Obama, presumptive Democratic nominee

Today we will probably find that the primaries will either give Barack Obama enough delegates to be nominated or come so close that Hillary Clinton will need to give up.


No great surprise. For the last month or more, he's been so far ahead that she had no hope of catching him. But she kept trying. And I can't say I wasn't happy she did, because all the negatives she raised will only help John McCain in November.


What I'm really wondering is how she can (as she will have to, to prove her loyalty to the Democratic Party) campaign vigorously for him, without being called on some of the things she has said to imply Obama's unsuitability for the office. (I don't mean to say he's suitable for the office; but then I'm not going to have to come back and defend him after making the kind of remarks she did!)


To leave the references to Hillary Clinton behind, did anyone notice that Obama finally had to formally leave the Trinity United Church of Christ (Jeremiah Wright's former pulpit)? But it would seem to me that to discover, after 20 years as a parishioner, that the church was spreading ideas he didn't like, is a sign of naïveté that ill befits someone seeking the Presidency. So this decision was really too little and too late to change anything in my mind.

The kids in Texas

The State of Texas seems to have done something far beyond what they intended to — they have created public sympathy for the polygamist group that calls itself the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints.


By taking 400 kids from their parents, and dispersing them to foster homes all over the state, they created a scene of scared kids who (when the court found that the State had acted unlawfully, and had to return them to their parents) showed how glad they were to be with their parents again. Those pictures of a mother hugging her young daughter probably made more people tolerant of the oddness of the FLDS church than ever would have been before Texas acted.


It's probably a victory for religious freedom and the First Amendment. But 400 scared kids were quite a price to pay.

Fidel for Obama!

Looks like Sen. Barack Obama got himself a new backer: Cuba's Fidel Castro! (see this story.)

Of course! They are both of a similar mind — America is evil and needs to be changed.

One more reason to support John McCain for president!

"Failed foreign policy"?

Barack Obama keeps referring to "Bush's failed foreign policy." Well, to me it looks like one that is succeeding, although not yet completely. When George W. Bush became President, Saddam Hussein was slaughtering Kurds and anyone else who disagreed with him in Iraq, and the Taliban was presiding over an Afghan government that would criminalize a kid for flying a kite, or a girl for going to school. Today, Saddam Hussein is in his grave, and the Taliban is fighting a rear-guard action to try to take back portions of Afghanistan, while both Afghanistan and Iraq have governments that are far closer to democratic than the ones they replaced. I would call that success, not failure — at least partial success, anyway.

Meanwhile, Sen. Obama has proposed a foreign policy that truly can be described as failed. One might ask — how could his foreign policy be considered to have failed, when it hasn't been tried? Well, it has been tried — not in the United States in the 2000's, but in Great Britain in 1937! A certain Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister that year. Like Obama today, he believed you could talk to genocidal dictators in the same way as you might to honorable men who lead democratic governments. He met with Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany, and gave him what he wanted, control over the nation that was then called Czechoslovakia. And he returned from Munich proclaiming that he had brought "peace in our time." "Our time," apparently, lasted two more years, until Hitler invaded Poland and World War II began, at least for the European nations. (We stayed out of it until we were ourselves attacked by Hitler's Japanese ally.)

But Sen. Obama doesn't seem to know this history. He wants to show that the way to go is the way that Chamberlain tried 70 years ago. It failed then, and it won't work now.

The California Supreme Court's gay marriage decision

We have often, on economic and foreign policy matters, found common cause with the people who call themselves conservatives. But on most social issues, they are on opposite sides of the issue from my own feelings. I am sure this will be equally true with regard to the new California Supreme Court decision.

I have never understood why conservatives, who believe that in the economic sphere the government should be minimally involved, letting the market mechanisms do their thing, suddenly, when the issue is social, take the position that the government should take a stand and ram that position down the throats of the people. If two gay people get married, who does it hurt? It certainly doesn't affect a straight person's ability to marry whomever he or she wants.

Some people have said that there is no equality issue here, that gay people are trying to win special privileges that straight people do not have -- I suppose, because straight and gay people alike have the right to take an opposite-sex spouse. Well, Anatole France is quoted as saying: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets or steal bread.” Obviously, just in the same way as rich have no particular reason to "sleep under bridges, beg in the streets or steal bread," gay people have no particular wish to take an opposite-sex spouse.

Some people have claimed that, by requiring the state to recognize gay marriage, the rights of clergymen who do not want to officiate over such marriages are somehow interfered with. Well, to my knowledge, no Catholic priest has ever been forced to officiate at the marriage of a divorced Catholic, and no Jewish rabbi has ever been forced to officiate at an interfaith marriage. If clergymen are now allowed to refuse to marry people whom their own religion forbids to get married, they certainly will continue to be allewed to do so. We are talking about state recognition of marriages, and we live in a country with Church/State separation.

Another point is that, in a referendum, the California citizenry voted to ban gay marriage. I am sure that in any Southern state (and possibly some Northern ones) the citizenry, if provided with a referendum vote on the subject prior to 1954, would have approved of segregation. But we do not allow the majority to take away the minority's rights. That is a fundamental principle of the American democratic system.

So I cheer the California decision.

A letter-to-the-Editor that I fully endorse

The following letter appeared in today's Washington Examiner paper. It was so good that I repost it here as my own thoughts:

Barack Obama will be judged by friends he kept

Re: “Don’t judge Obama by Rev. Wright’s words,” From Readers, May 5

Let’s put this to rest for once and for all: Barack Obama will be judged by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s actions. Any reasonable person who sat through 20 years of this mean-spirited, anti-American rhetoric and did not walk out in disgust must have either been in a coma or agreed in part to what was being preached. You are judged by the friends you keep, the views you display and the morals you practice. All of which can be influenced at your religious center of faith. If John McCain or Hillary Clinton had been attending Aryan Nation meetings or KKK rallies, you bet they would be scolded and berated. Unfortunately, folks, it goes both ways. Get over it!

This country has finally broken the barrier keeping women and African-Americans from becoming serious contenders for the presidency. But they should certainly count on the fact that they will be vetted — as would any other candidate — on the way they view the world. I, for one, want to know that before I cast my vote.

Marc Sieracki
Springfield

So NOW He's "outrageous"???

The latest news is that Barack Obama has called Jeremiah Wright's comments "outrageous." Really, it's taken him this long to see the kind of racist demagogue that Wright is? You'd think that 20 years in the Trinity UCC would have given him time to observe Wright! I really can't believe Obama is just now discovering what Wright thinks about the USA, about race relations, and such!

Can Obama really distance himself from Wright?

Now Sen. Obama says that the Jeremiah Wright who is expressing himself in such racist terms "is not the same man I've known for 20 years." Can we really believe such nonsense? There are lots of signs that this is not so. I certainly do not believe him; I put more credence in Wright's words that Obama is saying what he has to now because he is a politician!

Romney for VP?

