In Search of Banzai Republicans

Posted on 2009-10-22 by David

photo credit: jpellgen

Holly has a great post/discussion about why Unity at all costs is the wrong message for the GOP today. Within her post was one small statement that I had been thinking about for weeks:

Too many are not willing to lose . . .

I thought of calling such leaders Kamikaze Republicans but there is an important difference. Kamikaze attacks could not have the attacker survive and have the attack be successful. Banzai attacks had a low probability of success, but the attacker could still hope to both live and be successful. Kamikaze attackers intend to destroy themselves in hopes of breaking their opponents while banzai attackers are willing to stand for their principles even if it means they lose in the effort.

Show me the republican leader who is willing to end their political life in order to maintain a principle in which they should not compromise. For that matter, define for me the principles of the Republican Party for which the party should take an uncompromising stand.

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We Should Make That Illegal

Posted on 2009-10-21 by David

I heard a report of a store robbery this morning and the description of the perpetrator sounded very familiar – dark clothing, dark beanie hat, you know the drill. As I heard it I discarded the remote possibility that there is one man or a small group that use that outfit as their signature in committing these felonies. This led me to a new conclusion (I’m amazed nobody has thought of this before) – the availability of dark clothing, especially dark t-shirts and dark beanie hats, induces people to commit robberies.

We should make the production and sale of those clothing items illegal and remove the temptation to commit these robberies.

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Half-Truths from the White House

Posted on 2009-10-20 by David

I am not naive enough to expect more than a half truth from a political leader anymore but I am still naive enough to do what little I can to expose the half of what they say that is false. The White House blog sets out to expose the Republican Leaders’ Plan to “Delay, Define, and Derail” health care legislation. Their closing statement is the classic half truth:

. . . while we remain committed to working with those in both parties who have good-faith proposals about how to strengthen the final reform bill, we will not stand idly by in the face of false accusations aimed to score political points or maintain the status quo at all costs.

They toss around the “false accusations” claim within eye-shot of publishing some false accusations of their own. For example, in that very statement they imply that  Republicans have offered no good-faith proposals. That’s not the first time they make that claim in their post. Earlier they said:

Republican leaders will resort to the time-honored tactic of attempting to stall reform to death – raising arbitrary and disingenuous hurdles under the guise of wanting further debate, when in reality they have no intention of offering constructive proposals.

Every time they make the claim that Republican’s have offered no constructive proposals voters need to recognize that only two types of administrations could make that claim right now. Either the administration is lying through their teeth (the more likely of the two) or else they are genuinely unaware of the good faith proposals that Republicans have offered such as HR 3400, which Democrats in control of Congress are not even willing to debate. Either kind of administration (dishonest or ignorant) is extremely dangerous to our nation. If they are dishonest they must be stopped. If they are ignorant they must become informed. I’m willing to work on both routes until I can prove which kind of administration we have.

Another half truth offered by the White House in that post is to reassert the claim (by using the CBO) that their bill will lower the deficit.

Republican leaders intend to repeat their claims that reform “will raise insurance premiums on individuals and families, while failing to lower the overall amount of money that the U.S. spends on health care… even though the nonpartisan CBO predicted the [Senate Finance Committee] bill would reduce the deficit and lower the cost curve, even as it extends coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.”

It has already been shown by history that the CBO estimate is based on the shakiest footing imaginable because it depends on Congress doing what it has never done before – cutting medicare spending. Until democratic leaders can show how they will actually fulfill the mythical fiscal promises in the bill that make that CBO estimate possible there’s no reasons to believe them over the Republicans. No matter who is proposing a bill there is no reason to pass it so long as there are significant unanswered questions about how it will actually work.

The Democrats are proposing bills that will not take effect for years and which depend on premises that are not dependable and then they wonder why people are hopping off their “Hope and Change” train.

