In Defense of “Bigot”

From left, Rev. Jerry McAfee of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church; Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage; MPR’s Kerri Miller, Bishop Gene Robinson, Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire; and Sarah Walker, board member of Minnesotans United for All Families debate the proposed amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman Nov. 1, 2012, at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minn. (MPR photo/Tom Campbell)

I want to talk about the word “bigot,” not so much bigots, but the word and its meaning.

Earlier this week, Minnesota Public Radio broadcast a debate about Minnesota‘s proposed and so-called Marriage Amendment.   (I haven’t yet found a full transcription of the debate, alas — MPR’s site isn’t always easy to navigate — but a detailed story about the debate his here.)

Based on the guests invited to debate the issue, I’m not sure if debate was intended to focus on marriage, religion, and politics or if it simply devolved that way, but in essence the sides of the debate largely lined up on religious opinions.  This in itself should make all voters and citizens very nervous.  When the Christian Bible is cited as the primary precedent to define law — to literally rebuild a state’s constitution, in this case — sound and obvious reasons for outrage exist.

I found it interesting, however, that both sides stepped over each other to tell the other that they were being civil and open-minded about each other’s positions and discourse.

Civil, ok, but open-minded?  I’m not so sure.  I think you can politely and sincerely call someone a bigot and not have to apologize for it.  If the other side is offended, maybe they should consider why.

In particular, the open religious talk in this debate was stunning.  The fact that biblical text is used in a public forum to defend positions of public policy in what’s supposed to be a secular state runs contradictory to what I had always been taught are the foundations of freedom, particularly religious freedom, in this country.  But again, I get side-tracked, but then there were other outrageous comments.

Brian Brown, President of the National Organization for Marriage, kept making the point that in the future other people could change the amendment by referendum.  Well, maybe.  But that begs the question:  What purpose do constitutions serve?  I thought the brilliance of our constitution — state and federal — was equal protection, protecting the rights of the minority from the wishes of the majority.

My guess is Brian Brown is a political conservative and political conservatives tend toward this natural law theory and the idea that we have inherent, unchanging rights.  Or, in a classical sense, laws are proven by logic and reason where logic and reason are governed by unchanging principles which can determine right and wrong, good and bad.  Either way, Brian Brown fails either test.  Logic got lost in his opinions and if we are to accept that each generation can re-amend its constitution to fit the whims of the majority, well, where are those inherent basic rights we all are supposed to have?

So let’s get to bigot.  It seems like a good time to do so.

I recall and God knows (sorry God for bringing you in here) that I might be wrong, but I thought the root of “bigot” is found in religion.  Doesn’t it come from some old form of “by god”?  Follow me here — especially if you’re a bigot, don’t know it, and were on stage at the Fitzgerald Theater Thursday night.  ’Bi got”  where “bi” equals “by” and not that naughty habit of being both same sex and opposite sex.  And “got” equals “God”, that impressive guy with all the white hair, big flowing beard, and regal gowns pointing all the time.   So you get “by God.”

A bigot wasn’t necessarily a “bad person” or even a hick from Anoka, but someone who lived “by god.”  Leave it to the French to turn such a thing into an insult…must have been a German-French thing once upon a time.

In the debate Thursday night, each side was careful not to offend the other with bigot, but…we had bigots on stage!  Hell yeah!  Why can’t we call a bigot a bigot?

Look at the modern definition:  ”A person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.”  Ok, call me intolerant if you want, but I am not the guy trying to codify my intolerance into the state’s constitution!  In fact, I think you could argue that my intolerance of intolerance cancels out!  (Logic, anyone?  How about common sense?)  But you cannot tell me that people arguing in favor of Minnesota’s anti-same sex marriage rights amendment are tolerant.

So why can we call them a bigot?

Furthermore, they are forcing their intolerance based on a specific belief, creed, and opinion.  Seems to fit the definition perfectly.  It is so blatantly obvious that I think it takes more honesty than smarts to figure out.

The biggest offender on the stage — and therefore the biggest bigot — was the Rev. Jerry McAfee of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Minneapolis.  (Brian Brown tried to be all smartsy and talk like he knew what he was talking about, which is by itself annoying.)  Here’s part of what Rev. McAfee had to say.

