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Blog Posts for "politics"
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Doug has a most excellent post about the current hullaballo over Tom Delay. Good stuff. I say the answer is to dispense with the notion of "public servant for life." I was never for term limits in the past, but I'm getting there fast. (I tend to vote Republican, so my beef is not with Mr. Delay personally, but with the way that Congress is set up in the first place. Doug goes into the workings of Congress nicely... go read it.) |
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Peter Singer is an ethicist who works at Princeton. His position, put forward in his papers, is that "the right to physical integrity is grounded in a being's ability to suffer, and the right to life is grounded in the ability to plan and anticipate one's future." Thus, those in a vegetative state or those severely retarded enough to be unable to plan for their own future should be euthanized, or killed. But Peter stepped back from his own determinations when his mother suffered from Alzheimer's. He did not kill her. Instead, he said: "I think this has made me see how the issues of someone with these kinds of problems are really very difficult." Taking an innocent life is a huge and permanent step, and if people are willing to expend their own lives in the care of someone else, however retarded, then why should they not be allowed to do so if they themselves see a reason for hope?Who is the arbiter of hope? Society? Congress? Judges? Disinterested spouses? There are many whose retardation was severe enough that no one thought there was any hope, and yet some of these people defied all odds and became cogent and partially functioning. In each case, it took a person who saw that hope and determined that they would make the effort necessary to help someone else. Most often, this person is a parent, and their love alone can achieve great things, If that is their choice, why should they be stopped from doing so? I think the final arbiter of hope is the person who is hopeful. In the case of Terri Schiavo, the hopeful count among the millions. ETC: I'm really much more torn about this issue than I expected to be - I don't know why it's sticking with me as it is. Running through my head... - Should the law ever allow euthanasia, whether directly in the form of injection, or indirectly in the form of neglect?
- Should someone have the right to determine the "quality of life" for another person who can't determine/define their own quality of life?
- In marriage, you literally share your life decisions with another person. When does that privilege stop? At divorce? At the time that a person moves on to another relationship?
- As the parent of my five children, how restrained could I be in the fight to try and save my child from a death like Terri's? (I think her parents have shown amazing restraint...) I imagine my son, Nick, appearing as Terri does. If I thought that he was receptive to me, I think you would need a tranquilizer gun to subdue me from getting to his room to re-insert that feeding tube.
Very heavy stuff. |
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Obviously, big news this week has been the court fight between Michael Schiavo and Terri Schiavo's family. Death by dehydration/starvation is diabolical. We're not allowed to do that to animals. But we can authorize it for a human? I don't think that a person in a coma/vegetative state should be kept alive at the depletion of all money of the family. For example, if I were in such a state, I wouldn't expect my family to engage in extraordinary measures to maintain my existence. My kids' needs come first, and they don't need to be broke for life at my expense. BUT! If money were no object, or if they chose to keep me alive, then alive I should be. In Terri's case, both are true. There are enough donations to pay for all her needs for life, and her family wants to keep her alive. I don't think Michael Schiavo's argument holds any water. He says that he's allowing her to die killing her because it's what Terri wanted. Michael Schiavo was at his wife's bedside after the tube was removed and said he felt that "peace was happening" for her. "And I felt like she was finally going to get what she wants, and be at peace and be with the Lord," he said. "Peace was happening" for her? If she's truly in vegetative state, she was at peace long ago because she is aware of nothing now.So either she is aware and peace can "happen" for her now, and therefore she should be kept alive... ...or she is unaware of anything at all, and there's no harm in keeping her alive. Changing her condition won't bring peace or anything to her - she's incapable of it. In either case, there's plenty of money and her family wishes to care for her. Conclusion: Michael Schiavo is a dirtbag who has painted himself into a corner. ETC: The Republicans (certainly not the Democrats) have passed legislation to clear the road. Michael Schiavo's reaction: "This is a sad day for Terri. But I'll tell you what: It's also is a sad day for everyone in this country because the United States government is going to come in and trample all over your personal, family matters," he told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday. Sorry buddy, but when she is no longer your family, this is not your personal family matter.Michael Schiavo has another woman now, and children by that woman - he can't be considered Terri's advocate, or even her family. He's committed adultery... and then some. He's not a loving husband. He wants this to be over so that he can marry his new woman. When the family has hope for their daughter, and when money is no object, why kill her? |
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A quick rant: this is a democracy, where the majority wins. I don't really care who's in office - if they're in office because they were elected, then the Senate ought to have the right to vote for the judicial nominees appointed by the president. Period. Anything else is not democracy - it's politics and subversive. If the other side doesn't like the judges appointed, then they should vote against them and aim to win in the next election to send up the appointees they'd like to see in court. But to constantly threaten filbuster is childish. Grow up. |
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 Today, the Bush administration cleared the hurdle of the Senate for drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It barely passed - 51 to 49. Is this a good thing?
