http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17brooks.html?em
After praising Senator Obama's equanimity and poise for the better part of his latest op-ed piece, comparing his cool, analytical self-confidence to that of F.D.R. and Reagan, David Brooks, wanting badly to write a column worth talking about, moves in for the kill:
Of course, it’s also easy to imagine a scenario in which he is not an island of rationality in a sea of tumult, but simply an island. New presidents are often amazed by how much they are disobeyed, by how often passive-aggressiveness frustrates their plans.
Hmmmm. Huh. Well. I guess Obama would be a new president if he were elected, yeah? Yeah. Shit. He might not be obeyed. Okay.
(Next sentences:)
It could be that Obama will be an observer, not a leader. Rather than throwing himself passionately into his causes, he will stand back. Congressional leaders, put off by his supposed intellectual superiority, will just go their own way. Lost in his own nuance, he will be passive and ineffectual. Lack of passion will produce lack of courage. The Obama greatness will give way to the Obama anti-climax.
Passive and ineffectual. Lack of passion. Shit.
(Next sentences:)
We can each guess how the story ends. But over the past two years, Obama has clearly worn well with voters. Far from a celebrity fad, he is self-contained, self-controlled and maybe even a little dull.
Dull. Dull? Shit. I don't want a dull president. But you said his problem was intellectual superiority. Shit. He must be both too smart and too dumb to be president. How did I not see this before?
And...scene.
Okay, David Brooks, you lost me when you assumed that an ability to take a step back and see things as an observer means that you lack passion, that you can't be rational and passionate at once. Not only is that a logical leap of startling fancy, it's clearly wrong, because Barack Obama, whatever else you say about him, is clearly both rational and passionate. See, e.g., any speech he's ever given. He doesn't get trapped in his own viewpoint, it's true. He's able to see things from other perspectives, including, most importantly, the average American who's tired of the politics to which we've become accustomed, of Bush and Kerry and Pelosi and Rove and Clinton and Cheney and DeLay and Clinton . That's his strength, that he can empathize with outside observers -- the voters.
By the way, the idea of combining rationality and passion is indicative of something obvious about Obama: he comes from the political school of organizing, rather than that of grandstanding. One pulls people together to get things done and inspires them with what they can do; the other speaks to be heard, to be agreed with, to be chosen. It can be a fine distinction in principle, but it's a yawning chasm of difference in practice.
It was a good attempt, I guess, David, to turn Obama's most admirable qualities -- things we should aspire to in ourselves -- into something to fear in a leader. It just wasn't very convincing, is all. Try again next time!
Friday, October 17, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Twisting the Knife
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/opinion/28dowd.html
Maureen Dowd issues the latest criticism of Barack Obama for his failure to twist the knife once he's plunged it into his opponent. I hear this one all the time. Running for president is not about showing restraint, the argument goes. It's about making your opponent look as bad as possible. It's visceral, not cerebral.
Well, yeah, if we learned anything from 2004, it's that presidential politics is not cerebral. Still, I disagree (as I often find myself doing) with Ms. Dowd.
I think Senator McCain is dead wrong on just about every big issue this time around. The problem is that I'm not sure the majority of the country agrees with me entirely. I think much of our citizenry is tempted to believe this man when he says he knows what our foreign policy problems are and how to fix them. I sympathize with those who are worried Senator Obama isn't experienced enough to be president. I think his critics are on to something when they call him arrogant and presumptuous and would-be messianic -- I just also think that those sorts of labels are what people inevitably will attach to someone who represents as fundamental a change as Mr. Obama does. Make no mistake: we need a faith bordering on religious if we are to believe that America can rebound from the past eight years.
But not everyone agrees. Many are hesitant. Obama seems risky. McCain is a known quantity, an honorable man (most of the time), a war hero, white, old. Obama needs to attract Republicans and nominally independent voters in Virginia and Indiana, and I think he and his team are making a calculation that these folks would be turned off by distinctly partisan language. These people need to feel that they can safely emerge from their partisan bunkers and vote for the party of Clinton, Carter, Dukakis, and Gore. That's not easy. It takes coaxing.
If folks like Dowd want Obama elected, they need to let him do his job. He's assembled probably the best campaign team in history, and he knows what he's doing. At the moment, the rhetoric can't be aimed at making avowed liberals smile, nod knowingly, or even make us feel spectacular about supporting him. Instead, if we trust this man not just to be our president but to lead this country, we should trust that his air of respect toward McCain is the best available way to entice the good, hard-working, boring old white people of Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to vote Obama. He's not scared. It's a calculation, and it's necessary. Cut him slack.
Maureen Dowd issues the latest criticism of Barack Obama for his failure to twist the knife once he's plunged it into his opponent. I hear this one all the time. Running for president is not about showing restraint, the argument goes. It's about making your opponent look as bad as possible. It's visceral, not cerebral.
Well, yeah, if we learned anything from 2004, it's that presidential politics is not cerebral. Still, I disagree (as I often find myself doing) with Ms. Dowd.
I think Senator McCain is dead wrong on just about every big issue this time around. The problem is that I'm not sure the majority of the country agrees with me entirely. I think much of our citizenry is tempted to believe this man when he says he knows what our foreign policy problems are and how to fix them. I sympathize with those who are worried Senator Obama isn't experienced enough to be president. I think his critics are on to something when they call him arrogant and presumptuous and would-be messianic -- I just also think that those sorts of labels are what people inevitably will attach to someone who represents as fundamental a change as Mr. Obama does. Make no mistake: we need a faith bordering on religious if we are to believe that America can rebound from the past eight years.
But not everyone agrees. Many are hesitant. Obama seems risky. McCain is a known quantity, an honorable man (most of the time), a war hero, white, old. Obama needs to attract Republicans and nominally independent voters in Virginia and Indiana, and I think he and his team are making a calculation that these folks would be turned off by distinctly partisan language. These people need to feel that they can safely emerge from their partisan bunkers and vote for the party of Clinton, Carter, Dukakis, and Gore. That's not easy. It takes coaxing.
If folks like Dowd want Obama elected, they need to let him do his job. He's assembled probably the best campaign team in history, and he knows what he's doing. At the moment, the rhetoric can't be aimed at making avowed liberals smile, nod knowingly, or even make us feel spectacular about supporting him. Instead, if we trust this man not just to be our president but to lead this country, we should trust that his air of respect toward McCain is the best available way to entice the good, hard-working, boring old white people of Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to vote Obama. He's not scared. It's a calculation, and it's necessary. Cut him slack.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
A Series of Debates
So McCain has proposed a series of 10 town hall-style debates, and Obama is receptive. While Obama is still a bit busy pulling the blue team together and hasn't fully responded, it's clear that there's some disagreement on how the debates should be formatted.
