Category: Politics

When a bad idea meets a functional tool, nothing good comes of it

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Last weekend I was having a conversation with a friend and the topic of the recent expansion of government surveilance via drones came up.  There is genuine concern over how the information will be used, and, considering the manuverability of some of the drones being employed, where they go, and what they will be able to see is of extreme concern.

I aruged that the drones will be used, but they will be fairly restricted, and the government is going to find out very, very quickly that they are not the best tools for the job when it comes to law enforcement.  As if on queue The University of Texas, challenged by the Department of Homeland Security, downed a drone in mid flight.

Not to take some shine off of the University of Texas’ achievement, but this is old hat.  Iran dropped a stealth drone, piloted by the best and brightest, and slapped together by DARPA and operated by the DoD.  In terms of intellectual firepower, I imagine that the DHS has quite a few brilliant minds, but the military has an entire organization devoted to development everything from quantum encryption to weapons systems that fire 1.2million rounds a minute.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the Stealth drone was harder to drop, but when it was released that they went through the GPS system to bring it down, I fell over laughing.

A paper I wrote in my last year at the Old Dominion University was on robotics on the battlefield, and the number one issue with these devices have is the communication and GPS systems.  Avionic systems have some play, but the real bugs were in terrestrial based sword bots, so named because they have monikers like ‘claymore’ and ‘saber’.  These battle bots were failing remote tests because they could not respond fast enough, did not respond at all, or did things like firing off around 45 seconds after being issued the command to do so.  You could strip away the electronic protection on them, and give the operator faster reaction time, but then there is nothing to stop a local Al Qaeda operative, trained by a technician from a relatively unfriendly state, with a wireless connection and few tools of the electronic warfare trade, to hack in and either disable the robot on the field, or, in the worst case scenario, take remote control of these electronic weapons platforms and turn them on the soldiers standing right next to them.  Granted, that scenario is half a world away, but imagine small drones with live video feed hovering about, each one supposed protected by encryption on par with, say, any of the banks that have recently been hacked, or the police departments that have had their records compromised (and I can guarantee that the LAPD servers are not going to have the same encryption as government security contractor companies, or  international banking systems).

Lastly, the drones offer an odd stretch of police power reaching into the personal domain.  Currently police can fly over your house and if they see pot being grown in the back yard, they can get a warrant and conduct a raid.  It’s legal, there was a supreme court case on it, and it flew.  Drones will be able to do the same, but there is a twist regarding that maneuverability issue. Smaller drones means that they can go places helicopters and larger drones cannot.  So we can’t see anything in your yard, but what about that shed at the corner of your property.  We’re still flying, technically we’re not trespassing (you wait, this will be one of the first legal arguments), and we happened to peek in this window and saw that you had a shotgun.  We checked the state gun registration and you don’t have a shotgun on record with us.  That’s a bust.

Is it a silly scenario, absolutely, but it is completely plausible. Why put a GPS tracker on a criminal’s car when you can just tail him incessantly with a drone?  Easy way to get around that pesky warrant problem:

“no your honor, the drone was not following the individual in question.  It just happened to be everywhere he was going.”

You can see where this is going.

I am all for the thin blue line doing its thing and bringing in the bad guys, but with great power comes great responsibility, and this is another example of military tech rolling down to police departments that don’t need more military tech.  For the price of a drone operation system and related drones you could probably hire another dozen cops.  Humans that need jobs, can form intellectual and emotional bonds with the community, grown and learn, become leaders of the community, and, best of all, can’t be hacked to dive bomb cars on the I-95.

Stop frothing at the mouth for a moment and realize the long game moments

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My stomach fell out when the decision on Thursday rolled down.  I was a staunch believer that any variation of the individual mandate was a legal faux pa and had to be struck down.  Then I read the Roberts decision and was illuminated to an entirely new way of operating in the government.  I was seeing, for the first time, not a decision based on party politics or personal interest.  No, I saw a straight out of myth ruling based on pure constitutional reasoning. Okay, there may have been some political wranglings in there, and I am thrilled that other pundits and writers like Michael Medved and Paul Begala were quick to point out the true victory for Republicans in the bill.

