We don't really have one, at least not in the Constitution.
What I mean by that is that the Congress has an almost unlimited reserve of power it could exercise, if it wanted to, to in effect take over the other two branches of the federal government. That power is the impeachment power. If half of the House of Representatives and two-thirds of the Senate want to, they can remove from office any officer of the United States, including the President, the Vice President, the Supreme Court, or any other lesser officers. Imagine if the Congress decided to exercise this power institutionally. Any time anyone, anyone in the government tried to disagree with the Congress, or tried to check its power, they could just impeach and remove them. They could, by the same token, make it known that they would do so, and presumably thereby force all officers of the Government to cower in fear of impeachment, or make a brave stand and be removed from office. The only possible check on this power would be if the Court held that it violated the Constitution, but the Courts have been very reluctant to determine what constitutes a "high crime and misdemeanor," as well as what constitutes a valid trial of an impeachment by the Senate. And if the Court wanted to overturn such an impeachment, well, they would be, uh, impeached. If they overturned that impeachment, well, Congress has the spending power, so I bet it would win that battle.
There are other, less radical, powers that Congress could exercise institutionally that would massively aggrandize it as a practical matter. It could, for instance, have a standing practice of unanimously overriding all Presidential vetoes. No Court in the land could review that. It could make it known, in advance of any judicial opening including those on the Supreme Court, that it would only confirm a member of a short list, and would summarily reject any other nominee the President might make. It could theoretically do the same with members of the Cabinet. In theory that list could narrow to one name. An informal agreement in the Congress that it would only confirm Person X would be unquestionably valid as a matter of Constitutional law, and it would have the complete effect of stealing the nomination power from the President. These would be completely proper uses of Congressional prerogative to consume much of the power of the Executive Branch.
Of course, the only remaining check on Congress would be the people, who would probably vote such an aggrandizing Congress out of office. (I happen to think there's a strong argument for the Congress to do something similar to short-listing judicial nominations, myself, but I imagine I'm in the minority there.) But it is interesting to consider why the Congress does not do that. After all, as my AP American Government teacher was always wont to say, people act institutionally. If the Congress acts institutionally, it ought to do many of these things. But it doesn't, because it acts... partisan. Members of the President's party will refuse to overturn a veto, etc. etc. I think it's worth noting that our functional separation of powers is maintained almost entirely because Congress is a partisan, divided creature, something the Founders desperately desired that it not be. If Congress had stronger consensus, it would likely encroach considerably on the powers the other branches and in particular the Executive currently claim. Now, maybe the Founders would wish that the Congress today had more power and the President less, but they did want the President to have a veto power, and only partisanship maintains that power; they did want the President to have the power of nomination, which exists only on the goodwill and partisanship of Congress. There may be many great things about George Washington, but he was damn wrong about political parties.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sanity
I thought that the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was awesome. I thought the pre-rally festivities, with musicians and Mythbusters, was kind of slow and boring, but that's okay. I thought the middle portion of the event, with Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert sparring between sanity and fear, was excellently done. I especially liked that Jon relentlessly defeated Steven at every turn: it made it clear that the Rally really was to restore Sanity, and that in a sense Steven's character was just there for a combination of contrast and comic relief, and to provide some sort of conflict or struggle for the plot of the Rally to coalesce around. And I thought Jon's "keynote address" was spectacular. I thought, in particular, that the following lines were simply brilliant:
However. (And I don't necessarily think Jon would disagree with what I'm about to say, but he likes to under-emphasize it.) Terrorist, racist, Stalinist, theocrat, those are titles, they must be earned, you must have the resume. But what is the resume? Well, terrorism is "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes," so it seems reasonable that a terrorist is one who either has committed an act of terrorism, so defined, or is actively planning to do so in the near future. Racist, Stalinist, and theocrat, on the other hand, are not about actions, but about thoughts, and therefore come in inherent shades of grey. For instance, a Stalinist is presumably one who agrees with the philosophy of governance advocated by Joseph Stalin. Stalin's writings are public record, and many of his actions as leader of the USSR are common knowledge as well; a Stalinist, then, is one who agrees with the overall sense of those writings and/or approves of Stalin's actions as a leader overall. But, theoretically, there are degrees of agreement. Stalin probably said something that I agree with, at some point. Does that make me a Stalinist? I meet the same standard with most political thinkers, really; possibly even Ayn Rand. It makes more sense to limit it to the more major, substantive elements, and also to notice that one can agree with a little bit of what Stalin said, much of what Stalin said, or most or all of what Stalin said, and these are different things.
Similarly with racism, there are those who hold zero racially prejudiced beliefs on one end of the spectrum, and David Duke and his ilk on the other side. In between there are people who don't hold explicitly racist views, but who might have some subtler subconscious prejudicies, or theoretically those who hold more "moderate" racist views. Likewise with theocrats. A hard-core theocrat would want the state run by the church; that is, have priests and ministers or Popes or ayatollahs running the secular government. A hard-core anti-theocrat wants zero influence of religion on the political sphere. In between we can have people who don't want a formal theocracy, but do want the government to enact religious laws, such as a ban on homosexuality, or divorce, or shopping on Sundays. Is someone who believes the government should ban homosexual acts because their religion teaches them that it is a sin a theocrat? Not the same way the supporters of the Islamic Republic of Iran's government are theocrats, no, or at least not to the same degree, but they do want to make their view of "god's law" into the civil law. Are people who say that our laws are ultimately derived from god's law theocrats? Again, not to the degree that some people are, but there's certainly an element of theocracy in them. And within the context of a given society, they might very well be as far toward the theocratic side of things as anyone gets.
So yes, racist, theocrat, Stalinist are all titles that need to be earned. But they also come in varying degrees, and one can earn the title of a low-level racist fairly easily. And is it unreasonable to look at data like this and not conclude that genuine racism is a serious factor in the opposition to Obama and the Democrats this year? Not all Tea Partiers are racists, no, but a good many of them are, and I would be mildly surprised if very many of them would score a proud 0% on a racism test.
And finally, a word in defense of Keith Olbermann and his ilk, who were prominently featured in the clips Colbert showed of the media shouting at one another. Is it possible for a policy to be unreasonable? I certainly think so. Is it unreasonable to point it out when this is the case? I don't think so. Is it possible for one of two major political parties to hold vastly more unreasonable positions than the other? I think so. Is it unreasonable to point out when this is the case? Again, I hope not. The primary defense of Olbermann et al. in their vocal and vehement criticisms of Republicans and the Republican agenda is simply that they are correct, and O'Reilly, Beck, et al. are incorrect. Now, you can still argue that the use of terms like "unamerican bastard," which the montage showed Olbermann saying, is still sufficiently incivil as to be bad; fair enough. I'm not entirely sure what I think. But there's a difference between making passionate denunciations when you are lying and making passionate denunciations when you are telling the truth, and that is one thing that Jon Stewart sometimes tends to overlook or underemphasize.
"This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith, or people of activism, or look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument, or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies."
"If we amplify everything, we hear nothing. ... There are terrorists, and racists, and Stalinists, and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned! You must have the resume! Not being able to distinguish between real racist and Tea Partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez is an insult--not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe, not more."Simply brilliant.
However. (And I don't necessarily think Jon would disagree with what I'm about to say, but he likes to under-emphasize it.) Terrorist, racist, Stalinist, theocrat, those are titles, they must be earned, you must have the resume. But what is the resume? Well, terrorism is "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes," so it seems reasonable that a terrorist is one who either has committed an act of terrorism, so defined, or is actively planning to do so in the near future. Racist, Stalinist, and theocrat, on the other hand, are not about actions, but about thoughts, and therefore come in inherent shades of grey. For instance, a Stalinist is presumably one who agrees with the philosophy of governance advocated by Joseph Stalin. Stalin's writings are public record, and many of his actions as leader of the USSR are common knowledge as well; a Stalinist, then, is one who agrees with the overall sense of those writings and/or approves of Stalin's actions as a leader overall. But, theoretically, there are degrees of agreement. Stalin probably said something that I agree with, at some point. Does that make me a Stalinist? I meet the same standard with most political thinkers, really; possibly even Ayn Rand. It makes more sense to limit it to the more major, substantive elements, and also to notice that one can agree with a little bit of what Stalin said, much of what Stalin said, or most or all of what Stalin said, and these are different things.
Similarly with racism, there are those who hold zero racially prejudiced beliefs on one end of the spectrum, and David Duke and his ilk on the other side. In between there are people who don't hold explicitly racist views, but who might have some subtler subconscious prejudicies, or theoretically those who hold more "moderate" racist views. Likewise with theocrats. A hard-core theocrat would want the state run by the church; that is, have priests and ministers or Popes or ayatollahs running the secular government. A hard-core anti-theocrat wants zero influence of religion on the political sphere. In between we can have people who don't want a formal theocracy, but do want the government to enact religious laws, such as a ban on homosexuality, or divorce, or shopping on Sundays. Is someone who believes the government should ban homosexual acts because their religion teaches them that it is a sin a theocrat? Not the same way the supporters of the Islamic Republic of Iran's government are theocrats, no, or at least not to the same degree, but they do want to make their view of "god's law" into the civil law. Are people who say that our laws are ultimately derived from god's law theocrats? Again, not to the degree that some people are, but there's certainly an element of theocracy in them. And within the context of a given society, they might very well be as far toward the theocratic side of things as anyone gets.
