Why I have to support nuclear power

I wrote a post on my other blog that I thought people here might like as well.

Enjoy.

Rough Draft

So I was watching the West Wing the other night, and I found myself beginning to consider the unthinkable.

The situation is this: a genocide has just begun in a little African nation called Blawanda between the Flootus and the Dutsis. Okay, it's not that obvious, but you see what I'm getting at. Rather than twiddle his thumbs as the international community did during the 1994 Genocide, the President of the United States decides he's going to author a new doctrine for the use of force: one that applies when only humanitarian interests are at stake. Naturally (because everyone sucks) he faces heavy criticism from more or less the entire country, which resents his sending US troops to fight and possibly die where no US interests were at risk. The first troops die, the President sends an aide to inform a Senator that one of his constituents has been killed, and the Senator notifies the aide that he's going to propose legislation reinstating the draft.

Ensuring that the military recruits from all sectors of the population (and not just his poorer, blacker constituents), he argues, will change the way the United States enters wars; he cynically suggests that then, and only then, will valuable lives be at stake. So let's do it, he says - let's reinstate the draft.

I was aghast to find myself tentatively nodding along.

Certainly economic and race issues are not my primary concern. It is certainly unfortunate that the overwhelming majority of modern military recruits come from poor families with few other options, but it's not my primary concern. My primary concern would be to transform the armed forces, and I think reinstating the draft might be one way to accomplish that.

First of all, the military is in DIRE need of an infusion of new blood. I'm not going to get into details on this, since my friend Zero Radius has expressed interest in writing on the topic, but the United States Armed Forces have been for some years in the absolute vice-grip of evangelical Christian conservatives. This hasn't been terribly-well publicized, because what about the military ever is, but you will at least recall the recent incident in which US soldiers were caught carrying Bibles in Afghanistan, under orders to "hunt people for Jesus." This is a maddeningly typical example. Soldiers are being punished for not attending church, passed over for promotion due to irreligiosity...it's gotten out of hand. Perhaps my distinguished colleague will elaborate.

In any event, the near-absence of liberals from the Army seems to have been what's led us here, and to a certain degree that was inevitable after Vietnam and the left's disenchantment with foreign wars. This has a number of short and long-term effects, however. First, it's a simple matter of public record that Democratic politicans served and Republicans didn't, and that's in part an effect of the draft. Republican politicians by and large come from money, and money let you dodge the draft in Vietnam; old money is somewhat rarer in the Democratic party, and so therefore is draft deferment. You can argue that a lot of Democrats enlisted, probably quite a few more than were drafted, but enlistment made more sense when you might get drafted anyway.

Anyway, I'm wandering slightly. The fact is that when the next generation of politicians comes of age, there will be essentially no liberal Democrats with military records. There isn't a draft, and I can tell you I know no liberals who enlisted in Iraq. It just doesn't happen anymore. By contrast, there might be dozens of Republicans with military records. And they're not going to be civilized, moderate Republicans like John McCain or Colin Powell - men I can respect, even where we disagree. Men whose military experience I value, because I know that they know war, and that they know the stakes of starting one. Those men are products of a more moderate, rational army. These are going to be raving evangelical psychopaths raised in an atmosphere of fear and hate, and they're going to advocate application of the Coulter Doctrine - invade all non-Christian nations, murder their leaders, convert their populations. They'll have the experience to lend their words weight, and we won't. They'll have allies in the military, and we won't.

More than even that, though, I'm concerned that the fictional Senator was right - that our view of war really DOES change when there's no chance we will have to be involved. Don't get me wrong, I protested Iraq - I attended a couple rallies, I marched a couple times. For me, at the time, this was zealous political involvement. But I don't see anything in this country like the Vietnam Peace Movement, and our continued presence in Iraq renders me disillusioned about the ability of small, committed movements to affect that kind of change. It might be that if we had to go, things would be different - that if there was a chance we ourselves might die, we would let them know what we thought about that. It might be that the next greedy, rapacious, misguided war our government attempts to wage would be met with something more like revolution.

I'm not sure that's such a bad thing. I'm not sure mandatory service is either. I'm as surprised as you are, but I think it's worth discussing.

Room For One More?

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?" - Abraham Lincoln

A little while ago, Colin Powell criticized Rush Limbaugh for "a kind of nastiness we would be better to do without." Limbaugh responded by calling Powell "just another liberal," and suggested that he do what Arlen Specter did, leave the GOP, and join the Democratic Party.

To which I say...we'll take him!

Let's look at the facts. Powell is pro-choice. He favors moderate gun control, but is not a Second Amendment wingnut. Most importantly, he has apparently opposed the Iraq War from the start and made repeated attempts to dissuade the Bush Administration from invading. In fact, until his stint as W's Secretary of State, he was best known to scholars of International Relations for his authorship of the Powell Doctrine, which states that the United States should under no circumstances initiate a foreign conflict unless a) clear and vital US interests are at stake, b) risk to US troops is minimal, and c) public opinion was firmly in favor of the foreign intervention. Partial application of this doctrine (under Powell's supervision, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs) led to a First Gulf War that was short, decisive and concluded with very few American casualties (and certainly few civilian casualties compared to the Second Gulf War). This doctrine was hand-tailored to guarantee that the United States would never, under any circumstances, enter into another conflict that could be gainfully compared to Vietnam, in which Powell served. Cue violins.

