Unions Protect Workers When Authority Lacks Integrity

Keith Olbermann tells a story from personal of experience of how "the union" saved his job. We are not overly fond of unions or their collectivist approach to things. However we do recognize that like most things that exist today and that arose over time, their very existence suggests the need. We have unions because at different times and place across economic history, owners, managers and businesses have not chosen the responsible path in dealing with workers. When profit is your primary motive and elevated above all else, little else will slow down that profit motive unless there is some moral vision. In many cases you can trust your fellow man to do the right thing, but it's often a coin flip.

In Keith's case, he came under attack by a boss's boss who wanted him gone, and not for issues of actual job performance. The union protected him from someone's whim. Ideally that is what unions should do. They should balance the power equation to some degree. In an ideal world they ought not to be necessary, or mandatory by any means, but also in an ideal world they should be accepted.

ACLJ Lawsuit Relies on Manna From Heaven For Health Care

This is probably the stupidest legal argument I've ever heard, and it's sad that the American Center for Law and Justice, a kind of Christianized ACLU, bothered to take the case. We first got wind of their involvement to stop Obama's healthcare reform law when listening to one of our local Christian music stations. We flipped the radio on expecting some mellow CCM (contemporary Christian music), but instead got an earful of Jay Sekulow, the ACLJ's lead council, encouraging listeners to get involved with stopping "Obamacare."

This particular challenge involved a kind of Jesus as doctor approach. Three of the plaintiffs in the case expressed their view that they were Christians and had no intention of utilizing health services ever. Like EVER.

Three of the plaintiffs – Margaret Peggy Lee Mead of Hillsborough, N.C., Charles Edward Lee of San Antonio and Susan Seven-Sky of West Harrison, N.Y. – are Christians who said they want to refuse all medical services for the rest of their lives because they believe God will heal their afflictions. They say being forced to buy insurance would conflict with their faith because they believe doing so would indicate they need "a backup plan and (are) not really sure whether God will, in fact, provide," the lawsuit said.

(Huffington Post)

Don't get us wrong. We here believe in healing, and that the actual Jesus can do it. We are out on that limb of faith with the plaintiffs. However, we believe that God has given man wisdom, talent, and skill to do many things himself. Do the plaintiffs go without food? Technically God can provide Manna, or Jesus could reappear and turn rocks into McNuggets. Are they waiting on the lord there or are they showing up at Piggy Wiggly for groceries?  Betting it's Wiggly's or Chick Fil-A.

We also have doubts about God's consistency in the dispensing of miracles and healthcare. Meaning, sometimes God may heal you, but sometimes he won't. Sometimes he lets it rain on the just and the unjust, because your day to day is less important than the broader picture (his broader picture). But not to leave you hanging, he gives you a powerful brain that will teach you not to build homes on sand or near overflowing river  banks or in typhoon zones. He won't stop nature, but he will give you the wisdom to avoid suffering from those things he created that are on automatic pilot. He gave us doctors. One can even extrapolate that the arrival of Jesus walking the earth did not mean doctors became irrelevant, or that Jerusalem Safeway stopped selling figs, locust and honey. Jesus didn't even attempt to heal every single person, let alone keep his followers from eventual death.

Why is the ACLJ backing this sort of legal nonsense? How does expanding healthcare coverage become the thing that a Bible believing Christian is trying to kill? Sans Jesus to slip your ear back on your head, and lacking responsible and affordable private sector options, how is seeking to fix the system an evil?

We seriously doubt these people were prepared to go the rest of their lives without health care, and the U.S. District Judge Kessler was right to toss this monstrosity out.

Gaddafi: Is Killing Wrong? I Mean, Should I Not Do That?

It was too good to be true, this Mid East democracy thing. Up until now it has been somewhat easy, with Egypt's Mubarak rolling over, and Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali stepping down. But now the tricky rabbit has hopped onto the field. Mubarak was fundamentally a western mind, and was not willing to go down with massive blood on his hands. He calculated that the force necessary to maintain power would cause utter havoc across the region, and we see this option playing out with Colonel Gaddafi, whose alternatives lack a certain type of dictator standard of dignity (as in retiring in some comfortable nation with billions are your disposal and a sufficiently attractive populace and good health care). 

