Balkinization: Why Is American Politics So Polarized?

Comments:

It's a nice essay with a good summary of the relevant political science literature. However, if the problem with polarization is governability, aren't we really just talking about the Senate? Why not just make the Senate a more majoritarian body?

# posted by

Arbitrista : 1:20 PM

'Congress, the parties have become purer and purer distillations of themselves. The parties are now more internally unified, and more sharply differentiated from each other, than anytime over the last 100 years.'

As a summary at least, this is a false equivalancy. "The parties" are not equal in this regard. The Democrats did not act as united and obstructionist in Congress, in particular, since the 1990s. The Republicans are the one who has a partisan impeachment while the Dems did not provide a united front even to a partisan President like Bush. Lest we forget.

# posted by

Joe : 1:31 PM

Also, how "more sharply differentiated" are the two parties on major issues like war and regulatory policy? Centrist and conservative Democrats join with the Republicans to prevent major changes, including some that probably have support of a majority. Again, lest we forget, partisanship should not erase hard realities.

# posted by

Joe : 1:33 PM

Perhaps the polarization is attributable, in significant part, to the high costs of campaigning, with contributors wanting results, thus resulting in the politicians trying to keep them happy. I don't know if the extent of polarization can be quantified over the years but campaign costs can. Also, lobbying costs may contribute to polarization; can lobbyists be quantified in the sense of being former elected officials or congresssional staff members? Political power costs more and more each year. Have political scientists done work on this?

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 2:07 PM

Sounds interesting and look forward to reading it. One suggestion: as someone who has done a fair amount of comparative work, it is often extremely difficult to distinguish between "attitudinal" and "institutional" factors: they morph seamlessly into one another and there is rarely a clean line between them. Often there is a large role for personality and other unsystematic or quirky factors. But the effort is surely worth making.

# posted by

michael a. livingston : 4:27 PM

The New Deal consensus broke down over three main issues which emerged in the 60s and 70s: war policy, the welfare state and religion.

Post Vietnam, the Dems went isolationist, the GOP internationalist.

In the 60s and 70s, the Dems started working for a Euro style welfare state while the GOP went between limited government and welfare state light depending upon whether there was a Bush in the White House.

Then there was the social issue feud between the secular left and the religious right.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 7:08 PM

Keep in mind that when Blankshot says "isolationist left", he really means "not looking for excuses to launch an invasion left".

# posted by

Bartbuster : 8:00 PM

This is too rich to keep to myself. GOP candidate for Dem majority leader Harry Reid's NV senate seat, Sharon Angle, has come up with what has to be the best title for a press release this campaign cycle:

HARRY REID’S PLAN TO SAVE THE NEVADA ECONOMY: COKED-UP STIMULUS MONKEYS

Nevada – In the face of the worst recession since the Great Depression, where has the money from Harry Reid’s stimulus bill gone to help our ailing economy? Cocaine-addled monkeys and a million dollars worth of exotic ants, according to a new report out this morning.

“Harry Reid says ‘no one can do more’ for Nevada. We had no idea Harry’s plan of ‘more’ meant spending millions on coked-up monkeys and exotic ants while our state is ravaged by the worst foreclosure rate and highest unemployment rate in the nation,” said Jerry Stacy, spokesman for U.S. Senatorial Sharron Angle.

Instant classic.

This needs to be turned into a campaign commercial.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:38 PM

Cocaine Monkey sounds like a good nickname for Dubya.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 10:48 PM

Perhaps we should abolish the current practice of directly electing Senators. The relatively recent amendment allowing for this procedure thwarts the framers intentions to make the two bodies of the legislative branch separate. They wanted a group that was elected by the people directly and a separate group that was elected by the state legislatures. I think going back to this method would have a positive effect. In such a congress polarized bills may be introduced, but the bills that make it into law would be considerably less polarized.

# posted by

Jim : 11:50 PM

A hundred years ago is "relatively recent," relatively speaking, I guess. Not really though, huh?

Also, the two bodies are still "separate" now -- they act separately, have different membership and terms and different groups (district v. state-wide) vote for them.

I don't understand how indirect election (people vote for state legislators who vote for senators) would make them much more "separate." Also, as was the practice, chances are the state legislatures in most cases would -- ala the Electoral College -- just follow the will of the voters anyway.

How will it be less polarized? Polarized state legislatures would be electing the senators. Legislators who are party actors would if anything be more polarized than individual voters who aren't as concerned about such things, their livelihood not being a member of a party.

I don't really understand the attraction to the reversal of the 17A.

# posted by

Joe : 2:20 AM

Perhaps political polarization reflects the concept of creative destruction. We also have the widening income gaps. Kurt vonnegut was ahead of his time with his first novel "Player Piano." Growth leads to complexities that require periodic adjustments, which can be painful. Those in power, politically and otherwise, want to maintain power and the "greater good" may get in the way.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 5:06 AM

This yodelism:

"Then there was the social issue feud between the secular left and the religious right."

involving the wall of separation was recently answered by Anne Rice. Amen, woman!

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 6:02 AM

The response to yodelism's endorsement of Sharron Angle:'s recent press release as

"Instant classic."

is provided by Ann Telnaes' animated political cartoon in today's (8/4/10) WaPo: "Sharron Angle's media strategy."

I recall from my high school geometry course back in 1944 something about "The angle of dangle ..." that Sharron makes more meaningful now.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 6:17 AM

Divide a population up into two groups, assign each group a sports team, and have a competition to see who gets an intrinsically valueless prize, and you'll get a certain level of polarization.

Divide a population up into two groups, assign each group a sports team, and have a competition to see which group gets executed, and you'll see a hell of a lot MORE polarization.

The stakes matter, and the last 80 years have seen an exponential increase in what's at stake in elections, as the power of government has expanded. Not just expanded, but become more indeterminate, as the limits on that power are not merely expanding, but being largely voided. Replacing old limits not with new limits, but with no limits.

It's become something of a truism that "elections matter". The problem is, they matter too much. They don't decide the budget a few percent this way or that. They decide if this basic constitutional liberty or that will be razor bladed out of the Bill of Rights. They decide if a sixth of the economy will be taken over by the government. They decide irreversible changes in our way of life.

The stakes have become too high for civility.

# posted by

Brett : 6:24 AM

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 8:27 AM

Brett takes us back to 1930, the year I was born (this very month). But the first 30 years of the 20th century contributed to the big event of 1929, during which too much power may have been in too few hands. C. Wright Mills' "The Power Elite" (1956) describes well those who exercised the power (and continue to do so). What has changed today is that more of the public is quickly informed of what is happening that may have political implications as a result of technological acceleration, especially following WW II. While today we are in the Great Recession, we are subjected instantly to the Father Coughlin-types of the Great Depression who had smaller audiences via radio back then. I just heard that Bristol and Levi will not marry after all. Imagine the political implications for this November and November of 2012!.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 8:29 AM

Brett said...

It's become something of a truism that "elections matter". The problem is, they matter too much. They don't decide the budget a few percent this way or that. They decide if this basic constitutional liberty or that will be razor bladed out of the Bill of Rights. They decide if a sixth of the economy will be taken over by the government. They decide irreversible changes in our way of life.

The stakes have become too high for civility.

The stakes are never too high for civility. You can work towards the day that progressivism and socialism are tossed on the ash heap of history along with communism and fascism, while remaining civil.

In any case, it sounds like you are more than ready to join the revolution. Welcome to the Tea Party.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:26 AM

The paper has a lot of worthwhile reflections, which improve on second reading. Initially I experienced difficulty following its thematic development, especially if a particular footnote's terms of reference are slightly at variance with usage in the body of the report; for example, the 2004 congressional voting pattern demonstrating rarification of 'centrist' stances.

Two additional balancing factors for approaches the paper takes include an observation that societal 'center' itself has swung, while, perhaps, the stridency of public argumentation has shifted because of the newness of this context.

Also, I had a sense of the need to frame oppositions long past in terms which vividly depict those times. For example, seemingly cyclically there has been earnest discussion of the worth of engaging the international community through the United Nations; almost a corollary, whether the US ought to expect much from foreign aid it sends throughout the world. Modern media have illuminated in new ways what were fairly abstruse debates in their day. Sometimes the outcome is that a dollop of hyperbole seasons modern extremism attempting to muster such obsolete arguments as if de novo in the new milieu.

# posted by

JohnLopresti : 10:13 AM

Blankshot appears to have completely lost his mind.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 10:51 AM

Enjoy your birthday Shag. You can spend it reading SSRN articles.

Civility is possible. Isn't the same as lack of emotion though. Some are upset when some people are passionate and lash out against injustices, such as Glen Greenwald. Others quietly think things like torture are parlor intellectual games. Such people are hard to take.

Still, senators are civil to each other, at least on the floor in view of others. I guess that is too much to ask for totally on blogs. Prof. Levinson lashes out, if somewhat more politely, here too. Maybe, that is why -- as well as a matter of personality -- he forgives it in others up to a point.

# posted by

Joe : 11:43 AM

A one-sentence description of the basic thesis would seem to be that American politics is so polarized because it can be. IOW, in the absence of structural impediments to disparity of opinions and policies, the disparity will grow.

Call it political entropy, and sure, it makes sense, even without statistics or other data to back it up. Short of some countervailing force or event (the Rapture, maybe?), what will cause a reversal of this trend?

As for civility, it's nice, but it's over-rated. I prefer honesty. For example, when someone speaks approvingly of anti-scientific blatherings of a political wannabee, I believe it should be pointed out that this is indicative of an intellectually barren outlook which, if allowed to govern policy, would result in a further stultification of progress -- and progress is the only thing that's going to avoid catastrophe, given the stress humanity is causing to the planetary ecosystem.

In short, it's a stupid, stupid thing to celebrate and does not deserve civility.

# posted by

C2H50H : 12:21 PM

Honesty and civility are not mutually exclusive. You can call something wrong, or even stupid, without name calling and personal invective.

# posted by

Joe : 12:47 PM

C. Wright Mills preceded Ike by several years cautioning us on the military industrial complex. Political polarization has certainly been contributed to by MI complex. America is continually at war to some degree and perhaps our economy over the years has "benefited" from and been supported by it. Today, China is not the open military adversary that the Soviets had been prior to the end of the Cold War. China need not compete head-to-head military spending-wise with America at the same time as China's economy grows and may soon eclipse ours. Guns and butter did not prove to work that well for us. Guns, butter and tax cuts have been failing us. A significant aspect of polarization deals with National Security, as differently perceived by the major political parties, with patriotism accusations used politically at the drop of a "9/11" reference on just about any and every thing. It resembles the schoolyard game when I was a kid: "King of the Hill." Of course, no one stayed king for that long. The histories of empires seem to be ignored.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 1:21 PM

Shag:

We spend about 4% of GDP in the military while the Chinese supposedly spend about 1.4% of GDP.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7366541/China-slows-rise-in-military-spending.html

These are hardly strategic overreach percentages like the roughly 25% the Soviet Empire was spending before collapsing in the late 80s.

The polarization is not over the MIC, but rather whether or not to go to war.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 1:33 PM

The polarization is not over the MIC, but rather whether or not to go to war.
# posted by Bart DePalma : 1:33 PM

Not any more. Most Americans now agree that the Iraq Disaster was an idiotic mistake.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 2:28 PM

This yodelism:

"The polarization is not over the MIC, but rather whether or not to go to war."

is reminiscent of the chicken/egg conundrum. What was it Madeleine Albright said about having a military if you're not going to use it?

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 4:13 PM

Blankshot, have you ever heard this quote?

"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

# posted by

Bartbuster : 4:45 PM

The stakes have become too high for civility.

I think I agree with you, Brett, but with a qualification: "The stakes have become too high--in our perception--for civility."

Submitting old people to "death panels" is worth fighting over, but ensuring that they maintain the same basic coverage is not as dramatic a change. In fact, it's not really change at all. So, if you're an insurance lobbyist that wants to defeat health care reform (or a candidate that wants to take office), you push the "death panel" button until everyone knows just how high the stakes really are. Except that they aren't.

Similarly, gun control promoters push the "everyone will walk around like Mad Max killing everyone" or "we'll turn Nevada into Somalia" button, but the stakes are actually lower than that.

I think the various noise machines are good at making the stakes seem much higher than they actually are.

And the fact of the matter is that I've yet to be convinced about anything by a lunatic rant, although a decent, logical argument can cause me to reconsider my positions. Throwing civility out the window is surrender in my book, although I do understand the occasional need to vent frustration. :)

# posted by

PMS_CC : 6:22 PM

There is another reason for the political polarization of the nation - the petty and not so petty tyrannies of what is looking more and more like a federal ruling class.

Missouri's Prop C showed that the voters are already in full rebellion over an imperial Congress taking control of their health insurance against their will.

Then, last month, a district court judge in AZ decreed that the most popular law in the country - Arizona's attempt to enforce federal immigration law - was likely unconstitutional because it would be contrary to Obama policy not to enforce the law.

Now, a district court judge in San Fran has literally decreed that homosexual unions are marriages and the voters of CA were irrational to vote otherwise.

The courts may have just added law and order and social issue voters to the tsunami already headed to the ballot box in November.

How many more times does the ruling class think voters can be denied before there is a revolution - first at the ballot box and then if that fails on the streets?

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 6:27 PM

Joe,

While it may be possible to be honest and yet avoid name calling and personal invective, that is not the sum total and definition of "civility".

Civility is in the eye of the beholder, as I suspect most of us have discovered often enough.

