What politicians can learn from a miller

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The political debate surrounding the healthcare legislation has gone on for well over a year and a half now.  Those lacking coverage remain so while jobless numbers continue to rise and family budgets tighten across the nation.  Meanwhile the elected body of our government continues to grind away at each other like two angry millstones with the sole intent of seeing who breaks first rather than who will see the day through with a viable product at the end.

Those unfamiliar with millstones should know that the friction and pressure created between the lands and furrows in the two stones are what, with the liberal application of a millable product, created milled goods like flour, meal, etc.  Much like those divots and rises, the differences in the two make the entire process possible.  There is the natural progression of the water driving the wheels in their purpose, the raw components of grain that would become new foodstuff, etc.  Seeing the parallels yet?

The friction of a political debate between two unique and opposing ideologies can create an outcome that is not only a good, but usable in multiple applications.  These ideas can be legislation, regulation, and even law.  So, where in the great mill of our political system is the problem?  Is there no grain upon which to spin the wheels?  Hardly.  If anything there is an excess, but that is addressed by the miller.  His guiding hand directs the flow of grain, steering the creation of through various levers of political discourse and direction.  He directs, he observers, and he makes tweaks based on information that his honed political senses detect.

An errant scraping requires the balancing of the wheels, a burnt odor demands less pressure and inspection of the equipment.  What we have is neither oversight nor inspection.  Rather we have a miller who has either stuck his hand in the mill while it was operating, and has seen the results thus far, or he has forgone the mill entirely, and is attempting to pass off a milled substitute for which we are unsure of the constitution or form, we just know that one stone was used in the process.

This isn’t how flour is made, or how legislation is done.  Opposing ideas should be brought to the floor of the congress and debated.  Concerns regarding filibusters and perpetual debates are a farce.  Endless debate is not possible.  A filibuster is good only as long as forty senators are willing to fight a piece of legislation in its whole.

So, what of a piecemeal debate?  If the wheels are choked with a dearth of grain, remove some of the grain.  Where are the cool heads and calm hands of leadership that should have dictated months ago that a line by line address of issues would be preferable to having generic prescriptions, universal healthcare coverage for children, and tort reform held up by a dozen or so representatives having an issue with abortion?

Take them to task on individual motions.  Hold the representatives to the fire issue by issue.

No longer would they be able to simply argue that they battled a behemoth of corruption, graft, and ‘liberty stealing government expansion’ if they are taking aim at a smaller, specialized piece of legislation.  If they wish to continue with the multi-thousand page bills, they can cite specific legislative hang-ups, like those mentioned above, while foregoing all the good that could have been accomplished.

Here we stand a year and change later, with no movement made on the topic, and with the specter of more of the same to come.  Mayhap another direction is advisable.  Instead of cramming handfuls of grain into equipment so obviously determined to destroy its counterpart, we should focus on smaller amounts.  What if we mill a handful rather than a sack full?  Then, and maybe then, we can see the creation of successful legislation.  An eking out of enough to sustain us, to give some validity to the effort presented, and to show progress.  What do we have to lose least we lose the nothing we have now?

A villain by any other name…

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There is a frank and honest story on the Huffington Post by Will Bunch over the Austin IRS v. Joe Stack in a small plane.  I read the manifesto that Stack left, and his situation sounded rough.  What dulls the edges of his plight are the house he burned down and the aggressive nature by which he pursued his agenda.  What he, and many that champion his actions, fail to realize is that the occupants of the Echelon Building in Austin were not the fiends twisting the supposed thumb-screws that hammered away at his financial well-being, legislation that he attempted to counteract while part of an anti-tax group in California was.  Stack gave up the high road by descending from rational discourse, and found an irrationally violent solution.  That is not Maverick-y, it is not patriotic, it is not what defines a hero.

Those who have been championing Stacks attack in Austin call him a first shot in the revolution, a hero.  So, now heroes attack civilian that work for the government, unaware, unarmed, and unable to defend themselves.  His anger boiled over and he used this incident of violence to encourage a change in the way things are.  He wanted to alter the discourse through violence.  I would suggest to those who call Stack a champion of the every man to think long and hard on the implications of those actions.

He wasn’t a revolutionary mind and he was not a repressed citizen.  By every account and a reading of his manifesto, his failure lay not in the hands of the government and despicable agencies, but in his pursuit of the American Dream.  He couldn’t stomach the known pangs of climbing up the financial ladder, and so attacked what he thought was a giant, faceless aggressor.  He was a megalomaniac that thought he was special.  He didn’t follow the tax codes and rules he did not agree with, he did not qualify for tax break X so he became angry at the system and those that the break applied to.  His manifesto reads like the works of a frothing-at-the-mouth madman who feels that being mildly successful isn’t enough for his chops, and that the entities that be are repressing him and only him.  In short, he felt singled out and aggravated.

There are a lot of very aggravated people in this country at the moment.  With lost jobs to the tune of six million plus, a national underemployment/unemployment rate around 16 percent, and home foreclosures at their highest rate in years Stack wasn’t alone.  Stack chose to burn his home, which he owned at the time, to the ground.  Last I checked, arson invalidates an insurance policy, meaning he left his family with only an ashy plot of land that used to be a home, torched memories, and no way to replace their belongings.

