Category Archives: Politics

Amazon Binder Reviews

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Tuesday night’s favorite new meme found its way onto to the review pages of Amazon for Avery binders. A sampling:

 

 

 

Product not as advertised,October 18, 2012Product came with no women of any kind. Company needs to square its sales pitch with that of its national spokespeople.

 
Great place to keep women in their place,October 18, 2012

Before Tuesday I had no idea WHERE to keep my women, but I do now! Thank-you binders. For years I had to search through paper after paper to find the right woman, now I can keep them in their place…and alphabetically too! If I want to call up Joan Doe I can and easy too….just grab the right binder and BAM there she is, saves so much time of relentless searches! I just have to have Joan home by four, she has to make dinner for the kids.

 

One Missing Bit of Information You Might Want To Know,October 18, 2012

For any of you who might be considering, like me, purchasing this binder based on the reviews, let me just point out one glaring omission: While this is a lovely, multi-purpose binder, IT DOES NOT COME WITH WOMEN. Presumably one is expected to find women on one’s own, or contact women’s groups who are supposedly eager to help stock your empty binder with women.

For a first time buyer like myself, I have to say I would rather have waited until I had accumulated a few women before investing in a binder. Just a little warning for prospective buyers.

Easily the most comfortable binder I’ve ever lived in,October 18, 2012

I just cannot say enough about this binder! It’s so cozy and homey on the inside, yet classy and sophisticated on the outside. I sleep like a baby in this binder! I just wish it had a bathroom. Can’t have it all, I guess :)

 

Confirmation of daughter’s name,October 18, 2012

Who would have thought a woman like me, living in a binder, would have had the forethought to name my daughter Avery? But I did, and boy am I glad. Now she can live in a binder with her name on it, but not seem haughty or overly masculine. Of course, I run the risk of seeming proud–such an unfeminine trait!–so I will give my manly husband all the credit for Avery’s name.

 

Need a binder with more pockets!,October 18, 2012

This binder did fit me and the other sister wives comfortably, but we found that we could use more pockets for storing our belongings – like our list of rules and the sleeping with the husband schedule. THANKS FOR LISTENING! (We’re not used to being heard)

 

math too complicated!,October 18, 2012

I thought I could handle this binder. I hear as a stay at home mom, my pay would be well over 100k. Is that what stay at home dads get? Should I multiply that by 72%? And then do the woman in the binder only get 72% of that answer? ‘Cause that still seems like a lot. Ugggghh! Frustrated and overwhelmed, I couldn’t make sense of the math and gave up. Now the binder is stuffed to the back of the closest like all my other poor choices and kitchen gadgets. Don’t waste your money and complicate your life. Sometimes the good old fashioned way works best.

Ann Dunham and Her Prolotariat Porn

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The one thing I dread about re-electing Obama is having to endure another four years of comically inept conspiracies.

The latest version of Barrack Obama’s real history embraces the notion that Frank Marshall Davis, a notorious communist agitator, was in fact Obama’s most influential mentor. At least, this is what Paul Kengor argues in his new book, The Communist. It makes perfect sense that during Obama’s high-school years, while smoking weed, skipping class to shoot buckets and dabbling in coke, learned that it might be pretty cool to lead a communist take-over of the world.

However, never let it be said that conspiracy theorists aren’t good story tellers. Davis as an influential mentor, by itself, just wasn’t fun enough. Too much crap about ideology and intellectualism, using lots of words that I have to look up and other forcing-me-to-think bullshit. Nope. This story needed help and who could be more qualified with fiction than the right-wing blogosphere? The (new and improved) truth has just been released and with a few taps on Google, you can learn what the librul lamestream media is hiding. We now have the sordid details of Obama’s mother, “posing nude for communist Frank Marshall Davis´ “subversive” magazines.” And what could make more sense than to publish nudie pictures in communist propaganda.

Yet, like a paella without saffron, something was still missing. Bombshell: Frank Marshal Davis is Obama’s real father. Ah, perfect! Like so many on the irrational right, WND took to this story like an alcoholic stumbling across a bottle of Mad Dog 20-20. It is ironic enough that WND concurrently endorses three mutually conflicting theories on Obama’s citizenship. Those hair-brained offerings variously argue that Obama is ineligible to be president because he was born in Kenya; he was born in Hawaii but his father was not a citizen, ergo Obama doesn’t meet the Natural Born Citizenship standard; or, he was born in Hawaii but before Hawaiian statehood. Now we have four to choose from.

Isn’t the first rule of a good lie to get your story strait?

Libertarianism: What is it, Anyway?

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While it is fair to say that there is fuzziness in the definition of any political label, libertarianism is certainly one of the hardest to nail down because there appears to be no widely accepted formal definition. So to be clear, the following description is my best understanding of the party, along with my usual disclaimer of being apocryphal and incomplete.

The root word of libertarian is “liberty,” of course, which is the core belief of the party. As such, an individual should have the unrestricted right live and pursue life as they choose; to manage their own property and belongings as they see fit; and to respect this right for all others equally. The moral principle is that behavior is guided by consequence and personal responsibility.

From a policy point-of-view this translates into a belief that we should aspire to the smallest possible government because this will have the greatest direct benefit to the individual and by turn, the economy and the society. Every individual should have the right to express and pursue all of their freedoms as ordained by the constitution. Civil restrictions and laws should be limited to the sole standard of protecting individual freedoms to the extent that those freedoms do not cause harm nor interfere with another individual’s same constitutionally granted freedoms.

Although libertarianism is not explicitly an economic model, the concept of laissez faire capitalism is naturally sympathetic to their core values. It is generally held that if the government were reduced in size with a corresponding reduction of taxation and spending there would be a direct benefit of a stronger economy. A free and open market is the only valid arbiter of somethings value to a society. If someone doesn’t actually have to pay for it then there is no way to index its real value. As such, government taxes hurt both the individual by reducing their personal resources and the economy simply by taking those resources out of the free-market economy and running it through a government spending program whose benefit is independent of the free market litmus test. Thus the value of that spending will always remain dubious.

Additionally, government spending (well intentioned or not) is inherently inefficient because they operate without competition and, therefor, the management practices are dictated by politicians and bureaucrats who have no risk or incentive to manage that program with economic viability.