We don't imagine Gaddafi enjoying the black Africa that awaits him, if anyplace awaits him at all. The options seem to be an uncomfortable exile, future jail, death, or maintaining the status quo by killing others first. From a selfish perspective, morality removed, that last choice seems quite inviting to us. (Though, in theory, we would have been benevolent in the first place, and loved by all, thus avoiding having to kill our subjects to maintain a comfy home and leisurely lifestyle).

Gaddafi wants to put all his chips squarely down on brute force, and it's the inflection before the bet, where his financiers, the army, decide whether to finance him his luck, or cut their potential losses. Already there is rumor that he has encouraged the sabotage of oil production, though we tend to doubt this since it's like cutting off your feet as preparation for a marathon. He needs all the income and support he can get.

It would seem that all the easy revolutions are over, and now it's truly life or death. More unpleasant, the United States will have to really rethink the process of how we attach our brand, even our military might, to various nations. What happens when a place like Bahrain, home of the Fifth Fleet at NSA Bahrain, takes a decidedly leisurely or violent approach to requests for more democracy? What happens when those challenging the government (that we support) are Shiites? What happens when a democratic process brings in undemocratic forces?

We need some kind of rule book for this. The results of every revolution around the world should not be subject to the direction of the wind or the size of our footprint in a given land. We continually get caught in various levels of hypocrisy that don't serve our short term reputation or long term interests.

We end up with amusing statements like the following:

US Assistant Secretary of State, Jeffrey Feltman, will travel to Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, from February 22nd to March 2nd. In a statement the State department said his visit, "will reaffirm the United States' commitment to our longstanding partnerships in the region as well as universal human rights, freedom of expression, and the promotion of democratic principles."

(BBC)

Meanwhile, we continue to go to the day job, and hear not a word about revolutions or democracy. It's still mostly "Okay, headed out to lunch, want anything?"  Bliss in the sands of Arizona. So opposite the sands of the Middle East.

Don't Hate Me, I'm Just Drawn Bad: Scottsdale Edition

Looks and Luck

I live in Arizona, land of a libertarian dipped conservatism that makes for harsh laws, and lax morality, and policy imbecility. We have prostitution businesses masquerading as houses of religious worship, religiously minded ASU students accepting $2000 payments to do extreme porn, and a legislature content to offer tax cuts to attract business while tossing people off of Medicaid and cutting health care access for children. Oh, and we have dubiously attractive women of vague age who get jobs really easily.

It's this last one that has caught my attention. The left leaning New Times profiles one Amber Miller, who works as a bartender at Axis/Radius in Scottsdale:

How did you get started in bartending?

It was the second time I had ever been to Axis. I was just with some of my girlfriends and I ended up talking to a guy who had bartended there who had the night off. I told him about how I thought it would be really cool to bartend in Scottsdale, but I didn't have any experience, so I didn't really think any of the places would take me. He introduced me to the general manager, who told me to come in the following week for an audition night behind the bar and to give him a guest list of people who'd come in that night. That was basically it -- I didn't know anything; they just totally threw me into it on the audition night. But after looking at the number of people I brought in -- I used to be in a sorority, so I was able to bring in a lot of people that night -- they were impressed with me. So they gave me the job based on the fact that I was good at promoting and looked good behind the bar.

(New Times)

I'm not going to lie. If I owned a club or restaurant and had an attractive woman apply, she would probably get hired first, and then trained later. Why? Because people like to see pretty faces, and pretty often attracts pretty which attracts everyone else.

But I'm also not going to lie. If you are an attractive person, females in particular, maintain a level of humility regarding your achievements. Studies have shown that attractive people are more likely to get hired, and more likely to earn more and be given the benefit of the doubt. You can shave off the top layer of your success and attribute that to God or good fortune.

