It has been an interesting five days since the 2016 election. Taking another swing at this blog after another extended absence. Thoughts and views haven’t changed much so a lot of the older content is still accurate, the only difference being the current roster of miscreants and demagogues have changed to match a world two years on. Here’s to seeing what happens next.
Category: ideology
The Congress shall have power to…
I have been gone for awhile. I have several unpublished posts from the last year that are all too dated to publish. It’s been a weird road, watching the nation go on, watching the ups and downs, and not talking about it. I was comfortable writing thousands of words, critiques on the matters of State, and deleting them because, honestly, I was vain and empty. The world, I believed, wanted flash. Shining lights bright colors in streamers at the bottom of the television set. Well dressed hosts in $5,000 suits quantifying matters of international concern one moment and then tittering about puppies the next.
It is grotesque, and will continue to be so because they have the money, the advertisers, and the professionals that pour through reams of data that tell them this is exactly what their viewers want. I was fine with this. It is their money, it is their channel, and their viewers. I can go without that. I have disagreed with their tactics, but that is theirs, and there are bigger fish to fry.
The link above goes to an article from CTV News regarding the President’s bid to expand the American military presence in Iraq. The president and his “legal team” have attempted to craft a legal maneuver around the restrictions of the War Powers Clause of the Constitution and War Powers Act of 1973 and a host of international standards regarding national sovereignty and international war.
I am not fond of snippets. However, the scope of the section I will post the relevant text of the enumerated powers from Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution:
The Congress shall have power…to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.
It is a fundamental thing. A simple idea that the people of a nation, not a single man or woman, should decide when and why the nation goes to war. It was the desire to remove the absolute authority of the king that prompted the declaration of war to be put in the hands of the people and their representatives in the Legislative, rather than Executive, branch.
We have seen challenges to this power time, and time again. From The Gulf of Tomkin to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. As a matter of fact, scholars have spoken on this very matter:
What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne…
That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaida. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.
Granted the speech is from the buildup to the second Iraq War, and if the word choice and tone sounds familiar, it should. President, then Senator, Barack Obama delivered this address on October 2nd, 2002. The most poignant words of his speech apply just as much to his actions as Commander in Chief as they did to President George Bush when he was decrying the impetus by the Executive Branch to to follow the unwise course of action that would, eventually, embroil the American military in one of it’s longest running military actions:
Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.
Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair. The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not — we will not — travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.
Since that time we have followed through on practically none of these issues. ISIS/ISIL is loaded with young men from Saudi Arabia. Their government wonders how we, not they, will stop ISIS/ISIL from arriving at their door because they have, for decades, done exactly what was warned against decades before, and elucidated by President Obama when he put pen to paper in 2002.
Here we stand twelve years later. Still beholden to the rampant policies of the Middle East. Policies and movements rooted in religious bigotry rather than rational discourse. National well-being discarded in lieu of perceived religious bias. Our nation, weary from two, decade-long wars that have claimed the lives of thousands of countrymen, and countless civilians. What fruit have we seen from these wars? None.
A broken nation stands, still fighting with itself. A region that is progressing further into chaos because of selfish policies set decades ago, and being overseen by petty dictators. Armies without parent countries formed from the most zealous, uneducated, and blood-thirsty. We, as a nation, failed to step up onto the world stage and engaged in statesmanship rather than showmanship. We negotiated with the sword rather than with an olive branch, or bread basket. We remain the most powerful solely because of “investment” in a military that’s purpose is to project the promise of violence. We have deferred diplomacy in lieu of the capacity to annihilate those who stand against us.
Have we used these powers judiciously, to an extent. We have destroyed with one hand, but in the other there should have been honest cooperation with those who remain. To allow nations to decide how they would rule themselves instead of listening to the Young Turk who believes they know all. Here we stand, here our President stands. Seeing, hopefully, all the follies we have committed, and, hopefully, learning from them.
