I’m beginning to think that, despite his squeaky clean Eagle Scout appearance, Scott Walker is a creep.

I used to simply think that we had different viewpoints on government, but his proposal to fund the government with bonds rather than property taxes strikes me as completely irresponsible.

I think what’s happening is that his religious fervor about lowering taxes is finally running up against quality of life issues. This was inevitable; taxes aren’t inherently bad, despite the mantra we’ve been hearing ever since Ronald Reagan started attacking “the government” as the problem. (A fundamentally un-democratic — note the lower case D — viewpoint.)

Instead of simply saying, there are things we want from government (that is, our collective selves) and we have to pay for them, Walker is essentially saying “charge it,” pretending the problem will magically go way if we agree to pay interest on it later.

Of course, what he’s really saying is, “I’m planning to run for higher office; let someone else live with this.”

Problem is “someone” isn’t just his successor — it’s us.

Leaving aside the question of who benefits from the rather vaguely described private accounts notion, it seems pretty clear that the idea of putting private accounts in the stock market subjects them to risk. There will thus be winners and losers.

But the point of Social Security is essentially to eliminate or at least sharply reduce the number of people who are destitute in their old age. Additionally, there is the disability protection.

People who can afford to take risks in the stock market don’t need to have their Social Security put into private accounts; they have discretionary income for that.

Beyond that, I think it’s important to remember that the media coverage of this issue is essentially provided by people who have stock options and well-paying jobs. There are plenty of people who are going to be big losers in a privatization scheme, but they aren’t being represented in Congress or the media, because those folks don’t live in the same world.

Finally, while this may seem attractive in the short term, in the long term, any society with a moral compass is going to end up taking care of the losers, anyway.

So, let’s leave well enough alone, shall we?

And by the way, SOCIAL SECURITY ISN’T BROKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A) So, when President Bush says, “In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favour of life,” does he have Iraq in mind?

B) The case has for the last decade gone through 17 court sessions and Appellate Judicial review with 14 individual Judge advocated Rulings Honoring the Spouse’s Wish. We have the rule of law here, and the Republican Congress is playing politics, pandering to its religious right wing. The public already wants the right to death. Tom DeLay — and rightly so, in my opinion.

If you’d like a little inspiration for the long haul, take a look at U.S. Senator Mark Dayton’s (D. Minn) impassioned speech against the nomination of Condoleeza Rice:
http://dayton.senate.gov/news/details.cfm?id=230921&&
In it he outlines Rice’s — and the administration’s — pattern of deception on Iraq, and why it is corrosive to the American polity.

This pattern is being repeated on the Social Security issue. See the article in the Jan. 16 New York Times Magazine by Roger Lowenstein, A Question of Numbers

In his inaugural address, George W. Bush said,

“So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”

He could start in Saudi Arabia. Should be a pushover.

Remember the “Baby on Board” signs people used to hang in their cars? (Yeah, I had one briefly.) They seemed like so obviously a good idea that we never took a moment to think whether there was really a point. “Oh, there’s a baby onboard, I guess it’d be wrong to ram into that one at high speed.”

The latest version of this vehicular high-mindedness is the “Support Our Troops” magnetic “ribbon.” What the hell is this supposed to mean?

Lobby against efforts to deprive them of food and ammunition? No such effort exists.

Support a war that never should have happened, putting our troops at risk unnecessarily? Sorry, I think that’s nonsense.

Support the architects of the war, who sent our troops on a poorly planned mission, with inadequate equipment? Hmmm, seems like the opposite of supporting our troops.

Support the President who set this whole mess in motion? Apparently, the buck doesn’t stop there (he doesn’t make mistakes) so that would be pointless.

I supported our troops, God damn it: I voted for Kerry.

I’ve been ruminating about the general state of the nation, and I’m ready to share some thoughts about the direction the country’s going, and why, as I see it.

I think the fundamental issues are two.

