Memo to Disaffected Republicans: Enough with the Funeral Already!

Former GOP Congressman Mickey Edwards has written a piece about how Ronald Reagan would not recognize the current Republican Party. Now there is much to agree with in his essay, but at some point, this is all tiring. I mean, haven't we been hearing about how the GOP isn't what it used to be for quite some time?

Goldwater-style Republicans, libertarians, people like me who tend to be more Rockefeller Republicans all whine and moan about the current state of the party and there is much to be said about how the party is no longer one of ideas.

But I keep thinking that all of this feels more like a funeral- a weeping for a dear friend that has been passed on.

And the thing is, I'm tired of funerals.

I think that instead of griping about the Republican party and blaming Karl Rove and George W. Bush, how about we do something about it? Instead of expecting the current leaders, who have brought us to this point, to change, how about rising up new leaders? Instead of bemoaning the fact that we have no new ideas, how about creating new think tanks and journals and blogs that present new ideas?

Listen, I am as upset as anyone about the state of the Republican party. But nothing will happen if all we do is whine. Lots of ink and bytes have been spilled to say the obvious over and over again.

I've heard Mr. Edwards talk about this subject over and over again, in his book, on Huffington Post and now here. Instead of writing sad songs about a lost history, how about using your expertise to fund a think tank or a PAC that helps good conservatives run for office?

Democracy is a verb. It is about action and politics is about who shows up. The reason that the Religious Right has such power in the GOP is because they did it the old fashioned way- they came in and ran for party offices, took part in platform committees, and found candidates that were to their liking to run for office. Contrary to popular opinion, the far right didn't hijack the party- they took it over using the tools of democracy. I don't like the Religious Right, but they did right in steering the party in the way they wanted it to be.

Those of us on the outside, the moderates, the libertarians and so on, have not done as much. We stand and wail about how the party has lost its way, but we do very little other than complain. For a party to change, people have to get busy and organize and fight for it.

More times than I can count, people complain about the party and then say they will leave it. Oh yeah, great idea. You've basically just told the religious right that they have won.

Years ago, I remember a person saying he wouldn't be involved in the GOP until they changed their pro-life stance. Stupid man. Did he really think that the current GOP which is filled with powerful pro-life people is just going to change? No. It won't change unless people get involved.

Our friends on the left as well as the Religious Right are correct in one sense: they know that to make change, they have to get involved. That's why they are part of groups like MoveOn.org and so on. That's why they go to party conventions and they spend money to put up the candidates they want.

But us disaffected Republicans? We want everything done for us. We want some magical person to come and change everything. But that's fantasy, not politics. Politics, social change,is hard knuckle. It's not a game and if you can't handle that, then shut up and move along.

There are a lot of groups out there that work day in and day out trying to force change in the GOP. They are small and have a hard time finding people who are passionate in changing the party for the better. Maybe instead of whining, people might want to consider joining some of these groups:

• Republican Leadership Council
• Republican Mainstreet Partnership
• Republican Majority for Choice
• WISH List
• Republicans for Environmental Protection
• Real Republican Majority
• Log Cabin Republicans
• Progressive Republicans
• Republican Liberty Caucus

These groups could use support. But that means getting your hands a bit dirty instead of simply wringing them.

So, I am not interested in more sad talk about the sorry state of the GOP. Mickey Edwards can wail all he wants, but it won't bring his beloved party back.

As for me, I am going to take Ghandi's quote to heart: "be the change you want to see in the world."

Enough with funerals. Time to start living.

He's All Mavericky Again

This does my heart good:

A joke made its way around the Capitol yesterday: How do you know the 2008 election is really over? Because John McCain is causing trouble for Republicans again.

Two and a half months removed from his defeat in the race for the presidency, colleagues say, McCain bears more resemblance to the unpredictable and frequently bipartisan colleague they have served with for decades than the man who ran an often scathing campaign against Barack Obama. In some instances, he's even carrying water for his former rival.

"Mac is back!" one of his devoted friends in the Senate declared as McCain walked into the chamber Wednesday to deliver his first speech of the 111th Congress: a blunt admonishment of Republicans delaying Hillary Rodham Clinton's confirmation as secretary of state.

This is the McCain I've long admired. And it reminds me that the McCain we saw during the 2008 election was one that had to submit to the narrow ideology of the ruling GOP.

