John Quixote and the McCainocrats

Poor reasoning is hardly unusual in political arguments, but among the poorest is the ire expressed by some of Hillary Clinton’s disappointed supporters.

The argument, such as it is, runs that since the media treated Senator Clinton poorly, her supporters will vote for McCain instead of Obama.

No, seriously—they say this with straight faces and pious intensity.

Apparently this must be made explicit—Obama is not a media mogul. He does not control it, and to blame him (or attempt to punish him) for the media’s actions is ridiculous. Also bizarre about this claim is that these Sen. Clinton supporters apparently feel she’s a helpless girl at the mercy of the big bad powers that be—and that somehow these powers are the media. Come on, Sen. Clinton is a strong and politically astute politician—hardly a victim. And reporters’ lackluster performance as the Bush administration has run roughshod over the Constitution and blatantly lied to the U.S. people is not exactly an indication of the media’s power—dupes would be closer to truth. Or perhaps spineless.

Meanwhile Obama has assiduously avoided presenting himself as the “black candidate,” running instead on his appeal and ideas. Imagine that.

The simple truth is that Clinton lost the primary because she came up against a superior candidate, one the voters preferred. (Yes, she’s claimed she won the “popular vote,” but no one has been able to see how she came up with that conclusion, as Obama won more votes and more delegates.)

But she has more experience? Not much. She’s a second term senator, but presents herself having decades of national politics experience—when she spent most of it in private practice. (And if First Lady counts, then does anyone find Laura Bush a prime presidential candidate?)

Let’s be honest---if these voters wanted the most experienced candidate, they’d have voted for Bill Richardson—long experience, popular, and Hispanic, so still historic (if that’s the point for these voters).

These voters are at least well matched with their preferred candidate—her performance refusing to admit obvious defeat in the primary and her ungracious speech “backing” Obama was shameful.

In short, this comes down to “sore loser.” OK, human---but at what cost? I’d have considered McCain at one point, eight years ago, and I don’t doubt that he’s a good man, but his record and views during the Bush administration have evolved to present a poor candidate.

Military operations seemed to have tipped the balance. McCain maintains that we could have won Vietnam if we’d only have stayed. Perhaps true, but what he misses is at what cost in both funding and lives, without considering everything we’d have to sacrifice just for the sake of winning. This same blind egoism drives his take on Iraq--above all else, he wants to win, no matter the cost, ignoring several other serious problems.

This irrational machoism pops up again in his insistence that we should never talk to countries with which we have conflicts, specifically Iran, which McCain ridicules as “making nice to our enemies.” But since when did talks equal “making nice”? If you get a “talking-to,” for example, it’s not a pleasant experience. We talked to the Soviet Union all during the Cold War--and more than once prevented nuclear war by doing so. And talking doesn’t mean we agree or concede. It means we attempt to find acceptable middle ground, or perhaps even persuade the Iranians to follow a preferable course.

The distortions aren’t limited to foreign policy. McCain has attacked Obama’s plan to help poorer families with a tax bracket occurring at $200,000, claiming this will hurt small businesses and cost jobs. McCain, however, ignores that those small business costs are already legitimate business liabilities, and so are deducted before counting as earned income--the $200,000 would be net income earned AFTER those employment expenses are already paid.

McCain also repeats the tax cut mantra--we must cut taxes to stimulate the economy. This, of course, ignores that the previous tax cuts haven’t accomplish that; to the contrary, they’ve contributed to a soaring national debt that has devalued the dollar and helped tighten credit markets. Further, just as in the Reagan years, when the U.S. went from being the largest creditor nation to being the largest debtor nation, with 25% of our assets moving into foreign hands, our current spending habit is being financed primarily by China. Hardly contributes to the independence from foreign interests. Plus, all during the economic boom of the 1990s, the mantra was that we have to cut taxes to give the money back to the American taxpayers. So which is it? Cut taxes in good times. Cut taxes in bad times. Anybody suspect they don’t particularly care about the economy (or just about the economic welfare of their wealthy campaign contributors)? McCain has admitted it’s not his strong suit. He’s right on that point, at least. But certainly not a “maverick.”

