Stoopid Peepul By nonny mouse Sunday Sep 13, 2009 1:00pm
What is it about stupidity that America seems to love so much?
This glorification of stupidity has been consistently promulgated by films like Dumb and Dumber, Legally Blonde, Dude, Where's My Car, Idiocracy, Borat and - god help me - Forrest Gump. We Americans love stoopid peepul. As much as I enjoy the series Eureka, it's telling that in a town full of geniuses, the schtick is that it’s the not-genius sheriff (at least he isn't portrayed as a slapstick idiot) who usually solves the problem by either shooting it, whacking it with a stick or driving his Jeep into it. The geniuses are stereotyped as bumbling, socially inadequate, skinny, malformed, couldn't get laid if their Nobel Prize depended on it geeks. (Not helped that Bill Gates fits the physical profile). Real life geniuses, like John Forbes Nash, are presented as more cautionary tales - See? See? That's what happens if you get too smart, you become paranoid and go insane. Told ya so. Pass the popcorn, Ma...
Stupidity in politics didn't start with Dubya, however exemplary he is as the ultimate manifestation of incompetence and malevolent stupidity. Nor did it start with the tea-baggers holding up misspelt signs as they march to proudly display their ignorance and pointlessness. It’s endless, just endless…
It's ingrained in the American popular and political culture to exult stupidity and tear down intelligence. Adlai Stevenson's 1956 bid for the presidency was scuppered because he was denigrated by Republicans for being 'too smart', called an 'egghead' as a scathing pejorative, the distrust for intelligence is deep rooted in our history.
Stupid people aren't leaders, they're not even followers. They're the Marching Morons. They're the Eloi to the Morlocks of Coulters, Rushes, Limbaughs, Savages, Hannitys, et. al., who cultivate and nurture their hordes of the slavishly stupid, then feed off them mercilessly. It’s the bread and butter for the Malkins who can claim millions – millions I tells ya! – turned up for the 9/12 marches, then used photos from the inauguration to fraudulently bolster the lie, fully aware her multitude of mindless minions will never bother to check – or ever realize it was all a lie, that a mere few thousand at most showed up, all that empty lawn speaking volumes. (*crickets chirping*) It doesn’t matter to the Malkinoids and the Coulterites if they’re caught out, time and time again, their dishonesty exposed, their self-serving agendas flapping in the breeze like dirty underwear on a clothesline – they depend on the dedication of their supporters to stupidity. They trust in that entrenched compulsion to not-want-to-know, they know they can always rely on those antithetical sycophants of hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, but sure as hell spout off a load of uninformed, boorish, and – so sadly – ultimately self-defeating crap.
I come from a generation where women were struggling to break out of the Stepford Wife, I Dream of Jeannie, Father knows Best stereotypes that held us back - I once had a date kick me out of his car late at night on a deserted country road and had to walk 15 miles home, because I was going to college and had used a word he didn't understand; he felt so threatened by his own ignorance that he took out his inferiority complex on me. I refuse to dumb-down my vocabulary, for anyone, for any reason. I was warned by my family and friends that I would never find a husband if I were openly 'too smart' - men don't like 'too smart' women, they said. They were perplexed that I didn't care; why the hell would I marry anyone stupid enough to want someone more stupid than themselves? And yet… it still goes on. And on … And on...
I loathe stupid people. I loathe them because, unlike those genuinely afflicted with mental illness or disorders, stupid people willfully choose their stupidity. They revel in it, they venerate it, they wrap themselves in it tighter than an American flag and subject their children to the same brainwash-rinse-repeat that incited parents to prevent their children from listening to the first truly educated and articulate president this country has had since perhaps Lincoln tell them to get an education. Horrors, that might cause them to actually learn how to think for themselves, and become Atheists and Communists and Liberal Undesirables. Catchy, that, innit?
So it is hard for me to reconcile this mass approbation of blatant stupidity with the achievements we Americans have given to the world. We as a nation and as a culture have had so many shining, glorious moments where stupidity was forced to STFU. We put a man on the moon - several, in fact - and it was the Failure Is Not An Option inventiveness that got Lovell, Swigert and Haise back to earth alive. We split the atom. We invented the light bulb, the telephone, the airplane, peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies.
We invented the circular saw, the electric hot water heater, the elevated railway system, the engine muffler, the fire escape, Kevlar, the life raft, the medical syringe, the railway crossing gate, the rotary engine, the submarine telescope, the windscreen wiper – all inventions by American women, by the way.
We Americans invented airbags and autopilots, bubblegum and bulldozers, the credit card, dental floss, the flashlight, the Hubble telescope, laser printers, microwave ovens, the particle accelerator, the QWERTY keyboard, radar guns and radio carbon dating, the sextant, the supermarket, the space shuttle, and the sewing machine, volleyball and videotape and the zipper. We invented the Taser, the teddy bear, the traffic cone and – yes – even the tea bag.
We invented the Internet.
We invented the blog.
Educated, creative, intelligent Americans can, have done, and are still capable of doing amazing things. If only we could find a way to invent a cure for stoopid peepul.
Improving care environment proves difficult for Lubbock State School By Sarah Nightingale | AVALANCHE-JOURNAL Sunday, August 30, 2009 Story last updated at 8/30/2009 - 2:05 am
The last people to see Michael Ray Nicholson alive recounted a brutal scene.
Nicholson, who family say had the mental capacity of a 2-year-old, was slammed on the bed, laid on and choked with a towel.
His face turned blue. Others watched, but did nothing.
Then, the man, just a teenager when he first came to the Lubbock State School, died.
Reports obtained by The Avalanche-Journal show school staff told state investigators about the June 6 altercation between employee Donnell Smith and 45-year-old Nicholson.
The death, recently ruled a homicide, occurred more than four years after a U.S. Department of Justice investigation uncovered the school's failure to prevent abuse and neglect of the severely mentally disabled residents in its care. Particularly troubling, the report noted, was the death of 17 residents in an 18-month period, several of which were identified as potentially preventable.
Better and worse
The Texas Legislature, concerned about safety through the entire state school system, has allowed the schools to hire more staff, and Lubbock's school is trying to fill more than 100 new positions.
Even before that, state and school officials say they improved how they care for their mentally disabled residents.
In 2006, the year after the Justice Department investigation, the number of abuse and neglect cases dropped.
But public records obtained by The Avalanche-Journal through the Texas Public Information Act show the number of cases in 2007 and 2008 dramatically increased.
The school has fired 73 employees in four years, but as of yet, none have faced criminal charges.
Criminal action is needed to stop the abuse and neglect, said Lilly Nicholson, Michael's mother.
