifying me.

   Once again, I apologize and will work to improve my awareness.

Self-Promotion for 2016?

   I was watching some ABC News (Good Morning America, specifically) coverage of the Republican National Convention this morning. Chris Christie had said something like, "Leaders don't follow poll numbers. Leaders make poll numbers!"* He couldn't be talking about Mitt "Etch A Sketch" Romney, who changes positions as the poll numbers blow. GMA said that Christie spoke about himself a lot, so some have concluded that he was really preparing for his own run in 2016 with his speech.

* Actual quote: "You see, Mr. President, real leaders don't follow polls. Real leaders change polls."

The low-effort thought of John Archer

   I've been seeing a number of signs and TV ads for John Archer, who is running for Congress in Iowa's 2nd district. With the redistricting, this does not include Linn county, so this will not apply to most of my Rockwell Collins coworkers. But this does include Johnson county, so I do know a few people in that district. So here's the TV ad I've been seeing; let's go through it.

Some people act like you need a PhD from Harvard to run our government. (0:00 - 0:04)

   Is that supposed to be a shot at Obama? Does this guy realize that Romney went to Harvard, too? In fact, I think Romney spent more years at Harvard than Obama. In reality, I suspect he knows exactly what he is doing and his goal is for the conservative viewer to think about Obama and forget about Romney. In other words, he's taking advantage of flawed human thinking (or that low-effort thought I referred to in the title).

Everything I need to know is in the United States Constitution. (0:04-0:07)

   Ummm...not even a course in economics 101? What he's doing here is again targeting his conservative base (he has a primary to win yet, after all) by throwing out this buzzword of ignorance. Need I point out how a lot of conservatives view themselves as fierce defenders of the constitution these days? All a politician needs to do is mention the word and their constituents will automatically get a hard on. (Yet, even the women...it's a metaphor!)

Respect life, preserve the 2nd Amendment, restore power to the States so that we the people can govern ourselves. (0:10 - 0:17)

   Translation: "I'm against abortion and contraception, and you can reasonably suspect I'm against women's rights in general. I think white people should have unrestricted access to guns. I want the States to have more power so those good 'ol red states can more easily follow their archaic ways of life — making abortion and contraception illegal, suppressing women and minorities, discriminating against the homos, teaching the Bible as literal Truth™, which then includes teaching creationism instead of evolution and, yes, teaching that the earth is 6000 years old." Note that I suggested that people like him only want to preserve the 2nd Amendment for white people. I would imaging that if I were to speak of someone of Middle Eastern descent wanting to buy a dozen assault rifles, many conservatives would lose their shit. That would not be OK with them. Yet, if a white guy would want that many assault rifles??? Meh.

And you know what's not in here? That's right — government run health care. (0:17 - 0:22)

   So what? The implication here, of course*, is that government run health care is unconstitutional. I'm pretty sure the constitution says nothing specifically about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicade, so we can expect Archer to be against these programs as well. The same goes for things like radio, TV, and Internet. Better get rid of the FCC. I don't recall anything in there about environmental protection. Good bye, EPA. Seriously, though, it bothers me a bit because this whole "That's not in the constitution" game is only about opposing things conservatives dislike. There are probably a number of government policies that conservatives like — they probably don't mind the FCC keeping profanity off of the TV — that they don't mind despite being "unconstitutional" based on this false standard of anything that is not explicitly stated in the constitution being unconstitutional.

   On a side note, the book he is holding also includes the Declaration of Independence, according to the cover of the book.

   Overall, I find the video quite cheesy. As I mentioned earlier, he has a primary to win first, so this particular video is likely aimed at conservatives. Yet, I'll give him some credit for doing a decent job of using code words to allude to his positions instead of being straight forward about them, which could likewise hurt his chances in the general election. So, that's why I'm here to help decode Archer's commercial. I see "Tea Party" written all over him.

   Your thoughts?


* Perhaps I should not say "of course." There is a conservative posting in the comments that either doesn't get the implication or hir's playing dumb. I suspect the later, but maybe they really don't get it.

I wonder if they'd accept my design?

