Mayoral Quickie

Having not read the Albuquerque Journal in a while (being out of state can do that), I missed an article about the Mayoral Candidates positions on Albuquerque's water future. Here's what they have to say, in turn, using the same order as my earlier post.

Romero:

Romero said the Mayor's Office should take more interest in the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, which has a voting position reserved on its board for the mayor.
Chávez does not attend water authority meetings but sends his chief administrative officer instead.
"We can't just stomp our feet and say, 'I don't like this authority,' " Romero said.
He said more oversight of the authority from a mayoral administration could help coordinate conservation, growth and acquisition efforts.
Romero supports acquiring new water rights, and said the focus needs to be on conservation. He said the city's water conservation record can be improved in its golf courses, parks and buildings.
"The program (to improve city conservation) needs to be accelerated," he said.

Chavez:

Chávez touts his administration's water record with what he calls the most important act as mayor — pushing for the San Juan-Chama diversion project to get off the ground after decades of unused, city-owned surface water in the Rio Grande flowed past the city every year.
Chávez was one catalyst for the construction of the new water system in his first term.
Chávez said he supports desalination, but only as a short term measure. He said reuse systems and new technology, such as toilet-to-tap systems, "if people can get over the 'ugh' factor," would also be welcome in the city.
Chávez is also proud of the steep decline in water use per person in Albuquerque since the 1980s, where personal usage has dropped per capita by about 90 gallons a day.
He said the real improvements can come from the state Legislature, which could force surrounding areas that use the aquifer to implement conservation programs.
Chávez, a former state legislator himself, said the city can do "virtually nothing" to force conservation on other communities. The state has that power, however, he said.
"We can't continue to be the only entity with a meaningful conservation system," Chávez said.

Berry:

Berry said the city needs a vision and a plan for conservation and future water sources. He said his administration would have a scheme to not only help look for new water rights, especially large water transfers like the San Juan-Chama project, but to also make sure the city is prepared to responsibly pay for it.
"I think the city should have a leader who ... helps drive the vision and helps implement the plan," he said.
Desalination of brackish water, using the aquifer for water storage and the large water transfers are all options to add to the city's water supply, he said. Conservation, for the short term, is the city's best bet for more water, he said.
"Enhanced conservation is the cheapest supply of new water," Berry said.
But Berry also warned that some conservation techniques he supports, such as water reuse systems and low-flow toilets, do not save any water for the city's new water system, which requires the city return its used water into the Rio Grande downriver. He said only new water supplies will satisfy large growth in the area.

My Take:

All the candidates argue for conservation as the first and best way to manage our cities water. Good. Romero wants the Mayor to take a more active role in water policy (which includes acquiring more water rights), Chavez says that the real change needs to happen in the state legislature, and Berry wants to marshal new resources in a way that allows for long term growth. Given that choice, I'm kind of disappointed in all of them, but least disappointed in Romero's position. The city needs a very strong orientation towards conservation, because any growth that happens without it will only make the city much more likely to die out. Marty Chavez should be able to step up on this - the Albuquerque/Rio Grande corridor is the biggest fish in the NM water usage pond (I believe - correct me if I'm wrong), and the mayor of ABQ can do a lot more with that than he thinks he can. Romero sees that active role, but doesn't have any more sweeping vision. As for Berry, he sees conservation as a way to enable growth, which isn't inherently bad so much as a little risky.

Your thoughts?

The Mayoral Race in Albuquerque

As is my custom, here's a post about an election for an office I care about. Normally, I'd do a separate post for each candidate, but there are only three, so I figured I'd just run them down in one entry. As is also the norm, my commentary is based primarily on the issues page of each candidate.

Starting from the Left:

Richard Romero

1. Public Safety
1. It's bare-bones, with a focus on more boots on the street. There is nothing here to object to, but a special mention should be made of Romero's desire to fire the current APD police chief. The current chief is decent, and there is no need to turn the mayor's office into a spoils system. If he thinks the problem is the current approach to policing (which he does, by promising specific change there), then the problem is programmatic and not rooted in leadership.
   
2. Education
1. (Side note: I'm waiting for a detailed analysis of the mayoral candidate's education plans from Scot Key over at Burque Babble; until then, I'm just going to poke the summary)
2. When he says "cut waste", he does not specify any waste to be cut. Far as I'm concerned, that makes those words empty.
3. He has generally good ideas - make school more involved in the community, let city resources be more broadly shared.
4. Attending school for 7 years of No Child Left Behind, I am exceedingly hesitant to see an executive with other duties get involved in education. Romero does not seem to be overstepping - he wants better city/APS integration more than he wants to dictate school policy, but my hesitancy stands.
   
3. Ethics and Honest Government
1. It's a bare-bones section
2. Yay for ending pay-to-play, yay for being upset about Suncal TIDDS
3. Ethics and Honest Government requires more than just an audit. If he wants to create ethical government, he should propose some more lasting changes, and create some better, independent policing organs.
   
4. Building a Clean and Green Economy. Supporting Small Business
1. He understand how the internet leads to efficiency! Praise Xenu! But no, seriously, internet-driven efficiency in more of what the city does (provided they keep a well staffed and well paid web team) is a great idea.
2. The rest of this, about sustainable development and reasonable development fees, is better than I was expecting.
3. But we really don't need the petty sniping at Marty that fills the discussion of how things are currently done.
   
5. Renewable Energy
1. Interesting plan to start turning over 1/10th of city buildings to exclusively alternative energy, as an inducement for those wanting a market to already exist when developing alt. energy for the city
2. Beyond that, nothing

Our Once-and-Future Mayor Marty Chavez
(a special note: Marty does not have actually have an issues page; instead, his views are culled from the "Achievements" section of his website. Yeah.)

1. Public Safety
1. More cops, and better police coverage. Not inherently bad things
2. "Through numerous town halls the Mayor, APD, and the FBI have created state of the art software to help fight cyber-stalkers." is an absolutely meaningless line. maybe the city has helped with the development of software, but until we see some data about how the city was a test lab/funded/encouraged/lobbied for the development of this technology, you can know as fact that town hall meetings did not create software.
3. Genuine "Yay!", though, for the family advocacy center.
4. These two lines:
1. The Safe City Strike Force continues to clean up crime-ridden parts of Albuquerque, especially many parts of historic Route 66.
1. Albuquerque is virtually graffiti and litter free due to Mayor Chavez' strict zero tolerance policies.
5. Taken together, they read to me as a policy of "we will intimidate and crack down on the homeless, the destitute, and the young", rather than address the problems that these things are symptoms of. Not to say that I endorse the crime along Route 66, graffiti, or litter. I just think that Route 66 is already excessively patrolled (downtown, at least), I think he's using coded language.
6. I mainly think that problems are more complex than the "more police, faster crackdowns" approach he's advocating.
7. (And, as disclaimer, my bias is that I don't assume Marty understands youth and instead have felt, as a youth growing up in his Albuquerque, that he sees them as a problem.)
   
2. Economic Development
1. Recession should limit expectations but
2. Albuquerque sure is on a lot of good lists!
3. Let's quietly gloss over the fact that some of why we are doing so well now is that we didn't have a real estate boom that could collapse on us. Some lists mention this, and while that is not *bad*, it does mean that Marty deserves perhaps less credit here than he claims.
3. Transportation
1. We have buses!
2. Some of them are pretty fast!
3. Also, yay for other modes of transportation, like the bike avenue that was the work of many, many advocates. Oh, right, them...
1. It's not bad for the city or even the Mayor to claim credit on this one. It'd be more powerful to me, as an undecided voter, to see acknowledgment of government working with community activists.
4. Sustainability
1. It's a great big list of conferences/ranking/initiatives which all show that either we're really good at green, or we're good at lip service to green. Very hard to figure out which is which, though.
2. The genuine point worth mentioning is the methane capture system, which seems like a modest step, but one in the right direction.
5. Amenities
1. Landscaping! We have it! (And, okay, it is pretty).
2. Skate parks, and the BMX facility are evidence that Marty doesn't hate all youth. Also, they're pretty great.
   
