Helen and David were talking last night about constraints, and how oppression can be good. The basic thesis, as I interpreted it (disclaimer: I was not the most compos of mentis), was that we need some benevolent oppression to tell us who we are and where we fit in society. Femininity, for example, is mildly oppressive, but it gives women a role and allows them to more expediently explore the meaning of their lives.
Okay. That seems to work. But if we need constraints to help us understand identity, what kind of identity do we have? Is there anything to us, naturally, or do we merely reflect the cultural circumstances from which we come? Sure, my social context tells me who I am, but am I actually discovering who I am or am I learning who I'm supposed to be?
I'm fine with reading history and looking at art and considering the origins of our culture. But if our culture is really worth continuing (and I think it probably is), why is coercion necessary, never mind good?
I'm pretty into choice. This is because I love freedom. But even more than general freedom I love it when people make their own identities. This doesn't mean iconoclasticism for iconoclasticism's sake. People who shout "down with the man!" annoy me as much as they do anyone else. I've chosen a fairly traditional persona in my society, for now. But I'm not sold at all that it's oppression itself that's important, rather than just wanting to protect things that we happen to like.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Burke gets abused (as usual).
Matthew Yglesias linked to an article in the Atlantic about how John McCain is a Burkean conservative. Personally, I think it's trying too hard.
Perhaps, just perhaps, he isn't a neocon. But it isn't metered change he's doing, it's pandering. The reason he's for the tax cuts now is because it will get him votes. Same reason why he voted against the anti-torture bill. It isn't that he philosophically opposes changes and restrictive reforms, he's just more spineless than we give him credit for.
Yes, the James Dobsons and Rudy Giulianis of the American right aren't real conservatives. Yes, what the Republican party needs to get it back on some kind of philosophical path is more Burke. But John McCain just isn't the guy. He's a maverick, remember? He stands up for what he believes in, even if it isn't the norm! Granted, John McCain is as much a maverick as Mike Gravel is a libertarian, but conservatives (authentic or otherwise) can't have it both ways.
The way I see it, the Republican party has three directions they can go:
1. Neoconservatism. Like Reagan with a sadistic edge. Low taxes for the rich, strong military presence in every country between Egypt and India, and a centralized government doing whatever the hell it wants with its people, resulting in generations of debt, broken alliances, and wholly useless moral "highground."
2. Federalism. Starve Washington, let the libertarians run free in the streets, and kick back as the poor of America rise up and bring the long-awaited Proletarian revolution.
3. Real conservatism. Elitism. The kind of thing Burke wanted- social conservatism, economic protectionism, and a heavy dose of aesthetic power plays. This direction is actually impossible.
These options all have some stuff in common, and McCain has to an extent flirted with all of them without commiting to one. Intriguingly, this is one of the things that makes him so appealing to moderates. They don't know what kind of a conservative he is, so they can't be sure of all the terrible things he'd most likely do. He might invade a country, but he might not be a neocon. He might gut welfare and education and social security, but he might not be a small government libertarian. He might purely maintain the status quo and waste everyone's time talking a big game about America versus the ideological forces of evil. Is he John? Is he President McCain? Or is he J.S. McCain III? Hopefully, time will never tell.
In any case, he's no Edmund Burke, and he's still a bad candidate.
Perhaps, just perhaps, he isn't a neocon. But it isn't metered change he's doing, it's pandering. The reason he's for the tax cuts now is because it will get him votes. Same reason why he voted against the anti-torture bill. It isn't that he philosophically opposes changes and restrictive reforms, he's just more spineless than we give him credit for.
Yes, the James Dobsons and Rudy Giulianis of the American right aren't real conservatives. Yes, what the Republican party needs to get it back on some kind of philosophical path is more Burke. But John McCain just isn't the guy. He's a maverick, remember? He stands up for what he believes in, even if it isn't the norm! Granted, John McCain is as much a maverick as Mike Gravel is a libertarian, but conservatives (authentic or otherwise) can't have it both ways.
The way I see it, the Republican party has three directions they can go:
1. Neoconservatism. Like Reagan with a sadistic edge. Low taxes for the rich, strong military presence in every country between Egypt and India, and a centralized government doing whatever the hell it wants with its people, resulting in generations of debt, broken alliances, and wholly useless moral "highground."
