The Yellow Line

Read Alan Stewart Carl ...

2008-09-14T00:07:00.001-04:00

... exclusively at Donklephant.

I'm back.... and staying in the Middle of it all

2006-03-30T16:27:00.000-05:00

I doubt anyone still checks this site, but like Alan, I'm back.

Alan's thoughts on his first year as a blogger reminded me of how much I, too, missed the outlet that blogging provides. Since TYL was Alan's child, I thought it best to come back on my own. And, I could think of no place I'd rather be than in The Middle of DC.

I'm Back. But Not Here.

2006-01-03T11:57:00.000-05:00

O.k., so announcing my retirement was clearly premature. It was more of a hiatus.

And now I'm back. But not here. Instead, I've started a whole new blog called Maverick Views. It's less focused on Centrism than was TYL and more focused on discussing politics and culture from outside the partisan bubbles.

Hope to see y'all there.

Merry Christmas

2005-12-23T15:13:00.000-05:00

To all those who might still bother to pop into The Yellow Line, have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Also, a Happy Hanukkah to those of the Jewish faith and just a plain ole Happy Holidays to those who are neither Christian nor Jewish but still enjoy participating in this season of giving.

Come 2006, I may just emerge out of retirement. I have sufficiently decompressed and am feeling the urge to share my thoughts with the world again--albeit with only one post every day or so. Gotta pace myself.

Wanna know what I think about this "War on Christmas" faux debate? I think it's a rather disgusting use of the word "war," particularly while many Americans are fighting a real one. I think the secularization of Christmas is not due to some dark liberal plot but instead due to the nature of capitalism (Saddly, Santa sells better than Baby Jesus so stores use Santa).

But I do think our culture too often takes political correctness to absurd ends. And I think groups like the ACLU tend to overreact to what is usually very light mingling of religion and government. We don't need an absolute divide.

But in the end, as long as someone is wishing me well, I'm a happy guy.

And I wish you all well in this season that is blessed for many and fun for all.

Gay Marriage Is All About Values

2005-11-10T10:36:00.000-05:00

Cross-Posted on the Moderate Republican:

One thing I've been thinking about was a letter to the editor that showed up in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune. It's an argument that I hear all the time concerning gay marriage. I used to agree with it, but I don't anymore. The impetus of this is a column written by the Strib's token conservative columnist, Katherine Kersten (being center-right in my politics, I like to see conservative writers, but I perfer ones with brains. Ms. Kersten doesn't have one. Or a heart for that matter) that talks about how Canada is sliding towards Gommorah because of it's support for gay marriage. Whenever people start talking about gay marriage, you will hear an argument from our side. Here's an example:

Katherine Kersten states that the proposal to preserve same-sex marriage will be one of the biggest issues of the next legislative session. If so, shame on us.

We have children without health care, traffic congestion, working parents unable to afford housing, and underfunded schools. If we allow ourselves to be diverted and avoid the real moral issues before our state, how can we kneel in prayer before the God who calls us to lives of justice and compassion?

Now, there was a time in my life that I would have agreed with this writer. But I don't anymore. Why? Because what this person is saying basically is that gay marriage doesn't matter. It isn't a moral issue. We have more important things do deal with than two guys getting hitched. The message this line of thinking sends is that gay marriage isn't important. If we are saying that to the general public, you know what happens? The general public will listen.

The fact is gay marriage does matter. It matters to millions of gay Americans who have or are intending to have a life partner, someone to share their lives with. It matters when one person in gay couple gets sick and the other person can't visit because he's not a legal relative in the eyes of the state. It happens when one partner can't get the other's social security benefits when the other one dies. It matters.

A few weeks back, Log Cabin President Pat Guerriero was in town. My friend and fellow Republican, Mark, was able to get him on a local radio station that has a lot of conservative programming. He shared a story of two gay men in Vermont who have been partnered for 50 years. One served his country in war. The other was a teacher. They are both in their 80s. One is very ill and will die soon and as it stands now, the surviving spouse won't get the dying man's social security benefits.

That is a moral issue. These two men have given of themselves to help others and this is how society treats them.

The anti-gay crowd have one thing right about this issue. They know it matters and will do what it takes to stop gays from marrying and hopefully put us back in the closet. Why are we and our allies so scared to deal with this honestly and say this is about values and morals? How can one be moral and deny people things like seeing a sick partner?

Maybe it's easier for me because I'm somewhat more conservative, but values do matter. Not the one that the religious right spouts, but the values my parents taught me about being kind to people and tolerant of others.

I think we need to start talking about values. Getting married is a value. It matters and it's important. We need to start acting like it is.

And Costco Democrats?

2005-11-09T17:08:00.000-05:00

The positive thinking continues apace. Here is the companion piece to the Weekly Standard article on "Sam's Club Republicans." It's a Washington Monthly collection called The New Progressivism.

Again, I highlight this partly because there are some worthy ideas - I particularly like Kevin Drum's proposal to shift the burden of identity theft from consumers to banks. But I also want to point out that the smart folks in both parties are coming up with some very similar suggestions.

The partisan age we're in is going to crumble. It's just a matter of time.

Yet another tax proposal...

2005-11-09T16:09:00.000-05:00

...by guest blogger Micah over at Seth Chalmer's place. This one is labeled "The Progressive Consumption Tax," and it is intriguing. Basically, it's a tax on bank withdrawals, with the tax rate going up based on the amount of withdrawal per year. So it's not a sales tax per se, but rather a tax on cash spent.

There are complications, some of which Micah accounts for - most notably, how to incorporate the (good) deductions we currently have, such as health care and business expenses. Read it, and give 'em some feedback.

More talking points...not

2005-11-09T15:49:00.000-05:00

The Daily Kos gets more attention, but the best big Democratic blog by far is the Talking Points Memo Cafe. The range of views expressed there, especially by the featured bloggers, is far more diverse than what gets featured at Kos. And the best part of tpmcafe is their Book Club, which actually features intelligent people engaging in passionate, well-supported arguments over policies, ideas, and visions for the future.

Right now, they're debating Gene Sperling's book The Pro-Growth Progressive, and oh boy has this one lit up the place. For anyone interested in discussing economic policies at a level beyond "Higher taxes! Lower taxes!", this is a must-read.

Bad Laws from the Blue and the Red (a post-election rant)

2005-11-09T13:08:00.000-05:00

Technically, I’m retired from blogging, but yesterday’s election results have managed to irritate me enough to prompt a brief return to this forum. Two jurisdictions, one “red” the other “blue”, passed laws that are just plain foolish and demonstrate the narrowing of thought that can occur no matter where people fall on the ideological spectrum.

The first case comes from San Francisco where the city’s residents passed a law banning the possession of handguns and ammunition within the city. Residents will not even be allowed to have a gun in their own homes.

I am continuously amazed with liberals who will scream bloody murder anytime they see the First Amendment being infringed but pretend like the Second Amendment doesn’t exist. We can’t pick and choose which amendments we like best. And while I know guns are pretty dangerous things and that the Second Amendment is oddly worded, any serious study of that amendment will reveal that our Founders wanted to ensure we could own a gun. Free speech is dangerous too. So is giving violent criminals fair trials where they can get off on a technicality. Our Founders knew that freedom comes with risk and enshrined that balance in the Constitution. The people of San Francisco have no authority to override the Second Amendment anymore than early twentieth century Mississippi had the authority to override the 14th and 15th.

I could go on about the ineffectiveness of such laws (see: Washington, DC) but there’s more irritating election results to discuss, so let’s move on.

Good ole’ San Francisco also passed a measure encouraging high school and universities to ban military recruiters. I have no problem with people who protest the war. But this kind of action (and this is hardly the first case of it) is abhorrent. First, it assumes that young men and women are too stupid to make up their own minds and have to be “protected” from the big bad military. Secondly, it is a clear violation of freedom of speech and association to ban one employer but allow all others access. What would San Franciscans say if a conservative city banned Disney from recruiting because of that company’s gay-friendly attitudes? They’d be outraged. Just as those of us not trapped in liberal groupthink should be outraged that San Francisco would approve of such a measure.

Finally, let’s move on to my home state of Texas where my friends and neighbors just passed an amendment to the state constitution banning homosexual marriage. This was clearly a very pressing issue that had to solved before the state addressed our crumbling public health system and piss-poor schools.

I know I’m in a minority here, but how in the world is gay marriage a threat? Really? And don’t give me that b.s. about “slippery slopes” and how gay marriage would lead to polygamy and bestiality and god-knows-what. All those other examples involve exploitative relationships where one person is exercising depraved power over another. That’s not the case with homosexual relationships which are formed through mutual love.

Do we as a nation not support mutual, loving relationships? Is commitment between two people that abhorrent that we have to run out and ban the act? Our culture is not threatened by accepting loving, committed relationships. Our culture is threatened when we pretend such relationships are evil—when we exploit religion and inflame prejudice and pretend we are saving ourselves. We are saving nothing.

And don’t tell me the Bible condemns homosexuality. The bible condemns loaning money too and we aren’t rushing to the polls to ban banks. In fact, the Bible barely mentions homosexuality and, when it does, many Biblical scholars will tell you that the references were directed to the Greek and Roman practice of older men coercing adolescent boys into sexual relationships. That clearly is immoral. But consensual love between two men or two women is not a sin and is not condemned in the Bible.

Outside of scripture itself, why would anyone want to believe that God would let two people fall in love and then condemn that love as sin? Where does Jesus or any of his disciples ever claim love to be a sin? They don’t. And that’s the moral guidance I choose to follow.

I may be wrong. Who knows. But if I’m going to err in this world, I’d rather err on the side of mercy and grace. I wish the people of my state felt the same. Apparently, there’s still a lot of convincing to do.

Thank you for reading this rant.

Paris (and Normandy, and Toulouse) is Burning

2005-11-08T09:44:00.000-05:00

Cross-posted on the Moderate Republican:

As the Paris suburbs, heck as most of France, is awash in violence, I've been doing some thinking and listening. I believe that there are lessons for both liberals and conservatives in the wake of the recent fighting.

First, the liberals. Those on the Left tend to look to Europe as some kind of heavenly realm where the government takes care of everything and there is no poverty or racism as there is in the United States. Some (not all) Europeans were quick to criticize the US after the chaos that erupted in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Both the leftists here and Europeans have looked at the United States as a nation with a broken social model that is dog-eat-dog.

I'm not here to say the US has a better system. We clearly have problems, as Katrina showed, but the fires in the French Republic show that, at least in France, there is still much work to do on social issues. The riots have revealed what was in our faces and especially white French faces all along: an underclass of persons of color who face very little opportunity for economic freedom.

It also revealed something conservatives have known for a long time: that government alone can't solve all the problems. This is from an editorial in today's Washington Post:

It's also too facile to say that French authorities have ignored the problems. Billions have been spent on urban renewal: High-rise projects have been torn down and enterprise zones created, much as in some American inner cities. As in the United States, interlinked problems of jobs, schools, crime and discrimination have not easily yielded to government solutions. Yet until now, many in France assumed that what they regard as a superior "social model" protected them from the eruptions of lawlessness that in recent years have touched Los Angeles, Miami and New Orleans.

This isn't to say that government has no role in alleviating poverty. But thinking that having "Big Government" as the French clearly do will solve it the problem is foolish. The size of government matters less than the effectiveness of it, and it seems that the French government hasn't done as well in that effect.

Now to Conservatives. When it comes to matters of race, conservatives want to believe in the concept of "colorblindness," meaning government should not consider race in government programs. Being a Republican, I resonate with that ideal. However, in reality, what works in theory doesn't work in practice. France has followed that model, basically saying everyone is French not regarding one's ethnic background. The results have not been pleasant. From the Post editorial:

[French Interior Minister] Mr. Sarkozy recently suggested that France abandon the pretense that all of its citizens -- including an estimated 5 million Muslims -- are treated equally, and adopt affirmative-action policies.

Conservatives here have wanted to role back Affirmative Action policies. I can understand that. As an African American, I've benefitted from these policies, but also resent that they exist since they put race right up front. But I think it is a pipe dream to think that Americans can just be, well Americans. For African Americans, we have had a history of racial discrimination that has presented itself in many ways, including employment and education. If we abandoned affirmative action tomorrow, I doubt that schools and workplaces would continue to be diverse and try to help disadvantaged populations. A fellow conservative friend of mine who is Asian American said it best: you have to correct a bias with a bias. American society can't just say to African Americans as well as other ethnic groups, "You're free," and the walk away. There is still the problem of inequality that has to be addressed. This is what has happened in France and we can see what happened.

Listen, I don't like affirmative action, but at least for now, we still need it. (I would mend it though to be more sensitive to help raise poor blacks and whites out of poverty, since now it seems to benefit minorities with means more.) Conservatives who think that everything will be rosy if affirmative action were to dissappear are kidding themselves.

It will be interesting to see how France works all this out. Let's hope for the best.

More Ideablogging

2005-11-07T14:25:00.000-05:00

Meanwhile, from the other side of the aisle, the Service Employees International Union is hosting a competition for new ideas to benefit working families. Called Since Sliced Bread, the contest is easy to enter - just submit some basic demographic information and your one idea, maximum of 175 words. Winners will be determined through an elimination process - first by a panel of judges, then by internet vote, "Survivor" style, then by judges again. The winner will receive $100,000, plus the SEIU's pledge to make the idea a priority item. Two runners up receive $50,000.

Thus far, 7639 ideas have been submitted. Each idea remains posted on the website for discussion by participants. Plenty of the submissions are larks, posted just to create controversy; many others are things that have been tried before or are currently under consideration in think tank circles. But there are some genuinely fresh ideas here, and the discussion boards are humming. For the most part, anyway - my own submission, alas, languishes without commentary. To those who know me, it's entirely predictable.

I’ve written about the SEIU before – they are quickly becoming the world’s foremost radical-centrist union. In the midst of a union movement that often seems to be in tatters, the SEIU continues to run ahead of the pack, at least when it comes to marketing. And marketing may very well be the one thing that can save unions at this point.

Sam's Club Republicans, Unite!

2005-11-07T11:10:00.000-05:00

In the current issue of The Weekly Standard, a beautiful collection of very centrist policy proposals from Reihan Salaam and Ross Douthat. If you don't read them already at The American Scene, you should (although Reihan's on some kind of love-induced sabbatical).

The piece is long, and as I've developed a reputation for handing out Proustian reading assignments, let me endeavor to summarize:

The GOP is currently tanking, in large part because the Bush Administration's policy efforts have been friendlier to the plutocratic elite than to their hardworking, Sam's-Club-shopping base:

In May, the Pew Research Center released the 2005 edition of its Political Typology, a survey that slices the American electorate into nine discrete groups. Unsurprisingly, the core of the GOP's support turns out to be drawn from "Enterprisers," affluent, optimistic, and staunchly conservative on economic and social issues alike. But the so-called Enterprisers represent just 11 percent of registered voters--and apart from them, the most reliable GOP voters are Social Conservatives (13 percent of registered voters) and Pro-Government Conservatives (10 percent of voters). Both groups are predominantly female (Enterprisers are overwhelmingly male); both are critical of big business; and both advocate more government involvement to alleviate the economic risks faced by a growing number of families. They tend to be hostile to expanding free trade, Social Security reform, and guest-worker proposals--which is to say the Bush second term agenda.

This rift, combined with the pressures of the Iraq adventure, have tanked the GOP's ratings. The tonic that Douthat and Salaam offer is remarkably radical-centrist in its orientation:

1) Recognizing that the GOP's true "base" is married couples with children, they suggest some remarkable subsidies for childraising. Quebec's Allowance for Newborn Children (ANC) would be a model - it provides parents with a tax rebate of $500 for a first child, $1000 for their second, and 20 quarterly payments of $400 for every child beyond that. They also recommend policies that would give mothers or potentially fathers subsidies, pension credits, or tuition credits for staying at home to raise the kids. (Side note: although Douthat and Salaam phrase this in a culturally conservative manner, it strikes me as remarkably progressive and even feminist. After all, the core criticism Betty Friedan and others laid out of "women's work" is that it is uncompensated!)

2) Salaam and Douthat also have a health care proposal: requiring all adult citizens to purchase their own coverage if they cannot get employer-based coverage. But they also recommend that the government take action to reduce the price of coverage - first by attacking the anticompetitive practices in the healthcare industry, then by subsidizing people who truly cannot afford it.

3) They also recommend replacing the current minimum wage laws with wage subsidies. This would be a very expensive program - at least $85 billion - but would ensure that every employed person could receive a living wage. Their other recommendation to improve the situation of low-wage earners is to sharply cut back on illegal immigration through tightening the border, while adopting President Bush's friendlier proposals for converting illegal immigrants into legal citizens.

4) Finally, they suggest tax reform: Dump the regular income tax, change the AMT to 25% for all wage earners receiving $50,000 (single)/$100,000 (joint) or more, and add a national consumption tax of 14%. This "back to the future" plan, created by Michael J Graetz of Yale Law School, would reduce the number of tax returns processed by the IRS to a mere 30 million per year. Douthat and Salaam go beyond Graetz' proposal by suggestion another series of deductions and subsidies directed towards working families: for mortgages, state and local taxes, employer health care, and charitable contributions.

I'm guessing at this point that Yellow Line readers will be pretty familiar with proposals of this sort - you may have encountered here or there, for instance. Which is, I think, the most interesting aspect of Salaam and Douthat's article. Despite taking several easy potshots at Democrats and liberals, they recommend policies that have been previously endorsed by moderates and centrists of both major parties. And this in the cover article of the very conservative Weekly Standard! Politicians and opinion leaders of the radical center may not be in the foreground yet, but our ideas are rapidly moving front . . . and center.

UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias identifies the missing link in Douthat and Salaam's plan. It's spelled m-o-n-e-y.

Shameful Delay in the House

2005-11-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

[Cross-posted at Charging RINO]

No, not that DeLay (although he's also shameful and in the House). I'm talking this time about a ridiculous decision taken by the Republican leadership to push back a key vote. Democrats and many centrist Republicans are pushing for a House resolution that would instruct those House members sitting on the conference committee for the Defense Appropriations bill to accept the language in the Senate version that bans "cruel, inhuman, and degrading" treatment of any detainees held in American custody around the world. If you recall, that provision, sponsored by Senator McCain, was added in the Senate by a resounding vote of 90-9.

As the Times reports this morning, the resolution in the House, while non-binding, would be an important symbolic step highlighting the broad bipartisan support that the language has in both chambers of Congress.

So of course, Speaker Dennis Hastert has simply not named the conferees yet - and without conferees, no motion to instruct them can be made. On the Defense Appropriations bill. It's not like we're talking about the XYZ Post Office-Naming Act! Seems like the leadership would be making this their top priority, not shrugging it off until the end of the session (some aides are suggesting that the leadership will hold the bill until just before Congress is scheduled to leave town). I don't care why they're delaying this bill, it could be because Hastert's got a hangnail this week for all I know. But it needs to stop.

Importantly, the Times report notes the Republican support for acceptance of the McCain language: last week, fifteen Republicans (Castle, Shays, Johnson (CT), Simmons, Walsh, Boehlert, Kuhl, Schwartz, Ehlers, Dent, Gilchrest, Petri, Paul, Leach, and Bradley) wrote to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee expressing their strong support. "We believe the antitorture provisions are vital to protecting American service members in the field both now and in the future," they wrote.

It is time for the Republican leadership in the House to stop stalling and appoint conferees so that this important legislation can continue moving forward. With American troops in the field, this is no time for holding up military funding measures to protect the fragile ego of a floundering Vice President.

Reid the Omens

2005-11-01T20:08:00.000-05:00

[Cross-posted on AmbivaBlog]

Senate minority leader Harry Reid's brazen calling of a closed session of the Senate today -- a sudden move that the blindsided majority leader, Bill Frist, called a "hijacking" -- has to be seen, I think, as the unveiling of the Democrats' 2006 campaign strategy.

Smelling blood in the water as the Administration flounders, the Dems have obviously decided to mimick successful Rovian ruthlessness and move in for the kill. They're going to put up a big and (in my view) inappropriate ideological brawl over Samuel Alito. But much worse, they're obviously betting on the public's growing alienation from the Iraq war as their meal ticket -- and to bet on it is to fan it, to exacerbate it.

The ultimate judgment of the invasion of Iraq will not be its origin but its outcome -- its success or failure in establishing a viable democratic state, a tremulous enterprise that is now struggling to be born in the teeth of a vicious and unrelenting effort to destroy it. The entire drama of whether we, the (classically) liberal West, and our values will or will not survive and prevail is being acted out in miniature in Iraq right now, as a prefiguring. It's kind of like the play within the play in Hamlet. The origins of the war -- yes! it was sold on false pretenses, I think because the Cheney crew made the judgment that the real reasons were too complex to rouse public support for such a risk -- are almost irrelevant now. If the war fails on its own merits because it was an impossible undertaking AND badly executed, there will be plenty of time for heads to roll and historic judgments to be passed. But the core Democrats, consciously or not, are trying to force that outcome prematurely, because they think it will be good for them.

That's criminally insane.

Letter to a Pro-Lifer

2005-10-22T14:40:00.000-04:00

Guest Post by "Adam"

Adam, a student of philosophy and neuroscience, is regular commenter on AmbivaBlog, where he wrote the following in an exchange with another regular commenter, Karen, who is Catholic and pro-life but open to dialogue.

[W]hat I really think you need to do is to distinguish between your goal and your means. Your goal is to limit abortions as much as possible, right? From what I understand, abortion rates are actually a lot higher in some foreign countries where abortion is ILLEGAL. Seriously, what if banning abortion is like prohibition? Would you approve a ban on abortion if it would actually increase the abortion rate? Or if it would only reduce the number of abortions by a very small amount? Would creating a black market and forcing women to bear children against their will, not to mention the huge cost of law enforcement be worth a neglible decrease in the abortion rate?

I know, to you, a life is a life is a life, and murder is murder is murder. But, to speak frankly, this kind of "principled," dogmatic attitude that completely ignores real-world consequences really, excuse my French, fucks up this country and the world big-time.

Why? Because this firm insistence on principle obstructs the very gains you desire. Once on C-SPAN, I saw this fairly conservative bioethicist, appointed by Bush, lament how the intransigence of the pro-life movement prevented anything from being done to legislate cloning. Certain pro-life groups and representatives were obstructing the passage of a bill that would regulate cloning because it was not stringent enough. However, the Democrats and moderate Republicans would not sign such a stringent bill. Therefore, do you know what happened? Nothing passed at all, even though everyone agreed that we should have at least moderate restriction because the hard pro-life side refused to sign onto anything that was not EXACTLY as they wanted it.

I think it would do well for you to study the case of Ireland. As I understand it, for quite some time, they were living under a Pope-acracy, under strict Catholic law. No condoms, no birth control, etc. However, relativly recently, the whole thing collapsed and just legions and legions of young people left the Catholic Church because it was too strict.

(Some conservatives favor a smaller, purer Church, but is this really Christian? Is this spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth? I have no problem if the Church says, ideally, people should not use condoms, etc. But if they turn people out of the church for these and similar matters, how are you fostering the purpose of Jesus? I think it's fine to say "this is better" and "this is best," but I have a problem with "must.")

And look at Iran. From what I understand, a lot of the kids there party and drink (Muslim kids drinking!) and are atheists--and all this in a THEOCRACY.

Bottom line: you can't force people to be moral. It will likely backfire as it did in Prohibition, Ireland, and Iran.

In many ways, I feel that the staunch inflexible pro-life side is in cahoots with NARAL to PREVENT stricter abortion laws. Meaning, you guys shoot yourself in the foot to some extent. By insisting on everything, you get nothing.

Most people, Democrat and Republican want to reduce the abortion rate. Most everyone who is pro-choice knows of the fetus pictures and the grotesque details and has heard a life is a life is a life, but they STILL are pro-choice--for practical reasons. I don't believe people should drink, but I don't support prohibition. Likewise, I don't favor abortions, but I don't support a blanket ban.

Point being, your arguments have convinced all the people that they're going to convince and you're very unlikely to get many more staunch pro-lifers. Think about it. 2/3's! of the population support abortion in the first trimester! However, almost everyone would like to drop the abortion rate.

Second and final bottom line: if pro-life people focused their efforts on people VOLUNTARILY not having abortions and limited their LEGAL efforts to only the extreme cases--third trimester for instance--you would be much more successful. People vote for pro-choice politicians not because they like abortion, but because they're afraid that the pro-life politicians secretly desire, or overtly desire, to ban all abortions at all times--and to hell with the black market, to hell with the costs of law enforcement, and to hell with what women want. The take-home message is that when you insist on everything, you may walk home with nothing.

A Progressive Insurrection?

2005-10-10T12:12:00.000-04:00

Cross-posted on the Moderate Republican:

There have been a flurry of posts and articles over the weekend calling for a new Progressive Movement in America.

When I say "progressive" I don't mean it in the way that the word is being used now, namely, to refer to ideas and groups on the far left. I am referring to the originally meaning, those group of reformers who came of age in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These were people who wanted a government that was effiencent and professional. They wanted capitalism to flourish, but they also wanted it to treat workers with respect and get rid of such abominations like child labor. This form of progressivism presented itself in the presidencies of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

If this is the meaning of progressive, then I am one. I think we have to go beyond the small government v. big government argument. I don't think government should be big, but it has to be efficient. I believe in our capitalist system, but I also think government has to provide some checks against the excesses of the system. Writer Joel Kotkin explains what progressivism is:

As many owned property themselves, they naturally advocated not the redistribution of wealth but such middle-class measures as antitrust legislation and federal loans for farmer and homeowner mortgages. The Progressives were politically pragmatic rationalists who helped make this nation the most powerful and successful large society in world history. They fostered the creation of our great national and state parks, pushed the development of water and power systems, promoted agricultural conservation and state-supported education.

If anything can be said to define the Progressives, it was their commitment to governmental efficiency. They embraced neither the contemporary conservative notion that government could do no right, nor the current liberal conceit that governmental ineptitude is acceptable as long as it's in service of well-intentioned ideological causes or aggrieved minorities.

Their ideal, formed in reaction to the political corruption and corporate dominance of the era, was government operated in a businesslike and rational manner. The pro-labor New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who served from 1934 to 1945, didn't hesitate to make exacting demands on public employees, leading some to liken him to the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. As he famously proclaimed: "There is no Republican or Democratic way to clean streets."

The Progressive legacy provides an excellent framework for responding to the challenges facing 21st-century America. As we do today, the early 20th-century Progressives confronted a society beset by a widening chasm between classes and fearful of growing foreign competition. They addressed these challenges by fostering education and science, and also by modernizing basic infrastructure -- roads, bridges, public transit, water, ports and power systems. Many great construction projects of the 20th century were the result of their peculiar political vision.

New York Times writer David Brooks (Oh, how I miss him) describes his version of Progressivism:

"After a while, you get sick of the DeLays of the right and the Deans of the left. After a while, you tire of the current Republicans, who lack a coherent governing philosophy, and the current Democrats, who are completely bereft of ideas. After a while you begin to wonder: Did I really get engaged in politics so I could spend months arguing about the confirmation of Harriet Miers, the John Major of American jurisprudence?

"And when you begin thinking this way, you find yourself emotionally disengaging from the exhausted clans that dominate the present. You find yourself going back to basics and considering the fundamental questions: What visions originally excited me about politics and government? If it were completely up to me, where would I plant my flag?

"Here's where I would plant mine.

"I believe in the lost tradition of American politics, the tradition of Hamilton, Lincoln and the Bull Moose. In other words, I believe that social mobility is the core of the American experience. I believe that society should be structured so that as many boys and girls as possible can work, and rise the way young Hamilton and Lincoln did...

"I know, having learned it from Lincoln and Roosevelt, that individual initiative should always be tied to national union. I know we need a national service program to bind our segmented youth through citizenship. I know we need to protect the natural heritage that defines us. I know America has to persevere in its exceptional mission to promote freedom, and the effort to promote democracy in the Arab world is one of the most difficult and noble endeavors any great power has undertaken.

"When I cut myself loose from the push and shove of today's weary political titans, and go back to basics, I find myself strangely invigorated.

"It's time for an insurrection."

Bull Moose adds:

Buckle up, fellow Mooseketeers, we are headed for some turbulence - and that is a good thing. As the Bushies implode, who willl take their place? Will it be a reformed Republican Party? Will the Democrats get their act together and convince the mighty middle that the party is not beholden to its liberal interest groups?

Will a force emerge within or outside the major parties that puts the national interest first? A faction which comes forth that argues that we must have a strong national defense, reform entitlements, requires national service and promotes progressive, pro-capitalist economics? Independent voters have largely given up on this Administration, but do they have anywhere to go?

I think it is time for a new progressive movement that might work with both parties but isn't tied to either party. They are more concerned with putting the nation first instead of the parties.

My own party has done me wrong with its business cronyism and far right hate filled politics, but I'm not ready to support the Democrats with it's interest group liberalism. We need something that is new, that doesn't look to the past (the Dems look back to the 1960s and 70s and the GOP to the 50s and 80s), but is interested in what America can become.

I'm ready to join that fight.

Gruntled?!

2005-10-06T21:57:00.000-04:00

[Cross-posted at AmbivaBlog]

Here, at The Gruntled Center: Faith and Family for Centrists, is some very, very interesting thinking on what centrism is all about:

[T]o define a centrist policy about anything, we need a category of social practice between the preferred and the prohibited. The natural thing to call this category is “tolerated.”

For example, historically and cross-culturally, marriage is the preferred institution in which to raise children, and incestuous unions are a prohibited way. What centrists need to be able to say is that marriage is preferred for raising children, and some other ways – my nominees would be single parenthood and same-sex unions -- are tolerated, acceptable, good enough. This is true of any social policy. The best way is still better, and social policy should provide incentives to promote the best way. But those who fall in the middle category, the good enough way, should not be penalized beyond the natural inefficiencies of doing something in a less than optimal way.

For liberal egalitarians having any kind of second class status is unacceptable.
For conservative perfectionists permitting any but the preferred way is to connive at social breakdown. [my emphasis - a.]