   So, the State of Iowa is allowing license plates with a pro-life message. I'm not sure it's best for the government to allow a politically charged issue to be on the plates, but then that would mean the government should either not allow any activism/specialty plates or they would have to declare what is and is not a politically charged issue. I would also be against the later. This means the state should either allow all or none. (For those who don't live in Iowa, we have many types of activism/specialty plates, including one for bicyclists.)

   I see that Iowa also has a "God Bless America" plate, too. I think it's time to turn things around in the correct direction. But I wonder how they'd react to this idea:

Is it sexist to protect the wives of political candidates? Your thoughts?

   I do claim to be a feminist, and thus I do try to call out sexism when I see it. I've been noticing what seems to be a bit of sexism in presidential politics that got hot yesterday.

   The trigger event apparently occurred Tuesday night on CNN when Hillary Rosen suggested "it was wrong for Mitt Romney to be using [Ann Romney] as his guide to women's economic struggles when she 'had never worked a day in her life.'" I don't find it as all that horrible of a remark. Rosen was specifically talking about how Ann Romney had a job that pays actual money, whether it be in private industry, government, etc. However, since Rosen just said "work," she phrased her remark in a way that left it vulnerable to being taken out of context, like in the response she received from Ann Romney:

   It has been quite disappointing that this has been turned into a supposed attack on mothers. It wasn't. (Never mind that this was likely viewed as an opportunity to distract from the Republican's "War on Women.") Perhaps the most disappointing thing I saw were comments from President Obama that I heard this morning in his attempts to play defense. (Interestingly, the interviewer was from my local ABC affiliate!)

I don’t have a lot of patience for commentary about the spouses of political candidates. My general view is those of us who are in the public life, we’re fair game. Our families are civilians.

   My big problem with this is that, the way I see it, Mitt Romney brought his wife into the public when he said, "My wife has the occasion, as you know, to campaign on her own and also with me, and she reports to me regularly that the issue women care about most is the economy." I can understand the families being off limits when they don't really do anything for their candidate other than make appearances with them, but if they are actively campaigning and serving as an adviser on women? Does that not put them in "public life"?

   Now, when I first saw the Obama comment, I was thinking it may have been a bit sexist, hence the title of this post. I was thinking this was maybe even some misogynistic "protect the vulnerable women" move. As I've been writing, I'm no longer sure. I may be seeing it that way because so often presidential candidates are male. But then I had to think back four years ago when Sarah Palin was on the ballot for vice president. (Hillary Clinton doesn't count because Bill Clinton was obviously in the "public life") A lot of the focus on her family was on her pregnant daughter, but didn't she even try to declare her husband Todd off limits? It's been a while, so my memory is not clear on this. But if that is the case, this may just be politics at its worst—family members are used as tools. It's not right for candidates to use their families to enhance their image, but then be hostile to criticism.

Your thoughts?

Can we recognize Bill Maher as both a red herring AND a problem?

   For those of you who may be living under a rock for the last week, conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh has been under a lot of heat for sexist comments he has made. Well, now conservatives have been going after Bill Maher, who has a history of making sexist comments. Unfortunately, it sounds like some liberals have been defending Maher under the guise that Maher is a comedian. I can see this as being a valid excuse to an extent...that extent being to the point that comedians will often play off of stereotypes to make their jokes. The problem is that Maher way oversteps this boundary. One can tell from some of the things he's said that he is seriously sexist. I've embedded a video below if you'd like to judge for yourself. (Also on an interesting note, while the right is now attacking Maher, Maher actually suggested that liberals accept Limbaugh's notpology.

   There are two things I want to say to liberals. First, I'm sure you realize as much as I do that this attack on Maher is just a red herring to both distract away from Limbaugh's comments as well as a way to play the "They do it, too!" blame game. Call them out on it! But, second, you must admit that Maher is a sexist pig as well. Their game is to make us out to be hypocrites and it appears that some liberals are going to allow conservatives to win that point.

   I do, of course, realize the trap the conservatives have set up. It's a financial trap. Some conservatives want Obama's Super PAC to return money donated by Maher. My guess is in return they want liberals to ease off on Limbaugh, who has been losing advertisers. The solution, as I see it, is to say, "No, Obama's Super PAC does not have to reject/return Maher's money." There is no rule that a candidate has to vet his donors to make sure they don't do anything controversial. Same goes for the Republican candidates — if Limbaugh donates any money to them, they shouldn't have to reject/return any money just because Limbaugh is a slimeball.

