And now, some politics

I really need to get in the habit of blogging Facebook threads quickly. These days I'm not posting much here on Kazim's Korner, but I am having the occasional heated discussion on Facebook. Unfortunately, Facebook posts are not searchable in any graceful way, which means that they become effectively impossible to find after a month or two has elapsed. These discussions are exactly the sorts of things I enjoy coming back and reading again a few years later, so I'm synthesizing the discussion from the one I just linked so I can have a record of it.

For starters, I recommend this article.

Liberals pride themselves on being tolerant. Are they really just suckers?

Good article. Hits many of the points that I like to highlight in my typical political posts. As I've said before, I am often frustrated by the fact that liberals (and, to a lesser extent, many atheists) are so married to the idea that they must be "reasonable" that they tend to try to compromise as quickly as possible. In falling all over themselves to give ground in every argument, they crippling their ability to negotiate effectively.

I often tell this joke about the kids haggling over a cake (see the post linked in the previous paragraph) to highlight a truism: if one side starts out taking at an extreme position, and the other side reasonably starts in the middle, then the extremist will usually be happier in the end. That's because if you start from the middle and then negotiate a "middle ground" between those positions, that ground must be much closer to the extremist's position than it is to the the reasonable person's position. Therefore, I would like people who agree with me to start out saying what they really want, and then fight to reach a compromise which is as close as possible to what they wanted all along.

Here's my party affiliation in a nutshell. I am a liberal because I believe two things. First, people should have the right to do pretty much whatever they want with their private lives that doesn't hurt others. Second, it is a demonstrable historic good to have a social infrastructure that provides education, roads, a social safety net, and pooled resources for scientific research, among other things.

When I look at the Democratic Party Platform, I agree with most of it. When I look at the Republican Party Platform, I disagree with most of it. Hence I am a Democrat. I do not start from the position "I am a Democrat" and then reason out my positions based on asking "What would my party do?" I am a Democrat because with any given issue I care about, I find that the Republican party nearly always lands on the wrong side of my beliefs.

I tend to get into political arguments with three kinds of people:

1. People who agree with Republicans on social issues (i.e., religious intrusion in government, abortion, gay rights, war on drugs).
2. People who agree with Republicans on economic issues (often libertarians, generally encompassing shrinking or eliminating social safety net programs, cutting spending on education and national infrastructure, replacing our existing tax structure with something far more punishing to people lower on the income totem pole).
3. People who do not appear to have any significant political principles, but are opposed in general to supporting any political party, in order to be contrarian.

I very rarely get into arguments with people who agree with Republicans on both social and economic issues, except in artificial situations such as taking calls on The Atheist Experience. This is simply because there is so little common ground between us that there is little to be gained from such a discussion. They are plentiful out there in the world, but they're a very small part of the universe of people I'd typically spend time with.

As a result, when I argue politics with somebody, it's nearly always someone who falls into one of the above three categories. It follows that those people are neither Republicans nor Democrats. Category 3 is, by definition, unaffiliated. Categories 1 and 2 can be shown not to belong to either party, because if they were Democrats they'd likely agree with me on both social and economic issues, and if they were Republicans they'd likely disagree with me on both social and economic issues. QED.

Contrariwise, if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.

To my friends who substantially disagree with me on economic or social issues, and cannot find a party to call home, all I can say is: You and I have fundamental disagreements on the best way to run a country, and I will never persuade you to vote for candidates that I would like. As the Republican party doesn't suit your needs either, all I can do is wish you luck in finding a candidate who matches your interests, although when you find such a candidate I will most likely vote against him.

But also, every time I do a political post, I can count on a number of people showing up from the third category. They seem to agree with me on what policies are desirable, but argue that the party platforms are trivial and irrelevant. Examples from the thread:

So is it worth associating yourself with the right or left? or any political parties in particular? I mean some Democrats have good ideas and not so good ideas. Some Republicans the same way. It really depends on the times you live in. To me it always seemed foolish to tout party lines or vice versa label (project your ideas) on someone who naively associates themselves with a political party.