There is a move afoot to nominate Mitt Romney for VP on the McCain ticket. While I was opposed to Romney for the top spot — his vacillation on the issues worried me — for VP I think that's not a bad idea at all. As this site states, Romney would bring a lot to the ticket. The only thing I wonder about: Would John McCain be willing to take him as VP nominee? It is clear that Romney would take the offer — he's even said so, and his withdrawal speech made it clear that he wants to unite the party. But I've seen word that there is not a very good feeling about Romney in McCain's mind — there were some problems between them even before this campaign.

Obviously, we don't know what — if any — communications there have been about this between McCain's and Romney's associates. But I would like to see McCain/Romney as a ticket in 2008.

One positive thing you can say about Obama

He knows how to play by the rules. He's taken extreme advantage of the Democratic Party's rules in this primary season. When Hillary Clinton wants to see that the people of Michigan and Florida get counted, Obama points to the Democratic Party rules and makes sure everyone understands that they can't be counted under those rules. (See this post.) He wins big in caucus states, where only small numbers come out so that a few voters can influence a lot of delegates. Meanwhile, in the big states with lots of delegates, he relies on the proportionality rules that the Dems have put in place, so even if he loses, he still gets a slew of delegates. Many people (including Bill Clinton) have pointed out that if the Democrats had allowed winner-take-all primaries and (like the Republicans) a number of major states had used them, Hillary would be leading in the delegate count, probably by a lot. This, among other things, is why John McCain got the Republican nomination relatively early, while the Dems are still going at it.

Of course, the actual Electoral College system used in the general election does use winner-take all (at least in 48 of the 50 states). So Obama vs. McCain would be fought under different rules. I wonder whether Obama will be able to re-orient his candidacy to play by the different rules that will apply for the general election.

Obama, the divider.

I just saw a new blog post, which says it better than I could, about Barack Obama. Read it here.

The Supreme Court's death penalty ruling

The Supreme Court has just ruled that the death penalty could continue. And I approve. Sure, in many countries around the world, public opinion has gone against the death penalty, and the US has come in for criticism for maintaining it. But I feel that not having the death penalty for murder actually cheapens human life — namely, the lives of the victims.


If a person who has killed someone gets anything less than the death penalty, the punishment has not suited the crime. Nothing short of the death penalty can pay for taking another's life, and for that reason nothing short of the death penalty is a fair punishment for such a crime.

Appeals to humaneness make no sense here; the murderer was not sparing of the lives of his victims, so why should we be more sparing of the perpetrator's life?

Obama ... unite the country?

I keep seeing supporters of Barack Obama claiming that he can unite the country. This seems to be the most incredible claim I could imagine.

Obama has been rated the most liberal member of the entire Senate in 2007 by National Journal. He outdoes Bernie Sanders, an avowed Socialist, and Senators like Russ Feingold and Tom Harkin. How can such an extremist unite the country?

John McCain has worked with liberal Democrats like Feingold and Ted Kennedy to introduce legislation; in fact, his ability to do this hurt him among very doctrinaire conservative Republicans. But even he could not find common ground with Obama. If this is so, how can anyone expect copperation between Obama and someone not of the extreme left?

What a choice!

If I were faced with making a choice between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, there is no question but that I'd go with Clinton. She is clearly as dishonest as her husband, and both Clinton and Obama are very much more liberal than I am, but while Obama is a radical with the "throw out everything and start over" mentality of a visionary, Clinton is more of a pragmatist, who might be dissuaded from trying to implement radical changes by a need to play practical politics.

But fortunately, I don't have to make this choice. By the time I see either name on a ballot, he or she will have beaten the other, and the competition will be John McCain. And I don't have to think about who will get my vote. It will be McCain.

Barack Obama and hate

It seems that not only has Obama's church, the Trinity United Church of Christ, had an awful lot of anti-white prejudice associated with it; it's also said nice things about the Islamic terrorist group, Hamas. (See here.)

It is impossible to believe that Obama could attend this church for 20+ years and be unaware of what it and its leaders stand for. This is a man who wants to unite America?

It's getting vicious!

James Carville (a supporter of Hillary Clinton) recently compared Bill Richardson to Judas Iscariot for giving his support to Barack Obama although he'd been given Cabinet positions in the Clinton administration. This goes to show how vicious the Democratic nomination fight is getting.

How glad I am to be supporting John McCain at this point. The Democrats are making McCain's election in November more likely by their behavior!

"Please order in English"

A cheesesteak restaurant in Philadelphia put up a sign, "This is America. Please order in English." As a result, he was charged with discrimination. But fortunately, he was recently vindicated. Yes, this is America, and Joey Vento, the owner, was ruled within his rights by the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations.

Why was he even charged with discrimination, though? Millions of immigrants came to this country and learned the majority language. My father came to this country about 80 years ago as a child, and the local druggist made him learn English by not letting him order an ice cream in his native Yiddish after a while. The druggist understood Yiddish and had taken his orders for a while in that language, but he knew that this 11-year-old kid that eventually became my father would need to learn English to function in America. And my father, by the age of 15, had graduated from the 8th grade, though four years previously he had come to this country devoid of the English language. And by the time I was around, years later, my father spoke English without a significant foreign accent.

Joey Vento was right to do what he did. And thank Heaven that the final decision came the way it did, even if it was years in the making.

Limits of discussion

Today I saw a comment in which the poster described me as "delusional." This goes beyond the bounds of propriety.

It is all right to disagree with me on here, and to give a cogent argument. Insulting me goes beyond the pale, and I will exercise my rights as owner of the blog to delete such posts.

The Ferraro/Obama spat

Geraldine Ferraro said one thing that you just can't!

It is just not cricket in this Democratic primary campaign to say what everyone already knows — that Barack Obama, a man who four years ago was an obscure Illinois state senator, would never be considered Presidential material if he were white. Of course, she also said that he wouldn't if he were a woman — which just isn't so; just look at Ferraro's preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton, who is only slightly more qualified for the office, or in fact, you might look at Ferraro herself, who was a Vice-Presidential nominee with essentially no qualifications!

The Democratic Party simply cannot abide anyone saying things like that, but that party has simply given itself over to group politics. It isn't what someone stands for, or that person's qualifications, that matter to the Democrats, but just whether they can contribute to the party's desire for "diversity" in gender, race, or whatever.

Just look at their rules for picking convention delegates — certain seats are reserved for women and others for men. (Of course, that any of the seats are reserved for men is something of a surprise!) You can't just vote for convention delegates; you vote for male delegates and female delegates.

The hypocrisy of the Democratic Party is amazing. But what can you expect? That's why I'm happy to be a Republican.

On Eliot Spitzer

Some people have argued that Eliot Spitzer, the New York Governor who just resigned over a prostitution scandal, should be cut some slack because "prostitution is a victimless crime." Ordinarily, I would sympathize with this point of view. I strongly believe in the libertarian concept that something should be criminalized only if it hurts someone. But this is different. Why?

It is just this — Spitzer himself, as attorney general, prosecuted prostitution rings. Spitzer prosecuted people for money laundering who did some of the same things he did to hide his purchases of prostitutes' services. In short, he himself acted toward others as if the things he is guilty of are reprehensible. So it is poetic justice that he was the one to suffer.

Modified approval voting

benham said:

What do you think of Range with a 0,1,2 ballot (or Approval with a voter option
to "half-approve", or Approval-minus-Disapproval with a voter option to do
neither)?