   On a final note, I think the conservatives are also grasping for straws. I'm not sure what to do here except to just call them out on it. I am getting the impression that they are upset that liberals did not criticize Maher with such ferocity for attacks on Palin, others, as we are criticizing Limbaugh. There are three problems here. First and foremost, I don't think Maher is anywhere close to being a voice for liberals as Limbaugh is for conservatives. When Maher says something stupid, many liberals can honestly say, "Well, I don't listen to Maher anyway." I don't see how conservatives can say the same for Limbaugh...not that there aren't conservatives out there who don't care for Limbaugh. I'm sure there are plenty that don't listen to or care for the man. The point is there is an unequal level of popularity between the two. It does not then make sense for the outrage to be equal. Second, conservatives seem to be complaining not about Maher's misogynistic views in general, but specifically his attacks on conservative women. Come on, conservatives! If you want us to think you really care about women, then don't limit your complaint to Maher's treatment of your own. This shows that conservatives just don't get it. It reveals that they honestly think the issue with Limbaugh's comments is his use of the words "slut" and "prostitute." It's not. It's about treatment of women and, for some of us, the double-standards for men and women in regards to sexual health that men like Limbaugh hold. Third, and a much less significant point, the conservatives seem to be upset about Maher insulting women who are political figures (whether politicians or just political pundits). Sandra Fluke, who Limbaugh has criticized, is neither*. Now, this in no way excuses Maher for his behavior, but I don't see a political figure insulting other political figures quite as deserving of the same outrage as a political figure insulting someone who is not. Again, this is not excusing the behavior of political figures insulting one another. The overall point is that the Maher vs. Limbaugh comparisons are not on equal ground, so it is not fair for conservatives to be expecting equal treatment.
* One could claim that Sandra Fluke is an activist for women's rights, but I wouldn't put that in quite the same category. I mean, I consider myself to be somewhat of an activist (even if I'm pretty much limited to just voicing my thoughts on my blog right now).

   In the end, though, I am disappointed that some liberals are being hypocrites. Shame on them, but shame on conservatives for trying to spread the blame instead of dealing with their issues.

Face, meet Palm - Of Course Theology Matters!!!

   On Monday, January 30, 2012, Frank Rich, "New York Magazine`s" writer
at large, appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show. He about left me pulling out my hair after some of the stupid things he said. Here is the video for reference (you can skip ahead to at least the 2:00 mark). Below, I'll be covering parts of the transcript that disappointed me.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

MADDOW: You raised some important political questions that could be asked about the Mormon Church during his times as a leader there. Important questions about women in the church, about African Americans in the church, of course, very difficult history in the Mormon Church, being barred from the priesthood on the basis of race, until later than you think that could be possible at a time when Mitt Romney was already a leader in his church.

Is it not just a fear of religious bigotry that people may find his religion objection or strange in some way, by that there are hard political questions that there may be difficult political answer to about his time?

RICH: I think there are. I think the theological questions don`t matter, every religious is entitled to its own theology. And they all have their idiosyncrasies, God knows, only God knows.

But the truth is the Mormon Church has been a player in various things, campaigned against equal rights amendment for women, institutionally, very slow in civil rights. In 1978, that`s how long it took for blacks to get full equality in the Mormon Church.

MADDOW: Wow.

RICH: And then there`s the gay part of it, because we know that the Mormon Church drummed up more than $20 million to put over Proposition 8 in California two years ago. We know -- a few years ago. We know also that 80, 90 percent of the volunteers who organized that juggernaut were Mormons.

So, that`s a big player in an important political issue that affected the law in the state of California. Where was he as a contributor and leader?

   Emphasis mine. Right here...this is what caused me to really blow up. How can Frank Rich not think the theology matters? Do you know why the Mormon Church has been so bad about civil rights? I'll give you a clue: it's eight letters long and starts with a 't'. Yeah, it's because of their theology. Now, I'm not an expert on Mormon theology, but it is my understanding that black people, for example, are black because God has placed a curse on them—I think for some "sin" their ancestors committed years ago—according to Mormon theology. As for women, I've heard there are a number of sexist passages in the Book of Mormon. I don't know what Mormon theology says about gays, but I doubt it has anything kind to say. So, when you know (or at least have a basic understanding of) the theology, these things are not surprising at all. These political actions taken by the Mormon church stem from the theology.

