Let’s face it. President Bush isn’t winning any popularity contests at the moment. With the rabid Left, he has gone from being detested in late 2000 to being evil today to the point of making Hitler look like a saint. Folks of the ‘reasonable’ Left want him unreasonably impeached. But none of these people were ever in his camp anyway.
Many in the flexible middle that used to stand with Bush have drifted away. But even many (most?) conservatives are sorely disappointed with him. Joseph Bottum, editor of First Things, persuasively argues here that while President Bush has his heart in the right place, his execution of conservative principles has been nearly unfailingly incompetent. Bottum asks, “Apart from the still not certain pro-life views of the two new Supreme Court justices, where is there a major success to which one can point?”
Philosopher Michael Novak is quick to answer here and here. He is eager to point out “numerous accomplishments,” but argues especially that Bush “has changed the way in which government gets things done.” Novak questions why Bush’s opponents on the Left “oppose him so fiercely.”
In answer, he says, “As often as possible, in as many ways as possible, he is using as the dynamo of personal choice and the methods of the market, not direct state-management, in order to make government programs more effective and more efficient.” This threatens many cherished liberal positions.
I think the point could be argued another way: that Bush has successfully co-opted some liberal programs and talking points so that the Left’s constituents may sense a diminished need for them.
Novak lists a number of things Bush has successfully and quietly accomplished, including successive tax cuts and a reinvigorated economy following 9/11. He makes particular note of “new pension, medical, and school mechanisms [that] deeply affect families, not simply individuals.” He presumably means that these positively affect families. He says, “Bush has begun a major turn from the state toward the “little platoons” once celebrated by Burke, the “mediating institutions” that Peter Berger and Richard Neuhaus emphasized twenty years ago. This is a profoundly conservative impulse.”
Bottum seems nonplussed by all of this. He argues that Bush has irretrievably messed up the war. Even if new policies succeed in achieving a win in Iraq, the perception that we have lost will supersede that victory and will haunt us for decades. He gloomily forecasts the nasty impact this will have on conservatism for a generation to come. Novak sharply disagrees with Bottum on this score and spends several paragraphs laying out a very hopeful (Pollyanna-like) projection, while admitting that the President held onto a failing Iraq policy for too long.
But Bottum isn’t done yet. Although conservatives were gaining in the abortion debate, he says, Bush came along and mucked it all up by allowing embryonic stem cell research, about which “the nation has yet to be convinced,” to reach a crisis stage, allowing “its opponents to shift the focus off abortion.” Bottum laments, “In all that he has tried to do--reform education, fix Social Security, restore religion to the public square, assert American greatness, appoint good judges--Mr. Bush has proved himself a conservative. Of course, along the way, he has also proved himself hapless.”
Bottum concludes passionately by asserting, “Iraq needs an American president who embraces Bush's principles--and rejects his policies. The United States needs much the same thing.”
Looking at the disparity between Bottum’s and Novak’s views, it would seem that they’re talking about two different people rather than the same President Bush. It is like the proverbial group of blind men that were introduced to an elephant, some finding it to be like a snake, some like a wall, some like a tree, and some like a fire hose.
It would seem that Bush has done the good things listed by Novak so quietly that many conservatives are oblivious to them. And there is the question of weight of importance. Bottum seems to focus on a handful of major items while Novak seems to focus on a number of items that come across as somewhat less significant. Perhaps we simply aren’t continually harangued by the MSM about those issues.
I would agree with Bottum that Bush’s major problem at present is the air of incompetence that seems to pervade his administration. People often don’t mind being associated with an underdog, but they generally don’t want to line up with the Keystone Kops. And regardless of what really goes on inside the administration, Bottum is correct that perception is often more important than reality.
The question, however, is whether anyone could reasonably do a much better job. I have often referred to an excellent October 2005 essay by LaVarr Webb (scroll down to Wednesday Buzz) that addresses this point. Webb points out that we haven’t had a truly successful president for decades. The problem isn’t that we have elected ineffective leaders, but that “the job of governing the United States, as currently defined, is impossible for any individual. It has become too big a job.”
Why is the job undoable? Webb’s answer is priceless. “We’ve come to demand and expect so much out of the federal government that the reality is it will never meet our needs and wants. We want government to take care of us from cradle to grave, handle every disaster and emergency, feed us, house us, educate us, provide us health care, make sure our caps cover our ears, button our jackets, tie up our little booties and wipe our noses. And do all of these things without ballooning the federal debt or taxing us too much.”
Webb argues that the solution “is to devolve much of what the federal government does back to the states where it should be anyway. Let the federal government do what it was designed to do in the Constitution. Let states and local governments handle all the rest. The job of president in a properly balanced federal system would once again become doable.”
Check out Webb’s computer networking analogy. It offers some great lessons. And Webb isn’t wearing rose colored glasses either. He writes, “Doing this would be very difficult and, given current circumstances, almost impossible to implement.” But he argues that we won’t have effective presidential leadership until we do implement it.
Indeed, Novak writes in the same vein as Webb. It’s not the president that is incompetent, he argues, but the fact that “even in the best of times, government is mightily incompetent--and the bigger government gets, the more incompetent it becomes.” He indicates that this is not a recent problem. “Lincoln himself was frequently charged with incompetence, bumbling and simplemindedness.”
So, few people today are happy with President Bush. They have valid reasons for being unhappy. But the real issue is that they have unrealistic expectations. Webb is right that each government function needs to be sent to its most appropriate governmental level. I would argue that a number of functions should be eliminated altogether. If you need to ask where to cut, check out Chris Edwards’ proposals. Although many disagree, I believe that this presents a strong argument for holding the line against government growth.
Today a number of conservatives are nearly as enthusiastic about the impending completion of the Bush presidency as are their liberal cohorts. We might end up with a Democratic president next time around. Or we might end up with a Republican in the office. Regardless, if Webb is right, she/he will ultimately end up disappointing most of us — not because he/she would be a bad president, but because the current job description is not humanly possible to accomplish.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
A Religion By Any Other Name …
Last year I wrote a post called the Church of Recycling. My city is among those that have a curbside recycling program. We have lovely blue 90-gallon bins into which we can toss category 1 and 2 plastics, paper, cardboard, aluminum, cans, and small electronics/appliances (but not glass). Every other week, a truck from the contracted service comes around and picks up the junk in our recycling bins and we are left with the warm assurance that we are doing our part to save the environment.
Only it turns out, as noted in this article by James Thayler, that the whole thing (which costs a chunk of change in our monthly bill) is not based on rational fact. Thayler cites one expert as using facts to argue that the whole recycling campaign is an “irrational religion” in which “perfervid faith compensates for lack of factual support.”
Today’s Standard Examiner includes an article noting that most Top of Utah towns do not sponsor curbside recycling due to its poor cost to benefit ratio. The article quotes Clinton City Manager Dennis Cluff as being disgusted with a visit to the presumably temporary recycling storage facility employed by the city he formerly managed in Oregon. He said, “There was mountains and mountains of storage along the Columbia River” due to a lack of market for the materials.
Many Davis and Morgan County localities are achieving a measure of recycling by shipping their solid waste to the Wasatch Management District (a.k.a. Davis Burn Plant). Although the plant has had air pollution problems in the past, it performs much better since new equipment was installed. Trash is burned to create steam and electricity, which is sold to Hill Air Force Base.
Everybody wins, because the “best curbside recycling program in the country only keeps 15 to 20 percent of the trash out of a landfill,” while the “burn plant diverts about 50 percent of the waste from the landfill.” The ash byproduct represents only about 10% of the initial waste volume and is “is more stable than piles of garbage.” (I’m not sure how the math works on that one.)
The Standard Examiner article agrees with the Thayler article about glass recycling. There is no market for it. Why? Because the base materials for making glass are among the most plentiful and inexpensive elements on the face of the earth, and because it’s cheaper to make new glass than to melt down and reform old glass.
It is no secret that my city’s recycling program is not self supporting. But the fee is not split out separate from our regular garbage fee, so it is difficult to know exactly how much I pay for the service each month. I am trying to find out how effective our service is, how much of the material eventually goes to the landfill, and how much is sitting in ‘temporary’ storage somewhere.
It turns out that answers to these questions are difficult to come by, either because officials don’t know the answers or don’t care. It seems that these officials are a lot like me and my neighbors. (Heck, they are my neighbors.) Once the bins are emptied and the trucks leave the city limits, we’re like the proverbial three monkeys that see, hear, and speak no evil.
I am not optimistic that anything will change even if the answers to these questions turn out to be less than supportive of our city’s system. The good citizens of my city have largely bought into the goodness of the program. The dogma has already won out. The facts will matter little because we are addicted to those environmentally friendly warm fuzzies that warm our hearts when we wheel our blue bins out to the curb.
Only it turns out, as noted in this article by James Thayler, that the whole thing (which costs a chunk of change in our monthly bill) is not based on rational fact. Thayler cites one expert as using facts to argue that the whole recycling campaign is an “irrational religion” in which “perfervid faith compensates for lack of factual support.”
Today’s Standard Examiner includes an article noting that most Top of Utah towns do not sponsor curbside recycling due to its poor cost to benefit ratio. The article quotes Clinton City Manager Dennis Cluff as being disgusted with a visit to the presumably temporary recycling storage facility employed by the city he formerly managed in Oregon. He said, “There was mountains and mountains of storage along the Columbia River” due to a lack of market for the materials.
Many Davis and Morgan County localities are achieving a measure of recycling by shipping their solid waste to the Wasatch Management District (a.k.a. Davis Burn Plant). Although the plant has had air pollution problems in the past, it performs much better since new equipment was installed. Trash is burned to create steam and electricity, which is sold to Hill Air Force Base.
Everybody wins, because the “best curbside recycling program in the country only keeps 15 to 20 percent of the trash out of a landfill,” while the “burn plant diverts about 50 percent of the waste from the landfill.” The ash byproduct represents only about 10% of the initial waste volume and is “is more stable than piles of garbage.” (I’m not sure how the math works on that one.)
The Standard Examiner article agrees with the Thayler article about glass recycling. There is no market for it. Why? Because the base materials for making glass are among the most plentiful and inexpensive elements on the face of the earth, and because it’s cheaper to make new glass than to melt down and reform old glass.
It is no secret that my city’s recycling program is not self supporting. But the fee is not split out separate from our regular garbage fee, so it is difficult to know exactly how much I pay for the service each month. I am trying to find out how effective our service is, how much of the material eventually goes to the landfill, and how much is sitting in ‘temporary’ storage somewhere.
It turns out that answers to these questions are difficult to come by, either because officials don’t know the answers or don’t care. It seems that these officials are a lot like me and my neighbors. (Heck, they are my neighbors.) Once the bins are emptied and the trucks leave the city limits, we’re like the proverbial three monkeys that see, hear, and speak no evil.
I am not optimistic that anything will change even if the answers to these questions turn out to be less than supportive of our city’s system. The good citizens of my city have largely bought into the goodness of the program. The dogma has already won out. The facts will matter little because we are addicted to those environmentally friendly warm fuzzies that warm our hearts when we wheel our blue bins out to the curb.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Recognizing Truth
Astronomer John Pratt, who specializes in religious chronology, has an interesting article on how to recognize truth. I give fair warning to those that are not religiously inclined, that Pratt’s article includes a religious view. I also give fair warning to those with a religious view that Pratt includes positive mention of paranormal events. But being a PhD, Pratt includes a scientific view as well. In fact, he attempts to provide a whole and rounded view of the matter, rather than a narrow approach. Indeed, he rejects a narrow approach, arguing that truth is truth regardless of its source.
Pratt begins by exploring how we learn as infants and moves on from there. He notes that our five senses can be easily fooled individually, while we are less easily fooled when multiples of these senses are involved. He discusses the validity of intuition and conscience, although, some would reject these sources or perhaps describe them differently.
After citing this Wikipedia article about ESP, which takes a level approach to the topic, Pratt includes a fun story (in footnote #4) about a school science fair experiment that employed Rhine’s forced-choice model and produced Rhine’s sheep-goat effect.
“A friend of mine helped his son do an interesting experiment for a junior high science fair. He offered grade school children a candy bar if they could roll a certain number with dice. He found that the older children could not beat the laws of chance, but that several in kindergarten and first grade easily cleaned him out of candy bars, far beyond the laws of chance.”
There are several potential criticisms of this experiment and what it means. For example, how was the roll of the dice controlled? Following multiple controlled tests over many years, Princeton researchers concluded “that humans could alter the behavior of random number producing machines very slightly, changing about 2 or 3 flips out of 10,000.” But I don’t know if they included young children in their tests.
Maybe I’ll try this little dice experiment with my own kids. They have a broad enough age range to provide a fair test. And I think I could easily devise a contraption that reliably rolls dice randomly. If nothing else, it would be a fun family activity.
Sorry for the detour. Pratt applauds the fact that teenagers learn to question authority and begin to think for themselves. He discusses the value of both left-brain and right-brain learning and decries attempts to focus only on one of these to the exclusion of the other. “The right brain can process many pieces of information at once, whereas the left is best at looking at things in a series one at a time.”
Delving into left-brain approaches, Pratt discusses logic, citing a variety of logical approaches, and notes that few today have ever had a formal course in logic. He mentions questioning all new premises, reasoning from extremes, and thought experiments. He discusses the value of the scientific method, but is careful to say that it is inadequate for discovering every kind of truth. He notes that some matters simply cannot be tested using the scientific method, but that this does not necessarily render them untrue. He also discusses the importance of proper context.
Pratt hits upon several right-brain systematic approaches. He cautions against allowing emotions to become a controlling factor, because they can cloud our perception of reality. Right-brain thinking does not mean emotional thinking. Pratt mentions drawing a picture, pattern matching, dreams, learning from nature, appropriate regard for authority, and divine revelation. Don’t read too much into this. Read what he has actually written and judge it for yourself.
I particularly enjoyed Pratt’s discussion of questioning new premises, reasoning by extremes, and thought experiments. He uses these methodologies to explore the statement, “All life is of equal value,” which probably can’t be answered through the scientific method. In a few paragraphs, Pratt effectively demonstrates the absurdity of this statement.
Pratt says that he has worked on this article for a couple of years, and that he still finds no consistent “sure-fire way to recognize truth….” Instead, he shares “a variety of techniques, all of which seem to work sometimes.” He seems to acknowledge that his discussion is incomplete. While incomplete, it is thought provoking and provides some good tools for discovering truth. I recommend Pratt’s article to those interested in recognizing truth.
Pratt begins by exploring how we learn as infants and moves on from there. He notes that our five senses can be easily fooled individually, while we are less easily fooled when multiples of these senses are involved. He discusses the validity of intuition and conscience, although, some would reject these sources or perhaps describe them differently.
After citing this Wikipedia article about ESP, which takes a level approach to the topic, Pratt includes a fun story (in footnote #4) about a school science fair experiment that employed Rhine’s forced-choice model and produced Rhine’s sheep-goat effect.
“A friend of mine helped his son do an interesting experiment for a junior high science fair. He offered grade school children a candy bar if they could roll a certain number with dice. He found that the older children could not beat the laws of chance, but that several in kindergarten and first grade easily cleaned him out of candy bars, far beyond the laws of chance.”
There are several potential criticisms of this experiment and what it means. For example, how was the roll of the dice controlled? Following multiple controlled tests over many years, Princeton researchers concluded “that humans could alter the behavior of random number producing machines very slightly, changing about 2 or 3 flips out of 10,000.” But I don’t know if they included young children in their tests.
