Republic, Really Lost

I just got done reading "Republic, Lost" by Lawrence Lessig. It is a very good book and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about the corrupting influence of money or anyone who simply wants to understand why most people believe it is corrupting.

In the book Lessig points to ways to devalue big donor money and instead make the money a candidate gets tied more to the number of voters who support that candidate.

I came away from the book thinking that there were some good ideas in the book, but I don't know that campaigns are the big problem anymore. Check out this report from the CBS Evening News:



I think that even if we get candidates completely publicly funded contested races will then use Super PACs to push money into races. I'm not sure how to solve the problem, but it's just something to think about as you see more and more reporting on Super PACs.

Republican Race As It Stands

Not many people know that the Ragin' Man grew up in a very Republican household listening to Rush Limbaugh and sucking at the tit of the of the Republican party. I have since become staunchly independent, mostly because I feel that there is no "catch all" answer to our problems. If the economy turns south the answer is not always tax cuts for the rich, just as it is not always government spending increases. Each has its own place.

As a result of my childhood I am extremely interested in Republican politics. The "catch all" answer is actually couched in what I call "the narrative." The narrative explains how the world works in a very flowing story that involves Jesus and trickle down economics. I have identified a couple parts, but needless to say Republicans believe the narrative even if most deny it exists.

The Republican primary battle has yielded three winners in three different states largely because of the narrative. Each state had parts of the narrative that appealed to their Republicans the most. Iowa cared about Jesus, so they voted for Santorum. New Hampshire likes the capitalism that Jesus stands for, so they voted for Romney. South Carolina hates the news media more than they hate open marriages, so they voted for Gingrich.

A poll that put Gingrich at just 30% in South Carolina was conducted on Monday, but he ended up winning the race with 40% of the vote. Looking at Newt you can tell he didn't go door to door to 10% of South Carolinians who were not going to vote for him. It's reasonable to conclude that Rick Perry's 4% followed his endorsement and voted for Newt, but the key moments in the interim were the debates. Newt took on the media for daring to report on his marital infidelities and giving his ex-wife a forum to discuss their relationship's ending using language that appeals to the "liberal media" that is bent on the destruction of Republicans. This not only made Republicans like him for repeating what they believe, but it gave the appearance that the shadowy liberals who run the media want to destroy poor Newt. He even pointed out this was part of the media "protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans." Even the Blaze, Glenn Beck's website, referred to his outrage as "pious baloney" echoing an attack Gingrich had made on Romney.

Bravo Newt. Great politics, but I'm not sure it truly makes you electable to the Americans who don't have an "R" beside their name.

I'm going to watch Florida to see what the key narrative issue for those Republicans is.

America, I'm Sorry

Recently I commented on a blog and pointed out that the President has said that his vote against raising the debt ceiling when he was a Senator during the Bush Administration was "political." This was after the White House admitted it was "a mistake."

I have to admit that I was fairly impressed with the President being able to admit that he was wrong. I had only seen one other politician do the same thing, and it wasn't even a major one. On Larry King Live November 11, 2009 former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura said "Its time to bring back the draft." He went on to explain "I used to be an advocate for a professional military. I'm not anymore because its too easy for these people to take our young men and women and go to war."

I have to admit, I find the candor to be particularly refreshing because the Congressman representing my home of record has been Representative John Shimkus who, along with denying Climate Change because it does not supported by the Bible, voted for the Bush tax cuts, the drug entitlement program, and both the Afghan and Iraqi war authorizations, but has never voted for any offsetting measures to negate their budgetary effects. When pressured about these votes Congressman Shimkus makes no statement of personal responsibility, even though he claims that personal responsibility is the cornerstone of his "social conservative" message. Congressman Shimkus will instead make an innocuous claim of faults on "both sides." This blog is not going to get into his sheer stupidity at not believing something is a problem because it does not appear in the Bible. Hitler, nuclear weapons, Osama Bin Laden, etc. never appear in the Bible, but that does not mean the United States was any less right to take them on through policy and war alike. This blog is about taking personal responsibility.