3. The biopark and Isotopes stadiums are all finished now and great!
1. Qualifier: many of these things were started under mayor Jim Baca, and so it's like Nixon stealing credit from Kennedy for the Apollo missions.
   
6. Seniors
1. Albuquerque does have some pretty functioning senior centers
2. A lowered age of eligibility for access is a genuinely good thing
3. Expanded "Meals on Wheels" program shows that this isn't just a middle class thing
4. I can't find flaws here besides brevity.
   
7. Animals
1. Marty has animals up for adoption at every press conference, which seems oddly genuine for the guy
2. This is also pretty great when it means an APD officer has to handle Kittens
3. But what about the big pitbull controversies we've had? Something seems iffy and missing.
4. On the other hand, this isn't a section he has to have, so that's forgiven.
   
8. Education
1. Marty created a small charter high school that somehow managed to send all it's seniors to college.
2. There isn't policy here, just vague talk of coordinating local public resources.
3. If you're going to be involved in local education, say more. If not, say less. This is just awkward right now.
   

Richard J. Berry
Again, I'm using the issues as defined by the candidate

1. Immediate and Long-term Job Growth
1. Initial Shock Moment: the GOP candidate is advocating for a rapid use of funds on hand to help fix our recession
2. An appropriate economic policy of having the city buy local first, or help create local suppliers instead of relying on out-of-state ones. Isolationist/populisty, but I like the city and am all for it standing on it's own, so those fears are put aside.
3. More local workforce training, which is always a good idea, but I think it's also parts of most every candidate's plan
4. New Business Round Table
1. Pro: "that brings leaders in business, labor,
   education, and the environmental and civic communities together" ; yay inclusivity of all community factors! (and minor yay for not feeling a need to specifically mention religion here)
   
2. Con: "knock down barriers that are
   preventing businesses from starting, growing or relocating to
   Albuquerque"; while regulations are not always an inherent good to citizens, "knocking down barriers" could undermine efforts to go green, which paradoxically could also hurt Albuquerque tech-heavy business
3. Verdict: probably a good idea, and probably not anti-green, esp. given the nature of City Council as a check on the Mayor
   
2. Public Safety "Sanctuary City" Policy
1. Berry wants to end this
2. "This" is a policy that makes life in Albuquerque easier for illegal immigrants
3. It will instead merge APD policy with current Bernalillo county policy, which makes illegal immigrant status relevant upon arrest, instead of waiting to see if illegal immigrant status matters specifically to the case at hand
4. Also: he wants to end the practice of drivers licenses for illegal immigrants
5. He sees the drivers license policy an enabling crime, and is careful to mention that he voted in favor of anti-profiling laws
6. I can't figure this one out
1. I don't know the data on how Marty's policy is specifically intrusive.
2. I am not sure I like the Bernalillo policy of "immigrant status only on arrest" better than the ABQ policy of "immigrant status only if explicitly necessary", but I like them both better than most things most states do about illegal immigrants in the name of crime prevention
3. I'm a very big fan of the drivers license program for illegal immigrants - it allows them to report crimes without a fear of themselves being arrested, and that is great, and an anti-crime measure. I do not see where it increases crime (besides, of course, the crime of being here illegally).
4. I think coherence between Bernalillo and Albuquerque police departments would be good, but I'm not sure they both shouldn't adopt Marty's policy instead.
5. Despite evidence to the contrary, I don't think this is actually racist. Berry wouldn't have voted for an anti-profiling law if he was, and he'd also be opposed to Bernalillo policy if this was racially motivated, or just about not liking illegal immigrants
6. Then: I don't know how this benefits safety, and I don't have racism as an easy excuse for a police policy that isn't about safety.
7. I would really like to see the data that made Berry support this position, because I feel as though something vital is omitted here that would give it all coherence.
3. Public Safety: Property Crime
1. My prior biases on this section:
1. Property crime is inherently a class-biased concern
2. I'm generally more for saving the lives of people than I am for saving their stuff; if I have to prioritize, that is how I am doing it.
3. That said, protection of property is what allows for stability, investment, and western civilization.
2. Proposes actual budget reallocation: away from beautification projects like Tingley and the Trolleys, and permanently to Youth Gang Prevention, Substance Abuse Programs and Neighborhood Deterioration
3. Acknowledge the economics of the issue by making the selling of stolen property, and the ensuing profits, much more difficult
4. The plan to cut down on resale of stolen property mainly involves carrying through with persecutions
   
5. None of this is inherently bad. Some of it is actually quite good.
6. Very little of this gets in the way of saving lives when lives need to be saved; in fact, that he sees Substance Abuse programs as linked to property crimes is really, really smart. I think he gets this.
   
4. Government transparency
1. Oooo, online searchable trackable spending of tax dollars. Accountability-lovers dream.
2. Also, public, online access to "The City’s “Checkbook” and General Ledger Accounts
   Contract Amounts and Vendors; Government Salaries; and Study/Program Data." is in no way a bad idea.
3. There isn't much more, but none of this is bad, and much of it is quite good.

Conclusions

I'm not going to endorse anyone in this race.

I like what Richard Romero has to say about Green Energy and Sustainable Development. I think he has great ideas for education but I worry about involving the mayoral office in education. I also think he feels the need to improve policing and transparency, but I am not convinced he knows a way to do that.

I think that Mayor Marty has done less than he credits himself with, but more than his critics think. I'm genuinely skeptical about his approach to public safety, and what that means for youth in this city. But he's not all bad, and many of his non-development initiatives are things that have improved Albuquerque. I can't really deny that. I don't like that he has been mayor of my city for 3/5s of my life, but he's not incompetent enough to outright disqualify.

I knew nothing about Richard Berry before this post, and I have been genuinely surprised to find a pro-active-government member of the GOP. Perhaps the past decade of neocons and the past years sparking of libertarian activism have thrown off my understanding of what republicans can be, but it's kind of pleasant to discover a sane, pro-business centrist. That said, I'm still not sure I like him. His proposes policy changes concerning illegal immigrants are savvy, and I do not think they are done with malice/hatred/xenophobia or any other excuse that would interfere with his logic. I still can't see what that logic is, however, unless it's a simple belief in the rule of law, and the includes immigration law. To me, immigration law is secondary to the lives of the people residing in Albuquerque, but such a legalistic perspective is at least something I can disagree with reasonably, instead of vehemently oppose. His section on property crime (and, actually, his plan on immediate and long term growth) seems to include a smart reading of behavioral economics (or at least a partial one, to which I say: yay!), and his transparency plans are, simply put, great. My hesitancy on him unrelated to illegal immigrants is that I'm don't see any focus on Albuquerque green and even better for tech. "Green" is never mentioned, and the tech is just assumed. These are not bad things, but they are not great things. I want, in 2009, to have a mayor that is about renewable energy, and about long-lasting renewable energy growth in my desert city. Much as I like his other policies, he doesn't have that little crucial bit.

What does this mean to you, the voter?

Albuquerque has three comprable candidates, none of them bad, none of them stellar. Whoever wins the election, I will disagree with/be skeptical of their Public Safety initiatives. But otherwise, there's some real choice - Romero is aiming Burque green and sustainable, and that's good. Marty is all about making Albuquerque a city that is thriving, and he's done that repeatedly through odd ways (curiously, most of the development that in my mind defines Marty was left out of his list of achievements). And Richard Berry has some good economic policy, and perhaps the transparency plan the Duke City needs. These are not bad choices. They all come with downsides (Romero's education intrusiveness, the person of Marty Chavez, Berry's skepticism about illegal immigrants), so it's a choice to weigh carefully.

Last Word

I mention all of this as a gigantic aside to a future discussion about the Mayoral Race in my second city of New Orleans, where my biases are clear and I'm outright supporting a candidate. Next to the range of possibilities afforded New Orleans, the ABQ race is dull. Be grateful - that dull means it is very, very, very hard for a wrong choice to fuck up and destroy the city.

Obama the Dictator? Part 3: Conclusions

Note: this series of posts is distilled from a conversation I had online, in which my responses were so over-long and verbose that I realized they'd make better blog posts. Some slight changes have been made to style, but the content is the same.