At the root of the Roberts decisions, aside from defining the mandate as a tax and throwing the life of the bill back into the hands of Congress which may very well fall into Republican hands in November, there was this little gem:

2. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS concluded in Part III–A that the individual mandate is not a valid exercise of Congress’s power under the
Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. Pp. 16–30.
(a) The Constitution grants Congress the power to “regulate Commerce.” Art. I, §8, cl. 3 (emphasis added). The power to regulate commerce presupposes the existence of commercial activity to be regulated. This Court’s precedent reflects this understanding: As expansive as this Court’s cases construing the scope of the commerce power have been, they uniformly describe the power as reaching “activity.” E.g., United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 560. The individual mandate, however, does not regulate existing commercial activity. It instead compels individuals to become active in commerce by
purchasing a product, on the ground that their failure to do so affects interstate commerce. (link)

Roberts effectively stopped the government from mandating that a lack of participation in a specific filed of commerce amounted to having a direct impact on interstate commerce.  In writing the decision this way he took the congressional, and largely Democratic, insistence to tell Americans what to do with their money, even when they are not spending it, and locked it away in that nasty little box known as ‘unconstitutional’.

Labeling the mandate as a tax was something the President was specific about avoiding during the creation and vote on the bill.  Even after it was enacted they President and Democratic members of congress were adamant that it was not a tax, but when they went to the line the only legal way to argue it, and to save any resemblance of the mandate, was to label it just that. However, in doing so it lost that shiny aspect of a social program that could be administered by an Executive Branch organization, and was put back in the hands of Congress.

Lastly, there is the matter of the tax itself.  I’ve seen the posts on social websites and heard my conservative friends gnash their teeth and scream to the heavens about how individual liberty is dead, how freedom is no longer found in the United States, and I chuckle.  The issue will be revised. CNN pointed out, not 30 minutes after the decision was made, that the tax can only be challenged, by law, after it has gone into effect.  That means in January of 2014, the first year the penalties, excuse me, Taxes are in place, there will be another lawsuit, another challenge, and another Supreme Court decision,

Chief Justice Roberts looked to the future on this decision, and he ruled, not as a conservative or a liberal, but as any judge should.  He put the balls back in their respective courts, taking the power to create taxes away from the executive and giving it back to the legislative, and told the nation that the President would not be playing with that ball anymore.  At least, not in that capacity.

UPDATE: A site I frequently visit (www.neveryetmelted.com) has a fantastic article on this and links to several other articles.  I’d strongly recommend bookmarking it if you get a chance.

Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?

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I thought the quote from the Avengers was appropriate here.

Two sides in Wisconsin, genuinely believing they are working for the greater good but coming from wildly different directions, engaged in a full scale brouhaha to make their point known.  I’m still not certain as to who would wear the tights, but I call dibs on the Iron Man suit.

Fashion jokes aside, the fight was largely pointless, and  the essence of american voters, played by Captain America in this little production, stopped the fight between two petulant powerhouses.  In the end vox populi spoke loud and clear, and Gov. Walker remains in place for two more years, but has lost his majority in the State Senate.

The day-after recovery is over, the analysis is done, and we found out that 38% of voters who supported Walker came from homes that have at least one member in a union.  We found out that while roughly $75 million was spent on this campaign, walker trudging up $30 million of that on his own through Super PAC donors, the real story remains that the turnout, percentage-wise, was almost identical to the election two years prior, even with a higher voter turnout.

I’m tired of the Citizens United decision being touted as the evil grandaddy and reason everyone is winning.  I call BS.  You can throw millions at a campaign and if the message sucks, or the candidate is less than stellar, looking at you Gingrich and Santorum, you will accomplish next to nothing except transferring wealth from donors to local businesses.