2. Federalism. Starve Washington, let the libertarians run free in the streets, and kick back as the poor of America rise up and bring the long-awaited Proletarian revolution.
3. Real conservatism. Elitism. The kind of thing Burke wanted- social conservatism, economic protectionism, and a heavy dose of aesthetic power plays. This direction is actually impossible.
These options all have some stuff in common, and McCain has to an extent flirted with all of them without commiting to one. Intriguingly, this is one of the things that makes him so appealing to moderates. They don't know what kind of a conservative he is, so they can't be sure of all the terrible things he'd most likely do. He might invade a country, but he might not be a neocon. He might gut welfare and education and social security, but he might not be a small government libertarian. He might purely maintain the status quo and waste everyone's time talking a big game about America versus the ideological forces of evil. Is he John? Is he President McCain? Or is he J.S. McCain III? Hopefully, time will never tell.
In any case, he's no Edmund Burke, and he's still a bad candidate.
Friday, April 4, 2008
The Obsolsescence of Virtue
This is a paper I wrote this morning. It's unedited (as is traditional of my papers), very shoddily organized, and is written in a style more suited to pseudo-academia than entertainment, but it's about conservatism and virtue and modernity, so because I've been absent for a while I thought I might post it. After the cut.
Edmund Burke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau share an obsession with virtue, but it seems initially that that is all they share. Rousseau, in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, essentially desecrates the idea of enlightenment culture, disparaging the inauthenticity of modern social structures. Burke, in contrast, glorifies the aristocratic society of France and denigrates the extreme leveling of the classes practiced by the revolutionaries in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. Despite their vastly different ideas of whence it is derived, both authors dramatically mourn the loss of virtue and criticize and prefigure the decline of society. Burke’s insistence on reasoned conservatism in the face of radical change seems like a watered-down and misguided version of Rousseau’s reactionary opinions, and the two authors’ iconic nostalgia prefigure the very real decline of virtue in the modern era.
Rousseau claims in his Discourse that mankind’s fondness for the arts and sciences have made societies soft and weak. He gives examples like Rome, “formerly the temple of virtue,” which, “after the likes of Ovid, Catullus, and Martial…became the theater of crime, the disgrace of nations, and the plaything of barbarians” (Rousseau 6). He suggests that rather than leave behind poems and equations, virtue is all society need be remembered for. To illustrate this, he employs the example of Sparta, where “‘men are born virtuous, and the very air of the country inspires virtue.’ Nothing of her inhabitants is left to us except the memory of their heroic actions. Are such monuments worth less to us than the curious marbles that Athens has left us?” (Rousseau 8) What good are the arts, Rousseau asks, if they cause the corruption of society? Complex civilization breeds homogeneity, and “without ceasing, common customs are followed, never one’s own lights” (Rousseau 4). In striving for a more enlightened society, we have abandoned the ability to judge right and wrong for ourselves, falling into a mass hysteria of mass consciousness. We have structures for the sake of structures, order for the sake of order, and “if there are still some [real citizens] left to us, dispersed in our abandoned countryside, they perish there indigent and despised” (Rousseau 17). Rousseau describes an era of inauthenticity, where society has “the appearances of all the virtues without having any” (Rousseau 4). He suggests that “these abuses come from…the fatal inequality introduced among men by the distinction of talents and the degradation of virtues” (Rousseau 17). Good men are not respected, he says, and an artificial society that loses sight of its own good cannot last for long.
