Barney Frank Prangs a Pawn

Today Barney Frank went off on a Town Hall Meeting goon-ette who was comparing the Demos to Nazis.

I can understand Frank taking offense at being a Jew being denounced as a Nazi. Hard to resist squishing the peabrained ranter, as he did.

But. Just to be Mr. Buzzkill...the lady's a pawn, albeit a noisy one. The real question is what hand moved this pawn--and many millions of other pawns who have acquired similar beliefs--and did Frank's response do anything about the hand guiding the pawns?

I suspect not.

Moreover, though the pawn's conclusions endanger society, her sense of endangerment is quite real.

The genius of the Republican Noise Machine, the most visible arm of the Angry Billionaire's Club, is to strip Americans of many of the protections and security they once had, then persuade people like Pawn-lady that the people trying to save them are actually the ones who put them in danger.

Meanwhile the Democrats, entangled in their own extracurricular obligations, fight the Noise Machine about as effectively as John Kerry did. Maybe Obama has a brilliant game plan he's executing, but so far he seems to be replicating Kerry's deer-in-headlights response--perhaps stunned, as Kerry was, by the sheer no-holds-barred antipatriotic viciousness of the attacks. I'd hoped for a better streetfighter.

What makes conservatives tick

At President Obama's healthcare town hall meeting about healthcare in Bozeman, Montana, one of the questioners in the audience challenged the President about how he was going to pay for everything, speaking slowly and clearly in a thick Western accent, bluntly telling him he and his people were lying about where the money was going to come from, namely, out of this guy's pockets.

Most liberals haven't the foggiest about what goes on in the mind of someone like this. They dismiss him as an ignorant hick and his concerns as racist. He, in turn, bristles at the total invalidation of his existence and concerns by Lib-er-uls, confirming the Republican accusation of "class war."

I'll help.

Everyone--whatever their politics are--wants self respect. Dignity. A sense of being in control of his life. No one wants to be a helpless slave who can't even figure out what's going on, much less have a say in it. And beyond his own individual concerns, everyone wants his tribe to have what the Germans call lebensraum--a place in the sun.

From this guy's viewpoint, the Democrats promise to strip him of all of that, and hand over his rights to people who neither look nor act like him.

And unfortunately the Democrats have played into this vision. Of course it doesn't help that the Democratic president isn't white and isn't (in these people's minds) American. But even if he were a white all-American guy, it is a fact that the Democratic Party has done everything in its power to confirm the picture the GOP paints of them. Support for illegal immigrants coupled with chasing after every group that isn't white guys from small town America has confirmed the GOP stereotype.

This distrust of a Democratic president was established long before Barry Obama was even a candidate.

How to fight fair--and make the other side fight fair as well

Watching politics is like watching a no-rules cage fight. Even if you want to fight fair, the other side's tactics are likely to rile you--to want to fight fire with fire.

But. You have to decide whether you want to win debates or change people's minds. I can win debates--I'm verbally agile, and I'm not easily daunted. But so what? What good is it to win a debate if the other side goes away seething? If they do, they'll only rationalize away what just happened, and tomorrow they'll vote the way you don't want them to, and they'll help persuade others to vote that way as well.

On the other hand, if you get in the ring with bare hands against someone with a baseball bat, you won't be happy with that outcome either.

The Way is to keep the other side from getting away with playing dirty--without playing dirty yourself. Then you have a chance to change minds, to at least get them to recognize your side as having some kind of validity.

As it stands, much of what is said between Left and Right comes across as an attempt to invalidate the worth and meaning of the other side. Each side constantly uses language and makes accusations that the other side finds deeply offensive, one-sided, and unfair.

You have to validate the other side's world up front. Otherwise you might as well just talk to yourself and those who already agree with you. That doesn't mean you have to agree with their world. But if you can satisfy the other side that you understand where they're coming from; understand the fears and desires that generate their politics--then there's a chance that they'll listen to you.

It's not easy to validate someone you disagree with deeply. Frankly, most people just can't do it. They feel like they're being a traitor to their own side if they do so. But I put it to you that you're being a traitor to your own side if you don't. After all, we are just one nation. All those blue state-red state maps are misleading--you'll find that each side has substantial minorities, even in each other's bastion. I live in one of the bluest parts of one of the bluest states in America--yet I'm acquainted with hundreds of Republicans living here.

You may have noticed that I haven't talked about this from a "lets whup those Republicans" or "let's whup those Democrats."

That's because I want both sides to fight fair. I believe the Republicans play dirtier than the Democrats, but my Republican spouse is equally convinced that the Democrats play dirtier than the Republicans. What any rational observer should agree with, though, is that both sides fight dirty, which the heinousness of it is subject to disagreement.

Here I'm going to list words and phrases used by one side to defeat the other side. This should be equally useful to Democrats and Republicans. You may learn how the other side reacts when you use certain loaded terms you're fond of--and should give up in "interfaith" discussions at least. And you may learn how to defend yourself and your side against the loaded terms they're fond of.

Trick term What it really means, and how to combat it

anti-immigrant --What the Left calls anyone who opposes illegal immigration or
chain migration, or who wants the anchor baby loophole eliminated,
or who favors any limits on legal immigration, such as favoring those
with skills we need and those fluent in English.
This is conflation. You discredit your opponent's position by lumping it in
with something that's less popular.

But there's an even subtler piece of trickery here. They never say you're
"anti-immigration," since that invokes principle. Instead they personalize
it by stating that you're "anti-immigrant." The implication: you hate these
people. Probably because they aren't "white." Whereas if you're "anti-
immigration" that could lead to discussing how CEOs exploit illegal
immigrants to drive down wages and bust unions. It's hard for a leftist to
argue with that, whereas it's easy to focus on those poor, needy Mexicans
who are just trying to feed their families, yada yada.

So when you're discussing/arguing immigration, don't let them pull this
trick. Challenge them on it before letting them go on. You could do so by
saying "I never said I was anti-immigrant. So why are you putting words
in my mouth?" Make them explain how they jumped to this conclusion
instead of trying to defend yourself. They are fighting dirty, and deserve
to called on that.

racist --What the Left calls anyone who opposes unlimited immigration,
illegal immigration, too much immigration by those with neither training,
education, English language skills, or money, use of languages other than
English for official government business (including on ballots), elimination
of race-based quotas and preferences, affection for traditional American
culture, any and all resistance to replacing American culture by others
within America, and any discussion of overpopulation.

This is usually effective, so it's usually used. People get so unhinged by
being accused of racism that they immediately forget the actual topic of
the argument and allow the Leftist to switch the topic to whether you're
racist. You must resist this and say "'Why are you trying to change the
subject? Can't you defend your position?"

You can legitimately raise the issue of someone's character if their
argument is some version of "trust me." If it's not--if it's based on reason
and externally verifiable facts--then it's irrelevant. Say you are a racist.
And you claim "Most illegal immigrants are Mexicans." Does that prove
that most illegal immigrants aren't Mexican? It does mean that I can't
take your word for it. But if you follow up by citing various polls and
surveys that enjoy widespread legitimacy among knowledgeable
observers, then the test of your argument isn't who you are but whether
your sources are solid.

