The biggest problem in Oregon right now is school funding. Fully half of all our taxes go towards it, and people have had enough, while schools are struggling. I believe there is a solution, though it probably won't be popular, and it's pretty radical. This is a first draft of my proposed solution...
Principles:
1. In this day and age, kids are *not* necessities. We can't just suddenly stop having
them without disastrous consequences, but in general, we've got way too many people on
this planet as it is and there's no requirement from a "survival" perspective to keep
having as many as we do. I don't have anything against kids, I love *other people's*
kids ;-) but I raise this as a lead in to the next point:
2. When parents *do* choose to have kids, it is their responsibility to raise them, and that
includes educating them. Yes, it is in society's best interest to see that they are well
educated, for a number of reasons, but it is still the parent's responsibility to see that
that happens. Society's role is simply to assist where reasonably possible.
3. Competition is good. Let the best survive and the weak die off. This is the way things
work regardless of what people want to believe, the only thing that changes is what the
competition is over: if you change the rules to eliminate overt competition for something
that is a scarce resource, then the competition becomes who can best game the system. So
let's bring it back out in the open where we can make sure it's a fair playing field.
4. People's incomes tend to rise over time.
The Proposal Itself:
My proposal is a simple one: extend student loans down to cover the entirety of education.
All the way to birth. Eliminate state funding of education entirely, and limit the state's
role to setting minimum standards which accredited schools must meet. Society's financial
contribution, though taxes, is to cover the interest on the loans and the ones which eventually
are determined to be uncollectable.
The loans would be prorated according to need, stopping entirely at the point where a family's
income can afford, without hardship, to pay for the average educational cost of 1 child. This
allows people to pay for their child's education early in life, when people tend to have children,
and pay for that education later when they are generally better able to afford it. Those who
are most successful at raising their children may even have those children voluntarily pay off
their own educational debt.
The first two years are critical in parenting, so I would start with what would amount to a
negative income tax, but as a loan: enough for room, board, necessities and some incidentals.
This is the portion I believe most susceptible to abuse, both monetarily and of the child, and
would require the most oversight.
From two years until first grade, the loans would cover the cost of day care, so that the
parents can work to support their family.
From kindergarten through junior high, the loans would cover the cost of education at the
school of the parent's choice where the child is admitted. Schools could never use economic
criteria for acceptance, and could not use academic criteria for acceptance through the 6th
grade, but could give preference to those residing closer to the school. Other criteria would
have to be fair and non-discriminatory.
From high school through the first PhD, the school would be the choice of the child.
Yes, this is basically an extended form of school vouchers. The biggest complaint people
usually have over vouchers is over religious schools, but that is really a bogus argument,
and actually argues for the vouchers: the separation of church and state is there to prevent
the state from imposing a religion on people. It is *not* there to prevent the state from
having any involvement at all with religious institutions: as long as all are treated equally,
and there is no requirement for *or against* a religion, the goal is met.
The corollary argument is that people are subsidizing for a religion they don't believe in.
Although in standard school vounchers that is partially true, the fact is that everyone will
have a problem with *something* their taxes are used for. That's the price of living communally.
And because these are loans, it isn't really true here. Virtually all student loans are in the
form of loans from private institutions, where they are guaranteed by the state and the insterest
is paid by the state. So there is only the most tenuous connection, and it upholds the highest
ideal upon which this country was founded: personal freedom.
How to get there? Obviously this could not be done instantaneously. Public schools need to be
given the opportunity and resources to compete. To that end, I would restrict the school choice
aspect until the 3rd year of the program. The loans could only be applied to your local public
school for the first two years. This would give them two years and the resources they need to
get turned around (if need be) and acclimated to the new environment. Perhaps as much as 5 years,
but no more.
The biggest risk I see with this program is that people may end up not being able to pay off the
loans and the cost to the taxpayer even higher than it is now. But if that's the case, that
would mean that education itself is not a success, and if *that's* the case, we would have to
ask ourselves "why bother?" I do not believe that however, and I think our kids are worth taking
a chance on to solve this problem once and for all.
Today, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in "Gonzales v. Raich", namely, ruling that the "commerce clause" of the Constitution (which states that the Congress can regulate interstate commerce) allows the US Congress to pass laws regarding entirely intrastate activities if they may affect interstate commerce. In this specific case, Congress has the authority to ban state approved medical marijuana. While I support medical marijuana, and in fact repealing most drug bans, what is most frightening in this case is actually the 60 year old case which was the primary influence of this decision: Wickard v. Filburn (1942).
In that case, Congress put into place limits on how much wheat people could grow in a misguided attempt to stablize the market. The farmer in question planted more than his alotment for his personal use. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court ruled that because if enough people grew their own grain, it would impact the interstate market, Congress had the authority to regulate it.
Talk about an activist court! 60 years ago they put "what if everyone did it?" into law! With that sort of precedent, there is absolutely no limit on what Congress can do. And yet, the Radical Right is going to be trumpeting this as a victory for their puritanical moralism, blind to the glaring hypocrisy of their complaints about judicial activism. The Constitution says Congress has the authority to regulate interstate commerce. It does not say that they have the authority to take draconian steps to make sure that any particular commerce has the ability to be regulated. The 1942 decision basically said that "if everyone grows their own wheat, there won't be an interstate market, so we can limit that activity to make sure there is one".
And we wonder why we've lost the self reliance we once had.
Not that I actually think that the Wickard decision had a significant impact on people wanting to grow their own wheat, but it was a big step in turning a limited federal government into the huge, dictatorial, nanny state that we have today.
In this case, what opponents are really afraid of is that if people in California, Oregon and the other states that have legalized it, get away with it and show that it's not the boogy man the Puritans want us to believe it is, all the other states will do it too.
The one "legitimate" concern the feds have is that they'll have a hard time telling where any given marijuana came from when it crosses the border, but given the way marijuana farms are hidden now, I can't believe it'll really be any harder. In fact, with modern technology, both the chemical and biological properties can be matched to its source, and if anyone really is diverting it from an openly grown source, it's not going to be hard to find it.
I"ve said it before and I'll say it again: this country has to decide if it really wants to be free or not. Well, not really: people can keep ignoring the issue as they do now, and let the chains grow shorter and shorter, until suddenly the chains stop *them* from doing the things *they* want to, and wonder how we got to that state. This decision is a roadmap.