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Two Good Ideas in One Bad Bill

Posted on 2009-10-19 by David

It’s back – the bill that just won’t die. Let’s first explain why this is such a bad bill that I never pass up an opportunity to oppose it. First, it’s unconstitutional and both sides are compromising the integrity of their ideals in order to produce this bad bill. Second, this is an example of governing by exception which is a long-term recipe for disaster. Having only states be represented in Congress is good, except that we want to treat D.C. more like a state. The current census apportionment process is good, except that Utah felt bad about not getting an extra seat on a technical sliver. Long-term the only people who come out ahead when governing by exception are the exploiters who prefer to live in loopholes rather than being ensnared by the system that they are taking advantage of. These are the same people who rarely if ever actually contribute anything to the society in return for playing the leeches role.

There are two very good ideas in this bill which should be pursued without compromise. The first is giving D.C. a voting representative in the House. Any citizen who is subject to the same federal tax laws as the citizens of the states should have a voting representative in Congress – as far as I know that is only D.C. but that rule would apply to any citizen who did not live in a state whether we started taxing American Samoa or Puerto Rico the same as we do for the 50 states. The privilege of representation in the House should be based on the responsibility to pay taxes because taxation is the primary responsibility of the House. Representation in the Senate should be a privilege limited to full statehood.

The second good idea in the bill is the expansion of the House. This should be much more than two seats. In fact what we need is a bill (probably an amendment) that defines the size of the House as a function of population by setting the maximum number of citizens that a Representative in the House may represent. While I would argue that the size of the house should be multiples of its current size even setting such a ration to such an unmanageable number as 500,000 citizens  per representative would be an improvement over this static “435 seats in the House” that we have currently. (That would add somewhere near 100 new representatives – as opposed to the paltry 2 being proposed in this bill.)

While I am not a fan of legislative manipulation tactics (such as the NRA killing the bill previously by attaching an amendment that would curtail the gun laws in D.C.) I have to say that it is better to prevent a law from passing using such tactics than it is to enact a law using such tactics (such as slipping the bill into a “must pass” defense appropriations bill as they are talking about trying now).

The fact that the people pushing this bill have not even proposed an amendment to give D.C. the voting representative they deserve demonstrates that they are more interested int he power grab than they are in actually helping the people of D.C. If they were serious about the issue they would at least be making that kind of proposal even if they also pursued this unconstitutional path.

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An Island in the Midst of an Ocean

Posted on 2009-10-16 by David

When I complained about the tone of the Sean Hannity show a couple of weeks ago Frank Staheli pointed me towards the Neal Boortz show broadcast on Freedom 570. Over the last couple of weeks I have been listening to the station. I have heard many of the shows as I have listened at various times and found that I was really enjoying the tone of the shows being broadcast – it was an essentially civil island in the midst of  the ocean of conservative talk radio. Neal Boortz  is not my favorite of their shows, but his tone was so much nicer than Hannity.

Today I discovered a mud puddle in the midst of the Freedom 570 lineup. I drove home earlier than usual today and heard the Todd Schnitt show for the first time which had more of a Hannity tone. While it may not be fully representative of the show I was disappointed to hear Schnitt’s coverage of the apparent uproar over a picture of Meghan McCain that got posted on the internet (by Meghan apparently). Schnitt had to take the time to rave about Meghan’s physique and insist that the picture get a more prominent place on his website.

I have not seen the picture, but I have enough information from what I head from Schnitt before turning the show off to comment on the situation. Schnitt has demonstrated his immaturity and lack of class by the types of comments he felt compelled to make. Meghan has shown her naivety by even posting the image and acting as if the uproar was not predictable. Apparently some have called her a slut – without even going to see the picture I think it’s safe to say that she was just plain foolish. The only good that came out of it is that I now know to pass on opportunities to listen to Schnitt.

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Fundraising Tells Us a Story

Posted on 2009-10-16 by David

The third quarter just ended which means its time that the public can start learning how candidates have done on fundraising for the last quarter. The fundraising reports are pretty dry and generally boring. They always result in reports about which opponents in any given race are getting the most cash such as Bennett outpaces Shurtleff in fundraising, but the fundraising reports also tell us stories about the state of politics in general and specific races in particular.