The issue with the Walker recall was that he did exactly what he said he was going to do.  The politically connected unions and loyal opposition were taken aback when an elected official decides to follow through on campaign promises.  Were those promises heavy handed?  Some can argue as much, but these are desperate times, and the voters selected desperate measures, and thus they were delivered after much bally who and childish shenanigans by the State Senators unhappy with the legislation.

So, in response to a governor who did what he swore he would do, despite some of the blatantly childish political behavior I have seen in my life, and the result was a nationally supported recall.  I don’t mean that the entire nation supported the recall, but that interests well outside the borders of Wisconsin became involved.  It was no longer about just about a losing side’s dissatisfaction with being thrown out of office and then having to suffer the political fallout that comes from failing to represent the people rather than representing the interests that fill the campaign coffers.

Sanity reigns in the Old Dominion but it isn’t stopping the show

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On Friday a highly anticipated decision regarding the appearance of Primary candidates who couldn’t muster enough support to be placed on the Virginia ballot came down, and it was an absolute delight.   The Hon. John A Gibney Jr. echoed what many had said over the weeks leading up to this (copy of the decision provided care of Politico): “In essence, they played the game, lost and then complained that the rules were unfair.”

I saw former Speaker of the House New Gingrich as being the sole individual who might even have a modicum of a chance in the challenge, with the disparate rules regarding those who get over 10,000 signatures and those who get over 15,000 signatures.  So, when he didn’t file the suit, and it was Rick “I barely pulled off half of what was required” Perry, it was doomed to fail.  When Santorum and Huntsman jumped on board, it was an obvious grab, like those who aren’t directly affected by a particular event, but jump onto a civil lawsuit pocket some ill-gotten reward, the theatre of the situation only worsened. The most galling of notes, aside from the Huntsman/Santorm scam attempt, was that Gingrich did not file  notice of intent to run for office in Virginia until 22 December 2011.  For those unaware, signature collection began on 1 July 2011.

The argument that if the candidates had access to the horde of out-of-state petition gatherers (of the paid variety I imagine) that they would have easily trumped the 10,000 signature requirement is dubious at best.  Judge Gibney pointed out in his decision that there are over five million registered voters in Virginia, and close to two million participated in the last statewide election.  Cut down the middle that means that there were one million active voters that should have been available to had their doors knocked and said yes or no.  If all candidates had hit those doors, and assuming a one in ten chance of success, that still leaves roughly 100,000 voter signatures, more than enough for all of the candidates combined, and room for a few more.  Another point of disclosure, a registered voter can sign for more than one candidate.

I will give a local example to ply exactly how poorly these men failed: Ben Loyola, a local businessman, ran for State Senate last year.  During his campaign he is said to have knocked on over 50,000 doors personally.  After the campaign events were done for the night, barring it wasn’t too late, he along with his campaign manager and body man would head out to a section of the district he was running for and started on a block, and away he would go.  Sometimes only 20 houses in a night, sometimes north of 100.  Either way, he was on the ground personally.  Come election day Mr. Loyola, sadly, did not win, but pulled in over 10,000 votes.  Those in the game have said the door to actual vote ration is somewhere in the 10:1 range.  If a local businessman can walk from the Hampton Roads area to the border of Maryland looking for support on what would be even less than a shoe-string budget compared to a national campaign, then all of these individuals running for President could have gotten the word out, or, at the least, made a damn appearance in the state.  A Gingrich event at a park, cordinated with one of the Tea Party organizations would have brought hundred, mayhaps a few thousand.

What happened in earnest, is that the candidate didn’t put their foot forward, and in the case of Santorum and Huntsman, they flatly didn’t give a damn (Santorum did gather signatures, but since he never filed a notice to run in the state of Virginia, the signatures were turned away).  Those in Virginia now roaring to the Heavens about the intolerable nature of it all, and the vile laws that govern the way it goes have forgotten that their signature and their options on the ballot are driven not only by their keen interest in a candidate, but in the candidate’s campaign to do the bare minimum.  Santorum is a perfect example with the  thousands spent in Virginia to gather the roughly 8,000 signatures, then to have them turned away because he didn’t fill out the needed paperwork.  He, himself, and his campaign managers, national and Virginia, are bearers of  blame there.