Amazingly, many of Rousseau’s auguries for the fall of civilization occur during the French Revolution. The aristocracy is punished, the mob of peasants rules the streets, and the society of France is turned upside-down. Edmund Burke, however, does not hail this rebellion as the fated triumph of virtue over verisimilitude, but bewails the fall of what he considers to have been virtue. He elevates the customs that Rousseau disapproves of to a lifestyle, saying that the prejudice, the practice of preserving traditions of the past, “renders a man’s virtue his habit” (Burke 183). Burke asserts that virtue lies in practice, and that the forsaking of the customary system would destroy it. The very concept of inequality that Rousseau declares to degrade virtues is exalted by Burke; he says that “the levelers…only change and pervert the natural order of things” (Burke 138). Civilization is too important to change much. Burke seems to agree that and excess of nuance has hurt the spirit of France, and he, like Rousseau, regrets the triumph of “sophisters, oeconomists, and calculators” (Burke 170) and vanquished “that proud submission, that dignified obedience” (Burke 170). This is, perhaps, precisely what Rousseau meant when discussing “the appearances of all the virtues.” The “age of chivalry” (Burke 170) of which Burke laments the destruction is hardly the sober virtue of Sparta. Burke reminisces about Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, “glittering like the morning-star, full of life, and splendor, and joy” (Burke 169). It is the aesthetics of the ancient regime, the strict reverence for nobility qua nobility that he appreciates. “To make us love our country,” he says, “our country ought to be lovely” (Burke 172).
This is the central difference between Burke and Rousseau. Rousseau despises appearances; he faults mannered falsity for the corruption of mores, whereas Burke posits that it is the appearance of sublimity in society that gives society stability. Doing things because they are traditional, for Burke, is what maintains order, while for Rousseau the acceptance of petty customs clouds the real end of virtue. What both seem to reject are the terms of the enlightenment. Kant defines enlightenment with the phrase sapere aude, “have courage to use your own understanding,” but Rousseau and Burke derive different connotations of this. Rousseau’s contempt for all the arts and sciences reveals his complaint against sapere aude: he objects not to the courage but to the realization of that courage in the pursuit of knowledge. “Answer me, I say,” he demands of the philosophers, “you from whom we have received so much sublime knowledge; if you had never taught us any of these things, would we therefore have been any less numerous, less well governed, less formidable, less flourishing or more perverse?” (Rousseau 12) He denies the usefulness of haphazard curiosity, desiring to return to a state of nature that, however fictional, embraced individual instinct above overbearing rationality. Burke objects to the audacity of enlightenment more than to its specific practices. He does not disparage knowledge, but rather wishes that “learning, not debauched by ambition, had been satisfied to continue the instructor [the church], and not aspired to be the master” (Burke 173). These differently-aimed criticisms exhibit two different kinds of conservatism, Burke’s modern conservatism that is skeptical of change, and Rousseau’s reactionary conservatism that rejects the progress and utility of all modern thought.
In a sense, Burke proves Rousseau right: the decadence of enlightenment society in France cannot maintain its excesses, and the bubble of the chivalric sublime must pop. At the same time, what Rousseau advocates is admittedly contrived, “the evil is not so great as it could have become” (Rousseau 17). There is a resignation with which he hopes that “ordinary men...[do not] chase after a reputation that would escape [them]” (Rousseau 21). Both Rousseau and Burke are fighting the juggernaut specter of modernity, and only by freezing or even reversing time can their ideals of virtue be salvaged. It is for this reason that conservatism has adopted the ideology of nostalgia, the belief that “old establishments are tried by their effects” (Burke 285), that “individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages” (Burke 183). There is, of course, knowledge to be drawn from the past. There is, of course, purity in whatever the state of nature may be. But just as naïve purity yields to ambitious curiosity, so does methodical enlightenment gives way to passionate romanticism, and the angry mob can always bring down the proud standard of ancient virtue.
Edmund Burke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau share an obsession with virtue, but it seems initially that that is all they share. Rousseau, in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, essentially desecrates the idea of enlightenment culture, disparaging the inauthenticity of modern social structures. Burke, in contrast, glorifies the aristocratic society of France and denigrates the extreme leveling of the classes practiced by the revolutionaries in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. Despite their vastly different ideas of whence it is derived, both authors dramatically mourn the loss of virtue and criticize and prefigure the decline of society. Burke’s insistence on reasoned conservatism in the face of radical change seems like a watered-down and misguided version of Rousseau’s reactionary opinions, and the two authors’ iconic nostalgia prefigure the very real decline of virtue in the modern era.