BBC Rolls Back to Pull Ahead in U.S. News Coverage

The N.Y. Times reports that BBC is reducing its news coverage here in the United States in the short term, while hoping to gain cable access for an expanded news station in the long term. Combine this with Republican efforts to destroy the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and we are headed into a news and knowledge desert. There should be a place for non-profit and independent news and the loss of perspective will only damage our ability to understand and handle complex issues. The BBC does particularly good in reporting on international issues.

Anonymous Goes to Church on the WBC

We wrote before about the invisible group of hackers called Anonymous, who function like a modern day ghost of Robin Hood inside your machine, your computer, dispensing justice and making merry.

This time they have the Westboro Baptist Church as their target. The WBC is that group of "religious conservatives" who have shown up at the funerals of American soldiers to protest and make known their overarching view that the United States is on a godless path. While their views on homosexuality can be considered very loosely within Christian tradition, they have taken a particularly vulgar, hard line and hateful tone to those with whom they disagree. The church's major message is hate, and quite at odds from the approach you would imagine a Christian should take. They dislike everyone, and show none of the love that should be the operating mode for a Christian. If we should know them, Christians, by their love, then we do not at all know what to make of the WBC.

The question here is whether Anonymous is in the right by targeting such a group, or, as we suggested before, is this still another battle of the powerful versus the powerful, each using their own bully techniques to force some goal. When Anonymous comes down against, say, the U.S. government, we easily understand who the more democratic and open force is, despite the various mistakes our government might make. But we do not know Anonymous: there is no face.

In this battle with the Westboro Church, and the challenging of their free speech, we can hardly imagine a better group to have their rights immediately truncated, and their own bile heaped back in their yard. We understand the impulse to challenge such a  group, and secretly in our hearts applaud the action.

But, does Anonymous deserve that type of power? Are they responsible enough?  In any case the WBC responded to the anonymous threat by saying, *"Bring it," which should at least given them a hand in shenaniganizing their own operations.

*(That response was found on one of their websites in a PDF response. We won't link to the website because honestly, even linking to their terminology and hateful way of expressing themselves makes us feel darkened).

Wall Street Journal Thinks Outliers Will Join the Mediocre: Tiger Woods Edition

Outlier

We feel almost ashamed on this cloudy Saturday morning to focus on something so trivial as Tiger Woods' golf performance, when around the world massive changes are taking place. We could be asking whether Bahrain and Libya will take the sensible approach, embrace the inevitable, and allow for a truly pluralistic ruling apparatus (democracy or some parallel), but instead we will take a look at Tiger.

But only because still another professional sports writer has voiced an opinion and come to certain conclusions that we feel are outright delusional. In a piece provocatively and naively titled, "Why Tiger Will Never Dominate Again" in the Wall Street Journal, John Paul Newport makes his case utilizing the evolutionary musings of dormant scientist Steven Jay Gould.

The long and short of Newport's Gould analysis is that extremes in performance become rare as talent evolves and improves.

Mr. Woods's past stretches of dominance might have been such a hundred-year equivalent. No one, not even Jack Nicklaus or Ben Hogan, the two other most dominant golfers of the last 60 years, recorded two stretches like Mr. Woods's five-for-six streak in consecutive majors from 1999 to 2001 or his six-for-14 streak from 2005 to 2008.

One thing is sure: Mr. Woods's fame and awesomeness have inspired a new generation of competitors—Mr. Kaymer, Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy among them—whose own push toward excellence will make the likelihood of Mr. Woods dominating like that again more difficult.

(Newport: WSJ)

Gould's observations about the rarities of extreme performance, and the improvement of talent toward those extremes, will not lead you to Newport's assertion that Tiger will abruptly cease performance and devolve toward the ordinary, any more than one could stop Ted Williams at any point in his career and say, "Oh, there you go, tomorrow he won't do so well."