McCain wants them to be 60-90 minutes long, have an independent local moderator (not, presumably, a journalist) with very limited moderation, and leave the question-asking to the audience. The Obama campaign's preliminary response is that they would prefer something closer to the original Lincoln-Douglas format.
To me, this is fascinating, and I can't help but let it stir my imagination. Each candidate wants the format to play to his strengths. McCain is great at shooting off answers that seem to come off the top of his head. It gives the impression that his instincts are well honed, that he shoots from the hip, and that he knows what he's talking about. Obama's less good at this -- he often ends up seeming thoughtfully hesitant, almost professorial in his consideration of the question, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing, but I suppose for many people thoughtfulness is an elitist quality. Anyway, Obama's stellar oratorical skill blows away his more terrestrial Q&A abilities.
The original LD debates were structured as follows: 7 debates, one in each district of Illinois. First one of them would speak for an hour, then the other would go for an hour and a half, and then the first would get a 30 minute rejoinder. So three hours long. They would alternate who would go first. The debates were almost completely about the big issue of the day, slavery.
Now, the Obama campaign surely can't mean it wants three-hour long debates. But they could be resized to 2 hours: 40-60-20 minutes. That's no longer than the debates we've become accustomed to. Instead of all of the debates being on the same issue, the two candidates could agree to focus on a different issue at each debate. Instead of 10 shorter debates, 7 longer ones. But what would the issues be? And where would the debates be held? Swing states? Oh boy, is this exciting.
1) Harrisburg, Pennsylvania -- Economy
2) Camp Victory, Baghdad, Iraq -- Iraq War
3) Durango, Colorado -- Energy, Natural Resources, and the Environment
4) Fort Lauderdale, Florida -- Health Care
5) Las Vegas, Nevada -- Immigration
6) Madison, Wisconsin -- Civil Liberties /Civil Rights
7) Charlotte, North Carolina -- Foreign Policy
There, how's that? It's 4states Bush won in 2004, 2 that Kerry won. Swing states all. Some of them can even be conducted outside, with magnificent backdrops. I've given it the best geographical diversity I can muster, while also sticking to the biggest centers of electoral votes up for grabs.
But think about the potential of these debates! What an opportunity to rise above the dominion of the soundbite and the comeback and bring about some intelligent discourse in this country! I'll be rooting the concept on.
McCain wants them to be 60-90 minutes long, have an independent local moderator (not, presumably, a journalist) with very limited moderation, and leave the question-asking to the audience. The Obama campaign's preliminary response is that they would prefer something closer to the original Lincoln-Douglas format.
To me, this is fascinating, and I can't help but let it stir my imagination. Each candidate wants the format to play to his strengths. McCain is great at shooting off answers that seem to come off the top of his head. It gives the impression that his instincts are well honed, that he shoots from the hip, and that he knows what he's talking about. Obama's less good at this -- he often ends up seeming thoughtfully hesitant, almost professorial in his consideration of the question, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing, but I suppose for many people thoughtfulness is an elitist quality. Anyway, Obama's stellar oratorical skill blows away his more terrestrial Q&A abilities.
The original LD debates were structured as follows: 7 debates, one in each district of Illinois. First one of them would speak for an hour, then the other would go for an hour and a half, and then the first would get a 30 minute rejoinder. So three hours long. They would alternate who would go first. The debates were almost completely about the big issue of the day, slavery.
Now, the Obama campaign surely can't mean it wants three-hour long debates. But they could be resized to 2 hours: 40-60-20 minutes. That's no longer than the debates we've become accustomed to. Instead of all of the debates being on the same issue, the two candidates could agree to focus on a different issue at each debate. Instead of 10 shorter debates, 7 longer ones. But what would the issues be? And where would the debates be held? Swing states? Oh boy, is this exciting.
1) Harrisburg, Pennsylvania -- Economy
2) Camp Victory, Baghdad, Iraq -- Iraq War
3) Durango, Colorado -- Energy, Natural Resources, and the Environment
4) Fort Lauderdale, Florida -- Health Care
5) Las Vegas, Nevada -- Immigration
6) Madison, Wisconsin -- Civil Liberties /Civil Rights
7) Charlotte, North Carolina -- Foreign Policy
There, how's that? It's 4states Bush won in 2004, 2 that Kerry won. Swing states all. Some of them can even be conducted outside, with magnificent backdrops. I've given it the best geographical diversity I can muster, while also sticking to the biggest centers of electoral votes up for grabs.
But think about the potential of these debates! What an opportunity to rise above the dominion of the soundbite and the comeback and bring about some intelligent discourse in this country! I'll be rooting the concept on.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Words Matter Because They Mean Things
Words do matter. Words do inspire. Words do win elections and lose them. Words can carry a movement, a generation, a country. It's not usually a whole bunch of them, either, that catch in people's minds. Think: "I have a dream," or the "better angels of our nature," or "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Imagine these worded poorly.
This election year, there has been a very clear word gap between the campaigns. One campaign seems to pull Weezer-like hooks together with stunning ease, and the rest seem to struggle to put together a sentence that doesn't seem corny, trite, pandering, opportunistic, or just plain stupid-sounding.
McCain, for instance, is excellent at ad libbing. You can feel the straight talk oozing out of him. But when he gives a prepared speech, it always sounds forced.
The word gap is most pronounced where it is most important to be pithy as well a convincing: slogans. Barack Obama's campaign slogans are so much better than everyone else's that now all of the other major campaigns have tried co-opting and distorting them. So far, that hasn't really worked.
There are only two of them:
It wasn't long after Obama's Iowa victory that the slogan-theft-and-contortion began. Mitt Romney, until then going with "True Strength For America's Future", tried positioning himself as the Republican candidate of change. The new slogan: "Change Begins With Us."
Clinton gave it a shot around then too. She'd already cycled through a bunch of duds, like "Let the Conversation Begin," "In It To Win It" (especially after losing Iowa), "Turn Up the Heat", and by far the least catchy: "Big Challenges, Real Solutions: Time to Pick a President." Here's a good Politico article documenting a litany of them -- and the best part is that it was written January 3rd.
Sensing that "Change" needed to be in there somehow, she went with variants of "The Strength and Experience To Make Change Happen." When that proved too bulky, she settled for a long time on "Ready On Day One." She shoved this one into every subordinate clause of every sentence she could. The crowds liked it, but, notably, it wasn't very chant-able. Instead, the wisdom of crowds landed on a curious choice:
"Yes She Will". A perversion of Obama's own slogan. The intent of "Yes She Will" was to make the point that Obama was all words and no action. And the other new Hillary slogan? "Change We Can Count On."