I see that Bart has just, in a "civil" manner, and called for a civil war to impose the wishes of what he perceives as the "will of the people" (as expressed by 23 percent turnout in a by-election).

Personally, I find this revolting.

# posted by

C2H50H : 6:36 PM

C2H50H said...

I see that Bart has just, in a "civil" manner, and called for a civil war to impose the wishes of what he perceives as the "will of the people" (as expressed by 23 percent turnout in a by-election).

My friend, I am completely serious.

Obamacare was enacted against the will of a majority of voters in nearly every poll and with demonstrators surrounding the capital yelling stop.

The AZ law had the support of between 60% to 70% of voters in nearly every poll before being enjoined based upon the most spurious of arguments.

The CA law was enacted by a direct vote of a majority of CA voters and reflects the will of a much larger percentage of voters across the country before a judge simply decreed that homosexual unions are marriages and that the voters were literally irrational to vote otherwise.

In sum, a bit over 250 congress critters and two judges are telling about 80 million voters that they can screw themselves.

Even if you support every policy above, surely you can see that a government imposing these policies by decree against the will of the citizenry in a republic founded on the principle that the government is the servant of the people is going to cause a backlash from the people.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 7:12 PM

surely you can see that a government imposing these policies by decree
# posted by Bart DePalma : 7:12 PM

Actually, what I see is the Constitution imposing these policies. Maybe you wingnuts should find a place to live with a constitution more to your liking?

# posted by

Bartbuster : 7:27 PM

Bart,

Oh, I'm sure you're serious. Of course, when you seriously claim that duly-passed laws of these United States are "imposing policy by decree", well, that's seriously deranged.

A nice example for Professor Pildes. Two people, apparently from the same country, one of whom believes the government is illegitimate. Yup, that's polarization, because I think I recall it being elected, and, like it or not, the organization of our country under the existing Constitution is as a representative republic -- while in office they can govern as they see fit.

-- or is that a matter of opinion as well?

# posted by

C2H50H : 7:30 PM

I should have ended "as they see fit under the Constitution." (That goes without saying, in my opinion, if that matters.)

# posted by

C2H50H : 7:42 PM

I agree incivility comes in various forms C2H50H, being polite can be a thin veneer indeed. I did not mean to suggest otherwise. I'm not defending the target as some model here.

# posted by

Joe : 8:37 PM

C2H50H said...

A nice example for Professor Pildes. Two people, apparently from the same country, one of whom believes the government is illegitimate. Yup, that's polarization, because I think I recall it being elected, and, like it or not, the organization of our country under the existing Constitution is as a representative republic -- while in office they can govern as they see fit.

It would be useful to revisit the grounds the American people gave for their first Revolution:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Under our founding principles, a government which rules as it wishes contrary to the consent of the governed is per se illegitimate and tyrannical. When burdened with such a government, the people have the power to alter or abolish it.

That is not an opinion, it is a natural right of the people.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 8:44 PM

It's good to hear that people have natural rights, not just rights as citizens of America. And that these rights are honored in America because they were among the founding principles of America.

Apropos of which, George Washington strongly opposed mistreating enemy prisoners. Fact. You could look it up.

Ah, but the right wing never burdens itself to apply its claimed principles when inconvenient.

# posted by

jpk : 8:53 PM

So Rick: 30,000 words and Karl Rove is mentioned just once? And wedge issue zero times? In an essay on polarization in American politics?

I'd be happy to accept and learn from the rest of your essay on the materials Rove had to work with. But we'll all be living with the effects of his work for many years. It won elections but it bitterly polarized America. Just one mention? Really?

# posted by

jpk : 9:00 PM

Under our founding principles, a government which rules as it wishes contrary to the consent of the governed is per se illegitimate and tyrannical. When burdened with such a government, the people have the power to alter or abolish it.

That is not an opinion, it is a natural right of the people.
# posted by Bart DePalma : 8:44 PM

Once we stop holding elections to determine the consent of the governed, you might have a point. Until then you are just full of shit.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 9:14 PM

Joe,

Understood.

Bart,

How shall we determine if the government rules in accordance with the wishes of the governed?

Will it be acceptable if we allow the election to be held in a few months to determine the will of the people, or did you have something else in mind? This method would at least have the advantage that it's what the founders had in mind and incorporated in the Constitution (modulo direct election of Senators and expansion of the electorate).

Be prepared to be disappointed. The gerrymandering of districts means that the House is just about as conservative as the Senate (which is an argument for abolishing the Senate as needless) and will return incumbents at somewhere around a 90 percent rate.

# posted by

C2H50H : 9:21 PM

C2H50H said...

Bart, How shall we determine if the government rules in accordance with the wishes of the governed?

The fact that you even have to ask that question is a damning indictment of how far our government has strayed from its founding principles.

1) Go home and ask your constituents. In doing so, spend more time at home than in Washington. Do not hide from your constituents.

2) Listen to what your constituents are trying to communicate to you by mail, email, telephone, office visits, facebook, twitter and carrier pigeon.

3) Yes, even consult reliable polling. Parties already do their own internal polling for this guidance.

If a majority of your constituents oppose the law, then you vote nay.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:55 PM

Blankshot, I'm relatively certain that "reliable polling" is not mentioned in the Constitution.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 10:02 PM

Bart,

There are 700 thousand people in each district. A representative who makes an effort to listen to them all will have no time to do anything else -- and still never come close to a reasonable sample.

Evaluating positions on the basis of how many people call is simply pandering to those with the most extreme positions.

Is daily polling sufficient, or should it be hourly? Polling can depend on the pollster and can change over the span of a few days, as we've seen with the health care bill.

None of these are workable solutions, and are also clearly not what the founders intended, since there would have been no way to make them work even in the earliest days, when there would have been only tens of thousands of people in a district.

It seems a tad inconsistent to insist on original meaning of a selected passage of the Declaration while ignoring the clear original meaning of the Constitution.

This is also straying from the subject at hand, although it may be giving some people an idea of the lack of equivalence in the right and the left as to what constitutes "polarization".

# posted by

C2H50H : 10:59 PM

As more and more yodelisms of revolutionary reactions are proposed on the question "Why Is American Politics So Polarized?" the diagnosis of "bi-polarization" comes to mind.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 4:18 AM

Sandy asked "Who can be optimistic about the future of this country?" in his post on 8/2/10 "George Packer on the Senate." Yodelism responded:

"I can. I have infinite faith in the common sense and ability of the American people when left alone to succeed. In general, having Congress unable to enact anything without majority support by the voters is a good thing, even if some of the rules are silly."

What happened to this optimism with yodelism's revolutionary excerpts from the Declaration on this thread?

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 7:55 AM

Why, indeed, is US politics so polarised when the UK seems so much less so?

The worship of God
Ironically, while the USA is officially a secular state, and the UK officially has a state religion), one major difference between the USA and the UK is the much greater influence religion, and in particular the religious right, has on US public affairs.

Comparatively few people in the UK are regular churchgoers. Although 71% of our citizens have a vague belief in God, and 48% claim to have a religion, just 6% go to church on Sunday. In the USA by contrast, 86% claim to belong to a religion and 60% say religion is important in their lives.

Further the UK is perhaps fortunate that the potty clergymen whose thought forms the basis of most of the “rapture ready” type of American Christian fundamentalism did not catch on here.

The USA has the huge influence of the fundamentalists and their ability to raise megabucks on issues they find important.

The UK has seen nothing like the fights the USA has had and is still having on moral issues.

The worship of Mammon
Since 1900 or so, English politics has been about reducing the inequalities between rich and poor. The Conservative Party drew its support from the nobility and the landed gentry, the Liberals from the nonconformists and the Labour Party from the unionised workers.

The Conservatives lost the fight on redistribution of wealth through taxation in 1911 and, apart from the Thatcher experiment, the Conservatives have been ”one nation Tories” ever since. Thatcher broke with that policy and that was probably the only time that we saw US-style conservatism of the “Soak the Poor” variety in England and it was divisive and confrontational – it polarised the country and made the Conservatives unelectable for three successive terms. Conservatism has only now reinvented itself as officially “one Nation”.

In the USA, since you do not have an aristocracy and perhaps not even a gentry, the division between left and right was much more about money. The GOP was the party of the bankers and the industrialists, the Democrats the party of the Unions and the working class, but also of the Segregationist South and I note that Mr Pildes takes the 1965 Voting Rights Act as the key factor for polarisation. LBJ knew knew the consequences of what he was doing.

But enter a new factor: the much greater influence of the foundations of the far right which were encouraged by the Powell Memorandum to make a conscious effort to shift the USA to the right starting with the academic institutions and from there to the judicial system. The avowed aim was to make politics and the law more “business friendly” – busting effective regulation in favour of profit, and shifting the burden of taxation away from the rich. Again, these foundations and businesses have, naturally, funded the GOP conservatives – but if these conservatives had not also been able to rely also on the support of the religious right, no amount of redistricting and the like chicanery could have produced a majority.

So, today’s polarisation is perhaps the consequence of a unholy alliance between the worshippers of God and the worshippers of Mammon.

While Jesus may have said that one cannot worship both, he did not allow for a coalition.

# posted by

Mourad : 8:26 AM

This yodelism:

"Under our founding principles, a government which rules as it wishes contrary to the consent of the governed is per se illegitimate and tyrannical. When burdened with such a government, the people have the power to alter or abolish it."

referencing tyranny should be compared to Tom Toles' WaPo political cartoon today (8/5/10) "The list goes on," setting forth two columns: one headed "Tyrants Overthrown:", with no entries, and the second headed "Co-workers, Students, Spouses, Clerks, Etc, Killed" with extensive entries. Have fairly recent Second Amendment issues contributed to political polarization, and as Heller and McDonald play out, may result in greater political polarization?

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 8:48 AM

Mourad, with respect to this:

" ... and the UK officially has a state religion), ... '

England's Robert Herrick, a 17th century vicar and poet, convinced me that a sense of humor is associated with religion in your neck of the woods. My favorite Herrick poem is "Upon Some Women." (No, I'm not a misogynist!) A sense of humor even helps the medicine go down, like the 8 years of Bush/Cheney. Mark Twain had a sense of humor on religion. If I were to participate in Sandy's call for a Constitutional Amendment, I would push for a "sense of humor" addition to the "pursuit of happiness."

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 9:03 AM

C2H50H said...

None of these are workable solutions, and are also clearly not what the founders intended, since there would have been no way to make them work even in the earliest days, when there would have been only tens of thousands of people in a district.

C'mon now, good representatives are in constant contact with their constituents directly, through aides and through community leaders, and have the pulse of their districts down to widows with SS complaints.

A representative does not need a scientific polling sample to know whether a majority of his constituents support a proposition.

The claim that it is impossible for representatives to know what their constituents think is perhaps the worst excuse yet offered for working against their wishes.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 10:14 AM

Shag from Brookline said...

Sandy asked "Who can be optimistic about the future of this country?" in his post on 8/2/10 "George Packer on the Senate."

BD: "I can. I have infinite faith in the common sense and ability of the American people when left alone to succeed. In general, having Congress unable to enact anything without majority support by the voters is a good thing, even if some of the rules are silly."

What happened to this optimism with yodelism's revolutionary excerpts from the Declaration on this thread?

Perhaps you missed the yawning distinction between my optimism about "the American people when left alone" and my citation to the natural right of the people to alter or abolish governments who do not serve their will.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 10:18 AM

Blankshot, why weren't you this concerned about "the will of the people" when the Iraq Disaster was polling in the low 30s?

# posted by

Bartbuster : 10:33 AM

Bart,

Since this does touch on something associated with the topic of the post, I'll reply.

I doubt that the representatives have any more idea as to what their constituents think than the rest of us. For one thing, polling is all over the place. When the public is polarized, the polls generate noise. Anyone with a basic understanding of statistics could tell you that. Politicians aren't privy to some super-secret methodology which gives them answers that pollsters don't have. If anything, they're in an even noisier environment, with more cacophony, than the rest of us.

But there's another issue here. Professor Pildes has written about the polarization of the electorate, yet he does not delve into the internal polarization of the people who make up the electorate. We have seen polls that indicate that the people simultaneously believe that government spending should be cut, but then the polls find no program which the people want cut. The teabaggers are a case in point. The internal inconsistencies in their positions mean that they are internally polarized. "Keep your federal hands off my Medicare!"

So it's pretty much meaningless to talk about what a lot of the electorate "thinks".

Having talked to a few of the local teabaggers I just have to say that "think" is used in a generalized sense here, because there really isn't an operation going on here that is rational. Sure, neurons are firing, and noise is coming out -- but it's pretty random.

Getting a coherent signal out of such noise is impossible, with any real hope of accuracy. In statistical terms, the variance is too large.

So your suggestions, while no doubt you consider them valid, are worthless to our elected representatives as a guide for legislation.

I think they have a very good idea as to how to get re-elected, though: raise a lot of money.

# posted by

C2H50H : 10:35 AM

Blankshot, reliable polling indicates that the health care law should have included a public option. Are you outraged that no public option was included?

# posted by

Bartbuster : 10:38 AM

Bart,

another piece from that radical left-wing rag that might say something about the tendency of those on the right, to quote scripture -- I mean, the Declaration -- selectively.

# posted by

C2H50H : 11:24 AM

When dear Bart trots out the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, I wonder what he thinks the Founding Fathers meant by: ”the pursuit of happiness”.

Since this is one of the explicit ”inalienable rights”, it is inconceivable that Jefferson, the philosopher-statesman, could have been referring to anything so trivial as a pursuit of private happiness.