So if you want to be nicer, you can say "You have a right to question my
character if my argument depends on my character. You don't if my
argument depends on sources and logic that anyone can verify. And I
haven't asked you to trust me. So you don't have a right to attack my
character as a way to discredit my argument. Have you conceded that my
side is right about [whatever you were discussing], and now want to
change the subject to my character? Or to your assumption that you are
morally superior to me?

The Left abandoned overpopulation as an issue when most overpopulation
started coming from non-Anglo/European groups. So now when you bring
it up as a desperately important issue, you're likely to be called a racist for
doing so. You can use the approaches I just described, but in addition you
can point out that the most suffering caused by overpopulation is
experienced by non-Anglo/European groups. So avoiding the topic can
be attacked at racist--of Volvo Liberals, enjoying their advanced nation
comforts, inadvertently making things worse.

nativist --the Left uses this term to describe anyone who dares to like Anglo-
American culture, and who objects to its wholesale replacement across
swathes of the Southwest by Mexican culture.

Back in the 19th century, the original nativists objected to the new waves
of non-Anglo Protestant immigration coming from southern Europe,
Ireland, and, in the West, from China. The objections included physical
attacks on members of these groups.

Today's traditional American culture includes elements adopted from all
these waves of immigration. Is pizza really foreign food any more? Is St.
Patrick's Day a foreign festival? America may well be the world's most
genuinely multicultural country today.

So what's wrong with adding a few honest, hardworking Mexicans to the
mix, the Left says. Some go on to exult in whites probably becoming a
minority in a few decades, and how wonderful that will be, and how evil
whites are (whites who aren't them at least), and thus deserve to die out.
I've seen this first-hand.

People who oppose anything not of their own traditional culture are
nativists, & you can find people like that everywhere, though more in
ethnically pure provincial enclaves than in urban areas. I suppose the
ultimate nativists are the Taliban and Al Queda.

It's one thing to call the Taliban nativists--it's another to call those who
object to ethnic cleansing nativists. And what's going on in areas of the
Southwest are just that, with the main victims being lower-class blacks
and whites.

So if someone calls you a nativist as a way to refute your arguments,
the main argument is not to let them change the subject. Your motives
are a different topic. If they want to change the topic to both side's
motives, well, that could be an interesting conversation. I've long
wondered whether the most dedicated leftists had tyrannical parents,
and it would be interesting to explore that. And also why people who are
so quick to call the other side names like racist, nativist etc., practically
worship an organization whose name translated into English means "The
Race."

Socialist --what the Right call any involvement of government in business.
Actually it means ownership of business by government. What I want to
know is what do you call ownership of government by business? Because
that seems to be what the far Right stands for.

more later

Why Americans distrust government

Americans distrust government because of King George.

I got this off some show on NPR. America was founded on distrust of government, courtesy of a crazy king out of touch with his people in America.

Our own first government was essentially a confederation--the least amount of government possible. Turned out it was less than possible, however. So we reluctantly settled on the current setup. But that strain of distrusting government is in our DNA--especially in the South, thanks to the Civil War--and that's extra government-distrusting DNA for Southerners, with the vast majority Republican, and the dominant force in today's Republican Party.

Plus, when our Republic was founded the average American was a farmer with little need of government, apart from fighting foreign wars.

Um, that's changed somewhat. But when you hear protestors at Town Hall meetings expressing their distrust of government, they've got historical reasons for their distrust.

The problem today is that government always needs to be strong enough to protect individual citizens from being oppressed, but no stronger, lest it become the oppressor, as is true in many third world countries.

That said, if the gangbangers invading your neighborhood are toting assault rifles and wearing bulletproof vests, the police won't have a chance with service revolvers and blue shirts. If the entity taking advantage of you is a bank or a corporation polluting your groundwater...or a local city with a yellow light trap (intersection with a camera and yellow lights timed to produce lawbreakers)...you need more government to protect you than a rural 18th century farmer needed. Not just better-armed, but more sophisticated as well.

Right wing pundits keep evoking the independent farmer of two centuries ago. Such farmers wanted nothing more than for King George to get off their backs. It's a powerful message for Americans. But today the true nature of this powerful message is to get you to voluntarily renounce all forms of protection against everyone who seeks to rob you, whether by "six gun" or "fountain pen."

Conservatives need to acknowledge the fact that they simply need more government than we used to. Liberals need to acknowledge that this desire for self-sufficiency and independence has honorable roots, even if it isn't as possible now.

Conservatives, liberals...and scuba diving

Most comparisons between liberals and conservatives are aimed at proving that one or the other is in the wrong on all things always.

I disagree. Instead let me offer up...scuba diving as a way to understand the difference.

I'm a scuba diver. If you're not, and you're a liberal, your reaction is likely to be "Wow--I'd like to try that sometime. Sounds exciting." If you're a conservative, your reaction is likely to be "I like watching undersea stuff on the Discovery Channel, but that sounds really dangerous. Aren't you worried about sharks?"

Neither of those reactions is wrong. Scuba diving is a lot more dangerous than walking through a garden. And while it is exciting to try, people prone to panic shouldn't do it. Nor should those with certain medical conditions.

So I tell people good scuba divers are a blend of liberal and conservative, actually. Divers have to be both adventurous and methodical. Those who are adventurous without being methodical soon die, to put it simply. OTOH, those who are methodical without being adventurous just stay home and watch the Discovery Channel.

And while you're diving, you have to constantly monitor your nitrogen absorption, amount of air remaining, ascent rate, condition of your ears and other organs, water temperature, currents, surge, where your dive buddy is and how he/she is doing, possible dangerous critters/conditions nearby, and more. Good divers deal with all this through thorough training, so we can also enjoy the dive--the purpose of all that preparation and work.

So while diving might seem to be a liberal activity--the adventurer/explorer thing--you won't survive unless you dive like a conservative--the methodical/careful/detail-oriented thing.

And not only are good divers a blend, so is a good electorate, and for similar reasons.

With one caution: as someone said, when you're on thin ice, the prudent thing to do is run like hell!

Thus I think Obama actually did the prudent, conservative thing with the huge trillion-dollar bailout; as did the Fed.

After the stock market crash of 1929, the Hoover administration did what seemed to them to be the prudent, conservative thing, prioritizing keeping down inflation and debt. But it turned out that while those are the prudent things to do in normal times--and I agree that they are--they aren't, and weren't, the prudent things to do after a crash.

This runs counter to a conservative's intuition, so I sympathize with conservatives' extremely suspicious reaction to what the Obama administration is doing. But our instincts were honed in simpler circumstances, and they sometimes mislead us.

So when you're talking with conservative friends and relatives, agree with them that in normal times we need to balance the budget and keep down inflation. That way you establish a point of common agreement. Then go and build as much common agreement as you can before you get to the things you disagree about.

I'd go so far as to say that conservative (not Conservative, but actually conservative) principles should always be considered in politics.

And then, when you're about to dive into controversy, see if you can get them to agree with the thin ice analogy--that sometimes the conservative thing to do is to act quickly, as when the house is on fire, or there's an earthquake. And this was a financial earthquake.

