You may have heard this past week about the big win for tea party favorite Rand Paul in the Kentucky Republican senatorial primary contest. You may also have heard about the controversy engendered by his comments that he has some philosophical problems with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I'll try to provide a little clarity.
Paul's win this past Tuesday, a nearly two to one shellacking of Trey Grayson, Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell's handpicked candidate, was part of a larger narrative that saw insurgent Joe Sestak beat Arlen Specter in the Democratic senatorial race in Pennsylvania. It seems adherents of both parties are going for hardliners rather than moderates.
Beyond that, Paul, the son of Texas congressman and former Libertarian presidential nominee Ron Paul, created some waves by saying he'd have trouble voting for the landmark Civil Rights Act today. He said he opposes any kind of racism and supports enforcing non-discrimination in public facilities, but is against government telling private business how to run its operations. You can see his interview on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow here. She asked, "Do you think a private business has the right to say, we don't serve black people?" He answered, "Yes. I am not in favor of any discrimination of any form...but I also don't want to limit their speech in any way." He also complained against President Obama's "Unamerican" criticism of BP corporation running its business in the way it sees fit.
This kind of thing sums up the arch conservative to Libertarian wing of conservatism nicely. They have near-absolutist views on property rights. It is my restaurant, they feel, and I can discriminate if I want to. It is my business, they say, and if I cause pollution or noise that harms other people in the vicinity, my property rights trump their health and safety. They have a similar "to hell with everyone else" view of civil rights. My right to treat other people in a dehumanizing way outranks their right to be treated as worthwhile human beings. They hold these views sincerely, and feel they are productive of freedom.
Such a perspective is, of course, terribly flawed. The right to dehumanize people is never justified. Where does it end? Does someone's right to be secure from rape end when they step onto the rapist's property? That is where Paul's reasoning leads. Segregation and discrimination are crimes. We have declared this as a nation in the 14th Amendment, the Brown v. Topeka ruling and the Civil Rights Act. As such, there cannot be selected areas where criminals who violate them are sheltered from the law. The tea party-Libertarian elevation of property rights over human rights marks them as extremist, inegalitarian and un-American in the most profound sense. The elevation of the "right" of the abuser to abuse over that of the intended victim to be treated fairly marks them as inhumane. The utopia envisioned by people like Rand and Ron Paul would devolve into a nightmare of protected racism and exclusionism of all types. As Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson surmises, when it comes to Libertarian theory, "purist philosophy leads people to believe in the purest nonsense."
Monday, May 24, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
California Proposition Recommendations
California holds its Primary Election Tuesday, June 8, and most of the state's voters got their sample ballot or vote by mail materials this week. There are five propositions up for consideration this time, and they represent both the highest aspirations and worst abuses of direct democracy. Here are my recommendations.
Proposition 13, Property Taxes and Earthquake Safety. YES
Proposition 14, Primary Elections NO
Proposition 15, Public Funding of Campaigns YES
Proposition 16, Local Public Electricity NO
Proposition 17, Auto Insurance NO
Prop 13 is a good idea. Under it, if a property owner pays for an earthquake safety upgrade (seismic retrofitting) the property will not be reassessed for property taxes until it is sold. Currently, a structure built of unreinforced masonry is reassessed after 15 years, providing a disincentive for the owner to make such a building, the very type most at risk of collapse in an earthquake, more safe. This proposition deserves your support.
Prop 14, also called the "Open Primary," may seem like a good idea, but it isn't. It passed the legislature in 2009 as part of a political deal to get a budget agreement. State Senator Abel Maldonado (now Lieutenant Governor) demanded its inclusion as his price for voting for the budget. Prop 14 would pertain to all statewide offices, congressional and state legislative races and state board of equalization members. In the primary, all candidates from every party would be on the same ballot. Then the top two vote-getters in the primary would be on the ballot in the general election in November.