The primary political and philosophical problem of centrism is legitimizing the distinctions among the good, the bad, and the good enough.

It seems to me that that's how the commonsensical center of America already operates de facto, but it's good and important to have it articulated, because the people who operate like that are constantly being assailed from both sides, hearing in each ear that their way is not good enough, for opposite reasons.

And here's what it means to be "gruntled," from a refreshing post called (in a twist on the apoplectic bumper sticker) "If You Are Not Outraged, Perhaps You Are Paying Attention to the Bigger Picture":

I have an informed hope that many things in life are getting better. The world, the country, my town, my family, are all richer, freer, healthier, and with a more open future than ever. Of course there are still bad things in the world. But more people have more capacity to make them better than ever before. One of the reasons that so many people have the option (indeed, the luxury) of being outraged is that many more problems can be ameliorated or even solved than ever before. Conditions in the world that can’t be changed are not “social problems,” they are facts of life. Sun spots are not a social problem; skin cancer is. Two hundred years ago polio was a bad thing that just happened, like a tree branch falling on your head; now it is a worldwide social problem that is nearly solved. Yes, there are very scary possibilities for the future. I myself am worried about the potential clash of civilizations. Yet this very danger also brings hope of an outcome – because civilization itself is a huge and hopeful achievement.

I have faith that Providence ultimately guides all creation. Of course, people use their God-given freedom to create problems all the time. I don’t know why bad things happen to good people. I also don’t know why good things happen to so-so people, like me. As my wife and I say to one another often, “it’s not fair.” We are grateful for our great kids, whom we did not create. Undeserved good fortune is as mysterious as undeserved bad fortune, and both are an argument for Providence – or nihilism and despair.

As for me and my house, we will have faith in Providence.

Cheerfulness, smarts, and common sense are a pretty rare combination. I'm going to be reading this guy -- Beau Weston, a sociology prof, Democrat, husband and father of three, Presbyterian elder, and author (Leading From the Center) in Danville, Kentucky -- and I commend him to you.

Apology to Obama

2005-09-30T20:07:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I wrote out of bitter disappointment that Illinois Senator Barack Obama, one of the politicians I have most admired (Lindsey Graham being the other), had voted against John Roberts' confirmation as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I thought that Senator Obama, who had shown himself to be temperate but never mushy, capable of force and clarity while honoring complexity, had stooped to "playing to the base" and voting based on career calculation as a Democrat.

I was way wrong.

I was unaware that Senator Obama had already published a statement, one week before the full Senate confirmation vote, detailing his struggle to decide how to vote and his ultimate decision to vote No despite being "sorely tempted" in the other direction. (Props to Meg at CelebrateVida for clueing me in.) The statement is vintage Obama. It is direct, intelligent, honorable, and transparent, and it does not set off my spin detector. I now respect his decision and regret that I so mischaracterized it. To the extent that there is a Democratic "pack," he's not running with it. He's the cat who walks by himself. To set the record straight, I'm just going to quote a whole lot of his statement. But read the whole thing.

I have not only argued cases before appellate courts but for 10 years was a member of the University of Chicago Law School faculty and taught courses in constitutional law. Part of the culture of the University of Chicago Law School faculty is to maintain a sense of collegiality between those people who hold different views. What engenders respect is not the particular outcome that a legal scholar arrives at but, rather, the intellectual rigor and honesty with which he or she arrives at a decision.

Given that background, I am sorely tempted to vote for Judge Roberts based on my study of his resume, his conduct during the hearings, and a conversation I had with him yesterday afternoon.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind Judge Roberts is qualified to sit on the highest court in the land. Moreover, he seems to have the comportment and the temperament that makes for a good judge. He is humble, he is personally decent, and he appears to be respectful of different points of view. It is absolutely clear to me that Judge Roberts truly loves the law. He couldn't have achieved his excellent record as an advocate before the Supreme Court without that passion for the law, and it became apparent to me in our conversation that he does, in fact, deeply respect the basic precepts that go into deciding 95 percent of the cases that come before the Federal court -- adherence to precedence, a certain modesty in reading statutes and constitutional text, a respect for procedural regularity, and an impartiality in presiding over the adversarial system. All of these characteristics make me want to vote for Judge Roberts.

The problem I face -- a problem that has been voiced by some of my other colleagues, both those who are voting for Mr. Roberts and those who are voting against Mr. Roberts -- is that while adherence to legal precedent and rules of statutory or constitutional construction will dispose of 95 percent of the cases that come before a court, so that both a Scalia and a Ginsburg will arrive at the same place most of the time on those 95 percent of the cases -- what matters on the Supreme Court is those 5 percent of cases that are truly difficult. In those cases, adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon. That last mile can only be determined on the basis of one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy.

In those 5 percent of hard cases, the constitutional text will not be directly on point. The language of the statute will not be perfectly clear. Legal process alone will not lead you to a rule of decision. In those circumstances, your decisions about whether affirmative action is an appropriate response to the history of discrimination in this country or whether a general right of privacy encompasses a more specific right of women to control their reproductive decisions or whether the commerce clause empowers Congress to speak on those issues of broad national concern that may be only tangentially related to what is easily defined as interstate commerce, whether a person who is disabled has the right to be accommodated so they can work alongside those who are nondisabled -- in those difficult cases, the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart.

I talked to Judge Roberts about this. Judge Roberts confessed that, unlike maybe professional politicians, it is not easy for him to talk about his values and his deeper feelings. That is not how he is trained. He did say he doesn't like bullies and has always viewed the law as a way of evening out the playing field between the strong and the weak.

I was impressed with that statement because I view the law in much the same way. The problem I had is that when I examined Judge Roberts' record and history of public service, it is my personal estimation that he has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak.

I want to take Judge Roberts at his word that he doesn't like bullies and he sees the law and the Court as a means of evening the playing field between the strong and the weak. But given the gravity of the position to which he will undoubtedly ascend and the gravity of the decisions in which he will undoubtedly participate during his tenure on the Court, I ultimately have to give more weight to his deeds and the overarching political philosophy that he appears to have shared with those in power than to the assuring words that he provided me in our meeting.

The bottom line is this: I will be voting against John Roberts' nomination. I do so with considerable reticence. I hope that I am wrong. I hope that this reticence on my part proves unjustified and that Judge Roberts will show himself to not only be an outstanding legal thinker but also someone who upholds the Court's historic role as a check on the majoritarian impulses of the executive branch and the legislative branch. I hope that he will recognize who the weak are and who the strong are in our society. I hope that his jurisprudence is one that stands up to the bullies of all ideological stripes. . . . [Emphases added]

Senator Obama then goes on to talk about partisan rancor, ideological dumbing-down, and its toxic effect on the confirmation process:

I was deeply disturbed by some statements that were made by largely Democratic advocacy groups when ranking member Senator Leahy announced that he would support Judge Roberts. Although the scales have tipped in a different direction for me, I am deeply admiring of the work and the thought that Senator Leahy has put into making his decision. The knee-jerk unbending and what I consider to be unfair attacks on Senator Leahy's motives were unjustified. Unfortunately, both parties have fallen victim to this kind of pressure. . . .

The issues facing the Court are rarely black and white, and all advocacy groups who have a legitimate and profound interest in the decisions that are made by the Court should try to make certain that their advocacy reflects that complexity. These groups on the right and left should not resort to the sort of broad-brush dogmatic attacks that have hampered the process in the past and constrained each and every Senator in this Chamber from making sure that they are voting on the basis of their conscience.

Read it all here.

Shit. Now I'm back to worrying that he's going to get assassinated.

Another Stab at "What's a Centrist?"

2005-09-30T19:45:00.000-04:00

My regular commenter (almost collaborator!) Adam over at AmbivaBlog has what I consider a marvelous definition of a centrist:

If a person cannot find something deeply worthy of admiration on both sides of the political spectrum, that person is not a centrist.

At first that sounds at once self-evident and empty -- kind of like "You know you're middle-aged when old people think you're young and young people think you're old." What, centrists have no views of their own, just patchworks of everyone else's ideas?

But then you look again, and you realize that what so-called "centrism" is all about is rejecting the conventional polarization of views. Remember the story about the two women who come before King Solomon both claiming to be the mother of a baby? Solomon suggests cutting the baby in half, and the woman who protests that she would rather give the baby up is revealed as the true mother. The Right and the Left have cut the truth in half. The Center wants the baby to be whole, no matter who cares for it. It's not about creating some sort of hybrid of opposing views. It's about restoring what should never have been cut apart in the first place.

Roberts Roll Call: How did Hillary and Obama Vote??

2005-09-29T13:49:00.000-04:00

Good old C-Span. No surprise in John Roberts' confirmation; what I urgently wanted to know is which Democrats voted against, and which for him. C-Span has it, God bless 'em. I can't help thinking this vote shows where certain Dems' hearts really are. I am hoping, in particular, that Obama voted YES. My heart's in my throat. I haven't gotten there yet. Let's see:

Mike DeWine voted YES. Robert Byrd voted YES. Russ Feingold voted YES, as did fellow Wisconsin Senator Kohl. Hillary Clinton voted NO!! Aha, a jog and curtsey toward the base, the obsequious little dance of the presidential candidate -- also performed by Joe Biden and Evan Bayh. Chris Dodd voted YES. North and South Dakotans, Dorgan and Johnson voted YES. Landrieu, Leahy, Levin, all YES. Joe Lieberman, Lincoln and Pryor (both Arkansas), Patty Murray, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Bill Nelson of Florida, YES.

Obama, NO.

Oh, I am bitterly disappointed.

Jay Rockefeller, Ken Salazar, Wyden of Oregon, YES. I think that's everybody, but go see. I'm depressed.

(For those positioning themselves for a future beyond the Senate, these votes are carefully weighed political moves, don't you think? I had hoped that Obama would throw his weight to the center. Guess not. Who loses, the center or Obama?)

Education: Fix It in the Mix [LONG]

2005-09-25T15:09:00.000-04:00

[Cross-posted on AmbivaBlog]

The infamous standardized-test score gap between white and minority students has narrowed dramatically in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the reason is -- an aggressive campaign of economic integration.

Since 2000, school officials have used income as a prime factor in assigning students to schools, with the goal of limiting the proportion of low-income students in any school to no more than 40 percent.

The effort is the most ambitious in the country to create economically diverse public schools, and it is the most successful, according to several independent experts. La Crosse, Wis.; St. Lucie County, Fla.; San Francisco; Cambridge, Mass.; and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., have adopted economic integration plans.

In Wake County, only 40 percent of black students in grades three through eight scored at grade level on state tests a decade ago. Last spring, 80 percent did. Hispanic students have made similar strides. Overall, 91 percent of students in those grades scored at grade level in the spring, up from 79 percent 10 years ago. . . .

Some experts said the academic results in Wake County were particularly significant because they bolstered research that showed low-income students did best when they attended middle-class schools.

"Low-income students who have an opportunity to go to middle-class schools are surrounded by peers who have bigger dreams and who are more academically engaged," said Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation who has written about economic integration in schools. "They are surrounded by parents who are more likely to be active in the school. And they are taught by teachers who more likely are highly qualified than the teachers in low-income schools."

To achieve a balance of low- and middle-income children in every school, the Wake County school district encourages and sometimes requires students to attend schools far from home. Suburban students are drawn to magnet schools in the city. Low-income children from the city are bused to middle-class schools in the suburbs.

Some parents chafe at the length of their children's bus rides or at what they see as social engineering. But the test results are hard to dispute . . .

I note this because economic integration of housing, communities and schools is the cause to which two generations of men in my family have professionally dedicated themselves. In the early 1970s, my dad left his job as a mortgage banker in the for-profit real-estate business and took a lower-paying one with Chicago's nonprofit Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities. From their website:

Where you live determines your ability to access meaningful life opportunities for yourself and your family, including educational and employment opportunities, but also access to quality health care, transportation, and safe neighborhoods. In much of our region, opportunities vary widely based on race and economics, with access to housing opportunity the primary factor in determining where a person can live. The effect of gross disparities in access to housing leave some able to access a multitude of opportunities and others with much more limited options. (See The Segregation of Opportunities, a Leadership Council report released May 9, 2005.

The Leadership Council works to ensure that every person has the opportunity to make meaningful choices about where to live and to have the chance to live in communities that are rich in opportunities. We do this by promoting fair housing and equitable community development and by providing one-on-one counseling for people seeking homes.

My brother Alan is a foundation officer and edits the newsletter of The Piton Foundation, a private Denver foundation focusing on public education whose "mission is to provide opportunities for children and their families to move from poverty and dependence to self-reliance." Ally devoted two issues of the newsletter, The Term Paper, May and November 2002 [.pdf files], to "Denver's growing interest in school improvement through creating a better economic mix in schools." UPDATE: Ally puts this in the comments, which I hope will encourage you to read his newsletters:

Thanks for plugging today's Times article. I have long been a fan of the Raleigh schools. The newsletter you mention includes a long article about Raleigh. I have led delegations from Denver to Raleigh over the past few years to show off the wonderful job Raleigh has done with economic integration. I have an enormous amount of respect for the people there. It's a homegrown bunch that has kept its collective shoulder to the wheel for a long, long time. Raleigh is proof that you don't have to import hotshots from elsewhere if you create the right mix locally.

My brother David is the cofounder and executive director of Full Circle Communities, a nonprofit that acquires, improves, and manages affordable housing properties and provides an innovative array of services for their residents:

Full Circle Communities, Inc.'s mission is to become a leading provider and manager of decent, safe affordable housing and an array of supportive services. Our goal is to enable low- and moderate-income individuals and families who live at our properties to move themselves and help others move toward increasing health, independence and success. . . .

Full Circle has preserved a desperately needed supply of affordable senior housing in Naples, the largest and wealthiest community in one of the wealthiest counties in the nation. . . .

Through nutritional counseling, a local Senior Companions program, exercise and safety classes, social events, and improvements to the property to improve access, Full Circle hopes to demonstrate that affordable housing can and should provide a high-quality living experience.

A third generation now seems to be entering this "family business," or crusade. It was my nephew Matt, a second-grade teacher in a virtually all-Hispanic school in Chicago, who alerted us all to the story about Raleigh, and whose post on New Orleans reveals him to share his grandfather's and uncles' quiet obsession with American apartheid -- one that seemed anachronistic in the Age of Bush until Hurricane Katrina resurrected its relevance. New Orleans gave ironic new urgency to the Leadership Council's statement, "Where you live determines your ability to access meaningful life opportunities for yourself and your family" -- meaningful life opportunities like, not drowning.

______________

I should add that I was a beneficiary, and I hope a reciprocal benefactor, of economically-integrated schooling in Chicago in the 1950s. Of course, it didn't have a fancy name then. It was just the reality of going to public school in one very unique neighborhood.

We grew up in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago, sandwiched between the upscale, liberal Hyde Park neighborhood that surrounded the University of Chicago just to our south and "the single largest black neighborhood in America," the "black belt," just to our north. We lived on 50th Street. 47th Street was the "nerve center" of the ghetto, and originally one of the great arteries of blues music in the North. Elijah Muhammad, the founder of the Black Muslims, lived a few blocks away in a Kenwood mansion under heavy guard.

Kenwood probably would eventually have become part of the ghetto, in a typical pattern of black entry, slumlord opportunism, and white flight, except that a multiracial group of its residents banded together to resist. They opposed the neighborhood's becoming homogeneous either racially or economically. This fascinating history of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference tells how they organized to do it:

Members of all minority groups should be welcomed, not primarily as such, but as persons in their own right, with their own living interests, relationships, responsibilities, and distinctive abilities in the fields of common life and welfare. This Community Conference has included them as full participating members from its first beginning, and shall continue to be open to them on an equal basis with all community residents of all races and creeds.

The result was that Kenwood became a solidly middle-class, racially and ethnically mixed neighborhood -- one of the first in the country -- that overlapped at its edges with poorer (but then still working-class) black and Hispanic neighborhoods, full of immigrants (some of them illegal) from the South, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. This was the neighborhood that shaped my family, and the vision that perhaps continues to propel my father, brothers, and nephew.

From K-8 I attended Kenwood Public School, a hideous yellow-brick building with brown linoleum halls that looked like a Dickens orphanage and was staffed by a Dickensian cast of teachers. From the very beginning my classmates were Japanese, Chinese, black, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Irish Catholic, Protestant, and middle-class Jewish like me. Diversity got under our skins before we were old enough to have any real concept of class and ethnic differences; we just subsumed them into individual differences. Kids were who they were, and any family other than our own seemed exotic and weird, regardless of its circumstances. Only around the 6th grade did we begin to be aware of the economic gulf that separated those of us who were privileged and secure from those who weren't, and as soon as we noticed that gulf we began deliberately crossing it.

Some of the teachers, in retrospect, were extremely racist, and they were in a hostile standoff with some of the minority and poor kids, especially boys, whom they made little effort to reach and who, in turn, made little effort to conform or achieve. The result was that by the 7th and 8th grades, the middle-class kids were 12 and 13, while there were some big 15-year-old boys sitting sullenly among us and towering over us who'd been held back year after year. (No such thing as social promotion then.) Most of them were black, Puerto Rican and Mexican, though there was the odd white hillbilly in the mix.

This was in 1958-59, before the "consciousness-raising" of the '60s, and these kids did not yet treat their privileged peers with resentment or aggression. Several years later on, my sisters and brothers would get robbed of their lunch money at knifepoint and get moved by our parents to private school. But in my day, those older boys just kept quietly to themselves -- until one of my friends reached out to them.

Her name was Paula and her mother was a liberal social worker, and maybe her initial interest in the "big boys" had some of that do-gooderism in it, or maybe it was a rebellion. But she was a leader of our little gang of five or six midde-class Jewish girls, and so when she began making friends with them, we all did. I will never forget the "big boys" -- James Fair, John Leiva, Radames Martinez -- because in response to our friendly overtures, they were kind and protective and gallant to us. Most of the boys our own age were still pudgy and larval. The "big boys" were post-pubescent, tall and strong, and they sometimes fought among themselves, but to us they were chivalrous. They made us feel good, and I think we made them feel good.

Paula had a kind of innocent romance with Radames, whose nickname was Chato. This fascinated me, a still childlike late bloomer and tag-along, and I shyly became friends, real friends, with Chato. He came from a family of six kids who lived in an apartment building on 51st Street; I remember that one of his sisters had Down's syndrome. My diary from those years records that we sometimes talked on the phone for an hour. Once a group of us talked him out of having a fight with another boy who'd jostled him on the stairs. He agreed to forego the fight for our sake, and we felt like we'd accomplished something serious and real.

We went to different high schools, but I kept in touch with Chato till I went away to college. The last time I saw him, if I recall right, he was considering becoming a priest. The sullen and silent "big boy" whose name the shrivelled-up witch Mrs. Brown had scornfully mispronounced "Raddamy" had "come out" as the intense, thoughtful, compassionate man he was. Then -- nothing, for almost four decades. In the '80s, my mother tells me she heard he was a youth worker and was shot and killed somewhere in a gang-ridden neighborhood of Chicago. For some reason, I refuse to accept this. I see Paula, now living on a farm in northern California, and ask her if she knows anything about him. She doesn't. I have to wait until the Internet is invented to send a postcard to all twelve Radames Martinezes listed by Yahoo! People Search, even though most of them are pretty obviously Miami Cubans.

I get an answer, from Oregon. Chato -- Rad, now -- has a master's in social work and is married to a hospital administrator. His daughter is in the Merchant Marine. He has worked with troubled teens, substance abusers and mental patients, and is about to retire to piece of land he owns near the coast. When I ask him about the rumor that he was shot and killed, he says laconically, "When I was a cop in San Diego, somebody shot at me, but they missed."

One of the first things he says to me is, "We were wetbacks, you know."

When Jacques and I fly to Portland for Jacques to speak about his book in a Springfield middle school, Rad and his wife meet us in the airport. We continue to correspond occasionally, and he is sending me, one by one, the painful, funny short stories he is slowly writing about his childhood -- so much that I could not see or imagine at the time.

This long story started out to have a point, which was: how much of who we both are was fatefully changed by the fact that we attended a -- harrumph -- "economically integrated school"?

Picking Sides [LONG]

2005-09-23T17:07:00.000-04:00

This post started churning about in my head shortly after Alan Stewart Carl published his final piece here last week. Unfortunately, I was busy racing out of town for a blog-free vacation at just that time, so the piece had a good long while to ferment. It is, as a result, rather lengthy and involved, not to mention meandering, senseless, and probably hallucinatory in a few places. Read at your own risk.

I.

In his recent farewell to blogging, Alan Stewart Carl offered a withering (and well-written!) critique of the political blogosphere:

And to say blogging is a form of debate is giving most who practice in the medium too much credit. There are extremely good blogs out there, but most blogs are just noise. Most bloggers aren't citizen journalists or even citizen essayists. They are citizen spin doctors. They aren't debating ideas. They're spinning the truth. They're wasting their intelligence and time trying to force every event, every moment into their pre-conceived notion of the world. They don't want to add to the national debate. They want to keep debate from ever happening.

For bloggers of moderate sensibilities, Alan's observations are something of a challenge -- in their way, reminiscent of the challenge Daily Show host Jon Stewart offered up on Crossfire last year. If the blogosphere is indeed such a relentlessly partisan din, what are we doing here? Would our energy indeed be better spent on other efforts? What should those who want to create substantial change for the better do?

One might argue that the blogosphere is more open and rational than Alan allows. I think the right person could make an interesting argument there. While its inarguably true that moderate blogs are few in number and tiny in size, it's possible that they can have outsize impact. Well- placed links and marketing can get good ideas into the funniest places; there are plenty of odd little "pockets" of moderation even on the most famously partisan blogs, the Koses and Powerlines. Moreover, one could argue that the diversity among blogs makes up for the frequency of shrill tones within them. As a reader, I've certainly been exposed to a far wider range of opinions through the internet than I ever would have without it.

Unfortunately, I'm not the person to make that argument, because I basically agree with Alan. Blogs are, on the whole, a din. Right and left are filled with misleading information, often intentionally so. The vast majority of really successful bloggers are highly partisan activists, and I expect with time that more and more of these will be compensated for their efforts. And the vast majority of comment window space is wasted on inane levels of name-calling, semantics, and general obfuscation.

When all is said and done, it may very well be that the blogging age is best remembered for its destruction of two old debating standbyes: politeness and facts. The blogosphere is well-known for its abundance of the rude, and unfortunately we have no Hannibal Lecter to eat them for us. Actually, to be fair: I truly believe that the anonymity and facelessness of blogging encourages rudeness to a disturbing extent. Most people find me to be a terribly polite person in real life (excepting of course my loved ones, who never knew prior to registration what a stream of belches, glazed-over eyes, and vicious swearing such a quiet, unassuming fellow could produce). Yet on anonymous message boards I can be an out-and-out devil, flaming wingnuts and mediots right and left for the sake of sheer sadism (I swear it's not me, it's the medium!).

Meanwhile, the Fact, which already took a terrible bruising during the the twentieth century, may very well face extinction in the salad days of this one. What Fact is out there that can no longer be challenged? Face it, there are none - and if you're as much of an information addict as me, you've read the rebuttals to gravity, the rotation of the earth, and the existence of the sun twelve times already. While the blogosphere is not responsible for the slow decline of the Fact, it may very well be the technology by which we deliver the killing blow.

II.

So, all that said - yes, I agree with Alan. And yet, I continue to blog, at my admittedly slothful pace. Why?

Well, for starters, I think the phenomena described above and in his post is not just relegated to the blogosphere. Rudeness, partisan shillery, and the steady erosion of truth are to be found throughout the various media, and really throughout the political world itself. I also believe there's a simple reason for this, and that reason is: we are not rational. (And yes, that probably does mean that I blog because I'm not rational).

The point has been made many times, by people much smarter than myself. It goes like this: Humans generally do not choose their political affiliations rationally, by determining what their opinions are and then choosing a party that supports them. Instead, we are far more likely to do the opposite -- choosing a party based on childhood preoccupations or tribal instincts, and then choosing our opinions based on those around us. However, despite all this, we almost always believe that our opinions are chosen rationally, because we have come up with rationales which support them.

This is not to argue that we are completely irrational beings. After all, we may change our affiliations, often through process of reason. Rather, it is to argue that first, rationality is not core to our being; it is more like a tool that we have access to, and can use when properly motivated. Second, it is to argue that we may believe we are acting rationally even when we are not.

This belief is a core component of what currently passes as my political philosophy. And I try, as much as I can, to apply this belief to everything. Sometimes when I state it, people attack me as elitist - suggesting that I believe that "the rubes" are irrational and make poor political decisions. But actually, the evidence suggests that the higher your education level, the more likely you are to be decisively partisan one way or the other. Lots of people know this, including lots of bloggers...yet very few actually bother to apply it to themselves.

Let's give it a shot: I'm a well-educated person...and if I'm really honest about it, I have to admit that my political stances have been pretty irrational. For instance: I have a long, grudging tolerance for the Democratic Party - and an equally long, half-tempered dislike for the Republican Party. The reasons seem pretty simple to me: my parents were both loyal Democrats, as were most of the families around us; I grew up in New York City, about as blue an area as you can find; I was not a rebellious child, and so accepted the belief system that I inherited; I tend to root for underdogs, and for most of my life the Dems have held the weaker hand.

That last one is pretty important, actually, because by late high schoolI realized that my Democratic affiliation was irrational, and instead decided to be anti-system. I couldn't vote in the '92 election, but if I could I would have voted for Perot. By '96 I started identifying as a radical and refused to vote entirely; in 2000 I would have voted for Nader, but having been radicalized, forgot my ID at home and was denied access to the polls.

Looking back, I don't doubt that all of these decisions were irrational too. At each step, I was deeply influenced by the thoughts of friends and loved ones. Moreover, my constant desire to support the underdog led me from the Democrats, to the radicals, to a brief flirtation with Libertarianism -- and today, to "moderate liberalism," "centrism," and "radical middlism". With the significant exception of The New York Yankees - who I have also drifted from - I have never supported a big-time winner.

Rooting for the underdog is a common trait, and a beautiful one to my mind. It indicates a desire to live in a just world. Unfortunately, it has never been demonstrated to be the crux of a rationalist belief system.

III.

I've offered up a fair amount of personal information in this post, but it's not just about me. Without trying to sound too clichéd, it's about us.

It's amazing to me sometimes how easy it was for me to make the transition from being a WTO-protesting, Green-voting, hippie-clad, self-proclaimed "anarchist" to being a member of the "sensible middle." It happened in the space of a few short years, with no change in any of my closest relationships, no change really in my core beliefs about the world. The main thing that changed was probably my mode of dress. I think I've become more open-minded about some things, but those things tend to be Means rather than Ends, so to speak. I still want to live in a world that is more just and fair, where human happiness is more abundant than it currently is. I've simply accepted that I haven't yet imagined all the ways to get there, and that I may have something to learn about it from those with whom I'm used to disagreeing.

But I think that transition was easy for me for a pretty simple reason: it's an easy transition to make, period. Both "radicals" and "sensible centrists" are basically consigned to being political outsiders. The insiders, these days and all days, are political partisans, party people. If you like to root for underdogs, you will eventually find yourself outside all parties, looking in.

I think my story will probably be familiar to most readers and writers on this blog, and of most self-styled centrist blogs. And if this is indeed true, I must leave you with a warning: If the thinking that led me here was not necessarily rational, can you say otherwise for yourself?

Centrists, moderates, and the like often pride themselves above all on rationality. As Alan writes:

We created The Yellow Line as an attempt to battle that trend. I'm not claiming a purity of vision. All I'm claiming is that Joe and I (and those who've joined us) have made an honest attempt to keep truths as truths and our opinions as opinions and we've tried not to mingle or purposefully confuse the two. We haven't always succeeded, but we've always made the effort.

I don't intend to pick on Alan - as I said, I mostly agree with him on this topic, and it sounds like it was both personally and politically sensible for him to forge a new path. I also believe that this focus on rationality and reason from moderate bloggers is an essential part of their voice, their sense. However, I also believe that there is nothing unique about this. Democrats also believe that they are rational, as do Republicans, libertarians, radicals, anarchists, communists, religious fundamentalists, racists, and ideologues of all stripes. Every group believes that it has the truth, and every group believes that its truth is the highest one. That's even true for those of us who believe that the truth may be found in different places.

Which is to say as well - if you want to create change in the world, don't look at rationality as the way to get you there. Up to a point, a shared sense of what is rational and true is essential for community-building. If you want to get some people together, you have to start by figuring out what you have in common. Reason is a fine basis for this; in many ways, it's the only such basis that has ever existed. All of our meetings are meetings of the mind.

However - and this is the "point" I've been working towards - we cannot live by reason alone. Moderates, centrists, radical middlists -- do you realize that the organizational problems that plague you are the very same ones that plague Naderites and Greens, Libertarians and Socialists? At some point, it's no longer about reason, it's no longer about moderation, it's no longer about finding common ground. At that point, it's about two things: the often grinding work of building or transforming institutions, and fighting to win.

Like all other outcast groups, moderates need to learn to fight to win. The middle can't just be radical; it also needs to be partisan! And given the inherent nature of "middle" blogs - reasonable, open-minded, peaceable - that is going to be the hardest job of all. At this point, blogging as a political tool is only going to be useful to moderates if it can contribute as a partisan device. Moderates cannot win unless we form a common identity, even if it is somehow inclusive of membership in major and minor parties - and then fight to win.

That doesn't necessarily mean a third-party run -- although I'd certainly enjoy that. It may need to be more of an inside job. But more than anything, it needs to be a movement. People don't always get persuaded through reason. Sometimes they need to be swept up by momentum. That in turn means that all of our tactics and approaches need not be rational - and for that matter, need not even be nice. Democrats nowadays often speak of trying to learn from Republican tactics. Moderates in turn shudder or snort and look away. Maybe, just maybe, we should try studying what other groups are doing, and using those techniques we can stand to use?

Or maybe - there is no "we" at all? Just how much are we willing to turn away from our partisan instincts and backgrounds.

IV.