No, as Professor Wills, postulated in his 1978 work, “Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence”:-

” When Jefferson spoke of pursuing happiness, he had nothing vague or private in mind. He meant a public happiness which is measurable; which is, indeed, the test and justification of any government”.

The expression “the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence really means the public purpose of ”seeking of the greatest good for the greatest number “ - very much a concept of the Enlightenment.

”Universal healthcare for all, free at the point of delivery and paid for out of taxation” sounds very much consistent with ”seeking the greatest good for the greatest number” .

Certainly preferable to any of dear Bart’s private pursuits, I would have thought.

Indeed, one rather shudders to think just what dear Bart's "private pursuits" might be.

# posted by

Mourad : 1:36 PM

Mourad said...

Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

When dear Bart trots out the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, I wonder what he thinks the Founding Fathers meant by: ”the pursuit of happiness”.

Since this is one of the explicit ”inalienable rights”, it is inconceivable that Jefferson, the philosopher-statesman, could have been referring to anything so trivial as a pursuit of private happiness.

Inconceivable? Not to anyone who has actually read Jefferson's words.

Jefferson counts life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as unalienable natural rights of men.

To start, individuals have rights, governments have powers. The term "states rights" is a misnomer.

Next, life and liberty are by definition individual rights. There is no collective right to either. By including the pursuit of happiness in this list, it is very clear that the Founders were speaking of an individual pursuit of happiness.

Assuming arguendo that Jefferson also meant to include the citizenry's collective pursuit of happiness through their government, that merely reinforces my original point in quoting from the Declaration's preamble - that the government must enact the will of the people.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 3:10 PM

If unalienable rights of an individual clash with unalienable rights of another individual, does such give rise to unalienable responsibilities of individuals to each other? Can individual rights exist without individual responsibilities?

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 3:36 PM

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 4:21 PM

Shag from Brookline said...

If unalienable rights of an individual clash with unalienable rights of another individual, does such give rise to unalienable responsibilities of individuals to each other?

Rights are more properly understood spaces of liberty from government power and there is no right for one person to harm another. Thus, there cannot be a conflict of individual rights.

Can individual rights exist without individual responsibilities?

In terms of a constitution setting out the spheres of individual liberty and government power, yes.

In terms of the functioning of a free society, no.

The only way a free society works is for free men and women to act like adults and decline to lie, cheat or steal nor tolerate those who do. A people that insists on acting like children wil eventually get a government which acts like big brother.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 4:22 PM

Bart--

Two questions:

Is "the will of the people" necessarily the same as "the will of the people who voted?"

Also, can "the will of the people" ever be wrong?

# posted by

PMS_CC : 4:37 PM

Apparently Blankshot has convinced himself that elections actually don't have consequences.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 5:00 PM

This yodelism:

"In terms of a constitution setting out the spheres of individual liberty and government power, yes.

"In terms of the functioning of a free society, no.

"The only way a free society works is for free men and women to act like adults and decline to lie, cheat or steal nor tolerate those who do. A people that insists on acting like children wil eventually get a government which acts like big brother."

in answer to the question:

"Can individual rights exist without individual responsibilities?"

sounds a little like Ayn Rand. Perhaps if children had the right to vote, they might act like adults, whereas adults at times do act like children.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 5:01 PM

PMS_CC said...

Is "the will of the people" necessarily the same as "the will of the people who voted?"

Voters are the only folks effectively expressing their will. However, will of the People means all the People.

Also, can "the will of the people" ever be wrong?

To err is human whether the decision maker is a dictator or the people. The people are simply the least worst alternative. This is why we have a Republic with checks and balances on the ability of a transient majority to impose government power on the rest of us.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 5:03 PM

Now, a district court judge in San Fran has literally decreed that homosexual unions are marriages and the voters of CA were irrational to vote otherwise.

Hold, on. I can fix this problem in two quotes.

The first one should sound familiar:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The second one should also sound familiar:

The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

The voters of California do not have the right to create tyranny anymore than anyone else does.

You can't hang your hateful wishes on a false distinction. History has shown that when the similarities of supposedly different categories are sufficiently exposed, the categorical distinctions break down. Natives become people. Blacks become citizens. Miscegenation becomes marriage. Unions and partnerships become marriage.

When the meaning of two terms is the same, but the terms are employed as if they are different, the terms are doomed to reduction in the name of efficiency, if not rationality.

If the difference between the two terms is that God doesn't approve of one of them, that's simply not a rational basis for keeping the separate term.

The mortgage office I work at would save around a thousand dollars every year if the required separate (but equal?) disclosures for domestic partnerships were excluded from loan applications. That's the cost of the paper alone--it would also save a hundred hours or so of explaining to married couples why they have to say they are NOT a domestic partnership, and explaining to domestic partners why they DO.

The net effect on business would be positive, so from a purely fiscal standpoint, let's get on with it already.

# posted by

PMS_CC : 5:12 PM

I can understand why Bart has (when it suits him) a certain reverence for the Declaration of Independence. But , considered objectively, the document is neither a statute nor a constitution.

It is a political document, a manifesto, in form very much resembling a bill of particulars justifying the rescission of the social contract between the then sovereign and his American subjects and purporting thereby to absolve such subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance. [Not every one of His late Majesty’s American subjects thought it was effective for that purpose, but no matter].

As a political manifesto – designed to justify the rebellion to every Judge, every peace officer, every army and militia officer, every member of a Governor’s Council, every member of a colonial legislature, all of whom would have taken the Oath of Allegiance - the drafting style was certainly splendid and notable above all for its references to the philosophy of the Enlightenment. The paragraph in issue is the general averment of the social contract between the monarch and the governed. In due course the Declaration goes on to particularise the allegations of breach of that social contract.

Now, if one believes in the validity of the theory of the social contract, then it may well be that one day ”the People”may wish to exercise their right ”to alter or abolish” the Government of the United States.

But there is an old rule about insurrections and rebellions: be successful. If you do, you will be a founding father and statutes will be erected in your honour. But if you screw it up...then your future prospects are not so bright.

See Title 18 Chap 15 of the United States Code. Bart might in particular care to refresh his memory of Section 2385.

# posted by

Mourad : 5:41 PM

PMS:

I used the phrase "literally decreed" for accuracy.

I have just finished reading the legal conclusions of the opinion and Judge Walker gives new meaning to an imperial judiciary.

Walker correctly notes that marriage is a fundamental right. That is his last dalliance with actual law.

When presented with the inconvenient fact that the definition of marriage has never included homosexual unions or any other combination of humanity, Walker simply decrees a new definition of marriage - two parties who enter into a relationship and form a household.

From where does Walker find this definition? To determine whether a right is fundamental under substantive due process analysis, courts generally consider whether the right is deeply rooted traditions and history of the United States. Where did Judge Walker go? His own arbitrary findings of fact.

Judge Walker finds that the exclusion of homosexual unions from marriage "exists an artifact of a time when genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and marriage." You know, like the roles of husband and wife, mom and dad. "That time has passed," sniffs Walker.

An amazing and appalling abuse of power.

I wonder if a panel of the Ninth Circuit apart from Reinhart's could confirm this opinion.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 6:45 PM

Given the topic and a brief glance at the commenters, I am sure there are many thoughtful and insightful observations above, but I am going to forego the joy of reading them.

Instead, I would like to comment on another post, namely the most recent one on net neutrality. I am not sure if I am for or against net neutrality, but I find it interesting that the issue is presented in a black hat versus white hat manner. It isn't so immediately obvious to me that preventing ISPs from privileging or restricting certain content is bad for consumers, some of whom might prefer the resulting internet environment. At least it is not so obvious that it should be argued purely by assertion.

There are also two ironies that struck me. The first is that the professor (I assume, since this is an academic blog) asserts that under the Constitution "the people" set policy and make the laws, something that might be news to Judge Walker. Second, if the professor believes so much in a "wild west" internet, why doesn't he open his posts to comments? Maybe we need the federal government to force Balkinization into a more open policy.

# posted by

mls : 7:14 PM

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

C2H50H : 7:35 PM

asserts that under the Constitution "the people" set policy and make the laws, something that might be news to Judge Walker.

Why? The people do set policy and make laws. In some cases, they are illegitimate based on constitutional restraints. The Constitution is however still the "supreme LAW of the land," made by "the people."

Cute little aside there and yeah when bloggers here make similar questionable statements, allowing comments would be useful.

# posted by

Joe : 11:37 PM

Walker simply decrees a new definition of marriage - two parties who enter into a relationship and form a household.

That's not a new definition of marriage. Anthropologists have been using similar definitions for close to a century now because the culturally specific definition you favor (I presume "one man + one woman = marriage") lacks something when you're trying to describe real behaviors rather than ideal categories.

# posted by

PMS_CC : 1:02 AM

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 8:34 AM

PMS:

Walker's job as a judge is to interpret the law, not enact anthropological theory into law.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 8:52 AM

Blankshot, it's not "anthropological theory", it's real life.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 9:00 AM

Walker's job as a judge is to interpret the law, not enact anthropological theory into law.

Walker's job as a judge is to interpret the law, not to enforce a particular religious view.

If you want to remove the religious prerequisites for marriage, it makes sense to use a definition that fits all possible family arrangements.

Also, FYI, there's a big difference between "theory" and "definition." Additionally, if you want to examine a social category cross-culturally, you'd be wise to use a science like anthropology rather than, say, a definition of marriage from astronomy or geology. So, please save your sneering colloquialism for another audience.

# posted by

PMS_CC : 3:07 PM

PMS_CC said...

The voters of CA were not asked to adopt any particular religious definition of marriage nor was that an issue before Walker. Instead, the court gratuitously inserted it as a straw man argument to deflect from the reality that every definition of civil marriage ever enacted in America apart from the Mormons back in the 19th Century and a small handful of states over the past decade defined it as one man and one woman.

The fact that the historical definition of civil marriage is that same as the definition of marriage held my most but not all religions is no more relevant than the fact that civil law makes murder a crime and the Sixth Commandment forbids it.

If you want to remove the religious prerequisites for marriage, it makes sense to use a definition that fits all possible family arrangements.

Actually, there is no reason the government should be involved in marriage at all. To the extent that the state is involved, it is perfectly reasonable to recognize and subsidize traditional marriage above other relationships because it is a cornerstone of civilization. There is no utilitarian reason to extend that subsidy to homosexual unions, nevertheless the wide variety of other relationships which fall under Walker's redefinition of marriage, because none of these other relationships provide any benefit whatsoever to society.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 3:40 PM

because none of these other relationships provide any benefit whatsoever to society.
# posted by Bart DePalma : 3:40 PM

Blankshot, I'm pretty sure that "benefit to society" is not the standard for giving people equal rights. You actually need to have a compelling reason NOT to grant a group of people the same rights as everyone else, and "I think it's icky" is not nearly as compelling as you seem to think.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 4:07 PM

If the issue is benefit to society, then anything which gives people a sense of belonging, to give them a stake in civil society and the rearing and education of children, is a benefit to society.

Wasn't Bart arguing recently, in reference to stock ownership that universal investment in business is a benefit to society? It would seem inconsistent to want universal economic investment while restricting social investment.

# posted by

C2H50H : 5:48 PM

The law has historically had its problems with marriage.

In Oliver Twist, Mr Bumble is informed that, “the law presumes that your wife acts under your direction” to which Mr Bumble retorts, ”If the law supposes that ... the law is a[n] ass — a[n] idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor.”

Bart writes:

”I have just finished reading the legal conclusions of the opinion and Judge Walker gives new meaning to an imperial judiciary…”

It’s a thankless task being a Judge. Very possibly Judge Walker would have preferred not to have Perry –v- Schwarzenegger before him since it was a case raising novel issues, on which there was sure to be public controversy and which was likely to be considered on appeal all the way to the Supreme Court.

When the Plaintiffs exercised their right to apply to the Court, it became the Judge’s duty to try the case. The Judge’s opinion suggests that he did so with some care. I do note that his reasoning is at least consistent with the reasoning of of Judge Tauro on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act in Gill –v- Office of Personnel Management.

Judges are human and therefore fallible. That is why the judicial system provides for an appeal and for the possibility of further review by SCOTUS.

I have enjoyed reading the posts of academics on this and other sites which speculate on the prospects of Judge Walker’s opinion being upheld on appeal. Some commentaries on either side are instructive, but I remind myself that in Washington DC as in London, our respective Supreme Courts from time to time come up with decisions which surprise everyone.

Poor Bart's posts on this and other matters over recent days are as a reflection of the fact that the mid-term elections are fast approaching. Unable to advance a coherent argument on the merits of the gay marriage issue, Bart takes to invective against the Judge who cannot answer back, not least because it would be beneath the dignity of his office to do so.
It's a pretty shabby approach to politics, not least because it is reported that the Arizona judge whose decision Bart also excoriates has been receiving death threats.

But it was much the same with some of the GOP floor speeches before the vote which approved the nomination of Elena Kagan to be the 112th Justice of the US Supreme Court.

# posted by

Mourad : 6:30 PM

If the issue is benefit to society, then anything which gives people a sense of belonging, to give them a stake in civil society and the rearing and education of children, is a benefit to society.

Spot on. There's an insidious idea afoot that homosexual unions are entirely based upon sexual activity and have nothing to do with organizing finances, raising children, or keeping people happy and healthy--all of which are benefits to society.

Even if you consider gay men to be nothing but vectors for AIDS, an institution that promotes fidelity (marriage) should still strike you as a benefit to society.

If you boil down the argument, it almost always comes down to "homosexuals shouldn't get married because it's wrong." Any attempt to pretty that hateful opinion up with a discussion of "benefits to society" is putting lipstick on a pig.