I did just make it to Senater Morse's Town Hall on Civil Unions tonight. It was an overflow crowd that appeared to me to be about 2/3 in favor and 1/3 opposed. Here are my responses to a few of the points raised in opposition:
Choice or Biology:
It doesn't matter one iota whether it's choice or not. The fact is that people are highly variable: for some it is a "choice", in that they are attracted to both sexes. For many, it's not, but in any case, if you are in a relationship now, or have been, did you *choose* who you fell in love with, or were even just attracted to? For most people, something just clicked and that was it. But if you believe in Freedom, it doesn't matter.
Love:
Someone actually had the audacity to claim that same-sex love wasn't real love. I have no clue what they think real love is, but I'm glad I'm not that narrow minded. Regardless though, does anyone really want anyone else trying to tell them whether or not they're really in love? Much less the *government*?
What's best for the children:
Despite much evidence to the contrary, many still believe that a traditional "nuclear" family is better than a family with same-sex parents. Never the less, those families *do* exist. Their solution is to make life even *harder* for these families? There is very broken logic here. And if they want to get into having government enforce who makes good parents or not, well, that is an extremely frightening path indeed, and least of all for gay and lesbian parents.
Freedom and tolerance:
Obviously, the limit of freedom is when you start to interfere with someone else's freedom. Without isolating yourself entirely, that "interference" cannot include mere exposure to differences. One of the most common objections I've heard when this subject comes up is "if we allow that, then we have to allow pedophilia etc". Are people *really* that clueless about what Freedom really means? Actually, in this case, I have to believe it's willful ignorance, but I'll dress it anyhow: pedophilia and the other strawmen raised are obviously a violation of the child's freedom (or someone else's if not pedophilia), and are not valid exercises of freedom.
I don't want my children exposed to that:
There are a lot of things many parents try to shield their children from. Doing so usually has the opposite of the intended effect (there's nothing more desirable than the forbidden fruit), though I've never understood the desire to shield children from love. The fact is though is that it's the perfect opportunity to teach your children your values. They're going to grow up in a diverse world unless we end up with a very draconian future. The sooner you start teaching them to deal with it, the longer you'll have to work with them imparting your values. Obviously, I hope you teach them to be loving and accepting, but even if not, the point is still valid.
Rights vs Responsibility:
Someone mentioned that everyone wants rights, but no one wants responsibility. All to true, but then why is he arguing against civil unions, in which the rights *do* come with attached responsibility?
Reverse Discrimination and Hate:
Someone commented that they feel discriminated against because of their conservative values. I'm sorry to hear that, but "welcome to the club". The way to fight that is not to try to keep others from being treated equally, but the reverse: work for true equality and freedom. The reason that you feel hated is because the most visible people with your values have done their damndest to oppress everyone who disagrees with them. I grew up mildly religious, and even briefly felt strongly religious. I know that the vast majority of religious people are really nice, well meaning people.
But the more and more I see of what religious values mean in practice, their actual effect on the world as driven by the most vocal followers: the narrow mindedness, the psychological damage done to people, the violence it incites --- the more I realize that I couldn't have come up with a more effective tool of the devil than organized religion. It teaches people to be sheep and follow others because they say so or someone once said so, rather than to think about it and follow the teachings because they're *right*. I'm sorry, but we've learned how to cook pork and shellfish in the intervening millenia, and we've realized that women can make a valuable contribution to the world besides increasing the population. At least many of us have.
That said, I practice what *I* preach: if you want to grow a long beard and not eat pork, if your wife wants to be the obedient, subserviant, servant of the house, you should no more be discriminated against than should a same-sex couple or a Morman clan. If you want a public religious display, make sure that *all* religions (and the anti-religious) have the right to put up displays as well. If you want to pray in public places, make sure that those who want to may make the prayers of their own choosing, that it is not disruptive or imposed on those who don't want to do it at all.
In short, practice freedom and equality, and *everyone* wins.
State Senator Frank Morse held a Town Hall in Albany tonight (May 31, 2005) on the issue of Civil Unions. He's sponsoring HB1000 (a combined civil union/non-discrimination bill that was too much and is basically dead) and HB1073 (just the civil union part stripped out, as it actually has a chance of passing). This is a revised version of what I had posted here on May 26 and planned to say (all I actually had the time to do was ask if we really believed in Freedom and Equality or not?). It's what I wish I'd had prepared and been able to say there (some of it is actually a response to what was said, but most of that is in the next blog entry):
I feel like I've awoken and the country has turned into a theocracy. Actually, I've been feeling the trend that direction for sometime, but the strength of the religious discussion tonight absolutely frightens me. I beg people to look at the Middle East, or even Ireland, and ask, "is this *really* the direction I want this country to go?"
More fundamentally, does this country, and particularly, our state, believe in freedom and equality or not? Unfortunately, it's becoming all too clear that the answer is NOT.
For me, marriage is an expression of love and commitment, and while I honestly believe that most of the opponents of gay marriage don't believe this, the effect of what they're saying to us is that marriage is an elitist expression of bigotry: "I got mine and you can't have it! Nyah nyah nyah!". One women even got up and although I can't remember the exact words, said something to the effect of "if we give you equal rights, everyone will want them". I couldn't believe my ears.
There were people that even had the audacity to claim that civil unions were special rights. I have a hard time believing that people are really so clueless as to believe that making a group of people second class citizens is "special rights". Expletive Deleted.
The fact is, for most of the opponents, marriage is a religious institution, which brings up two points:
1. It has no business in government at all. The "special rights" people are right about one thing: the civil union bill *should* be inclusive, and should *replace* the legal aspects of marriage for *all* relationships who want to commit to mutual love and support of one another.
2. If their goal is to block gay marriage, they've already lost that battle: there are a number of churches that will happily marry same-sex couples. The battle now is over the civil union part, not the marriage part.
What government's legitimate role in this area is, for practical purposes, is as arbiter: relationships are a common thing for people to get into, with a number of legal ramifications. And, unfortunately, for people to undo, often acrimoniously. For those reasons, it's reasonable to define a standard set of rights and responsibilities for people who want to commit to supporting one another, whoever they may be, subject to modification with the mutual agreement of all concerned.