Maybe I’ll try this little dice experiment with my own kids. They have a broad enough age range to provide a fair test. And I think I could easily devise a contraption that reliably rolls dice randomly. If nothing else, it would be a fun family activity.
Sorry for the detour. Pratt applauds the fact that teenagers learn to question authority and begin to think for themselves. He discusses the value of both left-brain and right-brain learning and decries attempts to focus only on one of these to the exclusion of the other. “The right brain can process many pieces of information at once, whereas the left is best at looking at things in a series one at a time.”
Delving into left-brain approaches, Pratt discusses logic, citing a variety of logical approaches, and notes that few today have ever had a formal course in logic. He mentions questioning all new premises, reasoning from extremes, and thought experiments. He discusses the value of the scientific method, but is careful to say that it is inadequate for discovering every kind of truth. He notes that some matters simply cannot be tested using the scientific method, but that this does not necessarily render them untrue. He also discusses the importance of proper context.
Pratt hits upon several right-brain systematic approaches. He cautions against allowing emotions to become a controlling factor, because they can cloud our perception of reality. Right-brain thinking does not mean emotional thinking. Pratt mentions drawing a picture, pattern matching, dreams, learning from nature, appropriate regard for authority, and divine revelation. Don’t read too much into this. Read what he has actually written and judge it for yourself.
I particularly enjoyed Pratt’s discussion of questioning new premises, reasoning by extremes, and thought experiments. He uses these methodologies to explore the statement, “All life is of equal value,” which probably can’t be answered through the scientific method. In a few paragraphs, Pratt effectively demonstrates the absurdity of this statement.
Pratt says that he has worked on this article for a couple of years, and that he still finds no consistent “sure-fire way to recognize truth….” Instead, he shares “a variety of techniques, all of which seem to work sometimes.” He seems to acknowledge that his discussion is incomplete. While incomplete, it is thought provoking and provides some good tools for discovering truth. I recommend Pratt’s article to those interested in recognizing truth.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
The Rules Have Changed
In my last post, I mentioned that Rudy Giuliani appeals to many Republicans because he is perceived as being strong on national security. And apparently perception is what is significant here, as was mentioned in the commentary. Democracy Lover wonders in one of his comments how Giuliani, who is “not with the Republican base on guns, abortion and gays” could manage to land the Republican nomination.
I must admit that I have been scratching my head about that one for many weeks now. I think part of the answer to that lies in the fact that 9/11 changed everything. It dramatically reordered priorities. During the 2000 campaign, G. W. Bush espoused a realist view of national security. Within a day of 9/11, he turned into a neocon, as did many in his administration, when being attacked on our home soil became far more real than realism theory. Administration members that didn’t go along were changed out one by one.
But that’s not the whole story. Although national security is a trump issue for many conservatives, social and fiscal conservative issues are not completely dead. In fact, it is arguable that the GOP’s failure to deliver on fiscal conservative issues sealed their doom in last November’s elections. So what else is going on here?
Yesterday an experienced political campaigner opened my eyes. It comes down to the changes in the primary election process, which I wrote about last month. While the trend of states moving to earlier points in the cycle has been occurring for some time now, it is reaching critical mass. We used to start with the Iowa caucuses, where conservatives are socially and fiscally conservative. The campaign trail next led to New Hampshire, where the conservatives are libertarian. This was followed by South Carolina, where Republicans are from the conservative wing of the party.
The campaigner said that television advertising in these three markets might run somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million. Campaigns were able to effectively organize in these markets with relatively small numbers of people. Once that initial flurry was over, there was a bit of a breather. This allowed the dust to settle. We were then able to see who truly had momentum. Many contenders were weeded out. Many donors waited on the sidelines until that point, allowing survivors a respite to ply those donors for funds to continue their campaigns. But this whole process put too much power into the hands of relatively few. It is not surprising that most other states felt they were getting the shaft.
Flash forward to 2008. The plan is to begin like normal, with the Iowa caucuses on January 21. New Hampshire will hold its primary one week later — this time in tandem with Florida. I’m sure folks in the Granite State are not very happy about sharing their traditional first primary date with folks from the Sunshine State (Iowa holds caucuses, not a primary election). This will be followed by South Carolina just four days later.
This four-state run lasts only 12 days, so candidates will need to effectively campaign in all four markets at once. Adding Florida to the mix substantially alters the equation. The combined populations of IA, NH and SC total about 8.5 million, while Florida alone has about 18 million people. And Republicans in Florida are not like Republicans in these three small states. Not only did Floridians elect Mark Foley, but the state also has a significant GOP-leaning Cuban ex-pat population that has a specialized focus. Suddenly candidates need to have a huge marketing arm aimed at those with diverse interests, rather than being able to hold a narrow focus with a small budget.
But what happens next changes the dynamics of the race even more. Just three days after SC, candidates will have to be competitive in 15 states (some of these have not completely committed yet), including the population centers of California and New York. The total population of these states is more than 125 million. And Republicans in these states are diverse. GOP voters in CA, NJ and NY are far more moderate than GOP voters in MO, NC, OK and UT as a whole. The “GOP base” that is often referenced is actually far more diverse than many think it to be. And this primary election will prove it.
On February 5, 2008 (Giga-Tuesday), GOP hopefuls are going to have to be competitive in six markets with populations in excess of 8 million. The campaigner I mentioned said off the top of his head that TV advertising alone in these markets could run $100 million. That’s 100 times the amount George Bush had to have in his coffers by the same time in 2000. Since these primaries happen just 15 days after the whole cycle begins, candidates have to be competitive in 19 states all at the same time (and probably more, because some states come right on the heels of Giga-Tuesday).
The upside is that this process will likely produce a nominee that will be more competitive in the presidential race in November. The rules have changed. Candidates won’t have to zig so far to the right only to zag to the center after the primaries. Small state conservatives that are often more socially conservative than their large state siblings no longer have a lock on determining the party’s nominee. This is why Giuliani can actually be a contender for the GOP nomination. It is also why John McCain, who lost momentum in SC in 2000 for being too liberal, is still viable. In fact, some observers think that Mitt Romney may have hurt his chances in this new primary process by running too far to the right.
But there are drawbacks to this brave new world. Candidates used to be able to get involved and become viable with determination, work, and a small war chest. As they built steam, money came in that helped them continue. Candidates will now have to be completely viable before the primary election starts. They will need humongous war chests far in advance of the Iowa caucuses. Second tier candidates that used to still have opportunity going into Iowa will have no such chance next year unless they organize and get a lot of money this year. Presidential politics just became vastly more expensive. And that means lots more backroom deals. Any wonder why all major candidates are foregoing public funds this time around?
Of course, the major drawback to most Americans will be that we will in effect have two national presidential campaigns. The first one will be over long before a dozen straggler states hold their primaries in May and June. By this time next year we will probably know who the two major party candidates will be. And then we will suffer through eight interminable months of head-to-head presidential campaigning. If you think Americans are suffering war fatigue, wait until you see how much campaign fatigue they have by November 2008.
Perhaps it will be so bad that people will want to actually get serious about reforming our primary election process. There are many reform proposals out there, ranging from complete public funding to awarding states primary election positions similar to the way the NBA draft is run. Perhaps this next election cycle will prompt a substantive national debate about how we should go about determining our presidential nominees.
I must admit that I have been scratching my head about that one for many weeks now. I think part of the answer to that lies in the fact that 9/11 changed everything. It dramatically reordered priorities. During the 2000 campaign, G. W. Bush espoused a realist view of national security. Within a day of 9/11, he turned into a neocon, as did many in his administration, when being attacked on our home soil became far more real than realism theory. Administration members that didn’t go along were changed out one by one.
But that’s not the whole story. Although national security is a trump issue for many conservatives, social and fiscal conservative issues are not completely dead. In fact, it is arguable that the GOP’s failure to deliver on fiscal conservative issues sealed their doom in last November’s elections. So what else is going on here?
Yesterday an experienced political campaigner opened my eyes. It comes down to the changes in the primary election process, which I wrote about last month. While the trend of states moving to earlier points in the cycle has been occurring for some time now, it is reaching critical mass. We used to start with the Iowa caucuses, where conservatives are socially and fiscally conservative. The campaign trail next led to New Hampshire, where the conservatives are libertarian. This was followed by South Carolina, where Republicans are from the conservative wing of the party.
The campaigner said that television advertising in these three markets might run somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million. Campaigns were able to effectively organize in these markets with relatively small numbers of people. Once that initial flurry was over, there was a bit of a breather. This allowed the dust to settle. We were then able to see who truly had momentum. Many contenders were weeded out. Many donors waited on the sidelines until that point, allowing survivors a respite to ply those donors for funds to continue their campaigns. But this whole process put too much power into the hands of relatively few. It is not surprising that most other states felt they were getting the shaft.
Flash forward to 2008. The plan is to begin like normal, with the Iowa caucuses on January 21. New Hampshire will hold its primary one week later — this time in tandem with Florida. I’m sure folks in the Granite State are not very happy about sharing their traditional first primary date with folks from the Sunshine State (Iowa holds caucuses, not a primary election). This will be followed by South Carolina just four days later.
This four-state run lasts only 12 days, so candidates will need to effectively campaign in all four markets at once. Adding Florida to the mix substantially alters the equation. The combined populations of IA, NH and SC total about 8.5 million, while Florida alone has about 18 million people. And Republicans in Florida are not like Republicans in these three small states. Not only did Floridians elect Mark Foley, but the state also has a significant GOP-leaning Cuban ex-pat population that has a specialized focus. Suddenly candidates need to have a huge marketing arm aimed at those with diverse interests, rather than being able to hold a narrow focus with a small budget.
But what happens next changes the dynamics of the race even more. Just three days after SC, candidates will have to be competitive in 15 states (some of these have not completely committed yet), including the population centers of California and New York. The total population of these states is more than 125 million. And Republicans in these states are diverse. GOP voters in CA, NJ and NY are far more moderate than GOP voters in MO, NC, OK and UT as a whole. The “GOP base” that is often referenced is actually far more diverse than many think it to be. And this primary election will prove it.
On February 5, 2008 (Giga-Tuesday), GOP hopefuls are going to have to be competitive in six markets with populations in excess of 8 million. The campaigner I mentioned said off the top of his head that TV advertising alone in these markets could run $100 million. That’s 100 times the amount George Bush had to have in his coffers by the same time in 2000. Since these primaries happen just 15 days after the whole cycle begins, candidates have to be competitive in 19 states all at the same time (and probably more, because some states come right on the heels of Giga-Tuesday).
The upside is that this process will likely produce a nominee that will be more competitive in the presidential race in November. The rules have changed. Candidates won’t have to zig so far to the right only to zag to the center after the primaries. Small state conservatives that are often more socially conservative than their large state siblings no longer have a lock on determining the party’s nominee. This is why Giuliani can actually be a contender for the GOP nomination. It is also why John McCain, who lost momentum in SC in 2000 for being too liberal, is still viable. In fact, some observers think that Mitt Romney may have hurt his chances in this new primary process by running too far to the right.
But there are drawbacks to this brave new world. Candidates used to be able to get involved and become viable with determination, work, and a small war chest. As they built steam, money came in that helped them continue. Candidates will now have to be completely viable before the primary election starts. They will need humongous war chests far in advance of the Iowa caucuses. Second tier candidates that used to still have opportunity going into Iowa will have no such chance next year unless they organize and get a lot of money this year. Presidential politics just became vastly more expensive. And that means lots more backroom deals. Any wonder why all major candidates are foregoing public funds this time around?
Of course, the major drawback to most Americans will be that we will in effect have two national presidential campaigns. The first one will be over long before a dozen straggler states hold their primaries in May and June. By this time next year we will probably know who the two major party candidates will be. And then we will suffer through eight interminable months of head-to-head presidential campaigning. If you think Americans are suffering war fatigue, wait until you see how much campaign fatigue they have by November 2008.
Perhaps it will be so bad that people will want to actually get serious about reforming our primary election process. There are many reform proposals out there, ranging from complete public funding to awarding states primary election positions similar to the way the NBA draft is run. Perhaps this next election cycle will prompt a substantive national debate about how we should go about determining our presidential nominees.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Little Conservative Enthusiasm for Romney
Mitt Romney has his cadre of strong supporters, but as I have said before, conservatives aren’t necessarily buying into his conservativeness. Romney’s problem in this arena was pointed up this past weekend at the 34th annual Conservative Political Action Conference, where Romney barely eked out first place in a straw poll.
According to political pundit John Fund, Romney used his business and organizational acumen to endlessly work the crowd. He “delivered a pitch-perfect message that sought to unite economic, social and national-security conservatives.” But he only managed to pull out 21% of the vote. Rudy Giuliani gave a rousing but boilerplate address, didn’t mention the hot button social issues, and didn’t work the crowd. Yet he managed to get 17% of the vote.
Senator McCain, perhaps sensing how much history he has in alienating the CPAC crowd, didn’t even bother to show up. He still mustered 12% of the vote. Senator Brownback got 15% and Newt Gingrich (who may be able to influence the debate but has no chance whatsoever of either winning the GOP nomination or becoming president) got 14%. Fund also notes that when RNC members were recently polled, Romney came in second place (20%) to nobody (33%).
This means several things. One is that it is still very early in the presidential race. Most of the stuff that used to happen at this stage flew under the radar. But nowadays news organizations are so hungry for some tidbit of news that they report on candidates’ ancestors (Romney, Giuliani, Obama), as if the candidates could do anything about whom they descended from.
Another thing it means is that conservatives and Republicans (not necessarily synonymous terms) are still shopping around. They aren’t ready to buy yet. And that’s probably the way it should be. Most are still in a casual dating mode. They’re not ready to settle on a single suitor just yet.
It also seems clear that many conservatives and Republicans aren’t happy with the current field of candidates. Some are holding out for something better. This means that there are excellent opportunities for second tier candidates. But those looking for the ideal conservative candidate will probably still be unhappy with their available choices by next summer. Think back to the 2000 campaign, where 11 (more or less) serious GOP candidates generated little enthusiasm among conservatives.
And perhaps CPAC isn’t the bellwether some think it is. McCain’s campaign decided to skip CPAC because they think he can win without engaging those folks. Fund notes that among CPAC attendees, “79% described themselves as Reagan Republicans, whereas only 3% called themselves George W. Bush Republicans.” He also notes that Reagan addressed CPAC a dozen times, while G. W. Bush never has. Despite this, Bush has twice been elected to the presidency. Either the CPAC’s influence is waning, or it has never had the kind of influence some have purported it has.
It should also be noted that many conservatives and Republicans find Romney rather light in the arena of national security. They had the same concern about G. W. Bush. But in those halcyon pre-9/11 days, few gave this resume element as much weight as they do today. Giuliani and McCain rank much better in this arena. Even if Romney had rock solid conservative credentials, he would still suffer for his lack of appearance of national security capabilities. Second tier candidates should take notice of this.
With many months yet to go before most Americans get serious about thinking about their next president, Romney has plenty of opportunity to build support. So do all of the other candidates. But at this point, it’s going to be very difficult for any of them to further remake who they are and what they stand for. Much will depend on what voters think as they get to know the candidates better. And with the myriad factors involved, nobody can say with any degree of certainty how that will turn out.
According to political pundit John Fund, Romney used his business and organizational acumen to endlessly work the crowd. He “delivered a pitch-perfect message that sought to unite economic, social and national-security conservatives.” But he only managed to pull out 21% of the vote. Rudy Giuliani gave a rousing but boilerplate address, didn’t mention the hot button social issues, and didn’t work the crowd. Yet he managed to get 17% of the vote.
