Tag: thoughts

Contributing to the fediverse

Post author By David
Post date January 16, 2024
No Comments on Contributing to the fediverse

Warning: Undefined array key "adf" in /home4/hpvcxhmy/public_html/wp-content/plugins/similarity/similarity.php on line 69

Warning: Undefined array key "sim_pages" in /home4/hpvcxhmy/public_html/wp-content/plugins/similarity/similarity.php on line 70

This is both new and old for me. I wrote consistently on political policy topics for over 10 years but then life happened and I tapered off nearly 10 years ago. I was writing before social media was a thing – back when decentralized personal publishing was the norm rather than everybody using one or more monolithic mega-platforms to share their thoughts. (Also before short form content dominated all the conversations online.)

In the nearly 10 years since I stopped writing with consistency we have stopped being a nation where I felt that our constitutional order was secure and have become a nation where it is clear that significant populations of voters across the political spectrum (but especially among the flag-waving rightward fringe of the political spectrum) either do not understand our constitutional order or no longer believe it can or should be maintained. That is why I think it is critical for me to again share a perspective that is unabashedly pro free-market and fully committed to defending our constitutional order from all enemies, foreign or domestic.

I’m also intent on contributing in the decentralized social web to help foster that healthier ecosystem that harks back to earlier days before our discourse got toxic enough that rabidly anti-constitutional positions are now treated as fairly normal. (This isn’t unlike efforts to save the Great Salt Lake from spiking salinity levels due to dangerously low water levels – I hope it’s not too little, too late but there’s no way to know in advance.)

Tags civic participation, fediverse, history, thoughts

National politics

The Issue of Secession

Image by The COM Library

We just had an election. Once it was over some people began talking about seceding. This is not the first time the United States has faced such a situation. I was reminded of that after seeing Lincoln. As we talked after the movie Laura asked why we fought rather than just letting the southern states leave. We talked about some of the implications of secession – it is certainly not a simple topic – but as I have been thinking about it I came to the conclusion that the fact that there is no provision for secession in the Constitution might need to be changed at some point. With that in mind I decided to draft such a provision to further explore the nuances of the concept of secession.

I would like to make it clear that I am not in favor of seceding at this time nor do I foresee a time when I would favor it but I think that creating a clear path for secession might be useful in making the possibility more understandable for those who might wish to consider it. In fact, if crafted correctly it might even serve as a deterrent to some who might pursue the idea without due consideration.

I based my draft on the concepts embodied in the provisions for the admission of new states (Article IV Section 3). Specifically I wanted to promote self determination, a deliberate process, and continued order. Here it is:

States may petition the Congress to secede from the Union. The Congress must vote on a treaty of secession within two years of the petition or else the petitioning state may offer its own treaty of secession which the Congress must vote on within 10 days. The President may not veto a treaty of secession unless he is a resident of the petitioning state or the treaty was drafted by Congress within the two years allowed. Secession shall not be completed until after a one year waiting period which begins after the Congress and the Legislature of the petitioning state have ratified a treaty of secession and after the Legislature and the people of the petitioning state have each voted in favor of secession in separate votes conducted at least 350 and no more than 400 days apart. If the treaty of secession is ratified more than four years after the vote of the residents of the seceding state, the residents of the seceding state must approve the treaty of secession in a popular vote during the one year waiting period.

During the one year waiting period the seceding state shall have all the rights and obligations of all other states in the Union. If the President is a resident of a seceding state the vice president shall assume the office of president at the beginning of the waiting period for the duration of the term.

Seceding states may be readmitted to the Union in the same manner as new states at any time but must remain independent from other political unions for a period of five years following their formal secession.

Parts of states may secede from the Union by first following the procedures to become a new state. In cases of a partial state secession a treaty of secession must be ratified by the Congress and the Legislature of the newly approved state and the one year waiting period must be observed but the people of the new state may vote in favor of secession prior to the creation of the new state and the legislature of the new state may vote in favor of secession anytime within the first 400 days after the creation of the new state regardless of when the people of the newly created state voted in favor of secession.

It was interesting to see what details came to my mind as I tried crafting this provision. I would love to hear from others if there are issues I have failed to address or if there are things you would change about this draft.

I’d also be interested in hearing any other thoughts about secession that anyone would care to share.

