Midtopia

Midtopia

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Ron Paul, racist?


The blogosphere brouhaha of the day is a New Republic report on Ron Paul, in which they comb through his old newsletters and come across some surprising articles. Some choice excerpts are here. My excerpts from the excerpts:

This 1978 newsletter says the Trilateral Commission is "no longer known only by those who are knowledgeable about international conspiracies, but is routinely mentioned in the daily news."

A 1986 newsletter names Jeane Kirkpatrick and George Will as "two of our enemies" and notes their membership in the Trilateral Commission.

An October 1990 edition of the Political Report ridicules black activists, led by Al Sharpton, for demonstrating at the Statue of Liberty in favor of renaming New York City after Martin Luther King. The newsletter suggests that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" would be better alternatives--and says, "Next time, hold that demonstration at a food stamp bureau or a crack house."

The January 1991 edition of the Political Report refers to King as a "world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours" and a "flagrant plagiarist with a phony doctorate."

"A Special Issue on Racial Terrorism" analyzes the Los Angeles riots of 1992: "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began. ... What if the checks had never arrived? No doubt the blacks would have fully privatized the welfare state through continued looting. But they were paid off and the violence subsided."

A January 1994 edition of the Survival Report states that "gays in San Francisco do not obey the dictates of good sense," adding: "[T]hese men don't really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners." Also, "they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."

If you want to look at PDFs of the newsletters in question, visit TNR's selections link and click on the red type in each example.

You'll see that I ignored some topics. That's because I'm not that concerned with the sections on Israel, secession and the Mises Institute; I can see principled explanations there.

Libertarians -- and Andrew Sullivan -- are dismayed. Reason Magazine got a comment from Ron Paul, whose campaign later issued a statement. The defense is notable for its blandness and lack of specificity, but the basic argument is that this was old news, and reflective of poor oversight on Paul's part, not racism.

Ron Paul supporters, of course, are apoplectic. Just read some of the comments under TNR's main piece. They do have one valid point: the timing of the piece was a bit precious, coming on the day of the New Hampshire primary. Sure, given that we're in primary season, just about any date will have some timing-related effect. But it wouldn't have killed TNR to publish it tomorrow or Thursday, giving Paul enough time to respond before the next primary.

So how much is smoke and how much is fire?

Let's start with the indisputable facts.

1. For decades, various newsletters went out with Ron Paul's name on them.

2. Some of the issues contained material that was far, far, far beyond the pale of being defensible.

3. Paul himself didn't always edit them, and it's unclear which articles, if any, he wrote himself.

4. In particular, Paul disowns the racist, homophobic issues of the early 1990s, which he said were written and edited by others while he was retired from politics. He accepts a "moral responsibility" for not paying closer attention to what was being said in his name.

5. It's also clear that the views expressed in the newsletter are not what he espouses now. Indeed, he flatly told Reason that he considers MLK a hero and spoke in support of Rosa Parks in a Congressional speech in 1999.

But there are troubling questions involved here.

1. I cannot imagine letting a publication be put out in my name without being aware of -- and concerned about -- its content. So if Paul is to be believed, we're talking about a truly stunning lack of oversight.

2. Paul says this is "old news." I'd be willing to dismiss the conspiracy stuff as too old to be relevant -- except that he continues to believe much of it today. The rest is too recent to simply dismiss. It may indeed not reflect his views, or at least his views today, but they're recent enough to require at least some explanation.

3. The "poor oversight" argument would be more persuasive if we were talking about one bad issue or an article here or there. But I bolded the dates in the excerpts above for a reason. Here's how the categories break down:

Conspiracy theories: 1978-present.

Racism: 1990-92.

Homophobia:1990-94.

Militia movement:1992-95.

These things went on for years. Is it possible to be that completely out of touch with a publication bearing your name?

4. Even if we (rather charitably) accept Paul's claim that he was totally uninvolved with the newsletters and never even read them, we come to the question of who Paul entrusted to edit and publish them. I don't see how he would have consented to let someone use his name unless he knew that person and felt they would reflect his own philosophy more often than not. It seems to me that he must have known the political views of the editor, if not the writers. For one thing, a person capable of publishing some of the newsletters TNR discusses could not hide their extremist views very well or for very long. Indeed, the editor presumably had no desire to hide them, seeing as how he or she volunteered to print them up in a newsletter and mail them off to subscribers.

So the explanation that Ron Paul owes us is severalfold:

1. Did the writings reflect your views?

2. Did you ever read the newsletters published in your name?

3. Why did you lend your name to publications you totally disagree with?

4. How did you pick the editors, publishers or writers of these publications?

5. Who were the editors and writers involved, and do you still associate with them today?

For what it's worth, while I think Paul is a conspiracy-minded extreme conservative from the nutty end of the libertarian spectrum, I never had him pegged for a racist. I'm willing to believe that the newsletters do not reflect his personal views. But he then must explain why and how he put his name on the publication containing such trash.

Update: Stubborn Facts has some cogent commentary.

, ,

Monday, January 07, 2008

Two faces of religion

Two more examples of the good and bad sides of belief, both from Minnesota.

