The reason Democrats might lose is they aren’t partisan enough

Recent polls show that a majority of voters admire candidates which don’t compromise on issues. When we look at the recent political history of compromise within the Democratic Party, we may discern a major source of voter discontent with Democratic candidates in the upcoming November elections. Recently, US House and Senate Democrats failed to call up for a vote the expiration of Bush era tax breaks for the wealthiest of Americans. According to a recent CNN poll, 69% of Americans support having the Bush era tax breaks for the ultra-rich expiring on January 1, 2011. Republicans adopted an “all or nothing” approach which clearly favored the wealthiest Americans and which Republican approach would have taken away Middle Class Tax Cuts from the Democrats’ Stimulus Plan and given them to the ultra-rich to the tune of $731 billion. The increase in the total national debt of $13.64 trillion from the Republican plan from continuing these tax cuts alone would be 5.4%. The White House also has adopted a “compromise with ‘yourself’” approach in an attempt to garner Republican support for issues even though the GOP has not supported anything put forth by the Democrats during the Obama Presidency. Witness the pre-legislative demise of the “public option” in health care which is still favored by a majority of Americans. Many Democratic candidates are running away from their votes for healthcare reform when according to a recent Pew Center study a majority of voters and large majorities of Democratic and Independent voters support those who voted for healthcare reform. So, while many believe that the “partisanship” of politics is destructive, it is clear that holding the line on your policies is more favorably viewed by voters than any type of compromise. Democrats are likely to learn a very costly lesson in the value of “NO!” come November, 2010. But, the lesson will mostly inform any future minority in the US House or Senate that obstruction and obfuscation are more valuable than compromise, even when a majority of voters support the other side of an issue.

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On A Christian Nation

Polls recently indicate that more and more Americans link being an American with being a Christian. Yet the consensus on what this actually means is as nonexistent as ever. We hear a lot about how this country was founded on "Christian principles" and that the Founders wanted this to be a "Christian nation." Yet with a few exceptions, most folks would likely chafe horribly should be actually try to return to anything close what that meant in 1787. The question of what the Founders intended is an interesting one, since even cursory research produces conflicting statements on both sides. Many of the most prominent clearly felt that what they had wrought in the Constitution was a device for keeping religion from distorting government. They intended, it seems, that people as individuals should decide for themselves, within a private sphere, how to believe and subsequently how to worship. The government, they claimed, should not be permitted to interfere with that. The question, of course, is whether they intended this to be the case in the other direction. In a way, it's a ridiculous question. How do you prevent an individual's religious ideas from informing his or her political actions? You don't. However the individual believes, that is what will be taken to the polls. All such questions may be similarly addressed---what goes on within your skull is yours and the government cannot interfere with it. But public displays, judicial acts, and legislation ought to be free of overt religious sentiment. Passing laws should be based on common welfare---if an exhortation to god is necessary to make a law seem "right" then that law is not Constitutional. It has to make secular sense. But the issue is muddy, because the same Framers often talked about christian principles and the common bonds of christian community, at least in private, and often in speeches. Is this a contradiction? I believe not. The problem is, the idea as currently framed and debated is simply out of context, not broad enough. What did it mean to be part of a christian community in 1787? That everyone went to church, prayed the same way, believed in the same god or description of god? At that time, I suspect, "christian community" was a label for a total package of cultural markers. One didn't have to believe overtly in any specific christian doctrine in order to accept social ideas about what made a community. Being a christian was a political, social, and economic condition as much if not more than a religious conviction. While you might not pray in that church down the street, you would defend it and move easily in the externalized community around it. What would this have meant in practice? [More . . . ]

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Religion: It’s almost like being in love

You know how it is when someone is in the first throes of infatuation. We call it "love," but it's very different than the kind of relationship that eventually develops. Or doesn't develop. Think of all of those young couples "in love" who are at each other's throats only a couple years later. While they are in the romantic love stage, they are "caught up in the emotion." Their lover can do no wrong. Their lover is perfect. Their lover has no faults; oh, sure he or she has idiosyncrasies, but nothing that could possibly impede this relationship. At least not until the fairy dust settles and they are able to start seeing each other as flawed human beings, sometimes horribly flawed. Amazing as it seems, strong emotions can cause massive distortions in perceptions. They can make A look like Not-A. Strong emotions can also completely shut down our ability to think self-critically. How is it possible that perceptions and understanding can be massively distorted by emotion? How is it that a violent drunkard kleptomaniac can initially seem like a nice fellow? That's evolution at work. As Robert Wright once wrote in The Moral Animal, emotions are "evolution's executioners." We have deep instincts for falling in love, for losing control, for blinding ourselves to the other's faults so that we will make babies. I should restate this. It's not that evolution is trying to do anything at all. Evolution is not conscious and it has no plan. On the other hand, we are survivors at the top of a long branch of the tree of speciation. You and I and all of our ancestors have survived Nature's amoral pruning, millennium after millennium. We are extremely lucky that we evaded the weeding phase of breed and weed. The unrelenting reproductive urge, the one thing that every one of our ancestors had in spades, has been passed on to us or we wouldn't be here to ponder anything. ALL of our ancestors had it and acted on it: the compulsion to reproduce--the urge to merge. This ancient instinct is ubiquitous, even though, once in a while, a cigar is only a cigar. What is the most efficient way to make animals reproduce? How about this? Blind them to each others' faults and make them horny. [More . . . ]

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It’s in the First Amendment

This exchange between Republican Senate Candidate Christine O'Donnell and her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons, is surreal. Here's how it went, as reported by CBS News:

Coons said that creationism, which he considers "a religious doctrine," should not be taught in public schools due to the Constitution's First Amendment. He argued that it explicitly enumerates the separation of church and state. "The First Amendment does?" O'Donnell asked. "Let me just clarify: You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?" "Government shall make no establishment of religion," Coons responded, reciting from memory the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (Coons was off slightly: The first amendment actually reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.") "That's in the First Amendment...?" O'Donnell responded.
I thought this had to be a spoof from the Onion when I first read it, but you can watch the video if you want proof--if you can stand to watch it. I do sympathize with Chris Coons. This is also a tragedy for America. All of the candidates running for office should be be best and the brightest. They should be familiar with the facts regarding the issues on which they opine. O'Donnell seems to have the factual competency of a fourth grader.

Continue ReadingIt’s in the First Amendment