I guess this means that I should abandon that thin sliver of hope that some post-hypnotic suggestion would cause Bush to name Senator Hatch as the new Attorney General and give us an easy way to put him out to pasture.
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Prosecuting Religious Beliefs
On Friday I saw the news from the first day of the Warren Jeffs trial. Connected to the particular story that I read was audio of Jeffs teaching youth classes in his polygamous community. I was curious to hear the words and voice of a man as twisted as Jeffs has been portrayed in the media. I was surprised to find a man whose voice and tone were so mild an unpretentious. I had expected someone more commanding and authoritative, but I found someone who was earnest and soft-spoken. (This should not be taken as an endorsement for any of the doctrines of his church.)
As I learned more of the details of the case being prosecuted I was surprised to learn that polygamy was not even an issue in this case. The bride was 14 at the time she married her 19 year old cousin as his first wife. One of my brothers is almost that much older than his wife, so the age difference is of little concern. Nor have I seen any indications that the husband took a second wife at any point. I started to wonder if the prosecution is wasting time on a case that they expect to lose.
This realization got me thinking about the slippery slope we get on the moment that we start legislating against belief and not actions. I am convinced that Warren Jeffs honestly believes in the doctrines of his church – after all, he grew up with that belief system. I think of Alma 1: 17-18
. . . now the law could have no power on any man because of his belief. And they durst not steal for fear of the law, for such were punished; neither durst they rob, nor murder, for he that murdered was punished unto death.
We can’t try to stamp out a belief in the practice of polygamy. We can enforce the laws against the practice of polygamy, but this trial is set up as an attempt to dampen the beliefs of those who engage in polygamy – that is not something that the law is equipped to do, nor is it something that the law should attempt to do.
Libertarianism
Early in my political study I flirted with the ideas of libertarianism. I was highly disenchanted with the Republicans and skeptical of the chances that the Democrats could right their party which, at the time, lacked a specific direction. I had taken the worlds smallest political quiz and though my score varied at times I was consistently conservative on the economic scale so I was not a “Statist” (big government) but I had enough movement to score as a Republican, a Libertarian, or a Centrist. I have since concluded that part of the reason I scored as a Libertarian at times is that the quiz is made by Libertarians and the questions are worded so that if you are borderline you are likely to score as a Libertarian.
So why do I bring up this old information? Because I was surprised to learn about some other people who have traveled a similar path of considering Libertarianism. The difference is that Scott is much more articulate in stating Why I Am Not a Pure Libertarian. I think the explanation is beneficial for Libertarians or anyone who is exploring their own political leanings. (This also explains why I agree with Scott such a high percentage of the time.)
No to Newt
Over at Oval Office there is a discussion about the implications of a potential presidential run for Newt Gingrich. I have to agree with the assessment that:
My take on the idea of Gingrich getting into the race at this point is that he would split the party’s votes further than it is already. . . But he wouldn’t draw from Giuliani’s support. It looks to me like those Republicans who have decided to support Hizzonner are sticking with him.
That is a scary scenario to me. The only serious candidate (meaning, not those like John Cox or Tom Tancredo) that I like less than Newt in the Republican field is Rudy. I was happy early this year when the conventional wisdom was that Newt would not choose to run if Fred Thompson ran. Now I am hoping that Newt will choose not to run and I think the best thing that could happen would be for Mitt Romney to win convincingly in Iowa so that most of the other candidates drop out. I really don’t think that Rudy can get support from more than half the Republican primary voters so if the field is narrowed to two early Rudy won’t get the nomination. (I pick Mitt partly because he has the financial backing to stand toe to toe with Rudy.)
Our Crisis in Foreign Policy
Frank does a good job discussing One Lesson From Two September 11th Events. He is completely right to ask:
What will it take for America to learn a similar lesson–that if we expect to be respected and not feared, that we must give respect? Why does America think it is better than the rest of the world, and that we don’t have to abide by the same rules and morals when dealing with the rest of the world? If we learned and practiced this one simple lesson, we would once again have the respect of nearly everyone. As it stands, they would spit on us if they didn’t think we’d drop a smart bomb on them for it.