Notice that Clinton had been "ballparked" by Obama -- by needing to use his vocabulary, she was pulled onto his turf. But voters never, ever began to think that Clinton represented change better than Obama (as shown by exit polls).
And John McCain, until recently the candidate of "No Surrender," yesterday criticized Obama's purported naivety in front of a backdrop emphasizing that his is "Leadership We Can Believe In." Today, the big banner on his website brings a minor adjustment, with "A Leader We Can Believe In."
So Clinton and McCain both felt they had to do the same thing: out-Obama Obama. Find an opening to prove that they are the real candidate of hope, the real candidate of change (and by the way, they have decades of experience too!). In a sense, they have to let themselves be ballparked. Senator Obama captured the American imagination, and comprehended the American zeitgeist, so much earlier than his opponents that they have no choice but to play catch-up.
Their problem is they can't change that Obama does represent hope. We desperately want to believe that things can be better, that the hope Americans have always felt doesn't have to slip away. And what "Yes She Will" and "A Leader We Can Believe In" miss in our collective American longing is that we no longer trust politicians who claim to be able to solve our problems for us. No great philosophy or great policy position or great fighting spirit is going to fix our broken politics. We understand that the average American citizen has lost his centrality in American politics, and we want it back. There's only one candidate trumpeting our own power, our own innate strength and unity as a people. Because he can elucidate those contemporary American needs so clearly, we trust that he understands them well. And we find it easier to trust someone who, rather than tell us he's got the exact right blend of experience to set everything right for us immediately, expects us to keep working to achieve change for ourselves. Yes We Can. The "We" is what the other campaigns overlook, it's what got Obama the nomination, and it's what's going to make him president. It's what makes him truly worth believing in, and it's the real change being offered this time around.
This election year, there has been a very clear word gap between the campaigns. One campaign seems to pull Weezer-like hooks together with stunning ease, and the rest seem to struggle to put together a sentence that doesn't seem corny, trite, pandering, opportunistic, or just plain stupid-sounding.
McCain, for instance, is excellent at ad libbing. You can feel the straight talk oozing out of him. But when he gives a prepared speech, it always sounds forced.
The word gap is most pronounced where it is most important to be pithy as well a convincing: slogans. Barack Obama's campaign slogans are so much better than everyone else's that now all of the other major campaigns have tried co-opting and distorting them. So far, that hasn't really worked.
There are only two of them:
- Yes We Can
- Change We Can Believe In
It wasn't long after Obama's Iowa victory that the slogan-theft-and-contortion began. Mitt Romney, until then going with "True Strength For America's Future", tried positioning himself as the Republican candidate of change. The new slogan: "Change Begins With Us."
Clinton gave it a shot around then too. She'd already cycled through a bunch of duds, like "Let the Conversation Begin," "In It To Win It" (especially after losing Iowa), "Turn Up the Heat", and by far the least catchy: "Big Challenges, Real Solutions: Time to Pick a President." Here's a good Politico article documenting a litany of them -- and the best part is that it was written January 3rd.
Sensing that "Change" needed to be in there somehow, she went with variants of "The Strength and Experience To Make Change Happen." When that proved too bulky, she settled for a long time on "Ready On Day One." She shoved this one into every subordinate clause of every sentence she could. The crowds liked it, but, notably, it wasn't very chant-able. Instead, the wisdom of crowds landed on a curious choice:
"Yes She Will". A perversion of Obama's own slogan. The intent of "Yes She Will" was to make the point that Obama was all words and no action. And the other new Hillary slogan? "Change We Can Count On."
Notice that Clinton had been "ballparked" by Obama -- by needing to use his vocabulary, she was pulled onto his turf. But voters never, ever began to think that Clinton represented change better than Obama (as shown by exit polls).
And John McCain, until recently the candidate of "No Surrender," yesterday criticized Obama's purported naivety in front of a backdrop emphasizing that his is "Leadership We Can Believe In." Today, the big banner on his website brings a minor adjustment, with "A Leader We Can Believe In."
So Clinton and McCain both felt they had to do the same thing: out-Obama Obama. Find an opening to prove that they are the real candidate of hope, the real candidate of change (and by the way, they have decades of experience too!). In a sense, they have to let themselves be ballparked. Senator Obama captured the American imagination, and comprehended the American zeitgeist, so much earlier than his opponents that they have no choice but to play catch-up.
Their problem is they can't change that Obama does represent hope. We desperately want to believe that things can be better, that the hope Americans have always felt doesn't have to slip away. And what "Yes She Will" and "A Leader We Can Believe In" miss in our collective American longing is that we no longer trust politicians who claim to be able to solve our problems for us. No great philosophy or great policy position or great fighting spirit is going to fix our broken politics. We understand that the average American citizen has lost his centrality in American politics, and we want it back. There's only one candidate trumpeting our own power, our own innate strength and unity as a people. Because he can elucidate those contemporary American needs so clearly, we trust that he understands them well. And we find it easier to trust someone who, rather than tell us he's got the exact right blend of experience to set everything right for us immediately, expects us to keep working to achieve change for ourselves. Yes We Can. The "We" is what the other campaigns overlook, it's what got Obama the nomination, and it's what's going to make him president. It's what makes him truly worth believing in, and it's the real change being offered this time around.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Environmentalism as Murder
In an article posted today on Slate, Brendan Borrell considers the conflict between conservationists and animal rights activists over salmon and sea lions in the Columbia River. Summary: the Bonneville Dam and overfishing have sent salmon stocks plummeting; sea lions have entered the river and are decimating what's left of the salmon; conservationists (and fisherman) convinced the government to kill and transfer many of the sea lions; the Humane Society sued to block the action; sea lions turn up dead on the banks of the Columbia River. There are countless examples of conflicts like this.
So Borrell asks a question: "At what point do the rights of an individual animal trump the welfare of an entire ecosystem?"
In answering, he clearly supports the sea lions over the salmon. "A sound conservation ethic cannot be based exclusively on a vague principle of biodiversity or the sanctity of the natural world. Instead, it must respect the interests of sentient beings." "While humans may find much to appreciate in Earth's menagerie, it is hard to argue that preserving DNA can justify the murder of a sentient being. Sea lions are remarkable creatures. Some believe their cognitive abilities rival those of chimpanzees...."
In the end, though, he steps back from this argument by claiming we could solve the problem by just knocking out Bonneville Dam. Duh. But notwithstanding this dam's not-so-imminent demise, and with the proliferation of invasive species and other biological calamities across the globe, Borrell's question begs answering. I don't think he does a good job of it.