Senator McCain, perhaps sensing how much history he has in alienating the CPAC crowd, didn’t even bother to show up. He still mustered 12% of the vote. Senator Brownback got 15% and Newt Gingrich (who may be able to influence the debate but has no chance whatsoever of either winning the GOP nomination or becoming president) got 14%. Fund also notes that when RNC members were recently polled, Romney came in second place (20%) to nobody (33%).
This means several things. One is that it is still very early in the presidential race. Most of the stuff that used to happen at this stage flew under the radar. But nowadays news organizations are so hungry for some tidbit of news that they report on candidates’ ancestors (Romney, Giuliani, Obama), as if the candidates could do anything about whom they descended from.
Another thing it means is that conservatives and Republicans (not necessarily synonymous terms) are still shopping around. They aren’t ready to buy yet. And that’s probably the way it should be. Most are still in a casual dating mode. They’re not ready to settle on a single suitor just yet.
It also seems clear that many conservatives and Republicans aren’t happy with the current field of candidates. Some are holding out for something better. This means that there are excellent opportunities for second tier candidates. But those looking for the ideal conservative candidate will probably still be unhappy with their available choices by next summer. Think back to the 2000 campaign, where 11 (more or less) serious GOP candidates generated little enthusiasm among conservatives.
And perhaps CPAC isn’t the bellwether some think it is. McCain’s campaign decided to skip CPAC because they think he can win without engaging those folks. Fund notes that among CPAC attendees, “79% described themselves as Reagan Republicans, whereas only 3% called themselves George W. Bush Republicans.” He also notes that Reagan addressed CPAC a dozen times, while G. W. Bush never has. Despite this, Bush has twice been elected to the presidency. Either the CPAC’s influence is waning, or it has never had the kind of influence some have purported it has.
It should also be noted that many conservatives and Republicans find Romney rather light in the arena of national security. They had the same concern about G. W. Bush. But in those halcyon pre-9/11 days, few gave this resume element as much weight as they do today. Giuliani and McCain rank much better in this arena. Even if Romney had rock solid conservative credentials, he would still suffer for his lack of appearance of national security capabilities. Second tier candidates should take notice of this.
With many months yet to go before most Americans get serious about thinking about their next president, Romney has plenty of opportunity to build support. So do all of the other candidates. But at this point, it’s going to be very difficult for any of them to further remake who they are and what they stand for. Much will depend on what voters think as they get to know the candidates better. And with the myriad factors involved, nobody can say with any degree of certainty how that will turn out.
Friday, March 02, 2007
The Tribal War Against Modernity
Victor Davis Hanson says (here), “[I]f we have an orphaned war that is dubbed lost, it nevertheless can still be won. None of our mistakes has been fatal; none is of a magnitude unprecedented in past wars; all have been cataloged; and few are now being repeated.” Hanson’s article includes a very fine catalog of our failings in Iraq, but as has been the case throughout the conflict, he takes an optimistic view of the path ahead.
Some would agree with him. Some would not. I think the best option available at this point is to hope that General Petraeus’ plan is somewhat effective. But conservative family researcher Stanley Kurtz thinks that our problem in the Middle East is far more intractable than most have thought.
A couple of weeks ago Kurtz published two provocative articles (part 1, part 2) where he explores what he believes is at the root of Islamic extremism and terrorism in the Middle East. I have waited to write about this because he promised to discuss in a future article what should be done about it. That should be interesting, because the problem he discusses is so deeply entrenched in the culture that a solution is difficult to imagine. Alas, after two weeks of waiting, part 3 has yet to be published.
Kurtz’s theory is that the preferred family structure in many Middle Eastern societies results in a natural conflict with modernity. It all comes down to exogamous and endogamous marriage practices. Exogamous marriages between clans open them to external thought and external alliances. Endogamous marriages, on the other hand, create extremely tight “self-sealing” clans that shun external influences.
Long before Islam was founded, the preferred marriage practice in many parts of the Middle East was within clans, and it still is. Clans are defined solely along patriarchal lines. Although most Americans find the idea anathema today, the practice in significant swaths of the Middle East has been and is today marriage between parallel cousins. That is, marriage to a child of your father’s brother. Being a strictly patriarchal order, this strengthens the clan against external thought and external influences.
Not all of the results of this are bad, Kurtz notes. Endogamy provides “benefits of heightening social cohesion and preserving cultural continuity.” But endogamous societies rely mostly upon who you are rather than what you know or can do. Also, “Instead of encouraging cultural exchange, forging alliances, and mitigating tensions among competing groups, parallel-cousin marriage tends to wall off groups from one another and to encourage conflict between and among them.”
Endogamy specifically goes against integrative factors such as “cultural communication, adaptive development, and mutual trust,” which are essential elements to coping with modernity. Kurtz explores examples of how the Middle East has found successfully implementing modern business organizations to be an impossible task, unless they are significantly staffed with foreign help. He discusses how Middle Easterners moving to the West often have incredible difficulty integrating, even after generations.
Kurtz is quick to note that endogamous marriage is not an Islamic tenet. However, religious reasons are often cited for continuing its practice. Indeed, it was Mohammed’s ability to bring so many endogamous tribes and clans together under a single head that was one of his crowning achievements. But Kurtz suggests that this achievement now threatens our entire world.
I find Kurtz’s thesis intriguing. He shows no malice toward Islam, but does harbor significant concerns about preferred family structure in many traditionally Islamic societies. I believe he makes his point quite convincingly. It makes me ponder the significance of family structure as we experiment and tinker with it in Western societies. The impacts of this tinkering are unpredictable and may result in significant problems many generations down the road.
What I want to know is what Kurtz proposes to do about the problem he has defined. I’m not smart enough to perceive any reasonable way to solve it. I think that it’s quite obvious that there is no quick fix. Is it even possible to implement a solution that could prove useful any time during the life of children being born today? Come on, Dr. Kurtz, let’s have the next part in the series.
(A full library of Stanley Kurtz’s NRO articles can be found here.)
Some would agree with him. Some would not. I think the best option available at this point is to hope that General Petraeus’ plan is somewhat effective. But conservative family researcher Stanley Kurtz thinks that our problem in the Middle East is far more intractable than most have thought.
A couple of weeks ago Kurtz published two provocative articles (part 1, part 2) where he explores what he believes is at the root of Islamic extremism and terrorism in the Middle East. I have waited to write about this because he promised to discuss in a future article what should be done about it. That should be interesting, because the problem he discusses is so deeply entrenched in the culture that a solution is difficult to imagine. Alas, after two weeks of waiting, part 3 has yet to be published.
Kurtz’s theory is that the preferred family structure in many Middle Eastern societies results in a natural conflict with modernity. It all comes down to exogamous and endogamous marriage practices. Exogamous marriages between clans open them to external thought and external alliances. Endogamous marriages, on the other hand, create extremely tight “self-sealing” clans that shun external influences.
Long before Islam was founded, the preferred marriage practice in many parts of the Middle East was within clans, and it still is. Clans are defined solely along patriarchal lines. Although most Americans find the idea anathema today, the practice in significant swaths of the Middle East has been and is today marriage between parallel cousins. That is, marriage to a child of your father’s brother. Being a strictly patriarchal order, this strengthens the clan against external thought and external influences.
Not all of the results of this are bad, Kurtz notes. Endogamy provides “benefits of heightening social cohesion and preserving cultural continuity.” But endogamous societies rely mostly upon who you are rather than what you know or can do. Also, “Instead of encouraging cultural exchange, forging alliances, and mitigating tensions among competing groups, parallel-cousin marriage tends to wall off groups from one another and to encourage conflict between and among them.”
Endogamy specifically goes against integrative factors such as “cultural communication, adaptive development, and mutual trust,” which are essential elements to coping with modernity. Kurtz explores examples of how the Middle East has found successfully implementing modern business organizations to be an impossible task, unless they are significantly staffed with foreign help. He discusses how Middle Easterners moving to the West often have incredible difficulty integrating, even after generations.
Kurtz is quick to note that endogamous marriage is not an Islamic tenet. However, religious reasons are often cited for continuing its practice. Indeed, it was Mohammed’s ability to bring so many endogamous tribes and clans together under a single head that was one of his crowning achievements. But Kurtz suggests that this achievement now threatens our entire world.
I find Kurtz’s thesis intriguing. He shows no malice toward Islam, but does harbor significant concerns about preferred family structure in many traditionally Islamic societies. I believe he makes his point quite convincingly. It makes me ponder the significance of family structure as we experiment and tinker with it in Western societies. The impacts of this tinkering are unpredictable and may result in significant problems many generations down the road.
What I want to know is what Kurtz proposes to do about the problem he has defined. I’m not smart enough to perceive any reasonable way to solve it. I think that it’s quite obvious that there is no quick fix. Is it even possible to implement a solution that could prove useful any time during the life of children being born today? Come on, Dr. Kurtz, let’s have the next part in the series.
(A full library of Stanley Kurtz’s NRO articles can be found here.)
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Don't Worry, Be Happy
“Smiles! Smiles, everyone!”* The 2007 legislative spending orgy has come to a conclusion. Although there’s some grousing about funding of some social programs and ethics reform went down the toilet, the vast majority of those involved in the legislative process seem to be happier and fatter than ever. (See D-News, SLTRIB articles)
The legislature did cut loose with a tax cut of about 14% of the unprecedented surplus. That cut comes by way of a reduction in food sales tax and a new flat(ter) income tax system, both of which start on Jan. 1, 2008.
I’ve already addressed the magnitude of the second year of the education cash throwing competition. I’m glad that teachers will be getting raises. But I’m not so glad that exuberant educrats are walking around saying, “KA-CHING!” I wonder how many more money mismanagement scandals will pop up as the bureaucracy receives its new cash infusions.
Lawmakers also focused a lot of cash on transportation for the second year in a row. This falls squarely into the realm of government responsibility. While the projects being funded are needed and will likely produce many salutary effects, I am concerned that gouging and mismanagement seem to go hand in hand with enormous expenditures. Here’s hoping that, unlike school districts, transportation has systems in place to minimize and prevent these kinds of problems.
I have already discussed my disposition with regard to the soccer stadium. And I had my little tirade over joining the swarm of states that are pushing their presidential primary election ever earlier.
It’s difficult to list every destination for cash flows approved by lawmakers. Right now tired legislators, lobbyists, and bureaucrats are simply giddy with the intoxication of managing so much spending without the rancor that proliferated last year. But don’t worry. It’s all good. That is, unless you happen to be of the opinion that limited government best preserves individual rights.
* (For the record, I always thought Ricado Montalban was much better as Khan than as Mr. Roarke).
The legislature did cut loose with a tax cut of about 14% of the unprecedented surplus. That cut comes by way of a reduction in food sales tax and a new flat(ter) income tax system, both of which start on Jan. 1, 2008.
I’ve already addressed the magnitude of the second year of the education cash throwing competition. I’m glad that teachers will be getting raises. But I’m not so glad that exuberant educrats are walking around saying, “KA-CHING!” I wonder how many more money mismanagement scandals will pop up as the bureaucracy receives its new cash infusions.
Lawmakers also focused a lot of cash on transportation for the second year in a row. This falls squarely into the realm of government responsibility. While the projects being funded are needed and will likely produce many salutary effects, I am concerned that gouging and mismanagement seem to go hand in hand with enormous expenditures. Here’s hoping that, unlike school districts, transportation has systems in place to minimize and prevent these kinds of problems.
I have already discussed my disposition with regard to the soccer stadium. And I had my little tirade over joining the swarm of states that are pushing their presidential primary election ever earlier.
It’s difficult to list every destination for cash flows approved by lawmakers. Right now tired legislators, lobbyists, and bureaucrats are simply giddy with the intoxication of managing so much spending without the rancor that proliferated last year. But don’t worry. It’s all good. That is, unless you happen to be of the opinion that limited government best preserves individual rights.
* (For the record, I always thought Ricado Montalban was much better as Khan than as Mr. Roarke).
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The Ravenous Beast
When I pine for limited government, I am often met with challenges as to how government spending could reasonably be cut. To me, this kind of question is utterly ridiculous. The opportunities for cutting spending are so plentiful and manifold (and ever increasingly so), that we could pretty much start anywhere. Some of the best places to start would be those that seldom see the light of public scrutiny.
Of course, those posing the challenge as to how spending could be cut are listening to the cries of the ever ravenous beast that government can be, crying about insufficient funds. It’s like my teenage son that has grown a foot in height and doubled his weight in the past couple of years, saying, “I’m hungry.” This occurs with regularity except for when he is asleep. It is a common refrain often heard even within an hour of consuming a large meal.
Consider Utah’s education industrial complex, for example. I know that some will flame me for daring to even mention this highly sacred cow, but please indulge me. Jesse Harris ably discusses this matter in this post. He notes, “Utah's per-pupil spending ranking has been slipping only because other states are intent on spending everyone else under the table.”
Jesse continues, “We've also watched education spending in our state increase 54% in the last decade while the student population only increased 9%. Despite all this, test scores and teacher salaries stay flat. If you try voicing any opposition to keeping the gravy train coming to town, however, teacher's unions will slap you with an anti-education label you couldn't remove with hydrochloric acid.”
And let’s not forget the fact that we’ve poured copious amounts of cash into the system to address the ever present cry that classrooms are overcrowded. But after a decade of chucking cash at these problems, they are as bad as ever. When the legislature asked educrats where they spent the money intended to solve these problems, they were unable to provide an accounting. That hardly inspires confidence that the half billion Dollars the legislature has decided to throw at education this session will be properly managed.
And education isn’t the only culprit. These kinds of problems exist throughout the width and breadth of state and federal government. The CATO Institute’s Chris Edwards noted in the introduction to a 2004 paper about how to cut federal spending that government funds had been scandalously mismanaged by numerous agencies. He says that this is because the expansive government “has simply become too big for [legislative bodies] to oversee.” I wonder, along with Edwards, why our society has increasingly come to see expanding government as the answer to so many issues, given the fact that its track record is so poor.
Edwards asserts, “All [government] spending displaces private spending, but many [government] programs actively damage the economy, cause social ills, despoil the environment, or restrict liberty as well.” He rejects the trend to centralize power and funding that has resulted in “a complex array of 716 grant programs [that] disgorges more than $400 billion annually to state and local governments, which become strangled in federal regulations.” His 2005 book explores ways to properly cut government spending in more detail.
George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux writes in this post that cutting government spending is so difficult because “nearly all programs currently in operation have a kind of political sacredness. They become almost immediately locked-in; each one becomes very difficult to kill.” He says that this looks an awful lot like a form of addiction.
But the government is us. We are doing this to ourselves. Or at least we are allowing it to happen. If we want government to be properly managed, it needs to be reduced to a manageable size. Unfortunately I don’t see many at the state or federal level that are serious about this. Although some give it lip service, actions show that most of our elected officials from both major parties actually believe quite the opposite. And by extension, that means that most of the electorate believes quite the opposite as well.
Of course, those posing the challenge as to how spending could be cut are listening to the cries of the ever ravenous beast that government can be, crying about insufficient funds. It’s like my teenage son that has grown a foot in height and doubled his weight in the past couple of years, saying, “I’m hungry.” This occurs with regularity except for when he is asleep. It is a common refrain often heard even within an hour of consuming a large meal.
Consider Utah’s education industrial complex, for example. I know that some will flame me for daring to even mention this highly sacred cow, but please indulge me. Jesse Harris ably discusses this matter in this post. He notes, “Utah's per-pupil spending ranking has been slipping only because other states are intent on spending everyone else under the table.”