This is, in essence, what a civil union is. It's not very romantic definition, but it's not government's place to put the romance in a relationship --- that's up to the people involved in the relationship. Government's place is to make sure that all people are treated fairly and equally. And if Oregon's not going to do it, we just as well scrap Article I, Section 20 of our Constitution:
No law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens privileges, or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.
This is not promoting anything. It's simply dealing with the basic and common legal issues surrounding families.
I want to return for a moment to the beginning, and the concept of freedom: the freedom to be or do only what others approve of is no freedom at all. If I'm only allowed to do what you or anyone else approve of, there is no freedom, no matter how long the leash may be: it's still a leash. Freedom only has meaning if you are willing to allow people to do things you disapprove of. Then we truly have freedom.
Hillary Clinton is starting her run with one of those fund raising gimmicks that pretends to care about what people think. Well, while she likely won't read it, maybe someone else will, so here's my thoughts on her "2005 Critical National Issues Survey":
Of course, in the spirit of the survey, if anyone wants to donate to my cause, they're welcome to ;-)
Part 1: Ranking the Issues
1. Please rank the following issues in their order of importance to you by placing a number in each box:
4 Economy/Jobs
5 Environment
7 Social Security/Medicare
6 Education
9 Homeland Security
8 Health Care
3 Tax Cuts
2 Reproductive Rights
1 Separation of Church and State
(Note: she didn't specify whether 1 was high or low, so I assigned it high)
2. How concerned are you that President Bush is not doing enough to get Americans back to work, create more jobs, and get the economy moving again?
_ Very concerned _ Somewhat concerned X Unconcerned
Too much interference will just muck things up --- politicians, short of causing problems, really have little influence on the economy. The latest downturn, for example, was caused almost exclusively by the high-tech hyper-boom's bubble bursting, and it simply takes a while to reabsorb the after effects. We are recovering nicely however.
3. How concerned are you that the massive budget deficits caused by Republican economic and tax policies will inevitably result in drastic cuts in Social Security, Medicare and social services?
_ Very concerned X Somewhat concerned _ Unconcerned
While some safety net needs to be provided, government is spending way too much already. If you took everything being spent on these programs and divvied it up amongst the people they're supposed to be helping, it would probably do far more good with a much more direct impact.
4. How concerned are you that Administration proposals for Homeland Security underfund critically important first responders, such as firefighters, police officers, and local health agencies?
_ Very concerned _ Somewhat concerned X Unconcerned
Just where do these people think the money comes from in the first place? Local agencies like that should be funded locally. It makes no sense for people in New York to pay for Portland police and vica versa, with DC taking a cut off the top.
5. How concerned are you about ongoing Republican proposals to privatize Social Security by investing some of it in the stock market and putting the retirement of millions of Americans at risk?
_ Very concerned X Somewhat concerned _ Unconcerned
Talk about a biased question (of course they all are)... People should be able to control their own money, though there does need to be some restrictions to make sure that there actually is something there down the road. But in any case, we need to get the Social Security slush fund out of the federal budget so spendthrift administrations can hide their atrocities in it.
6. How concerned are you that the Bush Administration continues to weaken environmental laws designed to protect our air, water, and wilderness areas?
X Very concerned _ Somewhat concerned _ Unconcerned
But not to the point of turning *everything* into a wilderness area!
7. How concerned are you that social conservatives who now control the Republican Party will ultimately deny women their reproductive rights by stacking the Supreme Court and overturning Roe v. Wade?
X Very concerned _ Somewhat concerned _ Unconcerned
8. How concerned are you that our children will continue to lose teachers and classrooms because of the Bush Administration's failure to adequately fund public education?
_ Very concerned _ Somewhat concerned _ Unconcerned
These people act like the federal government is this big pot of gold that money magically comes from. Like other local services, they should be funded locally. It's just plain stupid to send money somewhere just so they can take a cut and send what's left back. The problem is that education is expensive, and people aren't willing to accept the fact that having a child incurs a responsibility to properly raise them, *including* giving them an education. As someone with no children, I'm happy to help out, but I pay enough in education taxes to pay for the entire education of 1 child. That's a hell of a lot more than just "helping out". The parents need to start anteing up the difference.
9. How concerned are you that the Administration's unilateral policies have reduced our number of allies and endangered our national security?
X Very concerned _ Somewhat concerned _ Unconcerned
This is Bush's single biggest strike against him: he's completely discredited *everything* the US used to stand for. "Truth, Justice and the American Way of Life" are completely meaningless now. For that alone, I'd not only impeach him, I'd charge him with treason.
10. How concerned are you that George W. Bush could shape the fate of the Supreme Court for decades to come?
X Very concerned _ Somewhat concerned _ Unconcerned
The radical right claims they want to put in non-activist judges that will take the Constitution literally, but at every turn, they thumb their nose at the very foundations of the Constitution. They seem to have no concept of what Freedom and Equality actually mean.
Part II: Rating the Political Parties
1. Which of the two political parties do you trust the most to protect the Social Security and Medicare benefits?
_ Democrat _ Republican
Part of the problem is this notion that there *are* only two parties. I trust neither: Democrats won't be happy until we have a 90% tax rate, and Republicans won't be happy until there is no Social Security or Medicare at all.
2. Which of the two political parties do you trust the most to protect the environment from those who would harm it for profit?
_ Democrat _ Republican
Neither: Democrats want everything to be wilderness, and Republicans want to pave it.
3. Which of the two political parties do you trust the most to get our economy moving again and to put Americans back to work?
_ Democrat _ Republican
Neither: see my earlier comment on the economy and politicians.
4. Which of the two political parties do you trust the most to protect the reproductive rights of American women?
X Democrat _ Republican
One lone spot where one actually has a supportable position.
5. Which of the two political parties do you trust the most when it comes to the education of our children?
_ Democrat _ Republican
Neither: Democrats want to turn them all into socialists and Republicans don't want them educated at all.
Part III: Expressing Opinions
1. How do you feel about President Bush's decision to deny federal funding to international family planning organizations that provide reproductive health counseling to poor women in underdeveloped countries?
_ Agree X Disagree _ Undecided
The last thing those people need is more kids. If the religious radicals think every life is so precious, let *them* go feed and raise them. Though that would probably result in another army of hypocrits who think killing is wrong, unless you're killing someone who disagrees with you.