The big race in Utah right now is the 2010 race for the senate seat currently held by Bennett. The story on that particular race is that Bennett is raising more money than Shurtleff or any of his other challengers. This should hardly surprise anyone because of his incumbency. Money spent on a challenger is a sign of support and hopes for what that challenger will do in the future if they win. It might also be a bit of a statement against the incumbent, but disappointment with the incumbent does not tend to appear as a large campaign donation to a challenger this early in the race. Money spent on an incumbent is support for the future and an opportunity in the present to weigh in on the issues between now and election day next year – that extra year of getting an actual legislator to listen to you is bound to attract more cash.

Bennett’s only Democratic challenger raised “about $19,600 in the third quarter” demonstrating that Utah is still solidly Republican and few people are even looking to the Democrats for serious consideration.

Another story in that particular rage is this:

A shotgun shooting event raised $88,600 for the Shurtleff Joint Fund. That total includes $25,000 from Provo-based company Success Multimedia, $20,000 from Nu Skin, and $10,000 each from EnergySolutions and USANA Health Sciences.

The fact that Shurtleff raises large chunks of cash from a few organizations for individual events tells us that Shurtleff is almost guaranteed to be the same type of politician as Bennett no matter how different he claims to be on the campaign trail. Some people will like that, others will not, but that’s the story told by the money. Hopefully nobody expects more than cosmetic change if Shurtleff succeeds in replacing Bennett.

It was a later portion of the article that tells the story of the state of politics generally:

The Hatch campaign traded in an old Cadillac for a newer, but still used, Cadillac, spending $36,900 at Young Chevrolet. The senator will use the car when he is in the state.

I doubt that there is anything unusual about this for a sitting member of Congress – which is what irks me. Do I have any reason to complain about how Hatch spends money that is not taken from taxpayers by force? No, but the story this tells is instructive.

I have no problem with Hatch buying a Cadillac. I have no problem with him spending more on a used car that I have spent on cars in the whole of my life. (I’ve purchased 3 cars myself and if you added those prices together plus all my repairs and gas purchased for the last 10 years it still probably comes out to less than $36K.) The thing I have a problem with is that we pay this man $180,000 a year – which should be enough to afford a car for D.C. and a car for Utah – and on top of that salary he still gets to use his campaign fundraising money as a permanent expense account. If he’s getting a $600,000 per year expense account (notice that his election is 3 years away right now and he’s still taking in over half a million per year) why are we paying him another $180,000? Is it any wonder that sitting members of Congress can so easily get completely out of touch with reality when we pay them that much and still allow them to take many of their basic expenses out of a completely separate fund?

If I believed that was an honest way to make a living I would start permanently campaigning for high profile offices as soon as I believed that I could attract even a fraction of the donations that Hatch receives in perpetuity.

The moral of the story about politics generally is that freeloading is alive and well at all levels of society – we give our leaders precisely what many people in society wish they had.

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Make a Commitment

Posted on 2009-10-15 by David

photo credit: doctor paradox

On Wednesday I caught perhaps 10 minutes of the Jason Lewis Show but in that short window Jason captured for about 60 seconds exactly what is wrong with this country and how it can be fixed. (Here’s a link to that hour of his show.) Here is my transcript of the relevant statement (starting at 30:03 in the audio file):

We are consumed by things that don’t matter because we don’t have the intellectual discipline to stay focused, we make excuses.

You know really, if you wanted to make a statement, if you were truly upset and you wanted to make a statement: A) You would be bright enough to understand what’s going on, most people are too obtuse to realize that, most people are more concerned about X-Box than they are about what’s happening in Washington and so, frankly, we’re a nation of dolts. But if you could get people to think and to study and to realize what’s going on and that they knew economics and civics, that would be the first step.

The second step would be – everybody in the year 2010 would simply devote, make a commitment right now that they are going to spend two hours a week, three hours a week, four hours a week on campaigns. They’re going to take back their city council, they’re going to take back their party, they’re going to take back their county commission, they’re going to take back their state legislature, they’re going to take back Congress. Their going to find a candidate or two and they are going to work harder than they ever have, they’re going to spread the word, they might write a check for thirty bucks or three thousand bucks, but they’re going to do something.