Jesse continues, “We've also watched education spending in our state increase 54% in the last decade while the student population only increased 9%. Despite all this, test scores and teacher salaries stay flat. If you try voicing any opposition to keeping the gravy train coming to town, however, teacher's unions will slap you with an anti-education label you couldn't remove with hydrochloric acid.”
And let’s not forget the fact that we’ve poured copious amounts of cash into the system to address the ever present cry that classrooms are overcrowded. But after a decade of chucking cash at these problems, they are as bad as ever. When the legislature asked educrats where they spent the money intended to solve these problems, they were unable to provide an accounting. That hardly inspires confidence that the half billion Dollars the legislature has decided to throw at education this session will be properly managed.
And education isn’t the only culprit. These kinds of problems exist throughout the width and breadth of state and federal government. The CATO Institute’s Chris Edwards noted in the introduction to a 2004 paper about how to cut federal spending that government funds had been scandalously mismanaged by numerous agencies. He says that this is because the expansive government “has simply become too big for [legislative bodies] to oversee.” I wonder, along with Edwards, why our society has increasingly come to see expanding government as the answer to so many issues, given the fact that its track record is so poor.
Edwards asserts, “All [government] spending displaces private spending, but many [government] programs actively damage the economy, cause social ills, despoil the environment, or restrict liberty as well.” He rejects the trend to centralize power and funding that has resulted in “a complex array of 716 grant programs [that] disgorges more than $400 billion annually to state and local governments, which become strangled in federal regulations.” His 2005 book explores ways to properly cut government spending in more detail.
George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux writes in this post that cutting government spending is so difficult because “nearly all programs currently in operation have a kind of political sacredness. They become almost immediately locked-in; each one becomes very difficult to kill.” He says that this looks an awful lot like a form of addiction.
But the government is us. We are doing this to ourselves. Or at least we are allowing it to happen. If we want government to be properly managed, it needs to be reduced to a manageable size. Unfortunately I don’t see many at the state or federal level that are serious about this. Although some give it lip service, actions show that most of our elected officials from both major parties actually believe quite the opposite. And by extension, that means that most of the electorate believes quite the opposite as well.
Friday, February 23, 2007
"Hey Baby, How About Writing a Blog Post for Me?"
Bloggers that post their email addresses occasionally receive solicitations to blog about something specific. Sometimes it’s a common cultural or political concern — kind of like organizing an online protest. Often it’s about a commercial product. In other words, you’re being asked to be a cheap part of someone’s marketing campaign. Occasionally, these solicitations include monetary offers if you will blog about a specific product and/or include a specific link in a post.
Based on the nature of the solicitations I receive, I must conclude that: A) most of these people don’t understand what motivates bloggers, and B) few of these people spend any time reading the blogs of those to whom they send solicitations. It seems to me that they’re taking kind of a throw-the-spaghetti-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach.
Although I have only my own experience to draw on, I can’t imagine that these campaigns are very successful. I suppose they’re relatively cheap, much like sending direct mail to 2,000 recipients in a single zip code is relatively cheap. But if you’re like me (and studies show that 97% of people are), direct mail goes directly from the mailbox to the rubbish bin. And that’s pretty much how I treat blogging solicitations as well.
Citing a couple of studies on what motivates bloggers, Kelly Abbott of Red Door wrote in this October 2005 article, “Bloggers blog for the same reason guitarists rock: they have an urge to be heard and the medium allows them to express themselves like no other.” Well, sort of. Being a guitar player myself and knowing other guitar players, I have to say that different people play guitar for different reasons. Some don’t care to be heard by anyone but themselves.
Similarly, bloggers blog for different reasons. The very nature of the medium means that bloggers intend to put their writings out into the public space. But the same studies cited by Abbott show that for many, blogging is intensely personal. It is therapeutic. They don’t necessarily care that much about what others think of their posts; they do it because they experience some level of fulfillment from writing.
I think I fall into this category. I haven’t installed any of the traffic monitoring tools, because frankly, I don’t care how many people read my posts. I also occasionally compose music and write poetry when I feel driven to it. But I will be the first one to admit that most of what I put together isn’t very good. I expose very little of this stuff to others. I know it’s not that good, but I also know that simply writing it satisfies a psychological need.
Others blog for the value of social interaction or the mental stimulation of debate. Bloggers that stick with it often end up becoming part of an online community, where a certain level of trust is attained, personalities are developed, and where there are expectations, rights, and responsibilities.
The largest portion of blogs are personal blogs. But these are also the most likely to die off. That is, there is an initial flurry of writing, followed by increasingly rare posts. In fact, that is the model for most blogs of any type. The vast majority of blogs are dead or nearly so. Blogs that more or less center on a topic or range of topics are somewhat more likely to remain viable for a longer time. At least, this is what I garner from various studies (see Snurblog, Daniel Drezner, Hugh Hewitt’s book, etc.)
Being a free market kind of guy myself, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with businesses trying to get bloggers to advertise for them. I don’t even see a problem with bloggers advertising, as long as they’re up front about it. Of course, even if they aren’t, it’s usually pretty easy to figure out what they’re up to.
But I’m not going to willingly be part of anyone’s marketing campaign. Why? I write about what interests me at a given moment, not about what interests others (which should be obvious from the limited number of comments I receive on some posts). I write for my own satisfaction. Writing something someone else wants me to write about would not fill my psychological need. It would remind me too much of work, or even worse, of grad school.
Based on the nature of the solicitations I receive, I must conclude that: A) most of these people don’t understand what motivates bloggers, and B) few of these people spend any time reading the blogs of those to whom they send solicitations. It seems to me that they’re taking kind of a throw-the-spaghetti-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach.
Although I have only my own experience to draw on, I can’t imagine that these campaigns are very successful. I suppose they’re relatively cheap, much like sending direct mail to 2,000 recipients in a single zip code is relatively cheap. But if you’re like me (and studies show that 97% of people are), direct mail goes directly from the mailbox to the rubbish bin. And that’s pretty much how I treat blogging solicitations as well.
Citing a couple of studies on what motivates bloggers, Kelly Abbott of Red Door wrote in this October 2005 article, “Bloggers blog for the same reason guitarists rock: they have an urge to be heard and the medium allows them to express themselves like no other.” Well, sort of. Being a guitar player myself and knowing other guitar players, I have to say that different people play guitar for different reasons. Some don’t care to be heard by anyone but themselves.
Similarly, bloggers blog for different reasons. The very nature of the medium means that bloggers intend to put their writings out into the public space. But the same studies cited by Abbott show that for many, blogging is intensely personal. It is therapeutic. They don’t necessarily care that much about what others think of their posts; they do it because they experience some level of fulfillment from writing.
I think I fall into this category. I haven’t installed any of the traffic monitoring tools, because frankly, I don’t care how many people read my posts. I also occasionally compose music and write poetry when I feel driven to it. But I will be the first one to admit that most of what I put together isn’t very good. I expose very little of this stuff to others. I know it’s not that good, but I also know that simply writing it satisfies a psychological need.
Others blog for the value of social interaction or the mental stimulation of debate. Bloggers that stick with it often end up becoming part of an online community, where a certain level of trust is attained, personalities are developed, and where there are expectations, rights, and responsibilities.
The largest portion of blogs are personal blogs. But these are also the most likely to die off. That is, there is an initial flurry of writing, followed by increasingly rare posts. In fact, that is the model for most blogs of any type. The vast majority of blogs are dead or nearly so. Blogs that more or less center on a topic or range of topics are somewhat more likely to remain viable for a longer time. At least, this is what I garner from various studies (see Snurblog, Daniel Drezner, Hugh Hewitt’s book, etc.)
Being a free market kind of guy myself, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with businesses trying to get bloggers to advertise for them. I don’t even see a problem with bloggers advertising, as long as they’re up front about it. Of course, even if they aren’t, it’s usually pretty easy to figure out what they’re up to.
But I’m not going to willingly be part of anyone’s marketing campaign. Why? I write about what interests me at a given moment, not about what interests others (which should be obvious from the limited number of comments I receive on some posts). I write for my own satisfaction. Writing something someone else wants me to write about would not fill my psychological need. It would remind me too much of work, or even worse, of grad school.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Never Say Never
With nearly a year to go until the presidential primaries begin and over 20 months to go until the next presidential election, I’m taking a wait-and-see approach. My eighth grader asked me the other night if I would vote for Mitt Romney. I gave him a mushy “that depends” answer. This all arose from a social studies class discussion. He then asked me whether I would vote for several other candidates.
First off, I was impressed that my son even had a clue who these people were. I was blissfully unaware about such things when I was that age. Perhaps this is indicative of the celebrity status that politics has achieved since then. For a couple of the candidates my son mentioned, I was able to confidently tell him I would under no circumstances vote for them. But I found that for most of those on his list, I could only give qualified answers.
Part of this is because I have lived long enough to know that things change. Circumstances change. People change. More information becomes available. My perceptions change. And whether I would vote for a particular candidate or not depends greatly on what choices are available to me at the time of the election. Had my son asked me how I would vote if the election were held today, I might have answered differently.
Still, early opinion helps shape the debate and fuels what type of information is gathered and presented. It is possible that my wait-and-see approach fails to contribute much to that debate. There are plenty of people out there weighing in on the various candidates. And I think that’s a healthy thing.
But I must say that I am surprised by the number of conservatives that strongly oppose a given candidate. Every single one of them has provided plenty of fodder for developing a rational opposition. But I am surprised at how strongly some state their opposition. It seems to me that they are failing to allow for the inevitable changes that will occur over the next 20 months.
For example, I have made it no secret that I have some issues with Mitt Romney. And I’m not alone. There are plenty of conservatives that have well founded reservations. But some of them are vehement in their opposition to Mitt. What seems odd to me about this is that if Mitt is the eventual GOP nominee, many of these same people will end up supporting him — some of them enthusiastically. I have issues, but can I say that I would never vote for him? I’m not ready to go there.
Christian conservative commentator James Bopp says in this article that conservatives shouldn’t be so quick to misjudge Mitt’s seemingly recent conservative conversion. But Bopp’s argument that Mitt is just a closet conservative that is now coming out in the open doesn’t inspire much conservative confidence. After all, conservatives admire Ronald Reagan for saying what he meant and sticking to it. They don’t admire Bill Clinton for saying whatever he thought people wanted to hear while harboring other intentions.
But wait. Reagan (St. Ronald to some conservatives) was rather complex himself. He had once been a Democrat. He signed the nation’s most liberal abortion bill when he was governor of California. He had been divorced. And he was famously lax on illegal immigration. But when he said that he had changed his stripes on issues over the years, he came across as both passionate and genuine about it. I’m not sure that Romney scores well on either of these points right now. Eloquent, yes. Maybe even passionate in some instances. But he’s got work to do on genuineness.
Conservative columnist Kathy Lopez makes a valid point in this article, however, when she asserts that Romney is a better fit for the conservative base than GOP frontrunners McCain and Giuliani. Reason and history dictate that both of these candidates will hit a significant rough spot sometime before the primary election cycle is complete. We’ll see then how they continue to rank with conservatives.
And for what it’s worth, I disagree with Jonah Goldberg on his beer test slant. Even he admits it’s not a proven theory, but it goes like this. The candidate with whom the average person could imagine sitting down together with for a beer has a political advantage with voters. Goldberg suggests that McCain and Giuliani probably rank the highest among all of the announced candidates from either party. Mitt is too polished, he says. Goldberg sort of has a point. My guess is that George W. Bush would easily have beaten John Kerry on this score in 2004.
While personal appeal is undeniably important, people aren’t looking for someone they think is just like them. Most voters will admit they would make a lousy president. Rather, voters are looking for someone they can look up to — someone that has leadership qualities they admire. This is where Mitt’s polished shine will likely pay off.
But I think Lopez also strikes a chord with many conservatives when she quotes GOP pollster Robert Moran as saying, “The Republican candidates are good Americans and we shouldn’t diminish their qualifications, but at some point there will be a critical mass of thoughtful conservatives asking ‘Who else do we have?’ I hope that this question doesn’t come too late.”
Moran is talking about second tier candidates. In recent history, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton both rose from the second tier to win their party’s presidential nomination and ultimately the presidency. Some argue that the speed of information and the nature of media has changed so much in the last decade or so that it is no longer possible for a second tier candidate to rise up and clinch her/his party’s nomination this ‘late’ in the cycle.
I think that is pure poppycock. Yes, both parties have identified their first tier candidates and many of their lower tier candidates as well. Yes, the first tier candidates have built stronger campaign and fundraising machines earlier in the cycle than ever before. But there is still a lot of time left. There are still many unknowns. Any or all of the frontrunners could completely implode at various points along the line. A single significant domestic or international event or a combination of events could dramatically change the entire chemistry of the situation.
Would it be difficult for a second tier candidate to rise to the first tier in either major party? Sure. But it’s not impossible. In fact, at this point I would argue that it is even likely to happen in at least one of the parties, from a statistical viewpoint, given that the field is more open for both parties than it has been in years.
Is it entirely possible that Mitt could end up being the best choice conservatives have left next year. The conservatives that once vehemently opposed him but have since switched to support him will then be guilty of the same kind of thing they find so distasteful in Mitt today. But this is only one of a broad variety of scenarios that could end up playing out.
My advice to conservatives? Praise what you think is right, speak out about what you think is wrong, keep your options open, and don’t give up hope for something better — at least not yet.
First off, I was impressed that my son even had a clue who these people were. I was blissfully unaware about such things when I was that age. Perhaps this is indicative of the celebrity status that politics has achieved since then. For a couple of the candidates my son mentioned, I was able to confidently tell him I would under no circumstances vote for them. But I found that for most of those on his list, I could only give qualified answers.
Part of this is because I have lived long enough to know that things change. Circumstances change. People change. More information becomes available. My perceptions change. And whether I would vote for a particular candidate or not depends greatly on what choices are available to me at the time of the election. Had my son asked me how I would vote if the election were held today, I might have answered differently.
Still, early opinion helps shape the debate and fuels what type of information is gathered and presented. It is possible that my wait-and-see approach fails to contribute much to that debate. There are plenty of people out there weighing in on the various candidates. And I think that’s a healthy thing.
But I must say that I am surprised by the number of conservatives that strongly oppose a given candidate. Every single one of them has provided plenty of fodder for developing a rational opposition. But I am surprised at how strongly some state their opposition. It seems to me that they are failing to allow for the inevitable changes that will occur over the next 20 months.
For example, I have made it no secret that I have some issues with Mitt Romney. And I’m not alone. There are plenty of conservatives that have well founded reservations. But some of them are vehement in their opposition to Mitt. What seems odd to me about this is that if Mitt is the eventual GOP nominee, many of these same people will end up supporting him — some of them enthusiastically. I have issues, but can I say that I would never vote for him? I’m not ready to go there.
Christian conservative commentator James Bopp says in this article that conservatives shouldn’t be so quick to misjudge Mitt’s seemingly recent conservative conversion. But Bopp’s argument that Mitt is just a closet conservative that is now coming out in the open doesn’t inspire much conservative confidence. After all, conservatives admire Ronald Reagan for saying what he meant and sticking to it. They don’t admire Bill Clinton for saying whatever he thought people wanted to hear while harboring other intentions.
But wait. Reagan (St. Ronald to some conservatives) was rather complex himself. He had once been a Democrat. He signed the nation’s most liberal abortion bill when he was governor of California. He had been divorced. And he was famously lax on illegal immigration. But when he said that he had changed his stripes on issues over the years, he came across as both passionate and genuine about it. I’m not sure that Romney scores well on either of these points right now. Eloquent, yes. Maybe even passionate in some instances. But he’s got work to do on genuineness.