"The state schools can only turn over the information of abuse and neglect to law enforcement and fire the people responsible, they can not do more than that," she said.
"If the people working there are aware that there will be consequences, they will not be as likely to assault, injure or neglect the ones they are hired to care for. It's a disgrace that this is allowed to continue with no accounting."
A rocky road
The Lubbock State School - now officially named the Lubbock State Supported Living Center - is north of the city, on University Avenue. The facility opened its doors almost 40 years ago to care for people with mental retardation from a 54-county area.
The 243 residents at the school range from teenagers to the elderly and suffer from a spectrum of disorders. While some have jobs and live semi-independently in campus cottages, others are confined to bed; their physical and mental disabilities so severe that around-the-clock care is needed.
On March 12, 2005, the Department of Justice told the state it would investigate conditions at the school through a visit and a review of records relating to the care and treatment of residents. That took place the week of June 13.
More than a year later, the Justice Department published its findings: The school was failing.
Recognizing briefly "LSS is predominantly staffed by dedicated individuals," the 40-page report details how the facility "substantially departs from accepted professional standards of care for the residents."
The state entered into negotiations with the federal government, hoping to appease the Justice Department while avoiding a lawsuit, Laura Albrecht, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services, told The Avalanche-Journal in July. DADS is the state agency that owns and operates the 13 state schools.
Those talks, Albrecht said, continued into 2008, as the Justice Department expanded its investigation to Texas' other supported-living centers. Similar problems, reports show, were uncovered at all of the schools.
This May, the state and the federal government reached an agreement on how the state should fix the problems. The 50-page settlement mandates the state implement training, improve medical procedures and keep better records. A state-paid "expert monitor" at each school will oversee the progress, according to the report.
Albrecht said in a July interview that changes in Lubbock began long before the May agreement.
"We started making changes in 2005," she said. "I think we are making great strides at the state schools."
Making changes
The Lubbock school's 226-acre site is a maze of administrative, care, activity and cottage buildings that's neat and well kept.
The problems highlighted by the Justice Department were not evident in a recent Avalanche-Journal tour of the facility.
Not featured in the 2006 report, for example, is a workshop where residents who are able to can work to earn money. There are also opportunities for arts and crafts, some of which are sold in the school's Hearts and Hands store, and a foster-grandparent program in which seniors dedicate hours of their time to residents, about half of whom have no family that visit.
And there are dedicated staff, from the caregivers who have worked here for decades, to the therapists working Aug. 7 to help Ronnie Beck - who is severely physically and mentally disabled - learn to use a computer, which employees hope will help him communicate.
Members of the school's administration said in August they wish people would see the positives.
"We have a lot of great staff, we can't overlook the work they do here," said Superintendent Kristin Weems. "It takes a certain person to interact with (the residents) every day. It can be a big buff man, or a tiny woman. It's all about their belief system and values.
"We've never said this is a job for everyone," continued Weems, who said the residents, many of whom have a dual diagnosis of mental retardation and psychiatric problems, can pose serious challenges for caregivers.
Challenges that can have deadly consequences.
Continued problems
News reports have shown abuse and neglect at most of the state's 13 institutions in the last few years. In Lubbock, there were 27 confirmed cases of abuse and neglect in 2005, according to data obtained by The A-J from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services through the Texas Public Information Act.
The state took immediate action, Albrecht said.
And, in 2006, the number of abuse and neglect cases fell, with 11 cases confirmed by the DFPS.
In 2007 and 2008, however, the numbers rose.
There were 30 confirmed cases of abuse and neglect in fiscal year 2007 - the state fiscal year runs September to August - and 35 cases in 2008, according to state data.
Capt. Greg Stevens of the Lubbock Police Department said Wednesday his department investigated two of the 2008 cases on the grounds of suspected criminal activity.
Police reports obtained by an A-J open records request say in April 2008, a 44-year-old male resident was assaulted by staff member Marie Ryan, then 27, who hit him "with a closed fist 'hard' numerous times on the back" after he made a mess with some chips. A staff member testified the man was "in pain and had a painful expression on his face."
Ryan was fired from the school and received a probationary sentence of five years "deferred adjudication," after which the charges will be dropped.
Also in 2008, police investigated the April death of 23-year-old resident Maria Magdalena Urdiales, who choked on candy while on a school outing. Although the cause of death was determined "accidental," the report suggests Urdiales suffered from Pica, a disorder in which people routinely place foreign objects in their mouth and are at a high risk for choking.
DFPS data shows 26 confirmed cases of abuse and neglect in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year.
In March, police investigated one of those cases.
Stevens said an anonymous caller claimed a 60-year-old male resident was injured by a staff member. A summary of the police report reads the resident "was assaulted by an unknown person ... (who) is an employee of the school."
This month, police investigated a report of a 28-year-old male resident being "assaulted in the genital/groin area causing severe trauma to the area," according to a summary of the police report. The same resident, a January report claims, was injured previously by a staff member.
Stevens said only one of the closed cases from 2005 to 2008 will likely end in prosecution: A June 2007 reported assault of a male resident by a staff member who was attempting to restrain him, Stevens said, is pending prosecution by the Lubbock County Criminal District Attorney's Office.
The Nicholson case
The restraint of Lilly Nicholson's son may have resulted in his June death, reports show.
"(The staff) got carried away. If they hadn't done what they did, Michael would be alive today," the mother told The A-J on Aug. 21.
Lubbock County Medical Examiner Sridhar Natarajan ruled Nicholson's death a homicide, noting cause of death as physical altercation with asphyxia.
Nicholson had lived at the school since he was 15 years old.
Six employees - Smith, Jessica Santos, Abrisha Henderson, Amiya Harper, Craig Stevenson and Omar Jordan - were fired in relation to the incident. Multiple attempts by The A-J to contact the employees have failed.
Staff testimony in state reports obtained by The A-J say Smith physically abused Nicholson and neglected to implement CPR when he became unresponsive.
In a statement made to school administrators, Smith said an interviewer "twisted his words." He also told staff he cared deeply about the residents he worked with.
More testimony in the reports states Santos, Henderson, Harper and Jordan also neglected Nicholson by not stopping the incident, a conclusion that Henderson, Harper and Jordan disputed. Stevenson, a probationary employee who was reported to have witnessed all or some of the incident, has not been notified by the state of any disciplinary action.
Police officials presented a manslaughter case to the district attorney's office last week. A decision on whether charges will be filed has not yet been released.
Breaking the culture
Albrecht said her department began working to fix problems noted in the 2006 Justice Department investigation as soon as they came to light.
"We did not wait for the final results," she said.
Albrecht said the schools "increased training for all employees, which includes training on abuse and neglect and recognizing the signs of abuse and neglect."