First, there are some people who, consciously or unconsciously, are disturbed by the economic implications of globalization. The main outcome of globalization for most folks is downward pressure on wages, as jobs move overseas.

Second, there are people who either out of sheer greed or pure philosophy, have been seething over the role of the federal government since the New Deal.

These two groups have made common cause, in large part to a well-funded campaign of deception by the second group.

I’ll further stipulate that the “cultural conservatives” are people who don’t really appreciate that the source of their anxiety is not whether, say, gays get married, but that their economic future is in peril.

I’ll be looking at this more closely in future entries.

Today I heard Frank DeFord talking on NPR about public funds for sports stadia.

Now, I live in a town that’s a poster child for ill-conceived sports facilities, but the ridiculousness of Miller Park and that hapless Bewers notwithstanding, the question arises:

Why, when we are less willing to pay for public goods like roads and education, are we more likely than ever as a nation to spend public funds sports facilities?

Last month, I made an allusion to Don Knotts (well, really, Barney Fife, who was played by Don Knotts).

I guess I touched a nerve:
“Don Knotts is Dubya”

A lot of maps have been thrown up on TV screens showing the red state/blue state divide and what it all means.

Well, here’s mine:

Thanks to Pascal and Kai for the inspiration.

Kathleen Parker, a syndicated columnist for the Orlando Sentinel, recently wrote that the Democratic Party’s problem was elitism.

Seems we have 56 million elite voters in the country. Strange to call 48% of the voting public elite.

Union workers are elite? Economically struggling elderly and single moms are not ordinary Americans?

The genius of deceivers like Karl Rove had been to convince people — including Parker, apparently — that the party of the hyper-rich corporate powers is not the party of the elite. As happened a century ago, the American voters will soon realize that they have been offered a false choice between a good and evil.

Frankly, I don’t think electoral choices are a sensible test of a person’s morality. In fact, I’m convinced that most Americans — most humans — share fairly high moral standards. Where Americans honestly differ is how to devise public policies that harmonize with our shared moral sense.

Politics ought to be about resolving those differences regarding public policy, not about who is more moral — and certainly not about privately held morals and values. Karl Rove and his ilk have distorted the political discussion, and cheated the American public out its greatest heritage, a democratic policy-making process.

Morality?

There’s something a bit disorienting about learning that morality was the single most important issue among people who voted for Bush. I have two words for these people.

Karl Rove.

Rove is responsible for some of the most despicable lies and distortions seen in politics in the last 20 years, and, knowing this, George Bush has hired him.

Bush himself has conducted a campaign full of distortions, deceptions and character assassination, either personally or by proxy.

How is it moral to corrupt the political process? In my mind, it’s the height of immorality because it’s destructive of the most valuable aspects of the American way of life, democracy.

How is it moral to attack a country and cause tens of thousands of deaths unnecessarily?

Gloating conservative writers like Cal Thomas notwithstanding, a few percentage points in the electorate does not constitute a mandate for radical reform of the sort we can expect from President Bush and the Congress. And in fact, there’s plenty of evidence that the public doesn’t really want radical reform, like the destruction of New Deal and Great Society programs.

(In fact, there’s a significant body of evidence that suggests the public doesn’t know what it’s getting. See, e.g., the recent report from the Program on International Policy Attitudes.)

But, even supposing that Bush’s supporters do want radical reform, it seems to me that enacting radical reform with only half the electorate on board seems like a recipe for intensified division in the country. It would make more sense to me to take a more measured approach than George Bush is likely to, or than Cal Thomas and his ilk would like him to.

President Bush called for healing and unity, Cal Thomas is calling for the opposite.

As I write this, George W. Bush, is leading the popular vote by 4 million votes. To me, that means whatever happens in Ohio, Bush ought to be President.

But my heart isn?t in it.

I still believe that he?s the worst man for the job in my lifetime and I have grave concerns about the future of our country.

