Speaking My Native Language

Posted on 2008-11-12 by David

I have always tried to maintain a very civilized and respectful tone here when discussing issues that are sometimes charged with emotion in the public arena. I have been reading the book Why We Whisper and I began to recognize that my efforts to be civil had resulted in my speaking a dialect that is not native to me – secularism. I recognize that my effort not to shout had resulted in a timid whispering of my opinions for which I would not like to be known. The result is that my declared stances are weakened by an often apologetic tone when I take a position on some issues. I have determined that I can no longer do that. From now on I will be more willing to state my positions without apology and without an effort to articulate my position using secular terminology.

I still intend to be civil in manner, but by abandoning the secular terminology I will not avoid taking positions that are considered politically incorrect. As I have in the past, I will still be open to changing my positions in the future when I have been convinced of an error but I will try to avoid situations where people might mistake my true position based on my whispered stances and open declarations of uncertainty.

I appologize in advance to any of my readers who might perceive my writing as becoming more partisan than it has been in the past. I don’t know where this will take me, but I know that I cannot bear to think of myself as one who whispers the truth as if I am afraid to offend anyone or afraid that my positions may come back to haunt me in the future.

In addition to this change to a less wavering voice, I have also determined that it is time for me to find a party to affilite with in order to become more engaged in the political process as a participant rather than just as a pundit. I am still in the process of deciding what party would most closely align with my goals because I intend to make a difference in shaping the way we actually conduct the business of government. I do not intend to participate only in order to say that "I’m a delegate" (or whatever level of participation I actually  achieve). In other words, if I were a delegate, I would be active in shaping the party platform and holding elected officials accountable to that platform not simply attending and casting a vote at the convention.

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Post-Election Subjects

Posted on 2008-11-11 by David

There must be something about the conclusion of an election that brings up the subject of term limits. I wrote about it a couple of times a year ago and have said nothing about it since then. Now the Standard Examiner has an article saying that It’s time to reignite the debate over term limits. The article talks about previous efforts to enact term limits in the late 90’s. In the comments section for the article Tired Old Argument says:

Term limits basically says, we don’t trust the voters to make a good, informed decision.

What Tired Old Argument forgets is that in a republic, such as the one we live in, the very structure of government says that we should not trust the voters to be able to be adequately informed for most major decisions – that’s why they are supposed to delegate the task to their best and brightest (which is who they would elect in theory). It turns out that our history suggests that knowing when to replace their elected representatives is among the things that voters are not very adept at doing.

This years numbers are instructive on this point. Congress has been mired with approval ratings hovering near 10% for most of the last year. Logically this would suggest that we would have a high rate of turnover when elections come amidst such an approval rating. In fact, approximately 90% of our elected officials are returning to Washington (this is not counting those who are returning as lobbyists or in appointed positions). What is even more telling is that of the 6 of the 10% who are not returning to elected office retired voluntarily. When 90% disapproval results in 95% retention that suggests that the voters are not very adept at replacing their elected officials.

As Reach Upward so astutely articulated in last year’s discussion:

. . . it may be good to toss even great statesmen because the office is more important than any person that may hold it.

(I will be quick to point out that Reach had no committed position on the issue of term limits at that time.) I would love to hear from anyone on where they stand on the issue after our elections this year.

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Laboratories of Democracy

Posted on 2008-11-10 by David

I have been thinking about the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution (FF&C) and how that has played out in some areas of public policy. Specifically I have been thinking about how some areas of policy allow for states to pick and choose what faith and credit they apply to the policies of other states and how that contributes to the laboratories of democracy that out states were expected to become within our nation.

Specifically I woke up thinking about gun rights. This is not because I carry a gun for my own protection, although I fully support a broad interpretation to the 2nd Amendment, it is simply because it provided a convenient illustration of the issue.

Full faith and credit might be used to argue that every state should be required to accept a concealed carry permit issued by any other state. In fact they do not. Each state is able to set their own requirements to carry such a permit and also to permit reciprocity of permit recognition with other states on a state-by-state basis. The thing that got me thinking of that is that Utah’s permit is one of the most widely recognized permits in the nation.