A gun was never held to Stacks head.  He was given a choice.  He could negotiate, he could deal, he could have filed his taxes and worked with another accountant, he could have declared bankruptcy and started from scratch like the thousands of Americans that do so every year.  He made his decision to take the road less traveled, and didn’t give anyone a warning.  Guy Fawkes at least bothered to warn half of Parliament before attempting to blow ti up, whereas Stacks couldn’t even give that single courtesy to all the innocent lives he put at risk.  If he had made a call or bomb threat to clear out the building before slamming into it, he would have given his final middle finger to the IRS a Robin Hood-esque aura, rather than an undertone of murder.  He would have pinned a noted to the chest of the IRS symbolizing the collective anger many share with what they feel are unjust or restrictive policies.  Instead, blood stains his hands and his agenda.  There was no warning, there was no concern for human life.  There was premeditation, there was planning, there was intent, there was hideous symbolism in a plane slamming into a building in the United States of America.  He is, by the letter of the law, a murderer.

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.

An extended hiatus and forthcoming apologies followed by vitriol


It is not enough to do good; one must do it the right way.
John Viscount Morley, of Blackburn

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So, I’ve been gone for a bit.  School, as it turns out, is a little more arduous than expected this semester.  Planning is now coming together, and I should have my acts in order now.  Apologies to those who have read what little I’ve written and found interest.  My intention was never to leave you wanting, or to wander off into the dark expanses of the internet to never be seen again.  In a shorter phrase, “shit happened”.  Now,  on to more pressing/interesting matters.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/189844/did_a_school_use_webcams_to_spy_on_students_at_home.html

So, the remote desktop feature, something available on pretty much every Mac computer and, in several unique cases, was used to locate missing or stolen hardware, was apparently used to observe a student in his home.  The laptops are school issued, but, according to ever report I’ve seen on the matter, there is nothing in the contract the parents and students sign regarding off-campus observation.

So, now we have a young man who was approached by an Assistant Principal on a matter in which he was apparently doing something she did not approve of.  This would venture two questions:1) how long were they observing him doing whatever it is they are displeased with, and 2) were they informed that he was doing something illicit or did they just magically turn the webcam on to find him in a compromising position or role?

The second is statistically improbable, and the first implies a hideous revelation about how long those who have been abusing this technology have been at the game.  I believe the parents concerns are warranted regarding the possibility of students being observed in compromising positions or possibly, as one article put it, in “states of undress”.  Now the FBI is investigating and there are records of 42 remote access actions to recover 28 missing laptops.  The number of unrecorded webcam activations could be in the low hundreds.

To be frank, a question needs must raised about the intellectual capacity of the Principal and Superintendent on the matter.  As the invasive capacity of technology grows, the inclusion of technology into the educational environment must come at the pace of educating those who will be responsible for said technology.  The remote desktop feature could have been modified to exclude the webcam, as well as not relying on the webcam at all.  Rather, utilization the webcam as an anti-theft and item recover device work on the principles that the laptop is online, and that the offending individual hasn’t left it in a bag or similar carrying case.

No, software like Lo-Jack, designed specifically for the purpose of locating stolen equipment, was not used to my knowledge.  Furthermore, Lo-Jack only sends out communication signals daily unless the school reports the item stolen, then every 15 minute updates are issued until the laptop is recovered.  The use of the webcam as a device by which they ‘locate’ goods is a half-ass excuse at best since most stolen laptops, I imagine, are going to be closed off, and possibly active.  Lo-Jack will tell you where a laptop is if it is connected to the internet.  A webcam on a shut laptop will give you a black screen that tells you jack all about your position.

The simple fact that they managed to recover 28 of 42 reported missing laptops speaks to the level of responsibility and due diligence of a student to not forget their laptop at home rather than to track a thief.

Lastly, while the school feels it is necessary to ‘track down’ thieves that might try to lift their property, it is not their job to hunt down thieves and brigands.  A computer goes missing, a report to the police is generated, and then, and only then, is the webcam activated to locate the equipment.  Anyone operating outside the realms of their job as an information technician or as an administrator of an educational facility should be sacked on the spot.  Leave the law enforcement to those who wear the badges.

Jon Stweart addresses DNC/DNP failings, almost cries…and I’m right there with him

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http://www.indecisionforever.com/2010/01/19/jon-stewart-on-the-massachusetts-senate-election/

I have been a longtime fan of Mr. Stewart, and have quoted him several times in op-ed pieces.   I have found his observations and capacity to look the country in the eye and tell us the truth without varnish but with a laugh far more refreshing than any flashy graphic on MSNBC or FOXNEWS.

Hero worship aside, Mr. Stewart makes a fantastic observation about the insane hammering of loss coming down the pipeline from Democrats about losing the 2010 elections, the healthcare bill, and the 2012 elections if Brown wins today.  How the political bodies in DC believe that an 18 vote majority isn’t enough to get things done.  The point raised by Stewart about the Massachusetts legislature changed the rules six years ago to prevent Mitt Romney from appointing a Republican replacement.  It’s an old piece of information that has floated around for a while, and is now getting a second look.  It is always enjoyable to see machinations coming back to bite people, especially politicians, in the ass.  Last class for the evening closes out at 10pm.  Looking forward to interesting analysis of the days events.

J.P.

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.