The DADS, she added, has "a zero-tolerance policy regarding abuse and neglect of residents in our care."
Published reports show that 268 employees statewide - including 27 in Lubbock - were fired or suspended for abusing or neglecting residents at state schools in fiscal year 2008. This year, 24 employees have been fired from the Lubbock school for abusing or neglecting residents, according to DADS data.
Despite those actions, the abuse continues.
"The number of incidents that we are investigating remains relatively steady," said DFPS public information officer Greg Cunningham.
Cunningham declined to comment further on the trend.
"We just do the investigations," he said, "DADS follows up on our findings."
Albrecht said Wednesday she "disagrees" things are not getting better.
"We are making improvements and we are making changes," she said. "We wish we had a crystal ball into the actions people take, but we take every possible step we can to train people and set an expectation that we do not tolerate abuse or neglect."
A tough job
New employees, Albrecht said, undergo two weeks of classroom training, are on a six-month probationary period and receive "ongoing" training at the schools.
Smith's employee file shows he completed more than 200 hours of training between accepting the job as an entry-level mental retardation assistant in 2006 and being fired in June. He was also employed at the school in 1997 and from 2003 to 2004, records show. Albrecht said he left voluntarily on both occasions.
The former employee was aware Nicholson was "not to be restrained for any reason," according to a letter sent to Smith and obtained by The A-J.
Smith's failure to act on his training is not the only evidence the school's standards are not always upheld.
Data on the DADS Web site showed eight instances in the current year in which the Lubbock school failed to properly educate staff, follow procedures that prohibit mistreatment of residents, or use proper restraint techniques. The school also failed recently - 21 out of 21 times - to administer drugs in compliance with physician's orders and failed to securely store drugs, according to state records.
Personnel problems, said a former employee who worked at the school for more than a decade, crop up because some employees "are just interested in the paycheck."
"Most of the people who work at the school are great people," said the source, who requested anonymity. "But some people either don't know they are abusing people or they don't think they will get caught."
The former employee, who left the school in 2008, said Thursday she had seen "a lot of people bring their problems to work and take them out on someone."
Stressful situations, the source said, are worsened by sometimes violent residents and by severe understaffing.
"You have people working 16 hours at a time and then when they ask for a vacation (supervisors) say they don't have enough people to cover," the source said. "I've seen people just walk out, say, 'I can't do this anymore'."
There are 785 positions at the Lubbock State School, Albrecht said. As of Aug. 10, 192 of those were vacant, a situation Albrecht said reflects more than 140 new positions approved by the Legislature, as well as attrition.
Weems said in an August interview the new positions - once filled - would help the school run more smoothly.
"We could always use more staff for care," she said. "We're very appreciative of recent legislative actions."
A different approach?
Lubbock resident Johnia Hudnall, who worked at the state school in the 1970s and cared for her Down syndrome son at home until he died in December, said it's not money, firings, or even the threat of a criminal record that will improve things.
"All the money in the U.S. Mint will not help until somebody cares," she said.
Hudnall, like some Texas advocacy groups, believes mentally disabled people would fare better in smaller settings.
"Smaller facilities lead to better care ... it could be more like a family," she said.
Other groups, however, say such care cannot be transferred to community settings.
"Folks who live here are folks who cannot get their basic needs met in the community because of medical issues or challenging behavior," said Weems, who added the school has about 100 fewer residents over the past four years because of efforts to relocate some who can move into the community.
Nicholson said last week an effort to place her son in a community home failed.
"He was placed in a community home for a short period of time, but (it) was not suited for his needs and he was placed back in the state school," she said.
LUBBOCK/As the Lubbock State School looks to fill new positions and improve its care, the June homicide of Michael Ray Nicholson reveals there's still much work to be done.
We live in challenging times. Our nation is divided in so many ways. I have never seen Americans so discouraged and frustrated. I see two factions in America. Those that live in fear, and those that live in hope; and the tug of war between them is being pulled back and forth. Many are saying they are mad as hell, and they are not going to take it anymore. Well, I am sick and tired, too! I am sick and tired of listening to people tell us to be afraid of everything. We have been told to be afraid of terrorists. We have been told to be afraid of ideas and labels. Not only are we supposed to fear our elected President; but we are told to fear each other. I have had enough!
So, today, I am making a choice. I refuse to live in fear. Will there be risks? Of course. Will there be sacrifices? Of course. Was this not so when those brave patriots founded this nation over 200 years ago? Had they listened to fear rather than hope, we might not have ever been a part of the great experiment that we now know of being an American. The choices between fear and hope have been made by many throughout our history. Despite setbacks and obstacles, it has always been hope in the progress of the human spirit that has won.
I am not saying that because I do not fear the government that I welcome them with open arms to be involved in every facet of my life. Absolutely not! What I am saying is that fear evokes an extremist notion that the government can not be involved AT ALL! This destroys any chance for hybrid solutions, very pragmatic solutions, that I believe exist when the public and the private are allowed to co-exist in the marketplace. If anything, the private can be a 4th check and balance on the government in many ways, and vice versa. Laissez faire capitalists are extremists just as pure Socialists are. I reject them both! I believe in a hybrid system; and when we have a hybrid system is when I believe things run the smoothest. I am not saying that it is all roses and daffodils all the time; but it certainly avoids disasters like the one in 2007-08.
I am not some naive idealist that looks at the world with rose-colored glasses on. I am well aware that our human history shows an unfortunate corruption even with the most honorable intentions. In spite of this, our nation, the United States of America, whether through divine providence or sheer will, is a shining example that we can from time to time transcend even our own weaknesses and transgressions. This American example alone gives me hope; and I will not listen to those who would rather define themselves by the fear of whatever their imaginations conjure up about what might be at the expense of the hope of what can be.
Who boosted Howard Dean into the chairman's spot at the DNC, bringing his successful 50-state policy to fruition in last year's presidential race? The netroots did. And in 2006, who showed Rahm Emanuel that yes, we really could take control of Congress? We did.
Whose fundraising pushed the Democrats over the top in the 2008 Senate races? Ours did. Whose activist base drove the publicity, turnout and dollars in last year's presidential primaries and general election?
Duh.
So what have we accomplished? The war goes on and we've even expanded our presence in Afghanistan. The Bush-era encroachments on civil liberties have not only been embraced by a Democratic president, the Democratic Congress gives him their blessing. And with the goal of universal healthcare within tantalizing reach, we have Blue Dog Democrats - Democrats! trying to obstruct it.
Enough of kicking the Blue Dogs. What can we do to be more effective? Where did we go wrong?