To look at it another way, you don't sit down at a restaurant like Per Se, and begin having the greatest meal of your life, and then suddenly reach forkful number ten and determine, "Oh wait, it's all downhill now." You might assume some variability in that level of performance, but with the overall performance maintaining a certain internal average, where that Per Se meal is never gonna suddenly remind you of Applebees. Thomas Keller is not suddenly going to create a mediocre restaurant.

Same goes with Tiger Woods. As the example of the performance outlier, he is rather exempt from Gould's assertions. We can expect fewer outliers after the appearance of one, but we won't necessarily expect the outlier itself to revert to some norm, and suddenly. Newport internalizes the entire theory into one person.

Second, and maybe it's a function of our media culture which is immediate and relatively unhistorical, but we've often seen Tiger Woods go through periods of slack performance. And that was when his personal and professional life were in complete sync. His situation is different now. He has lost a lot of fans and respect, and the close knit family support. His advertising base and good will have eroded. Essentially, he has gone through a personal version of the great depression.

Given those circumstances you cannot draw too many conclusions about future performance. In the same way you cannot instantly solve our nation's problems, so too it will take time for Tiger to recalibrate his performance and get on his feet. He may never do it and indeed revert to some normative performance, but you can hardly draw any vast conclusions right this instant. That is where the author (and the headline writer) errs, and errs greatly.

Of course this annoyance with snap conclusions is not just about golf. We see the same thing when it comes to discussing the U.S. economy, or even Obama. While past performance is not indicative of future results, we can however assume that the past performance of  Tiger Woods is just as indicative of future results as the past performance of a host of less able players.

Anonymous: Beware the Ghost in the Machine

Instead of sitting in church on a bright Sunday afternoon, improving my soul with two or three gathered together (and God in the midst), I am at home, on the interwaster, catching up on some news. Ars Technica has a fascinatingly scary piece on one security expert's attempt to expose Anonymous.

Aaron Barr, the Wile E Coyote security guy at the center of the story, creates an elaborate ruse in an attempt to use social media to help ferret out the identities of the leading members of Anonymous. He is constantly dissuaded by an ever wise tech associate whose advice he ignores. Push comes to shove, and Anonymous hits back hard, destroying the company's ability to function.

After reading the piece, you are almost afraid to critique Anonymous, and yet Burr comes off as getting what he deserves, given his desire to generate publicity for himself regardless of accuracy (in naming anonymous names).

We've seen the group of hackers called Anonymous turning up to defend Mr.Wikileaks from U.S. government and corporate ire. To the average person, it can appear as a game of the powerful  attacking the powerful in an elaborate spy versus spy.

Rephrasing, the U.S. government does a certain amount of things in secret, debatably for good, only to be spotlighted by Wikileaks, who with the use of secret sources, attacks its targets, debatably for good. Then, the various targets, whether Federal or corporate, begin to push back using their technical, political and legal weapons, only to draw out the secretive Anonymous cloud, who seek to re-balance the power against targets of their own choosing, and, debatably for good.

Each group claims superiority of intent, while exploiting variations on anonymous power. Some of this power is more unchecked than others, some more democratically installed and employed than others. But often enough its still power attached to ego, and little people always get hurt under the wheel.

Women Not Prioritizing and Other Herasies

Crooked Timber has an interesting graph on the proportional representation of women in various PhD fields, circa 2009. Women dominated in fields like English Lit, psychology, linguistics, sociology and molecular biology, but lagged greatly in the areas of physics, engineering, computer science, economics, and philosophy.

Given the rapid rise of women attending and graduating from universities, it's hard to believe that underrepresentation is reflective of anything other than female inclination. To the extent that the ultimate multiplier for feminist change is in effect--technology--force is rendered moot, leaving all doors open. One could argue that men are not smarter, just more interested in certain things. That level of interest might be part biological, and that level of interest might be conditioning, but parsing the difference if futile.