Now that he's done with all that, he can go back to being himself again and stickin' it to the far right.

Though one has to wonder: what would have happened if McCain was allowed to be McCain during the election? What would have happened?

But maybe the more pressing question is why the GOP has fashioned itself into a party that has become so afraid of any other flavor of conservatism that it forces people, even the irrascible McCain, to conformity.

Ideas Have Consequences: The Closing of Guantanamo

Someone in the Obama Administration has to be thinking this was just bad timing:

The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.

His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterintelligence official.

To have this come out the same day that Obama ordered Gitmo to be closed in a year's time is not good. But it does highlight the problem that Obama faces. Yes, closing Gitmo is a good idea, but what do you do with the people who are there? Not all of these people are simply people at the wrong place at the wrong time.

It's not a secret that Guantanamo has sullied the reputation of America. But the other side of that coin is that there are people who do seek to do harm. The question remains how to close the camp without sending people back to their homeland to do ill.

Maybe that's why Obama wants a year to do this.

Not In My Backyard

Per Jennifer Rubin:

If the Republicans are looking for a good issue, here is one: promise to filibuster (with the help of Democrats from affected states) any attempt (and the required funding) to put terror suspects within the confines of the U.S. Why should Democrats’ acute sensitivity about world opinion (emanating from that bastion of human rights, the UN) take priority over the peace of mind of our own citizens? It is baffling.

I frankly don't get this fear of having suspected terrorists being housed in federal prision on American soil. And what's with this manufactured fear about having to pay for these prisoner's upkeep? I mean, aren't we doing that already at Gitmo? Does Rubin really think our government would house these guys in some county lockup and not in some federal prison?

My own take is that we have housed bad men accused of terror in federal prisons before with no fear that somehow they would breakout or something. The thing is, most of these communities that have federal prisons have at times welcomed these facilities for their business and they already house the worst or the worst without these communities fearing they are on the run. If they aren't that worried that these people aren't going get out and rape and pillage, then maybe it' okay to house suspected terrorists in federal prisons.

There might be some legitimate questions concerning the closing of Guantanamo, but this is just a silly smokescreen.

Worst President Ever? Maybe...Maybe Not.

It has become pretty fashionable not only among liberals, but even conservatives to see the Bush years as a big failure.

On the other side, there are Bush partisans who believe that the former President will be vindicated, just give it time.

Now I have been one of many who think that George Bush was not a good executive. I think he was not up to the task of the many tests that came his way from 9/11 to Katrina. But that said, I think it is too early to say the 43rd President was the worst ever or even that he will be vindicated in time. We just don't know.

I don't know if it is central to our times, but we want to make our historic judgements as soon as possible. But the fact is, history takes time and history is something that is ongoing and is an unknown. Bush has made many mistakes and cheif among them was his willingness to take the nation to war against Iraq. President Bush set several bad things in motion because of what he did and we know that. But we don't know the future. We have no idea how something like Iraq will play out over the years. Maybe Iraq will descend into a civil war as the US starts to leave. Maybe it will become a thriving democracy and an example to the rest of the Middle East, we just don't know.

It goes without saying that Bush had made mistakes that have cost the GOP and the nation as a whole. But it might be too soon to say he is the worst president, or to vindicate him because it is just too soon and some of things started under Bush are still taking place.

Decades from now, historians might look back and say that Bush was a horrible President, look at how the world was impacted by his years. But they may also say he did his best under the circumstances or things like that.

But until then, I will withhold my ultimate judgement on Bush. Let history play itself out and be the proper judge.

Who's Afraid of the Big Tent?

John Avalon has a great piece up at David Frum's New Majority website about how the GOP can win in New England again. He notes that before the Bush-era there were still an favorable number of Republicans holding office in New England and now there are none (two if you include New York State.)

One of his tips that the party has to become a Big Tent party:

Somehow Republicans have lost common ground – Reagan invoked the Big Tent constantly as a way of collecting libertarian conservatives, national security conservatives, economic conservatives and social conservatives under one banner. But the spirit of outreach and inclusiveness has been drummed out of the GOP – disagreement is seen as disloyalty, and the search for heretics has become a hobby. Libertarians are losing any logical reason to affiliate with the GOP, while centrist Republicans are seen as suspect almost by definition. When Senators like Olympia Snowe or John McCain win re-election with over 70% of the vote, they are considered sell-outs rather than successes. I’ve debated conservatives on TV who were rooting for Norm Coleman to lose, because they considered him insufficiently conservative. This road leads not just to political disaster, but party suicide. Republicans who have won statewide in the Northeast tend to be centrist on social issues, especially on a woman’s right to chose and gay civil rights. Republicans must welcome social moderates into the big tent of the GOP, focus on finding common ground and not treat them as second class citizens. Remember: In a place where everyone thinks alike, nobody is thinking very much.