Rousseau claims in his Discourse that mankind’s fondness for the arts and sciences have made societies soft and weak. He gives examples like Rome, “formerly the temple of virtue,” which, “after the likes of Ovid, Catullus, and Martial…became the theater of crime, the disgrace of nations, and the plaything of barbarians” (Rousseau 6). He suggests that rather than leave behind poems and equations, virtue is all society need be remembered for. To illustrate this, he employs the example of Sparta, where “‘men are born virtuous, and the very air of the country inspires virtue.’ Nothing of her inhabitants is left to us except the memory of their heroic actions. Are such monuments worth less to us than the curious marbles that Athens has left us?” (Rousseau 8) What good are the arts, Rousseau asks, if they cause the corruption of society? Complex civilization breeds homogeneity, and “without ceasing, common customs are followed, never one’s own lights” (Rousseau 4). In striving for a more enlightened society, we have abandoned the ability to judge right and wrong for ourselves, falling into a mass hysteria of mass consciousness. We have structures for the sake of structures, order for the sake of order, and “if there are still some [real citizens] left to us, dispersed in our abandoned countryside, they perish there indigent and despised” (Rousseau 17). Rousseau describes an era of inauthenticity, where society has “the appearances of all the virtues without having any” (Rousseau 4). He suggests that “these abuses come from…the fatal inequality introduced among men by the distinction of talents and the degradation of virtues” (Rousseau 17). Good men are not respected, he says, and an artificial society that loses sight of its own good cannot last for long.
Amazingly, many of Rousseau’s auguries for the fall of civilization occur during the French Revolution. The aristocracy is punished, the mob of peasants rules the streets, and the society of France is turned upside-down. Edmund Burke, however, does not hail this rebellion as the fated triumph of virtue over verisimilitude, but bewails the fall of what he considers to have been virtue. He elevates the customs that Rousseau disapproves of to a lifestyle, saying that the prejudice, the practice of preserving traditions of the past, “renders a man’s virtue his habit” (Burke 183). Burke asserts that virtue lies in practice, and that the forsaking of the customary system would destroy it. The very concept of inequality that Rousseau declares to degrade virtues is exalted by Burke; he says that “the levelers…only change and pervert the natural order of things” (Burke 138). Civilization is too important to change much. Burke seems to agree that and excess of nuance has hurt the spirit of France, and he, like Rousseau, regrets the triumph of “sophisters, oeconomists, and calculators” (Burke 170) and vanquished “that proud submission, that dignified obedience” (Burke 170). This is, perhaps, precisely what Rousseau meant when discussing “the appearances of all the virtues.” The “age of chivalry” (Burke 170) of which Burke laments the destruction is hardly the sober virtue of Sparta. Burke reminisces about Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, “glittering like the morning-star, full of life, and splendor, and joy” (Burke 169). It is the aesthetics of the ancient regime, the strict reverence for nobility qua nobility that he appreciates. “To make us love our country,” he says, “our country ought to be lovely” (Burke 172).
This is the central difference between Burke and Rousseau. Rousseau despises appearances; he faults mannered falsity for the corruption of mores, whereas Burke posits that it is the appearance of sublimity in society that gives society stability. Doing things because they are traditional, for Burke, is what maintains order, while for Rousseau the acceptance of petty customs clouds the real end of virtue. What both seem to reject are the terms of the enlightenment. Kant defines enlightenment with the phrase sapere aude, “have courage to use your own understanding,” but Rousseau and Burke derive different connotations of this. Rousseau’s contempt for all the arts and sciences reveals his complaint against sapere aude: he objects not to the courage but to the realization of that courage in the pursuit of knowledge. “Answer me, I say,” he demands of the philosophers, “you from whom we have received so much sublime knowledge; if you had never taught us any of these things, would we therefore have been any less numerous, less well governed, less formidable, less flourishing or more perverse?” (Rousseau 12) He denies the usefulness of haphazard curiosity, desiring to return to a state of nature that, however fictional, embraced individual instinct above overbearing rationality. Burke objects to the audacity of enlightenment more than to its specific practices. He does not disparage knowledge, but rather wishes that “learning, not debauched by ambition, had been satisfied to continue the instructor [the church], and not aspired to be the master” (Burke 173). These differently-aimed criticisms exhibit two different kinds of conservatism, Burke’s modern conservatism that is skeptical of change, and Rousseau’s reactionary conservatism that rejects the progress and utility of all modern thought.