I think it takes a lot to admit you're wrong. When I'm wrong about something I generally state it and move on. When someone working for me messes up if they just say "Yeah, I tried to do... but I was wrong" I generally just drop the issue of why and move straight on to how we're going to fix it. Being wrong is like being an alcoholic. You can't get fixed if you don't admit you have a problem. I know it takes a lot of courage to say you're wrong, and I'm not sure anyone who isn't strong enough to admit mistake is strong enough to lead.

In the spirit of taking personal responsibility the Ragin' Man is going to apologize to you, my reader, for the worst thing I've ever done. America, I supported George W. Bush in 2000. I know, I know, you're saying "Not you Ragin' Man! There is no way that you voted for that bum!"

Well, I didn't. At the time I was going to school in and was registered to vote in Missouri. I'll be quite honest with you by the time the Clinton Administration had ended, and after a couple years in academia, I was convinced that the political class had realized a few truths. We had all become Keynesians who understood that balanced budgets were key in times of economic expansion, and payouts were necessary in a draw down. We all knew the social safety net should be small but effective, and regulation was a necessary evil. Sure the party base talked a good game, but it was essentially the same team wearing different jerseys to keep people coming to the game. My thoughts on the case can best be summed up by this Rage Against the Machine video:



I will admit that I'm a little less communist because I know that every person alive is secretly a selfish bastard, but you get the idea.

In truth, I voted for Nader to try and show the political class that I was willing to vote for a third party so they should have gotten more choices on my local ballot, but when George W. Bush won I was secretly happy. At one point I argued that George W. Bush losing the popular vote and still winning the election was "the reason the Electoral College was made. Its so a state like California can't throw the whole election."

The truth was that I, like James Baker in the movie "Recount", believed that honor had been restored to the White House. Everything else would remain the same. And for that, I am sorry.

Mommy, Why Do We Support Israel?

The Billy Blog recently wrote a blog that referred to President Obama's speech on Israel prior to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu coming to the states. In his blog, the head Billy Blogger wrote "Barack Obama really screwed over Israel." I'd say that's probably true from Israel's point of view, but that's just because for the last 60-70 years we have been pretty much friends with benefits with Israel, and we've been buying the condoms. The Arab world has noticed this, since they've been trying to get in our pants, but they're like the other guy we work with who we always laugh at his jokes, but let's face it, he's not getting anywhere near us outside the office. Anyone who wants to understand a lot of what President Obama says needs to read Pat Buchanan's book "Where the Right Went Wrong" in which he talks about George W. Bush's lack of realization that other countries listen to what the President of the United States says.

President Obama mentioned "land swaps" at the end of the call for the borders to return to pre-67 standards and called for a "demilitarized" Palestinian state. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he's actually trying to get these newly democratic Arab countries to think the number one international issue their governments have told them about for the past 60 years is being resolved amicably while building a buffer zone around the majority of Israel to spot whenever armies are being moved in to attack.

I can't stress enough how much the "Zionist" plays into the psyche of even the most liberal and educated Arab. I had an Iraqi once tell me, in English, that he was raised to believe the Jew was the source of all the world's evil, but he knew that was wrong. "It is the Zionist." We train Lebanese officers in America who will tell you all about David Ben-Gurion in a way that you would describe Hitler. If we really want the Arab states to police themselves democratically we have to do it in a way that allows for peace. Eliminating what they feel is the illegitimate occupation of the Palestinians is a huge step in that direction.

What is probably most interesting is that the Billy Blog referenced a story about the falsely predicted date of the rapture, and it has more to do with America's support for Israel than most Americans realize. Here's a video by someone I find pretty annoying that actually shows you what's going on with the Christian support of Israel:



The eschatology of Pre-Tribulation Rapture theology demands that Israel own the post-67 border area and the Jewish people tear down the Al Aqsa Mosque and rebuild the Temple. Essentially the right wing Christian movement supports Israel in an attempt to bring about the end of the world. No joke.

So next time you hear someone explaining why we should support Israel perhaps you should think about the satirical story that the Onion recently ran entitled "Government Official Who Makes Perfectly Valid, Well-Reasoned Point Against Israel Forced To Resign" and ask why. If you believe in Pre-Tribulation Rapture theology then by all means vote to bring about the end of the world, but if you don't think about what that relationship really gives us. So far it's been a lot of heartache and woe trying to keep it going with our booty call, Israel, and the guy we have to do business with for the oil, all the Arab states.

