Month: October 2006

Campaigning for Ballot Measures

Post author By David
Post date October 31, 2006
3 Comments on Campaigning for Ballot Measures

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

As we approach elections next week there is a ballot measure which has been severely underexposed in my opinion. In Utah County it is on the ballot as an “Opinion Question”. In Salt Lake County it is “Proposition 3”. I have no idea how it has been publicized in Salt Lake County, but here we are one week before election day and I have not heard nearly enough about it here in Utah County. I saw a brief article about it at KSL.com yesterday (less than 125 words long) but besides that I have only seen a couple of signs and I got a letter from my mayor on Saturday about the issue.

The subject of the opinion question is funding to expand the commuter rail system in Salt Lake County into Utah County. I am happy to see that everything so far has been in favor of the question. What disappoints me is that so little has been said. I would not be very surprised to learn that the letter from the mayor was the first thing many people had heard about this issue. I even signed up to post a yard sign in favor of the issue, but I have yet to receive a response. We need to find a way to get more information to the voters early enough for people to make informed decisions at the ballot box.

Update 11/8/2006: Here are the results of the elections. The Opinion Question passed but maybe not for the right reasons.

Tags ballot initiatives, openness, reactions, State, thoughts, transportation

General

Senator Hatch

I found it interesting while listening to Senator Hatch’s interview on RadioWest that he uses the very same arguments as to why Senator Moss should be replaced back in 1976 as I have been using to argue that Senator Hatch should be replaced in 2006. He said that Senator Moss was not representing Utah. I have said that Senator Hatch represents the GOP more than he represents Utah.

When asked about Iraq he quoted the White House line about how this was the reason that we had not had another terrorist attack since 2001. I think the only affect this has had regarding terrorist attacks is that the terrorists have another target to hit. They can attack the green zone in Baghdad and it is an attack against the US. The only thing he said about Iraq that I agree with is that he praised the men and women who have served there. The war was a mistake and we need leaders who can admit that and look for the best way forward. We do not need leaders who doggedly insist that the war was necessary but not perfect. Senator Hatch implies that the only alternative to attacking Iraq would have been to attack North Korea, Iran, or possibly Syria in place of Iraq. Apparently we desperately needed to go to war and Iraq was the target of choice.

I thought that the Senator was off base when he implied that those who criticize the war are just people who are critical of everything. (“I think that the critics are just doing what critics always do.”) He fails to recognize that many of those criticizing the war are people who are generally supportive of their leaders, but who refuse to be blinded by the party line. He claims that “the liberal media criticized World War II during Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge.” I’d like to see evidence of that, even though he did rattle off the names of a dozen newspapers when asked about it. If I ever do see proof of that statement, I’ll compare the criticism from the 1940’s with the criticism of this war – I’ll bet that the criticism of the current war is much more specific and well founded – not to mention more widespread.

When I wrote about Pete Ashdown I had intended to cover the Orrin Hatch interview from a neutral perspective. After listening to the interview I no longer wish to do so. Senator Hatch seems more and more to represent the GOP rather than Utah. He doesn’t even talk about the concerns of our state – he talks about the concerns of conservatives. I recognize that Utah is a conservative state, but when coupled with statements like, “we didn’t have to attack Iraq, we could have attacked North Korea, Iran, or Syria instead,” I find it impossible to overlook the fact that we have a conservative senator or a Republican senator rather than a Utah senator. I’m voting for Pete. I think he’ll represent Utah instead of representing a party.

Tags candidates, openness, Orrin Hatch, reactions, State

culture life

Insurance Racket

I had to deal with changing health insurance today with the business office at the womens clinic that Laura goes to in preparation for our new baby. That gave me the opportunity to review prices for their services. I discovered something very disappointing. In the last year, with insurance through my work, I have paid as much in premiums (not counting what the company was supposedly paying toward the premiums) as the clinic would charge an insurance company. The only money I saved by having insurance, even with the large medical expense of having a baby, is that I am not being charged the higher prices that they charge those who don’t have insurance. I don’t quite understand that policy. Why should they charge more to those people who can’t afford insurance? Isn’t that like kicking a person while they’re down?

Anyway, that’s the insurance racket. My portion of the price of insurance every year is enough to pay for a major medical procedure, like 9 months of prenatal care plus delivery and a hospital stay.If we weren’t having kids I’d be throwing away a new car every year in insurance premiums – and that’s when the company is paying the bulk of the costs. If I were to pay for that insurance myself for three years I would have paid for a major injury – like being seriously hit by a car. If I put that money into my house instead of my insurance I would have the house paid off in 11 years from the time I bought it.

