Pursuit of Liberty – Page 7 – Political musings of a patriot

A Failed Crisis?

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I would bet that almost all the people who have read The Fourth Turning have wondered at one time or another whether 9/11 was our nation’s crisis as predicted in that book. I know that I read somewhere that the authors of the book indicated that they believed that 9/11 was the crisis that marked our passage into the fourth, or crisis, turning for this saeculum (for those who have not read the book and may be unfamiliar with that term, a saeculum is composed of four time periods, called turnings, which each have distinct characteristics and last for the length of a generation – roughly 18 to 25 years – and the saeculum is equal to a long human lifespan – between 80 and 100 years).

I have long felt that if 9/11 was our crisis then we failed because nothing changed – we have not addressed any of the issues that have been pushing us toward crisis over the last generation. Today I stumbled upon 9/11 – A Fourth Turning Perspective by James Quinn. He does a great job of identifying the things that made me think that 9/11, if it was our crisis, was a failed crisis. As he talks about the book he mentioned that a fourth turning crisis ALWAYS leads to substantial change. That gave me hope (and dread) that our crisis had not come. Certainly 9/11 had the potential to be such a crisis, but apparently we were not ready to enter the next turning at that time.

Mr. Quinn goes on to speculate that our crisis was really the market crash of September 2008 and that our reaction to that crisis is not yet resolved. We have not come to a point where the outcome of our crisis can be known. In fact, the crash might even be viewed as the catalyst for a coming crisis rather than the crisis itself. Quinn goes on to describe the types of crises we might yet face in the near future (and keep in mind that there is no guarantee that we will face only one crisis) and some of the potential outcomes.

I won’t pretend to be smart enough to be able to say with certainty how accurate his speculation is, but it is certainly worth a read and some careful consideration.

Limitations of Politics

photo credit: RSzepan

Over the course of my writing here I have been asked why I focus so much on political issues and not so much on promoting a moral society. I think it’s a great question and I have thought much about it. The short answer is that my focus on this site is on the political system and how it impacts society as well as how we can have a positive effect on the system that is currently in place.

For some time now I have found myself falling back in private political discussions to the position that all the best efforts and intentions with regard to political activity are no more than a bandaid over the ills of society and that true progress and stability in society are utterly dependent on the underlying morality or righteousness of the society being governed. It is exactly the same with a wound: a bandaid can help keep it clean and impede further infection but real healing is an internal function of the body. From outside the body the most we can do is create an environment that is conducive to healing.

Tags Elevated, ideal

culture National State

Selective Enforcement of Law

Post author By David
Post date April 26, 2010
19 Comments on Selective Enforcement of Law

photo credit: ThreadedThoughts

In a not-particularly-surprising move, Arizona passed a very strict law giving police broad powers to crack down on illegal immigration. Equally unsurprising is the backlash from those who worry that rights will get trampled in the enforcement of this law. The biggest complaint is against the provision allowing police to stop anyone they suspect of being here illegally and have them prove that they are legal residents.

I don’t think anyone can reasonably argue that such authority would never be abused. More disturbingly to me, 60% of people favor this law despite the fact that 58% of people in the same poll believe that the rights of some citizens will be infringed upon by the enforcement of this law. If we assume that all 40% of people who do not favor this law are among the 58% who fear the rights of citizens will be infringed then there is almost 1 in 5 who is willing to infringe on the basic rights of citizens in order to enforce our essentially arbitrary immigration laws.

Tags Arizona, Elevated, immigration, KVNU FTP

National State

Repeal vs Lawsuit vs Nullification

Post author By David
Post date April 23, 2010
13 Comments on Repeal vs Lawsuit vs Nullification

photo credit: Smabs Sputzer

Ever since the passage of that rancid piece of legislative sausage labeled health care reform Republicans have been talking about repealing the bill. Some even talk about “repeal and replace” as their goal. Alongside that rhetoric (and that’s pretty much all it is at this point) there has been the action taken by the Attorneys General of many states to file suit against the constitutionality of the bill. My purpose here is not to discuss the issue of health care reform; rather, it is to talk about the differences between these two legal paths out of this reform as well as another path which is fundamentally different—nullification—which thus far has not been actively pursued by most opponents of the bill.

Tags Elevated, health care, issues, thoughts, Utah

State

The Race for Second

Within hours after I wrote about how far Bennett is from winning this senate race Bennett himself essentially confirms my position by bringing out some friendly generals and shooting himself in the foot while taking aim at Mike Lee. All except possibly his most ardent supporters will rightly recognize that taking that shot is a sign that the Senator knows how dire his position is and who is in place to win the Convention vote. Even those who agree with Bennett’s position must recognize how much that shot can hurt him in the race and consequently how dire his position is to have him taking the chance.

