Centrist Pundits

Which of the following is an example of low-level idiocy?

— Spending more than you take in on a long-term basis

— Bailing out billionaires but not the middle and lower classes

— Putting troops in harm’s way without sufficient armor

— The Pentagon’s exam on terrorism 

The answer, for the record, is the recent exam by the Pentagon, which equated protesting with low-level terrorism.  (The other examples in my question are high-level idiocy!)

Seriously, this was a question on an exam by the Pentagon in a course on learning about terrorism:

“Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism?”

— Attacking the Pentagon

— IEDs

— Hate crimes against racial groups

— Protests

The correct answer, according to the exam, is “Protests.”  I can only assume that since the others are all types of terrorism, they must be high-level stuff.  Now, I want to be fair to the Pentagon here.  They have said that the exam is for people who are stationed abroad and who, as a rule, should avoid protests in other nations.  And they are probably right about that, if only because protests can become violent and no one should really be there unless they are a protestor or the media or someone else who is choosing to be in harm’s way.

But it still paints the issue with far too broad a brush for my comfort.  I am not the biggest proponent (nor am I an opponent) of the ACLU but they are right in questioning the Pentagon’s phrasing of this question.  It does certainly seem to imply – or outright state – that protest is terrorism, and that serves to undermine the very freedoms of speech and assembly that we hold dear as Americans.

Within our borders, the ability to protest is one of the cornerstones of our liberties, of our right to freedom of expression.  This right has been repeatedly diluted over the years with “free speech zones” near Presidential rallies (hey, President Bush – AMERICA is my free speech zone) and other such nonsense.  And it’s a freedom available to both sides of the aisle.  You want to protest the Iraq war outside President Bush’s Crawford Ranch?  No problem.  You want to hold a “teabagging” party?  Also no problem.

Okay, I admit it, I just look for any excuse to snicker at the phrase teabagging.

Outside our borders, protests are also a legitimate form of expression, and not necessarily nascent terrorism.  The recent protests in Iran are an example of this.  I’m not sure what happened in the election – I’m fairly sure there was fraud, but I suppose there’s an outside chance that there was not, which as a friend of mine said, makes any attempts to overturn what happened a coup – but the protestors have not been the scary ones.  The only people terrorizing anyone in that regime is the government.

Like I said, I think I get what the Pentagon was trying to do.  If they really were trying to say that a protest has the potential to turn violent and become terroristic, then I would agree.  But the simple statement that protests are terrorism is to simple, and it is wrong, and it is offensive to any patriot.

JC National Politics, Society ACLU, culture, free speech, language, Pentagon, protests

Recently, President Obama has been taking a lot of hits from the left, and perhaps the biggest hits are coming from gay rights groups who have taken great umbrage to his Department of Justice performing such a vigorous defense of the Defense of Marriage act.  I suppose this should not surprise anyone.  While Obama is easily the most pro-gay rights President ever (barring, maybe, rumors about one or two specific Presidents) he’s never been a great friend to homosexual rights groups.  He came out – if you pardon the expression – against gay marriage as far back as the campaign.  And while this is certainly painting with a broad brush, with many groups that are against gay marriage being of a religious background, the idea that this very religious President isn’t the best friend of the gay community doesn’t really strike me as surprising.

I buy that the government has to defend the laws that are on the books.  I also buy that they don’t have to do so with quite the vigor that occurred in this case.  On the other hand, if I expected the government to help me on something, I would hope they would do so to the best of their ability regardless of any individual bureaucrat’s feelings.  Perhaps that is naïve.

I think the problem here is not that Obama is particularly anti-gay; I don’t think he is.  I just think its remarkably low on his list of priorities.  Obama has been saying since his election, if not before – “economy, health care, and education” as his domestic agenda.  He has made it plain that anything that’s not one of those 3 issues has to take a back seat to those 3 issues.