This is something that I have long advocated. There are many flavors of Republicans, but for some reason many conservatives think there is only one way to be conservative. Social conservatives look down on those of us who happen to be pro-choice even though we tend to do so on completely conservative grounds.

So, what is it about some in the GOP to be so afraid of the Big Tent? What is so scary about facing a person that might not exactly have the same conservatism that you do? Why has the party so drifted from Ronald Reagan's message of forging alliances with those who agree with you 80 percent of the time?

I don't have an easy answer, only a guess. As religion played more and more a role in the GOP, the party itself has become more rigid. If the lines between religion and politics blur, the party becomes less open to ideas that are seemed as sinful in religious circles.

Take gay rights. There are many African Americans that have issues with gay marriage. African Americans also tend to be an important aspect of the liberal coalition. However, Democratic politicians who do support gay marriage don't fear being treated as not "Democratic enough" because religion doesn't play as big a role in the Democatic Party as it does the GOP. In the modern Republican party, there are many who see gay marriage and homosexuality itself as a sin and want that expressed in national policy. They also believe that it should be expressed in the party platform and made a tenet of conservatism. So, if you are a conservative who happens to believe gays should be tolerated in society and should have the right to marry, you are not only going against religious teaching, but because church and state are blurred in the GOP, you are then deemed not a true conservative.

Which is why, I believe, that many social conservatives are afraid of the Big Tent. If you admit people who support gay rights, or abortion rights into the party, you are admitting those who support sinful practices and there taint the party. This is why the Kathleen Parkers of the world have called for the GOP to not be so identified with religion. Someone like a Joe Carter have interpreted that to mean that social conservatives should be kicked out of the GOP. That's nonsense. Nor do we want to silence those who have a faith. But the fact is that social conservatives have kept power in the party to the exclusion of anyone else that tends to believe in small government or low taxes but have a more socially moderate views. But in their eyes adhering to those bedrock coservative ideas don't not matter; God doesn't get upset with wanting big government, but would- in their eyes- if you treat gays like human beings and not as someone that committed a sin.

Which is why in the end, I believe that if we want to have a viable GOP that follows a Big Tent Conservatism, it will have to come from the margins and not from the powerbrokers. The social conservatives are too strong, and the powerbrokers are too beholden to the social conservatives to make room for other flavors of conservativism. If we want to see more Republicans running and winning seats in areas like New England, it has to come from insurgents who are willing to buck the established order and bring about a more tolerant and open Republican party.

Will it happen? It all depends on the outsiders being able to raise hell.

Rev. Rick Who?

You remember that many in the gay community were making a stink about President Obama selecting Rev. Rick Warren to give the invocation today because of his support for Proposition 8 in California. Prop 8 declared marriage a union between man and woman which would effectively bar same-sex marriage which was declared legal by the California Supremes in June. (I wasn't among those upset over the selection.)

Well, those in the gay community who were upset at the choice can see that Obama means his support for gay rights in pixels and bytes. Marc Ambinder took a gander at the newly revamped White House website which included this:

Support for the LGBT Community

"While we have come a long way since the Stonewall riots
in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It's about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect."
-- Barack Obama, June 1, 2007

Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: In 2004, crimes against LGBT Americans constituted the third-highest category of hate crime reported and made up more than 15 percent of such crimes. President Obama cosponsored legislation that would expand federal jurisdiction to include violent hate crimes perpetrated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability. As a state senator, President Obama passed tough legislation that made hate crimes and conspiracy to commit them against the law.