2. Which is more important to you, more tax cuts or a balanced budget?
_ Tax cuts X A balanced budget
We *should* have both, but if they're going to spend it, pay for it, don't pass the problem on to our kids.
3. How important is it to you for Congress to find more money to extend health care to low-income Americans who can't afford health insurance?
_ Very important _ Somewhat important X Not important
People should get some basic level of care, but we can't give everyone all the most expensive treatments. There has to be a feedback mechanism so that people have the incentive to make reasonable cost/benefit decisions. We shouldn't have to be spending as much as we are on this now.
On the way home from paying some of Gilliam County's taxes, I was thinking about the problem of high speed limits and people who don't feel comfortable driving that fast feeling forced to. Also, encouraging fuel conservation is a good thing. What I came up with is the following:
1. Go back to the Basic Speed Rule and set the "max" speed at the maximum a reasonably competent driver in a typical modern car can drive safely on the road, as determined by driving professionals.
2. Set an "Energy Conservation" speed at 75% of the Max speed.
3. As with the old Basic Speed law, exceeding the max speed is "prima facie" evidence of driving unsafely, and gets you a pretty stiff ticket. Except if you have been driving for at least 10 years, and have had no accidents, your fault or not, in the last 10 years. That is "prima facie" evidence that you are a good, defensive, driver whose judgement can be relied on to determine when it's safe to drive fast and when it's not.
4. To better manage the speed differences that will occur, if you're outside a large city (I think they're using 50,000 for the speed limit raising under consideration), you cannot use the leftmost lane if you're driving less than half the difference between the EC and the MX speeds. For example, if the EC speed is 60mph and the MX is 80mph (a reasonable setting for the freeways), you can't use the left lane unless you're going at least 70. You would be allowed to use it to pass, as long as you are passing the traffic on the right at a speed at least 5mph faster than they are going --- you can't go over there and sit claiming you're "passing" them.
5. If you're in an accident, you lose speeding priviledges, and if you caused it, it's an automatic Reckless Driving charge, and you are limited to the EC speed for the next 5 years. A second accident in those 5 years and your license is suspended for 5 years from the time of the second accident.
6. Drunk driving would carry 5 year suspension on first offense, and permanent suspension on second. I'm not sure just what state a given blood alcohol content maps too, but at a certain point (.2? .15?) where you're obviously drunk with significant motor impairment, it would also carry an attempted manslaughter charge.
Anyhow, that's how I would reform driving laws if I had any say in it...
Thinking about all the fooforah over Terry Schiavo, and I just can't imagine what her parents and their supporters are thinking.
In the case where there's no one home, they're squandering a huge amount of resources that could be used to actually help someone who's still around.
In the case where there is someone there, I can't think of a worse torture than being locked in a body with no way to interact with anyone or anything. I would go stark raving mad within a month. It would be like being buried alive. Anyone who kept me alive under those circumstances is my enemy, not my friend.
No matter how you cut it, it's doing no one any favors except the self delusional, the ones who love publicity and the politicians grandstanding over it. And if their constituents have any sense, it'll be their last grandstand...
I really don't see what all the fooforah is over the 10 Commandments, it's really quite simple: just setup a public area where any legitimate religious group (yeah, that'll be a fun one to define, but a simple definition would be any group with IRS church status) can put up a display. The government or any one working in or holding office is not allowed to put up anything religious, but the religious groups can as long as they're all treated equally. An atheistic group should be able to put up a display too, and no one would be allowed to attack or put down anyone else, only displays that represent and/or explain their beliefs.
...but I guess that's why I'm a system administrator and not Tim Hibbetts (KATU political analyst/pollster). I may be ashamed of Oregonians, but I'm actually afraid for the future of this country now. It's not just Bush II; if it were just about his obsession with finishing the job daddy didn't, no matter how screwed up a mess he made of it, we could probably recover from that. If it were just a couple of Bible Belt states writing religious bigotry into their constitutions, well, no one really expects different of them --- there've always been other places people could go where people still believed in freedom. If the police state mentality was reversed before it became entrenched in the system, we would remember this time as an aberration of the time as we do the McCarthy era.
But the sum total of everything means that everything that America stands for is being destroyed. We may be the most free nation on the planet, but every day, that says less and less, and I suspect in my lifetime, it will no longer be true. And with no other power to challenge us, to keep us from going too far, that is frightening indeed.
I'm going to go out on a limb --- I've only seen one very preliminary set of exit poll results with only a few states, and that doesn't quite hold this up, but since this is my last chance to say anything before it's hindsight, I'll say what I've been thinking for a while: it's going to be a close popular vote, but it's going to be a Kerry landslide electorally. I think when people actually stop to put down the vote that matters and think about it, many realize just how dangerous it is to leave Bush in office. Kerry has his problems, and I don't want him to be any more than a one term president himself, but we *have* to get the fascist theocrats *out* of the whitehouse while we still have a democracy. And I think enough people will realize that to make the difference. I've not heard so many people talking about moving to Canada "if" since the Vietnam war and the draft...
The very name "Homeland Security" brings up images of Orwell and Hitler in my mind. Unfortunately, it turns out those images aren't very far off base: we've moved farther into a police state with the un-Patriot-ic Act than I ever thought possible before 9/11. Unfortunately, it was pretty much exactly what I predicted would happen right after it.
On March 1, the Oregonian complains that "all Congress seems prepared
to do is protect gun dealers". Like it or not, gun manufacturers are
facing an imminent threat that Congress does need to deal with: the
same lottery-seeking lawsuit mania that recently ran roughshod over the
tobacco industry. While the tobacco industry may have tried to hide the
dangers of smoking, it's absolutely ludicrous to believe that smokers
didn't realize the danger. I've been listening to warnings about it
for my entire 45 years! And now that the anti-tobacco crowd was successful
there, those opposed to guns want to extort the gun industry in the same
way.
Gun manufacturers are not even trying to hide the dangers of guns. They are simply making a legal product that people legitimately want to buy. It's the owners responsibility to make sure they handle them properly. Gun manufacturers should no more be sued because a gun was mishandled and someone got shot than a car maker should be sued because a driver stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal and ran over someone.