   Furthermore, liberals frustrate the hell out of me when they justify protecting stupid ideas by pointing out that essentially everyone has some stupid unfounded idea, or "idiosyncrasies" in this case. Whenever I see such statements, I read them as "I don't like having my beliefs challenged, so I won't challenge yours." The somewhat odd thing about this is that Frank Rich still criticizes the Mormons for acting on their theology, yet claims the theology doesn't matter. This is like saying we need to treat the symptoms of a disease instead of the disease itself. This makes no sense when you have the capability of treating the disease. It makes sense, though, when you realize the liberal Christian is infected with the disease, too, and that the disease is caused by a parasite that prevents the host from discarding the parasite. (For more, see PZ Myer's religion as a parasite analogy.) Take a hint liberal Christians—if you want this bigotry to ever completely go away, you have to criticize the theology that justifies such bigotry.

   Looking through the transcript, I noticed something else I find objectionable: "So, just like sexual orientation, religious orientation, it is a part of your being." Yeah...except people are stuck with their sexual orientation; they can, however, change their religious orientation. Or does Frank Rich think sexual orientation is a choice?

But still that is weird to talk movingly about something that never happened.

   Yes, I find the way people cry over Jesus quite weird! (OK, this comment is off topic, but I had to say it.)

So, they are sort of kidding themselves and I think it would humanize
him to talk about his faith, given his importance to it and its importance
to him, and to be candid about where he agrees, disagrees, not about
theology, not about their view with the Bible, not about Joseph Smith, but
about 20th and 21st century politics in America.

   When I had heard this live, I had interpreted this slightly different. Now I am not sure how to interpret it. I'm curious as to why he's talking about the Bible. Because, I agree there. I don't really care about their view with the Bible! Nor the Koran. Nor the Bhagavad Gita. These are not the Mormon holy book. Their book is called The Book of Mormon. Does Frank Rich not even know what the Mormon holy book is called?!? I find it hard to believe he is that ignorant...but, then again...

   At any rate, in regards to Mitt Romney, it is important to know where he stands on Mormon theology and whatnot. Again, it's because the theology influences people's actions. So, if we know what Romney thinks about the theology, we can then better predict his actions as President. If Romney agrees with much of Mormon theology, then we have a problem. Furthermore, if Romney's view of "20th and 21st century politics" includes that there should not be a separation of church and state, then this becomes a serious problem.

Buzzwords of Ignorance: Constitution

Credit goes to Don Baker and his "Buzzwords of Ignorance" series on The Atheist Experience for the inspiration of this post title. The idea of "Buzzwords of Ignorance" is to address words that are used primarily to evoke an emotional response as opposed to making a rational argument due to the ignorance of the audience being addressed, essentially making the word meaningless. Needless to say, this post has no connection to Mr. Baker's series.

   There are essentially three cases where I see the word "constitution" (and its derivatives) used out of ignorance:

1. Policy X is unconstitutional.
2. Policy X goes against the Founding Fathers' original intent of the Constitution.
3. Politician X will restore the Constitution.

   #1 and #2 are actually much the same. The primary difference between the two is that #1 can be a legitimate statement from time to time, but #2 is almost always a statement of ignorance. So, I want to start with #2 and then work back to #1. The problem with #2 is all the original parts of the Constitution that we have done away with. Originally, slavery was legal, slaves counted as 3/5 of a person (and only for the purpose of determining the number of representatives of voters, which slaves were not allowed to do), the U.S. Senate was unelected (state legislatures picked the state's Senators), women were not allowed to vote, and much of the Bill of Rights did not apply to the States. (First, the Bill of Rights, though actually a collection of amendments, was written by many of the same people who wrote the original Constitution, so I think we can include that in the "original intent." Second, things like freedom of speech and separation of church and government were only protected by the Federal government; if States wanted to restrict these rights, they could have done so. In fact, they did. Many states had endorsed specific denominations of Christianity, restricting citizenship to non-Christians as well as Christians of the wrong denomination. Many states did voluntarily get rid of these restrictions, but they would not have to until the 14th Amendment...and even then not until the Supreme Court set some precedence on the application of that amendment. (Actually, some states, like North Carolina, still have statements in their state constitutions that contradict the Bill of Rights, but they are no longer enforced or cannot legally be enforced.))