And:

Both parties are crap. The only difference is that one is a pile of lying crap that wants to take away your right to abort a fetus, while the other doesn't.

The impending demise of reproductive rights

Let me get specific about what prompted that last qualifier. Pro-choice is one of my issues. As I recently discussed on the Non-Prophets, there has been a recent rush of state laws which deliberately violate Roe v Wade. This article by Dahlia Lithwick documents that:

Since the start of this year, 916 measures seeking to regulate reproductive health have been introduced in 49 states. According to the Guttmacher Institute, by the end of March, 15 laws had been enacted in seven states. These laws include an expansion of the waiting period in South Dakota from 24 to 72 hours and a requirement that counseling from "crisis pregnancy centers" include scientifically flawed data on risk factors. There are new regulations in Utah and Virginia governing abortion clinics. Legislation has been introduced in 13 states requiring that women have an ultrasound procedure before having an abortion—and in seven of those states, the woman must view the fetus and listen to a detailed verbal description as well. Measures have been introduced in 17 states copying a Nebraska law banning abortion at 20 weeks, on the theory—again based on questionable medical data—that this is when a fetus can feel pain.

As a result, abortion is rapidly becoming effectively illegal in many parts of the country right now, even though these statutes are deliberately running afoul of established supreme court rulings.

You would think that pro-choice groups like the National Organization for Women would be challenging these laws left and right, and you'd ordinarily be right, except for one tiny little snag:

The risk of challenging these clearly unconstitutional laws and then losing at the Supreme Court is evidently so high, according to Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, that it's not worth taking. As she explained last week to Rachel Maddow, the fear that Justice Samuel Alito would vote to overturn Roe is so deep that reproductive rights groups may be opting to leave the state bans in place. And, as she conceded in that interview, wherever unconstitutional state abortion bans go unchallenged, they become law.

In 2004, Bush beat Kerry and won a second term. As a direct result, Bush was able to replace two liberal-to-moderate Supreme Court justices with Alito and Roberts. They are now the swing votes that could strike down Roe if a case ever came before them that gave them the opportunity to reopen it. Therefore, pro-choice groups are afraid to challenge these state laws. However, if they don't challenge them, then the laws stand, causing abortion to become completely inaccessible to many women.

I draw a clear, direct line between the victory of one political party and the massive curtailing of women's freedom. If you don't think that is a bad thing, if you disagree with me on this issue, that's fine; you are in category 1, and this doesn't apply to you. But if you are not in category 1, if you are bothered by this curtailing of these rights, then you should not see the differences between the parties as trivial on this particular issue.

The ACLU and you

Another example. Most liberals are with the American Civil Liberties Union on most issues that I know of. They're the ones who focus on separation of church and state issues, free speech rights, allowing accused criminals due process of law, and so on.

Every year, the ACLU puts out a position paper indicating which issues they care about. In addition, they examine which politicians voted the way that they would like on key policy proposals, and give a rating.

This is the ratings list for 2008, which I think is fairly typical.

Read that list and you'll see an obvious trend. Among 390 total House members, Senators, Governors, and executives, on issues that the ACLU cares about, 105 of them were on record as voting with them 100% of the time.

Those 105 were all Democrats. Every single one. No exceptions.

On those same issues, 160 politicians were shown to vote with the ACLU 33% of the time or less.

All 160 of them are Republicans. No exceptions. Count em.

If you have serious disagreements with my desired political outcomes, I'm not talking to you. You're right, the Democratic party does not represent you. Yes, yes, Obama hates your freedoms, everything Congressional Democrats do is a secret Muslim Communist Satanist plot, etc. Vote for someone else, or protest and don't vote.

But if you want the outcomes that I want, you can't continue claiming that the difference between the parties doesn't exist. It is objectively false.