Weighing In On Newt

As many of you know one of the Ragin' Man's favorite politicians, Newt Gingrich, has decided to run for the presidency. "Wow, Ragin' Man, you're a huge lib, there's no way you would actually like a Republican" you'd say if you were someone at The Billy Blog. "Not so fast" I'd say to the random Billy Blogger. "My biggest reason for liking Newt is he actually is an idea guy who pioneered media usage on a local level to be extremely successful as a Congressional leader. Also, being more liberal than you means I'm part of a dying breed, the moderate Republican." Newt, after all, was one of the first people to endorse the idea that became the basis for the Affordable Healthcare Act or "Obamacare", along with such right wing organizations as the Heritage Foundation. He somehow managed to quietly work with President Clinton and Senator Dole to start paying down the deficit.

All that being said, one of my favorite shows to watch is Meet the Press on NBC. I have a ritual of getting it on podcast and listening to it on my iPod when I bicycle to and from work on Monday morning. I love the show so much that when I sat next to a United States Senator on a plane ride from Washington DC to Atlanta, Georgia on the 13th of May I asked how much preparation goes into an appearance on Meet the Press. The answer was, to paraphrase, "You generally know what they're going to talk about. Sometimes they blindside you with a question, so you have to be ready to answer anything, but it's not that difficult." After I asked a follow up I was told that you can generally gauge what the majority of the conversation is going to be based on what the news is reporting on. Based on the fact that the Senator read every single newspaper from his home state while we were in the air along with the Washington Post I can imagine he would understand what the issues of the day were.

I should also mention that I also watch or podcast all 4 major networks' Sunday shows and the McLaughlin group, so I have some context to view it. It was certainly fortuitous that I had this conversation only DAYS before Newt Gingrich appeared on MTP. You can imagine my surprise at the fallout from this interview:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Did you watch it? Good. It seemed pretty straight forward, and if anything a major coup for the former Speaker of the House because he got 20 plus minutes of unadulterated face time on the number one Sunday show. The only question I could remotely see as "gotcha" would be the question about calling President Obama a food stamp President, which Gingrich used to explain in a way that made it a very good talking point for his campaign. I don't think David Gregory was explicitly calling Newt a racist when he asked the question, but I understand that any mention of racist language is a pretty severe question. I will also say that Meet the Press is on NBC, so, much like FOX News Sunday, they are forced to ask questions that are based on the rants and raves of their "opinion guys", in this case Ed Schultz. The question was not followed up by any other question than "Well what did you mean?" and then they moved on.

The fallout from this interview shows something I haven't heard anyone talking about intelligently, except for the Daily Show. I know, a comedy show is the best commentary you can get. The real issue was not the racist question, but has been Gingrich's depiction of Paul Ryan's revamp of Medicare as "right wing social engineering" and Newt equated the Ryan Plan with the Affordable Healthcare Act. Newt even came out in support of the most controversial part of the Affordable Healthcare Act, mandatory coverage.

Newt responded on Greta Van Susteren's program days later:



That's right! Nothing Newt said on arguably the most prestigious news show can be used in a campaign ad! "Any ad which quotes what I said Sunday is a falsehood." This could start a whole new era of editing! You can go back and retroactively declare that your verifiable quotes are not your own!

My thoughts on all this:
Newt comes from a different time. In a 1991 interview on Meet the Press Newt talked about a break between pre-Reagan and post-Reagan Republicans in describing a fight he was having with Senator Bob Dole (R-KS) over tax cuts. I think this shows there is definitely a pre-W. Bush and post-W. Bush Republican party.

The pre-W. Bush Republicans had things like ideas and positions. The post-W. Bush Republican party has turned into an "issue du jour" party. Whatever issue the party takes up at that moment is your stance as well! Newt did what pre-W. Bush Republicans had often done, he broke with the party based on ideas and took questionable positions based on those ideas and his understanding of the facts. Need I remind anyone that in 1996 Colin Powell, the most popular man in politics, gave the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention in which he voiced his support for both Bob Dole and Affirmative Action. In early 2001 Senator John McCain (R-AZ) voted against the Bush tax cuts and stated "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle class Americans who most need tax relief." I can already hear right wingers talking about class warfare and socialism.