I went to the dentist today and while waiting, I picked up Outside magazine. Never read it. As I did, it reminded me of Wired in its style, but for nature lovers instead. In it, John Kerry gave it both barrels in his opposition to drilling in Alaska. His summation: We can't drill our way to energy independence. We have to invent our way there, by harnessing the entrepreneurial spirit that made our country great. We can conserve energy and make our cars run farther on a gallon of gas. We can increase our investment in clean-energy products and create hundreds of thousands of jobs along the way. What we can't do is buy into the myth that America's energy future lies under the snow of ANWR. Is he right? I didn't know, but I wanted to check out more of what the magazine had to offer when I got home.I looked it up and found Kerry's article, but also found that Outside had published several other articles on ANWR. One is by a guy named David Masiel who spent a lot of time in Alaska with oil companies and he's now a journalist and did his homework. He says something that needs to be said: Both pro- and anti-drilling camps have dug their heels into the Arctic permafrost, each side deploying an array of facts and statistics, all of them "true," and most mutually exclusive.After a journey that took me back to the Arctic for the first time in 13 years, and through dozens of interviews with policy analysts, native Alaskans, wildlife biologists, and congressional staff experts, I became convinced of only one thing: Both sides are far too entrenched to see the other side clearly. Stefanie, a couple of days ago in the comments here at beatcanvas, took me to task for not discerning propaganda. She has a good point, which David Masiel also emphasizes: in any debate, people round up the facts best suited to propel their argument, and then they push ahead with their agenda. It's tough frankly to know what's true outside of our own experience. I have to rely on intelligent and apparently even-handed articles like David's to help me steer through the marketing. You should click through the link and read the article. It's compelling and it makes sense.The industry's main argument is that oil production is dramatically cleaner than it was in what drillers like to call the "ram and cram" days. Now, drill bits as small as my fist snake their way four miles through the earth to previously inaccessible reservoirs, and isolated production "islands" make the sprawling well pads of old seem like vestiges of the Stone Age. In 1970, a 20-acre drill site could access 502 acres of subsurface area; by 2000, a six-acre site could reach more than 32,000. While industry touts this ability, watchdogs like the Wilderness Society charge that those claims are exaggerated: Extended-reach drilling isn't used as often or as effectively as oil companies would have us believe, and ice roads, lauded as the replacement for gravel infrastructure, place enormous stress on freshwater resources, something the 1002 doesn't have in abundance.I wanted to see for myself.... As so he did. The result is a good article that lands somewhere in the middle of the argument.Environmental groups point out that ANWR oil isn't going to make or break any of this—it's simply one field, a six-month supply to gas-guzzling Americans. But that assumes that ANWR oil would be the only source of energy used, a logic that, if applied elsewhere, suggests we'd burn through the Prudhoe Bay field, the largest in North America and in operation since 1977, in two and a half years. According to the United States Geological Survey, there are between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels under the 1002. At the current market price of $30 a barrel, the USGS estimates that 6.3 billion of those barrels are economically recoverable, compared with 5.6 billion in the NPRA, an area 16 times as large. That's a significant field by any reasonable measure.Drilling opponents are right about American consumption, however: Conservation could save more energy than ANWR will ever provide. We can't produce our way out of dependence on foreign oil, and a comprehensive strategy for alternatives seems necessary if not inevitable. The Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Fund, and Greenpeace all argue that conservation is the cheapest and fastest way to make up for ANWR crude, and the National Resources Defense Council points out that the hype about hydrogen cells misses the mark, since the technology already exists to make 40-mile-per-gallon SUVs. But the two easiest ways to conserve fuel are to drive smaller cars and drive them more slowly, choices that have been available to the American consumer for a long time. I'm all for conservation - it's a best practice, without a doubt. Me, I'm a contradiction: I ride my bike all over Des Moines, but I drive a Ford F-250 V-10 pickup. I know a lot of "environmentally-concerned" people who choose plastic, not paper, leave their lights on, use lots of water for their green lawn, and think recycling is too time-consuming to get disciplined about. And, of course, they drive SUV's, not a Prius.David Masiel closes with this: Compromise is never easy. And I suggest this one with a huge caveat: The public has a right to police this development. If the oil industry wants ANWR, the developers have to earn the public trust. The only way to do that is to open themselves to a new form of oversight, and not by the government. Rightly or wrongly, regulation tends to cause adversarialism—a feeling I know all too well. It leads to circumvention if not outright corruption. Substantial oversight should come from those who know the most and have the most at stake: environmental groups, scientists, and native Alaskans. He's advocating transparency. Yes, exactly. As it should be.It's tough to navigate the propaganda out there. I tire of talk radio. It's informative, but with a big skeptical ear. Newspapers, same deal, but less obvious. It was nice to read an article from someone who wanted to discover the issue for himself. |
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 Bernie Ebbers is convicted. Go to jail, scumbag. I'm very pro-business, but smarmy guys like him need to be put away.