Take Patrick Murphy, who won PA's 8th Congressional district. I still remember that sweltering night at the local brewery when various candidates spoke to a packed, sweaty room of Philadelphia liberal activists and bloggers. I'd been talking to Ginny Schrader, who had a close-but-no-cigar run at the seat left open by the resignation of Jim Greenwood, a liberal Republican, the year before.
And then Pat spoke. He introduced himself as the son of a Philadelphia police officer, a child of the city's row houses who'd worked his way through law school and served in Iraq, where he earned a Bronze Star. "I am a progressive," he told the crowd. And just like that, Schrader's chances evaporated. Murphy, a political neophyte and longshot who quickly became a favorite of both local and national bloggers, did the unthinkable: He won.
At one fundraiser, held in a posh downtown skyscraper by his heavy-hitter law firm, I cornered Pat and said, "If you screw us, I'll kill you." He reassured me by reminding me his wife grew up in a trailer park, that he would "never" forget where he came from or the people who were counting on him.
We raised $23,489 for him through ActBlue. He's blue, all right - a Blue Dog. (But not a total loss - at least he's working to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell in the military.)
And then there was the personable Chris Carney (PA-10), who dropped by the Philadelphia Drinking Liberally to see if he could prod bloggers like Atrios, Booman, and me to support him. We did. ($8,210, which goes a long way in that media market.)
He won. He's a Blue Dog, too. (Don't mention his name to Howie Klein.)
Remember hitting the "donate" button for Stephanie Herseth? Not only is she a Blue Dog, she's one of their leadership.
While not every Democrat the netroots supported promised to vote against the war, most of them did. Remember anyone actually doing it? Me neither. (We also supported wonderful progressives like Donna Edwards, so it's not all bad. But this isn't about them. It's about trying to figure out how we can cultivate effective, collective clout on our issues.)
The thing is, the disappointing candidates we supported aren't such bad people - just mostly lukewarm on our agenda. Maybe we were naive to think that campaign promises somehow meant more coming from candidates who told us they were liberals and seemed so damned nice.
So where's the line? How do we inspire the same kind of dogged loyalty on issues from candidates that the lobbyists do? The Blue Dogs often vote against the interests of their own constituencies to please their donor base. How do we get that kind of credibility and clout? If we have to bludgeon our candidates every single time we want their attention, they'll start to tune us out and we become little more than an annoyance. Yeah, sometimes the big stick works. But we need a carrot, too.
Somehow, we need to break through a mindset that allows Blue Dog Democrats to favor the local voters and good old pork-barrel politics when it's convenient, yet blithely ignore them on big transformational issues like health care, when it's time to pay back the large donors.
Maybe we need a netroots lobbying firm.
The very thing that makes us so effective also makes us politically weak. We identified talented Democrats, assessed their chances and decided (correctly, in many cases) that small donations from around the country could add up to a real difference in the results. They did. That sustained push from the blogosphere raised the profile for the winners as our early money made them viable.
But here's the problem. Our influence is diminished because we're so diffused. And for most of these candidates, we only sparked the initial surge that attracted more establishment money later in their campaigns - we don't own the results, not the way the insurance, health care and defense industries do.
According to the candidates, they don't owe us a damned thing. (We're not alone in getting this kind of treatment, by the way. Women's and LGBT PACs are also invisible - once the candidates have won with the help of their all-important early money.)
We, on the other hand, thought we were supporting transformational candidates, people who would at least give us equal standing with the voters back home, and feel free to ignore the corporate lobbyists, knowing we had their backs. It hasn't worked that way.
Look at the Blue Dog Dems like Max Baucus and Kent Conrad. They come from states so sparsely populated, they probably couldn't fill Times Square on New Year's Eve. They have no problem ignoring the needs of their constituents when it makes the lobbyists happy. They were singled out for special attention by lobbyists because of their committee clout.
Maybe that's what we should be doing. How does the Netroots Nation buy ourselves some strategic committee members?
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the Country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war."-(Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to Union Colonel William F. Elkins, circa 1864.)
"The captains of industry who have driven across this continent, who have built up our commerce, who have developed our manufactures, have on the whole done great good to the people. The mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance. All the same, corporations must recognize their responsibility not merely to their shareholders but to the community at large. When they failed to do so on their own-as they often did fail-they must be made to mend their ways. Corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be regulated if they are found to exercise a license working to the public injury. It should be as much the aim of those who seek for social betterment to rid the business world of crimes of cunning as to rid the entire body politic of crimes of violence. Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions."-(Theodore Roosevelt, State of the Union, 1902.)
"I believe in corporations. If a corporation is doing square work I will help it so far as I can. If it oppresses anybody; if it is acting dishonestly towards its stockholders or the public, or towards its laborers, or towards small competitors-why I shall try to cinch it. I also believe in labor unions. If I were a wage-worker I should certainly join one....but if the members of labor unions indulge in rioting and violence, or behave wrongfully either to a capitalist or to another laborer or to the general public, I shall antagonize them just as fearlessly as under similar circumstances I should antagonize the biggest capitalist in the land."-(Theodore Roosevelt, 1904 Campaign for Re-Election, in answer to a reporter's questioning of his confusing and moderate stances towards labor and management.)
It is not lost on me that these quotes are from Republicans. I will even concede that for the better part of their history, the Republican Party has championed fairness in regards to common people and their inalienable human rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Republican Party championed such progressive ideas as civil rights, women's suffrage, child labor laws, a progressive income tax, direct election of US Senators, the 40-hour work week, and conservation of our natural resources and wildlife. They were the party of Union loyalty, and the preservation of the United States of America. But something happened to them in the last half of the 20th Century.
It is well documented in their history, at the time that they championed these progressive ideas, that opposition would always come from the opposing party, particularly in the south. Still smarting from their defeat in the Civil War, southern conservatives, called Dixiecrats, held strongly to their loyalty to the Democratic Party. They viewed the party of Lincoln as the party of tyranny and oppression, and a growing federal government. When the Depression came, Dixiecrats were quick to point the finger at the GOP. However, there were other things at work.
With the prosperity of the 1920's, most progressives such as Robert La Follette of Wisconsin and others, were kept quiet. With the economic boom, most Americans did not feel there was a need for new ideas. Why fix it if it ain't broken? So, many of the progressives were left in limbo; until the Stock Market crashed. Suddenly, the American people were susceptible to new ideas; anything to get them working again. With the Republican Party controlled by corporate special interests, the people distrusted them. They, and the progressive leaders, turned to the Democrats; and the Democrats welcomed them with open arms.
