Faux Bipartisanship

The whole notion of bipartisanship has taken a beating these days from folks on the left and the right. Indeed, in this age of hyper-partisanship, folks tend to punish those who dare cooperate with the other side.

But there is still a desire among many in the Great American Middle for some form of bipartisanship, a way where the two sides can come together and make a deal that will benefit all of America.

So, what does a politician do to fulfill that desire? You play pretend bipartisanship and hope no one notices its just for show. That's the basis of a recent Political article which focuses on the healthcare debate and how both the left and the right have done what they can to thrwart real bipartisanship.

Carrie Budhof Brown shows how outside forces killed the one real chance for bipartisanship on reforming health care:

In fact, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana tried the bipartisan route. He spent almost nine months trying to bring a handful of Republicans onto the bill, and had the support of Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid in doing it — to an extent. The theory was that if Baucus could persuade Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to come on board, other Republicans in both chambers would follow.

Until July, the approach looked promising. But a cascade of decisions threw it off course.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) told conservative activists that they needed to make health care Obama’s Waterloo, infuriating Democrats who saw the remarks as the first public sign that Republicans had no plans to support the bill.

It was around this time that Baucus faced increased pressure from Reid and the White House to wrap up the Gang of Six negotiations, angering Republicans who didn’t want to be rushed.

But the Republicans involved in talks — Snowe, Grassley and Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming — were also being squeezed. When it appeared that the group was nearing a compromise, McConnell reined them in, extracting guarantees from Grassley and Enzi that they would not sign off on a deal without consent from the caucus, according to congressional aides.

Partisans on both sides charge the other is not really engaging with the other. They present themselves as the pure and honest one, while the other side refuses to listen to them.

The whole game these days is to appear that you are trying to extend the olive branch, while at the same time reining in those who even dare to try to persue real bipartisanship.

The thing is, real bipartisanship means coming together, listen to each other and realizing that you aren't going to get the whole loaf. But in this age when what matters is to win, what matters is trying to make sure the other side gets nothing. It's the ultimate in zero-sum games.

I am probably one of the dreaded "Broderites" who thinks that real bipartisanship is a worthy thing. Why? Because even if one side wins a majority of seats in Congress and wins the White House, they have to contend with another side that also won seats. They might not have won the majority, but they were still elected by their districts to do a job. We are not a parlimentary system where the winner takes all. The winner might have advantages, but they still have to cooperate with the minority. Too many think that because one party might have a commanding majority, that they don't have to listen to the minority. But that is not how our govermental structure is set up. The minority might be less in number, but they have been elected in their states and districts. They have to be listened to and heeded.

Some of the blame also has to placed on a partisan public that does not want bipartisanship. What they want is for the "losing side" to basically get out of the way and shut up and through blogs and membership groups, they make sure that anyone who works with the other side is punished.

I don't have an answer for this. All I can say is that there needs to be a price paid for squashing bipartisanship. Until that happens, expect more staged showings of bipartisanship.

Rise of the "Homocons"

I don't normally like to sites like Big Government or its sister site, Big Journalism. They tend to be a bit too bombastic for my tastes.

That said, this post by Bruce Carroll makes a strong point about the whole Ryan Sorba incident last weekend. He goes as far as saying that it was a "tipping point" within conservatism. I don't know if it has made that big of a difference, but I do think it is an important event. But as Carroll points out, many on the Gay Left tended to do what Andrew Sullivan did, focus on Sorba's incendiary comments on not on the response of the crowd.

There was a time that I scratched my head about something like this. I used to think that those on the Gay Left truly wanted to see an American Right that rid itself of homophobia. I still think there are a lot of people on the left that do want a homophobic-free Right, but many don't seem to care and want to focus on the dark side and nothing else.

It reminds me a scene from C.S. Lewis' last book in the Chronicles of Narnia, the Last Battle. In that book, several people were tossed into a dank stable. At least that's what the elves thought. For the others that were in the stable, they saw a wonderful meadow. They rejoiced at their surroundings, while the elves remained huddled in what they thought was a stable.

