Revisionism on the right

Reading this kind of drivel that Frank Turek writes here saddens me for both the future of American conservatism and evangelicalism. Are we really so stupid as to buy this back of lies?

On the other hand, the Founders were Christian people with a proper understanding of human nature who thus recognized that absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. So neither did they want the instability and abuse of power characteristic of a secular government. As a result, they brilliantly developed the perfect third alternative to the religious-secular dilemma. Instead of creating their own secular system or adopting laws directly from a sectarian religion, the founders wisely based the United States on the Moral Law (“Nature’s Law” in Jefferson’s words), which comes from God.
It is critical to recognize that our Founders based our government and moral rights on a theistic God, not on someone’s sectarian religion. This Moral Law is consistent with Christianity but does not require adherence to Christianity or even knowledge of the Bible. In fact the Bible itself says that even those who don’t have the Bible know basic right and wrong because God has “written it on their hearts” (Rom. 2:14-15).
In this respect, one could say that the country was founded on Christian theism, but the founders did not mandate the observance of Christianity. So even though most of the Founders were orthodox Christians who believed the Rights of the people came from God, they did not insist that every citizen believe in God; they simply saw no way to justify those natural moral Rights unless God exists. 

This is what is being passed for truth on conservative blogs and news shows.   Funny that Turek references Jefferson.   If anyone believes this, please study Jefferson, Madison, and especially Patrick Henry.  Then get back to me.

Guest Worker Plan, reasonable enforcement, and assimilation

It seems to me that one of the reasons that we don’t have good immigration reform is because of the failure to come up with a bill that would alleviate concerns from those on both sides of the debate. While I realize that good immigration reform includes much more than our policies on our southern border, I am going to focus on that since it is the most politically dicey. There is a third side that would like to keep things the way they are just for the cheap labor, and we will never please them (perhaps they are the one beating the drums). First, I think it is important to realize that there are different reasons for immigrating to the US for those from the south of us (Mexicans and central and southern American’s). Some of these immigrants want to bring their families over here, start a new life, and eventually gain citizenship; some are fleeing economic and political problems; others just come here to work to support their family. I believe that the last category is probably the largest category, and the least likely to assimilate to our culture. These people would prefer to live in their own country, just coming here to work. The problem is that the current system forces them to stay, which means they often bring their family also. I think that this category of people ends up getting stuck here as the economy from where they left often doesn’t improve (it didn’t help that the entire family left the community) .

Those that come to start a new life here are more similar to those immigrants from Europe in the last couple of centuries in that they expect to stay, expect their children to learn the language (many of them will try also), and see themselves as part of the American culture (even if they are also part of a Hispanic culture). From my experience, most of these people already have family that are citizens in the US, and are generally are more highly paid that the guest worker. I think giving this group an easier path to citizenship is important, but there is reason not to include it in the first steps since it is so politically dicey.
So, I think immigration reforms would be fairly popular and would help to improve the situation enough to eventually give citizenship to those that want it.
Guest Worker Plan – Allow non-criminal adult to come here to work, if they have a job lined up (perhaps by some sort of employment agency). This employment agency or company would have to pay a tax to bring this worker into the US (this could help to pay for social services as well as make their labor a little more competitively priced with American’s). All undocumented workers have some time to get into this same system. Allow these workers travel between their home country and the US. I believe that many of their families would return to their country of origin, thus making their communities more stable, and the worker more likely to return once they are able.

Enforcement – Forget about all the talk about increasing border security, deportation, etc (don’t stop what we are currently doing). After some time after the Guest Worker Plan has been instituted, audit all businesses, and make sure they have no undocumented workers (undocumented workers are often paid less than minimum wage). Impose a hefty fine on all businesses unwilling to comply with the law.

The semantic tricks of the left and the pro-life ethic

The left has mastered the art of framing a debate using semantics and accusations of hypocrisy, but let’s not despise them for this work of sophistry. Rather, while we destroy these arguments with logic and rational thought, let’s also explore them to see how we can be more consistent at applying our ethics and values.
A prime example of this is the abortion debate; the primary weapon against the abolition of abortion is how they define what is pro-life and what is pro-choice. Almost to a person, they will say that they are “pro-life”, and they then claim that pro-life means being against war, the death penalty, and against abortion (though they are only “personally” against it). Well, they are defining pro-life as an ethic of pacifism, which is certainly not required to be against abortion. They point out how hypocritical we are by calling for the end of legal abortion while not speaking against state sanctioned killing and war. To them I say that if being against the death penalty is required to be against legalized abortion, then the converse must be true making them as big of hypocrites as us. Actually, by claiming the pacifist mantle along with legalized abortion, I believe they are the hypocrites. The problem is however that the language is just a cover for their actual beliefs about abortion; that the fetus is a parasite and not a person with rights. We can see through history that oppressors and murders always dehumanize their targets, which is no different than what is happening in the abortion argument.