(I wonder if straying off-topic is also part of the "mature form of democracy"?)

# posted by

PMS_CC : 6:35 PM

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 1:04 AM

C2H50H said...

If the issue is benefit to society, then anything which gives people a sense of belonging, to give them a stake in civil society and the rearing and education of children, is a benefit to society.

Poppycock.

Having society throw me a party once a week and telling me what a great guy I am would very likely give me a greater sense of belonging, but it provides society with nothing in return.

Recognizing homosexual unions as "marriages" may make the gay or lesbian couples feel better about themselves, but it provides society with nothing in return.

Nor does recognizing homosexual unions as "marriages" add one iota to the rearing and education of children. Homosexual unions do not create children nor do they provide the role models of mother and father. At most, homosexuals provide substitute guardianship for the children of heterosexual couples and the likelihood this will happen is not enhanced by pretending their homosexual unions are marriages.

PMS_CC said...

If you boil down the argument, it almost always comes down to "homosexuals shouldn't get married because it's wrong."

It's not wrong, it is just not marriage.

These arguments remind me of this scene from Life of Brian.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 1:05 AM

Blankshot, your "marriage" has provided no more benefit for society, or children, than any homosexual marriage. Unless your can come up with a good reason why gay people should not be allowed to marry, you're just a fucking hypocritical bigot.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 1:30 AM

To go further off off-topic, take a peek at Tom Toles' WaPo political cartoon (8/8/10) "Born to run" on the recent Republican efforts to hold hearings on the 14th Amendment "birth/citizen" clause. Recall that an issue was raised regarding FDR's birth outside the U.S. Recall the short concern with Sen. John McCain's birth in Panama. But the center of the storm is the first African American President. The right wingnuts perhaps, as Toles suggests, have given up on where Obama was born and wish to delve into parents' (or either of them) subjectivity on planning the place of birth of their child. What the wingnuts seem to be concerned with is a variation on a potential "The Manchurian Candidate" theme.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 4:42 AM

Dana Milbank's WaPo column (8/8/10) "The right wing mantra: If at first you don't secede ..." seems to be on topic, including talk of nullification and the 10th Amendment if secession doesn't work. Just imagine how serene and wonderful life was up to 1/20/09 as a result of 8 years of Bush/Cheney; and how our first African American President has taken us down the garden (and I don't mean Eden) path, undoing the wonderful legacy left to him by Bush/Cheney. No, there wasn't any talk of secession, nullification, revolution, etc, during those 8 years. So what's the causal connection? Can it be anything but our first African American President?

By the Bybee (no, not forgotten), what's the difference between a Mugwamp and Zach Wamp?

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 5:55 AM

The American Family Association put out this statement on 5th August 2010 Time to Impeach Judge Vaughn Walker.

I have absolutely no idea whether the allegation as to the Judge’s sexuality is warranted: what I do not see is how it supports the contention that he should have recused himself. Every Judge has some sexuality and if orientation per se were to have been a ground for recusal, that that would have applied also to judges with heterosexual or bisexual orientation.

The fallacy of the whole argument which poor dear Bart (and his allies on the “fundie” right such as the AFA) all seek to make is that the Founding Fathers did not provide for the views of the putative majority to prevail in all circumstances.

The Bill of Rights was incorporated into the Constitution to protect individual rights for all time against the will of the majority for the time being.

So when one hears Bart and indeed much of the GOP whining about ”activist” judges, what they are really saying is that they want to prohibit or emasculate judicial enforcement of the Bill of Rights.

That is also why the ”originalist heresy” was invented and pushed in the law schools with funding provided by the far right. The idea was to limit the judicial application of the Bill of Rights by reference to the understanding of a bygone age: ”The branding of slaves and criminals is not 'cruel and unusual punishment' because it was common in the time of the Founding Fathers”.

I have always found it amusing that those who would have the state conform to the views of some (not all) of the 57+ different varieties of Christianity on marriage seem very keen to have the state limit marriage and its benefits to the union of one man and one woman but much less keen to push the equally Christian concept that marriage is a whole life obligation traditionally expressed in the hallowed words of the marriage vow: “for better for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part “.

I haven’t noticed Bart or his “fundie” allies pushing for repeal of the divorce laws in, say, the State of Nevada.

Then, again, adultery is certainly sinful as a matter of Christian theology. It was also a common law felony at the time of the Founding Fathers and I believe it is still classified as a crime on the statute books of several US states. Has anyone seen any great push from the right for the prosecution of adulterers?

Perhaps it is understandable why not. After all, there are quite a number of prominent GOP personalities who might feel somewhat inhibited from “casting the first stone”.

# posted by

Mourad : 6:05 AM

Mourad's closing:

"Perhaps it is understandable why not. After all, there are quite a number of prominent GOP personalities who might feel somewhat inhibited from “casting the first stone”.

brings to mind Newt Gingrich who seems to have no inhibitions in casting stones.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 7:19 AM

Bart,

I think a less tortured analogy would be if you wanted to have a party and the state said, "no, you can't, or, if you do have a get-together, you can't call it a party."

Nobody is, after all, asking the state to pay for the marriages, or even participate, merely to recognize them.

You state that recognizing same-sex marriages "provides society with nothing in return." This is obviously false -- stability comes from pooling resources, for example -- and would get you laughed at in a sociology course. As is the idea that non-traditional marriages cannot provide role models, while traditional marriages do. Since I was raised by women (all my male relatives having been either absent or alcoholics), I can speak personally about this. Your claim is utter garbage.

You need better arguments.

PMS_CC: the ability to go off-topic is certainly a mark of democracy (or anarchy) -- but the association with maturity is dubious, in my opinion.

# posted by

C2H50H : 8:37 AM

Mourad said...

I have absolutely no idea whether the allegation as to the Judge’s sexuality is warranted...

One would hope that a federal judge regardless of sexual orientation would be able to apply the law and not arbitrarily enact law which is favorable to his orientation. Unfortunately, this opinion without legal foundation strongly begs the question.

The fallacy of the whole argument which poor dear Bart (and his allies on the “fundie” right such as the AFA) all seek to make is that the Founding Fathers did not provide for the views of the putative majority to prevail in all circumstances.

Please. We original meaning folks are the ones who keep reminding Sandy that the Constitution was expressly designed to deny transient majorities the ability to enact law and any majority the ability to abridge individual liberties.

So when one hears Bart and indeed much of the GOP whining about ”activist” judges, what they are really saying is that they want to prohibit or emasculate judicial enforcement of the Bill of Rights.

Judge Walker did not even bother going through the motions of applying the Bill of Rights. There is no enumerated right to same sex marriage in the Bill of Rights and such a redefinition of marriage is hardly a fundamental right protected by the Ninth Amendment catchall.

Walker simply made it up.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 3:57 PM

C2H50H said...

Nobody is, after all, asking the state to pay for the marriages, or even participate, merely to recognize them.

Our governments grant a wide range of rights and subsidies to marriage, if not paying for the ceremonies. Proponents of same sex marriage want them all.

You state that recognizing same-sex marriages "provides society with nothing in return." This is obviously false -- stability comes from pooling resources, for example -- and would get you laughed at in a sociology course.

The economic benefits to the parties, if any, of pooling resources provides nothing back to society. In actual marriage, the husband and potentially the wife's financial support of the other so that person can care for the couple's children does benefit society by raising more civilized children

As is the idea that non-traditional marriages cannot provide role models, while traditional marriages do. Since I was raised by women (all my male relatives having been either absent or alcoholics), I can speak personally about this. Your claim is utter garbage.

I am sorry you were denied a father, but children raised without a father are far more likely to have social, educational and criminal problems. Judge Walkers' claim that gender roles in marriage are outmoded completely ignores reality.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 4:06 PM

Blankshot, considering that society derives the exact same benefit from your "marriage" as a homosexual marriage, the hypocrisy of your "argument" is quite stunning.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 5:57 PM

BB:

The husband and wife in a marriage are on average healthier, wealthier and less prone to anti-social and criminal behavior than their peers who live together of singly. These all benefit society.

There is no empirical evidence (as opposed to seld serving anecdote and speculation) of similar benefits to "married" homosexuals as compared to their unmarried peers.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 7:09 PM

There is no empirical evidence (as opposed to seld serving anecdote and speculation) of similar benefits to "married" homosexuals as compared to their unmarried peers.
# posted by Bart DePalma : 7:09 PM

There's also no evidence showing otherwise. And, until that evidence shows up, gays should have the same rights as bigoted scum like you.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 7:35 PM

By the way, the whole "benefit to society" argument is a complete load of crap. Even if you won the argument, that still isn't enough reason to deny basic rights to people. However, the fact that you can't even win that argument means that you are screwed. Reason and fairness will eventually win out over bigotry.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 7:43 PM

Bart writes of Judge Walker’s opinion in Perry –v- Schwarzenegger

”Walker simply made it up.”

One of the remarkable things about Perry –v- Schwarzenegger is that none of the Defendants sued in their official capacity as representing the State of California, from the Governor down, sought to uphold the constitutionality of the law of the State of California as amended by the passage of Proposition 8.

Indeed, as dear Bart may perhaps be aware, in their briefs filed with the District Court on the issue whether a stay pending appeal should be granted, the state parties have not only not asked that the temporary stay be not granted, but they have urged the Judge not to grant a stay.

In other words, the official representatives of the 39 million or so inhabitants of California were not prepared even to seek to defend the constitutionality of the law.

There cannot have been that many occasions when a state is brought into Federal Court and asked to defend the constitutionality of state law and elects not to do so. That state of affairs should speak volumes before any court.

Then, it will have helped that the Plaintiffs’ case was argued by Bush’s former Solicitor-General.

Judge Walker’s opinion found for the Plaintiffs both on an Equal Protection basis and on a Due Process basis. So he did not simply make it up.

The conservative academic consensus seems to be that the Judge stretched rational basis to reach his equal protection conclusion, and that his due process rationale was shaky. However the consensus was also that Justice Kennedy was likely to be the swing vote in favour of invalidating Prop 8.

See this article by Ted Stevens:
Anti-Pro 8 – Anti-Perry:-

Now, down the road, Perry will reach the Supreme Court. And when it does, circa 2012, I imagine that the Court will strike down Prop 8 and other anti-gay marriage laws by deciding that the rational-basis test does not apply to laws discriminating against homosexuals, and that the appropriate test under the Equal Protection Clause is "intermediate scrutiny," and Prop 8 will not survive that new test..

Dear Bart has not, of course, engaged in any forensic analysis. Doubtless that would involve relearning how shift his brain into “drive. Instead, he makes do with vulgar abuse of the Judge.

Were poor Bart not so fully engaged in indulging his pre- midterm electoral fantasies (of which more later), I might have suggested he offer his legal services to the Prop 8 supporters for the appeal.

# posted by

Mourad : 8:22 PM

The governor and state legislature supported equality in CA. He vetoed a move to put same sex marriage in place by statute allegedly out of a felt need to do so because of state constitutional limits and the desire to have courts decide the law first.

The limit came in by ballot measure. By chance, a somewhat similar refusal by the state to defend a law came in place in this general area a few decades back in NY. A state sodomy law was ruled unconstitutional by the state appeals court.

The state refused to defend it when it reached the Supreme Court. See, e.g., New York v. Uplinger.

http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1983/1983_82_1724/argument

It is a clear case where "the people" and "the state" is not necessarily on the same page, thus the need to separate them in our Tenth Amendment.

# posted by

Joe : 9:19 PM

Bart,

Save your sympathy for someone who might care. I always felt that we were better off without an abusive "father figure".

The problem with all the studies that you didn't actually link to (I wonder why?) is that their methodology is inherently suspect, as human studies so often are, due to a lack of a "control" group.

Without the ability to control the other variables, such as societal stigma, economic stress, etc, you can't justify any conclusions involving tiny, second order effects such as "role models".

The fact is that you assume what you wish to prove.

# posted by

C2H50H : 9:22 PM

The economic benefits to the parties, if any, of pooling resources provides nothing back to society. In actual marriage, the husband and potentially the wife's financial support of the other so that person can care for the couple's children does benefit society by raising more civilized children

Bart, homosexuals have children to raise, too. There were 6 to 14 million of them in 1990--definitely not an insignificant number. So, the exact same benefits you just mentioned are there. Why can't you see this?

Furthermore, well-adjusted people don't go up on the water tower, as you told us yourself. So, you obviously recognize that not only is validation important to self-esteem, but also that self-esteem is critical to a smooth-running society.

The question becomes: why do YOU (especially as a self-proclaimed libertarian!) not want to recognize the validity of their relationships? Your argument about benefit to society is clearly an attempt to answer the rational basis test, but you've failed to mark any real difference between the two forms of family other than the sexual orientation of the parents. So what IS your view based upon?

As for Prop 8 not being a religious movement, I'm guessing you didn't attend a Baptist church in California the week before the vote. I did: each member of the congregation was encouraged to take a "Yes on 8" sign and plant it somewhere public to stop the spread of homosexuality in our country. The last-minute ads beat the drum about how terrible it will be for our children to be "forced" to learn that being gay is okay in school. On election day, the sidewalks in front of the same churches were filled with people screaming at cars to "Say no to gays, say yes to 8!"

Of course, there's a dearth of concern amongst the so-called defenders of marriage for what those gay-bashing rallies did to the emotional well-being of the children of gay couples. That's the reason some of us are so upset--Prop 8 supporters are over the moon about protecting children, yet they have not a whit of concern for the children of gay couples--I assume because they have a mistaken belief that gay people don't propagate or adopt.