This proposition is bad for several reasons. First, the Second Section part D allows candidates to choose either to declare their parties or keep them secret. Candidates could run stealth campaigns, pretending to be Republican in Republican majority areas or Democrats in Democratic majority areas without having to divulge their true affiliations. Second, this would freeze the minor parties completely out of the general election, since they practically never would finish in the top two in the June Primary. Their voters would be shut out of their choice in November. Third, it could frequently result in two Democrats or two Republicans running against each in the general elections. Not only minor party supporters, but in those districts, even Democrats and Republicans would have no choice to vote for a candidate of their own party in the election. Finally, there is no provision for allowing write-ins, thus forcing everyone to vote for one of the two (or even one) party that got through the primary. Prop 14 is not friendly to free choice among the voters and ought to be defeated.
Prop 15 would establish the office of Secretary of State as a test case for public financing of campaigns in California in the elections of 2014 and 2018. It follows on the lines of systems in place in Arizona, Maine and North Carolina. I think it's a good idea and we should try it. The office of Secretary of State is a good beginning because its main function is to make sure elections in the state are run fairly and impartially. Its other main task is to monitor the activities of lobbyists. Taking special interest money out of this campaign is an excellent pace to start.
To qualify for the funding, a major party candidate would need to get 7,500 $5 contributions. A minor party candidate would need to get 3,750 such contributions. Then they would qualify for state funding. The funding would come from increasing the fees on lobbyists from $25 every two years to $700. The legislative analyst says this would raise more than $6 million every four years. If a candidate was self-funding or getting help from outside groups and going over the public financing amounts, the fund would send matching funds to the qualified candidates.
You can see from the arguments in the voter information guide who is for and against this measure. Impartial groups concerned about good government like the League of Women Voters and Common Cause support it. Interest groups who want to buy and control politicians such as the Manufacturers Association, unions and interest lobbies are opposed. Get the picture? Vote yes on 15.
Proposition 16 is a blatant special interest grab by Pacific Gas & Electric to solidify their monopoly control. Vote no. If a city or county wanted to join Los Angeles or Sacramento in running their own power sources they would need not only a vote of their elected representatives but a 2/3 vote of the electorate. They don't need to do this to pave a road or staff a park, but only would for this purpose. PG & E would be able to overwhelm the jurisdiction with misleading advertising and get only 1/3 of the people afraid in order to defeat such efforts. LA and Sacramento, for instance, did not suffer through the 2001 blackouts and rate gouges the rest of the state did. Do you trust PG & E to watch out for your interests? If you are astute enough to read this blog I would imagine not.
Similarly, Prop 17 is a special interest grab by the auto insurance industry. Mercury Insurance is bankrolling this effort, and if you feel they have the best interest of consumers at heart, I have some Florida swamp land you are probably interested in. While this sneaky scam permits car insurers to give you a discount if you have had insurance with another company for the past five years, it allows them to jack up your rates in other cases. The proponents' own argument in the voter information guide says it could save customers $250, while the respected nonpartisan watchdog Consumers Union says it will hit customers with surcharges over $1000, and points out that states with this type of law have rates ranging from 73% to 227% higher than California. Don't fall for it. Vote no on 17.
If you are voting by mail be sure to send it in so it is received by June 8. If you miss that, you can take your ballot in to a polling place on Election Day. Locations are included in an insert in the voting materials envelope you received. For more material that tries to offer unbiased information, go to http://www.easyvoter.org/ or http://www.smartvoter.org/.
Proposition 13, Property Taxes and Earthquake Safety. YES
Proposition 14, Primary Elections NO
Proposition 15, Public Funding of Campaigns YES
Proposition 16, Local Public Electricity NO
Proposition 17, Auto Insurance NO
Prop 13 is a good idea. Under it, if a property owner pays for an earthquake safety upgrade (seismic retrofitting) the property will not be reassessed for property taxes until it is sold. Currently, a structure built of unreinforced masonry is reassessed after 15 years, providing a disincentive for the owner to make such a building, the very type most at risk of collapse in an earthquake, more safe. This proposition deserves your support.