So yes, racist, theocrat, Stalinist are all titles that need to be earned. But they also come in varying degrees, and one can earn the title of a low-level racist fairly easily. And is it unreasonable to look at data like this and not conclude that genuine racism is a serious factor in the opposition to Obama and the Democrats this year? Not all Tea Partiers are racists, no, but a good many of them are, and I would be mildly surprised if very many of them would score a proud 0% on a racism test.
And finally, a word in defense of Keith Olbermann and his ilk, who were prominently featured in the clips Colbert showed of the media shouting at one another. Is it possible for a policy to be unreasonable? I certainly think so. Is it unreasonable to point it out when this is the case? I don't think so. Is it possible for one of two major political parties to hold vastly more unreasonable positions than the other? I think so. Is it unreasonable to point out when this is the case? Again, I hope not. The primary defense of Olbermann et al. in their vocal and vehement criticisms of Republicans and the Republican agenda is simply that they are correct, and O'Reilly, Beck, et al. are incorrect. Now, you can still argue that the use of terms like "unamerican bastard," which the montage showed Olbermann saying, is still sufficiently incivil as to be bad; fair enough. I'm not entirely sure what I think. But there's a difference between making passionate denunciations when you are lying and making passionate denunciations when you are telling the truth, and that is one thing that Jon Stewart sometimes tends to overlook or underemphasize.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
No, They're Not Libertarians
I saw an article somewhere that, in describing the Kentucky Senate race, said that it had become unexpectedly competitive after Rand Paul and his "extremist libertarian agenda" won the Republican primary. In general there's a sense that the Tea Partiers are libertarians. This sense is wrong. Rand Paul, at least as he is running for Senate, is not a libertarian. Neither are Sharron Angle, Marco Rubio, Ken Buck, Joe Miller, or, last and at this point arguably least, Sarah Palin. To see why, you need to look at what "libertarian" means, and that means examining the political ideology-space in detail. This post is half a rebuttal of the Tea Party-libertarianism connection and half an excuse to use some recent musings about Political Space. (Warning: mathematical metaphors and models ahead.)
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Random Baseball Statistical Analysis
A post of mine a while ago laid out my philosophical problem with the statistic OPS. I did a little fiddling around with some data using the preferred stats that I invented, and I think the results are interesting. I took the 400 players with the highest OPS+ numbers through history and computed their Not-Out Percentages, Specialness Ratios, and Total Summary Averages. Then I ranked these 400 players by all the stats I had, and did some correlations of their rankings. The correlation between Total Summary Average rank and OPS+ rank is around 0.64: a genuine correlation, but a fairly rough one. However, OPS+ is adjusted and all; the correlation between rank in OPS, unvarnished, and rank in TSA is 0.89, quite good. If I exclude stolen bases and caught stealings from TSA, since they are not included in OPS, the correlation goes to 0.92; I'm inclined to think that including basestealing makes the stat more valuable, though obviously since it's somewhat broader it conflates more different things. In any event, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference. Rank in Specialness Ratio and rank in TSA have a correlation of 0.62, while rank in Not Out Percentage correlates at an 0.55 level with TSA rank. Specialness Ratio and Not Out Percentage have a correlation of -0.25.
Conclusions: TSA and OPS match up fairly well, though not perfectly. This makes sense: they are both intuitively related to broad-based measures of baseball offensive skills. Both of the components of TSA have only a rough correlation to TSA as a whole, which is explained by the fact that they are inversely correlated with each other. That, too, makes sense: there intuitively ought to be a conflict between not getting out very much, stuff like drawing walks, having a high average, and not getting caught on base, and doing a lot each time you don't get out: hitting home runs and stealing bases. If you don't exclude baserunning from TSA, the people who like TSA more than OPS are, let's say, Rickey Henderson, the speedsters; guys like Wade Boggs, who practically never stole a base in his life, are penalized under TSA relative to OPS. If you do exclude baserunning, the players who like TSA more than OPS are power hitters: guys like Reggie Jackson, Matt Stairs, Nick Swisher. Guys who like OPS more than TSA are more pure hitters: the player with the greatest negative differential between the two in this direction is Tony Gwynn; others like Clemente and Jeter are on that list. Babe Ruth has the highest TSA overall, at around .750. Most of the guys with a Specialness Ratio above, say, Willie Mays are really, really recent power hitters, the steroid guys plus Ryan Howard. Ted Williams has the highest Not Out Percentage.
Note that, since I'm not a total baseball statistical wonk, I don't know how to adjust for league environment for my TSA stat.
Conclusions: TSA and OPS match up fairly well, though not perfectly. This makes sense: they are both intuitively related to broad-based measures of baseball offensive skills. Both of the components of TSA have only a rough correlation to TSA as a whole, which is explained by the fact that they are inversely correlated with each other. That, too, makes sense: there intuitively ought to be a conflict between not getting out very much, stuff like drawing walks, having a high average, and not getting caught on base, and doing a lot each time you don't get out: hitting home runs and stealing bases. If you don't exclude baserunning from TSA, the people who like TSA more than OPS are, let's say, Rickey Henderson, the speedsters; guys like Wade Boggs, who practically never stole a base in his life, are penalized under TSA relative to OPS. If you do exclude baserunning, the players who like TSA more than OPS are power hitters: guys like Reggie Jackson, Matt Stairs, Nick Swisher. Guys who like OPS more than TSA are more pure hitters: the player with the greatest negative differential between the two in this direction is Tony Gwynn; others like Clemente and Jeter are on that list. Babe Ruth has the highest TSA overall, at around .750. Most of the guys with a Specialness Ratio above, say, Willie Mays are really, really recent power hitters, the steroid guys plus Ryan Howard. Ted Williams has the highest Not Out Percentage.
Note that, since I'm not a total baseball statistical wonk, I don't know how to adjust for league environment for my TSA stat.
Yes, Yes, They Are Violent
The American right's greatest hits of violence in the past, shall we say, week? Maybe week-and-a-half?
1. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)'s office sent a package containing white powder, possibly toxic. Shut down his office for at least a day, hampering him in a tough re-election fight.
2. Joe Miller (R-AK)'s private security detail, which may include active-duty soldiers, detained on no apparent authority a reporter for--God forbid!!--trying to ask Miller a question at a public event.
3. A volunteer with the Rand Paul (R-KY) campaign literally stomps on the head of a MoveOn activist outside the debate two nights ago, and then asks for an apology and says it wasn't a big deal.
4. Eric Cantor (R-VA) had the police arrest a man for, apparently, being a Democrat at a public Cantor event. The police treated the man quite, quite roughly and will, I'd say, be in for a nice hefty lawsuit in the near future.
So don't fucking tell me that these people don't resort to violence to promote their hateful, oppressive ideology/theology. They do. Maybe they don't do it as successfully or as viciously as the Taliban, but the Taliban don't have to worry about a government that might at some point decide to punish them.
1. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)'s office sent a package containing white powder, possibly toxic. Shut down his office for at least a day, hampering him in a tough re-election fight.
2. Joe Miller (R-AK)'s private security detail, which may include active-duty soldiers, detained on no apparent authority a reporter for--God forbid!!--trying to ask Miller a question at a public event.
3. A volunteer with the Rand Paul (R-KY) campaign literally stomps on the head of a MoveOn activist outside the debate two nights ago, and then asks for an apology and says it wasn't a big deal.
4. Eric Cantor (R-VA) had the police arrest a man for, apparently, being a Democrat at a public Cantor event. The police treated the man quite, quite roughly and will, I'd say, be in for a nice hefty lawsuit in the near future.
So don't fucking tell me that these people don't resort to violence to promote their hateful, oppressive ideology/theology. They do. Maybe they don't do it as successfully or as viciously as the Taliban, but the Taliban don't have to worry about a government that might at some point decide to punish them.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Acronym of the Day
ININO, standing for "Independent in Name Only," a term used to describe Senator Bernie Sanders, I-VT, a self-described social democrat (first in Senate history!!!). Chris Bowers gave him the appellation, in response to the fact that Sanders, a NOMINAL INDEPENDENT, keeps sending him Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee emails. It's an analog to DINO and RINO, respectively Democrat and Republican in name only, used to describe people like Lieberman (before he stopped being a Democrats even in name), Ben Nelson, Olympia Snowe, and Lincoln Chafee (before he stopped being a Republican in name, and is now almost a fellow ININO for Sanders, since he's clearly running as the liberal candidate in our gubernatorial election).
On which subject, you've gotta love it when the Democratic, quasi-unopposed candidate for Mayor of Providence tells a roomful of college Democrats that he has not made an endorsement in the governor's race, that this fact should tell you something, and that yes, he was asked, and yes, he is a Democrat who has not endorsed. And then the roomful of college Democrats, who are constitutionally prohibited from endorsing a non-Democrat (our Constitution, not the country's), bursts into applause. Caprio, boy are you going to lose. My next Governor's going around calling himself Linc. No kidding.