I think there are many that will still see conservatism as a hateful collection of individuals who plot to destroy gays. Of course such people exist, but there are others that are fighting to stand up to hatred with in conservatism. I don't know if what happened this last weekend made any difference or was a "tipping point." Nevertheless, it should be celebrated. Whenever people stand up against hatred, it should be welcomed, not ignored.

The Young Conservative Doth Protest too Much?

I find it interesting that every time that I want to think that American conservatism is going down the tubes, something happens that gives me a spot of hope.

There was a lot of news made when the Conservative Political Action Conference allowed the John Birch Society to have a presence at the event. But another group was also allowed that might make some heads turn. GOProud, a gay conservative group which happened to split off from Log Cabin Republicans about a year ago, was welcomed to CPAC as well. Of course, that didn't please some folks. Ryan Sorba, a young man with a big chip on his shoulder, spoke out against GOProud and against homosexuality in general. You might expect that there were would a lot of cheers from the crowd, but that wasn't really what happened:



It's nice to hear that there were people at CPAC who rose to GOProud's defense. It's a reminder that not all is lost with American conservatism.

You might also want to read openly gay conservative Alex Knepper's meeting with Ryan Sorba. It's a hoot.

On Mount Vernon: Forget About It!

David Frum is correct in criticizing the so-called "Mount Vernon Statement" of movement conservatives. He is correct that the document is just a rehashing of conservative nostrums and offers nothing to gays or minorities, let alone how to deal with the current economy.

But while he is correct in talking about this documents' shortcomings, I have a question to ask David:

Did you expect any different?

Evan Bayh is a Big Booboohead!

Tell us how you really feel, Matt:

Obviously, Evan Bayh’s never been my favorite Senator. And the more one learns about both the manner of his departure, and the thinking behind it, the clearer it is why. Simply put: He’s an immoral person who conducts his affairs in public life with a callous disregard for the impact of his decisions on human welfare. He’s sad he’s not going to be president? He doesn’t like liberal activists? He finds senate life annoying? Well, boo-hoo. We all shed a tear.

Can Big Red Deal With Big Blue?

Walter Russell Mead has written two pieces of work that explains the current political situation. In his first piece, he writes about the "Blue Model," the American Social Contract that governed America from the end of World War II until the 1970s.

In the old system, both blue collar and white collar workers hold stable jobs, a professional career civil service administers a growing state, with living standards for all social classes steadily rising while the gaps between the classes remain fairly stable, and with an increasing ’social dividend’ being paid out in various forms: longer vacations, more and cheaper state-supported education, earlier retirement, shorter work weeks and so on. Graduate from high school and you were pretty much guaranteed lifetime employment in a job that gave you a comfortable lower middle class lifestyle; graduate from college and you would be better paid and equally secure.

Life would just go on getting better. From generation to generation we would live a life of incremental improvements — the details of life would keep getting better but the broad outlines of our society would stay the same. The advanced industrial democracies of had in fact reached the ‘end of history’: this is what ‘developed’ human society looked like and there would be no more radical changes because the picture had fully developed.

But things didn't get better and better. By the 1970s, the Blue Model broke down and it has been dying a slow death since. This is a problem for the Democrats, since this model benefited them the most. You can basically see the end of the Democratic majority with the beginning of the end of the Blue Model.

In the next essay, Mead talks about "Feeding the Blue Beast." He picks up where he left off and notes how this breakdown is problematic for the Democrats:

The blue social model was a triumph of progressive social imagination and political organizing; for two generations it effectively reconciled capitalism with the demand for a better living standard and more security for the population at large.

The breakdown of the blue model is the core problem of American society today and the key to the troubles of the Democratic party. Blue states really are blue; the ‘progressive imagination’ remains staunchly blue, and blue model interest groups like public school teachers, government employees, the remnants of the private union movement and the much healthier labor movement among public employees shape and mostly fund what Howard Dean famously called ‘the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.’

