Tag: discourse

The pundits who cry wolf

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We should all know what it means to “cry wolf” and while pundits across the political spectrum are prone to dong so, those on the liberal end of the spectrum should be kicking themselves right about now that because of the way they demonized a very decent Mitt Romney in 2012 (as well many other decent conservatives over many years) they have exhausted the limits of the English language to the point that they can’t effectively expose Donald Trump as being uniquely dangerous in his unfitness for the office that he is dangerously close to holding. (He was dangerously close as soon as the Iowa caucuses were over.)

Having inured the electorate with their constant invective against anyone or anything conservative, they have squandered any moral or intellectual capital they might have had and made it so that wide swaths of voters think that choosing between Clinton and Trump is a matter of choosing their favorite (or least un-favorite) shade of gray rather than a choice between dirt and radioactive waste. (You don’t want to set either one on your dinner table but while one might gross you out the other will eventually prove fatal even if you don’t actually ingest it.)

Pundits on the right are equally powerless because of their history of exaggerated rhetoric to effectively show qualitative differences between political disagreement and a 5 alarm dumpster fire of a candidate. If the Democrats were to nominate someone as toxic as Trump – which they undoubtedly have a few of within their ranks (lets hope they never stoop as low as the GOP did this year) – these talking heads would be left hoping that the electorate could recognize when it was being offered a dirty bomb rather than a conventional weapon.

I wrote the above on November 2nd. On November 6th I came across this video where Bill Maher makes the same “we cried wolf” statement: http://www.mrctv.org/videos/maher-panics-over-fascist-prez-trump-confesses-cried-wolf-bush

Tags Clinton, discourse, Donald Trump

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

culture National

Missing the Boat

In a comment over at KVNU’s For The People blog Craig concluded that if I was right in my position about health care it would mean that basically everyone had been missing the boat on this issue. My response to Craig was that I honestly believe that this current reform debate is missing the boat on what reforms we need.

Meanwhile, over at Fire Dog Lake (again) I find another insightful post from a staunch liberal, this time it’s from Jane Hamsher (yesterday it was Jon Walker) who is talking about what she calls the left/right populist wrap around.

There is an enormous, rising tide of populism that crosses party lines in objection to the Senate bill. We opposed the bank bailouts, the AIG bonuses, the lack of transparency about the Federal Reserve, “bailout” Ben Bernanke, and the way the Democrats have used their power to sell the country’s resources to secure their own personal advantage, just as the libertarians have. In fact, we’ve worked together with them to oppose these things. What we agree on: both parties are working against the interests of the public, the only difference is in the messaging. (emphasis added)

This is another example of the media missing the boat. They play everything as Left vs Right. They promote the notion that anything which angers both the radical right and the radical left must be pretty good policy – that’s their definition of centrist. In contrast, Ms. Hamsher pits the left/right populist wrap around against the beltway insiders – or as some of my commenters have called them, the corporatists.

Being able to unite the left wing and the right wing in opposition to a policy does not make that a good policy. After all, the German Fascists were able to unite the American Capitalists and the Soviet Communists in opposition against them, but you won’t here anyone (except neo-nazis) arguing that the German Fascists were good because of that.

We’ve had a perfect example of that here recently. I consider myself to be more conservative than the “conservatives” in Congress. Charles considers himself to be more liberal than the “liberals” in Congress. We disagree on many issues, but we’d both like to see a government that represented the people of the United States. I don’t see how it can be argued that Congress is getting it right when I want to see my Republican senator defeated and have him replaced with a real Conservative and Charles want to see his Democratic senator defeated and have her replaced with a real Liberal. (Excuse me for putting words into your mouth Charles.)

There is a disconnect between the roots of representative government and the tree of elected officers. Anyone who thinks that is a positive sign or healthy in any way is definitely missing the boat.

P.S. Having two hits in two days means I will now be following Fire Dog Lake rather than waiting for others to point out their latest articles.

Tags 2010, connections, discourse, power, thoughts

General

Questions of Legitimacy

I found Power, Authority, Legitimacy at Electric Politics to be a very interesting article. It talks about these three important elements to effectively government and how they interact with each other. The focus is on legitimacy, but George Kenney also explains how power and authority can be in place without bestowing any legitimacy.