   This "original intent" argument is a crap argument. There were a lot of flaws with that "original intent," many of which have been fixed, but the question that should be asked of anyone who uses that argument is if that is what they want to go back to? My guess is that they don't. They are using the argument primarily as an argument from authority. It is based on a legendary perspective of the Founding Fathers being near, if not, perfect individuals who could nearly do no wrong¹. Thus, anyone who suggests doing anything differently must be wrong. It is a "short-cut" argument, if you will. The person making the argument disagrees with some sort of policy or policy proposal, and, instead of arguing rationally against what is wrong with the policy to persuade people to be against the policy (I'll go into the reasons for this later), they use arguments like this to provoke an emotional and irrational response instead. So be cautious when you see such an argument; chances are the presenter is trying to manipulate you emotionally.

   Getting back to #1, this can be based around the same idea of the Founding Fathers being near infallible as with #2, only their hand in the process may merely be implied or assumed in the argument as a whole. Or it may be an argument that assumes the Constitution itself is near infallible. Either way, it can be much the same crap argument as #2, attempting to provoke an emotional response as opposed to a rational one. The exceptions (to both #1 and #2) are going to be cases where a rational argument is presented as well or even as little as an additional statement that recognizes the fallibility of the Constitution or Founding Fathers. For example, "Policy X is unconstitutional, and correctly so" or "Policy X goes against the original intent of the Founding Fathers, which they got right." Such additions, though subtle, recognize that the Constitution has been wrong on other issues, but displays that the person making the argument thinks the Constitution is correct in this regard. Granted, a rational argument attached to this would be best, but at least it is no longer the fallacious argument from authority. Look for such subtleties when in search of a serious debater over a manipulator.

   #3 is basically the reversal of #1 (and #2 in many ways), only this time, the person making the remark is supporting an entire candidate over a policy. The argument is still an argument from authority, making the Constitution out to be a near, if not, infallible document. I currently see Ron Paul supporters make this argument a lot and Tea Party candidates were often using it in 2010. Much like with #1 and #2, the goal seems to be avoidance of discussing specific policies and making rational arguments in support of the candidates, but to instead spark an emotional response.

   Why, then, make such arguments?

• First and foremost, people typically respond more easily to emotional arguments than rational ones. However, these arguments backfire on people like me...though I admit, I do sometimes respond emotionally—they piss me off. I fear, though, that people like me are too few in comparison to those who sucker for manipulative arguments, making such arguments worth while.
• Second, the person may actually lack a good rational argument; I suspect this to be the case most times.
• Third, some parts of the Constitution are open to interpretation. It may be that any rational argument also depends on a particular interpretation of the Constitution. Those who do not share that interpretation will not agree with the argument. Let's use Ron Paul as an example for this last point. He has claimed that Social Security is unconstitutional. Really? How so? Section 8 of the Constitution states "The Congress shall have Power To...provide for the...general Welfare of the United States..." The question, then, should be focused around whether or not social security falls under general welfare, but this is not what we get. We just get the "it's unconstitutional" without a clear explanation as to why. I suspect one reason is that Paul knows he'd lose that argument² over meaning.
• Forth, some people may just not be good at forming rational arguments or having a rational discussion. Such may be the case with a post I saw earlier in the week. The person actually has some valid concerns regarding Obama's use of executive powers. However, they used the "original intent" argument (in addition to references to the paranoia of Glenn Beck). If they'd actually made a case as to why expansion of executive powers is detrimental to the country, we could have perhaps had a productive conversation instead of me being pissy over the manipulative argument.

