I'm still reeling mentally from setting my DVR to record "The O'Reilly Factor" tonight, but I'll try and collect my thoughts long enough to post something coherent.
First of all, let me give myself props. I preferred Sarah Palin for McCain in the middle of July. Say what you will about Palin, she has brought the life back into both campaigns. It's interesting to watch again, and hopefully it will remain so until the election.
Here are two important political issues that come immediately to my mind where Obama trumps McCain. I'd like to see some of these discussed in the news IN PLACE of Palin's pregnant teenage daughter, Biden's deceased wife and bedside swearing-in, McCain was a prisoner of war, and Obama doesn't put his hand over his heart:
JUDGES. One of the most important roles of the next President is likely to be appointing judges to the Supreme Court. Arguably the most liberal jurists on the bench are John Paul Stevens, 88, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75. In the event of an Obama election, one or both would almost certainly retire. Obama voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito; McCain has cited both as examples of the kind of judges he would appoint. Obama recently made strong statements against Clarence Thomas; McCain blasted the liberal bloc (Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer and Souter).
They are as diametrically opposed on this issue as can be, and it has hugely far-reaching consequences. For example, Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and (possibly) Roberts would likely vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark court decision that legalized abortion. A McCain appointee would probably join this group. Obama is fervently pro-choice and his appointee would secure Roe v. Wade. This brings abortion - which I normally term an issue of artificially inflated importance, since Roe v. Wade is, in the words of John Roberts, "settled law" - into the spotlight. Not that it ever left.
Since Sandra Day O'Connor's exit, I would characterize the current makeup of the court as moderately right-leaning. Obama and his Democratic Senate would fix that.
TAXES. I don't think people take the national debt as seriously as they should because it's such an unimaginably vast number as to be inconceivable in terms of real effect - almost $10,000,000,000,000. Think of it this way: over $30,000 per citizen. It has to STOP. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Obama would raise taxes on those making over $603,000 per year, make little to no change for those making between $227,000-$603,000, and decrease taxes for the rest. McCain would lower taxes across the board, with the biggest breaks going to the wealthiest. And Obama's supposed to be the elitist here?
I will grant that McCain is less likely to follow in Bush's footsteps in terms of wildly out-of-control spending than some of his Republican counterparts might have been, but recent history tells us that Democrats are more likely to balance the budget.
These issues aren't ratings-boosters like Bristol Palin's shotgun wedding, but they have actual relevance. It's very possible that the media is about to face a huge backlash over its frenzied coverage of Palin irrelevancies, which she and McCain have jumped all over. I disagree with those who claim a giant liberal bias in the media - I think reality has a liberal bias :) - but if popular opinion forces more coverage of actual politics, I think we'll all win
Headlines
Posted by Unknown on 9/04/2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Nice post. The problem with "the media" is not that it's "biased" or that it's shallow, but that it's business. Like any other business, it makes money by figuring out what customers want and giving it to them. Asking the media to focus on substantive issues rather than audience-pleasing issues is like asking McDonald's to sell carrot sticks instead of Big Macs. In the same way, we expect the media to forego profits and give us what's good for us (as citizens) instead of what we want (as consumers). I don't see any solution for this, other than becoming smarter consumers of media. There's good media out there, but it doesn't sell very well. And whose fault is that? If someone watches Hannity and Colmes instead of reading The National Review and The Nation, they've got no one to blame but themselves. And they've certainly got no business complaining about the shallowness of the media.
--David
Okay, hello again, been awhile.
First, the main stream media is biased,(my opinion,) and secondly if the media is run as a business, they either have no idea what "people" want or really stink at running a business, evidenced by declining circulation in newspapers and declining ratings for tv journalists. Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh has been in business 20 years, very successfully, and Sean Hannity's audience continues to grow. In a business growth is associated with success, so...what? they are so extreme that people are just drawn to them?
In that case why isn't the Enquirer more successful? I propose that the reason that liberal talk shows don't work is because nobody wants to listen to the drudgery and doom and gloom it always turns out to be, and that the majority of Americans, the working class, want to listen to positive, ideals-based, thought provoking discussion, that is tied closely to their lives and their ideals. The basis that government will never be a solution to our problems, but will very frequently be the problem.