In 1932, Teddy Roosevelt's distant nephew, Franklin Roosevelt, won a sweeping victory. Amid far right concerns of growing government once more, FDR re-ignited the progressive fire and the American people re-elected him to stunning victories as a result. Under Harry Truman, the progressives began incorporating civil rights onto the platform, and suddenly the Dixiecrats became nervous-even going so far as to run Strom Thurmond as a third party candidate in 1948. In 1964, with the signing of the Civil Rights Bill into law, Lyndon Johnson told Martin Luther King, Jr. that the Democratic Party had lost the South for a generation. A new coalition had begun.
In 1968, the Solid South helped elect Richard Nixon to the White House, a man for whom they had rejected only 8 years earlier. With the corporate special interests entrenched within Republican ranks, and the southern Dixiecrats of the religious right firmly on board as well, the Republican Party had renewed strength again. With this new power, the corporations slowly began to take back control of our government. It started with private health insurance, through Nixon's HMO plans, in the 1970's. It increased through the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower had warned against thanks to the Cold War, and the increased defense spending during the Reagan years. After a thaw under Clinton, Republicans renewed de-regulation and the corporate takeover of our government with increased zeal after 9/11. Until finally, in 2008, the bottom fell out.
With the election of Barack Obama, a new coalition seems to have come of age. Thanks to the growing number of young people, progressive ideals seem to have returned to the front once more. Universal health coverage, an item supported by Progressive Republicans as early as 1912, had returned; as well as Gay Equality, and Stem Cell Research. The far-right conservative wing of the nation, mostly the religious right and Dixiecrats, have continued to thwart the progressive movement just as they did in Teddy Roosevelt's days. Just as pious rhetoric and religious tones were used to justify women's suffrage, Jim Crow, and even slavery; they continue to this day to oppose and impede progress. With arrogance and belligerence, they claim righteousness and divine principle; forgetting to heed the words of one of their own. For when Abraham Lincoln was asked if God was on his side, he simply stated that the question we should always ask ourselves is whether or not we are on God's side.
In the late 1960's, a former Democrat, Ronald Reagan, was asked why he had changed to the Republican Party. He answered that he never left the Democratic Party; they left him. I understand his predicament, albeit in a reverse order. I will admit that I am not sure where I would be if not for the nightmare presidency of George W. Bush these last 8 years. I was a Republican up until 2003; when the Iraq occupation began. At first, I was simply an independant; but as my reservations about this occupation were repeatedly confirmed, and as I slowly learned more about other issues as well, it was obvious to me that the Republican Party was no longer the party of Lincoln and Roosevelt. They had become the party of Wal-Mart and Wall Street. They had fooled me with their Contracts w/ America, and pious rhetoric about family values and moral majorities. Now, having pulled off the veil from my eyes, their hypocrisy had become so transparent.
I am not saying that all Democrats are innocent. Indeed, the corporate corruption in our government runs deep; and unfortunately has taken some Democrats down as a result of it. I am not even saying that all Republicans are bad; as I still have the greatest respect for Colin Powell, and a few others. However, as my grandfather told me so many years ago with his stories of growing up during the Depression, it has become painfully obvious to me that the Republican Party is the party of corporate special interests and the Democratic Party represents the working man.
I see a movement among the Republican Party to shake loose of the Dixiecrat South from within. Perhaps they can return to the party of Robert Taft and Calvin Coolidge. Does that leave open the possibility of my own return? Well, I believe in the cliche to never say never; but it is highly unlikely. The Republican Party has lost that progressive spirit that bore them from the ashes of the Whigs so many years ago. I am not a fan of one-party rule on either side; as this only breeds corruption and destroys the checks and balances needed to ensure honest government. It is my hope that they do regain some credibility-perhaps the likes of Eisenhower or Reagan. For now, I feel that they will remain a minority party for the time being. They certainly do not offer anything that appeals to me.
....and so now, while I do maintain a certain independant streak, I align myself with the Democrats here on U4Prez.
We don't live in pioneer days. With all of the technological advances we have made in information, medicine, and so forth; why do we have to think in terms of the pioneers? To make that argument, why don't we just start dragging our women around by their hair, too?
It is like men feel like they are losing their masculinity or machismo to be living in a time in which progress has given us the ability to take care of ourselves smarter instead of harder. If there is an easier way to do something; then I am going to take it as long as it gets the job done. This is the disconnect that has always existed between the intellectual and the simple man. Yet, nobody minds using a remote control on their televisions instead of having to get up and down to change the channels and volume. Would it hurt them to do the latter? No! In fact, it would be better and more healthy for them to get off their arse. But I don't see anybody dumping their remote controls in the trash any time soon!
These type of arguments about what would the pioneers do, or what would the forefathers do, impede progress. It impedes the advancement of humanity in science, technology, medicine, and even government. We have the ability to educate every child in this world; but we sacrifice it because it would require the wealthiest individuals in the world to assist, perhaps indirectly and against their will, by using their tax money in other parts of the world not within their spheres of influence and/or simply existence.
The Bible itself shows what human innovation can do. Even God knew that if we worked together "there is nothing that they might not accomplish" as illustrated in the story of the Tower of Babel. Of course, I do believe that there will always be two sides-those that believe power should be harnessed and controlled for the betterment of humanity and the planet, and those who believe that power not used, regardless of its purpose, is power wasted. Both sides of this coin can be referred to as good or evil depending on the moment, the political climate, or social circumstances at the time. It just goes to show how relative things can be when dealing with the masses.
I am part of the progressive movement. I believe that we have been blessed with the power of imagination, innovation, and creativity with a purpose. I do not believe we are supposed to impede our own progress as a species simply because the "pioneers" or the "forefathers" or even the cavement couldn't do it. I see this kind of reasoning to be similar to those who laughed at Orville and Wilbur Wright as they tested their airplanes, or Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, or the caveman's wheel. For you Evangelicals out there, it could be seen as the folly of those who laughed at Noah as he built his Ark.
So, you can keep your ignorance. I will take no part in it. I will support those who believe in progress. I will support those who believe in the advancements we have today to make life better for each and everyone of us. I know it will not come cheap. I know that there are sacrifices that we will have to make. But I also know that this train is already on the move; and those who refuse to get on will be run over, or simply passed by. They will have no one to blame but themselves. We can only throw a rope to a drowning man so many times; but if he continues to grab the ship's anchor instead, then we have to let them fail.
Was it the greatest speech of his presidency or political suicide?
Three decades on, the answer may well be both.
Thirty years ago Wednesday, President Jimmy Carter delivered a speech - "The Crisis of Confidence" - that became one of the most pilloried in modern American history.
It was an address in which he looked critically at himself and his own failures but also warned Americans in dire, near-apocalyptic terms about the potential consequences of theirs.