I never thought I would say this, but thank god that Democrats equal Republicans in the Iowa Senate. They won't vote in the House-approved Iowa constitutional marriage amendment, I'm sure. It's a simple concept: government has no business in the private property or private lives of its citizens where no one is getting hurt. Grr... stupid Republicans. It's the one part of conservatism today that nauseates me. President Bush is looking better by the day in the Middle East. Check this out: Asking more people what they thought of Americans turned up the same refrain. From a young driver, Fadi Mrad, came the message: "We want to change. We need freedom. Please don't let Bush forget us." From a group of young men came not only the message "Our hope is America," and "We believe in democracy in the Middle East," but also praise for Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. There was also an invitation from one of them, young Edgard Baradhy, for his heroine, Ms. Rice, to come to Beirut "and I am ready to take her for coffee." Alan Greenspan repeats that he likes Bush's economic policy. But then, so does the economy.And now, I'm off to play some catch football with my sons. Woo hoo! |
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I've been looking at the difference between liberals and conservatives through the lens of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. And I've been wrong, I think. It's through the further consideration of this that I need to expand it. I had said before that liberals see safety and security through community. Theirs is the "It takes a village"/"safety in numbers" mindset. Safety and security are in Maslow's second tier of need. Physical needs are in Maslow's first tier. But I now believe that liberals see physical needs as a group responsibility as well. For example, they believe that the homeless deserve a home, and society could cover that expense. The unemployed should have money, and society could cover that allocation. Now, I'm asserting that Maslow's third and fourth tiers, which are "belonging" and "esteem," are represented by the concept of community. If that's correct, and if liberals really do believe that physical needs and safety and security are the responsibility of the community, then liberals have inverted Maslow's hierarchy. Liberal Tier 1: Community (first and foremost)
Liberal Tier 2: Physical needs ensured (through community)
Liberal Tier 3: Safety and security (through community) Humans are born into the first community: family. And if you look at it from this point of view, they're right. A conservative, on the other hand, will most likely agree with the original order of Maslow's Hierarchy: Tier 1: Physical needs
Tier 2: Safety and security
Tier 3: Belonging
Tier 4: Esteem
Tier 5: Self-actualization (self-satisfied achievement) And a conservative will most likely believe that these are individual responsibilities. They see it as chicken and egg. How can an individual aid society if they themselves aren't secure? But in a fascinating way, a liberal would say, "Exactly! And the community should help firm up the person so that they can get back on their feet and help others." This is where the branching starts. Children are born into community and the community around them does provide their needs, but as they grow into adulthood, their independence is expected. What happens if they run into trouble? We all do, at times. A bit of assistance is sometimes helpful to society in the long run. Letting it run on and on though is not unproductive. It may sound odd to say it, but what benefit is there in domesticating humans? I'm sure you've heard concern before that if someone takes in a wounded wild animal, they actually threaten its chances for survival in the world if it is kept and fed for too long. The animal, accustomed to fending for itself in the world, becomes "tame" because it is so cared for every day. So how can a person responsibly release it back to its natural element? Keiko, the famous orca whale, is the most notorious example of this. Is this less so with humans? Some would argue - on both sides of the political spectrum - that prolonged welfare during the 60's, 70's, and 80's hurt people and society more than it helped. Society is strongest when each individual has reached above Maslow's belonging and esteem. Community is important and needful, but it is not enough. Maslow's concept of self-actualization serves everyone best. It means reaching our individual, full potential. Strangely, some liberals despise the high achievers of life. Not all - some very entrepreneurial folk are quite liberal. A good friend on mine, with whom I had lunch today, is both a staunch Democrat and is very involved in entrepreneurial pursuits. My question, though: how does a liberal mindset advocate individual achievement and contribution to the group? What happened to "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country?" I'm not trying to disparage anyone at all in this. I'm simply trying to understand how it is that people can both believe in the concepts of safety/security and helping one another, and yet arrive at totally opposite solutions. Are both valid? Yes, but I think a very strong definition of community is necessary. I don't consider Muslim extremists to be in my community. I don't consider those who hate America to be in my community. Wish harm on our military? You're not included. Community starts with a common interest. The greater the commonality and shared goals, the more I'll trust my safety and security and even physical needs to someone - be it an individual or a nation. Some liberals, it seems, want to include all of humanity in their community. Except that some of that "community" wishes that we die. Where's the common interest? It's silly to include such people in any community. Pull it back a little further... the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese... they don't have our national interests at heart, do they? Why should we seek their advice or consent about safety and security? Why should we trust the U.N.? Why should they be included in a community? Shouldn't the goal of community be to strengthen society, its people, their livelihood, their quality of life? Is that what "belonging" and "esteem" is about? |