Clearly, this is merely stopgap --- our country desparately needs some
sanity brought back to the lawsuit industry so that the only people who need to fear lawsuits are those who actually cause damage, not those with deep
pockets who happen to be nearby. Unfortunately, this specific threat is imminent and needs attention now.
Irresponsible gun dealers may be a problem that needs dealt with, but
making it open season for anyone who wants to lash out at everyone in
the vicinity is not the right answer. Even in the case of the DC snipers,
Bull's Eye didn't shoot anyone, the snipers did. If they hadn't gotten
the gun from there, the snipers would have gotten one somewhere else.
While Bull's Eye doesn't appear to be a sterling example of a dealer,
they aren't responsible for the sniper attacks and should be answerable
to the ATF, not lottery-seekers.
In the same editorial, the Oregonian wants to "renew the assault weapons
ban, which has been the law for 10 years." And in that 10 years, it has
done not a thing to reduce crime. They claim the "guns that have no
sporting use will again be widely available in this country". I'm sorry,
but anything that can be used with varying skill levels has a sporting
use, and in any case, the 2nd amendment isn't about either "sporting"
or hunting. These weapons aren't even used very often in crimes.
Gun control isn't about public safety, it's about nipping at the edges
to take away yet another freedom in the name of easy "feel good" politics
instead of dealing with the real issues.
Education is an issue that polarizes me internally; it's no wonder it's a hot issue everywhere. On the one hand, a good education is probably the most important thing that children can be given. It benefits them, and it benefits everyone else. On the other hand, it is the parent's responsibility to provide that education! Having a child carries a huge burden of responsibility, and making sure that child is educated is only one aspect of that. Unfortunately, people have gotten into the mindset that because they can have children, it is their right to have children, and if they can't properly raise them, then it's up to the rest of society to do it for them. And we accept this blackmail because that's really what it is: if we don't see that the kids are educated, they become criminals because they are given no other options. Areas with poor schools deteriorate in a downward spiral unless a lot of work is put in to fix the problems. Without a sense that the future holds some value for them, kids have no motivation.
The solution to the problem is not to keep pushing it up the food chain, where more and more of the money goes to bureaucracy instead of education. The solution is to pull it back down to the parents, so they control the education their children are getting.
I'm willing to help contribute to education because it is good for all, and because some poor parents do make good parents (though only the people who actually know the parents themselves can make that call, and really they're the ones who should be contributing if they think the parents are good ones). But still, I don't mind contributing some. Right now, however, fully 50% of my non-federal taxes are going to education. Last year, the education taxes I paid covered the entire cost of an entire child's education, and I have no children. That is an outrage.
It's no wonder people are rebelling over the cost when I no longer own my house --- I have to pay rent to the state (and the rent on my middle of the road house would cover the rent on a low end apartment!) to be allowed to stay in it, and half of that is for education.
Clearly, reform is needed.
In the case of Home Schooling, some might argue that it's another way to scam the system, but as long as the kids are meeting the standards, I don't see it that way. These days, most families have both parents working to make ends meet, and if this allows a parent to stay home and do a better job of raising their kids, that sounds like a win. Note that I only support voucher payments to families below a certain income level. I expect families that can afford to educate their kids to do so and not feed off the public trough. When they send their kids to public school today, that is exactly what I think they're doing, save perhaps the first one that their taxes are paying for.
As for Religious Schools, people claim "separation of church and state!" They clearly don't understand the meaning of that: it's to keep the state from promoting one religion over another. If the parent is making the decision of what school to send the kids to, then the state can hardly be promoting a religion. I'm no fan of religion, but if we truly want separation of church and state, then the state has to stay out of it entirely: not only what religion, but if religion at all as well.
I don't understand the people who think it's somehow inhumane --- locking someone up in a cage for the rest of their lives isn't? Why should the rest of us pay to support someone who's shown a total disregard for the lives of others (or else they wouldn't be on death row in the first place)? There are those who probably support the notion of letting them suffer living in a cage for the rest of their lives as just punishment, but I would expect that the longer they're in, the farther up the food chain they move, probably inflicting their anti-social attitudes on others who will get out, and then be more likely to commit a violent crime in the future (whether or not that's why they were in in the first place). I have no data to back that up, it's just a gut feeling.
The bottom line is this: if you're such a danger that you can't be let back out into society ever again, then I see absolutely no reason to waste time and money caging you to make sure society is safe when we can eliminate the problem quickly and simply.
Next on the list is an item that is currently hot as the Republicans are trying to use it to divide the country and split the homophobic Democrats from voting with their party. The specific issues in the quiz are:
On the other hand, there is a legitimate interest in defining the rights and responsibilities of families: who has the authority to make decisions for the other members who may not be either present or competent at the time to make them? There are also inheritance and visitation and a plethora of other issues: one report says there are over 1000 references to "marriage" or "married couples" in the federal statutes.
What the government does not have a legitimate interest in is defining what a family is. That is, and should be, left entirely up to the people forming it. And yes, that goes beyond just same sex coupling to include polyamory.
Remember that this country was founded in order to escape religious persecution, and yet at every turn, it seems like someone is trying (and all too often succeeding) to institute it in one form or another. The attempt to prevent homosexuals from enjoying their full civil rights is just the latest in a long list of religious persecutions.
The military is wasting millions of dollars tossing out good men and women providing a valuable service to their country, and for no better reason that base prejudice. As citizens of a supposedly free country, we should be apalled, and as taxpayers, we should be outraged.
Gun control means using both hands! ;-)
People always seem to like to attack the surface of problems, and rarely the actuall root cause. As many places are finding now, gun control does absolutely nothing to reduce crime, and in fact, find it's getting worse. Washington DC has the strictest controls in the country, and it's got the highest murder rate in the country.
They also like to say "you don't need those kind of guns for hunting." Well, I've got news for people: the right to keep and bear arms was not put into the Constitution to allow hunting!
When citizens fear their government you have tyranny. When government fears its citizens you have freedom. ~Thomas Jefferson
The founding fathers understood that the first thing you do to oppress a populace is take away any means they have to fight back.
With that said, regarding the issues in the quiz at hand:
All that said, I don't think it's a necessary requirement, just a good idea.
This country was created in order to get away from government controlled religion, and it's appalling that many seem to want to put it back. Everywhere you look around the world, countries are being torn apart by exactly this issue. What are people thinking?