Our crisis seems to be that the loudest voices in foreign policy seem to be those on the right who think that war is good for our popularity here at home (they’ve been proven wrong since we went to Iraq) and those on the left who think that spreading our money around the globe will make us popular internationally (they were proven wrong on September 11th, 2001). The fact is that both courses to action lead us to be resented. If our foreign policy was not bad enough, our domestic policy does the same thing as we insist from both camps that we must have the highest standard of living in the world. The fact is that we need to work hard and respect others and just take the standard of living that results from our hard work.
Half of the Story
In explaining why Utah politics has become totally dominated by the Republicans the Deseret Spectacle only covered one half of the story. He covers the back room machinery of the Religious Right. It would be foolish to argue that this didn’t happen, or even that it was unrelated to our current unfortunate predicament. There is another side to this tale that should be told. Ignoring this half of the story could prevent Democrats from regaining their seat at the political table in Utah.
While the maneuvering on the right has been going on since “roughly 20, 25 years ago,” there was another contributing factor which began even earlier. Fully 75 years ago we had a president, who was a Democrat and who is still highly revered for pulling us through the Great Depression. During his tenure he established many government programs which grew our government to a size and scope that had previously been unimaginable in this country. Ezra Taft Benson published The Proper Role of Government in 1968 advocating smaller government. The positions he espoused are generally highly regarded in Utah, especially after 30 years ago when our economy was doing poorly as a result of our expanded government (after the economic growth of war had run its course). This made the social environment ripe for influence by conservative movements – that’s where the explanation of the Deseret Spectacle picks up the story.
If Democrats are to hope to regain a viable voice in Utah politics they must recognize that the image of moral relativism that has been plastered on them by the Jerry Falwell’s is the most obvious deterrent to becoming relevant in Utah, but possibly not the most damaging. They must find ways to tackle issues such as preserving the environment, improving education, and economic equality among our citizens without always turning to expanded government programs.
So long as Utah Democrats remain blind on this issue they will never talk themselves back into relevancy here. In fact, while they are busy shouting that their goals are not actually immoral, the Republicans are able to maintain power even while they are fiscally so liberal that they are alienating many who can see through the cheap label that the Democrats are fighting to remove. Unfortunately for those few, the Democrats do not appear to offer a more fiscally responsible alternative.
A New Generation?
I had not planned to write anything particularly focused on the anniversary of 9/11. Certainly I am not surprised by the number of people who are writing about that. When I read The September 11 Generation Doesn’t Forget it got me wondering how much of the attitudes in that article were real and how much they were based on perceptions from a partisan standpoint. I also wondered if we had really gained a new distinct generation. If anyone has read The Fourth Turning they would recognize the significance of that.
I was disappointed to see that the inappropriate attitudes among liberals that were portrayed in the article were not merely the fancy of a conservative writer. I saw some clearly inappropriate posts on a “progressive” blog here in Utah. I won’t link to the post because any coverage that post gets is more than it deserves. In fairness, that same blog later posted a much more appropriate dissenting opinion. (I won’t link to that either because it leads so easily to the other post.) I’m not ignorant that there is plenty to criticize in our current administration, but some kinds of dissent are more destructive and less acceptable than others.
For an example of what I consider to be the best kind of commemoration for this date see SLCSpin. Like others have said – get out and vote today. Exercising that American privilege is the best commemoration of any important event in American history. For anyone in Lehi, you can learn about the candidates (if you have not already) from Utah-Candidates.com.
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Tagged citizenship, connections, discourse, generations, Lehi, media
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Apparent Inconsistencies
The voucher debate has kept educational issues prominent in my brain for quite some time now. Before spending so much time thinking about these issues it was easy to recognize the image of hypocrisy in those who stump for public education and keep their kids outside the public education system.
A far greater percentage of public school teachers around the country — especially in urban areas such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. — send their own kids to private schools than does the general public. . .