Limited action against ISIS/ISIL has been successful, but the time of Presidential operation without the purview of the electorate is at an end. The notion that lawyers are working around the clock to further stretch the President’s capacity to operate without the consent of Congress, and by proxy the people, is a distasteful indication of a desire to operate outside of the realm of the Constitution. A need to push the letter of the law as far as it can go, knowing that those who would punish in the case it breaks are firmly in your pocket. It dishonors the spirit of the law, and the notion that the representatives of the people should decide when we are to go to war. It was the firm notion 227 years ago that no President would ever have this nations army at his beck and call for extended use. If this is to be another war, let it be a war America chooses, rather than the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating
It’s a cheap shot today and return after a long absence.
The Primaries are going on today in Virginia. So far it looks like a par for course run; the races that are close are going to be driven by the grassroots support that is drummed up during these off-season primaries while strong incumbents and those who are historied within the wall of their respective parties will clinch their nominations with little difficulty. That doesn’t bother me. Shenanigans bother me, and I’ve been listening to them for months.
The purpose of the Republican Primary was to ensure that there was ‘purity’ in the selection of the candidates that were chosen last month. There was the need for this to be ‘honest’ and ‘clear of meddling’. Rush Limbaugh refers to these yet to materialize, and oft worried about, efforts at tampering ‘Operation Chaos’. The gist is simple: open primaries mean that Democrats can roll in to the polling station and supposedly pick the weaker of two candidates, effectively setting up their “strong” candidate with an easy win. If the yarn sounds familiar, it was kicked around in 2008 when McCain was winning much to the chagrin of the Republican party. It was rolled out again in 2012 when Mitt Romney was facing supposedly impossible odds against the titanic political powers of Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachman, and (seriously?) Rick Santorum.
Therein lies the problem. Since the end of the Primary, and the wretched result that has me wincing each morning I have to listen to John Fredericks talk about the latest train wreck of a video someone has dug up on the Virginia Lieutenant Governor nominee E.W. Jackson, the discussion has shifted from the need for purity in the selection process to encouraging our team to go out and vote during the open primaries for the other side. Granted, there are primaries today for Republican candidates, and to those I say go nuts, have a ball. For the Democratic candidates and races I wonder where the wagging tail ends and the dog begins.
Now, I enjoy Mr. Fredericks’ show, and have so since I discovered it on a drive to work one morning last year, but I take pause with his notion that voting in the Democrats open primary is perfectly acceptable after our party went to such great lengths to prevent such actions. It is, of course, his choice, and he chose to exercise that, and in no way am I saying it’s bad. I’ve met Senator Northam, at the end of election night where I was working for the team that was trying to take his seat, and found him most agreeable, articulate, and, to borrow common vernacular, very real. As Fredericks said, and so I shall reiterate, what you see from Northam is what you get. No, I have no problem with his selection, but I’m saying the action of voting for a democrat after you’ve selected your Republican candidate feels…awkward. It invites analysis by others, and recognition of the inherit weakness of the primary system; any Tom, Dick, or Harry can roll into a polling station and vote for a rep from their state or district.
After the utter, pardon the following, shitcan mess that was the Republican primary in May, why on earth would we advertise, nay, encourage our huddled masses, who were terrified of the bogeyman of cross-platform voters, to go out and do the very thing we decried as fouling the process? It is hypocritical to demand a pure representation of a party, then to encourage our team to go out and muddy the waters for the other side. There is no honor in it.
Stars out of the eyes, I understand that, mathematically, the Republican turnout for a Democratic primary is going to be low (maybe 0.25-0.5% of the Republican voting block, so 0.10-0.35% of the overall voting block for the district), but the notion is noxious to me. If we are going to claim moral high ground it means constant diligence. Moral strength comes from the ability to act consistently, and in the political world consistency, if measured in gold, would be worth the national debt and a few dollars more. Lastly, if Mr. Fredericks is going to champion the notion of selecting a candidate based on his authenticity and amicable nature in working across the aisle, maybe closing a post out by talking about the unique opportunity to take Senator Northam’s seat in a special election should probably be saved for another day. Especially when you are reminding folks that Northam’s vote, if taken, would tip the balance to 21-19 in favor of the Republicans who, at the moment have a very, very weak candidate running for the coveted tie-breaker known as, you guessed it, the Lt. Governor of Virginia. I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you, Mr. Fredericks, to cover yourself; your machinations are showing.
Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
A recent discussion between friends had me pondering a well-worn topic covering the Westboro Baptist Church. While I am loath to give this repugnant organization any more lines in the massive universe of online and paper text I feel that the notion they were positing was not the best course of action.
It is the standard argument that crops up each time there is a tragedy and these vultures, nay ghouls, crawl out from their miserable crypt and threaten the world with their mere presence. The subsequent ballyhoo over these vile, barely passing for, human beings feed into their hopes of either 1) spreading their woefully misguided message of monumentally ignorant hate with little understanding of their source material, or 2) getting someone worked up enough to do something irrational enough to warrant a lawsuit that will fill what has to be dwindling coffers.
However, I believe, and have argued, that the desire by the masses to simply ignore these individuals, or to refer to them in some offhand way that does not recognize them directly (such as ‘they who shall not be named’) does not retract from their capacity to continue these repulsive acts. If anything, I believe it encourages them.
They are not deterred by legions on Facebook or twitter from referring to them as ‘those wackos’, but those who attend these services and stand in direct opposition of them and their message. The Patriot riders who lined military funeral processions and revved their bikes so loudly that the WBC packed their things and left because they could not be heard. The hundreds of students who mass against a planned protest on a college campus to face off against the WBC when they came to picket, or more likely celebrate, the death of a gay student.
Our society has picked up this notion that an evil ignored dies on the vine of ignominy. We forget that terrible thoughts and hideous acts must be met with thoughts and actions in opposite. Where there is truly misguided hate and disgust, there must be compassion. Where praise of violence against the soldiers or against the children, there must be the solemn respect for the deceased and those still suffering from the loss.
The quote above is from one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett. I won’t go into his fiction, and how it should be read by all who can spare the time, but I want to point out that in this scenario we are the darkness.
We contain the ever-present capacity for humanity to care, to feel, and to have compassion in times of our own suffering as well as the suffering of others. The WBC may think they will get there first, that they will be the loudest voice, but the light, as is not often stated, only illuminates the area around it, leaving the rest into darkness. Is it not too much to hope that the darkness is not the evil of the universe, but that which is all-encompassing. That compassion for the injured, physically and mentally, the wounded, and the deceased fills the void that their ‘light’ would so like to dispel.
In that vein, should that light die, to turn a phrase on Dylan Thomas, I doubt there will be many that rage against it, but until it fails, until the abomination that is the WBC is stripped of its undeserved title as a ‘religious’ institution, and crushed under the heel of both judge, jury, and social executioner it should not be forgotten. No evil that is forgotten dies. No evil that is unchallenged shrinks. if history has taught us anything, it is that.
When the banker wants to pick up the policeman’s gun, no one is safe
A recent story out of Seattle states that an amendment proposed for a bill that would safeguard employee passwords from being requested during job interviews, however should an internal investigation be started that protection of the employee’s private information goes right out the window. Thankfully the provision was pulled a day later and the bill protecting potential employees from having to divulge unnecessary private information went to the floor without the excessive intrusion attached.
It’s not the first time an amendment/ provision/bill like this has been introduced, nor will it be the last. The horrifying part of the story is not so much the provision, but the intention of the representative who added it (quote from The Columbian story linked above):
On Wednesday, House Labor and Workforce Development Committee chair Rep. Mike Sells withdrew the amendment. He had introduced it at the behest of business groups, who say the original bill would open an avenue for possible illegal activity by employees, such as divulging proprietary or consumer information to outsiders.
The fear by business groups who were concerned that this would open up an avenue for possible illegal activity apparently forgot that should illegal activity occur there is a process by which they contact the police and then the proper law enforcement agencies, who are trained and the only bodies by law who can do this, SUBMIT A WARRANT for the personal information directly to the site in question.
I respect a need for businesses to protect their trade secrets, yet it seems that Apple’s latest iPhone doesn’t so much show up on an employee’s news feed or blog spot, rather in a bar after they’ve had one too many. If there is potential theft of intellectual property, embezzlement, or or other such criminal activity going on, my first advice to a business owner would be to get the police involved (i.e. get the folks whose job it is to sort this kind of thing out) rather than trying to play cowboy and find it on their own. The process, should it have proceeded, would have been, as privacy advocated pointed out, rife for abuse, and could lead to lawsuits from employees should other private information be divulged to a company who has not right or reason for having said information.
