A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

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Lamont, Lieberman, Indiana Blogosphere

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So Joe Lieberman lost to Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary. Ned’s a businessman in the telecommunications industry and has served as a selectman in the town of Greenwich Connecticut. Joe, obviously, is currently a Senator from Connecticut and was formerly Al Gore’s vice-presidential running mate.

Advance Indiana put up a post along the lines of “If Lamont wins, America loses” on account of his opposition to the war in Iraq means he’s weak on terrorism or something. I may be paraphrasing AI unfairly, go read that post for the full argument. Suffice it to say that I agree with AI on a lot of issues, but not this one. stAllio! puts up a counter-post with which I’m more sympathetic.

Today Advance Indiana puts up another post discussing the Lamont primary victory and Lieberman’s plans to take a second bite at the apple by running as an independent. Along the way, AI characterizes Lamont as an “extremist.” I don’t know much about Lamont, but what I’ve heard doesn’t amount to extremism. So I asked which views of Lamont were “extreme.” The response I got from AI boiled down to, essentially, Lamont’s view that we should get our troops out of Iraq and the fact that he was supported by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who are, I am told, anti-Semites. I fail to find this convincing evidence of “extremism,” since I think desiring to bring the troops home is fairly mainstream, and I’d need more than just guilt by association to brand Lamont as an anti-Semite. (Incidentally, anti-Semitism seems to be a big political issue in the blogosphere lately; check out this thoughtful post on the subject at the Whiskey Bar.) No big story here – I respect AI generally, disagree with on this issue particularly, I asked a question, got a response, and it’s about a Connecticut political race anyway. No big deal, time to move on.

I wouldn’t have bothered with a blog post, except for an anonymous comment responding to my question that amused me by capturing succingtly a lot of what I dislike about what passes for political discourse these days:

Anonymous said…

If you have to ask what’s extreme about Ned Lamond, you might just be a little extreme yourself…

Unless that’s just someone having a little fun by pretending to be a caricature, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the person enjoys the fair and balanced reporting of Fox News.

Yet another political quiz

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Political Compass Questionnaire

Economic Left/Right: -1.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.92

That puts me pretty close to the center, but a bit to the left, on the economic left/right axis and a bit farther into the libertarian side of the libertarian/authoritarian axis. In the list they give, I seem to be economically lined up with Pope John Paul II (though he was much more authoritarian) and about as libertarian as Nelson Mandela (though he was quite a bit more economically to the left of me.)

Tippecanoe Politics on Buyer and the Merchant Marines

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There is a good discussion over at Tippecanoe Politics on the issue of Rep. Buyer and the Merchant Marines.

Go to Tippecanoe Politics and the Lafayette J&C story for more detail, but basically the issue is this: Merchant Mariners of World War II engaged in hazardous duty as part of the military effort — they transported bombs, gasoline, shells, ammunition, food, guns, and more and an estimated 9,497 died during the war —  but were not recognized as veterans until 1988. Because of the delay, they were not able to take advantage of such benefits as the G.I. Bill.

House Resolution 23, entitled “Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II Act of 2005,” currently has 258 sponsors and would provide to a merchant marine or surviving spouse a monthly benefit of $1,000. To qualify for the benefit, the merchant marine must have served 1) between December 7, 1941 and December 31, 1946; 2) on a vessel operated by the War Shipping Administration or the Office of Defense Transportation (or its agent); 3) in waters other than inland waters, the Great Lakes, or lakes, bays, or harbors of the U.S.; and 4) was a licensed crewmember of the vessel.

Presuming the 258 sponsors all voted for the Act, it would have enough votes for passage if the resolution was allowed to be taken to a vote. Unfortunately for the merchant marines, Rep. Steve Buyer, a former military lawyer, is the head of the House Veterans Affairs Committee where the resolution has been languishing since January 4, 2005.