By that same logic, I have a friend up here in New York who’s pretty sure gun laws are going to be changing for the worse shortly.  He’s not alone, gun and ammo sales are up up up since Obama’s election out of worries about gun restrictions.  I’m fairly sure guns are somewhere on Obama’s agenda.  I don’t know if it is before or after gay rights.  But since guns are not economic, health care, or education, I just don’t think he’s going to do much with them this term.  If he gets a second term, maybe then.  Maybe not.

Gay rights groups have every right to be disappointed with Obama on this matter and perhaps other, similar issues.  Obama will never have more political capital then he has right now, if he hopes to get things passed he needs to do it now.  By not putting these issues at the top of his agenda, he is making them less likely to pass during his term in office.  That is no doubt the true implication of his lack of concern about gay rights, and so of course activists should be worried.

On the other hand, to every idea there is a season, and given the polling on the acceptance of gay marriage indicates that the younger a person is, the more accepted the idea is, it is likely that as time goes on gay rights will happen almost inevitably.  Of course, “almost” is a tricky word, and no one feels they should have to wait for their inevitable rights.  I sympathize. 

The most cynical argument would be, of course, “where else will the gay rights community go if not the Democrats”?  A third party?  Please.  The Republicans?  Log Cabin aside, unlikely.  Stay home come election time?  That’s like giving up.  Of course, that’s a dangerous philosophy; some say the Republicans lost because they didn’t excite the traditional base enough this last election.

In some ways, a mountain is being made of a molehill here.  Still, there are enough people out there for whom this is the single issue that most importantly defines their support for a candidate – I’m looking at you, Doc – that the mountain still needs climbing.

Photo by rt69 on flickr.com and is shared under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.  Thank you and let us know if you would like attribution noted differently.

JC Society culture, gay rights, obama

Okay, everyone, today’s post needs context.  I don’t always offer context for my posts, assuming that my readership is the kind that reads the news sites as well, but sometimes, if it is a minor story, people may not know what I’m talking about.  So go here:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/08/gop-senator-to-obama-you-got-nerve/

or, if you prefer, go to:

http://twitter.com/ChuckGrassley

Now, one might think I’m about to attack Chuck Grassley on the issues.  I’m not.  Senator Grassley and I are on opposite sides of the aisle but that’s okay.  I can’t recall Grassley ever doing anything that truly offended me so I will assume he is one of the true believer conservatives who argues his points out of a feeling that his view is correct, and I can respect that.

But I cannot respect anyone who abuses the English language like that.  I know it is twitter and I know it is limited to 140 characters but come on.  I have a twitter account for my private life and I can probably count on one hand my uses of “leet” speak that weren’t ironic or mistakes.  I write complete sentences.  If I can’t make it in 140 characters, I use a shorter synonym or do 2 tweets.

Mr. Grassley, you are a senator.  Please, write like one.  No one thinks you are cool cause you use the 4 instead of for, or u for you, or “skedul” for schedule, which isn’t even really leet speak, but is instead nonsense.

This site is so bad, in fact, that even with CNN mentioning it on their political ticker, I have to suspect it is a fake.  And if it is a fake, then shame on you faker, for making a politician look stupid.  Most politicians are perfectly capable of doing that on their own.

I understand that languages evolve, and I even support it as a general rule.  But there are those who should make an endeavor to do it right according to our current linguistic guidelines, and I think a United States Senator is one of those who should serve as a role model.

JC Congress, Media culture, Grassley, language, twitter

Last week, a case involving a cancer-stricken child and a mother who was refusing chemotherapy made the national news.  Its hardly the first such case ever, though this one had the “sexiness” of the mother and her son fleeing rather than subjecting themselves to the court’s authority, at least for part of the time.  A fairly good, if rather basic, summary of the issues surrounding the case and cases like it appears today on CNN.com:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/28/treatment.parental.rights/index.html

I have a friend who I would say is very mixed, politically, but comes from a conservative background, who wrote a very intelligent and thought out argument against the court intervention in this case.  She made the point that allowing the courts to override a parental right based on a recommendation from a doctor is one very small step from doing the same to adults (probably starting with adults who have others making their medical decisions for them, but ending with you and me).  It is an important and scary point, and as my friend points out, it is the stuff of Orwellian nightmares.