Clearly these Republicans would not fare well in the face of the Tea Party's targeting of Republicans who don't toe the line. John McCain was even forced to drastically reinvent himself only 2 years after being the Republican nominee for President, for which he was forced to slightly alter his stances. The once ardent supporter of amnesty as a part of immigration reform faced a challenge stiff enough to get the Straight Talk Express's bus to hook up it's tow cables to the Tea Party Express's bus. "Complete the dang fence" was the new campaign slogan, and McCain barely escaped a challenge from the far right. To complete his turn to the dark side Senator McCain voted to reauthorize all the Bush tax cuts he originally opposed.

Colin Powell endorsed then Senator Obama in 2008, and went the way of Pat Buchanan. He is not a Republican, but definitely not a Democrat. Now Newt is finding that the politics of the Republican Party require a hard right look at the world to win the primary, even if the rhetoric of the primary assures a victory for the Democrats, as in Delaware.

I guess to find out what is really going on we can go back to the subject of this blog. Newt was very astute when he pointed out to David Gregory in that very same interview that Reagan ruled from the center right. Sure the guy talked a good game about lowering taxes, and he did, but he also raised them 11 times too! His rhetoric talked about the evils of government, but it only grew under his watch. Essentially Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of the current Republican Party, talked a good game but walked a middle path all while running up a deficit so large Vice President Cheney would state that the lesson of Reagan's presidency was that "deficits don't matter." Try telling that to anyone at a Tea Party Express Rally!

What is going on now in the Republican Party is they don't want a Reagan. Someone to talk the narrative talk and walk the centrist walk won't do. They want a guy who is a living breathing right wing narrative. No taxes + No spending= Utopia. No questions asked.

Newt is just now learning this, but he's already started his campaign so he's got a pretty big learning curve. I'm not sure I will be able to listen to the new Newt. The old one was far more interesting. He seemed like his own person, not just one face telling me the same old thing with his latest wife by his side.

Response to Billy Blog

This blog is a response to The Billy Blog's response to my own blog. Go check it out and leave a comment if you are so moved. My response was quote heavy and too long so I had to move it here. Since it was a response I didn't hyperlink my sources like I normally do so you can fact check easily.

My blog was a historical debate on the context of the 2nd Amendment. I would say your whole argument about the 2nd Amendment's new viewing is an excellent primer on the recent recreation of the amendment, and I would recommend it to anyone wanting the new scoop on 2nd Amendment poop.

I would submit you don't even really understand just how much the "self defense" argument in Scalia's decision was made to weigh into future decisions. Justice Alito, in the McDonald decision, even starts off his own decision by stating "this Court held that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense and struck down a District of Columbia law that banned the possession of handguns in the home." Moreover the handgun ban was not passed by the US Congress, it was passed by the DC Council, which does have rules put on it by the US Congress as the recently arrested Mayor Gray will attest, but this law was in keeping with ordinances that were passed in towns in federally administrated areas of the west throughout the 1800's. Justice Scalia's majority decision hinged on DC's "prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense". This ruling is more in keeping with a "natural right" to self defense (which goes back to English Common Law) than in keeping with the actual wording of the 2nd Amendment as a whole, even with the due process clause of the 14th. Essentially if you apply the 14th to the 2nd then you have a choice to make. You can disregard the 14th Amendment's due process clause to the second clause of the 2nd Amendment, as was done because of the wording of the first clause in Presser v Illinois and Miller v Texas, less than 20 and 30 years after the 14th Amendment was ratified. This is done because the first part of the amendment shows that the states have a clear right and duty to regulate their militias. Clearly, this was the favored method historically which is all my blog says. I will state that a key part of any "well regulated" military group is a uniformity in their weapons. I doubt many founders would take issue with your state handing out weapons and drilling you once in a while, as was the case in early America. With a standing Army and National Guard we don't really have a need for it though outside of a Red Dawn situation.