This is fine in my estimation. My only objection to Approval Voting is that one cannot separate disapproval from neutral, and this solves the problem. Actually, I have in the past favored just such an option as benham's "Approval-minus-Disapproval with a voter option to do neither."

Calculations of Bayesian regret

Broken Ladder referred to the "millions" of simulated elections in Smith's calculations. But any type of calculation of this kind is going to depend on the algorithm that generates the data. And a different algorithm might generate a different set of data.

I do not mean to denigrate Smith's experiment. It performed a worthwhile function. But it is still an estimate of the validity of these different electoral systems, not a mathematical demonstration, and has to be considered in that category. Even so, I think the experiment really does show how much better range voting is than any of the alternative systems. But Smith himself would not (I imagine) claim those numbers would have perfect validity in all cases.

"Leaving me cold"

I originally wrote:

I've never been very happy with the way we vote here, using plurality or "first-past-the-post" voting, but most of the proposals I've seen for reform leave me cold.

Apparently "benham" thought I was referring to IRV ("instant runoff voting," usually referred to in older literature as "alternative vote") and asked what about that system leaves me cold. Actually, in a system such as Australia's, where there are really only two parties that count (actually three, but the Liberal and National parties are so closely aligned that they can be considered one party), I think it works rather well. If you like a minor party, you can give it your first preference, then save your second preference for a major-party candidate and actually make a difference to the voting result. I'm not so sure it works as well if you have a number of different parties which agree on some issues and disagree on others, but I've never seen a place other than Australia that uses it (it's been adopted in some cities in the USA, but so recently that the results of the experiment haven't been seen).

Actually, the systems that "leave me cold" meant approval voting, the Borda Count, and Condorcet voting, and there will probably be further posts of mine addressing these specifically.

On Barack Obama

Broken Ladder wrote:

For instance, it appears that Barack Obama is going to be our next President (thank god almighty). And an online Range Voting mock election I held, that began about 16 months ago, has Barack Obama winning among about 5400 voters. And looking at the overall results, it's clear that the "net roots" make vastly more intelligent candidate choices than the average voter. So there's a very good chance that Obama really is the social utility maximizer -- and yet he's probably going to win with our incredibly horrible voting method. Some times you just get lucky.

I hope to God he is wrong. Obama is just the sort of radical we cannot survive. On top of that, he is so inexperienced that he could just make a hash of our whole government. If we had a range voting system, he'd get the lowest possible rating from me. But I think by November the American people will find out just how much of a dangerous radical he is, and consign him to the same dustbin of history that George McGovern inhabits. Sure, he's leading in the polls, but so was Michael Dukakis (by even more!) at points in the 1988 campaign.

What a surprise!

This blog has been around for a little over 2 years — my first postings were dated February 10, 2006. And up until this week, it's looked as if almost nobody ever looked at it — there were so few comments that I sometimes wondered whether anyone saw my words. I posted on a lot of controversial topics, from Iraq to gun control and intelligent design, yet got almost no response.

Then, almost as a throwaway, I made a post about a topic that seems almost too technical for most people to care: range voting. It was a digression from the usual topics of discussion here. And all of a sudden, to that one post I have gotten more responses than to the whole two years of previous posts, several times over! What a surprise!

Because there are so many comments that address a number of different aspects of this topic, I'm going to split up my discussion into several posts today, each responding to something different. But thank you all for coming in here to discuss it.

And now for a digression...

Taking a bit of a break from the 2008 election, I've just discovered a fascinating site. I've never been very happy with the way we vote here, using plurality or "first-past-the-post" voting, but most of the proposals I've seen for reform leave me cold. In particular, I'm rather hostile to the "approval voting" system, where you vote for all the candidates you can support, but with no way to distinguish between someone you really don't like and someone you're unfamiliar with. Now I've found just the system that fills the bill; it's called "range voting." You can rate each candidate, something like the way we rate books or CDs on Amazon, and the highest total rating wins. See the site here.

More on the McCain/Obama difference

Yesterday I saw a newspaper with a poll result that indicates that more Democrats are inclined to support McCain than Republicans to support Obama. This shouldn't be too surprising. McCain is more moderate than many Republicans; this is in fact why some of the more extreme Republicans had some trouble supporting him. By contrast, Obama is more extreme than many Democrats, and should repel those Republicans whose vote Obama might want to court.

Yet other polls show Obama winning an election against McCain — at least if the election were to be held right now. This does worry me a bit, but of course Michael Dukakis was leading in the polls at one point in the 1988 election! So, given that November is a long way off, I can't be too worried. I think that as soon as the people realize how radical Obama is, he will suffer the same fate that Dukakis, and George McGovern in 1972, did.

I am married to a woman who is enrolled as a Democrat, though she is more conservative than many Democrats are and closer to me politically than one might think based on party affiliation. She is, at the moment, inclined to vote for McCain — though it appears that she still wants to look at the candidates some more before committing to any one. Yet I cannot see, from anything she's said, much likeliness that she might prefer Obama to McCain in the end — I just wish she'd make up her mind.

McCain vs. ... who?

Yesterday, John McCain got the necessary number of delegates to be sure of the nomination, though who the Democrats will nominate is still up in the air. They've got it down to two candidates, but both of them are pretty much out of the bounds of reason. For on the one hand, we have Barack Obama, who made the strange comment that he would immediately withdraw troups from Iraq, but "might have to send them back in if Al-Qaeda establishes a base" (as if they would up and leave if we did, so they'd have to re-enter Iraq to establish a base; of course, McCain immediately said that he had news for Obama, that Al-Qaeda was in Iraq; but I doubt that Obama was so foolish as to think they weren't, so that is why I figure he must think they would leave Iraq if we did — fat chance!) On the other hand, we have Hillary Clinton, who asked the by-now-famous question as to who we'd rather have answering the red phone at 3 in the morning with a call coming in about some crisis (as if anyone seriously could answer that question any way but "John McCain"!)

Well, McCain has to equip himself to run against whichever one runs against him. But either way, I can't think he has to convince me.

One more comment on Giuliani's endorsement of McCain

It was obvious to me that Rudy Giuliani, on losing Florida, would endorse John McCain. After all (see this article, in which Giuliani says: "I think I made it clear during a debate that if I had not been running, I would be supporting John McCain. So I'm not running, and I'm supporting John McCain and he is far away the best person to be the commander in chief of the United States.") They have generally appealed to the same kind of moderate Republican (such as myself). And so I have joined him (and Governor Schwarzenegger of California, whom I also admire) in endorsing John McCain.

Romney's big blunder

In a recent debate, Mitt Romney pointed out that the US has generally chosen as its Presidents people with experience as state governors (executives who run things) rather than Senators (legislators). Of course, he failed to acknowledge that John McCain has been other things besides a Senator, and in particular a high officer in the Navy. And the US has often chosen high military officers for President. (In fact, from the very beginning, namely George Washington. But of course, one can add Andrew Jackson and Dwight Eisenhower, as well as a lot of others less highly regarded. True, they were all Army, not Navy, but it takes the same kind of leadership skills to be a high Naval officer as an equally-high Army officer.)