On which subject, you've gotta love it when the Democratic, quasi-unopposed candidate for Mayor of Providence tells a roomful of college Democrats that he has not made an endorsement in the governor's race, that this fact should tell you something, and that yes, he was asked, and yes, he is a Democrat who has not endorsed. And then the roomful of college Democrats, who are constitutionally prohibited from endorsing a non-Democrat (our Constitution, not the country's), bursts into applause. Caprio, boy are you going to lose. My next Governor's going around calling himself Linc. No kidding.
Jack Conway, Post-Mortem
And I do mean "mortem." PublicPolicyPolling has Rand Paul up 53-40 on Jack Conway in the Kentucky Senate race, an increase from a 7-point lead in September. Pretty clearly this is because of Conway's "Aqua Buddha" ad, in which he seemed to question Rand Paul's Christianity. I am, at this point, pretty damn mad at Conway about that ad. Not, mind you, because of anything intrinsic to the ad; while I do see what's problematic about it, I also think there's a reasonable defense of the ad; see here.
What I'm mad about is rather how sublimely and almost incomprehensibly stupid the ad was, and also how unnecessary it was to have been that stupid about it. As the people at PPP say, the ad harkens back to Elizabeth Dole's attack on Kay Hagan on grounds of irreligiosity, which, uh, kind of backfired. Furthermore, while I think there is a fairly valid defense of the ad on its own terms, that defense is distinctly complex and sophisticated. When's the last time you won a media cycle taking the complex and sophisticated side of the argument? Never, that's when. Maybe before the modern media cycle was invented. The argument against: "He attacked Rand Paul's religion!" or, more left-wing, "He attacked Rand Paul for not being Christian!". The argument for, well, it took a whole blog post to expound. A long one. My post in defense of Conway was a lot longer than other people's posts condemning him. It was, therefore, reasonably predictable that there would be one hell of a backlash against this ad. Moreover, in airing this ad, Conway has actually provided an annoyingly valid anecdote for anyone interested in making a "but both sides do it!!!1!!!1!!" argument in the near future, thus damaging the cause even more than by letting Rand Paul become a Senator that much easier.
And this ad was, as I said, blindingly unnecessary. I could've written the same ad in such a way as to have no backlash, and probably some positive effect. The changes go like this: drop the stuff about mocking Christianity. Mention Aqua Buddha, if you want to, but don't focus on that side of things. Mention that it was in college, because it can be argued as sleaze not to do so. And as for what the major point of the ad should be, since I've stripped the previous point? "When he was in college, Rand Paul kidnapped a woman, tied her up, blindfolded her, took her into the woods, and forced her to smoke marijuana while worshiping 'Aqua Buddha.'" I defy anyone to have trouble with that ad, since a) it's true, and b) it's really the kind of thing that makes you question a man's character, legitimately so. Now, yes, it was in college, and that's a plausible defense for Paul, but you could also mention that rather than come forward and explain this as a youthful indiscretion, Rand Paul has tried to cover this story up, etc., especially if there's evidence that he actively did try to cover it up. Notice, by the way, that anyone who wants to find Mr. Paul's unorthodox behavior vis-a-vis religion still has plenty of opportunity to do so: I don't think there would be anything wrong with mentioning the Aqua Buddha thing in this instance, since it's pretty germane to the story, but a properly conservative Christian voter might decide to object to that part rather than, say, the kidnapping part. If Conway had run this ad instead, I guarantee you he wouldn't be down 13 in the polls.
What I'm mad about is rather how sublimely and almost incomprehensibly stupid the ad was, and also how unnecessary it was to have been that stupid about it. As the people at PPP say, the ad harkens back to Elizabeth Dole's attack on Kay Hagan on grounds of irreligiosity, which, uh, kind of backfired. Furthermore, while I think there is a fairly valid defense of the ad on its own terms, that defense is distinctly complex and sophisticated. When's the last time you won a media cycle taking the complex and sophisticated side of the argument? Never, that's when. Maybe before the modern media cycle was invented. The argument against: "He attacked Rand Paul's religion!" or, more left-wing, "He attacked Rand Paul for not being Christian!". The argument for, well, it took a whole blog post to expound. A long one. My post in defense of Conway was a lot longer than other people's posts condemning him. It was, therefore, reasonably predictable that there would be one hell of a backlash against this ad. Moreover, in airing this ad, Conway has actually provided an annoyingly valid anecdote for anyone interested in making a "but both sides do it!!!1!!!1!!" argument in the near future, thus damaging the cause even more than by letting Rand Paul become a Senator that much easier.
And this ad was, as I said, blindingly unnecessary. I could've written the same ad in such a way as to have no backlash, and probably some positive effect. The changes go like this: drop the stuff about mocking Christianity. Mention Aqua Buddha, if you want to, but don't focus on that side of things. Mention that it was in college, because it can be argued as sleaze not to do so. And as for what the major point of the ad should be, since I've stripped the previous point? "When he was in college, Rand Paul kidnapped a woman, tied her up, blindfolded her, took her into the woods, and forced her to smoke marijuana while worshiping 'Aqua Buddha.'" I defy anyone to have trouble with that ad, since a) it's true, and b) it's really the kind of thing that makes you question a man's character, legitimately so. Now, yes, it was in college, and that's a plausible defense for Paul, but you could also mention that rather than come forward and explain this as a youthful indiscretion, Rand Paul has tried to cover this story up, etc., especially if there's evidence that he actively did try to cover it up. Notice, by the way, that anyone who wants to find Mr. Paul's unorthodox behavior vis-a-vis religion still has plenty of opportunity to do so: I don't think there would be anything wrong with mentioning the Aqua Buddha thing in this instance, since it's pretty germane to the story, but a properly conservative Christian voter might decide to object to that part rather than, say, the kidnapping part. If Conway had run this ad instead, I guarantee you he wouldn't be down 13 in the polls.
Monday, October 25, 2010
The Evil One
I have only one thing to add to a discussion I saw about Derek Jeter's contract negotiations heading into the 2011 season. I would love it if he defects from the Yankees, causing division and strife in their fanbase; I would also love it if he manages to eek out a bloated contract that will saddle the Yankees with a sucky player for many years to come while paying him a shitload of money. But the one thing that had bloody well better not happen is for Derek Jeter to become a Met. He can stay the fuck away. We have a shortstop, thank you very much, and he's younger than Jeter and a better fielder than Jeter and a better runner than Jeter and, oh yeah, a better hitter than Jeter, too. And a competent, no, make that plus-level leadoff hitter, whereas Jeter's stature is forcing the Yankees to bat him leadoff when he's just facially unsuited for that role. Now, if Jeter wants to come be a bench player for us, behind both Reyes and Ruben Tejada on the depth charts, I might accept it just for the humiliation. But basically, stay the hell away from our team, you damn Yankee.
Like Ninjas, In Reverse
So, I have hypothesized that, since there appears to be a massive "Candidate Effect" in Senate races this year, where a whole lot of Republican candidates have been really dreadful and are letting Democrats either win or be competitive in races we really shouldn't have a shot in, there might be a similar "Candidate Effect" on the House side, but we wouldn't see it. Specifically, we might not see it in the generic ballot numbers, especially but not necessarily exclusively many months before the election. Well, I think it should be the case that in House races that have been well-polled individually, there shouldn't be a Stealth Candidate Effect. But in lightly polled races, that effect could easily persist. For instance, the first public poll out of AZ-3 shows Ben Quayle, son of Dan Quayle, losing by 2, whereas the 538 model, in the absence of polling, had him up by 18. There is considerable anecdotal evidence that he's a dreadful candidate, and it goes beyond the last name. A poll out of NE-2 shows the Democrat beating the 538 unpolled spread by 7 points. Most of the well-polled races this cycle have been Democratic-held seats. If you extrapolate from how we're doing in our incumbent districts, you might assume that the climate sucks for Democrats, and so in a Republican-leaning district line AZ-3 or NE-2, the Republican, treated as generic, just ought to be ahead by a whole frickin' lot. But maybe that won't always be the case. My suspicion: we're going to see a lot of the same thing we (or those of us who watched, anyway) were seeing in the British election. The Republicans are going to lose a whole lot of the "seats they need to win to get a majority." But they'll also pull off a fair number of upsets in less marginal seats, seats that were on pace to be their 230th or 240th seat, or whatever, even as they lose their 211th seat or their 224th seat. And the Democrats, likewise, will both beat some Republican incumbents no one had seen in danger and scare a whole lot of others whom no one had perceived as being in danger. This just feels like an unpredictable, wild election, just like that British election. And quite honestly, I like our chances better in that kind of chaos than in a world where all and only the seats that "ought to flip" flip. Here's hoping.
Oh, the title: the idea is that these poor candidates in underpolled districts are being really stealthy, but what they're doing stealthily is sucking. Like ninjas, but in reverse.
Oh, the title: the idea is that these poor candidates in underpolled districts are being really stealthy, but what they're doing stealthily is sucking. Like ninjas, but in reverse.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
"But You Eat Plants!"
So, I mentioned in my post about the Can God Exist? event that Ken Miller, in response to a cry of support for vegetarianism, responded that, after all, vegetarians eat plants, so every time we eat we are killing hundreds of thousands of beautiful little plant cells, which are after all the subject of his life's work. In that post I dismissed his argument fairly off-handedly, but subsequent experience leads me to think it needs a more thorough debunking. Here goes, below the fold.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Context
You know that Thomas Jefferson line about the "tree of liberty" being refreshed with the "blood of patriots"? Wanna hear the whole thing?