Most Americans would like the blue model to stick around and are nostalgic for the security it once provided, but they understand that the great task of our times isn’t to save the blue model but to move on. The Democratic wing of the Democratic Party believes exactly the opposite: that the blue social model is the only way to go. If our city and state governments are groaning under the dead weight of inflated labor and pension costs, the only solution is to pump federal money into them somehow. If public schools aren’t working, they need more money — but seriously restructuring the system is out of bounds. If college and university tuition is exploding as the costs of education rapidly and continuously outpaces the general level of inflation, the only solution is to pump more money into the system while leaving it to operate much as it does.

Democratic policy is increasingly limited to one goal: feeding the blue beast. The great public-service providing institutions of our society — schools, universities, the health system, and above all government at municipal, state and federal levels — are built blue and think blue. The Democratic wing of the Democratic Party thinks its job is to make them bigger and keep them blue. Bringing the long green to Big Blue: that’s what it’s all about.

Three problems: we can’t afford it, people know that, and we desperately need the things that Big Blue can’t give us.

So, we need the services that Big Blue once gave us. We still need good schools. People also want to be able to afford health care. We want our elderly to not be impoverished. We want clean water, good highways and the like. But we can't pay for them in the way we used to. We can't just tax our way to prosperity when as Mead notes, people are no longer in secure jobs. And yet we need them.

Mead goes on to note that one of the reasons that we have a Tea Party movement is because we are worried as a public about how to pay for government services. But the Tea Party fails in that it proposes nothing as an alternative.

Mead ends his second essay with a pointed question for the Dems, but it is also a question aimed at Republicans:

Can the Democrats unshackle themselves from their degrading and destructive servitude to the blue beast before the Republicans build a new cohort of smart policy wonks with a practical vision for the future? Can either party develop the capacity for innovative leadership before the social and economic dysfunction of the current system drives us into a massive social and financial crisis?

So, here is my question: can the Republicans come up with a new social contract, a "Red Model?" Can we design a social model that is suited for this time and age?

I think Paul Ryan's "Roadmap" is a start. I have some issues with it, but he is trying to create a new social model based on conservative principles. He is building up instead of just tearing down as the Tea Partiers are wont to do.

But there needs to be more conservative thinkers out there who can think about these issues. Opposition to Obama and the Democrats can only go so far. We need to propose our own vision for a new social contract.

Centrists + Ideas= GOP Resurgence

This is a response to a post written by ED Kain at Frum Forum. He was responding a post I wrote at Frum Forum as well.

E.D. : You are correct that any Republican revival is not going to come by simply accepting moderates into the GOP coalition. While we have an important heritage in the GOP, simply having more Scott Browns is not going to make the Republicans a competitive party. Republicans not only need to have a Big Tent of political views, but also a Big Tent of political ideas that will make people take notice.

Paul Ryan's alternative budget is a good idea and starting point on asking how a conservative party should govern now. He has taken the time to come up with ideas for health care reform and entitlement reform. Ryan is not a moderate, but he has an idea that might well appeal to moderates and it takes the GOP beyond it's "party of no" image.

While many have talked about the shrinking Republican tent when it comes to how it treats moderates, there is also a shrinking tent of ideas. As much as we might want to make fun of Democrats for employing 1970s ideas to solve current issues, many in the GOP act like it's 1980 all over again. We think that tax cuts are the answer for any problem, even when they might not work in this situation. We need new ideas for a new era. What does it mean to be a Republican or a conservative in the 21st century?

Which brings me back to the original statement by David Frum: the need for a CPAC of the center-right. We need to have a place, an event that welcomes all sorts of people: libertarians, crunchy cons, moderates and the rest and also welcomes all sorts of new ideas on how to govern. In a way, it's trying to do what Ronald Reagan did in the 70s: create a new Republican party that welcomed moderates, but also was a breeding ground for new conservative ideas.