In a sense, Burke proves Rousseau right: the decadence of enlightenment society in France cannot maintain its excesses, and the bubble of the chivalric sublime must pop. At the same time, what Rousseau advocates is admittedly contrived, “the evil is not so great as it could have become” (Rousseau 17). There is a resignation with which he hopes that “ordinary men...[do not] chase after a reputation that would escape [them]” (Rousseau 21). Both Rousseau and Burke are fighting the juggernaut specter of modernity, and only by freezing or even reversing time can their ideals of virtue be salvaged. It is for this reason that conservatism has adopted the ideology of nostalgia, the belief that “old establishments are tried by their effects” (Burke 285), that “individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages” (Burke 183). There is, of course, knowledge to be drawn from the past. There is, of course, purity in whatever the state of nature may be. But just as naïve purity yields to ambitious curiosity, so does methodical enlightenment gives way to passionate romanticism, and the angry mob can always bring down the proud standard of ancient virtue.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Be true to your school (of thought)
Nicholas Kristof has an opinion piece in the Times today similar to opinion pieces in many many papers these days. Clinton is really going to fuck over the Democrats by staying in too long. While I somewhat agree, this isn't what I'm most worried about right now. What concerns me more than the general chances of the Democratic party in November is the poll Kristof cites indicating that 19% of Obama supporters would consider defecting to McCain if Clinton were the nominee, and 28% of Clinton supporters would vote GOP if Obama were picked at the convention.
This is really really scary. I know that people have strong feelings about their favorite candidates, but they're really not that different. I think Obama's policies are slightly better, and that he's much more charismatic. Clinton supporters think her policies are slightly better, and that she's more experienced. Fine. Whatever. But none of those reasons are good enough to engender the kind of bitterness it takes to abandon a party.
I don't know what those 19% of Obama supporters are thinking, but I imagine it's along the lines of, "Clinton is too divisive and bitchy and won't get the world's respect, whereas McCain's a stand-up guy." So what if he's a more "real" than Hillary? He's still a Republican with very very conservative views; the kind of views we've all been hating on for nearly 8 years now. As to the 28% of Clinton's camp who would go to the Reps, I imagine you're thinking, "experience is too important for me to trust Obama. Clinton's gotten a lot of shit for her phone call ad, but there's some truth to it. I really don't think Barack is qualified to get stuff done." To you I say: okay, experience is helpful. But, once again, as we've seen with Bush, experience that's bad is worse than no experience at all. GWB was governor of a major state, has a gazillion connections and has since birth, has politics in his blood, and can't run a country worth jack. McCain may be a respected senator and a war hero, but that won't help him get America out of the problems we have now. The guy either doesn't know or chooses to ignore that Iran is a Shiite nation, and no doubt will do with both foreign and domestic policy whatever the fuck he wants.
Obama is better than McCain. Clinton is better than McCain. Al Gore is better than everybody, but unfortunately that's irrelevant.
Do the right thing. Vote Democrat in 2008.
Edit: Here's the link to the actual poll, and here's what you should do now.
This is really really scary. I know that people have strong feelings about their favorite candidates, but they're really not that different. I think Obama's policies are slightly better, and that he's much more charismatic. Clinton supporters think her policies are slightly better, and that she's more experienced. Fine. Whatever. But none of those reasons are good enough to engender the kind of bitterness it takes to abandon a party.
I don't know what those 19% of Obama supporters are thinking, but I imagine it's along the lines of, "Clinton is too divisive and bitchy and won't get the world's respect, whereas McCain's a stand-up guy." So what if he's a more "real" than Hillary? He's still a Republican with very very conservative views; the kind of views we've all been hating on for nearly 8 years now. As to the 28% of Clinton's camp who would go to the Reps, I imagine you're thinking, "experience is too important for me to trust Obama. Clinton's gotten a lot of shit for her phone call ad, but there's some truth to it. I really don't think Barack is qualified to get stuff done." To you I say: okay, experience is helpful. But, once again, as we've seen with Bush, experience that's bad is worse than no experience at all. GWB was governor of a major state, has a gazillion connections and has since birth, has politics in his blood, and can't run a country worth jack. McCain may be a respected senator and a war hero, but that won't help him get America out of the problems we have now. The guy either doesn't know or chooses to ignore that Iran is a Shiite nation, and no doubt will do with both foreign and domestic policy whatever the fuck he wants.
