Politics

You can probably tell that I'm not a Republican.
I'm not sure that I'm a Democrat.

If you participate in politics (and who doesn't in some way?), then you probably have a firm point of view -- a cause, a goal -- and you focus on politics as a means to advance your cause. However, many of us have less interest in winning at any cost, and more interest in finding ways to live together. Many of us regard the political circus with queasy disgust; we are thoroughly sick of being manipulated by ruthless bastards who care all for power and nothing for truth. Others of us see politics as a game: it really doesn't matter who wins, as long as we get to play. Some of us are honest mercenaries, working for whoever pays. Few of us are pure.

A little political ramble . . .

Corruption

Republicans and Democrats appear to have equal capacity for corruption, but they show it in different ways. Democrats show small-scale, personal, friendly corruption; Republican corruption tends to be larger, conspiratorial, and repressive. To get your vote, a Democrat would buy your dinner and arrange for you to get laid; a Republican would do the same, videotape it, and threaten to tell your wife. Democrats entice; Republicans bully.

Taxes

No one enjoys paying taxes, but most of us understand the need. In the context of industrialized countries, citizens of the United States are lightly taxed. I am less concerned about how much tax I pay; I am more concerned about how we use the taxes we collect. Someone asked me if I thought it was right for our taxes to support social programs. I told him I would much prefer that to buying ten more B-2 bombers at a billion dollars a copy, when their only purpose was to bomb a country that no longer exists!

Politics and the Business Cycle

During the Presidential campaign of 1992, someone suggested to me that we were unfairly blaming George Bush for an economic decline that was "only part of the normal business cycle." This raises a set of questions: What drives the business cycle? Why is it cyclic? The answer, I think, lies not in economic esoterics; it is more straightforward but distasteful. Considering more specific questions: Why do people and corporations overextend themselves? Why do they build where they should not, undertake what they should avoid? Why do they borrow heavily to invest in marginal, shaky enterprises? The simple answer is greed: blind, frenzied, human greed. One function of government -- often neglected -- is to restrain greed. Bush’s administration (and Reagan’s before him) notably failed in this function, and we can fairly blame him for that.

Certainly, the United States’ economy is so large and diverse that no one person controls it, even so powerful a person as the President. While even the President cannot control our economy, he leads an administration, he exercises a presidency, he guides the United States government. While even our government cannot absolutely control the economy, the government -- and through our government, the President -- can influence our economy profoundly.

Politickles
(may be expanded if time permits)

It's difficult to believe a politician who claims to favor improved education. An educated electorate would quickly reject most politicians.

Building prisons and hiring police to combat crime -- while doing nothing about causes of crime -- is a great deal like building hospitals and training doctors while doing nothing about public health.

It is a continuing problem that too many people are in positions to regulate matters of which they know nothing.

Government by skin color: Dermocracy?

One good way to promote respect for law is to enact respectable laws.

Term Limits

I doubt that term limits reliably improve government. In 1988, because of Presidential term limits, we could not re-elect Ronald Reagan. Instead -- trying to continue the Republican dynasty -- we elected Reagan's Vice-President, George Bush. I have difficulty seeing that as an improvement. I suspect that many people who advocate term limits would rather have voted again for Reagan, senile or not.

Should we assume that politicians are predictably bad, and therefore all should be removed from office automatically in x years? Would we not benefit from electing good politicians in preference to bad, rather than limiting how long they may serve?

Now that Republicans hold a majority in Congress, they have stopped agitating for term limits.

Literacy Test

If we accept the proposition that ability to write clearly reflects ability to think clearly (and if we agree that a politician needs to think clearly), then perhaps we should ask candidates to show how they can write. Ask candidates to select a subject from a surprise list; give them resources of their choice (computer, typewriter, legal pad . . .); sequester them from help and advice while they write; publish results in major newspapers and magazines with commentary (pertaining to content, grammar, and style) from writers, educators, and other politicians.