In a related observation in Mother Jones the author of a piece on the lopsided publishing industry, where books written and reviewed by men dominate, suggests that people must "try harder". Writes Kevin Drum:

I remember a few years ago reading a piece by an op-ed page editor — Gail Collins? — saying that her submissions ran something like 10:1 in favor of men. She wanted to publish more stuff by women, she said, but just didn't have much to choose from. In the case of op-eds, one obvious answer is simply to try harder: solicit pieces from good women and try to improve the balance that way.

This though, is the falsehood. Much of the world can be explained by the implementation of personal choice (lacking other barriers). If people want to be represented in something, they need to show an interest.

Condensing the history of women across time we can argue that 1) women lacked an overriding interest in having voting rights and economic freedom or 2) that men, via testosterone forced women into subjugation, and only the change in the male mind and male expectations freed women to pursue what they wanted to pursue.

It's hard to argue both at the same time. Either men have kept women down on the mat, and eventually decided to let them up for whatever reason (accidentally perhaps via the introduction of technology), or women willingly conformed their lives around the expectations of men, keeping their own interests submerged.

Moving specifically to proportional representation in the working world, where some ridiculously calculated ratio of 50/50 is deemed minimally correct, it seems more likely that personal inclination rather than structural barrier fully explains representation "anomalies." The key is never to then penalize men for their interest or domination of a field, but rather, to allow each sex to dominate whatever they please as their efforts show fruit.

(Some might extend these arguments to affirmative action, though we tend to believe that the forces working against black participation in the work world was force contained, versus a type of voluntary servitude that impeded women).

First Baptist Church of Eustis: Giving Lip and Hand Service to Caesar (Gov.Scott)

Pastor Skip

Burning down the house, one state at a time. It's a sad day when churches become so connected to political parties and ideology that they can allow their mission to be compromised. In case you thought that a church's primary focus should be on sin, about following Christ, or about feeding the poor, not bearing false witness, and reaching out to those in need, you thought very wrong.

That leads us to a day like Monday, with Florida's new Republican governor announcing his budget cuts. Since cutting numerous employees off the state rolls is not enough, and since reducing spending on education and other services is not enough, he saw fit to throw in a tax cut for businesses and individuals as well. This bold shortsightedness, this hideous strength, was displayed inside First Baptist Church of Eustis. One wonders if the church will eventually realize the whore it has become in so closely aligning its pews with a vision of government so void of empathy or rational economics. That you can cut taxes and spending during the middle of a slow growth period is absurd. It's like trying to do bariatric surgery on an obese man on his way to the hospital for cardiac arrest.

The church, which seats 800, was filled to overflowing, and people waved miniature American flags and sang God Bless the USA and God Bless America. Warm-up speakers criticized President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, and praised Roger Vinson, the federal judge in Pensacola who last week struck down the Obama health plan as unconstitutional.

(Miami Herald)

It will be interesting to contrast Florida's efforts with that of Illinois, a state that opted instead for a small tax increase to meet budget needs and in combination with spending cuts. In both states, taxing did not go far enough, and in Florida's case, cutting taxes will only complicate their economic position without increasing business or revenues down the road.

If, as is obvious, many companies are sitting on profits and avoiding the hiring of people, it would hardly seem necessary for more tax cuts. In fact we expect and require so little of business these days, what with their desire to seek the lowest common cost denominator, that it falls on government to fill in the gaps and make sure certain basic functions continue to...function. That would include educating our young. That should include rightsizing the health care cost rubric by organizing the field a bit.

Not in Governor Scott's world. He states that he believes taxpayers will spend the money more wisely than government. This would be the same tax payers who had trouble avoiding the temptation or trickery of buying homes they couldn't afford. That wise taxpayer. This would be the taxpayers and businesses who did not organize the creation of roads and the internet and colleges and schools and space travel. Those taxpayers.

"Business groups lauded Scott’s proposal to cut corporate-income, property and unemployment compensation." (Miami Herald)

Yea no kidding.

Inside Job: A Worthy Story of Financial Destruction Told Half Well

Finn here. At the last moment a buddy of mine called wanting to catch a movie. If you have to know, I had just finished taking a can of chicken, mixing it in a pan with Romano cheese, rosemary, plum tomatoes, cilantro, egg and a tab of butter: a kind of chicken porridge. But I am not one to miss an opportunity to hit the theater, so I put my stomach in check and off we went to catch a 9:45 showing of  Inside Job.