Obama is better than McCain. Clinton is better than McCain. Al Gore is better than everybody, but unfortunately that's irrelevant.
Do the right thing. Vote Democrat in 2008.
Edit: Here's the link to the actual poll, and here's what you should do now.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
The Issues
By now, I'm sure most of you have seen this, but if you haven't, do. It's possibly the best speech I've ever seen by a contemporary politician.
This isn't anything original to point out, but this is why Barack Obama is a better candidate than Hillary Clinton. If you want an issues-based campaign, these are the issues. If you want change in America, this is where it comes from: point out the problems, and try to find solutions. And be candid. Obama is the real deal in a way that most politicians, that most people, can't even begin to be. He, at least in this speech, is talking in a way that makes people listen. He isn't speaking for applause. He isn't spouting soundbites. The incidental applause, the quotations CNN puts at the bottom of the screen, are out of place. He answers all the questions. He speaks plainly. He eliminates the jargon and the doubletalk and all the political bullshit that disenchanted pundits and intellectuals have been ranting about for decades. The man is smarter than I took him for; not cleverer, necessarily, not craftier, but smarter. I have never seen a politician look to the root of America's soul, love the country so much. I have come to trust him like I might trust an old teacher. It isn't charisma he's exuding. I thought that was all it was. I didn't like the "yes we can" change crap because I thought it was a tool. I knew it was a good tool, so I voted for him because I knew others would and because I wanted a Democrat in the White House. But his "yes we can" goes beyond the rallies and the posters and the psychology. He wants to try to fix America the way nobody has perhaps since Roosevelt. I have never before valued truth so much.
He'll probably still lose Pennsylvania. It will probably still come down to the superdelegates, and they may or may not choose to make him the nominee. But I hope they do because there is a chance--just a chance--that Obama will be the kind of president that the president is supposed to be.
I thought Howard Dean saw America the way it should be, and I liked him for it. He was smart and able and had good ideas in a time when almost all the ideas coming out of Washington were bad. But Obama doesn't see America the way it should be, he sees it the way it is. America can be distrusting and cynical and even hateful. It can destroy lives and it can cripple communities. But he has also seen the part of America that can make men strong and give them fulfillment and joy. Clinton's presidency would be historic. The first female president. She would be fine. She would break down barriers. But Obama's presidency wouldn't be remembered for being the first time a black man sits in the Oval Office. It would be remembered for showing America what it is, for better or for worse, and for trying to make it as great on the inside as we say it is on the outside.
Obama still panders. In Ohio, in Iowa, in Texas. I wish he wouldn't. He is still a politician, and Washington is still run by those who want it most. But maybe, just maybe, he can make some of the citizens want it more than the farmers. He wants a more perfect union. Excelsior, Alex. If you want Excelsior, look to the man who wants to change the way Americans think, not the way they pay their taxes or the way they buy their corn. Bush and Cheney have showed us how a country can start to hate itself. Obama can help us love ourselves, not because America has a bigger cock than the other guys, but because America cares for itself and makes great men who care for America.
I don't know precisely what policies he would implement. I leave that research to Ted Kennedy, to Bill Richardson, to David Broockman. I don't know how being a "community organizer" will help him correctly respond to that 3 AM phone call. But what I see in Barack Obama is more than a talking head, more than a bleeding heart, more than a helping hand. I see a man, a flesh and blood person, who wants to be president of the country that made him great so that he can make the lives of its citizens better. More perfect. Yes we can? I don't know for sure. But at this point I can't help but try.