And as I said in a previous post, this is all prior to the establishment of the fact that there can be peaceful transfers of power. There have been 21 in US history, along with two violent ones (one in 1776, one in 1861). So even if occasional minor violent rebellion could be argued as healthy in a republic in 1787, when Jefferson wrote seemingly all of his pro-rebellion quotes, there's no reason to think it would still be so in the post-Jeffersonian world (since after all Jefferson led the first-ever peaceful revolution in the world).
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."Note, Jefferson is radically not advocating the perennial overthrow of the government. He is advocating that a handful of misinformed citizens disproportionately malcontented mount a trivial little insurrection from time to time, to remind the rulers that if they fuck up badly enough eventually one of these rebellions might not be so trivial. And then set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. Does Jefferson think they have the right of rebellion? I don't think so. He thinks it is healthy for the country that they attempt a rebellion, and that, their having done so, they should be content to take a pardon and an explanation and quit their rebelling.
And as I said in a previous post, this is all prior to the establishment of the fact that there can be peaceful transfers of power. There have been 21 in US history, along with two violent ones (one in 1776, one in 1861). So even if occasional minor violent rebellion could be argued as healthy in a republic in 1787, when Jefferson wrote seemingly all of his pro-rebellion quotes, there's no reason to think it would still be so in the post-Jeffersonian world (since after all Jefferson led the first-ever peaceful revolution in the world).
Torture
Apparently WikiLeaks has released thousands of documents about the Iraq war, and those documents show, among other things, that the Bush Administration tortured people. A lot. With official knowledge and quite likely complicity. Of course, we on the left are not shocked by this: we've known the Bushies tortured in Iraq for five or six years by now. We were sitting around in 2006 debating whether it made sense to want Bush impeached for his war crimes, given that everyone on the line of succession was also a Republican and just as bad. Then the Pelosi Congress never attempted an impeachment, probably because the Senate would not have convicted, and the Obama Administration had not pursued criminal investigations against the Bushies. Their argument is that in our current time of crisis, this nation does not need a divisive, distracting trial that would only make it harder to solve problems and govern for the future. He has a case, and given that he's accomplished a fairly large amount in two years, I think one should give him a fair amount of credit for that.
But suppose it's January 4th of next year and we are faced with the following situation: we have these thousands of documents that clearly show flagrant violations of statute, Constitution, and international laws, and the Republicans control Congress. What will those Republicans do if they control the House? Well, for starters, it won't be governing for the present or the future. Nothing constructive will happen for two years. Furthermore, they're as likely as not to shut down the government, and almost certain to launch a massive series of "investigations" into things like whether the Obama "czars" are unconstitutional. I would argue that under that circumstance, we already have divisive distracting partisan investigations that are preventing any actual governing from happening. We might as well add one that would be a step toward the rule of law, right?
Now, of course, Obama won't do that. Partly because you can bet that Speaker Boehner would de-fund the Justice Department in an instant if there were the slightest word of torture trials from the Obama people. But also partly because the Administration will very naturally want to enjoy the spectacle of its opponents conducting these show trials and generally making fools of themselves, and will want specifically to leverage the embarrassment that will be the Republican Congress into a nice easy re-election and hopefully taking back the House and holding the Senate in 2012. And having a partisan, politicized, divisive trial of our own doesn't look great on those grounds. I think that honestly, keeping Palin or Romney or Gingrich or whoever out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on January 21st, 2013 is more important than indicting Donald Rumsfeld, though I don't think it's a clear-cut case: after all, we are supposed to be a nation of laws, not of men. But I think it would be nice if the Obama people could use their two years of idling time to address the rampant trampling of the rule of law that occurred under his predecessor.
But suppose it's January 4th of next year and we are faced with the following situation: we have these thousands of documents that clearly show flagrant violations of statute, Constitution, and international laws, and the Republicans control Congress. What will those Republicans do if they control the House? Well, for starters, it won't be governing for the present or the future. Nothing constructive will happen for two years. Furthermore, they're as likely as not to shut down the government, and almost certain to launch a massive series of "investigations" into things like whether the Obama "czars" are unconstitutional. I would argue that under that circumstance, we already have divisive distracting partisan investigations that are preventing any actual governing from happening. We might as well add one that would be a step toward the rule of law, right?
Now, of course, Obama won't do that. Partly because you can bet that Speaker Boehner would de-fund the Justice Department in an instant if there were the slightest word of torture trials from the Obama people. But also partly because the Administration will very naturally want to enjoy the spectacle of its opponents conducting these show trials and generally making fools of themselves, and will want specifically to leverage the embarrassment that will be the Republican Congress into a nice easy re-election and hopefully taking back the House and holding the Senate in 2012. And having a partisan, politicized, divisive trial of our own doesn't look great on those grounds. I think that honestly, keeping Palin or Romney or Gingrich or whoever out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on January 21st, 2013 is more important than indicting Donald Rumsfeld, though I don't think it's a clear-cut case: after all, we are supposed to be a nation of laws, not of men. But I think it would be nice if the Obama people could use their two years of idling time to address the rampant trampling of the rule of law that occurred under his predecessor.
Second Amendment Remedies
Sharron Angle, R-NV, has said that if this election, or possibly also the 2012 election, don't give the Tea Partiers what they want, they may have to resort to "Second Amendment remedies." Stephen Broden, R-TX, says that "We have a constitutional remedy. And the Framers say if that doesn't work, revolution." He later clarified that he thought violent revolution should not be taken off the table. Though I have an opinion about the matter, I'm not going to discuss the Markos Moulitsas-inspired debate about whether it's fair to call these people the "American Taliban" in this post. Instead I am going to describe what I see as the constitutional and philosophical underpinnings, or lack thereof, of their revolutionary logic.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
There's a Difference
Yeah, I concede that there might be some troubling aspects to the firing of Juan Williams. Specifically, as I think Jonathan Chait said, it's a shame if the "one strike and you're out" bar, which certainly ought to exist, somewhere short of advocating Nazism, is in fact this low. Actually, I guess I think it might be troubling for that bar to be that low; saying that Muslims on planes are scary isn't all that innocent, I'd say. But here's my main point. Did NPR fire him for a somewhat trivial offense? Maybe. Is it maybe unfortunate for modern journalistic culture that people in the situation of Williams or Helen Thomas get dismissed without a second thought? Quite possibly. Is this censorship by the establishment of opposing viewpoints? Nuh-uh. I don't think I recall Sarah Palin's rushing to defend Helen Thomas, and I can't think of a good reason to favor Williams over Thomas except that right-wingers dislike Muslims in this country. And again, you have a Constitutional right to freedom of speech. You do not have a Constitutional right to be a commentator on NPR, even if NPR is in some sense a government-funded institution, which it only marginally is. There is no right to a successful public platform. Might we prefer if people in the private sphere were somewhat more forgiving and tolerant of individual misspeakings/offensive things said by people they might give platforms to? Maybe. But if so, we first would have to do so in an even-handed way, not favoring those who malign Muslims over those who offend Jews, and in any event, it's just not a Constitutional or governmental issue.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Intranaturalism
Evidently I hadn't put up my starter post on intranaturalism. I could've sworn I had. Maybe I started writing it, and then lost the draft or something. Oh well. Here goes. I have a philosophy, which I have an which is mine. I also have a word for it, which I also have an which is mine. I invented both of them. Maybe someone else has invented them before, but whatever, I invented them for myself. That philosophy is intranaturalism, or more specifically the word for it is intranaturalism. The word "intranatural" means within nature, and it is a response to the word supernatural. The thesis, I suppose you could say, of intranaturalism is that since nature encompasses everything which is, it is impossible for anything "supernatural" to exist, but that, fortunately, many or most of the things people try to find in the realm of the supernatural can be found within nature, that is, intranaturally.
Intranaturalism, Possibly Continued
I think I had a previous post about intranaturalism, the philosophy (and word!) that I invented. It is basically the doctrine that one should look within nature to find meaning, purpose, good, beauty, etc., rather than looking outside, around, or above nature. Well, after attending the Janus Conversation "Can God Exist?," a supposed debate about whether belief in god is reconcilable with science and/or a scientific worldview, I find myself thinking in large part about intranaturalism.
UPDATE: This is really, really, long, so I'm going to put most of it after the fold.
UPDATE: This is really, really, long, so I'm going to put most of it after the fold.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
More on Jack Conway's Ad
Here's yet another piece attacking the Conway ad. I have a problem with this piece that goes beyond the actual content of the ad. The crucial quote from that article:
But first of all, and more importantly, "short of gross academic misconduct or committing a felony." That's the key part of that article, for me. Because here's the most egregious incident of Rand Paul's storied career: he kidnapped, blindfolded, and tied the hands of a girl that I think he wad dating at the time (though not afterwards!), brought her to an area in the woods near a river, and made her smoke marijuana (a felony, no?) and worship the Aqua Buddha. Kidnapping. Tying up. Blindfolding. Forcing to take drugs. I don't know if that was a felony at the time, because I'm not familiar with the Texas state penal code at the time, but it certainly sounds pretty bad to me. This is not a light-hearted incident. This should not be dismissed as an example of how Mr. Paul just doesn't respect authority. This was a seriously aggressive, borderline violent act by Rand Paul, now running for Senator. I think that qualifies under the standard Jason Zengerle sets. It wasn't fun and games, and no, it's not the kind of thing that is adequately explained by being a college student. And again, some of this would be different if Rand Paul would say, yeah, that was a big fucking mistake, and I learned from it, and I've matured, and I wish I hadn't done it, and I apologize. But he hasn't said it.
