A great piece in the Economist that makes the case that we need regulations and less litigation to give us more freedom. I like the idea, and would totally support it. I think that currently since we don't have good regulations, litigation is the only thing that keeps certain businesses honest. An excerpt below: (and read the full article at the Economist)
To generalise: for risks I can assess myself, I don't want regulations that prevent me from doing as I please just because I might end up suing the government. For risks I can't assess myself, I do want regulations that give me the confidence to do as I please. One kind of regulation stops me from swimming in a pond in Massachusetts. The other kind lets me swim in a river in the Netherlands. One kind of regulation makes me less free. The other kind makes me freer.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/08/liberaltarianism_and_regulation
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Cell Phones for the Homeless
This topic is a little off the political path what with the uproar over a Muslim community center being built in a Burlington Coat Factory in New York taking up all the headlines. The topic is cell phones for the homeless.
Earlier in the year a co-worker forwarded an email that purported to show that some homeless person at a government funded soup kitchen was getting a free meal while taking a photo of Michelle Obama with an expensive cell phone. The email photo wasn't faked. It was real. What the email implied was misleading. The email was meant to make you think that your tax dollars were being used to give freeloaders free meals while they spent their money on Blackberry phones.
Earlier in the year a co-worker forwarded an email that purported to show that some homeless person at a government funded soup kitchen was getting a free meal while taking a photo of Michelle Obama with an expensive cell phone. The email photo wasn't faked. It was real. What the email implied was misleading. The email was meant to make you think that your tax dollars were being used to give freeloaders free meals while they spent their money on Blackberry phones.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Forgot one
When setting up the defense of the Muslim Community Center in New York, I left out a very important speech. Mayor Bloomberg gave this great speech in defense of religious tolerance: (taken from Huffington Post)
Here are his remarks:
We have come here to Governors Island to stand where the earliest settlers first set foot in New Amsterdam, and where the seeds of religious tolerance were first planted. We've come here to see the inspiring symbol of liberty that, more than 250 years later, would greet millions of immigrants in the harbor, and we come here to state as strongly as ever - this is the freest City in the world. That's what makes New York special and different and strong.
Here are his remarks:
We have come here to Governors Island to stand where the earliest settlers first set foot in New Amsterdam, and where the seeds of religious tolerance were first planted. We've come here to see the inspiring symbol of liberty that, more than 250 years later, would greet millions of immigrants in the harbor, and we come here to state as strongly as ever - this is the freest City in the world. That's what makes New York special and different and strong.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
What will be remembered...
It's like America has no sense of history. The irrational prejudice against Muslims today is no different than the irrational hatred of Japanese or Native Americans or Blacks or pick a minority. What is sad is that this is going to be one of those things that we read about in History books (except maybe in Texas) and think, "wow, those people back then were really ignorant." The Japanese internment camps, the Indian Removal Act, the enslavement of blacks, have we no memory? Oh, but we have "reasons" to distrust Muslims. So did those people back then, or so they thought. Blacks & Native Americans needed civilization. The Japanese were our enemy. Neither of these was true then, any more than the "reasons" given today.
But my words are insufficient to the cause I feel.
But my words are insufficient to the cause I feel.
Hendrik Hertzberg did a great comment in the New Yorker titled Zero Grounds. It's fun to make something out to be scary, damn the facts. Fighting a straw man is so much easier than fighting real people. For instance, the people who want to open a Muslim community center, terrorists? radicals? No:
Like many New Yorkers, the people in charge of Park51 (the Muslim community center), a married couple, are from somewhere else—he from Kuwait, she from Kashmir. Feisal Abdul Rauf is a Columbia grad. He has been the imam of a mosque in Tribeca for close to thirty years. He is the author of a book called “What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America.” He is a vice-chair of the Interfaith Center of New York. “My colleagues and I are the anti-terrorists,” he wrote recently—in the Daily News, no less. He denounces terrorism in general and the 9/11 attacks in particular, often and at length. The F.B.I. tapped him to conduct “sensitivity training” for agents and cops. His wife, Daisy Khan, runs the American Society for Muslim Advancement, which she co-founded with him. It promotes “cultural and religious harmony through interfaith collaboration, youth and women’s empowerment, and arts and cultural exchange.”