"The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America," preached the president, a devout evangelical Christian who saw in Americans a crisis of faith not in God but in the nation - and in themselves.
Delivered against a background of inflation, rising oil prices and gas lines, the address was derisively dubbed the "malaise" speech by the press. And when Carter requested resignations from his entire Cabinet a few days later, the speech became all the proof anyone needed that he was blaming Americans for his own mistakes.
What few recall is the speech's actual content - which still resonates strongly in the current economic crisis- or the fact that it was actually well-received by the public at the time.
"It was an incredibly successful speech, until he fired the Cabinet, which changed the whole tenor of things," said Patrick Caddell, who was the president's pollster and a chief architect of the speech.
"It got a great reception. I've never felt more that American political journalism bordered on Soviet history-making than on that speech," he said. "From the misnaming of it, to the trying to say later that it was unpopular - the historical revisionism. The speech itself was an extraordinary success."
Kevin Mattson, author of "‘What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?': Jimmy Carter, America's ‘Malaise,' and the Speech That Should Have Changed the Country," agrees.
"It's clear that the speech was a success on its own grounds," he says. Carter "had an incredible bump in the polls. The mail that he was receiving at the White House was overwhelmingly positive, and a lot of it was people saying they were going to cut down on their consumption of gas and cut out unnecessary trips." At least initially, he says, "a lot of it resonated."
"I do think people were ready to follow in those first days after the speech," says The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg, who was the lead speechwriter on the address. "And then there was the Cabinet Jonestown, and I think that's where the elites turned definitively against Carter, and that trickled down before too long to everybody else."
Even Stuart E. Eizenstat, Carter's chief domestic adviser, who joined Vice President Walter Mondale in fighting the idea of the speech, now agrees that it was well-received.
"Mondale and I were arguing that the ‘crisis in confidence' was not among the American people, that it was in our own leadership and that we had to be careful not to appear to be pointing the finger at them rather than at us," Eizenstat remembers. He says that a meeting on an early draft was "as vigorous and rhetorically violent as any I've ever been in," he recalls. "It was a very large conference table, and if it hadn't been, I think that Mondale might have leaned across and choked Caddell."
Still, he acknowledges, "contrary to my argument, the speech was actually a brilliant success," with Carter's polling shooting up "10 or 11 points" afterward. It was, Eizenstat says, "like the old magic had come back from the '76 campaign."
Then, within days, the Cabinet firings "undercut any sense that this was a new start to the administration, that he had sort of learned his lesson and was starting afresh. It just totally stepped on the headlines of the speech."
Caddell notes that even the press responded well to the speech at first - he particularly recalls a Newsweek cover story on the address titled "To Lift a Nation's Spirit."
Thomas M. DeFrank, Washington bureau chief for the New York Daily News, who contributed to that Newsweek story, says that in the immediate aftermath of the speech, there was a sense that "it was going to kind of go either way - but it went south, not north."
"Wholesale sacking of Cabinet officers usually comes off as desperation," he says, "and I think that, plus the speech, it all contributed to the notion of Carter as a floundering leader. I think from that time on, the feeling was that Carter was on borrowed time."
Today, however, parts of the speech itself seem downright prescient.
Says Hertzberg: "Certainly it was prophetic. I think that there's no question of its value as prophecy. And as exhortation."
He adds: "When I say he was a prophet, there was a little bit of a barb in that; he was a kind of John the Baptist figure, crying in the wilderness. You could say that he's a prophet of what's come to fruition by Obama."
Carter, for example, saw a major overhaul of the country's energy policy as an opportunity to re-envision the nation's future - a presaging of Obama's current commitment to a similar goal - though today some of Carter's policy prescriptions sound more like those advocated by Republicans. (He stressed shifting from imported oil to home-grown natural resources such as coal, oil shale and "gasohol," for example.)
The Georgia peanut farmer also expressed a deep concern about excessive materialism in the speech: "In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption," he warned. "Human identity is no longer defined by what one does but by what one owns."
Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, notes that these same tendencies are at the heart of many of our problems today - "not just energy, but if you look at something like the mortgage crisis, as well, at the heart of it is our consumer patterns, our thirst for consumer goods, our inability to think through what we purchase, and our tendency to judge our value by what we own," he says.
Some of the rhetoric also sounds strangely familiar. For example, Carter railed against our "intolerable dependence on foreign oil" and argued for a return to "energy independence." He put his faith in America's "skilled work force" and "innovative genius," linking the effort required to win the "war on the energy problem" to the moon landing and noting that those listening to his words are "the heirs of generations who survived threats much more powerful and awesome than those that challenge us now."
But he was also clear: "I do not promise you that this struggle for freedom will be easy. I do not promise a quick way out of our nation's problems, when the truth is that the only way out is an all-out effort."
Robert Collins, a professor of history at the University of Missouri-Columbia who has written a book on the Reagan era and is working on one on the energy crisis, says that the speech's major flaw wasn't Carter's diagnosis or his prescription but his tone.
"It seems to me that the speech was in some ways a rather accurate depiction of the mood of the country and some of the problems that the administration was facing, but I've always believed that it could be argued that the 1980s actually began with the malaise speech," he says. "It seemed to me that his observations were not at all inaccurate but that he managed to put the most pessimistic possible spin on what he was seeing and trying to communicate to the American public."
Indeed, the term "malaise" also quickly became a sort of shorthand for the president's pessimism and a rallying cry for Carter's opponents, most particularly Ronald Reagan, whose sunny outlook stood in stark relief.
Of the speech, Edwin Meese III, who served as Reagan's attorney general, says: "It seemed to cast blame on the American people, that somehow they were wrong. It seemed to ignore the fact that the federal government was not doing much to solve the problems. It was just kind of a defeatist speech."
By contrast, he notes, "one of the most significant characteristics about Ronald Reagan was, in fact, his optimism."
"It absolutely played into Reagan's theme there was nothing wrong with America that a change of leadership couldn't fix," says DeFrank. "The malaise speech became one of Ronald Reagan's most effective talking points."
In his election-eve speech in 1980, Reagan said, "I find no national malaise, I find nothing wrong with the American people. Oh, they are frustrated, even angry at what has been done to this blessed land. But more than anything, they are sturdy and robust, as they have always been."
Says Mattson of Carter: "My sense was that it was kind of a tragic situation. He really did hit upon something, opened this window - and then managed to foul it up."
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion ... draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises ... in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate. --Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, 1620
Pace Will Rogers, I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a libertarian. As a fiscal conservative and social liberal, I have found at least something to like about each Republican or Democrat I have met. I have close friends in both camps, in which I have observed the following: no matter the issue under discussion, both sides are equally convinced that the evidence overwhelmingly supports their position.