Do Democrats, as a broad group, suck at politics? Yep, they do. Do they act like pussies when it comes to defeating a bunch of loud, angry bullies? Repeatedly. Is it desirable, in the long term, to eliminate blue dog Democrats and bring in more liberals with spine like Bernie Sanders and Anthony Weiner? Hells yeah. And are there some Democrats who are genuinely more conservative than some Republicans? On an individual basis, there are a few.

Looking at the big picture as a purely statistical issue, though, party affiliation does provide a good indication of which side of the issues they are on, and it's clearly disingenuous to say they are the same. You can't teach statesmen the lesson that they aren't fighting hard enough for what you want, if your method is to sit by allowing the people to win who are actively fighting against what you want.

Unilateral executive power? Don't ask, they won't tell

'Kay, something political is bugging me, it's too long to encapsulate in a brief Facebook update, and this blog has been fallow (in favor of TAE blog and dropping my opinion on Facebook comments occasionally). Clearly this is the place to air this issue.

Last week Rachel Maddow did an interview with Walter Dellinger, a law professor and former solicitor general under President Clinton, to discuss the Obama administration's position on Don't Ask Don't Tell. First, she played a clip of this exchange:

Q I voted for you in the last elections based on your alleged commitment to equality for all Americans, gay and straight, and I wanted to know where you stood on “don’t ask, don’t tell.” I know that you’ve mentioned that you want the Senate to repeal it before you do it yourself. My question is you as the President can sort of have an executive order that ends it once and for all, as Harry -- as Truman did for the integration of the military in ‘48. So I wonder why don’t you do that if this is a policy that you’re committed to ending.

THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I haven’t “mentioned” that I’m against “don’t ask, don’t ask” -- I have said very clearly, including in a State of the Union address, that I’m against “don’t ask, don’t tell” and that we’re going to end this policy. That’s point number one.

Point number two, the difference between my position right now and Harry Truman’s was that Congress explicitly passed a law that took away the power of the executive branch to end this policy unilaterally. So this is not a situation in which with a stroke of a pen I can simply end the policy.

Here are the facts about what's happening with DADT right now, as far as I understand them.

1. Obama says he really wants to end the policy.
2. Most Americans agree with him. Polls show a 59% opinion that gays and lesbians should be allowed to openly serve in the military.
3. A clear majority of Congress supports it. A bill was introduced in the Senate that received 56 Yea votes, 43 Nay votes. Naturally, the Republicans filibustered it.
4. Without directly eliminating it, Obama could still order that enforcement of DADT be suspended. He has declined to do so.
   
5. On September 9 (my birthday, in a meaningless aside), a federal court ruled that DADT was unconstitutional and should stop being enforced.
6. The Obama justice department decided to appeal the ruling.

And that last one right there is the part where I say "WTF?!?!?" Because if
- the public wants to repeal DADT, but can't, because they don't have direct power, and
- the president wants to repeal DADT, but can't, because he can't override Congress, and
- Congress wants to repeal DADT, but can't, because a minority is using legal maneuvering to prevent all legislation of any kind, to the best of their abilities

...Then this court order would seem to be the last piece of the puzzle. Here is a perfectly good opportunity to take direct legal action to end the policy that just about everyone wants ended. Doesn't even require any action. Just do nothing. Court ruling stands.

So as I understand matters now from Walter Dellinger, Obama doesn't want to use overtly political tactics to end the policy when he feels that the proper course is to have Congress overturn the law.

As everyone who follows politics at all knows, that isn't going to happen. Democrats right now have the largest majority in the Senate that either party has had since 1981 (see chart) and they couldn't get it done, because Congressional Republicans have engaged in more filibusters than in any other session in US history (as measured by number of cloture votes, see chart). If the Democrats retain control of the Senate at all, it will certainly be a reduced majority. (Electoral-vote.com right now forecasts it at 51-48 Democrats with one tossup.)