(A brief digression: anyone who hasn't should watch this clip of Cheney explaining in 1994 why the US was right to avoid an invasion of Iraq after we'd swept up in Kuwait. He uses the word Quagmire. It is tragically priceless.)

The point I suppose I'm making is that I thought Rush Limbaugh was a better strategist than this. I thought he understood that we live in a republic, with a representative government, where the ferocity and zeal of your followers count for nothing unless you have more followers than the other guy. I thought he understood that the extreme poles of the political spectrum cannot hold a majority by definition, or they wouldn't be the extreme poles - that every modern election is essentially decided by moderates who need to be told, there's a place for you here.

Most of all, I thought he understood what started this country down the road to where it is now - the election of 1980, in which moderate (anti-torture, pro-compromise tax-and-spender) Republican Ronald Reagan took power with the help of his Big Tent concept: the notion that Reagan's Republican Party would take your moderates, your wishy-washers, the ones put off by the loopy fringe of the "loony left." Moderates are who he recruited to serve as the foot soldiers of his revolution. That's why he was able to win so handily in 1984. That's why he was able to create an America that would take twelve years to elect another Democrat, only to realize it had made a mistake and elect a Republican Congress to go after him. That's why he was able to create an America where "liberal" was an obscenity for almost thirty years, an America in which conservatives were powerful enough to drag the entire country to the right.

Well, guess what. Republicans think they're the party of Reagan, but the Democrats have his playbook. The Republicans have created a rallying image of Reagan - the folksy, fundamentalist Anti-Communist crusader - and forgotten the reality: the canny, intelligent, well-advised moderate who knew how to speak to the right and play to the middle, who believed in compromise when it would broaden his appeal and who had mastered the rhetoric of optimism. He told the majority that things were good, they could be great, and this was still the shining city on the hill, and the majority believed him.

Obama's speaking to the majority now; he's acting smart, taking good advice, and mastering the rhetoric of optimism. He'll take your moderates and anyone else he thinks he can work with, and worry later about dragging them to the left. Rush Limbaugh and the Republicans can burn all the bridges they want, throw out all the so-called "liberals" they want, and create the purest conservative movement the country has ever seen. The fringe is the fringe for a reason, and it might be our turn to make "conservative" a bad word for a while.

Jon Stewart and the Geneva Conventions

In case the title didn't give me away, I recently watched Jon Stewart's interview (a better word is probably "debate") with Cliff May about torture. It's available here, and well worth watching. I should state at the outset that I find Jon's moral position just and defensible; I am quite upset, however, at the way he defended it by calling for a strict interpretation of the Geneva Conventions. This might be because I've actually read some of the Geneva Conventions, and I think it's rather clear that Stewart hasn't; because he hasn't, he failed to respond to a couple of May's most telling (and most basic) points. Namely: the Conventions call for quite a bit more than an end to torture, and they simply do not apply to Al'Qaeda.

This latter point may well be valid, as an inspection of the Conventions reveals. The most basic key to understanding the Conventions is to be aware that they are treaties. Treaties are not laws; they are agreements subject to enforcement under the law, like contracts. If you suffer through a class on international law, the central principle of treaty law is usually expressed with the needlessly pretentious Latin pacta sunt servanda: pacts must be kept.

Why is this important? Because the Geneva Conventions, like all contracts, make clear to whom and under what circumstances they apply. They state explicitly that they apply to any powers that have signed them, and that both detainers and detainees are subject to their dictates. This is not pedantic; this is quite basic to treaty law, and the Geneva Conventions are treaties. A treaty is between two countries that sign it; if it's violated by either one, it is void. To argue that a treaty applies to a country or group that didn't sign it, or that it continues to apply to one country after the other has violated it, is not being idealistic or morally upright - it is simply being silly, and unjustifiably claiming firm legal authority for a purely moral position.

An analogy might be instructive. My friend Bob and I decide to sign a peace treaty with one another, stating that we will take no action that would harm the other under any circumstances. Now Bob shoots me, but I refuse to retaliate; I gave my word that I would not harm him, and my word is binding. Now, that's a laudable moral position, and would do wonders to make me look like the good guy in this exchange, but does the treaty require it? No, of course not. Bob violated the treaty. It's gone.

Just to demonstrate that I'm not blowing smoke, here's the text of the First Convention, which is repeated for each of the other three (it's from a preamble of sorts):

"Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof."

Let's apply this concretely to the Al'Qaeda situation. We will make the rather large assumption that we have some reason to believe Al'Qaeda has "accepted and applied the provisions" of the Geneva Conventions, and is therefore subject to protection under it. Let's start with an individual operative, whose captivity is governed by the Third Convention. When captured, he is immediately BOUND to share with us his name, rank (what rank? In what organization? But I digress), date of birth, and serial number (repeat digression). Now, I think it would be fair to assume that most captured operatives don't comply with this rule. Let's see what the Convention says about that scenario:

"If he wilfully infringes this rule, he may render himself liable to a restriction of the privileges accorded to his rank or status."

This is the kind of cause-and-effect clause common to treaties. Assuming an Al'Qaeda operative had a rank or status we could use to determine what privileges the Convention grants him, the Convention itself states he doesn't get them if he doesn't cooperate. Simple. Straightforward.