CHRIS LIND
On the bad side, there's the case of Chris Lind. He was fired as a hallway supervisor in the Prior-Lake/Savage school district for talking to students about abstinence, despite repeated warnings to stop. He would also question them about their sexual orientation, and reportedly told one student that it was "National Pick On Lesbians Day."

The story doesn't end there. After being fired, he went out and got elected to the school board, prompting the popular school superintendent, Tom Westerhaus, to resign in protest.

Now Lind is threatening to sue the school board he is now a member of, if it doesn't pay him a settlement for wrongful termination.

The school board may have overstepped its bounds a bit, because the cause for firing included activities Lind pursued in his off time, off campus. But unless the conversation is consensual, teachers have little to no business discussing an individual student's sex life, faith or sexual orientation, either on campus or off.

Outside the legal realm, overstepping boundaries is wrong and rude, even if it's motivated by sincere belief.

TOM AND POLLY WILEY
On the good side, there's the case of Tom and Polly Wiley, an Iowa couple who went on a missionary trip to Tanzania in early 2007, helping to put a concrete floor into a preschool near Arusha. There they met 5-year-old Zawadi Rajabu, a girl born with two club feet.
They found a surgeon who helped them find Dr. Mark Dahl, a St. Paul specialist who is one of only a handful of surgeons in the country familiar with an arcane technique for straightening club feet. He agreed to do the surgery for free, and the Wiley's then raised the money to fly Zawadi and her mother to the Twin Cities -- and found a Tanzanian physician that they could stay with while they're here.

Here's the difference between the two cases: Lind spent his time pointing out the flaws he perceived in others, while the Wileys simply lived their belief, showcasing their faith by humble example, compassion and sacrifice on behalf of others. Lind demonstrates why many people associate believers with sanctimony and the bedroom police; the Wiley's demonstrate the power and hope that true belief can engender.

, , ,

Friday, January 04, 2008

Deconstructing the Lancet Iraq death toll study


The National Journal, ideologically motivated though it may be, has a thoughtful compilation of criticisms leveled at the October 2006 Lancet study that estimated as many as 650,000 Iraqis had died in the war.

They don't actually claim to debunk the study; instead, they raise specific methodological questions, and identify what they see as the weakest link: a heavy reliance on a single Iraqi researcher, who trained and oversaw the work of the surveyors who carried out the study.

As I said at the time, the specific number -- 650,000 -- needed to be taken with a grain of salt. Even if you think the researchers were totally on the up and up, the inherent difficulties of conducting statistical surveys in a war zone give reason for pause.

But given that even conservative estimates placed the number of dead at 50,000 (it's up to 80,000 now), and a month later the Iraqi health minister gave an estimate of 150,000, we're still talking about a lot of dead Iraqis. Even a total debunking of the Lancet study wouldn't alter the fact that the war is killing people faster than Saddam ever did.

Such a death toll, though, says nothing about the relative justness of this war. War kills people. The human toll needs to be part of the equation both when deciding to go to war and when considering how to prosecute it, but intent and execution matter.

The Russians in Chechnya, for example, were roundly and justly criticized for their indiscriminate use of heavy firepower. For the most part they didn't care at all how many civilians they killed.

The U.S. military, by contrast, generally takes pains to minimize civilian casualties. And one thing the Lancet study doesn't do is make a distinction between true civilian deaths and the deaths of insurgents. It's hard to feel sorry for a guy who gets dead because he opened fire on U.S. troops.

We can be held responsible in a general way for people killed by car bombings, on the theory that our invasion set off the chain of events that led to the instability in which car bombings occur. But that's a different sort of critique than "the U.S. is killing Iraqis in huge numbers." And it ignores the counterargument that the war is (hopefully) temporary, so that even if the short-run is horrific, Iraqis will be better off in the long run.

Strong antiwar types are in the uncomfortable position of wanting the 650,000 figure to be true, because it would support their argument that the war is a human catastrophe that can only be put right by immediate withdrawal. Strong prowar types are in the equally untenable position of arguing that the war has "only" killed 150,000 (or 100,000, or 80,000). That comes uncomfortably close to the logic of some Holocaust deniers, who try to minimize Hitler's crimes by arguing that the common estimate of 6 million dead Jews is exaggerated -- the true number was "only" a million or so.

The truth is, a lot of Iraqis have died because we invaded Iraq. We must bear that responsibility, not shrug it off. Whether it was worth it will only be known with certainty 10 or 20 years from now, when the outcome of our intervention is discernable. For now, the death rate is high enough to derail one late-arriving justification for the war -- that Saddam was killing his own people -- but not high enough to justify a withdrawal now that we're knee-deep in the mess and maybe -- just maybe -- starting to see a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

But let this serve as a reminder that war, while sometimes necessary or the best choice out of a set of bad options, is always a catastrophe. This one was entered into far too lightly; let's hope it ensures that the next one won't be.

, ,

Obscure election, outsized result

While the nation's attention was focused on Iowa, here in Minnesota we had our own touch of drama: a special election for the State Senate.

This normally wouldn't be a big deal. But it's got irony and surprisingly large political consequences.

Last fall, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (a Republican) appointed State Sen. Tom Neuville (also a Republican) to be a county judge. Neuville had been in the Senate since 1991, and his seat, in Northfield (a college town just south of the Twin Cities), was thought to be pretty safely Republican.