I have to admit, my first reaction was different.  My first reaction was that the parents in this case are morons, and that their denial of life-saving procedures to the child was tantamount to abuse.  Of course, I am not a doctor, and I don’t understand what is going on with this child’s particular medical case.  I thought I had read that it was a fairly clear cut survivability issue – that without treatment, he was 99.9% likely to do quite soon, and with treatment, there was every chance he’d live the rest of his life fine and dandy.  Other things I’ve read since then have indicated I may have misunderstood, but I have to admit, I think I may have misunderstood the reality of the situation too.  I mean, is it really okay to do this to one child because he’s likely to survive if we take action, and not okay to another because he isn’t?  Does the degree make the difference, and if so, is there a clear line at which we intervene and on the other side of which we don’t?

I mean, as a society, we’ve already decided the state can override parental rights on all sorts of issues.  And yet, on others, we remain strangely silent.  You can take a child away from verbally or physically abusive parents, but as was pointed out to me, if you feed a child nothing but fast food all day long, the state does nothing.

As a society, we all want every child to be given every advantage.  At the same time, we don’t have any desire to take away the right to parents to raise their children the way they see fit.  We have nightmares about leaving children with parents who raise them to be full of hate or completely ignorant of the way to world works, and yet we at the same time are no more pleased by the vision of children raised by the state, uniformly, without such trivial things in the background like religion, compassion, or individuality.

All that cases like this really point out is how woefully inadequate our current systems are for handling such complex problems, while at the same time offering up no better solution.  Our current health care system?  Messed up at a remarkable number of levels.  Our current legal system?  The same.  Our social services?  Also the same.  Even our society.

We have become a nation that wants easy solutions.  We aren’t really capable of dealing with situations that have no easy answers.  All I know is, I want our children to be safe, healthy, and happy.  But those three words have such a wide meaning that there’s no easy way to meet that goal.

JC Health care, Society culture, Health care, parental rights

I’m having trouble focusing on any one thing today, so instead I’ll just say various things that are on my mind.  Probably most of it will be cheap shots at people.

Megan McCain was on Colbert the other night talking about being a Pro-Sex Republican Woman.  Rowr!  We’re all pro-Megan McCain talking about her sex life on national TV!  Except maybe her dad.  He’s probably against it.

Sarah Palin says that Obama is as predictable as snow in Alaska.  Of course, she forgot to mention that with global warming, snow in Alaska is less predictable than it used to be…  High-yo…

I’ve decided I’m perfectly willing to give up Nancy Pelosi as “guitly” of knowing about torture if it means we get a verdict of “guilty” on Bush, Cheney, and the rest as well.  Its a small sacrifice.

Michael Steele says that the age of GOP apologies is over.  Hey, Steele, are you sure it ever begun?  Ha ha.

Bill Clinton is the UN’s new special envoy the Haiti.  I hope Haiti is prepared for the sudden jump in chubby kids with great hair.  I predict the wave will start in about 9 months.

JC Uncategorized Clinton, culture, obama, Steele, torture

Marriage is in the news today.  Maine’s Governor signed a bill allowing homosexuals to get married to each other.  At the other end of the spectrum, Elizabeth Edwards, on a book tour, is taking questions about the problems in her marriage (namely, her husband’s career-ending infidelity). 

The part I find interesting is actually the Elizabeth Edwards part of it.  I don’t know, exactly, if she’s exploiting her heartache, but let’s assume for a moment she isn’t, and they she’s just answering the questions because the questions are being asked.  She stated that she only asked John Edwards for one thing when they got married, that he be faithful.  Okay, fair enough.