As I started reading, before Kenney began speaking about the United States government, my thought was that our government is suffering from issues of legitimacy not unlike Mexico or Iran. There is no doubt about the authority or the power associated with our government, but legitimacy is definitely a question.

Nowhere do we see intelligent discussion regarding whether the government of the United States is legitimate or, if not, to what degree it is not, how it got that way, and what should be done about it.

Despite that claim in the article I think that the discussion has been happening on a small scale for some time although I’m not sure the discussion has been framed with the term “legitimacy.” I also think that it is being discussed more broadly and more openly. Kenney also makes this claim which might explain why I see the discussion differently than he does:

American voters have done their job: they’ve elected politicians who promised to satisfy their preferences. But politicians haven’t delivered. Should we blame the voters? That’s one approach . . . Another approach is to blame our leaders. . . All such complaints, though, have to do with either power or authority.

I am among those who has talked about whether the federal government has the authority to do what they are doing and what they propose to do going forward. When Mr. Kenney talks about authority he is not talking about theoretical authority, which is what I am questioning. Instead he is talking about functional authority, which is not in doubt. As the only government operating in the entire United States and with no state governments putting up any real challenge to their mandates, the federal government unquestionably has the functional authority to do what it is doing.

Tags connections, discourse, government, reactions, thoughts

General

The Health Care Issue as a Catalyst for Debate

Post author By David
Post date December 10, 2009
13 Comments on The Health Care Issue as a Catalyst for Debate

photo credit: the queen of subtle

When I saw that Jim DeMint had written an article titled Our Health Care Mess Is a Symptom of a Much Bigger Problem my interest was piqued partly because I like DeMint as a senator and partly because I had just been saying the same thing in a series of comments with a reader from New York. It was exactly as DeMint predicted in his final paragraph:

The current debate over health care reform is a symptom of a bigger problem in Washington. But it can be the catalyst for a wider debate about the proper role of government in our lives.

The comments I was receiving demonstrated exactly what DeMint was talking about when he said:

All of these things have happened because we’ve stopped asking, “Should government attempt to solve this problem?” Instead, we start by asking, “How should government fix the problem?” It’s now considered a sign of admirable restraint to occasionally ask, “How much should we spend?” And somehow we started thinking that anything less than a trillion dollars is a bargain. (emphasis mine)

We can’t expect to come up with the right answer when we start by asking the wrong question. For too long we have been asking only how the government should fix our problems and not if the government has any business fixing those problems. Obviously there are some problems that the government should fix, but there are many that it should not address.

Because er have been asking ourselves the wrong question we find ourselves as a nation in this situation:

There’s not a word in the Constitution about the government deciding what medical tests private health insurers should pay for. Nothing about the government deciding how much executives on Wall Street should earn, or what kind of light bulbs and cars we should buy. There’s nothing about the thousands of parochial earmarks that fund local bridges to nowhere, golf courses, bike paths, sewer plants, and tea pot museums.

There’s nothing about these or many other things in the Constitution because they have nothing to do with the proper role of a federal government in a free society. But these are exactly the kinds of things our government spends its time and money on, and we don’t even question anymore why that is.

As the length of that list indicates we have had many opportunities to ask the right question. Hopefully health care will be the issue where we finally step back and ask the right question. Once we ask the right question we will begin to understand the truth that:

It matters because every time we give a job to the government, we take away some control that people have over their lives, and we take away a little bit more of their freedom. In return for letting government try its hand at solving a problem, we as citizens cede our ability to try for ourselves to find a better way.

It’s awkward to admit it, but my colleagues in Congress have led this country into the woods despite our oath of office. We swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and to bear true faith and allegiance to it. The Constitution prescribes a very limited role for the federal government. There is not a word in our oath, or in the Constitution, about most of what we do. As we’ve wandered off the path of liberty, there are few crumbs left of the Constitution in the halls of Congress to lead us out of the woods. (emphasis mine)

If we honestly ask the right question we will undoubtedly reach some uncomfortable conclusions such as the fact that the government has already overstepped its bounds with things we would rather not alter, like Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare, but if we continue to shut our eyes to that primary question there will be no way to reverse our downward spiral, the best we could ever manage to do is quit digging the hole deeper.