Friday, August 06, 2010
A failure to communicate
The Bush Tax Cuts are coming up for renewal. Republicans want to keep them (even though they proved to do not a damn thing to help the economy) and Democrats want them to expire. I'm not sure what the odds are on them passing, but if they do it will be in part because Democrats and Progressives don't know how to make an emotional argument.
Republicans & Conservatives are anti-intellectual for the most part. They are the ones who keep pointing out how elitist and fancy we progressives, liberals and Democrats are. The voting public (at least segments of it) buy this. Why? Look at the debate on the Bush tax cuts. Republicans and Conservatives are framing it as a tax increase, which strikes an emotional chord with Americans (heck the TEA party stands for Taxed Enough Already). When you try to make the rational (and completely correct) argument that by keeping the tax cuts we will increase the deficit and not stimulate the economy (for if it was going to stimulate the economy it's had plenty of time to do so), you lose the argument. Why? Because emotions don't respond to logic.
Try convincing your loved one to not leave you due to all the logic you can muster. Not going to work. Two friends don't like each other, try and show logically that they are perfectly compatible and like the same things. Not going to work. Country Music singer Colin Raye (I believe) said it, "Logic never could convince a heart." Yet that's what we keep doing. We keep expecting people to see that it "just doesn't make any sense" and they never do.
Look at this article from Think Progress where Eric Cantor is unable to come up with a single program he'd cut to reduce spending enough to offset the Tax Cuts. To us that's evidence that the Republicans aren't serious about reducing the deficit & that the Tax Cuts are going to hurt this country more than help. But we still lose the argument (and the guy Cantor's talking to isn't even against him).
What we need is more emotional/common sense arguments. For instance, when talking about the tax cuts make the argument about how we're going to pay for them in simple terms. Use family budgets. Example:
"When you cut taxes, what you're doing is cutting income. So let's say that you're a family living off a certain income, if you cut your income you've got to cut expenses. All we're asking for the Republicans to do is tell us what they want to cut to offset the lost income. If you at home take a lower paying job, you don't make up for that by maxing out your credit card, and that's what Republicans would like us to do. Part of the reason that we ended up with such a high deficit is that Republicans ran up our credit card bills to pay for the lost income."
I think this is an argument that would resonate with voters, especially those that have lost jobs and actually taken a lower pay rate and have had to cut expenses. I know we've used the "tighten our belts" argument before, but it's become cliche. Using examples that really resonate, I believe, would help us persuade more voters. And it doesn't hurt that we're right.
Republicans & Conservatives are anti-intellectual for the most part. They are the ones who keep pointing out how elitist and fancy we progressives, liberals and Democrats are. The voting public (at least segments of it) buy this. Why? Look at the debate on the Bush tax cuts. Republicans and Conservatives are framing it as a tax increase, which strikes an emotional chord with Americans (heck the TEA party stands for Taxed Enough Already). When you try to make the rational (and completely correct) argument that by keeping the tax cuts we will increase the deficit and not stimulate the economy (for if it was going to stimulate the economy it's had plenty of time to do so), you lose the argument. Why? Because emotions don't respond to logic.
Try convincing your loved one to not leave you due to all the logic you can muster. Not going to work. Two friends don't like each other, try and show logically that they are perfectly compatible and like the same things. Not going to work. Country Music singer Colin Raye (I believe) said it, "Logic never could convince a heart." Yet that's what we keep doing. We keep expecting people to see that it "just doesn't make any sense" and they never do.
Look at this article from Think Progress where Eric Cantor is unable to come up with a single program he'd cut to reduce spending enough to offset the Tax Cuts. To us that's evidence that the Republicans aren't serious about reducing the deficit & that the Tax Cuts are going to hurt this country more than help. But we still lose the argument (and the guy Cantor's talking to isn't even against him).
What we need is more emotional/common sense arguments. For instance, when talking about the tax cuts make the argument about how we're going to pay for them in simple terms. Use family budgets. Example:
"When you cut taxes, what you're doing is cutting income. So let's say that you're a family living off a certain income, if you cut your income you've got to cut expenses. All we're asking for the Republicans to do is tell us what they want to cut to offset the lost income. If you at home take a lower paying job, you don't make up for that by maxing out your credit card, and that's what Republicans would like us to do. Part of the reason that we ended up with such a high deficit is that Republicans ran up our credit card bills to pay for the lost income."