Having said all of this, we need to take their charges of hypocrisy and look inside our thinking to make sure our pro-life ethic is consistently applied to other issues. As I said before, the pro-life ethic is not necessarily one of pacifism (although pacifism can certainly be pro-life), but rather one of justice and the protection of innocent life. Whether it is the Just War Theory (JWT), the death penalty, or abortion, we must always seek to protect innocent life. There is a huge vacuum of thought on the JWT when it comes to our modern wars and an almost reactionary ideology when there are suggestions that the death penalty is unfairly administered. It seems like we must justify any state sanction of violence with sound and just reason.

Does our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan meet the critera for a Just War?

The general criteria for a just war as is follows:
• having just cause
• being a last resort
• being declared by a proper authority
• possessing right intention
• having a reasonable chance of success
• and the end being proportional to the means used

Does the current administration of the death penalty take enough reasonable care to ensure that innocents are not executed? Is there enough deterrence to mitigate the innocent people that will be executed?

What I have begun to realize is that I don’t have enough answers on these questions to take firm positions on the wars or on the death penalty as currently administered. Not that I can’t take a stand one way or the other, but I have to constantly reexamine my positions based on new evidence.

Where is a rational right leaning centrist to go?

To all the people here, what would you do if your party totally went off the deep end? I call myself a centrist now, but only because the Republican party has taken such a hard right that a 90s conservative is pretty much a RINO now. I’m pro-life, pro gun ownership, generally for lower taxes, etc.

On the other hand, I don’t think Obama is leading a socialist revolution against the U.S., (I think he is a little bit to the right of LBJ and FDR) don’t have a problem with the French, believe that mercy is as important on the immigration issue as is justice, am a capitalist that realizes there are too many abuses (and that government is an intuition that can help correct it)… Where do I go? Why do Rs not listen to legitimate complaints of abuses of power by liberals? IMO, liberals are great at pointing out problems if not always good at coming up with reasonable solutions.

I have listened to Rush in the past realizing he was a minority voice and one of entertainment, but grow tired of the current parade of clowns (Beck, Hannity, Savage, etc). Where are the conservative intellectuals? No one is listening to George Will or David Brooks. I’m in the conservative minority in thinking that Palin disqualified herself via her interview (so what if it was a hatchet job) and her quitting in office. I like the idea of divided government, but think the current crop of Rs are merely shills for their own corporate special interest.
Why do Rs and Ds hate centrists? Why can’t they realize that centrist represent more people in their districts as opposed to ideologues which only represent the base. Is this country really cons vs libs? It seems like there is a lot that we all agree on if we had better representatives in the house right now.
Michael McCaul is my congressman, and I’d seriously entertain voting democrat if there was a good one running against him. (Harold Ford Jr is a good example).

/end of rant.

Reliable Sources

If anybody reading this get's their information from Beck, I'd like to hear a reasonable defense of this clown. This "professor" he has on is nothing more than an uneducated fundamentalist historical revisionist. Thomas Jefferson was really an Orthodox Christian?

Basil Marceaux for President

Basil Marceaux for President

I’m a fascist, but you’re a socialist.

Go to RedState.com or DailyKos.com, and you will see these two terms bandied about generously. It seems that there are many schools of thought on why types of insults are so common in American’s political discourse, the term socialism being the insult de jour. The common explanation is that it just a sign of political polarization, anger, and extremism. While all of these things are certainly a factor, I think it has more to do with the fact that the political class has mastered the art of capitalizing on intellectual laziness. This does after all touch on modern American’s two biggest intellectual attributes; the desire to reduce everything to something very simple, and the inherent categorical pattern of thinking, which is a form of prejudicial thinking.
So, all the political class needs to do is to demonize one side by presenting a nice little package for the other side to fit in. If it is the left, communist or socialist will do; if the right, facist or nazi. There is no worry that they will be called on the genetic fallacy as that is built into the thinking of most people (if it quacks like a socialist). This is not to say that there are not elements of these ideologies in our current political ideologies as modern liberals are influenced by Marx and by the American left of the 1930s as well as Conservatives have much in common with some fascist ideology (especially those heavily influenced by the likes of Leo Strauss). American voters make the genetic fallacy (in spades) if they allow these packages to influence their views on an ideology without examining each sides specific views. The implication by these terms is totalitarian government, which I don’t believe is part of either ideology. The problem is that neither ideology fits all characteristics of what we think that socialism and fascism are (liberals policies do have a lot in common with Western democratic socialism, but that is not the image that the pejorative conjures). All ideologies have flaws, but should be able to stand or fall on their own merits rather than categorical similarities alone. Certainly these categories can be helpful if used with care in examine why an ideology might fail or how it developed, but I’m not sure that comparing Obama to Stalin because of increased taxes is such a good idea.

