… in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence[sic], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Part Two of Three
Yesterday I posted about some research I did into a group of candidates who are running under the canopy of the Tea Party. Today I’ll tell you why I think some of them will win, why I don’t think they will change very much and why I think their policy directives are dead wrong, despite being winsome and appealing on a superficial level. They have a lot of emotion behind them. Voters of all stripes (including yours truly) are justifiably angry at the events (financial and military) of the last several years. We are rapidly coming to an uncomfortable junction in our country. We have choices to make about who we are and how we will continue. Will we mature into a reasonable adult nation-state, or do we want to continue in our rash, brash youth? Will we allow all voices to speak and be heard without pejoratives and bullying? Or will we continue to cat-call and rank people according to their “patriotism” (by which I mean do their thoughts most closely align with mine … or yours … or whoever is making the call at the moment)?
Tomorrow (in part three) I’m going to write about why I see the close alignment of churches with any political system as a very dangerous place for the church and her people to be. I see this happening more frequently and abundantly on the right, but the left has it’s share of (Jim Wallis and Sojourners) syncophants as well. But that story is for tomorrow.
Overall, and from the best that I can tell without engaging in the practice of divination or something equally magical, it appears to me that the candidates I looked at have conflated the Constitution with the original document our founders operated under, the Articles of Confederation:
While still at war with Great Britain, the Founding Fathers were divided between those seeking a powerful, centralized national government, and those seeking a loosely-structured one. Jealously guarding their new independence, members of the Continental Congress arrived at a compromise solution dividing sovereignty between the states and the Federal government, with a unicameral legislature that protected the liberty of the individual states. While calling on Congress to regulate military and monetary affairs, for example, the Articles of Confederation provided no mechanism with which to compel the States to comply with requests for either troops or revenue. At times, this left the military in a precarious position, as George Washington wrote in a letter in 1781 to the Governor of Massachusetts, John Hancock.
Many of the arguments and anger being currently expressed about the size and scope of the Federal Government, what it’s function is and the direction it should take may be traced back to the very roots of our foundation. When the Articles of Confederation proved to be ungainly and unworkable a very public debate commenced about what the nature of our fledgling government would be. It was engaged upon at many different levels, but most prominently in a series of published papers known as the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers (yeah, our Founders were not very creative). For an excellent commentary on the debate and the resulting compromises (eg. our Bill of Rights) see this. While today’s Tea Party harkens back to the folks who wrote the Anti-Federalist Papers (Sam Adams, George Clinton, Richard Henry Lee, etc.) that group would eventually evolve into today’s Democratic Party -
The Federalists were successful in their effort to get the Constitution ratified by all 13 states. The Federalists later established a party known as the Federalist Party. The party backed the views of Hamilton and was a strong force in the early United States. The party, however, was short-lived, dead by 1824.
The Anti-Federalists generally gravitated toward the views of Thomas Jefferson, coalescing into the Republican Party, later known as the Democratic Republicans, the precursor to today’s Democratic Party. [emphasis added]
Those original writers of the Anti-Federalist Papers would likely be considered libertarians (small “l”) by today’s standards and thus seem to have been adopted by the Tea Party faithful as icons of liberty in an age of increasing governmental interference. The goals they express are noble, however they often are conflicted when it comes to getting there. For 223 years “we the people” have chosen a less radical, more centralized form of government. Is that changing now? I don’t believe it is. I do believe that people are angry at the current turn of events and have focused their anger in the wrong place. This has been done for them by some very crafty people; the people who are responsible for the turn of events in the first place. The very, uber wealthy.
For today I’m going to go through each of the categories I used yesterday and get all dirty. Well … maybe not dirty. But I am going to use those categories and talk about the policies which are being promoted by these candidates are not necessarily the best choice for our country and/or our people. For this is the fundamental difference between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. The Articles of Confederation posited the power and responsibility to the states. The Constitution posits the power and responsibility in the people. We the people of the United States ….