Until last night. That's when DFLer (Democrat to everybody else) Kevin Dahle defeated Republican Ray Cox, 55 percent to 42 percent, to win the seat.

So what, you might ask? Well, in the irony section, that one seat happens to be what the Senate DFL needed to secure a two-thirds majority -- giving them the power to override a Pawlenty veto.

So to recap: Gov. Tim Pawlenty, by appointing a Republican judge, ended up drastically weakening his political clout.

He's not totally irrelevant: the DFL only has 85 seats in the state House, five short of a veto-proof majority. But there often are enough Republican collaborators in that body to get an override on important issues. And if past trends continue, the DFL may secure a two-thirds majority in both houses this November -- the prospect of which makes it easier to find Republicans willing to support an override in the meantime.

November looks like it will be interesting on both a state and national level.

, , , ,

Thursday, January 03, 2008

A quick three

Three quick items of note in the presidential race.

DEMOCRATIC DIRTY TRICKS?
Push-polling in Iowan about Obama and Edwards -- with Hillary as the obvious suspect, though her campaign denies any connection. Considering her third-place finish, it didn't do her much good.

REPUBLICAN DIRTY TRICKS
A handful of ministers who support Huckabee got letters warning them that they could be sanctioned for violating church-state separation. This could just be a lone whackjob rather than an effort by someone's campaign, and again, it totally failed to intimidate anybody. But it's a pretty obnoxious attempt.

RON PAUL SUPPORTERS SLAUGHTERED
In World of Warcraft, that is -- after a political rally wherein they marched to the very gates of doom. Having to kill monsters en route to the rally must really get the blood pumping....

,

Increased transparency -- or not

On Monday, President Bush signed a bill that purports to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, by improving response time to FOIA requests and changing the rules agencies use to decide what is secret and what isn't -- with a bias toward "not secret."

The legislation creates a system for the media and public to track the status of their FOIA requests. It establishes a hot line service for all federal agencies to deal with problems and an ombudsman to provide an alternative to litigation in disclosure disputes.

The law also restores a presumption of a standard that orders government agencies to release information on request unless there is a finding that disclosure could do harm.

Trouble is, it apparently does no such thing.

The new law makes several constructive procedural changes in the FOIA to encourage faster agency response times, to enable requesters to track the status of their requests, to expand the basis for fee waivers, and more.

One thing it does not do, however, is alter the criteria for secrecy and disclosure. Whatever records that a government agency was legally entitled to withhold before enactment of the "OPEN Government Act" can still be withheld now that the President has signed it....

The widely-published AP account continued, "The legislation is aimed at reversing an order by former Attorney General John Ashcroft after the 9/11 attacks in which he instructed agencies to lean against releasing information when there was uncertainty about how doing so would affect national security."

But that is incorrect.

Although the original House version of the OPEN Government Act did include a provision that would have repealed the Ashcroft policy and established a "presumption of openness," that provision was removed from the bill prior to passage.

Oops. Turns out the bill is mostly light and noise, signifying nothing. Score one for style over substance.

, ,

Iowa predictions

Just for fun (and recognizing that I have been essentially boycotting the presidential race up until this point), here are my guesses as to how the Iowa caucuses will shake out:

DEMOCRATS
Edwards, Hillary, Obama

REPUBLICANS
McCain, Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee

I have a small side bet with my wife, whose list is:

DEMOCRATS
Edwards, Obama, Hillary

REPUBLICANS
Romney, Huckabee, McCain, Giuliani

We shall see who is closest.

UPDATE: Guess that proves I wasn't paying close attention. Currently CNN is projecting an Obama, Edwards, Hillary finish, with the Republicans stacking up as Huckabee, Romney, Thompson, McCain and Giuliani.

Maybe I should turn the blog over to my wife....

,

Another Hall of Shame candidate

Following in the footsteps of his predecessor, convicted Republican Gov. George Ryan, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, is at the center of a deepening federal probe.

Federal prosecutors for the first time brought their corruption investigation to the desk of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, making public Friday the allegations of two convicted insiders who say the governor offered them state business for their political backing.

In a 78-page court filing that identifies the governor only as "Public Official A," federal authorities detailed the accusations of the two former political operatives who have already pleaded guilty in a shakedown scheme and are cooperating with prosecutors.

Blagojevich told one of the men he "could award contracts, legal work and investment banking to help with fundraising," according to the filing.

The other insider, Stuart Levine, described a flight home from a New York trip during which he thanked Blagojevich for reappointing him to an influential and allegedly corrupt state hospital board.

"You stick with us and you will do very well for yourself," Blagojevich replied, according to the court document.

This is Illinois, of course, where corruption is a bipartisan endeavor. But that hardly excuses it.

For now, all we have is unsealed accusations -- no charges, much less a trial or conviction. But it doesn't look good, so Blagojevich goes on our Hall of Shame watch list.

(h/t: The Glittering Eye)

, ,

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

When one size doesn't fit all


The Star Tribune had an interesting piece this weekend about the latest refugee influx into Minnesota -- the Karen people of Burma (er, Myanmar), who are a growing presence in the St. Paul suburb of Roseville.