Even programs that may be deemed to have a greater social good, ultimately will backfire. For instance, it makes no sense to subsidize solar panel manufactures because to do so artificially props up a company that would otherwise fail in a competitive market. What you are really doing is to weaken a private company (through taxes) thus damaging the broader economy in order to subsidize a weak company that the free market has already determined is not of value to that market, ergo. Worse, this subsidized competition in the market is an unfair advantage to those energy suppliers working solely within a competitive market structure.

Other government programs, though well intentioned, will similarly backfire and weaken the entire system. Unemployment benefits, for instance, is compassionate on the face of it by helping an individual through difficult times. However, not only do the aforementioned economic damages apply as a government program, there is a societal drain as well because those benefits will disincentivize the recipient to look for work that is actually productive by keeping them out of the natural market economy. Ultimately, everyone looses because this is not sustainable for long term economic growth.

The libertarian believes that the social needs will be better met by a higher participation of the private sector and local communities (by being able to keep and use more of their own money). This ability to meet those needs will be be augmented by reducing people’s social dependencies due to higher risk and and consequence of their own behavior. It is believed that without the safety-net of programs such as assistance to an unwed mothers, fewer women would risk such unplanned pregnancies.

*          *          *

I’ve been intrigued by libertarianism for a couple of decades. It would surprise many to learn how often it can overlap with liberalism. There is even a small faction who have been coined as liberaltarians. None-the-less, they have never quite been able to close the deal with me. But that’s an article for a different day.

Meanwhile, comments are encouraged and I would especially like to hear from real live libertarians who would like to correct or amend my description.

A Tale of Two Guns

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I was raised on a Wisconsin farm tended by the real-life incarnation of Oliver Wendell Douglas of the TV series, Green Acres. My father wasn’t much of a farmer but he was an avid hunter, and a pretty good one, too. As such, I grew up with a fairly impressive collection of firearms which I eventually learned to use well enough, though no-one ever called me sure-shot.

As a teenager, I might occasionally take the 45-70 off the rack, go to the back yard and pop off as many rounds as I figured my dad wouldn’t notice missing. I was on a farm, after all, and even if a neighbor did hear the gun shots they would have thought, correctly, that the only danger is to a rabbit or a fence post. I have genuinely fond memories of those warm summer afternoons when I defended the house against the hostile advances of bottles, tin cans and the occasional melon.

Let’s be honest, here. For their own sake guns can be truly seductive. A fine rifle has the craftsmanship of a Swiss watch with parts that mesh and click with a near poetic beauty. Yet, it retains the utility and ruggedness of a jeep – not the slightest hint of estrogen. What’s not to like? Form, function and beauty; this is a machine with an ergonomic heft that fits into your palm as an extension of your arm. You and the gun become one.

When a talented marks woman levels a rifle and sights down the barrel, she and the machine merge to create a powerful experience. She pulls the trigger and a loud crack from the barrel reports the excitement while the recoil resonates through her body. When that bullet hits it’s it mark there is a visceral excitement involving all of the senses, validating that union.

If you think I’m exaggerating, check out R. Lee Ermey gush like a twelve-year-old when he obliterates commie watermelons with a variety of firearms. In those moments, he is not thinking about the 2nd amendment or gun control, nor of property to defend or to take, or of God and Country. For now it’s just him, a semi-automatic and a bunch of dead watermelons that makes him squeal with delight. For a gun enthusiast the experience is visceral.

While you may think I’m picking on Ermey, I’m not, for two very good reasons. First is that even in his late sixties, if he told me to jump, I’d be wise to ask how high on the way up. Secondly, and more on point, I am absolutely no different. There is just no disguising the fact that guns are really, really fun. In one very limited sense, it could be argued that the experience is the same as a pinball wizard and his machine or an accomplished skier and his equipment.

What is different, of course, is that you can also use the gun to kill people and manage people’s behavior. (At least, in ways that are less practical than with a pinball machine.) If I’m a store clerk with a gun pointed at me, that gun owner is my new manager and I will obligingly empty the till into his sack. I also believe that the vast majority of gun-owners have a very sober and mature recognition of this. I know a hunter who couldn’t enjoy playing paint ball because pointing a gun at the other players was distressing and went against his instincts.

As a rule, however, owners are comfortable with the guns themselves if not downright fond of them. Most owners believe that they are both safe and facile with their use. Your average gun owner is also your average citizen, complete with the very natural and human goal of protecting themselves and their family, as well as their property and ideals. How dangerous our world really is can be rather subjective but there are few places left that aren’t touched by violence. With all that in mind, it would be almost crazy for a gun owner to not see that firearm as a friend and ally in defense from the many threats, both real and imagined, that lurk outside their doors. As one gun owner put it, “It just makes me feel safer.”

As it happens, my wife stands in exemplary contrast to my personal gun experiences. When I met her, she knew there was a middle-America largely because it was a five hour flight from New York to Los Angeles. Her sole experience with guns were nightly reports of drive-bys, hold-ups and the usual urban mayhem. She grew up in a world where the gun had no charm and no ulterior motive. Rather, it had a singular and ugly purpose. Whether for good or ill, it is nothing more than a tool for killing another person. She had no warm summer afternoons of picking off coke cans and the only thing she’s ever hunted was a cab.

Once, when she saw a shotgun on a table with barrel broken and no shells in the chamber (read “nonthreatening”), she grew pale and stiffened, as if she stumbled on a coiled and hissing rattler. I remember her discomfort, many years ago, when there was a gun in our house even though it was unloaded, in a case, safely buried in a closet and no ammunition. Like the viper she spied on the table it still, somehow, retained the ability to slither in the night and strike us in our sleep.

For anyone who lives in a city the anxiety that guns evoke is not particularly irrational, even if they or their family has never been a victim of gun violence. If you live in Los Angeles as I do, sooner or later you will have to detour home because of a police barricade that is investigating a shooting. I have seen police with weapons drawn just a few times which makes it, relatively, a lot. It is true that some city dwellers are safer than others but the reminders that a city is a dangerous place are constant and real.

John Atterberry, a music executive, was randomly shot and killed by a stranger who apparently was distraught over a recent break-up. This happened at an intersection that I have often walked with my wife when out for a movie and a drink. Ronni Chasen was shot and killed in her car by a would be robber on a bicycle at a stop-light in an affluent neighborhood. This incident was at a light on a commute route that I used for 6 years. Too often, in some way, we are able to locate ourselves at the site of a recent tragedy.