So, I'm all for a new CPAC or CENPAC or whatever you call it and E.D, I like you to be a part of it. Maybe the way to rebuild the GOP is by moderates like myself working with wonkish conservatives like yourself, E.D.

It's worth a shot.

Fred Kaplan's Republican Party

Newsweek's David Graham has a piece up on Slate's Fred Kaplan's plea for "responsible Republicans" to speak out against Sarah Palin.

Ain't No Party Like a Conservative Party...Oh Wait

Michael Brendan Doughtery's take on what passes for conservatism is a worthwhile read. Having Aspergers, I'm not always aware what is totally being tongue in cheek and what is the stone cold truth, but I can tell that a goodly portion of it is pretty hilarious.

Health Care and the Moderate Republican

It can be hard at times to be a Republican that supports health care reform, because you are immediately tagged with wanting some kind of massive state system ala Canada or the UK. There are shouts of wanting "liberty" and a "free market" in health care without really putting forward real plans.

Shay over at Booker Rising, assumes that because I want a "government takeover of health care:"

Opposing a government takeover of health care (which Mr. Sanders believes is the only type of health care reform) - 1/6 of the U.S. economy - is quite different than opposing health care reform in general. Almost all libertarian, conservative, moderate-conservative and/or Republican critics of the current bill want reform, but one that honors individual choice, liberty, and America's cultural tradition of free markets and not European nanny-statism. If I wanted to be European, I'd move to Europe.

My guess is she read way too much into my previous post on health care and the GOP. In that last post, I said that there is incentive for Republicans to be very serious on health care. Somehow that got interpreted to mean that I supported the Democratic plan (which I didn't). My intent was to make it worth the Republican's while to come to the table with plans that are not massive intrusions into the American economy.

I would rather have a system that use the free market as much as possible and has limited state intervention. We will probably never have a totally free market system for the simple reason that the Federal and State governments already have a hand in the health care system through programs like Medicare and Medicaid. While those two programs are not perfect, they do provide a service in making sure that the elderly and the poor are taken care of.

But the question remains: how do we help the rest of the population? Well, being a conservative, I would like to see the free market have a role. But living in a democracy, I know I won't get everything. There are some real health care plans out there that conservatives should be supporting to make sure people have proper access to health care and also keep costs down.

The Wyden-Bennett bill was one that was able to provide the choice that Shay talks about and also was able to hold costs down. It is a bill that I think conservatives should support. It's not the whole loaf, but it's a good two-thirds of a loaf.

Another idea is to basically challenge the whole concept of health insurance and make it acutally health insurance. Think of this one as a free market model with a catastrophic program as the cherry on top. This was explained in the great essay by David Goldhill called "How American Health Care Killed My Father." His idea is as free market as you can get:

For years, a number of reformers have advocated a more “consumer-driven” care system—a term coined by the Harvard Business School professor Regina Herzlinger, who has written extensively on the subject. Many different steps could move us toward such a system. Here’s one approach that—although it may sound radical—makes sense to me.

First, we should replace our current web of employer- and government-based insurance with a single program of catastrophic insurance open to all Americans—indeed, all Americans should be required to buy it—with fixed premiums based solely on age. This program would be best run as a single national pool, without underwriting for specific risk factors, and would ultimately replace Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance. All Americans would be insured against catastrophic illness, throughout their lives.

Proposals for true catastrophic insurance usually founder on the definition of catastrophe. So much of the amount we now spend is dedicated to problems that are considered catastrophic, the argument goes, that a separate catastrophic system is pointless. A typical catastrophic insurance policy today might cover any expenses above, say, $2,000. That threshold is far too low; ultimately, a threshold of $50,000 or more would be better. (Chronic conditions with expected annual costs above some lower threshold would also be covered.) We might consider other mechanisms to keep total costs down: the plan could be required to pay out no more in any year than its available premiums, for instance, with premium increases limited to the general rate of inflation. But the real key would be to restrict the coverage to true catastrophes—if this approach is to work, only a minority of us should ever be beneficiaries.