“The core of what we believe is that marriage was ordained by God, as given in the Bible. If you add to it, then you change my belief system,” McAfee said. “And when you change my belief system, I have just as much right to vote yes as anyone else does [to vote] no because it shifts my belief system.”

Let’s be serious again and look at our definitions.  I see words like “believe”, “God,” “in the Bible,” and “belief system.”  See any problems here?  Do you see any reason why we shouldn’t call Rev. McAfee a bigot?

He fails the secular argument, too.  Why are his beliefs more valuable than anyone else’s?  Simply because he has a special relationship with his god, I suppose, would be his answer.   Unfortunately arguments like these are precisely why we have a constitution in the first place, to protect us — to protect our natural inherent rights, a biggie for conservatives — from the whims of the majority.

There is a reason why people don’t want to be called a bigot.  It is loaded with derogatory connotations.  But there is a reason for that, too.  We don’t tolerate intolerance and thus “bigot” isn’t a very endearing word.  So it seems to me that the work around here — especially if you’re a right’s bandit like Brown and McAfee — is to remove the word “bigot” from political discourse.  Don’t let them get away with it.

For the record, the anti-amendment debaters — Bishop Gene Robinson, Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire and Sarah Walker, board member of Minnesotans United for All Families — did a good job being nice and still made their point.  Of course they could have made their point more directly and clearly if they didn’t have to counter all the bigoted objections, but they did a good job and refrained from the “name calling” I might be accused of here.

Overall, though, I see intolerance, especially in the name of religion, mainstreamed into our public and political discourse too easily today.  In American today we face an emerging theocracy that should be of concern, especially as it flies directly in the face of our nation’s founding principles.  That should be more offensive and disturbing than calling a bigot a bigot.

So, in defense of “bigot’ — not bigots — I want to encourage people to stand up to the narrowing definition of rights in this country.  When start to reconstruct our constitutions to restrict rights, not protect them, we are no longer true to the values or tenor of the ideas that built this country as a free nation.

“The precepts of the law are these:  to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give everyone else his due.”  – Cicero

(P.S.  I apologize for the Anoka insult.  I should probably remove that, huh?  Ironically, I like Anoka!  I really do…but I was on a roll and it just came to me.  Maybe I should have said Coon Rapids instead.)

Related articles

• Is it acceptable to call someone a bigot? (kokoliri.wordpress.com)
• Minnesotans United for All Families (mnunited.org)
• A Call for Reasonable GOPers (alittletourinyellow.wordpress.com)
• Let’s call a bigot a bigot (newstatesman.com)

Replying to an Email and then I am Finished

I received a comment regarding the “partisan generalizations” in my previous post.  Ok, fair enough.  And I guess I can link to some data.  The preponderance of data supports a much more progressive agenda, not the opposite.  Just follow the links.

But let’s look at my generalizations from the premises conservatives use to make their arguments.  If, for example, less regulation and lower taxes creates jobs, well…where are the jobs?  If consolidating wealth with the “job creators” creates jobs, where are the jobs?  Where is the growth?

Or how about this one, if war is peace, where is the peace?  I remember a classic Vietnam-era protest t-shirt, fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.

Excuse my language, but we’re being fucked.

We went from an era of prosperity and surplus to an era of decline and deficits in an awfully quick hurry.  Blaming Obama, the guy asked to catch our juggernaut economy in free fall and toss it skyward again as if it were a helium balloon, helps no one, especially when the de-regulating anti-government tax cutters won’t take any of the blame or offer any support.  They simply want more opportunity to do more of the same which hasn’t worked so well.  Isn’t that clear enough?

We live in an era of conservative policies and things don’t look so great.  What is so complicated about this?

Keep in mind, too, that we don’t live in the 1950s anymore.  The United States economy needs to compete globally.  If our competitive advantage is going to rely solely on tax cuts and less regulation, we haven’t much of a chance.  Just as importantly you have to look at where the labor market is priced now.  We might be able to get all the labor growth we wanted — if workers were willing to work for $10 a day.