Conservative columnist Kathy Lopez makes a valid point in this article, however, when she asserts that Romney is a better fit for the conservative base than GOP frontrunners McCain and Giuliani. Reason and history dictate that both of these candidates will hit a significant rough spot sometime before the primary election cycle is complete. We’ll see then how they continue to rank with conservatives.
And for what it’s worth, I disagree with Jonah Goldberg on his beer test slant. Even he admits it’s not a proven theory, but it goes like this. The candidate with whom the average person could imagine sitting down together with for a beer has a political advantage with voters. Goldberg suggests that McCain and Giuliani probably rank the highest among all of the announced candidates from either party. Mitt is too polished, he says. Goldberg sort of has a point. My guess is that George W. Bush would easily have beaten John Kerry on this score in 2004.
While personal appeal is undeniably important, people aren’t looking for someone they think is just like them. Most voters will admit they would make a lousy president. Rather, voters are looking for someone they can look up to — someone that has leadership qualities they admire. This is where Mitt’s polished shine will likely pay off.
But I think Lopez also strikes a chord with many conservatives when she quotes GOP pollster Robert Moran as saying, “The Republican candidates are good Americans and we shouldn’t diminish their qualifications, but at some point there will be a critical mass of thoughtful conservatives asking ‘Who else do we have?’ I hope that this question doesn’t come too late.”
Moran is talking about second tier candidates. In recent history, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton both rose from the second tier to win their party’s presidential nomination and ultimately the presidency. Some argue that the speed of information and the nature of media has changed so much in the last decade or so that it is no longer possible for a second tier candidate to rise up and clinch her/his party’s nomination this ‘late’ in the cycle.
I think that is pure poppycock. Yes, both parties have identified their first tier candidates and many of their lower tier candidates as well. Yes, the first tier candidates have built stronger campaign and fundraising machines earlier in the cycle than ever before. But there is still a lot of time left. There are still many unknowns. Any or all of the frontrunners could completely implode at various points along the line. A single significant domestic or international event or a combination of events could dramatically change the entire chemistry of the situation.
Would it be difficult for a second tier candidate to rise to the first tier in either major party? Sure. But it’s not impossible. In fact, at this point I would argue that it is even likely to happen in at least one of the parties, from a statistical viewpoint, given that the field is more open for both parties than it has been in years.
Is it entirely possible that Mitt could end up being the best choice conservatives have left next year. The conservatives that once vehemently opposed him but have since switched to support him will then be guilty of the same kind of thing they find so distasteful in Mitt today. But this is only one of a broad variety of scenarios that could end up playing out.
My advice to conservatives? Praise what you think is right, speak out about what you think is wrong, keep your options open, and don’t give up hope for something better — at least not yet.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Will the Legislature Get the Tax Cut Done?
Our whole system of government is founded on the principle of compromise. Of course, that’s not the sole principle involved, but it's among the most significant. It chapped my hide last year when our legislature failed to achieve compromise on how to give taxpayers back a paltry 7% of the largest budget surplus in state history (see here).
The legislature did finally come back for a special session in the wake of impending elections to achieve compromise on this issue. Are we in for a repeat of last year at a higher level?
This year we have a much larger budget surplus than we did last year. Going into the legislative session, most legislators agreed that there should be a tax cut, but the House and Senate disagreed broadly about the amount and nature of the cut. It seems that leadership of both bodies has achieved general agreement on the amount, which I calculate to be about 14-15% of the astounding surplus. But there is still disagreement on how to do the cut.
It was widely reported last year that the whole problem of being unable to resolve the tax cut issue boiled down to a battle of egos rather than concern over what was best for the citizens of Utah. Certain leaders came into this session contritely admitting that mistakes had been made and touting a resolve to do better this year.
Maybe they are doing better. And maybe not. One of the chief bones of contention has been the proposed elimination of sales tax on unprepared food. The House is all for it and the Senate is completely opposed to it. According to this D-News article, it seems that some progress has been made toward compromise on this issue. But it’s too early to tell if it will really work out. And this is only one issue. Senate President John Valentine (R-Orem) says that they are going to have to work around the clock to resolve the tax cut issue.
I expressed dismay last year that resolving the tax cut was left to the very end of the session. I felt that it should have been priority #1. Other matters could then be considered after that was resolved. I mean, if you can’t cut taxes when the economy is booming and we have a stunning surplus, when can you cut taxes?
But that’s not how the legislative session works. Tax cuts are among a number of squishy issues that tend to be shaped by how other legislation turns out. That is why the D-News article says that Valentine “described the tax cuts as being on a "parallel track" with budget issues.” The issue only gets firmed up as various budget issues get nailed down. I may not like it much, but that’s the way it works in reality.
So it looks like we’re going to just have to sit tight and see how our legislators handle this matter as the session draws to a close. I only hope that this year they put the ultimate goal ahead of ego and show us that they can actually achieve a useful compromise without having to spend more of our money in a special session to do it.
The legislature did finally come back for a special session in the wake of impending elections to achieve compromise on this issue. Are we in for a repeat of last year at a higher level?
This year we have a much larger budget surplus than we did last year. Going into the legislative session, most legislators agreed that there should be a tax cut, but the House and Senate disagreed broadly about the amount and nature of the cut. It seems that leadership of both bodies has achieved general agreement on the amount, which I calculate to be about 14-15% of the astounding surplus. But there is still disagreement on how to do the cut.
It was widely reported last year that the whole problem of being unable to resolve the tax cut issue boiled down to a battle of egos rather than concern over what was best for the citizens of Utah. Certain leaders came into this session contritely admitting that mistakes had been made and touting a resolve to do better this year.
Maybe they are doing better. And maybe not. One of the chief bones of contention has been the proposed elimination of sales tax on unprepared food. The House is all for it and the Senate is completely opposed to it. According to this D-News article, it seems that some progress has been made toward compromise on this issue. But it’s too early to tell if it will really work out. And this is only one issue. Senate President John Valentine (R-Orem) says that they are going to have to work around the clock to resolve the tax cut issue.
I expressed dismay last year that resolving the tax cut was left to the very end of the session. I felt that it should have been priority #1. Other matters could then be considered after that was resolved. I mean, if you can’t cut taxes when the economy is booming and we have a stunning surplus, when can you cut taxes?
But that’s not how the legislative session works. Tax cuts are among a number of squishy issues that tend to be shaped by how other legislation turns out. That is why the D-News article says that Valentine “described the tax cuts as being on a "parallel track" with budget issues.” The issue only gets firmed up as various budget issues get nailed down. I may not like it much, but that’s the way it works in reality.
So it looks like we’re going to just have to sit tight and see how our legislators handle this matter as the session draws to a close. I only hope that this year they put the ultimate goal ahead of ego and show us that they can actually achieve a useful compromise without having to spend more of our money in a special session to do it.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Solving the Newspaper "Crisis"
In today’s Utah Policy Daily, LaVarr Webb wishes, “As a former journalist and lifetime avid newspaper reader, I hope the good old print newspaper never goes away.” He touts the unparalleled quality of a well laid out newspaper in delivering an in-depth story in a way that no other medium achieves. But he can see the writing on the wall. He says, “I recognize that I’m part of a dying breed that still likes printed newspapers. I hardly know any young people who spend time with a printed paper.”
And this is more than simply instinct. Media investing mogul Steven Rattner writes in this Wall Street Journal op-ed piece that across the newspaper industry, “circulation has been dropping for 20 years, and worse, the pace of decline seems to be accelerating.” Rattner notes that this decline began long before there was a media presence on the Internet.
Webb says that the solution is for “newspapers [to] evolve and become the premier information source for young people. And that’s only going to happen on-line.” But that evolution would have to be major, because just shifting from paper to electronic delivery doesn’t address the core problem. Rattner notes that the time the average American spends paying attention to news or doing news analysis from any source has been steadily dropping as well. So Webb is not just imagining things when he opines that the breed that likes to curl up with a good newspaper is disappearing.
Rattner asserts that the problem is as deep as a shift in what Americans consider news. He says that the media’s slide from substantive news to “entertainment, gossip or lifestyle info” merely reflects outlets “providing what their customers are demanding.”
It’s not as if Rattner is oblivious to the effects of diversification. For the true news junkie, he asserts, “quality news … is arguably more available today than ever before….” But when Rattner couples this with the declining percentage of the population that fall into the analyst category, he finds reason for alarm.
I only partially share Rattner’s concern. I think Rattner misjudges breadth of the scope of diversification. Americans are more affluent than ever. The potential outlets for their time have exploded over the past several decades. And these ever-expanding possibilities compete for our finite time resources.
It’s not just that the newspaper and the evening news aren’t the only news games in town any more. It’s that there are so many others ways in which one can spend his/her time. From scrapbooking to online gaming to watching poker on TV, there are more things to do than ever.
I have two teenage sons that create and mix their own music, producing near professional results. This used to be the domain of experts with lots of expensive equipment and a sound studio. But these guys can do it with a keyboard, a PC, and a couple hundred dollars worth of software. And diversification happens in almost every aspect of life. When I was a kid there were three little league sports we could play: football, basketball, and baseball. Today my kids are assailed with seemingly endless sports possibilities.
We value shared experience. It’s how we relate to other people. We talk with each other about our common points of interest. These make up the points that connect us with others in our human relations. There used to be far fewer common contact points. The newspaper and the evening news were among those. With ever broadening choices, we have far more potential contact points. As the average American tries to sample an increasing number of these points, they have less time for depth in any one of them.
The news industry is part of this. Busy Americans today catch a few news snippets here and there. They peruse a few headlines and look for something that they think might apply to them. News is almost always obtained more quickly from sources other than the newspaper. But depth sometimes suffers. Americans seem willing to live with this.
Both Webb and Rattner seem quite nostalgic about traditional newspapers. Unlike these two, I see nothing particularly special about newsprint media. The basic purpose of news can be achieved through other media, even if its format differs. The nostalgic types see the differences in method and delivery as deficiencies, when in fact, they are merely trade-offs that are the common lot of any technological or cultural shift.
I strongly disagree with Rattner’s proposed solution. He seems intent on saving the newspaper industry for the good of society. After exploring the possibilities of privatizing and appealing to philanthropy, he finally floats the trial balloon of shifting to a publicly funded model. He cites the New York subways as a necessary and successful example of this.
For one thing, I am afraid that I do not see newspapers quite in the same light as public transit. For another, I’m not sure that creating an American version of Pravda would be a model of enlightenment and success. Having a print version of NPR — that paragon of publicly funded objectivity (note: sarcasm) — would hardly result in a product that would increase readership, unless we also have bands of brown shirts that run around making everyone read it. I simply cannot generate any excitement for putting government bureaucrats in charge of newspapers.
The fact is that the basic rules of Econ 101 apply here. Demand will ultimately determine supply. Government intervention to support the waning buggy whip industry, regardless of how wonderful it might seem in the eyes of some, is ultimately going to fail and cause all kinds of market mischief along the way. Memo to newspaper companies: Your heyday is over. Get used to the idea. Morph to meet the changing market or dry up and blow away. It’s harsh, but it’s that simple, folks.
And this is more than simply instinct. Media investing mogul Steven Rattner writes in this Wall Street Journal op-ed piece that across the newspaper industry, “circulation has been dropping for 20 years, and worse, the pace of decline seems to be accelerating.” Rattner notes that this decline began long before there was a media presence on the Internet.
Webb says that the solution is for “newspapers [to] evolve and become the premier information source for young people. And that’s only going to happen on-line.” But that evolution would have to be major, because just shifting from paper to electronic delivery doesn’t address the core problem. Rattner notes that the time the average American spends paying attention to news or doing news analysis from any source has been steadily dropping as well. So Webb is not just imagining things when he opines that the breed that likes to curl up with a good newspaper is disappearing.
Rattner asserts that the problem is as deep as a shift in what Americans consider news. He says that the media’s slide from substantive news to “entertainment, gossip or lifestyle info” merely reflects outlets “providing what their customers are demanding.”
It’s not as if Rattner is oblivious to the effects of diversification. For the true news junkie, he asserts, “quality news … is arguably more available today than ever before….” But when Rattner couples this with the declining percentage of the population that fall into the analyst category, he finds reason for alarm.
I only partially share Rattner’s concern. I think Rattner misjudges breadth of the scope of diversification. Americans are more affluent than ever. The potential outlets for their time have exploded over the past several decades. And these ever-expanding possibilities compete for our finite time resources.
It’s not just that the newspaper and the evening news aren’t the only news games in town any more. It’s that there are so many others ways in which one can spend his/her time. From scrapbooking to online gaming to watching poker on TV, there are more things to do than ever.
I have two teenage sons that create and mix their own music, producing near professional results. This used to be the domain of experts with lots of expensive equipment and a sound studio. But these guys can do it with a keyboard, a PC, and a couple hundred dollars worth of software. And diversification happens in almost every aspect of life. When I was a kid there were three little league sports we could play: football, basketball, and baseball. Today my kids are assailed with seemingly endless sports possibilities.
We value shared experience. It’s how we relate to other people. We talk with each other about our common points of interest. These make up the points that connect us with others in our human relations. There used to be far fewer common contact points. The newspaper and the evening news were among those. With ever broadening choices, we have far more potential contact points. As the average American tries to sample an increasing number of these points, they have less time for depth in any one of them.
The news industry is part of this. Busy Americans today catch a few news snippets here and there. They peruse a few headlines and look for something that they think might apply to them. News is almost always obtained more quickly from sources other than the newspaper. But depth sometimes suffers. Americans seem willing to live with this.
Both Webb and Rattner seem quite nostalgic about traditional newspapers. Unlike these two, I see nothing particularly special about newsprint media. The basic purpose of news can be achieved through other media, even if its format differs. The nostalgic types see the differences in method and delivery as deficiencies, when in fact, they are merely trade-offs that are the common lot of any technological or cultural shift.
I strongly disagree with Rattner’s proposed solution. He seems intent on saving the newspaper industry for the good of society. After exploring the possibilities of privatizing and appealing to philanthropy, he finally floats the trial balloon of shifting to a publicly funded model. He cites the New York subways as a necessary and successful example of this.
For one thing, I am afraid that I do not see newspapers quite in the same light as public transit. For another, I’m not sure that creating an American version of Pravda would be a model of enlightenment and success. Having a print version of NPR — that paragon of publicly funded objectivity (note: sarcasm) — would hardly result in a product that would increase readership, unless we also have bands of brown shirts that run around making everyone read it. I simply cannot generate any excitement for putting government bureaucrats in charge of newspapers.
The fact is that the basic rules of Econ 101 apply here. Demand will ultimately determine supply. Government intervention to support the waning buggy whip industry, regardless of how wonderful it might seem in the eyes of some, is ultimately going to fail and cause all kinds of market mischief along the way. Memo to newspaper companies: Your heyday is over. Get used to the idea. Morph to meet the changing market or dry up and blow away. It’s harsh, but it’s that simple, folks.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Failure to Understand Responsibility Makes Abuse Possible
A 62-year-old former Mormon bishop pleaded guilty in Logan yesterday to lewdness (see here, third item). According to the article, this guy took two 15-year-olds on a nude snowmobile ride and hit the sauna at his cabin in the buff with them. I assume that the two juveniles were male. Otherwise I seriously doubt prosecutors would have only pursued misdemeanor charges.
