Category Archives: Random Blogging

In Defense of Apostasy

A good friend of mine, one of those thoughtful Republicans from a former era, has decided–after internal struggle–that he will cast his vote for Richard Mourdock–despite his obvious distaste for the man and his positions. His justification is that Mourdock will cast his first vote for leadership of the Senate. My friend, a long-time Republican who has held elective office, is a “team player.” He cites the old adage: “he may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch.”

I understand the reasoning. If you truly believe that your “team” has better ideas, will do better by the country, you can justify swallowing hard and supporting dubious team members.

But what if your whole team is playing dirty? What if the mean-spirited and intellectually limited guy you are holding your nose and voting for is more typical than you want to admit? What if your team has abandoned the ideas and positions that drew you to join in the first place? Where should your loyalties lie–to the team, or the sport? To your party, or the country?

People join political parties for many reasons. Mom and Dad were Democrats or Republicans. You want to get ahead, and you live in one of the increasingly common areas where one party dominates. You identify as union, or management, and that identification trumps other concerns. Or you develop a political philosophy and choose the party with the platform that is most consistent with that ideology. Whatever the reason for that original choice, political scientists tell us that few of us rethink it. Instead, we continue to root for our first “team,” much as sports fans do.

In my own case (being a teenager who read a lot and didn’t date much), I became a Republican because I had formed pretty firm political positions; I was a social liberal and a fiscal conservative (still am), and in the early 1960s, the Democrats were much farther to the left than I was (or than Democrats are today). I was drawn to the libertarian wing of the Republican party, which came closest to my own beliefs. In the years since, both the Democrats and GOP have moved further and further to the right, and I became less and less comfortable with my “team.” George W. Bush was the final straw, and I left the party. I became an apostate. Many of my former political friends understood; others became very chilly, and some very critical opinions of my apostasy have gotten back to me. Fair enough.

But here’s the thing. Politics isn’t football, where who wins and loses doesn’t ultimately make a difference in the lives of real people. Many of my Republican friends from the “old days” recognize how much the party has changed, but they can’t bring themselves to sever the bond. They tell themselves that the Mourdocks and the Pences and Akins and Wests and Bachmanns and Brouns and so many others are just outliers, that the Democrats also have whack jobs (true enough, just not nearly as many and not currently in control of the party). So they justify continuing to support the very people who are destroying the once-respectable Republican brand.

No intellectually honest person will agree with any political party 100% of the time–or even 90%. We all fit imperfectly into those political boxes. But when the party you vote for holds positions you know to be deeply damaging to the body politic, when too many of the people you are nominating are uninformed bloviators and  worse, it’s time to consider apostasy.

If we all became “swing voters,” willing to abandon either party when it loses its way–if neither party could depend upon a base of knee-jerk support from people who are cheering for a team rather than voting their policy preferences–I think we’d get better parties.

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The Ultimate Entanglement

Over at Political Animal, in an explanation of his prediction that a Republican defeat in the upcoming election will not trigger a reconsideration of the rightward march of the party, Ed Kilgore makes an important and often overlooked point.

“In case folks haven’t noticed, the import of the advent of “constitutional conservatism” and its continued ascendency is that the Right and the GOP are in the process of chaining themselves to a permanent, immutable vision of governance that for many adherents is quite literally a divine gift to the Founders and the entire purpose of America. You don’t “rethink” this birthright, or debate it. And the usual search of political parties for “new ideas” is a bit irrelevant.”

This is a reference to a transfiguration that has been lost on most of us unreconstructed rationalists, but is evident to anyone who follows the fevered pronouncements of the Michelle Bachmann wing of the party, or the wildly ahistorical inventions of David Barton and his ilk.

We react with shock and bemusement when Republican members of Congress–including several members of the Science and Technology Committee–emphatically reject science, evolution, global warming and pretty much the entire intellectual structure of modern life, but we think of these as isolated instances. We don’t see those regressive opinions for what they are: part and parcel of a coherent, if frightening, worldview that has gradually become the worldview of the base of the Republican Party.

The “true believers” have always lurked on the fringes of the party, but gradually they have prevailed; they have entwined “biblical” Christianity and radically reactionary political positions in a new version of Constitutional Christianity. In this reading, the Constitution (as they read and interpret it) was a gift from God. it isn’t the product of a group of gifted men, a brilliant document that nevertheless requires inclusion of new populations and application to new realities; it is inspired by the God of fundamentalist Christianity, and must be approached with that understanding. Deviate from their literal beliefs–about the bible OR the Constitution–and it’s not a different point of view, it’s blasphemy.

The sane and moderate folks who used to make up the vast majority of the GOP have either left the party or failed to recognize how completely the crazies have assumed control. With the exception of a few people–David Frum, Bruce Bartlett and Norman Ornstein come to mind–they’ve kept quiet.

It has become a truism that demographics bode ill for the GOP’s future. It is increasingly, as many have noted, a party of old white men; furthermore, the party’s increasingly wild-eyed conspiracy theories and religious extremism are wearing very thin with the general public. Those trends bode well for Democrats, but not for the country, which needs two sane, responsible political parties.