This isn't anything original to point out, but this is why Barack Obama is a better candidate than Hillary Clinton. If you want an issues-based campaign, these are the issues. If you want change in America, this is where it comes from: point out the problems, and try to find solutions. And be candid. Obama is the real deal in a way that most politicians, that most people, can't even begin to be. He, at least in this speech, is talking in a way that makes people listen. He isn't speaking for applause. He isn't spouting soundbites. The incidental applause, the quotations CNN puts at the bottom of the screen, are out of place. He answers all the questions. He speaks plainly. He eliminates the jargon and the doubletalk and all the political bullshit that disenchanted pundits and intellectuals have been ranting about for decades. The man is smarter than I took him for; not cleverer, necessarily, not craftier, but smarter. I have never seen a politician look to the root of America's soul, love the country so much. I have come to trust him like I might trust an old teacher. It isn't charisma he's exuding. I thought that was all it was. I didn't like the "yes we can" change crap because I thought it was a tool. I knew it was a good tool, so I voted for him because I knew others would and because I wanted a Democrat in the White House. But his "yes we can" goes beyond the rallies and the posters and the psychology. He wants to try to fix America the way nobody has perhaps since Roosevelt. I have never before valued truth so much.
He'll probably still lose Pennsylvania. It will probably still come down to the superdelegates, and they may or may not choose to make him the nominee. But I hope they do because there is a chance--just a chance--that Obama will be the kind of president that the president is supposed to be.
I thought Howard Dean saw America the way it should be, and I liked him for it. He was smart and able and had good ideas in a time when almost all the ideas coming out of Washington were bad. But Obama doesn't see America the way it should be, he sees it the way it is. America can be distrusting and cynical and even hateful. It can destroy lives and it can cripple communities. But he has also seen the part of America that can make men strong and give them fulfillment and joy. Clinton's presidency would be historic. The first female president. She would be fine. She would break down barriers. But Obama's presidency wouldn't be remembered for being the first time a black man sits in the Oval Office. It would be remembered for showing America what it is, for better or for worse, and for trying to make it as great on the inside as we say it is on the outside.
Obama still panders. In Ohio, in Iowa, in Texas. I wish he wouldn't. He is still a politician, and Washington is still run by those who want it most. But maybe, just maybe, he can make some of the citizens want it more than the farmers. He wants a more perfect union. Excelsior, Alex. If you want Excelsior, look to the man who wants to change the way Americans think, not the way they pay their taxes or the way they buy their corn. Bush and Cheney have showed us how a country can start to hate itself. Obama can help us love ourselves, not because America has a bigger cock than the other guys, but because America cares for itself and makes great men who care for America.
I don't know precisely what policies he would implement. I leave that research to Ted Kennedy, to Bill Richardson, to David Broockman. I don't know how being a "community organizer" will help him correctly respond to that 3 AM phone call. But what I see in Barack Obama is more than a talking head, more than a bleeding heart, more than a helping hand. I see a man, a flesh and blood person, who wants to be president of the country that made him great so that he can make the lives of its citizens better. More perfect. Yes we can? I don't know for sure. But at this point I can't help but try.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The Decline and Fall of Nothing in Particular
So apparently our economy sucks. This is somewhat interesting to me. People have been saying for as long as I've been willing to listen that America is on the brink of a recession, and this looks kind of like the real thing.
It might be kind of fun. I don't really have any money to speak of in the market, and the nice thing about recessions is that people recover from them and then are richer than before. Either that or we'll be bought by the UAE, which might be an interesting experience in and of itself. Also, it might encourage people not to be investment bankers.
It might be kind of fun. I don't really have any money to speak of in the market, and the nice thing about recessions is that people recover from them and then are richer than before. Either that or we'll be bought by the UAE, which might be an interesting experience in and of itself. Also, it might encourage people not to be investment bankers.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.
A better liberal than I posted about sin taxes, and solicited comments from libertarians in response. I'm against sin taxes, but I don't use the libertarian approach. In a sense, I think my reason for opposing them is more authentically liberal than Broockman's reason for supporting them. He says:
Therefore, we should help them help themselves by de-incentivizing undesirable expenditures like cigarettes and alcohol and help American society in the process by having fewer sick people. Everybody wins.