So I can't imagine what Obama is thinking will change, when he says "But this is not a question of whether the policy will end. This policy will end, and it will end on my watch. But I do have an obligation to make sure that I am following some of the rules." As long as he leaves it in the hands of Congress and doesn't exercise any of his other legal options, it will most assuredly not end on his watch.

But where Dellinger's take on this gets especially weird is when he explains that the president must not refuse to appeal the ruling, because he wouldn't want to set a dangerous precedent. Imagine it's three years down the road, Dellinger says, with a Republican president in the White House. The president wants to overturn the national health care plan, but can't, for similar reasons. So instead, he finds a single federal judge to declare it unconstitutional, and then he... simply declines to overturn the ruling. Boom, unilateral power to do anything.

I don't actually know the answer to this conundrum -- does the president actually have this power of overturning things based on non-appeal or doesn't he? If he doesn't, then this is all a moot point, but he's doing a terrible job of explaining why it is legally impossible for him to not appeal.

But if he does have this power, well -- it's nice that he's taking the high road and all, but let's be serious. Do you think this hypothetical president will decline to use it? I mean seriously, let's follow through on Dellinger's scenario.

February 2013

Secretary of the Treasury Christine O'Donnell: "Madame President, a federal judge in Kentucky has just ruled that the national health care program is unconstitutional."

President Sarah Palin: "Hey, great news! Let's shut it down right now."

O'Donnell: "Wait, not so fast. Back in 2010, Barack Obama had a similar opportunity to overturn Don't Ask Don't Tell, and he didn't take it. Maybe we should reconsider."

Palin: (blink. blink. blink.)

O'Donnell: (giggles)

(They both laugh uproariously for two minutes straight)

Palin: (wiping her eyes) "Hoo boy, you had me going for a minute there, you betcha."

As I keep saying, the Democrats' constant refusal to win with the tools available to them does not make them smart or principled. It makes them scrubs in the game of politics.

So will somebody please explain to me what the hell Obama is thinking? Does he actually believe Congress will pull through, or is he just doing a dance to avoid responsibility for not repealing the policy? Are federal judges the arbiters of what is deemed constitutional, or aren't they?

Bob Corker challenges Chris Dodd to single combat

I was struggling to remember what this reminds me of:

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said he will release his version of legislation to overhaul financial rules, signaling that talks on a compromise with Republican Bob Corker have collapsed.

...

“I have been fortunate to have a strong partner in Senator Corker and my new proposal will reflect his input and the good work done by many of our colleagues,” Dodd said. “Our talks will continue and it is still our hope to come to agreement on a strong bill all of the Senate can be proud to support.”

...and I finally put my finger on it.

The Democrats have a lead in the House of Representatives of 253 to 178. To put it another way, there are nearly three Democrats for every two Republicans. By historical standards it is a fairly large numerical lead, greater than any advantage Republicans ever had while Clinton and Bush were presidents. And yet to Dems like Dodd, being "bipartisan" means one Democrat negotiating with one Republican.

What it reminds me of: In George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire book series (coming soon as an adaptation on HBO!!) many characters frequently challenge one another to single combat. This actually has a historical basis: sometimes during a war, the outcome would be determined by each side selecting a champion and letting them fight one other to the death. In some cases, the armies would agree to abide by the resolution of the fight, and the side with the losing champion would simply forfeit the battle.

There is a scene I love early in the third book, A Storm of Swords. Jaime Lannister, a prominent sometimes-villain of the series, is being pursued in a boat by agents of the enemy Tully family, who intend to catch him and bring him to justice. With capture imminent by a small squad of Tully warriors, Jaime taunts the captain, asking if he is brave enough to face him in single combat. Unsurprisingly, the captain shouts back words to the effect that he isn't that gullible, and he elects to keep his forty or so soldiers in the fight against three people.

Chris Dodd is that gullible.