Tags Constitution, secession, states rights, thoughts

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

culture General pictures

Multi-Dimensional Political Perspectives

Post author By David
Post date February 9, 2010
3 Comments on Multi-Dimensional Political Perspectives

photo credit: mkandlez

Jane Hamsher wrote about the 11 Dimensional Chess approach to health care legislation that the Obama administration tried. That sent me back to some earlier thoughts I had shared about how we visualize the political spectrum. The simplest way to view things is one dimensional. Like the opening image here it breaks down into a right/left, red/blue, conservative/liberal, Republican/Democrat, or another single-axis spectrum. Many people recognize how inadequate such a simplified view is and various people (including myself) have sought to devise two-dimensional representations of the political landscape.

Of the many maps out there I think the easiest to comprehend is this from the Worlds Smallest Political Quiz:

With an axis measuring personal freedom issues and an axis measuring economic freedom issues it is not difficult to grasp the lay of the land according to this graph. Unfortunately this two dimensional representation, like all other two-dimensional representations, falls short of accurately describing reality.

Tags civic participation, connections, discourse, Elevated, political philosophy, thoughts

General

Abolish Earmarks

photo credit: Skrewtape

For some time I have been internally conflicted on the issue of congressional earmarking. Many people, including such diverse characters as President Obama and Congressman Chaffetz, have been vocal about calling for an end to earmarks. Others such as my own Congressman, Rob Bishop, reply that earmarks are not an addition to the total size of our federal expenditures – but simply a direction regarding the spending of money already appropriated. Believers in small government who make that argument say that our focus should be on reducing total expenditures rather than shutting down the earmarking process. Personally, I would like to see an end to earmarking and a significant reduction in total spending. (Earmarks alone are an insignificant portion of our spending.)

Tags earmarks, Elevated, government, Jason Chaffetz, Jim DeMint, money, Obama, reactions, Rob Bishop, thoughts

State

Taxes: Supply vs Demand

The bulk of the discussion at the legislative town hall meeting last week was focused on fiscal issues of one kind or another. One thing that was briefly touched on was the potential return of sales tax on unprepared food. I have always been a fan of not having that tax, because of its supposedly regressive nature and because unprepared food is generally what I spend my money on, and I see no reason to volunteer for higher taxes on it. A couple of statements in that brief discussion got my brain thinking about some different aspects of tax policy.

One statement that someone made was that when the tax on unprepared food was eliminated the stores simply raised their prices accordingly so that the savings went into their pockets rather than taxpayers. That didn’t strike me as accurate, but even if it was accurate it is no excuse to reinstate the tax – the stores would let consumers absorb the taxes on the now higher prices rather than lower the price to accommodate the tax.

Sen. Liljenquist mentioned that people don’t tend to buy luxury items in down economies. When combined with the fact that our expectations fo government tend to increase in down economies I saw why governments tend to grow endlessly – there is generally an inverse relationship between our demand for government services and our ability to pay for them. When times are tough we demand more and politicians do their best to oblige us. When times are good we tend to expand government in areas that were not previously considered crucial by eating into any taxes that exceed our recession-limited budgets. When times become lean again the once-discretionary programs are viewed as essential and demand greater sacrifice from citizens to maintain the programs that would have been considered outrageous in the previous downturn.

From this perspective it makes more sense to favor regressive or at least “fair” tax schemes where those with the least ability to pay also have a vested interest in the tax rates so that they are less likely to get extravagant when times are generally better and so that the tax revenue is generally more stable. It is simply foolish to base our most essential services on revenue sources that are unavailable when the services are crucial.

I’m not trying to argue that luxury goods should be tax-exempt, but if they form the basis of our tax revenue for essential services we will always be in for gut-wrenching decisions whenever their is a dip in our economic outlook.

Tags Dan Liljenquist, economics, House 20, Senate 23, taxes, thoughts, town hall

life

Ensuring Personal Independence

Post author By David
Post date January 18, 2010
4 Comments on Ensuring Personal Independence

Last week Charles D. left a short but challenging comment stating:

I will be interested to read what steps you believe one can take to insure personal independence in the event of an economic collapse.

