and we disagree on gay rights apparently

Image courtesy of the Economist

Interesting poll was released today saying that American majority opposes gay marriage but support equal rights civil-unions. In addition, overwhelming majority supports openly serving gays in the military and allowing gay couples to adopt children.

It's interesting to think that the idea/word of "marriage" is so strong that the many people who oppose it are willing to give gay couples all the legal advantages but not the name.

and there's lots to disagree about this week

This week marks the 100th day of the Obama Presidency, and both critics and supporters are seizing the moment to open up with all the ammunition they have. Tonight's post press conference analysis is sure to be a doozy.

But let's leave that alone for now. Instead, there have been other events that are really tugging at the heart of our politics and policy in the US.


First, Arlen Specter, long time Republic Senator in Pennsylvania, defected from the GOP to the Democratic party. It was a stunning announcement that caught both parties by surprise, and left the GOP reeling and well, somewhat pissed.

Senator Specter, in his announcement, essentially said that the GOP had moved too far right since he had been elected in the Reagan years and that he found his views more in line with Democratic party today. He, however, did promise that he would not be a party stooge and vowed to keep his "independent" record alive.

Undoubtedly, Senator Specter, by his own admission, is doing this partly out of survival reasons because he would have faced a tough Republican challenger in his primary in the upcoming election (this is what you get for voting for a bailout). However, he's also right in pointing out that 200,000 of his constituents have switched party affiliations from GOP to Democrat in 2008 alone. He has made a legitimate, if somewhat convenient, argument that his constituents no longer want him to be a GOP senator.

Nonetheless, the GOP didn't waste any time and went to town on Mr. Specter. The Michael Steele, the RNC chair, is responded, "[Specter] left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record.”

Really? Left-wing voting record? Come on Michael Steel. The man has been a GOP senator since you were a small child. You can disagree with Specter's voting record all you want, but he was a foundation for your party since before you entered politics. This labeling of Specter as "left-wing" is ridiculous by any objective standard (Specter voted for the Iraq war, conservative Supreme Court justices, anti-union, etc.). You can at best call him a centrist or at center-right.

As Mike Grunwald of the Time pointed out," The GOP is shrinking — down to 20% of the country, in a new New York Times poll — and its holdouts are increasingly hard-core. They don't like government. They do like Rush Limbaugh. They care more about the purity of their principles than the size of their tent."

Congratulations GOP leadership. Instead of actually trying to engage anyone on issues (which most people can agree would be a nice intellectual activity at the very least), you've brought your party to the brink of collapse.


The torture/interrogation argument reached its peak (I think). I don't have too much to add to this topic because 1) I don't work for the CIA Clandestine Service branch or hold any top security clearances and 2) I have no perspective on what it is like to deal with members of Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

Nonetheless, the facts are pretty clear. The United States intelligence organizations have tortured/interrogated many suspects over the last few years using techniques that would make Jack Bauer pretty happy. No one in the public will really never know whether the information gained from these techniques were crucial in stopping future attacks or that alternative interrogation techniques could have paid off equally, so a ends based critique is somewhat futile.

Now, I fully understand that the saying reasonable people can disagree about torture sounds barbaric, but I think clearly that has been proven true. While the humanist/liberal in me may to say that torture should not be condoned, there are plenty of people who accept a "realist" frame of national security and international politics who say that torture must be a necessary aspect of defending our country sometimes. Those arguments are not without merit.

So what is a President to do? Not much unfortunately. I think President Obama managed to piss EVERYONE off with his actions on the torture memos, but maybe that was the point.

As Paul Krugman of the NYTimes points out, "The president’s decision to expose but not prosecute those responsible for this policy is surely unsatisfying; some of this abuse involved sheer brutality that had nothing to do with clear and present dangers. Then why justify the Obama compromise? Two reasons: the first is that because justice taken to its logical end here would likely require bringing George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and other senior officials to trial, which would rip our country apart; and the other is that Al Qaeda truly was a unique enemy, and the post-9/11 era a deeply confounding war in a variety of ways."


Car companies are still dying. There's no other way to put this. GM is still being restructured, the Pontiac brand is no more, and Chrysler isn't doing any better.

Undoubtedly people have lots of opinions on whether we should save the US auto industry. On one hand, they're a lot more people friendly (all those hard working auto-workers after all) than banks (damn MIT kids screwing things up), but on the other hand, there seems to be very little point in propping up a company that no longer makes things that apparently people don't want anymore.

In this somewhat Pro-Bama piece, the NY Times seems to indicate that our President is willing to let these companies go bankrupt. This will undoubtedly piss off a significant portion of his constituents, but only time will tell if this is the right choice.

Anyways, this argument has been done to death already, so I'll leave it to the economists and business analysts to go to town.

But are people are becoming less reasonable?