The practicality is that the human race destroys sentient life regularly, for all sorts of reasons. We kill other people. We kill other people for killing other people. We kill primates for medical and scientific experimentation. We kill pigs for food. We put dogs down. We deny liberty to animals without a second thought. And, depending on how far you're willing to extend the definition of sentience, just think of all the things we do to rodents, and, for that matter, salmon. (It's not crucially relevant here, but I think of rationality and sentience on a continuum, rather than being all-or-nothing characteristics.) Even if you're a pacifist vegan, you're probably complicit in the death of some animal trying to live.
So as a practical matter, I think animal rights activists can find much better things to fight against than ecosystem health. An effective organization does not simply send out press releases and file lawsuits railing against anything with which is has a philosophical disagreement. An effective organization picks its battles wisely, and allocates its resources to ills most needing correction. How about CAFO's, for example?
But I have a deeper problem with the sanctity-of-sentient-life argument: things die. Life is a wonderful thing, deep in mystery, fabulous in glory, juicy to the core, all of that, sure. Then, it ends. It can end in old age or it can end in a flash of lightning, it can end in war or the Holocaust or in a big rock falling on your head or an unlucky climbing trip or a car crash. It can end at birth, after 120 years, or anywhere in between. There's no message inscribed in life explaining what it means. It's random, it's fun, it's hard, it's wonderful, and then it's over.
This does not mean that killing a human (or a sea lion) cannot be cruel, evil, or tragic. It can be all of those things. It may merit extreme punishment, and the murdered one's family may be inconsolable. Their loved one would still be alive were it not for that horrible act.
Even so, I cannot subscribe to the idea of life being "cut short." Nor do I believe in a natural, as opposed to legal, "right to life." How can we claim a right to something so fleeting? So unpredictable? So utterly fragile and intangible? For its beauty life is sacred. Yet it is folly, a lack of appreciation for what life is, to treat death as ultimate evil.
* * *
"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: 'And this, too, shall pass away.' How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!" -- Abraham Lincoln, Address Before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, September 30, 1859
Everything ends, everything changes. Empires fail, new ones arise. Continents shift. Species evolve and move, and ecosystems morph. In 4.5 billion years the sun will explode. The universe may someday compress back into itself, or expand beyond the density at which life is possible. Would I justify anything in light of the commonality of eventual destruction? No, I don't think so. Crime is crime, and love is love. But I do think that the utilitarian system of morality (or any system of morality) that treats death as an evil unto itself, the antithesis of happiness, is hopelessly shortsighted. It's time to stop using such an antiquated, materialistic view of death. Life is ephemeral, death is certain, and neither is necessarily good or evil.
* * *
While many of us ponder these questions when studying existentialism in school, we all throw up our hands when it comes to applying these principles to such odd problems as the unfortunate transversal of animal rights and environmentalism. I'm no different. I have no answers.
I have only intellectual instincts, and their offspring, tendencies. My tendency in this case is to think that humans take themselves too seriously. They think their logic and their science provide them answers, and with those answers they can trot off merrily (or with great ironic gravity) to remake the world in their image. We're terribly proud of ourselves as a species. But with all our intelligence, all our ethics, we've been by far the most destructive species ever to grace this planet.
The beauty that inspires me to call life sacred comes in only a few flavors. One is my interaction with nature, my being a part of nature (if "nature" seems hokey, substitute "existence"; that's what I mean anyway). I find this beauty in the primitiveness of backpacking, the tastiness of food, the awareness of meditation, etc. -- anything connecting me to the physical "breath" of life. Another big one, not unrelated to nature, is creation. I like to make things and enjoy the results of myself as creator, or, if you prefer, as an outlet for a Great Creator. The third one I can think of is love, the joyous connection between what is other with what is oneself. You may think of other categories, but to me these are the big three that inspire life's beauty.
Now add that tendency of mine. I would drape, as a virtue to inform them, humility across those three sources of beauty. True fulfillment in one's own creativeness includes an appreciation that others are similarly creative. True love is not narcissistic, or duo-narcissistic, but all encompassing and includes an understanding that others' loves can be as powerful as one's own. And true connection with nature does not exult in one's power over it, but one's place among it. In this way, humility gives rise to fairness, compassion, and, yes, environmentalism.
To be so proud of our creations as to exult in their power over the rest of the world -- that's narcissism. To believe they can fully encompass and describe the world is likewise proud and narcissistic. We are but one species, and none of our theories or inventions will ever encapsulate nature. This includes pride in ethics as well as pride in dams. A humble human existence would not expect a man-made morality to define the world any more than a man-made hydrology. A humble human existence would love nature and its processes and its emphemerality, and so would try to leave ecosystems intact, as much as possible. I wouldn't call for an end to technology, but I am calling for a more humble technology, one that strives to exist as part of nature rather than above it.
In the end this is not about a single species (the salmon) any more than it should be about a single individual (the sea lion). It's about respecting nature and its processes as best we can. So when ecosystems begin to fail because we did something drastic to disrupt them, it's our responsibility to mend them as best we can figure how. In this instance, that means restoring native salmon stocks as well as restoring sea lions to their native habitat and range. If we can do that without killing sea lions, all the better. If we can't, well...that's life. Let's kill them humbly and with compassion, studious and cautious in our planning to mend the harms of our audacious construction of Bonneville Dam, and comforted that their lives can go to no greater cause.
So Borrell asks a question: "At what point do the rights of an individual animal trump the welfare of an entire ecosystem?"
In answering, he clearly supports the sea lions over the salmon. "A sound conservation ethic cannot be based exclusively on a vague principle of biodiversity or the sanctity of the natural world. Instead, it must respect the interests of sentient beings." "While humans may find much to appreciate in Earth's menagerie, it is hard to argue that preserving DNA can justify the murder of a sentient being. Sea lions are remarkable creatures. Some believe their cognitive abilities rival those of chimpanzees...."
In the end, though, he steps back from this argument by claiming we could solve the problem by just knocking out Bonneville Dam. Duh. But notwithstanding this dam's not-so-imminent demise, and with the proliferation of invasive species and other biological calamities across the globe, Borrell's question begs answering. I don't think he does a good job of it.
The practicality is that the human race destroys sentient life regularly, for all sorts of reasons. We kill other people. We kill other people for killing other people. We kill primates for medical and scientific experimentation. We kill pigs for food. We put dogs down. We deny liberty to animals without a second thought. And, depending on how far you're willing to extend the definition of sentience, just think of all the things we do to rodents, and, for that matter, salmon. (It's not crucially relevant here, but I think of rationality and sentience on a continuum, rather than being all-or-nothing characteristics.) Even if you're a pacifist vegan, you're probably complicit in the death of some animal trying to live.