Economy & Taxation
Of course, these are all conservative candidates so they believe in a very conservative paradigm for financial management. They all believe and pledged (to greater or lesser extents) to reduce the tax burden on all of us in order to get the economy working again. Several discussed the fault incumbent upon the current Congress for increasing the debt load; others discussed the current financial crisis as a problem that has been years in the making and were happy to spread the responsibility around to both the Bush and Obama administrations.
All of the candidates were opposed to raising taxes. In fact, they were lock step in the notion that the tax burden must be decreased, especially on the very wealthy. It should also be decreased on all of us. This is a noble cause in light of the current debt burden we are now carrying from two wars and a lengthening financial crisis.
The problem here is that the idea that lower taxes and less regulation will make the economy grow is simply and patently FALSE. There’s no way to sugarcoat this. It sounds lovely. To most of us it makes perfect sense. Give the people at the top more money and they will spend it and spread it around. What could be more sensical? Of course!! And the Daddy of all conservatives said this, Ronald Reagan, so it must be true. Heck, I even believed it for a long time. Problem is … there’s no data to bear this out. Every Republican Administration since Eisenhower stunk on every economic measure there is and every Democratic administration was golden. Yes, poodles … even and especially to include the Carter Administration. Carter’s great claim to fame, even in the midst of the horrible 70’s? Job creation. If I had a website to corroborate this, I’d send you to it, but I got this information from a book, Presimetrics, by Mike Kimel and Michael E Kanell.
While our goal is to avoid partisanship, we’re starting to see a pattern in the data. On most of the issues we’ve covered so far –and they’ve all been economic issues– Democrats have outperformed Republicans. This difference may be particularly galling here when it comes to income and wealth. After all, creating conditions needed to increase people’s income and make them wealthier is something Republicans pride themselves on, and the public perception is that they do it better than Democrats. How is it then that Republican administrations did so poorly relative to Democratic administrations?
The answer can’t bederived from the data. But in part it looks to be because Democratic administration have presided over faster economic growth on average and do so without adding so much to the national debt as Republican administrations. It goes the other way as well, increasing people’s income and wealth can also lead to faster economic growth. And the policies Democrats have pursued have increased income and wealth more quickly than the policies Republicans have pursued.
Democratic policies typically call for more inclusion, more focus on those at the bottom of the economic spectrum. By contrast, Republican policies have been more a “trickle-down” variety, the idea being that if the wealthy are made better off through lower tax burdens and less regulation, they will invest more in new ventures, expand existing businesses, and just generally toss more money into the economy, thereby helping to create jobs and improve the lives of everyone else. But perhaps the strategy of inclusion not only benefits those who would otherwse get a smaller piece of the pie but also increases the size of the whole pie for everyone. That is, a trickle-up economy seems to beat a trickle-down economy. So sayeth the data. (Kimel & Kanel, pps. 87-88)
What would happen if I were a talented and charismatic speaker? So talented and charismatic that I were to go out and begin convincing everyone that the sky is orange. I might be able to do this. I might even be able to convince a goodly proportion of the population that the sky is orange. It would be quite a feat. But let’s just suppose I’ve been able to do that. And they love me for it. Here’s the problem. The sky is still empirically blue. Just because everyone is walking around saying it’s orange now, does not actually change the fact of the matter. It’s still blue. And that’s what we have going on in our country right now. We have a lot of people who have been convinced by a few charismatic leaders (who have a dog in the race) that the sky is orange. Problem is, it’s still blue folks and you have a lot to loose by thinking it’s orange.
The people who are telling you it’s orange are the wealthiest people in the country. They are behind the curtains and want to reduce the tax rate. But they pay fewer taxes than any of us … Since 1992, the average tax rate on the richest 400 taxpayers in the US dropped from 26.8% to 16.62%. Source: US Internal Revenue Service. I’d love it if my tax rate was less than 20%, wouldn’t you? Yet they are still clamoring for lower taxes. And many of these folks are the same business leaders who come strolling around Congress looking for a handout when the specter of the Recession knocked on their door. Who is paying for their low tax rates AND their bailouts? We are. Now they also want us to pay the added costs of lower taxes and less regulation. Those costs will only be born by those of us who are poor and middle class … the voter. Don’t vote for the men behind curtain. Vote for we the people; the current plan is working but it will take time to get us out of this mess; month by slow month jobs are being created in the private sector. It is working, so vote to make the pie larger.