What has been really interesting to me was not that Bennett recognized how slim his chances are right now (I’ve never thought that he was as ignorant and disconnected from that reality as the necessarily optimistic tone of his campaight might make him appear) but that the commentary from all quarters since he took the shot seems to converge on the fact that not only is Mike Lee the clear frontrunner of all the candidates, but Senator Bennett is probably not even his closest challenger. In the race for second place it appears that Tim Bridgewater is currently in the lead.

Right now as Bennett tries to peel some support away from Lee it may be Bridgewater who is the primary beneficiary instead of Bennett. At the same time, Mike Lee is working his hardest to make sure the race for the Republican nomination ends on May 8th. I’m confident that Mike understands that he can’t count on that result although his position seems very safe to be among the top two if there is a primary.

Tags 2010. Senate, Bob Bennett, Mike Lee, Tim Bridgewater, Utah

State

Bennett’s Magic Number

With polls coming out surveying actual state delegates we are beginning to get our first picture of where Bob Bennett’s chances really stand. Of course we should never implicitly trust a first picture but it’s better than all the guesswork before the delegates had even been selected and more grounded in reality than straw polls or surveys of likely primary voters.

The Bennett campaign continues to say publicly that they think they have a decent shot and that they are making headway among the delegates. We should expect that kind of public statement from the campaign because any serious candidate must be at least publicly optimistic about their chances or else they have no reason to stay in the race. Consider that, like the Bennett campaign, the official line from the Lee and Bridgewater campaigns is that they are making headway among the delegates. I’m sure if you added all their optimism up it would add to well over 100% of all delegates – and that doesn’t count the optimism from any of the other five candidates.

Along with polls come public discussions such as this one of what the polls actually mean and how the convention will play out. Of course all such discussions are nothing more than guesswork but there are a few facts that can tell us a lot about how long Bennett will hold a seat in the Senate. The first fact is that he needs to receive votes from 40% of the delegates to even land in a primary. Also, all the rhetoric from the various campaigns and the delegate poll seems to be remarkably consistent in placing Bennett-supporting delagates somewhere in the low 20% range right now. There is also strong consensus that Bennett is highly unlikely to be the second choice for many delegates because a large portion (easily over 40%, almost certainly over 50%, and quite possibly over 60%) will vote for anyone except Bob Bennett this year. Because of this I feel very confident in saying that Bennett’s magic number at the convention in first round voting is 30% of the votes.

Even if Bennett were the top vote getter in the first round, if he only received 29.5% of the votes in that first round I am very confident that he would not be able to pick up enough votes in later rounds to reach the 40% plateau no matter which of his challengers were left in the top three. (I am not limiting that possibility to Lee and Bridgewater even if they are the only challengers I have mentioned in the post.) Even if he were to receive the most votes in the second round, say 36% (that is my wildest imagination if the first round generated only 29.5% for him), the third round would see virtually every delegate who had not already voted for him voting for whoever was left of his challengers and there would be no primary.

If Bob Bennett currently has the support of 22% of the state delegates, as this poll has indicated, that would mean he needs to convince another 8% to support him in the first round. That is approximately 300 delegates he will need to sway in this highly anti-incumbent atmosphere to have any chance of surviving into a primary.

Tags 2010, Bob Bennett, Mike Lee, senate, Utah

Local technology

Ongoing Local Discussion

photo credit: dorineruter

I’ve shared some ideas (and will be doing whatever work I can to see that they get implemented) about how to make caucus meeting accommodations that are better suited to having productive and effective caucus meetings. I realize that having comfortable accommodations does nothing to address the issue of having ill-informed or single issue participants.

I don’t know the numbers (I doubt anyone does) but many people were elected as state delegates this year based solely on their position on the senate race. It’s possible that some of the county delegates were elected based on their positions on one specific race or another. As I pointed out before the caucus meetings, there were at least four races for each of these delegates to vote on in my precinct.

Tags caucus, Elevated, reform

Local State

Davis County GOP Convention

Post author By David
Post date April 12, 2010
No Comments on Davis County GOP Convention

I wanted to share a few thoughts from the Davis County Republican Party convention from Saturday. It was fun for me as the first time I have attended such a convention with the ability to vote. Because I have spent so much energy researching and considering the Senate race and other races that will be decided at the state convention (such as my Utah House district) I did not feel as prepared for this convention as I would have felt if it had been the state convention this weekend. Thankfully I had some good friends there who were better prepared. After talking with them I was able to make decisions on races where I felt under-informed before (I’m sure we did not all vote alike) and to feel even more confident in my choices on the races where I had felt prepared and informed.

I was mildly impressed with the statistic that 97.7% of delegates made it to the convention but considering that they (we) were elected only 18 days ago I would consider anything under 95% to be disappointing. I can’t wait to see the attendance at next year’s convention. Then I would be pleasantly surprised if we got 75% attendance.