I'll probably write a longer critique of your argument. Mine still stands as correct though as it has been a recent movement of the right to get the first clause to stand alone, while historically this was clearly NOT the case as you can see from the court decisions above. It has been understood since the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 that the 2nd Amendment limits the power of the federal government as the decision in United States v Cruikshank stated "The Second Amendment...has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government." The last major gun case before Emerson was United States v Miller in which the unanimous decision stated "In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument." Clearly the first clause impacted the second in 1939, unlike 2011.

Scalia even wrote in 1997's Printz v United States that the new tougher Brady Bill was unConstitutional because "We have thus far discussed the effect that federal control of state officers would have upon the first element of the "double security" alluded to by Madison: the division of power between State and Federal Governments." He made the argument that the federal law forced the states to enforce the law. Why would he argue such a thing instead of just stating the people have a right to bear the restricted arms? In 1997 the court did not have far right wing Justices Roberts and Alito who live to reinterpret the 2nd Amendment.

I guess in the end the most convincing piece of evidence for Scalia's own understanding of the Second Amendment is Scalia. "Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security and where gun violence is a serious problem," Scalia wrote. "That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct." What the right wing has done instead is to declare one half of it extinct.

My blog attempted to show an early understanding of the 2nd amendment and the context with which it would be viewed as historical narrative. Your own closing argument couldn't have been more prescient. Much like your ACLU argument, I'm pointing out that the right wing is attempting to get back to the founders on everything BUT the 2nd Amendment. Is it revisionist history? I'm not sure because our founders were not monolithic, so I'm sure there was a movement to allow for sub-state insurgencies by more than one founder. Is it a conspiracy? I don't think anyone who has read a newspaper or the court decisions of the last 100 years would say it is. To be a conspiracy you have to be quiet and small with a lot of power. It's a pretty large movement based on the number of NRA stickers I see daily. There are entire colleges being started just for this and other right wing causes. I'm glad it got you thinking though, and I don't begrudge your very current reading and understanding of the amendment. As the DC and Chicago bans were 5-4 votes, whereas the earlier cases were generally much larger decisions, I think the issue is very much alive today.

Ragin' Man Asks A Question

The Ragin' Man knows he has one subscriber to this blog. Let's face it, the Ragin' Man had a relatively popular Myspace political blog using a character for a while in 2006-2007, and he just uses this one to vent. The Ragin' Man would have to follow a lot of blogs and pimp his blog, and let's face it, he's got too much stuff going on. The venting helps make the Ragin' Man less raging because he sees blatantly obvious cases of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance and can't let it go. Here's a case in which the Ragin' Man going to ask my one reader and anyone else who stops by a question at the end.

The Ragin' Man was reading an article online and saw something that normally causes a ruckus occurred this last week. President Obama walked out of a briefing into a room full of campaign donors and spoke to them with his mic on. One CBS reporter was listening in on the feed and taped it all.

What is probably most notable about this "hot mic" is the President said almost nothing noteworthy to the press. This is most easily explained by the American press living on gossip and political ramification over detailed analysis and fact. What is often reported on were President Obama's statements about his refusal to allow the Republicans to mess with the Affordable Care Act in any budget deal.

What is not often reported is a sentiment the Ragin' Man has shared with his Congressman about his own sudden concern for the deficit. The Ragin' Man has even asked Tea Baggers about this very thing, because according to the polling they elected or supported these same policies. The quote that won the Ragin' Man was this:

"When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he's just being America's accountant ... This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill -- but wasn't paid for, so it's not on the level."

This is the question the Ragin' Man is asking you. How can someone who never spoke out or voted against any of the above things without proper funding/cutting, supported a Vice President who said "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter," and in most cases demonized the one Republican who did, John McCain, for being a "RINO" (Republican In Name Only) claim to have any care about the deficit without sounding like a hypocrite?

The Ragin' Man has repeatedly attempted to get his own Congressman who has the same voting record to admit he was wrong at the time or is just a complete hypocrite now, but to no avail. The Ragin' Man has a horrible representative.

It should be noted that in 2000 the Ragin' Man was a Republican, and went independent in the following years because of the deficit issue and the Iraq war falsehoods that were fairly apparent to anyone watching at the time.

So what do you think? Is the Ragin' Man crazy, or are these people just massive fuckups who refuse to acknowledge anything they've ever done?