Tags insurance, kids, thoughts, work

life

Party Time

As I left my house this morning I noticed that someone had been to my door (and every door in the neighborhood) and left stuff. When I returned home I went to see what kind of prizes I had won. It took me about 1 second to figure out that it was the Republican Party – here’s what they left:

Orrin Hatch – Senate
- I have just repeated his entire message. Apparently he has nothing to say for himself – I checked both sides just to be sure I was not missing anything.
- STRIKE 1
- I was tempted to go around the neighborhood and remove the “Orrin Hatch” card from my neighbors’ doors.
LaVar Christensen – 2nd Congressional District
- All he has to say about himself is “I won’t just go along to get along in Congress.” Sadly, the rest of his handout is “Democrats might take over Congress and make Nancy Pelosi the Speaker of the House.” As much as I disagree with Rep. Pelosi on many issues, I am not casting my vote against her or anyone else. Too bad I know nothing about LaVar.
- STRIKE 2
Ken Sumsion – district 56 (state congress)
- Ken sounds like a nice guy who might make a good representative. I may vote for him depending on who else is running.
- BALL 1

The moral of this story is Give me a reason to vote for you – otherwise I won’t. The Republican Party almost struck out with me. We’ll see if they get one more strike before November 7th.

Tags parties, reactions, State

General

Come November

I had fun reading in the New York Times about how various people in the Republican Party are pointing their fingers at each other regarding why they seem to have so little public support. There are certainly a wide variety of reasons for people to be disenchanted with the GOP. I think I best heard this type of situation with the party summed up something like this:

A party gets into power based on a set of goals or ideals. After staying in power for a while the only ideal left is to stay in power.

That appears to be the case here. Party leaders only want to keep the party in power while constituent groups are tired of being associated with the party while feeling like the party is no longer looking after their interests.

Although there are many causes, I think that the public lack of support is an exaggerated response to the Foley scandal. My personal views of the party are completely unaffected by this news, but I would not be surprised to learn that for many people that was the final straw. The Democrats would jump on that issue if it was all they had to work with, but there’s so much more for them to address. For those who are unhappy with Iraq, the economy, immigration, or anything else, it might be enough for people to say “not this too – I’m leaving.”

Whatever the results on November 7th, I hope the Republican Party wakes up and starts to focus so that when 2008 rolls around nobody can be sure of which way the election will go. That, in my opinion, is the best recipe for solid political dialog. That would be a welcome change from the meaningless political rhetoric we have been subjected to lately.

Tags parties, reactions, thoughts

General

17th Amendment

I love being invited to comment on things. In this case, I have been pointed towards an article from September of 2002 by John W. Dean on the 17th Amendment to the Constitution and whether it should be repealed. As a brief reminder, the 17th Amendment changed the way that senators were selected. Originally senators were chosen by state legislators while representatives in the house were selected by direct election. That structure, and the election of the president by the electoral college are the two fundamental differences between our government and a pure democracy.

Dean suggests that the 17th Amendment, along with the 16th Amendment (legalized income taxes) were the driving forces behind the expansion of the federal government in the last century. He also points to Federalist No. 10 which suggests that the purpose of the Senate is different from the purpose of the House of Representatives. The Senate was not expected to represent the citizens of their state, but rather the government of their state. In fact, what James Madison describes for the Senate sounds more like what we might have if the Republican Governors Association and the Democratic Governors Association were to come together in a governing body.

The article cites law professor Todd Zywicki from George Mason University in saying that “the true backers of the 17th amendment were special interests” who “hoped direct elections would increase their control, since [direct elections] would let [the special interests] appeal directly to the electorate, as well as provide their essential political fuel – money.” Although that assessment sounds right, I cannot prove it. I can say that the change has voided any significant difference between Senators and Representatives. Now the difference is that Senators serve longer terms and do not represent a set number of constituents.

Dean concludes:

Repeal of the amendment would restore both federalism and bicameralism. It would also have a dramatic and positive effect on campaign spending. Senate races are currently among the most expensive. But if state legislatures were the focus of campaigns, more candidates might get more access with less money — decidedly a good thing.

Zywicki adds:

Absent a change of heart in the American populace and a better understanding of the beneficial role played by limitations on direct democracy, it is difficult to imagine a movement to repeal the 17th amendment.

I agree on both counts. I believe that the founders did not structure our government as they did based on whims. They knew what they were doing and most of us do not understand what they were doing, much less why they were doing it. They allowed for amendments because they knew it would be necessary to make changes at times – I think the founders would have applauded the 14th Amendment. But I also think that it is not wise for us to use the amendment process to fundamentally change the form of government that they set up. Sadly, most citizens are not sufficiently informed to understand the differences caused by this amendment.

Tags amendments, Constitution, reactions, senate, thoughts

General

Iraq

Post author By David
Post date October 17, 2006
4 Comments on Iraq

After three years in Iraq (and three years worth of news and commentary on Iraq) I just had a new thought on the situation this morning. What would happen if we left Iraq now?

