Content of character over party

Many commenters are calling for a change in or a replacement for the Democratic Party.  Isn't partisanship one of our problems?  You're either conservative or liberal, right or left.  And then there are degrees of conservative and liberal or right and left.

Maybe we should have people without labels who run for office.  Taking advice from George Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr., we should avoid factions and judge candidates on the content of their character.  We need candidates who consider the common good above special interests.  And we definitely need candidates who can change their minds with new information.

Posted at http://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/sunday/trump-resistance-radicals.html?comments#permid=24540138.

“Left” can also make distortions

The Huffington Post had an article entitled “Bill Nye Rips CNN For Having 'Climate Change Denier Meteorologist’”.

The headline readers are going to repeat that.  However, some of the meteorologist’s tweets are quoted near the end of the article:

“Moved to climate change in 2009,” he wrote in one tweet.

“A scientist can be swayed by data and I was,” he added in another.

The political spectrum is too narrow a concept

Many speak of the political spectrum as if it was a well-defined concept of how people stood on very issues - often "conservatives" on the "right" and "liberals" on the "left".  Fortunately, people are much more complex than that.  Somebody may be a "religious conservative" but believe "corporations have too much power".  Somebody else may complain "government is interfering with business", but have a "liberal interpretation" of the Bible.

I think it has become a ridiculous situation when some define others as "not conservative enough".  I think "conservative" has become something defined by ALEC which has come up with a lot of issues that real conservatives have not even considered - like voter ID.

I think we should think more of "The Political Pie".  Each issue is an irregular slice of the pie.  In the middle of the pie is "The Truth" represented by a fuzzy tennis ball.  On some issues people are far away from the "The Truth" and on other issues the same people may be closer to "The Truth".

Each blur represents people of one "side" of the political spectrum or the other.  Neither "side" consistently comes close to "The Truth".  Instead of dividing themselves into left and right on everything, people should work with people who share their views on a given issue.  Today a "conservative" and a "liberal" may be in agreement on an issue and tomorrow they may be in disagreement on another issue.  This was the dream of the writers of the Constitution.  Unfortunately, even they fell into factionalism and we've had polarization ever since; sometimes less than other times; too many times more so.

The party of pluck and luck versus the parties of cluck

I started to read a tribute to Andrew Breitbart, ("Andrew Breitbart's final message to the left" by Star Parker, Scripps Howard News Service, 2012-03-02) a severe critic of the "left", and couldn't read any further.  Like so much writing nowadays, no matter the source, it gives sweeping praise to "our side" and sweeping castigation to "the other side".

We have those who have financial resources claiming that they earned their wealth, and those who feel that many have been left behind have been put there through no fault of their own by those with excessive wealth.

Parker claims that the wealthy have more stable families, et cetera, et cetera; and that the poor have out-of-wedlock births and single parent families, et cetera, et cetera.  Could it be that the more wealthy have more resources to hide their dysfunctional families?  Could it be that the less wealthy have these problems because they are less wealthy?

Parker blames the left for creating all these problems, including the sexual revolution which increased poverty.

I got news for Parker and others who blame those who are trying to solve certain problems for creating those problems.  They have been around for centuries.

I was born in March 1938, supposedly six weeks premature at 8+ pounds.  My parents were divorced in 1943.  When I was in college, my mother showed me her marriage certificate; she was married in September 1937.  You do the math.

Many years later I found out that my great-grandfather left his family in 1904 because he loved women and wine.  Even later I found out that his likely father, born in 1818, probably had a "girl in every port" - one in Brooklyn, New York, one in Baltimore, Maryland, and one in Liverpool, England.  The person with my surname married in Liverpool gave his father's name as Vincent Magree.  Vincent Magree was listed in the 1840 census in Baltimore with a male between 10 and 15 years old.

Well, some of the descendants became college-educated and well-paid, some continued to struggle, and some just muddled.

I can't speak for all my relatives as to how they arrived where they did, but I know my own life has been a crazy stew of pluck and luck.  I had a family that expected me to do well in school.  But many were the times I could have blown it with some stupid act.  I had a teacher who encouraged us to go to a highly-rated engineering school.  I had an assistant principal who found a full-scholarship for me to that school.  I blew that by being unsure of what I wanted to do.  I had a registrar in another college accept me and encourage me to study mathematics.  That got me into graduate school in the school I flunked out of.  That school happened to be buying a new computer.  The manufacturer of that computer was hiring and hired me.  And on and on with ups and downs.  Some of these because I kept trying, some because somebody helped me, some because I kept screwing up.  Pluck and luck, over and over again.

Right now we have two parties of "cluck".  One claims that the wealthy are solely responsible for their wealth without recognizing all the clerks, laborers, and government institutions that supported them.  The other claims that the wealthy are solely responsible for the problems of the poor without recognizing that that some of those problems (not all) are self-inflicted.  These are the factions that James Madison warned about in Federalist No. 10

We really need a party of "pluck and luck".  One that recognizes that problems go beyond blame, that many of these problems have been with our country since before the Revolution, and that we have to keep trying to provide some means of increasing the opportunities for both pluck and luck.  We need a party that truly recognizes the problem of balancing "public good and private rights" - James Madison, Federalist No. 10.

The fallacy of "right" and "left" – A must read

Robert Reich wrote a very interesting blog about his "counterpart" on the "right", David Frum, leaving public radio's Marketplace as a commentator for the "right". Frum didn't think he could "represent" the "right" anymore. Reich wrote that such labels don't lead to what's best for America.

See "The Triumph of Dogma", Robert Reich, 2011-10-14.