But it isn’t even certain that lower cost labor would bring jobs to this country.  Our infrastructure lags, for one thing.  China and India invest in their economies as we turn and run the other way.

And let’s suppose we do drive down the cost of labor here in order to bring jobs here.  In an economy driven by household spending that isn’t a good formula.

We need to reconfigure our strategy and reset our competitive advantage in the global market.  God, listening to a policy speech given by Kurt Bills — a GOP candidate for U S Senate challenging Amy Klobuchar — was painful.  I was embarrassed for him.  He hasn’t a clue about the economy…and he’s a high school economics teacher!  Is it any wonder we struggle so?

I look at it this way.  If conservatives have sound principles to support their supply-side economic arguments, let’s see them.  Let’s see them in context.  We are in a recession.  Explain the supply side model in an environment where cash is plentiful and demand is down.

Don’t bring out the faux idol Reagan, either.  First off, he wasn’t today’s brand of conservative.  Secondly, he didn’t have the rosiest economic record either.  When the economy did start to recover, it recovered on the momentum of evolving markets in new technologies…and some bubbles inflated by deregulation, but that’s a story people on the right don’t want to hear.

That’s enough from me.  I am going to disappear in my dreams.  As promised I’ll write about those next.

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Liberals, Conservatives, and the Abuse of Science

Does ideology influence scientific discourse for both conservatives and liberals?  An article by Brandon Ferdig in today’s Star Tribune suggests that it might.

I won’t argue that both liberals and conservatives are not ideological and that ideology does not affect beliefs, but I don’t think you can argue that both sides “dig in” and refuse compromise equally.

First, for the record, I am no friend of today’s brand of conservativism.  I am not even diplomatic  – or nice — about it.  (I think they’re idiots and happy to say so.)  But I don’t think that means someone like me cannot call a spade a spade and argue from the facts.

We live in a world of discursive imbalance, especially when it come to facts.  When we start trying to find discursive parity by sharing the blame, we do a disservice to the truth. Finding balance in these debates is patronizing and pointless.

Let’s take a look at the examples in Brandon Ferdig’s article.  He points out that — in general — conservatives don’t trust the science behind evolution, climate change, and universal health care.  Liberals, on the other hand, tend not to like the science behind GMOs, the role of genetics in intelligence, and the importance of gender roles in marriage affecting the income gap.

Ok, if you’re like me, you had to pause for a second.  GMO?  Oh, yeah!  Genetically modified organisms!  Liberals (or progressives) are more lkely question the science that mostly says genetically modified foods are safe and no different than other food.  That seems to be the point.  Let’s be careful not to generalize, but go along with the comparison for the sake of following the argument here.

I am not aware of many people — on either the left or the right — raising torches and pitchforks over this one.  Even the issues that more plausibly  liberal “don’t like” such as scares about oil and food shortages are more Chicken Little moments than enduring tenet of liberalism.   Mainstream liberals don’t cling to these as litmus test issues.  The same cannot be said of conservatives.

However, whether you are a conservative or a liberal, reading the comparisons in Ferdig’s essay, you might have felt a little taken for granted as I did when I read liberals tend to not trust the science behind the safety of genetically modified foods.  He seems to be using generalizations to argue about generalizations.  For my part I am fine with the science telling me genetically modified foods are safe, and I think this is where the writer’s argument misses the point.  It isn’t so much that some people have a propensity to believe one set of facts and deny another as much as politics is a matter of how these differences are used discursively to influence politics.

Conservative leaders employ the politicization of science effectively, and more and more of the conservative constituency follow obediently.  This is bad news.

I simply do not see GMO science deniers on par with the climate change science deniers.  It doesn’t have the same political clout, not by a long shot.  Climate change denying influences policy arguments affecting everything from the environment to taxes to foreign policy.  GMOs?  Not so much.

When was the last time you saw liberals protesting Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy carrying signs mocking the science that supports the safety of genetically modified foods?  You don’t.