So as a practical matter, I think animal rights activists can find much better things to fight against than ecosystem health. An effective organization does not simply send out press releases and file lawsuits railing against anything with which is has a philosophical disagreement. An effective organization picks its battles wisely, and allocates its resources to ills most needing correction. How about CAFO's, for example?
But I have a deeper problem with the sanctity-of-sentient-life argument: things die. Life is a wonderful thing, deep in mystery, fabulous in glory, juicy to the core, all of that, sure. Then, it ends. It can end in old age or it can end in a flash of lightning, it can end in war or the Holocaust or in a big rock falling on your head or an unlucky climbing trip or a car crash. It can end at birth, after 120 years, or anywhere in between. There's no message inscribed in life explaining what it means. It's random, it's fun, it's hard, it's wonderful, and then it's over.
This does not mean that killing a human (or a sea lion) cannot be cruel, evil, or tragic. It can be all of those things. It may merit extreme punishment, and the murdered one's family may be inconsolable. Their loved one would still be alive were it not for that horrible act.
Even so, I cannot subscribe to the idea of life being "cut short." Nor do I believe in a natural, as opposed to legal, "right to life." How can we claim a right to something so fleeting? So unpredictable? So utterly fragile and intangible? For its beauty life is sacred. Yet it is folly, a lack of appreciation for what life is, to treat death as ultimate evil.
* * *
"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: 'And this, too, shall pass away.' How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!" -- Abraham Lincoln, Address Before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, September 30, 1859
Everything ends, everything changes. Empires fail, new ones arise. Continents shift. Species evolve and move, and ecosystems morph. In 4.5 billion years the sun will explode. The universe may someday compress back into itself, or expand beyond the density at which life is possible. Would I justify anything in light of the commonality of eventual destruction? No, I don't think so. Crime is crime, and love is love. But I do think that the utilitarian system of morality (or any system of morality) that treats death as an evil unto itself, the antithesis of happiness, is hopelessly shortsighted. It's time to stop using such an antiquated, materialistic view of death. Life is ephemeral, death is certain, and neither is necessarily good or evil.
* * *
While many of us ponder these questions when studying existentialism in school, we all throw up our hands when it comes to applying these principles to such odd problems as the unfortunate transversal of animal rights and environmentalism. I'm no different. I have no answers.
I have only intellectual instincts, and their offspring, tendencies. My tendency in this case is to think that humans take themselves too seriously. They think their logic and their science provide them answers, and with those answers they can trot off merrily (or with great ironic gravity) to remake the world in their image. We're terribly proud of ourselves as a species. But with all our intelligence, all our ethics, we've been by far the most destructive species ever to grace this planet.
The beauty that inspires me to call life sacred comes in only a few flavors. One is my interaction with nature, my being a part of nature (if "nature" seems hokey, substitute "existence"; that's what I mean anyway). I find this beauty in the primitiveness of backpacking, the tastiness of food, the awareness of meditation, etc. -- anything connecting me to the physical "breath" of life. Another big one, not unrelated to nature, is creation. I like to make things and enjoy the results of myself as creator, or, if you prefer, as an outlet for a Great Creator. The third one I can think of is love, the joyous connection between what is other with what is oneself. You may think of other categories, but to me these are the big three that inspire life's beauty.
Now add that tendency of mine. I would drape, as a virtue to inform them, humility across those three sources of beauty. True fulfillment in one's own creativeness includes an appreciation that others are similarly creative. True love is not narcissistic, or duo-narcissistic, but all encompassing and includes an understanding that others' loves can be as powerful as one's own. And true connection with nature does not exult in one's power over it, but one's place among it. In this way, humility gives rise to fairness, compassion, and, yes, environmentalism.
To be so proud of our creations as to exult in their power over the rest of the world -- that's narcissism. To believe they can fully encompass and describe the world is likewise proud and narcissistic. We are but one species, and none of our theories or inventions will ever encapsulate nature. This includes pride in ethics as well as pride in dams. A humble human existence would not expect a man-made morality to define the world any more than a man-made hydrology. A humble human existence would love nature and its processes and its emphemerality, and so would try to leave ecosystems intact, as much as possible. I wouldn't call for an end to technology, but I am calling for a more humble technology, one that strives to exist as part of nature rather than above it.
In the end this is not about a single species (the salmon) any more than it should be about a single individual (the sea lion). It's about respecting nature and its processes as best we can. So when ecosystems begin to fail because we did something drastic to disrupt them, it's our responsibility to mend them as best we can figure how. In this instance, that means restoring native salmon stocks as well as restoring sea lions to their native habitat and range. If we can do that without killing sea lions, all the better. If we can't, well...that's life. Let's kill them humbly and with compassion, studious and cautious in our planning to mend the harms of our audacious construction of Bonneville Dam, and comforted that their lives can go to no greater cause.
Friday, May 9, 2008
A Farm Bill Failure
Alright, it's finally happening. After 16 months, our Democratic Congress has ceded the moral high ground to President Bush. The vehicle for this ethical implosion? The farm bill.
The farm bill? That's still going on? Yup, even longer than the Democratic primary race. I've lost track of how many extensions Congress has given itself (four?), but the upshot is that the bill is finally about to come out of the conference committee. Both houses of Congress will then vote on it, and, if it passes, Bush will promptly veto it. Sigh.
The trouble is, this time he may be justified.
The AP provides a good (incomplete) list of what this bill would do:
• Increase the nutrition programs, including food stamps and emergency domestic food assistance, by more than $10 billion over ten years. It would also expand a program to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to schoolchildren.
• Expand subsidies for certain crops, extend dairy programs and increase loan rates for sugar producers. It includes language which calls on the federal government to buy surplus sugar and sell it to ethanol producers, where it would be used in a mixture with corn.
• Make small cuts to direct payments, which are distributed to some producers no matter how much they grow.
• Cut a per-gallon ethanol tax credit that supports blending fuel with the corn-based additive from 51 cents to 45 cents in favor of more money for cellulosic ethanol, which is made from plant matter.
• Add dollars for conservation programs designed to protect farmland.
• Require that meats and other fresh foods be labeled with their country of origin.
• Eliminate loopholes that now allow farmers to collect subsidies for multiple farm businesses.
• Cut expanded food assistance for an international school lunch program that was passed in the House farm bill last year. While the House had included more than $800 million in permanent dollars for the McGovern-Dole program, the final bill includes less than $100 million.