How would we pay for most of our health care? The same way we pay for everything else—out of our income and savings. Medicare itself is, in a sense, a form of forced savings, as is commercial insurance. In place of these programs and the premiums we now contribute to them, and along with catastrophic insurance, the government should create a new form of health savings account—a vehicle that has existed, though in imperfect form, since 2003. Every American should be required to maintain an HSA, and contribute a minimum percentage of post-tax income, subject to a floor and a cap in total dollar contributions. The income percentage required should rise over a working life, as wages and wealth typically do.

Another idea that conservatives should consider is how health care is done in Singapore. They use a form of health care savings accounts as the basis of their system:

* There are mandatory health savings accounts: "Individuals pre-save for medical expenses through mandatory deductions from their paychecks and employer contributions... Only approved categories of medical treatment can be paid for by deducting one's Medisave account, for oneself, grandparents, parents, spouse or children: consultations with private practitioners for minor ailments must be paid from out-of-pocket cash..."
* "The private healthcare system competes with the public healthcare, which helps contain prices in both directions. Private medical insurance is also available."
* Private healthcare providers are required to publish price lists to encourage comparison shopping.
* The government pays for "basic healthcare services... subject to tight expenditure control." Bottom line: The government pays 80% of "basic public healthcare services."
* Government plays a big role with contagious disease, and adds some paternalism on top: "Preventing diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tobacco-related illnesses by ensuring good health conditions takes a high priority."
* The government provides optional low-cost catatrophic health insurance, plus a safety net "subject to stringent means-testing."

Yes, there are some things that conservatives would have to swallow such as the "public option," but in the end, this is plan that is not as state intrusive and yet spends less than either Europe or the United States.

Republican legislators have put forth some plans. But in many cases they are pretty vague in how they would both lower costs and provide access to the health care. Mark Kirk, John Shadegg, and the Republican Study Committee have all put forth plans with some good ideas, but they were never forcefully pushed by the GOP. Even if they were good plans, they way they were brought forth showed little seriousness on the issue

Conservatives do believe in the free market. As a conservative, I uphold that principle. But that means nothing if all it is reduced to are platitudes and not about using our principles to provide real and serious solutions.

Random Thoughts on Citizens United v. FEC

I don't think I have the deepest judicial mind, but I do have a few thoughts (and a few links) to share about the recent Supreme Court decision on campaign finance reform

Health Care Reform Still Matters

M. Scott over at Frum Forum reminds Republicans in the wake of the Scott Brown win that health care reform still matters to many Americans including many Republicans

A Word of Caution to Moderate Republicans

From Mike at the Big Stick:

In thinking about the big win for Republicans I am anticipating some I-told-you-sos from moderate factions within the Party. They will point to Brown's win as evidence that moderate Republicans can win and suggest we run more of them. I think this may be reaching too far.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Tolerate Government

What has become de riguer among many conservatives and Republicans these days is to express hatred for government (save the military). We have taken what was to be a healthy skepticism of government and metastized it into this deep contempt.

A Contrarian Take on the Reid Affair

I don't like Harry Reid.

Now that we got that out of the way, I can say this: I don't like the Senator from Nevada, but I also don't think he's a racist or what he said is racist. 

I don't know if white Americans would have voted for someone with darker skin.  Maybe, maybe not.  I think that is something best left to white Americans themselves to answer and since I'm not a white American, I won't answer.

But the thing is, what he said wasn't racist. 

That said, I am also left wondering what would have happened if a Republican had said the same thing.  I tend to think that said Republican would be in the midst of an even greater firestorm than the one surrounding Harry Reid.