Obama is not fascist: a mere definitional examination of the term is enough to easily rule that out. Nor is he a dictator: he won in a popular election, as well as in the electoral college. Dictators rarely, if ever, come into power through fair or open elections. And his presidential power is not unique or unprecedented; we just had 8 years of expansion of executive power, so it should come as no surprise that the current president enjoys many of the powers awarded his predecessor. This is all unexpected.

The disappointment in the conclusion, then, is that many similar abuses remain. Some of the targets of these abuses have changed (or, more correctly, some of the perceived victims may have changed), but the power remains, and has not been dismantled. We have a president in the United States with serious power. No surprise there. That some of it is unconstitutional is a bit disappointing, and that's the fun part of being a citizen.

Caring about politics means perpetual stewardship.

Even with the president you wanted, just as much as with the president you didn't. As Americans, with our peculiar form of democracy, we have to constantly work to secure the rights we should already have, to secure the ones we are wrongfully denied, and to make sure that our government accurately reflects us as people. The only things outright damaging to this system are apathy (which allows others more invested to dictate all decisions), and powerlessness/rage (which themselves see the destruction of existing institutions as the only way to freedom). I don't feel that either of those are viable, but they both offer the easy moral shortcut of wiping one's hands clean of this nation. To care, to be invested in this nation, one has to accept the existence some terrible things while one works to make them right. I'm a bit of a statist, so my default position is always that change can come gradually, and can come from within. And partisan though I am, this is true across administrations. Very little will change that, while very little will convince the apathetic/powerless/angry that this is possible.

Obama the Dictator? Part 2: Supporting Arguments Examined, Debunked

Note: this series of posts is distilled from a conversation I had online, in which my responses were so over-long and verbose that I realized they'd make better blog posts. Some slight changes have been made to style, but the content is the same.

Specific Claim:

1. A controlled media, for example the fact that the press corps is rigged (just one example)

Counter:

1. The press is rigged? The press always shows a bias a) to those in power, and b) to folk that get them good ratings. Bush was an exceedingly popular president in his first term, and I was kind of appalled by how networks could be fawning over him. I'm still appalled by Fox news, but that's because my bias is elsewhere. I don't like MSNBC for it's blatant pandering either, really. And CNN is gimmicky bullshit. I get my news from sources that aren't television. Television is awful. But that fact that it is ratings-minded and lowest-common-denominator doesn't mean that it's rigged. It means that it is flawed.
ALSO - oftentimes, the media is dependent on the White House for the release of important information. In the case of the Iraq War, the Bush administration was free to control most of the flow of information to the media. So it's not good, but it is hardly a unique crime.

Specific Claim

2. The fact that the government is putting in legislation pushed by close friends of the President which will severely limit the civil liberties of some groups (ie Christians, Veterans, and others that have been labeled more dangerous than the Islamic Jihad by Homeland security)

Counter

2. Inside the US, as inside any nation, the biggest threat to domestic stability comes from the armed, unemployed, and disenfranchised. In the US, the relatively small Muslim community is one that largely came here by choice, came with means, and on average is living the American Dream quite well, having a higher income on average than other demographics. Inside the US, Muslims have no reason to be labeled a threat.
However, the last great act of terrorism perpetrated against the US before 9/11, and the largest act of US domestic terrorism, came from a christian and a veteran. It's a damn ugly fact, but the militia movement that arose in the 90s was made because it was a democrat in office, someone to the left of what they wanted. Had this protest been purely ideological, the militia would have been active for the past 8 years resisting Bush. They weren't. This is partisan.
Last summer, an out of work white man opened fire on Unitarians because liberals were ruining this country. Same with the young man who shot up Pittsburgh police. Same with the old Nazi who shot up the DC Holocaust museum. Same with the man who shot George Tiller. This is rightist violence, not anti-authoritarian violence. The DHS didn't label those groups threats because they are political opposition. They labeled them threats because they have, over the past 20 years, consistently proven themselves to be threats when Democrats are in power.
Internationally, Muslim extremists are more of a threat. Domestically, not so much.

Specific Claim

3. His Chicago style elimination of people he sees as a threat ie: Sarah Palin

Counter

3. Palin's role on the national stage as much as anything led to her resignation. That Obama benefits from it is clear. But that he caused it? That's a claim with little supporting evidence beyond her own personal sentiments

Specific Claim

4. His installation of Czars which have no accountability to either the people or the legislature.

Counter

4. We've had Czar's in office since the 1970s (conspiracy theorists note the prominence of Biden's name in this article.) ALL MODERN PRESIDENTS DO THIS. To make an exception for Obama is really to dislike him for other means, and be frustrated that he's making the decisions. If you're upset about the power itself existing, then protest it in every administration since Nixon. Don't single out one guy.

Specific Claim

5. He socialized corporations AND banks

Counter

5. This isn't socializing the banks or any other corporation. That would mean the federal government would assume permanent ownership, or that the public would assume permanent ownership through the government. That isn't happening. The US populace hates it when the government owns anything, and government here isn't set up to run these institutions. The strict capitalist thing to do would be to let them all fail, but that didn't work in the depression, and I'd rather go through temporary stewardship than risk global economic collapse.

Specific Claim

6. He practices misinformation, and has supported hate mongering legislation in congress. Also, he's criminalized Christianity

Counter

6. All governments practice media manipulation. It's the role of the citizenry to hold the media accountable for honesty. There's been no hate mongering legislation, unless you count the president's support of DOMA. Homeland security is an executive branch body, and so doesn't legislate to get its will done. I don't actually know what bills you're referring to, so I can't counter with specifics. Being involved in the economy is what government does, ever since the 1930s, and even before, really. I wouldn't call any of this fascist. I'd call it government.
6b. The groups criminalized are those that urge murder, like the Army of God abortion clinic bombers. That's not a religious group, in the way that al-Qaeda isn't a religious group. Religion is a shared identity, but the purpose is different. That's not criminalizing religion; that's criminalizing terrorism.

Specific Claim

7. I'm sick of "Well we inherited this mess": put on your big boy pants and quit lying to people; or "why are you still blaming the past - if you're in power, can't you fix it?"

Counter

7. And you're right, it's been almost 6 months with Obama in the Whitehouse. He should have done a lot more to dismantle the police state he inherited. But to say that you can fix every thing that went wrong over the past 8 years in 6 months is really just to ask the president to fail. That's unrealistic, and it's absurd.
New Orleans still has fields where in August 2005 it had neighborhoods. It's been almost 4 years, in the richest nation on earth. You'd think we'd have this done by now, but we haven't. Why? Remaking is incredibly hard work. It takes time and sustained effort.
I'm not asking you to pass the buck back to the Bush Administration. I'm just asking you to acknowledge the role they had in making possible this present government you so despise. Obama did not spring into office fully formed from the mind of Keynes. The past *matters*.

Specific Claim

8. Fascists always come in under a different name and there are different types, George Bush was a militarist, Obama's more of a Machiavelli type
8a. Czars are creepy-powerful; I am upset about the Czars, i understand that they've existed but it makes me nervous to watch people being put in charge of huge areas of our day to day life as a nation and being answerable to one person and one person only.

Counter

8. Fascists come in explicitly under the fascist name. Franco was explicit, Hitler was explicit, Mussolini coined the word to describe his party.

8a.And yeah, I don't like it too, but that's a different issue. That's not about the person of Obama; that's about the nature of US government. The difference is important.

Specific Claim

9. I just don't understand how more government is the answer to big government that was promised on the campaign, or how spending more money will get us out of debt.

Counter

9. The reason that we are currently spending more money is because depressions are caused by an absolute lack of spending. The brilliance of Keynesian economics is that the great depression was a perfectly functioning laissez faire state: all savings were invested as capital. The problem is that it was a balance of zero - no savings mean no investment. The way out of the depression, the spending in times of scarcity, is to get money circulating. Ideally, leaving a depression money flows fast enough so that tax revenue on the recovery compensates for spending at the lowest point. Governments are weird, and one of the few institutions that can spend money on the promise that they'll exist to repay it. It's weird, certainly, but it is doable by nations in a way that it isn't by personal finance.