Then there’s McCain’s famed claim of reaching across the aisle. It’s true! Trouble is, he hasn’t accomplished anything meaningful. When George McGovern and Bob Dole reached across the isle, they created the school lunch program, ensuring that every school child in America got at least one nutritious hot meal a day. McCain reached out for immigration reform that doesn’t work.

His bipartisan attempts at campaign finance reform have been equally unrealistic. Reality is, stakes are high in national politics, and since people (and groups) have the right to support candidates of their choice, all new regulations will ever accomplish is moving the money from one avenue to another. Further, his position is disingenuous. Barack Obama offered to rely on public financing if McCain would do--and McCain is the one who refused (and foolishly at that, since the Obama campaign has much, much more cash). Is it time for the silly flip-flop chant?

And speaking of flip-flops, how about McCain’s flat claim that we should not bail out banks or consumers who make poor economic decisions. Two days later, after a popular Obama speech about not bailouts but sensible refinancing, McCain suddenly argued that we had to help people in trouble.

But perhaps at the top of my befuddlement is why any strong supporter of women’s rights would vote for a candidate who has repeatedly made clear that he would appoint Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade. Let alone the point that packing the court to force it do one’s will instead of pursuing justice undermines the system.

Speaking of the Supreme Court, McCain made the ridiculous claim that a President Obama would mean more Justices like the ones who ruled out the death penalty for the rape of a child--and this was AFTER Obama said he strongly disagreed with the decision (a decision reached, incidentally, by an already Conservative court).

The Straight-Talk Express has pulled into Bullshit Central, and it’s dropping load after load after load. McCain likes to label Obama as “elitist.” If by “elite” he means “smart,” I say we go with it.

Writer

An Answer to a Conservative Republican

Comment from a discussion board:

"As a conservative Republican I want our [next?] President to have a desire to make the United States a freedom-loving world-leading capitalistic democracy not a shackled world-following socialistic communist nation."

Then you shouldn't have elected a president who has trashed U.S. freedoms, corrupted the judicial system, slowed economic growth and ballooned the national debt--the latter extending the 25% of the country Reagan sold to foreign interests by ignoring reality and turning the largest creditor nation into the largest debtor nation in just one president's time in office. Today, under "we'll just borrow the money" Bush, that's been so radically expanded that China and Saudi Arabia, in particular, own so much of U.S. debt that we CAN'T choose to just go our own way--they literally own us. Further, President Cowboy's policies have virtually ensured that we're stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan for years to the tune of billions (not to mention straining the U.S. military to the point where even the commanders say we can't sustain it past the spring--face it--this "Conservative Republican" president has weakened our nation for years to come). U.S. citizens' negative savings rate doesn't help—EVERYBODY seemingly just charges what they can't afford--then are surprised when they lose their homes, all while driving new trucks with 12 mpg and 8 year car loans, as many of my neighbors do, owing more on the truck than it's worth.

I'm sorry to say it, because I fervently love this country, but America is falling--and we've no one to blame but ourselves.

Ideological denial will only worsen an already tenuous situation.

Writer

Lies Your Writing Teacher Told You

When teaching young children, understandably teachers might well choose to simplify concepts. That’s fine. However, simplifications are also distortions, even to the point of error, and if those children never grow past those temporary, instructionally helpful constructs, what’s left is misinformation. Such is often the case in college students and adult writers, still using techniques that are, well, wrong—in sentences, in paragraphs, and in compositions overall.

The most glaring of these is the universal comma rule: put a comma where you want a pause. Um, no. Commas aren’t moods—they show structure. Moving commas around carelessly changes the sentence structure.

Consider this sentence: Swords flashing, our heroes dashed into action. A tale of epic adventure—very different from: Swords, flashing our heroes, dashed into action—a tale of erotic surrealism.