Prop 14, also called the "Open Primary," may seem like a good idea, but it isn't. It passed the legislature in 2009 as part of a political deal to get a budget agreement. State Senator Abel Maldonado (now Lieutenant Governor) demanded its inclusion as his price for voting for the budget. Prop 14 would pertain to all statewide offices, congressional and state legislative races and state board of equalization members. In the primary, all candidates from every party would be on the same ballot. Then the top two vote-getters in the primary would be on the ballot in the general election in November.
This proposition is bad for several reasons. First, the Second Section part D allows candidates to choose either to declare their parties or keep them secret. Candidates could run stealth campaigns, pretending to be Republican in Republican majority areas or Democrats in Democratic majority areas without having to divulge their true affiliations. Second, this would freeze the minor parties completely out of the general election, since they practically never would finish in the top two in the June Primary. Their voters would be shut out of their choice in November. Third, it could frequently result in two Democrats or two Republicans running against each in the general elections. Not only minor party supporters, but in those districts, even Democrats and Republicans would have no choice to vote for a candidate of their own party in the election. Finally, there is no provision for allowing write-ins, thus forcing everyone to vote for one of the two (or even one) party that got through the primary. Prop 14 is not friendly to free choice among the voters and ought to be defeated.
Prop 15 would establish the office of Secretary of State as a test case for public financing of campaigns in California in the elections of 2014 and 2018. It follows on the lines of systems in place in Arizona, Maine and North Carolina. I think it's a good idea and we should try it. The office of Secretary of State is a good beginning because its main function is to make sure elections in the state are run fairly and impartially. Its other main task is to monitor the activities of lobbyists. Taking special interest money out of this campaign is an excellent pace to start.
To qualify for the funding, a major party candidate would need to get 7,500 $5 contributions. A minor party candidate would need to get 3,750 such contributions. Then they would qualify for state funding. The funding would come from increasing the fees on lobbyists from $25 every two years to $700. The legislative analyst says this would raise more than $6 million every four years. If a candidate was self-funding or getting help from outside groups and going over the public financing amounts, the fund would send matching funds to the qualified candidates.
You can see from the arguments in the voter information guide who is for and against this measure. Impartial groups concerned about good government like the League of Women Voters and Common Cause support it. Interest groups who want to buy and control politicians such as the Manufacturers Association, unions and interest lobbies are opposed. Get the picture? Vote yes on 15.
Proposition 16 is a blatant special interest grab by Pacific Gas & Electric to solidify their monopoly control. Vote no. If a city or county wanted to join Los Angeles or Sacramento in running their own power sources they would need not only a vote of their elected representatives but a 2/3 vote of the electorate. They don't need to do this to pave a road or staff a park, but only would for this purpose. PG & E would be able to overwhelm the jurisdiction with misleading advertising and get only 1/3 of the people afraid in order to defeat such efforts. LA and Sacramento, for instance, did not suffer through the 2001 blackouts and rate gouges the rest of the state did. Do you trust PG & E to watch out for your interests? If you are astute enough to read this blog I would imagine not.
Similarly, Prop 17 is a special interest grab by the auto insurance industry. Mercury Insurance is bankrolling this effort, and if you feel they have the best interest of consumers at heart, I have some Florida swamp land you are probably interested in. While this sneaky scam permits car insurers to give you a discount if you have had insurance with another company for the past five years, it allows them to jack up your rates in other cases. The proponents' own argument in the voter information guide says it could save customers $250, while the respected nonpartisan watchdog Consumers Union says it will hit customers with surcharges over $1000, and points out that states with this type of law have rates ranging from 73% to 227% higher than California. Don't fall for it. Vote no on 17.
If you are voting by mail be sure to send it in so it is received by June 8. If you miss that, you can take your ballot in to a polling place on Election Day. Locations are included in an insert in the voting materials envelope you received. For more material that tries to offer unbiased information, go to http://www.easyvoter.org/ or http://www.smartvoter.org/.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
"Drill Baby Drill" Chorus Falls Silent
We're not hearing much from the "Drill, baby drill!" crowd these days. Just look what one accident on an offshore oil rig can cause. Eleven men dead. 95,000 barrels-4 million gallons-and counting. Shrimp, crab and sport fishing industries imperiled and likely ruined for some time to come.
The estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day that are leaking into the Gulf have added up to a total value of $6,650,000 at $70 a barrel. If the improvised containment devices don't staunch the flow, a relief well currently being drilled will take three months to reach the oil-bearing strata. The cleanup operation is already expected to run into the tens of billions of dollars. This for a well that produces about $75 million dollars of oil a year. So if the cleanup and damages amount to $30 billion, that will surpass what the well would have earned in more than 400 years. But of course we know the well would have been pumped dry long before that. Before this is over it will probably surpass the 11 million gallons of the infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, the largest to date.
All this demonstrates the foolishness of relying on this form of energy production. That we, thirty-seven years after the first OPEC oil embargo, are still wedded to this diminishing, polluting, increasingly expensive and internationally volatile energy source is one of the greatest derelictions of national policy in world history.
Why was there no capping technology at the ready to plug an accident like this? For the same reason the Massey coal mine in West Virginia was allowed to operate with over 400 safety violations. It's because these wealthy and powerful companies buy their way out of appropriate oversight and regulation with their influence, their lobbyists and their campaign cash.
We have been hearing more talk of a greater reliance on nuclear electricity lately too. Once again, are we ready to take that risk? One catastrophic accident there could kill thousands of people and leave an area uninhabitable for thousands of years. Solar panels and windmills may not be glamorous but once in place they continue to produce and do not pose the kinds of threats fossil fuels and nuclear plants do. What we have here is another wake up call. The limp-minded drilling advocates have been shut up, at least for the time being. That presents an opportunity. It is time we got busy doing what we should have started in earnest in 1973.
The estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day that are leaking into the Gulf have added up to a total value of $6,650,000 at $70 a barrel. If the improvised containment devices don't staunch the flow, a relief well currently being drilled will take three months to reach the oil-bearing strata. The cleanup operation is already expected to run into the tens of billions of dollars. This for a well that produces about $75 million dollars of oil a year. So if the cleanup and damages amount to $30 billion, that will surpass what the well would have earned in more than 400 years. But of course we know the well would have been pumped dry long before that. Before this is over it will probably surpass the 11 million gallons of the infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, the largest to date.
All this demonstrates the foolishness of relying on this form of energy production. That we, thirty-seven years after the first OPEC oil embargo, are still wedded to this diminishing, polluting, increasingly expensive and internationally volatile energy source is one of the greatest derelictions of national policy in world history.
Why was there no capping technology at the ready to plug an accident like this? For the same reason the Massey coal mine in West Virginia was allowed to operate with over 400 safety violations. It's because these wealthy and powerful companies buy their way out of appropriate oversight and regulation with their influence, their lobbyists and their campaign cash.
We have been hearing more talk of a greater reliance on nuclear electricity lately too. Once again, are we ready to take that risk? One catastrophic accident there could kill thousands of people and leave an area uninhabitable for thousands of years. Solar panels and windmills may not be glamorous but once in place they continue to produce and do not pose the kinds of threats fossil fuels and nuclear plants do. What we have here is another wake up call. The limp-minded drilling advocates have been shut up, at least for the time being. That presents an opportunity. It is time we got busy doing what we should have started in earnest in 1973.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
History: You Can't Make It Up As You Go Along
"He who controls the past controls the future." So wrote George Orwell, the English novelist whose 1984 and Animal Farm stand as two of the twentieth century's great warnings about the power and danger of intentional untruth in the hands of propagandists.
Orwell's quote well encapsulates the issue at stake this month when the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) votes on what to recommend in its curriculum guidelines. "A near majority" of the 15-member elected SBOE is, according to Newsweek, "locked in a hyperconservative embrace, aligned as a bloc to promote a social-issues-centric view of the world." The Board's decisions have a determinative influence on what is written into textbooks supplied to the second largest education system in the country, and a major influence on smaller states who then often have to choose from among the publisher's selections approved by SBOE.