This surety is called the confirmation bias, whereby we seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of already existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret disconfirmatory evidence. Now a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study shows where in the brain the confirmation bias arises and how it is unconscious and driven by emotions. Psychologist Drew Westen led the study, conducted at Emory University, and the team presented the results at the 2006 annual conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
During the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, while undergoing an fMRI bran scan, 30 men--half self-described as "strong" Republicans and half as "strong" Democrats--were tasked with assessing statements by both George W. Bush and John Kerry in which the candidates clearly contradicted themselves. Not surprisingly, in their assessments Republican subjects were as critical of Kerry as Democratic subjects were of Bush, yet both let their own candidate off the hook.
The neuroimaging results, however, revealed that the part of the brain most associated with reasoning--the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex--was quiescent. Most active were the orbital frontal cortex, which is involved in the processing of emotions; the anterior cingulate, which is associated with conflict resolution; the posterior cingulate, which is concerned with making judgments about moral accountability; and--once subjects had arrived at a conclusion that made them emotionally comfortable--the ventral striatum, which is related to reward and pleasure.
Politicians need a peer-review system.
"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," Westen is quoted as saying in an Emory University press release. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts." Interestingly, neural circuits engaged in rewarding selective behaviors were activated. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones," Westen said.
The implications of the findings reach far beyond politics. A jury assessing evidence against a defendant, a CEO evaluating information about a company or a scientist weighing data in favor of a theory will undergo the same cognitive process. What can we do about it?
In science we have built-in self-correcting machinery. Strict double-blind controls are required in experiments, in which neither the subjects nor the experimenters know the experimental conditions during the data-collection phase. Results are vetted at professional conferences and in peer-reviewed journals. Research must be replicated in other laboratories unaffiliated with the original researcher. Disconfirmatory evidence, as well as contradictory interpretations of the data, must be included in the paper. Colleagues are rewarded for being skeptical. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
We need similar controls for the confirmation bias in the arenas of law, business and politics. Judges and lawyers should call one another on the practice of mining data selectively to bolster an argument and warn juries about the confirmation bias. CEOs should assess critically the enthusiastic recommendations of their VPs and demand to see contradictory evidence and alternative evaluations of the same plan. Politicians need a stronger peer-review system that goes beyond the churlish opprobrium of the campaign trail, and I would love to see a political debate in which the candidates were required to make the opposite case.
Skepticism is the antidote for the confirmation bias.
In case you're wondering what this Alaskan thinks of Sarah stepping down before her term is up...
I know, from my own observation of the articles and editorials and multiple facetious ethics complaints that Sarah could make no move — regardless of how mundane — without constant harassment. Yes, I use the word "harassment" because I believe that is what it has been.
No political figure is immune, nor should they be immune, from questioning (those who know me know I've done my share of that on the local and state level over the years) of motives, proper procedures, etc. That's part of the process.
However, when it comes to the point that a person who is attempting to do her best in the position she was elected to do cannot do so, and when the cost in time and money to the individual and to the state to defend against allegations, becomes the prudent thing to do to step away.
I think it was an unselfish move to have chosen to step away from the office of governor and I believe that it was a matter of analyzing the ability to continue to be effective and judging that with the onslaught of attacks of every move and concluding that it was time to step aside.
I believe it is time to impose a fee for filing ethics complaints, which can be refunded if the complaint is found to have merit. I believe those who filed multiple complaints, which were dismissed, were on a well-thought out campaign that cost them nothing. There needs to be a process whereby folks can continue to file complaints and expect a fair and unbiased review, yet those who use that process for a campaign for destruction are held accountable for a part of the expense.
Has she been a good governor? Yes she has. Has she been able to accomplish getting major goals accomplished through bringing thorny players together? Yes.
Would an ugly male be treated the same way by the media? Murkowski wasn't. Obama isn't.
I have to agree with one commenter who stated, to the effect of "Just believe what she's saying." Don't look for alligators under rose bushes.
I only hope that some of the media people and "bloggers" who pushed this to this extent can have a measure of conscience and learn that there is a line and they have crossed it.
So what do we have to counter this scary prospect? We have the Obama stimulus plan, which aims to create 3½ million jobs by late next year. That’s much better than nothing, but it’s not remotely enough. And there doesn’t seem to be much else going on. Do you remember the administration’s plan to sharply reduce the rate of foreclosures, or its plan to get the banks lending again by taking toxic assets off their balance sheets? Neither do I.
All of this is depressingly familiar to anyone who has studied economic policy in the 1930s. Once again a Democratic president has pushed through job-creation policies that will mitigate the slump but aren’t aggressive enough to produce a full recovery. Once again much of the stimulus at the federal level is being undone by budget retrenchment at the state and local level.
So have we failed to learn from history, and are we, therefore, doomed to repeat it? Not necessarily — but it’s up to the president and his economic team to ensure that things are different this time. President Obama and his officials need to ramp up their efforts, starting with a plan to make the stimulus bigger.
Just to be clear, I’m well aware of how difficult it will be to get such a plan enacted.
There won’t be any cooperation from Republican leaders, who have settled on a strategy of total opposition, unconstrained by facts or logic. Indeed, these leaders responded to the latest job numbers by proclaiming the failure of the Obama economic plan. That’s ludicrous, of course. The administration warned from the beginning that it would be several quarters before the plan had any major positive effects. But that didn’t stop the chairman of the Republican Study Committee from issuing a statement demanding: “Where are the jobs?”
It’s also not clear whether the administration will get much help from Senate “centrists,” who partially eviscerated the original stimulus plan by demanding cuts in aid to state and local governments — aid that, as we’re now seeing, was desperately needed. I’d like to think that some of these centrists are feeling remorse, but if they are, I haven’t seen any evidence to that effect.
And as an economist, I’d add that many members of my profession are playing a distinctly unhelpful role.
It has been a rude shock to see so many economists with good reputations recycling old fallacies — like the claim that any rise in government spending automatically displaces an equal amount of private spending, even when there is mass unemployment — and lending their names to grossly exaggerated claims about the evils of short-run budget deficits. (Right now the risks associated with additional debt are much less than the risks associated with failing to give the economy adequate support.)
Also, as in the 1930s, the opponents of action are peddling scare stories about inflation even as deflation looms.
So getting another round of stimulus will be difficult. But it’s essential.
Obama administration economists understand the stakes. Indeed, just a few weeks ago, Christina Romer, the chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, published an article on the “lessons of 1937” — the year that F.D.R. gave in to the deficit and inflation hawks, with disastrous consequences both for the economy and for his political agenda.