Today I will attempt to specifically describe what we can and must do to ensure that we are not utterly dependent on society. As I said before, I am not advocating that people should become hermits or dissociate themselves from society – in fact I advocate the cultivation of connections within society. On the other hand, when push comes to shove I am ultimately responsible to provide the necessities of life for me and my family and it is up to me to make sure that I do not fail due to a failure by someone else.

Since feeling the challenge of accurately addressing Charles’ question I ran into a reference to the book How to Sew a Button: And Other Nifty Things Your Grandmother Knew. I think the title alone is descriptive of what I had in mind – being able to do for yourself or do without in as many things as possible. Basically, you should go through the following flowchart for everything you use and find a way to end up on the right side of the chart.

This gets down to some very basic things, like electricity and the foods you eat. If you are dependent on electricity you should be figuring out how much you need and looking for ways to produce it. For food production you need to have the skills and the resources necessary to produce a minimum supply for your needs

Thankfully you don’t have to be entirely alone. One of the things that you can do is cultivate a community of people you know who are willing to pool their skills and resources to produce their combined needs. For the most basic things you should find ways to produce, or actively contribute to the production of the things you are dependent on. For other things that you could live without but would prefer not to, it might be acceptable to be dependent on a member of your personal community to produce that particular thing, but you must be prepared to offer something of value in return for their production.

Tags liberty, prepare, questions, thoughts

General

A New View on the Flag and Pledge of Allegiance

Post author By David
Post date January 6, 2010
12 Comments on A New View on the Flag and Pledge of Allegiance

photo credit: eschipul

I had some interesting thoughts this morning after reading an article I would normally not bother to read. It was talking about a specific historical flag, but my thoughts were turned to the flag generally and then to the Pledge of Allegiance. Here’s the statement that got my brain moving:

The flag is an American flag — 13 stripes, a blue square canton with 13 white stars surrounding an American bald eagle. So far, this flag isn’t strange for its day. In the 19th century, almost anything goes in handmade national flags. (emphasis added)

Suddenly I am released from the idea of a standardized flag and considering the flag more abstractly as a representation of something to believe in. The nation represented by all those handmade national flags was the same, and the symbolism of that nation was consistent across flags (stars, stripes, red, white, and blue), but people felt free to add things to the flag that helped represent their feelings regarding the nation (an American bald eagle in the field of blue being an apparently common addition back then).

Tags Elevated, flag, liberty, reactions, thoughts

General

Public to Private is a One Way Economic Street

Post author By David
Post date December 31, 2009
1 Comment on Public to Private is a One Way Economic Street

photo credit: taberandrew

A post entitled The New Robber Barons got me thinking about what happens when public and private enterprises compete in a marketplace. Thinking about that led to some interesting observations. The first of which is that progressives are right in their assertion that public and private enterprises can compete without eradicating each other. The problem is that the progressives don’t seem to recognize that this only works in limited cases. They like to point to the post office as an example – let’s go explore that.

Tags connections, economics, Elevated, free markets, government, KVNU FTP, questions, thoughts

National

GOP Sheep with No Shepherd

Post author By David
Post date December 21, 2009
2 Comments on GOP Sheep with No Shepherd

Yet Another Fire Dog Lake post led me to this Progressive Change Campaign Committee poll. My interest in the poll focused on the results of two questions:

Would you favor or oppose a health care bill that does NOT include a public health insurance option and does NOT expand Medicare, but DOES require all Americans to get health insurance?

and

Would you favor or oppose a health care bill that does NOT include a public health insurance option and does NOT expand Medicare and does NOT require all Americans to buy health insurance — but DOES provide significant subsidies to low- and middle-income families to help them buy insurance?

I was specifically interested to compare the Republican responses to these two questions. The first question offers essentially what the health care bill has been boiling down to – a mandate with no public option or alternative. The second offers no mandate, no public option or alternative, but offers subsidies for those who cannot afford insurance. Republican leaders have been fighting against the first option openly without really talking about the second possibility. The results in the republican response are interesting. Those opposed to either option were virtually identical (61% and 60% respectively). Those who were undecided nearly doubled from the first question to the second because they had not been told what to think, had never considered the possibility themselves, and could not think on their feet. Because of that, the number who favored the first question – which is clearly the worst of the two – was 5 points higher than those who favored the second.

This party needs shepherds who know where to lead rather than goats who know only to oppose.

Tags connections, health care, poll, thoughts