Isn't it obvious that such people as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who have served as chief executives of populous political subdivisions (after all, regarding Giuliani, New York City has more people than many states!) would not support someone they felt could not handle the job?

John McCain for President!

The result of yesterday's Florida primary is clear. Rudy Giuliani, my favorite among the candidates, is out. The word is that he will drop out and endorse McCain. And I am following him.

As I've said on a few occasions here, McCain is a perfectly acceptable candidate to me. It's only that I preferred Giuliani. But if Giuliani can't make it, I'll be happy to support McCain.

McCain's candidacy resembles John Kerry's four years ago: at the very beginning of the campaign cycle, he was favored. But as the campaign progressed, others took the lead; among the Democrats last time, predominantly John Dean; among this year's Republicans, first Giuliani, later Huckabee and Romney. But with the early contests (as early as Iowa for those Democrats; just afterward for this year's Republicans), they got the lead back. And like Kerry, McCain is now in a great position to be nominated.

But there are some differences, which will surface in the run-up to the November general election. Last time, Kerry represented the extreme-left wing of his party. McCain, by contrast, is a moderate-conservative, able to gain votes from more moderate members of the opposite party. Just about no Republican would support Kerry four years ago; this time, many Democrats will support McCain (my wife having already said she may!), and the fact that Joe Lieberman is going to campaign for him will help that.

In short, I cannot really be too unhappy at the way things are turning out. The Republicans will nominate John McCain, a proven leader, a man who can work with politicians of both parties, and a man with the experience it takes to be President of the United States. And though Giuliani was my first preference, McCain is a great second choice. I heartily endorse John S. McCain, III for the 2008 presidential election.

Change!

All the Democrats (and it would seem Mitt Romney among the Republicans, as well) seem to be portraying themselves as the candidate to bring change to this country. But is this a good thing?

First, is there so much wrong with this country that needs to be changed? I'm pretty happy with the situation as it is. I would be less likely to vote for a candidate that will change things than for one who will preserve things the way they are. But, of course, that is what conservatism is all about, and I'm rather conservative in many ways.

And second, who's to say that a change will be for the better? A lot of ways that we could change would be major disasters. And many would at least make things somewhat worse. I'm sure that the advent of Hitler in Germany, Stalin in Russia, and Pol Pot in Cambodia brought many changes, but most Germans, Russians, and Cambodians were worse off with those changes than they had been before.

So what's so great about change?

After New Hampshire

This morning, while I was having a tea and a pastry at a local Starbucks, I heard a woman loudly advocating Mike Huckabee's candidacy. Not, as one might think, because of his “Christian leadership” position, but mainly because he was pro-gun! Of course, this only underscores the problems with Huckabee — it would be hard to find an issue on which Huckabee and I are on the same side. (He did integrate a congregation where he was a preacher; I guess that's one good thing that could be said about Mike Huckabee.)

But looking at the New Hampshire results, it is good to see that they provide a retreat from the craziness of Iowa. New Hampshire tends to have a libertarian mindset; after all, the state motto is “Live Free or Die.” And Huckabee's positions are pretty far from libertarianism. So although my favorite candidate, Rudy Giuliani, didn't do very well there (but then, he hadn't bothered to campaign there!) the candidate who did win, John McCain, is someone I consider a good one. (McCain is probably my second choice, actually.) So I'm not unhappy with the New Hampshire results. (And they probably sink Mitt Romney's candidacy, though he still could help his chances in Michigan.)

Over on the Democratic side, New Hampshire followed its usual practice of confounding the experts. Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama, even though Obama's win in Iowa propelled him into the public spotlight and Clinton's tears might have ended serious consideration of her candidacy. Of course, since I like neither of the two, I don't really care that much about who won that contest.

Now on to the next state!

The Huckabee threat to the Republican Party

The more I contemplate the possibility of Mike Huckabee being nominated by the Republican Party, the more it troubles me. First of all, Huckabee represents the exact opposite of the kind of Republicanism I consider my own political direction. He is socially conservative (favoring policies that tend to establish Christianity as official policy, and intolerant to such people as the gay population) and economically liberal (someone who raised taxes in his home state, and seems to favor using taxation as a redistributive policy). I have always maintained that the kind of direction the Republican party should take is the reverse: socially liberal (inclusive toward all kinds of religions and social lifestyles) and economically conservative (reducing taxes and taking the government out of the economy except as necessary).

I would, of course, most prefer a Giuliani nomination. I could certainly live with McCain, who is a little further from me politically, but close enough for comfort. Even Mitt Romney – someone I wonder about, sometimes, because of his reversals on key issues – would get my vote against any Democrat who could be nominated. But if Mike Huckabee gets nominated, I can only hope that another Mike, Mayor Bloomberg of New York, makes the independent run some people think he has in mind. In a three-way race with Huckabee, Bloomberg, and any Democrat, Bloomberg gets my vote. In a two-way race with Huckabee and any Democrat, who knows what I would do? I certainly dread the prospect.

The institutionalization of Christmas

Tomorrow is the day when those of us who are not Christians really see ourselves as a minority. The rest of the year, we are Americans, just like all the other citizens of this country. But tomorrow, the celebration of the birth of the founder of the Christian religion, we are outsiders, our sensibilities being ignored by everyone in power.

Libraries, museums, and all other city, county, state, and national Government buildings (except for emergency facilities) will be closed. The post offices will have been selling Christmas stamps for the past few weeks; postal clerks may even be shocked if you tell them you don't want Christmas stamps (I remember one year going to a post office which had nothing but Christmas stamps! I had to settle for lower-denomination stamps that I could combine to make the then-current postal rate!) Oh yes, they have had, in recent years, Chanukah and Eid stamps as well, but there are never enough variations to account for all the various religious beliefs in this pluralistic country, not to mention atheists and agnostics. Why not just let the Government ignore all the various beliefs and keep to its secular business?

One runs into people who claim that “no establishment of religion” in our First Amendment means the government cannot favor one Christian denomination over others, not realizing that Christianity is just one religion among many. I can not fathom this point of view. Giving special preference to Christianity over Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, or even atheism is just as much establishing a particular religion as taxing us to support the Episcopal Church would be.

Fifty-five years ago, I was subjected to a humiliating treatment by my own teachers in public school as a 10-year-old boy because of my religion. I declared that I could not sing songs with words like “Oh come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.” Up until that time, my music teacher had treated me as a “teacher's pet” because I had a good singing voice. From that point on, she conspired with another teacher to make things as hard for me as possible. So I say what I am saying here from a basis of experience.

Nobody is advocating a policy such as that in Saudi Arabia where a person can be criminally prosecuted for selling Christmas cards. Rather, let Christians freely celebrate Christmas in their homes and churches (and other religions' adherents freely celebrate their own religious holidays in their own homes and places of worship) but let the Government stay out of these celebrations and be resolutely secular and neutral.

A happy December 25th to all. But please don't wish me a “merry Christmas.” Please don't wish anyone a “merry Christmas” unless you know they are a Christian.

I wish I could believe Mitt Romney!