I am not an advocate of cut-and-run but I think we have to ask ourselves that question if we are to make an honest assessment of the situation. The only reason to stay in Iraq is if we want to prevent what would happen if we were to leave. The general consensus seems to be that if we leave there will be anarchy and its attending chaos. I am beginning to wonder how much worse it would be than it already is.

I know the Bush Administration would argue that it would be worse, and that they don’t intend to leave until Iraq is stable. I believe that violence would get worse soon after the US military leaves, but will Iraq ever be stable?

Sometimes a temporary solution to a problem may prevent a final solution (like propping up “friendly dictators” rather than allowing other countries their autonomy). Currently in Iraq there are thousands of Iraqis dying each month. What would it look like if we left?

What if, in the absence of the US military, Iraq entered an unchecked civil war where 10,000 Iraqis died each month for 6 months before they reached some sort of stability and the death tolls fell to 500 per month. The reason for my thoughts this morning was that I began to wonder if that was inevitable. If we stayed in Iraq for two more years and then pulled out would they have a short period of extreme instability as soon as we left before things settled down? Perhaps they would have 10,000 casualties per month for only two months.

Let’s compare these two scenarios to see what the cost would be of “staying the course” for two more years. The war is costing us roughly $100 billion per year and (conservatively) 50 US casualties per month. That translates into a cost to the US of $200 billion dollars and 1200 more lives. What does that purchase give us according to my scenario? Assuming 2500 Iraqi casualties per month while the US is on the ground, there would be 80,000 Iraqi deaths (60,000 over 2 years at 2500 per month plus 10,000 per month for two months of instability) before they achieved stability. If we were to cut and run under my scenario there would be 70,000 Iraqi casualties (60,000 over six months of civil war plus 500 per month for the next 20 months) before they achieved stability.

I don’t pretend that my numbers are accurate, if they were it would be easy to decide to save $200 billion dollars, 1200 US lives, and 10,000 Iraqi lives. I think my numbers should be just realistic enough to make people want to see real estimates of the cost of continuing this war. Let’s get experts to consider all the factors so that the public knows what they are supporting, or opposing.

Tags Iraq, thoughts

culture

Third Parties and Independents

Post author By David
Post date October 13, 2006
No Comments on Third Parties and Independents

I got my voter information pamphlet in the mail today in preparation for election day and it got me thinking about the third party and independent candidates. I have also had comments on my poll regarding the fact that I have only listed Democrats and Republicans as options.

My stance on these candidates and parties is that they are a good part of a healthy political system. Considering how rarely they ever get voted into office I wonder if they serve any more functional purpose than to promote fringe ideas which might later be adopted by one of the major parties. The keyword there was functional. Does anyone see any other tangible benefit that comes from these types of candidates and parties in our system?

Tags parties

General

Victims of Party Politics

The news today that Mark Warner had decided against seeking to be the Democrats’ nominee for President in 2008 was proof of how we all suffer from politics that is driven by party affiliation rather than being driven by what is best for the country. I consider it to be good for the country to have two strong parties that can debate the issues from different perspectives, but when that escalates to our current system it becomes counter-productive.

One Democratic official friendly to Mr. Warner said: ‘He realized how hard this was going to be. He’s a great general election candidate, but he thought he would have difficulty winning the primary.’

When candidates find it necessary to make themselves appear more extreme in order to “energize the base” for primary elections and then attempt to appear moderate for the general election the result is that the voters can never tell which version of the candidate to believe.

That is one of the greatest failings of party-driven politics.

Tags parties, reactions

culture meta technology

Political Polling

I have begun to wonder how people view presidential hopefuls before the heavy campaigning gets underway. To that end I have created a poll on my blog where people can vote for those people who have been identified as potential candidates for whom they would be willing to vote.

You can vote as often as you would like – I believe that the poll will only allow a person to vote once every two weeks.

I was only allowed to include 20 options in the poll I created so I included 10 of the most prominent republican hopefuls and 10 of the most prominent democratic hopefuls. I have listed all of them alphabetically. I have made no indication of their party affiliation, although some of them will be obvious.

There were another 11 potential candidates that I could have included. If I notice candidate who are consistently failing to get noticed in the poll I may drop them and add some of these other candidates that I could not include.

What I had wanted initially was a ranking system similar to the way college football teams are ranked where voters would rank the various candidates and their rankings would be weighted to give an overall ranking. If anyone has an idea of how I could do that I would love to hear about it.

I am looking to have this circulated as widely as possible so feel free to let friends of all political persuasions know about this poll. Also I would appreciate if anyone has any ideas of how else I can make this poll known to a wider audience.

UPDATE: I have decided to make create a separate page for the poll so that it is not necessary to scroll to see it. It will still be included on the sidebar here, but it can also be found at http://mr.david.miller.googlepages.com/poll.html. If anyone does choose to share the poll with their friends, that page is where they should probably point.

Tags poll