Tag: reactions

Mutual Dependence

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I found it very interesting to read the news story in Reuters about the whole Hugo Chavez address to the UN. What really got me thinking was this snippet:

Despite accusing the United States of seeking to oust him, Chavez has never stopped Venezuela’s supply of crude to the United States, its biggest customer.

It seems obvious that we are dependent on Venezuelan oil and if they stopped selling to the U.S. our economy would suffer. I then wondered what would happen if we just stopped buying from Venezuela. The answer is – their economy would suffer, probably worse than ours. So while President Chavez can make all the inflammatory remarks he wants, the fact is that he probably could not afford to stop the flow of oil to the U.S.

Even if President Bush wished to stop buying from Venezuela, the fact is that it is not the government that is buying all that oil, it is a wide range of U.S. businesses who operate independently. They have a stake in the nation, but sadly their greatest concern is making money for investors so they don’t care who is the devil and who isn’t so long as the well does not run dry.

That’s what happens in an interconnected world run by impersonal business interests. There must be a better solution.

Tags Hugo Chavez, oil, reactions

culture

Media Monster

I have been listening to the political coverage on NPR today and I recognized that as individual political races were being covered from around the country, the message by the national media suggested that the overall makeup of the Senate and the House, in other words which party was in control of each chamber, was more important than who won the individual races. Admittedly there are probably a lot of people who view politics that way, but in reality, the way the system should work is that I only worry about Senator Clinton being re-elected if I am from New York (whether I back her or oppose her). If I am from North Dakota I should not care if Jim Talent is re-elected – because he is from Missouri. The way things are supposed to work is that the people in Florida elect their representatives and then those representatives promote things that are in the best interests of the people of Florida. Each state is represented and regardless of which party is in the majority the interests of each state are weighed in all matters. If all the elected representatives felt that way it would not matter how the voters selected their representatives, but too many of those who are elected seem to bend to their party more than they bend to their constituents.

I have said previously that:

What I am sure of is that between the presidency and the two houses of congress each of the major parties should be in control of at least one of the bodies – thus forcing the various governmental bodies to compromise in order to make things happen.

With that in mind I began to wonder what would happen if every voter followed a simple pattern to ensure that each party controlled one house of congress. The formul for doing this would be simple. Every voter would vote for the candidate of one party for the house and vote for the candidate of the other party for the senate. I would suggest that you vote for the candidate representing whichever party you thought should be in power in the House and then vote for the opposite party candidate in the Senate. With this formula, the party with the most support across the nation would control the house and the party with less national support would control the Senate. I chose this method because the members of the House face re-election every two years. The Senate would have a mix of the national sentiment from the previous three voting cycles and the House would represent the prevailing national mood form the last election cycle. People could choose the President any way they wanted with the assurance that the president would rarely, and for only short durations, ever have his party control both houses of congress.

Does anybody wish to give this a shot?

Tags NPR, reactions

State

A New Senator for a New Century

Post author By David
Post date September 19, 2006
1 Comment on A New Senator for a New Century

I have been very interested in the senate race in Utah where Senator Hatch is running for his sixth term in the US Senate. I spent a lot of time last year hoping that some of the challengers in the Republican party would be able to unseat Senator Hatch in the Republican primary vote. Sadly, these challengers had basically fallen away before the primary even arrived and Hatch is still the Republican nominee.

I think my position with regard to Senator Hatch are fairly plain. I think I should explain why. While I agree with some of what the senator has done over his three decades in office, I do not believe that he is doing a good job of representing Utah in the last few years. His votes seem to be driven more by his party affiliation than his state affiliation. He appears to have a lack of understanding with regard to some legislation regarding intellectual property and emerging technologies. I honestly doubt that his views and votes are based on a lack of understanding as much as they are based on voting in favor of whoever has money tied up in the issue. In addition to all of that, Senator Hatch has continued to waste time and energy on a flag burning amendment that is no longer relevant. Perhaps when he began pushing this legislation, early in his 30 year tenure, it was an issue worth fighting, but the problem has proven to be a thing of the past. Even among protesters there is not enough flag burning taking place to warrant a constitutional amendment. Changing the constitution is a process which is difficult by design, but each time we make the attempt we run the risk of diminishing the original document. For that reason we should be very careful when deciding to amend our constitution.