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A couple of days ago, I posted about Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and how that lens can help to focus on the difference between between Republicans and Democrats. My main point: Liberals give greater weight to Maslow's 3rd and 4th tiers, which are a sense of belonging and esteem from others, and they see this as important to Maslow's 2nd tier, which is Safety and Security.I summed this up as "Safety and Security in (or through) Community." Conservatives, on the other hand, see Maslow's 2nd tier as pre-emptive. First safety and security, then be concerned with a sense of belonging and esteem from others. I regarded this as "Safety and Security - then Community." You can read that post by clicking on the "View Thread" link up above.Thinking it through some more, there are two axes that brace this thinking. 1) Individual Responsibility vs. Shared, or Group, Responsibility. It's "Do It Yourself" vs. "It takes a Village." 2) Apathy about the opinions of others vs. wanting group decisions and a sense of moving ahead together. So I created a simple chart to represent these two arcs.  At times, each of us occupies a position on either axis. We can perch comfortably in any quadrant. There is a time for every position available. I mentioned the other day that acting alone for safety and security first is at times important, and that there are other times when acting in concert with others is best. But neither position is right all of the time. For example, a person could consistently give all of their money to others, and pay the most essential of their bills for themselves. That sounds wonderfully selfless, but it's well-understood that a person who saves their money can earn interest or dividends on the money saved, and thereby actually give more throughout their life because of their sturdy financial position. Safety and security through "selfishness" first - before concern about the opinions of others. There is a time to think first by yourself, and a time to think as a group. If a neighborhood in plagued by a redundant burglar, the people are best served by acting together and watching each other's homes rather than just watching their own. Safety and security through community is stronger for the numbers. After drawing up my little chart, I then went to each quadrant and thought about it. Here's what I got:  True? From this, what makes for the best society?
Where would America sit on this chart?
Where would you sit on this chart in your political and personal values? I'll close this post with something Joseph Tainter said in his book, "The Collapse of Complex Societies." He found that, in studying the collapse of many societies, the return on investment for greater complexity yielded diminishing results. In his conclusion, he said: There are two general factors that combine to make a society vulnerable to collapse.First, stress and perturbation are a constant feature of any complex society. Yet a society experiencing declining returns is investing ever more heavily in a strategy that is yielding proportionately less. Excess productive capacity will at some point be used up, and accumulated surpluses allocated to current major operating needs. There is, then, little or no surplus with which to counter major adversities. Unexpected stress surges must be dealt with out of the current operating budget, often ineffectually, and always to the detriment of the system as a whole. Even if the stress is successfully met, the society is weakened in the process, and made even more vulnerable to the next crisis. Secondly, declining marginal returns make complexity a less attractive problem-solving strategy. Where marginal returns decline, the advantages to complexity become ultimately no greater (for society as a whole) than for less costly social forms. The marginal cost of evolution to a higher level of complexity, or of remaining at the present level, is high compared with the alternative of disintegration. Under such conditions, the option to decompose (that is, to sever the ties that link localized groups to a regional entity) becomes more attractive to certain components of a complex society. Many of the social units that comprise a complex society perceive increased advantage to a strategy of independence, and begin to pursue their own immediate goals rather than the long-term goals of the hierarchy. Behavioral interdependence gives way to behavioral independence, requiring the hierarchy to allocate still more of a shrinking resource base to legitimization and/or control. In short, efforts in constantly increasing the complexity of a society are ultimately doomed to fail, as history shows. Unchecked investment in complexity actually invites the breakdown of society because of the lousy return on ever-escalating cost. Finally, the people get fed up with it. In the past, this was achieved by bloody revolution or by the state's waning power and relevance.The one mechanism though that could change this is: democracy. Thoughts on that will be my next segment in this series. |