Explain to children why their parents can't get married in a way that both soothes their concern AND passes a rational basis test, and then you might just have a chance to win this. Otherwise, in the long term at least, this discrimination against same-sex couples is doomed.

# posted by

PMS_CC : 9:44 PM

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

PMS_CC : 9:45 PM

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 11:29 PM

Mourad said...

Indeed, as dear Bart may perhaps be aware, in their briefs filed with the District Court on the issue whether a stay pending appeal should be granted, the state parties have not only not asked that the temporary stay be not granted, but they have urged the Judge not to grant a stay.

Jerry Brown is a Dem running for governor and the Governator has been a girlyman RINO since the unions gelded him a few years back.

There cannot have been that many occasions when a state is brought into Federal Court and asked to defend the constitutionality of state law and elects not to do so.

The RINO governor who held office before Aahnold declined to appeal the nonsense federal court ruling reversing the referendum where voters refused to provide government benefits to illegal aliens.

Between the Dems and the RINOs, Cah-lee-fornia has turned into the Greece of America and the natives have been leaving for other parts of the country for a decade now.

Judge Walker’s opinion found for the Plaintiffs both on an Equal Protection basis and on a Due Process basis. So he did not simply make it up.

Are you kidding? The DPC and EPC are the favorite vehicles for judges who wish to enact new law.

See this article by Ted Stevens: Now, down the road, Perry will reach the Supreme Court. And when it does, circa 2012, I imagine that the Court will strike down Prop 8 and other anti-gay marriage laws by deciding that the rational-basis test does not apply to laws discriminating against homosexuals, and that the appropriate test under the Equal Protection Clause is "intermediate scrutiny," and Prop 8 will not survive that new test..

No. If Kennedy goes rogue again, he will use the rational basis test as he did in his awful Romer v. Evans decision. It properly earned one of Scalia's more scathing dissents.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 11:30 PM

PMS_CC said...

The economic benefits to the parties, if any, of pooling resources provides nothing back to society. In actual marriage, the husband and potentially the wife's financial support of the other so that person can care for the couple's children does benefit society by raising more civilized children

Bart, homosexuals have children to raise, too. There were 6 to 14 million of them in 1990--definitely not an insignificant number. So, the exact same benefits you just mentioned are there. Why can't you see this?

A male in a marriage with children is more likely to stay home, earn more money to support and not abuse the children than their unmarried peers. There is no evidence of a similar dynamic in homosexual relationships, especially lesbian relationships where most of the children are being raised.

Furthermore, well-adjusted people don't go up on the water tower, as you told us yourself. So, you obviously recognize that not only is validation important to self-esteem, but also that self-esteem is critical to a smooth-running society.

I am unaware of a rash of low self esteem homosexuals grabbing rifles and sniping from water towers (if that is your analogy).

In any case, it is not up to society to change the definition of marriage to boost the self esteem of a small fraction who want to pretend they are married out of the 2-3% of the population who are homosexual.

That being said, I have no problem if a state's voters or elected representatives decide to change their definition of marriage. You have not heard me complaining about the handful of states who have done so. That is democracy.

I have an enormous problem with unelected judges willfully abusing their authority without legal basis to impose a changed definition of marriage or any other policy upon the People. That is tyranny.

The question becomes: why do YOU (especially as a self-proclaimed libertarian!) not want to recognize the validity of their relationships?

Libertarians and I believe that the government has no business creating civil marriage in the first instance. My marriage and any self esteem I derive from it have nothing to do with government recognition or subsidy. My wife and I have already discussed situations where we might want to enter into a civil divorce to protect our savings, but we will still consider ourselves married.

I would be far more impressed with the same sex marriage movement if they simply proclaimed they were married and told the world they didn't care what it thought.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 11:58 PM

Bart writes:-

I have an enormous problem with unelected judges willfully abusing their authority without legal basis to impose a changed definition of marriage or any other policy upon the People. That is tyranny.

That is the substance of dear Bart’s opposition (and it is a reflection of the GOP floor speeches prior to the confirmation of Justice Kagan). He has an “enormous problem “ with judicial review, the power of the Judges to declare legislation unconstitutional.

Of course he does. Any fascist would. In Bart’s vision of America, the constitutional guarantees granted to the people by the Bill of Rights would be reduced to mere pious declarations of intent which the legislature could trample over at will.

An innocuous sounding little immigration act could put the process in motion – let’s call it the ”Protect American Citizens Act”. Under this act all non-nationals are redefined as “Non-Americans”. They will require permits to work, permits to reside in any location, permits to marry, permits to have children, permits to acquire property – and absent the appropriate permits (obtained from the appropriate Immigration Bureau) – they are to be interned and put to useful public or private works until they can be expelled. The decisions of the Immigration officer will not be reviewable by any court.

After a year or so, PACA is amended to include all Muslims irrespective of nationality. For national security purposes, all Muslims who have permits will also have to be tagged and wear an appropriate identifying mark on their outer clothing. There are also going to be some minor national security restrictions on what the press and radio may report on the operation of PACA.

Along comes the “Protect American Children Act” - lesbians and gays are to be barred from teaching – sex education is banned as is the teaching of evolution.

Along comes the Protect American Jobs Act – there will be compulsory membership of worker’s councils in each factory of business employing more than 500 people (initially). Terms and conditions of employment will be negotiated between the workers councils and the employers. In the case of disagreement there will be compulsory arbitration. No strikes.

And so on forward into Bart’s Brave New World.

I think it was the late great Abba Eban who wrote that outside Israel and Muslim Andalusia, America was the ONLY country where his people genuinely felt safe.

That was the genius of the Founding Fathers. That is the value of the rule of law, of constitutional rights enforced by judges to protect minorities against the tyranny of the majority.

That is what dear Bart would wish to see abrogated.

# posted by

Mourad : 3:35 AM

PMS_CC:-

I think your exchanges with Bart have served quite a useful purpose. Bart now writes in response to you:-

”I am unaware of a rash of low self esteem homosexuals grabbing rifles and sniping from water towers (if that is your analogy).

In any case, it is not up to society to change the definition of marriage to boost the self esteem of a small fraction who want to pretend they are married out of the 2-3% of the population who are homosexual.”

I don’t know how you and others will read Bart’s speech on the subject, but taken as a whole, I detect more than a whiff of homophobia. That is unsurprising.

There has always been a disturbing connection between homosexuality and fascism – see this Johan Hari: The strange, strange story of the gay fascists. For me, this is an important story insufficiently told.

There is quite a track record of anti-gay rights conservatives being outed: AG Troy King in Alabama, Spokane Mayor Jim West who supported a bill to ban gays and lesbians from working in schools and day care centers; State Representatives Richard Curtis (Washington), Roy Ashburn (California) all spring to mind. A milder form of Hari’s ”Spandex Swastika”

I have had the great good fortune to live through the English revolution under which gays have progressed from being felons to enjoying equal rights. Yes, in typical British fashion, there are ‘civil partnerships’ rather than ‘marriages’ but the popular press is already referring to the ceremonies as ‘marriages’ and the legislative pressure is actually to redefine all civil ceremonies as ‘partnerships’ and leave ‘marriage’ with its religious connotations to the churches. Gays now serve openly in all our public services, from Ministers of the Crown to the Judiciary to the Royal Marines. I am pleased to report that the sky has not fallen in.

But during the transition there was a awful lot of research into the causation of homophobia and the rather surprising (for some) conclusion of many of the studies was that the more virulently homophobic a male person was, the more likely he was in reality to have doubts about his own sexuality and the homophobia was in reality an effort to compensate.

So what about dear Bart? He writes that he and the doubtless long suffering “Mrs Bart” are considering divorce allegedly “for tax reasons” [Madam, be sure to get the real property in any settlement]. Who knows? Bart may secretly be getting ready for adventures of a new and different kind.

There must surely be some appropriate venues in Colorado Springs – didn’t Ted Swaggart have a church there?

# posted by

Mourad : 8:02 AM

It took over 100 posts this time before someone on the left whipped out the homophobia card in a discussion of same sex marriage. Progress, I suppose.

Mourad's play of the fascist card on this subject is pretty rare, though.

Anyone want to raise a race card?

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:18 AM

Bart’s conservatism has always been of the fascist variety hence his advocacy of why he terms ”a muscular foreign policy” (like the Enterprise of Iraq which he supported even though it achieved very little other than a vast increase in the deficit).

And for what it is worth Racism in the thin guise of anti-immigration rhetoric is right in there too.

Bart is in full pre-mid-term election mode and spinning to appeal to any possible prejudice which might rustle up some votes. See Bart’s very own obscure blog:-

Over the past month, multiple political storms appear to be converging and forming an electoral Perfect Storm…..
This month, likely voters' opinion of the economy fell sharply, they started to blame the Obama Administration more than the former Bush Administration for the bad economy and, more importantly for the upcoming election, they now prefer the GOP over the Dems to make economic policy by a heavy majority…..
This blog has extensively reported on the various polling suggesting that majorities of voters disapprove of every major policy enacted by this government. This polling may actually be underestimating the size and intensity of the voters' rebellion….
In just this year, we have three high profile examples of petty and not so petty tyrannies of the ruling class which may turn this wave election into something more closely resembling the monster wave in the scene from the movie Perfect Storm embedded above: [references to health care, immigration and Arizona , gay marriage and Prop 8 follow].

In sum, about 350 Congress critters and two judges have overridden the will of over 80 million voters.

This November, the voters get their say and it may be a Perfect Storm..

In electoral terms, Bart’s reading of the mood of the electorate may not be that far out. There was an op-ed by Frank Rich in yesterday’s NYT How to lose a election without really trying which reached much the same conclusion.

I do hope some of the Democratic strategists can tear themselves away from their Blackberries for long enough to read it.

TPM also has a post up today about the CNN interview with defeated GOP Rep Bob Inglis and the talk he was getting from the voters in his party:-

"Barack Obama is a socialist, communist Marxist who wants to destroy the American economy so he can take over as dictator. Health care is part of that. And he wants to open up the Mexican border and turn [the US] into a Muslim nation."

That's the message the GOP is embracing and spinning to the electorate.

I can only wish that Bart may live in interesting times.

# posted by

Mourad : 10:56 AM

Mourad:

Inglis was relating an anecdote from a single conversation with some 80 somethings the Dem media is using to smear the plurality to majority of voters who disapprove of Obama policies. I could just as easily quote any number of silly people who post at TPM to smear the entire American left.

The problem for Obama and more immediately the Dem Congress is that this anecdote is more true than not. Obama has implemented socialist policies of which Obamacare is one and is very openly fighting enforcement of federal immigration laws.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 11:23 AM

Bart,

Just to give Professor Pildes a bit of data, just why do you think it is "more true than not" that Obama "wants to destroy the American economy so he can take over as dictator"?

This appears to be more projection than based on reality, because, as we know, the Rove wing of the GOP dreamed of a "permanent Republican majority", AKA one-party rule.

There is no comparable figure or desire on the left, where the most-often expressed wish is for a sane opposing party.

The poles of this dichotomy are apparently those who yearn for sanity and those who have cast sanity aside.

# posted by

C2H50H : 12:42 PM

C2H50H said...

Bart, Just to give Professor Pildes a bit of data, just why do you think it is "more true than not" that Obama "wants to destroy the American economy so he can take over as dictator"?

I noted the parts of the statement which were true and this was not one of them.

It is an Alinsky power principle to make things sound worse than they are to make radical change acceptable to the middle class. Obama came out of the gates following this principle by predicting a Second Great Depression if Congress did not enact the Porkulus. The fact that Obama's doomsaying tanked the markets by a quarter over January and February did not appear to bother him in the least as he compared the markets to political polling. However, Obama changed his tune completely in March and became a born again market cheerleader. I suspect Obama's donors chewed him out.

There is puzzlement among conservatives why Obama would continue to pursue counter productive policies which are obviously harming the economy and creating a 1930's style capital strike when the economy is a major reason why the Dems are almost certain to lose the House and probably have a 50/50 hot at losing the Senate.

Rush Limbaugh is pushing the idea that Obama wants to tank the economy as an excuse to take more government control, although he is not using the term dictatorship.

I personally think Obama is a socialist ideologue who does not give a damn whether his policies harm the economy and was telling the truth that he would rather get what he can now and end up a one term President.

There is no comparable figure or desire on the left, where the most-often expressed wish is for a sane opposing party.

Oh please. Dems want to be in charge as much as the GOP. What you mean by "sane opposing party" is that the Dems want a pliant GOP like they had back in the 60s and 70s.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 5:40 PM

It took over 100 posts this time before someone on the left whipped out the homophobia card in a discussion of same sex marriage. Progress, I suppose.

# posted by Bart DePalma : 9:18 AM

Blankshot, it's been obvious from the start that you're a bigot.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 7:13 PM

Obama came out of the gates following this principle by predicting a Second Great Depression if Congress did not enact the Porkulus.

Exaggeration is rampant throughout political discourse and fear has been a tool for leaders since long before the time of Machiavelli. I wouldn't use this example as proof of any adherence to a particular work--do you think Sarah Palin is a follower of Alinsky, too? After all, she used the same reasoning to suggest voters support TARP or some kind of sweeping Wall Street reform.

Or do you just enjoy writing political puns? Claiming that Obama is a lockstep radical leftist follower of Alinsky sounds just like something Alinsky would suggest you say about your opponents...

# posted by

PMS_CC : 12:36 PM

PMS_CC said...

BD: Obama came out of the gates following this principle by predicting a Second Great Depression if Congress did not enact the Porkulus.