They're here because for years they've been part of an insurgency against Burma's military dictatorship. They're also a religious minority: about a third of them are Christian, and Burma is a majority Buddhist country.

But interesting as that is -- and it continues a Minnesota tradition of providing haven to various ethnic groups fleeing warfare in their homeland, like the Hmong and Somalis -- I found a detail buried near the bottom of the story to be telling in a different way.

The refugee kids -- about 140 -- know no English and are unfamiliar with American customs and culture. So the school district has been working overtime to educate them, scrambling to find translators and additional teachers.

Elementary schoolers attend regular classes for part of the day, but the nuances of English make it hard to keep up.

More than 10 percent of Roseville's students are classified as having limited English proficiency, meaning ELL teachers like Onstad have more than just Karen students to help, said Chris Sonenblum, district director of student services.

The Karen students need so much attention, however, that Onstad finds herself spending much of the day teaching the new refugees simple consonant-vowel-consonant words.

And no one expects much success when the students take state standardized tests for the first time, especially when everything, including how to fill out the test form, is new.

"We're teaching them how to bubble-in answers and write their name," Onstad said. "They're not going to be up to snuff to take grade-level tests."

That, undoubtedly, will hurt the district's chance of making "adequate yearly progress" with No Child Left Behind in coming years.

That's because NCLB requires that the kids meet testing standards after one year -- a flatly ridiculous requirement.

So unless an exception is made, the school district will be penalized thanks to circumstances beyond its control.

I have no problem with the idea of standardized testing -- it is useful, after all, to actually measure student achievement against a common standard, and it's a good way to identify underperforming schools that either need assistance or reform. My biggest gripes about NCLB were its inflexibility and the fact that Bush underfunded his own initiative.

The rigidity is on display in this example. It's ludicrous to expect immigrant kids to meet federal standards after only one year -- especially because they're going to hvae trouble just reading the test questions, much less answering them.

There are a million different kinds of students, and so when it comes to education policy "one size fits all" doesn't necessarily work. There needs to be flexibility for special situations like this one. If the federal government won't provide it, the state needs to weigh in on the side of the school district -- both as an advocate for change at the federal level and with specific help at the local level, so that the school district doesn't suffer unfairly while it absorbs this educational challenge.

, , , ,

Monday, December 31, 2007

Flag follies

Today the flag ban I wrote about earlier this year went into effect here in Minnesota. It is now officially illegal to buy an American flag made in a foreign country.

For the irony-challenged (like, say, the legislators who passed this piece of stupidity), that means you are now *not* free to buy our revered symbol of freedom from the vendor of your choice.

Puts a whole new -- indeed, Orwellian -- spin on "freedom isn't free", doesn't it?

, ,

Happy Holidays and New Year!

I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season. If gifts are your thing, I hope you got what you wanted. But mostly, I hope you were able to spend time the way you wanted: Alone or with family; at home or traveling; quiet or boisterous. Time is the most precious gift we have, and as we get caught up in our work and social standing and other responsibilities, time to do just what *we* want grows achingly scarce. I hope you gave yourself a gift of at least a little time, amid all the noise and lights.

Be smart and drive carefully tonight, and may 2008 prove deserving of the hope we invest in it here at the beginning.

,

Great moments in religion, 2007

As another holiday season winds to a close, we're reminded again why so many people look a bit askance at religion, and why conflating "religion" with "morality" is illogical. There are plenty of positives to religion -- as I've noted before. But as with any human institution, it's prone to abuse and misuse.

From the 2007 holiday season alone, we have the following cautionary tales:

HINDUS VS. CHRISTIANS
In India, home to many religious militants, Hindu attacks on Christians led to several days of riots and clashes. Though a small minority and initially the victims, some Christians went beyond defending themselves, engaging in retaliatory arson attacks against Hindu homes. The dispute began when a Christmas Eve show was perceived by hard-line Hindus as an attempt to encourage conversions -- a touchy subject in India: The state where the violence occurred, Orissa, even has a law requiring police permission before someone can change their religion.


CHRISTIANS VS. CHRISTIANS
What better way to honor the birthplace of Jesus than to fight over it? Sounds silly, but that's a not-uncommon occurrence at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built over a grotto where many believe Jesus was born. The church is jointly managed by three different Christian sects: Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Armenian Apostolic. It would seem to be a triumph of interfaith cooperation -- were it not for the pitched battles between priests over such weighty matters as who gets to clean what part of the building. And the peacemakers? Palestinian policemen, who broke up the fight.

JEWS VS. MUSLIMS
Down the road, in Nablus, masked Jewish settlers from an illegal West Bank settlement attacked four Palestinian farmers, spraying them with pepper gas and beating them with sticks. Hardline Jewish settlers believe they are divinely ordained to settle Palestinian land, which is often simply appropriated without compensation to the landowner.

MUSLIMS VS. EVERYBODY
It's been a busy week for Islamist extremists. Though putatively fighting a holy war against Christian and Jewish oppressors, their targets of late have been mostly Muslim: Sunni tribesmen opposed to Al-Qaeda, Benazir Bhutto and, of course, those heretical Shiites -- some of whom have violence issues of their own.