Lastly, for conservatives reading this--most of what I said applies in the other direction when you're talking to liberal friends and relatives. It is liberal--if not Liberal--t0 take the other side's points seriously. We are talking about a major revision to our healthcare system. Personally I think we need to do it, since the current system isn't sustainable economically. But that's no excuse to be blithe about it.

Neither side should resort to namecalling, even though this is something we all feel very strongly about--because this is something we all feel very strongly about. And the best way to do that in either direction is to start by seeking common ground. A good start might be to denounce undemocratic actions by both sides.

No government works exactly like anyone would like it to. But imperfect as it is, it beats no government. If you don't think so, move to Somalia for a month.

Urge your conservative relatives to keep watching Fox News

One commentor to one of my posts said:

>>I hope you don't mind if I use some things you said...my parents are Republicans but open to Democratic ideas. They just need to stop watching Fox News. <<

But actually you should encourage them to keep watching Fox News--but then to go to www.Factcheck.org and www.Politifact.com for a reality check.

Offer to watch a show they watch onc day and record it. Then do the factchecking yourself as well.

Make your central point not that Fox News isn't liberal...duh. Make it that Fox News isn't conservative either.

After all, it's not conservative to lie. It's not conservative to shill for special interests--especially when those special interests' interests directly oppose the interests of your relatives. And it's not conservative to be divisive--to constantly seek to make half the country hate the other half...to get close to incitement to riot.

It's conservative to be traditional, to question change, to value decorum and law and order, to be wary about new things. That's not bad. We need people in society to do that so we don't go chasing off after every novelty. Just as we need liberals to keep exploring the new things and report back on what seems to work.

Don't ask your relatives to become liberal. Ask them to become conservative...that is, to be true to conservative principles. When right wing loons disrupt town hall meetings and shout down the other side--how is that conservative? Don't let your relatives defend this with claims about Democratic healthcare reform proposals--they may be right about that, they may be not, but it's a different topic.

A true conservative won't "take it to the streets" unless all forms of redress within the system have been denied him. The voices on the radio say this is exactly the case, but they lie of course. Hoots and catcalls and shouting downing--this must make your conservative relatives shudder. As well they should, because it goes against their principles.

This is a wedge you can use to show how their beloved party has been taken over by the loons.

Look at the public works and the progressive taxation under Eisenhower. Ask what happened to the party of Eisenhower.

Finally, point out how in previous campaigns the Republican Party kept pointing out how personal character was a good guide to deciding who to vote for. They did this especially when Bill Clinton was running and during his presidency, due to his notorious zipper problem.

Yet they're strangely fallen silent about personal virtue today. Possibly because so many prominent Republicans who bragged so loudly about their own virtue got caught with their own pants down--literally. And possibly because the current president's personal life is exactly what conservatives say should be the personal life of a public official.

Obama is undeniably a family man. He loves his wife and children and they love him. He has never strayed--not a hint of scandal in his family life. Nor has he been divorced and remarried, like, for example, Newt Gingrich and John McCain--and so many other prominent GOP officials.

If personal virtue is a guide to public trust when the Democratic president is a bit of a stray cat at home, then personal virtue should be a guide to public trust when the Democratic president is exactly the kind of family man conservatives admire.

See the pattern? Honor your relatives' conservative principles. Praise them for being personally trustworthy. Admit that society needs them, and point to the times in your life that their solidity was a boon to you. Then make them apply those conservative principles to politics, instead of the tribal principles Fox News encourages (i.e., anything my people do is OK and justifiable, no matter how heinous, while anything the other side does isn't OK even when it is OK).

Now go out and talk to Uncle Jack! He'll thank you someday.

BTW the whole point of this blog is to help people talk with zealots--both right and left.

healthcare reform and small businesses

One thing this mega-recession has proven conclusively is the irrationality of \"the market.\" Same here. Most small businesses will benefit from the healthcare reform currently in the works, yet I'd wager most small business owners think destruction awaits them.

They're wrong, but don't believe me--or anyone else with an axe to grind. If you get most of your information and talking points from partisan media, you're part of the problem. I don't care whether you're a Democrat like me or a Republican like my spouse.

And it's so easy to factcheck the claims made by both sides. Start with www.factcheck.org and wwww.politifact.com. The former has established itself as a well-funded, scrupulously nonpartisan source of truth about politicians' claims, and Politifact won a Pulitzer this year, and is just as nonpartisan. It has the added benefit of gauging not just truth or falsehood, but everything in between.

Politifact has revealed many an untruth or half-truth on the Demos' side, from Obama on down. But it's the Republican side's claims about healthcare reform that so often fall in the whopper \"pants on fire\" category.

It's like comparing an airport pickpocket with Al Capone, like comparing someone who's sliming you vs. someone who's coming at you with a chainsaw.

So even though there are no pure angels in this debate, overall, small businesses are better off siding with the Demos--and putting in their constructive two cents' worth on what they need from healthcare reform instead of blindly opposing everything.

As for the Republican Party...it was once a conservative organization, in the actual dictionary meaning of the word \"conservative.\" It was the party of Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Now both would be drummed out of the party. It has ethnically cleansed itself of centrists. The Demos are, speaking exactly, the distinct lesser of two evils.

One last point: did anyone notice there are other industrialized democracies on this planet--every single one of which has a more universal, more cost-effective healthcare system than us?

If we did nothing else but adopt any one of these countries' proven systems we'd probably do better than anything either of our parties has cooked up.

Take the Netherlands' system. It's based on heavily regulated private health insurance. Their citizens pay half what we pay for healthcare, even though their poorest are subsidized. Their population lives longer and healthier. And every single citizen of their country has their own private physician.

By the way, have you noticed that not one of these other democracies' electorates have dumped their system in favor of ours? Vast majorities of voters in all these countries overwhelmingly prefer their systems to ours. Some are socialized, some just regulated. Yet all beat ours. Every single one.

The Republican ads would have you believe these folks are praying for our system.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Healthcare reform

My fellow Democrats: We're in for the fight of our lives. I know more about what we're up against than most Democrats, because I'm married to a staunch Republican, attend a church that's 90+% Republican, and have many friends among them. I'm also a sociologist by training and a debater by practice.

Based on all this, here's some heartfelt advice:

1. Don't call them racists.

It's a Rovian trap to do so--one set by the Republican leadership and their healthcare denial industry paymasters. They never, ever say \"We hate Obama because he's black,\" even if everything they do would make it reasonable to think so.

But when you call them racists, you've just changed the topic from healthcare reform to a territory they can defend. And while you're trying to prove they're racists, the RNC will be rubbing its hands, as the topic of healthcare is forgotten.

2. Don't let them call Obama and the Democratic Party and you socialists.

And they will. Count on it. I usually say: \"Socialism means ownership of business by government. Democrats don't want to own it. We just want to regulate it. We tried business without regulation twice in the last century. It got us the Great Depression and now the worst recession since that. But help me out. Republicans seem to want ownership of government by business. What do you call that?\"

And as Krugman points out, they don't want \"socialized healthcare\" but they're often on Medicare.