Conservatism has slipped off the cliff into…well, who knows what it is.  Smart people lead today’s conservative parties, they cannot they be as stubbornly misinformed and myopic as they seem.  But they are not beyond fostering stupidy and disinformation among the people they count on for support.   And this stupidity is dangerous; it goes beyond disrespecting science.  Take a look at civil rights, economy, national security, environment, education, jobs, and more.  Are we better today or worse?  Of course not, and one has to wonder why we are where we are.  Who could champion decline?  For what purpose?

Conservatives too often co-opt freedom in the name of fear.  Fostering misleading skepticism about science is one way to make this work.  We need to be more sophisticated and better-informed and stop pretending that both sides of the ideological political spectrum are equally at fault.   I simply don’t think you see a balance between left and right on this regard.  That’s the point that matters.

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It is Time for Truth or Consequences

 

Everyone is talking about Mitt Romney‘s most recent gaffe, some people even attempt to defend him.  The politician himself slithers around the facts as if they don’t matter.  It is ridiculous.  Did he mean what he said, yes or no?  Listening to him, it is hard to tell.  He didn’t say what he meant, but he meant what he said.  Is that right?  Does that make sense?

We’re smarter than this and deserve better than this.  Character should matter, especially when choosing our political leaders, but then we get this.

If we are going to get this country back on track we need to be a little less comfortable with dishonesty.  We’re overdue for truthfulness, but it isn’t going to matter unless we notice and deliver some consequences.

Let’s go back to poster boy Mitt and pretend for a moment that he is being misunderstood about dismissing nearly half of all Americans whining scofflaws.  In a press conference yesterday Romney says he hopes the person who took the damning video will release all of it, presumably so we can judge what he says in context.   That appears to be his defense.

Do we believe Mitt’s stiff and scripted public appearances more than what he says when he is away from the public eye surrounded by friends and donors?

Well…people just don’t get it.  Ultimately the burden of responsible government in a democracy — in theory — rests with the voters.

So what does it say about us when we see guys like Mitt Romney rise to national prominence?  He is just a one guy, but he stands for a party that either understands nothing about context or willfully misrepresents it.  Is that us?

While I can’t say there was much memorable about the 2012 RNC convention — other than Clint’s silly speech — we haven’t already forgotten the bogus “We Built It” theme of that convention, have we?  That theme is based on a statement made by President Barak Obama which was taken out of context and misrepresented.  It is truth turned into a lie and we shouldn’t tolerate it.

Republicans are good at this sort of deception, however.  It is the Big Lie strategy.  If you’re going to tell a lie, tell a big one and tell it often.  Eventually at least part of it will be retained as the truth.

This theme runs through conservative politics today and it happens more often than not without negative consequences.  It will continue to happen until voters wise up and pay attention.  But when you have glaring examples of double-speak from the most prominent conservative candidate today going unchecked, well…where’s the hope?

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The Madness of George Will

George F. Will 

George Will laments today that President Barak Obama is “determined to complete the progressive project from the founders’ constraining premises, a project Woodrow Wilson embarked on 100 Novembers ago.”

That’s it.  That’s George Will’s complaint.

Let’s start with looking at this bad idea Will calls a “progressive project.”  Picking up my dictionary — yes, I still have several — I look up Progress and read bad ideas like “Movement toward a goal” and “Steady improvement” and “to advance toward a more desirable form.”  Nasty stuff.  Nasty stuff, indeed.

One definition seems especially germane to the politics that run counter to George Will’s apparent view of things.  It is  ”Development, unfolding.”

Inherent in Will’s criticism is a rejection of development and unfolding.  Rather than let government evolve and progress congruently with our success and best interests, it should be reined in to match the intentions of founding fathers that no one living today has ever met in order to serve the needs of a future that the founding fathers could never imagine.

I understand that this is the basic divide between conservatives and progressives, but when is this going to reach the point of absolute absurdity?  Imagine, if you will, a scenario that a good Republican might be able to embrace.  Imagine a family business.  Pick one that has existed for generations or even years.  How long would a business that stubbornly adhered to practices of Grandpa’s founding would thrive today?  Is it a given that business adapt to survive?  Why shouldn’t a country, why shouldn’t a government?