This lack of uniformity among the various states allows people to experiment with different approaches to problems and different variations on legislation. Each state is then able to recognize and/or duplicate what they see as successful in other states. This is true of individuals as well as states. For example, gays who wish to marry are free to move to Massachusetts while residents of Massachusetts may choose to leave the state if they find themselves in the minority and do not like the side effects of legalized homosexual marriage.

This kind of legislative experimentation was short circuited in the abortion debate when the Supreme Court stepped in and eliminated a wide range of available positions that had been adopted by many of the states. The Defense of Marriage Act was passed specifically in an effort to ensure that the debate about what constituted legal marriage would be allowed to follow its natural course between states rather than ahving that debate hijacked by the courts or by the argument of FF&C combined with a Massachusetts choosing to be the first to recognize a form of marriage that was prohibited elsewhere.

I don’t think we will be able to solve our national issues in any reasonable time frame unless we quit thinking that we have to solve everything from the top down with one unified solution for each issue. We should allow each state to decided which problems they feel are the most pressing and to push for solutions on those issues. That allows all the issues to be addressed simultaneously and for different approaches to be tested on each issue. If we had ten major issues that were widely considered to be our most pressing we might find that there are four to six states choosing to tackle each issue allowing us to test four to six approaches to each problem simultaneously. The other 44 to 46 states can adopt their favorite approach, or mix and match for a second round of experimentation.

It seems to me that there is only one truly federal problem that we face – that is our overspending habit by the federal government. The solution to that one problem is simple – start spending less by getting out of the business of trying to solve all the problems of the country. Start acting like a coach managing the strategy direction and development of the team (which includes states on defense and private enterprise on offense) rather than trying to be the star player trying to single-handedly carry the team to a championship.

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Legislated Equality

Posted on 2008-11-10 by David

I have been thinking about the “equality” that we equate with the American dream – the one that we want our government to guarantee for us. This has lead me to consider the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes. I don’t think that many people would openly argue for equality of outcomes if people see that argument as depicting that everybody should be earning $50,000 a year with no opportunity to earn more. As much as we may like equality we always want the chance to get ahead of the Joneses.  This tells me that what we really want as a nation is equality of opportunity which leaves us with the issue of defining what that means.

We can easily see that an equality of outcomes would encompass legislation that the demographics of any profession must match the demographics of the population at large. Unfortunately, what gets argued by the discrimination chasers is that equality of opportunity requires enforced demographics in hiring or admissions processes. They ignore the fact that demography based approaches to equality lead exactly to the best possible outcomes that governments can guarantee. If we would like to see where that leads we need look no further than our public education system. For decades the system has become centrally controlled to greater and greater degrees and during that same time period we have fallen further in our educational outcomes whether compared to other nations or compared to objective standards such as literacy levels or percentage of graduates who have basic mathematical competency. Our public education system has shown unequivocally that legislating an equality of outcomes is tantamount to legislating a low quality outcome.

When we talk about guaranteeing an equality of opportunity we can look to the 14th amendment as an example of what such legislation would look like and how it would operate (specifically the first two sections). This amendment did not guarantee that every male would vote, nor did it specify that the number of white men voting would only be proportional to the number of white men in the voting population as a whole. Instead it specified that the right for men to vote should not be abridged and specified the penalty incurred by the state for violating that right. The key here is that the punishment – although aimed at ending racial discrimination at the voting booth – was completely colorblind. If a state were to become dominated by Latinos due to immigration – let’s say New Mexico for example – and the majority of citizens chose to implement a policy stating that voters must have ancestors from Central or South America in order to vote New Mexico would be subject to the punishment of only having representation in Congress proportional to the population which had Central or South American ancestry. In fact the state would be allowed to do that.

Equality of opportunity  leaves the door wide open for unequal outcomes. An open door for unequal outcomes is an open door for incentive to promote outcomes that are above average – in other words, the opportunity to fail is the best motivation to succeed. Now we need to ensure that our government does not try to legislate the equality of outcomes, only of opportunity.