9a. Big government is always a tricky proposition. I certainly enjoy roads, schools, and the presence of law enforcement. I also like that my home is protected militarily. Those are more or less given baselines, rights made possible by government. I would really like the certainty of lifelong healthcare not tied to my employer - that'd be a right and a freedom I could enjoy if we had a public healthcare option or a universal healthcare system. Government would make the possible, and can do it in a much better way than our system currently unfolds. At present, as soon as I graduate college and am off my parent's plan, I have no guarantee of health, and won't until I find stable, salaried employment. If I freelance, my costs for healthcare go way up. If I work part time or in many hourly jobs, I wouldn't have an affordable option for healthcare. So that's a problem that big government can solve, by taking over with universal (unlikely) or introducing a public option. And then there is regulation. I'm pretty happy having not played with lead toys as a kid. I enjoy the safety provided by speed limits. I like that zoning prevents a factory being built next to my house. I'm in favor of requiring minimum standards for how companies treat their workers. And I like that companies have to pay attention to their ... environmental impact, because I enjoy a livable world. That's government that is kind of big, but provides a lot of immediate benefits.
Also, I like that we have a justice department and a state department, to conduct our internal and external affairs with professionalism. Those are large, executive branches that benefit this nation as a whole, but individually its much harder to see. Or the FDA, which though sometimes iffy at least means there is a place that can prevent poison being sold as medicine. Or FEMA, so that when shit hits the fan we have someone to respond or a place for blame. That's all big - we're a nation of 300 million. The only big government I outright have a problem with are things like the department of homeland security, which is a scary police-state apparatus thing. It shouldn't exist, and their are serious problems with the current forms of the CIA and FBI. And, oddly enough, the FCC which let telecommunications companies doing spying work on ordinary ... citizens without warrants. That scares me, because it is big and ignores constitutional rights. That is what I hoped Obama would get rid of, and again, he's lagging on this.

Specific Claim

10. I cannot say with any fibre of my being that Barack Obama sits well with me. I believe our President is morally bankrupt and lacking in any real understand of what's going on.

Counter

10. I have seen nothing in Obama to suggest an immorality - though Chicago breeds fear he's Hawaiian by birth, and that's a very different sort of multicultural upbringing from every US president ever. But that's a different ethnic perspective and national context; that doesn't strike me as ... immoral. And yes, he's admitted this nation is flawed. We certainly are - our constitution declares certain people both less than human and property. That's a flaw, and while we've amended it away, the past does not die with legislation. Things are certainly better now than they ever have been, but that doesn't mean they are perfect or that their isn't work to be done. But again, that's a perspective. That isn't immorality.
As for lacking in real understanding, I was first drawn to Obama because he, of all things, understood the internet. That seemed to me to be relevant understanding, and was something Hillary lacked or didn't care to publicize. And I voted for Obama on the basis of Foreign Policy, because he saw a way for the US to function in the world that was ... still strong but did not require belligerence or demonization. He is willing to try diplomacy first, and I think that shows a profound understanding for the dignity of other nations and for the US's role on the international stage.
As for his economics, I think he gets it. You govern differently in a recession than in a boom time, and he's doing that. But look. I like Obama because his policies resonate well with me. There are many Americans that don't go online, or live in cities, or trust other nations, and to them he may look foolish. While he is many things, incompetent is not one of them.

Obama the Dictator? Part 1: the Claim itself

Note: this series of posts is distilled from a conversation I had online, in which my responses were so over-long and verbose that I realized they'd make better blog posts. Some slight changes have been made to style, but the content is the same.

Claim: Obama is fascist, or close to it

Rebuttal:

1. Crying "Fascism" is a lazy talking point made by whoever is out of power in US politics.

2. Distinguishing between Obama and Fascists:

2a. Popularity: Obama is charismatic; so were fascists, but the similarities more or less stop there.

2b. Civil Rights violations: I'm a bit disappointed that he hasn't done more immediately for civil rights, but he wasn't in office when Bush and the legislature passed the Patriot Act, from which most rights violations stem. And it was the Bush justice department that allowed for the label of "enemy combatant" to be a loophole out of the law. I believe that current policy is under review, but at any rate it didn't start with Obama (counterpoint: continuing a flawed policy is jsut as bad as creating it)

2c. Involvement in the National Economy is a Fascist Characteristic: Involvement in the national economy, it is no different than that of many, long-standing democratic governments. England, for example, went further and nationalized *as a democracy*. France for decades supported "national champions" on subsidies. But neither of those were fascist moves, in the same way that injecting money into the banks or assuming control of GM isn't fascist. It's statist, but that is the nature of government

3. Defining Fascism
Fascism has a huge component of nationalism and militarism, historically coming from an alliance of the unemployed, veterans, and conservative politically/religiously, and historically all against communist or leftist governments. Obama has no new militarism; he made his name by being anti-war. And while he is certainly on the left, totalitarianism on the left is not fascism; it's communist, it's socialist, or it's totalitarian, but it is decidedly not *fascist*. And most totalitarian features of leftist government are missing here - there have been no nationalizations, and the government is only holding companies temporarily until it can inject taxpayer dollars into stable private institutions. Bush did the same in October, and it's a fundamentally capitalist/centrist move.

4. Being angry about the President when your party is out of power You can disagree with the president. Lord knows every American does it at least half the time. But being charismatic != being fascist, and being the executive does != being a dictator.

Airing my own Dirty Laundry

I've always been fairly vocal and political, so it is probably unsurprising that some of my teenage opinions found themselves in the local paper and are now online, in a nice sort of permanent-record way. So, in the interest of full online disclosure, here's the article.

Now, I stand by my 16 year old self. I've said many times on this blog that I believe in youth rights, that I think the voting age should be lowered, and that youth free speech matters. And I say this well aware that this is my example of youth free speech:

At the other end of the spectrum is Albuquerque High School junior Kelsey Atherton, who not only refuses to say the pledge, but stands facing the opposite direction. Sometimes he says different words or makes additions to the pledge. When it comes to "under God," Atherton says "under god/s, under goddess/es, or lack there of."
Atherton says he stands backward because he is angry about Bush's re-election and the war in Iraq. "Absurd" is the word he uses to describe the war and the government's handling of Hurricane Katrina. He makes additions to the pledge to focus on what he sees as a narrow interpretation of God. The pledge should have either no religion or more inclusive language, he says. He even goes so far as to compare it to fascist chanting.

There are explanations for all of these; I'll go briefly through each one.

1. "Under God/s and/or Goddess/es or lack thereof". I'm Unitarian. I have always been aware of a plurality of beliefs and belief systems, so the adoption of a formal procedure in public school to honor a very narrow interpretation of God, perhaps more broad than the Abrahamic Deity but not terribly so, is offensive as it alienates. It excludes the diversity that we as a nation cherish and celebrate, so that's why I tried to be more inclusive with my coverage of religion in the pledge. ALSO - it throws the meter of the pledge way off to say it, which helps highlight the fact that even "under God" throws off the pledges meter. "Under God" is a Cold War edition to the pledge urged by the Knights of Columbus as a way to further distinguish the US from the secular philosophy and government of Communists, specifically the USSR. The Cold War is over; if we are to still have a pledge, we don't need it to contain that.
2. We don't really need a pledge. It is a weird national ritual, and it seems like the kind of thing we as a nation make kids do because they are too young to question it, and powerless enough to not object to it. While it isn't actually a bad thing to say (I have a copy of the original, pre-"under god" version in my room), I think it is a bad thing to ask people to say when they don't know what it means. That, to me, makes it fascistic - it asks for unquestioning devotion to a symbol of a nation, and then to the nation itself, does so with a divine mandate, and it is as a matter of course done nationally by children who can get in trouble for not joining it. That's disturbing, and it is kind of what kings do. We as a nation were founded on loyalty requiring consent - we left a nation that had abused our loyalty, and we fought a war with them because they were surprised we'd questioned the arrangement. Ritual, unexamined chanting does not have a place in our democracy.
3. Protesting the Presidency of George W. Bush. I've never denied my partisan identity, and I will stand by my belief that George W. Bush is among the worst presidents this nation has ever had. While I disagreed broadly with most of his policy decisions, Iraq and Katrina stand as failures that go beyond policy approach. The Iraq War has a long litany of problems - foremost in my mind is how destabilizing and unnecessary it was, and how poorly planned it was. As for Katrina, it was the exact kind of natural disaster that we as a nation should have been able to handle. I sincerely think presidential neglect played a part in the destruction, alongside many, many other factors. So that's why I felt the need to have a symbolic protest. But the question will come to my choice of the pledge as forum for protest.
4. The Pledge in Public schools is almost-tailor-made for petty dissent. It is short, daily, and overtly national. It's done during homeroom, which is a dead time in the academic day anyway. It is done amongst a group of peers. All of these facilitate the use of the pledge as a way to express a political opinion, with a minimum of effort, to one's peers (among whom one's opinion is important), without causing any substantive problems. I did it because I was upset (as many teenagers are), but also because I was upset politically (as I can be), and because I really, really needed to show that I was intellectually not on board with the leadership and actions of my nation. And that hurts, to care about a nation and feel so alienated from it's conduct that even joining in a morning ritual becomes hard. That's a political opinion that matters, and I'm pretty sure that the pledge is as good a forum as any to voice it. It did exactly what I needed a symbolic gesture to do, and it helped me keep my head through the other inanities of high school. That, I think, is reason enough.
   