This secret society's mission may have been to annoy the Baylor Administration. But its method was so unsavory that I think it is fair game to criticize Rand Paul for it. Yes, the direct allegations of anti-Christianity are uncalled for except to the extent that Rand Paul has opened the door with outright hypocrisy, which I think he may have. But let's not be too eager to defend Paul here: he did some seriously bad things in college that, to the best of my knowledge, he hasn't even claimed as youthful indiscretions. And his response to all of this is to say, how dare you question that I am a Christian? not how dare you insinuate that my not being a Christian would be a valid reason to vote against me.
I wish Conway hadn't run the ad, in large part because of all this backlash. I think it was majorly unwise. But I don't think it was particularly beyond the pale, I do think Rand Paul's own conduct in the campaign at least came close to justifying it, and I do think that Rand Paul has some serious 'splaining to do about this kidnapping of his.
First, no candidate over the age of, say, 30 should be held politically accountable for anything he or she did in college—short of gross academic misconduct or committing a felony. Second, and more importantly, a politician’s religious faith should simply be off-limits. If it’s disgusting when conservatives question Barack Obama’s Christianity, then it’s disgusting when Jack Conway questions Rand Paul’s.Second, the disgusting thing is only half that they question his Christianity. It's also half that they are lying, and in this case, until and unless he says "I used to be a non-Christian, now I'm a Christian, I made a mistake and it's in the past," the evidence suggests that Rand Paul is not really a Christian, and is thus lying about it.
But first of all, and more importantly, "short of gross academic misconduct or committing a felony." That's the key part of that article, for me. Because here's the most egregious incident of Rand Paul's storied career: he kidnapped, blindfolded, and tied the hands of a girl that I think he wad dating at the time (though not afterwards!), brought her to an area in the woods near a river, and made her smoke marijuana (a felony, no?) and worship the Aqua Buddha. Kidnapping. Tying up. Blindfolding. Forcing to take drugs. I don't know if that was a felony at the time, because I'm not familiar with the Texas state penal code at the time, but it certainly sounds pretty bad to me. This is not a light-hearted incident. This should not be dismissed as an example of how Mr. Paul just doesn't respect authority. This was a seriously aggressive, borderline violent act by Rand Paul, now running for Senator. I think that qualifies under the standard Jason Zengerle sets. It wasn't fun and games, and no, it's not the kind of thing that is adequately explained by being a college student. And again, some of this would be different if Rand Paul would say, yeah, that was a big fucking mistake, and I learned from it, and I've matured, and I wish I hadn't done it, and I apologize. But he hasn't said it.
This secret society's mission may have been to annoy the Baylor Administration. But its method was so unsavory that I think it is fair game to criticize Rand Paul for it. Yes, the direct allegations of anti-Christianity are uncalled for except to the extent that Rand Paul has opened the door with outright hypocrisy, which I think he may have. But let's not be too eager to defend Paul here: he did some seriously bad things in college that, to the best of my knowledge, he hasn't even claimed as youthful indiscretions. And his response to all of this is to say, how dare you question that I am a Christian? not how dare you insinuate that my not being a Christian would be a valid reason to vote against me.
I wish Conway hadn't run the ad, in large part because of all this backlash. I think it was majorly unwise. But I don't think it was particularly beyond the pale, I do think Rand Paul's own conduct in the campaign at least came close to justifying it, and I do think that Rand Paul has some serious 'splaining to do about this kidnapping of his.
Campaign Spending
Apparently David Brooks wrote a column today arguing that unlimited campaign spending isn't really that big a deal because, hey, there's no conclusive evidence that campaign spending matters. And after all, in most competitive campaigns the marginal value of each extra dollar is zero. So what's the big deal? But I think there's a pretty grave problem with his logic.
The way I see it, there are precisely two options: either campaign spending makes a non-negligible effect on elections, or it doesn't. If it does have an effect, then what we have is a situation where those who either are rich or have pro-rich policies are advantaged because of this fact. Certainly it would be reasonable to expect a sort of quid-pro-quo dynamic to occur in this situation, where a legislator is loath to vote against the interests that paid for their election for fear of losing a valuable cash source. My hunch is that the fact that both Brooks and Prof. Bradley Smith, former chair of the FEC and opponent of campaign finance laws (who spoke at Brown last month in a debate with Lawrence Lessig on the subject) resort to the "it doesn't actually make a different" argument means they would tacitly concede that if it did make a difference, it would be troubling.
If it doesn't make a difference, then something weird is going on. After all, we have for-profit corporations spending considerable amounts of money on electioneering right now. If that spending has no effect, either by influencing elections or influencing legislative votes, then they are in effect throwing away corporate money. And I'm pretty sure that not only is that not a good business decision, it's not even legal; a shareholder could sue for improper use of the company's money.
As a matter of policy (and yes, I know that there are constitutional issues that don't align perfectly with the policy considerations), if privately-financed electioneering makes a difference in elections, I think it makes perfect sense to switch to public election funding. As I said, I'm not at all certain that very many opponents of campaign finance laws would want to dispute that, at least in public. But stipulate for the moment that electioneering makes no difference. In that case, a large number of people are irrationally wasting their money, and we would be doing them a favor to prohibit them from doing so. If, on the other hand, that spending is not wasted, and one's true agenda is to promote the power of the wealthy, then it makes a good deal of sense to want corporations and the rich to be allowed to make infinite, unlimited donations or independent expenditures.
As I said, I get that there are free-speech issues at hand, although I think to some extent those issues are smoke-and-mirrors. But I'm just pointing out that it doesn't make sense to assume that all of this spending has no effect, because if it has no effect, then it's bloody stupid of the people who are doing the spending.
UPDATE: Oh, and I just noticed how the article ends:
The way I see it, there are precisely two options: either campaign spending makes a non-negligible effect on elections, or it doesn't. If it does have an effect, then what we have is a situation where those who either are rich or have pro-rich policies are advantaged because of this fact. Certainly it would be reasonable to expect a sort of quid-pro-quo dynamic to occur in this situation, where a legislator is loath to vote against the interests that paid for their election for fear of losing a valuable cash source. My hunch is that the fact that both Brooks and Prof. Bradley Smith, former chair of the FEC and opponent of campaign finance laws (who spoke at Brown last month in a debate with Lawrence Lessig on the subject) resort to the "it doesn't actually make a different" argument means they would tacitly concede that if it did make a difference, it would be troubling.
If it doesn't make a difference, then something weird is going on. After all, we have for-profit corporations spending considerable amounts of money on electioneering right now. If that spending has no effect, either by influencing elections or influencing legislative votes, then they are in effect throwing away corporate money. And I'm pretty sure that not only is that not a good business decision, it's not even legal; a shareholder could sue for improper use of the company's money.
As a matter of policy (and yes, I know that there are constitutional issues that don't align perfectly with the policy considerations), if privately-financed electioneering makes a difference in elections, I think it makes perfect sense to switch to public election funding. As I said, I'm not at all certain that very many opponents of campaign finance laws would want to dispute that, at least in public. But stipulate for the moment that electioneering makes no difference. In that case, a large number of people are irrationally wasting their money, and we would be doing them a favor to prohibit them from doing so. If, on the other hand, that spending is not wasted, and one's true agenda is to promote the power of the wealthy, then it makes a good deal of sense to want corporations and the rich to be allowed to make infinite, unlimited donations or independent expenditures.
As I said, I get that there are free-speech issues at hand, although I think to some extent those issues are smoke-and-mirrors. But I'm just pointing out that it doesn't make sense to assume that all of this spending has no effect, because if it has no effect, then it's bloody stupid of the people who are doing the spending.
UPDATE: Oh, and I just noticed how the article ends:
Which is unfortunate. After all, there are many, many good reasons to vote against Paul. What he did during his time at Baylor, however, isn’t one of them.See, that's just wrong. That he is, in all likelihood, not really all that Christian is not a good reason to vote against him. That he lies about it might be, especially since he had a history of trying to gin up sympathy explicitly for religious purposes (criticizing Conway's use of the word "hell"). And that he kidnapped a woman in college, actually kidnapped her, bound her, blindfolded her, and forced her to smoke marijuana? I think that's a perfectly good reason not to vote against him, until and unless he comes up with a compelling explanation. (Actually I think the only good reason to vote against someone is their ideology, but people don't follow that rule, so given reality I stand by that statement.)