Lastly, to the state and federal representatives of the nation. Take a moment to think on this matter when it comes to you. Realize that anyone looking to pick up a duty of law enforcement must be addressed with great care and skepticism. Any effort by a business to take on a responsibility or to take an action that would circumvent the law of due process, those pesky warrants that police need in criminal investigations, needs to be shuffled off, and documented for public consumption. These business leaders should be named, and their organizations chastised by the public, but I feel comfortable in saying that none of the barking voices that decry the vices, real and imaginary, of the government will raise a word against the corporate sector.
Simply because people work for a company does not mean that they are to have access to every nook and cranny of their employees lives. If we as a political body fear the encroachment of a nebulous, faceless monstrosity trying to worm its way into every aspect of our lives, why should we treat the businesses who are not restrained by the rules of our Constitution with less caution than the government which we can control?
The ever growing elephant in the room
What is $474.15 Billion dollars?
The fiscal cliff looms in the distance like a funnel cloud on the hard-packed plains of Texas. The key difference is we can avoid that wicked looking mess coming our way. Functionally, this is a historic opportunity, wrapped in gilt and handed to the parties with the same bows and trappings of the holiday preceding the impending fluster cluck that is about to go down. That gift; a moment to finally stop bullshitting and come together to get this nation on a path to a balanced budget, an aim at reducing the national debt, and reigning in the last decade and change of madcap spending that has gone on.
Those hoping for this know better. The only thing we, the American public, will get out of this deal is coal in our stockings which will be summarily taken away because it is neither green nor ours to use as an energy resource.
The New York Times has a fantastic Infographic available to the public where you can see firsthand what grew, what shrank, and what is owed to who and where. I will be frank, if the President or Congress is serious about cutting the deficit and balancing the budget then all the programs they swore to protect must share in some of the bloodletting.
Medicare and Medicaid account for nearly one-third of the budget by itself. Toss Social Security into the mix and over half the budget is consumed by these two programs alone. Defense spending. It rings in, for the first time, lower than the cost of Social Security, and is quickly being outpaced by the interest on the national debt.
This brings me to my beginning question; what is $474.15 billion dollars? That number is what is owed in interest on the national debt.
It is staggering to look at, and, mind you, that is the interest. Not some credit card minimum where part of what you pay hits the principle and we will ever so slowly knock it down. Nay good reader, this is pure interest without a dime set to the principle. I’ll be honest, that would be the first number I would be set to tackle for that number will be what kills us.
If the President’s moratorium on discretionary spending (which would freeze the large majority of defense spending but leave social security and Medicare/Medicaid alone) goes through then we’ve only slowed the train down, but it will chug along. Mayhaps you can knock out some of that principle. Hold back the rising tides, but the moratorium cannot last forever, and if it is not adapted to, the glut of costs that will come cascading down and crush any gains made.
So, while our elected officials piddle away the hours playing games of imaginary chicken and peek-a-boo with the press, handing out reports of “nothing to see here” we are getting buried. The interest grows, and will eclipse the costs of social security and Medicare/Medicaid if left untouched, all the while pledges are being made to not raise taxes on anyone and no programs will be cut. Looking at the reality on paper/webpage and listening to the news brings two conclusions to mind. Either those in power want this world to burn for the sake of petty feuds and broken ideologies, or they are, much to our chagrin, monumentally clueless as to what they have brought down upon all of us. It will come to a day when that cost, just to cover the interest being made on the debt, will choke us out, and we will be forced to cut to maintain or default. Best to do them now, with flexibility and foresight on our side than a later time when we must cut because there is no other option. When a monthly social security check is short $21 a month for living expenses versus hundreds of dollars short because there isn’t any money left to paid those who are owed. Petty promises and pledges won’t mean a damn thing then, and, to be frank, shouldn’t mean a damn thing now.
Old Jeffersonian 