That sounds like a fairly stinging indictment of John Edwards’s foolishness.  Your wife asked you to stay faithful, and you didn’t.  But more to the point, outside of an agreed upon open marriage, why wouldn’t you have an expectation you need to stay faithful?  Isn’t that one of the very reasons to get married, that you’ve agreed to be faithful to the person you are marrying (again, unless both partners have a different understanding, which is an entirely different issue).  What is mind boggling is not that John Edwards couldn’t keep the one promise his wife asked of him but that she needed to bother to ask at all.

Marriage is a fairly complicated social creation.  Marriage has religious meanings and legal meanings, and the two get intertwined and create all sorts of complications.  But it also boils down to an agreement between two people for certain things.  That agreement can change a bit from couple to couple, but all in all, there’s no secret as to what being married means.

Marriage is a great thing, for some people.  Others probably shouldn’t ever bother with it.  Marriage has also changed and evolved over time.  Each change brings about people who don’t think those changes should come.  Right now, the big battle is gay marriage, and people are fighting that.  But only a few years ago, the big issue with marriage was how easy divorce was becoming, and people fought that.  In my parent’s life time, the battle has been between differing races, and differing religions.  Other cultures are still fighting a battle over whether marriage is about two people loving each other and agreeing to stay together, or about two families creating a business arrangement.  We can talk about the ancient traditions of marriage all we like, but marriage is pretty much a phenomenon that exists in any given moment.

But in the end, what marriage really needs to be defended against is only one thing: human nature.  But of course, there’s really no defense against that.

JC Religion, Society, State Politics culture, marriage

So, I was thinking today.  Say that Texas did secede.  Let’s go a step further.  Let’s say all the Conservative states form their own nation, and the Liberal States are all that’s left.  Or vice versa, it doesn’t matter.  Why is that a bad thing?

Two democratic (small d) nations, friendly to each other, common roots, with common values (if not always a common expression of those values.  What’s wrong with that?  We get along just fine with Canada.

Both nations would believe in free speech, even if the conservative nation didn’t like criticizing a President in wartime and the liberal one let people shoot their mouths off without repercussions.

Both nations would believe in elections, even if those qualifications for voting are different.

Both nations would believe that citizens deserve due process, trial by jury, and have their rights, even if they disagree on how far those rights apply to non-citizens.

Our similarities are actually greater than our differences, despite how talking heads on TV made it feel any time Bush did anything or the opposite talking heads make us feel anytime Obama does anything.  And so if we’d be such a great and friendly neighbors, maybe the whole idea of a split – maybe the whole culture war perpetuated by a small subset that says that Greg and I, or Troy and I, or anyone who comes down on different sides of an arbitrary line – is nonsense.  Maybe its just a matter of remembering we can disagree and still be agreeable.

One nation, under God (depending on which version of the Pledge you like), indivisible even by a bunch of loudmouths who get paid more if we get angry with each other and feed their extremist world view.  We still agree on liberty and justice for all, and that’s probably the important thing.

JC National Politics, Society culture

Lots of people have already said almost everything I have to say on the modern-day tea parties.  That’s not going to stop me from saying it, I just want to acknowledge that before everyone accuses me of copying others.

Protests are good.  Really.  Protests helped launch the civil rights movement, protests keep vital issues in the public eye.  That’s why we hold them.  The only problem is that they are, by their very nature, a mob mentality, and mob mentalities are not humanity at its finest.

The tea parties aren’t a bad idea, per se.  They have some historical relevance.  Granted, what those 18th century Bostonians were protesting was taxation without representation, rather than pure, unadulterated taxation, but hey, there is at least some linkage there, given the statements by some of the modern tea party movement that they don’t feel “the common man” is being represented in Congress any longer.  That’s not really what taxation without representation means, of course, but there is at least a tenuous connection there.

But what gets me is that they are protesting now about our taxes being too high and about our money going to things the taxpayers wouldn’t pay for if given the choice.  This “grassroots” movement that is the culmination of stress about high taxes is anything but – it is merely a partisan ploy.  They are happening because Obama is in charge, despite the fact that Obama hasn’t changed any tax rates yet (any changes he’s made will affect the taxes you pay by April 15th 2010, not 2009), despite the fact that most Americans are getting lower taxes under Obama’s plan, and despite the fact that taxes are still lower than under the great Conservative Movement icon, Ronald Reagan, because we haven’t rolled back the not-so-iconic Bush’s tax cuts.