Virginia is not some evil society of string-pulling puppeteers winnowing the field of choices down to the guy they kinda-don’t-like and the one that is getting run over because he sounds crazy saying in public what we’ve been chatting about over kitchen tables for the last twenty years.  The law is in place, followed for decades, and performed as intended.  Should someone fail to follow the letter of the law, there is a punishment that goes along with that.  Those who cannot even follow that simple dictum have no place running for the highest office in the land.  If they can’t figure out one state’s requirements for a simple primary petition, how can we have any faith that they will be able to grasp the issue then  provide educated insight and leadership on topics far, far more complex?

Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves…

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We’ve now seen the full Circus.  The major players have performed their acts.  The clowns are in their car puttering off the floor, the rings are thoroughly beaten down with the prints of every elephant contending for the spotlight, and the audience is just as confused and disoriented than they were upon entering the tent.  Tragic, is it not, how easily the pageantry and absurdity of the circus reflects the ebb and tide of the pre-primary seasons for the Republican party.

What we saw was a rise of individual stars who would burn out as quickly as they blazed into the spotlight leaving behind only hollow bodies in the vast expanse of the political space.  Like those burned out stars, they leave husks that either disappear with time, or continue to flicker on, acting more as an irritant or pouring out continuous drivel and noxious commentary that provides nothing more to the current political discourse than a nauseating reminder that at one point a significant number of people believed them capable of winning an election for President.

No, this thirteen ring circus has done nothing for our party, and it surely has done no good for the political process.  A fellow follower of politics stated that he believed this was a maturing of the party’s political savvy.  A method by which the body politic separated the wheat from the chaff and would winnow our candidates down to those most deserving.  I wanted to agree with him, but I had the feeling that this was too “celebrity” with the likes of Palin and Trump toting about the ever ambiguous hash of a campaign not yet announced.

I, along with a goodly number of people, look back and realize that it wasn’t about winnowing the wheat from the chaff.  The process was not about locating the best candidate, nor was it about finding the best Republican to run.  There was an ebb and flow to the entire affair.  Someone came in, shined brighter because the harsh spotlight was on someone else, and they, by lack of close scrutiny, became the best candidate for the job by proxy.  The light would shift, the audience would become enthralled with the new champion of the right, and so the cycle began anew.  It was faddish in the most derogatory form of the word.  The herd ran where the press led with signs highlighting word choice and bold, but ultimately mindless, plans.  Catchphrases replaced worldly experience, education on policy trumped by showmanship, and knee-jerk responses became the headlines rather than the cultured response of, not those who happened to read the paper from the day before, but from those who had done this sort of thing before.

The most sickening part of the show comes from two sad players in the run of any show.  There is a director, an individual who through instruction and cultivation of his actors has created the spectacle before you.  In this sad and sallow case we happen to have two on hand.  The litany of Tea Parties and the surprisingly quiet Republican National Committee.

The Tea Party has rushed to the center of the ring as a barker possessed of a need to upstage the existing ringmaster.  It has become a monumentally disastrous initiative that has done little more than chisel away at a what little firmament there was in the base of the party.  All the while the RNC, the chosen ringmaster of this show for nigh on decades now sits somberly by, not wishing to interfere or to interject itself into state level politics, having been burned or spurned by those groups in the last round of elections.  The rally cry and subsequent victories of the tea party in the public eye shocked the RNC into a sort of fugue state that now threatens to undermine the organization as a whole.