Do You Still Use This? Why Not?

You’d think guys like George Will would be smart enough to follow this line of thought, but of course he still  treats what ails him with Dr. Johnson’s Cure All Elixer.

What conservatives appear unable to grasp is how significant government has been in supporting the institutions, infrastructure, and policies that helped our nation flourish.  So called “big government” did not squelch American prosperity, it served the businesses, families, and communities that thrived with America’s success.

Will talks about freedom as if government somehow had curtailed American freedom.  In recent years, which have been arguably more friendly to current conservative ideals than America’s golden age, our freedoms have been increasingly under attack.  How can a guy like George Will really argue “natural rights” that “pre-exist government” on the one hand and tolerate policy limiting rights affecting everything from justice to privacy to marriage?

And what rights were lost in America’s prosperity?  Sure, people hate taxes, but if that investment creates a better, wealthier America, is that a good investment?  If it creates a safer, smarter, and more secure world, isn’t that better?  Is providing for the common good an infringement on rights?  Explain how.

It is hard to believe how stubbornly regressive people can be.  Now poor George is getting old.  His thinking days might be behind him.  But we are raising an entire class of people who are unable to appreciate the benefits of smart government because they have been misled and worse.

The world is changing and it will advance to a more desirable form.  Does the United States want to be a meaningful part of it — a leader — or are we more comfortable hiding behind the myths of our past?

Related articles

• George Will’s Imaginary Obama (theamericanconservative.com)
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Politics at the Minnesota State Fair

Now some people might say my opinions are a bit biased, but I don’t know why anyone would say that.  They might also suggest that I do generalize a bit too easily.  Really?  No, no no.  Pish posh.  That’s just silly.  And I am going to prove it.

Yesterday I went to the Minnesota State Fair and lingered at the GOP booth.  I like to do this, especially with a few anti-Marriage Amendment and pro-Democratic buttons pinned to my shirt.  I also like to see how long I can hold my breath.  (I don’t know, but those people must have caught something and I don’t want it.)  So picture me there, holding my breath turning shades of red and holding a half-full cup of pale ale, too, while I eagerly look  for action.

I am an observant guy and I seek out the truth.  So I linger and watch and wait and so on.  I want something to happen, after all I always look for facts that I can share with you.  And year after year I keep giving these people a second chance and each year I am disappointed.  Certainly their politics are wrong — bad thinking leads to bad politics — but why the hell can’t these people get fashion right?

Come on folks!  Have some style.  Who dresses you, Nurse Ratched?

I exhale and leave.

Here is an indisputable fact…if you see a stylish, well-dressed (maybe even sexy…definitely if sexy) person at the Minnesota State Fair, they’re a liberal.  I’ll take that fact one step farther, if you see a stylish, well-dressed (and most definitely if they’re sexy) person anywhere, they are a liberal.   And I can prove it with one visit at the fair.

Certainly there are some liberals with closets best suited for the 80s, I don’t deny that — I might even be one of them — but I challenge you to find a conservative with any fashion sense.  I only speak the truth, so prove me wrong.

Let’s start with the basics.

Your typical conservative congressman, as an example, matches his belt and shoes only because someone told him to do so.  Whereas a liberal finds fashionable ways to mix it up.  And pulls it off.  Look back at any of the Republican debates earlier this year.  If there are people who can make a standard blue suit look bad, that’s your gang.  Clearly they watch episodes of Dragnet for tips on style and poise.  Dare them to mix patterns or try a European cut.

I do have to give George W. Bush some credit, though.  He appeared to have a tailor.  And a good one.  Of course he wore his suits like a coat hanger — Jack Webb would have been proud — but then a suit of clothes doesn’t make the man.  Often the other way around.  And we know other issues swirl around and through George W that a suit cannot fix.

But this is simple stuff, clothes are clothes, so let’s go back again to the fair where I can prove my point.