• Pay farmers for weather-related farm losses out of a new $3.8 billion disaster assistance fund. Schafer on Thursday criticized the program, which he says questions the government's investments in existing crop insurance for farmers and discredits farm programs.
• Give tax breaks to owners of race horses, a provision added by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Animal rights groups criticized the provision, saying Congress shouldn't help the industry in the wake of a Kentucky Derby entrant collapsing and having to be euthanized last weekend.
Horses aside, here are the big problems with the bill:
1) Big Sugar is one of the most heavily protected interests in
With food prices high and rising around the world, due significantly to a rechanneling of food crops into energy production, it may seem useful to spur production of other crops (beside corn) for energy, reducing the demand pressure on corn and letting corn prices drop back down. But there are far better ways to do this than expanding already ridiculous subsidies on all sugar production. And while food prices are high in the
2) This newest iteration of the bill would reduce the maximum income a farmer can have and still receive subsidies. Under the 2002 law, the maximum was $5 million for a married couple. The Senate's earlier bill would have kept this as is (I smell a Baucus), but the bill coming out of conference will cap it at $1.5 million. An improvement, to be sure. But consider the following counterproposal: $200,000. Sound like an advancement? A good step toward helping small farmers without using great gobs of taxpayer money to pad the pockets of the wealthy? Well hold on to your butts, boys and girls, because that proposal's coming from the Bush Administration. Sky-high subsidies are a big reason he's going to veto this thing. Now ask yourself: why isn't your Democratic senator picking up this proposal and running with it?
3) If you were paying attention, an awkward hyphenate in one of the bullet points may have perplexed you. McGovern-Dole? Yes, friends, that's George McGovern and Bob Dole, the two contemporary legistlative titans turned failed presidential candidates. As they say for themselves in a Post editorial, "How can the world's hungriest schoolchildren be denied meals while the farm bill being debated in a House-Senate conference provides millions in subsidies for wealthy farmers? That's what Congress proposes. In all fairness, it should not become law."
4) The $3.8 billion disaster assistance fund is a solution in search of a problem, an unnecessary addendum to the wealth of crop insurance programs American farmers already have. It's election year politics brought to you by the king of perpetual election year politics --
5) The bullet points miss something the bill doesn't do: effect an important change in how we deliver food aid. Currently, when we give food aid through USAID, it comes almost always from U.S.-grown food, packed onto
For this reason, NGO aid organizations like CARE and Oxfam are beginning to refuse American relief from USAID that comes in the form of American food shipped overseas. It's far better for the needy, for the environment, and for third-world agriculture to give aid -- this is supposed to be about aid, right? -- in the form of money to buy local and regional food. Of course these organizations also then work to get that food into the hands of those who need it.
President Bush proposed a modest minimum of food-related aid to come in the form of money and local procurements, at 25% of total. That still means 75% of food aid could be unloaded off American ships. But apparently that's not enough for our noble Democrats in Congress, who rejected the concept entirely.
When most people call this 110th Congress a failure, they're usually talking about its failure to do anything about our disastrous war in
Politics and Non
Two articles much worth reading:
Let Them Eat Arugula - Jonathan Chait, The New Republic
Meatless Like Me - Taylor Clark, Slate
Let Them Eat Arugula - Jonathan Chait, The New Republic
Meatless Like Me - Taylor Clark, Slate
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Chicken-Shit Senate Democrats
Today the Senate passed a surveillance bill that would grant immunity to telecommunications companies for complying with orders from government agencies to hand over their customers' private information. Clearly these companies followed orders from the executive branch of our government. But whether those orders were lawful, and whether the telecommunications companies or the federal government itself should be held accountable, are questions that have not yet been decided in court. This new legislation would sidestep that judicial process by shifting the burden of liability from the companies to -- wait for it -- no one. It's an after-the-fact CYA bill for everyone.
Democrats run the Senate. Nominally. Since they took power they have proven themselves completely impotent and unwilling to stand up to a reckless president. They'll even claim impotence as an excuse; since they are incapable of amassing the necessary 60 votes to get anything passed, we shouldn't blame them.
This is a smokescreen. What they're refusing to admit, and what the media for some reason keeps giving them a free ride on, is that they have the supreme power not to pass laws. They can choose not to appropriate money for things like the expansion of a war. But it goes beyond money. In today's intelligence legislation, they included the immunity provision even though most Senate Democrats thought it was abominable and ultimately tried to filibuster the bill because of it. So why did the Senate Democratic leadership include it? Because President Bush said he'd veto the bill if they did not include this special measure. Got that? He would veto a bill for no other reason than that it didn't do something extra (and perhaps unconstitutional) that he also wanted done. And the chicken-shit Democrats, rather than stand up to this bullshit, chose not to escalate the tension with the president over something that rhetorically can be connected to national security. It's an election year. We must look tough. We must support the troops. We must be re-elected so we can do better things next time. And so it continues...
When Republicans controlled the Congress, they took their power as a mandate to pass measures that were reactionary, hateful, unconstitutional, irresponsible, and opportunistic. This Democratic Congress, in contrast, has done nothing meaningful whatsoever for its base. They're so afraid of losing their majority that they're afraid to use it. And to highlight their timidity, they pass this very questionable measure, rather than do anything else they could be doing, because President Bust said to. The Democrats are too scared to do what the country needs; the Republicans, in the minority, led by a president with a 30% approval rating, get what they want.
Check how your Senators voted. As for mine, Jon Tester voted against the bill, Max Baucus (scared to death of losing a re-election campaign) voted for it. Obama voted nay, Clinton abstained.
Democrats run the Senate. Nominally. Since they took power they have proven themselves completely impotent and unwilling to stand up to a reckless president. They'll even claim impotence as an excuse; since they are incapable of amassing the necessary 60 votes to get anything passed, we shouldn't blame them.
This is a smokescreen. What they're refusing to admit, and what the media for some reason keeps giving them a free ride on, is that they have the supreme power not to pass laws. They can choose not to appropriate money for things like the expansion of a war. But it goes beyond money. In today's intelligence legislation, they included the immunity provision even though most Senate Democrats thought it was abominable and ultimately tried to filibuster the bill because of it. So why did the Senate Democratic leadership include it? Because President Bush said he'd veto the bill if they did not include this special measure. Got that? He would veto a bill for no other reason than that it didn't do something extra (and perhaps unconstitutional) that he also wanted done. And the chicken-shit Democrats, rather than stand up to this bullshit, chose not to escalate the tension with the president over something that rhetorically can be connected to national security. It's an election year. We must look tough. We must support the troops. We must be re-elected so we can do better things next time. And so it continues...