This process might entertain us less than an oral debate, but the result would have more meaning. We already have too many opportunities to judge a candidate's ability to manipulate, maneuver, bully, and evade; we need more balanced insight. The habit of writing could encourage articulate expression and forethought in political affairs. Scary thought! Who knows where that might lead?

We might also conduct public written debates over extended periods. In time, our TV-marinated brains would adapt to this slower, less intense encounter. It would probably sell more newspapers, and might improve their quality.

Wheel of Fortune

Financing government by lottery is simple, obvious, popular, and a dumb idea. Often transiently successful, lotteries have bad long-term effects:

• Lotteries offer an "easy out," allowing governments to defer confronting deeper fiscal problems.
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• Governments often come to depend on lottery income, but over time that income will probably decline as more people conclude that lotteries cost more than they return.
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• Relying on anticipatory thrill, lotteries exploit and encourage addictive behavior.
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• Lotteries encourage mystic optimism and reliance on luck, rather than understanding and persistence.
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• In practice, lotteries take money from those who need it most: poor people hoping for a windfall.

Putting aside the above moralizing, I buy lottery tickets. Sure, I have about as much chance of winning as of being struck by a meteorite, but that random bolide could fall as readily on me as on anyone else. I oppose the principle, but I support the practice. We have a lottery -- like it or not -- so I participate. As Rachel observed of venison, "I wouldn't shoot a deer, but since it's dead we might as well eat it."

Republicans

I agree with Republicans that we have problems; in some cases, I agree about what our problems are. In almost all cases, I disagree about what causes our problems and how to address them. I think one could make a strong case that Republican policies cause or encourage many problems for which Republicans blame Democrats. Consider:

• If our inner cities appear squalid swirls of drugs, crime, disease, and depravity, peopled by feral gangs, then what have Republicans done for them? An inner-city youth of 18 years’ age in 1998 was born in 1980, the year that Ronald Reagan was elected President. That child spent his first twelve years, the critical formative years, in a time when Republican adminstrations were systematically neglecting the inner cities. In a nearly literal sense, violent inner-city youth are children of Republican policy.
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• When and how did we accumulate such massive national debt? Much recent debt was incurred in the 1980’s under Reagan and Bush. Reagan, the supposed paragon of thrift and fiscal responsiblity, reduced taxes and increased spending. "Trickle-down" benefits proved a fantasy; my (lower-middle-class) taxes went up. The rich got richer; the poor got poorer.
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• Republicans claim to favor "morality", "family values", and "responsibility". This is good advice, but in practice Republicans also support -- and are supported by -- businesses that profit greatly by exploiting and encouraging our bad habits. If we have become socially more coarse, more self-interested, less compassionate, less public-spirited, then what has driven us in this direction? Not -- I think -- Democratic permisiveness, but continuous, garish, soulless commercial appeal to our compulsions, by corporations intent on profiting by our weaknesses. Who defends this cultural rape in the name of commerce and freedom of expression? Both parties do, but Republicans seem the main advocates.

The Other Party

Generally, I agree with Will Rogers' assertion that "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat." I am not all that crazy about the Democrats' behavior; however, I prefer them to the alternative. It annoys the hell out of me that we so often seem to choose between one candidate who is incompetent and another who is dangerous. As the Fugs asked, "Was George Washington the lesser of two evils?" Maybe there's still hope for Nunn-Bradley in 2004. (Er . . . no, make that 2008.)

Totem Polemics

Topical diatribes to go . . .

October, 2004:
I have removed this section for a variety of reasons:

• I don't have time to maintain a topical section. This stuff changes too fast.
• Bloggers do it better. I don't want to maintain a blog, either.
• My short-term responses tend to degenerate to repeated polemic. Who needs more of that?

Let me recommend a few bloggers, commentors, and columnists:

• The Agonist
• Molly Ivins' Star-Telegram column
• Juan Cole
• Charley Reese
• Joe Galloway (co-author of We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young)

• Main Page
• Rant Index