The GOP booth was a raging bore.  A few folks with bad hair (once again, check out the people conservatives elect, cf. Kurt Zellers?)  and even worse t-shirts stood around catching flies or awaiting the Rapture, I couldn’t tell which.  It was disappointing.  These people were lost in their own little cloudy cocoons, being extra careful not to make eye contact.  I couldn’t find anyone to talk with me.  Instead they wandered to and fro as if they had been at the Kool-Aid just a bit too long.  An absolute disaster over there at the GOP, but that should surprise no one.

Have I ever been wrong about Kurt Zellers?

The DFL booth on the other hand was busy with happy, energetic good people.  Most of them were hot as hell, too.  Even I felt a little sexy over there with the Democrats.  And of course there was no arguing with my Black Fleece gingham shirt, pressed linen pants, polished shoes, and jaunty hat.  Clearly not a conservative, because even if it didn’t quite work, I at least tried.  (When was the last time a conservative tried ANYTHING…other than taking away your public services and limiting your rights, that is?)

Now let’s go up the street where the anti-marriage rights people have a booth and…you know what…I’m not even going to pick on these people, not their sense of style or anything else.  I genuinely felt a little sorry for them.  Their politics, however, are fair game.

(By the way, if I remember correctly, they are sporting a bad shade of aqua at that booth.  Aqua?  Maybe it was Gatorade green.)

The anti-marriage rights booth was dead, just as that amendment surely is dead.  For the record here, the amendment is commonly called the “Marriage Amendment,” which is an example of conservative talent with Owellian Doublespeak.

The pro-rights people — the people correctly opposing this soi disant Marriage Amendment — attract quite a crowd.  It is a large, busy, and — even at the Minnesota State Fair — socially diverse crowd.  People actually wait in line to sign a petition, and none of them were wearing grey air-brushed t-shirts showing F-15 fighter jets flying through a bad collage of American flags, eagles, and Mount Rushmore.  I felt kind of sexy here, too.

In fact, I think I can close the circle on this discussion right now.  Is it simply the fact that liberals have a better sense of style that makes them more attractive or is it something else?  Likewise, does bad art silk-screened on a cheap shirt or a DIY haircut really make one unattractive or is it something else?  Sarah Palin spent $70,000 at Neiman Marcus here in Minneapolis and it didn’t seem to help her.  Maybe it is her glasses or her screeching, whining voice…I don’t know.  But I think I do know…

Using Sarah Palin as an example — a woman whose sense of style cannot be saved by the fashion forward efforts of Neiman Marcus’s talented sales people — we see that style isn’t so much about what you wear but who you are.  In the current  epoch of American Conservativism, I can go to the GOP pound year after year and not find a winner in that show.   Look at Sarah.  Even  a stylish Armani suit cannot overcome her wooden, Team America persona.  She might impress a knuckle-dragger, but she does nothing for me.

The progressive thinking people at the anti-Marriage Amendment booth, on the other hand, possess something entirely different.  There’s nothing wooden about them.  They possess a degree of thoughtfulness and intelligence.  And intelligence is attractive.  Therefore the good liberal people lining up and crowding around the booth are attractive.  They have style!  They have panache!  Sadly it seems it will be a long time — in a galaxy far, far away? — before you will be able to say that about conservatives again.

So there you have it.  You can go see it for yourself.  Why are liberals sexy and attractive?  Because they have style.  And why do they have style?  Because it is all about smarts and good thinking.  Go out there and be sexy today!

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Preaching to the Choir at the Church of Politics

Breakdown of political party representation in the United States House of Representatives.

Politics is especially divisive and messy today.  Everyone knows that.  And just to get it out there at the beginning, I am not going to pretend this is a bi-partisan issue.  What fails American politics today is an unbalance of discursive power.

Generally speaking the left accedes to the right a contrite sense of shared responsibility for our political failings.  Blame is not a bi-partisan issue and the right knows it.  They are not honest about it, of course, but they don’t care and they are happy to confuse the issue.  The right swings blame like a giant hammer, knocking off opponents with rhetorical ease.

Case in point…compare offers of compromise from the conservative right with those of the left.  First off, you have a hard time finding examples of compromise from the right, and when it does happen those politicians put their careers in jeopardy.  In fact search “compromise” and “Republican” and you likely find a story about the so-called Tea Party condemning a political leader.