In his defense, the guy told police that “he didn’t feel that anyone was uncomfortable.” What universe does this man live in? Didn’t this guy learn anything from the MoTab member that skinny dipped with boys and videotaped it (see here)? There is obviously a good reason Mr. Nude Snowmobiler must undergo a mental evaluation. Thank goodness he’s been ordered to have no unsupervised contact with juveniles, even if he’s not in jail.
In our post-modern sexually liberated world, snowmobiling and saunaing bare is OK, right? Perhaps, provided there is adequate privacy. But not with minors. Maybe that’s OK in Scandinavia, but it’s not OK in the USA. It’s called child abuse, folks.
This man’s clueless response to police is actually a very common pattern for child abusers. In their minds they see themselves and their victims as equals. They think they and their victims bear equal responsibility for what occurs in the relationship. They completely discount the tremendous power differential in the relationship.
Can’t this guy see that being four times these kids’ age, being successful (at least successful enough to have snowmobiles and a cabin with a sauna), and having held venerated leadership positions gives him extraordinary influence over these kids? Well, no. Abusers don’t see it like that. They lie to themselves about equality of responsibility and fool their own consciences.
Don’t get me wrong. Every capable individual bears a certain level of responsibility for his/her own actions. But in interpersonal relationships we need to consider the power differential and comprehend appropriate levels of responsibility to have successful and morally appropriate interactions.
In his defense, the guy told police that “he didn’t feel that anyone was uncomfortable.” What universe does this man live in? Didn’t this guy learn anything from the MoTab member that skinny dipped with boys and videotaped it (see here)? There is obviously a good reason Mr. Nude Snowmobiler must undergo a mental evaluation. Thank goodness he’s been ordered to have no unsupervised contact with juveniles, even if he’s not in jail.
In our post-modern sexually liberated world, snowmobiling and saunaing bare is OK, right? Perhaps, provided there is adequate privacy. But not with minors. Maybe that’s OK in Scandinavia, but it’s not OK in the USA. It’s called child abuse, folks.
This man’s clueless response to police is actually a very common pattern for child abusers. In their minds they see themselves and their victims as equals. They think they and their victims bear equal responsibility for what occurs in the relationship. They completely discount the tremendous power differential in the relationship.
Can’t this guy see that being four times these kids’ age, being successful (at least successful enough to have snowmobiles and a cabin with a sauna), and having held venerated leadership positions gives him extraordinary influence over these kids? Well, no. Abusers don’t see it like that. They lie to themselves about equality of responsibility and fool their own consciences.
Don’t get me wrong. Every capable individual bears a certain level of responsibility for his/her own actions. But in interpersonal relationships we need to consider the power differential and comprehend appropriate levels of responsibility to have successful and morally appropriate interactions.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
The Presidential Horse Race
As a follow-up to my Monday post about current 2008 presidential hopefuls, I found this article by historical biographer Noemie Emery to be interesting. Emery explores the topic of how three men (Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney) that all decidedly differ from the standard Republican grassroots profile have become the frontrunners for the GOP presidential nomination. Emery calls them “Metro Republicans.”
Although McCain represents Arizona, and Romney has strong ties to both Michigan and Utah, neither of these men fit nicely into the GOP grassroots stereotype. McCain “has recently stopped twisting his thumbs in the eyes of people who might otherwise back him,” but he “tends to play well with a [northeastern] audience.” He has carefully groomed his maverick persona for years, which has made him highly desirable to the MSM cartel, but much less so to Republicans that attend caucus meetings and vote in primaries.
Emery notes that Romney is “[u]rbane and urban,” has been governor of “perhaps the most liberal state in the Union,” and “has quartered his campaign in the North End of Boston, as far from the Sunbelt as is humanly possible.” In light of his well publicized liberal social positions of the past, he is running like a born again conservative that has finally seen the light. A lot of people are waiting to be convinced that his conversion is genuine.
Giuliani doesn’t make any pretense of being like the GOP grassroots base. His liberal social positions are well known. But he also has a tough guy persona that comes across as the real thing. He is the only one of the three gentlemen that is not trying to repackage himself on the campaign trail. He is who he is. Take it or leave it.
Emery spends quite a few column inches of her article in defense of Rudy’s electability, even in the GOP primaries. His supporters see in him somebody that will combat our nation’s enemies without taking any guff from anyone. Emery’s thoughts fit very nicely with Wall Street Journal editorial columnist Brendan Miniter’s take on this issue. Both Miniter and Emery suggest that GOP social conservatives are turning out to be much more nuanced than the MSM and the left make them out to be.
Miniter says that some are seeing Giuliani as a strong ally in the battle “against an intransient political culture that is unresponsive to the demands of the public.” Emery says that unlike past liberal Republican presidential hopefuls, Giuliani is not trying to wage a culture war within the party. He has his personal stances, but he isn’t taking political positions that significantly alienate the base.
Emery suggests that any of these three men would provide an overall good for the GOP, rescuing it from becoming too monolithic and broadening its appeal to average Americans. She cites polls that “show Metro Republicans beating the purer red models” among Republicans in general and even among social conservatives. She also touts the fact that polls show the Metro guys “beating Democrats in all of the head-to-head heats.” But she admits that polls two years out only have so much meaning.
Emery thinks that it’s not a bad thing for a GOP presidential candidate to be complex or to have a liberal past. She cites GOP and conservative saint, Ronald Reagan as being “a complex enough figure … who was divorced and remarried, a former film star and a recovering Democrat, … who signed a liberal abortion bill while governor of California, … and once even backed the New Deal.”
Contrasting the Metro boys with the current field of Democrat candidates, Emery asserts that the Dems are too monolithic and that “few [have] cross-party appeal.”
Hmmm…. Part of me doesn’t like how all of this feels. During the 2004 primaries I often heard Democrat voters say that they were supporting John Kerry, not because they thought he would make a better president than the other candidates, but because they thought he had the best chance of beating George W. Bush. And frankly, it just creeped me out that people would forsake their principles in favor of what seemed like a good bet at the moment. Are Republicans and social conservatives doing the same thing with the three Metro boys?
While it is no sin to consider a candidate’s ultimate electability in a general election, I worry when people make that the primary focus during the party nomination process. Perhaps I am wishing for a utopian situation, but I believe people ought to consider the candidates and then support the one they believe would make the best office holder. I find all of the buzz about the two parties’ frontrunners (as well as tidbits about third-party candidates) interesting, but I’m a long way from having a firm opinion about which candidate I think would make the best president.
I’m not going to jump up and support a candidate simply because he/she might seem to have the best chance of winning. That’s how you bet on horse races, but it’s not a good model for selecting political leaders. You don’t have to rely on the winner of the Kentucky Derby to be the nation’s chief executive for the next four years.
Although McCain represents Arizona, and Romney has strong ties to both Michigan and Utah, neither of these men fit nicely into the GOP grassroots stereotype. McCain “has recently stopped twisting his thumbs in the eyes of people who might otherwise back him,” but he “tends to play well with a [northeastern] audience.” He has carefully groomed his maverick persona for years, which has made him highly desirable to the MSM cartel, but much less so to Republicans that attend caucus meetings and vote in primaries.
Emery notes that Romney is “[u]rbane and urban,” has been governor of “perhaps the most liberal state in the Union,” and “has quartered his campaign in the North End of Boston, as far from the Sunbelt as is humanly possible.” In light of his well publicized liberal social positions of the past, he is running like a born again conservative that has finally seen the light. A lot of people are waiting to be convinced that his conversion is genuine.
Giuliani doesn’t make any pretense of being like the GOP grassroots base. His liberal social positions are well known. But he also has a tough guy persona that comes across as the real thing. He is the only one of the three gentlemen that is not trying to repackage himself on the campaign trail. He is who he is. Take it or leave it.
Emery spends quite a few column inches of her article in defense of Rudy’s electability, even in the GOP primaries. His supporters see in him somebody that will combat our nation’s enemies without taking any guff from anyone. Emery’s thoughts fit very nicely with Wall Street Journal editorial columnist Brendan Miniter’s take on this issue. Both Miniter and Emery suggest that GOP social conservatives are turning out to be much more nuanced than the MSM and the left make them out to be.
Miniter says that some are seeing Giuliani as a strong ally in the battle “against an intransient political culture that is unresponsive to the demands of the public.” Emery says that unlike past liberal Republican presidential hopefuls, Giuliani is not trying to wage a culture war within the party. He has his personal stances, but he isn’t taking political positions that significantly alienate the base.
Emery suggests that any of these three men would provide an overall good for the GOP, rescuing it from becoming too monolithic and broadening its appeal to average Americans. She cites polls that “show Metro Republicans beating the purer red models” among Republicans in general and even among social conservatives. She also touts the fact that polls show the Metro guys “beating Democrats in all of the head-to-head heats.” But she admits that polls two years out only have so much meaning.
Emery thinks that it’s not a bad thing for a GOP presidential candidate to be complex or to have a liberal past. She cites GOP and conservative saint, Ronald Reagan as being “a complex enough figure … who was divorced and remarried, a former film star and a recovering Democrat, … who signed a liberal abortion bill while governor of California, … and once even backed the New Deal.”
Contrasting the Metro boys with the current field of Democrat candidates, Emery asserts that the Dems are too monolithic and that “few [have] cross-party appeal.”
Hmmm…. Part of me doesn’t like how all of this feels. During the 2004 primaries I often heard Democrat voters say that they were supporting John Kerry, not because they thought he would make a better president than the other candidates, but because they thought he had the best chance of beating George W. Bush. And frankly, it just creeped me out that people would forsake their principles in favor of what seemed like a good bet at the moment. Are Republicans and social conservatives doing the same thing with the three Metro boys?
While it is no sin to consider a candidate’s ultimate electability in a general election, I worry when people make that the primary focus during the party nomination process. Perhaps I am wishing for a utopian situation, but I believe people ought to consider the candidates and then support the one they believe would make the best office holder. I find all of the buzz about the two parties’ frontrunners (as well as tidbits about third-party candidates) interesting, but I’m a long way from having a firm opinion about which candidate I think would make the best president.
I’m not going to jump up and support a candidate simply because he/she might seem to have the best chance of winning. That’s how you bet on horse races, but it’s not a good model for selecting political leaders. You don’t have to rely on the winner of the Kentucky Derby to be the nation’s chief executive for the next four years.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
A Diller, A Dollar
A Dollar doesn’t buy as much as it used to. If you had put a Dollar bill in a drawer in 1967 and then decided to spend it today, it would be worth less than 17% of its original value. To put it another way, today’s equivalent of a Dollar spent in 1967 is almost $6. That’s inflation. No wonder they don’t have penny candy anymore and dime stores have become Dollar stores.
But money doesn’t grow on trees. That’s certainly true for coins, and it is largely true even for our paper money, which consists of 75% cotton and 25% linen (see here). The point is that it costs money to make money. And I’m not talking about investments here. I mean that it costs money to make the physical objects that we consider money.
A Dollar bill costs about 4.2 Cents to create. The average Dollar bill lasts about 18-22 months. Sure, you see much older bills, but many others only last a few months. Due to the bill’s short life span, its cost is relatively high compared to its value. Apparently this ratio is much worse than it was 40 years ago.
Coins, such as the Sacagawea Dollar, have a substantially longer life span than paper money. In 2000 the GAO estimated that using a Dollar coin instead of a Dollar bill would save about $522.2 million annually (a pittance to the federal government). But we never did that. Just like the Eisenhower Dollar and the Susan B. Anthony Dollar, the Sacagawea Dollar was introduced with no plan to scrap the Dollar bill. Not only did the introduction of all of these coins cost the taxpayers more; the coins merely introduced more complications and inconvenience for shoppers and merchants alike.
Why didn’t we get rid of the Dollar bill? Because it is the most widely understood and accepted money instrument in the entire world. Even though it’s worth only 17¢ in 1967 value, the Dollar bill holds a deep place not only in the psyche of Americans, but in the psyche of people worldwide. Other countries have scrapped their smaller denomination paper money, but Americans simply won’t hear of it. It doesn’t matter if it costs more.
Apparently we have not learned our lesson. On Thursday the U.S. Mint will release yet another Dollar coin (see here). This one will be the same size and use the same components as the Sacagawea Dollar, but it will feature a U.S. President. Starting with George Washington, the Mint will release a new design every three months for the next decade. They are modeling this on the successful 50 State Quarters Program. The main thrust seems to be promotion of coin collecting.
Is this a valid use of taxpayer funds? I can see arguments both ways on that. One thing is for sure; it’s a much better use than some of the other crap for which we spend taxpayer Dollars.
But money doesn’t grow on trees. That’s certainly true for coins, and it is largely true even for our paper money, which consists of 75% cotton and 25% linen (see here). The point is that it costs money to make money. And I’m not talking about investments here. I mean that it costs money to make the physical objects that we consider money.
A Dollar bill costs about 4.2 Cents to create. The average Dollar bill lasts about 18-22 months. Sure, you see much older bills, but many others only last a few months. Due to the bill’s short life span, its cost is relatively high compared to its value. Apparently this ratio is much worse than it was 40 years ago.
Coins, such as the Sacagawea Dollar, have a substantially longer life span than paper money. In 2000 the GAO estimated that using a Dollar coin instead of a Dollar bill would save about $522.2 million annually (a pittance to the federal government). But we never did that. Just like the Eisenhower Dollar and the Susan B. Anthony Dollar, the Sacagawea Dollar was introduced with no plan to scrap the Dollar bill. Not only did the introduction of all of these coins cost the taxpayers more; the coins merely introduced more complications and inconvenience for shoppers and merchants alike.
Why didn’t we get rid of the Dollar bill? Because it is the most widely understood and accepted money instrument in the entire world. Even though it’s worth only 17¢ in 1967 value, the Dollar bill holds a deep place not only in the psyche of Americans, but in the psyche of people worldwide. Other countries have scrapped their smaller denomination paper money, but Americans simply won’t hear of it. It doesn’t matter if it costs more.
Apparently we have not learned our lesson. On Thursday the U.S. Mint will release yet another Dollar coin (see here). This one will be the same size and use the same components as the Sacagawea Dollar, but it will feature a U.S. President. Starting with George Washington, the Mint will release a new design every three months for the next decade. They are modeling this on the successful 50 State Quarters Program. The main thrust seems to be promotion of coin collecting.
Is this a valid use of taxpayer funds? I can see arguments both ways on that. One thing is for sure; it’s a much better use than some of the other crap for which we spend taxpayer Dollars.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Our Next President Will Be ... Far From Perfect
For politics buffs it seems that we are already very deep in the 2008 presidential race. John Fund reminds us in this brief look at recent history that we are still so far away from November 4, 2008 that almost anything could happen. He looks at several recent presidential elections and discusses what the state of affairs was 21 months out.
Fund’s little exercise is almost comical. He notes, for example, that at this point in 1991, George H. W. Bush’s 91% approval ratings sent some very qualified potential Democrat candidates running for cover. Bill Clinton was still eight months away from announcing his presidential bid. I was under the impression you’d better have a major campaign machine up and running by now or you’re a lost cause. Fund shows that this is a mistaken notion.
It would seem at present that Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) is the duly anointed Democratic nominee. But even this assumption is probably too presumptuous at this early stage. The GOP side is far more open; much like the Democrat field was four years ago. Oh, and by the way, Fund notes that four years ago Senator John Kerry (D-MA) lagged some 63% behind Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT).