And so it's out there and acknowledged. A political young adult was a political teenager. And while I deliberately try to be less aggressive, alienating, and partisan now, I think my actions as a youth were justified, were appropriate, and played a valuable role in shaping my present political identity.

Why I'm still for Team Obama

As someone who plays with nuance all the time, the actual effect of rhetoric on politics means a lot to me. Specifically, though, it isn't just the content of a speech but the tone that is important; very rarely in US politics will I support a statement that draws its inspiration from anger or an US vs. Them mentality. That was awful during the Bush years and the Clinton years, and does not seem terribly worthwhile now.

Of course, I'm still playing for a team here. Broadly, it's the left, and more specifically it is the policy of a sane left. Not a compromising, mid-90s centrist left, but a left that is both self-assured in the correctness of its view while not being overbearing about it. It is nice to see these sentiments echoed in an analysis of Obama:

Democratic partisans think the enemy is vicious and must be met with uncompromising force. That's exactly how conservative foreign policy hawks feel about the world. Unsurprisingly, the right-wing foreign policy critique of Obama today sounds eerily like the partisan Democratic critique of Obama during the primary...

This is a perfect summation of Obama's strategy. It does not presuppose that his adversaries are people of goodwill who can be reasoned with. Rather, it assumes that, by demonstrating his own goodwill and interest in accord, Obama can win over a portion of his adversaries' constituents as well as third parties. Obama thinks he can move moderate Muslim opinion, pressure bad actors like Iran to negotiate, and, if Iran fails to comply, encourage other countries to isolate it. The strategy works whether or not Iran makes a reasonable agreement.

The full article is here, and is about 10 paragraphs. Well worth reading, and a welcome break from the angry echo chamber that is most politics on the internet.

George Will: Wrong Again

Editor's Note: This was originally sent in to the Albuquerque Journal as a letter to the editor. They didn't print it, and it is still almost-timely, so I'm posting it here. Relevant links: George Will's article ad-gated at the Journal or free-membership-gated at the Washington Post or in its entirety and with handy visual aids online here . Ian Bremmer's article in Foreign Affairs is paid-subscription-gated, but you can listen to the whole of it as a podcast.

Edit #2: Thanks to commentor ThingsBreak, here's a .pdf of Bremmer's piece. It is really, really good.

On Monday, the Journal published an article by George Will entitled "Too Many 'Free Markets' Belong to the State - Really". Will spends his time misinterpreting Ian Bremmer's article "State Capitalism Comes of Age." Substituting bias for an understanding of the material, Will disputes Bremmer's premise that "the state must eventually retreat" from long-term state control of capital. Will says, instead, that Bremmer is "probably wrong, because he underestimates the pleasure politicians derive from using their nation's wealth as a slush fund for purchasing political advantage." Nowhere in Bremmer's article does Bremmer exhibit an underestimation of political greed - instead, he refers often to the close ties between economic and political leadership in both Russia and China. Will also implies that the new states that have taken ownership of their free markets (Brazil, India, Turkey, and Mexico) have done so out of greed; Bremmer instead explains that they did so because these countries had "a much weaker rule of law than was the case in established free-market democracies".

The country that Bremmer does not feel is at risk for permanent state control is the one that Will writes the most about - the United States. Nowhere in Bremmer's article is there a basis for government in the US becoming "the only agent and the sole arbiter" of American happiness. Instead, Bremmer states correctly that "in the United States and in Europe, the power of the invisible hand remains an article of faith. Governments on both sides of the Atlantic know that to maintain popular support, they must keep their promises to return the banking sector and large enterprises to private hands once they have been restored to health." This is a far cry from the authoritarian USA Will reads into Bremmer's article. Once again, Will cherry-picks the his quotes, and misses the truth.

The Fine Line Between Black Helicopters and Ambulances

Earlier today (minutes ago, in fact) I wrote a post discussing the challenge posed to the Left by the civil-liberties-affirming Right. In short: when out of power, it was very, very easy for the Democrats to get the votes of those against the police state. When in power, they have to not only stop expanding but actively dismantle police state apparatus (Patriot Act, I'm looking at you) in order to not be the police state party.

There are inherent political challenges in this at any given time: alienating security conservatives, tarnishing the records of prominent Democrats complicit during the Bush years, potentially finding ones hands tied in acting on new information. There are new and exciting challenges that one can add on to this: trying to end it while aiming for National Reconciliation, the very identity of the President making him more prone to crazy domestic violence, and trying to extinguish state power in one arena while expanding it, in, say, the area of healthcare.

The key to expanding the state in one area while retracting it in another is, as I see it, about the framing of rights. The police state violates very clearly defined freedoms: it takes away privacy, autonomy, and presumed innocence. Ending the police state means guaranteeing those freedoms.

Healthcare has to be framed the same. Currently, healthcare means uncertainty, high costs, employment-dependence, and inefficiency. It does not mean, as the most adamant free marketeers will tell you, than procuring health services is a matter of choice and desire. When you need healthcare, you absolutely need it. No amount of bargaining or negotiating or price-comparison will help. Healthcare is a terrible good to have rationed exclusively by the market - it creates a surplus of cosmetic surgeries in the same nation that has 1 in 6 uninsured. So framing the current system as the free market is an impossibility.

Instead, Obama's healthcare plan, and all other universalistic healthcare programs, need to frame the very program as a freedom: freedom from risk, freedom from uncertainty, freedom from impossible costs, freedom to transition between jobs while still being insured. This isn't the state stepping in and forcing a program on people; this is the state removing unfair burdens and affirming the inherent freedom to life.

If people see healthcare as a freedom and not as a government program, and if police state programs are repealed, I think the Obama coalition can last for at least another decade. More importantly, it will both fulfil campaign promises, and give the Left an opportunity to stop being the "big government" party and instead become a political party about freedoms.

How to Dissassemble an Obamic Bomb

I've mentioned several times on this blog that I think Ron Paul is the new face of the Republican party, and I've also said that I favor a libertarian-minded opposition. I think that an emphasis on checking power and maintaining civil liberties is vital in this nation; it's why I prefer libertarian opposition to, say, religious right opposition. That doesn't mean I actually want libertarian rule; it is my intended least-bad alternative.

I think the libertarians will be competitive in the Mountain West. Former New Mexico Gary Johnson has considered a 2012 presidential run, as a "antiwar, anti-Fed, pro-personal liberties, slash-government-spending candidate"; this is a far cry from the big-government, freedom-restrictionist era of Bush, and it will still satisfy fiscal conservatives the nation over. The challenge for candidates like this nationally is incorporating the religious right/social conservatives, and the general category of security conservatives. Nationally, it may not work in 2012.