The other advanced countries--all democracies--have everything ranging from heavily regulated private systems to mostly socialized ones. All of them are far cheaper than our system; all of them have better health outcomes than our system. And not one of those countries' electorates have ever shown the slightest interest in adopting our system.

Guess why? They don't want to die while some for-profit insurance company denies your request for a new kidney, hoping that if they slow-foot your claim you will in fact die before they're forced to honor it.

And by the way...cops and firemen are \"socialized safety.\"

3. They'll say most Americans are happy with their current healthcare.

I say wait 'till you or a loved one gets really sick. After all, if you ran a health insurance company, and your only goal was profit, what would you do when a customer got really, really sick?

You'd get rid of him, using your army of bureaucrats whose main job is to find excuses for recission--that's cutting off someone's insurance by saying you didn't dot an \"i\" somewhere on your application.

That's why I call these companies the \"Healthcare denial industry.\" Very few people who've actually had catastrophic illness are happy with their healthcare insurance. And even those who say they're happy may not have noticed how their healthcare premiums have doubled in the last few years, because it's why you didn't get a raise--it's often hidden in your overall compensation.

4. They'll say they don't want the government telling them when to die, and as Krugman points out, even Republican congressmen are saying this.

People this far gone can rarely be reached, but I just say \"The people you think are on your side are actually vampires sucking your blood; the people you think are out to destroy you and America are actually trying to save you--and you're throwing away the life vest they've thrown you because the predators pretending to be your friends told you it's a bomb.\"

Bottom line: the Republican healthcare plan is the alternative to the Democrats' attempt at healthcare reform. What's that plan, you say? Easy. It's the healthcare reform plan Congress passed during the 12 years the Republican Party controlled Congress and the six years it controlled all three branches of government:

[nothing]

That's right, folks. That's their healthcare reform package. Nothing. Excuse me if I don't include their pharmaceutical industry giveaway that masqueraded as Medicare drug assistance. Other than that phony plan that ordered government agencies to pay whatever price the drug companies chose to charge...nothing.

The healthcare denial industry has grown to swallow up 1/6 of the entire American economy, gutting our competitiveness on the world market, through keeping things exactly as they are. Without healthcare reform the current system will take up 1/3 of the entire economy in a few years.

It's unsustainable. You think Medicare and Social Security are headed for trouble? That's nothing compared to this.

Most of all, the Republicans want their rank and file to think we Democrats are their enemy; that we want to turn America into some alien place they won't recognize.

And they want Democrats to treat Republican rank and file as their enemy, so we'll never realize we both have the same enemy: the bloodsucking billionaires who pull the strings in the shadows. They're practising divide and conquer. And they're very, very good at it.

So remember who the real enemy is.

more on birthers

Have you ever crafted a long, detailed response to a comment thread for a column in a major newspaper, only to find the comments were closed just before you hit the Send button?

That just happened to me. It was a Washington Post column by Eugene Robinson titled "The Berserk Birthers" from Tuesday, August 4, 2009. If you look at the most recent page of comments before they closed it, you'll recognize the names I refer to here. But they're interchangeable, really, because there are only a handful of approaches the birthers use, and I think I've tackled them all here:

I assume that williepet1, ekim53, JustTruthPIs, workingclassslave, FactandTruth—and all their ilk—are patriotic Americans who want the best for our nation and sincerely believe what they're saying here.

So why do they believe this stuff? I'm still puzzling over this. Perhaps it's a need for "inside knowledge." Throughout human history otherwise intelligent people have fallen for some charlatan promising secret knowledge hidden from the rest of us. But I can't read my buddy's mind, so really I'm only speculating.

My spouse is a diehard Republican but doesn’t believe this stuff, so I can't ask her, and at the church we attend—which is probably 90% Republican—I get the impression that only a handful are birthers. But these are urban Republicans living in a college town in coastal California, mostly with advanced degrees. So they're not your typical redneck right winger.

What I do know is that the Republican Party leadership is pushing this (under the table of course, to keep their hands clean), and their most partisan adherents are running with it.

I wish they could trust FactCheck.org, a scrupulously nonpartisan Annenberg Foundation website. No partisan Democrat would think FactCheck leans left. For example, they detailed any number of "factual errors" and spin in Obama's claims about his healthcare proposals. Anyone who checks their back issues will see them tear into everyone from both parties' leadership down to Congressmens' campaigns on both sides--when the campaigns say things that just aren't so.

For Obama's birth, FactCheck.org actually flew staffers to Hawaii to inspect the original documents and supporting materials. Anyone who wants to can check all this out on their site. They've also detailed how the birthers' claims mutate constantly as fact-checking journalists research and debunk one claim after another. They're like the AIDS virus, which also mutates constantly to avoid our immune system's defenses.

Some details:

williepete1 trots out the "he's hiding it" ploy. As if the GOP's opposition researchers wouldn't have attacked Obama's bona fides in the election campaign if there were any truth to it. Yet willipete1 believes he's smarter than all the PhDs and private eyes of the Republican National Committee, amply financed by the Angry Billionaire's Club.

Or maybe williepete1 thinks the RNC and the DNC are in cahoots, guided by the Masons, or the Rothschilds Bank, or the alien entities in the Feds' basement (cue the Twilight Zone music)?

Ekim53 uses the "even if he's legit he's an unpredictable, dangerous socialist." The long-term Republican Party strategy has been to define every single real or potential Democratic presidential candidate as exactly these things, well in advance of the formal election campaign, regardless of who he or she really is.

For example, George McGovern was a war hero. He piloted B24 bombers over Germany for dozens of missions in WWII, while Ronald Regan acted in Hollywood. Yet you'd never know it from the campaigns. Likewise Kerry was a decorated war veteran, while Bush II was a high-class draft dodger. Yet they made McGovern and Kerry into mentally unstable Com-yew-nist America-haters. And the draft dodgers into war-heroes.

Socialists want government to own business. Democrats just want to regulate them—to avoid massive recessions. Republicans want business to own government. What's the name for that?

The fruit of the RNC multigenerational investment in Democrat candidate character assassination is folks like williepete1, who believes the people trying to save him are out to get him, while the people he's defending really are. Apart from the sheer evil of the RNC, you've got to hand it to them—like John Dillenger, they're very good at their work.

JustTruthPIs makes the same claims as williepete1, only with more words. He also had to believe that he's smarter than the entire staff of the Republican National Committee, or that the committee is part of some monstrous conspiracy—possibly to fatten Americans up for aliens' dining pleasure…

Ditto workingclassslave, only snarkier.

Lastly, to FactAndTruth: There is no way anyone can abrogate a natural-born American citizen's citizenship if he's under 18. Not a stepfather. Not another country. No one. This isn't rocket science law—it's basic stuff. Why don't you get it?

Honestly, you need to seek qualified help. Do you have a pastor you can talk to? A sane spouse? As it stands you're embarrassing yourself, and every response just digs the hole you're in deeper.

If you want to get to China, book a flight.

Birthers Shmirthers

It's called Situational Narcissism when someone--usually a CEO or a celebrity--surrounds himself with toadies, and eventually comes to believe he's infallible.

I think political zealots get into a similar state because today you can arrange to get all your news from TV, radio, network and book sources that pander to your biases, be they left wing or right wing.