A recent Wall Street Journal editorial makes the point of how open the GOP field is by discussing the current significant candidates. The would be anointed nominee, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has many wonderful qualities, but is having trouble gaining traction with the Republican base, having alienated them with his ‘maverick’ positioning and his sponsorship of the McCain-Feingold incumbency protection act — uh, campaign finance reform.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has a proven track record of getting things done, but “is something of an empty policy slate.” The unnamed WSJ author says that Romney has “a thin political skin and perhaps a too malleable policy core.” For all the love some Utahns seem to have for this adopted native son, I’m afraid he comes across too much as being willing to say anything he thinks will help him win an election. Malleable policy core indeed.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani currently ranks in some polls as the GOP front runner because of his strong anti-terror stance and his handling of the Big Apple in the aftermath of 9/11. But he has a baggage train 20 miles long. His personal life is a wreck. And once people understand his staunchly held liberal social positions, his desirability among the GOP base will probably drop. Still, it’s too early to tell.
Many Republicans said during the scandal with Bill Clinton’s peccadilloes that private character matters in public office. But just in the past few days I have heard some that once echoed these words claim that Rudy’s private life issues won’t affect their support for him. Is that what hypocrisy sounds like?
And if you thought Rudy’s baggage was hefty, it’s not as hefty as that of former Representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA). I’m afraid that party insiders will never forgive him for screwing up the opportunity the GOP had after the 1994 takeover of Congress, in which he played a significant role. Perhaps his worst sin was coming across as crusty and unsympathetic as he played against Bill Clinton’s charm and rock start status. Does Gingrich have a chance? I’d say it’s a very slim one, but stranger things have happened.
Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) is billed by some as the only true conservative in the race. But his recent anti-war position is going to alienate a lot of the GOP grass roots folks. The war may be unpopular even with this group, but seeming insubordination and looking weak on terrorism will likely trump any points Brownback scores from his socially conservative positions. As with Gingrich, it’s impossible to read the tea leaves on Brownback’s chances at this point.
And who knows what might develop or who else might step up and join the fray, even months from now? It’s simply too early to tell. Every Mr. Knowitall that is out there spouting off about what is going to happen in this race will probably be wrong in some major way about what they are prognosticating (unless they are only dealing in generalities).
At this point, I don’t see any particular candidate that aligns well with what I’d like to see. But that’s OK. That’s how our system works. Some dream candidate may step forward, but I seriously doubt it. Eventually I will winnow down my choices to the most acceptable among them and will vote in the primary election for someone that won’t get his/her party’s nomination. And finally I will vote for a candidate that doesn’t meet my criteria very well, but at least seems better to me than any other choice available. That is how a democratic republic works in a pluralistic society.
Fund’s little exercise is almost comical. He notes, for example, that at this point in 1991, George H. W. Bush’s 91% approval ratings sent some very qualified potential Democrat candidates running for cover. Bill Clinton was still eight months away from announcing his presidential bid. I was under the impression you’d better have a major campaign machine up and running by now or you’re a lost cause. Fund shows that this is a mistaken notion.
It would seem at present that Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) is the duly anointed Democratic nominee. But even this assumption is probably too presumptuous at this early stage. The GOP side is far more open; much like the Democrat field was four years ago. Oh, and by the way, Fund notes that four years ago Senator John Kerry (D-MA) lagged some 63% behind Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT).
A recent Wall Street Journal editorial makes the point of how open the GOP field is by discussing the current significant candidates. The would be anointed nominee, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has many wonderful qualities, but is having trouble gaining traction with the Republican base, having alienated them with his ‘maverick’ positioning and his sponsorship of the McCain-Feingold incumbency protection act — uh, campaign finance reform.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has a proven track record of getting things done, but “is something of an empty policy slate.” The unnamed WSJ author says that Romney has “a thin political skin and perhaps a too malleable policy core.” For all the love some Utahns seem to have for this adopted native son, I’m afraid he comes across too much as being willing to say anything he thinks will help him win an election. Malleable policy core indeed.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani currently ranks in some polls as the GOP front runner because of his strong anti-terror stance and his handling of the Big Apple in the aftermath of 9/11. But he has a baggage train 20 miles long. His personal life is a wreck. And once people understand his staunchly held liberal social positions, his desirability among the GOP base will probably drop. Still, it’s too early to tell.
Many Republicans said during the scandal with Bill Clinton’s peccadilloes that private character matters in public office. But just in the past few days I have heard some that once echoed these words claim that Rudy’s private life issues won’t affect their support for him. Is that what hypocrisy sounds like?
And if you thought Rudy’s baggage was hefty, it’s not as hefty as that of former Representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA). I’m afraid that party insiders will never forgive him for screwing up the opportunity the GOP had after the 1994 takeover of Congress, in which he played a significant role. Perhaps his worst sin was coming across as crusty and unsympathetic as he played against Bill Clinton’s charm and rock start status. Does Gingrich have a chance? I’d say it’s a very slim one, but stranger things have happened.
Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) is billed by some as the only true conservative in the race. But his recent anti-war position is going to alienate a lot of the GOP grass roots folks. The war may be unpopular even with this group, but seeming insubordination and looking weak on terrorism will likely trump any points Brownback scores from his socially conservative positions. As with Gingrich, it’s impossible to read the tea leaves on Brownback’s chances at this point.
And who knows what might develop or who else might step up and join the fray, even months from now? It’s simply too early to tell. Every Mr. Knowitall that is out there spouting off about what is going to happen in this race will probably be wrong in some major way about what they are prognosticating (unless they are only dealing in generalities).
At this point, I don’t see any particular candidate that aligns well with what I’d like to see. But that’s OK. That’s how our system works. Some dream candidate may step forward, but I seriously doubt it. Eventually I will winnow down my choices to the most acceptable among them and will vote in the primary election for someone that won’t get his/her party’s nomination. And finally I will vote for a candidate that doesn’t meet my criteria very well, but at least seems better to me than any other choice available. That is how a democratic republic works in a pluralistic society.
Friday, February 09, 2007
The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration
Five years ago Victor Davis Hanson penned an anti illegal immigration article that included “Mexifornia” in the title. He later expanded it into a book. Hanson has now written an article where he considers his predictions from his earlier article and pronounces that matters today are much worse than he had imagined they could become by now.
Hanson says that the divide on illegal immigration used to exist between conservatives and liberals and between those parts of the nation impacted and those parts not impacted. Today, however, everywhere is impacted. The divide, he claims, largely breaks along class lines, with the “majority of middle-class and poor whites, Asians, African-Americans, and Hispanics” (legal residents) wanting tight borders and elites and higher income folks much more interested in open borders.
Hanson says that this makes sense. “Because the less well-off eat out less often, use hotels infrequently, and don’t periodically remodel their homes, the advantages to the economy of inexpensive, off-the-books illegal-alien labor again are not so apparent.” He says that this is why high end liberals and conservatives line up to support illegal immigration. They see rewards from it, while the lower end does not. In fact, the lower end folks are likely to see their jobs as threatened by illegal immigration.
Hanson has had a career as a college professor, but he has also run his family vineyard in a rural area of California throughout his career. He complains, “Our farmhouse in the Central Valley has been broken into three times. We used to have an open yard; now it is walled, with steel gates on the driveway. Such anecdotes have become common currency in the American Southwest. Ridiculed by elites as evidence of prejudice, these stories, statistical studies now show, reflect hard fact.”
Here are some of the most poignant quotes from Hanson’s article.
“Every time an alien crosses the border legally, fluent in English and with a high school diploma, the La Raza industry and the corporate farm or construction company alike most likely lose a constituent.”
“This [past] spring Americans witnessed millions of illegal aliens who not only were unapologetic about their illegal status but were demanding that their hosts accommodate their own political grievances, from providing driver’s licenses to full amnesty.”
“While politicians and academics assured the public that illegal aliens came here only to work and would quickly assume an American identity, the public’s own ad hoc and empirical observations of vast problems with crime, illiteracy, and illegitimacy have now been confirmed by hard data.”
Hanson discusses our efforts internationally to combat tribalism. He then asks, “Why—when we are spending blood and treasure abroad to encourage the melting pot and national unity—would anyone wish to contribute to tribalism or foster the roots of such ethnic separatism here in the United States?”
“Billions of dollars spent on our own poor will not improve our poverty statistics when 1 million of the world’s poorest cross our border each year.”
Discussing the harm caused by money that illegal workers send back home, Hanson says that “the greatest social tensions [result] in part because of the familial disruption and social chaos that results when adult males flee and depopulated communities consequently become captive to foreign remittances. ... Mexico cannot afford to lose its second-largest source of hard currency and will do almost anything to ensure its continuance.” He adds that “it is not just that Mexico exports its own citizens, but it does so on the expectation that they are serfs of a sort, who, like the helots of old, surrender much of the earnings of their toil to their distant masters.”
“Of course, the ultimate solution to the illegal immigration debacle is for Mexican society to bring itself up to the levels of affluence found in the United States by embracing market reforms of the sort we have seen in South Korea, Taiwan, and China. But rarely do Mexican supporters of such globalization, or their sympathetic counterparts in the United States, see the proliferation of a Wal-Mart or Starbucks down south in such terms. Rather, to them American consumerism and investment in Mexico suggest only an owed reciprocity of sentiment: Why should Americans get mad about Mexican illegals coming north when our own crass culture, with its blaring neon signs in English, spreads southward? In such morally equivalent arguments, it is never mentioned that Americanization occurs legally and brings capital, while Mexicanization comes about by illegal means and is driven by poverty.”
Hanson grapples with these issues first hand every day. He has studied past immigration waves, and says that the current situation is something far different than the tide of Italian immigrants that came a century ago. He sees our current situation as extremely bad and getting worse.
Anytime someone takes a stand like Hanson’s, some on the other side of the debate will hurl accusations of racism. Some will question why anyone would want to keep other people from getting ahead or from getting out of a bad situation in their native country. But if you read Hanson’s entire article (which is long), that’s not at all what he is talking about. He thinks that our current process of dealing with these people is bad both for us as the host country and for the source countries. He wants solutions that improve the situation for all involved.
For all of Hanson’s bluster about the popularity of his cause, it is interesting to note that almost every single politician that ran in November on a strong anti illegal immigration platform lost the election. Could this be due to the fact that elites control the advertising, campaign, and media channels? Where were all of the people Hanson says want tighter borders? Did they not vote, were they duped by the elite, or do they not exist in the numbers Hanson claims they do?
Illegal immigration is a serious issue. We can’t just wear rose colored glasses and pretend that everything is OK or that matters will improve on their own. We must be compassionate. But the issue must be dealt with.
Hanson says that the divide on illegal immigration used to exist between conservatives and liberals and between those parts of the nation impacted and those parts not impacted. Today, however, everywhere is impacted. The divide, he claims, largely breaks along class lines, with the “majority of middle-class and poor whites, Asians, African-Americans, and Hispanics” (legal residents) wanting tight borders and elites and higher income folks much more interested in open borders.
Hanson says that this makes sense. “Because the less well-off eat out less often, use hotels infrequently, and don’t periodically remodel their homes, the advantages to the economy of inexpensive, off-the-books illegal-alien labor again are not so apparent.” He says that this is why high end liberals and conservatives line up to support illegal immigration. They see rewards from it, while the lower end does not. In fact, the lower end folks are likely to see their jobs as threatened by illegal immigration.
Hanson has had a career as a college professor, but he has also run his family vineyard in a rural area of California throughout his career. He complains, “Our farmhouse in the Central Valley has been broken into three times. We used to have an open yard; now it is walled, with steel gates on the driveway. Such anecdotes have become common currency in the American Southwest. Ridiculed by elites as evidence of prejudice, these stories, statistical studies now show, reflect hard fact.”
Here are some of the most poignant quotes from Hanson’s article.
“Every time an alien crosses the border legally, fluent in English and with a high school diploma, the La Raza industry and the corporate farm or construction company alike most likely lose a constituent.”
“This [past] spring Americans witnessed millions of illegal aliens who not only were unapologetic about their illegal status but were demanding that their hosts accommodate their own political grievances, from providing driver’s licenses to full amnesty.”
“While politicians and academics assured the public that illegal aliens came here only to work and would quickly assume an American identity, the public’s own ad hoc and empirical observations of vast problems with crime, illiteracy, and illegitimacy have now been confirmed by hard data.”
Hanson discusses our efforts internationally to combat tribalism. He then asks, “Why—when we are spending blood and treasure abroad to encourage the melting pot and national unity—would anyone wish to contribute to tribalism or foster the roots of such ethnic separatism here in the United States?”
“Billions of dollars spent on our own poor will not improve our poverty statistics when 1 million of the world’s poorest cross our border each year.”
Discussing the harm caused by money that illegal workers send back home, Hanson says that “the greatest social tensions [result] in part because of the familial disruption and social chaos that results when adult males flee and depopulated communities consequently become captive to foreign remittances. ... Mexico cannot afford to lose its second-largest source of hard currency and will do almost anything to ensure its continuance.” He adds that “it is not just that Mexico exports its own citizens, but it does so on the expectation that they are serfs of a sort, who, like the helots of old, surrender much of the earnings of their toil to their distant masters.”
“Of course, the ultimate solution to the illegal immigration debacle is for Mexican society to bring itself up to the levels of affluence found in the United States by embracing market reforms of the sort we have seen in South Korea, Taiwan, and China. But rarely do Mexican supporters of such globalization, or their sympathetic counterparts in the United States, see the proliferation of a Wal-Mart or Starbucks down south in such terms. Rather, to them American consumerism and investment in Mexico suggest only an owed reciprocity of sentiment: Why should Americans get mad about Mexican illegals coming north when our own crass culture, with its blaring neon signs in English, spreads southward? In such morally equivalent arguments, it is never mentioned that Americanization occurs legally and brings capital, while Mexicanization comes about by illegal means and is driven by poverty.”
Hanson grapples with these issues first hand every day. He has studied past immigration waves, and says that the current situation is something far different than the tide of Italian immigrants that came a century ago. He sees our current situation as extremely bad and getting worse.
Anytime someone takes a stand like Hanson’s, some on the other side of the debate will hurl accusations of racism. Some will question why anyone would want to keep other people from getting ahead or from getting out of a bad situation in their native country. But if you read Hanson’s entire article (which is long), that’s not at all what he is talking about. He thinks that our current process of dealing with these people is bad both for us as the host country and for the source countries. He wants solutions that improve the situation for all involved.
For all of Hanson’s bluster about the popularity of his cause, it is interesting to note that almost every single politician that ran in November on a strong anti illegal immigration platform lost the election. Could this be due to the fact that elites control the advertising, campaign, and media channels? Where were all of the people Hanson says want tighter borders? Did they not vote, were they duped by the elite, or do they not exist in the numbers Hanson claims they do?
Illegal immigration is a serious issue. We can’t just wear rose colored glasses and pretend that everything is OK or that matters will improve on their own. We must be compassionate. But the issue must be dealt with.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Let's Talk About It
Today, in the depths of a terrible war, on the brink of a decisive battle for Baghdad, let us have a serious debate about where we stand and where we must go in Iraq. That is the debate we should have—but it is not the debate that this resolution would bring. — Senator Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT)
Our Constitution and the process that created it enshrined discourse and debate, especially on the most difficult issues of the day, as a fundamental and essential part of good government. In a broad society fraught with multiple competing interests, it is through this process that our government comes closest to best accomplishing its noblest purposes. In this view, circumventing debate or closing off debate too early leads to bad government. Of course, there comes a time when talk must cease and action must take place in order for good government to actually come about.
Senate supporters of the Warner-Levin resolution that would toothlessly rebuke President Bush for ordering a troop surge in Iraq (an action that follows recommendations made by the great and infallible Iraq Study Group) are in a complete dither over their inability to muster 60 votes to stop debate on the resolution so that it can be brought to a vote.
Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) was positively flummoxed over it on the NewsHour Tuesday night, strangely claiming that the Republican minority were refusing to let them debate and vote on the resolution which “would, in fact, get more than a majority and perhaps more than 60 votes.” Come again, Senator? I you have 60 votes, then get cloture and prove it. Don’t say such stupid things on national television.
Oops. My bad. Politicians do that kind of thing all of the time. And the MSM only calls them on it if they’re on the MSM crap list.
The weird thing about this is that opponents of the Warner-Levin resolution were voting to continue debate, not to close it off. In their view, the matter is not yet ready for a vote. Senate Democrats now understand the frustration senate Republicans felt when they held a slim majority but were unable to muster enough votes to bring legislation to a final vote. And I’ll wager that senate Republicans, now in the minority, are thanking their lucky stars that they didn’t exercise the so-called nuclear option to disallow filibusters on judicial and administrative nominees.
Senator Joe Lieberman, now an Independent Democrat, had some very strong words for the resolution’s supporters in his Monday speech on the senate floor. He said, “It is altogether proper that we debate our policy in Iraq. It should be a debate that is as serious as the situation in Iraq and that reflects the powers the Constitution gives to Congress in matters of war. But that, sadly, is not the debate that the Warner-Levin resolution invites us to have.”
Lieberman called the resolution “an accumulation of ambiguities and inconsistencies.” (Gee, I thought most legislation was like that.) He then went on to rip on his colleagues for pursuing a historically unprecedented and “wrong” action. He said, “I contacted the Library of Congress on this question last week and was told that, never before, when American soldiers have been in harm’s way, fighting and dying in a conflict that Congress had voted to authorize, has Congress turned around and passed a resolution like this, disapproving of a particular battlefield strategy.”
Of course, the resolution (which senate majority leaders have shelved for the time being) was not primarily intended to micromanage the battlefield. It was meant to send a stinging rebuke to President Bush, a man the Left hates as much as the Right used to hate President Clinton. The majority were pandering to their base, rather than offering any kind of help. In doing so, Lieberman claimed, they would actively and negatively alter the state of our affairs in Iraq. Actually, they intended this non-binding resolution to simply open the door for something with far more teeth.
Writing in the Weekly Standard, Noemie Emery says (here) that Congressional Democrats are making a bad political move with their intense focus on embarrassing President Bush via non-binding resolutions. She says they would have been better to express concern but give support. Then if things went badly, they would have come off as prescient. Now, however, if things go well they will share none of the praise. And if things go badly, they will share part of the blame for having helped cause the disaster. They have unwittingly offered President Bush “a partial alibi.”
Emery says that while Congressional Democrats are keyed into “the mood of the moment,” things can quickly change. “[T]he present, intense as it is, is often a poor predictor of what will come next.” Citing historical examples, she warns, “In the long run, those seen as courting defeat are not thought of fondly.” Those in solid districts won’t lose elections, but presidential elections have proven extremely difficult for Democrats to win ever since they “closed down a tedious war against the will of a Republican president.”
Those are pretty dire predictions. I don’t know how things will actually turn out. Democrats held Congress for two decades after they shut down Vietnam, so it doesn’t appear that they suffered the wrath of voters. I suppose it can be construed to seem that the two presidents they have been able to elect since then were anomalies, but I don’t know if that’s the way it really works.
At any rate, I believe that the push to pass resolutions censuring President Bush for his management of Iraq will come back to hurt Democrats in the long run. It comes across as spiteful Bush hatred rather than something that is designed to help the country. Although left politicos won’t see it this way, it comes across to the average guy the same way the Clinton impeachment came across. You can argue all day long that it is the right thing to do, but it smacks of something quite different to the average American.
Bush is not blame free in all of this. He and his administration have worked for the past several years to completely shut down debate about Iraq under the mantra that any debate was tantamount to insubordination. Now that he has finally changed strategies to something that could work; however, the legislative branch is showing that it is tired of being ignored. So tired, in fact, that they are willing to risk actual insubordination. As my mom used to tell me, two wrongs don’t make a right.
The point is that in a pluralistic society, we need open debate about the important issues of the day. We should have a hardy and robust debate about how to deal with Iraq in specific and with radical Islam in general. Decisions should be reached and executed within the framework of each government branch’s constitutionally mandated duties. And the voters should make elected officials accountable for those decisions. It’s not a clean and clear cut process. But it is designed to achieve good government.
Our Constitution and the process that created it enshrined discourse and debate, especially on the most difficult issues of the day, as a fundamental and essential part of good government. In a broad society fraught with multiple competing interests, it is through this process that our government comes closest to best accomplishing its noblest purposes. In this view, circumventing debate or closing off debate too early leads to bad government. Of course, there comes a time when talk must cease and action must take place in order for good government to actually come about.
Senate supporters of the Warner-Levin resolution that would toothlessly rebuke President Bush for ordering a troop surge in Iraq (an action that follows recommendations made by the great and infallible Iraq Study Group) are in a complete dither over their inability to muster 60 votes to stop debate on the resolution so that it can be brought to a vote.
Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) was positively flummoxed over it on the NewsHour Tuesday night, strangely claiming that the Republican minority were refusing to let them debate and vote on the resolution which “would, in fact, get more than a majority and perhaps more than 60 votes.” Come again, Senator? I you have 60 votes, then get cloture and prove it. Don’t say such stupid things on national television.
Oops. My bad. Politicians do that kind of thing all of the time. And the MSM only calls them on it if they’re on the MSM crap list.
The weird thing about this is that opponents of the Warner-Levin resolution were voting to continue debate, not to close it off. In their view, the matter is not yet ready for a vote. Senate Democrats now understand the frustration senate Republicans felt when they held a slim majority but were unable to muster enough votes to bring legislation to a final vote. And I’ll wager that senate Republicans, now in the minority, are thanking their lucky stars that they didn’t exercise the so-called nuclear option to disallow filibusters on judicial and administrative nominees.
Senator Joe Lieberman, now an Independent Democrat, had some very strong words for the resolution’s supporters in his Monday speech on the senate floor. He said, “It is altogether proper that we debate our policy in Iraq. It should be a debate that is as serious as the situation in Iraq and that reflects the powers the Constitution gives to Congress in matters of war. But that, sadly, is not the debate that the Warner-Levin resolution invites us to have.”
Lieberman called the resolution “an accumulation of ambiguities and inconsistencies.” (Gee, I thought most legislation was like that.) He then went on to rip on his colleagues for pursuing a historically unprecedented and “wrong” action. He said, “I contacted the Library of Congress on this question last week and was told that, never before, when American soldiers have been in harm’s way, fighting and dying in a conflict that Congress had voted to authorize, has Congress turned around and passed a resolution like this, disapproving of a particular battlefield strategy.”
Of course, the resolution (which senate majority leaders have shelved for the time being) was not primarily intended to micromanage the battlefield. It was meant to send a stinging rebuke to President Bush, a man the Left hates as much as the Right used to hate President Clinton. The majority were pandering to their base, rather than offering any kind of help. In doing so, Lieberman claimed, they would actively and negatively alter the state of our affairs in Iraq. Actually, they intended this non-binding resolution to simply open the door for something with far more teeth.
Writing in the Weekly Standard, Noemie Emery says (here) that Congressional Democrats are making a bad political move with their intense focus on embarrassing President Bush via non-binding resolutions. She says they would have been better to express concern but give support. Then if things went badly, they would have come off as prescient. Now, however, if things go well they will share none of the praise. And if things go badly, they will share part of the blame for having helped cause the disaster. They have unwittingly offered President Bush “a partial alibi.”
Emery says that while Congressional Democrats are keyed into “the mood of the moment,” things can quickly change. “[T]he present, intense as it is, is often a poor predictor of what will come next.” Citing historical examples, she warns, “In the long run, those seen as courting defeat are not thought of fondly.” Those in solid districts won’t lose elections, but presidential elections have proven extremely difficult for Democrats to win ever since they “closed down a tedious war against the will of a Republican president.”
Those are pretty dire predictions. I don’t know how things will actually turn out. Democrats held Congress for two decades after they shut down Vietnam, so it doesn’t appear that they suffered the wrath of voters. I suppose it can be construed to seem that the two presidents they have been able to elect since then were anomalies, but I don’t know if that’s the way it really works.
At any rate, I believe that the push to pass resolutions censuring President Bush for his management of Iraq will come back to hurt Democrats in the long run. It comes across as spiteful Bush hatred rather than something that is designed to help the country. Although left politicos won’t see it this way, it comes across to the average guy the same way the Clinton impeachment came across. You can argue all day long that it is the right thing to do, but it smacks of something quite different to the average American.
Bush is not blame free in all of this. He and his administration have worked for the past several years to completely shut down debate about Iraq under the mantra that any debate was tantamount to insubordination. Now that he has finally changed strategies to something that could work; however, the legislative branch is showing that it is tired of being ignored. So tired, in fact, that they are willing to risk actual insubordination. As my mom used to tell me, two wrongs don’t make a right.
The point is that in a pluralistic society, we need open debate about the important issues of the day. We should have a hardy and robust debate about how to deal with Iraq in specific and with radical Islam in general. Decisions should be reached and executed within the framework of each government branch’s constitutionally mandated duties. And the voters should make elected officials accountable for those decisions. It’s not a clean and clear cut process. But it is designed to achieve good government.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Public Funding of Circuses
I’ve kept out of the whole Real Salt Lake stadium debate until now. I don’t live in Salt Lake County, so I didn’t have the same kind of stake in the matter as did the county’s citizens, when the county was considering bankrolling the deal that fell apart when the numbers didn’t add up. I commented little about the whole process. I just sat back and watched.
But yesterday, the Utah Senate voted to support Governor Huntsman’s plan to divert 15% of the hotel tax to help fund a stadium for RSL (see D-News article). Having had a career in accounting, I understand that technically, that’s not money out of my pocket as a taxpayer. But that position is simply an accounting trick. In a representative democracy, government revenues from any source belong to the citizens. The citizens’ representatives determine how those revenues should be managed. This means that instead of reducing the hotel tax or using that 15% for other projects, it will be used to build a venue for a private entertainment business.
This goes against my limited government instincts. Why should state government subsidize a private entertainment venue? I heard SLC Mayor Rocky Anderson on the radio saying, “That’s how these things are always done — with a public-private partnership.” That does not make it right.
I commented on the Senate Site post about this issue and received this very thoughtful response from Alien Wannabe (at 1:06 AM no less).
Now, it’s no secret that I’m not a sports guy. But I’m not opposed to professional sports arenas. I just have concerns about using public money for that purpose. Larry Miller did not get public money to build the arena formerly known as the Delta Center. That would be an exception to Rocky’s statement above. And, although I respect Alien Wannabe’s thoughts on the matter, I simply can’t bring myself to put sports arenas in the same category canals, roads, schools, and libraries. I’m sure that plenty of sports fans would disagree with me on that, but I can’t see how athletic entertainment is as essential as education or transportation.
I’m not a pure libertarian, but that does not mean that all libertarian principles are bad. In fact, I think we need some rabid libertarians to counter the constant push to grow government. I understand the enthusiasm many are expressing for the soccer stadium. Heck, it’s probable I could attend events at that venue someday. But I’m afraid that I cannot bring myself to support public funding for it. Still, it seems that my view on this matter is like a feather in a windstorm.
But yesterday, the Utah Senate voted to support Governor Huntsman’s plan to divert 15% of the hotel tax to help fund a stadium for RSL (see D-News article). Having had a career in accounting, I understand that technically, that’s not money out of my pocket as a taxpayer. But that position is simply an accounting trick. In a representative democracy, government revenues from any source belong to the citizens. The citizens’ representatives determine how those revenues should be managed. This means that instead of reducing the hotel tax or using that 15% for other projects, it will be used to build a venue for a private entertainment business.
This goes against my limited government instincts. Why should state government subsidize a private entertainment venue? I heard SLC Mayor Rocky Anderson on the radio saying, “That’s how these things are always done — with a public-private partnership.” That does not make it right.
I commented on the Senate Site post about this issue and received this very thoughtful response from Alien Wannabe (at 1:06 AM no less).
I have tremendous respect for you. And, I think I understand your position. My roots are also in the conservative wing of our party, so I see you as being a kindred spirit.
In the limited time I have here, I will try to supply an answer to your question:
I am a Republican, not a Libertarian, for a good reason. Just as I do not believe in the "maximum" government of the Socialists and Democrats, I do not believe in the "minimum" government of the Anarchists and Libertarians either. Rather, I believe in the "optimum" government of the Republicans.
For me, that is what the divinely inspired Constitution is all about--finding that right balance. As you remember, the original government of the United States, the Articles of Confederation, was too weak. It didn't work. The founding fathers replaced it with one that gave more power to a central government--they recognized the need for balance, "optimum" rather than "minimum."
Too many of my fellow Conservative Republicans fail to seek this same balance. They start idealizing "minimum" government as if they were Libertarians instead of Republicans.
No one understood the need of limited government more than Thomas Jefferson, but he also understood this principle of balance. He further understood that "limited" is a different concept entirely than "minimum." And, because of that, he was able to act in his country's best interest at a crucial moment in history.
When France offered to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States, Jefferson wisely jumped at the opportunity, even though doing so seemed to require that he use authority not explicitly granted to him in the Constitution.
Thank goodness he had the intelligence to do what he did! His actions have proven themselves over time to have been a tremendous blessing to our nation. Indeed, one wonders how dangerously handicapped and stunted our country would have been if he had not the vision and wisdom to do the right thing instead of the simple thing.
Too often we conservative political junkies fall into the trap of being intellectually lazy. We gravitate toward a simple direction, right, instead of toward actually doing the "right" thing.
I have learned in my life that doing the "right" thing requires balance--effort and judgment. Following a simple direction requires no effort and no judgment, we simply turn off our brain and say either "more government programs!" (left), or "less government programs!" (right)
In the past, some who have famously fallen into a similar trap have declared such things as "It is wrong to heal on the Sabbath!" These folks couldn't get past the direction of following the letter of the law, so they failed to understand the balance of the spirit of the law.
The spirit of our national and state constitutions is to provide for the common good. As a conservative Reagan Republican, I believe that often requires government to get off the backs of the people, so that their creative energies can be unleashed. But, sometimes it means that the government needs to step in, as appropriate, to build such things as the Eerie Canal--all for the common good.
For me, Real Salt Lake's stadium falls into this category. I am convinced that it will produce benefits for our state that are just as vital to the common good as schools and highways. That is why I enthusiastically support the state chipping in a small portion to help make it a reality.
I hope this, in some way, does justice to your excellent question.
Now, it’s no secret that I’m not a sports guy. But I’m not opposed to professional sports arenas. I just have concerns about using public money for that purpose. Larry Miller did not get public money to build the arena formerly known as the Delta Center. That would be an exception to Rocky’s statement above. And, although I respect Alien Wannabe’s thoughts on the matter, I simply can’t bring myself to put sports arenas in the same category canals, roads, schools, and libraries. I’m sure that plenty of sports fans would disagree with me on that, but I can’t see how athletic entertainment is as essential as education or transportation.
I’m not a pure libertarian, but that does not mean that all libertarian principles are bad. In fact, I think we need some rabid libertarians to counter the constant push to grow government. I understand the enthusiasm many are expressing for the soccer stadium. Heck, it’s probable I could attend events at that venue someday. But I’m afraid that I cannot bring myself to support public funding for it. Still, it seems that my view on this matter is like a feather in a windstorm.
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