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During the election campaign, I noticed that Kerry's supporters tended to be very vocally grass-roots, whereas Bush's supporters, while likewise eager for their guy, were less likely to do such things as protest or gather into larger groups. I'm making a generalization, and I could be wrong, but in my opinion, it's a tendency of Democrats to swarm together to accomplish a cause. Republicans tend to be less grouped about it. Within their own circles, they link arms. But I think Republicans as a group are less likely to be as obvious. In support of my argument, look at how it was the conventional wisdom that a larger turnout in the election would favor Kerry. Democrats find safety in numbers. They are concerned about the world's opinion of the US, where Republicans are more concerned about the our basic needs of safety and security - and screw the world's opinion if they don't like how the US secures itself. At the root, I believe that Democrats and Republicans believe pretty much the same things. You'd be hard-pressed to find a Kerry supporter, for example, who believes that the US should not secure and defend itself. Most do. Likewise, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a Bush supporter who doesn't want to help those down on their luck, if they can help. Homeland security is not the sole territory of Republicans, and compassion and willingness to help others are not exclusively the hallmark of Democrats. (In fact, red states donate more money to charity than blue states, relative to income, but I suspect in part this is due to religious beliefs.) An OODA loop is a mechanism developed by a fella named Boyd to describe how we make decisions. Essentially, we bring in information, we filter it according to our experiences, we then process it and act. OODA = Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. Keep that in mind as I move forward... Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who developed a well-known pyramid called the "hierarchy of needs." Maslow's premise was that we first concern ourselves with providing for for our basic needs - food, water, shelter - before we move on to satisfy other needs - love, relationships, personal growth, etc. Here is the order of his hierarchy: 1) Physiological: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc.
2) Safety/security: out of danger
3) Belonging and Love: affiliate with others, be accepted
4) Esteem: to achieve, be competent, gain approval and recognition
5) Self-actualization, or realizing one's full potential Whether you lean left or right, all of these are necessary and healthy to who you are. I read somewhere recently that the difference between a liberal and a conservative is the perception of the relationship between the individual and the state. Liberals see an important and close-knit relationship between the individual and the state, where conservatives regard such a relationship with less esteem. If you relate that concept back to Maslow's hierarchy, the difference between a Republican and a Democrat is that a Democrat is more likely to view the 3rd and 4th tiers in a broader perspective. Academic recognition, civil involvement, international acceptance... these are, in general, more esteemed by liberals than conservatives. Why? To a firm Democrat, Maslow's 3rd and 4th tiers of acceptance and approval and community are integral to Maslow's 2nd tier of safety and security. Hence, "it takes a village." This is why Bush's foreign policy scares Democrats - it doesn't really care what the world thinks. "Safety and security in community." To a firm Republican, Maslow's 2nd tier is separate from and a precursor to the 3rd and 4th tier. Strong military, 2nd Amendment rights... rugged individualism doesn't really trust others to provide safety and security. This is why Kerry's foreign policy scared conservatives - the UN is the last institution they trust. "Safety and security - then community." Who's right? Actually, both, and I think timing is the key. The OODA concept dictates that our experiences will orient us in problem-solving. I'm going to think through some scenarios and present them later... At the moment, I find all of this fascinating to consider. |
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Bella commented earlier that my choice of images to represent Right-Wingers and Left-Wingers was offensive. The images were in my links list in the left-side column. Other than the proverbial donkey and elephant, what images can you select for these two polar extremes? Right-Wingers are often labeled as "jingoistic" and as people "wrapped in the America flag." Coming from left wing folks, these aren't intended to be compliments. Left-Wingers, on the other hand, are often seen as protesting and flag-burning, so to go with an obvious polarization, my image for the Right-Wingers was a flag waving, and for the Left-Wingers it was a flag burning. As I posted them, I thought it was a bit over the top, but I posted it to see if anyone responded. Bella did, and took me to task for it, and rightly so (or is it leftly so??). So for now, I've changed the images. You can scroll down to view the change. But these images are only good for the next four years, and Bella, who heralds from Iowa, is certainly pained to be portrayed as a red stater, I'm sure. The change is temporary until I can be more brilliant or be supplied with better iconic image ideas from my readers. |
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