The theater lobby was largely empty, save for staff, and the only other moviegoers were exiting a romantic comedy. It was just the two of us watching the documentary about financial excess, which did not in fact nullify the necessity of the "gay seat" space partition. On the plus side, we could talk through the previews, but that benefit was immediately wiped out by the theater's reducing of the previews down to one film. (And good luck with that Mel Gibson beaver movie of yours, Jodi Foster). Apparently if you are coming to see a documentary, on a weeknight, in a huge theater that is half empty on its busiest days, and when it's after 9 P.M, and when the subject is the worst financial meltdown in modern history...well, those are just not conditions worthy of giving a bevy of previews and commercials to ease the viewer into their movie going experience. I felt a bit robbed, which thematically, may have fit with the film's intent.

Charles Ferguson directed and he was not coming at this with an entirely open mind. The overall blame for our 2008 meltdown was smelted down into a volcanic brew of Wall Street greed and hubris, combined with lack of federal oversight. The money from Wall Street, and the close proximity of all the players, filtering back and forth between academia, Wall Street and government, made it far too easy for people to avoid focusing on regulation and reform.

The film is an excellent hors d' oeuvre on the meltdown for those not closely paying attention to the events as they transpired. But in the process of trying to explain a complex subject, nuance is squashed, guilty parties are ignored, non-criminal behavior is implied to be criminal, and the euphoria of the herd is ignored. Most disasters are largely unpredictable because they are unthinkable. That fact is, this movie could have been made in 2007 or 2006 and been a prophecy, and not a self righteous retrospective.

I would have loved to see a greater focus on home buyers. The film leaves them largely untouched and implies that everyone who ended up overextended in a home they could not afford was in that position due to deceptive and predatory lenders. Mid film he trots out one such homeowner, a Hispanic woman with no command of English (literally, did not speak English) and whose husband ended up in a loan that somehow required $5000 on the first payment. Forgive me, but I was too distracted by the theoretical possibility that this woman was an illegal alien, than on the implied intent of showing the depths of mortgage originator deviousness. I only wish I had the good fortune of being defrauded out of a nice home in a country that offers a lifestyle ten times the one I was born to. Often, getting screwed in the United States still leaves you vastly better off than average achievement in your home backwater, economically speaking. She was not reflective of the true nature of home owner avarice that flooded the hearts of the average Joe and Jo-Ann across the nation.

And yet that's what we needed. A true accounting that showed how actual individuals on the buying end played into the circle of greed.

Bottom line, if any one group had shown some foresight and discipline, none of this would have happened. If all home buyers had said, "Oh no, I MUST put money down, and I won't pay over 25% of my income," then none of this would have happened. If Wall Street had said, "We won't use derivatives just to maximize bets on assets" none of this would have happened. If Republicans were not united behind the ideology of removing regulation, none of this would have happened... and so on. Every step of the way, and as long as appearances seemed okay, nobody stepped out of the trajectory and challenged the rising of the sun.

Then again, it's hard to do that when everyone is on board. It's hard to say the earth is round when everyone says it's flat. The movie seems to imply that some people (Wall Street) should have been more hyper aware and less greedy. Our position is that everyone (or nobody) should have been more aware and less greedy. It's human nature, herding, and if everyone was messing up, all should share in the blame.

We also felt a distinct disgust over the scapegoating of Goldman, Sachs, one of the few firms who decided to hedge their own risk. The film would have you think that Goldman was screwing innocents out of money by selling a product that the bank didn't believe in, which, under that theory, means that all those candy stores that were around when I was growing up that sold porn did so because the owners were pro-porn (as opposed to being merely pro-money).