• Fight Workplace Discrimination: President Obama supports the Employment
  Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination employment
  laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. While an increasing number of employers have extended benefits to their employees' domestic partners, discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace occurs with no federal legal remedy. The President also sponsored legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
• Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: President
  Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and
  privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to
  repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that
  the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of
  marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other
  legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist
  a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.
• Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: President Obama voted
  against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.
• Repeal Don't Ask-Don't Tell: President Obama agrees with former Chairman of
  the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we
  need to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The key test for military
  service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve.
  Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of
  dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual
  orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. The President will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.
• Expand Adoption Rights: President Obama believes that we must ensure
  adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual
  orientation. He thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy and loving home,
  whether the parents are gay or not.
• Promote AIDS Prevention: In the first year of his presidency, President
  Obama will develop and begin to implement a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS strategy that includes all federal agencies. The strategy will be designed to reduce HIV infections, increase access to care and reduce HIV-related health disparities. The President will support common sense approaches including age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception, combating infection within our prison population through education and contraception, and distributing contraceptives through our public health system. The President also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. President Obama has also been willing to confront the stigma -- too often tied to homophobia -- that continues to surround HIV/AIDS.
• Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS: In the United States, the percentage of women diagnosed with AIDS has quadrupled over the last 20 years. Today, women account for more than one quarter of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. President Obama introduced the Microbicide Development Act, which will accelerate the development of products that empower women in the battle against AIDS. Microbicides are a class of products currently under development that women apply topically to prevent transmission of HIV and other infections.
  

Yes, it's just words on a website, but I think this is telling. Most pols would not be so willing to say on a public website their support for gay rights. So, maybe this guy will do something to further the rights of people like me who happen to love someone of the same sex.

We can hope.

Lift Every Voice and Sing

Well, it has happened- what seemed only the stuff of movies has become reality: we have an African American president. As President Obama said, it was only six decades ago that his father would not have been served at a DC restaurant, and today, his son took the oath office to the highest position in the land.

It measures what kind of country we are that an African American President took the oath of office in a building made partially by slave labor and will reside in a house that was also made by slaves.

The Rev. Joseph Lowry's prayer was great and had words of hope as well as a word of warning: to not forget where we have come from. He started his benediction with the last verse of the what has been called the "Black National Anthem;" "Lift Every Voice and Sing:"

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God, where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our God,
True to our native land

We have come a long way. The Dream that Dr. King talked about hasn't been fulfilled simply because Obama has become President. However, it does say something more mighty: that the Dream is alive, that it thrives. We shall overcome, we have overcome and we will overcome.

Rev. King's Amazing Prediction

Maybe it's fitting that on Martin Luther King Day the BBC has released an interview from 1964 where the civil rights leader predicted that America would see an African American president in less than 40 years.

Okay, he was a few years off, but not by much. What is amazing is that King believed it was possible to see a black man become the Commander in Chief in only a few decades. Nevermind that the Civil Rights Act was just past and the Voting Rights Act was a year from being signed. Nevermind that most people probably thought a black president was only the stuff of wild fantasies. Rev. King believed, he had a dream.

And tomorrow, we get to see his prediction come true.

Why Wearing A Bra is Torture

I've always been a bit confused over some aspects of what consitutes torture. The recent admission by Susan Crawford that the goverment did actually torture someone at Guantanamo. Crawford notes what happened:

"For 160 days his only contact was with the interrogators," said Crawford, who personally reviewed Qahtani’s interrogation records and other military documents. "Forty-eight of 54 consecutive days of 18-to-20-hour interrogations. Standing naked in front of a female agent. Subject to strip searches. And insults to his mother and sister."

At one point he was threatened with a military working dog named Zeus, according to a military report. Qahtani "was forced to wear a woman’s bra and had a thong placed on his head during the course of his interrogation" and "was told that his mother and sister were whores." With a leash tied to his chains, he was led around the room "and forced to perform a series of dog tricks," the report shows.

The interrogation, portions of which have been previously described by other news organizations, including The Washington Post, was so intense that Qahtani had to be hospitalized twice at Guantanamo with bradycardia, a condition in which the heart rate falls below 60 beats a minute and which in extreme cases can lead to heart failure and death. At one point Qahtani’s heart rate dropped to 35 beats per minute, the record shows.

Now at first blush, I had honest questions about how this could be torture. I mean, this wasn't waterboarding or burning someone with cigarettes. How could forcing someone to wear a bra constitute torture? The blog, Stop the ACLU regarded all of this as nothing more than hazing.