SIMPLE STUPIDITY
Here we have not one, but two examples of believers -- in this case, Christians -- putting faith ahead of brains.

The first is the urban legend that the song "12 Days of Christmas" is really a coded recitation of Catholic beliefs, apparently based on little more than the fact that the song is really old, and that both it and Catholicism manage to contain some elements numbered up to twelve. Never mind that the symbolism ascribed to the song involves elements embraced both by Catholics and their Anglican persecutors, which kind of renders the whole exercise pointless.

The second is a small movement that sees Biblical significance in Interstate Highway 35, which runs through Minnesota.

Some believe I-35 might be shorthand that links the interstate to Isaiah 35:8 of the Bible: "And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not pass over it, and fools shall not err therein."

I-35 = Isaiah 35... get it? Never mind that there doesn't seem to be any explanation for the eight. There's also the weird logic outlined by one supporter, who points to tragic events -- the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the 1963 assassination of JFK and killings and kidnappings in Laredo -- in arguing that I-35 is a "highway of holiness." Huh? If that's holiness, I don't want any part of it.

These folks don't represent the mainstream of their faith, of course. None of the examples here do. But they're a remarkably time-compressed compendium of all the ways that faith -- particularly partisan, unquestioning faith -- can lead to harmful results. Believe whatever works for you: but always be willing to tolerate the existence of, and interchange with, other beliefs. And always, always, always be willing to entertain the idea that more than one belief could be right -- or that you are the one who is wrong.

, ,

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Updates

I had all of Christmas week off -- and was down for most of it with various ailments, including the ever-popular stomach flu. I'm considering going in to work next week and asking my boss to convert those vacation days into sick time....

My Democratic in-laws gave me two political joke gifts: a Democratic Dream mug and a backward clock counting down the seconds remaining in the Bush presidency. (The Unemployed Philosophers Guild, where the mug came from, has a bunch of other fun political stuff. Like the Disappearing Civil Rights mug, Axis of Evil finger puppets and an Eleanor Roosevelt doll.

NO CAMERAS
Buhl, Minn., has decided against installing security cameras around town after enduring widespread scorn from the community.

A LITTLE CREDIT WOULD BE NICE
Didn't I say nearly the exact same thing a couple of weeks ago?

, , , ,

Friday, December 21, 2007

A mixed ethics bag


Somedays, you get a clear picture that there's a Good Congress and a Bad Congress, and they are in a constant tug-of-war for control of legislators' souls -- sort of like the struggle between Barnes and Elias in the movie "Platoon."

Barnes (above, holding a gun to the head of the House ethics manual) popped his head up the other day, when the House ethics committee published its interpretation of the new ethics rules regarding convention parties -- in which they interpreted a section that bars lobbyists from sponsoring parties honoring members of Congress as only applying if members are mentioned by name. So it's just fine to attend lobbyist parties if they keep it vague -- honoring a state delegation, for instance, or a specific congressional committee.

Watchdog groups, naturally, are outraged. Me, I'll add in "bemused by the lengths the House will go to ensure they can attend parties."

But a couple of days later, Elias emerged from the jungle, running after the departing helicopter.

A "bipartisan" task force appointed to fix flaws in the House ethics system issued recommendations Wednesday without a hint of bipartisanship.

Only Democrats signed off on the plan. Republicans kept silent.

The proposal would change the way ethics complaints are initiated and handled. A six-person Office of Congressional Ethics, with no lawmakers as members, would be authorized to file complaints and start investigations of lawmakers and staff.

At least Republicans didn't actively block it. But the idea of a nonpartisan ethics panel is a good one, and long overdue.

Of course, any recommendations from that panel would still be sent to the ethics committee, which would have the final say over whether to pursue a complaint. And the panel lacks subpoena power. But it would be a little more sunlight into the process, and it would be a little more difficult for the committee to simply ignore a recommendation from such a panel.

So who will win, Barnes or Elias? In the movie, Elias loses the battle (Barnes kills him) but wins the war. A similar outcome seems possible here, where constant and successful efforts by House members to undermine the ethics rules effectively kill them, prompting such a harsh outcry from the public that even harsher rules end up getting installed. I'd prefer it not get quite so Oliver Stoneish, but if that's what happens, okay.

, ,

ATM fixed, PAYGO discarded

Yay, team....

There was broad agreement in Congress that lawmakers should approve a patch to stem the AMT's reach for another year. But agreeing on how to do that put House Democrats and Senate Republicans at loggerheads.

Under their pay-as-you-go philosophy, House Democrats had insisted on raising revenue to offset the $50 billion in tax relief resulting from the one-year fix. Much of the revenue would have come from closing a loophole on offshore tax havens and increasing the tax rate on income earned by hedge fund managers and venture capitalists.

But Senate Republicans blocked the Senate from taking up legislation that included tax increases, and President Bush threatened to veto any bill that raised taxes.

Just put it on the credit card. What a principled stand those Republicans made.

The Dems share blame, too, for misplacing their spine -- and after getting my hopes up, too. Alternatively, they could have sought a compromise that included a mix of spending cuts and tax increases, putting pressure on Bush and the GOP for looking unreasonable by insisting on $50 billion in tax cuts after years of tax cuts and yawning deficits, and in the face of Democratic compromise offers.