The first category they have listed is Abortion, with these positions:
A website by Time/AOL asks your positions on a number of issues and your rough weighting, and then tells you which presidential candidates match up to you. Seems like a good starting place to start my own party and platform: I'll call it the Freedom Party, and go down the list of issues explaining my position, For What It's Worth ;-)
February 8, 2004
Dear Senator Frist:
I'm reading your speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on January 23, 2004, and feel that you are completely missing the intentions of the founding fathers.
They didn't write the definition of "family" into the Constitution because the government has no business defining what a family is. They *came* to the new world to get *away* from religious persecution, and they're probably rolling in their graves knowing that it's rearing its ugly head yet again.
You are welcome to define a religious marriage however you see fit. Many religions agree with you and will only marry a man and a woman. Others believe that a family is defined by those who commit to loving and supporting each other, and will marry those willing to do so. That religious freedom already exists and will not change unless you complete the job of destroying the Constitution that you are threatening to embark on the start of.
What *is* at issue are the legal rights of citizens. You claim to reject hatred and intolerance, and yet that is at the very center of this debate. What can be more hateful than denying the right of one spouse to visit another in the hospital, or to be told that they do not have the right to make key medical decisions for an incapacitated spouse. Or for a hateful family to take away shared possessions adding to the grief of the loss of a spouse. *These* issues are at the center of the legal marriage debate, and there is nothing more hateful than trying to deny these rights to loving committed partners.
Finally, I would point out that freedom only has meaning if you apply it to things you don't approve of: the freedom for me to be or do only what you approve of is no freedom at all.
The question is: will the America of the future be a *free* country, or will it be a theocratic tyranny of the sort that drove our forefathers to this country in the first place, and that is now, and has been for centuries, tearing apart the Middle East?
You are one of the people who will be making that decision for us.
Finally, a US court has figured out what the definition of "equal" means! Or at least come closer to it. This really is good news, and I'm especially heartened to hear Nightline say that while 55% of Americans oppose gay marriage, only 20% think it's worth creating a constitutional amendment over it. I do hope that Massachusetts is a turning point, but it's probably going to take a while to realize that having a gay couple marry will have no impact on their own marriage.
I still really don't get why anyone cares though. Are 55% of Americans really so full of hate that they really want to make it that much more difficult for people who love each other be recognized as a family? It's really ironic that here in Portland this weekend, an apparently gay man (the news reports usually include interviews with his male "partner"), was removed from life support at his mother's request, over the wishes of both his sister and his partner, and apparently his own wishes. While I personally agree with the decision of the mother, the fact is that if they could have gotten married, it would have been the partner's decision. Justice was NOT served in this case. And over the years, there have been far worse injustices committed, simply because people seem to believe that hateful blood relatives have more rights than the people you actually care about, when you don't care about the people they think you should.
In all fairness, I think that most of the 55% who oppose gay marriage aren't really thinking about the consequences. They take their rights and priviledges for granted because that's just the way it's always been. And, as in the case above, their thoughtlessness and ignorance is killing people.
These stupid lawsuits that blame the companies for the actions of individuals are blights on the legal system --- they're one small step up from the ambulance chasers seeking deep pockets to win the lottery. It made no sense to sue tobacco companies (I remember hearing about tobacco and cancer when I was a kid in the 60's! The claim that "the smokers didn't know" is BS), and it makes even less sense for the gun industry, where safety is a common issue.
If you want to sue the parents who don't lock up their guns or teach their kids how to handle them, fine, but it's not the gunmaker's fault that the parents didn't do their job and it's certainly not the gunmaker's fault when outlaws misuse guns they probably stole in the first place.
Newsweek has an article about a family fighting over whether a woman should be allowed to die or not. It's a shame the case has gotten muddled with money at stake, because it's clear that keeping her alive is nothing more than torture for everyone involved. While precautions need to be in place to prevent abuse, if I'm ever in an incapacitated state with little hope of recovery, I don't just want the feeding tube removed, I want to be "put to sleep". It's a waste of time and money to do anything else, and helps no one, least of all me.
I'm reading this morning that the uber conservatives are going to make gay marriage a major issue in the upcoming presidential elections, and they consider it even more important than abortion. Excuse me? They consider two people who love each other and want to commit their lives together worse than what they consider to be murder? These people are just fucking sick. Pardon my French.
I simply cannot understand these people (and I use the term loosely). The position they hold is nothing more than blind raw hatred of people that are different and/or disagree with them and they seem to be willing to stop at nothing to cause as much pain and hurt as they can. If they were really worried about the institution of marriage, they'd be looking a little closer to home: the October 20, 2003 Business Week has a cover story about how something like half of all couples in the US are unmarried. Of course, a straight couple usually doesn't have to worry about whether or not they'll be allowed to visit their partner in the hospital, or make medical decisions, or be treated as a legal guardian of their children.
Meanwhile these same people are probably quite happy that Bush is busily making the rest of the world mad at the US while putting the country in the poorhouse with debt and attacking liberty and freedom as fast as he thinks he can get away with it.
I really want to be proud to be an American, but it's getting more and more embarrassing by the day.
One would like to think that Portland is one of the more "enlightened" areas of the country, and that we're open to diversity and tolerate differences. And it's true, I don't think Matthew Shephard would have been killed for being gay here, but there are still people around here who are intolerant bigots. I was reminded of that just today: I was on my way home and noticed a dark green smallish SUV (something like a Suzuki Sidekick) tailgating me. Not too unusual, but when they got an opportunity to pass me, they did, and it looked like the passenger mouthed "Fag" at me. I wrote it off as an overactive imagination, but as they pulled off the exit ahead (the same one I was taking), it looked like they were making hand gestures at me. With the dark "privacy" glass that you can't seem to avoid these days, I couldn't tell for sure. Finally, since I wasn't reacting, the driver stuck his hand out the window and very clearly raised his middle finger high. I was tempted to follow them (they turned right from the exit, and I was going left --- hmmm, amusing, though I didn't think of the association at the time ;-) ), but had better things to do than counter-harass idiots.
And that's not the only instance: a couple weeks ago, a message was left on my phone, which unfortunately got accidentally erased before I could digitize it, that while garbled, sounded like some sort of anti-gay nonsense. And a couple of times in the four years I've been here, my rainbow and stars flag has grown legs and wandered off to neighorhood bushes a couple blocks away.