When Republicans controlled the Congress, they took their power as a mandate to pass measures that were reactionary, hateful, unconstitutional, irresponsible, and opportunistic. This Democratic Congress, in contrast, has done nothing meaningful whatsoever for its base. They're so afraid of losing their majority that they're afraid to use it. And to highlight their timidity, they pass this very questionable measure, rather than do anything else they could be doing, because President Bust said to. The Democrats are too scared to do what the country needs; the Republicans, in the minority, led by a president with a 30% approval rating, get what they want.
Check how your Senators voted. As for mine, Jon Tester voted against the bill, Max Baucus (scared to death of losing a re-election campaign) voted for it. Obama voted nay, Clinton abstained.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Why I'm Voting for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton
I'm not willing to settle for a mediocre Democratic president if we have the viable option of a great Democratic president.
1) Obama will be viable in the general election. Polls show that he fares better than Hillary in head to head matchups against every prospective Republican contender. He appeals more to independents and to self-identifying liberals. Hillary commands the votes of those who first and foremost identify with the Democratic Party establishment. For this reason, I believe, she also attracts much higher negative ratings in polls.
2) More importantly: words matter.
Americans love to rank things. Colleges. Sports teams. Sexiest people alive. When we rank our past presidents, as we inevitably do, we consistently choose the same man as the Greatest. Over the past century, we've come to the consensus that Abraham Lincoln did more for this nation than any other man.
Lincoln's government experience before winning the presidency: 8 years in the Illinois House of Representatives, and a single term in the U.S. House.
Other experience: lawyer.
What's on his memorial: his two greatest speeches (two of the greatest ever given).
Lincoln was an amazing president because he could unite the nation around great ideas, centered on hope, destiny, the hand of God, and the redemption of a nation. He convinced longtime opponents to work together in his cabinet, he was gracious, solemn, funny, and he channeled for embattled Americans the grave hope that we could one day reunite as one people.
His management of the war was hardly exemplary. Completely unready to "Lead on Day One", he let General McClellan and others get away with far too many defeats. I can only imagine what it must have been like to pick up a newspaper in those days and read of the abysmal failures of Lincoln's latest general. The war dragged on; far more people died than had to.
But Lincoln accomplished what his political opponents would not have: national reunification. How did he do it? With words. Words that still penetrate through history and shake us with righteous morality.
Lincoln's great challenge was a single great war. Alas, our world has grown more complex, and a great war overseas is today but one issue on a presidential agenda. However, we should not fool ourselves. Our response, as a people, to the challenges before us carry as much existential import to the future of America as the Civil War did in Lincoln's term. In times that test the soul of our nation, we should turn to a man with the power to unite us. We should turn to an orator.
1) Obama will be viable in the general election. Polls show that he fares better than Hillary in head to head matchups against every prospective Republican contender. He appeals more to independents and to self-identifying liberals. Hillary commands the votes of those who first and foremost identify with the Democratic Party establishment. For this reason, I believe, she also attracts much higher negative ratings in polls.
2) More importantly: words matter.
Americans love to rank things. Colleges. Sports teams. Sexiest people alive. When we rank our past presidents, as we inevitably do, we consistently choose the same man as the Greatest. Over the past century, we've come to the consensus that Abraham Lincoln did more for this nation than any other man.
Lincoln's government experience before winning the presidency: 8 years in the Illinois House of Representatives, and a single term in the U.S. House.
Other experience: lawyer.
What's on his memorial: his two greatest speeches (two of the greatest ever given).
Lincoln was an amazing president because he could unite the nation around great ideas, centered on hope, destiny, the hand of God, and the redemption of a nation. He convinced longtime opponents to work together in his cabinet, he was gracious, solemn, funny, and he channeled for embattled Americans the grave hope that we could one day reunite as one people.
His management of the war was hardly exemplary. Completely unready to "Lead on Day One", he let General McClellan and others get away with far too many defeats. I can only imagine what it must have been like to pick up a newspaper in those days and read of the abysmal failures of Lincoln's latest general. The war dragged on; far more people died than had to.
But Lincoln accomplished what his political opponents would not have: national reunification. How did he do it? With words. Words that still penetrate through history and shake us with righteous morality.
Lincoln's great challenge was a single great war. Alas, our world has grown more complex, and a great war overseas is today but one issue on a presidential agenda. However, we should not fool ourselves. Our response, as a people, to the challenges before us carry as much existential import to the future of America as the Civil War did in Lincoln's term. In times that test the soul of our nation, we should turn to a man with the power to unite us. We should turn to an orator.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Voting Strategically
I'm so used to voting strategically by now that I wonder if I'm starting to forget what I stand for.
I saw a Kucinich bumper sticker just now -- you know, "Strength through Peace." And I thought, "Yeah!" Isn't peace just an unarguably good thing? Why aren't any other presidential candidates talking about it? Because it doesn't sound "tough", that's why. Candidates, if they're "serious", have to be tough on this, tough on that. The amazing thing is that this essential quality of toughness is really a hanger-on from the 1950's when the crucial thing was to determine who would be toughest on communism. We still have this image of our President being in some sort of negotiation with the president of another country, and the tenor of his (translated) words, the look on his face, will make all the difference. He must never back down.
Of course, no one can picture Dennis Kucinich making Nikita Khrushchev crap his pants. And so we don't vote for him.
Nevertheless, Kucinich represents the values want in a President, far better than my stated choice, Obama, does (at least publicly). So as an exercise in honesty, I will hereby declare what I support, even though I'm not always going to vote for it:
Maybe I can use this list as a blueprint for further posts...
I saw a Kucinich bumper sticker just now -- you know, "Strength through Peace." And I thought, "Yeah!" Isn't peace just an unarguably good thing? Why aren't any other presidential candidates talking about it? Because it doesn't sound "tough", that's why. Candidates, if they're "serious", have to be tough on this, tough on that. The amazing thing is that this essential quality of toughness is really a hanger-on from the 1950's when the crucial thing was to determine who would be toughest on communism. We still have this image of our President being in some sort of negotiation with the president of another country, and the tenor of his (translated) words, the look on his face, will make all the difference. He must never back down.
Of course, no one can picture Dennis Kucinich making Nikita Khrushchev crap his pants. And so we don't vote for him.
Nevertheless, Kucinich represents the values want in a President, far better than my stated choice, Obama, does (at least publicly). So as an exercise in honesty, I will hereby declare what I support, even though I'm not always going to vote for it:
- abortion on demand
- unlimited legal immigration
- peace over war, almost always
- marriage for anyone who wants it, including polygamy (uncoerced, not like FLDS does)
- power to the states to control guns
- internationalism (a renewed commitment to international institutions and treaties)
- freedom of drug use
- free trade (getting rid of export subsidies, tariffs, etc.)