Instead, we got the worst of all worlds. Either spending cuts or a tax hike would have been more responsible than the credit-card solution.

Bleh.

, ,

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Political groaners

These two items read like punchlines to a political satire. But they're not.

MITT AND MLK
Mitt Romney is in a minor kerfuffle because he said he watched his dad march with Martin Luther King in 1963. Only one problem: there's no evidence it ever happened, and some evidence to suggest it couldn't have. This could end up being an interesting insight into the fallibility and malleability of human memory, in which a story told to a young Mitt transforms into an actual memory of an event that never happened. Or maybe Mitt just lied. That seems unlikely, however.

MCKINNEY FOR PRESIDENT
Think Hillary is the only woman running for president? Think again. The much-vilified former Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney has thrown her hat in the ring, seeking the Green Party nomination. Oh, joy. I'll give you this: if she were the only other choice, it'd be enough to make me support Ron Paul. He, at least, wasn't raised by wolves.

, , ,

Political justice

People concerned about the politicization of prosecutions in the Bush Justice Department now have this feel-good story to look at:

The Justice Department delayed prosecuting a key Republican official for jamming the phones of New Hampshire Democrats until after the 2004 election, protecting top GOP officials from the scandal until the voting was over.

An official with detailed knowledge of the investigation into the 2002 Election-Day scheme said the inquiry sputtered for months after a prosecutor sought approval to indict James Tobin, the northeast regional coordinator for the Republican National Committee.

They're referring to this case, which led to the near bankruptcy of the New Hampshire GOP.

There's more:

The official said that department officials rejected prosecutor Todd Hinnen's push to bring criminal charges against the New Hampshire Republican Party.

Weeks before the 2004 election, Hinnen's supervisors directed him to ask a judge to halt action temporarily in a Democratic Party civil suit against the GOP so that it wouldn't hurt the investigation, although Hinnen had expressed no concerns that it would, the official said.

Excellent.

Bad as that looks, there's a legitimate conundrum: How to handle election-related charges on the eve of an election? I appreciate not wanting to drop last-minute indictment bombshells, which could influence an election even though the underlying facts don't ultimately support conviction. Ignoring that reality could lead to sham indictments of opposition party members.

In this case, the underlying facts seemed pretty clear. But considering that Tobin's conviction was overturned on appeal this year and he now awaits a retrial, perhaps some caution was called for -- even though the verdict was overturned on a technicality, not because the court thinks Tobin didn't do anything wrong.

It'd be tempting to adopt one of two objective positions: prosecute without regard to the calendar, or don't file politically-related indictments within 30 days of an election. Either would remove the second-guessing about motive that this case engenders; but both have their flaws -- either the risk of politically-motivated indictments, or the risk of justice delayed and voters kept from having relevant information.

There are no real good answers here. Only the observation that when someone on your team screws up, it's probably better to err on the side of prosecuting too early than it is to delay and risk allegations of a cover-up.

, , ,

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Holy Hannah....


I once lived in Jersey City, so I know about rats. Big rats, even. Rats so husky you're afraid that three of them could pick you up and carry you off.

So all I can say about this is.... Yikes!

If a couple of those ever stows away in a cargo ship bound for Manhattan, New York City is doomed.

, ,

Why I don't support Ron Paul


Update: I cross-posted this over at Donklephant, where the comment count is up to 83 and counting.

Caracarn, a regular Midtopia reader and commenter who I've known for a long time and greatly respect, took me to task in this post for curtly dismissing Ron Paul as a nutty libertarian. It's a fair point, so I decided to go into detail about why I think Paul is too far out there to be considered a good presidential candidate.

I think Ron Paul is great in some respects. I've got enough libertarian leanings that I voted for Jesse Ventura, and I certainly respect Paul's commitment to principles. But I think he often follows those principles out the window. Further, he's a strongly conservative libertarian, with whom I disagree on substantive policy issues.

Let's just go through the positions he admits to holding, on his campaign web site:

FREE TRADE
He opposes free-trade agreements as infringements on American sovereignity. He specifically sees NAFTA as part of a master plan to form a North American Union with Canada and Mexico. He opposes the International Criminal Court, World Trade Organization, GATT, etc. He in effect opposes any practical agreement that will work in a multilateral world, where the only way you make progress is if you get buy in -- and enforceability -- from dozens or hundreds of nations. He also opposes nearly all forms of foreign aid, which besides providing humanitarian benefits is a crucial diplomatic tool.

BORDER SECURITY
He's strongly anti-immigration, which is fine, and his proposals aren't actually nutty. But he elides over the cost of his plan, and I think his proposal to "eliminate welfare for illegal aliens" will have unintended and self-damaging consequences, particularly because he defines "welfare" as using hospitals, schools and roads, as well as social services.

DEBT AND TAXES
He supports low taxes and low spending, but he fetishizes the former as an absolute good and doesn't spell out how he's going to cut spending. He opposes the Federal Reserve system, mirroring conspiracy and gold-bug arguments that misunderstand the nature and function of the system and the money supply. He would return us to a gold standard, which is good for retirees but bad for economic growth unless it is jiggered to be essentially a fiat currency system like the one he decries.