E.D. Kain notes that the reaction on the right is indicative of the state of American conservatism these days, but I disagree: I think it is indicative of American politics these days.  While Republicans have shamelessly jumped on Reid's comments, Democrats have at times taken any criticism about the President to be a racist assault on Obama.  Meagan McArdle sums it up nicely:

I happen to agree that there's no evidence that either Bill Clinton or Harry Reid harbor deep racial animus.  Clinton's remarks clearly have an alternative, non-racial interpretation, and while Harry Reid may have been flashing back to his political salad days when Democrats regularly congratulated themselves on their openness to Negros, it's more unfortunate than problematic.  I only wish that all the liberals rushing to defend them would apply the same good faith presumption when Republicans are involved.  Even if the president is black, there will be many people who disagree with him vigorously and angrily; this is not, per se, evidence of racism.

A good faith presumption: it's seems to be what we are missing these days.

American conservatism is pretty messed up, but so is the entire political culture. Politicos on both the left and the right tend to automatically see the worst in each other rather than the best. We don't give each other the benefit of the doubt.

What if we were willing to act on faith that the other side isn't always a monster, but just someone we disagree with?

What missing these days is faith...in each other.

A Blog Post About Blue People, A Trash Compactor, Redemption and the Rapture

My husband and I finally saw Avatar last night. The long and the short of it is, that Daniel really liked it and I was sort of "eh" about the whole thing.

Technologically, it was a masterpiece. The CGI was astoundingly real and the whole makeup of the fictional world of Pandora was sight to behold.

But it comes down to the story, I had more mixed reactions.

On the good side, it did have a good take on how indigenous people have been treated over the centuries, how their homes have been destroyed and populations decimated.

But while it highlighted that issue, it did it in a very surfacy way. The native population of Pandora, the Na'vi were basically perfect people- they all were attractive and thin, they were in tune with nature and there wasn't a bad one among them. Maybe it's me, but I like some gray in my heroes and villians. The Na'vi were so good, it was hard to really relate to them at all. Maybe there was a reason that a recent parody of Avatar on South Park made the Na'vi into Smurfs- they were about as annoyingly perfect.

But maybe what really bothered me about the movie was the lack of hope for humanity. There was not sense of redemption. The Earth of the future was a horrible place of war and ecological devastation. Save for the scientists, the bulk of the humans on Pandora were basically savages and at the end of the movie the are defeated, but unchanged.

Maybe its me but I think that there was another movie on the environment that gave humanity a lot more hope: Wall-E. In that movie, the robot WALL-E is a trash compactor that continued to do his work centuries after humans left Earth an ecological mess. The humans lived on ships and had grown fat and lazy. Through Wall-E, they come back to earth and start anew, this time respecting the world they once took for granted. That movie had a condemned humnaity for its sins but also gave a shot at redeeming itself, and humanity did. But in Avatar, there was no chance.

I like my movies to have some sense of hope. That doesn't mean I want a "happy ending," however. Hopeful endings mean that there is a chance that redemption will take place.

In some ways, Avatar reminded me a liberal version of the rapture. For the uninitiated, this is the belief popular among some Christians, that the faithful will be taken into heaven, while the unfaithful will be stuck on earth and face God's damnation. In Avatar, the humans go back to dying planet to face their damnation, while a few good humans got to stay on Pandora and if they were really good, they could like the young protagonist Jake Sully, leave humanity altogether and become a Na'vi.

I'm not as upset as some conservatives are about the implied pantheism- people are entitled to their spiritual viewpoints. But I wanted more nuance and gray in this movie. As E.D. Kain notes in a post today, a movie like The Mission, dealt far more in the grays of life and gave a fuller picture of the good and bad of humanity than Avatar ever did.

So, I chalk this up as an okay movie. It wasn't a waste of my three hours, but I did want something a bit more hopeful.

The Return of Glass-Stegall?

With all the talk of partisan rancor and all the talk about how Wall Street is not learning the lessons of the near economic disaster, this little news story is kind of slipping under the wires. Kudos to Senators Cantwell and McCain for trying to right the ship and try to reign in the banks.

The blog, the NextGOP gives a good reason why Republicans should support this bill.