The center of what?

I posted the following comment on the Coffee Party's Facebook page in response to "Practical is not political", Nicholas Goebel, The Pragmatic Center.

"I wonder if talking about the center is the correct metaphor.  Do ideas really morph from right to left or vice versa?  If the big-enders are on one island and the little-enders are on another island, are the people who think the question is irrelevant in the water between?"

Why are you reading this blog?

Probably the majority of the 15-20 of you who read this blog are a friend or relative and like the personal stuff I write.  The rest of you are probably really turned off by the stringent ideology of the so-called right and skeptical about some of the alarmist thinking of many on the so-called left.

For all of you who want to get some more substance about the issues of the day, I suggest you take a look at the Liberal Curmudgeon.

I stumbled on his blog through the New York Times.  He wrote an analysis of the locavore movement, essentially debunking the argument about the cost of the energy to transmit food a thousand miles or more.  BTW, he lives on a small farm and looks forward to the produce from his garden.

He had several interesting entries following the locavore one, but, as usual, I don't remember them.  And since I am at our cabin, I'm not going to spend fifteen minutes at 24kbps to find out more.

If you visit the Liberal Curmudgeon and see me, please let me know what you think.

Right living needs no health care, right?

This whole health care debate seems to come down to doing anything is an intrusion of big government versus doing something before everybody goes broke on health care and dies.

Proponents of the second cite the 40-some million without health insurance and act as if each and every one of the 40-some million is facing a dire health crisis and will die without federal government intervention. Never mind that some of 40-some million think they are healthy enough or are rich enough that they don't want to pay for health insurance.

Some proponents are pushing the argument that federal health insurance is not needed if only people would be responsible and lead healthy lives. This argument is so simplistic that it borders on the irresponsible.

Granted, there are far too many people that make irresponsible choices from smoking to eating far too many junk foods. However, many people also draw a short straw on health through situations beyond their control.

Let's start with the personal. My wife and I try to eat sensibly, exercise frequently, and get regular dental and medical checkups. Ah, dental checkups! Guess what we both have in our mouths. Amalgam!

A mix of mercury and silver. Mercury is a poisonous metal. But amalgam was the filling of choice by dentists for decades. Even those of us who brushed our teeth regularly before the widespread use of fluoridated water still got cavities.

How much of that mercury from our teeth is leaching out into our bodies and causing who knows what problems? Maybe none, maybe lots! We don't really know what the personal result will be.

My wife has had cancer twice. This particular cancer has no known cause from personal life choices. My wife suspects that it was caused by chemicals in the environment - air borne chemicals, chemicals leaching from packaging, or contaminants in tap water. We don't know and we have little control over what large corporations or even local companies spew into the air and water or use in their processes. Many people can tolerate these contaminants; others have severe health consequences long after the exposure to these contaminants.

I have a heart murmur. For the most part this is inconsequential. I can do many physical activities without problem.

This is a good point to make an aside on our dependence on fallible human beings for our health care. One year a doctor is concerned about my heart murmur; the next he says I have the heart of an athlete. I think it might have been related to my use of stairs or elevator to reach his office. I now make sure I take the elevator for doctor visits.

I have had the heart murmur for over thirty years. Four times I have had symptoms that indicate I have serious problems. Once a doctor gave me an ultrasound check; once a doctor insisted on sending me to the emergency room; once we called for an ambulance; and once my wife drove me to the emergency room. In none of these was there any indication of damage to my heart. In retrospect, I think they were the result of overexertion that seemed OK at the time, probably resulting in sore chest muscles and hypoglycemia with nausea and sweating. In the last three cases, the costs would have made a serious dent in our savings and even future earnings.

Maybe I could have avoided these problems if I had traded in my parents. After all, they were the ones who gave me the genes that caused the heart murmur.

Fortunately, we've had employer-provided health insurance or Medicare with supplemental that paid for all these incidents with no or little out-of-pocket expenses.

Unfortunately, not everybody has generous employers or can afford more than basic Medicare in retirement.

But I too am relying on anecdotal evidence for my case. Are some really tragic cases as reported in some newspapers the norm? Or are they the exception? Whichever the case, we really need to be careful in collecting data to bolster our position. Unfortunately, emotion is used more than reason, no matter the position.

There is hate and there is hate

Thomas Friedman wrote a good column on the dangerous level of divisiveness in this country - "Where Did 'We' Go?", New York Times, 2009-09-29.

He compares the situation in Israel before Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 with the situation in the United States now. He thinks the vitriol in much of the anti-Obama rhetoric is going to lead somebody to take extreme action.

He also thinks that the level of criticism leveled at all presidents since 1992 has made it difficult for them to govern. He postulates that George H. W. Bush was the last "legitimate" president.

I was going to add a comment about the need for a viable third party when there were 42 comments, but I had to be elsewhere. When I got back there were 201 comments and a note that "Comments are no longer being accepted." Now, nearly 8:30 in the evening, there are 393 comments!

I did read or skim the 201 comments. They ran from the very thoughtful to the very shallow and divisive. The worst were those that divided left and right with one being good and the other being bad, depending on the persuasion of the writer. I had less sympathy for many on the right because they didn't consider the degree of difference in criticism of presidents. There is a big difference between satirizing a president and creating lies about a president. There is a big difference between calling a president an idiot (aren't they all in one way or another?) and saying that president was not born where he was.

Interestingly, the critics on the right say that the "liberal media" don't criticize the president. Let's see, Steve Sack of the Star Tribune and Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury have drawn cartoons criticizing Obama.