Now let's go broader and deal with the Al'Qaeda organization as a whole. Say, again, that we had made them honorary signatories to the Conventions (despite their being neither a state nor an internationally recognized polity). That would certainly include the Fourth Convention, which applies in detail to the treatment of Civilians and Non-Combatants, but we needn't even read that far; again, the preamble lays out some "bare minimum" rules by which all parties must conduct themselves:

"(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) taking of hostages;

(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."

Al'Qaeda and other paramilitary groups have violated every single one of these injunctions, made videos, broadcasted the world, and declared their pride in (and intent to repeat) these actions. They have killed unarmed civilians en masse; they have taken civilian hostages, humiliated them, degraded them, and executed them without trial. Assume we had some reason to call them a state. Assume we had some reason to believe they would abide by this document. Assume that they meet any of the many conditions required to be protected by it. They have violated its most basic precepts, and the text is clear: this is a treaty, and therefore either mutually binding or not binding at all. In case you don't believe me, try this line from the Fourth Convention:

"Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it."

You read that correctly. The unarmed civilian populace of a state not signatory to the Convention are not protected by it. This, more than anything, makes it clear that Jon Stewart's argument cannot rest on the Geneva Conventions; they are not statements of incontrovertible principle, but mutually binding contracts with numerous qualifiers.

Again, I support Jon's moral position, and his categorical rejection of torture. But for him to attempt to ground this position in the Geneva Conventions is not only naive, it is intellectually dishonest. The text of the Conventions is widely available and written in accessible language; there is no excuse for arguing that they are statements of principle and ideology that apply to us no matter what our enemies do. That's the Declaration of Independence. This is a treaty.

Stewart's ethics are laudable, and I believe as he does that the United States should be of strong moral character no matter the consequences. But May was right; he has drawn a totally personal moral line with no basis in the Conventions, and it is plain wrong not to admit it.

EDIT: Commenters on this and the corresponding Reddit post have argued that if Al-Qaeda isn't governed by the conventions, they should still be subject to treatment as citizens of the states in which they're taken. That might have some validity depending on the nature of our conflict with that state, if any; I have to look at it more, but I wonder. If we captured Taliban militants, would they count as Pakistani nationals, and benefit from the treaty signed by the government they're attacking?

Publish Post

On Self-Righteous Pricks

DISCLAIMER: You’re totally allowed to not like Obama. I’m not saying you have to agree with me. I’m just directing this at a certain variety of idiot.

Well Obama has been elected. Glory and hallelujah. Yes we can. Etc. But there are some people out there in Amurica that aren't satisfied with the results. I'm not talking about McCain supporters. I'm talking about the guys that wouldn't have been satisfied no matter what the outcome was. The people that were declaring the outcome of the election to be negative after it became apparent that Ron Paul would never win, which took much longer than it should have for them. I'm not even really talking about Libertarians, whose philosophy I actual agree with in certain areas (I have a blog post planned on this topic for later). I'm talking about these fashionable cynics.

You know the guys. They're usually freshmen in college, at least in spirit. They take an intro to polisci class as an elective and annoy everybody with their retarded bullshit. They think they know more about politics than anyone in the country because they read a blog once. A blog with fucking revolutionary ideas. They insist that Barack Obama and John McCain are totally the same, perhaps using as evidence something vague like "they're in the pockets of the major corporations", and they like to drop truth on people, which basically amounts to being condescending jerks to Obama supporters and parroting political philosophy they read about on the internet, while not knowing anything about how to apply it to current events..

They're not completely wrong about Obama. They're just obnoxious and their ideas are unrealistic. And whether they admit it or not, most of these guys are just trying to be "edgy". They try so fucking hard to be outside the mainstream. It would be cute if they weren’t so goddamned unbearable. These guys, these guys. I tell ya.

Don't use the term Republocrats. It makes you look like a moron.

Don't tell me that Obama and McCain are exactly the same. It makes you no better than your slightly less informed cousin: the dreaded undecided voter. Such over-simplifications are unbelievably naïve.

And for the love of god, under no circumstances should you ever, EVER use the phrase "Wake up, Sheeple!" unironically. This is one of the only phrases in the English language that has the power of immediately letting me know that you are a worthless human being.

Yes, I agree that a lot of core problems with the government will probably not be changed under Obama. I am fully aware of this. Please stop telling me about it. The difference is that I am realistic, so I'm not going to bother getting mad about it. At this point, any sort of progress at all is positive. I don't care how small it is. Obama will (probably) do it, and it will be a step in the right direction. If you want guys like Ron Paul or whatever politician you support to be taken seriously, it's not going to happen now. Stop being shocked and appalled about it. Obama will start to open the door if we’ll let him. As long as we stay on his ass to do the shit we actually do expect him to do, real change will come. Eventually. Change on the level you're talking about doesn't happen overnight without a violent revolution. So either start a violent revolution or calm the fuck down and start trying to make gradual change from within the system. Just being a smug prick isn't going to help anything. Always remember, there is a difference between rational and thought out cynicism and the kind of bullshit you practice. You need to learn this before you go around lecturing "Obamamorons" (or whatever immature haughty word for Obama supporters is in style this week) about their own problems. To quote Carry On:

I thought the ideas we shared could only make us strong
But you're caught up in self-righteousness; it shows in the words of your songs
And now you've separated the best of us, the only ones that seem to care
You forced your ideas where they didn't belong
You separated the scene and that's fucking wrong
Fuck you and your politics
In the real world they don't mean shit
I know you're a fraud
It's only a phase
In time you'll be over it

At Long Last, a Real Debate

This is unlikely to excite anyone else, but I've finally gotten someone to chomp my bait and engage in a serious debate about the history and future of marriage. It's over at EvolutionBlog; my first comment is about halfway down the page, and it's another dozen or so comments before someone gets in my face about it.