In short, the conservative bloc on SBOE is bent on rewriting history to conform to their preconceived political and ideological views. In pursuit of this goal they are engaging in unfounded revisionism of the historical facts. They feel that if they can put words into the mouths of the Founding Fathers, for example, they can legitimize their current political and societal views. This goes hand in hand with other conservative efforts to overturn settled historical fact in the service of partisan ideology. As Steven Thomma recently reported for the McClatchy papers:
The right is rewriting history. The most ballyhooed effort is underway in Texas, where conservatives have pushed the state school board to rewrite the guidelines, downplaying Thomas Jefferson in one high school course, playing up such conservatives as Phyllis Schlafly and the Heritage Foundation and challenging the idea that the Founding Fathers wanted to
separate church and state.
The Jamestown settlers? Socialists. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton? Ill-informed professors made up all that bunk about him advocating a strong central government. Theodore Roosevelt? Another socialist. Franklin D. Roosevelt? Not only did he not end the Great Depression, he created it.
As if these entirely fallacious assertions were not enough, among other changes recommended by the conservative bloc are chopping Thurgood Marshall and Cesar Chavez from the history book and replacing them with the inventor of the yo-yo, and giving a favorable gloss to the reputation of Joseph McCarthy. There are not only the expected plans to give "creationism" equal footing with evolution, but also, as member Don McLeroy puts it, to inculcate the view that America is "not only unique but superior...divinely ordained to lead the world to betterment."
When conjoined to the erroneous historical pronouncements of well-known spokespeople like Fox personality Glenn Beck, one-time Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann, it is apparent a widespread effort is underway to control current political debate by inventing a set of non-existent historical precedents, to expunge inconvenient facts from the record. If this makes headway, the very bedrock upon which opinion is formed in a democratic republic will have been subverted. Here the reality-based folks in media, academics and society at large must be uncompromising in drawing the line. As was perhaps best expressed in a quote attributed to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts."
Orwell's quote well encapsulates the issue at stake this month when the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) votes on what to recommend in its curriculum guidelines. "A near majority" of the 15-member elected SBOE is, according to Newsweek, "locked in a hyperconservative embrace, aligned as a bloc to promote a social-issues-centric view of the world." The Board's decisions have a determinative influence on what is written into textbooks supplied to the second largest education system in the country, and a major influence on smaller states who then often have to choose from among the publisher's selections approved by SBOE.
In short, the conservative bloc on SBOE is bent on rewriting history to conform to their preconceived political and ideological views. In pursuit of this goal they are engaging in unfounded revisionism of the historical facts. They feel that if they can put words into the mouths of the Founding Fathers, for example, they can legitimize their current political and societal views. This goes hand in hand with other conservative efforts to overturn settled historical fact in the service of partisan ideology. As Steven Thomma recently reported for the McClatchy papers:
The right is rewriting history. The most ballyhooed effort is underway in Texas, where conservatives have pushed the state school board to rewrite the guidelines, downplaying Thomas Jefferson in one high school course, playing up such conservatives as Phyllis Schlafly and the Heritage Foundation and challenging the idea that the Founding Fathers wanted to
separate church and state.
The Jamestown settlers? Socialists. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton? Ill-informed professors made up all that bunk about him advocating a strong central government. Theodore Roosevelt? Another socialist. Franklin D. Roosevelt? Not only did he not end the Great Depression, he created it.
As if these entirely fallacious assertions were not enough, among other changes recommended by the conservative bloc are chopping Thurgood Marshall and Cesar Chavez from the history book and replacing them with the inventor of the yo-yo, and giving a favorable gloss to the reputation of Joseph McCarthy. There are not only the expected plans to give "creationism" equal footing with evolution, but also, as member Don McLeroy puts it, to inculcate the view that America is "not only unique but superior...divinely ordained to lead the world to betterment."
When conjoined to the erroneous historical pronouncements of well-known spokespeople like Fox personality Glenn Beck, one-time Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann, it is apparent a widespread effort is underway to control current political debate by inventing a set of non-existent historical precedents, to expunge inconvenient facts from the record. If this makes headway, the very bedrock upon which opinion is formed in a democratic republic will have been subverted. Here the reality-based folks in media, academics and society at large must be uncompromising in drawing the line. As was perhaps best expressed in a quote attributed to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts."
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