There’s no substitute for commitment and hard work and that’s what needs to take place. Am I certain it will? No I’m not at all.

I’m absolutely sure that Jason is right about that. In fact I would go further and say that this nation would change drastically within two years if 60% of eligible voters would take just three hours per week to take the actions he suggested – that includes the fact that all those voters would come to a wide variety of conclusions about the proper course of action to deal with the problems we face.

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A Tale of Two Vice Presidents

Posted on 2009-10-15 by David

photo credit: BlatantNews.com

Once upon a time there was a young president who had campaigned on a platform of using the military more conservatively than his predecessor (who happened to be in the other party). During the campaign he had chosen a more experienced man as his running mate in an effort to soothe those voters who might be uncomfortable with his youth an lack of extensive experience.

Once in office an opportunity for military action presented itself and his vice president was among those who were keen to take the opportunity. Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, the president heeded the advice of his hawkish vice president and took the necessary steps to expand his use of the military  contrary to his campaign rhetoric.

Of course I am talking about George Bush here and his vice president, Dick Cheney. The trick is that the first paragraph applies word for word to Barack Obama and his vice president, Joe Biden.

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Freedom OF Religion

Posted on 2009-10-14 by David

[quote]By now everybody in Utah at least has heard about the speech given by Elder Dallin H. Oaks at the BYU-Idaho devotional yesterday on the subject of freedom of religion. It will surprise nobody who knows anything about me to hear that I agree 100% with everything he said.

Considering that I could not hope to add insights beyond those of Elder Oaks some might question why I would bother to write anything about his speech. There are two reasons – first, this subject of our freedom of religion (for any atheists I could comfortably call it “freedom of conscience”) is important to every American who cares about preserving a viable nation where we enjoy any amount of liberty whatsoever and thus I could not pass up the chance to promote that message; and second, when I saw that some of what he said was being misunderstood (as shown in a poll where 2 in 3 respondents disagreed with his  assertion that the retaliation and intimidation against supporters of Prop. 8 was similar in nature to the voter-intimidation of blacks in the South) I knew that it was necessary for people who understood what he said to stand up and declare their understanding.

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Budget Hero Revisited

Posted on 2009-10-14 by David

A post from last year that came up in my daily archive caught my attention with its title, A Budgetary Hat-Trick, I had a look to remind myself and rediscovered Budget Hero. When I played last year the budget was projected to go bust in 2033 barring any changes and I managed to balance the budget, increase security, achieve energy independence, and eliminate government waste at the same time so that the budget bust date was pushed back to sometime after 2070. When I looked this year I saw that the game had been updated after the stimulus and bailouts of the past year. The budget is now scheduled to go bust in 2028 without changes. That made me curious about whether I could still balance the budget. Remembering that all of this is completely dependent on the assumptions built into the game, here are the results I got.

I was able to balance the budget and run huge surpluses within 9 years by cutting virtually everything I could think of and jacking up the taxes on everything under the sun. Being a bit more reasonable I was able, like last year, to push the budget bust date into the indefinite future and achieve the goals of increasing national security, cutting government waste, and becoming energy independent.

Besides changing the starting numbers for the federal government fiscal situation the game was also updated to include new priorities to pursue (at least my memory tells me that “Health and Wellness” and “Economic Stimulus” are new since last year). I decided to see if it was even possible to increase national security, reduce government waste, and promote health and wellness simultaneously. It took more work than achieving energy independence and it was absolutely necessary to pass the Cap and Tax to get it done, but I was able achieve these goals.

It should be noted that I only achieved a very modest reduction in the deficit with these goals and I barely managed to earn the “Efficient Government” badge when trying to also get “Health and Wellness” but I did figure it out. I am absolutely confident that if the game were to allow players to choose 4 goals rather than 3 it would be impossible to get “Health and Wellness” and “Energy Independence” while still increasing national security and making government more efficient – something would have to give. (There are other sets of four badges that could probably be accomplished simultaneously.)

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