If the dangers are so thoroughly understood by the urban denizen, why would they want gun controls rather than carry one themselves? They share the same world with the same dangers and the same fundamental goals as the guy who sleeps with a Glock. They also have the goal of protecting themselves and their family, as well as their property and ideals. Just like the gun owner, they are making decisions about the cost to benefit of gun ownership and control laws.

However, in their world there really is a corollary between the number of guns on the street and the rate of gun violence. The idea of more law-biding citizens carrying as a deterrent to crime just won’t gain traction in those woods. This belief is drawn from a long history of prisons being choked with arrogant, stupid and brazen criminals despite three-strikes and the death penalty. Their conclusion is that owning a gun will not make them safer than simply having fewer guns on the street.

For these gun-control advocates, concealed carry and the expansion of gun-ownership rights has the same logic as using more landmines to make the city safer. My wife will never hold a gun much less keep one for personal safety. It just isn’t in her DNA. Whether legal or otherwise, another gun on the streets is perceived as just one more opportunity for someone to die a capricious and violent death. She and her family have racked up several lifetimes of living in big cities, and not one of them has been the victim of a gun crime. Still, the very idea of more guns out there just makes her feel less safe.

The gun-control debate has evolved into a litmus test of personal character and political values. We have become a divided culture with reasoned debate quickly devolving to hurling insults. No longer exchanging ideas, we find ourselves screaming with veins popping, “Why can’t you see what is so painfully obvious to me?” But it really isn’t that obvious. Most people never say out-loud what, in their hearts, is actually driving their beliefs. We aren’t allowed to say things like, “I just like them” or “they just scare me.”

However, with this in mind it should come as no surprise that we get little traction when we apply rational arguments to something that is much closer to a faith based position. At the most basic level, choosing to support gun owner rights or to support additional gun control laws is a personal and emotional calculation. Only then are the reasoned arguments developed to support those beliefs. Yet we bury this notion, and what we are left with is lobbing statistics, anecdotes, nuance arguments and idiotic excuses at each other only to perpetually fall on deaf ears. And we all know how well that’s been working.

Email For A Rainy Day – The Eddie Sessions Session

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I recently received yet another impassioned “Why I Hate Obama” chain-mail article with the subject line, “Article from the: Wall Street Journal – by Eddie Sessions.” Predictably, the article did not appear in the Wall Street Journal and nobody knows who the hell Eddie Sessions is. (Good name for a rock star, though. “He just released his newest album, The Eddies Sessions Sessions.)

The article was one of those “kitchen sink” cases being made against Obama. You know, the ones that throw in every crime and misdemeanor imaginable committed by our president. Sessions can’t be taken seriously as journalist. With a vague amorphous evil lurking in every paragraph, though, I was forced to admire its horror story sensibilities.

It has been rainy and dreary of late, which made it perfect for parsing the arguments in the the email. This is an activity that is kind of like doing a crossword puzzle – it keeps the mind busy in a useless, incidental sort of of way. Sessions was a bit thin on facts but his scary language was downright Gothic. The article opens with:

I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he’s led a kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened because at some point early on somebody or some group (George Soros anybody?) took a look at this tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile speaking skills could even put him in the White House.

I have no idea what the extent of Soros’ influence was on Obama, but then again, neither does the author. However, it would be incredibly naive to believe that both Jeb and George W. enjoyed political success without the mentor-ship and financial support from his father and his political machinery. So is mentor-ship and support a bad thing?

His next assertion is laugh-out-loud stupid. Nobody would make the political calculation that a “tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name” would be a best bet to groom for high political office.

After eight years of presumably supporting Bush I certainly understand why he would frame “facile speaking skills” as a pejorative. As I recall, however, GOP Patron Saint, Ronald Reagan, was an extremely talented communicator. Was he evil too?

Scary Stuff: “at some point early on somebody or some group… “
Facts Presented: Tall; half-white, half-black, African/Muslim name.

In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has written two memoirs before the age of 45? “Dreams of My Father” was published in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The “Audacity of Hope” followed in 2006. If, indeed, he did write them himself. There are some who think that his mentor and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself a “communist with a small ‘c’” was the real author.

Last I read, republicans lionize ambition. It’s the lazy they hate!

Isn’t foresight a virtue? Memoirs are now routine and almost expected of anyone running for higher office. No reason to think that he wasn’t already thinking about high national office in 1995. A bit of foresight might have been nice when someone was contemplating lowering taxes while waging two wars.

There is no credible evidence to support the rumor that Bill Ayers was the actual author of Obama’s biographies. In fact, there is no credible evidence that the two were particularly close on in any respect. Note the qualifier “there are some who think.” Names, please.

Scary Stuff: “In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry.”
Facts Presented: “In a very real way, he has been a young man.”

His political skills consisted of rarely voting on anything that might be deemed controversial.. He went from a legislator in the Illinois legislature to the Senator from that state because he had the good fortune of having Mayor Daley’s formidable political machine at his disposal.

If he rarely voted on anything controversial, then why was his voting record demonized as being radically to the left? You can’t have it both ways. I will add that his public stance against the Iraq war in 2003 was hardly neutral.

“Mayor Daley’s formidable political machine” This is one of those things that you get to say without it meaning anything. You get to wink and imply “we all know what that means.” Mayor Daley is, of course, shorthand for graft, corruption and voter fraud. The author is implicitly suggesting that Barrack Obama was engaged in the same. PROVE IT!

Scary Stuff: ”He had the… formidable political machine at his disposal.”
Facts Presented: Obama was an Illinois legislator and a Senator.

He was in the U.S. Senate so briefly that his bid for the presidency was either an act of astonishing self-confidence or part of some greater game plan that had been determined before he first stepped foot in the Capital.. How, many must wonder, was he selected to be a 2004 keynote speaker at the Democrat convention that nominated John Kerry when virtually no one had ever even heard of him before?

He was running for the Senate at the time of 2004 DNC and was, by any metric, not an unknown. (BTW, he won.) The point of this paragraph is to implied a conspiracy. The author doesn’t articulate the nature of the conspiracy much less provide facts. This is just another “wink” and that is the beauty of a conspiracy. They don’t demand facts, because “the conspirators destroy the evidence.”