Being a curious guy, I decided to see what was found in the Army Field Manual. This is their definition of interrogation:

Interrogation is the art of questioning and examining a source to obtain the maximum amount of usable information. The goal of any interrogation is to obtain usable and reliable information, in a lawful manner and in the least amount of time, which meets intelligence requirements of any echelon of command.

It then gets down to business and tells you what torture is:

The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor. condoned by the US Government(emphasis mine). Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear. However, the use of force is not to be confused with psychological ploys, verbal trickery, or other nonviolent and noncoercive ruses used by the interrogator in questioning hesitant or uncooperative sources.

The psychological techniques and principles outlined should neither be confused with, nor construed to be synonymous with, unauthorized techniques such as brainwashing, mental torture, or any other form of mental coercion to include drugs. These techniques and principles are intended to serve as guides in obtaining the willing cooperation of a source. The absence of threats in interrogation is intentional, as their enforcement and use normally constitute violations of international law and may result in prosecution under the UCMJ.

Additionally, the inability to carry out a threat of violence or force renders an interrogator ineffective should the source challenge the threat. Consequently, from both legal and moral viewpoints, the restrictions established by international law, agreements, and customs render threats of force, violence, and deprivation useless as interrogation techniques.

Scott Payne answered my question about what can be done by interrogators by saying this:

...extreme verbal interrogation is fine: throw facts at the person, make
threats, yell and scream, force them to answer questions for hours on end,
confuse and frighten them. But beyond that, it’s hard to see what is acceptable.
Especially in the absence of clear and present danger (thereby disposing of the
24-Jack-Bauer-ticking time bomb analogy, or, as Chris Dierkes coined it, Cole’s Law).

So yes, forcing someone to wear a bra is a violation according to the Army Field Manual and does indeed constitue torture as would subjecting someone to extreme temperatures or depriving them of sleep.

On one level this does seem more in line with hazing, procedures that while embarassing are not violent. But according the Field Manual, it seems that anything that moves beyond mere words is crossing the line. The minute someone is touched, forced to do something against their will, we have gone from an interrogation to torture.

I think part of the issue here, besides the moral obtuseness of some conservatives, is that most of the general public really doesn't understand the definition of torture. We are thinking of something like applying thumbscrews to people, but I think what the Field Manual is getting at is that anything to demeans the dignity of a person is something that we must not do. So, forcing a man to wear a bra, or calling his mother a whore, is something that demeans the person and is coercive, even if it isn't physically violent.

The person involved in this case was not a nice man. He was accused of being the 20th hijacker on 9/11. Now some will say that because this guy is a bad person, or could be bad person, then it was okay to torture this person. But the Field Manual doesn't make distinctions between the innocent and the guilty. The law is pretty blind in that matter. Treat the suspect with dignity, is what the Field Manual states.

The question that will always remain with me is what made the Bush Administration think it could cross the line. What spooked them to go against past practices?

I don't know that answer.

h/t: John Schewnkler

Conservatives and Governing

Recently, I was at a meeting with some other conservatives and the topic as usual, was about government. A few of the people there talked about how large the government was and what a bad idea that was. Now, I agreed with that sentiment, but I left the meeting wondering, about conservatism and governing. Conservatism is naturally supposed to have a healthy skepticism about government. But, I think we have allowed that to metastisize into a hatred of government and that to me leads to either really bad governing and to losing elections.

Republicans should be for lean government. We don't think government is the answer to everything or that it should control huge sectors of American society. But that doesn't mean that government has an answer to a public policy question.

Case in point: health care. There are tens of millions of Americans that don't have health care and probably more are being added daily as more and more companies lay off people in the ensuing recession. What can be done when someone loses their job and their health care? Far too often, Republicans have talked about the spectre of something Canada's single payer health care system. Now, I am against single payer health care or for that matter the socialized health care found in the United Kingdom. But just because other nations have used government to control the health care sector, doesn't mean that government should have no role in solutions to health care.

To his credit, for Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney came up with a new way to approach health care when he crafted a plan that treated health care akin to buying auto insurance. The result is still unclear and some conservative wags have panned it, but the fact is, it was at the very least a solution instead of nostrums to the dangers of government control.