Tags civic participation, comments, connections, discourse, government, health care, Jim DeMint, KVNU FTP

General

Legislator as Advocate

Many times during campaigns for legislative offices voters and candidates alike portray officeholders as leaders. I think this is a mistake. A more accurate portrayal would be of officeholders as advocates. Their job is one where they speak out for positions and principles, but it is not possible for a legislature to be made up entirely of leaders. Obviously some legislators will be leaders, those who are able to rally other legislators to support the ideas and positions they are advocating but all legislators should be advocates while only some of them will be leaders – that is one of the primary differences between the legislative and the executive branch.

Voters may prefer that their legislator be a leader, but they must insist that their legislator be an advocate. If they choose a leader who cannot be an advocate they will be frustrated and disappointed. If they choose someone who is an effective advocate for them and their positions they will be satisfied. If they are able to have a legislator who is effective both as an advocate and as a leader then they should feel very fortunate.

Tags discourse, ideal, leadership, legislature

culture

Political Cultures

photo credit: www.charlietphoto.com

There are two political cultures that we need to change in order to have a healthy “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” in this country. The first is the culture among the voters as defined by how thy perceive those who hold political office. The second is the culture among lawmakers as defined by how they perceive the purpose and role of government.

Our Pit of Dysfunction

I got thinking about these culture issues during a brief discussion with my brother in which he mentioned an ex-politician that now works for the same company as he does whom he described like so:

He’s the kind of guy who leaves you with a sense that not all politicians are scum sucking bottom dwellers. He’s a really great guy.

That is a great example of the voter culture that leaves voters not wanting to participate in politics because the whole process feels dirty. That perception makes you feel that anything more than voting might contaminate you by association and has the added effect of making your vote feel useless anyway.

Among politicians the dysfunctional culture is one that views government as a powerful multi-tool which is adaptable to help deal with whatever problem the nation is facing at the time. The perception that government can be so adaptable is dangerous because it causes an excessive reliance on government (a hammer) so that we use it for tasks it was not meant to address (like cutting aboard and wondering why the edge is all jagged) while overlooking other available tools (any number of saws) that are better suited to many of the challenges we face.

The reality is that neither of those cultural perceptions is correct. Many politicians (possibly even the vast majority although my own experience is too limited to prove that conclusively) on both sides of basically every issue are good people who really do want what they think is best for their constituents and the nation as a whole. That fact may explain why, when confronted with their individual elected leader at whatever level, voters find it easy to send the incumbent back even while holding a very low opinion of the elected body they are sending them to participate in. Because government is not a multi-purpose tool to address a wide variety of problems, even well-meaning people (politicians, lobbyists, voters) trying to use it as such will create at least as many problems as they solve and they will be dissatisfied with the results of all their hard work.

Continue reading “Political Cultures”

Tags change congress, civic participation, discourse, Elevated, legislation, power

State technology

Constituent Communication Can Innoculate Against Insiderism

Post author By David
Post date November 6, 2009
4 Comments on Constituent Communication Can Innoculate Against Insiderism

When I wrote about a legislator’s role as an information analyst the comments initially centered on Sen. Bob Bennett because of a quote I had used despite my desire to not single anyone out. Later in the comments on that post I made this statement that deserves to be elevated to its own post here:

In my opinion, the best defense against staying too long and becoming part of the problem is to maintain communication with constituents that is open enough for the constituents to indicate when the officeholder is compromising too much (or not enough in some rare cases) and the integrity to step aside when the officeholder finds that they consistently cannot act in accordance with the feedback they are receiving from constituents in good conscience.

Now that Senator Bennett has demonstrated a refusal to maintain open communication with constituents I am singling him out and exposing his refusal to communicate openly.

