Liddy Dole should be ashamed

Elizabeth Dole has been President of the American Red Cross and Secretary of Labor. She has spent her life embodying the ideal of a great American. Personally, I think her term as a NC Senator has been a complete waste, as she really has accomplished nothing other leading the NRSC to its embarrassing losses in 2006, but I have always respected her. Until now.

Have you seen the G-odless ads she is running against Kay Hagan?

#1



and #2


Forget about the fact that Hagan is a devout Christian and an Elder in her church. This tactic represents everything that is wrong in American politics. It is quite simply a throwback to the tactics of Jesse Helms. Whereever the late Sen. Helm is now, he must be laughing hysterically.

It really is a shame to see the lows to which "great Americans" will sink just to win.

One line, running through my head

The other day, my wife and I were watching The West Wing. For what it is worth, this is my favorite television show and if you have never seen it, get the DVDs. The writing is excellent, the acting superb, and the subject is interesting. In fact, I have the DVDs, so I am not sure why we were watching on TV.

Anyway, they were showing the episode series that tells the story of the President's reelection. In the episode following election night, the returns are coming in, and of course everyone is celebrating. During this time, we are also following a story about the administration's handling of reports of a coup in Venezuala.

In one of the scenes, Leo (the Chief of Staff on the show) makes a remark that "its the process, not the result", contrasting the orderly transition in the US with the reported coup in South America. For some reason, this line has stuck with me for a few days now.

As I said in an earlier post, I have real concerns about this new wave of Democrats becoming "them". This is just food for thought, but think about this election in many other countries of the world, and then tell me with a straight face that the transition would be bloodless.

The most beautiful aspect of the American experiment is that regardless of who wins next Tuesday, everyone will still go to work the next day. No massive civil war will break out and the loser will gracefully cede to the winner. I suppose that it is possible that there will be law suits like 2000, but still, that is within the legal and constitutional process.

The amazing part is that we have had non-violent, non-militant succession of power for 220 years.

I guess its just one of those things to be thankful for on Turkey Day.

Not becoming the bad guys

This weekend I had to have a discussion with my children regarding the importance of showing respect to McCain supporters. My youngest had said some things to a friend of my eldest during a car ride. the friend is a McCain supporter and "NObama" person. Without the gory details, I simply did not approve of what was said.

Fast forward to today. A friend of mine confesses that he has hit the point that he doesn't even want to discuss politics with supporters of the opposition. He is tired of the backlash and more importantly, tired of the ignorance he finds every day.

One of the things I find about the Obama supporters I know is that this group is the most informed, well read group of people I have ever seen in a political campaign. The Obama campaign started as much as a movement behind "Yes We Can" as anything else. Over the course, it has evolved into an intelligent discourse on the future of the United States.

I have been politically active and a self describe junkie for my entire adult life. I have never seen anything like this in any campaign. Usually, when I start conversations, rolled eyes and yawns are the response. This year is different. People, especially young people, are earnestly interested in the facts of the campaign. Not just the junkies.

So, what does this have to do with my title? The closest thing to this level of interest (and it was no where near this level) that I have ever seen was in 1994. Anyone remember the Contract with America? Newt Gingrich led a Congressional charge to communicate a message of conservatism. The GOP rode this wave to a blow out in the mid-terms.

That campaign was issues based, and while limited in audience, was similar in tone to the current Obama campaign. It was a campaign of change with specific goals and paths to meet those goals.

The problem with a well thought campaign is that it generates disdain for those that are not deeply involved. It certainly did this in the GOP in the 1990's to the point that being a Republican simply required a hatred of all things Democrat. This is evidenced by the success of certain right wing talk radio shows that made their name by bashing Bill Clinton.

Any way, some advice to those committed to intelligent, informed debate:
1. Stay informed- duh
2. Question everything, even on your own side. Being able to support your argument is the key.
3. Do not look down on those that support the other side. People have their reasons.
4. Do not expect to change someone's mind in a Eureka moment. These decisions take most people much time to commit to and as such take even more time to change.
5. Never attack the person for his opinion.
6. If you don't have the supporting facts at hand, commit to following up-- then DO.
7. Don't get frustrated or down.

We are on a real positive wave, let's not lose the high ground.