I recently read the books Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler. Like many science-fiction writers, Butler's as much of a thinker as a storyteller, if not more so. The two books tell the story of Lauren Olamina, a young woman living in a near-future, very believably dystopian America. How believable, you ask? Let's just say that Butler's books very ably predict the recent, unnerving descent into chaos in New Orleans -- and the latter of the two books was written in 1998.

Olamina's response to the growing chaos and violence around her is very peculiar: she decides to start a religion, called Earthseed, whose god is Change, and whose goal is for people to leave Earth and populate other planets. This at a time when the space program has fallen into complete disarray, and is mocked by nearly everyone. Her religion begins as kind of a cult, attracting a few followers here and there, who together form a fragile community. I won't give away the ending of the novels, but suffice to say that what is interesting about Earthseed is that it is a semi-rational ideology that ends up being a surprisingly rational response to the real circumstances in the books.

Butler identifies as an atheist, yet she is remarkably open-minded about religion, to the point of writing a series of novels that ask the question of how a religion can be useful even if it is not rational or even true. Her works suggests that sometimes one can serve the greater good by telling a little fiction now and then.

I would like the readers of this blog to think about this. It should not be too controversial to point out that "centrism" or "radical middleism" is to politics as atheism or at least agnosticism is to religion. Many of us moderates often pride ourselves on our attachment to making politics rational; we also want politics to serve the greater good. What if serving the greater good requires bending the truth, discarding rationality for utility?

Like most moderates, I have no easy answers. I leave my questions for your consideration.

Being Black Does Not Equal Being Poor

2005-09-22T10:25:00.000-04:00

Crossposted at the Moderate Republican:

As we all saw the black faces trapped in New Orleans, I started to hear talk about race in America.

And that's when I started feeling funny.

There is talk again about the topic of race in America and how we need to do more to help African Americans. What's interesting about this talk is that it is interwoven with a talk on poverty in America. Witness this column by Washington Post writer, David Broder. Broder seems to mix the issues together. I have a problem with this. For one thing, yes, race is still an issue in America (witness the Rodney King verdict and subsequent LA riots), but let's face it, the America of 2005 is not the America of 1955. I can eat in a restaurant and sleep in a hotel and very few would bat an eye. That wasn't the case with my Dad fifty years ago. He moved to Michigan from his native Louisiana in the early 50s. When he went to visit his Mom back home, he had to sleep in the car and eat meals packed for him because he couldn't sleep in a hotel or get a good meal at a diner.

What also bothers me is that most often when we talk about blacks and whites, blacks are always portrayed as poor and whites are all well to do. This is malarkey. There are blacks who are firmly in the middle class and whites who are poor. I have relatives who make six-figure salaries and I've met white people who are very poor. It's a little frustrating to when people see blacks and white as monolithic groups and not diverse communities.

I think the civil rights revolution of the 60s did a lot to remove the racial barriers that kept Black Americans from being full members of society. It helped lift a fair number of blacks out of poverty and into the middle class. But there were a lot of blacks that lacked the basic resources and remained mired in poverty. Those were the faces we saw in the Big Easy. Was race involved? Maybe. But it seems the bigger issue here is that there is a little opportunity for these people to get out of poverty and better themselves, their families and their communities.

I tend to believe all the talk about race tends to sidline poverty. There will be calls for more conversation and some blacks will talk about how hard it is to be black in America. But that talk tends to focus on middle class blacks and not about how to help the poor.

Let's also not forget that there are huge numbers of poor people who are whites as well. For some reason, they tend to be forgotten.

It's time for America to have a conversation, NOT on race, but on poverty. No one wants to talk about this. Liberals don't want to talk about poverty because it doesn't fall into their view of indentity politics. Conservatives don't want to talk about it because it means questioning their worldview that there is a class system in American society.

We need a government that would develop programs to give people a hand up. Affirmative Action should not be soley racial based (it only helps the black middle and upper classes) but based on economics,to help those who are economically behind as well.

We need to ask why we ignore the poor or condemn them. We need to ask what makes people poor. And we might even have to ask the poor to stop doing behavoir that could keep them mired in poverty.

Booker Rising quotes Vanderbuilt professor Carol Swain on how to solve this issue:

“The best strategy for racial and ethnic minorities to adopt, therefore, is one that minimizes identity politics and instead focuses on the attainment of policies and programs that will address common needs. Fortunately, many of the problems affecting poor minorities are common among poor whites as well. A political strategy that deracializes issues is more likely to succeed than one framed around race. Surveys have shown that a large percentage of Americans support job creation, universal health care, education reform that expands parental choice, a minimum-wage increase, and immigration reform. On some of these issues the political parties are not responsive to the will of the people. It should be encouraging to minorities that the majority of white Americans, while opposing racial preferences, support outreach, nondiscrimination, and equal opportunity. We are in trouble, though, unless Americans move away from narrowly defined identity politics. Strategies that ensure more support for race-neutral policy agendas should be preferred over those geared toward enhancing the perceived needs of any single racial or ethnic group. Indeed, beyond a certain point, a focus on narrowly defined group interests can become counterproductive. When leaders are responsive to the needs of the people, the race of the legislator becomes less important.”

So, let's talk about poverty and class. Not to blame, but to find solutions. I don't have time to rehash and argument that was mostly (but not totally) settled 40 years ago. I'm ready for the discussion. Are you?

Watching the Fat-Fight

2005-09-21T12:05:00.000-04:00

{Cross-posted at Charging RINO}

While I worry about the ultimate result of the intra-party sparring now occurring within the GOP over how to pay the Katrina bills (because I'm afraid they'll push for some silly nonsense plan that cuts valuable social programs while still pushing up the deficit with more tax cuts), I think it's well past time that the party actually engaged in this debate.

As the Post and Times both report this morning, Republicans in Congress have begun, for really the first time, to question the White House on fiscal issues (and vice versa). There are those who want to use the Gulf Coast reconstruction as a shield to make sharp cuts in domestic programs across the board. There are a few suggesting that it may be time to consider raising taxes. And as the Post notes, "many in the middle want to freeze Bush tax cuts that have yet to take effect" as well as fish out any spending cuts that can be made without cutting vital services and important programs.

I welcome this debate. I think it's healthy for the party to have, and I'm glad that legislators might actually start looking at the numbers and realizing that the current trend (spend but don't tax) is unhealthy for the long-term fiscal stability of the country. Congress should consider all the proposals being offered with due seriousness, including (even particularly including) those which call for halting the implementation of further tax cuts (no that is not raising taxes) and excising the pork from the existing budget.

Those who want to examine the budgetary impact of the Katrina costs, though, remain a small fraction of the Senate and House GOP caucuses, as Senator Judd Gregg told the Times. There are plenty, apparently including the leadership of both houses, who are content to just push ahead with more spending, more tax cuts, and more deficit growth as far as the eye can see. These Happy Mariners don't mind watching the ship of state sail off into the sunset of Fiscal Oblivion, but for those us of out here who do have concerns reaching past the end of our noses (or November 2006, as the case may be), that's no longer an option.

Let's have the debate. Let's ask the questions, and let's demand the answers. It's not too mush to ask for.

The State of Conservativism

2005-09-19T16:00:00.000-04:00

Cross-posted from the Moderate Republican:

Andrew Sullivan links to some good posts today about what conservatism really is and how the Bush administration has abandoned those tenets.

Jack Balkin notes how cold and heartless conservatism has become in that it has to add the qualifier "Compassionate" before the word conservative. He quotes F.A. Heyek, which has been considered one of the fathers of conservatism. Many have seen him as anti-government, but Balkin quotes the Austrian who wrote The Road to Serfdom tended to see a role for government in free societies:

[T]here can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody...

Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance...the case for the state's helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong....

To the same category belongs also the increase of security through the state's rendering assistance to the victims of such "acts of God" as earthquakes and floods. Wherever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself nor make provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken.

I think some who call themselves conservatives today would wonder if this really was Hayek talking. But as someone who considers himself progressively conservative, it does. One doesn't have to be a socialist to support some minimal standards to ensure people have proper housing, medical care and food. To not care about whether people have these doesn't make someone a conservative in my book, but a heartless...well, this is a family blog, so I will just say a heartless person.

For some reason, conservatives have started to believe the small government means a government that buys into some sort of economic darwinism; continually cutting taxes for the well off, cutting services for the less fortunate and piling up debt for the next generation. People like Grover Norquist talks about some kind of anti-government utopia, but to me it seems more like something out of
Lord of the Flies.

Republicans doesn't have to develop large government programs as Democrats have (save President Clinton) to tackle poverty. But we do need to find ways to bring economic freedom to the poor. The poor can't simply do it on themselves when they are faced with poor education and crime.

My liberal friends talk about social justice and for some conservatives, it brings up this image of the bloated welfare states found in Europe. But for me, social justice means setting things right for the poor; giving them a chance to get out of poverty. It comes from the Bible where we are reminded to care for those less fortunate. Conservatives don't have to become liberals in order to deal with these issues, but they have to have a heart about this.

There needs to be a wholesale intellectual revolution within conservatism. It starts by doing this: Republicans need to start reading your Bibles, beyond the few scattered verese that talk about homosexuality. The Bible is filled with verses about caring for the poor, so it seems that God is a bit more concerned with people being well-fed, than with two guys holding hands.

If the father of conservatism can see the importance of helping the poor, maybe other conservatives need to take notice.

And Yet, There Is Hope

2005-09-18T15:06:00.000-04:00

[Cross-posted on AmbivaBlog]

You know what? The conservative blogs are right: not all the news from Iraq (and Afghanistan) is bad, by a long shot. And since perception leads as well as follows reality, we all have a sacred responsibility to the long-suffering yet high-spirited people of Iraq (and Afghanistan) to add to their measure of hope by proclaiming the good news. Read it, because your consciousness is one of the places where the balance is teetering between hope and hopelessness. You'll never know whether your thought is the atom that could tip the scale.

This post at Gateway Pundit tells of fed-up Iraqi civilians making a courageous citizen's arrest of terrorists. (Thanks: Karen Bathalon.) The post also quotes Colonel Robert Brown, Commander of The 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, Multinational Force-Northwest -- a Stryker brigade in Mosul -- from this Department of Defense Operational Update Briefing:

Prior to the elections last January, we faced a very well-trained foreign fighter and some very intense battles. And what we've seen is a population that was on the fence at that time, to post-election, a population that has absolutely understood that their government, their Iraqi security forces support them, and the terrorists offer no hope for the future.

One of the great pieces of information we got recently is 80 percent of the al Qaeda network in the north has been devastated. And those are not our figures, those came from the last six leaders in Mosul, al Qaeda leaders that we captured; they informed us of that. We also had a letter that was captured from Abu Zaid (sp) going to Zarqawi. We recently killed Zaid (sp) and we had that letter, and it also talked about the desperate situation for the al Qaeda and the insurgents in Mosul and in the north. And then also, sources we have inside the al Qaeda network up here have also informed us of that.

So we're very proud. We have a situation where the Iraq army is being rebuilt. The Iraqi police that ran away in November are standing and fighting. In fact, they recently found one of the largest caches certainly in the north, and maybe all of Iraq. And they're doing a very good job.

And then we have the population, I think is the most significant change I've seen over the last 11 months, from a population clearly on the fence, not sure -- they want freedom, but they weren't really sure what freedom was, and they were clearly intimidated, to a population that clearly understands they want freedom; they are absolutely sick and tired of the terrorists, the brutal acts against innocent civilians, and they want a brighter future for their children. And we've got a lot of statistics to back that up. Like when we first got here in October, there was -- no hotline existed. We opened a hotline; we got about 40 calls a month prior to January. The last six months, we're up to 400 calls a month. Every day the citizens are stopping us on the street telling us where a potential suspicious individual is who may be a terrorist, and telling us where they tried to plant IEDs and those type of devices. So the population is clearly very confident.

Also, I'm out -- I was out every day over the last 11 months on the ground, and great news about elections up here. You know, we went from last January we weren't sure if we could even have elections. Right now, 80 percent of the folks on the street in Mosul and Nineveh province in the north here say that they will vote. And very interesting -- these are -- many of the folks I talked to are Sunnis who are very upset that they were lied to last election, told not to vote, and they were very excited to vote this election. And I think the biggest challenge is going to be getting enough ballots to the polling sites because so many people want to vote . . .

To Centerfield's surprise, The Boston Globe has also published an op-ed eyewitness account of good things happening in Iraq, by Brian Golden, a major in the US Army Reserve in Iraq and a commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy:

On the night of the draft [Constitution]'s approval, it was interesting that the Iraqi Army generals who work near my office watched local television coverage of spontaneous celebrations throughout Iraq. . . .

January's election turnout was astounding; it will certainly be surpassed this fall. A recent poll in the Arabic newspaper Al Hayat reports that 88 percent of Iraqis plan to vote in the October referendum. The Kurds and Shi'ites, comprising 80 percent of the population, embrace the draft constitution. Even disgruntled Sunni Arab leaders are redoubling their efforts to register voters. Many Sunnis will vote in opposition, but opposition in a democracy isn't a bad thing; it's a victory.

And what does this mean for the insurgency? It's a disaster. The insurgency is despised because Iraqi civilians suffer most at their hands. Recently, even the spiritual leader of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader, demanded that attacks on civilians cease.

When you read this, it may dawn on you that the near-assumption (of which I've been guilty myself) that Iraqi Arabs don't really want or can't handle democracy, that they're doomed to either a civil war or a Shia theocracy, is nothing but bigotry based on ignorance. Golden provides some corrective information:

Can constitutional democracy work here? Bernard Lewis, a premier historian of the Middle East, identifies the West as originator of harsh authoritarianism here, from Napoleon's dictatorship in Egypt in the 19th century, to the arrival of European-style fascism in the 20th century. Lewis insists that prior to European approaches the region produced far less menacing leaders. Lewis sees hope in history because these earlier leaders -- while not democrats -- governed through consultation and consensus among the major stakeholders in society. Looking at the political posters throughout Baghdad left over from the January election, I realize there may be a historical and cultural foundation that accepts democracy. . . .

Capable people comprise the constructive forces in Iraq. While Saddam Hussein's policies devastated education in the 1990s, older Iraqis grew up in one of the most literate countries in the Middle East. They can produce goods and services and run businesses.

Then there's the awesome voter turnout in Afghanistan today. We should only vote in such numbers, and take such joy in it -- and we don't have Taliban mortars pointed at us:

"We're building our country, we're making our parliament," said Mohammed Twahir, 36, after voting in the southern city of Kandahar, once a bastion of support for the Taliban.

"Before there was no democracy, now we have democracy. Democracy means freedom."

That enthusiasm was echoed by many other voters.

"I'm so happy, I couldn't sleep last night and was watching the clock to come out to vote," said Qari Salahuddin, 21, in the eastern city of Jalalabad soon after voting began.

Who's inspiring whom here? Really. Read the stories. Time is against the insurgents. Give these people your heart.

One-Two Punch

2005-09-18T11:23:00.000-04:00

[Cross-posted to AmbivaBlog]

Listening to "Meet the Press" this morning -- Southern Republicans turning against tax cuts, everyone acknowledging our almost Biblical obligation to the poor -- it strikes me that the last four years for America have been bracketed by a one-two punch. Bin Laden's blow spun us to the right, now Katrina's roundhouse is snapping our heads to the left. In both cases, it was a correction we needed, though a terrible way to get it.

Are we going straight ahead yet?

The Hottest New Carnival: GOD or NOT

2005-09-16T16:43:00.000-04:00

[Cross-posted on AmbivaBlog]

What could be hotter? GOD or NOT will be a duel and dialogue of posts on specific topics between atheists and believers (monthly at first, more often as it heats up), with hosts from alternating camps. Fierce debate will be encouraged; there will be zero tolerance for vilification and abuse.

Chris Hallquist, of The Uncredible Hallq, alerted me to this, saying, "Not sure where a self-described spiritual nomad would fit in if you decide to participate."

Here's what I wrote back to him:

COOL!!!! Great idea.

I guess where I would fit in is on the "or"! :)

To get these folks talking to each other, or at least beside each other, civilly (comments should be enabled after the posts!) is a brilliant idea. They may agree to disagree, or they may find out they have more in common than they knew because it was being obscured by issues of language, or they may have marvelous fights in a demarcated ring, or they may generate a third way, but it is definitely a place (as between New Orleans' poor and the rest of the world) where there needs to be more actual contact and de-demonization.

The first GOD or NOT carnival will be at Skeptic Rant, whose blog epigraph is "A man without GOD is like a fish without a bicycle," and the first topic is Original Sin. (An inspired mismatch right there!) Read the rules here. I am very much for this dialogue (in a way, it's been going on in my own comments section for quite a while, between Karen and Sleipner and Michael and all), and I hope to help the carnival founders find what they need most right now -- more believers volunteering to host. My beloved commenter Karen Bathalon doesn't have a blog (she has a dairy farm and four kids, for Chrissake), but as a conservative pro-life Catholic struggling to stay open to people she adamantly disagrees with, she exemplifies the kind of courage I hope believing bloggers will show in charging into this fray.

No Excuse

2005-09-16T13:07:00.000-04:00

Crossposted from the Moderate Republican:

In the days before Hurricane Katrina hit land, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, FEMA Director Michael Brown and other top Homeland Security officials received e-mails on their blackberries warning that Katrina posed a dire threat to New Orleans and other areas. Yet one FEMA official tells NPR little was done.

Leo Bosner, an emergency management specialist at FEMA headquarters in Washington, D.C., is in charge of the unit that alerts officials of impending crises and manages the response. As early as Friday, Aug. 26, Bosner knew that Katrina could turn into a major emergency.

In daily e-mails -- known as National Situation Updates -- sent to Chertoff, Brown and others in the days before Katrina made landfall in the Gulf Coast, Bosner warned of its growing strength -- and of the particular danger the hurricane posed to New Orleans, much of which lies below sea level.

But Bosner says FEMA failed to organize the massive mobilization of National Guard troops and evacuation buses needed for a quick and effective relief response when Katrina struck. He says he and his colleagues at FEMA's D.C. headquarters were shocked by the lack of response.

"We could see all this going downhill," Bosner said, "but there was nothing we could do."

Listen to this National Public Radio story here.

It is really breathtaking to see how incompetent the federal response was.

Live, From New Orleans

2005-09-16T09:55:00.000-04:00

Cross-posted from the Moderate Republican:

I watched President Bush's speech from New Orleans last night. On the whole, I think it was a good speech, but I also think it was about a week too late. I think it would have made more sense to have made this speech the Thursday after the Hurricane hit than two weeks later.

Be that as it may, he had some good ideas of trying to help the Gulf Region. I liked that he wanted to get locals involved in the efforts to rebuild. I liked that he wants to do a full scale review of emergency preparedness plans, though you'd think that would have been done after 9/11.

I thought this passage about poverty and race was interesting:

Within the Gulf region are some of the most beautiful and historic places in America. As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well.

That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action.

So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality.

When the streets are rebuilt, there should be many new businesses, including minority-owned businesses, along those streets.

When the houses are rebuilt, more families should own, not rent, those houses.

When the regional economy revives, local people should be prepared for the jobs being created.

Okay, so he sees poverty as a problem. What's his solution? The President continues:

I believe we should start with three initiatives that the Congress should pass.

Tonight, I propose the creation of a Gulf opportunity zone, encompassing the region of the disaster in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama.

BUSH: Within this zone, we should provide immediate incentives for job-creating investment; tax relief for small businesses; incentives to companies that create jobs; and loans and loan guarantees for small businesses, including minority-owned enterprises, to get them up and running again.

It is entrepreneurship that creates jobs and opportunity. It is entrepreneurship that helps break the cycle of poverty. And we will take the side of entrepreneurs as they lead the economic revival of the Gulf region.

I propose the creation of worker recovery accounts to help those evacuees who need extra help finding work. Under this plan, the federal government would provide accounts of up to $5,000, which these evacuees could draw upon for job training and education to help them get a good job and for child-care expenses during their job search.

And to help lower-income citizens in the hurricane region build new and better lives, I also propose that Congress pass an Urban Homesteading Act.

BUSH: Under this approach, we will identify property in the region owned by the federal government and provide building sites to low-income citizens free of charge, through a lottery. In return, they would pledge to build on the lot, with either a mortgage or help from a charitable organization like Habitat for Humanity.

Homeownership is one of the great strengths of any community, and it must be a central part of our vision for the revival of this region.

Some of the ideas are good. The Gulf Opportunity Zone is kind of an enterprise zone writ large and might spur some economic growth. I'm a little wary of the job training program since there has been some concern that these programs do very little to help people find jobs. The Urban Homesteading idea sounds good, but my concern is how a poor person could get a mortgage or if the influx of people wanting homes would swamp non profit housing agencies like Habitat for Humanity. On the whole, they are all good starting ideas, that need to be tweaked.

The President also noted that future large scale disasters might involve the military, something unheard of in America:

It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces, the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice.

These were all good promises. What remains to be seen and what is always the problem with the President is follow-through. From 9/11 to Iraq, the President has always had a great ideas, but his implementation has always been at issue. For the president to make this work and to also salvage his approval ratings, he needs to take charge and get on top of this. He royally screwed up in the first important hours after the Katrina hit, but he has a chance to repair that mistake if he can crack a few heads and spearhead the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. If not, the GOP can expect the Chicago Effect to hurt the party in 2006 and 2008.

The Perfect Storm

2005-09-16T09:43:00.000-04:00

[Cross-posted on AmbivaBlog]

Michael Reynolds at The Mighty Middle cleverly nails the three competing story lines about the Bush administration, in its conduct of both Hurricane Katrina relief and the Iraq war, that are advanced by the right, left, and center:

1) (Right) Bush & Co. can do no wrong. They're principled, stand-up, can-do guys in a world of traitorous wusses.

2) (Left) Bush & Co. can do no right. They're evil, racist, imperialist, conniving oil-industry puppets.

3) (Center) Bush & Co. can't do. After a promising start in Afghanistan, whatever good ideas and intentions they've had, they've botched out of sheer incompetence.

The tactic of #1 is to accuse anyone who dares to mention #3 of simply being #2. But now, Reynolds suggests, by "tak[ing] responsibility" for the inadequate Federal response to Katrina, as he really had no choice but to do, President Bush himself has opened the door a crack to #3 -- by extension also undermining his administration's already quavery bravado on Iraq.

This story from Yahoo! News (now removed) was quoted at Free Republic:

Islamic extremists rejoiced in America's misfortune, giving the storm a military rank and declaring in Internet chatter that "Private" Katrina had joined the global jihad, or holy war. With "God's help," they declared, oil prices would hit $100 a barrel this year.

AND NOW, THE ANTIDOTE: Purple Stater at Centerfeud quotes and basically seconds a Christopher Hitchens spine-stiffener about how -- despite mistakes made -- it's absolutely crucial to stay and win in Iraq, and to keep sight of the gains already made. (H/T: CommonSenseDesk.)

UPDATE: As I think about it, I somewhat disagree with Michael. I think being able to admit mistakes is actually a sign of strength, and a sine qua non for being able to learn from them. There is a direct relationship between #1 and #3, in that an individual or an administration that cannot acknowledge its fallibility cannot make the necessary and swift course corrections that, in a world of universal fallibility, constitute competence. So it is a promising sign that Bush is acknowledging and resolving to correct mistakes made in the nation's disaster preparedness and response. May he, indeed, do the same on Iraq.

UPDATE II: BLAME AND RESPONSIBILITY

From the Washington Post account of Bush's speech last night, scripted by his first-term speechwriter Michael J. Gerson:

Vickie Johnston, 37, a hairdresser, sneaked into the city Thursday only to learn she had lost everything -- her clothes, furniture, and irreplaceables such as correspondence and photos. She voted for Bush twice but feels betrayed by all government. "They knew New Orleans was a fishbowl. They knew," she said. "Now it's a toilet bowl. How can they do this to us? Why did they let the water get so high?"

In his speech hours later, Bush expressed understanding of such sentiments, acknowledging that the response "at every level of government was not well coordinated and was overwhelmed in the first few days." The lesson he saw was the need for "greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces, the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice."

As he did on Tuesday, Bush said he accepts accountability: "Four years after the frightening experience of September 11th, Americans have every right to expect a more effective response in a time of emergency. When the federal government fails to meet such an obligation, I as president am responsible for the problem, and for the solution."

Many will say that this is a pledge at least as much intended to rebuild Bush's reputation as the Gulf Coast (the two will of course be inseparable), and will comment again on his administration's un-Republican-like penchant for buying support by pledging and spending squadrillions (the differences from Democrats being that they borrow it from China and our children instead of raising our taxe -- bad -- and earmark it for enterprise incentives more than handouts and for more faith- and less Fed-based aid -- good). I too have expressed annoyance at the political motivation apparently driving every carefully calculated move this Administration makes. However, in this case I suspect they're doing the right thing partially wrong for a mixture of the wrong and right reasons. Until the Millennium comes (hey, wait a minute, the Millennium already came and went!), that's the best we can do.

The End of the Line

2005-09-12T16:57:00.000-04:00

Regular readers have doubtlessly noticed that my frequency of posts has greatly decreased. This has partly been due to my family’s cross-country move. But it’s mainly been due to what you could call blog-out. Yep, I’m fried.

Political blogging is a consuming hobby. Unlike collecting stamps or gardening or writing poetry, there is an unceasing immediacy to blogging. To keep the reader traffic flowing, to keep getting quoted on the cable news channels, to keep getting linked by bigger blogs, you gotta keep writing. Slow down and you lose readers. And readers are the point for most of us. Without readers, you might as well be writing in your diary.

At first, the pace was exhilarating. But then it became burdensome. It cuts into my job during the day which means my job cuts into my time with my family in the evening. And that’s just the effect it has on the allocation of my time. Blogging also creeps unwanted into my mind, alters my perceptions of the world. Every event becomes a source for commentary. Every news story a debate just waiting for bloggers to draw the lines.

Now, I love good debate. That’s why I changed the format of this blog to focus more on ideas and less on news. But, you know, not everything in life is a debate. Not every world event is a chance to pick sides. Some things just are. And sometimes reactions just need to be left raw. To debate can be to eviscerate.

And to say blogging is a form of debate is giving most who practice in the medium too much credit. There are extremely good blogs out there, but most blogs are just noise. Most bloggers aren’t citizen journalists or even citizen essayists. They are citizen spin doctors. They aren’t debating ideas. They’re spinning the truth. They’re wasting their intelligence and time trying to force every event, every moment into their pre-conceived notion of the world. They don’t want to add to the national debate. They want to keep debate from ever happening.

Sometimes I think too many people in this country have stopped trying to change the world and are now just trying to redefine its truths.

We created The Yellow Line as an attempt to battle that trend. I’m not claiming a purity of vision. All I’m claiming is that Joe and I (and those who’ve joined us) have made an honest attempt to keep truths as truths and our opinions as opinions—and we’ve tried not to mingle or purposefully confuse the two. We haven’t always succeeded, but we’ve always made the effort.

Yet I have come to wonder if being a tiny voice for reason in the blogoshpere din is worth the tremendous personal effort that goes into this blog. I wonder what real effect I can actually have here and what price I’d have to pay to achieve it. I wonder if blogging is the best way for me to make a difference. And I wonder if I can achieve much more good with my time by focusing on other paths.

So, after a little less than six months of blogging, I am retiring. The Yellow Line will stay alive should all the contributors who post here want to continue to use this forum. But I’m done with blogging for now.

I want to thank all those who’ve read my words and all those who have taken the time to comment intelligently on them. My frustrations with the form of blogging are only a small reason why I’ve made this decision. The primary reason is my want and need to spend my time differently. And while I am highly critical of many bloggers, I want to make it clear that I have nothing but respect for the writers who contribute to The Yellow Line—they are what’s right with the form.

Unfortunately, I no longer have the energy or will to join them.

I will leave with this last comment: Our political system is in serious trouble. The vast majority of leaders produced by our parties are partisan hacks more interested in political power than in governing wisely or even well. We need change. And the people, I’m convinced, want that change. Not just minor adjustments, but fundamental change.

I think the time for talk is quickly passing. It’s now time to act. I’m not sure what that means for me, but I know it will include me in some form or fashion. I may be leaving this blog, but I’m not giving up on the fight.

I’ll see y’all around.

Storytelling

2005-09-11T01:01:00.000-04:00

Over at The New York Times Magazine, Mark Danner presents a frightening analysis of the war on terror thus far.

Let me admit frankly that despite my leftism, when it comes to our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, I am something of an agnostic. Mideast politics has always perplexed and bothered me; I have never been quick to take a stand on much of anything going on over there. And although I am a reflexive pacifist, I've generally been quiet about the decision to send our soldiers to Iraq. I felt going into it -- to invoke Leonard Cohen for a moment -- that there already was a war; the damage done by our sanctions combined with the cruelties of the Baathists had been immense. An invasion, I reasoned, could hardly be worse.

I've also been influenced somewhat in recent years by the writings of pro-war centrists and lefties like Christopher Hitchens, Thomas Friedman, Dan Savage, and Paul Berman, as well as the very capable bloggers Michael Totten and Dean Esmay. Their narratives tell a different story of the Bush Administration. For all its flaws, they see it as conspicuously liberal in taking on the challenge of democratizing the Middle East, a region that for too long has been under the heel of autocrats, theocrats, oligarchs, and warlords. As someone strongly drawn to feminist and pro-labor thinking, I've been particularly moved by their and others' arguments that the US show solidarity with unions and women's rights groups in the region, most of whom are very much pro-intervention.

The pro-war liberals have something else going for them, too: strength of story. Like the neoconservatives, the story they're telling is a stirring one -- profound, challenging, even unsettling at times. Especially for a pseudo-intellectual news junkie like myself, their interpretation of current events can be compelling; certainly more so than most of the antiwar stories going around. Despite my many misgivings about the Iraq invasion, I've avoided actually protesting it because I've found the antiwar story -- one which frequently neglects to acknowledge just how bad the Hussein regime really was -- to be dangerously shallow. There are exceptions of course -- this old Washington Monthly article by Josh Marshall is one of them. But for the most part, while I've been a fellow-traveller with peacemongers before, lately I've been sitting it out.