- fair trade (build workers' rights, the environment, etc. into every free trade agreement)
- a tight cap-and-trade system for GHG's
- higher and higher gasoline and diesel taxes, giving alternatives a chance to break in
- putting Yucca Mountain to use, but disallowing any more nuclear power plants until the waste issue is solved
- freedom of suicide for the terminally ill
- affordable health care, but with fewer resources going toward end-of-life care
- assumption of consent for organ donation
- real commitment to the long-term health of Social Security, Medicare, and other "entitlement" programs
- unilateral nuclear disarmament
- making executions humane, if not abolishing them
- wide-reaching laws for government transparency
- full protection from search and seizure without probable cause or a court-issued warrant
- an end to CAFO's
- aggressive protection of public lands, air, water, and endangered species
- true aid to developing nations, to make them less, not more, reliant on us
- high taxes on wealth, low taxes on corporations and small businesses
- stringent separation of church and state -- especially in matters of science and education
Maybe I can use this list as a blueprint for further posts...
Friday, January 4, 2008
In Defense of Unfair Primaries
Looks like the New York Times is the latest to argue for a revamped primary process. This talk is based on a common complaint that comes up every year: Why do Iowans and New Hampshirites get do decide who the party nominates? Why not me? New Yorkers and Louisianans deserve an equal vote.
Two new processes have been proposed to make the system more fair:
1) Divide the states into regional blocs. All states in the bloc vote on the same night. Rotate the order of the blocs each election cycle.
2) Divide the states into blocs based on population. All states in the bloc vote on the same night. The small-state blocs vote before the large-state blocs.
And that's all well and good. The first plan would introduce a new kind of caprice into the process, since the nomination could hang on which regions come early in the rotation for that election year. But it's harly less capricious than the current system.
More importantly, these new processes, and the complaint of unfairness upon which they are founded, miss the point of what a primary should be designed to do. "One man, one vote" is a fundamental principle of a democratic election, it is true. But these are not elections to office, they are merely contests for nomination, in which the U.S. government plays no active role. Therefore, a different principle than "one man, one vote" applies in this instance: freedom of association.
These are parties, not governments. If you believe that your party should do everything lawful, honorable, and honest in its power to win the presidential election and elect someone who generally agrees with your positions on the issues, you should also believe the party should set up primaries to do the following:
1) Minimize party infighting and unify the party around a candidate.
2) Maximize the likelihood that the the winner of the primaries will beat the nominee of the opposing party.
3) Generate fanfare and excitement about the process, the party, the choices, and the nominee.
The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries accomplish these objectives very, very well. By holding them in relatively conservative states, the party increases the likelihood of a moderate, electable candidate. The early primaries do an incredible job of narrowing the field and fostering unity absolutely as soon as is practical. And whatever you say about the Iowa caucuses, you can't say they don't produce a truly incredible amount of fanfare.
I don't see the new proposals accomplishing these objectives as well. Particularly, the regional-bloc solution would do a horrible job of uniting the party, and could even splinter it (informally, of course). Plus, it makes no sense to have NY, MA, and ME making the first choice -- ever. As much as I'm an Edmund Muskie fan, it makes no sense from here on out. The population-bloc proposal would give excessive sway to libertarian states, to the disadvantage of the sort of populist campaign (or even establishment campaign) that normally does better. By having lots of states making different decisions at the same time, the party would be reducing the chance of unity and increasing the chances of a brokered convention -- historically very divisive and opaque ways of making nominations.
The current process is not perfect. Especially after this cycle, it's clear it needs tinkering. The front-loading and early-February clumping need to go, and maybe the parties should introduce some rotation into the schedule. Minor changes to keep it fresh without messing too much with what works.
I live in Montana, and I'm a Democrat. I vote at the butt end of the primary season: June 3, the same as South Dakota. My vote will mean less than my emails to comments@whitehouse.gov. Yes, the primary calendar is unfair. I just care more about electing a Democrat.
Two new processes have been proposed to make the system more fair:
1) Divide the states into regional blocs. All states in the bloc vote on the same night. Rotate the order of the blocs each election cycle.
2) Divide the states into blocs based on population. All states in the bloc vote on the same night. The small-state blocs vote before the large-state blocs.
And that's all well and good. The first plan would introduce a new kind of caprice into the process, since the nomination could hang on which regions come early in the rotation for that election year. But it's harly less capricious than the current system.
More importantly, these new processes, and the complaint of unfairness upon which they are founded, miss the point of what a primary should be designed to do. "One man, one vote" is a fundamental principle of a democratic election, it is true. But these are not elections to office, they are merely contests for nomination, in which the U.S. government plays no active role. Therefore, a different principle than "one man, one vote" applies in this instance: freedom of association.
These are parties, not governments. If you believe that your party should do everything lawful, honorable, and honest in its power to win the presidential election and elect someone who generally agrees with your positions on the issues, you should also believe the party should set up primaries to do the following:
1) Minimize party infighting and unify the party around a candidate.
2) Maximize the likelihood that the the winner of the primaries will beat the nominee of the opposing party.
3) Generate fanfare and excitement about the process, the party, the choices, and the nominee.
The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries accomplish these objectives very, very well. By holding them in relatively conservative states, the party increases the likelihood of a moderate, electable candidate. The early primaries do an incredible job of narrowing the field and fostering unity absolutely as soon as is practical. And whatever you say about the Iowa caucuses, you can't say they don't produce a truly incredible amount of fanfare.
I don't see the new proposals accomplishing these objectives as well. Particularly, the regional-bloc solution would do a horrible job of uniting the party, and could even splinter it (informally, of course). Plus, it makes no sense to have NY, MA, and ME making the first choice -- ever. As much as I'm an Edmund Muskie fan, it makes no sense from here on out. The population-bloc proposal would give excessive sway to libertarian states, to the disadvantage of the sort of populist campaign (or even establishment campaign) that normally does better. By having lots of states making different decisions at the same time, the party would be reducing the chance of unity and increasing the chances of a brokered convention -- historically very divisive and opaque ways of making nominations.
The current process is not perfect. Especially after this cycle, it's clear it needs tinkering. The front-loading and early-February clumping need to go, and maybe the parties should introduce some rotation into the schedule. Minor changes to keep it fresh without messing too much with what works.
I live in Montana, and I'm a Democrat. I vote at the butt end of the primary season: June 3, the same as South Dakota. My vote will mean less than my emails to comments@whitehouse.gov. Yes, the primary calendar is unfair. I just care more about electing a Democrat.
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