Energy Issues
This was the issue upon which there was probably the least consensus. Overall, most of the candidates stated that our reliance upon foreign oil resources was problematic for our economy and for industrial objectives. All of them were supportive of reducing our reliance upon foreign oil resources, but after that the consensus broke down. There were many different ideas about how the country should go about doing this, but all focused on a common thread that the free market would be the best place to determine the outcome.
Most of the candidates were very certain that it was an issue of national security that we decrease our dependence on foreign energy resources. Well, hooray for them. I “discovered” this fact back in 1978 while on my highschool debate team, so I’m really glad to know it’s filtered up to top echelons of government and at the glacial pace of 30 years. Unfortunately, most of them do not see the risks inherent in petroleum based fuel and insist that while relying on foreign energy resources is bad, we can ameliorate that problem with petroleum based and coal reserves here within our borders. Which is to say, most of them do not take the science behind climate change at all seriously. This is a mistake. It’s a mistake for many reasons … but the primary reason is that researching and developing alternative energy resources is an enormous job market. What a way to create jobs and employ people. It’s a huge win-win on all sides.
Family Values
All of the candidates made sure to define marriage on their issues page as a union between a man and a woman. Some took it no further than this. Others made certain that they clearly spelled out their opposition to same-sex marriage.
They were also certain to declare their opposition to abortion in any form, except for cases of incest, rape or danger to the mother. There were exceptions to this, of the 11, 4 had participated in the Republican National Coalition PAC’s Life Questionnaire and declared their opposition to abortion in the case of rape, incest or danger to the mother.
Every candidate very clearly announced their support for the 2nd amendment (unfettered gun ownership) without any further governmental interference. NRA membership and endorsements were proudly sported on many of their websites.
I really struggle with the level of paradox that is involved with this section. There are so many, I scarcely know where to begin. This group of candidates expressed as their main concern that the rights of the individual are being trampled by state and federal government. Yet there seem to be certain individuals who must continue to be closely monitored by the government and their rights must be restricted. So the rights that the candidates were most concerned with would better be expressed as those of a Christian nature. They would very much like this country to become a Christian nation. Many express a desire to (re)turn to it’s Christian roots. This would be a misnomer, since there has always been, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, a wall of separation between the church and the state. A later Supreme Court justice (who’s name I am forgetting right now) would say that the wall metaphor was lacking and say that a fence was a better term because a fence allows some interaction between the two entities. But we (for very good reason) provide protection for our churches (and our synagogues, and our temples and our mosques and our nothing-at-alls) from the government. Because governments by nature are extremely capricious and mean.
Then there is the paradox involved with desiring to protect the lives of the “unborn” but not the lives of inner city children who are the most affected by the violence wrought by unfettered gun ownership (automatic and sub-automatic weapons). Listen, I’m no namby-pamby when it comes to guns and have eaten my fair share of venison. Most of the men in my family hunt, or would if they could. I support owning guns for the purpose of hunting and target shooting. BUT. The only reason that automatic/sub-automatic weapons and hand guns exist is to kill people. That is their only purpose. Ordinary people have no use for them. None. The 2nd Amendment was written for a different time and place; it can stand some tweaking. If mere potential human life in the womb is worth protecting, then so are the actual human beings (i.e. children) who live in the projects. ‘Nuff said.
Speaking of actual human beings who live in the projects … no … I’ll go into that in greater detail below.
But finally, I’m putting this here because I don’t know where else to put it. I’m tired of the battle lines over human life in politics. You can’t be pro-choice, or you’re a murder of helpless babies. If you’re pro-life, you hate women. It’s ridiculous. Here’s the thing. According to science (and that really is the best thing we have to go on right now) up until about 20 t0 24 weeks, the fetus is only the potential for human life. After that, the baby has a chance for survival outside of the mother, but the costs to society and the family are (potentially) enormous. Everyone has stories on both sides of miracles. My very own cousin was director of Planned Parenthood for years in the 70’s. She had an unplanned pregnancy. What do you think she did?