Monday, October 18, 2010
Cliff Lee
Dear Messrs. Wilpon,
Just do it. Seriously. If you have to pay for it out of your own pockets, do it. It'll probably pay for itself in ticket sales long-haul, anyway. Get Cliff Lee. Yes, it'll cost plenty. Yes, the Yankees will probably be trying to get him. But seriously, get Cliff Lee. He struck out 13 Yankees tonight, while allowing approximately two hits, one walk, and zero runs in eight innings. At Yankee Stadium. In the NLCS, to give his team a 2-1 lead that has them very well positioned in this series. He's transformed himself from a totally mediocre pitcher prior to 2008 (4.64 ERA, 124 IP/year, 0.9 WAR/year) to an elite pitcher since then (2.98 ERA, 222 IP/year, 6.2 WAR/year in the regular season), and that doesn't even include the 7-0, 1.26 ERA, 8 IP/G, 9.4 K/9IP, 1.0 BB/9IP post-season spectacularity. Most of which is against the Yankees. With three complete games. The guy just doesn't mess around. We'd have a legitimate ace, ace-plus, to anchor the staff early in the season next year. Then, if Santana comes back as Johan Santana, we'd have two of the very best pitchers in the game going back-to-back. Add in some combination of Dickey, Pelfrey, Niese, and Mejia, and we've actually got too many starters to go around. Get Cliff Lee. Add Lee to what we've got already, which is an 88-win-style team, and we're talking post-season here. Especially if you then add Bobby Valentine. I think that's worth swallowing a little bit of a short-term monetary hit.
Sincerely,
An Optimistic Fan
Just do it. Seriously. If you have to pay for it out of your own pockets, do it. It'll probably pay for itself in ticket sales long-haul, anyway. Get Cliff Lee. Yes, it'll cost plenty. Yes, the Yankees will probably be trying to get him. But seriously, get Cliff Lee. He struck out 13 Yankees tonight, while allowing approximately two hits, one walk, and zero runs in eight innings. At Yankee Stadium. In the NLCS, to give his team a 2-1 lead that has them very well positioned in this series. He's transformed himself from a totally mediocre pitcher prior to 2008 (4.64 ERA, 124 IP/year, 0.9 WAR/year) to an elite pitcher since then (2.98 ERA, 222 IP/year, 6.2 WAR/year in the regular season), and that doesn't even include the 7-0, 1.26 ERA, 8 IP/G, 9.4 K/9IP, 1.0 BB/9IP post-season spectacularity. Most of which is against the Yankees. With three complete games. The guy just doesn't mess around. We'd have a legitimate ace, ace-plus, to anchor the staff early in the season next year. Then, if Santana comes back as Johan Santana, we'd have two of the very best pitchers in the game going back-to-back. Add in some combination of Dickey, Pelfrey, Niese, and Mejia, and we've actually got too many starters to go around. Get Cliff Lee. Add Lee to what we've got already, which is an 88-win-style team, and we're talking post-season here. Especially if you then add Bobby Valentine. I think that's worth swallowing a little bit of a short-term monetary hit.
Sincerely,
An Optimistic Fan
The Conway Ad
Not that I'm one of these prominent bloggers whose opinion people care about, or anything, but if you're reading this you might care about my opinion, so here it is, specifically on the topic of Jack Conway's newest ad attacking Rand Paul. Here's the ad. Jonathan Chait called it the "ugliest, most illiberal political ad of the year." There's been some back-and-forth among the online liberal blogosphere about whether or not the ad is okay, with plenty of people I basically like on both sides. So here's my take.
I'm not a huge fan of this ad. For starters, I think it might be unwise, which I'll get to later. But also, in case you haven't noticed, I'm kind of an atheist myself. And while it's true that if I were to run for office, I would be perfectly open about being an atheist, and would go out there and make the case that being an atheist wasn't a problem for an officeholder, I also recognize that, except in urban districts in Massachusetts or California, I would lose. And I hate that fact about this country. Really, really hate it. And of course, I'm not a huge fan of the way Republicans have attacked various Democrats, notably Obama, on religious grounds. And of course I believe strongly in the bit in the Constitution about how no religious tests for office shall exist (though I likewise recognize that the voters in a constituency can add any requirement they want for their representatives, simply by not voting for them).
At the same time, I think there's a valid defense of the ad. I don't mean the "everyone's doing it" defense, which I don't think is a valid defense. I don't even really mean the "Rand Paul's responding ad is just as bad" defense, though this is true and I think by rights ought to minimize the damage to Conway's campaign. I do think there's always a bit of a consequentialist argument to be made in favor of nasty politicking; i.e., "If I don't run this nasty ad, a Republican will be elected, and maybe he'll be the marginal Senator voting against {insert important policy here}." I can see that argument, though I think it's a really distasteful one to resort to and it would be nice to claim a bit of moral high ground. I have a different defense in mind, though.
Fundamentally, my defense is one of hypocrisy. Not my hypocrisy, that is, or Conway's, but Rand Paul's. It's similar to the argument that for a liberal investigative journalism website to poke around into the sexuality of a Republican Senate candidate (rawstory.com, Charlie Crist) is okay because and only because Crist endorsed anti-gay policies. I think that's basically true, in much the same way that a piece of evidence that is excluded at trial can be introduced later if the defendant says something in court that explicitly contradicts that evidence. And the hypocrisy in this case is not just that Rand Paul currently calls himself a Christian, in all likelihood as a political ploy. Paul had explicitly attacked Conway at a certain state fair for using the word "hell." Now, to me, trying to gin up opposition to a candidate on the grounds of their having blasphemed is a pretty strong claim to religious moral high ground, and it's perfectly reasonable to introduce rebuttal evidence, as it were, that Rand Paul's delicate religious sensibilities might not be as genuine as he'd like us to believe.
Furthermore, there's a difference between Conway's attack and the Republican "OBAMA'S A MUSLIM!!!!1!" attack. That difference is truth. None of the factual allegations Conway makes are incorrect, and quite honestly, it seems pretty clear that Rand Paul was not a devout Christian while he was in college. And as he's kind of an Ayn Rand devotee, and Ms. Rand was rather anti-religious herself, there's a pretty high likelihood that Mr. Paul is not a Christian currently, either. Now, there are plenty of Christians who say they found Jesus as an adult (including Obama), but to the best of my knowledge Rand Paul has never made this claim. (If I'm wrong, this weakens my argument, and I would then probably argue for taking the ad down.) Obama, on the other hand, admits that during the time when he went to school in Indonesia he was not a Christian, but was in fact an atheist, and says that he converted to Christianity as an adult in Chicago. For what it's worth, I'm skeptical myself, and suspect him of still being a closet atheist. But there is essentially no reason to think Obama is now or has ever been a Muslim, except that his father is from Kenya and he spent his childhood in Indonesia. I would maintain that the amount of evidence that Rand Paul is not a Christian, and is therefore both lying about his religion now and making a specific point of exploiting that fake religion for political gain, is much stronger than the evidence that Obama is lying about his religion right now.
Then there's the fact that, religion aside, the thing with kidnapping a woman in college and making her take bong hits for Aqua Buddha is just plain sketchy, and/or criminal. True, the ad doesn't focus on that aspect of the affair, but I think it's relevant.
Now, there are two criticisms of the ad that I'm pretty sure I just plain agree with. First of all, the ad does say that Rand Paul was part of a secret society, and kind of makes it sound like some sort of anti-Christian conspiracy group, but it doesn't mention that this took place in college. That's an upper-mid-level political sketchiness violation, I'd say; genuine, but not the most "ugly and illiberal" ad of the cycle. (Also, while I do agree that it's regrettable that everything a candidate has ever said is now fodder for political attack ads, this is one area where the "everyone's doing it" defense or the "really, it'd be nice to win this race" defense is sufficient to cover the charge.)
The other problem I have with the ad is that I expect it to backfire. Yes, Paul's response ad was just as bad, since rather than refuting the idea that Kentucky voters shouldn't vote for an atheist/Aqua Buddhist, it denied the factual charges. Those factual charges are, I'm pretty sure, true, so Rand Paul responded to this ad by lying. And he also, by not saying "Hey, are you saying only Christians should be elected in this country?" tacitly endorsed the idea that only Christians should be elected in this country. For what it's worth, I have a similar reaction when liberals try to document so well that Obama is a god-fearing Christian. Could we at least precede that argument with a plea for religious tolerance/acceptance?
However, you know that no one but no one is going to give a damn about the Rand Paul response ad, while the entire media, liberal, conservative, and mainstream, will jump on the Conway ad. And while I do think the ad isn't as horrible as Jon Chait seems to think it is, you can bet the conservatives will be all over it as a "both sides do it; see!" exemplar, and we liberals seem pretty well split about whether or not we think it's okay. It reminds me, a little bit, of Jon Corzine's "fat" ad from last year, where after gaining about ten points on Chris Christie since august, Corzine aired an ad that accused Christie of having "pushed his weight around" in connection with various of Christie's scandals, while showing a slow-motion picture of Christie getting out of a limo that wasn't very flattering to the latter's figure. Corzine had tied Christie, or even taken a narrow lead. After that point, the polls had them converging and staying tied until election day, when Christie won by four. I'm convinced that this ad lost Corzine the governorship of my home state, and I'm worried that Conway's ad may have lost us a Senate seat.