Scary Stuff: ”His bid for the presidency was… part of some greater game plan.”
Facts Presented: Was a US Senator, Keynote Speaker for 2004 DNC

He outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in primaries. He took Iowa by storm. A charming young man, an anomaly in the state with a very small black population, he oozed “cool” in a place where agriculture was the antithesis of cool. He dazzled the locals. And he had an army of volunteers drawn to a charisma that hid any real substance.

Um, okay. I suppose most of this is true. He did outmaneuver Clinton, win the Iowa caucus and is charming and cool by many accounts. Iowa the antithesis of cool? Hmm. Never really thought about it. But he did have an army of volunteers.

Scary Stuff: Jim Jones and his zombi minions lay to waste vast swatches of the heartland.

And then he had the great good fortune of having the Republicans select one of the most inept candidates for the presidency since Bob Dole. And then John McCain did something crazy. He picked Sarah Palin, an unknown female governor from the very distant state of Alaska. It was a ticket that was reminiscent of 1984′s Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro and they went down to defeat The mainstream political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man.

I found some nice bipartisan ground to stand on here. I also though John McCain was inept. (See we’re not so different.) I used to think that Obama was lucky to run against McCain. After following the GOP primary, I see that republicans seem to have a taste for inept candidates.

Of course the MSM fell in love with Obama. A black man was winning the race to the White House. This is the kind of news that sells papers, not your ordinary everyday headline stuff. Why wouldn’t they love that. Even Fox found the mileage in this. However, I don’t remember any conservative bitching when the enormous coverage included Reverend Wright, Rezko real estate transactions, John Ayers, Obama’s citizenship and the repeated suggestion that he was a Muslim. All fully reported and followed up by the MSM.

Scary Stuff: “He picked Sarah Palin.”
Facts Presented: “He picked Sarah Palin”

Now, nearly 3 full years into his presidency, all of those gilded years leading up to the White House have left him unprepared to be President.. Left to his own instincts, he has a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It swiftly became a joke that he could not deliver even the briefest of statements without the ever-present Tele-Prompters.

Gilded years? Which ones were those? He went to college, he got out and he worked. Also, if you don’t believe Obama can speak without a tele-prompter, check out this video of Obama taking Questions at GOP House Issues Conference, in January, 2010. He waxed the floor with those guys and they wouldn’t let him back unless cameras were barred.

Scary Stuff: ”All of those gilded years have left him unprepared…”
Facts Presented: Presidents use tele-promters.

Far worse, however, is his capacity to want to “wish away” some terrible realities, not the least of which is the Islamist intention to destroy America and enslave the West. Any student of history knows how swiftly Islam initially spread. It knocked on the doors of
Europe, having gained a foothold in Spain …

The great crowds that greeted him at home or on his campaign “world tour” were no substitute for having even the slightest grasp of history and the reality of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions.

A partial list of senior terrorists that Obama “wished away,” usually with a predator:  Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, Atiyah ‘Abd al-Rahman, Ilyas Kashmiri, mmar al-Wa’ili, Abu Ali al-Harithi, Ali Saleh Farhan, Harun Fazul, Younis al-Mauritani, Baitullah Mahsud, Noordin Muhammad Top, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, Saleh al-Somali, ‘Abdallah Sa’id, Abdul Ghani Beradar (captured), Muhammad Haqqani, Qari Zafar, Hussein al-Yemeni, Dulmatin, Abu Ayyub, al-Masri, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, Sheik Saeed al-Masri, Hamza al-Jawfial.

BTW, any student of history would know that Islam spread incredibly quickly for a couple of centuries but expansion was largely stagnant or declining during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Scary Stuff: “His capacity to wish away some terrible realities [with] the… intention to destroy America and enslave the West. It knocked on the doors… having gained a foothold [with] the great crowds that greeted him…[not] having even the slightest grasp of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions. (Did I copy that quote correctly? AR)
Facts Presented: Crowds greeted him.

Oddly and perhaps even inevitably, his political experience, a cakewalk, has positioned him to destroy the Democrat Party’s hold on power in Congress because in the end it was never about the Party. It was always about his communist ideology, learned at an early age from family, mentors, college professors, and extreme leftist friends and colleagues.

Anybody who thinks that Obama is a communist doesn’t know what the fucking word means. Show me his manifesto and I will gladly re-evaluate.

Scary Stuff: In the end it was never about the party.
Facts Presented: None.

Obama is a man who could deliver a snap judgment about a Boston police officer who arrested an  “obstreperous” Harvard professor-friend, but would warn Americans against “jumping to conclusions” about a mass murderer at Fort Hood who shouted “Allahu Akbar.” The absurdity of that was lost on no one. He has since compounded this by calling the Christmas bomber “an isolated extremist” only to have to admit a day or two later that he was part of an al Qaeda plot.

I agree that Obama overreacted regarding the Harvard Professor and said as much at the time. To Obama’s credit he apologized, if only gingerly.

Regarding Fort Hood, the warning against jumping to conclusions was made within minutes of the news breaking to the public and was perfectly appropriate. In what way is this reckless or imprudent?

In context, the Christmas Bomber quote is completely void of policy implications. He was congratulating the passengers on the plane who physically prevented an explosion and said it “…demonstrates that an alert and courageous citizenry are far more resilient than an isolated extremist.”

Scary Stuff: ”The absurdity was lost on no-one.” and the word “obstreperous.”
Facts Presented: Obama did cautioned against jumping to conclusions.

He is a man who could strive to close down our detention facility at Guantanamo even though those released were known to have returned to the battlefield against America . He could even instruct his Attorney General to afford the perpetrator of 9/11 a civil trial when
no one else would ever even consider such an obscenity. And he is a man who could wait three days before having anything to say about the perpetrator of yet another terrorist attack on Americans and then have to elaborate on his remarks the following day because his first statement was so lame.

According The New York Times, from 9/11 through April 2011, 450 have been charged with terrorism or national security crimes. Of those 279, cases were settled in civilian courts, with a conviction rate of 82% and an average prison sentence of more than 15 years. By contrast, after a decade, Military tribunals have produced all of five convictions with most defendants receiving relatively short sentences. Two were set free years ago.