These people stump for public schooling, opposing systems of school choice. And yet, they choose to opt out of the system they allegedly shore up . . . from competition.
What I find amusing now is that I have publicly declared my position to be the very opposite of those featured in the article above. I favor the very legislation that they oppose as a means to achieve the very thing they advocate (better public schools). While favoring the voucher laws I have also declared that I intend to do what I can to encourage parents not to abandon the public school system and to make the vouchers unnecessary for most parents by improving the schools. I’m sure this is not as interesting to read as it was when the thought struck me that I may be as much a hypocrite in my position as they are in theirs.
Real Debates
Mike Huckabee has offered to debate Fred Thompson, Lincoln-Douglas style. I think that Fred should accept the offer, but I know lots of reasons why he might chose not to. Mike has nothing to lose. Few people take his candidacy as seriously as they should and the media attention of such a debate would help Mike even if he didn’t trounce Fred. Fred would probably rather pretend that there are only 4 candidates in the race (Huckabee not being one of the other 3).
I think this kind of debate would be helpful to the voters because a Lincoln-Douglas debate tends to help shape the issue in the minds of the listeners. The kind of “debates” that we get among multiple candidates on network television only serve to allow the candidates a chance to try to convince the audience that they best represent the audience, rather than framing the issue to show that they best represent the truth, or the best way forward (depending on the type of issue being debated). Ideally there would be a series of debates on a variety of issues involving different sets of candidates. Each debate should feature only two candidates but each candidate would have debates with a number of other candidates. It would turn the primary campaign into something closer to a tournament allowing us to get to know the candidates (possibly better than we do now) and also helping the voters to get to know the issues instead of just the soundbites.
I hope that Mike gets to have his debate with Fred, or one of the other higher profile candidates, because if he does I am confident that he will prove himself to be every bit the equal of any other candidate. Considering the Fred apparently expressed a desire to have this kind of debate I think he should accept. If he does not I would call it political cowardice unless he manages to arrange for this kind of debate with some better known candidate in the field within the next couple of weeks.
Reality Check
Last night I went to a UDOT open house for the East-West Connector project. This has been informally known as the 1000 South boulevard and was previously part of the Mountain View Corridor project before being broken out into a separate project. I suspect that the people working on this project for UDOT already know this, but they and the public need to recognize and reconcile themselves tot he fact that there is no alternative on this project which will satisfy everybody. Planning and building this road needs to move forward not by compromising to hurt as few feelings as possible, but by building whatever is best in the long-term interests of the area.
That’s easy for me to say since there is no way the road can be built in such a way that it will inconvenience me. It can be built badly to inconvenience everyone, but it cannot be built in such a way that it would inconvenience me particularly. No matter how well, or badly it is built there will be some people who it will inconvenience particularly – the only question is who, how many, and in what ways. Those who are in danger of having to relocate, or of living very close to the new road can do a great service to everybody if they will come with an attitude of “how can we make this the best for everybody,” rather than an attitude of “what will cause me the least inconvenience.”
On the other hand, those of us who will not be directly inconvenienced by this need to be understanding of the fact that this will have some immediate negative consequences on some people. We should take that into consideration when we select an alignment.
I heard someone who lives near some of that land that Lehi City had already preserved for this road who wished that the land owners in the area would refuse to sell so that the road could not be built. I’m sure she recognizes that not building the road is not a feasible option considering our current traffic situation. As a distant neighbor I need to recognize that her wish is normal and rather than telling her to pull her head out of the sand I should help advocate for anything that might make this new road better for her and her neighborhood.
One thing to advocate for, which won’t help her neighborhood now but will help other neighborhoods in the future, is a more comprehensive master plan for the city which will preserve transportation corridors earlier and be more strict in adhering to the master plan. Initially Lehi City had planned for this road to run at 700 South. The result is that 700 South is much wider than it needs to be for a 25 MPH road. If they had set the speed limit higher (40 or 45 MPH) people would not have placed houses right on the road and they would have been able to use the original route