Anyway, enter Mark Danner to cast a shadow upon my doubt. His article isn't exactly anti-war, although I have no doubt that it will be seized by that movement, and castigated by the prowar liberals and neocons. What it does offer, however, is offer the narrative that the anti-war crowd has long been missing. It describes, in chilling terms, how an invasion could be worse, has already made things worse - at least, for us. This is Cindy Sheehan for the insider set. I expect sparks to fly.

Read it, and tell me what you think. I'm not convinced, either way. If anything, I remain out of my depth on this issue.

Popular Opinion is Right This Time

2005-09-05T01:10:00.000-04:00

There's something a little out-of-place with pointing fingers before a tragedy has even fully passed. But in the wake of Katrina, popular opinion seems to be that the federal government was too slow in its response. And where there is popular opinion, you can guarantee that there will be those who believe they are superior to it.

Power Line has done its usual frantic spin to protect Republican interests. As have other right-wing bloggers and commentators intent on convincing readers that the Katrina failure was completely a local one and that the federal government performed admirably. These opinions are to be expected from partisan hacks. But they aren't alone. Dean Esmay of Dean's World has also joined the voices claiming "there was no problem with the federal response."

I respect Dean. He's a smart man with truly original opinions. But when he gets it wrong, he gets it really, really wrong. His weakness is a rampant distrust of popular opinion. If everyone is saying one thing, Dean feels compelled to say the other. Sometimes that's the right response. But this time, it's dead wrong.

Here's the thing: it’s right to blame the New Orleans city government. They failed miserably to protect and then rescue their city. But to absolve (or even mostly absolve) the federal government is wrong. By last Tuesday night, it was clear the local government was on the brink of failure. Why did it take until Friday for the federal government to respond in any meaningful way?

Don't tell me that FEMA's guidelines say it will take 72 hours to respond. Don't tell me that this was an "adequate" response within the "norm." Don't sit behind your TV or computer and turn this into an intellectual exercise about the proper delegation of power between federal and local governments. Look at what happened. Read what happened. And then ask: should this have happened in America?

The answer is no. I don't care if the response was within the established paradigms. What I care is that the severity of the disaster did not spur the federal government to break free of those paradigms. The federal government could have done better. Should have done better.

Blame the New Orleans government. They deserve it. But don't shield the feds. A government's primary responsibility is to protect its people. The execution of that duty should rely on need, not on guidelines. The need was great. The response was not.

Sometimes popular opinion is exactly right.

Meanwhile, in Other News

2005-09-02T23:56:00.000-04:00

With some quiet backing by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and the Service Employees International Union, among others, some 200 Wal-Mart employees in Florida have formed a self-help organization. Called the Wal-Mart Workers Association, the group is agitating, fairly gently, for better wages, benefits, and insurance against cut hours.

As an advocate for a reinvigorated labor movement, I think this is good news. It indicates that the private unions are listening to feedback from their members, and seeking to really grow the movement rather than pillage from each other. It also indicates that they've shifted their approach for unionizing Wal-Mart to one that is led by Wal-Mart employees themselves. As I've argued previously, such a shift is probably necessary for any advancement towards a true Ownership Society.

Whopper

2005-09-02T19:12:00.000-04:00

I'm not usually one to pick on President Bush's verbal gaffes, but this one is a jaw-dropper:

The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)

What on earth was he thinking? (I mean: what on earth were his speechwriters thinking?) Andrew Sullivan:

Just think of that quote for a minute; and the laughter that followed. The poor and the black are dying, dead, drowned and desperate in New Orleans and elsewhere. But the president manages to talk about the future "fantastic" porch of a rich, powerful white man who only recently resigned his position because he regretted the failure of Strom Thurmond to hold back the tide of racial desegregation.

All I can say to that is: God save us. And I don't even believe in God.

This is How We Respond to Catastrophe?

2005-09-02T11:56:00.000-04:00

Today President Bush said the Hurricane Katrina relief effort has not been acceptable. That’s putting it mildly. American citizens in one of our larger cities have been forced to live in squalor, surrounded by corpses, without adequate sustenance and terrorized by roving gangs. How can this be happening?

The images and stories from New Orleans are practically post-apocalyptic. And I don’t think that’s exaggerating. They are so horrible that I cannot help but wonder if we as a nation are at all prepared for catastrophe. All the time and money spent after September 11, 2001 to ready ourselves for mass disaster—and this is our response?

This was a foreseeable calamity. Everyone who knew anything about New Orleans knew that a powerful hurricane could submerge the city. Did the plan extend no further than evacuating the city before the storm? Did no one consider what to do with those who would not or (in most of the cases) could not leave?

I don’t think it’s too soon to ask these questions. Right now, while we can still see firsthand what is happening—and not happening—we need to ask these questions. If this is how we respond to a catastrophe we could predict, what on earth is our response plan in the event of an unforeseen disaster such as a massive terrorist attack? If we can't handle a flooded city, how can we handle something worse?

After this is over, after New Orleans is again a functioning city, some will doubtlessly say that the response was adequate given the circumstances. That will be wrong. I cannot believe that the response has been adequate or timely or well-planned. Hurricane Katrina has exposed our emergency preparedness as severely lacking.

I pray that God watches over those poor people still trapped in New Orleans and that all the money and aid all of us have given will get to them quickly. Now we must press forward as best we can and save those still stranded as quickly as we can. But we cannot ignore the failings of our government in preparing and responding to this disaster.

Prayers for the Gulf Coast

2005-09-01T10:33:00.000-04:00

I have not yet written about the tragedy that was and is Hurricane Katrina, but do so now even as my words are but nothing in the face of this catastrophe. The images and the stories keep coming and the news does not get better. This is natural disaster on a scale America has not suffered in a long time. From what we know, New Orleans and elsewhere are not only submerged in increasingly diseased-filled waters, but are also in the grips of anarchic gangs of looters and thieves who are turning violent. Many police do not even have stations from which to operate.

Someone even took a shot at a rescue helicopter.

How quickly we can be thrown back. God's wrath (or indifference? or test? or what?) has all but removed civilization from a wide swath of America. Oh, we will prevail. We will turn back the waters, we will rebuild and we will return, but the shock of it all will take time to subside. There will be scars there for decades.

We will overcome. We may not know why this happened, but we know what we have to do. Come together. Show compassion. Heal one another. That's why I hope all who read this who can spare even a penny, give to the relief effort.

Here is a link to reputable charities seeking donations.

Our prayers are with the people of the Gulf Coast.

The Elephant in the Room . . . [UPDATED]

2005-09-01T01:24:00.000-04:00

. . . that all the news anchors delicately tiptoe around -- that the camera announces so loudly into their silence -- is that almost all the looters shown in news footage loading Wal-Mart shopping carts with videogames and Nike shoes are black. And they look giddy and celebratory, like people who've won a shopping spree on a game show, as they indulge in this macabre parody of American consumerism. (One helicopter-borne observer marveled that this was a case of "you can't take it with you," since when the city is evacuated most of the loot will perforce remain behind. It almost looks as if the fantasy being fulfilled was shopping, not owning.)

I wonder what the blogs are saying about this; anchorpeople may mince words, but blogs are not known for euphemism; they're usually refreshingly blunt and opinionated. But I don't know where to look, except Booker Rising -- the wide-ranging black moderate-to-conservative site -- which has two posts, one about the, yes, racist difference between coverage of whites described as "finding" and blacks "looting" food from grocery stores, the other about the racial composition of New Orleans (two-thirds black, many of them middle class and outta there before Katrina hit). Though this post is titled "Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina," it mostly deals with issues other than looting, until the end, where Shay admonishes "Ain't helpin' the cause. Come on, my people, we are better."

First of all, I would like to state that the word "looting" does not properly apply to anyone, of whatever melanin concentration, taking food and drink from a deserted grocery store in the middle of a catastrophe. On September 11, everyone in New York rode the city buses for free. In the same way, in a disaster-stricken city, food and drink belong to whomever needs them.

Gleefully filling shopping carts at Wal-Mart is something else. One of Booker Rising's commenters expresses ambivalent leftist schadenfreude at Wal-Mart's (and Nike's) comeuppance:

I'm not too broken up about people stealing from Wal-Mart, another highly questionable capitalist organization that will have no difficulty recouping their losses through insurance. Also, I take some small satisfaction in seeing people steal Nikes, a corporation that has built its empire on the backs of the poor in sweatshops worldwide. When a pair of $150 basketball shoes only cost you $12 to manufacture and $8 to market, there's a kind of equitable symmetry in seeing poor people steal these shoes, though in practicality I realize that the retailer is the one who's really taking the hit.

What are we seeing in the flooded streets of New Orleans (and Biloxi, too)?

Well, for one thing, a kind of frustrated, pent-up consumerism bursting out in people who are constantly being teased by ads for things they can't afford. (Of course, that's also the rapist's excuse for assaulting a provocatively dressed woman.) More seriously, you're seeing people who are very alienated from any notion of the common good. Blame slavery, or blame liberalism for blaming slavery, but you're seeing people who feel that the social compact does not include them; that society at large has given them nothing, and therefore they owe it nothing.

The proximate cause of looting is the combustible mix of opportunity plus poverty. Poor people loot -- but then again, most poor people don't, and not all looters are poor. Would some poor whites do the same? Sure. (We have to assume the cameramen are not selectively filming black looters but are simply filming what's there; the majority of New Orleans' poor, as of its population, are black.) But do more poor whites identify more with authority and mainstream culture, making them law-abiding citizens who support the corporate establishment against their own economic self-interest, as progressives like Thomas Frank complain?

My guess is that the answer is ultimately more cultural than economic, although the two are hard to separate. Remember the phrase "the culture of poverty"? You might as well talk about "the poverty of culture," a disease that, it could be argued, also afflicts some high-living, double-bookkeeping CEOs, even if they do contribute lavishly to the symphony. People, white or black (or other), who are influenced by a strong religious or cultural value system will not loot, however poor (or rich and powerful) they may be, while people whose only religion or value system is greed and grievance will -- often, however well-off they may be. I'm thinking, too, of the late '60s-'70s fad for shoplifting among middle-class kids. Abbie Hoffman's Steal this Book. It was called "liberating" stuff back then.

Maybe, in the flooded Wal-Marts of New Orleans, it still is.

UPDATE: This morning the "looting" is so violently out of control -- a Chinook helicopter preparing to carry refugees to the Astrodome had to call off its operation when it was shot at -- that it's clear all we're talking about now is the culture of criminality. Gangbangers and thieves are terrorizing everybody else. That fraction of every population that is only kept in check at all by law enforcement is reveling in its absence and completing the hellish destruction Katrina began. Anyone who romanticizes lawlessness should take a good, long look.

UPDATE II: Ann Althouse has a good post on this, quoting Peggy Noonan -- who also says that taking necessities of life should not be confused with "looting" -- and with many thoughtful comments, the gist of which is that thugs now were thugs long before the hurricane. This issue has nothing to do with race, except the human race -- every group has its thugs.

[Cross-posted on AmbivaBlog]

John McCain: Fickle Friend of Gays

2005-08-31T11:07:00.000-04:00

Crossposted from The Moderate Republican

If one has followed this blog, then you know that I've been a follower and admirerer of John McCain. He seems like a modern incarnation of Teddy Roosevelt. He has come out against the how corrupt the GOP has become and has stood for pragmatism at a time when the Republican Party has become more ideological. He stood against the far right when he ran for President in 2000 and I was pleased to see a Republican do that. I knew that his views were more conservative than I am, but I still liked him.

And now, McCain has just stabbed me in the back.

McCain has come out in favor of a change in the Arizona constitution that would ban same sex marriages.

To say that I'm shocked, is an understatment. McCain has been a hero to gay Republicans like myself and he has a place on Log Cabin's Hall of Fame. It might be time to take him off that list.

To me, this smacks of pure politics. He's running again in 2008 and is probably fearful that the far right might attack as they did in 2000. If he thinks sacrificing gays is going to sway them, he has another thing coming. They can't stand him, and trying to shore up his far right bona fides ain't going to change things.

I have no idea why he is doing this, especially at a time when a growing number of Republicans, like Christie Todd Whitman and John Danforth, are calling for a more tolerant GOP.

This is a slap in the face to all gay Republicans who have supported McCain. I was all ready to support him in 2008, but I'm now going to have to rethink that. I would counsel all fair-minded Republicans to do the same and let McCain know that.

Proposal Four: Require Cleaner Cars

2005-08-31T10:39:00.000-04:00

Proposal four in Mark Satin’s radical middle agenda is to reduce oil dependence on the Middle East via requiring cleaner cars. Satin writes:

Raising fuel economy standards is the most effective single way to reduce oil dependence -- cars and light trucks account for a whopping 40% of U.S. oil use…We should increase fuel economy standards for new passenger vehicles 5% per year for 10 years so that they reach 44 mpg for cars and 33 mpg for light trucks by 2015, with improvements of 3% per year beyond 2015. That level of improvement is technically feasible now and would not compromise vehicle safety.

First, it’s important to note that Satin’s motivation for this proposal is not the environment but is dependence on Middle East oil. I am constantly amazed at how little our government is doing to lessen this dependence despite how much it obviously harms out security and our ability to interact honestly with the Middle East. Despite what some would have you believe, simply drilling more and building more refineries is not a magic-bullet solution. Greater domestic production could be helpful, but reducing demand should also be a major component of any genuine energy plan.

But do we need laws requiring fuel efficiency? With rising gas prices, the marketplace is already creating a condition where consumers will be demanding cars that get higher gas mileage. Plus, greater awareness of the need to reduce fuel consumption is also spurring consumers to purchase hybrid vehicles. I myself just bought a hybrid and discovered that demand was so high that there wasn’t a single one on any dealership lot in the city—I had to wait until the next shipment arrived from Japan. And this all happened in Texas—not a state known for demanding fuel-efficient vehicles.

Generally speaking, I only support laws that rectify a problem the free market is incapable of handling on its own. And I think the free market is handling the fuel consumption issue fairly well. But I don’t know if it’s handling it fast enough. If this were merely an environmental issue, I’d be much slower in supporting new laws requiring higher gas mileage (although I readily support tax breaks that reward makers and consumers of such vehicles). But this is also a national security issue and it’s one that probably can’t wait for the free market to sort out the problem.

We need stronger action. And Satin’s proposal is right on target. I’d want to see an analysis on the economic impact that a fuel efficiency law would have, but the proposal seems reasonable. I think it would be beneficial for the nation and wouldn’t substantially burden the automakers.

Reducing the number of gas-guzzling vehicles on the road is a commonsense effort that the homefront can make in helping us win the war on terror.

Proposal Three: Patient Capital

2005-08-29T11:04:00.000-04:00

Proposal three in Mark Satin’s radical middle agenda is what Satin calls “patient capital.” He writes:

The only other income that wouldn’t be taxed is income on investments held for five years or more. Capitalism can’t work if investors only care about getting rich quick -- biggest single lesson from the Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, etc., scandals. It’s in everyone’s interest for American businesses to do long-range planning and build wealth over time rather than worry overmuch about short-term shareholder value.

At first glance, this proposal seems less important than some of Satin’s other ideas. But think about the implications. By taxing all income on investments that have been held for less than five years, the patient capital program would punish short-term investing—a major form of modern investing. There would be less incentive for investors (individual and corporate) to “ride the wave” and more incentive to think long-term and add real value to investments.

In many ways, I like this proposal. It in no way prevents individuals or companies from selling investments quickly—it just assesses a tax penalty if they choose to do so. But I wonder how it would affect the common investor who owns mutual funds. Even if we try, most of us do not track exactly which stocks and bonds our mutual funds hold. If our fund manager is moving around investments and that movement nets us a profit, would we be penalized? I’d hope not. I’d hope it’d be enough just to own the mutual fund itself for five years and not each individual investment within the fund.

But that would create a giant loophole where mutual fund managers could continue to buy and sell investments at a quick clip without suffering the tax penalties for doing so. And when it comes to money, once a loophole is opened, creative accountants will exploit it for all it’s worth.

I think, while a solid starting point, Satin’s “patient capital” proposal needs some greater detail so as to protect the interests of the common investor. Perhaps the five-year tax rule only cuts in if the investment is worth above a set amount (say, $30,000). Or perhaps the threshold is graduated to tie the number of years an investment must be held to its total worth (i.e. one year for a small investment and up to five years for the largest investments). Or perhaps, in the case of mutual funds, any tax would have to be absorbed by the broker and not the customer.

There are certainly other solutions. And they should be considered because I think the proposal has a lot of merit.

UPDATE: It should be noted that the “patient capital” proposal only works in a flat-tax or even our current taxation system. A VAT system would not levy taxes on any kind of income. It would promote fiscal responsibility on the purchasing side rather than the income side.

Joining the Fray

2005-08-27T12:31:00.000-04:00

I want to (belatedly) jump into the discussion about Mark Satin's "Twelve-point creative-centrist agenda" - I'm sorry I haven't done so until now; blame it on the August blahs. I'm going to try to discuss one or two of Satin's proposals every couple of days, as Alan and others have been doing.

First off, let me try to offer my take on Mark's first suggestion, a balanced budget constitutional amendment. Alan quotes it here and offers his strong support, as does Tom (here). While I very much support fiscal responsibility in government (I've been yapping about pork-barrel spending for months now), I am quite leery of constitutional amendments, regardless of subject. I'd much rather the people elect fiscally responsible legislators and have them make decisions to keep the nation's fiscal house in order.

Yes, I know, you've all got bridges to sell me. I believe the ballot box is a better way to hold legislators and abetting executives accountable for overspending than making an attempt to change the constitution ... but I also recognize that American voters have not been willing to exercise their prerogative and hold pork-barrelers to account. Instead, they re-elect them.

As Alan says, centrists must be the voice of fiscal sanity today, since both political parties have pretty much abandoned it. We have much work to do to convince other Americans, of all political stripes, that supporting truly fiscally responsible candidates (and then holding them accountable once they're elected) is the best way to combat not only pork-barrel spending, but also irresponsible tax and deficit spending policies as well.

I don't oppose the concept or the intentions of a balanced budget amendment. But I would rather see other steps taken instead, steps that don't rise to the level of amending the constitution. I outline some of the possible options for pork-fighting here - other specific steps would need to be implemented (and then stuck too!) in regard to tax policy and annual budgeting (triggers, "pay as you go" rules, etc.). What these require is the election of fiscally sane representatives and executives who will enforce rules and not spend like drunken sailors while continually calling for ever more tax cuts at the same time. Is that too much to ask?

We have much work to do to persuade the American people that fiscal responsibility is better than the current trend. But somebody's got to say it.

FDA "Stumped" Over Plan B; Fetal Pain Article Prompts Hate Mail

2005-08-26T21:26:00.000-04:00

[Cross-posted on AmbivaBlog]

(Listening to ABC World News Tonight:) They've determined that Plan B is safe for girls over 17, and could be sold to them over the counter; but how to prevent girls younger than 17 from using it? Under pressure to make a decision, and afraid or unable to make one, the FDA has taken the unprecedented step of throwing the matter open for 60 days of public discussion and comment. (The FDA calls this "taking action.")

So let the comments fly, folks! But how? Where? A look around the FDA website reveals a "Submit Electronic Comments" link, but no "open docket" on Plan B on which to comment -- at least not yet.

Opponents are still saying easier availability of Plan B "would embolden young people to engage in more risky behavior," even though a study of over 2,000 California women ages 15 to 24, conducted by the Center for Reproductive Health Research and Policy at UC San Francisco, showed no such effect. The study found that easy availability of Plan B made young women likely to do only one thing more often: use Plan B.

Plan B can prevent ovulation, fertilization, and (possibly) implantation of a zygote, or fertilized egg, according to these guidelines from The McKinley Health Center of the University of Illinois:

HOW DOES PLAN B WORK?

Plan B works through delaying or preventing ovulation, by interfering with fertilization (inhibiting the movement of the egg or the sperm through the fallopian tube), and may inhibit implantation by altering the lining of the uterus. It is not effective if the process of implantation has begun. Plan B will NOT cause a miscarriage. . . . Pregnancies occurring despite treatment do not have an increased risk of adverse outcome.

Plan B should be taken as soon as possible after unprotected intercourse.

HOW EFFECTIVE IS IT?

Plan B may reduce the risk of pregnancy by 95% when taken within the first 24 hours after unprotected intercourse and by 61% when taken between 48-72 hours. Recent research indicates that taking Plan B between 96 and 120 hours after unprotected intercourse continues to provide some protection against unwanted pregnancy. Plan B is not as effective as using consistent contraception with each act of intercourse and should not be considered a routine contraceptive method. Plan B is effective only for this particular act of intercourse . . . and will not provide any contraceptive protection during the remainder of this menstrual cycle. It is very important to use a consistent method of birth control for the remainder of this cycle.

WHO SHOULD NOT TAKE PLAN B?

Plan B should not be used if a woman is pregnant or suspects that she may already be pregnant.

If you believe, as I do, that actual life (not potential life) begins with implantation (I'll have more to say about this in Part III of the AmbivAbortion Rant, coming soon), then Plan B should be an important piece of a problem pregnancy and abortion prevention strategy, along with abstinence, responsible use of contraception, and encouragement of adoption.

MEANWHILE, MORE NEWS ON THE ABORTION FRONT: The editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association defended her decision to publish the UCSF "fetuses probably feel no pain" study "despite receiving criticism for not disclosing the abortion-related work of two of the authors." According to Daily Reports from kaisernetwork.org:

[T]he article does not mention that study co-author Eleanor Drey, a UCSF OB/GYN, is the medical director of the abortion clinic at San Francisco General Hospital . . . The review also does not mention that study lead author Susan Lee -- a medical student and a lawyer -- worked in the legal department of NARAL Pro-Choice America for eight months in 1999 and 2000. . . .

DeAngelis -- a Roman Catholic who opposes abortion -- said she has received dozens of "horrible, vindictive" e-mails condemning her for publishing the review. She said she will publish properly submitted comments on the review in an upcoming JAMA issue but added that there is "nothing wrong" with the review. DeAngelis said the review was based on data from dozens of medical articles by other researchers, adding, "If there weren't four other authors and this wasn't a peer-reviewed journal, I'd worry ... but I don't" . . . . DeAngelis also said Drey did not have to reveal her scope of practice as an OB/GYN, but added that she will find out more information about Lee's work with NARAL Pro-Choice America and give the authors "the opportunity to explain why they didn't reveal it."

Critics of the review have said the affiliations of the authors are important when considering its results, the Chicago Tribune reports. "These are people with years of professional and ideological investment in the pro-abortion cause, not some neutral team of medical professionals," Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said. Marcia Angell, a senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School and a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, said, "Suppose there were an article that said that (fetuses) do feel pain and it was written by people who were involved in the right-to-life movement. Would I want to know that? I think I would". . . . [Another scientist asked for comment said] "The standard for disclosure in medical and scientific journals is not your politics . . . There's no obligation to tell people what your mind-set is ... as long as the data is sound and gathered objectively".

Go to the Kaiser article for sources and links.

What do you think? Should the "abortion connection" have been disclosed, and do you think it necessarily affects either the selection or the interpretation of the data? (Remember that this article was a broad review of previously published studies, not a new study.)

The rather callow Terry Moran ended his ABC News report by saying that the JAMA editor had stated she still had complete faith in the study's . . . pregnant pause, attempt at significant eye-roll . . . "integrity." Moran tried to infuse that last word with, I don't know, heavy irony? sarcasm? ambiguity? It was such a strange, awkward signal -- ABC News trying to display its lack of liberal bias? Moran doing his own editorializing? But the editorial was unreadable. It was as if he was trying simultaneously to channel both Peter Jekyll and Sean Hyde.

Proposal Two: The Flat Tax

2005-08-23T12:52:00.000-04:00

Proposal two in Mark Satin’s radical middle agenda is the implementation of a flat tax. Mark writes:

Our current tax system is wasteful beyond measure. Simply complying with the tax code imposes national costs exceeding $150 billion annually. And despite its ostensible “progressivity,” the code -- now 60,000 pages long -- is so riddled with loopholes that wealthy Americans end up paying far less than they should…
A flat tax should be adopted instead. A flat tax would scrap the entire tax code and tax all Americans at the same rate. Wage, investment, and pension income tax would be collected from individuals. A tax on profit would be collected from businesses. All deductions and credits would be eliminated…Virtually the only income not subject to tax would be a generous personal exemption -- say $20,000 for a single adult and $40,000 for a family of four. That’s why the flat tax would be more progressive, in practice, than today’s so-called progressive income tax.

I am certainly a fan of tax simplification. It is basically impossible for the average American to prepare their own taxes without help from either a computer program or a tax preparer. And even then, the system is a Gordian Knot of deductions, rules and penalties.

But is a flat-tax the answer? I don’t know that it is. My primary concern is that, even with Satin’s allowances for the poorer earners among us, it seems like a rather regressive idea. If the flat tax was at, say, 17%, that 17% taken out of a $50,000 salary is a much greater burden than the 17% taken out of a $400,000 salary.

If we’re going to go with a complete-overhaul (and I don’t see how tinkering with the current system can work), then I’m much more inclined to support a Value Added Tax (VAT). I’ve written about the VAT before (here, here and here) and have discussed its advantages and drawbacks at length.

A VAT is a type of sales tax . In his writings, Satin dismisses the effectiveness of a national sales tax because it’d be too easy to cheat. But a VAT is notoriously difficult to cheat because it is structured so that taxes are paid at each step of a product’s manufacture and distribution and not just at the point of sale.

Given that a VAT would be an effective system of tax collection, it would also be more progressive than a flat tax in that it taxes expenditures, not income. There would of course be products exempt from a VAT (fruits, vegetables, mortgages, etc.) but most everything would be taxed in lieu of an income tax. The transition can be rolled out slowly over a course of years to prevent the inevitable sticker shock that will come when all our goods are more expensive. But that extra expense will be more than made up for by the savings we would have in not paying an income tax.

If you are poor and buying mainly sustenance goods, you’d pay very little tax. If you are rich and buying luxury items by the boat loads, you’d pay a ton of taxes. In that way it is progressive. It also would promote savings as it would entice people to think twice about purchasing the plasma TV they don’t really need and can’t really afford.

But there are drawbacks. As long as there can be an income tax, the federal government might feel obliged to levy one. And that can only be prevented by repealing the Sixteenth Amendment (not an easy task). Plus, a VAT can be raised a quarter point here and a quarter point there to pay for new, potentially unneeded programs—making it a far too easy way to tax us heavily.

But if we’re going to support a radical change to the tax system, a VAT allows for more flexibility and more fairness than would a flat tax. Its drawbacks are certainly less problematic than the current system and, with the proper thinking and planning, a VAT could be the answer to our tax woes.

Family Values & Politics

2005-08-23T10:07:00.000-04:00

Earlier this summer, TYL regularly criticized the Republican meddling in the Terry Schiavo case, expressing our alarm that the federal government would pass a law aimed specifically at one family’s private tragedy and questioning the Republican’s dedication to “family values” after they routinely failed to acknowledge the wishes of Ms. Schiavo’s husband in the case.

Family values debate will again reenter the national debate in light of a decision by the California Supreme Court that grants both members in same-sex relationships full rights and responsibilities in child-custody issues.

I certainly support parental rights of same-sex couple and have advocated previously on this site that same-sex couples deserve the same legal recognition as married couples. The national parties preach a lot about families, yet they do little to support programs that provide families, specifically low-income families, needed services. If we truly care about family values we would support any family structure that can provide a loving home for a child.Our nation needs to invest greatly in community-based mental health service, early childhood education, and day-care facilities.

De-Mushy, Revisited

2005-08-22T11:25:00.000-04:00

Reader gljunket reminded me that I had promised to start a conversation about Mark Satin's 12-point proposal for a creative-centrist platform. I'm not really a policy expert - far from it, as a matter of fact, but I guess I brought this on myself. So without any further adieu...

1. Balanced budget amendment. I don't really have much to say about this -- it's a natural part of any sane platform. What it would take to move it through Congress, where spending bills conjure crazed lust like the scent of freshly smoked chorizo, is another matter entirely.

2. Flat tax. I agree with Satin that our tax code is too complicated. However, as another Mark points out here, there is a logical leap from saying "our tax code is too complicated" to saying "we need a flat tax."

Those with greater incomes have a greater ability to pay. Satin acknowledges this somewhat by including a large personal exemption of $20,000 for individuals and $40,000 for a family of four. As an individual who makes about $20,000, this is undeniably attractive to me. However, I would be remiss in not pointing out that our balanced budget amendment, above, would require that the government makes enough money to cover its ass, and that many of the last 10 platform proposals require significant funding. It is not at all clear to me that Satin's tax proposal would cover the needs of the federal government, even assuming a massive reduction in pork. If not, his flat tax could turn out to be seriously regressive, especially if it were expanded to include a sales tax (like the so-called "fairtax").

I could potentially be persuaded of a flat tax for work income, given the significant personal exemption above. However, I'd be incredibly leery of applying this principle to investment income for anything other than retirement accounts. As the more sane Democrats are arguing nowadays, we should value work over wealth.

3. Patient capital. Pass.

4. Require cleaner cars. I'd add that we should significantly up our R&amp;amp;D investment for alternative fuels, especially biofuels (although watch the agriculture subsidies rocket if that ever takes off). And we should probably expand the use of nuclear energy as well. The old-school lefty in me isn't wild about that last one, but hey, France did it.

5. Minimum retirement income of $15,000/year. I'm not sure what to make of this one yet, honestly. There's probably a whole separate post or two about it in my head, hopefully to be published sometime in the future. For now, I'll say that I'm very wary of benefits that get expressed in dollar amounts without being tied to any other criteria.

6. Universal health care via private insurance. Not an awful choice, and certainly better than the status quo. You can read more about Satin's thinking here.

That said, I'd have to qualify this as the least radical of his radical-middle proposals. It just doesn't seem very inspired; I'm not sure why, exactly. Perhaps because, like HillaryCare, it's a rather incestuous private-public alternative to single-payer health care; private in name only, or PINO for short.