By way of explanation (sort of), Buyer’s office had this to say:

A spokeswoman for Buyer praised the merchant mariners and acknowledged their service “played a fundamental part in the successes” of the Allies in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

But, said Buyer’s deputy chief of staff Laura J. Zuckerman, “These men were volunteers working for shipping companies, who could choose their voyage with the knowledge of potential risks and could end their service at any time.”

To me, this supports the case for the merchant marines rather than diminishing it. These guys criss-crossed a North Atlantic full of German subs and other dangers to keep our war machine functioning. They volunteered to do it. And they kept doing it even though they were free to leave.

Virginity or Death

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My wife was kind enough to call my attention to a 2005 column in the Nation by Katha Pollit entitled “Virginity or Death.” She makes a compelling argument that what many conservative Christians are interested in is, not so much preventing abortion, but in keeping sex tied to reproduction and disease to make women afraid of sex.

A primary exhibit in this argument is the baffling opposition to the HPV vaccine. Merck and GlaxoSmithKline have developed vaccines that protect against the human papilloma virus, generally recognized as a sexually transmitted disease resulting in genital warts. However, its more serious consequences is as a leading cause of cervical cancer which is diagnosed in 10,000 women per year and kills 4,000.

So, vaccinate girls and get rid of cervical cancer. A no brainer, right? Well, not according to the Family Research Council:

“Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV,” says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.

“Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex,” Maher claims, though it is arguable how many young women have even heard of the virus.

While HPV might not be a reason that girls are avoiding sex, it provides a pretext for the New Puritans to oppose condom education in schools since HPV is not preventable by condoms. “Why bother, you could just get HPV anyway.”

Ms. Pollit puts it this way:

Christian conservatives have a special reason to be less than thrilled about the HPV vaccine. Although not as famous as chlamydia or herpes, HPV has the distinction of not being preventable by condoms. It’s Exhibit A in those gory high school slide shows that try to scare kids away from sex, and it is also useful for undermining the case for rubbers generally–why bother when you could get HPV anyway? In 2000, Congressman (now Senator) Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who used to give gruesome lectures on HPV for young Congressional aides, even used HPV to propose warning labels on condoms. With HPV potentially eliminated, the antisex brigade will lose a card it has regarded as a trump unless it can persuade parents that vaccinating their daughters will turn them into tramps, and that sex today is worse than cancer tomorrow.

Ms. Pollit goes on to argue that this mentality goes along with the right wing opposition to reducing abortions by making birth control more widely available; they want to make it less available and to make abstinence the only viable option for avoiding pregnancy or disease.

While I’m sure actual reasons vary for the various stances of politically active New Puritans on restricting availability of birth control and medicines to prevent STDs, as a whole the stances seem to make the most sense if one views sex as evil and views disease and pregnancy as God’s punishment for promiscuity.

William Safire – dead on

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William Safire knocks this one out of the ball park in a Meet the Press discussion about the latest right wing talking point that the New York Times should be prosecuted for treason for running a story on the U.S. Government sifting through bank records. Bill Bennett got on his high horse, saying, among other things, the Bush administration was elected and “the media” was not:

MR. SAFIRE: Let me respond to what Bill, to the point he’s making, that who elected the media to determine what should be secret and what should not?

MS. MITCHELL: Which is the fundamental point.

MR. SAFIRE: Right. And the answer to that is, the founding fathers did. They came up with this Bill of Rights beyond which the constitutional convention would not move unless there were a First Amendment to challenge the government…

MR. BENNETT: Right.

MR. SAFIRE: …just as the American founding fathers challenged the British government. Now it’s not treasonable, it’s not even wrong for the press to say we’re going to find out what we can and we’ll act as a check and balance on the government. Sometimes we’ll make mistakes. Sometimes the government will mistake.

These threats to stifle the free press are part and parcel of an administration that wants to be able to incarcerate people indefinitely without charges and wants to be able to eavesdrop on its citizens without warrants.

Agricultural welfare

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The Indiana Law Blog posted on a a Washington Post story on agricultural welfare.

The money is substantial: $172 billion over the past ten years. The controls are weak: you don’t actually have to grow the crops that are subsidized. The protections are wasteful: The system pays farmers a subsidy to protect against low prices even when they sell crops at high prices, and it makes “emergency disaster payments” for crops that fail even as it provides subsidized insurance to protect against those failures. And, it disproportionately benefits those who are already wealthy.

The ILB pointed out an interactive map that the Washington Post provides. But if you really want to get to know your farming neighbors, I’d recommend the Environmental Working Group’s farm subsidy database.

The Washington Post provides this amazing statistic:

In 2005 alone, when pretax farm profits were at a near-record $72 billion, the federal government handed out more than $25 billion in aid, almost 50 percent more than the amount it pays to families receiving welfare.

From an electoral standpoint, agricultural welfare makes a great deal of sense. Citizens in agricultural areas have a lot more electoral influence per capita than do urban areas. Because each state gets two senators, regardless of the population of the state, citizens of more sparsely populated states get more bang for their ballot than citizens of more densely populated states.

But, if the Washington Post’s story is accurate, those who are concerned about bloated government programs and wasted tax dollars should concentrate on the agricultural welfare system before social welfare programs for the poor.

Can’t burn the books? Close the libraries

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Apparently the Bush administration doesn’t like the environmental data that has been coming out lately, so they’ve decided to take decisive action: by shutting down Environmental Protection Agency libraries.

In an extraordinary letter of protest, representatives for 10,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists are asking Congress to stop the Bush administration from closing the agency’s network of technical research libraries. The EPA scientists, representing more than half of the total agency workforce, contend thousands of scientific studies are being put out of reach, hindering emergency preparedness, anti-pollution enforcement and long-term research, according to the letter released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

In his proposed budget for FY 2007, President Bush deleted $2 million of support for EPA’s libraries, amounting to 80% of the agency’s total budget for libraries. Without waiting for Congress to act, EPA has begun shuttering libraries, closing access to collections and reassigning staff. The letter notes that “EPA library services are [now] greatly reduced or no longer available to the general public” in agency regional offices serving 19 states.

Anti-Flag Desecration Amendment filibustered

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A Constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration died one-vote short of overriding a filibuster. How will the nation ever survive? Oh, wait, the flag is a symbol of the country; it’s not the country itself. This bit of flag idolatry is an annoying and transparent attempt to turn the flag into a political weapon in preparation for the November elections. There have been about 7 instances of flag burning in the past 2 years, and this is how the Congress chooses to waste its time.

If anything, forbidding flag burning will make it a more attractive political statement. On the other hand, maybe if Congress is busy debating manufactured issues like this one, they’ll be too busy to cause more real problems. Nah, probably not. How long would it take to rubber stamp another war?

National convoy stops in South Bend

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The Indiana Department of Transportation issued a press release on the National Convoy’s trip across the United States to commemmorate Dwight D. Eisenhower’s historic 1919 trip across the country when he was a Lt. Colonel. The trip was historic because it was then he had a vision of what would become the Interstate Highway System.

The Indiana Dept. of Transportation annoyingly links this event with the Governor’s highway privatization plan which he calls Major Moves.

The press release states:

June 29, 1956 marks the day federal law brought America its unparalleled Interstate Highway System. Since that time the system has transformed our nation and economy. To this day the Interstate System remains one of the greatest public-works projects in history.

That’s accurate. What did the Interstate Highway System do? With tax dollars, it built a network of high quality roads available mostly for free to citizens. The roads contributed to an explosion in the economy that has more than made up for the tax dollars spent building those roads. That doesn’t sound at all like “Major Moves” to me.

Llamajockey and others around here have made the point that perhaps roads aren’t the best transportation tool available to us anymore given the increasing scarcity of oil and the diminishing returns of adding new roads to the existing ones. But still, to me the lesson of the Interstate Highway System is that government can use taxes to benefit society by building infrastructure that is accessible to all citizens.

Howey on Iraq

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Brian Howey wrote a column that was published in the June 24, 2006 News and Tribune that follows upon a previous column he had written and also discusses how the issue is playing in the 9th District.