We have one ringmaster who has a faint idea of what they are doing and another who appears to be asleep at the wheel, and one wonders why the field has yet to be winnowed down.  I understand that are arguments to the effect that the voters must decide who is the most viable candidate, and to those arguments I will concur wholeheartedly, but that only applies if the voters are willing to decide.  The day of the primaries is not the time to hop into a booth and play enie-menie-minie-mo with the candidate pictures on the touch screen.  If they have been weighed and measured then the truest test comes when asking if they are found wanting.  Only when the audience decides to boo one of the shows off the stage will the ringmasters even begin to pay attention.  Then, and maybe then we will see some serious discussions.  The time for debate is, sadly, over, and now we are to march out of the tent and to the polls to decide which elephant danced the best in the center ring.  To wait for one of the performers to be shamed off stage out of their own self-interest rather than because the audience finds them unfit is a horrifying indications of how desperate the voter base is to hang on to an idol no matter how temporary.

Should we ever reach the conclusion that none of the candidates could put on a noteworthy performance and were being held up by gross expectations of the biggest player in this entire farce we are well and truly lost because “a good try” will guarantee a failure in 2012.

It is something we have been saying all along, and, apparently, so has the President

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The decision handed down yesterday in Florida upped the ante in the high-stakes poker game of national healthcare legislation.  For those curious, or those who haven’t read the news since Saturday, you can find the Reuters story here.  My moment of impish glee came when I saw that the Presiding Judge nailed the mandate to the ground and drove a stake through its heart (something, you should note, you won’t find in the Reuters story).  He then went on to validate his approach by quoting  possibly the most damning of experts on the matter, the President himself, if ever so briefly.

Speaking in 2008, the President said, on the subject of healthcare mandates, “if a mandate was the solution, we can try to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a home”.  Short, yes.  Simple, yes.  Erred in quoting…eh, not even close.  Back in the hay days of 2008, when the wet behind the ears Senator from Illinois was aiming to take on the, then, most powerful family of Democrats at the time (i.e. the Clintons) a major separation point between the to-be President and the to-be Secretary of State was that Clinton’s healthcare proposal included the now infamous mandate.  The lack of a mandate in one of the heaviest points of contention would open Obama to the moderates, along with several other middle-of-the-road stances, and eventually win him both the Democratic ticket and the Presidency.

So, now, here we sit, nearly a year has gone by, as of Saturday 722 waivers have been handed out to companies and it appears that the SEIU is getting more than their fair share when compared against the rest of the businesses out there.  The Medicare program’s head actuary is saying that the ‘savings’ from the healthcare bill are unsustainable and may, in the long run, cost taxpayers upwards of $311 billion over the next eight years.

Mind you, this is still a battle over health care.  Democrats are still firing on all cylinders saying we will be able to take care of everyone while the 535 members of congress can’t balance a budget, Republicans lay down useless legislation that will never pass, but is a token gesture to their ‘hardcore’ constituents so they can come back in 2-6 years and say, while shrugging their shoulders, “we tried”.  We have a congressman who spent 16 years in the House of representatives and the last ten in the Senate but can’t remember that the three branches of the government are the executive, legislative, and judicial rather than just a motley crew of folks getting together to hammer out legislation.  Least we forget, that we are barreling northwards of $14 trillion dollars and borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar spent, and the apparent champion of the cause to battle this titanic financial monstrosity is a congresswoman who has the gall to call herself tea party, but tags a big “R” next to her name come campaign season and around big donors.

These, ladies and gentlemen, are only a few of the “issues” we have to deal with, and, tragically, all those propogating those “issues” are running the show.

Back from mission impossible

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With the elections ending on the second, a delightful show involving the comedian Daniel Tosh on the fourth, and several papers rushing up upon me, I have returned to the blog that I started some time back.  To whom it may concern, the absence was not in vain, and, in truth, I should have kept efforts to update while working on a campaign for the last seven  months, but due to agreements, contracts, and the peering eye of the opposition I chose not to.

That’s right, I worked a campaign.

Not one of those “I volunteered, knocked on doors, made phone calls, and went to rallies” volunteering, no.  Paid work as an assistant policy director and a very, very brief stint as the assistant campaign manager.  There are several things I have learned my first dance in the arena, and I would love to share them here with those who happen to stop by:

1) If you’re going to get paid, get paid a livable wage.  The amount I ended up getting paid wouldn’t cover the bills, gas, food, and miscellaneous expenses.  If I didn’t have the Montgomery G.I. Bill on the side, I would have collapsed under the weight of credit card debt long ago.  Even with the G.I. Bill, I’m looking up at broke, but it was a job.