Why is this? Because the level of federal subsidation involved would be considerable. As we all know, health insurance is not cheap; divorced from the group rates achievable by employers, it is even more expensive. Much more expensive than auto insurance, which Satin compares it to. My guess is that the majority of taxpayers would have trouble paying for mandatory health insurance without some kind of subsidy. What results is an indirect subsidy to the health insurance providers; given what we know about subsidies, we can only expect it to increase over time.

7. Education reform via utopian fantasy. Okay, I shouldn't be so snarky. Actually, Satin and Miller are completely right on this topic; for all the promotion and criticism of NCLB, the need for competent, empowered teachers has much more to do with solving our educational system's woes. However, is the "grand bargain" Miller describes politically possible? My guess is that it's definitely NOT possible given the status quo; the Democrats would alienate a huge fragment of their base, and the Republicans have staked out a very different terrain with regard to education.

8. Universal parental counseling and preschool. Took me by surprise. Seems like a good idea, but a little touchy-feelie.

9. A nest egg from birth for poor children. I find this and the next one to be the most intriguing of Satin's proposals. There are some problems with it -- for instance, the determination of who's eligible seems rather arbitrary. For instance, what if a poor kid's parents strike it rich five years later? Or worse, what if a non-eligible family has a crisis and becomes poor after the child is born? What protection is there if the market goes splat? But these don't seem like insurmountable challenges to me, and the expenditure is really pretty modest.

10. A national service draft. Not the most popular of Satin's proposals, if you look at the numbers -- but if done right, I think this would sell. Calls to service always resonate with people; I'd say one of the mistakes the current administration has made, actually, is not to call people to service more than it has. I remember when, about a year after 9/11, Bush gave a big speech about the importance of service, calling on every citizen to volunteer for 2 years. It was one of his more impressive speeches, and yet it was quickly forgotten, because there was no follow up.

Satin's proposal might help military recruitment; it would definitely help national guard and peace corps/americorps recruitment. It would help create a culture of service, which in a society that values competition and greed as much as ours seems wise to me. I'm in favor.

11. A whopping increase in foreign aid. I know amba's itching to give Satin a smackdown on this one. The basic problem with foreign aid is that so much of it ends up getting diverted away from the people who actually need it -- and so often goes to line a dictator's pockets. I don't know enough about Sachs' proposals to really say if he's right or not, but that would definitely be my major concern here.

12. Opening the agricultural and textile markets. I'm strongly in favor of this. However, it's relationship to #11 - which might very well act like a subsidy to third world farmers and weavers - needs to be considered. I know it's hard to be a family farmer in the third world; it ain't easy in the first world. If we remove our subsidies here and give them to farmers in other countries, I wouldn't blame our farmers for becoming seriously pissed off.

Proposal One: A Balanced Budget Amendment

2005-08-22T11:01:00.000-04:00

Earlier this month, Mark Satin, Centrist thinker and publisher of the Radical Middle newsletter, published a 12-point creative Centrist agenda that he feels, if adopted, could rid Centrists of the “mushy middle” label and propel us to prominence.

Here at The Yellow Line, we vowed to discuss each point. And so we will. Over the next several weeks we will write about each of the 12 points and hopefully spur debate on their merits, drawbacks and feasibilities.

Proposal One is:

Balanced budget amendment. As James Fallows memorably conveys in a recent article ("Countdown to a Meltdown," Atlantic Monthly, July-August 2005), current fiscal “policy” is going to bankrupt this nation, possibly even before the Baby Boom Generation now in charge dies off. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects record deficits totaling $1.2 trillion over the next five years alone.
Congress should pass a Balanced Budget Amendment. In an exuberant, contentious democracy, voluntary “pay-as-you-go” Congressional rules can never work. The Amendment should require Congress to raise enough revenue each year to cover the next year’s projected expenditures -- and to pay off some proportion of our mountainous debt as well.

In short, I strongly agree with this. A balanced budget amendment was actually part of The Contract With America but never got through the Senate. Of course, nowadays, even Republicans have little use for fiscal responsibility. And that’s why this can be such an important issue for Centrists.

If Centrists aren’t going to stand up and oppose the excesses and fiscal irresponsibility of the federal government, who will? You don’t have to be an economist to understand the severely negative consequences that will come from running up our national debt and yearly deficits. There’s only so long that we can carry such a heavy debt load before our economy suffers.

I’ve always felt that Centrists can generally be defined by their support of responsible action (on a personal and governmental level). And surely fiscal responsibility should be the cornerstone of any Centrist economic plan.

New Ideas in Election Reform: Approval Voting

2005-08-20T10:18:00.000-04:00

Robert Rouse of A Little Left of Centrist has posted an interview with Rob LeGrand, head of Americans for Approval voting. The group is advocating a method of voting that would allow voters to cast a vote of approval for any and every candidate on the ballot whom they feel would be an acceptable choice.

This sounds a lot like instant runoff elections (a method actually used in Australia) where voters rank candidates from favorite to least favorite. If no candidate gets a majority of first level votes, then the second level votes are tallied for the two top contenders. Approval voting seems similar, except that instead of creating automatic runoffs, it allows for voters to actually vote for more than one candidate at a time.

I’m all for election reforms, even if implementing them will be difficult. But I’m not sure approval voting is a system I can support. My biggest problem with it is that it allows for multiple voting by individuals. It’s not any different than casting two (or three or more) ballots—which is illegal and illegal for a good reason.

Instant runoffs, however, could be just as effective of a reform but are less radical in that voters are still casting only one vote. And they could still afford the moderating influence that LeGrand thinks can come form approval voting. In both systems, candidates would have to try to appeal to the broad electorate instead of simply motivating their bases.

But instant runoff is the better system, in my mind. Thanks to Robert for taking the time to conduct and post this fascinating interview.

Over the Line?

2005-08-19T14:26:00.000-04:00

Crossposted on the Moderate Republican:

So, is Cindy Sheehan's protest outside the Bush ranch going to win the hearts and minds of the great American Middle?

Not with these comments:

COOPER: Cindy, I was reading some of the essays that you've been writing about the war over the last couple of months. In one you say the war is blatant genocide and you go on to say, and I quote, "Casey was killed in the global war of terrorism waged on the world and its own citizen by the biggest terrorist outfit in the world, George and his destructive Neo-con cabal." Do you really believe the president of the United States is the biggest terrorist in the world?

SHEEHAN: I believe that he's responsible for the needless and senseless deaths of more people than any other organization right now. There was 3,000 people killed on September 11th, which was a tragic day. Our nation still mourned it. I still mourn for those people and their families. But tens of thousands of innocent people are dead in Iraq, Anderson, and there was no reason for the war. The war was based on lies and we know that now.

COOPER: But when you say that the president, I mean you're essentially saying the president is a terrorist. I mean I think a lot of people would hear that and think what are you talking about?

SHEEHAN: Well, you know, I've heard a lot of -- a lot of definitions of that and it's the definition they kill innocent people, you know, and his policies are responsible for killing innocent people and I say the organization is killing innocent people and it needs to stop.

We know that he said there was weapons of mass destruction and we know he knows that there weren't. There was no link between al Qaeda and Saddam and we know he knows that there wasn't, so we need to stop the killing now and I'm here to confront him.

COOPER: You said that it's blatant genocide. I mean you really think the United States is trying to eliminate an entire group of people, all Iraqis?

SHEEHAN: There's 100 -- there's an estimate 100,000 to 200,000 innocent Iraqis dead because of our occupation, either by bullets and bombs or by disease, malnutrition and he says we're doing it for the Iraqi people. How many do we have to kill before we convince them that what we're doing is right over there?
From Anderson Cooper's 360.

Now it's one thing to say that the President has botched this war, or that he was wrong to go to war in the first place. I say that all the time. But it is a whole different thing to say that the President is a terrorist, that kills innocent people. I wouldn't doubt that there has been some deaths that can bve attributed to Americans, and we all know about Abu Gharib. But, what the insurgecy has done is far worse. They have sought to kill innocents. And the people behind the New York, Madrid and London bombings sought to kill innocents and kill as many as they can. These are terrorists, not the President.

As for genocide, again, I see no evidence. I haven't heard of deliberate killings such as what is going on in Darfur or what happened in Rwanda or Bosnia.

These comments sound like comments made by some on the far left which are so ridiculous that they aren't worth debating.

I want to believe that Ms. Sheehan is being manipulated by the far left. I don't want to believe she true believes this. Either way, this will not connect with Middle America, who might be fed up with the war, but don't think that Bush is the greatest evil the world has ever known.

I don't think this was a necessary war. With that, I can agree with Ms. Sheehan. But I can't agree that this President, as much as I disagree with him, is a terrorist that is perpetrating genocide. To do so, would be morally suspect in my view.

Back On Line

2005-08-19T12:29:00.000-04:00

For the last five days I have been without Internet access (blame SBC for not getting my new home set up on time). I am now back on-line and am in the process of catching up with the news (I also have had limited TV access) and the blogosphere.

I should be back and posting soon—although the frequency will still be reduced for at least another week as my family and I unpack and get our new house situated.

Thanks to all my fellow co-bloggers for keeping The Yellow Line up and running with such thoughtfulness.

I’ll be back soon, but I leave with this thought: While off-line, I constantly needed information available only on the Internet—or at least incredibly hard to find without the Internet. Every company I dealt with wanted me to go on-line. Many friends and colleagues tries to contact me on e-mail accounts that I couldn’t check. I felt completely and frustratingly detached from society.

So I wonder, is Internet access now mandatory to fully participate in American life? And, if not, will it soon be that way?

Third-Way Psychology

2005-08-18T22:32:00.000-04:00

[Cross-posted at AmbivaBlog]

Mark Satin at Radical Middle celebrates two psychologists -- and fine writers -- who bring a centrist sensibility, both tough and tender, stand-up and searching, to the argument for the examined life:

[Robert] Karen’s . . . elegant essay "Shame" was featured in the Atlantic Monthly in February 1992. . . . [H]is latest book [is] The Forgiving Self: The Road from Resentment to Connection (2001) . . . .

Karen worked as a journalist in New York before settling on psychology as a profession; Terrence Real spent his entire 20s messing around and writing unpublished fiction. Now he’s a member of the senior faculty at the Family Institute of Cambridge, Mass., and author of two books that are richer and more moving than anything you’ll find on the contemporary fiction shelves today . . .

I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression (1997) [follow the link to see the awesome reader reviews this book gets from men], and
How Can I Get Through to You?: Closing the Intimacy Gap Between Men and Women (2002) . . .

[T]heir written work is driving at exactly the same things, the same hard psychological truths we need to know now. (Is it only a coincidence that both of them write beautifully? Karen writes like Chekhov, quiet, delicate, haunting, and Real writes like Dreiser, his prose driven by huge gusts of emotion you can only marvel at.

(And is it only an accident that both of them share personal stories in their books, a practice still somewhat frowned upon by Important Professionals from the Northeast? Or that both of them end books watching over their dying fathers and mourning the connections that were never made, never there?

Here are just a few of their good ideas (much more at Radical Middle):

Third way. Satin writes:

Both Real and Karen reject the extremes of the dominant culture. Real strives to avoid both "manipulation" and "accommodation." Karen . . . laments both the "political correctness of the left" and the "moral righteousness of the right." Real’s guiding vision is pure radical middle:

Now more than ever, in this uneasy time of transition, men and women in our society must be encircled by a third force, larger than partisanship to either sex, a vision beyond blame, nostalgia, or platitudes about immutable differences. . . . This is not feminist work, any more than it is “masculinist.” It is the next step for all of us.

(I've been hearing a lot about Terrence Real and his bracing road map to that "next step" from my close friend Dalma Heyn, who quotes him in her forthcoming book about the last stumbling blocks before the next step, Drama Kings: The Men Who Drive Strong Women Crazy.)

Fathers and Sons. There's been much theorizing on both the left and right about what boys need from their fathers -- some arcane transmission of masculinity. Terrence Real has one shockingly simple word for it. "Affection."

An End to Victim-Think. "Karen argues that 'we collude in or have some sort of responsibility for much of what befalls us.'"

Embracing Complexity and Ambivalence. Satin again:

Real wants us to acknowledge that closeness will always trigger discomfort, even trauma -- it’s "inescapable in close relationships" -- and that we need to learn to give our partners "space to recoup."

Karen says that "openness to complexity" is a big part of personal growth, not to mention mental health. His book on forgiveness teaches that a "totally forgiving posture is neither possible nor desirable" . . .

Real says we never really resolve grief, we simply learn to live with it. [Whew! At long last, we can get some closure on closure!] He also says we get "something" in a relationship but not "everything," and that the question we need to be asking ourselves is always, "Are you getting enough?" If you are getting enough, then you’ve got to learn to mourn what you’re not getting -- not resent your partner for not having it to give.

Karen is equally accepting of ambivalence and imperfection. You’ll have ambivalent feelings in any relationship, he says. Not everything can be therapized away. The "ability to live with ambivalence -- with both love and hate but with the love predominating -- is perhaps what most distinguishes the forgiving from the unforgiving personality."

At the end of the piece, Satin makes a provocative leap from psychology to politics, claiming that only "a psychology that’s in love with complexity, ambivalence, and connection" can undergird a politics of listening, negotiation, and inclusion.

Call it . . . nuance with cojones.

Fighting Pork: What Can Be Done?

2005-08-18T08:21:00.000-04:00

Cross-posted at Charging RINO.

I have been railing about the state of overspending and fiscal indiscipline from Congress and the White House for months. I am ashamed to say that aside from urging the president to get serious and follow through on his threats to veto spending bills that represent budgetary irresponsibility, I have not offered enough in the way of concrete solutions. That is not because there aren't any reasonable solutions, so I want to outline some of those here. Obviously the best solution would be for American voters to hold drunken-sailor-spending legislators and presidents accountable at the voting booth, but so far we haven't seen any evidence that's going to happen anytime soon. So what can be done?

1. Increasing Threshold for Legislative Riders and Earmarks. Several times in the last few years, most notably in mid-2003, Senator McCain and others (then Kyl, Sessions and Feingold) have introduced amendments to the Senate's rules which would have done much to tighten spending discipline in that chamber (similar efforts have been made in the House). Their proposal called for a change to Senate Rule 16, which governs amendments to appropriations bills. Currently, a senator may make a point of order against any legislative rider or unauthorized appropriation contained in a spending bill or a conference report - but it only takes a simple majority of senators to kill that procedural move and allow the rider or earmark to proceed unchecked (so often I suspect such points are not even bothered with since their fruitlessness is recognized: no senator, not even McCain, is willing to be "that guy" all the time by holding up every bill on multiple points of order). McCain's plan (which he outlines in a speech here in much greater depth), would raise that threshold to 60 votes, a three-fifths majority. Unanimous consent might be a more effective approach but I'd take 60 over the status quo.

2. Ending Conference Committee Shenanigans. Another portion of several versions of McCain's plan would have amended Senate Rule 28, which covers the Senate's handling of conference committee reports. At present, the Rule states that no provision may be inserted into a conference report which was not passed by either the Senate or the House during the original appropriations process. As before, however, only 51 votes are needed to overturn a point of order against extraneous insertions (and again, usually the points of order aren't even made). Conferees regularly insert huge numbers of provisions into their reports, many of which have absolutely nothing to do with the underlying legislation (see the partial list in McCain's recent floor statement on the highway bill). I'm sorry to be linking almost solely to McCain items here, but since he's one of the very few in Congress actually concerned with such things I don't really have any other options. As with Rule 16, McCain has proposed raising the threshold for this point of order to 60 votes, which would certainly do something to improve things.

3. Allow Time for Scrutiny of Conference Reports. Currently a provision of Rule 28 allows the Senate leadership to bring a conference report up for debate as soon as the report is made available at the desk of all senators. That means that if the conference committee finishes debate and copies are made and distributed, a report can be debated and voted on literally within hours. Senators and representatives (i.e. their staffs) can (and often do) have very little time to read and absorb the provisions of the conference reports (many of which, as stated above, have been slipped in by the conferees unbeknownst to all those outside the conference) before they are asked to vote. Many of these reports amount to thousands of pages, and while it is too much to expect that our representatives would actually examine what they're voting on, I think we deserve at the very least the security in knowing that they were given the option. I would propose an amendment to Rule 28 mandating a two or three day 'waiting period' between the completion of any conference report and when senators and reps are asked to vote on it. Violating that waiting period should require a two-thirds majority vote. The House already has a three-day rule, but it does not apply during the last six days of a Congressional session and it is regularly waived at all other times. It too should be strengthened.

In all cases of Senate rule changes, it would be necessary to require a roll call vote on the points of order, so that all senators would have to go on the record as voting to allow extra material in the spending bills rather than just sliding it through.

Changes to the Senate rules can be filibustered (and usually are), which means reform proponents would have to garner 67 votes for these amendments. Pragmatically speaking, the likelihood of that happening is probably pretty close to nil right now ... but that's where we come in. We should urge our representatives and senators to propose these rules changes during the 109th Congress and move the debate forward. I read somewhere a few weeks ago that Senators McCain and Durbin were planning to propose a waiting period but have been unable to find anything concrete. All senators should be encouraged not only to propose but also to support these rules changes, and similar efforts to beef up the rules should be undertaken in the House.

4. Impose term limits for appropriators. Not surprisingly, large percentages of the pork spending in appropriations bills goes to those writing the bills - the members who sit on the House and Senate committees of jurisdiction. Members of those committees should be rotated through every six years or so (as the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste has suggested) so that they don't become entrenched and addicted to the spending power that the appropriations committees offer.

5. Enact a constitutional line-item veto power. With all the legal and political acumen around this country, there has got to be a way to come up with a line-item veto law that would pass Supreme Court muster. A line-item veto would allow a president (though probably not this one, since he's shown little inclination to rein in spending in any way) to strike out extraneous material from spending bills without vetoing entire bills and possibly wreaking havoc on many good and necessary programs. [Update: We've been having a great discussion about this specific step down in the comments at Charging RINO; make sure to check that out. Basically the concern, which I have been persuaded by, is that while theoretically a line-item veto power would be an effective way for a president to cut pork out of spending bills, today's presidents - acting as they are in a generally partisan way - would not be even-handed enough with their slicing. A serious concern, to be sure, and one that probably undercuts the practical usefulness of a line-item veto, even if one could be construced and approved by a future Supreme Court.]

These are just a few possibilities for fighting the battle against pork-barrel spending. None of them, not one, will be easy to implement; acceptance of any of these would require a serious shift in perception by our current political leaders, which will only be brought about through a wide-ranging effort by us to make them understand that we don't want our government to operate this way.

Ending wasteful government spending doesn't begin or end with either Congress, the executive, or the public alone. It will require the commitment of all, which makes any immediate change quite unlikely. It's not going to happen in a day, or even in a year, but sooner or later, these steps or some others like them will have to be taken in order to right our fiscal ship of state.

I'd invite you to offer your own suggestions for decreasing excessive spending in the comments, and I'll provide updates if we see any movement on any of these.

Common Sense on Immigration

2005-08-17T09:07:00.000-04:00

[Cross-posted on AmbivaBlog]

Read both this post on A Moderate's Musings and David Brooks's Sunday Op-Ed column. You'll get a quick, clear overview of the two immigration-reform bills now working their way through the Senate. Moderate Man prefers the McCain-Kennedy bill to the tougher, but in his view less realistic, Cornyn-Kyl bill; Brooks thinks the two can and should be combined. But both writers stake out a sensible centrist position between two bad ideas: a sweeping amnesty (which would give easy cover to terrorist sleeper cells) and a sweeping crackdown (which would only drive illegals deeper underground). Both face up to three undeniable realities:

• American employers want large supplies of hard-working, low-wage foreign labor.
• Such workers want to come here because our "low wage" converts into a bonanza back home that enables them to become home- and landowners, and/or because they harbor their own American dream. They want to come here so badly they will die trying.
• In an age of terror, we must have a better way of knowing who comes across our borders and tracking what they do once they're in.

Moderate Man:

Under the Cornyn-Kyl bill . . . [c]urrent illegal aliens would have to leave the U.S. within five years, but could then apply for the temporary-worker plan from their home countries. The problem with this is the deportation process. The Cornyn-Kyl bill essentially calls for all illegals to pack up whatever livelihood they have established here and turned themselves in to be sent back. Do these senators really expect these people to go along with this . . . ? And when (not if) they don't comply, how are immigration agents going to find them . . . ? Because of its high unenforceability, this bill will do nothing to help us keep better track of who is coming into the country.

The McCain-Kennedy bill, on the other hand, creates a new worker visa for unskilled laborers and establishes a formula for determining the annual number to be issued. The application process would require security clearances, medical checks, and a fee. A work visa could be renewed after three years, and, after four years, a worker could apply for a green card leading to citizenship. This provision allows immigrants a safe, legal method to work in this country. . . . It will thus ease the now overwhelming amount of illegal traffic border patrols . . . have to deal with, and allows them to treat those who still try to enter illegally with greater suspicion. . . .

Under McCain-Kennedy, [current] illegals will be able to gain citizenship, but only after a lengthy process and the payment of fines [and back taxes].

Brooks:

Tough enforcement laws make us feel good but they don't do the job. Since 1986, we've tripled the number of Border Patrol agents and increased the enforcement budget 10 times over, but we haven't made a dent in the number of illegals who make it here. We've got agents chasing busboys while who knows what kind of terrorists are trying to sneak into this country.

The problem is that we make it nearly impossible for the immigrants to come here legally. We issue about 5,000 visas for unskilled year-round labor annually, but the economy requires hundreds of thousands of new workers to clean hotel rooms and process food. We need these workers but we force them underground with our self-delusional immigration policies. . . .

The only way to re-establish order is to open up legal, controllable channels through which labor can flow in an aboveground, orderly way. We can't build a wall to stop this flood; we need sluice gates to regulate the flow. . . .

Practical people understand the only way to establish law and order is to create a temporary-worker program and step up enforcement to make sure people use it.

[The two bills i]n the Senate . . . if combined would get us a long way toward a solution. The McCain-Kennedy bill has an effective temporary worker program. The Kyl-Cornyn bill has tough border security provisions. . . . [T]he sponsors of both may come to realize the two bills are not rivals. They complement each other.

The issue of immigration from Mexico, in particular, is personal for me. I have a friend in North Carolina who bitterly resents the transformation of her traditional world by floods of non-English-speaking strangers whom the system, in her view, accomodates and coddles instead of demanding they adapt. And I have a childhood friend who now lives in Oregon, who came across the Rio Grande one night on his father's back, much as my mother's father came across the Prut between Russia and Romania on his uncle's back, half a century apart, both on their long way to Chicago. "Chato," as he was called at fifteen, sends me the short stories he's writing, funny and piercing, about the pain of that adaptation. When I found him again over the Internet after about 40 years, one of the first things he said to me was, "We were wetbacks, you know."

My North Carolina friend's grievances are legitimate, and when I listen sympathetically to them, they hurt the part of me that knows Chato, because I feel how they would pierce him.

UPDATE: Cutler's Yankee Station has gathered some highly pertinent related information. What percentage of adult Mexicans want to immigrate to the U.S.? What percentage of U.S. Latinos think illegal immigrants should get driver's licenses? Go see. (H/T: Dean's World.)

Steal This Society!

2005-08-15T23:25:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, Jonathan Cortis published a piece about The Ownership Centered Workforce. It was a hell of an essay, and in my view has not yet received the attention it deserves. So go read it, now.

Back yet? Okay. I've been a little slow in responding to Jonathan's post, mostly because the matter of which he speaks is something that I care about deeply, and I wanted to take some time to really think about it before posting. In short, I think the transformation Jonathan is describing is a very important development: the slow-mo democratization of American capitalism. What's most amazing about it is that it's happening despite little recognition in the media, and little government involvement. And at the root of it all, as Jonathan says, lies our concept of ownership.

Like Jonathan, I'm someone who buzzes a bit at the words "Ownership Society." For one thing, it's the kind of paradoxical turn of phrase I love, conjoining the selfishness of "ownership" with the communitarianism of "society." It speaks to what I think is a huge problem in the world, the fact that many workers don't feel (or receive) any ownership over the product of the labors, and that most owners are unconnected with the production of their property. This dual alienation is a root cause of many of our struggles over the distribution of wealth.

It also highlights what for me is the core problem with the current administration: they're great at marketing, but they have nothing to sell. As Jonathan also points out, the Bush vision of an "Ownership Society" is terribly, terribly underdeveloped - it basically comes to nothing more than creating further tax incentives for stock investment, as if tax-sheltered IRAs were not enough. It is not transformative, does not try to solve any problems...does not do anything, really, except feed the notion that something is being done.

At the same time, however, the true Ownership Society is busily creating itself, and no one's listening. Jonathan gave the example of American Airlines. Let me provide a few more:

1. The maturation of open-book finance: In the early 1990's, Jack Stack, the CEO of employee-owned Springfield Remanufacturing Corp., wrote a book that has slowly but steadily transformed American small business. That book is The Great Game of Business, and it turned one of the bedrock concepts of business success on its head.

For decades, the majority of American small businesses operated under a simple system of division of labor. Employees were given a single area of responsibility, were expected to do it well, and to not care about what employees in other divisions or departments are doing. This has especially been the case when it comes to the management of a company's finances. Normally, the only people to even see the finances of a company are the owners (or shareholders), the accountants, and top-level managers.

What Stack did at SRC was change the game. At the time, SRC was in a state of crisis. Desperate for solutions, he and the other managers started sharing the financial data with the rest of the staff - and at the same time, taught them how to read and analyze that financial data. The result was a completely different brand of organizing, as the floor employees were encouraged for the first time to think like the owners they were. Because SRC is in a highly cost-competitive industry, this meant brainstorming ways to reduce their costs in order to maximize their profits, dished out through a system of playful yet competitive "games." Their company's fortunes turned around dramatically. He then wrote The Great Game about the effort, sharing tips and strategies for other business leaders interested in trying the same approach.

From the book: "The best, most efficient, most profitable way to run a business is to give everybody in the company a voice in saying how the company is run and a stake in the financial outcome, good or bad."

In the business world nowadays, open book management is becoming old hat. Inc. magazine runs an article on it every five minutes or so; the number of small and large companies that have successfully adapted some or all of Stack's approach seems to be significant (if hard to count). It is amazing to me, however, that the potential political implications of this approach have rarely been considered. Open book management is a sea change in how American businesses are organized; it has a strong track record, and suggests that in many markets, empowerment of workers is key to financial success. Some notably successful businesses, like Whole Foods, Costco, and now American Airlines, have clearly heard the message. But political analysts remain mostly unaware of this development.

2. The transformation of unions: As most everyone knows, the AFL-CIO just broke up, with the most prominent private labor unions seceding. This had been threatening to happen for some time, and has led some smirking commentators to predict the demise of the labor movement entirely. I expect the opposite. The problem with the AFL-CIO in a nutshell is that the private labor unions have very different interests at this point from the public labor unions. To survive, the private unions need to recruit, recruit, recruit. The public labor unions have a far more vested interest in protecting the gains of tenured employees and longterm positions. These two interests are incompatible. As someone who is fairly fervent about the labor movement, I think the breakup is a very good thing.

One significant and underreported aspect of this change is the fact that the private unions understand that the very role of unions must change in order to meet the needs of their members. Consider this Matt Miller article on Andy Stern, head of the SEIU. The idea of reorganizing unions to be employee-service associations is not new, but has gained momentum in recent months, and if anyone is well positioned to try it out, it's Stern.

I'll go a step further than Miller does and propose that this approach is key to solving one of organized labor's biggest dilemmas: unionizing Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is masterful when it comes to stalling unionizing efforts, but that's in part because the unions have made it easy on them; it's fairly clear that not enough Wal-Mart employees have bought in to the value of organizing. What the unions are selling, they're not buying. So it's time to sell something different. What do Wal-Mart employees want?

The answer: benefits. Health care and child care. These are the areas where Wal-Mart employees remain on the government dole, at tremendous expense to taxpayers. A union that could successfully organize these benefits for Wal-Mart employees without interacting with Wal-Mart itself would go a long, long way towards unionizing Wal-Mart. It would provide just the kind of flexible organization tha Wal-Mart employees need right now.

All of this is to point out that the "new union model" that Jonathan and Alan Stewart Carl have written about is already in development. A union that organized Wal-Mart workers in this way would not only succeed in meeting some of their most crucial needs; it would also give them ownership of that organization in a way that makes sense for them. The best unions have always been vibrantly democratic, attuned to the shared needs of their members. The SEIU's model harks back to this, and can be duplicated elsewhere.

3. The rapid rise of ESOPs, CDCs, and co-ops: (Disclosure: I serve on the board of directors of a food co-op) A few weeks ago in The Nation, Gar Alperovitz published this article (now subscription-only) on the rise of a "progressive ownership society" made up of employee stock-ownership plans, community development corporations, and co-operatives. The article contains some astonishing statistics: there are over 11,000 American companies significantly or totally owned by their employees; over 2,000 CDCs nationwide. From my own experience I know that there are 40,000 co-operatives nationwide, including ten thousand credit unions with over $600 billion in assets.

All of these represent the "ownership society" in a different light: that of shared ownership. And this, too is key: all of these types of organization are currently on the rebound. Co-ops in particular went through a long phase of disintegration in the 1980's, as landmark institutions teetered and fell, not unlike the more recent travails of unions. They simply fell out of touch with what their members wanted; burying themselves in the spirit of the 60's, they could not see the changes going on all around them.

That era of idealistic collectivism is dead, but a smarter collectivism that honors the individual has risen in its place. The last 15 years have been kind to co-ops, especially food co-ops. Some of that is changes in the market - organic foods certainly weren't mainstream items in 1989 - but more of it has to do with changes in the co-ops themselves. Go to a co-op conference like I did in June, and you'll hear about the strength of collective ownership systems in one room -- and fostering entrepreneurialism in the next. Like the ESOPs and privately-owned business influenced by The Great Game of Business, co-ops have learned the value of smart financial thinking, and have wisely recaptured their original mission as self-help organizations that look out for the economic needs of their members.