Here’s the thing, every single story of an unplanned pregnancy is different. Every. Single. One. And every pregnancy involves AT LEAST two people, plus the potential baby. Sometimes it involves more people. We must get past the idea that it’s just about the baby. Or just about the mother. There is always the mother, the father, grandparents. Potentially siblings. Maybe aunts and uncles. The potential baby could be arriving into a whole community. Or it could just be the mother and the baby. But to hear one side or the other tell the story it’s all about one, or all about the other. But it’s both. It’s both.
People who support choice for women are not baby-killers and people who want to limit abortions do not hate women, there has to be some middle ground.
Federal Government (size and function)/Entitlements
Every one of the candidates expressed their dismay at the large (bloated) size of the Federal Government. They all (to a greater or lesser degree) supported and/or would initiate legislation to decrease the size of the Federal Government … on anything not related to defense or national security. Or education. Or law enforcement/prisons. The candidates also were in general agreement that entitlement spending must be decreased with the goal of eventually removing it from the budget (privatizing Social Security) and getting rid of the other entitlement programs all together.
This was an area where I had some (limited) agreement with the candidates. Our litigious society has created a bloated and overweaning Federal Government anxious to protect us on all sides. We have created our own rubber room for ourselves and we find we do not like it. Every time we turn around it seems there is another form to fill out to prove we are not doing or about to do something wrong. What is up with that? And the tax forms!!! Ay yi yi … completely ridiculous. The forms alone are a solid argument for a flat tax … except well, a flat tax is a regressive tax, etc. etc. But I won’t go down that tangent.
Paradox alert – the only initiatives any seemed to have for reducing the size of the Federal Government was to simply cut non-Defense related spending. Just cut it and it will disappear. They also committed to current spending levels on Social Security and to increasing spending for care of our Veterans (which I agree with, in theory). However, Social Security and Dept of Defense spending are the TWO largest chunks of the pie at $677B and $666B, respectively. All of the candidates committed themselves to NOT privatizing or changing Social Security in any substantive manner in the near future. So that spending is just going to increase in the next 10 to 20 years. It must, as the bulk of the Baby Boom generation retires. Defense spending is always bloated and typically increases under Republican controlled Congresses. As tighter immigration restrictions are put in place and create higher costs, Homeland Security is going to require an increased budget. One of the proposals called for by Mike Lee (E-Verify) will cost $400 Million to implement (and I have that from an unnamed horse’s mouth). E-Verify is one short step away from a national ID and unless I was sleeping in logic class, a national ID would require more federal interference, not less. I’ll stick with my state driver’s license and be bothered with how much info the feds are getting from that already, thank you, kindly.
Health Care Reform
Most, if not all, are staunchly opposed to the healthcare reforms passed by this Congress and signed into law by President Obama (referred to disparagingly as Obamacare). They express the most concern about the provision which requires that all Americans purchase health insurance (and if they cannot afford it, it will be provided for them). There is also concern expressed about the so-called abortion clause; that is the candidates are firmly opposed to the notion that any taxpayer dollars might be used in support of abortion.
The main problem here is that the Tea Party in particular and Republicans in general are using a flawed premise when they argue that a majority of Americans do not support President Obama’s health care law. Technically speaking, the latest poll, taken in late September, proves they are correct. Approximately 73% of Americans expressed disapproval of the law. However, what that doesn’t tell you is that that disapproval rating is almost exactly split 50-50 … “Among likely voters, 36 percent said they want to revise the law so it does more to change the health care system. A nearly identical share — 37 percent — said they want to repeal it completely.” Getting the health care reform act substantively changed or repealed is going to be much more difficult than most of these candidates have been lead to anticipate.
What I found as I did my research is that most of the candidates were promoting many policy ideas that were very similar to the changes which were already put in place by the bill known pejoratively as Obamacare, with the exception of the part which requires people to have insurance. Many people seem to see this as socialism, which they mistake for communism. Communism and socialism are not equivalent, but that’s another story.