And when was the last time — any time, in fact — that you read about a Republican taking any responsibility for our current economic decline.  It is all Barak Obama’s fault.  (Find counter examples and post them in the comments section here.  I need to see some sign of hope.)

Romney For President

Not everyone on the conservative right is an idiot, however.  Smart people there know that our economic malaise is not President Obama’s fault.  First of all he hasn’t been able to get much in the way of policy to do much, good or bad.   Ultimately that is neither here nor there when it comes to politics.    Congress makes policy proposal law.  President Obama does not.  It is so much easier to blame someone else, is it not?  Facts and procedures merely get in the way of power.

This problem will only get worse through the next four months, and almost certainly beyond.  To understand this we only need to see what has become of political “leadership.”

Politicians are not so much leaders as much as they are preachers, and they preach to their increasingly dogmatic followers.  All that will happen between now and November is a lot of blah, blah, blah.  Sadly — I will insist — the failure of leadership falls most firmly on the side of conservatives because they have the ability to engage the power of Congress.  But they won’t do it.

Since 2008, failure is the goal of successful GOP politics.  As long as Barak Obama is in power, success is not an option.

Take the economy as an example.  At a government level, there isn’t much we can do to turn things around.  The primary government players include Congress, the President, and the Federal Reserve.  Of these three, the only one that possesses any meaningful power to act is Congress.  Even during the best of times the President is a minor player, drumming up a party platform and selling it.  The president has very little direct effect on the economy, always has and, unless we change the Constitution, always will.  Congress enacts laws, the President enforces them.

The Federal Reserve hasn’t much it can do either, but it has become sport to blame the Reserve as a de facto wing of the Obama presidency.  In truth, policy options there are tapped out.  All the Federal Reserve can do now is monitor and report.  No one really pays attention anyway, especially politicians.

From a government policy option, Congress has the most power.  If there is an answer in the short term, it will come from Congress, not Obama.  Sadly, we would be in much better shape this were not true.  If President Barak Obama did in fact wield the power conservatives claim he has in hurting the economy, we would be in much better shape today.

But wait a minute, don’t you hear your Republican leaders preaching a sermon about saving American jobs, the economy, and the middle class?  Are they not worried about your children and grandchildren?  They have hijacked that rhetorical trope and, in the face of the facts, get away with it.

Help for a stronger economy is up to a Republican Congress and therefore we can expect nothing.  The party of wrack and ruin needs a depressed economy to maintain its hold on power.

Moreover Republicans use class warfare to divide America.  This enables them to rollback sound economic policy that once supported America’s prominence and power — Ronald Reagan’s Shining City on a Hill — but that shining city is inconsistent with an increasingly paranoid and ignorant conservative ideology that has a long list of social issues to push.

The United States has done a lot of things wrong, according current conservative dogma.  It began taking care of its citizens, protecting its environment, and investing in the future of a shared common good.  Increasingly the rights of the minority were protected against the wishes of intolerant majorities.  But these things cannot stand.  I don’t know, maybe success and shared prosperity ruined us, leading us astray of Christian values.  That isn’t exactly the conservative narrative, but what else in our country’s shining past would cause our ruin?

Conservatives tried to divide us on permissive social issues and largely failed.  Now they divide us on economic issues and succeed.  In a country so enthralled with the myth of independence, this works.

So what can we do?

I don’t hold out much hope in converting the right to joining the left.  It won’t happen.  But I believe a majority of Americans do in fact understand where their long-term best interests are served.  It isn’t in the disastrous policies of conservative politics — politics that too many liberals supported as well in recent years — but in a future that values shared investment and cooperation.

America’s future depends on a progressive majority turning out to vote.  It is that simple.  Apathy is a bigger threat than ignorance at this point.  It is too late to expect some sort of intellectual enlightenment among the dogmatic right.  The disengaged middle doesn’t strike me as a crowd that will study the facts of policy history (they are uncertain for a reason).  Instead it is time to rally.

If you don’t like the way our country looks today, don’t vote for the people who put us here.  Save the country.  Don’t vote Republican.