Lessons

The "Ownership Society" needs to be saved from itself. It's dangerously close to becoming an empty slogan, which is too bad because the potential for a genuine ownership movement is out there. What I've tried to do in this article is display more of the evidence that an "Ownership Society" could be a real and effective addition to a radical-middle platform.

As Stack himself has written, in the age of a global economy, the era of 10% annual raises is over. There's simply too much low-price competition, and the protectionism espoused by isolationists in both major parties creates more problems than it solves. Yet there remains a need for a political party that speaks to the financial stresses of ordinary people. The broadening of business ownership could help alleviate those stresses in a genuinely American manner.

I'm not sure what role policy would play in all this - it seems quite possible to me that policy doesn't have to play a role at all. The changes I'm describing are occurring in the market; if they ceased to be competitive, they would fall out of existence. Despite their "progressive" results, the success that they've experienced has occurred without any meaningful governmental meddling. That said, I'd love to gather a crack policy team and ask: are there fiscally sustainable changes we could make to our laws and regulations that would support these trends?

Brokaw's Idea

2005-08-14T12:39:00.000-04:00

Cross-posted slightly differently at Charging RINO.

I wanted to just chime in quickly today and recommend an op/ed from Tom Brokaw in Sunday's Washington Post. Drawing on his experiences reporting with American military personnel in Afghanistan, Brokaw suggests the creation of a 'Diplomatic Special Forces' corps, which he envisions as a kind of "Peace Corps plus."

The foreign service should "recruit young men and women who want an adventurous life ... and [p]ut them through crash courses in local dialects and skills relevant to the areas where they will be assigned. Place them in military outposts in remote areas, an arrangement that would have the added benefit of forging bonds between the military and the diplomatic corps. Give them extra pay and set the bar high so they have the same elite status as the Pentagon's Special Forces," Brokaw writes.

Besides providing a "different American face" to local civilians, these special forces would be able to take responsibility for some of the "nation-building" duties now handled by military personnel, assisting with the creation and re-creation of infrastructure - from schools to hospitals, etc. in various areas of the world.

While obviously there might be some logistical problems with Brokaw's approach, I think he's got an interesting concept. It is this kind of "outside the box" thinking that's got to be done at the very highest levels of government to devise new ways for Americans to see and be seen around the world (the latter being more important). Slickly-produced television ad campaigns might reach more people, but I'd be willing to bet that face-to-face contact would be far more impactful.

If nothing else, Brokaw has started a healthy discussion. I'd like to see it continued.

In a comment to this post at Charging RINO, Wilderwood noted that "crash courses" in preparing young Americans to deal with other cultures will not lead to real understanding of other cultures. I agree that crash courses alone are insufficient ... but combined with a period of exposure to different peoples and ways of life, this would certainly be better than nothing. And obviously this plan is nothing formal, but a springboard for further thoughts and debate. A debate the country could certainly stand to have.

The Center: Land of Con-Fusion?

2005-08-12T07:35:00.000-04:00

[Cross-posted on AmbivaBlog]

PRO-CON. The very name is enough to warm an ambivalent's heart. Heck, I can be pro and con the same thing at the same time!

They're Progressive Conservatives, in the U.K., Canada, and now the U.S. The term has legs. Jude Wanniski, one of the founding fathers of supply-side economics, coined it in 1979 to describe the Reaganauts, and Randy Piper, Ph.D., MBA (that's how he signs his posts) re-coined it, all unknowing, in 2004. I've described myself as a Proservative or a Congressive, so I can already relate. They've anointed themselves the Next Big Thing in conservatism, and they're storming the blogosphere with an e-mail blitz. Here's their U.S. website.

Who are these guys?

The first thing you notice about them is that they're good, almost too good, with a slogan. They've got this Branding-Framing thing down and screaming for mercy:

• Diffusion of Con-Fusion: The Birth of a Political Brand.
• Bridge Brand: Pro-Con Fusionism
• The Progressive Conservative ReView & ReKnew
• PURPLE Federalism
• Rubric's Cube [ow!]
• Progressive Conservatism is the Growth DNA for Conservatism.
• Dr Gingrich is a great policy synnovator. [a blend of synthesis and innovation]
• [Michael] Moore is Less.
• Read ON...and...Right ON!!
• a Grand Unifying-Perspiring-Inspiring Metaphor (GUPIM)

Here's their "Values Portfolio" (an expression which all by itself melds principle and profit, doing well and doing good):

• Freedom, Family, Faith
• Peace, Prosperity, Progress
• Rewards for Risks, Risks for Rewards
• Tradition, Tolerance, Technology
• Ownership, Opportunity
• Rights, Responsibilities
• Pursuit of Happiness, Pursuit of Hope
• Health, Wealth
• Steadfast Security

You can hardly argue with that. But look closer -- it's more than just clever, or blandly inclusive. It's a true fusion (or as they'd probably say, con-fusion) cuisine. Look at "Tradition, Tolerance, Technology." The notion that tradition and tolerance could ever coexist is a novel, if not a naïve, one. And yet that's what's going to have to happen if people insist on preserving their ancient identities and beliefs in a modern, global world. Will technology bring traditions into violent contact and conflict, or will it become the culture medium of their coexistence, their mutual respect? Is the latter pure wishful thinking -- or something that is already happening?

Getting down to brass tacks, from an essay called "Diffusion Of Con-Fusion: The Birth of a Political Brand" (my paraphrases are in brackets):

• Pro-Cons are fiscal conservatives and supporters of private property rights.
• We believe in smaller and smarter government.
• Pro-Cons defend most markets at most places at most times. [But not all markets, such as, say, markets in fetal tissue.]
• Like Neo-Cons, Pro-Cons believe that humans do not live by bread alone. . . . Incentive-based economics is important, but not primary. [In other words, these are values conservatives, not utilitarian libertarians.]
• Pro-Cons stake claim to the metaphor of Eagles. We are neither doves nor hawks. . . . Think of Pro-Cons as “constrained” Neo-Cons [who believe in "Peace Through Strength" and in pushing dictatorships toward democracy, but not necessarily in military action, at least not as a rash first resort.]
• [Pro-Cons are context-aware globalists, and border protectors who don't believe America's door should be wide open -- or tight shut.]
• Pro-Cons support the movement toward freer and fairer international trade.
• [Government can play a limited role in incentivizing responsible corporate behavior, retraining displaced workers, and protecting the environmental commons from free-lunch exploitation and degradation.]

Particularly interesting is their way of handling divisive social issues like abortion and gay marriage. Rather than tackle them head-on with a one-size-fits-all set of values, or seek a broadly acceptable compromise, ProCons fall back on federalism:

Pro-Cons are social moderates and social conservatives . . . commingling . . . Our general decision rule is that Federalism should apply to most social issues at most times. Many, if not most, social issues should be decided by the states and even by counties, not by the national government. [The example here is Nevada, which allows each of its counties to decide if it will legalize or ban prostitution.]

By embracing and celebrating this division of powers, we think that the perpetual conflict generated by divisive social issues will subside somewhat. Equally important, the states as laboratories of democracy will produce a diverse set of options that individuals and families can incorporate into their respective moral and religious value systems. These decision-makers will be better able to choose a mix of values and recognize a series of trade-offs. For example, some states may offer better economic opportunities but not offer equally attractive social value conditions.

This envisions a United States even more morally Balkanized than it already is; one wonders if the Union would even hold together. I prefer Randy's frank admission that "I am pro-choice and pro-life" (in other words -- he's Pro-Con!), and his inability to resist proposing a national compromise strategy that would both permit and discourage first-trimester abortion.

Who Pro-Cons admire:

• Ronald Reagan (their Abraham Lincoln, it seems)
• Newt Gingrich
• Rudy Giuliani
• Christie Whitman
• Jack Kemp
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Frank Meyer (former senior editor of National Review, who conceived of "Fusionism," a way to reconcile the traditionalist and libertarian wings of the conservative movement)

I'm sort of liveblogging my reading of the Pro-Con website. Right about now I'm thinking this movement should really be named TradLib instead of Pro-Con, but never mind. Just don't make the mistake of thinking that the "Progressive" in Pro-Con suggests some sort of reconciliation or fusion with liberals-by-any-other-name:

Pro-Cons will yield neither the content nor the package of “progress” to liberals. Pro-Cons will not surrender the present or the future use of “progressive” to liberals. As conservatives, we reclaim and wear proudly the progress and progressive mantles!

In other words, these folks are staking out the center-right. Their bottom line, in the words of Lee Edwards of the Heritage Foundation:

The core fundamental [is] "the freedom of the person, the central and primary end of political society." The state [has] only three limited functions: national defense, the preservation of domestic order, and the administration of justice between citizens.

Whew! I'm exhausted. I've got metaphor fatigue. The more I look at it, the more I realize this site is manned and written singlehandedly by Randy Piper, who must be one of those hypomanics that supposedly supercharge America -- his exuberance is in overdrive as he goes about "planting the intellectual seed capital" for this new movement (is the right metaphor here Randy Appleseed, or a prize bull?). Here's his bio:

Randy Piper, Ph.D., M.B.A., M.P.S. . . . Randy has worked on new product development and technology transfer projects for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Southeast Manufacturing Technology Center, and the Department of Energy. He has worked on projects for libertarian and conservative think tanks, including the Reason Public Policy Institute, Heartland Institute, and Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE). He was designated a Salvatori Fellow by the Heritage Foundation from 1991-1993.

Randy has conceptualized and invented various systems, including PESOP—Public Employee Stock Ownership Plan in “Employee Options Under Privatization.” He also developed the Piper Education Inverted J-Curve (not to be confused with the Laffer Curve). The Piper Curve reveals the relationship between public school expenditures and performance outcomes.

Randy thinks that Progressive Conservatism has the potential to forge an alliance between people who proudly identify themselves as conservative and centrists who don't. As a centrist, I'm not put off by the conservative label, but I did have to peel off the annoying marketing shrink-rap to get to the meat:

Though the Pro-Con sub-brand has not been formally formulated and introduced to our lexicon and discourse, we believe that this sub-brand has great appeal to those currently loyal to the Conservative master brand. Moreover, we think that the Pro-Con intellectual product will have immense appeal to those who are not currently loyal to the Conservative brand.

Now the next time a Pro-Con comes at you, you'll know: it's not a pushme-pullyou, but possibly someone you can make common cause with when we're pegging down that big tent in the center -- as long as he speaks English.

A Few Thoughts From the Road

2005-08-11T11:42:00.000-04:00

After nearly three days on the road as I drove between Washington, DC and Dallas, one observation sticks out. There are a LOT of eighteen-wheelers on the road.

An economics professor once told me that if you wanted to get a true sense of how the American economy is doing at any given time, you have to go count the semis rumbling down the interstates. If this is at all an accurate measurement, then our economy is doing quite well. I saw thousands of the big trucks in my journey. They easily outnumbered the cars.

This in turn led me to another thought: all these trucks run on gasoline. Our entire lifestyle runs on gasoline. Without the ability to affordably move products and raw materials all over the country, we wouldn't have the life we do. Not even close.

We can talk about how our thirst for oil ties us too closely with the Middle East. We can talk about how all these vehicles on the interstates pollute our environment. But really, what's at stake is our way of life. If oil reserves dwindle or if gasoline prices continue to rise, all these products we count on will become more and more expensive--prohibitively expensive in many cases. And while I have faith that the ingenuity of Americans will eventually overcome this problem, I wonder if that can happen before we feel the hurt.

I saw a lot on the road this weekend, but what I realized is our dependence on oil is an a vast dependence. But I also realized there is a better way to talk about energy concerns other than focusing on the Middle East or the environment. Those are important, but not as salient as the greatest reason why we need to find ways to ensure our energy needs continue to be met and continue to be affordable: our lifestyle hinges on it.

Centrism and the Threat of an "American Hiroshima"

2005-08-10T13:17:00.000-04:00

Marcus Cicero has an amazing post, on both Donklephant and Between Hope and Fear, titled "Sitzkrieg's End." He has bestowed a name, analogous to and as potent as "Cold War," on the paradoxical waiting game we're playing with the jihadis:

The rules of M.A.D. -- all or nothing -- gave us a false sense of safety during the Cold War. In an all-or-nothing world mired in a vast global political struggle, each side could attain relative normalcy. Normal life was disproportionate to the high stakes of the nuclear standoff -- and we got used to it. All those layers of morality we built over that blinding apocalyptic core of immaculate annihilation could work a lot of miracles, providing that the promise of destruction was mutual, and total.

It turns out the Cold War amounted to an entire half century of having it all, creating nominal safety. The nothing part of M.A.D. -- Armageddon -- never came to pass. And so we did indeed create a playground of prosperity: Shopping malls, freeways, cheap global travel, and the Internet; the plethora of things, rock-n-roll, the rise of socialism and multiculturalism; baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet. We got very used to that. Three generations grew up in the soil of transparent global war.

M.A.D. conditioned us to have our cake and eat it too. But today's WMD perils are unlike the days of M.A.D. In the Cold War, we could depend on the rationality of our adversaries, the Soviets. We could mutually agree on something, heinous as it was. . . .

Since 9/11 we have enjoyed the seemingly endless dawn of Sitzkrieg -- a period of declared emergency, but undeclared war. Our malls remain open, and gasoline flows freely. The housing market is hot. Mobilization for war is something we read about. But now there are multiple indications that terrorist nukes are either here, or coming, or in the making. Perhaps this is a long way off; perhaps it's hearsay; perhaps it is close at hand. . . .

Now our adversary is nihilistic and irrational, and mass destruction has become much more possible precisely because it is not total. Cicero's question is: are centrists tough enough to take this on -- tough enough to do what's necessary to prevent at least some of it (like cracking down on the Mexican border), tough enough to keep a reeling post-attack society from careening into extremism?

[I]f we want a meaningful definition of centrism, it should be something that can withstand the shocks of catastrophic terror. . . . It must work with the realities of our time, even if they're cataclysmic.

If not, our principled and reasonable moderation is nothing but a luxury of these fat, queasy times, and will be blown away by the blast wave of the first smuggled nuke. A must, must, must read.

What is Profiling?

2005-08-10T11:38:00.000-04:00

Cross posted at "Thoughts of an American Centrist"

To begin an embroiled debate centered around the tension between law enforcement, anti-terrorism, and civil liberties, one need only mention the word "profiling." Of course, it's not profiling per se which gets people so uppity, but rather what they assume you mean, namely, racial profiling. Racial profiling by definition describes the automatic suspicion of guilt based solely on race. I will acknowledge that such a practice is discriminatory, counter-productive, and insulting. However, I don't want to talk about racial profiling today. Instead, I want to talk about profiling of a different type: behavioral profiling. I believe that creating a sketch - a profile - of the types of people likely to commit terrorist acts is absolutely essential to successfully protecting the public good.

Webster's lists one definition of the word "profile" as:

4 : a set of data often in graphic form portraying the significant features of something... a graph representing the extent to which an individual exhibits traits or abilities as determined by tests or ratings

Note the use of the term "significant features." The word is plural. To effectively hold an accurate mental picture, police officers must be able to look for and recognize a variety of factors, including reticence to questions, nervous glances, paranoia, when appropriate, race. Racial profiling is not the act of using race as one piece in a criminal profile, but of using race as the only characteristic.

Kira Zalan writes a very compelling argument for including race in the list of factors that make up a terrorist profile:

We must stop pretending that the terrorists so far, by-and-large, have not been of the same ethnic origin. This will reasonably narrow down the search for potential perpetrators. But, it makes ALMOST as little sense to stop every Arab or North African in NYC today as it does to stop every 5th random person. Therefore, the profiling must be even more exact than race to be effective.
Israel has been perfecting the art of profiling, and has successfully prevented El Al (national airline) hijackings since 1970. The profilers are trained to look for signs of suspicious behavior (body language), which provides effective clues of whom to question. Barring exceptional con artists, body language is a dead give away of suspicious behavior. In fact, police officers are trained to look for such clues when dealing with everyday criminals.

The results: plenty of Arabs fly El Al, and yet enough people have been turned away to prevent terrorist attacks since 1970.

So why not fly some Israelis to NYC to train New York’s finest on such tactics?

Now that idea makes a lot of sense.

People Seeds

2005-08-10T10:27:00.000-04:00

[This is a repost of a post from AmbivaBlog in May. I would not normally dig back into archives -- even for want of anything new to say! I'd just shut up! -- but the stem-cell and emergency-contraception discussions are far from over, and this post stakes out a genuinely centrist position where there didn't appear to be one.]

From an L.A.Times editorial (now in the paid archives, alas), "Stem Cell Hypocrisy":

[E]ncouraging the donation of frozen embryos to prospective parents, even under the most optimistic scenario, would put only a small dent in the supply. According to a 2003 study, there are almost half a million frozen human embryos in storage in the United States. The vast majority of them — 87% — were frozen in case the parents might need them, but the vast majority of that vast majority will never be needed or used. An embryo-adoption drive wouldn't save the embryos that die in other stages of the process. And ironically, the recipients of donated fertilized eggs also generally have several implanted in the hope that one will survive. In effect, donation results in the deaths of embryos that would otherwise stay frozen.

Half a million!

Bottom line: Those who oppose embryonic stem cell research on moral grounds must either oppose in vitro fertilization, or stand convicted of hypocrisy. If frozen embryos can be discarded and destroyed, then there can be no objection to donating their cells for research, the way you might donate a dying relative's organs for transplant. If frozen embryos cannot be discarded and destroyed, then they should never be created, even if it means that some couples must reconcile themselves to infertility and adoption.

I would like to propose a third alternative.

Devout Catholics will disagree, but I think that life proper can accurately be said to begin with successful implantation. Many naturally conceived embryos (some estimates run as high as 50%, but we'll never know) do not succeed in implanting in the womb, either because of some factor in the embryo or because the woman's body is not receptive at the time. It may be no coincidence that embryos can easily be grown in a Petri dish and then frozen at the 8-cell stage, and with more sophisticated techniques, at the blastocyst (hollow-ball) stage, at which the embryo is ready to implant -- but no further.

The fact that their development can be suspended and then restarted might encourage us to think of these embryos as "people seeds." Each is the seed of a unique individual, but only at the moment when that seed is accepted by a woman's womb, sheds the "seed coat" of the zona pellucida, takes "root" and begins to grow, does that individual's potential life become actual, acquire "a local habitation and a name."

This would be, to me, both a metaphorical and a literal expression of the fact that there is no human life without relationship. We would not have a language, a name, the ability to survive, or even an existence without one another -- without at least one other, a mother, and all the relationships that in turn support her.

It would also be an argument for an emergency contraceptive like "Plan B" as the last threshold short of abortion. This will not move anyone who believes it should be up to God, never us, whether an act of sex creates a life or not. But it seems to me that a woman's psychological or relational or economic unreadiness to be a mother might be as legitimate -- if not as "innocent" -- as any involuntary biochemical reason for her uterus to be unreceptive.

I understand and even partially agree with the arguments that life or God often knows better than we do, and that things we're unready for can turn out to be -- especially given an attitude of principled surrender -- some of the best things that ever happened to us. But they can also be some of the worst. For every story of an unplanned child becoming a blessing, there is one of awful suffering all around. The argument that we may be turning away the genius who would find a cure for cancer can always be answered by the argument that we're just as likely (i.e., not very) to be turning away a future mass murderer. Abortion is violent because it rips out a life that's already on the way, breaks a bond that has already been struck. "Plan B" is less like a two-edged sword than a "No Vacancy" sign.

If we thought of very early embryos as "people seeds," it might be less problematic to accept that, whether in the fallopian tube or the fertility clinic, not every seed gets planted.

UPDATE: William Saletan in Slate writes that sure enough, pro-lifers are gearing up to restrict in-vitro fertilization, so that a couple will be allowed to create only one or a few embryos at a time. (Added thought: while this might make it harder to conceive, it might also protect the mother from the risk of ovarian cancer that may be incurred by extreme overstimulation of the ovaries with fertility drugs. Gilda Radner thought this might have been the cause of the cancer that killed her.)

I have serious qualms about the wisdom of IVF. But I'm also frightened by the absolutism of people who proclaim every zygote's right to life, when God or Nature itself recognizes no such thing. The real question, it seems to me, is not whether every "people seed" ought in principle (has a "right") to be planted, but whether human will is or is not one more legitimate factor in determining which, or when. (That is, I'm more interested in Plan B than in IVF.) The notion that hormonal fluctuations or imbalances are from God, while family planning is not, is at the very least an interesting one. The Catholic assumption, I think, is that as long as these matters are entirely beyond our control, they are heaven-sent -- whether what Heaven sends is infertility, Down's syndrome, or an eleventh child.

Biannual Lunacy Plus Two Weeks

2005-08-10T08:22:00.000-04:00

Cross-posted at Charging RINO yesterday; slightly edited here for timeliness.

As I wrote back at the beginning of April in the first installment of "Biannual Lunacy," I have a deep and long-standing aversion to that government-mandated clock-intrusion that is 'daylight savings time.' When discussions began in Congress this year to fuss with the clocks again, I rolled my eyes and figured it wasn't even worth fighting, since it was almost certain to pass. And it did. Included within last month's behemoth energy bill, along with all the pork projects and tax breaks, was a provision to change the switch dates by two weeks at each end: beginning in 2007, we will 'spring forward' on the second Sunday in March, and won't 'fall back' until the first Sunday in November.

This move was billed by its congressional allies as an energy-saving measure. Baloney. It's just an energy-use-shifter, from the morning to the evening. People are still going to have to get up at the same time, they're just going to have to use more electricity in the mornings than they would today. Any benefit from shifting time toward the morning, as Michael Downing writes in an op/ed Tuesday in the New York Times, only works during long summer days when sunrise occurs between 4 and 5 a.m., "hours of daylight that do not exist during the short days of March and November."

As Downing also points out (and you ought to read the whole column, he does a good job of synopsizing the history of the silliness that is 'daylight savings'), the whole concept saves absolutely nothing in terms of fuel, electricity, or lives. In fact, this summer's little "switch in time" actually may have severe deleterious effects, including de-synching our time from Europe's and possibly sparking a "mini-Y2K," as all sorts of gadgets (from computers to cell phones to televisions and alarm systems) have to compensate for the changed daylight savings implementation dates.

For Congress, playing with the clocks is the easy stuff. They can say it will save energy, save lives and reduce crime, and the public will believe them, even though all those claims are just not true - or at least, there is no evidence that they are true.

Rather than take steps that might actually save energy, like rewarding energy conservation or increasing fuel efficiency for cars and homes, Congress took the easy (and useless) way out this summer and decided to change time. As Downing concludes, "I am a fan of long summer evenings and of social policy that promotes conservation. But I can't promise I won't turn on a light until 8:30 in the morning. Come November, wouldn't it make more sense for Congress to leave the clocks alone, ask us to turn down our thermostats at night and maybe spring for a pair of flannel pajamas?"

Not from this Congress, and not from this president. No real efforts to conserve are needed, we'll just switch the time. Go on about your business, just remember your flashlight when you're walking to work in full dark at the end of March.

Irrationing The Center

2005-08-09T20:44:00.000-04:00

Sometime last year - I can't remember when, and the original article is certainly archived by now - David Brooks had a reasonable column in the New York Times. It was about the school of thought that we don't choose our political beliefs rationally, that our political alliances have more to do with tribalism than with logic. It was a typical sentiment for Brooks - who, even more typically, slyly suggested that Democrats are at least currently more tribal than Republicans. Nonetheless, his column rang true.

It is my view that centrists and other non-partisans don't take this school of thought nearly seriously enough. Even more than partisans, we tend to try and persuade people to our side through rationalist means. What's worse, we also tend to assume that our own positions are indeed rationally chosen, and not the product of other, less predictable forces. Could we be putting far too faith in our own rationality?

Limited Postings

2005-08-08T22:24:00.000-04:00

TYL will have limited posts the next couple of days. Alan is driving to Texas and I'm at a conference (with limited internet access). I'll be back online regularly on friday morning, though I may post a few times between now and then. Alan will rejoin us when he gets settled. Our new co-bloggers will also be posting on this site as their schedules permit.

"Calculating, clenched, relentless--and a little robotic."

2005-08-06T11:36:00.000-04:00

(Cross-posted on AmbivaBlog.)

Jacob Weisberg in Slate:

Sen.[Hillary] Clinton's political positioning couldn't be better for 2008. Despite being a shrewdly triangulating centrist on the model of her husband, she remains wildly popular with the party's liberal core: It seems to share the right's erroneous view of her as a closet lefty and draws closer to her with every inane conservative attack. There's no other possible candidate in either party so well poised to claim the center without losing the base.

So why couldn't she win?

In Weisberg's view, it's not how much conservatives hate her. It's not that Bill is a liability (he's at least as much of an asset). It's not misogyny.

It's that people just plain don't like her.

Plainly put, it's her personality. . . . As hard as she tries, Hillary has little facility for connecting with ordinary folk, for making them feel that she understands, identifies, and is at some level one of them. You may admire and respect her. But it's hard not to find Hillary a bit inhuman. Whatever she may be like in private, her public persona is calculating, clenched, relentless—and a little robotic. . . .

[A] case can be made that the first woman who gets elected president will need to, as Hillary does, radiate more toughness than warmth. But in American elections, affection matters. Democrats lost in 2000 and 2004 with candidates Main Street regarded as elitist and aloof, to a candidate voters related to personally. Hillary isn't as obnoxious as Gore or as off-putting as Kerry. But she's got the same damn problem, and it can't be fixed.

Someone I know is having buttons made that say "Obama: Accept No Substitutes." But it's too early for that, isn't it? Not for a black president, I mean -- just too early for Obama, who's relatively young and untried in national politics. Jack Kennedy had been in the Senate far longer, and in Congress before that.

Maybe we'll have Condi Rice as our next president, and that'll break two barriers in one. By the way, Ann Althouse quoted the transcript of a Washington Times interview with Rice back in March of this year. You may not have known this: her positions on social issues are genuinely centrist, with a libertarian tinge. On abortion, for instance, she favors parental notification, but believes the government should stay out of the private decisions of adults.

A Farewell to DC

2005-08-05T15:57:00.000-04:00

This weekend, I’m packing up and moving out of Washington, DC. I may not have a chance to post until after I’ve left, but I didn’t want to depart without a few words about this city that’s been my home for over 4 years.

My wife and I arrived in Washington, DC in June of 2001, not long after President Bush got here himself. Since we too were coming from Texas, strangers we’d meet would always ask “oh, so did you come up with him?” It was clear who they meant by “him” and the dripping contempt in their voices made it clear how welcome he was. Thus was our introduction to the angry left world that too often defines Washington, DC. Being Texan was enough to make us suspect. As quickly as I could, I changed by car license plates and my driver’s license from Texas to DC.

I wish I could say more of what DC was like then in those first months of Bush, still in the Clinton afterglow. But I can’t because we had been here barely three months when September 11th happened. That was really our introduction to what life here would be like. High, welcome to DC, you will live in endless nagging fear that will occasionally spill over into terror. Enjoy.

Sadly, I’m afraid when I look back on our 4 years here, I will too often think of it as a series of calamities. September 11th. Anthrax. Snipers. Blizzard. Hurricane. And the freefall in public discourse and national unity.

Of course this is also where our son was born. Where we bought our first home. Where I started my own freelance writing business. Where we met countless good people and made lifelong friends.

But it was never home. Perhaps it was because we chose to live in the urban center of DC where children are few and self-centeredness is plentiful. Perhaps it was because we had no family here. But I think it was something more. Some people have the ability to find home in faraway places, as if they had been pulled by hidden strings. But some of us are tied to where we first grew. And my wife and I are tied to Texas.

DC has its many charms but it lacks a certain earthy quality. And it lacks the confidence to have a strong character. It can be as trendy as New York or as cosmopolitan as Paris, but it can’t shake off that stuffy, elitist-slicked feel. Too many over achievers. Too many cut throats. Too many lawyers.

Then there’s the other Washington. The one of the permanent residents who were born here and who will die here. Black Washington. I may have once lived in New York City, but DC is where I’ve seen the most desperate communities so overridden with crime and drugs and a self-destructive culture that hope is too much to ask. Survival and escape are the keys. But this Washington is not part of the Washington I lived in—it’s like a whole other city that rubs up against but never fully enters the Washington of yuppies and ethnic cuisine. And the local politicians split their time pandering to poor Washington while delivering the goods to rich Washington. It’s both a subtle and blatant corruption that is hard to swallow—so you just turn away.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my years here. We have nothing similar in Texas—real urban living simply doesn’t exist. And there is something electric about living in such an important city. I’ll miss seeing the Capitol and the Washington Monument, visible so often because DC buildings are so short. I’ll miss my neighborhood here in Adams Morgan with the eccentric characters, its bars, its restaurants, its neighbors. I’ll miss Washington, DC.

But not as much as I’ve missed Texas. San Antonio is where we feel home. And so San Antonio is where we now go. I hope to write some from the road as I drive down. But, if not, I’ll be back sometime by the end of next week.

Goodbye DC. It’s been real.

Avarice is a Sin. Corporate CEOs are Sinners.

2005-08-05T09:50:00.000-04:00

The disparity between the paychecks of top corporate leaders and the rest of us continues to widen. And this trend will not lead anywhere good, according to Arnaud de Borchgrave, writing for The Washington Times. De Borchgrave points out:

Over the last three decades, the share of national income going to the top 1 percent of households has almost doubled -- from 7.7 percent to 14.7 percent. It reached 20 percent in 1928, the year before Wall Street's grim reaper brought on the Great Depression. Sliced another way, between 1979 and 2000, real income of the poorest fifth rose 6.4 percent while the top fifth shot up 70 percent.

This is greed, pure and simple. There is no market justification for these astronomical salaries. Do CEOs really provide such unparalleled skill and knowledge that they deserve to make in one year what the average worker might make in an entire lifetime? I have no problem with compensating business executives more than average workers, but that compensation should not vastly exceed the value these executives bring their company.