Once inside the Zealot Zone they egg each other on, spinning more and more outre theories in a race to the ideological bottom (wherein dwell the Birthers).

It really started when Reagan killed the FCC Fairness Doctrine, enabling the spread of right wing radio, funded by the Angry Billionaire's Club.

And though Internet advocates thought it would enhance diversity of information, the exact opposite has happened. It's possible to surround yourself only with sources that agree with you, and demographic movements have also trended toward purer and purer Red and Blue counties across the country.

I've seen this at work. I attended a conservative political forum recently, and afterward people chatted with each other. It was as if they were vying to see how far out their conspiracy theories could be spun.

It was like back fence gossip at its most poisonous.

But it's wrong to focus on the Birthers. They're just the foot soldiers in a long-term strategy by the Angry Billionaire's Club, aimed at delegitimizing not just Obama but all future potential Democratic presidential candidates, and the party's leadership as well.

See, you get to power in America by one of two routes: forge a centrist majority, as Obama did, or build a partisan crusade that demonizes the other side, as Bush 43 did under Carl Rove's tutelage.

The Republicans have evidently chosen the latter as their 2010/2012 strategy.

Do this and you wind up with roughly half the country despising you. But this route's goal is only 50.01% of the vote, and what 49.9% of the country thinks of you doesn't matter in the slightest.

For 2010 the Republicans left in Congress need to keep their seats, which are nearly all in bright Red areas. So for that they've chosen a howling crusade with pitchforks and torches, laying siege to Obama the America-hating foreign mole Antichrist up in the castle.

They do this by attacking the person's strongest points, not his weakest. Obama is a gifted speaker--so you make that seem strange. Like he's a Svengali, and his supporters hypnotized sheeple. He's a better and more devoted family man than a majority of Republican Congressmen. There isn't the faintest whiff of scandal to exploit there, but they can make him seem like a foreign family man with a foreign family, trying to turn America into a foreign country--at least to the party faithful. He tends to give substantive answers, so they paint him as a boring double-dome. They don't attack his nonexistent military record because it's not a strong point, just as they attacked Kerry's because it was.

None of this makes sense if your goal is centrist consensus. But it's perfectly rational if you've rationally chosen a rabidly partisan tack.

Sure, only 28% believe he's a furriner. But many more than that just aren't sure. They're uneasy about him. That's the idea. Make the faithful rabid and the moderates fearful and unsure enough to opt for the devil they know.

You can see the same approach playing out with healthcare reform.

campaign

Who says America's Angry Billionaire's Club is short-sighted? They've invested at least 40 years in a marketing campaign aimed at convincing Americans that government is always the problem, private enterprise always the solution. With healthcare It paid off in 1992, and it's likely to pay off now.

The Angry Billionaire's Club doesn't need any government services, so America doesn't need them.

Evil Republicans

When we Democrats talk about those evil Republicans we're making a big, big mistake. We have to make a clear distinction between the Republican Party leadership and most rank and file Republicans.

I know a lot of Republicans personally, and I've known many of them for decades. Nearly all of them are honest, upright people you could trust with your last dollar. They might not make the best companions for a trip to the Burning Man festival, or to watch some sex/drugs/rock&roll-drenched, plotless avant-garde movie with. But they might be great to go scuba diving with (and I speak from personal experience), or to see a well-made, mainstream PG-13-rated Hollywood movie with. Or to be in a baby-sitting co-op with.

True, they do generally oppose most Democrats on a variety of social and fiscal issues. We are in different parties for real reasons. But few rank-and-file Republicans are out to rob us blind--unlike the GOP leadership.

And when we lump them all together, we reinforce the Republicans' sense of tribe--that America=the Republican tribe, while the Democratics en masse=an occupation of "our" country by people with alien values who hate America and whose leader and representatives must be opposed in every way possible.

When we reinforce this us vs. them mentality, we don't get healthcare reform. We don't get Wall Street reform. Or if we seem to, we get gutted versions of what we really need.

If not for this, there are many issues we could cooperate on, and they'd be more willing to reform their own party. Wouldn't it be great for everyone if the GOP became less like the Party of Palin and more like the Party of Eisenhower?

The first step for Democrats is ceasing to tar all Republicans with the same brush. Always refer to the Republican leadership when that's appropriate. Find the areas of common ground that we share. Republican voters don't want lying, demagoguic leaders shilling for special interests any more than we do. Help them realize our tribe is America, not any political party.

George Washington's farewell address warned the American people about "factions." Prophetic words.

The Most Important Problem on Earth

The Palestinian Problem appears to be the most important issue on Earth to Arab Muslems, Wahhabists and Salafists everywhere, Jews everywhere, and partisan zealots--left and right--in Europe and America.

But in the hierarchy of the world's problems it's a blip, folks.

Even if all the claims of Jewish mistreatment of Palestinians were true, those crimes are dwarfed by what people in power are doing in the eastern Congo, Darfur, Burma, Uganda and many other places. They're also dwarfed by how Muslim parents sexually mutilate their daughters in the millions--literally--across Africa.

Or if you consider sheer suffering, we'd alleviate more by supplying mosquito nets to the regions suffering from malaria and dengue fever than by any sort of settlement in Palestine/Israel.

And if you consider long-term, large-scale dangers to civilization, we should focus on the carbonation of the world's oceans (caused by CO2 dissolving into the water, altering its acidity), which will almost certainly kill off all the world's coral reefs and shellfish within a few decades, an ecocidal catastrophe that will cause immense suffering to vast portions of humanity that depend on those ecosystems for most of their protein.

Throughout the blogosphere partisans fulminate about those wicked Zionists. Those barbaric Palestinians. When the one billion humans who go to sleep every night desperately hungry would think they'd died and gone to heaven if they could live like Palestinians or Israelis.

Above all else, the world contains roughly FIVE BILLION more people than it can actually sustain, and because of this and the unspeakably selfish and shortisighted practices of powerful individuals around the world, Earth is experiencing the largest mass extinction of species since the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs. And if you think that isn't coming back to bite us--even if you only care about humans--you're as shortsighted as the Indonesian and Brazilian agribosses burning down their countries' forests on a vast scale.

So yes, everyone in Israel/Palestine--about the size and population of the San Francisco Bay Area--should learn to get along with each other. But it should be around #100 on everyone's list of 100 Big Problems.

But since so many Arabs believe this is the biggest world problem ever, here's a solution: have the Jews they drove from all the Arab countries with just the clothes on their backs give up their Right of Return to those countries--along with their descendants--in exchange for the Palestinians who were driven from Palestine/Israel giving up their Right of Return. A few more Israelis were dispossessed, but it was roughly 800,000 each way. Then let the Palestinians emigrate en masse to those countries (along with their descendants).

Sure, it isn't fair. They want their ancestral homes. And I don't deny their claim. I just deny the realistic possibility of the Israelis packing up and moving to...where? At least the Palestinians would be moving to countries whose militias wouldn't murder them on sight, as would happen if the Israelis tried to return to their homes in Morocco/Libya/Tunisia/Egypt/Lebanon/Syria/Jordan/Iraq/Yemen etc.