Exaggeration is rampant throughout political discourse and fear has been a tool for leaders since long before the time of Machiavelli. I wouldn't use this example as proof of any adherence to a particular work...

In general, I would agree. However, Presidents who will be reelected based upon the success or failure of the economy are historically cheerleaders and assiduously avoid making statements which would tank the markets and make things worse. (See FDR and Reagan). Obama took a diametrically different approach far more consistent with his background as a community organizer and the power principles of the godfather of community organizing - Saul Alinsky, which Obama used to teach to ACORN.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 1:18 PM

Blankshot, your claims that Obama's comments tanked the economy have been repeatedly debunked over at 538.

In fact, Obama's comments about the economy were not all that different from Dumbya's comments. And if one wants to see someone cheering for economic disaster, one only has to read your blog.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 2:39 PM

Nonsense. Every politician makes the stakes as high as possible to garner support from the middle class for the way out that they offer. Alinsky has nothing to do with it whatsoever.

For instance:

"You know, we are at a defining moment in our history. Our nation is involved in two wars, and we are going through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression." --Barack Obama, 9/26/2008

"I don't think we need to scare people, but I certainly think we need to tell them the truth and tell them what's at stake here. And everyone says -- and I say -- this is the greatest crisis since the end of World War II. You cannot, I mean, to tell American citizens that everything's fine I think just would be, that would be outright deception." -John McCain, 9/24/08

Or:

"we find ourselves in what is shaping up to be one of the most severe economic downturns since the Great Depression." --Ron Paul, 9/23/08

Or:

"I was in the Roosevelt Room and Chairman Bernanke and Secretary Paulson, after a month of every weekend where they're calling, saying, we got to do this for AIG, or this for Fannie and Freddie, came in and said, the financial markets are completely frozen and if we don't do something about it, it is conceivable we will see a depression greater than the Great Depression.

So I analyzed that and decided I didn't want to be the President during a depression greater than the Great Depression, or the beginning of a depression greater than the Great Depression."- George W. Bush, 12/18/08

Or, much more recently:

"You know, the finances are so bad, and they’re getting much worse because of the way they’re spending money, running up the debt. I think the financial crisis is getting so much worse. Interest rates are going up....But I think where the disconnect is the government is putting a positive spin on it, but the people that you talk to and the people who take part in the Tea Party Movement know better." --Ron Paul, 4/5/2010

Either stressing crisis is NOT necessarily a sign of Alinsky worship or EVERYONE in politics is an Alinsky cultist.

# posted by

PMS_CC : 10:49 PM

Bart DePalma said...

Presidents who will be reelected based upon the success or failure of the economy are historically cheerleaders and assiduously avoid making statements which would tank the markets and make things worse. (See FDR and Reagan). Obama took a diametrically different approach far more consistent with his background as a community organizer and the power principles of the godfather of community organizing - Saul Alinsky, which Obama used to teach to ACORN.

PMS_CC said...

Nonsense. Every politician makes the stakes as high as possible to garner support from the middle class for the way out that they offer. Alinsky has nothing to do with it whatsoever. For instance: [Rand Paul and a Bush quote] Either stressing crisis is NOT necessarily a sign of Alinsky worship or EVERYONE in politics is an Alinsky cultist.

None of the quotes you offered are from new Presidents taking office during recession.

Indeed, the Paul quotes are from a Senate candidate from the opposing party. You can depend upon challengers to trash the economy every time because it makes the government look bad and their comments will not trash the markets.

The Bush quote was from a lame duck President during and in reaction to a market free fall after the Lehman Bros bankruptcy in an attempt to get emergency legislation through.

In sharp contrast, upon winning the election, the Team Obama announced that it would exploit the bad economy to enact its policies. Remember "Never allow a crisis to go to waste?"

However, the markets and investor confidence rose after the threatened bank collapse did not occur. Unemployment was only 7% and the worst appeared to be behind us.

Normally, a President would welcome such news. Instead, Obama went into a nearly non-stop doomsaying tour in January and February 2009. After every major speech claiming the Second Great Depression or worse was imminent, the markets went into multiple session free falls.

Now, I could understand it if an utterly inexperienced President like Obama gave one bad speech, saw the market reaction and then rapidly responded with a speech expressing faith in the economy. That was not the case. Instead, Obama compared the market collapse to political polling unworthy of his attention.

I could also understand it if his economic team saw something in the new government economic figures and advised the new President that a sharp economic downturn was imminent. That was not the case. Obama's economic team issued a white paper in January projecting a medium cyclical recession, not a depression, if the government did nothing at all.

Even the worshipful Dem press was openly questioning what Obama was doing. During his first press conference after a particularly apocalyptic speech in an RV factory in February, the first question from the press asked why Obama was talking down the economy. Apparently, reporters have 401Ks as well. Obama blew off the question and then trashed the economy again.

I am unaware of a new president entering office during a recession doing anything remotely like this. If you can offer an example, I would be pleased to review it.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:51 AM

None of the quotes you offered are from new Presidents taking office during recession.

What fucking difference does that make? They're all saying that the situation is really bad. If both sides are saying that the situation is really bad, the situation is probably really bad.

Of course, it doesn't matter to you what Obama said, your only goal is to trash him.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 10:28 AM

This yodelism:

"I am unaware of a new president entering office during a recession doing anything remotely like this. If you can offer an example, I would be pleased to review it."

perhaps inadvertently recognizes that no other new president has entered office during a recession bordering on a depression such as the Bush/Cheney legacy dropped on Obama; but perhaps what comes closest is FDR's inheritance of Hoover's Great Depression.

With respect to our Blankster's reference to Bush's "lame duck" statement, Blankster serves it up with his usual whine after his 8-year adulation of everything Bush/Cheney. Keep in mind that our Blankster announced his work of friction [sick!] on Obama very early into Obama's first year. It's clear what type of a "review" our Blankster would provide in accordance with the Republican Party of NO on anything Obama.

By the Bybee, as I have pointed out in past comments, most conservatives' gripes are with the Brown v. Board of Education unanimous decision in 1954 that was a stepping stone of sorts to the election of our first African American President in 2008 (that did not need the blessing of SCOTUS, as was the case with Bush/Cheney); that conservatives are reluctant to directly attack Brown; that they instead attack Obama for just about every move he makes (including with a basketball). Now it seems that this variation on Nixon's Southern Strategy is aiming at amending the 14th Amendment with respect to its citizen/birth provision. But if the conservatives get their foot into the door of such an amendment, guess how they'll also try to address other parts of the 14th Amendment. So if attacking the Brown decision may not be politic under present demographics for conservatives, then a 14th Amendment attack, after over 140 years, may be their Plan B.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 10:28 AM

Shag from Brookline said...

BD: "I am unaware of a new president entering office during a recession doing anything remotely like this. If you can offer an example, I would be pleased to review it."

perhaps inadvertently recognizes that no other new president has entered office during a recession bordering on a depression such as the Bush/Cheney legacy dropped on Obama...

Try my citations to FDR and Reagan.

FDR First Inaugural:

This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

Reagan first inaugural:

We're not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.

So with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope. We have every right to dream heroic dreams.

On January 8, 2009 at George Mason University, President-elect Barack Obama delivered his first speech on the economy :

We start 2009 in the midst of a crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetime – a crisis that has only deepened over the last few weeks. Nearly two million jobs have now been lost, and on Friday we are likely to learn that we lost more jobs last year than at any time since World War II. Just in the past year, another 2.8 million Americans who want and need full-time work have had to settle for part-time jobs. Manufacturing has hit a twenty-eight year low. Many businesses cannot borrow or make payroll. Many families cannot pay their bills or their mortgage. Many workers are watching their life savings disappear. And many, many Americans are both anxious and uncertain of what the future will hold.

Having established that the economy is going to hell in a hand basket, President-elect Obama then offered his cure – government direction of the economy:

It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth, but at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy

And what would be the fate of the nation if it declined to follow his prescription for vastly expanded government?

I don’t believe it’s too late to change course, but it will be if we don’t take dramatic action as soon as possible. If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits. Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four. We could lose a generation of potential and promise, as more young Americans are forced to forgo dreams of college or the chance to train for the jobs of the future. And our nation could lose the competitive edge that has served as a foundation for our strength and standing in the world.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 12:02 PM

Having established that the economy is going to hell in a hand basket, President-elect Obama then offered his cure – government direction of the economy:

Blankshot, you really need to work on your comprehension skills. Obama did not offer "government direction of the economy" as the cure, he said that the government "can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe".

What part of "short-term" did you have trouble understanding?

# posted by

Bartbuster : 12:12 PM

The yodelism suggestion that Reagan's first inaugural was at a time of economic/financial crises comparable to what Obama inherited from 8 years of Bush/Cheney is Blankenstein creationism at its worst.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 2:55 PM

Shag:

You are old enough to know better.

The unemployment was about the same in 1981 and 2009 when both presidents were inaugurated.

Other than that, everything else was worse in 1981.

We were headed toward the second dip of a double dip recession.

Interest rates were sky high.

Inflation was in the high single digits.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 3:46 PM

Further issues that polarize: Some people think Newt Gingrich is worth listening to, as an "idea man" in the conservative ranks. Esquire has a profile of him which may indicate why the rest of us don't think so.

And you don't want to miss Tom Tomorrow this week if you want to understand the roots of polarization of American politics.

# posted by

C2H50H : 3:58 PM

Apparently the wingnut response to the Bush/Cheney disaster is to try to pretend it wasn't a worldwide economic meltdown.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 3:58 PM

Well, your take on it is going to depend on which portions of the inaugural speeches you use.

For instance, FDR also said:

"Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income...Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment."

But the "all we have to fear is fear itself" bit balances it out nicely, doesn't it? FDR's inaugural speech can be boiled down to: "The world sucks right now, but we have the ability to change it if you (and a special session of Congress) just follow my plan. If you don't, things will get worse."

Let's jump to Reagan. Surely Reagan focused on just the positive, right?

"We suffer from the longest and one of the worst sustained inflations in our national history....It threatens to shatter the lives of millions of our people...We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow. And let there be no misunderstanding—we are going to begin to act, beginning today."

Right--the SAME set-up: things are bloody awful, but we're industrious Americans, so if you'll just listen to me and implement my plans, we'll get through this together. If you don't, things will get worse.

Similarly, Obama's inaugural speech includes the same balance:

"We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began...Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions—that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."

Classic Reagan. Once again: things really suck, but we're industrious Americans, and we'll get through this if you just listen to me and follow my plan. If you don't, things will get worse.

If you look at other inaugural addresses, you see the same things happen during times of economic turmoil:

Grant's address was the same after the Civil War: we have crushing debt, but the American spirit won't allow our honor to be tarnished, so if you just follow my plan, we can use the riches of the West to make it all better. If you don't, things will get worse.

Hayes mentioned the "embarrassment and prostration" of the Great Depression of 1873-1879 in his inaugural speech in 1876, but warned that prosperity wasn't going to happen unless we adopted one of his plans ("metal currency!").

McKinley also noted the terrible condition of the economy. Guess what? He had a plan! Follow the plan to prosperity ("two metal currency!"), and don't follow it at your peril (especially as regards immigrants who might destroy America's values).

Wilson was more pointed about stakes: "Here muster, not the forces of party, but the forces of humanity. Men's hearts wait upon us; men's lives hang in the balance; men's hopes call upon us to say what we will do. Who shall live up to the great trust? Who dares fail to try? I summon all honest men, all patriotic, all forward-looking men, to my side." I don't suppose I have to mention that he, too, had a plan and if you'd just follow it, you could avoid disaster.

Of course, of all these earlier speeches, Wilson's speech is the only one that was made when Saul Alinsky was alive.

Now, are you willing to concede that some forms of political rhetoric existed long before Saul Alinsky's work, and that use of such tactics does not prove a dependence upon a certain rulebook?

# posted by

PMS_CC : 5:18 PM

We know with some precision the rule book behind conservative election messaging (as perfected for Bush by Karl Rove). Some

1. Do not play to people’s hopes (in case they will later be disappointed), instead play to their fears and make it clear Republicans will protect them from those fears;

2. Messages must direct voter frustrations towards people to hate and then link those people to the Democrats;

3. Messages must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans, which can be easily memorised and repeated;

4. It does not matter whether a message is true or false, only whether people will believe it.

The full version of the basic principles (in rather dated language) can be found here: Goebbles’ Principles of Propaganda.

As one might expect with this playbook, Bart’s election mode posts rewrite past events when it suits the purpose of his argument and every phrase or slogan on the conservative propaganda list is dutifully trotted out – eg “Porkulus”, “Obamacare”, “Obama is a socialist ideologue”.

This is being repeated by the conservative message machine throughout the country.

# posted by

Mourad : 6:45 PM

It seems that this year’s conservative-designated ”people to hate” are the immigrants – especially those who are Hispanic or Muslim.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Bart's home state of Colorado where immigrants are being blamed by the conservatives for all the growing pains of population increase including, the decrease in open space, commuter congestion, air pollution, increased education and housing costs, unemployment and the water shortage.

As Bart will be aware, the ACP conservative candidate for Governor, Tom Tancredo, is one of the USA’s most vociferous immigrant haters despite the fact that all four of his grandparents were immigrants from Italy. So even though he did forsake the RC Church for some Evangelical outfit, Tancredo is probably more “WOP” than “WASP”.

However, he was a Vietnam Chickenhawk who got his deferment with a draft board ruling that he was ”mentally unfit for duty due to generalized anxiety, depression, and panic disorders” and that probably was his principal qualification for 4 terms as a GOP Representative in the House.