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A Step Backwards in Utah

Posted on 2008-11-07 by David

Some people might think that Tuesday was a step backwards because Obama won. Others might consider it a step backwards because Chris Buttars won again. The real step backwards was that 59,000 fewer people voted in Utah this year than in 2004. That is not just lower percentage turnout, that’s lower numbers.

Mark Thomas with the Lieutenant Governor’s Office says . . . the ballot generally lacked hotly contested local races.

“There are people who feel that this is a Republican state and my vote won’t make a difference,” Thomas says. “But I think that’s not a very good attitude in the sense that there are a lot of other races that do affect you, and perhaps even more so in your day to day life, on a local level.”

We need hotly contested local races on a consistent basis to bring people out to the polls. Too many of our elected officials are chosen at the state and county Republican Party conventions where only the elected delegates get to vote. It cannot be considered anything like a democracy when our officials are chosen by the votes of less than 1% of the population (the delegates) who were given the chance to vote based on the support of the 2% of our population who attended their neighborhood caucus meetings.

I’m almost tempted to suggest that the Republicans be allowed (required?) to place two candidates for every office in Davis and Utah counties just so that the general election will have some real meaning. Perhaps better would be a general rule that in a county where more than 70% of the elected officials come from a single party that party be required to field two candidates in the general election. After all, the first Tuesday in November was supposed to be a choice, not a ratification.

Posted in Local, State | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments

Huntsman for Senate (2012)

Posted on 2008-11-06 by David

After receiving more than 75% of the vote on Tuesday Huntsman has to be considered the person most able to oust Orrin Hatch when he comes up for re-election.

Huntsman said he hopes he can build "coalitions" with willing legislators from both political parties to achieve what he believes must be done. "Not running again (for governor) means no political game-playing — but doing what is right for all Utahns," he said.

The fact that he has promised not to seek a third term (and reiterated that promise) combined with the fact that McCain is not going to the White House means that he will be looking for something to do when this term expires. I’d love to see another popular Republican who would take on Hatch to refresh our senate representation with a Utahn (Hatch can barely find Utah on a map – his politics are all Washington).

Now we just need someone to run against Sen. Bennett in 2010. Perhaps Steve Urquart could do that now that he won’t have to worry about his own re-election in 2010.

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An Illegal Constitutional Revision?

Posted on 2008-11-05 by David

Gay-rights advocates in California think that everyone else is an imbecile. They have decided to file a lawsuit claiming that Proposition 8 is "an illegal constitutional revision — not a more limited amendment." They expect that nobody will recognize that the California Constitution makes no distinction between an amendment and a revision. They also expect that they can bully people into forgetting that the nature of an amendment is that it cannot be illegal so long as it is enacted according to the established procedures.

Of course it is possible to make an amendment that goes against common sense, such as an amendment to designate that "in government math 2+3=7." As stupid as that sounds, if such an amendment were passed into law by following the established procedures it would be the law of the state and government calculations would have to be revised accordingly until an amendment were passed to repeal it. (Think back on the 18th and 21st amendments to the federal Constitution.)

There is no such thing as an illegal constitutional revision so long as the revision is made according to the legal procedures. They just hope they can bully the people of California through the courts on this like they did with Proposition 22 from 2000. The difference is that Proposition 8 is now the law of California and the California courts may not invalidate their own constitution – only a new amendment can do that.

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Supporting Our Leaders

Posted on 2008-11-05 by David

As I read so many posts today celebrating the victory of Barack Obama in the presidential race I worried that I might appear to be a disheartened McCain supporter because of my lack of enthusiasm for the outcome of the race. First of all, I am neither disheartened nor a McCain supporter. Secondly, my lack of enthusiasm stems from the fact that I fully expected the results of the presidential race to look much like they did yesterday. On the other hand, I consider today to be a very good day to talk about our political process and specifically our role as citizens now that the voting is over.