And it's not as if lobbing tin cans full of nails and gunpowder at the Israelis is going to make them leave. Get real. Palestine is jam-packed and the average huge family size of Palestinians is making Palestine packed-er and packed-er. But there's plenty of room elsewhere in the Arab world. We just need to overlook the civil wars instigated by Palestinian migrants in Jordan and Lebanon.

Bottom line: the quest for justice and the nursing of historical wrongs is a luxury this suffering planet just can't afford. While we're squabbling the Earth is about to rise up and smite us. Then there won't be a place for anyone to live. Get your priorities straight.

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I originally wrote this entry as a comment on a NewYorkTimes column.
Someone who read that navigated to my blog and sent a comment. However, it contains an obscenity so I won't include it using Google's "publish" option, which doesn't let me edit comments. Here's what the guy said with the naughty word excised:

My tax dollars do not pay for the other stuff you mention. The other stuff you mention does not make a billion people hate my country. The other stuff you mention is all straw.

I bet you are a jew. Jews seem to love straw arguments when it comes to anything addressing their crimes. Why defend the undefendable when you can just reel off a litany of others [censored word] behavior. Do two wrongs suddenly make a right? If you are a jew the answer appers to be a resounding YES.

I could care less who kills anyone elsewhere on the planet. As long as they don't do it on my dime.

Was it an accident that you never mentioned that Israel's crimes might matter to people in the USA because we pay for them? I don't think so.

I think you left that out because you are a fraud.

BTW. Cutting and pasting your blog entry into the comments section of the NYT's is weak.


What's interesting to me about this comment is the underlying idea that individual Americans should get to tell the government how to spend their tax dollars. Well, we do. They're called elections. However, when a majority elect representatives who'd promised to spend our tax dollars in ways we don't like, we have to live with that. It's called living in a democracy, for which the key is abiding by the results of elections when the other side wins. And if our representatives spend our taxes in ways different than what they promised, we can impeach them if enough people object, or turn them out in the next election.

It seems like people should understand this, but both right wing and left wing zealots constantly harp about "their" tax dollars. But they aren't ours--not individually. The taxable part of our income belongs to the People through our representative constitutional government. We pay them in exchange for the benefits of being American citizens. I've traveled in many countries, and I'm constantly thankful that I'm an American citizen, and I'm glad to pay my fair share--even though, like every single other American, I would spend those tax dollars differently than the government does in some respects.

As for this person's interest in whether I'm a Jew or not--what bearing does that have on the validity of my arguments or the truthfulness of the facts I cite? Now if I'm parrotting the ideas of some Jewish organization, that could be relevant. But I don't know of one single Jewish organization that says what goes on in Israel is unimportant--as I say here. Nor have I ever read a letter to the editor or a forum entry by a self-identified Jew who said this. So it seems illogical for this person to claim I'm a Jew in some way that's relevant to the discussion.

It seems more logical to assume that this person doesn't like Jews for some reason. I don't get this either. Jews gave America its most patriotic music (such as Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man), and as the hero says in Spamalot, you can't put a play on Broadway without a Jew...American culture wouldn't be distinctly American were it not for the contributions of Blacks and Jews, and that's key to what distinguishes us from European culture. Have you seen Europeans try to dance to rock 'n roll? It's hard to look at without wincing.

He does allude to the fact that America supports Israel to the tune of about $3.5B a year. That's a lot of simoleans. However, we spend a comparable amount on surrounding Arab countries. Does he propose that we cut out all foreign aid everywhere, or just to Israel? The latter seems to be the implication. But if so, why single out Israel? Why not at least mention Egypt/Jordan etc.? It's not as if they aren't police states that commit crimes against humanity on their own people every day (including Egypt's current economic destabilization of its Coptic Christians).

And look what we spend on Iraq. Does he realize that one thing the Iraqis have done with their new-found freedom, courtesy of us spending a gazillion bucks to liberate them, is to kill or drive out Iraq's nearly one million Christians, most of whose families had lived there for millennia. How's that for a use of our tax dollars? That strikes me as far more significant than Israel's treatment of Palestinians, even if you agree with the Arab League's claims re: Israel.

As for "Israel's crimes"--well, as opposed to what other country? I haven't forgotten Israel attacking a U.S. Navy picket boat some decades ago, killing several American sailors. That was a crime covered over for political reasons. But I don't think this writer is referring to this incident. Treatment of Palestinians? That's Hitler's fault. He murdered all the gentle Jews of Europe. The Jews tough enough to survive his death camps emigrated to Israel, and the Arabs' War Without End against them hasn't made them softer. The Settlers include some murderous bullies, but they aren't representative of Israelis as a whole. And as my whole blog entry points out, their "crimes" are inconsequential in a world context--including a world context that's only concerned with the behavior of countries we send a lot of tax dollars to.


Lastly, I copy and paste (not cut and paste--think about it) many of my newspaper comment entries into my blog. How is that weak? I wanted a single place people (including me) could go to for my political writing. It's this. Here. There are numerous unique entries here as well, on most of the topics I write about. I think the whole thing is about the length of a novel at this point.

Gatesgate--or, is it safe to be a Black Man in America if you have a bad temper and like to get in cops' faces?

True enough, the Leftosphere has gone all atwitter over Harvard Professor Louis Gates' arrest in his own house, meanwhile ignoring the $1.4M/day marketing campaign by the healthcare denial industry against any and all reform efforts.

But it's also true that the Rightosphere has gone all atwitter as well over this deeply unimportant event, with it crowding out nearly everything else, with a focus on how, implicitly, President Obama is an Angry Black Man with a chip on his shoulder who hates cops and wants to take away our pen- er, guns, prior to surrendering America to Hugo Chavez and Osama bin Ladin.

Which sounds like hyperbole unless you watch/listen to the Rightosphere's media outlets, where they've done everything just short of calling for Obama's assassination.

So yes, Gatesgate is a Rorshach test of any given media outlet; yes, it's been way overblown; yes, Gates probably asked for it by pursuing the "do you know who I am" tack, which no Black should pursue anyway, for what should be obvious reasons; yes, Obama put his foot in his mouth, especially in the context of a literal life and death struggle with the healthcare denial industry's efforts to continue parasitizing American taxpayers, but...

any discussion of leftist posturing relative to this should be accompanied by noting the equally vile exploitation of this incident by the Angry Billionaire's Club and their government/media servants.

Pot won't be legalized because of my wife

Pot won't be legalized because of my wife. She has a 140 IQ and is a pragmatic business manager--and a veteran scuba diver, so it's not like she's some stick in the mud.

But she's also a devout churchgoing Republican who has never had a cigarette or an alcoholic drink in her life (nor even a cup of coffee), much less marijuana or its ilk.

She opposes legalization of all drugs including marijuana--so firmly that she won't even discuss the topic with me.

And that's why none of the arguments raised by marijuana legalization advocates matter much. The prison-law enforcement industry has succeeded in making marijuana legalization a tribal issue.

"They" want to smoke pot. "They" aren't like you and me. "They" are bums, hippies, anarchists, people with bits of metal on their faces and tattoos on their necks and elsewhere. "They" threaten to overwhelm Society in a flood of boundary-less behavior. "They" are Dionysian. "We" are Apollonian.