This is the man who in his 2007 campaign said:-

” If you want to call me a single-issue candidate, that's fine, just so long as you know that my single issue is the survival and the success of the conservative movement in America.”

and whose 2007 "Tough on Terror" campaign advert showed a fictitious terrorist attack in a shopping mall. The ad blamed inept border security for the attack and flashed images of an injured child and a wrecked train. The voiceover commented:-

"There are consequences to open borders beyond the 20 million aliens who have come to take our jobs ... the price we pay for spineless politicians who refuse to defend our borders against those who come to kill."

Tancredo also advocated “taking out” the Muslim holy places, plainly unaware that Jerusalem is one of these -which is strange given his former occupation as as a history teacher!.

Bart may well deny that the conservative message this mid-term is not fascist, not racist and not homophobic. He has fat chance of demonstrating the truth of that denial.

# posted by

Mourad : 6:51 PM

I don't know how old our Blankster was in 1981 and what his situation was. I was 50 years old at the time of Reagan's inauguration, practicing law going back to 1954. There were earlier recessions during my career. This yodelism:

"The unemployment was about the same in 1981 and 2009 when both presidents were inaugurated.

"Other than that, everything else was worse in 1981.

"We were headed toward the second dip of a double dip recession.

"Interest rates were sky high.

"Inflation was in the high single digits."

is pure Blankenstein creationism. The portion of this that really takes the cake is:

"Other than that, everything else was worse in 1981."

What a load of crap. Of course, there is no reference to the Reagan "cure" with tax cuts, which deepened the economic doo-doo (voo-doo according to Reagan's VP Bush the Elder) that started recovering only after the Democrats insisted upon tax increases. And look at the economic crises after the 1986 tax act with real estate, with condos under water near the end of Reagan's second term. Reagan was no economic miracle worker. Perhaps if it wasn't for Paul Volcker, the economy under Reagan's policies might have been a lot like what Bush/Cheney left behind for Obama.

What kind of credibility can our yodeler have with, to repeat, this:

"Other than that, everything else was worse in 1981."

Did Reagan inherit two wars? Perhaps in 1981 our yodeler was still weaning. Now, of course, he is whining, after 8 inglorious years of Bush/Cheney.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 8:34 PM

PMS:

One last note on Obama vs. every previous President inheriting a recession. All presidents describe past and present problems in attempting to sell their plans. What Obama adds to the equation is a threat of an apocalyptic future unless you forego your resistance to his unpopular plans. His rhetoric became more apocalyptic as the GOP and some Dems offered resistance to expanding the deficit to levels of GDP unheard of since WWII.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:49 PM

Shag from Brookline said...

"The unemployment was about the same in 1981 and 2009 when both presidents were inaugurated. Other than that, everything else was worse in 1981. We were headed toward the second dip of a double dip recession. Interest rates were sky high. Inflation was in the high single digits."

What a load of crap. Of course, there is no reference to the Reagan "cure" with tax cuts...

Ah, the smell of red herring for dinner. What do Reagan's tax reforms have to do with the issue at hand - the economies Reagan and Obama inherited at their inauguration? I'll take your attempted misdirection as a concession of the point.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:53 PM

Mourad:

Since when was Tancredo my candidate for anything? The man is an egomaniac who is the Dems only real chance of winning a statewide election in soon to be red again Colorado.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:55 PM

Bart wrote:

"...as the GOP and some Dems offered resistance to expanding the deficit to levels of GDP unheard of since WWII."

That would be when the Bush Administration financed two wars with a deficit while keeping tax cuts for the wealthy. One didn't notice too much GOP resistance then.

"Since when was Tancredo my candidate for anything? The man is an egomaniac..."

My post did not suggest Tancredo was Bart's candidate. He is a "conservative" candidate. So we have:-

1. Both self-proclaimed conservatives;

2. Both supporting the Christian fundamentalist right "family values" agenda;

3. Both anti-immigration;

Both egomaniacs? Well...if the cap fits...

# posted by

Mourad : 3:48 AM

It was our Blankster who brought Reagan into the discussion as a comparable to what Obama faced. What was Reagan's response to the economic crises he inherited? Tax cuts? Did they work? Is it a Blankensteinian suggestion that Obama should have initiated tax cuts promptly following his inauguration? No, the Shag did not introduce a red herring but it is clear our Blankster serves his usual whine with it.

I was born in 1930. Of course I did not know of the consequences of the crash of 1929 and the resulting Great Depression at the time. But as I grew, I did get a whiff of what it was about, well protected and well nourished by my loving immigrant parents. (I was conceived and born on American soil, not dropped, as was the case with many in America at the time.) So my personal memories of the Great Depression were not depressing. But I was aware of some of my peers at grade school wearing strange looking clothing and seeing them coming back from the "welly" store up the street with big bags of bread and milk and other foods. My family was not on welfare. I did not feel poor myself, because of my protective parents. It was several years later that looking back I realized what was going on.

But with respect to 1981, as noted in an earlier comment, I did know what was going on. I of course remember the "malaise" of Jimmy Carter's time that gave us Reagan and his revolution that included a glorious Grenada military victory and of course Ollie North, etc. But I also remember what brought Jimmy Carter into office, to wit, Nixon, Agrnew, Watergate, etc. And before that we had LBJ's inherited guns and butter.

I could go further back in time with various crises, economic and otherwise, that I understood as I lived through them. And I could go forward from Reagan to the present day with similar crises. What is clear from my personal experience and understanding is that the Bush/Cheney crash of 2008 was the worst since the Great Depression. For our Blankster to state that things were worse in 1981 defies reality. But that is what our Blankster does constantly: defy reality. Our Blankster seems to forget that his words are out there as he has shifted from Bush/Cheney adulation to his hatred of Obama and his off and on romance with the Tea Party. But so what? He remains a NOAGN.*

*NIT ON A GNAT'S NUT

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 5:20 AM

C2H50H said...

Further issues that polarize: Some people think Newt Gingrich is worth listening to, as an "idea man" in the conservative ranks. Esquire has a profile of him which may indicate why the rest of us don't think so.

C2 offers a prime example of a driver of our cultural divide. This Esquire article is a complete hatchet job ad hkminem attack on Gingrich and his family posing as a policy essay. A great deal of Palin's popularity and the Dem press' collapsing business is resentment over partisan propaganda posing as journalism.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 10:05 AM

Bart,

No, no, "Ad hominem" means "attack the messenger",
as in attacking the people who were interviewed, and who wrote, the article in question, rather than disputing the truth of the article. A tad hypocritical, in my view, to assert "ad hominem" in an ad hominem argument.

Which, by the way, was largely based on an interview with the ex-wife (number 2 of 3) of Newt Gingrich. Last I heard, that qualifies as "family", so you are arguing that an interview with his family is an attack on ... his family.

The point, sir, is that Newt is a world-class hypocrite. The rest of us knew that already, which is why the approval of him (and his intellectual and moral inferior, Sarah Palin) by the right is such a source of polarization.

On the left, we don't find hypocrisy and anti-intellectualism attractive. Call us elitist for it if you like, it just doesn't work -- which is why, for example, Chris Dodd (among others) is history.

# posted by

C2H50H : 10:41 AM

The Esquire profile of Gingrich may suggest to his current wife concern with the "eye of Newt" which tends to wander. The comments of his former wife expose him as a hypocrite. Add "bat-shit-right-wing" to Gingrich's recipe for 2012 and let's see how palatable it is to the family values conservatives.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 11:21 AM

C2H50H said...

No, no, "Ad hominem" means "attack the messenger"

Ad hominem means attack on the person.

For example, the article's title declares the Newt is the GOP's indispensable person. OK, I am thinking that Esquire is going to give us an essay on how Gingrich engineered a political return to become a contender for President in 2012. Instead, we lead off with an interview with Gingrich's ex-wife digging for a soundbite trashing Newt.

The author's interview with Newt does not ask about why Newt is the indispensable Republican, but rather an extended effort to try to get Newt to admit his family was dysfunctional. When the author could not get this admission from Newt, he misrepresented to the ex-wife that Newt claimed his family was "Norman Rockwell" to get her to dish up the dirt that Newt would not.

This was an ad hominem hatchet job dedicated to ensuring that Newts political rebirth is stillborn, not to honestly report on the rebirth.

I wonder if the author was a member of Journolist?

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 12:29 PM

Specifically, the "ad hominem" logical fallacy is to imply that, because of some characteristic not directly related to the issue, that the person should not be believed.

For an example of an ad hominem argument, with reference to the article in Esquire Bart gives us: "A great deal of Palin's popularity and the Dem press' collapsing business is resentment over partisan propaganda posing as journalism."

You compound your hypocrisy when you suggest that the author might be a member of Journolist as a reason to disbelieve the article.

Interesting response to evidence that one of the people you respect does not deserve it.

# posted by

C2H50H : 1:13 PM

C2H50H said...

Specifically, the "ad hominem" logical fallacy is to imply that, because of some characteristic not directly related to the issue, that the person should not be believed.

For an example of an ad hominem argument, with reference to the article in Esquire Bart gives us: "A great deal of Palin's popularity and the Dem press' collapsing business is resentment over partisan propaganda posing as journalism."

The issue was the basis for our ideological divide. I offered partisan propaganda as a basis and two items of evidence for this contention. How is that ad hominem?

You compound your hypocrisy when you suggest that the author might be a member of Journolist as a reason to disbelieve the article.

Being a member of an organization which openly discusses their intent to publish lies and partisan propaganda would be circumstantial evidence that the member shared those attributes, which again are directly relevant to the issue at hand.

To take a page from the Esquire author, an ad hominem attack on the author would be something along the line of "The author's father was an angry man," implying that the author was as well. The attack has nothing at all to do with the issue at hand and is instead an attack on the person.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 1:57 PM

Bart,

Interesting attempt to move the goalposts. I thought the issue was that Newt Gingrich is viewed by those who haven't drunk the kool-ade as a hypocritical sociopath, and why those on the right have such difficulty accepting that.

Instead you want to make it about whether some out-of-context emails from a private discussion group mean that those people can never be believed again.

I'd dismiss this as merely an unwillingness to accept some evidence you don't like, except that this is exactly like your take on the recent brouhaha in which stolen emails from East Anglia's CRU, which, in the end, produced nothing but apologies from some media outlets.

In the current case, it looks like the only evidence you have that the author was out to "get" Newt is that you don't like what the article says.

Get over it.

# posted by

C2H50H : 2:25 PM

If Bart is going to talk about the deficit, then he should again read ad try to understand the NYT op-ed by David Stockman, Reagan’s OMB director, entitled Four Deformations of the Apocalypse.

The truth about the GOP and the economy needs to be pushed and, thankfully, the undecideds are not buying the GOP line anyway. Public Policy has this report on the undecideds:-

”At the same time 51% of them think the current state of the economy is still George W. Bush's responsibility to only 27% who think it's Obama's, and 55% of them would rather have Obama as President to only 28% who are feeling Bush nostalgia.

These folks aren't happy with how things are going. But they were even unhappier with how things were going a couple years ago. Playing the Bush card may just convince them it's better to stay the current course, even if they don't love it, than to go back to the old one.”

In relation to Bart’s vision of the mid terms as ”a perfect storm” the Democrats came out of last night’s primaries quite well – see Primary night yields good news for President Obama and Democrats.

In Colorado, Tea Party favourite Ken Buck (he of the “heels” gaffe) is now the GOP candidate for the US Senate, while in the race for governor, -- Dan Maes "an unknown, underfinanced gubernatorial candidate who has never held public office” and "who apparently believes that the U.N. is involved in a nefarious plot to take over Denver through a bike-sharing programme" is now the GOP candidate.

As John Harris puts it on Politico:-
” The Colorado results, combined with Tuesday's returns in Connecticut, Georgia and Minnesota and other recent primaries, suggest it may be time to scrutinize a treasured 2010 story line — about an angry electorate, determined to punish insiders and professional pols of all stripes, rushing to embrace ideological insurgents. .. It’s not that this narrative is all wrong. But it appears to be significantly more true among Republicans than Democrats.”

The “treasured 2010 story line” is, of course, precisely that which Bart has been pushing on this thread.

May he live in interesting times.

# posted by

Mourad : 2:47 PM

Here is my suggestion for a yodelism bumper sticker:

"AS COLORADO GOES, SO GOES THE NATION: DOWNHILL"

Perhaps militia-ville is ready for a circular firing squad.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 2:58 PM

Mourad,

The real question is whether the willingness to throw the bums out (and replace them with escapees from the asylum) is prevalent among the independents. Bart is no help understanding this, as his "independence" from the GOP is rooted in the fact that the GOP isn't even more radically different from the Democratic Party.

The primaries are also no help, as there's too much opportunity for hanky panky in these low-turnout elections.

We'll have to wait for November.

# posted by

C2H50H : 2:58 PM

Mourad:

If you care at all about understanding the political landscape in America, I strongly suggest you stop treating Dem spin as fact.

I have actually been discussing the CO results over at 538.com - a progressive polling analysis site - this morning. The tsunami was in full force yesterday in CO.

Led by GOP turnout, CO set a record for ballots cast in an off year primary.

The GOP in CO enjoys about a 1% advantage in voter registration, but enjoyed a 10% advantage in turnout yesterday.

The GOP turnout was larger that the entire turnout in the Dem year in 2006.

Both the winning and the losing GOP candidates for Senate pulled more votes than the Dem incumbent and runaway primary winner Bennett.