EDUCATION
Paul would abolish the Dept. of Education and end all federal involvement in funding or regulating public education, except for offering a tax credit to pay for private school -- essentially a direct federal bribe to pull kids out of public school. Stuff like that makes it appear that he opposes public education in general, despite some statements to the contrary. Never mind that a consequence would be an increase in education inequality, with kids in poor states and poor areas receiving far worse educations than those in rich states or rich areas -- which can afford to fund their schools properly.

ENVIRONMENT
Here he takes a swat at Caracarn's favorite issue. A quote: "The key to sound environmental policy is respect for private property rights." While he does support renewable energy, opposes logging on federal land and doesn't believe in subsidizing polluters, his solution to environmental issues would be to let property owners sue each other over environmental damage.

That is not really a solution, being expensive, time-consuming and impractical. It ignores the hassle of suing, the difficulty in placing a monetary value on environmental harm, and the fact that environmental harm can be small on a given parcel but large in aggregate, or can affect a commons rather than an individual private property. Or that harm may not become apparent until it's too late, as with overgrazing or loss of topsoil. It also ignores the history of land use and degradation, which has shown way too many people willing to make a short-term buck in exchange for long-term harm. It doesn't address side issues, either, like how to save endangered species, or problems like preserving water quality where there's often no single, clear culprit available to be sued.

HEALTH CARE
He opposes universal health care, which is fine. And he has some good ideas here, like making all medical expenses tax deductible and making health savings accounts easier to use. But that won't help the people who can't afford health care in the first place: they either don't make enough period, or they don't pay much in taxes anyway. It won't address the problem of your health care being tied to your place of business, with many small employers (the engines of economic growth) either not offering it at all or offering expensive plans that provide lousy coverage. He ends up railing against bogeymen: HMOs, big drug companies and government bureaucrats. That's a screed, not a reasoned analysis.

HEALTH FREEDOM
That's his term, not mine. It mostly means doing away with the FDA to as great an extent as possible and preventing it from having any power over "alternative" medicines and treatments. I support his opposition to forced vaccinations, even though I think that in most cases refusing to get vaccinated makes no statistical sense.

HOME SCHOOLING
He will protect the right to home schooling, and demand that home-school diplomas count just as much as regular diplomas when it comes to college-admission and scholarship time. That's fine as far as it goes.

But he opposes any federal regulation of home-school activities or national standards or testing for home-schooled kids.

So he demands parity, while opposing any means of determining if they are, in fact, comparable. Never mind that his commitment to guaranteeing admission parity amounts to federal interference in a private decision (a college deciding whom to admit), something he claims to oppose everywhere else.

LIFE AND LIBERTY
Or, as we say in the rest of the world, "Abortion." He opposes it. He would repeal Roe v. Wade and leave such decisions up to the states -- while also authoring bills that would define life as beginning at conception. Such contradictions aside, it's a pretty standard anti-abortion stand.


NO TAXES ON TIPS
This is a minor issue, but the philosophical aspect is interesting. He, rightly, criticizes the unfairness of taxing estimates of tip income. But his solution is simply to exempt tips from federal taxes. Considering that wait staff, for instance, typically are paid a sub-minimum-wage hourly rate and make most of their money on tips, his solution would create a special class of worker whose income is largely tax-free. I'm curious to know why he thinks such people deserve such special treatment.

PRIVACY AND PERSONAL LIBERTY
This is Paul's strongest area. He opposes a national ID card, and wants tighter control on medical and financial information. He strongly opposes the Patriot Act. All good things, but he's an absolutist about it. For instance, one of the things he opposes is the rule that banks must report currency transactions of $10,000 or more -- a law that has proved very useful in uncovering fraud, money laundering, drug rings, terror financing and the like. I support greater privacy rights, but I think Paul takes it too far.

PROPERTY RIGHTS
He opposes abuses of eminent domain, which is good. But he's vague about where he draws the line. Many dogmatic libertarians, for instance, think zoning laws are a violation of sacred property rights. If your neighbor wants to put up a 24/7 metal-shredder on his property, your only recourse would be to sue him -- on what grounds I can only guess, because there wouldn't be any law prohibiting him from doing so. That's a recipe for clogged courts, well-paid lawyers and completely chaotic community growth.

RACISM
I agree with nearly everything he says here, although I think government has a role in combating racism: They can't legislate attitudes, but they can criminalize the most damaging expressions of racism so that minorities do not suffer unnecessarily for their skin color.

SOCIAL SECURITY
Here, oddly, is a program that Ron Paul doesn't just accept, he defends it like a lioness defends her cubs. Well, sort of. He says a "sacred promise" has been broken, and we're underfunding Social Security. So he'll propose laws ending taxation of SS benefits and requiring that SS taxes only go to fund SS -- in other words, the "lockbox" idea that would prevent the government from borrowing the surplus.

He also would prevent illegal aliens from getting SS benefits -- which is a fine idea, except that that's already the law, and illegal aliens almost certainly pay far more into the system than they take out.

But then it gets weird. Because he would also cut payroll taxes and let younger workers invest some of their SS payments in the private market.

This, then, is essentially Bush's plan for partly privatizing Social Security. Paul doesn't explain how he'll protect that "sacred promise" to retirees while also cutting payroll taxes, nor does he mention the $1 trillion to $2 trillion transition cost that would result.

SECOND AMENDMENT
He's a gun-rights absolutist. He opposed the assault-weapons ban, which is fine, and has sponsored various bills to allow guns in specific situations: national parks and airline cockpits.

But he also would repeal the Brady Bill -- the one that requires background checks before you can buy a handgun. He would also repeal the 1993 Firearms Licensing act, which required that recipients sign a receipt when receiving firearms in the mail and tightened licensing requirements for gun dealers, both moves intended to close loopholes that could dodge the Brady Bill requirements. He lumps in his efforts to end our membership in the United Nations, viewing them as a major threat to gun ownership.

WAR AND FOREIGN POLICY
He says, rightly, that we shouldn't go to war without a Congressional declaration, and that too often our foreign policy has led us to support despised rulers, such that we, too, became despised.

He opposes foreign aid, because it has backfired on us before.

He would bring all of our troops home from wherever they are.

He seems to think it's easier to fight wars that are thrust upon us than to dispatch troops overseas to prevent wars before they reach us. He also completely ignores the diplomatic and political benefits of providing financial and military assistance to friendly countries.

Or the military realities: had we not intervened in South Korea, for instance, North Korea would have overrun its neighbor. Had we not remained there for decades, they might have done it again. These days, South Korea is an economic tiger and has a large, modern, professional military. So it's completely reasonable to discuss whether it's time to bring our troops home from there (my answer: yes in isolation, but no if you take into account our interest in keeping tabs on the growth of Chinese power in the region). But Paul's isolationist enough that I'm not sure he would have intervened in the first place, much less kept troops there for more than a couple of years afterward.

In my opinion, being fully engaged in the world is a requirement for our own security, and serving as the world's policeman is a calling to which we are uniquely suited. Our challenge is to pick our battles and conduct ourselves in such a way that we do more good than harm, and do not simply throw our weight around for our own selfish interests. Paul would simply turn his back on the whole thing, which is appealing in its simplicity but would be appalling in its consequences.

All of the above is why I dismiss Paul as a serious candidate, and classify him more toward the nutty end of the libertarian spectrum. Some of his ideas have a certain resonance to them, particularly in a nation fed up with partisan bickering, perpetual crisis and a host of nagging problems that have no easy solutions. But he's vague on unpleasant details, and many of his ideas sound good in theory but would be disastrous in practice.

I look forward to the hail of rabid Ron Paul supporters who will show up to call me a dunderhead once this post hits the search engines....

, ,

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Tuesday small change

Closing out the night with some interesting links that don't require extended commentary:

PRESERVATIONISM RUN AMOK
A Christian Scientist church in Washington, D.C., is a badly designed, ugly and deteriorating pile of concrete that is hideously expensive to maintain. It's the kind of unfriendly, uninspired building that helped create the modern preservationist movement. But now, ironically, it's old enough to draw preservationist protection of its own -- to the dismay of the church that has to cope with it. The writer's rhetoric is over the top -- the church isn't that ugly, and it doesn't even own the building anymore -- but he's not alone and he raises some good points about the clash between preserving history and protecting property rights.

GREENSPAN: IRAQ ALL ABOUT OIL
That's apparently what he says in his memoir, which hit the streets yesterday -- along with a scathing critique of Bush's economic policies. This should surprise no one. You don't have to believe that we invaded merely to seize control of the Iraqi oil fields to realize that the only reason we care about what happens in the Middle East is because a lot of our oil comes from there. If there were no oil in the Arabian peninsula, we'd treat it with the same casual indifference and neglect that we treat most of Asia and Africa. There are plenty of unpleasant tyrants around the world, but only Saddam was sitting on large proven oil reserves. It's not just a weird coincidence that he's the one we decided to knock over. I'm not being moralistic here; after all, securing our energy supplies is a legitimate national interest. But I think we ought to be honest about the root causes of the war, because our involvement of Iraq is a significant externalized cost of our dependence on oil. Until we admit the true cost of that dependence, we will not take the steps necessary to kick the habit.

HOMOSEXUALITY AKIN TO PEDOPHILIA, BUT NOT QUITE AS BAD AS NECROPHILIA
Or something like that. An aide to Mike Huckabee tried to explain away Huckabee's 1998 statement that "It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations—from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia." Let's put aside the wild-eyed nature of that comment for the moment (pedophilia and necrophilia are publicly endorsed and institutionally supported?) The aide said what Huckabee meant was that while same-sex sex and screwing a dead body are both aberrant behaviors, homosexuality is at one end of the spectrum while necrophilia is at the other. That might make sense, given the sentence structure -- except that then you have to draw the conclusion that in Huckabee's world, sadomasochism is worse than both homosexuality and pedophilia. You know what I want to see? I want to see Huckabee draw a diagram of his aberrance spectrum, so we can see clearly where he rates each act. BTW, the first commenter at TPM has a great line: "So torture is okay as long as it's not in a loving bed?"

, , , , , ,