None of this is openly articulated, mind you. But I think multiple generations of conservatives are still recoiling in horror at the Summer of Love and all the hijinks that flowed from it.

Unlike so many Republicans who oppose pot but drink liquor, my wife is not a hypocrite. She opposes all mind-altering substances (except chocolate). So I can't even accuse her of having a double standard.

But nobody reading comment threads on marijuana legalization should underestimate the power of tribal thinking, and the efficacy of the prison-law enforcement industry at invoking it. It's not the bogus rationales they offer up that are doing the trick. It's really this less-public but more effective campaign that has worked.

And because the real campaign doesn't use PowerPoint presentations and public debates to achieve its goals, it's harder to refute it or even claim that such a campaign is going on. It's like the way things were in the South after segregation was outlawed. Redneck politicians wouldn't say "Vote for me and I'll keep

the N_____s down." They'd just say "Y'all know what ah stand for."

That's what we're up against. Any suggestions?

I do have one, though I haven't gotten much traction with it yet: decriminalize marijuana (which would still make advertising it illegal ), but treat all crimes as premeditated if they were committed under the influence of a mind-altering substance (including alcohol) that was taken voluntarily by an adult. So a drunk driver mows down someone in a crosswalk--that's Murder One.

But I still don't know how to overcome the tribalism that this debate has gotten imbued with.

healthcare reform

There has been an enormous amount of media coverage of the Democrats' attempts at healthcare reform. Big Health is currently spending over $1,500,000 a day to try to defeat every single proposal being made by the Democrats.

So in the interest of fairness I think we should examine the Republicans' healthcare reform plan, as evinced by GOP legislation during 2000-2006, when they controlled all three branches of government, and by the proposals they're making now.

Based on all that, here's what the GOP proposes:

1. Eliminate punitive damages in malpractice suits, so when the doc saws off your leg instead of removing your appendix, your lawsuit won't cripple him.

2. Otherwide, the current healthcare system in its entirely.

This is reinforced by right wing pundits, talk show hosts and congressmen declaring many times daily that we enjoy "the finest medical care system in the world."

And so we do--if you're a congressman or a multimillionaire or a public sector employee.

If you're employed by a company with full healthcare benefits, you may feel the same way--as long as you haven't needed those benefits in a big way. Otherwise you'll get to find out how our system rations healthcare--while carefully avoiding calling it that.

But even if you love your current healthcare provision, the fact is that healthcare costs are rising so rapidly that a major chunk of our gross national product is being diverted into healthcare industry profits, and the diversion is increasing steadily (hence the $1,500,000 a day being spent by the profiteers to preserve the status quo).

The Republicans talk about the Social Security and Medicare funding heading over the cliff. Well, that's nothing compared to what's going on in healthcare overall. It is unsustainable, and it's a major contribution to making our country's products uncompetitive in the world market.

The Democratic proposals thus far are very expensive, because they don't address a simple fact: our healthcare system runs with around a 30% overhead, while other nations--such as France--run with a 3% overhead. The difference is a mix of runaway profits for self-appointed middlemen, high medical professional salaries, administrative inefficiency, and a vast bureaucracy whose sole purpose is to deny medical benefit claims wherever possible, by hook or by crook, with a concomitant vast bureacracy required by healthcare providers to try to get claims approved.

If the Democrats adopt a single payer system we'd be able to provide proper healthcare for everyone with less rationing than now takes place--but it would displace a huge number of people, from minions to Masters of the Universe--now staffing this unnecessary bureacracy.

Other countries have made such a changeover successfully. We probably can't reduce costs unless we follow suit. The half-measures proposed so far don't tackle the inherent problem of trying to apply for-profit principles to healthcare--namely that healthcare customers comprise a captive market; they aren't really free to shop for healthcare when they need it, unlike, say, choosing to buy a house or a new car or a TV. This hidden truth invariably drives prices up in a for-profit marketplace.

So the Democrats propose measures that fall short of a solution, while the Republicans propose--nothing.

Ain't democracy grand? My fear is that vast wealth and skillful, relentless propaganda may be sufficient to get people to vote against their self interest. This is exactly what happened when Hillary Clinton crafted a healthcare system back in the 1990's. And it's close to happening again.

comprehensive immigration reform

we do need comprehensive immigration reform. Here's my proposal for doing that:

1. The primary purpose of American immigration policy should be to improve America. I'm astonished that I even need to say this.

2. America is improved by bringing in individuals and families with skills and resources that America needs, and by not bringing in those with liabilities that harm America.

3. Therefore, when someone applies to immigrate, they should be required to include everyone they ever plan to bring in with them. Then their application can be considered as group to evaluate whether it will be a net benefit to America to bring in that group. There should be no limitation on the size of the group--as long as it represents a net benefit for us. This would supplant the "family reunification" policy that currently represents the majority of legal immigration. It's good to bring in families--as long as the families represent a net benefit to America.

4. Also, the person applying with a group to be brought in under his/her umbrella must assume liability for the cost of all social services for that group until they become citizens, and the likelihood of any of them going on the dole after citizenship should be an important consideration.

5. America does not need unskilled laborers. With real unemployment pushing 20%--and with lower-class unemployment much higher--and with the recession impacting social services for poor people disproportionately--immigration of unskilled laborers should be banned until unemployment of American unskilled laborers drops below 4% (to pick a number out of the air).

6. America does need topflight scientists and engineers and other kinds of highly skilled workers. Immigration for these--including grad students in desirable areas--should be fast-tracked, except for Chinese immigrants, who need extra security checks, given the success of Communist China at sending spies here.

7. America is a nation of "melting potted" immigrants--not of enclaves of hyphenated special interest groups. America has been the most successful nation on Earth in assimilating immigrants (in strong contrast with Europe), largely because immigrants have fanned out across the country instead of concentrating in monocultural ghettos, as has happened in Europe.

8. Therefore we should re-establish national quotas, not to give whites preferences, as was the case before, but to ensure maximum diversity, both as a source of multicultural vigor and to prevent the formation of Quebec-style enclaves.

9. Accordingly, all immigration from Mexico and Central America should be banned indefintely, except for individuals with critical skills or great wealth (who will invest in America). We need a Latino "breather" until immigration from Africa, Asia, Brazil and Europe catch up. Reinstatement of Latino immigration shouldn't be considered until illegal immigration from Mexico and Mesoamerica is staunched.

10. Legal immigration via being born within our borders from illgal alien parents violates the first principle on this list--especially since most children born this way are the peasant children of peasant parents--a group we don't need more of. Unless the Supreme Court reinterprets the 14th Amendment to preclude such anchor babies, the Constitution needs to be amended to make it clear that the 14th doesn't include offspring of illegals.

11. The Constitution also needs to be amended to eliminate the loophole that currently counts illegal aliens in Congressional district apportionment. It gives political parties that benefit too much incentive to encourage illegal immigration.

12. The 25 million (give or take 10 or 20 million) Illegal immigrants now residing in America must not be granted amnesty because the last two times we tried it (the latest being in 1986) the result was a tidal wave of new illegal immigration. This policy would produce many individual tragedies--especially as regards children brought here illegally and are now culturally American--but this must be weighed against the far greater tragedy of more massive waves of illegal immigration.