Today the New York Times published an interview with Mitt Romney, in which he tries to describe himself as a "George Romney Republican." Would that this were so! George Romney, Mitt's father, would have made a great President; I supported him many years ago. But George Romney was a clearly moderate Republican, opposed to the right-wing extremism that captured the nomination for Barry Goldwater. Mitt Romney, by contrast, seems bound to woo this year's right-wing extremists, even rejecting moderate, pragmatic positions he claimed to have when he was running for office in Massachusetts. Now, whatever Mitt Romney's positions are, we can't be clear; he's been on both sides of a lot of issues. If he's really a George Romney Republican, he should repudiate the hard-right positions he's been taking recently; he won't do that, however, because that's where his support is coming from, it seems. So what is Mitt Romney, really?

New Jersey and the death penalty

In New Jersey, they just signed into law a new bill, ending the death penalty in the state. Obviously, those people who feel the death penalty is inhumane are applauding. I do not join them. Of course, in practical terms this act does nothing — New Jersey has not executed anyone in years, and Governor Corzine recently commuted the sentences of everyone on New Jersey's death row. But what this tells the world is that the lives of convicted murderers are worth more than those of their victims.

I feel that punishment should be commensurate with the crime. I would never wish to see the death penalty meted out for any crime short of murder. But no punishment short of the death penalty is appropriate for anyone who deliberately takes the life of an innocent person.

A definite condemnation of the New Jersey legislature and governor is in order.

Are Mormons Christians? Should anyone care?

Lately, people have been raising the question, “Are Mormons Christians?” Obviously, this really depends on what your definition of a “Christian” is. Many Protestants do not consider Roman Catholics to be Christians. On the other hand, I've seen Catholics consider themselves the only true Christians. Obviously, if you define a “Christian” as a follower of Jesus of Nazareth (termed “Christ” by his supporters) then it comes down to your own definition of what Jesus' religious beliefs were. And certainly, by their lights, Mormons are Christians; they actually call their church “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”

But then, my question is “Should anyone care?” After all, we have a Constitution which clearly states (Art. VI): “... no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” And therefore, whether Mitt Romney (for he is the only Mormon being considered by people asking that question) is qualified for the Presidency cannot be related to the answer to this question. And I say this, despite the fact that I'm rather cool to Romney for other reasons (see earlier posts, specifically my July 14 post).

Really, the people raising the question “Are Mormons Christians?" are bigots if they mean to imply that only Christians can be President, and irrelevant if they do not.

Thus my response: “Should anyone care?”

Panic among Giuliani's "social conservative" opponents?

Today I saw a newspaper article talking about "panic" among the "social conservatives" afraid of a Giuliani nomination. (See http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071201/NATION/112010053/1001.) Nothing could make me happier. It is "social conservatives" whose control of the GOP has distressed me in recent years, and taking the party away from them is the greatest need that Republicans like myself see in our political situation.

Let's face it. "Social conservatives" is just a code word for religious bigots, who have nothing in common with the kind of freedom of religion that this blog supports. And the sooner they can be evicted from positions of power in the Republican Party, the better it will be for all of us.

Let us just hope that the Giuliani supporters can hold their grounds. Rudy Giuliani will be the greatest thing that has happened to the Republican Party in many years, if we can get him nominated.

The Supreme Court will be heard on gun control

The question of whether the Disctrict of Columbia can enact and enforce it's extremely strong gun control regulations will now go to the Supreme Court. (See, e. g., http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/washington/20cnd-scotus.html?ref=us)

It's hard to tell how this will end up. The Court's conservative justices are sympathetic to the NRA's crazy view of what the Second Amendment means, but they also believe in stare decisis. And they don't have a total majority anyway.

Naturally, if you have read my earlier posts, I would hope that DC's laws are upheld. But I can't predict what the Court will do.

The Mukasey nomination

Well, the Senate confirmed Mukasey, 53-40. Nobody doubted that he was qualified for the post, and Sen. Schumer of New York ad even suggested Mukasey as a good choice in the beginning. But 40 Senators just had to vote no to make some stupid political point. None of them really had an objection to Mukasey except that he wouldn't take a position on whether or not a particular interrogation procedure (which, because it involved classified information Mukasey had not been cleared to receive, he didn't even know if it was in use!) constituted illegal torture.

It seems that the Senate needs to learn that the U. S. is not a parliamentary system. The executive does not fall if the legislature votes no-confidence. The Senate is not supposed to refuse Presidential nominations to Cabinet posts just because they have policy disagreements with the President, or because they want to pressure the nominee into making statements that they might use against the President. The Senate's only reason to refuse a Presidential nomination to an executive office is lack of qualifications. (It might be in order to give more input on nominations to judicial offices, though even there they have no business trying to force the President to nominate someone that does not meet with his approval.)

This is the most belligerent Senate in recent history, and I think they need to read the Constitution and learn the difference between our system and parliamentary ones. Their duty is to legislate, not to try to control the Presidency.

Harry Reid just doesn't understand!

I saw this quote today in a newspaper (it can be seen online at the Fox News site at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,306178,00.html ):

"[I]f Congressional Republicans would stand up to the President and demand a change of course in Iraq, we could spend less time working to fix this failed war policy and more time focusing on other threats we face around the world."

Well, I have a news flash for Sen. Reid: Congressional Republicans don't want to stand up to the President, because they (and I) think that his is not a "failed war policy."

Way back in the long-gone days of World War II and immediately following, it was the Democrats who were unified in fighting the enemies of our nation and the Republicans who had isolationists, people who felt we should ignore the rest of the world and concentrate on domestic affairs, in their number. Now these are reversed.

The Democrats were right then. And the Republicans are right now. Sen. Reid should emulate the good Republicans like Sen. Vandenberg of that era and give up this isolationism for the good of the world.

The Children's Health bill

Obviously, the Democrats in Congress care more about confronting the President than actually passing a children's health bill. The President vetoed their earlier bill and the Dems couldn't find the votes to override, so Pelosi et al., instead of trying to put through a smaller bill, want to repackage the bill slightly, but without reducing the amount. It seems she's never heard of "half a loaf is better than none." But of course, she doesn't want her loaf, or even half a loaf: all she wants is to draw another veto so she can paint the President as insensitive to children's needs.

She clearly doesn't want to help kids; she only wants to get into a fight.

More on the Turkey/Armenian genocide resolution

It seems that others agree with me on the post I recently made. Yesterday there was a nice column by Jay Ambrose (a man whose columns sometimes coincide with my thinking and sometimes do not). He said (http://www.examiner.com/a-993792~Jay_Ambrose__Political_opportunism_explains_bad_timing_of_Turkish_resolution.html):

WASHINGTON - It’s hard to imagine a congressional action more pointlessly provocative than passing a resolution that Turks committed genocide against Armenians some 90 years ago. But here come House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, many of her fellow Democrats, and some Republicans with an ironclad determination to do just such a detrimental thing to their country.


The cost could be high. The Turks don’t like this idea one little bit, and warn they may just quit letting the United States and its allies use Turkey as a crucial transport avenue for military supplies in Iraq if the condemnatory declaration gets majority votes in the House and Senate.