The Mountain West plays differently, and New Mexico piles on peculiarities. With it's large catholic and Hispanic voting blocks, NM democrats skew statist center-left. Progressive economically much more so than socially. And the right in New Mexico, while having the standard components of the religious right, economic conservatives, and the very security-minded, has a very, very, very strong libertarian component. (Or at least it can - Jim Scarantino played the paranoid libertarian to Bush, but now plays the generic Rightist to Obama).

It is this climate that produced Gary Johnson. And it is this climate that may allow a bit of national spotlight for Adam Kokesh. Running in NM's 1st congressional (bluest of the blue) districts, Kokesh is anti-statist in the most profound way. He cites the founders, the Bill of Rights, and moral obligations in his call against the current "march towards fascism". His goal is an end to both American imperialism and the police state; 12 months ago, on this alone, he'd be casually grouped with the Democratic left. But now, parties in power have changed, and his tune is consistent.

Much will be made of him in the local media soon. My collegue FBIHOP is already casually dismissing him. I'm hesitant to be so straightforward with that dimissal - support from Ron Paul and viable anti-war cred makes him, this far from the actual campaign, seem competitive. He could well be the local face of the new Libertarian right that I'm anticipating. That's less important than the lesson his very existence has for the Democratic Party:

If the Democrats become the police state party, we have lost the coalition that swept Obama into power. And we've probably lost the Mountain West

Ron Paul as Backdrop

My friend JR is a big fan of Ron Paul. I expressed my thoughts about Ron Paul once before on this blog, but JR convinced me to give him a look. So I read a speech by Representative Paul, given before the House on the 29th of November, 2001. Here's the link.

It'll take a while to read (an hour, for me). And parts of it ring of conspiracy. But keep reading, because this man is the hopeful godfather of the New Right in this country, and this is where he stands.

I disagree on many points; I don't think that 9/11 was an inside job. I don't think that the UN is an evil plot. I don't support militias. And I think his comments on FDR can go from careful and thoughtful to ideological cheap shots.

However.

He takes his fear of government power and turns it into one of the best defenses of civil liberties ever spoken. It's Brutus level patriotism, and that's partly the problem with it - it seems stuck in a past that cannot be returned to. Ignore that bit, though, because it's really based on restoring the constitution as intended. And a Right mobilized around keeping government in check (not destroying government, and not wishing it away into a taxless oblivion) is the best opposition party that can be hoped for in an "age of Obama". If we can make it to the next century with our civil liberties not only intact but expanded, we will have succeeded as a nation. It may only be possible with the freedom-concerned Right working alongside the freedom-loving left.

Jim Scarantino/Post-Partisanship

For those outside of Albuquerque, you have almost certainly not heard of Jim Scarantino. He

presents himself as a brainy and moderate -- if somewhat pompous -- independent "libertarian."

according to Democracy for New Mexico. They have a fantastic piece up as a takedown of Scarantino's latest column about pending Domestic Partnership legislation. My favorite part of the piece, besides the fact-checking (which is always awesome in the blogosphere) is that they don't attack Scarantino so much for his stated partisan allegiance, but that they expose him for misrepresenting a bill in a wretchedly partisan way. It's a 'gotcha', but it's a really good gotcha, and it is exactly what the blogosphere can do best.

Scarantino, presenting himself as rational if disagreeable, attempts to make a broad appeal to the evangelical base of conservative movements, directly borrowing a line touted in defense of Proposition 8. He does this despite claiming that he's "on record supporting this concept", and he then goes on to say that "Every major religion continues to reject homosexual unions." I can't imagine any clear objective in his mind - do religions that support homosexual unions count as minor? Does he, the free and rational thinker he claims to be, think that the silent majority is justified in their fears, especially given that those fears have no real basis in the law? And, most importantly of all, is Jim's column anything more than masturbatory leftist-blaming?

What's a leftist, a moderate, or a genuine libertarian to do in the face of this? Tom Tomorrow of "This Modern World" suggests that we are now in an era of turning a blind eye to such deeds, in the spirit of post-partisanship. It's implied that because the left has been proven right on behalf of our electoral success that we forgive and forget the grievances placed upon us in the past. But post-partisanship isn't about forgetting - the left won with popular support, so it's not like we're forgetting the things we got right. And just because Obama has made a call for national unity and moving beyond party divisions (that'd be the forgiving) doesn't mean that we can't call someone out on blatant, civil-discourse-destroying partisan mud-slinging. Jim Scarantino here has nothing constructive to bring to the table - by advocating an opinion he disagrees with, whose basis in the law is non-existent, he has more or less decided that rather than engaging in a discussion about the boundary between church and state, he will instead claim rightness and hurl vitriol at those he disagrees with. (Really, Jim, fascist as a meaningful insult? This isn't 7th grade, and you are this close to breaking Godwin's Law).

Being post-partisan doesn't mean letting him say whatever he wants in the spirit of discourse (freedom of speech covers that). Being post-partisan means that when someone shows up to the discourse with a pile of unsubstantiated lies and the Cliff's Notes to 1984, we are allowed to ignore them and talk to the actual libertarians in the room. Because at least they are taking the discussion seriously. Because their intent is finding that line between church and state, instead of asserting their line is absolutely and infallibly correct. Because governments and political parties don't deal in infallibility, Jim - that's the realm of the Church.

Drugs/Drug Culture

In my head, I've been writing this post since at least May 2007. In that month, I wrote a post about "The Social Norms of Intellectual Dissidents". It's one of my favorite posts, but I spent the whole of it tip-toeing around the main issue in my mind. Since it's relevant here, I'll go ahead and quote the relevant parts in full:

I support decriminalization of marijuana, but I don't and cannot allow myself to smoke it (at all, ever) as while the law is unjust, the illegality of the act is something I feel should be officially overturned, rather than quietly disregarded.

It is here that I have my biggest break with drug culture in its aspirations, and I'm well aware that I may be creating an artificial distinction. My stance and my point seem far more valid in the 1960s US than they do in the present one, and perhaps that's because of the point I made later in that post:

This is the stand of the moderate intelligentsia, and it's saving grace is that their ideas are easier to legitimize than what happens at the fringe. It helps to defy stereotypes and bring people around, and it slowly changes attitudes, usually only slightly (at most a generation or two) ahead of the common perception.

My thinking in that post was that drug culture, from hippies to hipsters to the drug culture of punk rock and now to such phenomena as "urban" crack and rural meth use, was forcibly distinct from mainstream society. Rather than making drug use more common and everyday, drug culture instead served to alienate most people and made demonization of drug users easy. A "War on Drugs" in this country was possible and supported in a way that a "War on Booze" seems impossible today. Of course, this nation once had prohibition of alcohol, but that was overturned in a depression (haha) and after a decade of realizing that people would still consume alcohol legal or illegal. It was also ended under the realization that the social cost of outlawing alcohol, especially the rise of powerful gangs and criminal empires, outweighed the social goods of banning it.

There are many today who call for an end to prohibition on similar accounts - after all, isn't it the common knowledge of the collective American psyche that marijuana is really not a harmful thing at all? (Editor's note - that previous sentence is hyperbole and quite possibly untrue) But there are very interesting distinctions made here - I will advocate completely for the decriminilization, and maybe even for the outright legalization, or marijuana, but I will go to great lengths to say that I don't want this for myself, that I don't ever intend to partake of the drug, and that I think the illegality of the drug is wrong more than I think the drug is right. I do this because I don't want to be associated with the societal images of drug culture, and because I really have little fondness for being smeared with the same revolusion that has motivated US politics agaisnt the far left since the sixties.

The problem with living this fine distinction is that the culture of the US has moved faster than the intellectuals defending it. As of 2001, 77% of US teenagers surveyed admitted to having at the least tried marijuana. That's no minority sentiment - that's an overhelming majority of the population. Not an exclusive majority, and the figures for current use are just under half of the population, but that is still an awful lot of people. Enough to not constitute fringe groups or minorities, beyond the fact that they are teenagers. And that, soon enough, becomes a majority of the population - no one who was a teenager at the time of the survey is a teenager now. Given a generation or two, casual (and perhaps infrequent) drug use will be part of what is officially normal in American society. And it's worth adding to that - for the societal change to take effect, this will require drug users to live into thier forties and fifties, and probably even into old age. That can't be done without responsible, sane drug use, and it probably can't be done with the drugs that have high mortality rates. Our population will self-select what is minimally harmful, what one can use and still function in society, and what is and always will be a bad idea.