2) Long hours are part of the job.  From morning policy meetings, to a daily schedule ten hours deep in events, and a closing brief at the end of the day plus any research or writing you may need to do afterwords, it is a long running job.  Many nights I was up until two to three am working on policy papers, researching topics that would be of interest and digging up news bits and facts that would be used to pepper speeches and give the candidate an air of being on top of things.  The candidate also requested a ‘intelligence brief’ similar to what the President of the United States gets every morning, so I scavenged through the news sites and major government agencies looking for tidbits.  I composed an e-mail that went out to the body of the campaign, and let them know what I thought would be the most pressing things in the minds of the voters for that day.  To be honest, this was the best part of the job for me.  I’m an information junkie, so asking me to research and formulate responses and policy positions based on the ever shifting sands of the political world was a challenge I met with a certain level of joy.

3) Know your candidate.  The short version of how I got into the position I did is that the candidate I ended up working for was not the guy I started out supporting.  I hopped on board because my first candidate was supporting the newcomer and my work with him had impressed him enough to invite me to join the new campaign.  A lot of people put faith in the candidate and after six months of campaigning the results were disastrous.  There were positions that the candidate held that I did not agree with him on but could live with (the whole ‘each has their own opinion and no one is going to agree 100% of the time).  What I could not tolerate was that a large amount of what was being given to the candidate by the policy director, campaign manager, and myself was tossed aside with every speech.  Time and time again we heard fluff and inspiration when the constituents were asking for facts and answers as to how the candidate was going to address the issue, how we as Republicans were going to solve the current ills of society, and drive the economy to recovery.  We had mulled this over for days, put up what we believed was a convincing and through plan to our candidate, and even if it was wrong, at least it was something.  At least it was an idea.  The candidate never, not once, mentioned it in his speeches.  Instead it was more fluff and empty ‘inspiration’.  After talking to a few people who had known him in another district I found out he was an empty shirt who exited their congressional contest well in advance.  His track record was littered with faux pas and failures.  I was working with damaged goods, and those are salvageable if the candidate is willing to listen.

I have more to say about the ups and downs, but it gets personal, and I do not want that out in the air.  The campaign failed not because of the effort, but because the candidate refused to see the writing on the wall.  Some final actions by the last of the campaign directors effectively ostracized the political party whose banner we were running under by implying that the lack of financial support equated to racism from a state, if not national, political organization.  I tendered my resignation shortly thereafter.  I would not work for an organization that was going to play that at the end.  I had not worked for months to try to build a legitimate campaign, to create an engine for intelligent and informed dialogue on topics rather than scary commercials, and then to watch it go down in flames because the end was in sight, they knew they had lost and the candidate and campaign manager chose to try to throw someone else under the bus for their failures rather than man up and take the required beating that comes from a poorly run campaign.  I was not privy to the decision-making processes in the last month.  My association with one of the prior campaign managers put a black mark on me and while they still asked for information and assistance, I had been locked away from conversations for fear that I would leak them back to her or the republican party.  That was an honest fear of theirs.  That the party they were running under would get wind of what they were doing or saying.

It was not a good campaign.  It was not a healthy time for me, but it was a learning experience.  I’ve made connections, and now experienced the electorial process from both ends of the spectrum, as observer to direct participant in the campaign system.  I am now working with elements of the Republican party and look forward to expanding my level of knowledge, and taking another shot at working for a candidate in a congressional race.  I know there were somethings I did wrong, and I will man up to those, but after all the mess I am still here and looking forward to the new cycle of elections to come.  This time, I might even write about it.

J.P.