Footnote: It is also true that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani’s civilian trial in New York famously resulted in him being acquitted of 280 charges engendering conservative outrage. However, he was convicted of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property – you know, the charge that mattered. He is serving a life sentence so it is hardly a failure of justice.

Scary Stuff: “No one would even consider such an obscenity.”
Facts Presented: Strove to close Gitmo.

And finally, Eddie Sessions closes with some more rounds of GOP Kum Bay Ya:

The pattern repeats itself. He either blames any problem on the Bush administration or he naively seeks to wish away the truth.

Knock, knock. Anyone home? Anyone there? Barack Obama exists only as the sock puppet of his handlers, of the people who have maneuvered and manufactured this pathetic individual’s life.

When anyone else would quickly and easily produce a birth certificate, this man has spent over a million dollars to deny access to his. Most other documents, the paper trail we all leave in our wake, have been sequestered from review. He has lived a make-believe life whose true facts remain hidden.

We laugh at the ventriloquist’s dummy, but what do you do when the dummy is President of the United States of America ?

Okay, this has gotten tedious, even for me. Now that Mitt Romney is the presumptive GOP nominee, I thought that this exercise would be instructive. An argument is a position supported with facts or information. This article did not contain any arguments. It contained ad-hominem attacks, quotes out of context, false information, dis-proven rumors, baseless speculation and colorful language.

Learn this distinction because you will be hearing an awful lot more of it in the coming months. On the article as a whole:

Scary Stuff: If this were a movie it would be “Halloween III.”
Facts Presented: Obama is the President of the United States – so get over it!

Nick Gillespie Panics Over Helicopter Parents

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In his recent Reason article, “Stop Panicking Over Bullies“, Nick Gillespie is careful to acknowledge that bullying is wrong and is not to be tolerated. That said, he goes on to argue that the bullying crisis is, in reality, a declining problem with an overblown sense of crisis. To make his case, Gillespie used dated studies which Scottie Thomaston at Prop 8 Trial Tracker does an excellent job of challenging and setting the facts straight about. However, whether bullying is waxing or waning is hardly the point. If bullying exists, it is a problem, no qualifiers.

Ironically, it is Gillespie’s own hysteria that is most apparent as he rehashes some well-worn libertarian irritations and highlights a few new ones. He decries the abuses of helicopter parents, the New York School Board, and Congress prohibiting those under 16 from driving tractors. He suggests that anti-bullying laws are a threat to free speech and that they will lead to more lawsuits against school systems.

He warns of more bureaucracy and the further dilution of already limited resources for existing school programs. He deprecates the problem of bullying by conflating it with a culture of over-protectiveness. He states, “Now that schools are peanut-free, latex-free and soda-free, parents, administrators and teachers have got to worry about something.”

It quickly becomes clear that Gillespie is willing to trade the inherent social good of an anti-bullying campaign in deference to his need to vent his pet peeves.

He recommends that there should be distinctions between the “the serious abuse suffered by the kids in the movie Bully” and the everyday “lower-level harassment.” This reframes and trivializes bullying as kids just being kids. So I ask, who will decide for that kid if the bullying rates a two or rates a ten? How bad does it have to get before the bullying is addressed with more than a “suck-it-up” from parents and teachers? I’m sure that Gillespie could confidently assess the correct level of seriousness; however most bullied kids still experience it as a ten.

And the consequences are real. The risk to bullied students include school attendance and a performance drop, with obvious further effects. They are more likely to develop behavioral problems and to show a higher level of drug and alcohol abuse. According to the National Institutes of Health, both the bully and the victim are at higher risk of engaging in violent behavior. Most tragically, there are an increasing number of studies that find a positive link between teen suicide and bullying.

It is appropriate to worry about the cost of and resources for a program and to be mindful of the unintended consequences of anti-bullying laws. But that is not where Gillespie wants to go. For him, the real problem is overprotective parents and a meddlesome government. But denialism is not a solution, it is a run from the problem.

The problem is real and the facts point to solutions that do help. But the real tragedy is that Gillespie is putting his disdain for helicopter parents ahead of the best interests of creating a secure and positive environment for our children. It might make him feel good today but it is an irrational trade on the future.

Article first published as Nick Gillespie Panics Over Helicopter Parents on Blogcritics.

Gerrymandering

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This is a word that I loved long before I had a clue what it meant.  It just sounds great, doesn’t it? That is until you find out who’s been doing it and why. So just say the word out loud a few more times then you can read on to spoil the joy.

Gerrymandering is redrawing a congressional district map in such a way that it alters the demographics of that district. Congressional members like to do this to help ensure a majority of people who are more likely to vote for them.

Think of the following diagram as map where the blue dots represent democrats and the red dots represent republicans.

Note that this map is divided into 4 congressional districts with 16 voters in each district. Each district has 8 Democrats and 8 Republicans. This will make the outcome of any given election less predictable.

Now consider the same map with the 4 districts redrawn:

The map still has 4 districts with 16 voters each. However, 3 of the districts have a majority of Republican voters and only 1 district has a majority of Democratic voters.

As you can see, without actually changing the demographics of the map, redrawing the districts can create a huge electoral advantage for one candidate over another. Although my example showed the redistricting to the Republican advantage, it has been a very popular tool for both parties.

Rick Perry Took Pain Killers Prior To Debates

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A passage from the forthcoming book, Inside the Circus, describes Rick Perry’s back pain as bad enough to require “painkillers in sufficient dosages to keep him standing through the two-hour debates,” This is used to partially explain his weak debate performance.

Of course, after the debate, he required sufficient dosages to keep from thinking back on on his two-hour debate performance.

Inside the Circus was written by Mike Allen and Evan Thomas and is expected to be released on Tuesday.

How To Create A Recession In Six Easy Steps

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1)  9/11/2011 Terrorist attack: Following the 9/11 attack, the government lowered federal lending rates. This made getting a loan really cheap.

2)  Sub-Prime and Creative Lending:   In the past, home-loans (mortgage) were given with a fixed interest rate. (Hypothetically 7% for 30 years), required a 20% down payment and also required the borrower have a loan to income ratio of about 40%. To buy a $500K house one needed a $100k down payment and an income of $6652/mo to cover $2661/monthly payment.

But greedy and creative lenders…

See how this gripping drama ends and check out my latest crib note: Housing Crisis – How to Create a Recession in 6 Easy Steps.