I have come to the conclusion (again) that conventions could operate more quickly if we could reduce the amount of generic campaigning such as having current officeholders speak if they have nothing more to say than we are fed up with the actions of the other party and we’re going to take back the presidency/House/Senate/governorship/state legislature (whichever ones apply). We could also save time by skipping the speeches that say nothing more than give ourselves a pat on the back for the great things we have done in {whichever of the above we control currently}. (That might also save some hospital bills.) For example, my reaction when Orrin Hatch spoke was that even when he said the rift things he completely failed to convince me that he cared about anything more than getting to stay in the Senate.

If all speeches were focused on “here’s what we are or should be working on going forward” the time would be more valuably spent.

Tags 2010, Davis County, Utah

Local

Caucus Accomodations

I think it is a sign of how casually we view our caucuses that parties can do so little to make them successful. It is a sign of the apathy of the general population to the political process that party leaders really have no idea how many people to plan for and a sign of how unconcerned the parties are that they do not make significant effort to adjust to conditions as they are known. Let me take my precinct caucus as an example.

Our precinct had 91 people sign the rolls. I’m confident that this failed to count people who came and then left because of the cattle-chute conditions. (I know of people who came and then left but I cannot confirm how many of those signed the roll.) Those who stayed were packed into a room that was designed to seat perhaps a dozen students at a local junior high school. I’m sure a firemarshall would never allow more than 30 people in a space that size even if the desks were removed. It was not even a regular classroom.

Many people who stayed were out in the hallway where they could not hear from the candidates for the various positions nor the questions that were being asked. All they could do was pass in their ballots.

I am told that our precinct was in the same room in 2008 when only 56 people attended. (I was not living in this precinct until shortly after the caucus meetings that year.) The party leaders did not adjust the accomodations despite the fact that they were clearly inadequate two years ago and despite the fact that there was a great deal more poliical energy in the state before the caucuses this year than I have ever felt in the past.

In many places I know that caucus meetings have been held in neighborhood homes. While that may provide enough space in many cases, few homes could really accomodate the crowds we had this year in many places and even if they could, I know some people who do not feel comfortable in a private residence for this kind of official community meeting.

Knowing that parties often do not have a good idea in advance (like they should have this year) regarding how many people will show up, they need to hold caucus meetings in locations that can accomodate large or small groups. Schools might sound ideal for that but few schools can really handle more than two large groups individually and the junior high where I was had ten precincts attending. Parties should break their precincts out into more locations using schools, churches, city halls, and community centers so that they are able to keep people close to home and have space to accomodate unexpectedly large groups when necessary. I can’t say for other churches but virtually any LDS chapel has rooms to house at least two large groups comfortably. I would imagine that many churches of other denominations can also house mutiple good-sized caucus meetings. If we were to add these locations along with libraries, city offices, community centers and other such locations we should not need to feel like cattle headed for slaughter when we attend precinct caucus meetings.

Ideally I would love to see one meeting location in each precinct where both Democrats and Republicans hold their caucus meetings. If the emphasis were on “neighborhood” rather than “party” they might even say the pledge of allegiance together before splitting for their separate meetings.

Tags caucus, reform

life State

An Example of Constituent Communication

Post author By David
Post date April 5, 2010
No Comments on An Example of Constituent Communication

Two months ago I wrote about my newly solidified position on why we should abolish earmarks. As part of that, I criticized Rep. Rob Bishop and his office for failing to even acknowledge two questions on the subject that I sent the congessman now nearly a year ago.

Somehow my post came to his attention and Rep. Bishop felt that he was being unfairly maligned as his staff could find no record of my questions getting to their office. At some point (I suspect recently) Rep. Bishop discovered that they had received my questions and considered them important (or unique) enough to warrant an individual response instead of a stock answer. The questions were given to the congressman himself and then somehow they slipped through the cracks and been buried. When he discovered his mistake Rep. Bishop took it upon himself to track down my phone number (and it’s not an easy task to sort through the many David Miller’s out there) and offer his apologies and a personal response to my questions.

I was quite surprised when I received his call Wednesday evening and I appreciated very much the time he took to speak with me. His was not some simple two minute call to appologize and share his position on earmarks in answer to my questions. I stead he took the time to listen to my thoughts and enegage in a full conversation until I was satisfied that I was being heard. He did not even attempt to change my opinion on those points where we do not share a common perspective but I finished the phone call confident that we share the same overall goal on the subject of earmarks and that he understands the reasons I think earmarks should become a thing of the past.

Thank you Rep. Bishop. You deserve as public an acknowledgement as the criticism I offered before.

Tags Rob Bishop