How about these two: People, who frequently attend these auctions, spend a lot of money, vs. People who frequently attend these auctions spend a lot of money. Both sentences are correct, but their meaning differs significantly, particularly if you’ve an economic interest in those auctions. The first sentence promises that all comers at these well-attended events will be dumping cash, while the second restricts the big spenders to only the few folks who frequent the auction circuit.

Even more astounding is the oft repeated assertion that grammar isn’t important, that students will just learn eventually by doing. This is as ridiculous as “Prof.” Harold Hill in “The Music Man” promoting his “think” system for learning music. Further, what are employers going to do with those cover letters and resumes full of grammatical errors? And bosses? Clients? Fair or not, such grammar-challenged people will be judged as less intelligent and less competent. It IS 7th grade English, after all.

Now to “de-mythify” the paragraph: “a paragraph is a group of 5-8 sentences.” What, like a street gang hangin’ on the corner? Just time for a line break? What happened to a unit of developed thought? How about a topic sentence—and development leading to a meaningful conclusion. You know—content!

But two commonly promoted points completely baffle me. The first purports to connect paragraphs by abruptly changing the subject in the last sentence of a paragraph to the topic of the next paragraph—then reiterating the point in the first sentence of that next paragraph. Good grief. This is duct tape, not coherence, combining rambling off topic with redundancy. What happened to a logical progression of ideas? Yet student after student maintains someone taught this “technique.”

The second is a legitimate technique run amok, the “funnel” technique—start with a general statement, narrow it, narrow it further, and so forth, then lead back to some general observation. Yeah, granted, the specific details should come after the initial claims, but instead, students write almost bizarrely vague sentences, eventually find a hint of a point, then back off into vague obscurity, thus taking a paragraph to make a point that could have been made in one poor sentence:

--There are many great writers, some living, some in history. Many of these writers have come from America. Several of these writers became famous in the twentieth century. While many women were among this group, many men were also recognized as good writers. One of these men was Ernest Hemingway. He wrote a lot. Some of this writing was journalism, others were not. Those that were not including novels and short stories. His short stories are excellent. One of these excellent short stories is “Hills Like White Elephants.” In this short story, Hemingway shows many of the elements that made him a famous writer in America in the twentieth century. Symbolism is one of the elements that he used, and he does an excellent job of using it. Symbolism can be defined as something that represents something else. Hemingway uses a lot of symbols in his short story “Hills Like White Elephants.”

That paragraph may be an exaggeration, but not by much.

Worse, students then apply this technique to the entire essay. Sometimes, even in the middle of page two, I still can’t find a thesis—or even tell what poem or story or play the paper addresses, let alone what points it might make. “But that’s what you’re supposed to do!” students protest, ready to defend such work vigorously. “It draws the reader in!” Draws the reader in? Who would still be reading? Could you imagine, for example, picking up Sports Illustrated and reading:

--There are many sports in the world today. Some of these sports are played individually, while other sports are team sports. Different countries tend to prefer some sports over other sports. Soccer is one sport popular in many countries. Americans like football. Other Americans like baseball, while some like basketball. Many people like more than one sport. Soccer is called football in other countries. Some Americans like soccer, though.

Are you “drawn in?” Would you keep reading in case it gets better?

And the poor readers who struggle through such essays all the way to the conclusion meet yet another silly but commonly practiced point—the “conclusion”:

--In conclusion, here I write a meaningless paragraph that does nothing except repeat the thesis you’ve already read and repeated the vague points I’ve already stated, thus making no final point whatsoever, concluding absolutely nothing, indicating the entire essay has no purpose beyond reaching a word count or minimum number of pages.

And again, students insist they’ve been taught to do this. So much time is spent swimming upstream against all this misinformation from the past, with little time left for emphasis, economy, style, effective argument and much more. After all, why should students bother with all that? They’ve earned top grades for years babbling along as such, believing they are therefore “creative.”

Unfortunately, I have heard a number of teachers maintain that writing is an art, and therefore it can’t really be taught. Some people just have a gift, and some people just aren’t good writers.

Any writing teacher who believes that has no business teaching writing. Let writers do it.

After all, why? If it’s all just a scam, lots of scams pay far better than teaching writing.