In the other corner, the Democratic nominee for Hatch’s seat is Pete Ashdown. Pete is a political newcomer, but he has a few things in his favor. Pete understands about technology and will not be fooled by money or terminology with regard to those types of legislation. Pete understands that the old way of running politics by the money should be a thing of the past. We have the ability to increase communication, transparency, and accountability in our nation by making use of technology. Pete is doing that in his campaign. His status as a Democrat has more to do with necessity than ideology. In fact he complains about the lack of transparency among Democrats as much as he does among Republicans. I believe that Pete will strive to represent anyone who cares to communicate with him rather than representing anyone who can out-pay the competition. Whether Pete wins this race or not, I hope that his ideas will catch on throughout our political system and change how our political leaders represent, interact with, and answer to their constituents.

To learn a little more about Pete, visit his website at http://www.peteashdown.org/. You can also listen to his interview on RadioWest. I will post links to Senator Hatch’s website and interview with RadioWest after that interview takes place (not sure when that will be).

Tags candidates, endorsements, openness, Orrin Hatch, reactions, State

culture life

Undoing Past Progress

I read two articles today in the New York Times today that got me thinking about how we are undoing the benefits that first made our country the place it was when I was growing up. The first article was about the increase in people in my age group without health insurance. I understand firsthand what they were talking about – not because I do not have health insurance, but because I had to spend more than 10% of my pretax paycheck to pay my portion of the company sponsored health plan. To put that in perspective – I was making something close to the national median income (if I remember correctly what that figure was).

The second article was about why college educations are no longer affordable and what changes have caused that problem. I have long had strong feelings about this problem. I think that the fundamental problem here is that we have lost sight, as a society, of what we were trying to accomplish with tuition assistance and other forms of federal education assistance in the first place. From the article:

By subsidizing public universities to keep tuition low, and providing federal tuition aid to poor and working-class students, this country vaulted tens of millions of people into the middle class while building the best-educated work force in the world.

Another article at CNN elaborated on this by saying the following:

“There’s been a sea change in the last decade-and-a-half over how (colleges) spend their money,” said National Center president Patrick Callan. “It used to be about giving students opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have. Now it’s about giving them money to go to one college instead of another.”

At first these programs were designed so that there would be money for students to go to college, now the money is being used for students to go to “the right college.” We seem to have lost sight of the fact that the goal was to educate large volumes of people, not to make education one more field for competition in our society.

Some startling statistics to back this up from the CNN article:

The report card finds colleges awarded grants to 36 percent of their students from families earning $20,000 per year or less. Those grants averaged $4,700. But wealthier students received comparable attention.

The colleges gave grant aid to 29 percent from families earning $100,000 or more. And those grants were even higher on average: $6,200.

Let me make that clear – slightly over 1/3 of students from families living in poverty (or very close depending on where the poverty line falls) are getting under $5000 a year to help them go to school. Almost 2/3 of students from those poverty situations are going to school without grant money. At the same time nearly 1/3 of students from families among the top 5% of wage earners are getting over $6000 a year – we can assume this is to lure them to “better” schools.

I do not mean to argue that all schools are equal, but we would probably be better off as a nation if we thought of them that way.

If my experience and the experience of other people I know is any indicator, there is another problem that also plagues our nation with regards to higher education. The degrees that we are paying so dearly to get are often being underused once we graduate and try to use them. Many jobs I have seen require a degree for work that could easily be done without a degree. What is worse, many jobs in which a degree is useful are more interested in experience than in the degree. I have known many people who choose to work and gain experience rather than finish a degree and they end up with better jobs because they have more experience.