Random Thoughts on a Frosty Morning….

Back in Indiana, on a morning that lets us all know fall is here…

Some ruminations.

Random thought #1. I talked to folks in Cleveland about what happened to the “Flats,” an old warehouse area that had been revitalized with restaurants and entertainment venues a couple of decades ago. The area is now pretty desolate; their explanation was that crime had increased–folks were mugged and beaten–and people had stopped patronizing those establishments. That made me think about the current problems in Indianapolis, where police presence has dropped significantly and the city has allowed important amenities like the canal to deteriorate. If we don’t want to emulate Cleveland–and we don’t–we need to send a message to City Hall.

Random thought #2. I see where Governor Daniels had a pretty bad weekend. Somehow, he’s blown through all that money he got from selling off–er, leasing–the Toll Road. So the portion of I69 between Bloomington and Indy evidently won’t get built, at least not without a lot of extra tax dollars. (That’s the problem with funding government by selling off state assets–when the money’s gone, so’s the ability of the asset to generate added income.) While the national unemployment rate dropped below 8%, Indiana’s rate increased to 8.3%. And legislators are beginning a real push-back on Daniels’ love affair with coal gasification and his plan to dump lots of state money into a coal gasification plant in southern Indiana, raising questions that should have been asked before this. But better late than never. But never fear–the Governor isn’t going to let these pesky problems distract him from important duties like shilling for the online “education” provided through WGU. (How’s that Purdue presidency coming along, Mitch?)

Random thought #3. Over the weekend, the Star somehow managed to avoid setting off the irony meter, in an editorial decrying the performance of Indiana’s public schools. The editorial writer wondered why a state that has managed its fiscal affairs so well (i.e., we have a surplus) hasn’t been able to improve education. Um…guys? Where do you think that money came from? Think that might have something to do with the problem?

Happy Indiana Autumn …

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Those Whom the Gods Would Destroy They First Make Mad….

The quote “Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad” is often attributed to Euripedes. He was wrong–or at least incomplete. The quote should read “those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad by giving them electronics…”

I came home yesterday to a husband fuming–while holding a phone he’d been on for three hours with tech support. It was another hour until internet was once again available, and we still aren’t sure how or why.

Meanwhile, I traced a highly annoying “beep beep” sound to a smoke detector on the (vaulted) ceiling in our bedroom. Making the beeping stop required a climb to the very top (not just the top rung) of a ladder, clutching the top of a door for support. And–speaking of the gods–some prayer.

There will be no “deep thoughts” (or shallow ones) from this blogger today. I have to study the two thick manuals that came with my new car, which is now paired with my IPhone and daring me to figure out its multiple functions and displays…

Maybe I’ll just go back to bed.

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But Isn’t It All About Voter Fraud??

Yesterday, a Facebook friend who lives in Pittsburgh posted a story from the Pittsburgh Gazette about Sophie Maslow, the city’s feisty former Mayor. Now in her nineties, Maslow is anxiously awaiting the Pennsylvania court’s ruling on the state’s new voter ID law–turns out that if it is upheld, she will be unable to vote for the first time in her adult life.

As she says, when she could no longer drive, she cut up her driver’s license. Her passport is expired. She plans to go to a license branch to get a photo ID if the law is upheld, but is worried by her neighbor’s reports of long lines and confusion.

In Indiana, shortly after a federal court upheld our version of the voter ID law, a group of elderly nuns in South Bend was turned away from the polls for lack of  suitable identification.

Of course, it’s all for a good cause–the sanctity of the vote. A couple of weeks ago, a letter to the editor chastised critics of the new voter ID laws. They are necessary, the letter-writer insisted. He then recounted a recent example of fraud, a widely reported instance of a woman who had voted in two states. The problem with that example is that the voter ID laws would do nothing to prevent that particular type of behavior. Most simply require a government-issued identification that is current and has a photo. They don’t require proof of residence. A current passport can take you on vacation–or to polling places in more than one state. (The letter writer didn’t explain how the “fraudster” managed to get registered and on the voter rolls in multiple locations, but for argument’s sake, I’ll assume it’s possible.)

A number of credible sources have documented the extremely small number of instances in which there has been actual voting fraud. Furthermore, where it has occurred, it has overwhelmingly been in the process of absentee balloting, not in-person voting, and these laws do nothing about absentee voting.

It is easy to shrug off the burden these measures impose on the elderly and the poor. I have well-meaning friends who shrug off the requirements by pointing out that “everyone” has a photo ID these days. “How can you cash a check or board a plane without one?” They simply cannot picture (no pun intended) people for whom bank accounts and air travel are foreign experiences. They don’t know anyone personally who does not possess a birth certificate–although the lack of that document (necessary in order to obtain a voter ID) is fairly common among elderly and African-American folks who were born in rural areas.

As Sarah Silverman says, in a foul-mouthed but funny  You Tube that is making the rounds on the web, these laws cleverly target four demographics: the elderly, blacks, students and the poor.  I wonder what those demographics have in common….

Oh yeah. Sophie Maslow is a Democrat.

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