¹ For this, I would suggest people read up on cognitive dissonance. This explains what people may do to deal with conflicting ideas. For this case, the conflicting ideas are that the Founding Fathers (or also the Constitution) are both infallible and fallible. Many conservatives want to have the view that they are/were infallible, but damn reality with its inconvenient facts gets in their way! One of the ways conservatives deal with the discomfort of holding such an unrealistic view is to minimize or deny those inconvenient facts or even make up "facts" of their own. On the slavery issue, for example, Michelle Bachmann last year claimed that the Founding Fathers "worked tirelessly to end slavery," which is untrue.

² It may be that Paul's greatest issue with social security is actually lack of choice and not the issue of general welfare, but then let's discuss that. Instead, we get the emotional manipulation along with—if you watch the video linked earlier—falsehoods about the program being a "failure." Unfortunately, Paul is very good—or rather obnoxious, depending on your point of view—at avoiding the specifics.

Live Blogging the New Hampshire Primary.

   It's primary night in New Hampshire, and I thought it may be time to make some general comments on what has been happening. I have been watching MSNBC's coverage, and just want to chip in on some of the things they have been discussing as well as some of the candidate's speeches.

• European Socialism - At one point, the question was asked why does Romney need to accuse Obama of being in favor of European socialism. Easy! It is to create an us-versus-them mentality. Though, it was interesting when Rachel Maddow pointed out that Romney avoided Vietnam by taking a missionary to France, proposing that he's trying to distance himself from that part of his past. Perhaps he is killing two birds with one stone? After all, this idea isn't Romney's; other Republicans have used this argument before.
• Military - Romney said he would make sure the US military is one no one would think of challenging. OhhhhhhK. That's just nuts.
• I like Romney running with the hypocrisy of some of his opponents. John Stewart covered this, too, and I plan to put it in a post of its own, so stay tuned for more here.
• I started blogging late, so is there anything else I missed (from Romney's speech)?
• Ron Paul is happy to be "dangerous!" Yes, Paul, you are a danger to our economy; for that I can never vote for you. But, he seems to think the Federal Reserve is the entire problem for the current state of the economy. Deregulation (a.k.a. letting banks do whatever the fuck they want) somehow has nothing to do with it, and likewise it's all the fault of regulations, because somehow it's regulations that have led to banks paying off politicians. Somehow, if there weren't regulations, banks wouldn't do this. Oh, and he thinks going to the gold standard is somehow a good idea.
• At least Paul is for ending the current wars. That's the one primarily good thing he has going for him. Points for making fun of the USA by picking on Russia for invading Afghanistan.
• Ron Paul claims the roll of government is to protect liberty. Except for States, of course. If they want to discriminate against homosexuals, prevent women from getting abortions, etc, that's cool by Paul. Just as long as the NATIONAL government doesn't get involved.
  
• Otherwise, his whole idea of "freedom" just plays on people's naivety. I once met a libertarian from Des Moines, Iowa. Here in Cedar Rapids, we have speeding cameras. Apparently he travels for work a lot and was complaining about those, and traffic laws in general, because they slow him down too much. See, he wanted to get rid of laws (regulations) so that he could legally act irresponsibly. And I have a suspicion that's what is really behind libertarian "freedom": I want to do stupid shit without it being illegal! The problem I have here with libertarians is their lack of concern for others. What about my freedom to drive at a safe speed without having to worry about idiots on the road going too fast? This is, in short, the problem with "freedom": freedom occasionally clashes. What satisfies one person's freedom may violate the freedom of someone else. Libertarians fail to address this problem (I think they fail to realize it even exists).



• Wife is interrupting the Huntsman speech, making blogging difficult!



• Huntsman thinks the solution to Congress is term limits. Laughable. But at least he wants to prevent Congressmen to get top positions in banks, etc, after their term. First, any law to restrict Congress would be essentially impossible because you need Congress to pass these restrictions against themselves (unless there is some loophole I do not know about). Good luck with that! But, if you could, preventing them from getting such jobs would be helpful.



• Like Paul, Huntsman has better military policies than the other Republican candidates.



• When talking about the "old ways" of politicking, he failed to mention "kissing babies." No reason for him to have said that other than it would have been funny and it fits stereotypes.