A Few Famous Negative Ads from the Past

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This is the famous “Daisy” ad… the first modern TV attack ad. It was put out by the LBJ campaign against Barry Goldwater in 1964.

This is the “Willie Horton” ad taken out by the National Security PAC (on behalf of the Bush/Quayle campaign) that did tremendous damage to Michael Dukakis in 1988. See my article “Do you think this flag makes my dogma look fat? Reagan’s Legacy” for a sense of the times for why this ad was particularly effective.

And who can forget this hit on Obama by the Clinton campaign in the 2008 primaries.

 

“Obamaville” a Reprehensible New Low

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBMgCo-Wgs4

The Santorum campaign just released this new ad “Obamaville” in which there is a flash frame of Obama sandwiched in between images of Ahmadinejad while the narrator speaks the words “sworn American enemy.” Watch for it at about the 40 second mark.

We have been seeing pretty ugly ads ever since LBJ’s “Daisy” ad of 1964 but this conflation of a sitting president as a “sworn enemy” is a reprehensible new low.

Geraldo Rivera Blames Trayvon Martin’s Hoodie

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Fox news has since stepped it up but as of just a few days ago, they had little interest in the Trayvon Martin tragedy.  As noted by Think Progress, all of the major news outlets covered the Trayvon Martin story except Fox News.

Geraldo Rivera, however, stepped up in his usual fine form by suggesting that Martin was to blame because he wore a hoodie.

… I believe that George Zimmerman, the overzealous neighborhood watch captain should be investigated to the fullest extent of the law and if he is criminally liable, he should be prosecuted. But I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies. I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.

You can read the full context of the interview at Geraldo Rivera: Hoodie | Media Matters.

Santorum Could Use His Own Etch-A-Sketch

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Apparently, Santorum wishes he could shake off his own comments.  He said that reelecting Obama would be BETTER than electing Romney.The offending statement:

 “If you’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch-A-Sketch candidate of the future,” he said.

Of course, even is even blaming Romney for his own misspoken words. According to a quote in MSNBC First Read, Santorum explains:

This is just another attempt by the Romney Campaign to distort and distract the media and voters from the unshakeable fact that many of Romney’s policies mirror Barack Obama’s.

Etch-a-Sketch-a-Romney

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This is what I found after just one day and you know it will only get worse. This is the gaffe that will keep on giving.

Jeb Bush Endorses Mitt Romney

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Jeb Bush endorsed Mitt Romney today, dashing GOP dreams of an eleventh-hour entry third candidate to rescue their hopes for a stronger candidate. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney inches closer to the nomination by defeating Rick Santorum in the Illinois primary.

Santorum presses on despite no realistic chance of winning the nomination. So how long will he last and what’s in it for him anyway? I have no way of knowing what is driving this man. Higher speaking fees? Leverage for 2016? Voices from God?

Do Stupid Voters Distort Elections?

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In an article that appears in Slate Magazine, David Weigel says that yes, there really are stupid voters out there but that they really don’t change the elections.

And there is. When I’ve dug in with voters who are convinced that Barack Obama is a Muslim, they respond in one of two ways. They might know that an Indonesian school form listed his religion as Muslim. (True, just not something you’d use to extrapolate the next 40 years of his life.) More often, they offer evidence of him doing something that they think a Muslim would do, like scolding Israel, or pulling out of Afghanistan too quickly. If we climb a little deeper, we inevitably get to a discussion of how, at heart, Obama hates America and wants to destroy it.

 

It’s not healthy for voters to think those things. It’s just not new, either. Most voter ignorance, if it was cured by logic and reason and long sessions of NPR, would be replaced by the same voter preferences, justified in different ways. There are Mississippi Republicans who hate Obama because they think he’s a Muslim. Take that away, and they’ll hate him because they’re conservatives and he isn’t. Only 11 percent of Mississippi whites voted for Barack Obama, but only 14 percent voted for John Kerry. These aren’t people who’ll change their minds if they fully grokked the president’s bio.

Romney Wins GOP Nomination

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Okay.  Maybe not yet but I am willing to put it down for the record that Mittens will win the nomination. Even if he doesn’t win enough delegates, the unpledged super-delegates will step in to put him over the top.

The media is still calling this primary as if it is not done deal because, technically, it isn’t. Besides, where is the drama in that?

A cautionary note to self:

A combination of wishful thinking, bad polling data and a drive to scoop the other papers, The Chicago Times went to press early with this now famously wrong headline.

 

Do you think this flag makes my dogma look fat? Reagan’s Legacy

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It has only been during the GOP primaries that we have seen much evidence of internal dissent within a party famous for its lock-step unity of the Bush era. For the younger voters, this might be the first evidence of pluralism and clash of ideals within the Republican Party that they’ve seen in their lifetime.

The old-timer on the front stoop will tell you that it wasn’t always like that. There was a time when the evangelicals were politically homeless and republicans could stay the course with the New Deal, raise taxes, grow government and still get re-elected. So how did diverse and and often cross-purposed groups congeal into a single powerful political force? Ronald Reagan, of course.

One must first note the American psyche from WWII through the 1960s. We won the war and established ourselves as a superpower while most other countries were still trying to merely put themselves back together. There were some dips, but the economy was generally quite strong. There were plenty of well paying factory jobs, and taxes were a lot higher so we could afford both the cold war and good schools. American cars were the best in the world and the gas was cheap to keep them running.

The American Dream was created in the fifties. Life was pretty good for middle America and there was no reason to think that it shouldn’t be like this forever.

Forever never seems to last very long, though. The Civil Rights movement was already afoot by 1954 and JFK embraced the movement as a policy goal when he took office in 1960. The Civil Rights act was eventually passed by President Johnson in 1968. Of course, both Kennedy and Johnson were Democrats.

During this post-war era, social conservatism did not have the powerful connection to conservative economic policies. In fact, the Evangelical South were largely democratic.  After all, it was Lincoln, a Republican, who defeated the south in the Civil War, freed their slaves and prevented their succession.  But it were Democrats that pushed through the Civil Rights Act and that fact seriously soured the Evangelical South and social conservatives on the Democratic Party.

By the late sixties and early seventies everything appeared to be going to hell in a hand basket – at least for some. Courts blocked nativity scenes at city halls and blocked mandatory prayer in school. Abortions were legalized and birth control became widely available. And perhaps for the first time people were openly questioning the role of the church in our lives and in our society.