Ron Paul is a terrifying, horrible, evil man…until we need him, even then he’s still terrifying

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It was rather surreal to find out that after the solid ribbing that Rep. Paul (R-TX) received in the last Presidential election from the likes of the Republican National Committee and other conservative groups that his clout with them would have dropped into the abyss of political obscurity.  Somehow, logic apparently got it very, very wrong:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/20/conservatives.meeting/index.html?section=cnn_latest

If someone had asked in 2008 if Paul would have been the forerunner for the Republican party’s return to power, most of us would have scoffed at the notion that a representative with such radical views (albeit somewhat appealing) on economics, spending, and general reduction in the size of the federal government would even be considered.  Especially after The drumming the Republican party took in 2008, the odd duck out, who placed consistently in the top three candidates during the primaries, is now the forerunner for those tired, those mildly poor, and those with enough time on their hands to go out and protest government spending.  To be fair to those Tea Party members, I concur with them on issues like a reduction in government spending, in looking at the policies that led to a surplus in the late 1990’s into the early 2000’s.  I would love to see the government file legislation that is in tune with the Constitution and have serious debates about the quality rather than quantity of legislative documents that roll out of the halls of congress.  On those subjects we agree, and I’d be fine with Rep. Paul in those regards.

However, Rep. Paul is a staunch isolationist, and, to be frank, in this day and age, that won’t fly.  Hell, it hasn’t flown since 1945.  The United States, for better or worse, is the current superpower of the world.  Political Scientists accept this notion, and it is the basis for an understanding of how the gears spin in international circles.  One of the definitions of a superpower is that in events that occur half way around the world, we are directly or, most of the time, indirectly impacted by those results.  It is the price that comes with our prolific and immense economic and political base.  Isolationism will do jack-all for us.  He has called for leaving both the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to better protect state sovereignty in a day and age where state sovereignty is a paper tiger hiding monstrosities like genocide in Sudan.  Do we need to give up our rights to acquiesce to an international body, no.  Will either of these organizations ever ask us to give up something that we hold dear to our Republic, hell no.  The United States pays for 22 percent of the UN’s annual budget, ringing in at $458.3 million in 2008.  I, like many others and quite a few fans of Rep. Paul, am not a tremendous fan of the UN.  The process is lumbering, slow, painfully convoluted, and rife with the potential for corruption.  If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I was talking about the House or Representatives or Senate at length, but I digress.  In their massive approach, and nearly universal representation, they gain a legitimacy that is, largely, unquestionable.  Laws that passed by the US government are not ignored out of pure spite or conjecture, and if they are, there are penalties.  The same goes for the UN.  Follow their rules, or sanctions will fall.

We jest of strongly worded letters from Ban Ki-Moon to Sudan, Iran, or Myanmar, but in all due honesty, the men and women of the UN are doing what they can with what they have.  Same goes for NATO.  Isolationism doesn’t work because of the interconnected nature of the world today.  Without some sort of standardized international community in which to address issues, the big will continuously screw over the small, the violent will oppress those who have fewer firearms, and the world would be, generally, a giant mess…moreso than it is now.

It is noted that the international issue is not the only place where Rep. Paul and I differ, however, it is painfully obvious that my Libertarian beliefs will be challenged at great lengths should he continue to gain popularity amongst the Tea Party goers.

In closing, it is particularly odd to me that the Libertarians, and by proxy the constitutionalists and median Republicans, were for the longest time shoved aside. The message is similar, there are hooks that keep us from joining the party en mass.  They’re not doing any better at bringing us in.  Rather, the ‘big tent’ philosophy that ‘failed’ the Republican Party in 2008 was a sham at best.  You were in the big tent if you agreed with the big tent.  Right now, the big tent includes populist ideas amongst those who think Obama isn’t an American citizen, those who think he is Islamic and trying to torpedo this nation, and those who vow that obstructionism and a grinding halt to any legislative progress is considered advancement, not of the people of this nation, but of a political agenda.  It is not a party of ideas, of new notions, or suggestions and creativity, but of chalk-white, stark terror.  Fear seems key, and for a short time, fear works.  Men and women can only be afraid for so long, then, when the other contemptible shoe never falls, the fear abates, the anger boils out, and you are left with a political body that, instead of having a legislative history to stand on, has a thin layer of ideas held up by a bilious gas.  Ladies and gentlemen of the right.  Welcome to the first political bubble of the 21st century.  I can’t wait to see this one burst.