If experience is the best teacher – and I believe that it generally is – then our college degrees should be designed to provide marketable experience. If they did, perhaps companies could eliminate the requirement to have a degree as a prerequisite for jobs that do not actually require the training that comes with a degree.

Tags federal aid, learning, reactions, work

life

Anniversary

I should have been able to predict long ago what today would be like. I knew before I started reading the news today that there would be stories of memorial services where they would rehash the events of five years ago. What I failed to expect was how easily my own memories of that day would surface or the need I would feel to capture those memories.

I remember walking into work that morning and wondering why everyone was openly staring at a television set (I came in from behind the set so I didn’t see what was on). As soon as I got to my office and saw the headlines I was no longer surprised. I remember how nervous everyone was. I got jittery when the phone line went dead while talking to my wife that morning.

Nobody with a memory of that day would be surprised at the emotion tied to those events, but I still can’t figure out what is personally different between four years and five years. Socially I understand it. Five years is our second major chronological milestone, after 1 year and before 10, 25, 50 , and 100 years. It is an opportunity to look back and view events from an expanded perspective over the one we had in the heat of the moment. Personally I had expected that each anniversary would be a chance to reflect and that with each passing year the emotions would be a little less intense than they were the year before. Somehow I find that is not the case.

Last year, on September 11th, I was flying across the country on a plane. It was no big deal. I noted the significance of the date and remembered, somewhat mechanically, what had happened. I did not feel the closeness of memory that I have felt today. I find it interesting that five years distance has brought the memories closer to me than four years distance had done.

Tags history, reactions

National

More Good News

Here is some more good news within the GOP. Dick Cheney’s word is no longer gospel. He seems to be going the way of Karl Rove. I only wish that this article could have been true three years ago.

Tags Cheney, reactions

culture

Unexpected Benefits

You never know what unexpected benefits will arise from something which is good. Here is a good example related to Creative Commons licensing.

Nobody could have predicted when creating an open licensing option, or when using one in publishing a book, that it would change the entire atmosphere of a U.S. Navy ship from “the three B’s” (beer, babes, and bodily functions) to an intellectual discussion of some openly licensed works of fiction, the license on those work of fiction, and even discussion about the state of our copyright law any how it should be changed.

Talk about a ripple effect.

Tags openness, reactions

General

For Sale: Senate Seat

Election season is upon us and that means I get to be entertained by campaign politics, which seems like regular politics on steroids. As I was looking at some of the close races being covered by the New York Times I stumbled upon one little blurb in one senate race that needs to be discussed. The article about this year’s senate race in Rhode Island has this little fact at the end of the article:

All told, more than 80 percent of the money in this race comes from outside the state.

This is just wrong. The fact that money has a large influence in our political system is not news but there should be sharp limits on which money gets to have that influence. I think that at least 75% of all money in any campaign should come from those who fall within the jurisdiction being contested. In other words, for a statewide office such as senator or governor, at least 75% of the money in either campaign should come from within the state. For national offices – in other words the president – 25% or less of the money should come from international donors. For congressional seats 75% of the money should come from within the congressional district. The same should hold true for campaigns at all levels of government. In all these cases the 75% limit should probably be applied to every type of donor – individuals, businesses, and special interest groups.

I suspect that this particular problem is most pronounced in senate and congressional races. I would be very surprised to learn that 80% of the money in a presidential campaign came from a foreign country – just as I would be surprised to learn that the campaign for my local school board seat was being financed by a corporation in Kissimmee Florida. Regardless of where the problem is the worst, the rules should be the same at all levels of government.

Tags ideal, money, reactions, State

General

Well Stated

I stumbled onto Peonicus’ View of Politics the same day I started my new blog and I thought it would be a good excuse to post a reaction and test out my blog a little more.

I was amazed to hear criticism for both the left and the right so early in the post. Right off I was saying to myself “my thoughts exactly.”

When I read:

What we need is for the existing society to behave with the primary goal of the
good of the whole. This means that we focus less on our personal fortunes, and
more on using our influence to do good. We must start at the most fundamental
unit of society: our families. First, we need to respect and honor our spouses
even more than ourselves. Then we must be loving parents, and teach our children
to love and respect others despite inevitable differences.