Writer

Eight Days a Week

For the past year, I’ve had the luxury of working four days a week. Well, much more accurately, just going into work four days a week—I work at home the other three days (and all the evenings). But still, it’s nice. Working five days in a row is OK, but two days off just isn’t enough to recuperate. Three day weekends work well, since the first day is devoted to much needed rest, the second on head clearing, and only the third on productive activity, before feeling refreshed and ready to go back to the office.

That’s why we should change to an eight day week.

Think about it, then contact your legislators. I propose an additional day, Labor Day, between Sunday and Monday each week, to institutionalize the five day work week, three day weekend, and each month with exactly four weeks—32 days, all the same. This would also simplify the calendar in several ways—each day would always be the same day of the month, for example--no more "What date? What day of the week is that?". Originally I thought the week (and month) should start on Monday, clearly separating the work week from the weekend, rather than splitting the weekend along calendar rows as we do now, but then I realized every month would have a Friday the Thirteenth. Let’s leave the week starting on Sunday, then—a bow to conservatives who won’t like having a Labor Day every week.

The months will need adjustments, since twelve months of 32 days each would give each year nineteen extra days (twenty on leap years)—but the weeks and months have supposedly been designed to follow the moon, and they don’t do that well at all anyway, so let’s combine June and July, creating a new month—Junly (pronounced June-LIE). This will ensure that children are still in school sufficient time to learn the curriculum (the same number of months), or at least as well as they do now—and cut the time they have to forget material over summer break, as well as save single working parents money on day care. Families wouild also have more regular weekend time together, and children more time to complete weekend homework.

Eleven months of 32 days each leaves thirteen days. I propose these be devoted to holidays—one national day off for Election Day, encouraging people to vote, and the other twelve for a national holiday at the end of the year (these “twelve days of Christmas” should mollify wealthy conservatives upset that Election Day will make it easier for the working poor to vote). And once every four years, the New Year will start with Leap Day!

Some critics will complain that this calendar sacrifices 40 business days over the course of a year, hurting the economy, but this is not the case. First, it will cut costs at financial institutions and for the Postal Service. Second, rested workers will be ready to return to work each week refreshed, with better attitudes, and hence be more productive. Additionally, those workers will have parties and barbeques far more often, go out to concerts and restaurants more, shop more, and so forth, all adding to gross domestic production, increasing tax revenue, and creating jobs. And finally, many, many people already work on weekends, whether required or at home, and this won’t change with a three day weekend. (The Beatles were prescient on this one: “Love you ev’ry day, girl, always on my mind.”) The manufacturing sector and similar industries will have much more flexibility in organizing dovetailed schedules for continuous operations.

Just imagine the commercial possibilities! Instead of a twelfth month, each calendar will have only a twelve day holiday season—leaving lots of extra space for holiday advertising. Department stores could have a Labor Day sale every week!

Perhaps best of all—you’ll only spend 1/8th of your life on Monday, instead of 1/7th!

"Eight days a week...I loaloalove you...."

It's almost enough to show I care...!

A new day for America and the world.

Writer

Igg, Ogg, and the Creation of Taxes

“Igg? I’m tired of all this huntin’ and gatherin’.”

Igg looked at Ogg. “Me too,” he sighed.

“So what say,” Ogg continued, “We raise all these plants and animals ourselves? No more rushin’ around!”

“Now that’s a plan!” agreed Igg. And so agriculture began.

Wisely, Igg and Ogg weren’t quick to quit hunting and gathering, since at first they were largely unsuccessful. They realized eventually that timing played a crucial role.

“Igg? How are we gonna know when exactly to plant?” asked Ogg.

“Hmmm...I know a guy who can read the stars to calculate the seasons...” suggested Igg.

The ancient astronomer got the job, under the title of Priest.

Igg and Ogg prospered, encouraging others to follow their example. All the Priest’s friends got jobs, creating organized religion.