Here I could lead into taxes, but Mike sounds like he's got an arsenal of figures for me, and I'm not prepared. My belief, however, as a side note, is that Democrats have no understanding of economics, it's always spend more, tax more. And Obama's plan seems to raise taxes on the majority of middle Americans via small-businesses, they will bear the brunt of his taxes, more expenses means either product price hike or cutting costs, aka jobs, hence economics. Want to comment more later on this.
Back to my first point, for
19 months we have heard nothing of Barracks background or questions of his actual experience except by those who are not "main stream," they have ignored his radical associations, and his lack of experience, and if they did talk about it, it was only after it had too much attention to ignore, brought to light by non-main-stream media sources, and usually in his defence.
In contrast, the instant Palin was announced, and ever since, it has been as much dirt as they could drum up. Maybe it is more obvious to us right-wingers because the news is so left, and so subtle to left-wingers because it is what they want to hear.
Another great example is the war in Iraq. We hear nothing these days of how well the surge has worked, when a couple of years ago it was as many horrible images and stories as they could find. We heard nothing of the tonnage of weapons of mass destruction, powder cake uranium, enriched and ready to use, that was actually there.
The point is that it is their own business to report whatever they feel like reporting, just don't pretent that it is unbiased.
I hope I understood your comments David, I apologize if you feel I took it all wrong, let me know.
And Mike I remember your stance on abortion and understand, I think, why you want the Justices to be more left, but there have been many other cases like the gun laws in Washington where I am very very glad that rulings past, but afraid that they were so close. Especially where future issues are concerned like the possibilities of the same sex marriage issue.
Jaronius,
I don't know you, so this probably doesn't apply to you, but I suspect that most people who listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity do so because they want someone else to do their political thinking for them.
Mike-
World's best case scenario: McCain is elected, Stevens finally surrenders the seat he's been holding out on letting go of until Bush left, and McCain nominates and pushes through a new 50 year old Justice in the mold of Scalia, Alito, and Roberts. Roe Wade dies within three years, there are no more death penalty cases heard ever, and an armed citizenry becomes a requirement!
Oh, relax! Of course my last sentence was tongue-in-cheek... Well, the whole mandatory armament thing was anyway. :)
I completely agree that the next president's most important jobs will be shaping the US Supreme Court for years to come. I think that everybody in the country is expecting Stevens to retire about February 1st regardless of whose elected. He is really hoping that its Obama, but he can't hold out that much longer regardless.
Truth be told, I very distinctly remember in 2004 voting for Bush solely because he would get me some good Justices if he had the chance. I didn't like Bush then any more than I do now, but he is with me on the vast majority of issues. Or I'm with him. Whatever. We agree on everything until he opens his hole and starts talking about foreign policy. Then we had vast cavernous differences. But I've gone and sidetracked myself... Bush got my vote because he would make good decisions regarding Supreme Court Justices. And you know what? He did. He may have screwed up everything else, but he got those two people right.
And it probably wouldn't affect me one bit if Obama were elected EXCEPT for the Supreme Court issue (and higher taxes, and decreased national security, and the increased government intrusion in my life, etc, but really just the Supreme Court). "We" are SO CLOSE to a solid majority that we can taste victory on every "judicial" issue there is. And though Obama likely wouldn't kill our being close (no ancient conservatives really; well, Scalia and Kennedy are 72 which isn't young) but he would definitely postpone it.
Did I mention taxes? Did you mention taxes? I don't believe for a second that Obama isn't going to increase taxes on anybody making less than $603K/year, and neither should anybody else in the universe. Get real. And even if this is the case, I still vote a big, fat NO. No more raising taxes on ANYBODY. It isn't good for anybody! No, sir, we need to NOT waste so much of OUR money on complete crap. Run the country's checkbook like a good Mormon couple is supposed to run their checkbook. Quit spending more than you "make" (tax), quit spending money on crap you don't need, and pay off your debts so they don't rule your lives. The LAST, last, last thing the government needs is a bigger check!