UPDATE 1: I forgot! It's not all the fault of regulations, in the minds of libertarians. There is the problem of government picking favorites! Which, to their credit, is something on which I can somewhat agree with them. The issue I have, though, is that the reason we are in this mess is because big business wanted the government to pick them as favorites (through lobbying and other ways); it's not like government just decided to do this entirely on its own. So, you can strip away the government, but you're only taking away a tool — albeit a very powerful tool — from the big businesses all the while failing to address the ethical problems with big business. And here is where things may come full circle, because I think some libertarians have it in their heads that the big businesses are unethical because of regulations.

Iowa Caucuses - That Didn't Go As Planned!!!

   There had been people, especially the Occupy Iowa Caucus group, suggesting the idea that Iowan Democrats could go to vote "Uncommitted," as reported by John Nichols and Cenk Uygur. Well, apparently Occupy Iowa Caucus needed to do better research, because that's not what happened. We didn't get a choice. Probably because there is only the one candidate: Barack Obama. In years where there is more than one candidate, then, yes, caucus goers can be "Uncommitted." It has been 16 years since there was a Democratic President seeking re-election, and apparently Ralph Nader was a candidate then. Yet...

   Yet, it is claimed in Wikipedia that there was a 2% for "Uncommitted/Other." If you look for Linn county in this table, you will see that all the delegates went to Obama whereas some other counties have "Other County Delegates". OK, I'm feeling a bit jipped. Did I have to explicitly state, "I'm not here to support Obama!!!"? If so, I wish I would have had better warning! (I'm looking at you, Occupy Iowa Caucus!)

   Oh...well. One thing I did decide to do is GET INVOLVED and volunteer to be a county delegate. I tell people who are frustrated with politics that they really need to do this someway some how. Sitting around bitching doesn't necessarily do anything unless you have a large audience of politically involved people that will hear you out. I don't have that. I do understand, though, why people do bitch instead of getting involved. First of all, I am only one person out of 200 for my county and I become less and less significant at higher levels (district, state, national). Any impact I can make is pretty miniscule, if I can make any impact at all. Second, this means being involved requires a bit of work for possibly no gain. Bitching, on the other hand, requires virtually no work for the same no gain.

   The one biggest complain I have about this whole process has to be the pressure to fall in line. Last night was an occasion where I could have some sympathy for people who call themselves "independent." I've made the argument before (see the side note) that if you agree with much of what a group stands for, then get involved and work to change those things for which you disagree! But, boy, the pressure to conform is certainly there, and I can see how not only people with less informed minds can crack under such pressure, but how people with better informed minds, such as mine, can get frustrated with it—it felt almost like being in a robot factory with people doing things (most notably cheering) on command. I must admit, though, my dislike for the President could likely be skewing those feelings and it is actually my disappointment with people who cheer the guy on that I am truly feeling.

   Other thoughts are that I am fed up with this idea that Iowa has to be "first in the nation." This created some confusion last night as this is a redistricting year, and redistricting takes effect January 8, five days after the caucuses. I'm not sure anything had to be done other than delegates just had to know what precinct they would be representing come the county convention. There didn't seem to be any major concern about, say, no delegates representing a precinct because no one from the old precincts selected as delegates live in the new one. (For example, I live in precinct CR-27 for about three more days. Most of the precinct will become CR-08, but CR-08 will also have parts from what I think is CR-28 and some parts of CR-27 will not be in CR-08. If all the delegates from CR-27 lived in the part that is not going to be CR-08 and no delegates from CR-28 live in the part that will be CR-08, then CR-08 would have no delegates. (Hope that example didn't just make things more confusing!)) In short, holding caucuses before redistricting takes effect does not seem wise.

   Still, I would much rather have everyone hold a primary on the same day. I realize that spreading the primaries out provides a process of elimination, but I think this can be easily solved with instant runoff voting.

   Lastly, there were some comments on YouTube political videos bitching about how "The election is rigged," or something to that effect. It may not have been all that many people saying that, but they were getting a lot of upvotes. My suspicion is that they were Ron Paul supporters, because they've been known to bring up conspiracy theories before, especially ones about how the establishment and the media hate Ron Paul and want to see him lose because—get this—they know how great of a president he will be. Otherwise, I just love how people have to grab for conspiracy theories when their candidates don't do as well as they had hoped. You lost; deal with it.