Ending prohibition of alcohol came with the realization that some societal woes are to be accepted, but that criminalizing an activity found to be generally accepted and practiced is the better way to go. This is no better exemplified than in the "If-by-whiskey" speech (hat tip NoraReed). Given another decade or so, I imagine that marijuana will become decriminalized more generally, if not legal, and that it will be accepted as both a medicine and a drug than can safely be used in moderation. And my guess is that, as this becomes more and more openly mainstream, drug culture itself will fade into the background, and people's immediate reactions to news about a drug will no longer be based on their disapproval of stereotypes about drug users. (Similarly, I also hope the same for people's reactions to Christianity no longer be based on fear of the religious right, but that's another post.)

Society Isn't Battles

Today in London and elsewhere, an advertising campaign is running on city buses. The ads are catchy, with Atheist slogans that I would put in the "mildly harmful" section, and not the "completely benign" one. They aren't bad, certainly, and they are at most slightly offensive, but I cannot really say that I'm a fan.

The ad campaign is a response to a previous ad campaign which ran on British buses, linking to a website which discussed Jesus, hellfire, and how non-believers are destined for it. The sources I've found online don't actually say what the bus ads contained (beyond the URL), and so I'm inclined to think that this is more confrontational than it needs to be.

And it's a tricky little thing - I'm all for the acceptance of Atheism, and since I self-identify as agnostic it's not hard for me to agree with their emphasis on being kind to people and living in this world. Those are good things, integral to my understanding of the world. And I'm certainly not in favor of advertising campaigns who go around screaming "Hellfire!" at folk. That's rude, and while it can be motivated by an intense concerning for the spiritual well-being of an individual, it comes across as the opposite of affirming inherent worth and dignity.

But I'm not sure the ad campaign being reacted to was an unpleasant as envisioned, and while I think the Atheist statements are pretty positivistic in intent, it is choir-preaching to say "I don't think there is a God, and I don't need that". It won't convert the uninitiated, and while it may lead more people begrudgingly to tolerance, it doesn't build towards acceptance, which I think is key.

Perhaps I'm over-reacting, and feel free to tell me you think so in the comments. I just - I don't think any side needs to go around claiming exclusive moral superiority, and I don't think that all the denialist and combative elements of Atheism help their cause. The whole thing just strikes me as rather petty.

Edit: saw a new term today, and it hit what I've been trying to get at for a while. Post-Partisan

Living the Dialog

Editors Note: I wrote this piece as a pulpit editorial for delivery today at First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, where it was delivered for both first and second service. I'm posting it up here because I think it's worthy writing, but keep in mind that it is even more targeted at Unitarians than is usual.

Hello Congregation. I'm Kelsey Atherton, and earlier this fall I was the political advisor to Christine on her inspired if ill-fated presidential campaign.

I meant to write this pulpit editorial about my roommate and me- randomly assigned to live together in college housing, we disagree fundamentally on every political issue that has ever come up. And it was my intent to examine how before the election our interactions were all arguments, and how after the election it's become an oppressive silence. This pulpit editorial, as I envisioned it, was to be a parable of the dangers of partisan living, and a reminder of the strength of the divisions that persist in this nation.

The problem with that idea is that it doesn't really offer anything positive or useful, and I know that I for one don't come to church to feel powerless in the face of bad things. The other problem with that anecdote is that it is more or less the exact opposite of living the dialog - my roommate and I engaged in conversation when the stakes were high, and now that the election has concluded we sit around silently being contemptuous of each other. It's kind of a terrible example of how to live ones values.

There is, however, an essence of living the dialog in that. It's important to know where the dialog can be helpful, and where the dialog will amount to a lot of effort and frustration without any meaningful change. This isn't about "cutting ones losses" or "picking ones' battles" - this is about moving beyond war metaphors because this isn't, you know, war. And I think that's really what I learned from my experiences with my roommate - we treated this as a war, and now that the election is over, we're entrenched in a forced no-man's land, waiting for the next outbreak of hostilities.

That is no way to live. And while the situation with my roommate is looking irreparable, it's motivated me to find better ways to live the dialog with other people in my life. My conversations with friends about political issues are no longer winner-take-all debates, where personal attacks fly furiously, or where I discredit an issue because I doubt a given politicians' intelligence. Much as I'd like to say "your guy is an idiot, and you're an idiot for liking him", that's out of the picture. Talking like that is the exact opposite of productive. Every conversation, I strive to remove the petty from my politics. And yeah, I'm still met with the occasional "secret Muslim" comment. But it becomes rare, and it gets to be irrelevant.

More importantly than the lack of ad hominem attacks is the new found common ground - while I still argue tooth and nail for the right to choose, my pro-life friends and I come close to agreeing on "safe, legal, and rare." While I am sorely disappointed by the passage of proposition 8 in California, I can sympathize with the desire to settle the issue of marriage equality through voting and not judicial fiat. That is to say, in a way that respects "the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within...our society at large". And while I am dismayed at insensitive and intolerant remarks expressed by some religious leaders, I can share with them the common ground of good works and a desire to lead a purpose-driven life.

Christine, in her post election sermon about Living in Purple America, quoted this from my blog: "But that doesn’t entitle us to inflict any of the same scorn and contempt on the losers that we’ve had to suffer through. Because if we do that, then it was all for nothing.". I wrote it hours after an electoral success I'd waited 8 years for, and I wrote it not so much because I needed to know it then, but because I knew I'd need to be reminded of it now. In the coming weeks, as the Christmas spirit wanes and the inauguration looms closer and closer, it's important that we continue the work of living the dialog of Purple America. Without it, we exist as bitterly divided armed camps. With the dialog, and the conscious effort to engage people in serious and rational discussion, we can begin to do away with battles against each other. Because there isn't an enemy here - just fellow Americans. We have to appreciate and understand where they're coming from in order to join them in fellowship.

The piece ends there, but I'd be remiss if I didn't include the following image:
The image comes from the excellent from52to48withlove, which is the site that best informed this pulpit editorial, and my post-election sentiments. The above image I found particularly moving, and while I tried I was unable to include it in my speech before the church. Here it is for you, faithful readers.

Liberal Media Bias?

Thanks to a recent Pew study, the blogosphere and Fox News will soon both ring with more allegations of "Liberal Media Bias". Now, the petty thing to do here is quote Stephen Colbert with a comment from his White House correspondents dinner. Since I'm feeling slightly petty, and because it's a good quote, here you go:

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32 percent approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality'. And reality has a well-known liberal bias. ... Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's two-thirds empty. There's still some liquid in that glass, is my point. But I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.

The more relevant quote come from the blog Politico:

As it happens, McCain’s campaign is going quite poorly and Obama’s is going well. Imposing artificial balance on this reality would be a bias of its own.

Here's a better article, one with journalistic integrity. Better, because it is talking about bias, at most it can only be meta-biased.

Speaking in Dystopias

Science Fiction blog io9 has an interesting post up about the two competing narratives of dystopia in this year's presidential election campaign. The post is a good start, but as we near the very end of a two-year-long campaign about the future of this nation, it's a good idea to take a closer look at our competing worst fears.