The way I see it is kind of like this … we are afforded many rights in this country and sometimes the state steps in to make sure we take advantage of those rights. For instance, the 6th Amendment to the Constitution states: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense. For approximately 190 years we had a free market system in operation for criminal defense. If you could afford a defense attorney you got one, if you couldn’t … well. Sometimes you got one, sometimes you didn’t. It depended on how well you knew your Bill of Rights and who you knew. This lead to the police using some fairly coercive interrogation techniques which in turn leads to questionable convictions. In 1966, the Supreme Court held that all defendants must be apprised of their Miranda rights, which include the right to defense counsel, with the classic addendum, “If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.” It behooves all of us to ensure that we all have appropriate defense counsel should the need arise. It would make a mockery of the land of the free and the home of the brave to have it filled with kangaroo courts throwing innocent and guilty alike into prison. By the same token, it behooves us all to ensure that all of us have adequate health insurance. This provides a number of benefits to all of us. First and foremost, it helps to keep all medical and insurance costs down because it keeps the playing field level. It keeps people from going to the emergency room with ordinary viruses and other ordinary medical needs because no doctor will treat them without insurance. So the emergency room staff is left to treat … emergencies and those costs will begin to stabilize as well. It will keep long term medical care costs down as well, because more illnesses will be discovered in the early (and thus more treatable) stages.
Immigration Issues
Immigration issues tended to be a hot button for many of the candidates, with good reason given the current atmosphere in our country. They were all opposed to any form of amnesty at all for any current undocumented alien (often referred to illegal immigrant). They were all opposed to undocumented aliens receiving any entitlements or health care. Several were in favor of very strong measures to secure the southern border to include, opening military bases, building a wall, an increased military presence, some form of electronic citizenship verification, etc. Others hinted at rescinding one or more constitutional amendments concerning states rights and how our citizenship is determined in order to remove the incentive for people to come here.
Wow. The very idea of repealing the 14th amendment shook me to my roots. Then I wanted to know more. It was presented to me by people who were just as unhinged on the left about immigration as those on the right. So I did some digging. It turns out that the 14th amendment is about a lot more than just citizenship (and so-called “anchor babies”). It’s also the due process clause … that is, the amendment which holds the government liable for it’s behavior towards it’s citizens. Now, why on earth would a group of people who are so concerned about limiting the power of government want to strip the due process amendment from the Constitution?
I have no idea. But I think it’s the scariest thing to come out of the Tea Party … bar none.
There is no question that immigration issues are weighing on the minds of politicians and voters this year. And there is no question that there is good reason for this. We have a problem with people coming to our country without permission and staying for years under the radar. This creates enormous problems with our infrastructure (e.g. schools, healthcare, roads, local government, utilities, etc.). I’m not even going to suggest that the problem is anything but Gordian. However, solutions that include returning to their home country before a visa will be granted are untenable on their face. Such solutions make excellent sound bytes, but I have to wonder how they will be implemented and enforced in an era of tight budget restrictions and a smaller government?
National Defense/Terrorism
As one would anticipate all of the candidates made strong statements concerning our national defense. They are committed to finishing the Afghanistan war and the Iraq war with strength. They are committed to our troops and to our veterans. The candidates all made statements that veteran care must improve once our soldiers return home and are no longer serving. At least one or two remain firmly committed to Israel as our ally in the Middle East.
I am so conflicted about the unnecessary wars we fought and are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq that I do not feel I can be nearly as objective as I would like to be on this subject. Unfortunately, our heads of Defense and Chiefs of Staff learned absolutely nothing from the Soviet experience in Afghanistan in the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s. There was a rich source of experience from which they could have drawn much, but instead we are learning the same lessons … over and over and over again to our detriment. And to the detriment of our men and women in arms. I said as much at the time, but no one listens to a suburban housewife.