To me, this just seems like the rich keeping their fellow upper class friends rich. It’s offensive. And it’s shocking how unconcerned most Americans are about all of this. This is a country where countless citizens use a few obscure Bible quotes to condemn homosexuals and deny them rights. But why aren’t they upset about the unbridled greed exhibited by these top executives? Jesus had nothing to say about homosexuality. But he warned us over and over of the dangers and deep sinfulness of greed.

We can’t regulate CEO salaries. We have to preserve the rights of corporations and the flexibility of the marketplace to set salaries. But we can condemn these men and women who so comfortably take a far larger share of our nation’s profits than they deserve. And I believe we can also demand to know the full compensation packages being handed out at the top. If companies won’t provide these figures willingly, I don’t think it’s a violation to pass a law demanding transparency.

These are people who, when fired, receive millions and millions in severance. I do not think it’s asking too much for them to reveal exactly how much they are receiving—and then publish those numbers where all can see. Doing so could very well spur the average American into getting angry enough to shame these upper class executives into significantly decreasing their salaries and willingly sharing their company’s profits more equitably.

Avarice is a sin. A big one. There is no shame in reminding these CEOs that they are sinners. That’s what I call a value issue.

It's De-Mushy

2005-08-04T22:11:00.000-04:00

Over at The Radical Middle, Mark Satin has rather quietly put forward 12-point platform for creative-centrist organizing.

Satin's proposals are on their face impressively bold, though they'll be familiar to his readers. They include: a flat tax (with a sizeable exemption of $20,000 for singles, $40,000 for a family of four); a national service draft; universal health care via subsidized private insurance; universal parental counseling (!) and preschool; personal "stakeholder accounts" from birth; and so forth.

For now, I'll refrain from my desire to comment on the particulars of his proposals - certainly, readers of this site may want to check them out. Instead, I'd like to ask a simple question: does this dramatic platform effectively challenge the image of centrism as mushy and unprincipled, as Satin argues?

Talk amongst yourselves.

Eminent Domain Has Become a Way to Give More to the Rich

2005-08-04T18:04:00.000-04:00

For years. Long Branch, New Jersey was an economically depressed seaside town. The main pier had burned, vacant lots and boarded-up buildings filled the shore area and not even liquor stores could find enough business to stay open in the most distressed parts of town. The solution? An eminent domain filled revitalization.

For many years, the city of Long Branch has been involved in a massive revitalization project, seizing entire neighborhoods along the shore and giving them to private developers who have built high-end condominiums, apartments and shopping/dining destinations. For the most part, everyone was happy. Until recently.

The city is now planning to seize 36 beachfront homes and turn the neighborhood into another set of luxury condominiums. But the residents are refusing to sell and have started a community organization focused on stopping the city’s efforts. Unfortunately, after the Supreme Court’s recent Kelo v New London decision, the homeowners’ chance of success doesn’t look good.

First let me say that redevelopment of blighted areas can be a very positive local government action. In the four years I’ve lived in Washington, DC, I’ve seen neighborhoods I wouldn’t walk through become neighborhoods I’d take my son to—all because of massive redevelopment projects that used eminent domain to transfer blighted property to private developers.

But the Long Branch, New Jersey neighborhood is not blighted. It’s nothing fancy but the 36 homes involved are well-maintained and the community is strong—as witnessed by their solidarity and activism in the face of losing their homes. Exactly why are these people worth less than the New Yorkers who will come to live in the million dollar condos?

Sure, rich people with their expensive homes and robust spending habits would bring the city more in taxes. But surely the worth of a man or woman is not measured solely in what he or she pays in taxes. Surely a city does not measure its success solely on how many rich people it can attract.

And this is what disturbs me so greatly. Regardless of the constitutionality of these acts, cities are using eminent domain to build housing for the rich. Long Branch isn’t just trying to increase its tax base, its trying to turn its oceanfront into an enclave for the wealthy. They are forcefully taking away the desirable beachfront property of middle-class citizens and handing it over to the rich.

Others will disagree and say the tax revenue generated from these million dollar condos will help the city improve services across the board—that all residents will benefit. Maybe. But I just can’t help but wonder if all these eminent domain redevelopments aren’t just primarily improving the lives of the rich.

Even here in DC where the redevelopment has been beneficial, the new residences going in to these redeveloped areas are designed exclusively for the wealthy. Sure, the neighborhoods are improved with restaurants and stores and clean streets, but only the very rich can live there—the rest just get to visit.

If this were only the free market at work, I’d have no complaint at all—there’s nothing wrong with being wealthy and nothing wrong with using that wealth to live where you want and how you want. But, in these redevelopment cases, government is giving the interests of the rich a big push. Would the free market really leave no housing for the middle class? I don’t think government should actively oppress the rich, but I sure as heck don’t think the rich need any extra governmental help in fulfilling their desires.

There must be a better method of redevelopment that 1) doesn’t abuse eminent domain as is happening in Long Branch and 2) doesn’t focus so exclusively on amenities for the rich. It’s something cities need to be thinking about.

The Rump Left: Proudly Half-Assed

2005-08-04T09:45:00.000-04:00

[Cross-posted on AmbivaBlog]

The Radical Centrist muses over why the Left is so much more intolerant of centrists than the Right, as he welcomes a new member of that beleaguered species, the center-left, to the blogosphere -- a group blog with the appropriately awkward name of Donklephant. (By the way, Donklephant has the best post I've seen on the murder of journalist Steven Vincent in Basra.) Quoting Michael J. Totten's report on the Left blogosphere's savaging of Donklephant, The Radical Centrist uses a pungent metaphor:

We certainly do need to see some former and current Democrats openly speaking as centrist, in the same way we need to hear from the moderate Muslims. The extremists are getting way too much air time. . . .

That the Left seems the more intolerant of centrist[s] is because at the moment, the Left is intolerant of everyone. They have become dangerously paranoid and it shows. The Right has been abusing its part of the center for decades, so the level of rancor has mellowed a bit. The conservatives also have been winning lately, with the help of centrists, so things are a bit easier on that flank. I can personally attest . . . that conservatives who are very supporting of former liberals becoming centrist, have a very different response to centrist leanings within the Republican ranks. All in all, though, we've been trading barbs for all my adult life and have evolved a more comfortable relationship.

I've been waiting for the sensible Democrats to show up and be counted. . . . but the more vocal Democrats these days are unable to see any nuance in their opponents . . .

The unbalanced Republicanism of our government right now may be due to the Left's intransigence, bordering on irrelevance. A one-legged person may be lame, but can at least get around with a crutch. A leg that hops off by itself may have a leg to stand on, but what does it stand for?

(Hat tip: CommonSenseDesk.)

UPDATE: David Schraub of The Debate Link, a student at Carleton College in Northfield, MN (he calls it the "best college you've never heard of," but I've heard of it; my cousin went there in the '60s, and loved it), gently takes issue:

I think what is obviously true is that the left is more tolerant of rightwingers turned centrist (for example, Andrew Sullivan and John Cole) than they are of liberals who appear to be drifting off to the center (for example, the DLC). For example, I've seen The Daily Kos link approvingly to John Cole on several occasions, while bashing the DLC on, well, more than several occasions (despite the fact that the DLC is probably more liberal than Mr. Cole). The reverse is also true--Republican partisans are far more kind [to] supposed moderate Democrats than they are to moderate Republicans. This makes perfect sense, after all: we like people who seem to be moving in our direction, and are upset with those who appear to be moving away from us. But I don't see any partisan slant to the phenomen[on].

Having said that, he goes on to say he thinks more Democrats than Republicans are tolerant of centrists:

[W]hile I've seen bona fide liberals praising Bush (for specific policies, of course) on several occasions, I have yet to see any comparable praise from a mainline Republican commentator of a mainline Democrat. The moderate wing of the Democratic party is far more powerful than [its] equivalent within the Republicans (DLC stomps Rockefeller Republicans). How else do you explain pro-life Harry Reid (and his predecessor for that matter, Tom Daschle)? Neither of them are all that liberal, objectively. Nancy Pelosi certainly is, but Steny Hoyer isn't. What you have for Democrats seems to be a fair mix between the left and center of the party. The big Republicans in congress, by contrast, are Tom DeLay, Roy Blunt, Rick Santorum, Jon Kyl, and Bill Frist--all toward the right edge of the party . . . Moderate Republicans never even see the light of leadership day.

A post well worth reading.

The Route to (Centrist) Paradise

2005-08-03T16:38:00.000-04:00

Just a brief note to follow up on Jonathan's excellent post from earlier on the need for centrist interest groups and organization. I fully agree, and wanted to just mention one such group that has recently formed. It's in the foreign policy arena, where I tend to think bipartisanship and centrist principles generally have an easier time taking root than on domestic issues (at least in the past), but it's certainly worthy of some mention and discussion.

The Partnership for a Secure America is scheduled to officially kick off operations this week, with stated goals of heightening "public awareness of and support for a bipartisan national security and foreign policy," bringing "leading Democrats and Republicans together to seek common ground in national security and foreign policy," and accomplishing "the above tasks through the use of the most effective tools of modern communications." Its founders are former Clinton national security aide Jamie Metzl and Chip Andreae, former chief of staff to Senator Richard Lugar. The 23-member board reads like a who's who of the foreign policy center: Warren Rudman, John Danforth, Gary Hart, William Perry, Madeline Albright, Tom Kean, William Weld, Lee Hamilton ... the list goes on; you can find all the names here, in an article on the effort from The Hill.

In an online petition (signable), the PSA outlines its major beliefs, and its objectives for bipartisan cooperation on foreign policy, and includes a list of major areas where cooperation and conensus could go a long way toward improving not only our own security, but the overall stability and security of the world community. They ask at the top "Why are we pulling apart when we need to pull together? Sixty years ago, a great generation of Americans came together to build a better world from the ashes of war. Republicans and Democrats cooperated in supporting a bipartisan foreign policy to protect the American people against a powerful, long-term threat to our national security. Today, a new long-term global peril faces our country. But growing partisan bitterness is derailing substantive discussion and vigorous debate on national security issues."

Take that last sentence, remove "national security," and fill in the blank. As Jonathan notes below, the problem of partisan bitterness is by no means exclusive to national security issues. But I have to tip my hat to those responsible for the formation of this group, and I hope that it's only the beginning. How long will it be until we see the rise of a Partnership for a Fiscally Secure America, or the Partnership for an Energy Efficient America, or you name it?

Hopefully not very long. We've waited far too long already.

Generation Liberation

2005-08-03T16:32:00.000-04:00

[Cross-posted on AmbivaBlog]

Reading this in a letter to the editor in the current New Yorker --

A striking quality about many homeschooled children is their ability to converse with ease with adults, and with children much older or younger than themselves, as they have not spent most of their social lives exclusively among those within a twelve-month span of their own age.

-- tapped into an underground river of thought that has been gathering force in my mind for some time, fed by various tributaries. What is now rising to the surface is the idea that one of the most unexamined, taken-for-granted, pervasive, and pernicious factors in our society may be age segregation.

It was Matt at Stepping Stone who first brought this to my attention:

Age grading, the use of age "as a criterion for ordering lives," is a relatively recent practice. [Barbara] Rogoff points out that before the late 1800s, "people rarely knew their age, and students advanced in their education as they learned." (Think of the one-room schoolhouse.) This is still true in many parts of the world.

Age grading emerged, according to Rogoff, because of huge changes in our society in the late 1800s. "Industrialization, urbanization of the population, and huge influxes of immigrants" created a massive influx of children into schools. Efficiency in dealing with these numbers became paramount. . . .

For thousands of years of human history-- and in many parts of the world today-- children were raised in the meaning-rich context of family and community. They interacted constantly with children of various ages, and spent much of their time apprenticing to meaningful tasks alongside their parents, other adults, and older children. They were often responsible for the care of younger siblings. . . .

Industrialization, however, by removing work from the community, pushed children into schools where they interacted more exclusively with their same-age peers, and often apprenticed to abstract tasks instead of practical ones. And the bonds of family and community began to fray:

The growth in emphasis on age-graded institutions has created a societal structure in which associations with similar-age people has taken precedence in many cases over intergenerational family and community relations.

This isn't quite a "theory of everything," but it's one of those quiet little ideas that, as you live with it over time, spreads and grows to explain more and more.

For instance, I look with some bemusement at my "newly" (over 25 years now, but he was raised secular) Orthodox Jewish cousin's lifestyle, one I could never adopt because it distances you from everyone who's not Orthodox Jewish; yet I can't deny that his children are extraordinarily wonderful -- radiant, open, considerate and affectionate to adults. Until just now I had attributed that, in a mystified way, to their religious upbringing. But reading the letter in The New Yorker about homeschooled kids suddenly made the connection: maybe it's not the religion per se, but the way it -- and tradition generally, which I tend to scorn -- organizes life vertically in time, rather than horizontally. What is the same from generation to generation, what is not enslaved to events and trends, may be important not so much in itself -- or not only in itself -- but for the way it holds the generations together.

My cousin's kids weren't homeschooled; indeed, they went away to sex-segregated Orthodox boarding schools. But the fact that they were being inducted into an elaborate tradition meant that both at home and at school, they were deeply involved with, virtually apprenticed to, the adults who were imparting it to them, not just as subject matter but as a total way of life. In turn, the tradition gave the adults the confidence that they had something of great importance to convey to their children, and the right, the authority, the responsibility to convey it. It wouldn't have to be the rituals and observances of a religion; the transmission of a trade or craft, of the skills and arts of adult living, used to bind the generations together in the same way. But it has to be something real, important to the adults and vital to the kids' future lives, even if the teaching approach is sometimes playful. (Which means that soccer practice is not enough.) Surely the Industrial Revolution's separation of the home from the workplace, and of school from both, was as disruptive a change as age grading -- and inseparable from it.

The end result is that for at least the last half century, people's loyalties have been horizontal more than vertical. They think of themselves more as members of a generation -- with its rather accidental collection of common experiences, styles, and cultural artifacts -- than of a family or a tradition. What's good about this new way of living is the pressure for creativity and adaptability: each generation has to (and gets to) improvise its own culture, in quick response to changing conditions and events. What's bad about it is that there's much less learning from collective experience, no time for the good new ideas to get winnowed out from the bad ones (or to discover that they're not so new, after all). And especially in adolescence, having your peers be the most powerful force in your life, the ones you emulate and the ones whose approval you play to, leads to a lot of bad ideas. You might as well expect a monkey to learn manners from a mirror.

What defines a "generation," as a cultural unit? The first thing that comes to mind, unfortunately, is, "Its war." Like Tolstoy's unhappy families, every war is unhappy in its own way, and the unique, intense experiences shared by a cohort of young people at a particularly impressionable age tend to stamp and mold them, giving them their own language and mood that other generations can't share or understand. A potential for generational alienation also lurks in the fact that it's the old who start wars, but the young who are sent to fight them. Should the rationale for a war come into doubt, the young are apt to feel betrayed and to withdraw from the intergenerational compact. This happened on a large scale after World War I, in a way that found an echo 50 years later in Vietnam. What Gertrude Stein dubbed "a lost generation" had lost faith in all the prewar pieties and traditions that had culminated in such a bonfire of the verities.

Immigration must also have helped to stratify the generations in America in a way that never quite happened anyplace else. (Communist revolution, with its suppression of tradition, would have had a similar effect, though.) This discontinuity in every family's life, the desire of the young to belong to their new country and to shed the quaint, stigmatizing Old World behavior of their parents (adaptive in the old context, a hindrance in the new), has to be one of the roots of the uniquely American notion that "my parents are clueless."

And then there's technology, changing -- and changing our lives -- so fast that each subgeneration is a tribe shaped, defined, and sealed off by its media. (Perhaps this trend is reversing, though, and technology is now beginning to reconcile the generations, as grandparents master e-mail, digital photo sharing, and instant messaging to keep in touch with their grandkids.) Long before personal computers and cellphones took over our lives, Margaret Mead pointed out that technology replacing tradition as the matrix of our lives meant that parents now had to learn survival skills from their children, an unprecedented and almost biologically unsettling inversion of the norm.

But if anybody made a pernicious fad of the ideas of "generation" and the "generation gap," it was "My Generation," the baby boomers. It's ironic that I, once an ardent chronicler of this generation's supposed specialness, should come to find the whole notion so imprisoning and oppressive. And it may be taken as typically self-serving that I've decided this idea we boomers shoved down all of your throats is a crock just as we're about to be herded into the gomer ghetto. Nonetheless, having carried this precious burden of generational chosenness for so long, I was astonished at what a relief it was to lay it down and rejoin the human race. Neither we nor the 1960s were particularly special. It was just our youth. And there were a lot of us. That's all. The fact that the (lack of) perspective of youth so overwhelmingly dominated society, because of sheer numbers, indulgent parents, and the fawning of advertisers, maybe made the 1960s a little bit special -- in a bad way.

So what am I saying? "Bring back tradition" is not my refrain. Too much crap comes along with the good stuff, in my presumptuous estimation. But maybe one of the reasons so many people now feel a craving for tradition is because they long to bridge the isolation of the generations, and that's just the most tried-and-true way. Is there another way? All I know is that there's a kind of timelessness to human life that you can't see and don't want to believe when you're young and anything seems possible, yet that provides a tacit, comforting background, a safety net for your Icarus cloudsurfing and some firm but springy ground when you come down.

- amba

The "Christocrats"

2005-08-03T16:01:00.000-04:00

Crossposted on the Moderate Republican:

USA Today has an interesting story on the rise of Christian conservatives in Ohio. It paints a not-so flattering portrait of Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who is planning to run for Governor of the Buckeye State come 2006. Many conservative pastors in Ohio are supporting Blackwell. He featured in "Ohio for Jesus" radio spots and believes that God wanted him to be Secretary of State in 2004.

Moderate Republicans in Ohio are concerned. Two Republicans are lining up to challenge Blackwell and Neil Clark, a GOP official says that moderate Republicans in Ohio are worried about the state "going back to the Stone Ages of Salem."

The story shows again how narrowminded and exclusionary the far right tend to be. If you don't agree with them 100%, you are deemed evil. Case in point is State Auditor Betty Montgomery, who is running for governor next year. She back the gay marriage ban, but is considered pro-choice. Because of that, she is shunned. She says:

"If you get somebody who is with you 100% of the time and can't win an election, isn't it better to have somebody who is with you 80% of the time and can win?"

She might want to talk to Bill Frist about how he feels. Chargin RINO reports that since his swtich to supporting stem cell research, he has been deemed persona non grata among the Religious Right. He was not invited to "Justice Sunday II" the gathering of Religious Right activists that meets later this month. Family Research Council head Tony Perkins, excoriates Frist in a press release. He notes:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has now publicly supported human embryonic stem cell research and expansion of President Bush's policy regarding funding of such research. The statement from someone who seeks the support of the pro-life community [and who once had Presidential aspirations] is very disappointing but not a surprise. It is reminiscent of the speech he gave to the 2004 Republican platform committee, where he squelched open debate on the ethics of embryonic stem cell research, as well as a 2001 Senate hearing testimony where he advocated production of hundreds of human embryonic stem cell lines which would have required destruction of thousands of human embryos. This reflects a unwise and unnecessary choice both for public policy and for respecting the dignity of human life.

These two examples notes a distrubing aspect of the Religious Right and what I believe is their contempt for democracy. Part of living in a democratic society means that you won't get all that you want. There are competing interests and they all want something. This is why compromise is so important. But the Religious Right thinks they are following God's will. If your viewpoint is blessed by God, then why bother listening to others? Why work with them? You could even take it to an extreme that you must eliminate dissenting voices. (No, I am not saying the Religious Right is bumping off people.) There is a name for the type of government that brokes no compromise and deems others who disagree as evil: it's called a dictatorship.

I think mainstream Republicans (moderates and conservatives) need to start organizing and countering the religious right come 2006. If we don't want the Religious Right to take this country back to witch trials, we need to get involved and take back the party.

Update:Charging RINO has an excellent commentary on the same USA Today article. His final paragraph is the kicker:

I've said it many times, but I'll say it again - there are those of us in the Republican Party who do not subscribe to the beliefs of the "Justice Sunday" crowd, who put pragmatism ahead of litmus tests and country ahead of party. We've been ignored for too long, because we've been quiet for too long. That silence must end, and 2006 will be the year to end it. 2008 will be too late.

There is a saying by the lesbian poet Audre Lourde that goes, "your silence will not protect you." If we centrist Republicans remain silent, we will lose our party and maybe our country to those who have confused naked power with faith. These people CANNOT control a major political party. Moderates must come together and get organized and take back the party.

Does money equal corruption?

2005-08-03T14:14:00.000-04:00

Illinois State Senator Steve Rauschenberger launched a bid for the state’s governor’s office by claiming that incumbent Governor Rod Blagojevich is corrupt because of his campaign fund.

"Anybody who's amassed $15 million -- more than $7 million of it from connected contractors -- is giving off an appearance of corruption," Rauschenberger said. "I don't think anybody has a reasonable need for $15 million in this process. . . . I think he is corrupt."

I don’t know if Rauschenberger is on to something here or not, but it is obvious the money plays an increasingly more important role in elections today.

Since it’s fairly easy to find in multiple places (Center for Responsive Politics is one) let’s look at the role of money in the 2004 presidential race. Bush and Kerry spent more than $700 million in the run-up to the election, nearly three times the total spent by Bush and Gore in the 2000 campaign, making 2004 the most expensive campaign in American history. But, that doesn’t begin to capture the true amounts spent. Issue groups – such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth – and the local, state and national parties each spent millions more.

I’m losing track of the dollar amount here, but let’s just say that conservatively for the US presidential elections the campaigns, parties, and issue groups raised and spent in excess of $1 billion. Not only would that money help fix our nation’s schools, prevent hunger in the US, or provide every child health insurance, it also means that there was a lot of fundraising going on during, before and even after the election.

This money comes from somewhere and far too often those who donate it, especially corporate interests, want something in return. Does this make Gov. Blagojevich corrupt? Not in and of itself. Does it mean that we need to do something to get money out of politics? Absolutely.

Centrist Paradise? We need Organization First.

2005-08-03T10:58:00.000-04:00

Hello all!

This is the first post in the new collaborative Yellow Line Blog. I'd like to express my deepest thanks to Alan and Joe for inviting me to participate in this exciting experiment. As my first post, I've been asked to republish an idea I wrote about on Thoughts of an American Centrist back in May, directly after the formation of the "Gang of 14." My proposal calls for more Centrist Organization. Here is the post in full.

From May 25th, 2005:

Due to the recently forged anti-filibuster compromise, there have been a number of bloggers and pundits proclaiming an end to the dominance of extremists over the agenda of Congress. Not so fast, guys.

The Yellow Line has a great roundup of gleeful moderates, and his own words of wisdom:

“…it is prematurely optimistic to declare a transfer of power. The extremists in both parties are very loud and well financed. For the Center to take hold, we’ll need to see a lot more courage from the Centrists.”

I agree with that cautionary note.

I’d also like to add another criterion for a true power shift: cross-party interest groups. Our current special interests group system does an excellent job canceling each other out on the national stage: NARAL vs. Right to Life, ACLU vs. Focus on the Family, Brady Campaign vs. NRA. They all nicely balance each other in the general elections.

Unfortunately, within their home parties, these interest groups hold absolute sway with the core. While in a general election, a pro-choice Republican, for example, can offset the rage of the right by tapping into the pro-choice moderates and center-lefts, there is none of that buffer in the primaries. While opposition candidates have the backing (both financially and organizationally) of the core party interest group, the moderate is left out in the cold, looking for support from the much less structured center. Support from the other party’s special interest groups wouldn’t help, either. NARAL reaching across the aisle to support a pro-choice Republican wouldn’t be doing the candidate any favors. It’s support would be seen as a corrupting influence, and only energize the base, further alienating the candidate. Besides, I don’t know of a single pro-choice Republican who takes NARAL’s hard-line position on partial birth abortion, and I doubt any of them would want to be associated with that position anyway. No, the other party’s interest groups are of no help to the moderate candidate.

What we needed are Moderate interest groups.

This, of course, is tricky. NARAL and Right to Life have pretty clear mission statements. So do NRA, Brady, FRC, ACLU, Sierra Club, and all the rest of them. A moderate group would have a much more nuanced and difficult message to communicate and raise money for. Even the names would be tricky. What do you call a group that opposes teacher led school prayer, opposes the teaching creationism, and opposes abstinence-exclusive sex-ed programs, yet supports singing Christmas carols, supports keeping “Under God” in the pledge, encourages active discussion on religious issues, and seeks to avoid both the explicit condemnation and approval of homosexuality in high school curricula? “Americans for Educational Balance,” perhaps. Boring name, but I’d certainly join that group!

I can picture moderate groups like this forming around the country. Slowly, at first, because of the difficulty articulating and communicating the message, but gradually picking up steam driven by the sheer number of people who identify with their positions. Imagine a group called “The National Center for Abortion Reform.” Again, not a very pretty name, but it would have the values and concerns of the bulk of the country at heart, with an eye towards real progress on the issues. Each of the extremist groups on either side of the moderate coalitions would denounce these new institutions as being agents for the other pole. But we’ve heard that before, and we can take it. Groups like this could support moderates on both sides of the aisle, and give coalitions such as the Gang of 14 someone in their corner when the extremists try to raise hell.

It's Too Easy to Blame Wal-Mart

2005-08-03T09:50:00.000-04:00

For such a successful and ubiquitous company, Wal-Mart sure seems to catch a lot of grief. Accused of all manner of crimes from driving out local business to exploiting workers, the retail Goliath has image problems to say the least. But in a New York Times editorial, Harvard business professor Pankaj Ghemawat and business consultant Ken A. Mark argue that Wal-Mart is actually very beneficial to individual communities and the nation at large.

Their analysis centers on the fact that Wal-Mart provides the most inexpensive goods around, saving the American consumer a conservative estimate of $16 billion a year. More importantly, from at least a socially progressive standpoint, the writers’ research shows:

Wal-Mart operates two-and-a-half times as much selling space per inhabitant in the poorest third of states as in the richest third. And within that poorest third of states, 80 percent of Wal-Mart's square footage is in the 25 percent of ZIP codes with the greatest number of poor households. Without the much-maligned Wal-Mart, the rural poor, in particular, would pay several percentage points more for the food and other merchandise that after housing is their largest household expense.

Truly, for the rural poor of America, Wal-Mart has been a boon. And this really brings up a fundamental question: what’s better for an economy and nation, cheap products paired with low-paying low-skill jobs OR high-paying, low-skill jobs paired with more expensive products? Through our purchasing habits, America has currently made the choice for cheap products. Even those workers supposedly exploited by Wal-Mart shop at Wal-Mart. As do their families. As do just about all of us

So, if we want Wal-Mart to pay its employees more, we all will have to pay more at the checkout stand. Which would probably lead most consumers to shop elsewhere at whatever store undercuts Wal-Mart’s new, socially conscious high prices. Thus Wal-Mart would be driven out of business, putting all those well-paid workers out of a job.

My point? The issue of the low-paid worker is not Wal-Mart’s invention, it’s not Wal-Mart’s fault and it’s not Wal-Mart’s problem to solve. We as a society have made the choice that we really want cheap goods. Wal-Mart has merely found the best way to cater to that want.

Bash Wal-Mart if you want, but I think the days of the well-paid, low-skill worker is over. Low skill jobs are no longer career jobs. But that doesn’t mean that we have to live in a society where a significant portion of the population is constantly struggling, even as they work two or three jobs. What it means is that the solution is not in trying to force the system in a direction consumers won’t let it go.

We need progressive thinking that moves away from the idea of forcing low-skill jobs into living-wage jobs. I’ve got a few ideas which I hope to discuss in a future post. But for now, I just ask readers to think about ways we might be able to have plenty of cheap goods and plenty of good jobs

Curvy Women in Their Underwear: Social Progress or Advertising Trick?

2005-08-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

Dove’s new advertising campaign has garnered a lot of attention for using models who, well, look like real women. If the goal was press coverage, they got it. Just in the last few days, stories have appeared in New York Daily News, Slate, San Francisco Chronicle and many others.

The opinions have ranged from “this is a great step forward for women” to “Dove is taking a risk using normal women.” But I think the bigger (or at least more interesting) question is: can advertising ever be socially progressive as Dove is intentionally positioning this campaign? After all, the campaign comes with its own website and message boards and touchy-feely talking points delivered in interviews—all promoting this as something much more than advertising.

All of this reminds me of the long-running Virginia Slims ads that proclaimed ”You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” in a move designed to play off the feminist movement. There is just something a little off about promoting women’s liberation while trying to make them slaves to an addictive drug. And there’s also something off about Dove promoting positive body image while telling women they need a beauty product.

I have both studied advertising from an academic sense and worked in the industry for many years. And here’s the thing about advertising: no matter how complicated it seems, or artistic or entertaining or socially progressive, the message is always the same: buy our product. That’s it. That’s always, always the primary message. Any other message is secondary and, in fact, chosen to augment the primary message.

Now, we can discuss effect outside of intent, but I seriously question whether the folks at Dove had some kind of social progress in mind when they decided to use curvy, plucked-from-the-populace women to represent the company. Yes, it might have made them feel better to think they were doing something to promote positive body image, but at the end of the day, this was entirely calculated to move product.

Dove knew that plastering the country with pictures of curvy women in their underwear would garner a lot of attention for the brand. It’s a stunt positioned to look socially conscious. It’s a trick to get women to buy Dove because they think Dove cares. Dove has correctly identified the fact that most women aren’t supermodels and has made the rather creative decision to target normal women in a faux call of solidarity.

That’s the little truth when you see when you pull back the curtain. No matter how it appears. it’s all predicated on improving sales.

So, no, I don’t think advertising can be socially progressive, or art or anything outside of commerce. It might have a secondary message or effect, but that doesn’t change the fact that the creators’ main aim was to sell a product. By its very nature it’s coercive. And dang it if it doesn’t work.

Support for the Morning-After-Pill

2005-08-02T10:15:00.000-04:00

In what appears to be an attempt to court his party’s socially conservative base for a possible Presidential run, New York Governor George Pataki has announced he will veto a bill that would have made the so-called morning-after-bill (known as Plan B) available over-the-counter. His rationale was that the legislation did not restrict access to minors.