The Other Shoe

And if anyone needed proof that it ain't over yet...

The Bright Side of Life

So today I opened up reddit, as is my wont, and saw a link entitled: "McCain four times more likely to win if Obama loses in PA! Come on, PA, GOTV!" The link led here, or more specifically here, to a site measuring McCain's odds for victory at just under 3%.

Now, a look at the reddit poster's history reveals (to my distress) that he is an Obama supporter, and that the headline was meant ironically. But man. For a second there, weren't you just praying that was someone's serious attempt to be optimistic?

The CommonGood Stock Exchange

I have noticed a trend in my discussions with conservatives and pseudo-libertarians. On non-social domestic issues (that is to say healthcare, not marriage) we often agree on the end point (people getting medical care) but disagree on the way to get there. That disagreement can be boiled down to a two line Mexican standoff that goes something like this.

Conservative: Why would you put your faith in the government?
Liberal: Why would you put your faith in the market?

And let us not kid ourselves, it is faith, on both sides. No true democracy (what the liberal has in mind when he thinks 'government') has existed in modern times, nor a true free market (what the conservative has in mind, not the corporate-welfare system that exists today). If the endpoint is the same, and we only have reality on which to base our premises, then I would submit the following:

Government is more likely to achieve that endpoint swifter, and with far less cost to the public, than Markets.

Before I begin explaining myself, I would like to define some terms. Let us consider any step towards this hypothetical endpoint to have a value equal to 1 unit of CommonGood (CG). Likewise we will consider any step solely towards personal gains to have a value equal to 1 unit of PersonalGood (PG). To rephrase my statement in this light, Government is a body dedicated to the accumulation of CGs at the cost of PGs, whereas the Market is a body dedicated to the maximization of PGs at the cost of CGs.

Businesses, even publicly traded ones, are private institutions. The Enron scandal is but one among many examples of companies putting PG profits (personal or corporate) in front of CG profits. Thus, while Enron CEOs were racking up the dough, they were in turn robbing the public of CGs. This is because companies aren't judged by how well they're doing on the CommonGood Stock Exchange, but by how much money they are making. There is nothing wrong with this (unless you think it is the Market's job to produce social change). Due to that very nature, free (or freeish) markets will always resist regulation. The government, amongst other things, is a public institution. Its very purpose is to accumulate CGs and has built into it mechanisms for ensuring accountability and removal of those converting CGs into PGs.

We are all shareholders in USA Inc., and as such we have the ability to demand transparency and accountability (those necessary treatments for corruption and waste) in a way that we cannot demand from businesses. When the bottom line for the voters is the country, even politicians must take that into account. CEOs only need to watch their own bottom line, and make sure that golden ripcord is within arm's reach.

Where Have All The Dollars Gone?

It may well behoove me to create a titled series - like the "Questions of the Day" - dedicated to clearing up stupid conservative myths that the liberals have not adequately countered. The only problem is that I could write one entry per day, from now until the end of time.

Today's conservative canard: the Black Hole of Government.

Conservative economic rhetoric is still fundamentally based on the principle of Reaganomics - the trickle-down economy. Rich people, they say, should not be taxed more than everyone else, because they're such a crucial consumer group - their money goes into the pockets of hundreds of people they employ and make purchases from, thereby stimulating the economy. They take offense, for example, at the liberal notion that we're simply stopping a millionaire from buying that third yacht - we're not just punishing him, they argue, but they hundreds of people that built it and worked on it and will be required to pilot it for him. That yacht creates jobs, and that millionaire's cash output stimulates the economy. What's wrong with us?

This entire myth is based on a fundamentally mistaken premise, which is that money taken in by the federal government as tax revenue immediately vanishes from the economy. This is an absolute cornerstone of the conservative rhetoric; it's also a ridiculous farce, and I really shouldn't have to point out why. It can be easily countered in four words: the Government spends money.

Almost every dime the government takes in as tax revenue almost immediately re-enters the economy through exactly the ordinary channels. Let's take our defense budget as an easy example: that tax money goes to pay DoD employees, defense contractors, raw-goods manufacturers...tens of thousands of people are employed by our defense budget. Public works - roads, bridges - employ tens of thousands more, as epochal Democrat Franklin Roosevelt understood better than most. Even supposed financial sinkholes like Welfare are going straight back into the pocket of consumers - which, like it or not, poor people certainly are. They take their welfare checks, pay their rent, and make their landlord wealthier - at which point he can, indeed, stimulate the economy by making purchases. The government is not a fiscal black hole; they are simply a hugely wealthy consumer.