I think this is an argument that would resonate with voters, especially those that have lost jobs and actually taken a lower pay rate and have had to cut expenses. I know we've used the "tighten our belts" argument before, but it's become cliche. Using examples that really resonate, I believe, would help us persuade more voters. And it doesn't hurt that we're right.
Thursday, August 05, 2010
'I Feel Like I Don't Live In America:' The Best Worst Prop 8 Reactions | TPMMuckraker
'I Feel Like I Don't Live In America:' The Best Worst Prop 8 Reactions | TPMMuckraker: "It's also extremely problematic that Judge Walker is a practicing homosexual himself. He should have recused himself from this case, because his judgment is clearly compromised by his own sexual proclivity."
That quote above is from the American Family Association and I consider it the worst of the worst. OK so you think Judge Walker's judgement is compromised by "his own sexual proclivity", but your judgment isn't compromised by your irrational hatred for gays. No you're probably right. You see things clearly.
There really is no legitimate reason to be against gay marriage. You can claim religious reasons, but most of the people who claim them seem just so hateful and not-religious (I vaguely remember from when I was religious that there was this thing about Jesus and Love).
I got this image from http://www.joemygod.blogspot.com/ and he has the original source data.
Such a great photo.
And I have to be Honest this next video I also got from Joe My God. I have to admit a little jealousy since my name is also Joe and I never thought of using Joe My God. And I at times can be really arrogant.
This is a great bit from the Young Turks, who I miss listening to in the morning since Air America left Austin, and then died apparently. Shellfish are an abomination (The bible says it multiple times). I'm for the Red Lobster Amendment, no wait, I love shellfish.
Basically this blog is part I'm happy that Prop 8 was overturned, part I hate anti-gay rhetoric, and part you should really read and follow Joe My God.
There really is no legitimate reason to be against gay marriage. You can claim religious reasons, but most of the people who claim them seem just so hateful and not-religious (I vaguely remember from when I was religious that there was this thing about Jesus and Love).
I got this image from http://www.joemygod.blogspot.com/ and he has the original source data.
Such a great photo.
And I have to be Honest this next video I also got from Joe My God. I have to admit a little jealousy since my name is also Joe and I never thought of using Joe My God. And I at times can be really arrogant.
This is a great bit from the Young Turks, who I miss listening to in the morning since Air America left Austin, and then died apparently. Shellfish are an abomination (The bible says it multiple times). I'm for the Red Lobster Amendment, no wait, I love shellfish.
Basically this blog is part I'm happy that Prop 8 was overturned, part I hate anti-gay rhetoric, and part you should really read and follow Joe My God.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Rachel Maddow: Scaring White People for Fun and Profit
Rachel Maddow does a fine job of not only making a good argument, but having the facts and figures to back it up. And most importantly, those facts and figures aren't made up.
Monday, August 02, 2010
McConnell Makes His Choice | Talking Points Memo
McConnell Makes His Choice | Talking Points Memo: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has come out in support of congressional hearings into the matter of whether the US Constitution grants citizenship to every person born in the United States -- so-called 'birthright' citizenship."
For all the fear mongering on the right about what this country is becoming, I don't see any outrage about revoking citizenship for persons born in the United States. This is obviously anti-immigrant rhetoric, and exposes even more the racism of certain members of the right. Why, for instance, are the only examples ever really spoken about Mexicans. The "anchor babies", as they are called, never refer to Canadians or the Irish.
But this repeal of the 14th amendment would cause all sorts of problems. What if your father is American and your Mother is Canadian (though applying for citizenship) and you're born? You're not an American according to them. My parents were both born here, but my Grandmother wasn't. She didn't get her citizenship (she was on permanent work visas) till I was in college. My Grandparents on my father's side were both born here, but I'm not sure about my Great Grandparents. Where exactly do I draw the line? When does my citizenship stop being in question? (of course, these are the same people who question Barack Obama for being born in Hawaii and honestly think he's Kenyan)
I don't think these questions are out of line. If your parents aren't citizens, and you can't be a citizen even if you're born here, you could feasibly deport me. I who have paid taxes, voted in elections, and can't speak a lick of Spanish might have to go to Mexico?
If it means I don't have to pay off my student loans, I'll consider it.
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