Yesterday, before any results were in, DownsizeDC.org declared a state of permanent preparedness for impeachment. They argued that we should be ever watchful of our leaders and be prepared to impeach them as soon as they give grounds for impeachment. (To be fair, they indicated that neither candidate had yet given such grounds.) They stated that they considered it a mistake that they had not previsouly supported impeachment for our current president. Overcoming my initial rejection of this stance I realized that there was some logic behind their position – especially regarding elected officials at the federal level. I would like to approach the issue from the opposite direction. Now that the votes have been cast and our representatives chosen, it is the duty and responsibility of every citizen to support their elected officials and encourage them to live up to the best of their potential. Slate illustrates that idea with Six Ways Obama Can Show He’ll Be a Different Kind of President.

We need to start with the hope that our leaders live up to the best vision of themselves that they presented – that would mean hoping that Obama lives up to his lofty rhetoric concerning bipartisanship and transparency. Perhaps more importantly we should be supporting our local representatives. Now is not the time for all of us who have been talking about candidates and issues through the election to sit back and leave those who have been elected alone to do their jobs. We need to reach out to them, whether we supported or opposed them, and offer our support. We must be willing to meet with them, share our ideas, and encourage them in the difficult tasks that they will face.

We must start with the assumption that each of them is a patriot who wants what’s best for their fellow citizens – even if we don’t see eye to eye on what the best looks like.

Posted in Local, National, State | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Go Vote Now

Posted on 2008-11-04 by David

I went to my polling place this morning and the lines were so long (at 7:00 am) that I decided to go to work first. My first thought was that maybe I didn’t need to remind anyone to vote today but then I thought better of it. Everyone go vote as early as you can (especially in the Bountiful 18th Precinct) so the lines won’t be so long at 6:00 pm when I will go try again. Due to sickness and the subsequent catching up I was unable to participate in early voting last week so now I will be trying to go after work. I will be waiting in line if necessary.

I talked to Scott, one of my coworkers who voted this morning, and he noticed that one of the things that made the lines go slower was having people standing at the voting booths reading about the issues (such as the Constitutional Amendments). Having done his research in advance, he was able to cast all his votes and leave while the people at the other booths before him were still making their choices. Based on that, perhaps the Lieutenant Governor might provide a one page summary of those types of issues that will be on the ballot so that people can read while they stand in line rather than holding up the line by reading at the booth.

While you are waiting to vote, go have a look at  Jordy’s list of potential ways to choose who you vote for.

Posted in life, Local | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Pursue a Real Solution

Posted on 2008-11-03 by David

I have been staunchly opposed to this expansion of the House of Representatives to grant D.C. a voting representative. The political compromise of giving a balancing seat to the Republicans (for Utah) until the next census doesn’t make the move any more legal. Despite what some people may believe I am not opposed to D.C. having a voting representative, but I am opposed to giving D.C. special treatment. As the House of Representatives was intended to represent the people of the United States it would make sense to amend the Constitution to state that:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, districts, and territories of the United States. (changes in bold)

To that ammendment I would add (perhaps as a separate section) the stipulation that:

The size of the House of Representatives shall be determined by the decennial census and the number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand nor fall below one for every two hundred thousand, but each state shall have at least one Representative; (changes in bold)

Such an amendment would provide a legal remedy to the non-voting status of D.C. but would also fix the same issue faces by other U.S. territories. At the same time it would reverse the arbitrary limit on the size of the House of Representatives that was enacted in 1911. This would all be done without resorting to political deal-making in which the deal makers (like our beloved Senator Hatch) feel free to ignore the law of the land in the name of whatever they deem as good.

I have already talked about Thirty-Thousand.org but I was surprised to learn of other groups that oppose Public Law 62-5 (as that bill is known). There was even a good article about it in the Daily Kos back in 2006 (which is where I picked the upper bound at 200,000). Back then the Republicans were in control of both houses of Congress, now that Democrats are in control I doubt that the Daily Kos would be very supportive of such a change since it’s their party that is holding the concentrated reins of power now.

I would like to see all those who are interested in returning to population based representation start working with DC Vote to encourage them to push for a full and legal solution to their issue rather than sadling us with the illegal, “politically expedient” half measure they have been pursuing. Perhaps reminding them that they would be able to get three or four voting members of Congress might pursuade them to take up the banner.

Posted in National, State | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments