Into The Light

Sandy and I are going to celebrate our one-year anniversary two days early by going to Benihana's. If you've never been there before, it's something to be experienced. The chef cooks the food on the very table you eat on (obviously your part of the table is de-ovenated). He puts on a little show, tossing food in the air and making Pikachu out of fried rice. Silly stuff like that. It's good times.

I love Sandy to death, by the way.

Well, I've researched all of the candidates for the Democratic Nomination.

In the course of doing so, I've released three things:


1) Not a one of the Democratic candidates should ever come near the White House.

2) Research is exhausting.

3) I hate politics.



The third one was something I kind of knew already. Politicians are usually extremely shady, evasive, and petty. Some exceptions have only one of the three, and very few are actually good people.

Politics is a game of attacking a person in order to make yourself look better. I've lost what little interest I had in learning about that.

So since John Kerry is pretty much a lock to be the Democratic nominee, I doubt I'll bother to analyze the other candidates. If a viable opponent exists after Super Tuesday, I'll reconsider. Otherwise, I'm not wasting my time.

I'll go ahead and do a QnD on each candidate right now, letting you know why they shouldn't be the President. (Note: they all want the government to run the health care system.)

In order of the results of New Hampshire:

Al Sharpton: Wants abortions to be legal. All the time. No matter how far along the pregnancy is. If you agree with him (and I'll put a stop to THAT with my next entry), consider that Sharpton will also only appoint pro-choice Supreme Court judges. Sorry, that's not how the justice system is supposed to work. Judges INTERPRET the constitutionality of the law, they do not make it. Also, he wants to repeal ALL of Bush's tax cuts. And hey, gotta love people who use race for their own benefit.

Dennis Kucinich: Wants to remove all of the profit from the health care system. Um, profit=growth. Profit=advancement of medical technology. Universal everything! Let the government do the work for you! Abortions for everyone!

Joseph Lieberman: Supports the government's 'right' to unconstitutionally intervene in moral decisions that belong to the people. Wants to increase taxes for the top 2% of income earners. You only have to make over roughly $100,000 to fit in that category, by the way.

John Edwards: Purports to have represented the common man in his fight against legally legitmate (albeit morally questionable) businesses. Yes, and how much did you make doing so? And why do you have that much money from those decisions, when it would be better served going to, you know, the VICTIMS?! Believes a woman's right to choose is constitutionally protected (this is almost totally false).

Wesley Clark: A couple of military compatriots have raised questions about his moral judgement and character (the military is a tight-knit group that rarely publically goes after one of their own). Spectacularly botched the Kosovo operation he was in charge of. After announcing his candidacy, took two ideologically opposed positions on the war within a 24 hour period. Before the war, laid out one of the strongest cases presented by anybody for the U.S's actions in Iraq. Opposes the war now.

Howard Dean: Covered in previous entries. Suffice to say, cannot remain calm enough in times of stress to be considered for the Presidency.

John Kerry: Will be covered more throughly if he wins. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that he's a proven hero. That being said, for now I'll simply say that anybody who votes against a bill that would outlaw a proceedure in which a baby's body is allowed to be born, but then is stabbed in the back of the neck before the head passes through should never be allowed to come close to ANY elected office, much less the Presidency. The fact that he's inconsistent as all hell is a sidebar.



Blech. Blech to all of them.

I've learned through studying all of these people that I have no taste for politics.

I've also learned that my passion for philosophy cannot be abated even by the cynicism of government. So I'l keep talking about philosophical stuff here, while leaving the political bashing, accusational nonsense to Al Franken.

If you're interested in finding out more about the cnadidates for yourself, www.vote-smart.org is an excellent, completely non-biased source of information. It also has a test that will match you with a candidate that supports the issues you do. Check it out.

There's a lot more I have to say about the Iraqi war, but I'm fairly sick of talking about it. So I'll save further comment for when I do Wesley Clark. Sharpton is still on schedule for tommorrow, I think.

I thought I might've been getting tired of talking about mostly politics on this site. Sandy has mentioned that it gives her a headache. So I thought I'd write a nice piece that bridged the gap between politics and other topics. It would be a discussion on philosophy, particularly a mindset that would be very revealing as to why some people think the way they do. But it wouldn't be about some stupid, conniving politician.

Well, you can talk politics without talking about politicians, and Dig The D's California Correspondant Mariela sent me a link to the following website:

"George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics"

Damnit, I can't help going after this guy. He represents the Democrats' philosophy, and a lot of people will read this story and go "I KNEW there was a reason people are becoming more conservative!"

Sorry, but no. That kind of Kool-Aid is not beneficial for the consumption of rational beings.

I'll post the introductory paragraphs here and the specific parts of the piece that I will focus on here, to save you from having to read the whole thing yourselves (lazy bastards).

Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics

By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter | 27 October 2003

BERKELEY – With Republicans controlling the Senate, the House, and the White House and enjoying a large margin of victory for California Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's clear that the Democratic Party is in crisis. George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley professor of linguistics and cognitive science, thinks he knows why. Conservatives have spent decades defining their ideas, carefully choosing the language with which to present them, and building an infrastructure to communicate them, says Lakoff.

You know what's sad? Mr. Lakoff has probably made his life's work the study of all of this. All of his degrees and academic accolades have allowed him to have the clout neccessary to have his theories taken seriously by the academia.

Yet a rank amateur is about to tear his arguments to shreds.

See, this is what people tend to do when the beliefs they hold start to shift to the minority. It's called denial. Nobody wants to believe that their ideals are losing support because the other side actually has more merit. So they try and blame other factors. This is an example of that process of denial manifesting itself.

Most college campuses are hotbeds for liberalism. UC Berkeley happens to be the capital. They're starting to lose their stranglehold at most colleges however, and they don't seem to like it.

From here on in, all quotes in bold are questions the interviewer asked of Mr. Lakoff.

"How does language influence the terms of political debate?

Language always comes with what is called "framing." Every word is defined relative to a conceptual framework. If you have something like "revolt," that implies a population that is being ruled unfairly, or assumes it is being ruled unfairly, and that they are throwing off their rulers, which would be considered a good thing. That's a frame.

If you then add the word "voter" in front of "revolt," you get a metaphorical meaning saying that the voters are the oppressed people, the governor is the oppressive ruler, that they have ousted him and this is a good thing and all things are good now. All of that comes up when you see a headline like "voter revolt" — something that most people read and never notice. But these things can be affected by reporters and very often, by the campaign people themselves.

Here's another example of how powerful framing is. In Arnold Schwarzenegger's acceptance speech, he said, "When the people win, politics as usual loses." What's that about? Well, he knows that he's going to face a Democratic legislature, so what he has done is frame himself and also Republican politicians as the people, while framing Democratic politicians as politics as usual — in advance. The Democratic legislators won't know what hit them. They're automatically framed as enemies of the people."


Oh yes, that's what those Republicans are doing: they're "framing" their posititions in order to cast themselves in the best light.

A politican, doing this? REALLY?! Shudder gasp! Say it ain't so! Who could BE so vile?!

Well, the Democrats, that's who. Consider the term "undocumented workers", obviously a euphanism meaning illegal immigrants. But liberals don't like the term "illegal immigrants", because it implys that they have done something against the law (well, shucks, what would give people THAT kooky idea?). Use the term "undocumented workers" however, and it makes those conservatives look like meanie heads.

Waahhh.

Please. The Democrats have been doing this for just as long. They just happen to have a different phrase for it: "political correctness."

"Why haven't progressives done the same thing?

There's a systematic reason for that. You can see it in the way that conservative foundations and progressive foundations work. Conservative foundations give large block grants year after year to their think tanks. They say, 'Here's several million dollars, do what you need to do.'"

Liberals don't need to do any of that, of course. Instead, they have Joe. Q Taxpayer foot the bill directly and call it "National Public Radio." That way they don't have to worry about any of that "profit" nonsense, so they can babble on about whatever they like regardless of whether or not anybody's actually listening to their inane drivel.

There's a reason conservatives dominate talk radio: because you can't sustain a 3 hour talk show by filling it with baseless prattle or hate mongering.

"And basically, they build infrastructure, they build TV studios, hire intellectuals, set aside money to buy a lot of books to get them on the best-seller lists, hire research assistants for their intellectuals so they do well on TV, and hire agents to put them on TV. They do all of that. Why? Because the conservative moral system, which I analyzed in "Moral Politics," has as its highest value preserving and defending the "strict father" system itself. And that means building infrastructure. As businessmen, they know how to do this very well.

Meanwhile, liberals' conceptual system of the "nurturant parent" has as its highest value helping individuals who need help. The progressive foundations and donors give their money to a variety of grassroots organizations. They say, 'We're giving you $25,000, but don't waste a penny of it. Make sure it all goes to the cause, don't use it for administration, communication, infrastructure, or career development.' So there's actually a structural reason built into the worldviews that explains why conservatives have done better."

Liberals not letting money be wasted on administration and career development?!?! Has he ever HEARD of the public school system?!

Oh, and gotta love that last sentence, which could easily be interpreted to mean "those conservatives had the gall to build a system that can actually support itself, as opposed to wasting copious amounts of money, and that's why people actually listen to them for three hours a day."

You know, I've got the fitting slogan for the Democratic Party this election year.

Vote Democrat in '04
Because personal responsibility is for nerds.

"Back up for a second and explain what you mean by the strict father and nurturant parent frameworks.

Well, the progressive worldview is modeled on a nurturant parent family. Briefly, it assumes that the world is basically good and can be made better and that one must work toward that. Children are born good; parents can make them better. Nurturing involves empathy, and the responsibility to take care of oneself and others for whom we are responsible. On a larger scale, specific policies follow, such as governmental protection in form of a social safety net and government regulation, universal education (to ensure competence, fairness), civil liberties and equal treatment (fairness and freedom), accountability (derived from trust), public service (from responsibility), open government (from open communication), and the promotion of an economy that benefits all and functions to promote these values, which are traditional progressive values in American politics.

The conservative worldview, the strict father model, assumes that the world is dangerous and difficult and that children are born bad and must be made good. The strict father is the moral authority who supports and defends the family, tells his wife what to do, and teaches his kids right from wrong. The only way to do that is through painful discipline — physical punishment that by adulthood will become internal discipline. The good people are the disciplined people. Once grown, the self-reliant, disciplined children are on their own. Those children who remain dependent (who were spoiled, overly willful, or recalcitrant) should be forced to undergo further discipline or be cut free with no support to face the discipline of the outside world."

You know, I've listened to a lot of conservative talk radio, and NEVER have I heard the philosophy "children are born bad and must be made good" expressed once, by anyone. No, what they believe is that children are born irresponsible, and must be taught responsibility.

Note the language, or "framing" that Mr. Lakoff uses. He never once assigns his liberal viewpoints any negative connotations. Meanwhile, his description of the conservative viewpoint is littered with negative language. His "framing" paints his own view in the best light.

Oh, sorry, I forgot that it's only the conservatives who "frame". It's hard to keep track sometimes, what with those annoying facts getting me all confused. Bad, bad facts! ::swat::

There, that's better. Let's continue.

"So, project this onto the nation and you see that to the right wing, the good citizens are the disciplined ones — those who have already become wealthy or at least self-reliant — and those who are on the way."

Hey, way to distort the conservative philosophy. I noticed you didn't provide any quotes that show a conservative putting forth this doctrine you allege that they have. It seems to me that conservatives measure worth by the things you earn, not the things you have. The facts seem to indicate that their doctrine is that anyone who works hard and puts forth effort is to be deemed a citizen of worth, regardless of monetary possessions.

Whoops, I keep forgetting that facts are what those dastardly conservatives use in order to trick us into their web of lies. I'll get it soon, I promise.

"From that framework, I can see why Schwarzenegger appealed to conservatives.

Exactly. In the strict father model, the big thing is discipline and moral authority, and punishment for those who do something wrong. That comes out very clearly in the Bush administration's foreign and domestic policy. With Schwarzenegger, it's in his movies: most of the characters that he plays exemplify that moral system. He didn't have to say a word! He just had to stand up there, and he represents Mr. Discipline. He knows what's right and wrong, and he's going to take it to the people. He's not going to ask permission, or have a discussion, he's going to do what needs to be done, using force and authority. His very persona represents what conservatives are about."

Oh god, he's been drinking the Kool-Aid. This is unbelievably stupid. He knows what's right and wrong, and he's not going to have a discussion? That's what Mr. Lakoff wants you to convince you that the conservatives in this country stand for?

Utter garbage. If that's the case, then why would the conservatives, by your own admission, control talk radio? The very basis of talk radio is that people call in to discuss their viewpoints. It isn't just conservatives who call in, either. Many liberals call and talk to conservative talk show hosts. Sometimes when this happens, there is indeed yelling and screaming. However, it's far more common for a passionate but rational and respectful debate to occur, where both parties try to use facts to defeat the other person's arguments.

Yeah, conservatives are so TOTALLY against discussion. Never mind that discussion is precisely how many conservative voices make a living.

This is a perfect example of why you should never believe a statement a person makes, unless they support it with facts. People can come to very stupid generalizations about things they don't like.

Remember the 2nd most important motto in this world: "In God We Trust, all others must bring data."

"Are "progressive" and "liberal" different, or is Rockridge trying to sidestep the conservatives' successfully having framed "liberal" as pejorative?

Well, there is some of that, but both terms are kind of mushy and vague. After World War II and the Vietnam War, "liberal" came to mean someone who supports [Franklin Delano Roosevelt's] New Deal, and a strong military and foreign policy. The term "progressive" originated from people who were Democratic Socialists, but the socialism aspect has dropped away, and it's come to mean what I call "nurturant morality." It includes choosing peace whenever possible, environmentalism, civil liberties, minority rights, notions like social justice through living wages, et cetera. "Progressive" has been chosen, in part, to contrast in a forward-looking way with "conservative" — for example, as when Podesta chose the name "The Center for American Progress" for his new think tank.


Also, within traditional liberalism you have a history of rational thought that was born out of the Enlightenment: all meanings should be literal, and everything should follow logically. So if you just tell people the facts, that should be enough — the truth shall set you free. All people are fully rational, so if you tell them the truth, they should reach the right conclusions. That, of course, has been a disaster.

Meaning, for example, that if you tell people that the tax cuts are overwhelmingly benefiting the richest 1 percent of Americans at the expense of a balanced budget, liberals think people will naturally revolt against the measure.

Exactly. It never works. And liberals don't know why."

Oh god, this is so insulting.

"See, you can't count on people to understand it when we tell them our truth....uh, I mean THE truth, of course." ::takes a sip of the Kool-Aid::

"Ah, that's better. See, when we tell people the truth, they don't have the sense to take it at face value. Instead, they draw silly conclusions from it, such as we aren't telling the entire truth. They sometimes even think-and I have no IDEA how they come up with this wacky stuff- that we distort the facts intentionally! Don't they get it? You can't 'believe it when you see it.' That's counterproductive, and just not progressive thinking! You have to 'see it when you believe it!' Why can't you people grasp this simple concept?!"

Judge for yourselves. Bush's tax cut plan is laid out, nice and simple, right here. If you think the plan can be improved, fine. I do too. But if, filing as a single, you make at least $13 an hour or more (but less than $136,750 a year) and work 40 hours a week, than your tax rate is reduced by almost half. As a married couple, the amount per hour the couple has to average to receive the same tax cut is dropped to $10.87 an hour. Yes, some people don't receive a tax cut. But the numbers are right there: Bush's tax cut plan's main beneficiary is the middle class.

See? I used facts to support my claim. This is how debate works. Debate does not work by screaming something over and over again at the top of your lungs until people finally say "fine, we believe you already, whatever, but please god just shut up."

I could go on and on, but I'm going to end it after this next one. I think you've almost got the point.

"What about the phrase "free market"? Is that an example of framing?

Yes, but one that's so deeply embedded that it's difficult at first to see how. You have to start with the metaphor that the market is a force of nature, which comes from [the economist] Adam Smith, who says that if everybody pursues their own profit, then the profit of all will be maximized by the "invisible hand" — by which he means nature. There is also a metaphor that well-being is wealth. If I do you a favor, therefore making things better for you, then you say, "How can I ever repay you? I'm in your debt." It's as if I'd given you money. We understand our well-being as wealth.

Combine them, and you get the conservatives' version that says if everybody pursues their own well-being, the well-being of all will be maximized by nature. They have the metaphorical notion of a free market even in their child-rearing system. It's not just an economic theory; it's a moral theory. When you discipline your children, they get internal discipline to become self-reliant, which means they can pursue their self-interest and get along in a difficult world. Conservatives even have a word for people who are not pursuing their self interest. They're called "do-gooders," and they get in the way of people who are pursuing their self-interest.

OK, but how is that a frame, rather than a guiding ideology?

Because the "free market" doesn't exist...."

Oh god, he's a not-so-closet socialist. This should be fun.

"....there is no such thing. All markets are constructed. Think of the stock exchange. It has rules. The WTO [World Trade Organization] has 900 pages of regulations. The bond market has all kinds of regulations and commissions to make sure those regulations carried out. Every market has rules. For example, corporations have a legal obligation to maximize shareholder profit. That's a construction of the market. Now, it doesn't have to be that way. You could make that rule, "Corporations must maximize stakeholder value." Stakeholders — as opposed to shareholders, the institutions who own the largest portions of stock — would include employees, local communities, and the environment. That changes the whole notion of what a "market" is."

Okay, analogy time.

First off, the easy one. If his argument held water, then we would have to also conclude that baseball does not exist, because after all it too has rules. Wow.

Now, let's get a bit more in-depth. I'll use an example of the free market that shows exactly why there is a free market. (Again, there's that wacky notion of mine that facts decide who's right or wrong.)

I happen to know a lot about the home video game industry. I've been following it ever since I was eight, when I would bring eight video game magazines to school and read them incessantly. They weren't just code books, they went into detail as to why games and systems were priced a certain way. In other words, I learned more about economics at an earlier age than school could have ever hoped to teach me.

During the days of the original NES, the home video game market was still very much dominated by kids. The newest, best games were never more than $15 a pop. Meanwhile, the older, more serious gamers went to the arcades, which had been around for a long time. These were the rules of the market at the time.

Then the SNES came out, and the home consoles were starting to catch up to arcades in technical quality. The arcades were still more powerful, so they remained viable. But the SNES started to gain legitimaticy with the older kids. Thus the SNES succeeded in changing the market.

Now, it has been proven time and time again that not enough people are willing to buy a new console at anything above $300. But this hadn't been proven at this time. So Phillips Interactive tried to sell a new, CD based system to the public. However, CD manufacture wasn't in demand enough to support manufacturing costs low enough to get their console under $300. The CD-i Interactive was released for about $500.

The public simply will not pay that much for a home console, especially during an age in which the best games are still at the arcades. Phillips Interactive tried to change the rules of the game before the public was ready to accept those changes. As a result, they failed.

With the advent of newer, more powerful systems, the home consoles became even better than the arcade systems in terms of technological power. They changed the rules of the game by doing so. Now, arcades can no longer merely offer regular games that people would rather play in the comfort of their own home. The internet means they don't have to go to arcades to find competition.

So what did arcades do? Roll over and die? Ask for money from the government so that arcade jobs would not die out?

No. They reinvented themselves. Now an arcade is a place to have an experience you simply can't get sitting on your sofa at home. From dancing games requiring footwork to skateboarding games that actually feature a skateboard as the control interface, the arcades now offer a different experience from home consoles. Thus, they remain viable even in the face of the changing rules.

The goverment mandated none of this. It meddled in none of this. As a result, everybody from the consumer to the manufacturers to the retailers are happy.

There you go. That's the difference between me and Professor Lakoff. I will present the facts, and trust in you to be able to decide for yourselves the right position to take. Mr. Lakoff states that you are too stupid to see through shaded language, and would prefer to blame "framing" for your not arriving at the same conclusions he has.

So here's the question I pose to you.

Judging from what he and I have said above, which one of us holds the higher opinion of your intelligence? Him or me?

In case you haven't noticed by now, this website is not a diary or journal.

It is a web blog.

If you don't know the difference, a diary is a log of a person's daily activities and thoughts.

A blog is essentially a conduit into that person's thoughts. It's a talk box.

So while I will comment on the happenings of my life, I have no interest in turning this site into a "What did David do today?" excercise. This site will always be the place where I voice my thoughts, feelings, and desires. Thus, the running political commentary for the past week.

I will say this, though: my friend Vic recently bought the biggest TV I have ever seen. It is wider than my couch.

That's about the only noteworthy happening right now. Let's move on.

I recently wrote a bit about my political leanings. As I stated before, I am a centrist who borders on being a Libertarian. In fact, I took a political test recently that placed me on the border between liberal and libertarian.

The most liberal major party (excluding non-viable parties such as the Communist or Socialists) is the Democrats. However, while I agree with their social platform to some extent, I completely disagree with their economic platform.

Their economic philosophy is pretty much summed up by this statement: if I am not as successful as you, then you should be forced to help me. This is supported by their insistence on taxing the top 2% of income earners beyond reason (they already pay anywhere between 30-45% of the nation's income tax) and their support of increased welfare and unemployment.

I am going to argue that the Democrats' policy on unemployment is destructive to the people of this country, ESPECIALLY the very people they are trying to help.

There's a very old proverb: you give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. You teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime.

Now, I know some of you will think that's an easy, cliche defense.

But think about it for a second. If I'm giving you fish, what motivation do you have to learn how to fish for yourself?

For some rason, this seems to be a difficult concept for people to grasp. We have allowed abuse of the welfare and unemployment systems in this country. As a result, these programs have grown far above and beyond their intended uses. This has created a tax burden on the middle and upper classes that is unneccessary.

Here's a fact for you: the lowest 20% of income earners in this country have or will be in the top 20% of income earners at one time or another.

What does that mean? It means that being in the lowest income bracket is not a permanent condition. The lower income earners mostly consist of the people who are on welfare or unemployment at that time.

As for the ones who are in that bracket....they may be the lower class, but I would hardly argue that they are 'poor'. Even they have shelter, a car, a mattress to sleep on, and a color TV. They eat every day. That is simply nothing to complain about.

I think that means that we are taking care of our lower class. If they don't like having less stuff, then they can go earn more stuff.

Look, the unemployment and welfare systems were never designed for this. They were designed as a safety net in case another great depression rolled around, where people wouldn't be able to find jobs for years. They weren't designed to make your life easier if you got laid off or fired.

The government cannot solve employment problems for this country. Everything the government tried during the Great Depression of the 1920s failed, or even made the problems worse. It was only when the economy received a boost in jobs due to World War II that the depression ended.

This is my solution for this problem: the government gets out of everything it can. The private sector can take care of things like education and health care. The people are more than capable of it. Make defense and law enforcement, the only areas the people cannot or should not do for themselves, the government's only fiscal responsibilities.

Drastically scale back welfare and Social Security, and make unemployment dormant. Have welfare only be enough to pay for food, and build protections into it to prevent abuse. In other words, no welfare checks that can be cashed to pay for drugs. None. Reinstitute unemployment only if it is truly on the same level as the Great Depression.

With all of this money that people no longer pay the government, tell them to put that away for retirement. If they need the money for an emergency or if they lose their jobs, it's theirs to use, as it should be. If they don't want to invest it in a 401K that can be lost if the company they work for mismanges it (Enron), then they don't have to.

If they instead want to spend their money on big screen TVs and other frivolous things, that's their decision.

See, that's the rub. That's why people don't want to scale back unemployment. They want to be able to spend all of their money on things they don't need, and yet not have to take responsibility if that choice leads to their being screwed if their job is lost.

I also know that there's another group who's not going to like this plan: people who want to own homes.

This is what I have to say to these people: too bad. You are not entitled to a home. Taking on debt is a risky decision.

If you're not prepared to keep up with your job market, or don't want to risk being screwed if your job is lost, don't go into debt.

Isn't personal responbility fun?

The government cannot and should not give you the things you want in life. That's not how this works. You have to be able to support your own place in life.

Unhappy working for a low wage? Then work hard to improve your skills. Have something to offer so that it's worth an employer's money to have you around.

That's what great about this country. Few things are guaranteed in life. But here in America, we can guarantee you this: if you want to become greater than you are, the opportunity is there.

However, the Democrats think you are entitled to the things you want in life, whether you are willing to give society something useful back or not. They want to be the ones giving you that fish for the rest of your life. That way, you're dependent upon them and the federal government.

Sorry. I don't believe in that.

We can take care of ourselves.

Powell Admits Possibility Iraq had no WMD

Yes, I've been open to the possibility that Saddam never actually had WMD. I know that the Bush administration is still under the belief that he did, despite Kay's recent claims that he believed Saddam didn't have any WMDs. I know that our intelligence community may have made a mistake in assuming that Saddam had weapons in his possession.

I know all of this, and yet I still support the President and the Iraqi War.

It is an incontrevertible fact that Saddam had the programs running. The evidence has been found. Those programs were in violation of countless U.N. resolutions and the cease fire agreement that ended the Gulf War in 1991. If you want to disagree that the programs were suffiecient reason to go into Iraq, fine.

But our President and this country had every right to depose Saddam. If he did not have WMDs, then we could not allow him to develop them. And the position that the President went in for the oil or to settle a score is simply unsupported by the facts. If you wish to argue the point, comment on this entry. I assure you that I can counter any argument that you may have.


Official Dig The D news: I realized that I'm simply not going to be able to make every single entry about the Presidential nominee candidates. The amount of reading and research I do while writing each entry makes it way too draining to do daily. I've spent about 3 hours doing each candidate so far. I'll try to do someone tommorrow, probably Al Sharpton (and woo-hoo, won't that will be fun.)

If you want to know why we went into Iraq, click here. It's a preliminary report written by David Kay, the man previously in charge of the WMD search in IRAQ whom has since resigned to return to the private sector. The media's coverage of the report was simply "Kay report turns up no WMDs yet", which fails to address the report firmly stating that intent was there.

People, intent was all that was neccessary under the cease fire agreement. If Saddam didn't want to abide by those terms, he shouldn't have tried to forcefully take Kuwait's oil.

By the way, if you want a domestic example of what happens when the government tries to do too much, look at California. Businesses and residents are fleeing the state in the wake of through the roof taxes that are needed to pay for their various social and economic programs. As far as I know, Ahnuld has the right idea: stop spending the people's money, and stop taxing businesses.

Okay, it's Lieber-time.

Senator Joseph Lieberman

Former Vice Presidential Nominee

How it all began:

In 2000, Joseph Lieberman ran as Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 Presidential Election. He and Gore won the popular vote, but lost the electoral vote.

Since that time, Lieberman has been serving as the Conneticut Senator. After waiting to see if Al Gore would run against Bush in '04, Lieberman decided to throw his hat into the Presidential ring.

Al Gore then proceeded to endorse former Vermont Governor Howard Dean (with only a lackluster attempt to notifiy Lieberman's offices the morning of). This hurt Lieberman, and has contributed to an inability to get his campaign off the ground.

Where he stands now:

Lieberman declined to participate in Iowa, preferring to concentrate his efforts in New Hampshire.

This strategy has not worked for Lieberman. Most polls of New Hampshire place him at 7-11 percent, trailing Kerry and Dean by a huge margin, and only just managing to keep up with Edwards.


The case for Joseph Lieberman:

Lieberman has one main advantage over the rest of the field: if you are a Democrat who supported the Iraqi war, then your only viable option is Lieberman. The other candidates, even those who supported the war before running for president, are now staunch opponents of it.

Lieberman's experience comes from spending 15+ years as a United States Senator. During that time, he served on various committees ranging from the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee to the Armed Services Committee. He was also the Attorney General to Conneticut, as well as a Senator and Majority Leader for the state assembly there. He has no military experience, but his fairly diverse political background would seem to compensate.

Lieberman's considered to be one of the more principaled politicans in Washington. His denouncement of the current political compaign financing system and the abuses thereof was one of the most poignent and scathing. He doesn't make personal attacks on his opponents in his campaigns, and his arguements against them seem to be policy-based, not politically based. This would raise him above most of the Democratic Presidential Nominee field in that regard.

There are very few instances of inconsistency in Lieberman's positions. This is a huge boon, as all of the other candidates are seriously flawed in this area.

The Senator is also a Jewish man, and as the first Jew to be placed on a major party's Presidential ticket, he should draw a lot of voters from the Jewish community. And since this isn't 20+ years ago, the number of voters who will not vote for him due to his religious background is very small.

As far as his proposed changes if elected President, his better ones are increasing tax cuts for the lower and middle classes while repealing Bush's tax cuts for the top 2% of income earners, and proposing an amendment that supports Roe v. Wade while at the same time letting it evolve to take into account the improvements in medical technology that allow for fetal viability at an earlier point in the pregnancy.

Finally, Lieberman's voting history is more moderate than his opponent's. Oddly enough, his record and views are more comparable to Bill Clinton than to Al Gore, particularly now that Gore has veered off to the left. He's a Democrat in the new Clintonian sence of the word, from his supporting of taxpayer's right to pick public schools, to supporting universal health care, to his strong national defense stance.


The case against Joseph Lieberman:

Lieberman, like all of the Democratic Presidential Candidates, supports universal health care. I've covered that topic before, but suffice to say, it isn't a good idea.

I mention it here because Lieberman, the least liberal of the whole bunch, is still a proponent of it. His plan of increasing the already heavy burden on the upper class is not going to sit well with business owners.

What the Democrats don't seem to understand is that increasing taxes, even just on the wealthy, only gives a short boost in tax revenue. After a certain point, its detrimental effect on the economy and the amount of money in it, of which the government's slice of the pie is drawn from, will decrease to the point where the government will actually see a decrease in tax revenue after a year or so. The reason is simple: the more money you take out of the economy, the less money the economy has to give to the government.

Electing Joseph Lieberman, a Jewish man, will also serve to piss off Arabic nations that are already under the impression that the U.S. is biased towards Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This should by no means be given much weight in choosing who will represent the interests of the U.S. However, it is something to consider.

Lieberman's main problem, however, is that he is a huge proponent of regulating morality. The only position where he doesn't propose the federal government regulating moral issues is on gay marriage (he's personally opposed to it, but supports the states' rights to choose). In every other instance, he has proposed that the government get more and more involved in choosing what is and is not right for the American people. He is the Honorary Chairperson of the Parents Television Council (PTC), a group that has a proven history of twisting and bending facts in order to get shows pulled off the air that they don't like. All of this makes him a hard candidate to stomach for Democrats, a party notorious for its "freedom to choose your own morality" platform.

Conclusions

Is he deserving of the nomination?

If not for that pesky habit of trying to legislate morality, he'd be the perfect Democratic candidate given its platform. He's got tons of varied political experience, he stands for issues as opposed to merely taking issues when it's political advantegous to do so, and he seems to have a moral guiding compass. He's less of a 'politician' than most, and in today's world that's an admirable quality. He is a deserving candidate.


Is he deserving of the Presidency?


This one's murkier. He's still a proponent of bigger government. He's still a candidate who doesn't see fit to eliminate programs that, while good, are not the government's responsibility. He still doesn't see the need to ask the citizens of the U.S. to show personal responsibility in his proposals towards the bloated Social Security and Medicare programs. Policy-wise, he will take this country in the same direction that most politicans want it to go: away from the non-interventive government that this country was founded on, and towards making this country a nation that depends upon its government. In that respect, he is not deserving.

Taking partisan issues out of the argument, his experience for the job isn't laughable. He's been in politics most of his life, and has served in a wide range of Congressional Committees. He ran a law firm for 11 years, and is a former Attorney General. He does has no diplomatic or military experience to speak of. He has however written books on the subjects, and seems to have acquired a basic understanding of foreign relations.

There's another important factor to consider.

There are few men of strong principle in politics nowadays. You can never make the case that Joseph Lieberman isn't trying to look out for the best interests of the U.S. If you agree with the politics of the Democratic party, then there are few more deserving candidates than Senator Joseph Lieberman.


Can he win the nomination?

He's a long shot at this point, but stranger things have happened. He will attract Democrats who view the other Presidential candidates as modern day appeasers. He'll attract conservatives who believe on taking a stand for morality. He has nationwide notorioty from being on the Presidential ticket in 2000. He's a Democrat who isn't afraid to be tough, and a lot of people. And he has managed to stay above the other candidates by not making petty attacks on them or Bush.

However, a lot of Democrats view him as too conservative for their tastes. He's not as staunchly anti-gun, pro-choice, or anti-Bush as they would like. He may speak well, but he's about to be 62, and very much looks it. Perception and looks sadly play a role in who people vote for, especially in Democratic primaries where the voter base is typically younger and more susceptible to looking at superficial factors.

Despite what some commentators have said, Lieberman has a shot. A long one, but a shot nonetheless.


If nominated, could he beat Bush?

It is baffling why voters looking for electability are looking at anybody but Lieberman. But then again, maybe not: a lot of the primary voters claim to want someone who can beat Bush, but in reality want somebody who can beat Bush AND is anti-war.

Lieberman is the only candidate who won't be crushed in the arena of national defense. And since that issue will drive this election, the Democrats have to have a candidate who Bush won't run over on that issue in order to have any chance of beating him. In fact, Lieberman may well steal some of Bush's supporters, since he offers a pro-defense stance AND increased tax cuts for the middle class. Lieberman's chances would not be good, but he would give Bush at least some kind of a struggle for the Presidency.

Final verdict:

He's the best candidate of this sorry bunch. He'll give you an increase in the size of government with a side order of heavy-handed morality regulations, but at least he'll protect the lives of Americans while doing so. Plus, he is willing to oppose his party on some issues. If Joseph Lieberman were elected President, he would not be the worst President ever. That's quite the praise, considering who he's running against.

I took the PAT test on the Project Vote Smart website, which is sent to most Presidential candidates. (The major exceptions being Howard Dean and George Bush.)

This guy is apparently my best match for President of the United States. Wow, does he look like a dork. Guess that's why he's my best match.

The full list of comparable candidates to myself is here. Note that the highest major candidate is Senator Joseph Lieberman. Told you.

My friend Mariela makes the following comments on my last update:

I don't know if you realize this David, but you're a very conservative centrist. It's like the moderator asking Gen. Clark, "You voted for Nixon, you voted for Reagan, you praised Bush's bravery concerning the Iraq war. When did you suddenly decide you were a Democrat?" And to me, an election between Lieberman (Reasonably principled??) and Dubya would be a nightmare. PLEASE HELP ME GOD!! Vote for John Edwards :) He's got the charisma and he realizes that the race isn't about the candidates, it's about the issues! Plus I like his stand on issues... Most of them anyway. I hope I didn't sound mean? You know you're cool Davey!

I'm not a conservative centrist. Conservatives believe that government should defend their views of morality. I do not.

That being said, I do see things the way conservatives CLAIM to see them some of the time, so I can see why you'd think so.

I'll analyze both Lieberman and Edwadrs in depth in the coming days. The QnD version of Edwards is that I have two main issues with him.

One, he makes policy decisions seemingly based on making political statements. If you heard the New Hampshire debate, you'd know that he voted for the Iraqi war, yet voted against sending $82 billion over there to support our troops. His stated reasons for doing so was because he didn't want to give the President a 'blank check' and have him come back next year asking for more (he inexplicably believes that the bill in question was a 'blank check'). He also said that the President needed to be a sent a message that he was handling the war badly. Neither is a valid reason for voting against sending our troops needed support. In fact, it smacks of playing political games.

Two, he's a tort lawyer. He made his name by taking millions from companies (particularly tobacco companies) in class action lawsuits.

While I can agree that in certain circumstances a tobacco company would be liable for damages, that would only be in instances where the user started smoking before health labels. And I fail to see how this background qualifies him for President. He hasn't shown any indication of having an understanding of how a capitalist economy works.

I disagree with Lieberman on many, many issues. However, I haven't seen any action of Lieberman's that smacked of political motivation. He is the only Democratic candidate that isn't vulnerable on the issue of national security, and make no mistake about it: national security is the issue that will drive this coming election.

The only hope of a Democratic victory in 2004 is nominating a candidate who can go toe-to-toe with Bush on national defense issues. Lieberman is the only candidate who can do so.

One down, 6,344,100,587 to go.

Well, I enjoyed doing the Dean thing last night, so later today I'll do Senator Joseph Lieberman. He's probably the best candidate out of the bunch. He doesn't deserve to take over for Bush, but at least he's reasonably principled.

Anyway, before I go on with the festivities, I want to give you a better look at who I am politically. It will give you a chance to determine any bias on my part as I look at the candidates.

First off, a small history. I grew up as a mild Republican under my parents' influence. After analyzing Bush and Gore in 2000, I decided that both parties were seriously flawed and became an independent. I am a centrist in nature, leaning towards the Libertarian point of view. If you don't know what a Libertarian is, it's essentially someone who holds the belief that the government should be involved as little as possible.

To support my position, I'm going to make an analogy.

Whenever I become interested in a subject, I am driven to become an expert in it. For example, I have been a baseball fan all of my life. It is something I find endlessly fascinating. Because of this, I have invested a lot of time into learning everything I can about the sport. As a result, I have an understanding of the game and its economics that surpasses even most baseball journalists. This is admittedly not a hard task; baseball journalists are typically generalist writers, and don't posses much detailed knowledge in the field. They are notoriously ignorant of the sport's intricacies.

I'm going to take the time now to do a QnD (quick n' dirty) explanation of baseball economics. Don't worry, I will demonstrate its relevancy to you and your life.

Major League Baseball is the only business that has an anti-trust exemption. This means that the normal anti-monopoly laws in our constitution do not apply to MLB. As a result, a strong players' union has emerged to make sure that owners do not force wages down as they once did.

The typical MLB player salary is around $3 million. The minimum is around $350,000. There is no cap.

Now, the owners have taken to portraying the players as overpaid crybabies, and have claimed that the cost of labor is coming dangerously close to forcing them out of business.

So what do they do? They ask Joe Q. Taxpayer for money in the form of publically-funded stadiums. They claim that without these stadiums, your city's favorite team will not have the resources to compete with the New York Yankees (who pay substanially more for players than any other team due to their huge flow of revenues) and other rich teams. They ask their fellow owners to subsidize the lower-payroll teams with a share of the richer cities' revenue in order to solve the alleged competitive balance problem between poor and rich cities.

It's a fraud.

They promise their cities that their tax dollars will allow their team to compete. They then make no effort to field a competitive team. They take revenue-sharing payments and pocket them as profit. They then continue to cry poor and ask for more revenue-sharing and stadiums.

None of this fixes the source of competitive imbalance: poor management that has no understanding of baseball economics.

In many respects, the baseball industry has it good. It's really simple to determine smart management from stupid management.

Stupid management pays a declining average-to-middling famous baseball player $3-5 million to fill a hole.

Smart management pays an average-to-middling unknown minor leaguer the league minimum for the same performance.

This is of course how competition lowers costs. If you allow competition, then you will get more efficient production for your dollar. Capitalism at its finest.

Now, let's compare baseball economics to the economics behind socialized health care and education.

First off, let's get one thing clear: there is no such thing as free health care or education. Any money the government spends will be money that is taken out of your check, or added to your rent.

That being said, the government should not be either running or paying for the health care and education systems. Advocating the government's involvement in either shows a lack of economic understanding.

Think about it: health care and education are not new issues. For a long time, there has been outcry that the government has not been pouring enough money into both.

Only, goverment has been pouring billions of dollars into health care and education for years now. So why hasn't it been enough? Why have costs been rising in both fields without sign of stopping?

Simple: the people that sell schools their books, or hospitals their drugs, know full well that to vote against any proposal that sends money to either system is viewed as akin to political suicide. They therefore continue to raise the price of their services because they know that the money will keep coming in.

Look at England if you want to know how well socialized health care works. England does virtually no medical research on cures for diseases and ailments. They can't afford it. All of the money for health care is tied into treatment.

As for our government's involvement in education...there is a reason why the quality of a high school education has slipped to the point where a diploma is almost worthless. There is simply no motivation for schools to increase the quality of their services. Their only concern is to make sure that you don't notice that they're not doing their job. They therefore lower their standards so that you don't complain that your child is failing.

If you don't like it, you have very few options. Private education is prohibitively costly due to high and the affluency of its patrons. You can't change schools without moving. Simply put, you're stuck.

So what do the politicians in power propose? Throw more money at the problem. This is akin to asking for publically-funded sports stadiums and expecting that to solve your revenue issues.

It simply doesn't address the source of our health care and education problems.

The solution? Trust in competition.

Not even twenty years ago, only the most affluent could afford a computer of their own. If for some reason the government deemed it neccessary for every citizen to have a computer, then the costs of a computer would never go down. Why would they? There'd be no reason to.

As in baseball, if you are willing to go through public scrutiny to break the mold, the effiency of your services will increase. If you are willing to let the private market take over for government in health care and education, then competition will be the order of the day. Costs will go down, quality will go up, and everything will be fixed. Yay! Hooray for capitalism!

And no, making rich people pay for it is NOT a solution. People who earn over $250,000 pay approximitly 30% of the taxes while controlling only 15% of all income. And if the rich people's money is going towards education,health care, and all those other things you think they should pay for, then it isn't going towards creating new companies, and therefore new jobs.

Rich people create companies that produce goods or services so they can gain more money. To do so, they hire people like you and me to produce those goods and services. This is how the economy works.

To complete the analogy, having the taxpayers, rich or not, pay for health care and education is like paying Brad Ausmus and Jose Vizcaino $4 million dollars to play baseball for your team. It may give you the warm fuzzies, but the job ends up not getting done, it creates more problems than it solves, and if you were just willing to allow for competition instead of blindly supporting the status quo, you could find a much more efficient way of getting it done.

Dig The D

I'm going to analyze Howard Dean today.

I was originally going to stop after what I wrote earlier about the two parents of "bipolar children". But hey, I've got the energy for it, and I'm bored. So let's go.

The plan was to do Bush first tommorrow. But Bush can wait until after New Hampshire. He'll be there no matter what. I want to do the Democratic candidates before the nominating process progresses too far. I will lay out the case both for and against all of the Democratic nominee hopefuls. I will leave out any strengths or weaknesses that are common to all or most candidates (ie. their anti-war stance, the proposals on socializing medicine).

Let's start with the candidate that's the most fun to talk about, your hero and mine.....

Howard Dean

Former Governor of Vermont

How it all began:

Howard Dean, by even being involved in this discussion, has accomplished a huge feat. The former Governor of Vermont was not considered to be a big shot by the Democratic Party. His running for President should have been as inconsequential as most other candidates. Yet, by turning to the internet and capitalizing on the feverish resentment some have for Bush, Dean created a fanatically loyal supporter base that provided him with large amounts of campaign finances. This allowed him to get his campaign off the ground. The media found his staunch anti-Bush stance captivating, and gave him the exposure that eventually led to Former Vice President Al Gore's endorsement, legitimizing his candidacy.


Where he stands now:

Two weeks before the Iowa Caucus, where the first votes are cast for Presidential nominees, Dean had a commanding lead over his competition. No one was particularly close, and Dean was touted as almost having locked the nomination up. During the two weeks leading up to Iowa, Dean made a number of political missteps (mostly statements that were either inconsistent, vindictive, or factually unsupported). He also, by virtue of his demeanor during debates and town hall meetings, started becoming viewed as either unelectable or flat out mean. In either case, Dean's lead evaporated, and he finished a distant third to John Kerry and John Edwards. As of now, he trails both in New Hampshire (traditionally the first primary held) by a significant margin.


The case for Howard Dean:

Dean's main strength lies in his ability to motivate his supporters. He has a fanatically loyal fanbase, and Dean nurtures that loyalty by binding them together as an Internet community. Dean's official site has numberous links to blogs that support him, and readers can comment freely. This means that his supporters are more likely to turn out to vote than the average constituent. If he can claim the nomination, he has a chance of reaching voters who are Bush-supporters grudgingly, or voters who don't really care about politics.

His experience and credentials are almost entirely domestic-based. Dean's been involved in politics for about 20 years. More than half of that time was spent as a Lieutenent Governor or Governor. He has managed to balance the budget of Vermont despite there being no requirement by the state for him to do so. Health care coverage is wide in Vermont. Income taxes are high, but reasonable in comparison to other states in the region.

His views on universal health care and gay marriage mean that those who vote solely on those issues should support him.

Finally, Dean can point to the influence he has had on the Democratic race. Due to his surge into the race, almost all of the other candidates have adopted his staunch anti-Bush rhetoric. He can therefore point to instances in which the other candidates at one time supported the very Bush causes that they now claim are ruining the country. Dean has consistency problems as well, but not in the Bush-hating arena. He is the original.


The case against Howard Dean:

Howard Dean's financial records as Governor of Vermont are suspect. Dean did indeed keep the budget of Vermont balanced during his tenure. However, the sole reason for his being able to do so was that when his budget fell short (and it frequently did), property taxes went up astronomically. He may have balanced a budget, but by most definitions he is not a fiscal conservative.

He has no experience in military or foreign matters, which would've been fine in 2000. Post 9/11, experience in these areas is important to voters. Dean has none.

However, Dean's main vulnerabilities lie in his unstable personality. Already his cause has been weakened by his admitted habit of saying something without thinking about it. It started with his comment that "the most interesting theory I've heard (about Bush's alleged surpressing of a 9/11 report) - which is nothing more than a theory, it can't be proved - is that Bush was warned ahead of time by the Saudis." A couple of days later he said that he never professed to believing the theory, and called it crazy. Many people still took it negatively, stating that it was inappropriate for someone seeking the Presidency to put forth such a theory. He also stated that the world was "no safer without Saddam Hussein", a ridiculous statement to make in light of the unbelievable horrors that have taken place in Iraq.

The main manifestation of his unstableness (and therefore, his greatest weakness) is his propensity to say things or take positions that he cannot possibly support, either because of his history or his ignorance. His stance on the war was that it was wrong for us to act unilaterally in sending troops to Iraq without the U.N.'s approval.

Yet in 1996 Dean wrote President Clinton a letter urging him to take unilateral action in Bosnia for humanitarian purposes despite the U.S. having no security concerns in the area. He stated in the letter that if NATO and the U.N. were unprepared to act, then we had to be prepared to step in regardless. He supported bombing and air raids, but did not want to send in troops.

Since it would be completely braindead to say that there was no humanitarian reason to go into Iraq, this leads one to conclude that Dean's real reasons for his opposition of the Iraqi war are threefold:

1. Iraq was not worth the deaths of our troops.

2. It would potentially give opposing nations the idea that the U.S. was a bully.

3. It is politically advantageous for Dean to take this position.

Dean might get support on the first two points. But people now see that the third point is a factor in Dean's decision-making process, and it is hurting him.

In fact, Dean's propensity for taking positions that he thinks will get him votes has been clearly brought to light with his inserting Jesus Christ into his campaign. Dean had previously stated that God had no place in political campaigns. Furthermore, he claimed to be a very religious person, one whom prayed and read the bible every day. He claimed to know a lot about the bible.

So when he was asked what his favorite book in the New Testament was, Dean responded "Job."

Job is actually one of the more famous Old Testament books. It would be a pretty huge mistake to make for your average church goer. For someone who claims to be an expert on the bible, it simply proves those claims false. The mistake might be forgivable if it had been said by someone whom had a history of supporting religion. Dean's history had been the opposite. Therefore, the reasonable conclusion is that Dean's position on religion is for purely political reasons.

Finally, Dean placed a 10-year seal on any records pertaining to what he did as Governor for what he admitted to be political reasons. This is not an action someone who holds an office of public trust should ever take. The people, as employers of the government, have a right to analyze your actions as their employee. To seal gubernatorial records is an unbelievable breech of the public trust.

Conclusions

Is he deserving of the nomination?

If you are a proponent of socialized medical care and education, want business to pony up a bigger share of their money, or are a proponent of gay marriage, then Dean is the best choice for you. As long as you don't care what it costs to get your way on these issues, and have no interest in any others, that is. Dean will give you all of those things, and will do it while not increasing the deficit.

If you are not a one-issue voter, then there are better choices than Dean no matter what positions you hold.


Is he deserving of the Presidency?

No. His lack of experience in foreign and military matters overwhelms his domestic experience. He is inconsistent in most of his positions, and does not properly present his stance on the positions he is consistent on. He has shown a propensity to mislead and outright lie in order to attract voters. His temperment is not condusive to the job requirements.


Can he win the nomination?

He still has a good shot. However, he has to seriously repair the damage he has done to his own image in order to make a run. If he finishes anywhere below a strong second in New Hampshire, he's done.


If nominated, could he beat Bush?

Probably not. Dean's only chance would be to have his energized and loyal voter base encourage more people to turnout and vote. His followers and his presence on the internet would have to work together to create a propoganda machine the likes of which never before seen in America. That would still only give him a slim chance.

Final verdict:

Awful, irresponsible candidate. He's not the best candidate in the field, he has virtually no shot at beating Bush, and if elected President might very well dig a domestic and foreign policy hole that we would be hard pressed to get back out of. He has very serious credibility and moral issues, and if you are at all reasonable, you will find a better candidate to spend your vote on.

My milkshake is better than yours.

And I have no idea what that means.

I saw a piece on ABC news about bipolar disorder. It featured an interview of two mothers whose children allegedly suffered from it. They have written a book on the subject that I cannot remember the title of. That is, of course, irrelevant, because these two women were nutcases.

First off, they mentioned that you can tell bipolar disorder apart from normal childish behavior "by its extremes". If a child is always either extremely happy, extremely sad, or extremely angry, then they are likely bipolar.

Personally, I think it's more likely that the children in question are merely typical hyper kids, but that's an opinion.

Then, they mentioned that the children's teachers saw no sign of the disorder (which boggles my mind, because teachers will usually fall all over themselves to get your child on medication.) But that was irrelevant, because these mothers saw the behavior with their own eyes, and even though they were fine at school, they acted up the second they got home.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a perfect example of "denial". A child is able to control their disorder at school, but is somehow not able to control it at home?! That makes absolutely no sense! In the case of these two children, the reasonable conclusion is that the mothers in question simply lack the patience or the assertiveness to be effective mothers. That doesn't mean that they're bad people. It just means that they have flaws in their characters that inhibit their effectiveness as parents.

But of course, deflection of accountability has been fine tuned to an art form by the current society. So we get to blame our ineffectiveness as parents on disorders that simply don't exist in our children. Instead of bettering our parental skills, we drug up our children.

The telling statement one of the mothers made was this (and I'm quoting from memory).

Interviewer: What's something that you wished you would've been told as the parent of a bipolar?

Mother: To find a good doctor. The most important thing a parent can do is to find a doctor who can give your child the diagnosis he or she needs to overcome their disorder.

I think that statement just about speaks for itself. I'll only ask a hypothetical question in response....


What do you think this mother was really after? The diagnosis her child needed in order to live a healthy life? Or the diagnosis she needed in order to assure herself that she isn't a bad parent and that her child's behavior was not her fault?

I'm baaaacccckkkk
In the saddle again

Today's entry will be about.....wait for it.....politics!

Oh, stop groaning. Okay, fine, I'll just go tell about all of the things that have happened in my life since my last entry.

Which is, of course, absolutely nothing of note. I work, I play, I write, that's it. So politics it is.

Actually, I think I will do a brief paragraph on the Roger Clemens signing, which I had written a whole post about last week. Sadly, it got eaten, so I'll just have to sum it up and say.....wow. An Astros rotation that consists of Oswalt, Pettite, Clemens, Miller, and (hopefully) Redding?! That's just not fair. Roy is the class of the bunch (despite what some you may have heard from the dumber baseball fans in Houston who think that Clemens, 3.66 ERA and all, is as good RIGHT NOW as Oswalt and his 2.92 ERA), but all of them have the potential to dominate. Combine that with an offense so good that it doesn't mind carrying Brad "4-3" Ausmus, and it looks like the Astros have an excellent shot to win the World Series.

Oh, and if you're one of those dorks who thinks that it's worse to go to the playoffs and lose than to never make it there in the first place.....come on now. You're telling me you would rather our team history be like the Milwuakee Brewers than the Astros?! PLEASE get off the Kool-Aid.

Enough sports. Let's talk politic.

First, the Iowa Caucus, also known as the day Howard Dean revealed his inner sausage by repeatedly shooting himself in the foot. By virtue of merely opening his mouth, he ended up blowing a huge lead and ending up in a distant third. Dean, ever the wizened statesman, reacted the way you'd expect any dignified Presidential Candidate to react.

He lost his fucking mind. AHHHHHH!

So with Dean not able to be the weiner.....er, winner.....the field was wide open, and when the smoke cleared, Senator John Kerry emerged the victor.

What does that mean? Well, it means that we came into Iowa expecting a crazy lunatic liberal to win, and left Iowa with a less crazy lunatic liberal victorious.

One state down, 49 more to go.

I've decided that since I'm going to follow the primaries anyway, I might as well write about the candidates here. So every entry from here on out will feature a Democratic Presidential nominee, the case for his nomination, and the case against it. It'll be biased, of course. However, I will provide the facts along with my views, so that you can make your own decision.

I'm also going to do the case for and against Bush's reelection. I'll do that one either first or last. I haven't decided which yet.

And oh yeah, this is something I want to do, so if it bores you.....you'll get over it. Besides, it is utter insanity to have no interest in who becomes the person that directs where YOUR country will go. So you will read me, you will learn, and you will become an enlightened individual capable of handling yourself in a political debate when the real election grind starts.

You will also agree with every word I write. Otherwise, you will hear from some of my kung-fu kangaroos. And believe me, they can get funky.

Funkytown! Owwwww!

Okay, in three days the Iowa Caucus is scheduled. For those not politically active, it's the first step in the process of nominating a Democratic Presidential candidate to run against Bush. So I'm in a political mood.

I'm not, however, going to talk about the sorry lot of Democratic candidates. Instead, I'm going to respond to a silly article my dad sent me a link to. It was written for the New York Times by a columnist named Dick Morris. I'm going to do a point by point rebuttal here. Be warned: it's on illegal immigration.

The original article is in bold: my responses will be in italics

January 15, 2004 -- PRESIDENT Bush's immigration/amnesty proposal will probably be remembered in history as the idea that saved a political party.
By taking the lead in extending the benefits of legal protections to more than 10 million illegal immigrants now living in the United States, Bush has taken a bold and dramatic step to avert the extinction of his own party.

Ah yes, and I'm extremely proud of him for that accomplishment. After all, he swore an oath to uphold the beliefs and existence of the Republican Party, and he must do everything in his power to fulfill that oath.

Wait a minute, I apologize. Bush took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, not the beliefs of the Republican Party. My mistake.

Until Bush acted, the grinding inevitability of demographic change was likely to doom the GOP to an early death. As America became 1 percent more Hispanic each year, the Republicans could not concede this growing group to the Democrats by 2-1 ratios without risking total annihilation down the road.


Some would argue that the rising growth in the Hispanic population is exactly why we should stem the tide so our culture won't be consumed. I won't make that arguement. I will however contest that the Republicans were 'conceding' the Hispanic vote. There's a difference between taking action that will annoy some Hispanics and giving up on their vote entirely.

The Republicans have got to break the solid demographic phalanx that sustains the Democratic Party: Blacks, Hispanics and single white women. Together, this group cast 25 percent of votes in 1990, 32 percent in 2000 and will account for 40 percent in 2008.


Why is the Democratic party viewed as the party of minorties? The Democrats are the ones with a former clansman vying for the Presidential Nomination (Gephardt, I believe). The Democrats are the party that is telling minorities that they can't succeed in this world without the goverment's help via affirmative action. Most Republicans care very much about minorities. In fact, they believe in the intelligence and capability of minorities so much that they're making the case that minorities no longer need any crutches to reach success. I agree.

But by embracing the cause of Hispanic immigrants and extending to them elemental civil rights and minimum-wage protections, Bush has struck a blow on their behalf that will resonate in their voting habits for generations to come. His legislative proposals are akin to the sponsorship of a sweeping civil-rights bill in 1963-65 by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and will have a similar effect in binding Hispanics to the Republicans as the civil-rights legislation did in linking blacks to the Democrats.


This is an absurd comparison. The civil-rights legislation gave the black citizens of this country the same freedoms as white citizens. This new legislation is letting people who broke the law in coming here off the hook. Whether you believe they should be let off the hook or not, to compare this to stopping the discrimination against those who had done nothing wrong is ludicrous.

And if Mr. Morris is arguing that the comparison is that both bills bounds ethnic groups to political parties....what in the blazing hell does that have to do with the merits of this proposal? The effects upon a political party SHOULD NOT BE A CONSIDERATION when making policy.

For decades, Republicans systematically alienated Hispanics by insisting on English-only initiatives, opposing benefits for illegal immigrants and demanding an end even to free public schools for the children of those who came here illegally. These measures drove Hispanics into the waiting arms of Democrats. Bush has now acted to reverse the legacy of these initiatives and to welcome Hispanics into the GOP.

You know, I really don't see what's wrong with asking people to learn the language of the country they immigrate to. Many immigrant peoples in the past have had to adopt America's language and culture. That being said, go ahead and teach Spanish in schools. However, teaching Spanish-speaking students English should be a major priority.

Uh, Mr. Morris? Those "free benefits" and "free public schools" you refer to? Well, they aren't free. All citizens of this country pay for benefits and schooling through taxes. I can understand the argument that every citizen of this country deserves a chance at an education. But people who break the law in coming here are entitled to nothing. You want an education for your kids? Great, I think your kids deserve it. But people from other countries also want their kids to grow up educated. They have to wait in line. And so do you: in theory, anyway.

As Catholic voters, who take their religion seriously, Hispanics are a natural Republican constituency. Recent data that closely links the frequency of church attendance to party-voting habits supports the theory that this very religious voting group is likely to adhere to the Republican Party once its platform stops repelling them at every turn.

Please. Taking the position that Hispanics do not have more rights than other immigrants or ethnic groups is not "repelling them at every turn". Maybe some of them see it that way. They shouldn't.

Republican efforts to win black voters have proven largely fruitless. Even the appointment of blacks to the two top jobs in the Bush foreign policy apparatus has failed to generate any significant African-American support for Bush in the polls. But candidates who appeal to the Hispanic vote - Gov. Pataki in New York, Gov. Rick Perry in Texas and the Bushes in Florida and Texas - have shown a real ability to get large shares of Hispanic voters.

Great, so the Republicans saw the Democrats bending over backwards to accomodate Hispanics, decided they want a piece of the action, and developed legislature designed to attract their vote.

IT IS NOT THE JOB OF AN ELECTED OFFICIAL TO ATTRACT PEOPLE'S VOTES. Their job is to do what's best for *everyone*, not just a certain group of people.

As Hispanics follow the traditional paths of upward mobility that immigrant groups have trod before them, they are likely to lean more and more toward the Republicans - just as Irish and Italians do these days, abandoning the Democratic orientation of their ancestors.

Hispanics hold the key to the political outcomes in many major states. California, Texas and Florida are heavily influenced by their participation as are New York, New Jersey and Illinois. These are the key battleground states that hold the balance of power between the parties.

Apart from the politics of the issue, the merits also dictate the Bush initiative. America has 4 percent of the world's population but 25 percent of its wealth. It is incumbent on us to open our doors to those who seek upward mobility.

Our doors are already very open. We have the most lenient immigration policy in the world. Anybody who wants opportunity can come here and take it.

However, they have to do it by the rules we have laid down. If they are not willing to do even this, then they are not willing to do what it takes to gain the benefits of living in the greatest country in the world.

Now, if you want to reform those rules, then do so. I think they need to be reformed so that every person who wants to work here, can work here. However, we have the right and the obligation to control who comes into our country. It is not anti-Mexican to exercise that right.

The only thing standing between subsistence and starvation in Mexico, and much of Central America, is the money sent home to needy families by hard working men and women in the United States who tend our gardens, wash our dishes and clean our floors. It is not American workers who they are putting out of jobs, it is American robots. The alternative to their low wage work is not American labor but machines

I don't know if this claim has any merit. If it does, I'd like to see Mr. Morris give evidence to support it.

The United States needs the skills, energy, savvy and willingness to work hard of our illegal immigrants. They are illegal only because our laws have been nativist and short-sighted. Now Bush is setting them right.

If you believe our laws are nativist and short-sighted, then change them. Don't circumvent them.

"Well hey, I know it's ILLEGAL for me to take this lady's purse, but damnit I shouldn't have to obey such short-sighted laws. Why didn't those snobby politician people realize that my boss would make me tell him to go fuck off?! I have kids to raise, damnit!

If President Bush wants foreigners to have the right to walk into our country and work here, then he should change the law to allow them to do so. Since he has not, it is his duty to enforce the laws of this country. He has essentially said that he will not. Therefore, he is not performing his duty.

Look, if you want to argue about the state of our borders, our immigration policy, and any changes we should make to accomodate all the Hispanics who want to work here, we can and we should. If we decide the law should be changed, then let's change it. But
Vincente Fox and the government of Mexico does not have the right to tell us what laws their citizens will and will not obey. The Mexican people do not have the right to tell us what laws they will and will not obey.

Why is this being considered an anti-Mexican stance? And why are some Republicans being called racist for wanting changes in immigration to be done through the lawmaking system?

Absurd.

Dig The D

Dean Urged Clinton to Take Action in Bosnia

I don't get it.

Dean's rep says action in Bosnia was justified for humanitarian purposes. So all of the raping and mass murdering Saddam Hussein inflicted on his own people doesn't qualify?

I don't get it.

Sigh.

You know, I wrote a huge entry last night on the signing of Roger Clemens, and it got fucking wasted by my computer. Very demoralizing.

Well, anyway I've finally gotten everything set up at my new pad. So I should be back to updating semi-regularly again. Won't do it tonight, due to talking at Sandy for a couple of hours about the hyprocracy of Howard Dean. I'll sum it up real quick: according to Howard Dean, we have to do what the U.N. says in Iraq during Bush's presidency. Yet Clinton needed to invade Bosnia during his regime to prevent the atrocities going on there, even though the U.N. decided against it? That's what Dean believes, according to a letter he wrote to President Clinton in 1995 in which he called the U.N. incompetent.

Bush is gonna kill this guy if he gets nominated.

Dig The D

Quick post to let ya'll know what's up:

I've recently moved apartments. Not apartment complexes mind you. Just apartments. Now, the phone line has not been moved yet. Therefore, it's a bitch to come over here and get on the internet. So I'm not gonna do it much. If I have to, I'll write an entry tommorrow from my old apartment. Hopefully my phone line will be switched over by then so I won't have to.

Happy New Years, gang. I'll tell you about what I did tommorrow.

Dig The D