Even that small percentage of the American budget that does not go right back into the American market simply goes into overseas markets - in which we profitably participate. Overseas aid, for example - even if we give it in the form of cash - might well be spent on wheat (of which we are the world's largest producer) and drugs (a huge percentage of which are of American make). If that money isn't paid to us directly, there is still no reason to assume we will never see it again. We are members of the global market economy.

In short, it is very, very difficult to remove money from the economy. One of the only long-term ways to do so, in fact, is to stash it in a savings account to accrue interest - and I'm sure no one will suggest our government is doing that. Stop pretending taxation = money lost from the economy. The equation has no merit.

Shotguns are more Democratic or: Why I can't stand this Bullshit about ACORN

I know I may be a couple of news cycles late on this story (I guess we're making things up about Biden now?), but I ran across an article that made me get mad all over again. So. ACORN. Other people have defended ACORN with sense and eloquence, and I won't rehash their arguments here (just link you to them). In the last Presidential debate McCain said (preposterously) that ACORN was "destroying the fabric of democracy." To most people (who understand that the charges against ACORN are bullshit) this seems like a ridiculous statement. But what if, instead of just being overstated rhetoric to stir up anti-ACORN sentiments and set the stage for a post-election blame-it-on-ACORN strategy, it also revealed an essential truth about the way the Republicans view democracy? If you think that more people voting is "destroying the fabric of democracy," what does it say about what you think that fabric is made out of?

I was reminded of all this by a post on fivethiryeight.com. Part of that post is an interview with Chris Schoenewald, Chairman of the Albemarle County Republican Committee (Albermarle is the county seat of Charlottsville, VA) in which he discusses the differences between the Republican and Democratic party's methods of voter registration:

We discussed voter registration, and the varied approach each party's campaign takes. "Democrats use a shotgun approach to voter registration. Republicans use a rifle." If Democrats are setting up a voter registration table on the Downtown Mall, for example, "they're registering a lot of Republicans." By contrast, Schoenewald said, "we're going after very targeted people."

Does this mean that the Dems are being sloppy? No. This means that Democrats are more interested in getting more people to vote than they are in getting their own guys to vote. I'm not blaming Mr. Schoenewald for their sharpshooter registration, but it is indicative of a a larger truth. The fact is that the Democrats believe in a democracy where everyone gets to vote, because they have faith that the more Americans who take part in an election, the more likely the party that deserves to will win it. And in this day and age, that means them.

Joe the Plumber: Ordinary People?

I can't possibly imagine that anyone who actually inhabits the Planet Earth is unfamiliar with a man named Joe the Plumber.

For those of you from Betelgeuse who have deigned to fuse your hive computer with the World Wide Web, Joe the Plumber is some random guy from some random place who asked Barack Obama some random question that got him called a socialist. For those of you from Venus who have not brushed up on American politics, a socialist is something most Democrats basically are but don't like to admit it.

I think we're all up to speed. Let us continue.

The question I'd like to raise is about a very popular concept in modern American politics and culture - the "elite." I think we've probably heard more about the so-called in this election than any other in American history - and none of it was very good. When John McCain calls Barack Obama a "member of the liberal elite," he doesn't mean that as a compliment; when Sarah Palin says she's not a "member of the Washington elite," she doesn't mean she wants to join. "Elite" has become synonymous with "elitist" - rich, snobbish, out of touch. The elite, it's implied, are superior sumbitches - convinced their wealth and education make them better than the Average Joe. Or the Average Plumber. Or...you see where I'm going with this.

My question, then, is this: what makes the elite, elite?

The reason I ask is pretty personal: when a conservative talks about the "liberal elite," he pretty much means me. I went to a private grade school, attended a competitive high school, and am now in college on my parents' dime - and eager for a position in scholarly academia. I am also - in what many would see as no coincidence - aggressively liberal. The current political discourse, particularly the conservative discourse, would love to argue that those characteristics make me a card-carrying member of the "liberal elite."

But let's take another look at Joe the Plumber - the reason, you may recall, that he was irritated with Obama is because he'd been planning to buy the plumbing business for which he'd worked these last 100,000 years. If he bought it, however, he'd be making more than $250,000 a year, and Obama's tax plan would 'unfairly' increase his tax burden. No sooner had he asked his question than Joe the Plumber became a symbol of working-class ill-will towards Obama; and so John McCain, friend to the working man, echoed Joe's question to Obama. Why?

Now, my father, under whose auspices I might be considered a member of the "liberal elite" made - in a good year - $60-70,000. That was before his retirement, and only during those years in which he sold a book, or made particularly generous royalties. Joe, on the other hand, that blue-collar Everyman, is complaining because he might be about to make over a quarter of a million dollars.

To return to my original question, what makes Joe the Plumber 'working-class' and me 'elite?' Doesn't the working-class cease to become an actual 'class' when it starts running the gamut from six-figure salaries to just above the poverty line? Doesn't the 'elite' stop being 'elite' when the supposedly average characters who hate them make four to five times as much - or does 'elite' perhaps mean more than just an economic class? If so, is the entire vocabulary of this debate faulty? Do these terms have a practical definition?

This is an idea in progress, and I feel as though I have not yet gotten to the heart of the matter. The fundamental paradox, though, is that Americans who are just plain rich - big houses, fast cars, trophy wives - have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the dirt-poor and struggling and said "Washington economic policies privilege the elite at our expense."

Who are they talking about?