This is only half the story. The Indis could not vote in the primaries. They are as fired up as the GOP and are breaking between 3:2 and 2:1 to the GOP in most polls. When the Indis are added to the GOP 10 point advantage in turnout, you are looking at a complete wipeout for Dems in anything approaching a competitive race unless the conservative vote is being split by an idiot like Tancredo.

Surf's up!

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 3:17 PM

Yodelism informs us:

"Surf's up!"

as I imagine our Blankster "hanging ten" DUI-style, miles and miles from the ocean as he spins his political top.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 4:17 PM

Blankshot, do you remember your response to the exit poll numbers in 2008?

# posted by

Bartbuster : 4:47 PM

Poor dear Bart and his fantasies!

"I have actually been discussing the CO results over at 538.com - a progressive polling analysis site - this morning. The tsunami was in full force yesterday in CO."

I am aware that Bart also infests other sites and the reaction to his comments at the site he mentions is not altogether favorable. As one might expect.

As for the so-called "tsunami", Bart forgets that there was only 1 top-ticket Democratic race yesterday, while there were 3 statewide races and 3 congressional primaries. Therefore there were 10 more GOP campaigns running GOTV operations.

All mail-in ballots are also impacting on turnout.

The Tea Party will have had some impact - mainly that of ensuring that the GOP name on the ticket will be the one who will prove the most gaffe-prone. The UN infiltration of the Denver cycle sharing scheme is likely to become a classic.

# posted by

Mourad : 6:33 PM

From Bart’s fantasies to the grim reality.

Previously on this site, thread I expressed the view that the electorate is in a sour mood. That is confirmed by new polling done for the WSJ – see Grim Voter Mood Turn Grimmer in which these key findings:

”1. Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the economy has yet to hit bottom, a sharply higher percentage than the 53% who felt that way in January.

2. Just 24% express positive feelings about the Republican Party, a new low in the 21-year history of the Journal's survey. Democrats are only slightly more popular, but also near an all-time low.

3. Barack Obama's job performance rating is low, with 47% approving and 48% disapproving. On his performance on the economy 6 in 10, including 83% of independents and a quarter of Democrats disapprove.

4. Among likely voters, half favor GOP control and 39% support the Democrats. One positive movement for Democrats: That 11-point gap is down from 21 points in June.

5. Among whites with less than a college education—a group the two parties split in the most-recent midterms—the GOP has a 16-point advantage, 49% to 33%, when voters were asked which party they wanted to control Congress.

6. On one of the Democrats' core issues, Social Security, just 30% now think the party would do a better job than the GOP, compared to 26% who favor the Republicans. That margin was 28 points in 2006.

7. 60% of Americans say that the Congress "is either below average or one of the worst in history -- the highest percentage here in the history of the poll”

The figures on the Congress are confirmed by a new Gallup poll of which the key findings:-

”1. 19% approve of the job Congress is doing, 74% disapprove. This is the lowest mid-term election figure since the poll started in 1974.

2. While 36% of Democrats approve of Congress, only 5% of Republicans do”

While historically, disapproval of the performance of Congress translates into an anti-party in power vote, it does not take a genius to work out what the Democrat’s strategy should be - especially while Congress is in recess.

# posted by

Mourad : 12:55 AM

More on the people conservatives want you to hate: Bryan Fischer, Director of Issues Analysis of the American Family Association is calling for a ban on mosque building throughout the USA – see his blog on the AFA web site: No more mosques, period.

Declaring first my own interest as a Muslim living in a secular state, there is a serious point to be made. Of the three great monotheistic religions, the oldest, Judaism, does not generally proselytise. While non-Jews may convert, most sects make the process quite difficult. Christianity has historically proselytised and there have been disgraceful episodes in history where that has been done with the sword – see the Crusades or the Spanish Reconquista of Muslim Andalusia which targeted both Jews and Muslims. Indeed, the common name for the Apostle James in Spain is ”Santiago Matamoros” or as Cervantes put it in Don Quixote: ” St. James the Moorslayer, one of the most valiant saints and knights the world ever had … has been given by God to Spain for its patron and protection.”

Islam is also a proselytising religion. It seeks converts. But it also commands respect for other religions, Jews and Christians especially because they worship the same one God - there is to be no compulsion in religion. Islam teaches that a person who believes in God and seeks to do His will in accordance with the revelation received is a Muslim. On that basis a Jew or a Christian who seeks to do what he believes God wills is, in reality every bit as much a Muslim and taken to its logical conclusion the animist who believes that the deity resides in a crocodile should also not be disadvantaged because of his belief (even if it is mistaken in our eyes).

”Jihad” describes the struggle to convert non Muslims to what Muslims consider to be the true faith. It is to be accomplished first and foremost by example, by oneself living a virtuous life, secondly by works of charity: particularly the relief of the poor, the care of the sick and the advancement of education and thirdly by ”propaganda” - in the Latin sense of that word as used by Roman Catholics in the Latin title (”Propaganda Fidei”) used for the organisation of that Church’s missionary activities.

Yes, there are sects which preach a perversion of Islam, just as there are some very nasty sects on the outer fringes of other beliefs. All of them pose a threat to civil society.

We in the UK have a known problem with the recruitment by ”salafists” of largely poor, ill-educated, unemployed young men with a view to brain-washing them to become terrorists.

While therefore we have to be careful about the activities of such recruiters, our experience is that the best response is by outreach and teaching activities centred on our mosques and their attached communities and in particular by getting the vulnerable into employment.

"The devil finds work for idle hands" is a universal truth.

# posted by

Mourad : 3:03 AM

TPM points out that the AFA’s Fischer is slated to speak at the Values Voters Summit 2010 in Washington DC in September. There seem to be quite a lot of the usual suspects among the speakers.

Note the disclaimer (in very small print) on the web page:-

”American Values, The Heritage Foundation, Liberty University/Liberty Counsel, and FRC are sponsors only of the educational portions of the Values Voters Summit. These organizations are not sponsoring the appearance of any candidate for public office, nor do they support or oppose any candidate for elective public office.”

Not much they don’t. Why the IRS lets them get away with this, heaven only knows.

I note that one of the themes is: “Protect the Military”.

Too right for once. It behoves the USA to remember that the biggest impetus for the growth of ”salafist terrorism” came from the decision of President Ronald Reagan to continue an idea originally conceived by one Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski in the latter days of the Carter Administration to fight a proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan using the ”mujahiddin”.

Under Reagan and with CIA assistance and Saudi money, waves of recruiters went out throughout the Arab world calling for young men to “join the caravan” to “holy war” against the invaders. These young men were then brainwashed using common cult techniques devised with CIA assistance in training camps, armed and set off to fight the Soviets. It is the foreign non-Afghan survivors of that proxy war who became the directing minds of Al-Quaida and like organisations throughout the world.

That was the unforeseen consequence of the Reagan ”muscular foreign policy” espoused by loons like dear Bart and other conservatives. It has cost a lot of lives.

The best epitaph for muscular foreign policy might be that of the Emperor Augustus after some failed military adventurism against the Germans:

”O Varus, give me back my legions!”

PS – We in the UK get Jon Stewart’s Daily Show on our Channel 4. His piece on the NY Mosque controversy was satire at its best. Good demolition jobs on Ron Ramsey and Newt Gingrich.

I particularly loved ”the Muslims' plan to create "a spicy ring of deliciousness near Ground Zero" with their Halal food carts, in an effort "to get us all satisfied and full and tired."

If anyone missed it, there are clips on TPM.

# posted by

Mourad : 3:52 AM

Mourad:

Your comparison between Christianity and Islam appears to be rather selective. Islam spread from Arabia by the swords of Arab and later other armies.

Here are the Quran's commandments concerning the People of the Book (Christians and Jews) and pagans from Sura 9:

29. Fight those who believe not
In God nor the Last Day,
Nor hold that forbidden
Which hath been forbidden
By God and His Apostle,
Nor acknowledge the Religion
Of Truth, (even if they are)
Of the People of the Book,
Until they pay the Jizya
With willing submission,
And feel themselves subdued.

30. The Jews call ’Uzair a son
Of God, and the Christians
Call Christ the Son of God.
That is a saying from their mouth;
(In this) they but imitate
What the Unbelievers of old
Used to say. God's curse
Be on them: how they are deluded
Away from the Truth!

In sum, Muslims are to war against the People of the Book and pagans because Allah curses us, but are to spare the People of the Book if they pay taxes and submit to Islam.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 10:26 AM

Mourad:

While historically, disapproval of the performance of Congress translates into an anti-party in power vote, it does not take a genius to work out what the Democrat’s strategy should be - especially while Congress is in recess.

What is that?

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 10:36 AM

Let's compare, shall we? Islam: conquered sparsely-populated Northern Africa and a bit of Spain by "fire and sword". (Actually, filled a power vacuum, but let it be.) Left the inhabitants largely in place. Christianity: conquered the Americas, subjugating and largely wiping out the indigenous populations.

Of course, the Muslims also brought knowledge and technology to Europe, without which it is arguable that the Renaissance would have been a fizzle. The conquistadors brought feudalism. The Yankees brought smallpox.

And there was that little kerfuffle known as The Crusades, where Europe brought barbarism back to the Middle East. (Do what you do best was the motto of the crusaders, it seems.)

Let us face it squarely: religion has been both a positive and a negative force in history. I think mostly negative, except for brief periods of enlightenment, such as the one we're just coming out of.

# posted by

C2H50H : 11:15 AM

C2:

You understate the Arab Islamic conquests by a couple order of magnitudes. They were really quite militarily impressive. By 750, the Muslim Caliphate stretched from Pakistan to Spain, defeating the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires along with a myriad of smaller kingdoms. I would recommend Hugh Kennedy's The Great Arab Conquests (Da Capo Press 2007).

The Crusades were a comparative weekend vacation largely limited to Palestine.

Both campaigns were executed with the brutality of the age. There were no rules of engagement as we know them today.

The purpose of my comments is not to excuse the Crusades, but to note that what was good for the Christian gander was just as good for the Muslim goose despite self serving Islamic spin to the contrary.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 11:31 AM

Bart,

Let's not forget that one of the consequences of the "weekend vacation" was the plague that killed perhaps one-third of the population of Europe.

Sure, just like a weekend in Tijuana.

Seriously, there is a world of difference between barbarous tribes rising up out of the Arabian peninsula and overrunning the downtrodden remains of a sagging empire and the supposedly enlightened conquest, by Christian armies (and land-hungry settlers), of America.

# posted by

C2H50H : 11:48 AM

Bart wrote:-

The Crusades were a comparative weekend vacation largely limited to Palestine.

While the Crusades in the Holy Land may only have lasted a tad under 200 years, the Crusades in Spain and Eastern Europe lasted much longer – up to the 15th Century. Although Muslims were the main target, Crusades were waged against just about anyone the papacy of the time had it in for, including Pagans (Slavs and Balts), Jews, Orthodox Christians (Greek Orthodox and Russian), Mongols and Heretics (Cathars and Hussites and various other sects).

C2H50H wrote:-

Let us face it squarely: religion has been both a positive and a negative force in history. I think mostly negative, except for brief periods of enlightenment, such as the one we're just coming out of.

I suggest the problem is not “religion” but the misuse of religion for political or state ends. And because religion is such a powerful motivating force, it happens all too often and those who misuse are as likely to profess one religion as another . No faith has a monopoly on sin any more than on virtue.

In that regard Mayor Bloomberg’s 3 August Speech on Governor’s Island was a truly exemplary and courageous affirmation of what is right.

# posted by

Mourad : 2:25 PM

Mourad,

While I'll back you up on the absolute necessity for separation of church and state, we may have to disagree on the equality of all religions in these matters.

Being not merely irreligious but anti-religious myself, I may see the forest rather clearly, and I'll take Buddhist extremists over almost any other kind any day. The zealots of my choice would be Zen zealots, and the proselytizers I prefer would be Unitarians (they would feel a sense of accomplishment as I closed the door on them).

But I agree wholeheartedly on Mayor Bloomberg. This whole mosque brouhaha has brought out both the worst and the best in America today, and, to our shame, there's far too much of the former and far too little of the latter on display.

Sadly, our lack of polarization on these issues means that we'll have to continue this discussion on another thread. See you there.

# posted by

C2H50H : 3:13 PM

This whole Ground Zero mosque brouhaha smacks of Rove: wedge issue.

As Hertzberg notes in the New Yorker For a start, it won’t be at Ground Zero. It’ll be on Park Place, two blocks north of the World Trade Center site (from which it will not be visible), in a neighborhood ajumble with restaurants, shops (electronics, porn, you name it), churches, office cubes, and the rest of the New York mishmash. Park51, as it is to be called, will have a large Islamic “prayer room,” which presumably qualifies as a mosque. But the rest of the building will be devoted to classrooms, an auditorium, galleries, a restaurant, a memorial to the victims of September 11, 2001, and a swimming pool and gym. Its sponsors envision something like the 92nd Street Y—a Y.M.I.A., you might say, open to all, including persons of the C. and H. persuasions.

In short, there is no proposed mosque at Ground Zero. Period. What is proposed is nothing like what it's been claimed to be by rabid right wing talking heads.

Now: the sudden and mutual discovery of a non-issue that's pretended to be a huge and burning issue that just happens to tap into deep seated fears of the right wing's base: a coincidence? I think not. Rove would be proud.

You ask how and why American politics are so polarized? Look no further than Rove's wedge issues: gay rights, abortion, immigration, and so on. Perhaps Rove isn't involved personally into the creation of the Ground Zero mosque wedge issue, but he hasn't refudiated it.

# posted by

jpk : 2:40 PM