Gays, Uganda and "The Man"

I've been causally following the whole issue of the anti-gay bill being considered in Uganda. I've seen how bloggers have asked American evangelicals to denounce the law and upon hearing that some evangelicals have been to the East African nation comparing gays to the worse of humanity there has been a swirl of righteous indignation. A few people have started to say that this story tells us that white evangelicals want all gays dead.

In all this talk there has been something that has distrubed me: the sense that there is someone missing from this argument. That missing person or persons are the Africans themselves. Even though this is taking place in Uganda, it seems as if the Ugandans are the minor characters of what is the ongoing American culture war. This seems a bit odd, since it was the Ugandan government or rather a member of Parliament that proposed this bill. This MP could have decided not to, but did it anyway. Also, as a piece in the Advocate notes, it's not like Uganda was a gay paridise before this bill was introduced:

The current law in Uganda states that anyone who identifies as a homosexual, bisexual, or transgender should be sentenced to a minimum of 14 years imprisonment. While 14 years is the stated term, being convicted as an LGBT person commonly results in a life sentence.(emphasis mine) While it has never been safe to identifying as a gay person in Uganda, the bill introduced October 14, if passed, would make a nonstraight lifestyle impossible in the African country. The new legislation calls for a life sentence as a minimum punishment for any LGBT person and further states that anyone who fails to report a homosexual to the government within 24 hours will be sentenced to three years in prison. The final part of the bill is perhaps the most shocking, given Uganda’s history of HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention. It states that death by hanging is the punishment for “aggravated homosexuality,” which is defined as any of the following: a repeat offender of the homosexuality law, having homosexual sex when any intoxicating substance is involved (for instance, if two men meet at a bar, buy each other a drink and then have sex, both of these men would be sentenced to death,) if one engages in homosexual activity as an authority figure, and finally, having sex if you’re HIV-positive.

The Uganda story is not simply about hateful white people going to Africa to infect the innocent black folk there. Yes, the conservatives who went there to spread their schlock did pour gasoline on a fire, it is important to remember that the fire was already there in the first place. In many parts of Africa it is difficult to be gay. Just this week, the world saw a gay couple in Malawi jailed for being gay. According to Wikipedia, about 38 African nations still outlaw homosexuality. Amnesty International reports that last year Burundi outlawed homosexuality. A report on BBC states a report from the International Gay and Lesbian Association that says homosexuality is punishable by death in parts of Nigeria, Mauritania and Sudan; Gambia, Kenya and Tanzania are punishable by up to 14 years in jail and in Zimbabwe it could be against the law for gays to show public displays of affection.

I'm not saying that these evangelicals should be let off the hook, but it should be noted that it hasn't been easy for gays even before this law came into being. It would be nice if the people who trying to fight the culture war on an another continent would remember that.

Lincoln-Douglas It Ain't

Writing for Frum Forum, John Guardiano argues that interparty battles within the GOP is good because it will spur ideas. Guardiano notes:

I’ll acknowledge that a primary contest which devolves into an idealess food fight is a real risk, and one the GOP should avoid. However, a substantive contest of ideas should not only be countenanced; it should actively be encouraged: because it will help to invigorate and strengthen a GOP that urgently needs new ideas and new public-policy proposals, and for both substantive and political reasons.

Substantively, the GOP needs to address the great and pressing issues of our time: fractured countries and failed states, international terrorism, nuclear proliferation, a weak and fragile financial system, runaway entitlement spending (which threatens to bankrupt our country), chronic under- and un-employment, a lack of economic growth, et al.