13. The federal government must mandate adoption of e-Verify by states as a prerequisite to any state receiving Federal financial support.

14. The federal government must adopt a universal ID for American residents, as other advanced nations are doing. This doesn't require a card any more--biometric ID stations can be used, sidestepping the fake ID industry. Fuji has a palm vein reader that woupld require rearranging the veins in your hand to fool it. This ID should be a prerequisite for all social services, with the exception of emergency medical care--which would be provided, then the recipient deported if they're here illegally. This would also be a requirement for employment.

15. Illegal entry should remain a misdemeanor. But illegal re-entr should be a felony.

What illegal immigrant advocates don't say

Here are the principles you can derive from the posts of those who plead the case of the illegal aliens:

1. America has no right to choose who gets to emigrate here, possibly due to the doctrine of Original (American) Sin.

2. Instead, America's immigration policy should be determined by the governments and citizens of other countries--primarily Mexico.

3. Mexican peasants should be given preference over anyone else, including PhDs from Germany, successful artists from Japan, Indonesian peasants and PhDs--really, anyone.

4. The plight of potential immigrants is irrelevant unless they're Mexican, since so many people from so many countries are worse off than the average Mexican peasant.

5. The needs of American employers for skilled immigrants is irrelevant. Only employers needing scab labor to bust unions and drive unskilled American workers into poverty are relevant.

6. America's own lower classes--whites, blacks, browns and yellows who have a high school diploma or less--deserve to have their wages cut by 5-25%, as has happened since the 1986 amnesty produced a tidal wave of Mexican peasants (and Salvadoreans, Guatemalans etc.) flowing over our borders.

7. Amnesty is not amnesty, since it doesn't happen immediately.

9. Granting "it's-not-amnesty" to 25 million illegal aliens today won't inspire a tidal wave of new illegal immigration, even though the last two amnesties (the latest in 1986) did.

10. e-verify must be banned, because Mexicans don't like it, and their feelings trump the feelings of America's working poor--including many millions of blacks and at least a quarter of Americans of Latino background.

11. There is no such thing as overpopulation. The fact that Mexico's population exploded from 20 million in 1940 to over 100 million in 2000 is irrelevant. The fact that America's population has doubled in the lifetime of many WaPo readers is irrelevant. The fact that the world's population has increased sixfold since 1900 is irrelvant. The fact that the world is expriencing the largest species and habitat die-off in 65 million years is irrelevant.

12. The fact that the primary beneficiaries of liberal advocacy of illegals is billionaire CEOs...is irrelevant.

13. The fact that the American Southwest has undergone a radical demographic and cultural transformation in the last 30 years is a good thing, because Mexican culture is good and American culture is bad and deserves to die.

14. Letting 25 million Mexican citizens living here illegally jump the queue won't demoralize the millions of potential immigrants all over the world who patiently went through the immigration process. And even if it does, it doesn't matter, because most of them aren't Mexican, and only Mexicans' feelings matter.

15. Anyone who disagrees with all this is a racist, so anything they say--facts or logic--is irrelvant. You don't need to refute someone if you can attack their character. And if they do appear to be making sense, just howl racistracistracistracist until you drown them out.

Heart vs. Mind

Some say the Democrats are mindless, while the Republicans are heartless.

Nonsense. Both parties overflow with empathy.

They just differ in the targets of that empathy.

The Republican Party weeps for the oppression suffered by helpless billionaires, CEOs, officials in positions of great power; of oppression of the religion that over 2/3 of the nation belongs to; of the threat to institutions like Christmas that are only celebrated today by over 80% of Americans.

The Democratic Party weeps for the oppression suffered by public employee union members who make more than comparable private sectors employees and also enjoy lifetime security via lavish pension benefits; for the oppression of poor people (unless they're White); for the voting rights of American citizens who neglected to learn the language spoken by this country; for the rights of citizens of other countries who moved here illegally, even though their presence has resulted in wages for unskilled labor dropping 5-25%, thus pushing American lower-class workers into poverty--and the fact that they're here mainly because Mexico's population has exploded from 20 million in 1940 to over 100 million in 2000, and now it's exporting its overpopulation to America. Lastly, the Democratic Party weeps for everyone who's a citizen of this country who regards themselves as something else above being American--African, Latin, -of color-ed, or any other hyphenation that can be sliced off the body politic and granted special ethnic or racial favors for their group in exchange for their vote.

I'm so pleased to live in a country so overflowing with empathy on the part of both major parties. Just because a majority of Americans are left out of both parties' span of empathy shouldn't bother us. It's our job to give, just as it is theirs to take. Or so both parties' seem to think.

Yay.

Why should my taxes go to things I consider immoral?

Conservatives object vehemently to their tax dollars going to fund abortion.
Liberals object vehemently to their tax dollars going to fund the Iraq war.

Conservatives object vehemently to their tax dollars going to fund central payer-administered healthcare.
Liberals object vehemently to their tax dollars going to fund the "war on drugs."

Conservatives object vehemently to their tax dollars going to fund public school sex education.
Liberals object vehemently to their tax dollars going to fund abstinence-only "sexless education."

I heard a conservative caller on a talk show state flatly "I don't want my tax dollars to go to someone with a pre-existing medical condition."

Both liberals and conservatives talk endlessly about their rights--and the rights of those they favor--but they only talk about the obligations of the other side, and of those they don't favor.

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But beyond our rights and obligations, all these demands about how tax money is to be spent/not spent raise deeper issues that I think matter even more than the hot button topics you see on placards and bumper stickers.

Which is--every time someone makes demands linked to taxation, they're saying:

"I have the right to specify what my tax dollars will and won't be spent on."

How would a democratic country apply that principle? These zealots are proposing that every taxpayer has the right to submit a list with his/her tax return, ordering the government to allocate that person's tax dollars exactly as that taxpayer demands.

Think about the bureaucratic nightmare. It would have to be tallied by hand, which would lead to errors, which would lead to demands for recounts.

And even if we could adminster such a system, it cuts the legs out from under the essence of democracy: the losing side takes its lumps.

When Bush won in 2000 by--as roughly half of Americans believe--Supreme Court fiat--you didn't see militias going to war with government troops. The losing side griped loudly but ultimately they accepted the results. Conversely, when the Antichrist won in 2008--according to a substantial minority of Ameircans--again you didn't see warfare on the streets.

Yet we keep getting these bogus tax dollar allocation demands.

I say to both sides: There has never been a single instant in American history when everyone agreed on everything government did with everyone's tax dollars. We all agree, as adults, to sacrifice some of our individual freedom in exchange for the benefits of being citizens of the most powerful and prosperous nation in history.

So grow up.

If you want to change law, campaign lawfully to change it. But stop talking about "your" tax dollars. Those tax dollars aren't yours. They're everyone's, just as you own a share of everyone else's tax dollars, as mediated by our elected government, operating under our Constitution.

And if you find another country is run more to your liking, feel free to move there (if they'll take you). Go. We have plenty of residents. We can spare you.