What I don’t know is whether the administration has faced up to the inadequacy of what it has done so far.
So here’s my message to the president: You need to get both your economic team and your political people working on additional stimulus, now. Because if you don’t, you’ll soon be facing your own personal 1937.
Let's be honest about this. I realize Smashey is a popular guy on this site. He and I have not had any words good or bad; so as to how I feel about him personally, I honestly could not say one way or another. He is a husband and a father, and that by itself is commendable. He is a St. Louis Cardinal fan. I am an Atlanta Braves fan. He likes politics and history, and so do I.
So, let's get down to the issues, shall we?
Taxes:
Smashey favors a flat tax rate. I do not. Now, I am not naive. I realize that the government has taken the progressive income tax, born out of the Republican Progressive Era, and made it burdensome and complicated. It was not supposed to be this way. The original intent was to foster opportunity by taxing the exorbitant amount of money that was being transferred through wealthy inheritances. Even today, 80% of multi-billionaires inherited their money. However, with offshore accounts and other loopholes having made their way into our tax codes; the income tax does not accomplish the task it was created for. I do not believe the solution is to toss it out completely. I favor Income Tax Reform; but first, we must have accountability. If corporations, and the wealthy, who are providing most of the taxes are willing to be transparent about their assets; then lower income taxes are certainly an feasible option. As President, I will follow the footsteps of Teddy Roosevelt when he stated:
".....corporations must recognize their responsibility not merely to their shareholders but to the community at large. Corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be regulated if they are found to exercise a license working to the public injury. It should be as much the aim of those who seek for social betterment to rid the business world of crimes of cunning as to rid the entire body politic of crimes of violence. Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions."
Social Security:
Smashey and I seem to be very close on Social Security. I am willing to give people a choice in how they want their accounts, whether privatized or not. Also, I am sympathetic to the idea of Social Security accounts being willed to their families after death.
Immigration:
This is where I do not understand those who advocate for free markets. If illegal aliens are willing to offer their labor at a wage the market is willing to pay, then how does government interference here qualify as support for the free market? There are two alternatives here. Either we prosecute those who employ illegal aliens to the full extent of the law, thereby inserting a strong government presence in the free market; or we leave it alone entirely. As for the illegal aliens themselves? They are responding to a demand. I see no wrong here on their part.
Energy:
I disagree w/ Smashey in that I do believe that Global Warming is an imminent threat. I remember hearing about this while growing up in grade school under Ronald Reagan's presidency; so I am a bit taken aback by the resistance within the Republican Party over this. So, I am very much in favor of alternative fuels, including nuclear power. However, I am also for drilling in ANWR. The controversy involving ANWR is one of the biggest lies ever told to us by our government. IMO, it is bigger than Vietnam and Watergate; because in 1969, enough oil was discovered there to make us energy-independant for 200 years. Unfortunately, two years prior to this, our government had taken us off of the gold standard and based our currency on foreign commodities-mainly Middle Eastern oil. If we started pumping our own oil in Alaska, this would depreciate the value of Middle Eastern oil, and thus our currency. So, the government classified this area as an Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. Many of our energy problems can be traced back to this one issue.
Marriage:
Smashey and I disagree on the definition of marriage, as I do believe it to be a religious ceremony. Therefore, I favor divorcing (pun intended) the government from marriage completely. Let the state have civil partnerships and/or unions for legal purposes for both heterosexuals as well as homosexuals. Let the religions do the marrying. However, if this is not acceptable; then according to the 14th Amendment, the state and federal governments have a constitutional obligation to allow same-sex marriages.
Drugs:
I agree with Smashey that the War on Drugs is lost. We have waged a war against American citizens rather than a tragic product. Rehabilitation needs to replace criminalization as the highest priority. However, in being consistent w/ my principles that a child should not be punished for their parents' ignorance (see platform), I favor laws that seek mandatory services for parents who are using drugs with the stipulation that termination of parental rights is a consequence for those who do not cooperate. My wife works for the children's social services here in Texas; and the horror stories she can tell you will literally break your heart. Drugs and families do not mix, especially when children are involved.
That is all! It seems that Smashey is a right social libertarian, and I am a centrist social libertarian. We are close, but noticeably different. I realize these runoffs have their controversy; but this is my sincere and concerted attempt to make my arguments. I welcome the opportunity for a rebuttal; and I hope for a fair and honorable runoff.
Also, please feel free to ask me any questions. I will be in and out all day today; but I will try to check and see what is going on.
Thank you for taking the time to read this; and have a happy and SAFE 4th of July!
It is official. I am completely confused. Here it is 2009. The Bush Administration, of which put me through a severe political identity crisis, is over. Here I am sitting back and thinking of where I was in 2000; and what might I be if I had Rip-Van-Winkled the entire Bush presidency.
I opposed Bush's suspension of habeus corpus and the legislation known as the Patriot Act. I also had reservations about the Iraqi invasion; and the more we learned about the lead up to that invasion, the more my reservations were confirmed.
Now, here is Obama. Sure, I believe in giving people hope. I chose Obama over a campaign that made a choice to empower ignorance and hate. But lets be fair. When we start bailing out 8-track players and horse-and-buggy industries, which is what I compare the initial stages of this administrations economic plans to, then something is wrong. If a business does not innovate and find ways to meet the demands of progress in the domestic and global economy, then they deserve to fail. The "Greed is Good" mentality of the 1980's has finally brought us to a very sad state of affairs in this country. I believe in a free market, but with freedom comes responsibility. Why is it acceptable for credit card companies, and health insurance companies, to try and swindle as many Americans as they can into massive debt so that their executives can have fat bonuses? I hear conservatives say that they should have read the fine print. Hello? Have you been paying attention to our current education system? WE DO NOT TEACH OUR CHILDREN TO READ THE FINE PRINT ANYMORE!
If another nation had done to Americans what we have done to ourselves, it would be considered an act of war! Instead of taking responsibility for our own actions towards one another; we have slowly ceded that responsibility to the government. As a result, government has gotten bigger; and our responsibilities to each other as American citizens has gotten smaller. This is not the fault of one political party either. Both sides are guilty in this tragedy.
So, here I am with a brand new profile. The old Arch profile is being retired. I have outlined basic principles that I live by in my "More About Me" section. As for which political party represents me? The answer right this minute is both and neither.
I thank those who have supported me in the past, and I hope that I have not sacrificed that by this decision. I have certainly learned a lot from each of you; and I am still a firm believer that the best education a person can have in life is simply to challenge their beliefs.
After all the jokes, and all the accusations, and all the surgeries, one thing has never changed. Michael Jackson was one hell of an entertainer. It is this MJ that I want to remember.
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