Thoughts on CEO pay

The question you commonly hear from liberals is “Are CEOs paid too much”. A conservative answers that they make whatever the market bears. My question is “are they paid more than they are worth to the corporation, and if so why”? Forget that a CEO might make 1000 times more than the lowest paid employee. Forget that they get a golden parachute. Even forget that they do well even when they are poor managers of the company. Are the power structures that have created this market, based on fair capitalism or are they based on power structures that have conflicts of interest?

Conservatives often bemoan the fact that union employees are and have been overpaid because of undue influence that a union exerts over a corporation, but is it not possible that a ruling class of corporate leaders have been able to exert the same type of power.

I don’t have all the answers, but some questions I will be asking are as follows: How are 401k, mutual fund, and pension fund holders represented by fund managers? To what extent do fund managers and CEOs have similar interests? To what extent do boards (which approve and recommend a salary for a CEO) consists of friends and others with a conflict of interest? For example, does this CEO sit on another CEOs board? How does performance actually affect CEO pay?

I have a hypothesis on this, and tend to think that it is a serious problem, but I’d like to see more actual evidence on either side of the debate.

Fox News reports fire at White House

Fox News reports fire at White House

Shirley Sherrod demonstrates the chasm in US opinion

I've been following various news sources and blogs pretty closely the last few weeks. The Shirley Sherrod case exemplifies the great chasm of American opinion today. I have red redstate.com, dailykos.com huffingtonpost.com, townhall.com, cnn, bbc, fox, etc.

On one hand, the left sees this as all out warfare from the right, and some on the right still see this as a case of racism... Andrew Brietbart and Foxnews have made virtually no apology for sloppy Journalism (Fox went to so far as use the Administrations firing to smear Obama). The question in my mind is why did Fox report this story in the way in which they did? Until that question is answered, I will not consider them a serious news source; it's one thing to be biased and yet quite another to be yellow.

Fox News and NAACP

Looks like Fox really dropped the ball here. I'll be curious to see why this was reported the way Fox reported it.

NAACP 'snookered' over video of former USDA employee

This and the gold scandal don't add up well for Fox.

Heath care ramblings

As I see it, here are some of the most serious problems with our health care system
Insurance companies arbitrate their policies with little recourse.
Insurance companies are oligopolies
Overuse and waste
High cost of pharmaceuticals
Uninsured have access, but use the highest cost (ER)

I’m certainly no expert on this, but these are some of my observations that I would like to discuss.

Here are some things I see as the underlying causes to these problems:
The way insurance is sold in the corporate world is as a health care plan rather than actual insurance to protect a consumer from financial disaster. Not only does this create overuse and abuse, but it also creates unnecessary bureaucracy (not productive to the economy). A tank of gas cost about $50 for most people. Imagine if instead of just paying directly, you had an employer provided comprehensive insurance plan that included all car repairs, maintenance, and even gasoline. Now, the gas station has to hire somebody to file claims; the insurance company has to hire people to oversee, administer, and pay the claims; your employer has to hire someone to oversee and administer the insurance company. Now, your tank of gas may only cost you a small co-pay of $10, but the cost of the gas would probably be at least $200. Isn’t it possible, that these same sort of economic problems exists within the current framework of our medical system?

The first reform in my book would be to remove all government incentive for corporations having these comprehensive plans. Take away tax breaks, make corporations disclose on your paycheck how much they are actually paying (that is money that could be part of your salary), and remove the idea that group discounts are primarily at the corporate level. Next, expand the medical savings plans to be more like the HSA’s for those that work for large corporations Allow employees to have tax free savings accounts that they don’t forfeit so long as it is somewhere around their deductible. Next, require that all medical providers disclose the costs of the services they provide. Now, people are paying the providers directly, and are shopping for the best value rather than allowing insurance companies to do it. It may also be important to eliminate the idea that a corporate entity can negotiate a better rate than an individual.

We already have death panels – it’s called insurance bureaucrats. The best solution for this is as follows, no longer allow insurance companies to write plans where they are the arbiter of what procedures get paid and what doesn’t get paid. Force them to disclose in CLEAR language what they will cover and what they want, and allow the doctors to make the decision. If the doctor makes a wrong decision, it will be up to the insurance companies to go to court to overturn it. Increase penalties on doctors that misuse the system so that we can trust them as arbiters. There could be clear rules written into the contract, such as an insurance company will or will not pay for X treatment if someone has Stage 4 lung cancer.