I'm not a huge fan of this ad. For starters, I think it might be unwise, which I'll get to later. But also, in case you haven't noticed, I'm kind of an atheist myself. And while it's true that if I were to run for office, I would be perfectly open about being an atheist, and would go out there and make the case that being an atheist wasn't a problem for an officeholder, I also recognize that, except in urban districts in Massachusetts or California, I would lose. And I hate that fact about this country. Really, really hate it. And of course, I'm not a huge fan of the way Republicans have attacked various Democrats, notably Obama, on religious grounds. And of course I believe strongly in the bit in the Constitution about how no religious tests for office shall exist (though I likewise recognize that the voters in a constituency can add any requirement they want for their representatives, simply by not voting for them).
At the same time, I think there's a valid defense of the ad. I don't mean the "everyone's doing it" defense, which I don't think is a valid defense. I don't even really mean the "Rand Paul's responding ad is just as bad" defense, though this is true and I think by rights ought to minimize the damage to Conway's campaign. I do think there's always a bit of a consequentialist argument to be made in favor of nasty politicking; i.e., "If I don't run this nasty ad, a Republican will be elected, and maybe he'll be the marginal Senator voting against {insert important policy here}." I can see that argument, though I think it's a really distasteful one to resort to and it would be nice to claim a bit of moral high ground. I have a different defense in mind, though.
Fundamentally, my defense is one of hypocrisy. Not my hypocrisy, that is, or Conway's, but Rand Paul's. It's similar to the argument that for a liberal investigative journalism website to poke around into the sexuality of a Republican Senate candidate (rawstory.com, Charlie Crist) is okay because and only because Crist endorsed anti-gay policies. I think that's basically true, in much the same way that a piece of evidence that is excluded at trial can be introduced later if the defendant says something in court that explicitly contradicts that evidence. And the hypocrisy in this case is not just that Rand Paul currently calls himself a Christian, in all likelihood as a political ploy. Paul had explicitly attacked Conway at a certain state fair for using the word "hell." Now, to me, trying to gin up opposition to a candidate on the grounds of their having blasphemed is a pretty strong claim to religious moral high ground, and it's perfectly reasonable to introduce rebuttal evidence, as it were, that Rand Paul's delicate religious sensibilities might not be as genuine as he'd like us to believe.
Furthermore, there's a difference between Conway's attack and the Republican "OBAMA'S A MUSLIM!!!!1!" attack. That difference is truth. None of the factual allegations Conway makes are incorrect, and quite honestly, it seems pretty clear that Rand Paul was not a devout Christian while he was in college. And as he's kind of an Ayn Rand devotee, and Ms. Rand was rather anti-religious herself, there's a pretty high likelihood that Mr. Paul is not a Christian currently, either. Now, there are plenty of Christians who say they found Jesus as an adult (including Obama), but to the best of my knowledge Rand Paul has never made this claim. (If I'm wrong, this weakens my argument, and I would then probably argue for taking the ad down.) Obama, on the other hand, admits that during the time when he went to school in Indonesia he was not a Christian, but was in fact an atheist, and says that he converted to Christianity as an adult in Chicago. For what it's worth, I'm skeptical myself, and suspect him of still being a closet atheist. But there is essentially no reason to think Obama is now or has ever been a Muslim, except that his father is from Kenya and he spent his childhood in Indonesia. I would maintain that the amount of evidence that Rand Paul is not a Christian, and is therefore both lying about his religion now and making a specific point of exploiting that fake religion for political gain, is much stronger than the evidence that Obama is lying about his religion right now.
Then there's the fact that, religion aside, the thing with kidnapping a woman in college and making her take bong hits for Aqua Buddha is just plain sketchy, and/or criminal. True, the ad doesn't focus on that aspect of the affair, but I think it's relevant.
Now, there are two criticisms of the ad that I'm pretty sure I just plain agree with. First of all, the ad does say that Rand Paul was part of a secret society, and kind of makes it sound like some sort of anti-Christian conspiracy group, but it doesn't mention that this took place in college. That's an upper-mid-level political sketchiness violation, I'd say; genuine, but not the most "ugly and illiberal" ad of the cycle. (Also, while I do agree that it's regrettable that everything a candidate has ever said is now fodder for political attack ads, this is one area where the "everyone's doing it" defense or the "really, it'd be nice to win this race" defense is sufficient to cover the charge.)
The other problem I have with the ad is that I expect it to backfire. Yes, Paul's response ad was just as bad, since rather than refuting the idea that Kentucky voters shouldn't vote for an atheist/Aqua Buddhist, it denied the factual charges. Those factual charges are, I'm pretty sure, true, so Rand Paul responded to this ad by lying. And he also, by not saying "Hey, are you saying only Christians should be elected in this country?" tacitly endorsed the idea that only Christians should be elected in this country. For what it's worth, I have a similar reaction when liberals try to document so well that Obama is a god-fearing Christian. Could we at least precede that argument with a plea for religious tolerance/acceptance?
However, you know that no one but no one is going to give a damn about the Rand Paul response ad, while the entire media, liberal, conservative, and mainstream, will jump on the Conway ad. And while I do think the ad isn't as horrible as Jon Chait seems to think it is, you can bet the conservatives will be all over it as a "both sides do it; see!" exemplar, and we liberals seem pretty well split about whether or not we think it's okay. It reminds me, a little bit, of Jon Corzine's "fat" ad from last year, where after gaining about ten points on Chris Christie since august, Corzine aired an ad that accused Christie of having "pushed his weight around" in connection with various of Christie's scandals, while showing a slow-motion picture of Christie getting out of a limo that wasn't very flattering to the latter's figure. Corzine had tied Christie, or even taken a narrow lead. After that point, the polls had them converging and staying tied until election day, when Christie won by four. I'm convinced that this ad lost Corzine the governorship of my home state, and I'm worried that Conway's ad may have lost us a Senate seat.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Why John Rawls Should've Been A Vegetarian
Like so many political philosophers before him, John Rawls was blithely dismissive of the rights of animals. This does not particularly distinguish him from most people, but what does, I believe, is that his political philosophy provides an unusually strong basis from which to make a case for vegetarianism. I believe that morality and ethics provide an unavoidable imperative to be a vegetarian anyway, but I'm always on the look-out for additional arguments in favor of animal rights, and I think I've found one. It's fairly long, so it takes place after the fold.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Always Look On The Bright Side of Life
Several new polls out of Alaska show all three Senate candidates within a five-point spread. A "very smart person in a position to know" says internal Pennsylvania polls really are tightening. Illinois shows good movement toward the Democrat. Connecticut, Washington and California look nearly out of play for Republicans. Kentucky remains competitive. Colorado's a nail-biter.
I'm looking at a Senate map and seeing an interesting optimistic scenario unfold. At the beginning of this cycle, it looked like the big contests would be places like New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, maybe Indiana, and then Florida after Crist's switch. But my optimistic scenario now shows us losing all but one of these (Pennsylvania), and in most cases, it's not a close case. But we could still end up with 57 Senators. Forty hold-over Democrats. Ten races I consider fairly likely to go our way (the West Coast, Hawaii, and the Northeast minus Pennsylvania and New Hampshire). That's fifty. Then add three contests that are basically dead heats right now, Nevada, Illinois, and Colorado. We could lose all of them, but we could just as easily win them all, or perhaps more easily. That's 53. It's tightening in Pennsylvania, and really, Toomey just shouldn't be able to win that state, now or ever. 54. In both Kentucky and Alaska, we have candidates positioned really, really close in races with a fair amount of volatility, in one case matched against the world's most boring fringe nutter and in another case matched against two conservatives, one of whom is sustaining herself with the votes of Democrats. That's a potential 56 Senators. The 57th is the race I am in a sense least happy to talk about, since it's Wisconsin. The numbers there look really, really bad, but it's Russ Feingold, and he's practically essence of Wisconsin politically speaking, and I just have trouble believing that he's really going to lose.
Things could go badly, and we could wind up with 50 Democrats, of whom one Lieberman will defect and give the Republicans the majority. But they could also go well, and we could wind up with 55-57 seats, without even winning any of the originally most promising pick-up opportunities. And if that happens, we just might have a more functional governing majority in the Senate next term than we had this term. Here's hoping.
I'm looking at a Senate map and seeing an interesting optimistic scenario unfold. At the beginning of this cycle, it looked like the big contests would be places like New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, maybe Indiana, and then Florida after Crist's switch. But my optimistic scenario now shows us losing all but one of these (Pennsylvania), and in most cases, it's not a close case. But we could still end up with 57 Senators. Forty hold-over Democrats. Ten races I consider fairly likely to go our way (the West Coast, Hawaii, and the Northeast minus Pennsylvania and New Hampshire). That's fifty. Then add three contests that are basically dead heats right now, Nevada, Illinois, and Colorado. We could lose all of them, but we could just as easily win them all, or perhaps more easily. That's 53. It's tightening in Pennsylvania, and really, Toomey just shouldn't be able to win that state, now or ever. 54. In both Kentucky and Alaska, we have candidates positioned really, really close in races with a fair amount of volatility, in one case matched against the world's most boring fringe nutter and in another case matched against two conservatives, one of whom is sustaining herself with the votes of Democrats. That's a potential 56 Senators. The 57th is the race I am in a sense least happy to talk about, since it's Wisconsin. The numbers there look really, really bad, but it's Russ Feingold, and he's practically essence of Wisconsin politically speaking, and I just have trouble believing that he's really going to lose.