UPDATE: Apparently, Joe the Plumber just revealed that he had misunderstood Obama's tax plan, and would NOT be making more than $250,000 a year. What? Ordinary, salt-of-the-earth Americans don't make a quarter million dollars? Will wonders never cease?

The Last Hurrah

So, the moment has passed. The debates are over. Shall we discuss?

Before we get to anything about the content, I want to describe something that happened the first time the two candidates engaged in serious, face-to-face debate. I felt a Great Disturbance in the Force - as though thousands of Tom Brokaws and Gwen Ifills cried out, and were suddenly silenced.

Could Bob Schieffer have shamed his predecessors any more?

I think we were given more serious discussion of the issues during those 90 minutes than during the entire campaign to date. God knows the candidates - both candidates - had to be horse-whipped into providing that substance, but Bob Schieffer was both willing and able to carry that whip. I think he emerges as the winner of the debate - in fact, with his help, the true winner was the viewer. We were able to hold the candidates' feet to the fire and get some serious answers.

Well, okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. It was pretty great, though.

I was particularly pleased that domestic and social issues - which have received such short shrift over the course of this election - finally managed to get a modicum of attention. To my knowledge, for example, abortion has failed to receive even a single mention during any of the previous debates - much to my chagrin, given its central importance to my political philosophy. In fact, I'm not sure I've gotten much out of the debates in general; because...well, because...

I, um...*cough*

I don't actually care that much about the economy.

Now, again, I've exaggerated for effect. Of course I care; I hope to eventually buy a house, or have a job, or even provide my family with multiple meals in the course of a single day. I'm certainly concerned, therefore, that all these goals have been seriously jeopardized by the current financial crisis, and would love to see us elect a President who can mitigate or remedy this catastrophe.

But I don't really know anything about the economy. None of us do; we've all deluded ourselves into thinking we're junior economists, but we're not. I'd be willing to wager not on in 10 Americans can actually explain what really happened here; you'd hear a lot of "subprime mortgages" and "risky lending" and "defaulted on their loans," but you wouldn't hear these ideas strung together in any kind of a coherent sentence. We're not totally sure who Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are, we don't know what AIG is, we don't know whether the bailout will work or not, and if it does work we won't know why it did. We know what CNN told us, but we don't know who they asked, or if they're right, or why they're right. We don't know a damned thing.

Yes, we! You too! Don't lie to me, or yourself. You're not an economist. You didn't even do an economics minor during undergrad. You don't know what's going on.

More importantly (or perhaps more disturbingly), neither do either of our candidates. Now, of course, they know more than we do. They may even be able to define all the terms I listed above, even if they can't say how they all work together. And God only knows they have pet economists waiting in the wings to supply them with quotes about stimulus package this and regulation that. The fact remains, though, that they're not economics professionals; both of them have extensive training in completely unrelated areas. Whichever one of them is elected President is not going to be responsible for creating an economic plan personally; their job will be to hire the right advisors, show good judgment in evaluating advice, and be as educated as possible about the various duties of the Executive Branch. They're candidates for the Presidency, not an endowed chair in Economics.

That's why I get a sense, when watching these debates, that both candidates are simply slapping a Band-Aid on a wound neither one can really mend. They're competing to see who's the better speaker, whose plan is more palatable, which one can make their idea seem to have the right moral foundation (as though that increases an economic plan's chance of success). They're not actually trying to give us the right answer; they don't know it, and we wouldn't know it if we heard it.

That's why I wanted to hear more, this campaign, about abortion rights, and gay marriage, and perhaps about the ethics of war. The economic crisis is our greatest concern, but it will be solved by men whose training exceeds our own by an order of magnitude; when it's finally fixed, we won't even know what's been done (or done right). But when that day comes we will still need a leader with the right priorities, the right set of values, the right amount of dedication to our freedoms. We will still need the right to vote, and the right to freely associate, and the right to freely print whatever views we have. We will still need the right to privacy, and to a fair trial in the event that wrongdoing has occurred.

We can recognize the right man for that job. The other one is more or less a crap shoot.

Question of the Day Corollary: Guilt By Association?

While we're on the subject, what do you suppose would happen if Barack Obama was revealed to have ties with a group seeking independence from America?

Question of the Day: Consequences of Corruption?

Would anyone be surprised if the results of this investigation had no impact whatsoever on the Presidential campaign?

More Than A Legal Institution

For those of you who haven't heard the good news: Connecticut's Supreme Court overturned a legislative ban on same-sex marriage, becoming the third state in the union to rule the legal distinction unconstitutional.

As in California, Connecticut's legislature had previously enacted a law establishing civil unions that were, in theory, legally identical to heterosexual marriages. The majority decision reminded legislators that marriage is not simply a legal institution - it is a social and cultural institution, and "carries with it a status and significance that the newly created classification of civil unions does not embody."

This is a strong argument, a perceptive criticism of why "separate but equal" does not work. It's so perceptive, in fact, that it's a shame it misses the point.

Marriage is, indeed, a social and cultural institution as much as a legal one - more, in fact. It does indeed carry with it a status and significance not embodied by civil unions - and without which civil unions will never have true social legitimacy. The problem, however, is that nobody agrees on what that significance is.