This Muslim democracy, which has itself been a vital ally in multiple respects, may also refuse to cooperate in other ways. One example: Our leverage in keeping Turkey from going to war with our Kurdish friends in northern Iraq could be lessened as a result.


And what exactly would the resolution achieve? Nothing, of course. No one can possibly think that a congressional vote will make this atrocity any more real or true, or alter an understanding that is dependent on witnesses, evidence and scholars, not elected officials.


It’s not as if the judgment of humankind is dependent on majority votes in the U.S. Congress, or as if anyone alive in Turkey today had anything to do with what happened then. The thought that a condemnation now might help dissuade others from repeating such vileness is an extraordinary stretch.


Why on Earth should it be the job of Congress to go around saying what it thinks on this or any other distant historical event? How about Congress paying more attention to current events and leaving assessments of past iniquities to historians, as critics have suggested?


Considering the disadvantages such a futile resolution would heap on us during our present, perilous struggle with Islamic fascists, you begin to wonder what’s up with Pelosi and friends. Utter, total, half-crazed incompetence, maybe, or could it conceivably be a traitorous hatred for their own land?


Surely not. It’s got to be something else. And so you read more on the subject, and you find the answer: a Reuters story reporting that something close to 2 million Armenian Americans have been lobbying for years for a resolution of the kind recently approved for floor consideration by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.


“U.S. representatives in Congress and state governments now realize the Armenian community has a lot of political power and they can make contributions to political causes and various parties,” Armenian American filmmaker Michael Hagopian told the Reuters reporter.


In other words, U.S. representatives - mostly Democrats - shrug their shoulders when a Turkish military leader warns of an irreparable tear in U.S.-Turkey relations or the Pentagon notes how logistically dependent we are on Turkey in the Middle East, but they do multiple bows when some slight political opportunity shows its face.


Democrats aren’t alone in their frequent obeisance to anyone and everyone who might do them a favor, of course. When they had control of Congress, Republicans had a hard time refusing favors for special interests at public expense, giving us spending records at variance with both their enunciated principles and the common good. For that and other reasons, they ultimately paid a steep electoral price.

That probably says it better than I could. And it seems that some of the Democrats have begun to recognize this. (See http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gWW8WW0xt_U4Iqg30uuw23lBuEvgD8SB6NNG2, where we see that the sponsors of the resolution are pulling out.)

On Turks and Armenians

The Turks and Armenians are squabbling about a Turkish massacre of Armenians that happened over 90 years ago. Neither side is exactly covering itself with glory. The Turks refuse to accept that this massacre can be characterized as genocide, and are threatening to retaliate if the U. S. Congress passes a resolution declaring it to be such, even though it's a toothless resolution that commits us to nothing in response. Contrast this with, say, the Germans, who accept the fact that the Nazi regime was guilty of unspeakable crimes, and simply have taken it upon themselves to commit no more.

However, the Armenians are not without their faults. After all, what is gained by getting Congress to pass this resolution? It is, as I said, totally toothless, and accomplishes nothing except getting the Turks mad. The Ottoman Empire, which is the real guilty party, is long gone. And the current republic of Turkey certainly has no obligations.

Gore's Nobel Peace Prize

Once more, the Nobel Committee has proved that they give out Nobel Peace Prizes for political correctness, not for really furthering peace. I should not have been surprised that they gave one to Al Gore... but rather than expostulating myself, let me simply quote Charles Krauthammer, who had this to say on Fox News Sunday (I didn't see it on TV, but I read it in the paper):

Look, let's remember what the Prize is about. Al Gore now joins the ranks of Yasser Arafat, the father of modern terrorism, Le Doc Tho, who signed a treaty on behalf of a government that two years later invaded and extinguished the country it signed that treaty with, and the most disgraceful ex-president of the United States Jimmy Carter, who, forget about Iraq -- I'll remind you in the Gulf War, actively lobbied other countries to oppose his country in helping it in going to war. So, look, this is a treaty that is, has nothing to do with peace, it's about politics. It's the...I'm sorry, the award.

The Nobel Peace Prize is about politics. It's the Kentucky Derby of the world left, and it gives it to people whose politics are either anti-American or anti-Bush, and that's why he won it.

I usually agree with Krauthammer, and I'm happy to let him speak for me. So take this as my own comment too.

Civil unions and gay marriage

In the state of Maryland, where I live, both the Governor, Martin O'Malley, and the speaker of the House of Delegates, Michael Busch, have come out in favor of civil unions, so I think that Maryland will join Vermont and Connecticut. And though I generally do not like anything associated with O'Malley, I think he is probably right. Civil unions are the best compromise between the religious right (who want to preserve "traditional marriage") and the gay friendly part of the public (who want equal rights).

Frankly, I see no harm in gay marriage. I cannot see how it even affects the people who are so opposed to it; if same-sex couples can get married, it certainly doesn't prevent opposite-sex couples from doing so. But if some people object to it being called a "marriage," then certainly giving them all the rights of a married couple without the word seems a good compromise.

Of course, the problem is that some people are (based on religious background) simply opposed to homosexuality. You can't show me anything that is not based on religion, and in fact on a specific religious belief, that makes homosexuality per se undesirable. And because we have a Constitution that forbids an "establishment of religion," no religious argument can hold water as a basis for our law.

So for once, I think O'Malley is right.

Politics at its worst

The Democrats have insisted on including a hate-crimes provision in a defense authorization bill. This is one of the worst examples of Congress trying to engineer legislation, not to make it conducive to accomplishing something good, but to try to embarrass the President. Either he signs it and puts into law something he feels is a bad provision (I might actually favor it, but it still doesn't have anything to do with defense funding, and many of the President's allies certainly don't) or he vetoes it and risks not having the military properly funded.

This is the sort of political behavior that gives politics a bad name.

Undeserved criticism

Yesterday's Washington Post contains an article by Jonathan Capehart taking all the Republican candidates to task, but particularly Rudy Giuliani, for not being willing to publicly discuss gay issues with him. (See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001043.html )

Why should Giuliani, at this moment, call attention to the fact that he's been more gay-friendly than most Republicans? At least he hasn't reversed himself like Mitt Romney. But he's trying to get votes from Republicans who are not as tolerant as he. He's going to scare them off if he does what Capehart wants, without winning over enough gay Republicans (how many gay Republicans who will be eligible to vote in a GOP primary are there?)

Capehart shouldn't be criticizing Giuliani -- before Giuliani can do anything helpful to gay causes, he needs to get nominated, and elected. He should be working to help the only possible nominee who might be favorable to the causes he espouses get nominated.

How great is the Canadian style health plan?

Obviously, not very. I just read today that Belinda Stronach came to the United States for medical treatment. (many sources; here is one: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070914/belinda_Stronach_070914/20070914?hub=Canada ) Now you may ask, who is Belinda Stronach? She's a Canadian member of Parliament and former Cabinet member. And she came to the US because the medical care is better!

People who say we ought to emulate the Canadian "single payer" plan want us to imitate a system that is so bad that top government officials admit we have better medical care than they do? Really!