Tags 2010, Bob Bennett, civic participation, connections, discourse, Orrin Hatch, reactions, senate, twitter

National

Under-Informed Health Care Debate

Post author By David
Post date October 1, 2009
18 Comments on Under-Informed Health Care Debate

Considering how widely discussed the health care issue is and how long running that discussion has been it is easy for people to think they have all the available and relevant information on the subject. The fact is that despite the appearance of coverage you can only scratch the surface of available information unless you search beyond mainstream news sources. Here’s a letter in the Salt Lake Tribune yesterday as a case in point:

To President Barack Obama and Congress, I say: Negotiate the various health care reform bills — soon. Get the Blue Dog Democrats on board, and pass a bill — soon, before your public becomes so weary of partisan infighting that we oppose anything you pass.

The Republicans, for all their bluster, have not offered any alternative, except our Sen. Bob Bennett with Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden, and that bill has received only token Republican support. . .

The author is right that the Health Americans Act by Wyden and Bennett has received only token Republican support – largely because it is only fleetingly different from the various Democrat only bills in circulation. On the other hand, he is far from right that Republicans have offered no alternatives – that’s just the line that Congressional leaders and the administration have been feeding to the media. Just browse the sites of Rep. Ron Paul and Sen. Jim DeMint to get an idea of some of the Republican counter-proposals that have been offered. Then consider that for every idea presented by those two members of Congress there must be dozens of ideas that were offered in negotiations before the Republicans left the tables that never received even token consideration by leaders of the various committees.

On the very day the letter was being published Rep. John Shadegg (AZ-03) was talking about one of those non-existent Republican plans that was apparently introduced back in July and cosponsored by Rep. Rob Bishop (UT-01) among others. (h/t Right Truth) As always in the health care debate, each bill should be measured against the findings of David Goldhill to see if it actually addresses the real problems in the health care system. (Shadegg’s bill appears to do better than the bills actually acknowledged by the media from what I’ve seen.)

Although I maintain that being truly informed requires that we look at more information sources than the mainstream media that also means that we have to be discerning about the accuracy of each information source. I think it’s safe to doubt the accuracy of anyone (especially an MD) that believes that our current health care system suffers from a “lack of government regulation.” I’m amazed that someone could seriously argue that the current proposals under consideration represent free market solutions and that solutions based on free market principles would be a good thing while also arguing that the free market is the cause of our health care woes.

Tags Bob Bennett, connections, discourse, health care, Jim DeMint, media, Rob Bishop, Ron Paul, Salt Lake Tribune

culture National

Carter’s Race Card

When I heard the news this morning that Jimmy Carter thinks Obama critics are racist, my initial reaction was to reject the idea. Then I decided that it was only fair to consider the idea before choosing to accept or reject it. First, here is what he said:

I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity towards President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African-American.

I live in the South, and I’ve seen the South come a long way. I’ve seen the rest of the country that shared the South’s attitude towards minority groups at that time, particularly African-Americans – and that racism inclination still exists.

Upon a brief examination I realized that my impulse to reject that idea was based on the fact that the opposition that I have expressed to various actions by the Obama Administration is based on ideological perspective, not race. The weakness of that rejection is the same as the weakness of Carters assertion – it is a hasty generalization because I am no more qualified to know the motivations of other people than Jimmy Carter is (that would be “hardly qualified whatsoever”) and therefore other people can be motivated by racism even when I am not. In fact there is no doubt in my mind that some people are in opposition precisely because of their racist feelings – although I believe the worst offenders will openly admit that fact.

The real question then is not whether racism fuels opposition (anyone who has an anti-black attitude will be in opposition to Obama) but whether racism represents “an overwhelming portion” of the opposition. Here is where I really doubt Mr. Carter – although I admit that where he lives (whether that is “in the South” or “in side his head”) racism being an overwhelming portion is more likely than in other places.

The other half of my reflection was why I was so unhappy with the mere suggestion of racism. Carter would certainly argue that it is because I am a closet racist (doubtless he thinks every white person is). The truth is that I dislike Carters use of racism as a red herring. His comments encourage us to drop the issues that divide us and concentrate on the motivations behind our differences. Of course our motivations can be an important factor in how we deal with differences, but claims of racism almost always cloud the issue in question when they are made rather than clarifying the issue.

Confusion is definitely not in short supply which is why I dislike the charge so much. Thanks Mr. Ex-President – you’ve just done another (dis)service for the country.

Tags current events, discourse, issues, Jimmy Carter, media