Robin Hayes Quotes Himself

Firstly, I do not live in Robin Hayes' district. I have the unfortunate luck of living in the NC 9th (Sue Myrick) which looks to be in GOP puppet hands for some time to come. However, I am right on the border of the NC 8th. For those of you that do not know the story here, Larry Kissell ran against Hayes in a grassroots, upstart campaign two years ago only to come up short by around 300 votes.

This time around, Kissell is getting more support from the DNC, but nothing compared to the machine of multi-millionaire Hayes.

My point- I have been seeing a Hayes ad recently that claims accuses Kissell of failing to pay taxes, Social Security, and Medicare on his employees. This has been itching at me, mainly because of Kissell's bio. You see, Larry Kissell was a textile mill manager until the industry went into the ground, then went back to school to and became a public school teacher in Montgomery County. Anyone see where I am going here?

WHAT EMPLOYEES????????

So, I just saw the ad on again and paid special attention to the text on screen sourcing this accusation. The citation is "The Hill", 6/12/2008. I went to thehill.com and did some searching and found the following date 6/11/2008 (I am pretty sure this is the article):
Link: thehill.com

Rep. Robin Hayes (R) is wasting little time going after Democratic opponent
Larry Kissell this cycle, releasing a television ad this week that accuses
Kissell of skirting campaign payroll taxes.
For each of his two campaigns
against Hayes, this cycle and last, Kissell has hired all his staff as
independent contractors. That means they are responsible for paying their own
taxes and Kissell is not paying for Social Security, unemployment benefits or
Medicare.
The ad, Hayes’s first of the cycle, says Kissell is “manipulating
his workers’ paychecks to save himself a buck.”
Kissell spokesman Thomas
Thacker said the campaign only recently hired field staff that will be full
employees, and that they will be paid July 1. He said that in the 2006 cycle,
the campaign was so poorly funded that it relied on volunteers and
month-to-month consultants.
He said the staff would be doubling soon and that
about half of it will be on payroll.

There are 2 things that are so, so, so wrong with this.

First, Kissell did nothing wrong, for short term assignments (and sometimes long term), it is accesptable and even common to hire people on a "W-2" or "1099 Only" basis. If you don't believe me, ask anyone you know that works in IT. It happens every day and is not unethical or criminal.

Second, and this is the part that makes me crazy, look at the article. Hayes' ad is quoting thehill.com quoting the HAYES CAMPAIGN. The entire section of the article is simply a "sources at the Hayes campaign report that" article.

I tend to divide the politcal spectrum into "good guys" and "bad guys". More on that later, but Hayes is one of the bad guys and needs to go as soon as humanly possible.

More on the Palin Future

Palin May Cut Off Handlers

From a completely different direction: the phases of underwear

I have long held a theory that marriage can be broken down into phases that are associated with underwear. (this applies mostly to guys)

Phase 1: You are clothed most of the time and your spouse doesn't see your underwear (except the "good" ones you wear on dates)
Phase 2: You comfortably wash your clothes together and see each others underwear. Each still buys his/her own.
Phase 3: You ask your wife to pick up some underwear for you when she is out shopping.
Phase 4: She gets you underwear as a gift (birthday, Christmas)
Phase 5 (this is the most important one): Underwear becomes a substance that you no longer think about it. You do not buy it or throw it out, but somehow, you always have clean underwear in good repair in your drawer.

More evidence of my Sarah Palin Theory

From CNN:
Palin's 'going rogue,' McCain aide says

Why do people support who they do?

I am really tired of people that support candidate XXX because "they do". I have a novel way to quickly determine if someone has any clue what they are talking about in their support of a candidate.

When someone is express support for one candidate, ask them the following question:

"What is one thing on which you disagree with candidate XXX?"

If they give you an intelligent answer, they have at least thought about their support.

By the way, the opposite also works (i.e. "What is one thing you on which you agree with the candidate you oppose?")

Sarah Palin's future

I am watching the McCain campaign self-implode. However, I think the press is misreading Sarah Palin. It appears to me that the entire campaign is off the reservation, but Gov. Palin is starting her own tribe. My evidence thus far:
1. Interview of her and McCain of NBC- she was interrupting him and appeared to be steering the conversation where SHE wanted to go.
2. Her "wink wink" to the religious right on terrorism (See MSNBC) referring to bombers of abortion clinics

"I don’t know if you’re going to use the word ‘terrorist’ there,”
she said

3. Her announcement of a multi-billion dollar expansion of the education system to better support special needs kids. The being said in a campaign in McCain has called for a spending freeze on all government spending except defense, healthcare and vets benefits.