I did not see the initial column, but apparently it drew the ire of Rose-Hulman chemistry professor, Dan Jelski.

“Sorry, but I think you’ve got the Iraq thing all wrong. From your column you’d think absolutely nothing had changed in Iraq at all. But you’re wrong, wrong, wrong.” He sees a prospering Baghdad exploding with satellite dishes instead of bombs.

Jelski suggests that Howey is proud of the insurgency or at least has great faith in its powers. Howey responds by citing a number of statistics that show things are not as rosy in Iraq as Jelski seems to think: Oil production is down, electricity production is stagnant and well below demand, unemployment is rampant. Doctors are leaving the country when they’re not being murdered, fewer kids are in school, 2,500 members of the U.S. military are dead, 30 to 40 people are kidnapped daily, 788 bombings have killed 6,800 people, and 100,000 familes have been displaced.

Jelski responds with what he doubtless thinks is the coup de grace:

Jelski observed: “The problems with the Brookings data is that you’d have to believe that life under Saddam was better than life in Iraq today. There is NO evidence to support that contention at all.”

Howey says the demons have been traded. I am reminded of Hobbes Leviathan. Hobbes suggested that Man in the State of Nature — i.e. without government — would be the war of all against all and, in such a state, life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, and short.”

The social compact was an agreement whereby individuals traded a world of innumerable predators of various stature for one super-predator, the King. If the King came after you, you were screwed, and it wasn’t fair, especially, but in return most of the people got overlooked by the King and lived lives free of the petty predators they would face absent a King.

What we’re seeing in Iraq, essentially, is the aftermath of the local super-predator, Saddam Hussein. So, the people face a world filled with lesser monsters instead of a world with just the one. Neither state is particularly “good,” but depending how beneath the notice of Saddam you were under his reign, I can see where life could be worse today than it was under Hussein.

But, you may say, “why should the poor people of Iraq face either situation. Shouldn’t we give them a democracy that keeps them free of monsters both big and small?” To which I respond, “How much does it cost? and What’s in it for us?” I’m relatively selfish about how our government spends its money and am not a big fan of expensive humanitarian missions. This one has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives. I think we could get more bang for our blood and treasure here at home than trying to make the world nice for Iraqis.

As for the 9th District, apparently Hill is trying to get to the right of Sodrel, apparently calling for an indefinite U.S. presence in Iraq:

“He doesn’t believe a politically set withdrawal date is good public policy,” said Mike O’Connor, a lead consultant to Democrat Baron Hill, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Mike Sodrel. “We’re committed to a path in Iraq that we have to pursue until it is resolved. There would be consequences that would come out of our withdrawal from Iraq right now that would be negative in his eyes.”

Meanwhile, last week we were treated to the spectacle of the do-nothing Republican Congress engaging in a bit of wankery by debating a non-binding resolution that gave members of Congress the opportunity to make tough noises about how resolute we were in remaining stuck in the Iraqi quagmire.

Days after that resolution, we learn that:

The top American commander in Iraq has drafted a plan that projects sharp reductions in the United States military presence there by the end of 2007, with the first cuts coming this September, American officials say.

According to a classified briefing at the Pentagon this week by the commander, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the number of American combat brigades in Iraq is projected to decrease to 5 or 6 from the current level of 14 by December 2007.

The question appears to be not whether we will withdraw troops in the next year or two, but how this can be done without Bush looking weak or the Republicans looking like they were pushed into doing something the Democrats wanted to do.

Meanwhile, Senator Lugar, is skeptical that the conditions are right for a draw down of troops.

“Given current events in Baghdad, in particular, reported on every day quite apart from Anbar province, the violence is horrific,” he said on “Face the Nation.” “So getting to the plans either of General Casey or [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki are a broad sweep. But it is good news to know that there are contingency plans.”

This post has strayed a bit from its original focus. But now I’m left to ponder who to trust on the current state of Iraq: Senator Lugar or Professor Jelski.