But I?ve been saying for while ? though not in the space ? that whoever won the election, there?s a larger, longer battle to be fought. I believe the country has succumbed to a politics of fear and distortion, and that would have been true regardless of who won the election.

Okay, we know the answer to the first question: The U.S. taxpayer is paying for the war. $200 Billion looks like a reasonable lower figure at this point. While this makes some sense, since we have the largest economy in the world, it’s also true that with a better foreign policy a lot of this cost would be shared — as it was when the other Bush was president.

Beyond that, however is the question of how we’re spending our money in Iraq. Turns out that the companies that are supposed to be rebuilding the country (and, by the way, how about letting Iraqis do that?) are spending the lion’s share of it on security — mercenaries, you might say.

So, because Bush didn’t want to send in enough troops, we’re paying for private security firms to protect people who shouldn’t a) be there and b) need protecting.

This has sort of an Arbusto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbusto_Energy) ring to it, but somehow I don’t see the Saudis bailing Bush out on this one. We taxpayers are drawing the short straw this time.

So, George says Kerry’s health care plan will lead to rationing.

And what are we doing with the flu vaccine?

And besides, rationing is something we do with a scarce commodity. To millions of Americans, health care is looking pretty scarce under the current Administration.

Friends,

I am writing to you today to ask you to withdraw your support for George Bush in this election.

I am writing to all my friends, neighbors and acquaintances whom I expect are planning to vote for Bush, not to convince them to become Democrats, but to join other Republicans (see, e.g., this piece by Michael Cudahy – no, not that one) who feel as I do that Bush and his radical allies have hijacked the Republican party and are leading the nation in a terribly wrong direction.

I am asking you to consider just a few points.

The Republicans will say Bush won the debate because he managed not to make faces when his errors and inaccuracies were exposed during the debate.

However,his silly grin and hollow rhetoric were no match for the clarity of thought, knowledge,and yes, vision and values exhibited by John Kerry.

I can understand how my Republican friends might disagree with certain aspects of Kerry’s views of government, but I fail to see how they can watch Bush’s feeble arguments in defense of failed policies and conclude that George W. Bush ought to be President of the United States.

As far as I can make out, President Bush’s response to Kerry’s attacks regarding Iraq is, “I should be President because I am Commander-in-Chief.”

The essence of his argument is that it would be disheartening to troops and the Iraqi supporters of Bush’s policies to change the leadership that started the war in Iraq.

Bush advances this argument to immunize himself and his policies against any scrutiny that finds his judgment lacking in either the decision to begin the war or his conduct of the war once it began.

The American public — in particular, the voters — should reject this argument outright, because it is essentially an argument for a dictatorship. After all, why have elections during war if it’s wrong to remove the sitting president from office?

It is a disservice to both suffering American troops and to democracy to accept this idea. First, because American troops deserve a competent commander-in-chief. Second, because one of the fundamental tenets of democracy is that no public official is above reproach.

Bush has been quoted as saying ?Things would be easier if this were a dictatorship ? as long as I?m the dictator.?

Small joke.

What happens when a police officer shoots someone? He or she is suspended, and a thorough investigation is held to make sure the shooting was justified. If the shooting wasn’t justified, the officer is disciplined, possibly even discharged.

But, you might ask, didn’t we give the officer a gun? Didn’t we authorize the use of force?

Of course, but we demand that deadly force only be used when absolutely necessary.

Now imagine the George Bush is your friendly town cop — Barney Fife, if you will — and John Kerry gives him a gun — that is, authorizes the use of force. Imagine further that the town bully has been placed under house arrest. Now suppose Bush barges into the bully’s home and shoots him dead. I think we could expect Kerry to condemn Bush’s action.

Would we say that Kerry voted for the use of force, and then against it? Or would we say that Kerry authorized the use of force and expected it to be used with good judgment, and only if absolutely necessary?

Not even Barney Fife shot anyone. Bush has the blood of tens of thousands on his hands. I’ll be voting to have him discharged.