I recognized some positively primitive thinking – like my own. The answer does not lie in making new laws to govern campaign finance – although those might be helpful. The answer lies in returning to who we are – people who want better lives for ourselves and our children. If that is our primary focus, and if we can remember to “forgive and ask for forgiveness,” we may be able to get past our mudslinging and divisiveness and start to find actual solutions. That makes me begin to wonder, is Peonicus right in suggesting:

What would happen in the Middle East if everybody there, Jews and Muslims alike
taught their children that there is no us and them, there is simply us. I think
the fighting would end tomorrow, and the poverty of the region could be ended by
2007.

It would be nice if he was, but we’ll never know unless more people think like this.

Tags family, international, reactions

National State

Back Door Legislation or The Root of Judicial Activism

Post author By David
Post date October 6, 2005
2 Comments on Back Door Legislation or The Root of Judicial Activism

If there is anyone who still reads this blog they will be well aware that I have been lousy at posting anything in the last month or so. I have been working on various other projects and purposely leaving this site dormant for the present, but I am compelled to post after I heard that the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts is hearing a lawsuit on gay marriage. The court is being used as a vehicle to try to get a 1913 law thrown out which prevents the state from issuing marriage licenses to couples who are not residents of Massachusetts if their marriage would not be recognized in their home states.The argument is that the law is being used to discriminate against gay couples. Unfortunately this is a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If the law is being used to discriminate against gays then it should be applied equitably rather than being repealed. These plaintiffs need to prove that heterosexual couples who would not be allowed to marry a home are being given marriage licenses in Massachusetts.

It is easy to see that the agenda operating behind this is not deterred by state boundaries. This is nothing more than a step to legalize gay marriage throughout the country. If this suit succeeds there will be couples from around the country who come to Massachusetts to marry and then complain in their home states that they are facing discrimination. Nobody can argue that this is not the case because the plaintiffs include eight out of state couples. This will happen despite the fact that there is already a federal law stating that one state is not obligated to recognize marriages performed in another state.

I will attempt to walk a very fine line here. I do not wish this to be viewed as a homophobic posting. Unfortunately I cannot claim to know and love a large number of gay people (that would strengthen my argument) but I would hope that it can be said that I treat all gay people with whom I come in contact with the same respect that any human being deserves. I might add that this is the same respect which I withold from bigots of every type. I abhor bigotry and hope never to be guilty of it. That being said I want to address this suit in the light of judicial activism.

Suits like this are the very thing that give rise for judges to exercise any pre-disposisiton towards judicial activism. If this suit has merit the proper course of action would be to have the law rewritten or applied fairly. The plaintiffs have expressed their intention – which is to have the law annulled. If they fully win their case activist judges on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts can use it as an excuse to rule that the law be removed rather than corrected and enforced properly.

Anyone who nievely argues that this case stops at Massachusetts must ask themselves what a gay couple gains by going to Massachusetts to get married if they then return to their home state knowing that their marriage will not be recognized. The answer is that they gain nothing except more leverage in their fight to legalize gay marriage in their home states. This is not the correct way to go about changing the law. If you want a legal gay marriage move somewhere that it is already legal. If you want to legalize gay marriage live within the bounds of the law and push for legislation to make gay marriage legal where you live.

We have an estalished process for the passage of laws. If a majority of people believe in something it will become law. We have checks in place to minimize the chance for majorities to trample the rights of minorities, but the judicial system is to interpret law and not write it through opinion. If the 1913 law should be repealed that should happen through a vote of the legislature or a ballot initiative. Even Gov. Schwarzenegger understood that when he vetoed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage because the people of California had already passed a proposition stating that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” The governor argued rightly that “We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote.” It can also be said that we cannot have a system where the people vote and judges derail the vote once it has passed by a super-majority.

Tags courts, gay marriage, issues, Massachusetts, reactions