No. That's not what we're about. It isn't that the people choose to smoke or drink. I don't give a shit about what people choose. But sin taxes discriminate in the same way that drug laws discriminate. Yes, the poor, those who are least able to afford the taxes, are the most likely to pay them. Poor people don't buy cigarettes and alcohol because they're easy to buy, they buy them because their lives suck and smoking or drinking makes them feel better. They know that cigarettes are unhealthy, and that alcohol can be destructive. They've probably witnessed the effects. But they don't particularly care, because the hurt is now and the relief is the buzz of a Marlboro or the numbness of a beer. If you've tried cigarettes or alcohol (or even both at once...mmm...) you'd understand.
"But then the poor people get sick and we have to pay for them! That's no fun!"
True. But that is precisely why we have such a system. To help those in need.
There are lots of things that cause illness. Sex causes the spread of diseases like AIDS and syphilis. Sugar causes diabetes. Red meat raises cholesterol. Fish contain mercury. Even exercise can cause broken bones, muscle strains, shin splints. I'm not saying that it's as bad to run a mile as it is to suck down a Camel, but if the primary argument is the burden on the taxpayer, then you're sounding more like a libertarian than I think you'd like to admit.
I'm all for anti-smoking campaigns. I'm all for AA. You can talk at me until you're blue in the face about the dangers of dependency but if I'm working 14 hours a day in some shithole and you charge me a half-hour's wages for my pack of smokes so that you don't have to pay 20 bucks a year to your local hospital I'm gonna be pissed. My life won't get better if it's harder for me to buy cigarettes. It'll get worse. If you don't want any kids to start smoking, then ban cigarettes. Go ahead. It's not the lack of choice I'm worried about, it's the discrimination. If you think these... sins are worth eliminating, do it. But shaking your finger and taking my money just makes me feel bad, and that's no fun.
I may have presented a couple of half-written arguments here, and if so I apologize, but it's late and I'm kinda angry.
We know that people that get hooked on either of these things are hurting themselves. Furthermore, since they tend to be lower income, its likely that whatever health complications they get will end up being paid for in large part by us since over half of bankruptcies in the US are related to medical costs, and the loss to providers from those services are passed onto the rest of us.
Therefore, we should help them help themselves by de-incentivizing undesirable expenditures like cigarettes and alcohol and help American society in the process by having fewer sick people. Everybody wins.
No. That's not what we're about. It isn't that the people choose to smoke or drink. I don't give a shit about what people choose. But sin taxes discriminate in the same way that drug laws discriminate. Yes, the poor, those who are least able to afford the taxes, are the most likely to pay them. Poor people don't buy cigarettes and alcohol because they're easy to buy, they buy them because their lives suck and smoking or drinking makes them feel better. They know that cigarettes are unhealthy, and that alcohol can be destructive. They've probably witnessed the effects. But they don't particularly care, because the hurt is now and the relief is the buzz of a Marlboro or the numbness of a beer. If you've tried cigarettes or alcohol (or even both at once...mmm...) you'd understand.
"But then the poor people get sick and we have to pay for them! That's no fun!"
True. But that is precisely why we have such a system. To help those in need.
There are lots of things that cause illness. Sex causes the spread of diseases like AIDS and syphilis. Sugar causes diabetes. Red meat raises cholesterol. Fish contain mercury. Even exercise can cause broken bones, muscle strains, shin splints. I'm not saying that it's as bad to run a mile as it is to suck down a Camel, but if the primary argument is the burden on the taxpayer, then you're sounding more like a libertarian than I think you'd like to admit.
I'm all for anti-smoking campaigns. I'm all for AA. You can talk at me until you're blue in the face about the dangers of dependency but if I'm working 14 hours a day in some shithole and you charge me a half-hour's wages for my pack of smokes so that you don't have to pay 20 bucks a year to your local hospital I'm gonna be pissed. My life won't get better if it's harder for me to buy cigarettes. It'll get worse. If you don't want any kids to start smoking, then ban cigarettes. Go ahead. It's not the lack of choice I'm worried about, it's the discrimination. If you think these... sins are worth eliminating, do it. But shaking your finger and taking my money just makes me feel bad, and that's no fun.
I may have presented a couple of half-written arguments here, and if so I apologize, but it's late and I'm kinda angry.
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