The dissenting opinion of Justice Zarella is illustrative of this point. He agreed with the state's attorney, who argued (to quote the New York Times) that "the plaintiffs had no case because they were free to marry, just not someone of the same sex." He further asserted that the purpose of state marriage laws was to cement a procreative union, which gay marriages (unarguably) are not. "The ancient definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has its basis as biology, not bigotry," he concludes.

Contrast this with the language used to describe marriage by New York Governor David Paterson, who praised the court's decision: "Marriage equality is not about challenging anyone’s personal values. It is about giving committed couples the basic rights that heterosexual couples have enjoyed for centuries, and official recognition of their commitment."

So what is marriage, then? Is it a procreative union, a social unit, or an 'official recognition of commitment'? Conservatives tend to take one or both of the first two interpretations; liberals tend to take the latter. Who's right?

Is it even possible to be right about something like this?

If the question is, who can make the argument from history and precedents, the conservatives have it locked up. The concept of marriage as a formal recognition of commitment is pretty much brand new; love matches were considered dangerous and irresponsible for most of recorded history. Certainly you should love your partner, although whether that love would precede or follow after the wedding was open for debate; you would never get married because of love, however. To do so risked destabilizing the social order.

The most telling point here, in fact, comes from the historical societies most accepting of homosexual intercourse: Ancient Greece and Rome. Both cultures saw recreational sex with more or less anything as a-ok; neither Greek nor Latin, to my knowledge, has an actual word describing a specifically homosexual individual. They both have words translating to something like "dominant" and "passive," which describe whether you preferred to be the top or the bottom; who was in the other position, however, was considered largely irrelevant. Heterosexual and homosexual intercourse were considered two flavors of the same food, so to speak.

Marriage, however, was unquestionably a social institution, designed to signify a woman's departure from one family and her membership in another. This distinction was important, of course, because the patriarchal family was the basic legal unit; in Rome, for example, your paterfamilias was considered to have total control over your life and possessions. Roman law recognized two types of marriages, but they had nothing to do with sexuality: one meant a woman remained under her father's control, and the other meant a woman passed under her husband's control. In the former arrangement, her children would stand to inherit nothing from their father; the disposition of family property was the main concern in a Roman marriage.

The point, you ask? Well, the point is that when Justice Zarella talks about "the ancient definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman," he's got it right. That really is the ancient definition, sad to say. Not only that, but many modern families handle marriage almost exactly the same way the Romans did: in traditional Italian households, for example, a father must not intervene if his daughter is beaten by her husband. She's joined a new family, and is no longer any of his concern.

To liberals, of course, society has changed to the point where the patriarchal family is no longer the basic social unit. We see nothing wrong with an unmarried individual; we see nothing wrong with a childless couple; we deny that Woman plus Man is the only formula for a stable childhood home. Times have changed; children can happen out of wedlock; individuals can marry late, or not at all. The world is different; society is different. Welcome to progress.

The question, I suppose, is this: can we really pass useful legislation about such a culturally loaded concept? Can our laws really define marriage when we can't define it ourselves?

The solution is obvious, if unorthodox: eliminate marriage as a civil institution. It is too controversial, too cumbersome, too hotly contested for the government to handle. We have to do away with it.

A civil union essentially provides (or should provide) family benefits to individuals with whom one has chosen to form a family. It is not the place of a democratic government to decide how one should choose those individuals; it is not the place of a democratic government to decide how society should be ordered.

Leave marriage out of it. Leave the past behind. Leave the choice to us.

Election season...

...always makes me wish I was Dutch.

Question of the Day: Right-Wing or Wrong-Wing?

McCain keeps saying that "now is the time for bipartisanship." Coming from a Republican, might that not simply mean it's time for a Democrat?

What Does YOUR Copy Say?

Today I want to point out a fundamental error in the conservative view of the government's role: their willingness to ignore the Constitution. As I've pointed out here before, the Constitution stands as a sacred document for Republicans - except when it doesn't, which is more or less whenever it's most convenient. Whether it's true or not, however, they have made themselves the party of the Constitution, which they consider the ultimate incarnation of the Founding Fathers' Will. The Founding Fathers' Will Be Done is so axiomatic a part of the Republican worldview that they take umbrage at the mere notion that some dead guys might not have the deciding vote. (Let's ignore the fact that the Founding Fathers ranged from staunchly deistic to aggressively anti-religious, and would have considered modern Christian Fundamentalism a plague. Hey - it turns out they are as smart as the Republicans claim!)

In this particular case, the Republicans tend to criticize Democrats for their hands-on view of the government; the government's role, they say, is not to step in and help people out whenever it can. The government's role is to get out of everyone's way, and see to it that people make their own prosperity. They often cite these immortal words as a statement of what America should do:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

America exists in order to defend these rights, they say. Wonderful.

There are two problems with falling back on the Declaration of Independence, however. The first is that, sadly, it's not a legal document. It's actually more or less a declaration of war - it states the reasons we mustn't hang out with George anymore, and proposes neither to define nor to institute a government.

Now that you mention it, however, it turns out there's more to the Declaration of Independence than that immortal sentence. It turns out that that's just the beginning of a rather substantial list of self-evident truths! Let's continue:

"— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Governments are instituted among men to secure these rights. The People must institute new government in such form, as shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

It seems that the Founding Fathers - particularly Thomas Jefferson, sometimes erroneously revered as the father of the Republican Party - had fairly concrete ideas about the role of government. So concrete, in fact, that they eventually drafted a real legal document to make sure we understood them:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

We establish this Constitution for the United States of America in order to do these things.