One day, Igg and Ogg toured their plantation along the riverbank and noticed a disturbing trend--less and less water reached their crops. Taking a walk upstream, they soon saw why: many new converts to agriculture were diverting the river’s water to irrigate their crops. When questioned, these new farmers invariably replied, “We have to make a living too!”

On the way back downstream, Igg and Ogg talked to several other farmers who also complained about the dwindling water supply. Consequently, Igg and Ogg organized a meeting of all the riverside crop growers. After considerable debate, the farming community realized that water rights must be controlled by a central authority, thus creating law, government, and bureaucracy. Civilization was born.

The new village thrived at first, but some of the farmers failed to honor the water rights agreements. Igg and Ogg called another meeting, and soon enforcement of the law fell to the newly created police force. Further, to ensure the fairness of police enforcement, a new judicial system and penal code arose. The village rejoiced.

Unfortunately, so did the nomads in the mountains above the village. “Look!” they advised each other, “These people work all year and create all this food in one place, ready for the taking! Mount your horses!” And so they did, in a devastating raid. War had entered the world.

The village did not rejoice. “All our hard work! Our families will starve! We must protect ourselves!” Another village meeting instituted an army.

But Igg and Ogg had an additional concern. “The village has priests and governors and legislators and police and justices and lawyers and soldiers and commanders,” explained Igg, “But the village needs these people to commit so much time to their professions that they can no longer realistically take the time to raise their own food.” After a long silence, Ogg suggested,” Suppose each farmer raises a little more than needed for mere self-sufficiency? Then, the surplus could go to the professionals necessary for the security of the village.” Long debate followed, but necessity instituted the plan. Taxes had entered the world. And to help keep tax records, mathematics and writing soon followed.

Life was wonderful thereafter. People invented leisure time and explored human existence by creating and practicing various arts and sciences. People also continued to learn to work together, specializing in various trades, providing new products and professional services. Education strove to ensure and expand village life, thought, and culture. But, unfortunately, greed was not limited to the mountain nomads.

“It’s YOUR money!” proclaimed Ugg in his bid for village government. “Every year since this village started, more and more of your hard earned money goes toward supporting Big Government!”

Igg listened, confused. “But those taxes pay for the services necessary to run this village,” he countered.

“Wasteful spending! Tax and spend! Tax and spend!” continued Ugg.

“Shouldn’t we then trim the waste, if that’s so, rather than cut revenue?” asked Igg.

“You see,” explained the Priest, “Cutting taxes will actually increase government revenue.”

“So, if instead of tithing,” retorted Igg, “People only gave five percent, church revenue would increase?” The Priest kept quiet.

“Cutting taxes stimulates the economy!” shouted Ugg. “It creates jobs!”

“Given certain circumstances, I suppose that’s theoretically possible,” mused Igg, “But such a blanket proposition makes several unsupported assumptions. For example, won’t trimming spending also cost jobs? And doesn’t government spending ALSO enter the economy?”

Ogg had doubts too. “Cutting taxes means cutting services,” he explained, “Services we instituted with good reason. Important, necessary services.”

Ugg didn’t seem to hear. “This slow economy means we MUST cut taxes NOW! The more cuts, the more the stimulus! And private industry in this great village of ours can best provide services to our wonderful people!”

Igg turned to Ogg. “Does he mean that cutting all taxes would best benefit the village?”

Ogg considered. “Well...if not by taxes, the village would need to exploit natural resources, or consistently plunder other villages, or institute slaves to produce excess revenue.”

“And privatizing government services,” added Igg, “Would mean that police, justice, armed forces and so forth would only be for hire. Further, the large landowners would benefit most from lower taxes, at least in the short run, because only those families could afford education. Our village’s professional talents would atrophy.”

Ugg’s enthusiasm had now attracted quite an audience, drawn by promises of invading the mountains to conquer the nomads, cutting the forests to increase village resources, and asking all citizens to sacrifice for the good of the village in order to make tax cuts possible and to eliminate government interference in their affairs. Nationalism was born.

Igg and Ogg looked at each other once more, then turned and walked toward the forest, while it would still be possible to hunt and gather.

Writer