There is no easy answer for the high cost of pharmaceuticals since the R&D dollars that go into these is extremely high. Producing them according to various governments’ regulations is also very expensive, and probably necessary. If these companies do not have a high ROI on their products, they will decrease the research, so regulating profits will not likely help (we may never know what we don’t find). One problem is that other countries do regulate the cost of these drugs, meaning that the US pays the highest share of the pharma profits. We need to go to battle with these policies so that the cost are shared. Another problem is that pharma companies usually have less than 10 years to make all their money since their patent starts at the time of discovery, not production. Perhaps, patent law could be changed so that these companies can produce the drugs longer. This means waiting longer for a generic, but likely paying less in the mean time.
Lastly, I think it is time to realize that we already have “universal health care”, but that we are doing it all in the wrong way. We have to provide a cheaper and more efficient safety net than Emergency rooms. Go to any emergency room, and you will see all sorts of people with colds and other minor medical issues. We aren’t going to turn away those that can’t afford to pay, so why not provide care to them in a cheaper way? This way ERs can be ERs, and the cost of a visit by indigents will not be paid by the unfortunate who happen to be able to pay the bill. Then again, if we eliminate insurance for things that shouldn’t be insured, the cost of seeing a doctor would probably be much less.

Michael Gersen... My sentiments exactly

Anyone Can Be A Nixon

Arizona law on illegal aliens

Not sure I agree with this or not, but I definitely think POTUS joking about it at the correspondence dinner was classless. The reason states such as Arizona are desperate are because the federal government has done nothing to curb the problem. On the other hand, the old saying goes, "you might beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride". Here is a question that I don't know the answer to. If a Hispanic person from another state (one where illegals can get a driver's license) is pulled over, will a drivers license be ample proof of citizenship?

Five reasons the right is setting themselves up for defeat.

Here are some reasons I think the right, and specifically the Republican party are setting themselves up for eventual obscurity.

1. Overconfidence in the failure of current economic policies. While I doubt that the $700B stimulus program was the best way to handle the economic crisis, it is one way. People are mad at Obama right now; they are angry with the health care plan, angry with the recession, and angry with the way he has handled other issues. The Republicans will certainly win a significant number of house seats along with a few Senate ones, but it is easy to forget that the same happened to Clinton and Reagan. BTW, one of the reasons for the recovery in the mid 90’s was the Bush I stimulus package, which even included a tax increase. Reagan signed on to increased spending in order to get tax cuts, and they both probably helped us come out of the recession of the early 80s.

2. The sky is falling syndrome. If you listen to the right, you would think we are heading towards a communist utopia under Obama, but the fact is that Obama is just a continuation of the Progressive policies of those such as FDR and LBJ. Not only that, Obama’s policy makers are more influenced by political realism (look at how many Clinton people are in his administration) than the liberal’s of the mid 20th century. Aside from Obama’s pseudo-lovefest with our enemies, his foreign policy has been more like GWB post 2006 than what the right has predicted. Of course it helped that getting out of Iraq was made easier by the very surge that the leadership of the Democratic Party maligned. Obama has kept Gates, and put in Generals (Betrayus anyone) that Bush championed. And he is done playing go-fish with North Korea and Iran (they are our allies now, right?).

3. The belief that the only abuse of power is the government. It’s one thing to be against Obama care or against the latest attempt at Wall Street reform, it’s quite another to be against it and to pretend that there aren’t abuses to be addressed by health insurance companies and financial institutions. People will eventually see through this.

4. Immigration policy. I was very encouraged by conservative Republicans (especially Texas ones) in the last decade attempt to reform immigration policy with a sensible worker visa plan as well as a comprehensive immigration reform. Its too bad that conservatives from other states demonized it as well as Democrats tried to give free tuition to children of illegals. Now, even McCain is against doing something reasonable in favor of the impossible tasks of only preventing people from coming across. Don’t even get me started with this one. If Republicans would take the moral high ground on this issue, they could easily become a majority party again as the Democrats are still divided on it.

5. It’s not had to make caricatures if your politicians ARE caricatures. Sarah Palin could not answer basic questions on civics (it matters not that it was a set up), and she quit as Governor for very poor reasons. She is an uninformed and unfaithful former magistrate. Yah, that’s a winning formula.

First Post

The purpose of this blog is for my musings and rantings on politics, current events, sports, and anything else I want to talk about. I welcome comments and debate, but will not publish anything inflammatory.