At the same time women were demanding work-place equality and opting out of the stay-at-home mom model. There was an emerging social acceptance of homosexuality. And the Civil Rights Act forced unwanted desegregation on a social order that had been been working pretty well (for some) for generations. Women, gays and blacks no longer “knew their place.”

And then things only got worse. When we pulled out of Vietnam in 1975, it represented the first war we lost in American history. At the same time, urban violence swung upward and there was a renewed public interest in gun-control. When did we become a nation of wimps?

By the late seventies, many Americans felt that the country they knew and loved was disappearing… and fast. Religious conservatives felt under attack and saw this as a threat to their civil liberties. Both God and the constitution are under assault. And the very definition of family was disintegrating.

Everything and I mean everything was just wrong with the world.

And then something magical happened and a tall, handsome former Governor from California showed up, and he was wearing a US flag for a cape. This was Ronald Reagan, of course. What made him magical is that he gave hope to those disparate and increasingly disenfranchised people. He said, vote for me and I will get you your America back. And when he took office in 1981, he did not ignore them.

Remember, these disillusioned Americans were rather independent of each other. There were the  Reagan understood that their unification created an extremely powerful republican voting base. Finally, the Evangelical South found a new home.

What holds them together? Put three people in a room. One is worried that his gun will be outlawed, another believes that abortion is murder and a third just doesn’t like the increasingly mandated social reforms. What they have in common is a belief that America is changing for the worse.

This newly created republican base agreed that America is changing for the worse and it follows that if you change America for the worse, you must hate this country. And it were liberal democrats that have been most responsible for these changes. This was plain to see and therefore, democrats hate America. Or, so goes the logic.

The new definition of what it means to be a “real American” quickly became a package deal. It was simply not possible to be a pro-choice republican, for instance. That would be an oxymoron. A real republican was pro-life, pro-gun rights, believed in god, liberty and individual freedom. Any challenges to these beliefs were simply seen as attacks on the constitution, fundamental liberties, and the “American way of life.”

The many small cracks in the American social and political landscape were reorganized into a single great divide. The bumper stickers read, “America, Love it of Leave it!”

One was expected to wrap themselves with the flag and stand by her. Reagan re-affirmed our national exceptionalism and if America is exceptional then she could do no wrong. Reagan restored the concept of the 1950s American dream. It must be defended. It must be restored.

Reagan brilliantly gave them hope that he was the one who will restore the America that they were longing for. But the his genius was that he was able to conflate this new social identity with his conservative economic policies. Taxes were framed as an obstruction to a fundamental American freedom, the pursuit of happiness. Regulations and unions were seen as interfering with free-markets because, “A controlled market is what they do in communist countries.” Similarly, affirmative action and equal opportunity employment laws were seen as rigging the system or, at best, taking important business decisions away from the business owner.

Either you stood by these ideals or you were commiserating in the erosion of the American ideals – the destruction of America itself.  This set off a political gold-rush where, for the next three decades, republican politicians are competing for the mantle of most conservative. And they are rewarded.

If you strayed from this these ideals, you did so at your own peril. In 1988, George H. W. Bush experimented with the formula by reaching out to the moderate center with a “kinder, gentler” conservative platform. He did not survive re-election in 1992. This exercise was repeated by republican representatives around the country and the lessons learned were consistent: Don’t mess with Reagan’s recipe.

It doesn’t much matter that, in fact, Reagan did raise taxes, negotiate with terrorists and increase government borrowing and spending. The important thing is that he embodied those ideals. And if you are a republican, you damn well better embody those ideals too.

Now, after a thirty year rush to the right, we are seeing the product of this prime directive. The GOP primaries have brought into sharp relief the absurd contortions that the party has gone through to model itself after this conservative ideal. Even the party elders, who for so many years had been the beneficiary of the ghost of Reagan, seem concerned that maybe they’ve reached the limits of this tack.

I have wondered about these limits for a long time now. Every four years I ask myself how much further to the right can the Republican Party go? This year, I hope I finally get my answer.

 

State of Race – GOP Style

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This GOP primary continues to defy all conventional wisdom. Romney still needs to win 47% of the remaining delegates in order to win the nomination. It is doable but not a given.  Santorum, by contrast, has no mathematical hope of winning the delegate race.  All he can do right now is to hope he causes Romney to loose.

Some interesting numbers. Romney has:

  • About 89% more Facebook likes than Santorum.
  • 96% more GOP endorsements than Santorum
  • About 5 time more money than Santorum (PAC money included).

Yet he has only a 50% lead in delegates (495-252), a 30% lead in states won (14-10) and a 32% lead in popular vote (3,510,948 – 2,403,883).

Gingrich, stubborn as ever, refuses to drop out because he’s, uh, having fun running with no hope of winning.

Michael Huemer – The Irrationality of Politics

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I watched this terrific TED video lecture by Michael Huemer. Why are we irrational when it comes to politics and what can we do about it.

I paraphrased the video here if you don’t feel like watching:

There is little disagreement that most people suffer from “irrational political beliefs.” That would be everyone else but me. So, seriously, how do you know if your political beliefs are irrational? You could start with this:

If you think that the community of experts are wrong, and if you think that while being unable to state their arguments, then you are probably wrong.

 The first task is to understand why we are politically irrational. Consider the following premises:

  • Political information is costly – especially in terms of time. It requires effort.
  • People accept the costs only when the expected rewards exceed he costs.
  • The expected rewards of political information are negligible. Their probability of affecting public policy is “0″ and that individual knowledge will not change policy.
  • Being rational puts your belief system at risk. Unpleasant and emotionally disturbing.

However, a lot of people thinking rationally can affect policy. For instance, one high mileage car on the road won’t really change US oil consumption meaningfully but 3 million such cars has a big impact.

Correcting your own irrationality is in the best interest of society. You cannot solve a problem if you have irrational beliefs about it.

Identifying your self as having irrational political beliefs.

  1. Are you becoming angry during political discussions.
  2. Do you have strong opinions about a subject before aquiring relevant information?
  3. Does new information change your opinion. (If not, you are suffering from dogmatism.)
  4. Do you seek information only from sources you agree with? A sign that you are trying to reinforce your existing beliefs.
  5. Do you think that people who disagree with you are evil. (Still suffering from dogmatism)

Game Change – Do the Criticisms Miss the Point?