When President Bush began rattling the drums about Iraq, I said, “Mark my words, there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” I said it here and I said in comments on several other blogs, namely discussions at Jesus Creed, only to get shot down and ignored. I was told I was a traitor for not believing the president. I was told that the ends justify the means and we should employ any means possible to take out that evil Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein, who spent the first third of his presidency enjoying our friendship and camaraderie. BECAUSE WE INSTALLED HIM AS PRESIDENT OF IRAQ. You see, if you do not study the history of a region, you do not know these details. But I have friends who lived it. Who lived through the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79. Who lived in Iraq under Hussein. So … yes, Hussein is gone. What dictator now reigns in his place? We have accomplished exactly nothing, it was based upon lies, Al Qaeda has gained a new recruiting ground, and a cost of ~70,000 Iraqi lives and ~4,750 American/UK lives lost and $900 Billion spent (through Sept. 2010) and their quality of life is at a shocking low.
I don’t know what else to say … spending more and more money on defense is not the answer to our national security problems. Shooting more and more “insurgents” (human beings with just as much “right to life” as you and I) in the Middle East is not going to make us any safer here in our beds. In fact, in a stunning case of counter-intuition, it tends to make us less safe when we play shoot ‘em up with people who are willing to die for their cause (by strapping bombs to their chests and walking into a mall). It feels good to be aggressive and war-like. But the response you get from that behavior is not less war, but more. And in an age when war is fought by guerillas and terrorists, I’d like to suggest that perhaps we should be looking for a less war response. I’d like to suggest that saber rattling and gun-toting should be our response of last resort, not first. Trying to lock everyone up, means that we lock ourselves up too and I do not want to live like caged bird. My freedom is not worth much under those circumstances.
In the end, I found while I found myself intrigued by the premises of these Tea Party candidates what I eventually decided was that they were really more emotional and more conservative versions of Republican candidates. It was the same stuff with only a slightly different spin on it. And as I said before, yes they are angry and so are a lot of their supporters. A lot of what they say sounds really good and it’s really angry and really emotional. But the reality they are probably going to accomplish very little if any of the goals they have laid out. The primary reason for this is … their anger. Anger is a great emotion. It generates a lot of energy. But the problem is it doesn’t solve problems. And right now we’ve got an enormous number of problems to solve. These people are trying to get elected on their ability to draw lines in the sand and become immoveable. But that’s not going to solve our problems. In order to do that, they are going to have to negotiate and give up some of those positions they hold dear.
The second reason I don’t see them doing so well once they get to Washington also has to do with anger. Anger is a secondary emotion. It is often provoked by a more primary (or primal) emotion. Usually that primal emotion which provokes anger is fear. We’ve had 9 years of the media (on the right and left) and the government pushing fear at us … telling us to be afraid of everything, of our neighbors, of the cars on the road next to us, of the people on the airplanes we fly with, of the food we eat, of our government … you name it, there is someone telling you to be afraid of it. Finally, a reaction has been provoked and that is anger. But that anger is mis-placed. It’s not Obama’s fault that you’re angry. Or this Congress. Turn off your television. I don’t care what channel news you’re watching, turn it off. Don’t watch any news for at least a week. Don’t listen to any either. If you must get some news somewhere, limit yourself to 3 articles a day from the BBC and get some different perspective on our country. Once you stop listening/watching the news you will be amazed at how the fear and anger disappears. And you will be ready to make a decision about who to vote for based upon your own internal principles again. Not someone yelling at you to be afraid. Or to be angry.
Next. Do your own research. Go to the candidate’s websites. Both of them. Read what they have to say. Be on guard for paradoxes and hyperbole. Think about how will they actually do the things they want to do? How does what they say line up with your internal principles? Will they be able to carry it out with negotiation? Or are they grandstanding? Who is behind their curtain? They all have someone … is their someone an entity you can tolerate?
Finally. If you’ve stuck with me this long, you have my deepest thanks and apologies. This goes on record for the longest and most researched post I’ve ever done here at Calacirian. My thanks for sticking with it and apologies for being so wordy. And my apologies for any lack of objectivity … I tried really hard, but I know I failed at certain junctures. Tomorrow – why I feel that the intersection of Christians and politics has gotten entirely too muddy and ugly.
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