In fact businesses sell stuff they don't believe in all the time. As do salesmen. Some might argue that Goldman was not just selling what it didn't believe in, but was betting against it. What might have been Goldman's covertly overt dishonesty is replicated throughout industry. Every time Microsoft comes out with some new tech standard that is not compatible with previously sold to you as awesome standard, well there you go.

Goldman didn't do anything that other firms didn't do, and further, they didn't do anything wrong. They were not selling porn to kids, or Windows 7 to businesses. They were selling product to equally savvy professional investors and speculators. GS could have been infinitely less astute and followed the path of Merrill Lynch--gorged on its own backlog of junk--straight into the gutter. But they stopped and protected their firm.

It's always easy to go after the sellers. We spend on trying to squash Mexican drug cartels. But what about the buyers? What about those who stepped up and said, 'I am going to ignore the existing voices who are saying housing is gonna crash, and I am gonna make me some money." If you had that itch and wanted it scratched, Goldman was going to help you do that, or, not do that.

Ultimately blame has to be placed on regulators. They allowed activity to take place that was foolish and harmful, but not illegal, which is why nobody is sitting in jail now; nobody will ever be sitting in jail. This dashes left wing hope and fantasy, but that's reality. There was no crime in terms of the buying and selling of derivatives. The overt crimes were at the lower mortgage initiation level, and those criminal coercive loans were far exceeded by badly structured legit mortgages.

It's up to Federal authorities, our elected officials, to realize that business unchecked, whether the financial industry or anyone else, will default toward convenience and profit. Republicans in their desire for small government have abandoned responsibility with the constant ideological push toward unfettered business. But the human capability to do business honestly or wisely is not consistently there and there will always be enough people willing to maximize profit no matter the cost. Or extract the profit before the costs hit home and you realize what has happened.

Critiques aside, someone should call a national movie night and make everyone watch this film. It dispenses with the conservative viewpoint entirely. We don't hear a whole lot about Fannie or Freddie being coddled by Democrats, or about the Community Reinvestment Act of a bazillion years ago being the cause of indiscriminate lending to shady "sub primes," and thankfully so. The basic Republican position is one that would lead one to assume that poor credit types (all those urban fake Americans, like Obama) were the beginning and end of it all. We say nonsense to that.

Sadly, on a cold day in winter, people prefer romantic comedy over a movie that just might help them understand the real world around them.

Mike Huckabee is Fine with Mubarak's Tenure

Amazing how quickly some people can almost sound like they are supporting dictators. It's a contradiction in rhetoric really when you can be unabashedly in favor of freedom and democracy in some circumstances, but finely nuanced in others. Egypt has been a handy, if limited partner for the United States to the extent it has been a handy and limited partner toward Israel. The hyper loyalty to Israel among conservatives who see them as an extension of God's intent on the earth reflects in the uniform support among Republicans of anything--and anyone-- perceived to be favorable to that nation. By all accounts a stable Egypt in treaty with Israel is infinitely more comforting than the unknown that revolution and the implementation of true democracy can bring.

We end up with future potential American presidential candidates showing the wrong type of love:

Huckabee, routinely showing up in national polls as one of the Republican presidential frontrunners, said the Obama administration should have acknowledged the positive accomplishments of Mubarak’s tenure, including his preservation of peace and security in Egypt over the past three decades, and that he kept the peace with Israel.

“This would not have required us to approve everything he did, or deny the rights of the people of Egypt to demand a change of government,” Huckabee said. “But I think it would have been an important symbol to send to the rest of the world, that we don’t just walk away from long-standing allies.”

(Jerusalem Post)

Given our own not entirely democratic instincts, we would suggest that everyone temper their enthusiasms. Let's do a mental exercise. You have a room of people. You take a vote and say, "The person we vote for will decide where we lunch, and what we have." Everyone agrees and votes for a seemingly sensible choice. Once out of the room, the elected guy says, "Okay, today I am making lunch for everyone and it will be a delicious beet and asparagus salad, accented with garlic smoked liver and onions." See how democracy works? Democracy is the keys to the kingdom and by virtue of its essence can be used to create bad stuff, including the lack of democracy.