As Jeremy points out over at Charging RINO, New York State already allows minors to have abortions without restrictions. But somehow keeping minors away from a drug that would prevent pregnancy is more important than restricting them from obtaining an abortion. That alone makes Pataki’s position untenable.

But let’s pull back and look at the national debate concerning the morning-after-pill. Anyone who reads my writings regularly knows that I prefer to look at the issue of abortion outside the legal/illegal paradigm. Instead I choose to focus on what I think is the core issue: how do we as a society prevent and ultimately stop people from wanting abortions?

There are many ideas out there, but none will work fully without the existence and use of birth control. And that means promoting a sense of responsibility amongst all those not ready for children. Plan B fits right into that culture of responsibility.

First, it’s important to note that Plan B prevents pregnancy by preventing implantation of any fertilized embryos. It does not cause an abortion because there is never a pregnancy involved. But it does raise an ethical issue we need to consider. If an egg has been fertilized and Plan B is used, that embryo will be lost. For an absolutist, such an act is unforgivable. But for those of us who recognize the dangers of absolutist thinking, Plan B is really the last chance of preventing a future abortion. It’s ethical advantages in promoting responsibility and preventing abortion outweigh the ethical issue of preventing the implantation of an embryo.

Additionally, no one would want to use Plan B as a regular means of birth control. It’s harsh on the woman’s body. Furthermore, many who use Plan B are doing so because 1) their usual means of birth control failed (a broken condom for instance) or 2) they immediately realized they made a huge error in judgment. In both cases, the desire to use Plan B is a very responsible reaction to a difficult situation.

Would we as a society prefer that people not take immediate action to rectify a mistake or accident? Is it better for these women to wait and then later have an abortion?

Truly solving the problem of abortion requires promoting responsibility both before and after pregnancy. The morning-after-pill is a very responsible response and should be part of the solution to the abortion problem. Treating it as equally repugnant as abortion itself clouds the debate and actually hinders efforts to reduce abortion.

We should support availability of the morning-after-pill

The Yellow Line Version 2.0

2005-08-02T08:22:00.000-04:00

As you may have noticed, The Yellow Line has just undergone a bit of a metamorphosis. Since we began, Joe and I have run TYL like the usual political blog with plenty of commentary on the day’s events, some personal notes and some great debates.

But it’s always those great debates, those new ideas that most excite us. One of the defining characteristics of Centrists is a profound desire to break free from the hardened paradigms of left and right. We believe there can be other solutions than what’s being offered by current politics. The trick is, finding and advancing those new ideas.

So we’ve invited some of our fellow bloggers to join us over here at The Yellow Line to help turn this site into a gathering place for new ideas from a Centrist perspective. All those we’ve invited on board have done excellent work seeking out and discussing topics and ideas that get little consideration from the mainstream media or from the legions of hard-right and hard-left bloggers.

Amba from Ambivablog, Dennis Sanders from The Moderate Republican, Jeremy Dibbell from Charging RINO and Jonathan Cortis from Thoughts of an American Centrist have all agreed to post on The Yellow Line whenever they have a new idea or underreported Centrist news story worth discussing. They will all continue their own excellent blogs uninterrupted but will join us at The Yellow Line anytime they have a post they think deserves greater attention and debate.

As for Joe and I, we too will focus more on posts that delve a little deeper into the issues of the day. Oh, I’m sure we’ll also throw in some less thought-intensive writings (if anyone remembers my coverage of the NBA Finals), but we hope with the additional contributors, The Yellow Line will become a vibrant idea-blog and a place for all people who reject rigid ideologies to visit and join in the debates.

The contributors here won’t always agree. But we will agree that most ideas deserve to be discussed—whether they come from the left, the right or somewhere in-between.

More soon…

Bolton Recess Appointment is an Abuse of Power

2005-08-01T16:20:00.000-04:00

Using the powers of recess appointment, President Bush has appointed John Bolton the U.S. ambassador to the UN. This move circumvents the Senate and will allow Bolton to serve, without official confirmation, until the next session of Congress begins in 2007.

Bush is hardly the first President to sneak in an unpopular nominee using the Constitutional power of a recess appointment. But that doesn’t make this move right or any less of an abuse of power.

Why is it an abuse if it appears in the Constitution?

Article II, Section 2, Clause 3 says: “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”

The operative words here are “Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate.” The U.N. vacancy did not happen during the recess. It happened well before and was being held up using legitimate Senate rules.

I seriously doubt that the Framers of the Constitution included the recess appointment as a means for the President to bypass the will of the Senate. Instead, the recess appointment was almost certainly created to ensure that important positions would not sit vacant for the long stretches Congress was away from Washington (Congress was originally in session only five months a year and thus took quite long recesses). Additionally, it was almost impossible to reconvene Congress if necessary due to the difficulty of travel 220 years ago.

Recesses now are much shorter and reconvening Congress would take just a day, not weeks or months. In a modern world, the recess appointment is not even necessary.

Now, we can also discuss if “advise and consent” permits the minority party the right to filibuster Presidential appointees, but that is another topic and another discussion. My concern today is with the abuse of the recess appointment. And, again, I am well aware that Bush is hardly the first to use this power as a means to bypass the Senate. But I don’t condone it and I don’t think we as a society should permit the executive to seize a power that the Framers never intended to grant.

Charging RINO has more analysis and fantastic commentary in the comments section.

Unions and The Ownership Society

2005-08-01T11:50:00.000-04:00

Jonathan Cortis over at Thoughts of an American Centrist has some excellent ideas about how both American businesses and unions can find success in the coming decades. It's all about the workforce feeling ownership of their job and management acknowledging the intellectual resources of their employees.

Read the whole post. But I will add that before going out on my own as a freelance writer, I worked for a company that made it a policy to foster ownership amongst its employees. This worked very well for those who were highly motivated, achievement-oriented people. But it was not particularly successful with those who preferred not to put in any more work than what the original job specifications required. Simply put, they wanted a paycheck and they wanted others to worry about making the decisions and innovations necessary to run the company.

Properly, those who chose to take ownership were rewarded with promotions and salary increases. Those who didn't want ownership, remained where they were with little or no advancement. The company, I think, is better because of its ownership policy. But the policy was not a cure-all. It required that the company have achievement-oriented employees on staff. Without that, the policy would have failed.

This is another area unions can help in. Instead of trying to create systems of rigid, seniority based promotions, help companies identify those employees willing to take ownership. In fact, don't just help, demand that employees be rewarded for their new ideas and initiatives that benefit the company. And they could help foster an achievement-oriented culture amongst union members. The more employees willing to take ownership, the more benefit there will be to worker and company alike.

Jonathan is right. Integrating the goals of the company with the goals of the workers is integral to the future of both American business and the American worker.

The Evolution of Science Class

2005-08-01T09:25:00.000-04:00

Teaching Creationism or even Intelligent Design in the classroom may be going too far for even some solid conservatives. Writing for Time Magazine, staunchly conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer opposes those who would seek to add faith into the science class.

Krauthammer’s conclusion says it all:

To teach faith as science is to undermine the very idea of science, which is the acquisition of new knowledge through hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. To teach it as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of religious authority. To teach it as science is to discredit the welcome recent advances in permitting the public expression of religion. Faith can and should be proclaimed from every mountaintop and city square. But it has no place in science class. To impose it on the teaching of evolution is not just to invite ridicule but to earn it.

I should first say that I find the theory of evolution to be extremely compelling. But I also believe in God and do not think our presence here is some kind of cosmic accident. As such, I find the Intelligent Design (ID) assertion a plausible means by which to integrate my faith with science.

But here’s the thing: ID is nearly impossible to observe. We can suppose the hand of God, but we cannot see it. And although it is true that we cannot observe evolution in the sense that we can’t see it happening, we can observe mutations, gene flow, genetic drift and specification through natural selection.

The difference is that evolution can be studied using science. Intelligent Design can only be assumed or debated from an intellectual or theological standpoint. And that’s the difference between faith and science. We need no hard evidence to have faith in the existence of God. But we need facts, experiments and verifiable evidence to believe a scientific theory.

Perhaps the theory of evolution explains how God made all this happen. But science has no means to study that. And thus, God’s role is not scientific. That doesn’t mean science is opposed to God. It simply means science is separate from religion. And maintaining that separation is essential in educating our children.

I would certainly support more comprehensive theology courses in schools (the study of religions being integral to the understanding of world societies). But I simply have not been convinced that creationism or intelligent design deserve a place in our science classes. They just aren’t assumptions that meet the qualifications to be considered science.

The Slow Road to a Conservative Judicial Revolution

2005-07-30T10:20:00.000-04:00

Writing for National Journal, Jonathon Rauch offers a detailed analysis of what changes might occur on the Supreme Court if John Roberts is confirmed. Through the course of his excellent piece, Rauch argues that the conservative revolution which many on the right desire, is not likely to come—just as it didn’t come after President Nixon appointed four justices or after Presidents Reagan and Bush five.

There are several reasons for this, but the most fascinating is Rauch’s claim that there really is no such thing as a unifying conservative judicial theory. Quoting University of Chicago Law Professor Cass Sunstein, Rauch writes:

Sunstein, instead, divides judicial philosophies into four types. "Perfectionism" seeks to make the Constitution the best that it can be. This is what many conservatives mean by "judicial activism." "Majoritarianism" holds that the Court should defer to the democratic process unless the Constitution has been plainly violated. "Minimalism" is skeptical of broad theories and sweeping holdings, preferring narrow decisions that proceed one case at a time. (In some of his statements evincing distaste for theory-driven judging, Roberts sounds like a minimalist.) What Sunstein calls "fundamentalism," and what most other people call "originalism," seeks to interpret law in light of its authors' intentions.

When Bush and other conservatives talk about judicial philosophy, they speak with one voice in opposing perfectionism, but they embrace all of the other three philosophies as if they were interchangeable. In reality, majoritarianism, minimalism, and originalism are often in tension -- and are sometimes incompatible.

I think that is right on the mark. The reason the conservative revolution on the court hasn’t happened isn’t because some of the justices haven’t been “pure enough” as some on the right would have us believe, but because different kinds of conservatives have been appointed. And different kinds of conservatives are going to have different interpretations.

It seems to me that all conservatives value some form of restraint. But, for justices, the method of restraint varies from being restrained by precedent to being restrained by the wishes of elected officials to being restrained by the original intent of the writers of the Constitution. If precedent or the wishes of elected officials are in conflict with the intent of the writers of the Constitution, then there is going to be conflict amongst conservatives.

Additionally, if restraint truly is the defining characteristic of conservativism, then one must wonder exactly how you can have a restrained revolution? You can’t, really. And that, I think, is another reason why, despite conservative dominance, the Court has not become as radically transformative in a rightward way as say the Warren court was in a leftward way. The principle of restraint is just not conducive to revolution.

True liberals have been a minority on the Court for a long time now, and yet the Court continues to hand down decisions that certain groups of conservatives deplore. But instead of blaming moderate conservative justices for being too easily seduced by liberalism, perhaps conservatives should consider the contradictions in their own ideology.

Illinois Gov to close gun show loophole, maintain database of gun buyers

2005-07-29T12:16:00.000-04:00

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will sign legislation today requiring background checks for all gun buyers, closing what law enforcement advocates see as a back door for illegal purchases of firearms.

I strongly support full background checks for all individuals interested in owning a firearm. Each state should have clear guidelines on who is eligible to purchase a firearm and each gun owner should be required to register his/her gun with the states. With current technology, the waiting period that an individual must endure can and should be reduced. A background check is not an overly burdensome violation of privacy rights for the purchase of a firearm.

A second bill, which Gov. Blagojevich plans to veto, will allow the state to maintain, indefinitely, a state database that contains records of all gun purchases in the state.

On this issue, I share the concern of the NRA (never thought I’d write that phrase) that the maintenance of a state database with information on all gun purchases infringes on the privacy rights of legal gun owners. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and others have long campaigned for a bill to allow the state to maintain this data in an effort to prevent gun runners and gangs from purchasing weapons. However, an effort to prevent a few individuals from purchasing a quantity of firearms is not a compelling reason to maintain a database of all background checks.

Neither proposal is going to keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens. Closing the gun show loophole will help to keep guns away from gangs and dealers. However, in maintaining, indefinitely, a database on all gun purchases, the state is overstepping its authority and infringing upon the rights of law abiding citizens.

Support the CAFTA 15

2005-07-29T10:47:00.000-04:00

More and more I am coming to believe that the left-flank of the Democratic Party wants to turn their party into a very small, but ideologically pure political group. The latest proof? The calls for the 15 Democrats who supported CAFTA to be punished.

The influential labor blog, Working Life initiated the call which has been taken up by others such as the liberal magazine The Nation.

This is an inane idea. First of all, Democrats were once, just a decade ago, a fairly strong pro-free trade party (102 Democratic representatives voted for NAFTA which was signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton). These 15 Democratic CAFTA supporters can hardly be considered out-of-line because they refused to join their party’s leftward drift (although, really, there’s nothing all that “liberal” about protectionism—but protectionsim does go against Bush’s wishes, so I suspect that was good enough reason for many to vote against CAFTA).

What’s the theory here? That all free-trade Democrats should be purged? Certainly there are very legitimate disagreements about free trade. They exist in the Republican Party too. But since when are Democrats exclusively the party of protectionists? Since the far left seized hold of the party, I guess.

Well, I for one refuse to believe there is no room for free-trade leaders in the Democratic Party—particularly since free trade and Centrist ideals tend to go hand-in-hand. So, I say support the CAFTA 15.

Here are their names and contact numbers which I lifted right off the Working Life post. But instead of condemning them, call them and let them know that it’s o.k. to be a Democrat and pro-free trade. And if you support CAFTA, thank them for their vote while you’re at it.

Melissa Bean, Illinois (8th District): 202-225-3711

Jim Cooper, Tennessee (5th District): 202-225-4311

Norm Dicks, Washington (6th District) 202-255-5916

Henry Cuellar, Texas (15th District) 202-225-1640

Ruben Hinojosa, Texas (15th District) 202-255-2531

William Jefferson, Louisiana (2nd District) 202-255-6636

Jim Matheson, Utah (2nd District) 202-255-3011

Gregory Meeks, New York (6th District) 202-225-3461

Dennis Moore, Kansas (3rd District) 202-225-2865

Jim Morgan, Virginia (8th District) 202-225-4376

Solomon Ortiz, Texas (27th District) 202-225-7742

Ike Skelton, Missouri (4th District) 202-225-2876

Vic Snyder, Arkansas (2nd District) 202-225-2506

John Tanner, Tennessee (8th District) 202-225-4714

Edolphus Towns, New York (10th District) 202-225-5936

Australia Bans Grand Theft Auto

2005-07-29T09:33:00.000-04:00

Apparently, overreacting and inconsistent moral standards are not things unique to America. Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification has just outlawed the sale of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas because a code downloaded from the Internet can unlock explicit sex scenes in the game.

As we have previously written, it’s hard to imagine that a sex scene, no matter how explicit, would somehow make this already ultra-adult game any more adult or offensive. To reiterate, this is a game where you kill cops, engage in gang warfare, pimp prostitutes, carry out hits and generally perform the vilest acts of violence imaginable. You can set people on fire with a flame thrower and watch the burn and hear their screams, for goodness sakes!

I’m not one to tell another nation how to run their country. So I’ll just say that I’m glad to know that we in America may have overreacted to this issue, but at least we didn’t take the unforgivable action of censorship.

There's No Such Thing as a Perfect War

2005-07-29T09:19:00.000-04:00

Writing for The Chicago Tribune, historian and noted conservative Victor Davis Hanson provides one of his always fascinating history lessons. This time it’s to scold those who improperly distort or misuse history when discussing today’s war on Islamic fascism.

The main thrust of Hanson’s piece is that there has been changing war rationales, civil rights abuses and giant intelligence mistakes in all American wars. Now, I’m not a big fan of the “well, we were pretty bad last time too” argument. There is no point in using the low bar from the past to set our goals for the future. But Hanson’s argument is a little different. He is, in effect, saying that we’ve never been able to wage war differently.

Government transparency, highly accurate intelligence and robust civil rights. Are those just not compatible with war? And, if they’re not, how do we the people judge our leaders? What amounts to incompetence and deception—and what are understandable actions during the fog of war?

I don’t know. But Hanson is right about history. An honest reading proves there is no such thing as a perfect or even close-to-perfect war.

Frist Announces Support for Stem-Cell Fudning

2005-07-29T08:41:00.000-04:00

Breaking with both the President and his party’s socially conservative base, Senate Majority Leader Frist has announced he will support federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. This is, to say the least, a surprising development.

As we have written, we support the legislation authorizing federal funding of new stem cell lines and believe the President and his supporters have taken a position that makes little sense when analyzed. It’s heartening to see Frist, a social conservative by all accounts, coming to the realization that it is morally acceptable and scientifically and economically justifiable to do research of embryonic stem cells derived from embryos that would have otherwise been discarded by fertility clinics.

Of course, it’s hard to see Frist’s move on this and not consider the political ramifications. Often touted as a potential candidate for the 2008 presidential election, Frist’s stem-cell position moves him away from the socially conservative base and towards the center. This is an intriguing move indeed, since Frist has often been assumed to be not only a rigid social conservative but also the man Bush would most like see replace him.

The fallout over this will be interesting to watch.

A RELATED SIDE NOTE: The only argument I’ve heard against federal funding that makes any sense is the small-government, fiscally conservative argument that says private industry and the states are doing just fine funding this research and the federal government doesn’t need to be spending our tax dollars on it. That is at least a consistent argument (unlike the President’s). And it has some appeal to me because I do believe the federal government has its hands in far too many activities.

But, in my mind, medical science is just about the last area where we need to remove funds when cutting the budget. Certainly we can cut from a lot more areas before we cut medical science. Perhaps the free market can adequately fund stem cell research, but how do we know for sure? And how does it hurt the research by putting more money into it?

I understand the impulse not to use our tax dollars to fund something that the free market can handle by itself. But a science as promising (and it is promising, despite what some would have us believe) as embryonic stem-cell research deserves every chance to succeed. Federal funding can help significantly. If people disagree, they can vote out of office the many representatives and senators who vote for it.

Redistricting Update

2005-07-29T08:00:00.000-04:00

Charging RINO has the 411 on all that's happening on the redistricting reform movement, an issue near-and-dear to our hearts here at TYL.

No one is covering this issue better than Charging RINO.

The Future of Unions

2005-07-28T14:18:00.000-04:00

Ambivablog has put up a fascinating post concerning unions and a new form a populism that the Democrats might want to embrace to win back blue-collar workers.

The post is long and you should read the whole thing, but the crux is that there are a lot of American workers getting left behind by the global economy—not just because they lack the skills but because their work is being exploited. And no one is helping them.

The argument is that Democrats can fill this void. But isn’t that what unions are for? It seems to me, in this transition to the global economy, we are in real need of intelligent unions. Except, what we need is a whole new kind of union—not the inept industrial-age behemoths that are slowly, slowly going extinct.

We need modern unions that can guide and ease worker transition into the global economy.

The free market only works if everyone plays by the rules. When companies start exploiting workers, the system fails. So what stops the exploitation from happening? Not government. It's knowledge.

And it's knowledge that should be new unions’ business. Not just providing workers knowledge of their rights (although that is very important), but providing the knowledge of how to get ahead. Instead of working to impose seniority systems and no-fire rules, unions should be encouraging systems that reward good work and they should help their members become integral to their companies (instead of mere cogs). Job security in the future will not be guaranteed by collective bargaining. It will only be ensured by being a valuable asset to your employer.

In addition to being that base of knowledge, they could help create a system of job fluidity. Instead of striking, dissatisfied workers could look to the unions to help them get new jobs or even new skills. Unions could provide or work towards transportable healthcare which would go a long way towards easing job changes. And unions could work towards greater transparency from companies so that, when business truly is bad, workers and management can work together to save the company (or workers could get out before it’s too late if they so choose).

This approach is both less confrontational and less problematic for all parties involved. If unions could present themselves as a partner instead of an adversary to business, companies might in turn stop opposing unionization, thus giving many more Americans the chance to join a union.

If unions adopt a more cooperative approach as well as a more holistic approach to their efforts, workers will hopefully become more integrated in the economy. Instead of being disposable parts, workers should be integral pieces. But not necessarily integral to one company—integral to the economy as a whole so that every worker has the means to stay fluid and yet stay employed.

This, I know, is a significant departure from they way unions work now and is no guarantee of success. But it’s an idea that strikes me as worth trying.

Call it What You Want, This is Still a War

2005-07-28T11:35:00.000-04:00

I actually wasn’t aware that the “War on Terror” was an official slogan. But it is, or I should say it was, because it has been retired by the White House in favor of the global struggle against extremism.

The Heritage Foundation thinks this is a good thing because it is a better definition of the conflict we face. For one, terrorism was too broad because it’s a tactic, not an ideology and “war” was too specific because this is not merely a military struggle.

But, to me, war isn’t just a military struggle. War is a clash of civilizations with both sides fighting to completely defeat the other—it includes all means used to wage that fight. The only reason I think this war has seemed to be merely a military conflict is that groups on one side refuse to admit this is a war at all while groups (and I’d include the administration here) on the other side refuse to admit that sacrifice needs to extend outside the military.

To me, this is a war. Not a conventional one for sure, but a war nonetheless.

As for “terror,” that’s always been too imprecise. But how is “extremism” that much better? What’s so wrong with calling this what it is. A war on Islamic fascism. Is that too politically incorrect? Too scary?

I don’t get it. I don’t understand why this has been downgraded from a war to a struggle. And I don’t understand why the Bush Administration does not want to specifically identify the enemy.

They can call this what they want. But it’s still a war. And the enemy is still Islamic fascism.

CAFTA Approved

2005-07-28T07:29:00.000-04:00

In a 217-215 vote, the House has approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement known as CAFTA. The Senate had previously passed the agreement and now it goes to President Bush for his signature. We at The Yellow Line have been strong supporters of this legislation and are glad to see it pass.

But free trade isn't magic. There is some give and take and there will be consequences for some Americans, particularly some farming interests. As we've said many times, the global economy and free trade are here to stay and we can either move into these agreements now and manage the results or be thrust kicking and screaming into free trade at some point in the future when it will no longer be on our terms. Thus, the passage of CAFTA gives both opponents and proponents an opportunity to work with affected industries to ensure the transition is as stable as possible.

Free trade requires us to think about industry and our economy in new ways. The benefits far outweigh the consequences but that doesn't mean we shouldn't work to minimize those negatives.

Today is a good day for free trade and the American economy. Now, let's make sure the overblown and dire predictions of the critics are proved entirely false.

Iran Executes Homosexuals

2005-07-27T20:08:00.000-04:00

Every once-in-awhile I read someone claiming that Iran is a democracy. Democracies don't execute people because of who they love. And yet, The Moderate Republican reports that Iran just executed two homosexual men for being gay.

"Barbaric. Truly Barbaric," says Dennis at The Moderate Republican.

Yes. And I only wish such threads of evil didn't reach into America. But I am reminded of the hate-mongers who had such dark hearts that they protested the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man killed in Wyoming back in 1998.

Obviously I am well aware that there is a vast difference between a few citizens protesting a funeral and a government ordering the deaths of two men for being gay. But there is shared evil there. There are those in all countries and in all religions who virulently hate homosexuals.

And it is wrong. It is wrong in all its forms.

But is Hillary Qualified?

2005-07-27T16:40:00.000-04:00

Michael over at The Mighty Middle asks us to consider if Hillary Clinton is even qualified to be president.

What exactly does Hillary bring to the table? She's a smart woman, a capable Senator. Smarter, more of a woman and more capable than Diane Feinstein? No. Why Hillary? Is she a great campaigner? No. Is she an attractive personality? No. Is she a particularly knowledgeable expert in some vital area? No. Is there a red state she would be likely to deliver to the blue team? No. Is she a deep thinker or courageous leader who has altered they way we look at politics and the world? No. Is she a strong leader? I don't see any evidence that she is.

Why Hillary? Because she has won the Money Primary. She is the front runner because the people who place early bets have decided she's the front runner, and they should jump aboard her bandwagon early to get the best seats. Hillary has been chosen by the campaign consultants and insiders and money men who have so brilliantly guided the Democratic donkey into the swamp where it now waits, trembling, for the hyenas to bring it the sweet release of death.

I guess the assumption is that she learned a lot about running the country while she was First Lady. In fact, that's got to be the thinking. Otherwise, by 2008, she'll just be an 8-year vet of the Senate with a quietly effective but hardly brilliant record. If her last name wasn't Clinton, would we even be considering her a strong candidate?

It's kind of like the old saying: all that glitters is not gold.

McCain Takes a Step Towards 2008

2005-07-27T16:25:00.000-04:00

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has restarted his Straight Talk America PAC. The official reason for the PAC's recreation is to help fund McCain's travels as he attends the numerous speaking engagements to which he's invited.

Uh-huh. Would those be speaking engagements in Iowa and New Hampshire?

Looks to me like McCain's looking to take one more run at the White House. And anyone who reads this blog knows I am certainly in favor of that.

Cook County GOP offers reward

2005-07-27T13:25:00.000-04:00

In what’s got to be an all time low for Chicago politics, the Cook County (Chicago) Republican Party is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an indictment and conviction of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.

I think Daley’s press secretary Jacqueline Heard said it best. “This is ridiculous, politically motivated and undeserving of any further comment.”

DC gun laws under attack

2005-07-27T12:10:00.000-04:00

Whether or not you believe an individual has the right to own and possess a gun, there are multiple jurisdictions around the country that have established regulations that limit gun possession and distribution within the jurisdiction. The courts have ruled some bans unconstitutional, others have been upheld.

As a result of one of these local decisions, just a few weeks ago, the NRA announced a decision to move its planned 2007 convention from Columbus, Ohio.

Washington, D.C. is home to some of the most restrictive local gun control laws in the nation. The DC City Council and the Mayor are unanimously opposed to revising or relaxing the city’s gun laws.

Late last month, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to repeal one of the District's gun restrictions. The federal legislation would allow residents to keep in their homes loaded and assembled rifles and shotguns, as well as handguns purchased before 1976, loaded and assembled.

The effort by Congress to override the city’s regulations is outrageous, especially as the City does not have a vote in congress. The small, but growing, number of advocates in the city seeking a repeal of the District’s gun laws should appeal to their representatives on the city council. And, Congress should treat Washington, D.C. as it does every other local jurisdiction in the nation – with a hands off approach.

Gun legislation and a conflict of interest in the Senate

2005-07-27T11:47:00.000-04:00

The Senate moved legislation designed to shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits over gun crimes to the Senate floor late yesterday, moving legislation to authorize $491 billion in spending for our nation’s defense to the back burner.

The bill’s supporters claimed consideration of the measure was long over due. Opponents tried to point out the “distorted priorities,” to use Sen. Feinstein’s words, of the Senate in moving this legislation ahead of defense spending.

While Alan and I disagree on the specifics of an individual’s right to own and possess a gun, I think we’re in agreement that the manufactures and dealers of firearms should not be held liable for the misuse of a weapon as long as it is manufactured, marketed, and sold legally.

There is a second issue with this legislation that I’m more concerned about. The legislation is sponsored by Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho). Sen. Craig also sits on the board of the directors of the National Riffle Association. This bill is the NRA’s #1 priority.

Sen. Craig was sent to Congress to represent the people of the State of Idaho. And, while the interests of the state may be in line with the position of the NRA on this issue, the Senator’s membership on the NRA board of directors creates, at the least, the appearance of a conflict of interest. It is not out of line for opponents of the legislation to ask: Does Sen. Craig represent the NRA? Or the people of Idaho?

Members of Congress should recluse themselves from sponsoring or voting on legislation in which they have a personal interest.

Far Right Criticism of Bush Portends 2008 Battles

2005-07-27T11:11:00.000-04:00

For those who believe that President Bush is an extreme right-winger, it might be a surprise to learn that the President has recently heard a lot of criticism from his right flank. Paul Mulshine, writing for the New Jersey Star Ledger reports that conservative talk-radio host Michael Savage has lately been deeply critical of Bush.

Savage has even started calling rabid Bush supporters “Bush Bots” because he feels they’re too stupid to realize Bush is selling them a false line of conservative goods. The crux of Savage’s critique is that (get this) Bush is far too liberal. You’ll have to read the column to get the full feel of the criticism, but far right conservatives really do have a number of reasons to be upset at Bush.

Does this then make Bush a Centrist or at least a Center-right politician? Hardly. What this shows is that the flat-line paradigm of political affiliation is not (and probably never has been) all that accurate or telling. But more importantly, it shows that there are rifts in the Republican party. The same disagreements that spawned Pat Buchanan’s multiple candidacies could spawn a similar candidacy in 2008.

We will likely see three types of candidates in the Republican field. The social conservative/big business/big government model like President Bush, the protectionist/tiny government model like was Pat Buchanan, and the Center-right model like John McCain.

Which of the three types prevail will depend a lot on the individual candidates, but it will also depend on Bush’s next 3 years. If Bush’s second term is perceived by the party to be generally weak, the social conservative/big government candidates might have problems. And if the battle comes down to the protectionists versus the centrists, the centrists will clean up. Like the far left, the far right has far fewer supporters than it thinks.

Whatever the case, I would expect the storied Republican unity to fall apart the closer we get to 2008.

Hillary under attack from Liberals

2005-07-27T11:07:00.000-04:00

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s call for a cease-fire within the Democratic party, combined with her decision to lead a DLC initiative aimed at developing a positive policy agenda for the party, has led to numerous attacks from the left.

The liberal blog Daily Kos has one of the harshest attacks here.

If you want to win elections and have a positive impact on our nation, you need to appeal to the middle. It’s not always about being right or wrong. It’s often about having a debate and being receptive to new ideas and compromise. It’s clear that the liberal wing of the Democratic Party just doesn’t get it (by the way, the same can be said for the conservative wing of the Republican Party).