I am looking for more, but my hypothesis is as follows:

1. Sarah and her people know they are not going to win

2. She is going off on whatever tangent she wants because she can and the campaign can't stop her

3. She wants to run for national office in the future, and is leveraging this opportunity to bundle up the religious right and line up fundraisers

I don't really believe that Gov Sarah will make a real run for President in 2012, but....

Lisa Murkowski's (the junior Senator from the great state of Alaska) (R) is up for reelection on 2010 and I think Ms. Sarah intends to make a primary run at her from the right.

Guess we will see what happens...

Why a Democrat?

Its interesting how one can learn something as a side effect of a completely different lesson. A few years ago, I decided to go back to school and complete my MBA. This decision was made based partly on the fact that as a veteran I had my GI Bill education benefits sitting out there unused. One fact of the GI Bill that many are unaware of is that if you do not use the benefits within 10 years of discharge, they evaporate into the ether. Gone.

So there I was 7 years removed from the Navy with this money for education out there. I was already very close to completing my bachelor degree, so I still had eligibility remaining. I decided to get an MBA. For those that have thought about this, it really is a lot of work. However, if you approach it as a learning opportunity rather than a piece of paper, you will get back 3 times what you put in. It was an amazing experience for me.

Along the way, I had to take Managerial Economics. A major thrust of the early portion of that course was an exploration of the base roots of our economic system- Adam Smith's "A Treatise on the Wealth of Nations". If you read my first post, you may be able to guess at what I was driven to do- I checked it out at the library and read it. Wow, a very dry read.

Its interesting the way that free capitalists abuse this book to justify the complete deregulation of everything and absolute market management. In my little humble opinion, Smith would be appalled by what we have become. The basis for this is in the first third of the book.

Now, this is not a research paper, so I am not going to quote chapter and page and create citations. Besides I don't have a copy handy.

Smith did not see unregulated, free markets as an absolute right. In fact, in the times in which he lived, that would have been pure heresy to the status quo. However, he wrote at length about the efficiencies of free markets. His basis for this was that in free markets, individuals act rationally in their own best interest. This, along with open markets, allows goods to be traded most efficiently and at the highest value to all.

However, there are limitations to this. He also wrote of a "societal responsibility" of a civilization to take care of itself. The reason that market economy is a good idea is not simply that it works. The reason is that it is the appropriate approach for government to take to ensure a "rising tide" and for a society to maintain and improve itself.

He even admits that government should allow the markets to self-manage, so long as corporations and individuals fulfill their social responsibilities. But not past that point.

In other words, corporations do not have a G-d given right to make money at the expense of the civilization. Corporations have a permit to operate in free markets so long as it is good for the populace as a whole. The moment it is not a benefit, it is time to cut back.

We live in an age of the highest disparity between rich and poor since the turn of the century. Education is in trouble. Health care is a disaster. And GOP wants a capital gains tax cut?

The second issue with Smith theories has really only come to light in the last weeks. The basis of our entire economic system finds its foundation in the phrase "rational decisions in their own best interest". Can anyone honestly tell me that the market is behaving rationally? People are panicing and the market reflects it. Companies are trading below their book value (the total of assets less liabilities on the balance sheet). Can anyone explain this?

Even Alan Greenspan (who I still have a deep respect for) admitted that there are newly discovered flaws in his models.

Anyway, I am tired of hearing the word "socialist" thrown around in this election like a black and white label. If you collect Social Security or intend to or went to public school, or send your kids to one, you are a socialist too. Free markets are based on marginal revenue and marginal cost. Where one can maximize the difference between these, one maximizes profit.

In economics we spend a large amount of time studying supply and demand curves. When I set the price to sell my widgets, I don't set it to sell the most widgets. I set the price to maximize profit. That is free market economics. I don't think anyone thinks that is generally bad.