Last week's Economist has a column on how polarizing our politics have become. The last paragraph is particularly interesting:

A majority of Republicans (56%) approved of Jimmy Carter’s job performance in late March 1977. A majority of Democrats (55%) approved of Richard Nixon’s job performance at a comparable point in his first term.

He compares this to Obama's current approval rating amongst Republicans which is a shockingly low 22%.

There are a lot of explanations for this change in political attitudes over the last few decades. Lexington seems to blame the rise of political media celebrities (Huffington, Rush, Beck, etc.) as well as the news cycle, but I'm not convinced it's entirely to blame. Either way, this column paints a pretty dark picture for reasonable American politics.

What do you think are the causes of this polarization? How should it be stopped? Should it be stopped?

On Immigration

Our President has decided to open up another political battlefront, as the NY Times reports today.

Obviously being from a family of immigrants, I've always slanted heavily towards pro-immigration, and I was particularly pissed when the Democratic leadership put in the inane H1-B visa limit in the the bailout laws.

Still, I'm hoping progress will be made.

Where do you all stand?

On Gun Control

Yesterday, a man in Western New York walked into an immigration assistance center with two handguns and proceeded to kill 13 people and himself in what is somewhat sadly becoming a trend in large scale shootings (NY Times article here).

This blog was created to discuss issues as they came up in the media, and unfortunately, gun violence is the first impetus for this blog. The tragic event yesterday in New York will undoubtedly open up the issue of gun control once more.

Gun violence is usually an emotional topic to talk about. It is sudden, it is dramatic, and it is always devastating to the people involved. On the other hand, there are many people who believe that owning a weapon for self defense, pleasure, or sport is a fundamental right given to us (in the United States, sorry Europeans).

So what do we do about gun violence? Now I frame gun control in terms of gun violence because that is ultimately what gun control debate revolves around.

I believe (although I may be wrong) that even the most ardent gun control advocates know that even an absolute ban on firearms (as in shred the Second Amendment) would not fix all the gun violence problems we have. The supply is simply too large in the United States and well entrenched. Furthermore, people willing to commit a crime are rarely deterred by the law. A few weeks ago, a German high schooler bypassed Germany's very strict gun control laws and killed 17 students in another brutal rampage. Clearly, complete bans on gun control is an unreasonable demand and a burden to the vast majority of law abiding citizenry that use guns.

On the other hand, 2nd Amendment advocates on the far right believe that pretty much every firearm should be available to a private citizen since that is their perceived right. As much as I enjoy target shooting every time I go home, it's tough to find a legitimate reason to allow someone to own a .50 caliber Barrett Rifle. Yet every time I go down to my local firing range back home, the employees there will swear that being unable to own one of those weapons is the most unjust aspect of their lives.

Clearly, there will never be a perfect answer. This country has wrestled with these issues for decades now, and there will always be more tragedies and crime to add to the debate. The real question, as always, is where is the common ground, and how can we frame this discussion so that it leads to appropriate solutions.

What do you think?

Update: As I wrote this, Philadelphia local news was covering a reported police shooting. They just confirmed that two officers were shot and killed and a third wounded in what started out as a domestic disturbance call.

On Capitalism

Welcome to the relaunch of my blog and thank you to a certain libertarian professor's catch phrase for giving me a much better idea for this blog. This first topic is a tribute to Miron.

This week the G20 is meeting to discuss the world's economic crisis and potential international solutions. As always, a group of colorfully dressed and delightfully naive/moronic people descended onto the city and tried to overthrow the "unfair" system that has led the world into such dire straits (mind you they do this every year even if we're in an upswing).

Capitalism is always a fun subject to talk about because people have completely different reactions to it depending on their experiences, wealth, education, political beliefs, and more. It is a concept that is either worshiped or reviled.

I think very few people would say that capitalism/free market always leads to perfect solutions. There are winner, losers, externalities, imperfect information, and a whole host of other issues that can lead to outcomes that few people are unhappy with. The real question is there anything better?

Time and time ago, the answer seems to be for the most part no. Free markets have existed since the concept of trade entered human society thousands of years ago, and efforts to create socialism have ended in either surrender or total collapse (China vs. North Korea). Trying to destroy free markets is like trying to destroy human nature.

So by all means, let's discuss how markets should be regulated, how governments should intervene, and how business should be operated. There are reasonable discussions to be had about how to best help developing nations, drug policies, and patents. These are reasonable questions that there is plenty of room for debate on.

Idiots dressed up as stormtroopers and throwing rocks at the police are not helpful. On the other hand, neither is Rush Limbaugh screaming from his radio pulpit that this country is heading towards a socialist dictatorship and that we need to restore true capitalism. This doesn't help anybody.

So let's have some reasonable discussion, figure out what works pretty well, and move along with our lives without worrying about if our world's economic system is the Ultimate Evil (spoiler alert: it's not).

Enjoy this treat as well!