In other words, perhaps we liberals should take some comfort in the fact these tea parties are pushing the liberal agenda by pointing out flaws in Bush era tax codes and Bush era bailout expenditures.  Who knew that so many people would come out to protest Bush’s legacy?

Taxes should be as high as they need to be to pay for the common good, and no higher.  That leaves a lot of wiggle room and debate room for what falls in to the common good, and that’s okay.  But let’s not fool ourselves here.  We didn’t come to America to escape taxation entirely, and taxes are not at some all out crazed high, and it isn’t some liberal plot to lead to socialism.  The only perhaps legitimate gripe these tea parties had this year was that too much of our tax dollars go to bailouts of the undeserving, and frankly, I doubt many of the 270,000 or so people out there the other day were economists who understand why sometimes, bailouts might be needed, but instead, most were just everyday Joes, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but our instincts may well tell us the wrong moves on the economy.

JC Economy, Media, National Politics, Society culture, finance, taxes

I was going to do a tax day post, but even though they were funny, for a time, the tea-bagging jokes are getting stale, now, and if you don’t agree with me, well, let’s play a round of Halo 3 and see what happens.

Luckily, we’ve been saved from the need for such “humor” by… our old friend, Blagojevich!  Yes, he’s back, completely unphased by his being prosecuted for… well, increadibly high levels of corruption, he has signed a deal to appear on a reality TV show.  Having trouble believing this?  Trying to make sure it isn’t a belated April Fool’s joke?  Go here:  http://www.seattlepi.com/tvguide/405158_tvgif15.html or just google it.

Who knows if court permission will be forthcoming, but it should be, if only because Blagojevich proves one thing every time he makes the rounds: his particular version of being out of touch with reality is actually amusing, so he should be good on so called reality TV.

Legal battles aren’t funny – insanely defiant press conferences and a man holding tight to the doorknob of the Governor’s Mansion while the legislature tries to drag him out and the Lt. Governor measures the windows is funny.  So I honestly thought the Blagojevich humor was over.

But apparently, he has only begun to baffle and amaze us.  Okay, Blago, you have me hooked  – what will you do next?

JC Crime and Punishment, Media, Society Blagojevich, culture

Earlier today, Mainstreet.com released their Happiness Index, which is a ranking of states based on household income, debt, employment and foreclosures. There are a few notable exceptions, but by and large, the red states are in the top half of the list, and the blue states are at the bottom.

Now, of course this site is all about the purple. JC and I live in some very contrasting areas — states don’t come much bluer than his Empire State, or much redder than my Sooner State. But in an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America, part of the analysis about why this happens is cultural — in many of the states near the bottom of the list, people try to live beyond their means — which comes crashing down badly in poor financial times.

Now, with that said, I will note that New York is #14 on the list, and is the highest ranking major blue state. My home state came in at #6. And I see this here, too. I mean, we’re affected by the downturn in the economy, but not to the extent we see on the news in other places.

A year ago, Oklahoma City topped the list of Forbes Magazine’s America’s Recession-Proof Cities. While I think “recession-proof” is too strong, it does show OKC and a host of culturally comparable cities that have traditionally lower pay (and costs of living) than most of the larger cities on the East and West coasts.

In the ABC piece, they interviewed a mayor in Nebraska who noted that they don’t spend wildly in the good times, and they don’t crash in the bad times — it’s much more flat all the time. What’s behind that is a very conservative attitude towards money that has more to do with culture than the specifics of living on a plain.

I’d like to think that this is an important lesson for everyone to learn, but I rather suspect that when the economy is good again, the coastal spending frenzy will begin anew.

Greg Economy, National Politics, Society culture, Economy, finance, mortgage, recession