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Tim Pawlenty is a Knob

South St. Paul Union Stockyards

I don’t know why I do it…but I went back and watched Tim’s melodramatic and misleading video presenting his presidential exploratory committee.  Facts don’t get in the way of Tim’s ambitions.

He makes an issue of the meat packing plants closing in South St. Paul in the 1970s and 1980s.  He says he therefore knows what hardship is all about.  (Then, as I point out in an earlier post, he insults his home town.)  But does he really?

There isn’t much depth to conservative thought or what passes for reasoning on the right.

The conditions that caused the meat packing plants in South St. Paul to close were very different from the economic collapse causing businesses to close in recent years.  Drawing any parallel is a mistake.  What caused the meat packing businesses that Tim thinks he knew was consolidation taking advantage of profitable economies of scale.

Conservatives don’t understand macroeconomics.

Where once there were hundreds of meat packing plants across the country, there are now today only a couple dozen.  Good thing?  Bad thing?  That’s another debate.

If anything, the pro-business (so-called) and anti-regulation platform of Republican politics had more to do with closing the meat packing plants in South St. Paul than any bad economic policy position.  So here again is an example of something that conservative politics would support being turned into something that has a bad side that conservatives can exploit.

In this case, Tim is trying to build his credentials with an irrelevant issue — which is typical – and if it is relevant it is so in a way where he is on the wrong side of the issue, not the right.   Not the right stuff, indeed.

Save your country.   Don’t vote Republican.

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Something for Everyone!

Don't wet your pants. It's just a flag.

Unlike my blog, which has something for everyone, your government moves toward less and less for everyone.  Of course exceptions exist, but making that point draws the fire from the right and is erroneously called socialism, fascism, and so forth. 

Two remarkable things have happened.  First, the right has hijacked public discourse.  Compared with progressives, conservatives have become much, much, MUCH better at taking a message and making it their own. 

Listen to talk radio if you have any doubts.  You will hear the conservative authorities, whether radio talk show hosts or politicians (is there a difference?), speak the same line — repeatedly — and their followers regurgitate it all just like a young teary-eyed teen mouthing the lyrics to a Justin Bieber song.

In fact what is the difference between the raging cult of American conservativism today and the pre-adolescent cult of teen idols?  In neither do you see much debate.  I have that right, don’t I?  Both groups look quite a lot alike, too, a mass of people under the thrall of a movement or a boy who cannot do anything to help them achieve and grow.  The different is one — Bieber, in case you are unsure — is, we hope, merely a teenage fad and for some a rite of passage.  The other — American Conservativism — is bad for your health, economy, job, security…bad for your future.

What happens on the political right today does nothing to help curb our deficit.  Cutting funding for public radio or after school programs for economically disadvantaged children is not going to balance the budget.  Not even close. 

Cutting funding does achieve the conservative goal of less government, however.  Nevermind that doing so is destroying decades of progressive social and economic growth, they don’t like government.  Why?  Because government serves everyone and conservatives are the party of me and only me.  It is that simple.  Prove otherwise.

Sadly, as less-is-more government finally prevails, we all suffer.  Think about what that means for Americans.  We’re on a strange slide.  The common efforts that supported decades of social growth and opportunity are at risk.  It isn’t that outrageous to think that requesting free public schools will be tarred and feathered as socialism.  Hell, Muammar Qadhafi successfully fought against public education in Libya, claiming it was a form of government control.  You can imagine someone like Michele Bachmann taking that to her Tea Party Caucus, can’t you?

So as the right has successfully controlled public discourse — changed black to white and white to black — they have finally begun to unravel the investments we have all made in our government and its public goods and services.  This change is coming at great expense which is disproportionately carried by the people who benefit from government most directly.

If you don’t believe it, ask a few questions.  Is America better off today compared with 40 years ago?  Is the average American better off?  Who has gained the most in the past 30 or 40 years? 

Until we get out heads out of the sand and start using the brains that are stored in them, the things are not going to get any better.  But I have written about this many times before and many thousands of other people have done the same and done so better…how can the right continue to win?

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