Like it or not, Republicans, your all-hallowed Fathers have weighed in on this particular issue. We can't ask if domestic tranquility is the government's responsibility; we can only ask how best the government can achieve it. We can't ask whether the general welfare is our goal; we can only ask how best to get there. We can't ask whether government exists to make the nation more perfect; we can only ask how best to reach for perfection.

The government has a job, and that job is not to do as little as possible.

Small government can be understood as a means to an end, but it cannot be the end itself. The Constitution has told you what the end must be - and if you revere the Constitution, you have a responsibility to go there.

The Great Debaters

I suppose I should have known better than to think the media might be honest.

I'm speaking, of course, about last night's debate - which I suppose I should analyze before I analyze the analysis.

I'm going to step right up and say that Obama knocked it out of the park. Of course, I should preface this by saying he started off with the home team advantage - a little less than half the debate was on the economy, an area where Democrats in general (and Obama in particular) have a decisive lead. To add economic questions to any debate is a coup for the Democratic candidate, but this was supposed to be John McCain's night - it's Foreign Policy, where the Republicans are supposed to be right at home.

Key phrase: supposed to be.

Because John McCain was not at home - he was in the past or out to lunch, constantly harping on the Troop Surge when he wasn't defending himself from accusations of outright falsehood. Obama gets points from me for levelling those accusations, and even more points for sticking to his guns on the current Foreign Policy hot spots: the Iraq War and the possible invasion of Pakistan to capture terrorists. He could very easily have taken a middle road on either one of these issues; that would have been both the default Democratic strategy these days and a complete disaster.

First of all, the mere fact that we're winning the Iraq War is a ridiculous and superficial reason to praise it - too many liberals have fallen into that trap. McCain's attempt to paint the Iraq War as both a military triumph and a political irrelevancy was bold, but ultimately unsuccessful. He's counting on unconditional American love of victory, but the American people are frankly not convinced we've won anything - as well we shouldn't be. Obama was right to declare that our reasons were wrong, right to declare that too many lives were lost, and right to declare that the next President should do it differently. A lot of pundits have been singling out key quotes; one I haven't heard is "No soldier ever dies in vain, obeying the orders of his commander-in-chief." An absolute masterstroke! Our soldiers were noble, but our leaders were wrong!

But if I was pleased at Obama's handling of Iraq, it was nothing compared to the glee I felt at his handling of the Pakistan remarks he made earlier (discussed below, in "The Political System We Deserve"). This was an area where Obama could certainly have justified backing down - indeed, I would be shocked if there was not pressure from the liberal establishment to do so. Now, as it happens, I think he's advocating absolutely the right course of actions - but even if he weren't, to back down last night would have been an unmitigated disaster. As it was, John McCain was placed in the unenviable position of accusing the Democrats of war-mongering; how did he think that would play with his base? Did he really think that giving his opponent the opportunity to say "Osama bin Laden must be killed" was a good idea? "Counseling moderation in our pursuit of terrorists has worked wonders for the Democrats...I think I'll give it a shot!"

So, to recap: Obama won. I know it, McCain knows it, everybody knows it.

But an interesting thing happened while I was watching this debate. CNN, you see, adds a lot of nifty stuff to its debate interface - six Analyst Scorecards line the sides of the screen, while a focus-group line on the bottom tracks audience response by party. Even had I not watched the debate at all, I would have been able to tell just by this machinery that Obama was winning. The focus-group lines reached their highest points of the night while Obama was speaking - even the Republicans never got as high for McCain - and the scorecards gave him a dominant lead in points. Four out of the six analysts gave Obama the higher score - two by a considerable margin - and at the end of the night it was 44 Obama, 21 McCain. A decisive Democratic victory.

Or was it?

After the debate, of course, CNN turned to Anderson Cooper for a special edition of 360 wherein he asked the analysts what they thought. Every single one declared the evening more or less a tie.

Their scorecards were still on the screen!

Paul Begala, Democratic advisor and former "liberal" host of Crossfire, awarded the night to Obama by a margin of - if I remember correctly - 12 points to 2. When it came his turn to give an opinion, he said both candidates had been strong - but that Obama represented himself just a little better. Another analyst - Castellanos, I think - gave it to Obama 14 to 10, as any viewer could confirm, but called the event an outright tie. One of the commentators finally remarked that the focus group line had hardly moved, exhibiting no serious highs or lows, and nobody argued with him. By the time I checked my news sites this morning, the media consensus was in: the debate was a tie.

What in God's name happened between 10 and 10:30 last night? Castellanos is a conservative, as is Bennet - the only CNN commentator to seriously favor McCain - so no surprises there. But which of Paul Begala's kids did the Republicans have at gunpoint? Where are they holding the child? Is he or she okay?

Why, oh why, do they think we're so gullible? Why, oh why, aren't they wrong?

UPDATE: CNN.com's Debate Report Card actually has McCain scoring slightly higher, mostly by virtue of using almost none of the analysts who scored the debate live. Paul Begala gives Barack Obama a B, and John McCain a C. Yep; that's how I'd translate 12 to 2.

(Paul's child: if you are reading this, call the police!)