The Mukasey nomination

Looks as if some extremists on the right want to block the accession of Judge Mukasey to the attorney general's post. It always puzzles me why some people, supposedly on the President's side, insist that if he nominates someone who might get some votes from the liberal Democrats on the Senate, he's selling out. (Harriet Miers was another case in point!) In Miers' case, they managed to succeed, getting an Alito in her place, but at the cost of heightening the tension between the Senate and the White House. I just wonder whether the extremists would rather have a fight than getting someone who they can work with into office without the acrimony of a confirmation hearing.

On the other hand, there are some Senate Dems who have no reason to oppose Mukasey, but want to pick a fight, so I've seen the word that they might just use the confirmation hearing to raise -- once more -- the issue of trying to get information that the White House deems to be covered by executive privilege. Just goes to show that both left and right in Washington, these days, seem more interested in making points than in making government work. No wonder the public approval of our governmental institutions is at an all-time low!

The parties on Iraq

It seems that each party has solidified its position on Iraq. Democrats think it's already lost; so they feel all we can do is get out as soon as possible. Republicans realize that it's going to be a long haul, so they are backing the generals: even such dovish Republicans as Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has said this.

I'm with the Republicans, naturally.

Did we really need a report?

The Petraeus/Crocker report is in, and as expected, it reported some progress but not total victory. Except for the details, this could have been predicted when Gen. Petraeus was told to poduce a report. And the Congressmen who have been opposed to the Iraq war have used the report to proclaim that everything is a failure (since we have made only a little bit of progress, and not won it outright!) while those who have supported the war have used the report to support the current efforts (because progress is shown). Both these reactions could also have been predicted. In other words, the report really changed nobody's mind, and it was always the case that nobody could expect otherwise. Was this report necessary? I think not.

On gun control, continued

Yesterday's post dealt with the right of governments like D. C.'s to pass gun control legislation. Today's deals with the desirability of such legisltion. For it's certainly constitutional to pass a lot of laws that make no sense, and many gun nuts attack gun-control laws on various grounds purporting to show that they are undesirable. On the other hand, I feel that we need gun control, probably stricter controls than anything on the books now, but certainly not the lax laws in, say, Virginia.

1. First we have the "If we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns" argument. When I first saw this one, I was inclined to simply dismiss it, saying, "Of course. They'll be outlaws because they have guns." But of course, what they mean, and I do need to address the point, is that criminals will find it easy to get guns and circumvent any laws. My position is that criminals can get guns by one of two means: by buying them and by stealing them. If guns are not available to the public, but are only sold directly by the manufacturer to police departments and the Army (or other branches of the military), then criminals cannot pretend to be legitimate purchasers and buy firearms. And if there are no privately-owned guns, who are criminals going to steal them from? Certainly, a police department or military base that is so incompetent that they cannot guard their firearm storeroom against theft has no business existing.
2. Second, we have the "If a criminal attacks us, we need guns for self-defense" argument. I've seen this put forth by people after the Virginia Tech shootings, where they actually claim that the killer would not have been able to take out so many victims if some of the students had been armed. First of all, does anyone really think that college students (known for binge drinking, fraternity hazing, general prank-playing, and the like) could be relied upon to restrict their gun usage to legitimate self-defense? Second of all, how many of them have the knowledge to use a gun properly, and not hit fellow-students or their professor while attempring to shoot at the attacker? Getting away from the college situation, if people have guns lying around their home, do they really have the self-control to make sure that someone is really an intruder before shooting? I shudder to think of a case where someone hears a noise in the house in the middle of the night, gets out his gun, goes to confront the "intruder," and shoots his kid getting in from a late date, or his wife going to the kitchen for a midnight snack. These scenarios are far more likely than the noise being from a real criminal entry.
3. Finally, we have the extreme libertarian argument that "We need to protect ourselves from a government that wants to enslave us, and so we can't rely on the government police to be our servants." I say, if you're really bent on a revolution, no laws enacted by the government matter, so this argument is not worth trying to counter.

I favor freedom, but not anarchy. And I really don't think anyone needs a gun (except if he's in the military or the police).

The challenge to the DC gun-control law

Normally I am of a rather libertarian bent, but I seriously part company with people who are usually allied with me on one issue: gun control. I fail to see any reason why an ordinary law-abiding citizen would have reason to own a gun (and unless he/she was in the army, where they would even have learned to use one!) and so I fail to see any reason to allow anyone privately to own one. (The military and police, of course, need them.)


But before getting into this issue in depth, I want to address the issue that is really at hand: Washington, D. C.'s right to enact its strict gun-control laws. Some people appeal to a misguided reading of the Second Amendment. Let me quote the Second Amendment in its entirety: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Note the first first 13 words. No other freedom guaranteed in our Constitution has a qualifier: not a single one! Obviously this is a clue to the intent of this amendment. "The right of the people to keep and bear arms" is only guaranteed in order to provide for "a well regulated militia" and not for any other purpose. (For more details see http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/secondam.pdf where this is discussed at some length.)

So now we get to people who claim that, under common law, the militia consists of all able-bodied citizens. (Mostly this is to deny that "militia" now means the National Guard.) Well, if you claim to be part of the militia, you are obligated to put yourself under Congressional control. After all, Art. I, Sect. 8, clause 15 states: "[The Congress shall have Power] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions" while clause 16 adds: "To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress" -- a pretty clear grant of power to the Congress.

There is no way of getting around this language. If you want to claim that the militia is everyone, then you cannot be armed except by Congressional provision; if you accept, as I do, that the militia is now the organized National Guards, then you do not have "the right ... to keep and bear arms" except if you are a member of the organized Guard. Any other reading of the Second Amendment is a perversion of its intent.

Now the question arises: is the District of Columbia entitled to pass these laws? Obviously, by my reading, a State has the power; the Second Amendment doesn't apply to the states anyway, and the Bill of Rights freedoms only apply to the states because of a judicial reading (probably justified) of the Fourteenth Amendment, but even if you apply the Second Amendment to the States in this way, it still grants "the right ... to keep and bear arms" only to people organized in militias, not to the public at large. But the District is not a state. It therefore gains its powers from Congress, under Article I, Section 8, clause 17, just as any city government gains its powers from the laws of the state in which it is incorporated. And Congress has not challenged that the home-rule charter granted to DC allows it to pass this legislation; it has been on the books for decades.

Arlen Specter and Larry Craig

The news over the weekend was that Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said that Craig shouldn't resign if he thinks he's innocent, but should fight the charges. Specter is a former prosecutor, and his claim that the charges might not stand up comes from a source that ought to know what is, and what isn't, a strong legal case.

And before proceeding in this discussion, I want to say that I have the utmost respect for Sen. Specter. A number of years ago, when he was contemplating a run for the Presidency (which he gave up on because he'd seen the power of the extreme right within the GOP), I was a strong supporter, and even wrote a letter to Specter encouraging him to run and offering to help in any way I could. And Arlen Specter's positions on critical issues are closer to mine than perhaps any other member of the Senate. So any criticim I give to Specter is to be considered as coming from a friendly direction.

But Specter seems not to understand one thing. Larry Craig represents Idaho, a very conservative state. Arlen Specter represents Pennsylvania, a quite liberal state with two cosmopolitan cities in it. Specter doesn't realize that Craig has decided that someone who is suspected to be gay has no chance of winning a high political office in Idaho. On the other hand, in Pennsylvania that would be much less of a problem. And Specter is attuned to Pennsylvania politics, not Idaho.