Fear and Loathing in Massachusetts

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/17/brown-takes-lead-campaign_n_426679.html

The legions of the two political parties have descended upon Massachusetts like a murder of crows, all cawing and braying in the name of their select candidate.  I hope the lessons of NY-23 are fresh in their minds.  Granted, the Republicans and Conservatives are not serving up two different candidates to split the vote, but I still worry.  A campaign that has, for months, worked diligently, and slowly clawed its way from fifteen points down to a five point lead should remain wary of any outside influence.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am certain the candidates appreciate the long overdue money and attention.  The influx of support is a relief for tired phone bank operators and station workers who stump for their candidate endlessly.  However, the fear, my fear, is that the big guns will roll in, and those that are the national darlings of the Republican party will take center stage versus the real candidate.  I don’t care for Sarah Palin standing up, and giving a long-winded speech about the national trend of attacks on conservatism, and the impact this election will have on the national forum.  Candidate Brown must be center stage, telling his constituents what he is going to do for them when he gets to DC.  Nationalism will have its fair share of his time when he gets to DC…should he get to DC.

I apologize, my bias is showing.

My concern is national.  I want Massachusetts to pick the representative that they feel reflects the needs and values of their state and IS GOING TO REPRESENT THEM ON A NATIONAL PLATFORM.   Not another glad-handing yes man or woman, that will roll over and offer up the nation on a plate with a harried and rushed vote on a topic that, I feel, has not had so much a serious discussion, but serious plotting.  I look forward to tomorrow, and what it brings.  Regardless of the result, the dance on the national level is frenzied and a bit worrisome.  I have found it quite disconcerting that the future of this tremendous bill lies on the shoulders of one election.  The notion that steps are being taken to hasten the bill and not allow the elected representative of the people to vote on it is bothersome to say the least.  That the strength of the bill is not measured by a simple majority, or even by consensus of the members of congress, but by a matter of procedure.  parliamentary procedure is being used to circumvent discussion, debate, and, something I have never been fond of, filibustering.  The fact that now that parliamentary procedure may fail the majority, they are seeking out other tactics upon which to pass this legislation in a harried attempt to prove some value to their constituents before they are to return home and ask to return to DC to represent us for another two, four, or six years.  One could almost say the fear is palatable, and when their fear is tied to such a monumental piece of legislation, one cannot help but be just a little frightened by proxy.

J.P.

Another voice in the dirge

oldjeffersonian

Salutations to all those who find this wee corner of the political market we call the blogosphere.  I have, for several months now, tried to post commentary on sites such as Huffington Post and Politico with little response, or some very colorful questions being raised about my mother and the nature of her work.  I will clear the air now and say that I am one of those oft reviled Republicans.  Notes should be made that I will not call myself a conservative.  Conservatism, as far as I am concerned, is a movement that seeks to divide the Republican party along lines that, if followed, will alter the structure of the party, and the political landscape.  I’m not out to hold a religious sword of damocles over anyone’s head, to judge them and harangue them due to shortcomings that a book, a preacher, or my parents saw as counter-agent to their specific cultures.  Nope, not coming from me.

I’m old school Republican.  Jeffersonian Republican.  Small central government, minimal interference in business dealings but the capacity to act and make sure that a fair market practice is obtainable in a fair market.  Legislation dictating how we think, believe, or who listens to our phone conversations are generated out of fear for fear’s sake, not for the great good of the masses.  So, here is where I’m going to stand.  I’m not going to make a lot of Republican friends here, and I believe that a central government is necessary to the functional dealings with a massive number of people, so I am almost certain Libertarians will find me wanting.  Here I stand, here I will write, and here I will remain.   None-the-less, I look forward to posting thoughts and news articles that I find of interest, as well as some of my own.  I welcome debate and discourse.  You can disagree, but do bring facts and information.