These are all admittedly minor and childish offenses, and in fact, in the case of the flag wandering strongly suspect a teenager across the street, but nevertheless, it's clear that some who probably consider themselves proud patriotic Americans clearly have no clue what the concept of Freedom actually means. I would hate to think that by bullying the rest of the world, as we're doing with respect to the Iraq issue, we're showing what America really stands for, but maybe it actually is.
That's not the America that I was taught I lived in though.
I've got a cold. No big deal, annoying, but it's even a mild one. I run out of Comtrex, my preferred cold pill, and fall back on Drixoral, my preferred allergy pill. I even run out of Nyquil, which helps me sleep better when I have a cold. So, I break down and go to the grocery store to restock. A couple Comtrex, one even has a "free sample" of some other sort of stuff, a couple Drixorals and a couple Nyquils. Normally, I like to have two, so that when one runs out I've got a backup until I can get more (obviously I didn't get back to the store soon enough last time).
I get up to the checkstand and make sure I'm getting paper bags so stuff doesn't fall out as soon as you set them down and start to point out that I'd gotten the last of a couple of things I had in the cart when I was interrupted: the cash register had decided I was a drug manufacturer. No shit: right there on the screen it said "Restricted access; exceeded DEA limit" or something close to that. It specifically mentioned the DEA. It seems that you are only allowed to buy 3 cold remedies at a time now, because they contain stuff meth labs use to make drugs. Also under scrutiny, and presumably under limits are Drano, some chimney cleaner, kitty litter and ice (actually, they didn't think ice was restricted, but apparently it's used in the process too). Even more, Sudafed is now required to be locked up and can't be out in the aisles.
Where is the insanity going to end?
We're not allowed to have anything remotely sharp on airplanes, we're not allowed to have our medicine to deal with colds, we have to wear seat belts even if they are likely to do more harm than good (on some people, like my mother). I've got a message to the government: get the fuck out of my life. Stop trying to protect people from themselves. Freedom means the freedom to do stupid things. It's their choice. If you want to fry your brains on drugs, fine. If I want to gamble that I won't be in an accident, or that if I am, I'll be better off without a seat belt, that's my choice. If insurance companies think otherwise, let them cut your medical coverage if you're in an accident and found to have not been wearing your seatbelt. And use some common sense in terrorist defenses: a fork or a pocket knife is no more of a threat to a plane full of passengers than a trained fighter with his bare hands is.
If we're not careful, we'll have to ask a bureaucrat for permission to leave the house.
This is NOT the America I grew up in. Get it back now before it's too late.
This is probably not too interesting to anyone, but I thought I'd just put down some notes about my experience going to a "Town Hall" meeting tonight...
I just got back from a Town Hall my state representative (Brad Avakian) held in Beaverton. I've never really gone to anything like that before, just a topical meeting on telecommunications back when the Internet started opening up that Ron Wyden held. That kinda left a bad taste because he didn't seem like he really wanted input.
I've been sending email to Rep. Avakian, and unlike most email I send representatives, he actually responds. I don't really blame the Federal level reps --- they must get tons of it, but still, it's nice to actually get feedback, even if he doesn't agree with what I'm suggesting.
As would be expected, the budget was a big portion of the discussion, including his feeling that we could make small cuts in tax credits ("expenditures") and make up the budget shortfall at least for the short term while a lot of philosophical wrangling goes on to try to solve the problem long term. Seems reasonable to me...
PERS also came up, and I think he's right about one thing there too: the negotiators screwed up big time in the contracts they made, but they are contracts, and the state has to live by them. They only last until the next negotiation, and then things can be fixed. Even the unions don't want the state to go bankrupt. The other thing, and people really should be evaluating their reps on this one and kicking some butts out, was that previous "short term" fixes involved raiding the PERS fund when things were going good and it could have been raking in the bucks along with everyone else. Borrowing against funds like that is snake oil and always has been. Though as I think about it, Brad wants to do that with some departmental reserves as well as reducing the tax credits. On the other hand, the departmental reserves are not investment funds, and this *is* a rainy day --- the economy tanking is a large part of the problem we're having even with the other problems.
A little bit went on about Mental Health issues, and how way back when Damasch was closed, the patients were supposed to go to transition housing that the legislature dropped the ball on (another thing people should be double checking their reps on!). Somewhere in here, a discussion broke out on the fundamental problem being Big Government vs Small Government, and one lady asked how the Small Government people could justify their position regarding people like the mentally ill who need drugs to maintain, and usually can't afford them. The answer was basically Small Government people feel that charities should pick up the slack.
I finally piped up and asked about the per-capita amounts and why there's such a crisis when the number seem in the middle of the private school figures, actually higher when some federal dollars are added in. The response was basically that the school boards are the ones that are supposed to be doing the micromanaging, which is a good point.
One of the more fiscally conservative attendees made a comment comparing private schools with public schools that was, shall we say, short on tact regarding public schools and for a bit, I thought violence might ensue, but the situation was defused and shortly after the meeting ended.
I waited in line to say hi to Rep. Avakian, since we'd exchanged some email, and the lady asking about how Small Government people justified their position came up to the guy next to me who'd indicated from his comments that he was in the Libertarian camp. It turned out he really is Libertarian, and did a good job of explaining the Libertarian viewpoint that they are compassionate, but they don't think it's the role of government to take care of people. People are of the mindset that the government will fix everything. If they know that's not the case, they'll take more responsibility for their actions. But people are still responsible to their community, and they'll take care of the people within those communities, giving his church as an example.
After she left, I talked to him a bit about my feeling that a lot of Libertarians are anarchists, which has kept me from joining the party myself. His position was that they aren't true Libertarians, and we talked about the positions a bit and voting systems (which I talk about in a previous entry here).
By then, the line had finally diminished and I said hi, and he thanked me for coming and encouraged me to come to more, being surprised I'd never been to such a thing before. As political as I am, I guess I'm surprised too ;-) I have wanted to before, but the timing was always off, and I can usually express myself better in email where I have time to think about what I'm saying anyhow. Still, being there in person probably makes more of an impression, and I'll try to be more active this way in the future.