The dystopia that is easier for me to imagine is the dystopia of the McCain/Palin administration. Greatly to the disservice of McCain's record in the senate, people fear his government not on his own merits or policies, but on those they see him as a surrogate for. The fears about McCain being the next bush are what inspire the trite labeling of him as "McSame", and again, that's a fear that has everything to do with Bush and nothing to do with McCain. It's a repeat of the dystopia of the first 6 years of this millenium, where a Republican president and a Republican congress waged war, inspired fear, let competitive industries consolidate, undermined freedoms, and challenged the social norms of what was approaching an open and progressive society. The fear with McCain, as is the fear with all conservatives (which is is a stand-in for), is the fear of a regression back into a previous and oppressive state of existence. Reckless wars, failing education systems, and the transition of social norms to the rigidly-clamped down society that spawned first the beat poets and then the hippies are all valid fears, but the big one is not so much a fear of actively going backward as it is a fear of stagnation. Palin especially, with here "drill baby drill", epitomizes the failings of the status quo - not that we can't drill, but we can't do it for much longer, and to continue to rely on solutions which we know will stop working soon seems to be folly. It's another four/eight/sixteen years of watching the United States not so much collapse as go down with the ship. Dystopia here is letting ourselves be blinded by unfailing devotion to a system that worked once when it is obvious that times have changed, reality has changed, and that we need intelligence, innovation, and sacrifice to make the whole thing work. And it's a fear that we'll be blinded by infighting and hobbled by tradition in such a way that we fall behind as a nation, and are unable to maintain our position as the world leader in anything excpet debt.

Contrasted with this is the dystopia envisioned by the Nobama crowd. Obama's promise of government working for people again is views quite skeptically; government by its vary nature is harmful to individuals, and any expansion of government power or responsibility will mean, more or less, the end times. It's wars ended in ignominous retreat and a national debt accumlated by spending tax dollars on the lazy, the illegal, and the undeserviving. It's the loss of freedom to universal programs, and it's being expected to say "thank you" for the infringement on your rights. It's being told that your values are not only not unviersal values, but they are criminal values. It's the fear inherent in every American since we first got self-determination, and it's a fear that focuses on very specific definitions of the self, and of determination. It's knowign that tax dollars will be spent on an act you view as murder. It's a real, genuine, fear for our economic security which sees taxes as the final straw that will break the back of American industry. And it's a genuine fear for America's safety, that we'll be left vulnerable and that our president will not have the strength of resolve to punish those who've attacked us. It's a combination of both the oppressive nanny state at home and embarassing appeasement abroad.

Of course, both fears of dystopia are overblown - if they weren't, they wouldn't be fears about dystopia. The way to get around these statements? Read what the candidates say, about themselves, in positive terms - listen to what they say they are going to do, and ignore all the "gotcha!" moments, as well as the divise and petty partisan jokes. Because no matter what happens on Nov. 4th, change is more or less a given, and it's incredibly hard to imagine that change as anything less than positive.

(To be fair, degree of positive matters a lot. Also, this is assuming Obama, McCain, or even Biden administrations. A Palin administration is closer to the dystopic fears about McCain, and tobe fair she inspires many of them. Even under that worst-case of worst-case scenarios, thoguh, the progress will be measured at zero, and not in negative numbers.)

Vote for Martin Heinrich

Edit: This post feels like a hatchet job. I'm aware of that, and a tad disgusted, but I think it raises relevant points. Therefore, I'm leaving it up, warts and all.

I've posted about Martin Heinrich once before, but the post is no longer online. It was for April 1st, 2008, and I had just finished my analysis of presidential candidates during the primary. So, as my April Fools day joke, I analyzed Heinrich as though he were a presidential candidate. My analysis was basically "great positions, but it needs to be more fleshed out for presidency". And that's still true. But Heinrich isn't running for the presidency.

He's running as representative for New Mexico, in a district that is Albuquerque-centered but contains parts of 5 counties. And if you're a New Mexican who can vote for him this election, you more or less need to. Over at the Duke City Fix, Johnny_Mango has a great piece up about the campaigning Heinrich is doing. And in the past, Mango has written quite favorably about the guy.

And this is fair. Martin Heinrich is in my top three of favorite political figures; the first is dead, and the second is Barack Obama. He was an exceedingly competent city councilman, and his campaign is one which emphasizes both optimism and an actual commitment to action. He's good people, and that should be enough to vote for him.

But he's inexperienced, you say. And he's too good looking, you say. Well then, we have another option.

Darren White is both experienced and does not have an abundance of handsome. Instead, he ran President Bush's campaign in Bernalillo County in 2004, which is a partisan attack but one that seems rather valid.

Second, Darren White is an incompetent fear-monger. Now, I'm not one to say these things lightly, and I don't mean to be libelous. But Darren White is a fear-monger. In 2004, there was a fire in the bosque, and our fire department responded to it. There was also a device there for converting vegetable oil into biodiesel. Darren White ordered a lockdown of the scene because of the biodiesel converter, and two things happened: one, a media circus, documented here. Two, the arrest and vilification of two sensible people who just happen to really like alternative energy. And while this is old news, it's relevant news. When faced with an unclear situation, White chose bravado and a get-tough attitude that not only made a situation far more complicated than it needed to be, it led to unnecessary fear. Fear that riles people up and gets the better of their reason. And fear that is directed at a perceived internal enemy. A willingness to jump the gun is not something I want in my representative, and it is especially bad when that representative is part of the body that declares war. And this aggressive grandstanding isn't a solitary phenomenon.

Also back in 2004 Darren White reacted viscerally to a story about a con-man. To be fair, what the con-man did was wrong (if it were right, he wouldn't be a con-man). But we have laws and procedures to deal with con-men. And we, as the United States, grant criminals some basic rights. Not the full rights of citizens, but rights as human beings, and I believe these rights are a key part of our society. How we treat our criminals does not reflect on how repulsed we are by their actions - it instead reflects our degree of civilization, and our willingness to pursue justice under law instead of the justice of the mob. It's one of those things that marks us as civilized.

Darren White holds a different perspective on the issue. As quoted in the Alibi story, Darren White, in his capacity as Bernalillo County Sheriff, said "I'd like to kick his ass. Seriously, let me have five minutes alone with him." Understandably, he was reacting to the appalling actions of a criminal. But this was no rapist, nor murderer. This was a con-man, who simply swindled taxpayer money, and who was under federal investigation. A five-minute off-the -record beating is not an appropriate sentence. I shouldn't even have to type that, but there it is. While I respect the right of Darren White to free speech in his personal life, in his capacity as sheriff he should know better. On top of it all, this remark came at a time when

...our new Metropolitan Detention Center has already earned a reputation for illegal brutality, and that guards were caught on surveillance camera pummeling three handcuffed inmates for 17 minutes earlier this year. The episode is very likely going to cost the public large sums of money once a fat settlement is reached. Do you think the lawyers for the inmates might have clipped and saved White's remarks?

So here's two incidents from early in Darren White's role as sheriff that undermine his judgment. Fear mongering in the first, and weakening our record on human rights in the second. Plus, both mistakes (no matter what perspective you have on the morality involved) were costly, and undermined public faith in the Albuquerque Police Department. This isn't the record of a man who is tough on crime, and it isn't the record of a man who supports inexpensive government. This is the record of grandstanding, bravado, and recklessness. And if elected to the house of representatives, this man will get a vote about whether or not our nation goes to war.

So, there's still time left. Vote for Martin Heinrich, and if you can't just do it because he's good people (yay raising the minimum wage), vote because the man he's running against is dangerous, irrational, and has lost the support of the Republican party.

Participatory Democracy Time!

Thanks to FBIHOP, I've now submitted a question to two separate New Mexico political debates.

To submit a question for the Martin Heinrich / Darren White debate, follow this link.

To submit a question for the Tom Udall / Steve Pearce debate, go here.

Also - I'm curious what you people are asking. Feel free to toss question ideas around in the comments. The community surrounding the omni-blog that is Plastic Manzikert will almost certainly have valuable input.

Edit: My questions, to get this started:

For Heinrich and White: "According to the Pew Center on the States, more than one percent of the US adult population is in jail or prison. As a member of congress, what course of action will you take to reduce this number?"

For Udall and Pearce: "In your capacity as representative for the state of New Mexico, have you ever made a decision against the interests of your district that you thought was in the best interest of the nation, and can you tell us why?"

O Canada

I have saved (in draft form) three separate posts about the possibility of a McCain presidency, about the need for action here at home, and about how even if everything goes to hell I will stay in this nation working to make things better. The implicit point behind all of these posts was to argue that moving to Canada will solve nothing.

Fortunately, I have no need for those posts:

That blue column? Seats awarded to the conservative party.