Things could go badly, and we could wind up with 50 Democrats, of whom one Lieberman will defect and give the Republicans the majority. But they could also go well, and we could wind up with 55-57 seats, without even winning any of the originally most promising pick-up opportunities. And if that happens, we just might have a more functional governing majority in the Senate next term than we had this term. Here's hoping.
The Four Horsemen
We find ourselves currently at an interesting situation in American governance vis-a-vis the Supreme Court. For the past four or five years, we've had a group of four ultra-conservative justices who vote as a block on essentially every case, and who seem rather clearly to be using the Court's power to advance their political agenda. And just recently, they may even have overreached, what with having made a decision that 80% of Americans disagree with, i.e. Citizens United. The Court's institutional reputation is at a low point.
This has happened before. During the early part of the Roosevelt Administration, a group of four ultra-conservative justices voted as a block in essentially every case and seemed to use the Court's power to advance their political agenda. And they overreached, striking down much of the First New Deal. And in exchange for their politicizing of the Court, they were greeted with a Court-packing scheme from President Roosevelt. It didn't pass, but that's largely because, intentionally or otherwise, the swing Justice who had been providing the Four Horsemen with their deciding vote ended up shifting more to the left. But there's a precedent for the Court to become so brazenly political that it loses a lot of institutional gravitas, and just might be vulnerable to some sort of political challenge. Let the new Four Horsemen beware.
Oh, and just as a good contrast, in 1803 Chief Justice John Marshall (the most underrated hero of American history) used Marbury v. Madison to brilliantly protect a vulnerable Court from Jefferson's potential attack on it, by issuing a ruling that simultaneously aggrandized the judicial branch and did not instruct Jefferson to do anything he could then ostentatiously decline to do.
This has happened before. During the early part of the Roosevelt Administration, a group of four ultra-conservative justices voted as a block in essentially every case and seemed to use the Court's power to advance their political agenda. And they overreached, striking down much of the First New Deal. And in exchange for their politicizing of the Court, they were greeted with a Court-packing scheme from President Roosevelt. It didn't pass, but that's largely because, intentionally or otherwise, the swing Justice who had been providing the Four Horsemen with their deciding vote ended up shifting more to the left. But there's a precedent for the Court to become so brazenly political that it loses a lot of institutional gravitas, and just might be vulnerable to some sort of political challenge. Let the new Four Horsemen beware.
Oh, and just as a good contrast, in 1803 Chief Justice John Marshall (the most underrated hero of American history) used Marbury v. Madison to brilliantly protect a vulnerable Court from Jefferson's potential attack on it, by issuing a ruling that simultaneously aggrandized the judicial branch and did not instruct Jefferson to do anything he could then ostentatiously decline to do.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Thomas Jefferson Knew What He Was Talking About
This is, basically, a follow-up post to my earlier piece about the liberal brand. Having said what I consider my own fundamental value to be, I want to address what I see as a key difference between what I believe and what conservatives say they believe. Note that I'm being generous here in judging conservatives on the basis of what they say; I think their actual beliefs are more explicitly cronyistic and self-serving.
What the conservatives always like to say is that they favor equality of opportunity, not equality of results. I think that in reality, this simply betrays their shallow, materialistic understanding of life. To show this, I will use the concept of the hierarchy of needs, conventionally associated with the psychology Abraham Maslow. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the idea that some needs in life are relatively more basic than others and must be satisfied before the deeper needs can be fulfilled. On the bottom of the hierarchy are physiological needs: food, water, sleep, etc. Then come the needs of safety, followed by love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization, Maslow's top-level goal. Personally, I think that the latter three are not dependent on one another, and I would tend to lump them all into a broader category of spiritual needs which can be pursued independently of one another.
I argue that both liberals (and social democrats!) and conservatives believe in a kind of equality of opportunity, but they believe that this should be located at different places along the hierarchy of needs. Republicans believe everyone should have an equal opportunity to have their physiological and safety needs satisfied. Democrats believe everyone should have an equal opportunity to fulfill their spiritual needs, which requires that their physiological and safety needs be satisfied across the board. So when Republicans say that we liberals believe in equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity, they're right, we do, at the lower levels of the hierarchy of needs. But they, by the same logic, are opposed to an equality of opportunity at the higher levels that we liberals like to focus on. They favor a world in which some people are denied the opportunity to live a fulfilling life with deeper meaning, based on their failures to attain security and sustenance. And to claim that this amounts to endorsing equality of opportunity is to claim that those spiritual needs are worthless, to endorse a shallow, debased view of what makes life good.
To bring this back to Thomas Jefferson (and I should give credit here to my father, who came up with this part of the argument), it's Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. It is not the pursuit of life, or the pursuit of liberty. Life and liberty are guaranteed. Happiness cannot be guaranteed, but the conditions that enable an active pursuit of happiness can be.
What the conservatives always like to say is that they favor equality of opportunity, not equality of results. I think that in reality, this simply betrays their shallow, materialistic understanding of life. To show this, I will use the concept of the hierarchy of needs, conventionally associated with the psychology Abraham Maslow. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the idea that some needs in life are relatively more basic than others and must be satisfied before the deeper needs can be fulfilled. On the bottom of the hierarchy are physiological needs: food, water, sleep, etc. Then come the needs of safety, followed by love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization, Maslow's top-level goal. Personally, I think that the latter three are not dependent on one another, and I would tend to lump them all into a broader category of spiritual needs which can be pursued independently of one another.
I argue that both liberals (and social democrats!) and conservatives believe in a kind of equality of opportunity, but they believe that this should be located at different places along the hierarchy of needs. Republicans believe everyone should have an equal opportunity to have their physiological and safety needs satisfied. Democrats believe everyone should have an equal opportunity to fulfill their spiritual needs, which requires that their physiological and safety needs be satisfied across the board. So when Republicans say that we liberals believe in equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity, they're right, we do, at the lower levels of the hierarchy of needs. But they, by the same logic, are opposed to an equality of opportunity at the higher levels that we liberals like to focus on. They favor a world in which some people are denied the opportunity to live a fulfilling life with deeper meaning, based on their failures to attain security and sustenance. And to claim that this amounts to endorsing equality of opportunity is to claim that those spiritual needs are worthless, to endorse a shallow, debased view of what makes life good.
To bring this back to Thomas Jefferson (and I should give credit here to my father, who came up with this part of the argument), it's Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. It is not the pursuit of life, or the pursuit of liberty. Life and liberty are guaranteed. Happiness cannot be guaranteed, but the conditions that enable an active pursuit of happiness can be.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Votes-Seats Distribution
Point of interest: (-1, 217), so we need at least one seat we're currently trailing by more than a point in order to keep the gavel in Pelosi's hands.
There are 34 districts within 3 points one way or the other, and 52 districts within 5 points. And 89 within 10 points. A uniform national swing (thanks, England!) of 5 points toward Democrats, and we'd keep 238 seats, better than we had after 2006. A UNS against us of 5 points? 186 seats, a total disaster. That's a pretty big margin with fairly little change in votes.
As always, the swing won't be uniform or national, but it's still a convenient and, I think, somewhat informative way of analyzing everything.
The Liberal Brand
I've seen a few articles on the Internet the past week or so about the "liberal brand," with one person arguing that we liberals do a much worse job of branding ourselves than conservatives, partly because we don't know what our real core message/value is, and another person arguing that electorally, it doesn't matter. I'd just like to say that I'm a liberal and I know perfectly well what my core value/message is, or at least the one I refer to by "liberalism." As a liberal, the kind of society I want to see is one where everyone is free to live their life as they see fit. This freedom "to" takes the form of three freedoms "from:" first, freedom from active interference in individuals' pursuit of happiness, as in religiously-inspired anti-gay laws; second, freedom from acute material want, which (given the fact of scarcity) implies no freedom to live a life of such opulence that it forces others into acute material want; and third, ideally, freedom from a restrictive, oppressive culture that might accomplish de facto what the first of my freedoms-from outlaws de jure. The ordering is one of importance and of logical priority, I'd say, although it's a very close case between #1 and #2.
That's my liberalism. If other people who call themselves liberals don't basically agree with me on that, then we're using what amounts to two different words that happen to look and sound alike. But as far as I can tell, liberals in this country actually have a more cohesive vision of what we want this society to look like than conservatives do. If there's a popular perception to the contrary, it's probably mainly because unlike liberals, conservatives have this giant propaganda machine from which 40% of the country gets their "news."
That's my liberalism. If other people who call themselves liberals don't basically agree with me on that, then we're using what amounts to two different words that happen to look and sound alike. But as far as I can tell, liberals in this country actually have a more cohesive vision of what we want this society to look like than conservatives do. If there's a popular perception to the contrary, it's probably mainly because unlike liberals, conservatives have this giant propaganda machine from which 40% of the country gets their "news."
Monday, October 4, 2010
The 2011 New York Mets
Here's my analysis of how the 2011 Mets should be constructed. Fundamentally, my philosophy is this: there's a lot of good talent here, in fact in some places a surplus of talent, and I don't think it takes a whole lot to get back to contender status. I almost think, in fact, that you could find a contending team almost entirely constructed of players currently under Mets control.
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