Joel, haven't you noticed that the federal government will spend more than it makes regardless of the tax rate? Haven't you noticed that Republicans might cut taxes, but even when they do they'll increase spending anyway (as Bush did with a Republican Congress in cahoots). And they'll continue to deficit-spend until something has to give until some later administration has to raise taxes to pay for their predecessor's irresponsible (but politically popular) tax-cutting. As when Bush I had to pay the political price for Reagan's tax-cutting and deficit spending. (I've always admired Bush I for going ahead and raising taxes when it was the fiscally correct thing to do.)
Sure, a genuine and permanent reduction in taxation and spending would be nice. So would a new pony. But history shows that these are things that Republicans promise but don't actually deliver. Republicans are not going to shrink government, no more than Democrats are going to eradicate poverty.
There are plenty of good reasons to prefer one party to the other, but tax policy isn't one of them. (Abortion isn't exactly one of them either. Even if Roe v. Wade gets thrown out, abortion will remain legal in the blue states, and since people in a red state will be able to travel to a blue state to get an abortion, the actual number of abortions will probably not decrease all that much. I can pretty much promise you that if abortion is outlawed in Utah, the Planned Parenthood offices in LA and San Francisco and maybe even Grand Junction, Colo. will start doing a lot of business with Greyhound.) People who want to actually ban abortion need to be thinking constitutional amendment, not Supreme Court. And, at least for the foreseeable future, there aren't anywhere near enough votes for a constitutional amendment. The GOP doesn't want anyone to know it, but abortion is here to stay. Just as Big Government is here to stay. Of course, abortion and Big Government are for Republicans what poverty is for Democrats: problems that government cannot actually solve, and for that very reason will always be around to rile up the voters and maintain the status quo of Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.)
Anyway, history shows that when it comes to federal spending levels, it just doesn't matter which party is in office. The system is broke at a level that goes deeper than politics.* And it's spending habits that count, not short-term tax policies. When the deficit builds up, taxes have to play catch-up eventually.
The real differences between the parties are (as others have been arguing here) seen in issues like the judiciary and foreign policy.
As for your "good Mormon couple" analogy, who's more responsible?
Couple #1, who makes $50K, spends $60K, and thus goes $10K into debt--and responds by saying, "Yikes! Hawaiian vacations are great, but in order to pay for it we need to start working overtime to increase our revenues."
or
Couple #2, who likewise goes $10K into debt--and responds by saying, "Yikes! We both hate working overtime, and since we're not going to be raising our revenues, we'll just have to do without a vacation this year."
or
Couple #3, who goes $10K into debt--and responds by saying, "Hey, that was great! We had a great Hawaiian vacation, and because we used our credit card we didn't even have to work any overtime! Let's do the same thing next year, and next, and next! Let's keep doing it until we die, and then let our children pay the bill!"
The Democrats claim to be Couple #1 and the Republicans to be Couple #2. But they're both really Couple #3.
--David
*Once upon a time, John McCain (and people like Russ Feingold) worked very hard to fix the system at this deep level. But they never got very far at all and eventually failed. It's a Catch-22. In order to attain the position that would give one the authority to fix the corrupt system, one first has to sell one's soul to that system. In 2000, McCain tried to finesse the corrupt structure of the system, but lost out to the corrupt George W. Bush. This time around he decided just to go ahead and sell his soul--and sure enough, on Nov. 4 we will see the name "John McCain" on the presidential ballot. But it's not the same John McCain. Sad, very sad, but utterly predictable.
David,
I enjoyed your comment and agree with most of it. It's good to see you can be civil in your response without deducing every arguement to "you're just an ignorant simpleton Mormon."
Frank, I listen because they are like minded to me and believe in the same solutions and seem to have the same values as I do, and I will admit that it is entertaining. When I watch the news on tv it seems like I am always scrunching up my face or gaffah-ing at one comment or another cause I don't agree with assumptions being drawn. Anyhow that is where I am comfortable, for now. If I started disagreeing with what was being said I am sure I wouldn't listen anymore.
Joel, agree on the judges, bravo.
David,... I actually agree also, although I don't think we should settle for government constantly growing, big gov't here to stay to me means eventual self-destruction of either the system or the people. Something drastic MUST be done. And maybe it will take an outside thinker like...gulp...Ron Paul, or the likes to get it done.
Post a Comment