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.
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