However, pricing products to maximize profit has a side effect. By doing so I am inherently drawing a line above which people will buy my product, below which they will not. This works fine when I am selling cars. If I price my cars at $10,000, I will sell 500 cars and make $200,000 in profit. However, If I price my cars at $15,000 I will only sell 400 cars. But, I make $250,000 in profit. That's is the way it works.

The problem is in the part that we don't discuss in economics. What happens when the importance of the product is such that it is unacceptable to society for anyone to not be able to afford the product? Our economic models do not support this extreme. In our free market models, there are always those that will not buy at a given price.

Education is a prime example. We moved away from a fully privatized school system because we as a society determined that this product is so important that everyone must have access to it. Is it socialism- yes, it technically is. But, while the free market may be more efficient in allocating resource, there is no mechanism in the free market to ensure that everyone will have access to the product. And so, we, as a society, went down this road.

Other example abound- public roads, public libraries, public parks.

This brings me back around to health care. While I contest that the current health care system is more efficient on completely separate grounds, I will cede that point for the purpose of this discussion. We, as a society, should not tolerate any system in which a portion of the population does not have access to health care even if it mean that the system won't be as efficient as a free market.

That thought pattern is what changed my affiliation. Interesting however going to business school (the GOP breeding ground) pushed me to the other side, eh?

Introduction

For anyone that might by some random chance have fallen upon my blog, first welcome. This is my place to express my random thoughts. I think they will be mostly ruminations on politics and family life, but who knows where this may lead.

Let me start with this....

Hi, I'm Jon, and I'm a recovering Republican
[Everyone: Hi, Jon!]

Yes, once upon a time, I was a die hard, right wing, Clinton bashing, Rush Limbaugh listening proud member of the GOP. Not so much anymore. What happened? I think I just engaged my brain and thought. I also read more and observed the world.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that Republicanism is all bad. However, I do not recognize the party known as the GOP today. The Republican party that I grew up in was the party of Reagan. It was an open, inviting place that had space for people of all opinions. The party was a coalition of ideas, carefully balanced, and open those who shared some, not necessarily all its positions. The Democrats were the party of litmus tests. If you were anti-ERA or (G-d forbid) pro-life, there was no place for you.

I supported Reagan as a teen, placed my first vote for Pappy Bush. Despite Dan Quayles inability to speak coherently (or even spell), I supported their reelection in 92. I believed that Bill Clintons trespasses could possibly be the end of this great country as we know it. I even voted for G. W. Bush in 2000. Don't even get me started on Congressmen, Senators, and local government.

I am not really sure how I changed my direction. Like many others, 9/11 had something to do with it. But my change was in a different way. Where others saw an administration trying to make the world safer following 9/11, I saw superficial changes that even I (if I were a terrorist) could get around. I mean, come on- take of your shoes before you get on an airplane? No cigarette lighter? We do stupid things that are very showy to make the public feel that we are doing SOMETHING.

We need to remember, on 9/11 not a single hijacker had a gun, knife, or other traditional weapon. In fact, box cutters were the weapon of choice. Anyone could have just as easily pulled off those attacks with ball point pens.

You see, one thing changed on 9/11 that prevents that particular type of tragedy from ever happening again. It had nothing to do with the TSA, airport lines, air marshals on planes, bomb sniffers, or any of the other myriad things that we have enacted in the name of "prevention". The thing that changed was mindset.

Before that tragic date, the US, and other industrialized nations, had a standard mentality, if not a policy, of how to deal with terrorists. The common line was that terrorists who hijacked a plane wanted something. By appeasing them and buying time, a peaceful settlement to the situation could be reached. It never crossed our strategic minds that a group would simple use a plane as a weapon. However, on 9/11, they did. And that changed everything.

I say fervently that if that situation ever occurred again, we would simple shoot down the plane.

That moment of thought changed everything for me. It started me on an exploration of my own ideas that led in turn to research, reading, and discussion at a level that had never occurred to me before. I began to question everything. When I see political ads, I look up the underlying basis for the accusations and evaluate the facts for myself.

And somewhere along the way, I began to associate with the devil- the Democrats.

Where this blog will take me from here, I don't know. What I do know is that I need somewhere to express the thoughts that come to my mind and to explore the the evaluation of the information I come across. I do hope that it is interesting, although I am more interested in truth than entertainment.

Good reading