If primaries were really about two candidates sharing their ideas on how to tackle pressing issues of the day, that would be one thing. But as Jeb Gonklin shows in a rebuttal to Guardiano, such battles are every the high-minded fight of ideas that Guardiano supposedly longs for. This is what he has to say about a GOP primary battle going on in Illinois between moderate Mark Kirk and conservative Andy Martin:

In a substantive debate on the issues that Guardiano highlights, Kirk would welcome a primary “battle” to focus on which candidate has the best ideas and which candidate is the most qualified to serve in the United States Senate. In five terms in Congress, Kirk has more than displayed his bonafides and his leadership skill on the most important issues of the day… like opposing Iranian nuclear proliferation. I don’t oppose a primary fight because it would focus on substantive issues but, on the contrary, because opposition to Kirk has nothing to do with the issues. The Tea Partiers opposing him don’t care that Kirk is the most qualified based on experience, the most intelligent, the most fit to win a general election, the best on Iran, the best on defense…..they care that he had the audacity to disagree with them on the bailout and on gun control — all issues which only primary voters disagree with him on. Guardiano calls for innovative and independent policy thinkers, yet it is Kirk’s refusal to toe the far right’s version of the “party line” that so upsets some conservatives.

If the debate were about issues, Andy Martin would not be running radio advertisements which mention a so called “solid rumor” that Kirk is gay. If this race were about issues, Lake County Republican leader Ray True would not publicly observe that Mark Kirk has “surrounded himself with homosexuals.” If this race were about issues, the rightwing blogosphere wouldn’t be buzzing about how “gay” Mark Kirk is. But this debate isn’t about issues. This debate is about how a small group of conservatives are upset that Kirk appeals to a more moderate group of voters. The opposition to Kirk doesn’t have a thing to do with issues.

The recent race between Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava and Conservative Doug Hoffman was basically a mudfight calling Scozzafava everything but a child of God.

My own skeptical take is that Guardiano is not pleased with the more moderate Kirk and wants a "high-minded slugfest." But such things rarely exist, especially when the moderate is battling a conservative who deems his opponent just wrong on issues, but a traitor to the party.

I'm all for sharing ideas, but not when it resembles a wrestling match.

Thinking About Tea Parties

David Brooks has a good take on the Tea Party movement and what it might be saying about American society circa 2010. It would be easy to write the movement off and some have (including yours truly). But Brooks, being a student of history, can see some of the underlying currents in America that are being made manifest in the Tea Party. He cites that Americans have lost faith in institutions and the Tea Party is basically saying what others are thinking:

The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

A year ago, the Obama supporters were the passionate ones. Now the tea party brigades have all the intensity.

The tea party movement is a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against. They are against the concentrated power of the educated class. They believe big government, big business, big media and the affluent professionals are merging to form self-serving oligarchy — with bloated government, unsustainable deficits, high taxes and intrusive regulation.

The tea party movement is mostly famous for its flamboyant fringe. But it is now more popular than either major party. According to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 41 percent of Americans have a positive view of the tea party movement. Only 35 percent of Americans have a positive view of the Democrats and only 28 percent have a positive view of the Republican Party.

Again, most of us in the "educated class" have written these people off as silly idiots. And while I still think there is a lot of silly and even dangerous thinking coming from these folks, they are also on to something. Think about: over the last few years, we have seen governments unable to do anything as a major American city is inundated with water, get bogged down in two wars and run up massive deficits. When Americans look at business, the picture is no better: banks that made stupid risks, car companies that made cars no one wanted, and all supported in some way by an inept government. In some ways, this goes beyond who is in the White House: people are mad at everyone and even worse, they think the only person they can depend on is themselves.

This is the challenge that both political parties have to face. I don't think that the Tea Party has the answer: if we followed their advice in the fall of 2008, we'd basically be living through the Second Great Depression instead of the Great Recession. But both Republicans and Democrats have to find some way to restore trust to American institutions. It's not simply about having a "public option" as it is about making sure that government is doing it's job well. It's about making business follow rules that benefit all and not just a few. It's about not going using military action unless we know we are going win. It's about trying to live within our means.

The Tea Parties want us to believe that we are on our own. I don't think that's true, but they have a point when you look at the landscape of the last few years.

As the Partiers go after mainstream Republicans, it's important that those establishment candidates speak to the underlying problems. What the American public needs to hear is that they will work to restore the public's trust.

That's why we need to listen to the Tea Parties, even if we don't like them.