Which is why we probably should not take the path of being democracy enthusiasts so much as human rights enthusiasts. To a certain degree human rights and respect for the individual can lead to democracy, but democracy will not always lead to more democracy, or better individual freedom. If we add a little nuance and deliberation to our thought patterns, we won't end up in the position of Mike Huckabee trying to balance support of freedom with support for stability.

Fruit Over Here, Tree Over There: Barbara Bush Edition

Barbara Bush, daughter of conservative former president George Bush, has come out in favor of the opposite of her dad, when it comes to gaiety. We find that in most instances, females are the first to relegate larger questions to the sidelines in the pursuit of what feels right.

So many questions though. Does Jenna become dad's new favorite? What's with the daughters of Bush, Cheney and McCain, all supporters of same sex relationships as normative? Should Christians embrace a religious ethos that is ephemerally above strict interpretation? Does the fact that Jesus himself mentions only one type of relationship indication of a core truth that is ideal for Christian identity? And will conservatives pause a moment to reflect on those who carry the banner for their morality? One suspects that being conservative is not a direct overlay for being Christian, despite the harmonization of both under the banner of the Republican Party.

(Of course those inclined to foul mouth the President out of the same mouths that speak of  values are not inclined toward deeply reflective considerations).

Who should be coming out from among whom, for Christ's sake?

Doing Justice to Health Care Reform

Looks like it will eventually come down to the Supreme Court breaking the stalemate. But let's not for a moment believe this is about reforming health care or making sure current people maintain comprehensive and affordable coverage. This is political, with largely Republican adversaries maintaining a tight stance of unity across sectors of government. It is not a principled stand by any means. We expect the high court to avoid tampering with the actions of the legislative branch, which will surely lead those inclined to invoke America and Constitution the most, into trashing both the President and the portion of the Supreme Court they find unaccommodating. 

It will be this crew that keeps the dream of reasonable reform alive. 

Law professor Adam Winkler via Huffington Post states:

The ruling out of Florida is unsurprising in one respect: the judge, a conservative Republican appointee, had already signaled his hostility to the law in hearings a few months ago. So people who follow the health care litigation have been waiting for him to issue the ruling that came down Monday.

It was anticipation over this ruling -- and real concern about how the judge would likely distort longstanding case law to reach it -- that led over one hundred law professors to sign a statement last week expressing their view that the ACA is constitutional. Their statement pointedly observed that the "current challenges to the constitutionality of this legislation seek to jettison nearly two centuries of settled constitutional law."

(Huffingtonpost.com) 

 

Kill the Beast, Slit its Throat, Cry Republicans in Phoenix

We can't help but think that the legislators in Illinois have a far better management grip on their budget crisis than the ideological Republicans dominating Arizona's state government.

Illinois will temporarily increase personal income taxes to 5%, up from 3%, on individuals, and with corporate rates moving from 4.8% up to 7%. This small move will raise roughly 6.5 billion in a year (see Progress Illinois).

Meanwhile here in the land of the rigid and shortsighted, Governor Brewer and the Republicans will continue to slash away at jobs and assistance to the poor, from education funding to medicaid access.

It does not take a professor to tell you that it's better to raise taxes on the many by a slight margin, to avoid throwing tons of people out of work. Those people soon stop spending altogether. They lose homes and reduce consumption drastically.

In any case a professor at Arizona State University actually has concluded that a revenue increase will lose you fewer jobs than additional cuts.

Arizona State University economist Tom Rex said Thursday that raising taxes and fees would have a less negative impact on the state's economy than the spending cuts Gov. Jan Brewer's budget plan proposes.

The governor relies heavily on spending reductions, including eliminating health-care coverage for more than 280,000 Medicaid recipients, to close a budget deficit her office estimates at $1.15 billion for fiscal 2012.

(Arizona Republic)

 Trust Arizona's Republican dominated legislature to dismiss this in their efforts to "kill the beast" and use these difficult times to shape the government into the smaller size they have determined is ideal.