I just feel that the thing we need to note is that Craig's comment, "I'm not gay and I don't do such things," not just "I didn't do it," shows it's more important for him to come out as not gay than as innocent!

The politics of sex

Larry Craig, a senator from Idaho, recently got arrested in a police sting in a men's restroom and charged with disorderly conduct in a plea bargain. The big headline on the paper I saw this morning was Craig's proclaming he wasn't gay.

That this should matter is really a shame. But Craig is a conservative Republican, and as I mentioned in my Aug. 15 post, some people think that conservatism on some issues means you have to be on all issues, and anti-homosexualism is considered a necessary part of conservatism in many people's eyes. So a liberal like Barney Frank or former governor McGreevey of New Jersey can be gay, but not a conservative senator from Idaho.

That's really stupid. Why a person who is gay can't be a conservative (or vice versa) escapes me. What sexual orientation has to do with economics (or gun control, or almost any other issue in politics) escapes me.

A blog I found

Today I just found http://americasmayor2008.blogspot.com/ (A blog specifically about Giuliani!) While this blog supports him, I don't intend support for Giuliani to be its only raison d'être. But I'll be happy to plug other blogs that I like!

An insoluble problem?

There seems to be a clash of values among our citizens on the illegal immigration issue, which seems beyond reconciliation -- it's almost as bad as the abortion issue, which I am certain is beyond reconciliation.

Some people are so imbued with the spirit of compassion and sanctuary that they even refuse to use the word "illegal" in describing these immigrants, which of course obfuscates the issue, because to fail to distinguish legal from illegal immigration denies the actual existence of what, to their opponents, is the principal issue: people entering this country in violation of our nation's laws. As a result, pro-illegal-immigrant groups can paint their opponents as xenophobic and racist, which is a false characterization for many. (I have no intention of denying that there are some among the anti-illegal-immigrationists who are xenophobic and racist, but certainly many, probably most, are not.)

On the other hand, on the other side are folks who insist that any action short of mass deportation constitutes an amnesty. It offends me to see the McCain-Kennedy bill characterized as an "amnesty" bill, since the illegal immigrants would have to pay penalties before being granted legal status. A true amnesty would mean automatically granting them this status.

Since the positions are so far apart, with the pro-illegal-immigrant groups apparently insisting on nothing short of a true amnesty and the anti-illegal-immigrant groups calling any attempt at compromise an amnesty, I cannot see any solution.

Karl Rove vs. Hillary Clinton

Yesterday Karl Rove was on such interview programs as Meet the Press, and he had a bunch of negative things to say about Hillary Clinton. Some of the news community seemed to wonder whether he was doing that because he wanted to energize the anti-GOP Democrats to vote for her in the primaries, because he (and Republicans generally) thought she would be the easiest Democrat to beat. Others thought he was doing it for exactly the opposite reason: that Republicans were scared of Hillary. I wonder why they didn't just take Rove at his word: he believes she is the person the Democrats will nominate. Given that belief, there is no reason to attack Barack Obama, or any other also-ran Democrat: it will be Hillary that the Republican nominee will have to run against next year, and so it is Hillary that any Republican will have to put in a bad light. (I hope the GOP nominee is Giuliani, of course, but any Republican has to think the same way: it is Hillary who will be the competition in 2008.) I think Rove's action is totally logical.

Academic freedom and political correctness

Today I read something in the paper that made my blood boil. A clerk at the co-op at the University of Maryland (OK, not an official University organ, but one that gets support from the University) refused to serve a student who was wearing a "We Stand for Israel" shirt. (See http://www.examiner.com/a-883729~The_speech_police_at_Maryland.html ) While the student eventually did get served, after much argument, the student apparently found it necessary (or was convinced) to apologize to the clerk! Apparently it's just fine to be an anti-Semite; I'm sure that no clerk could have gotten away with that kind of behavior to a customer wearing a "Black Power" shirt.

As the editorial shows, political correctness has trumped academic freedom.

Why do they have to go together?

It seems to me that there is too much of an assumption that "if you believe in X, you must also believe in Y" around, where X and Y are two totally unrelated things. There are people who might be described as "economic conservatives" (I count myself among them) and people who call themselves "social conservatives" (I am certainly not among them!) and a lot of people seem to feel that if you are one, you are the other (which obviously is not true for me).

Case in point: There are two radio stations in the Washington, D. C. area which, I believe, are owned by one company and which have been advertising, "You're sure to hate one or the other" -- one, WTNT, is full of conservative talk radio, and the other is its liberal counterpart. I occasionally listen to WTNT and sometimes agree strongly with opinions expressed there, but the other day I was listening to one of the regularly featured broadcasters, Michael Savage. He was going on and on about "perverts," by which he meant homosexuals looking for their rights. I don't know what makes Mr. Savage have such a vigorous hostility to homosexuals; perhaps he's afraid of being confused with Dan Savage, a sex-advice columnist who is gay. But it just seems to me that, whatever your sexual orientation, nobody else's sexual orientation really concerns you unless they try to seduce you, and in that case, it's the unwanted attention, and not the sexual orientation, that is the problem.

Now some "social conservatives" might say it's condemned in the Bible -- and, of course, many people's reading of the Bible would agree with that, though there are obviously some very religious gay people who read that same Bible differently. But we're in a country with a pluralistic religious composition, and nobody has a right to let his religion dictate his politics to the point of banning people whose religion differs from theirs. An interpretation of "conservatism" consistent with my own economic conservatism would be to keep government out of our private business unless it damages someone, and in that case, why get involved in anyone's sex lives unless it negatively affects someone who isn't involved.

Similarly, "social conservatives" try to impose the beliefs of particular religions on areas like abortion on others who do not believe that way, and in general seem to be convinced that their own religion's views on anything trump all others. What this has to do with the essentially "laissez faire" view of economic conservatives escapes me.

Hence the title of this post: Why do they have to go together? In other words, what do they have in common that justifies the word "conservatism" being used for both?

Who's picking fights?

Senate majority leader Harry Reid is quoted as saying, of President Bush, "His comments today once again made clear that he is more interested in picking fights than problem-solving. Our differences amount to less than one percent of the budget..." This quote is even reprinted in the Democrats' own site, http://democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=280358 -- so they seem proud to proclaim this. Well, if I were in some sort of an argument, and I thought that the difference was so insignificant, I'd give in! Obviously, Mr. Reid isn't about to give in -- so I'd say he is the one who is only interested in picking fights!

And about the Democrats...

Gee, I'm glad I don't have to choose one of the candidates running for the Democratic nomination. They have to appear moderate enough that they don't scare the voters the way George McGovern did in 1972 or Michael Dukakis did a few elections later. Yet they know that only the extremists will control the nominating process. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama is really anywhere near the center, of course, so it's easy for them to please the extremists, but if they really said what they honestly want to do, it would be Dukakis all over again. So they tack toward the center, but they can't go so far away from the left wing extreme that they alienate their base. It is so nice to watch from the outside!