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Now that I’ve finally seen the new HBO movie “Game Change” I have to resist the urge to critique the film… except this: All the other leading ladies of 2012 can kiss their Emmy goodbye because Julianne Moore already has a lock on this one. (Got that out of my system.)

I have to confess that I might have taken excessive pleasure in Tina Fey’s blistering caricatures. And, for a time, I even scanned Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish with hathos in my heart. But as Sarah Palin’s political intentions became clearer and the prospect of her in a national office began to fade, first in 2008 and again in 2011, my animus for the woman always receded with it.

It is not Sarah Palin the person that I found troubling. It was Sarah Palin the politician that engendered my fears. She is charismatic and clearly has a talent for the public spotlight. There were more than a couple of times when she appeared capable of taking her unprecedented ignorance (even while brandishing it with pride) all the way to the highest office in the country.

For now, though, she is tucked safely in Alaska with only the occasional money making foray to the lower Fourty-Eight. Even so, there still exists a stubborn resistance from Palin supporters to simply say, “Hey, maybe we made a mistake.”

Deal with it. I supported John Edwards in 2007. But when I see his tabloid face at the supermarket check-out, I don’t defend his record as a lawyer and insist that he still would have made a good president. Rather, I think, “Whew! Dodged a bullet.”

In his NRO article Some ‘Change’, Jim Geraghty embodies that conservative imperative to stand by the standard narrative. His article attacks both the veracity of the film as well as its relevance.

He quotes the screenwriter, Danny Strong, “We stand by the film as being completely accurate and truthful and representing what happened. It’s true. The movie’s true.” Geraghty is careful to allow that historical movies often take creative license yet goes on to torpedo the entire film on precisely those grounds.

The first scene he challenges is when advisers are tutoring Palin in fundamental knowledge of World War II. Geraghty points out that Randy Scheunemann, the adviser depicted said that this scene is “absolutely untrue.”

In another scene he observes:

Harrelson’s Steve Schmidt watches Palin’s answers to Katie Couric’s questions and gasps, “Oh my God! What have we done?” That scene and those words do not appear in Heilemann and Halperin’s book, either.

The article continues:

You can’t invent scenes and quotes and then insist the film is “completely accurate and truthful.”

He is right, of course, and Danny Strong should modify his statement.  It should read, “We stand by the film as being completely fundamentally accurate and truthful and representing what happened…  The movie’s essentially true.” What Geraghty would have you believe without actually saying as much is that the entire film is fiction… not to be trusted.

But the truthfulness of the film, any film, does not lay entirely with verbatim accounts of back-room dealings or whether or not this scene or that scene happened in fact. Rather, the question is how fairly or unfairly does this film represent that particular version of history? Columbus’s story doesn’t change much if he said “Land-ho” or “Look! There’s China” when he first spotted Hispaniola.

So why do I accept the essential truthfulness of the “Game Change?” Be cause the people who were in the trenches during that campaign have said so. Former Bush communications director and senior McCain campaign adviser Nicolle Wallace, who was featured in the movie, had this to say:

“…true enough to make me squirm.”

This sentiment was echoed by McCain’s senior campaign adviser, Steve Schmidt who was also a central character in “Game Change.”  He said this on MSNBC’s Morning Joe:

“I think it was very accurate… For all of us in the campaign, it really rang true. It gave you a little bit of PTSD at times. It did for me.

What is conspicuously missing from Geraghty’s commentary is an address to the most central question of the film. Was Sarah Palin qualified to assume the office if John McCain were unable to fulfill his duties as President?

But that question is about the only one that Geraghty contorts to avoid asking. Rather, he variously speculates on the filmmakers liberal motives. He suggest that others, more cynical than himself, might believe liberal Hollywood made it thinking that that Sarah Palin would head the GOP ticket this year. He even suggests that the the filmmakers took only this story line from the book because “they couldn’t bring themselves to portray any Democrat negatively.” And several times he emphasizes that the movie is simply irrelevant.

If you are a fan of Sarah Palin, you will loathe this movie. If you hate Sarah Palin, large swaths of this movie will be more thrilling than pornography.If you are somewhere in the middle, you will find yourself wondering why you’re watching big-name actors reenact extremely recent events, with limited new revelations, insight, or lessons from it all.

He is probably right that how you react to this film will be proportionate to the strength of your feelings about Sarah Palin. But, again, he also goes to great lengths to dismiss the film’s relevance.

Say what you like about Palin, she has shaped the political conversation in this country. It isn’t unreasonable to wonder how many of Santorum supporters secretly think that he’s the best they could do in the absence of Sarah Palin. How our candidates are selected and vetted is, I hope, never an irrelevant topic. In the same interview Steve Schmidt said it rather nicely:

But, look, I think it’s a story of when cynicism and idealism collide. When you have to do things necessary to win, to try to get in office to do the great things you want to do for the country and I think it showed a process of vetting that was debilitated by secrecy, that was compartmentalized, that failed, that led to a result that was reckless for the country and I think when you look back at that race, you see this person who is just so phenomenally talented at so many levels, an ability to connect but also someone who had a lot of flaws as someone running, you know, to be in the national command authority who clearly wasn’t prepared.”

So, yeah, it does seem pretty relevant.

There are many out there who can still envision Sarah Palin as a great president. Any negatives about her are easily attributed to the liberal media or Obama’s smear machine or aliens, but they will never see Palin as a flawed candidate. I just don’t have much to say to these folks.

Then there are the Jim Geraghtys. His critique of the movie never quite rose to the level of actually defending Palin’s selection for Vice-President because even he understands that she was an indefensible choice. So he is left with framing the story as old news and blemished with false facts. He squirms in his chair looking for excuses for people to not watch the movie rather than having the cajones to say something as simple as “Whew! Dodged a bullet.”

Conservatives Sailing Backwards

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As an experienced sailor, I can tell you that it is not too difficult to steer a strait course by exclusively looking backwards.  About the only reason one might actually do this, though, is out of a longing for the shoreline that is disappearing into the horizon.  It should go without saying that you can’t see what you are about to hit.

This summarizes how I view the socially conservative movement.  Forever looking backwards at some mythical shoreline about what America once was.  And this is, of course, the worst possible way to navigate to the future.