I should get more involved with the school board as well; I have stayed out of it because without kids, I don't have much to say really, but on the other hand, if they're going to hold me responsible for paying for their kids education, then I'm going to have some say in how my money is being spent.
Today, the Supreme Court handed down Lawrence vs Texas, a decision finally overturning Bowers vs Hardwick and making sodomy laws regarding consenting adults invalid.
Basically, the majority opinion says that the Due Process clause of the 14th amendment ("nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;") has been interpreted to mean "right to life, liberty and property", and "liberty" includes consensual sex.
Justice O'Conner has a partially concurring opinion that basically says that's wrong, and Bowers should not be reversed, but because Texas discriminates against homosexuals, it violates the "equal protection of the laws" that comes right after the due process clause and the Texas law alone should be struck down.
Scalia dissents, essentially arguing that the laws come under "rational basis" scrutiny, that there is a legitimate state interest in legislating morality, and thus these laws are not unconstitutional --- undesirable maybe, not not unconstitutional. He then takes the court to task for creating a new right when it should be left to the legislative bodies to decide when society is ready to accept a change in the moral code and lists some things that this ruling will allow under similar arguments, namely gay marriage.
He also dissents with Justice O'Connor, arguing that because the law bans both male-male and female-female sexual acts, it does not violate the equal protection clause.
My Opinion
----------
Well, I hope he's right about what this ruling allows --- most of the things he lists as being allowed by these arguments are things that *should* be allowed, and in fact, I would argue that in a truly free society, the moral code *cannot* be legislated. Further, for the vast majority of people, the moral code is based on religious principles, and so legislating the moral code violates the separation of church and state.
As for the opinions, first off: Scalia is laughably wrong about the equal protection clause. He essentially says that because Gay men and Lesbians are treated the same, there's no problem, but he's left out 90% of the population in his comparison. He argues that its only the specific acts that are banned, but the equal protection clause applies to people, and that means gay men, Lesbians and straight couples. Clearly, in Texas, gay men and Lesbians are *not* treated the same as straight couples. And yes, the same argument applies to marriage. Scalia himself makes many of the arguments on that that the gay community has for years.
While I am glad that sodomy laws have been struct down, I do think it's unfortunate that it was done in the way it was. I do agree with Scalia that the court is twisting the constitution to rationalize their decision, because the "due process" clause merely says you have to follow the rules, whatever they are when you limit someone's freedom. A lot more has been read into that than should be, I think. In fact, in Bowers, they warned about exactly that:
Nor are we inclined to take a more expansive view of our authority to discover new fundamental rights imbedded in the Due Process Clause. The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution. That this is so was painfully demonstrated by the face-off between the Executive and the Court in the 1930's, which resulted in the repudiation [478 U.S. 186, 195] of much of the substantive gloss that the Court had placed on the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments
The fact is, this country was founded on the principle that:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The founding fathers put the rights they were fighting for into the constitution, and specifically in the Bill of Rights, including freedom of religion, but noted in the 9th amendment that it was not a complete catalog of them.
The very first thing in the Bill of Rights, is this:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
I think a key point here is that this implies freedom *from* religion as well --- that's rather the point of the "separation of church and state" interpretation as well. If you codify one or more religion's morality into law, you've effectively state sanctioned those religions over the rest. Given that most opposition to homosexuality is taken from a religious perspective, I think the 1rst Amendment should be the primary weapon against anti-gay laws.
But more generally, this country seems to have a serious case of hypocrisy when it comes to freedom: most people seem to want the freedom to do what they want, *including* telling other people what they can do. These people completely don't get the entire concept of freedom. The freedom to be and do only what other people approve of is *NOT* freedom.
Put another way, freedom has absolutely no meaning unless you apply it to something you don't approve of.
This means that if someone has the authority to say two men can't marry, they are not free.
If someone has the authority to say a man can't marry five women, they are not free.
If someone has the authority to say a group of people can't form a church that limits its membership to those willing to restrict themselves to a more rigid set of rules, they are are not free.
In a free society, the right of government to limit freedom is to keep one group of people from interfering with another group's freedom, or to arbitrate when there is a conflict. And "conflict" does not mean "they're limiting our freedom simply by exercising theirs".
Clearly, we have a long way to go before we will have a society that truly respects the concept of freedom.
Voting is one of the most important responsibilities we as citizens have: it is the whole point of a democracy, or even a republic such the US. Why then, does Science News ask "Are we using the worst voting procedure?" In getting a result that actually reflects the wishes of the populace, the "plurality" system we use, where you get one vote per race, period, is the worst system. To give an example of why this system is so bad, we only have to go back to the last Presidential election: the general consensus is that people who did or wanted to vote for Ralph Nader would have preferred that Al Gore get elected over George Bush. Yet if they voted the way they actually felt, they were effectively voting for the person they *least* wanted. This is not a fair system.
The one that seems to be best in terms of simplicity and fairness is Approval Voting. With this system, rather than one vote per race, you get one vote per candidate. It's still fair: what would be unfair would be multiple votes per candidate (well, there are some systems that manage that also, but they're complicated). This way you vote for all the candidates you find acceptable and the one with the most votes wins: people who wanted Nader could also vote for Gore as insurance against Bush. It works both ways: many people in Oregon feel that Al (what's his name? a cohort of Lon Mabon's) siphoned off enough conservative voters to throw the governorship to the Democrats a few elections ago.
When the election represents the opposite of what the people really want, is it any wonder that people are disillusioned?
The other day, I saw a makeshift banner in the back window of a car that expressed strong support for President Bush, and my thoughts were:
1. I'm proud to be an American, where "American" stands for freedom and justice for all.
2. I'm proud of our troops, who have done an excellent job at the task they were assigned.
3. I'm embarrassed as hell to be represented by a President who has demonstrated to the world that what he thinks "American" means is "might makes right", "vigilante justice" and the freedom only to be or do what the religious right theocracy approves of, and only then if someone doesn't whisper that you might be a terrorist.
4. I'm embarrassed that freedom and privacy have come to mean so little to fellow Americans, that it's being denigrated: I overheard some people talking about GM's "OnStar" system in the theater recently. What they said was that having something track them was a good thing and that people who worried about being tracked were paranoid. I guess Ben Franklin was paranoid too, when he said:
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."