In a recent article to Ripon Forum, for GOP Representative Tom Davis says that the guide for conservatives these days should not be lower taxes or smaller government, but something that could George H.W. Bush smile- prudence. It is prudence that must be our guide and not litmus tests:

First, we eliminate checklists and litmus tests and focus on broad principles, not heavy-handed prescriptions. Free trade. Strong defense – at home and abroad. Government as small as is practicable in these times. Economic, education and energy policies that promote growth, energy independence and a competitive agenda that will allow businesses to grow and compete, not be protected by artificial barriers.

That’s it. Believe anything else you want, but advocate for those things outside the structure of the party.

Second, remind ourselves the first principle of conservatism is not tax cuts or free trade or even smaller government. It is prudence, and prudence should be our guide.

Prudence dictates we take seriously the concerns of those who elect us and tailor our policy proposals to counter the government-mandate-heavy ideas bound to emerge from the other side.

Americans want something done about the 43 million of us who lack health care. The question is not: Should government care? It must. The question is: Do we get a top-down, Washington-knows-best, one-size-fits-all “solution” or a Massachusetts-style program that preserves choice for patients and discretion for doctors?

Prudence dictates we build on the No Child Left Behind Act and get serious about education reform. Americans demand top-notch schools, and it is our constitutional duty to ensure this happens. Yes, constitutional. We’ve reached an age where we can’t, in practice, provide for the common defense or compete economically without an educated citizenry. We should maximize local control … so long as local control is working. We need to measure, and we need to see that failure is addressed. Remember, it’s about the students, not the institutions.

Prudence dictates we pursue energy independence on all fronts. It is our key to a secure future and our bulwark against the price swings we’ve endured in recent years.

In the end, Americans want their government to do something. Republicans can't talk about how they hate the government and then ask people to elect them to the thing that is supposed to be the problem. Conservatives are not anti-government, but we are pro-freedom. We should see government as one the many important institutions in society, not as a leviathan.

Yes, we should be in favor of small government. Yes, we should hold fast to supporting novel approaches to social problems instead of the top-down approach of liberals. I am not saying we should become big government conservatives.

But we need to be willing to see government as a useful tool to better society.

For conservatives, government can't be the answer, but it has to an answer for it to be a viable movement.

Those Pesky "Centrists"

In my recent post on conservatism, fellow blogger Mark Thompson had this to say about what he worried was me seeing centrism or moderation as an unqualified good:

The one point of contention I'd have with him is that he comes too close to
suggesting that moderation and centrism are both unqualified goods, an argument
with which I took issue here.

To me, centrism is a good only if it is the result of applying fundamental
principles to changing facts; centrism for its own sake can be every bit as
dogmatic as hyper-partisanship.

Mark has a point there. He has a link to a post from last year called "The Myth of the Moderate" where he argues that when it comes to appeals towards the "center" there is, in reality, not much there there. There is not a monolithic group called centrists who all believe one way on certain issues.

So does that mean that those who argue for a more dogmatic conservatism were right all along? No. Mark and I agree that the party need to reach out more, but I think he is correct that we need to stop calling it an appeal to the center, since the center varies so much from person to person. What does need to happen is to look at the times we live and make try to fashion conservative solutions to them. It's not that something like a centrist Republican doesn't exist, I happen to be one of them, but the "center" for me is different that it is for a centrist Democrat or at least it should be. A Centrist Conservatism, if such a thing exists, would be more willing to craft plans for the wide swath of American society that adhere to conservative themes.

Those of us who call ourselves "Centrist Republicans" need to explain what that means and what it means to create conservative solutions for American society. It's time move beyond a platittue to some actual ideas.

Your'e Conservatism Is Too Small

Alex Massie has a wonderful post on how dogmatic the Republican Party has become and ties it to the history of the Conservative Party in the UK after the age of Thatcher. Reaganism helped revitalize the GOP and ushered in a conservative era in the United States. But as Massie notes, the party has become stuck in its past, unwilling to change as the nation changes, and that past has become highly fictionalized, make Reagan more doctrinare than he was in reality.

The point here is not to say how great Massie's article is, though it is a good read and you should take some time and read it. He puts into words, what I have wanted to say for a while, that conservatism in the United States has become too small; more interested in setting up tests to show who is the "true" conservative and expelling those who are deemed heretics. As Massie notes, you'd think Reagan was the only Republican commander-in-chief, with no one ever mentioning Ford or Eisenhower or even Teddy Roosevelt. (We kind of know why Nixon isn't mentioned with any pride.) All the others are in some way deemed as insufficiently conservative.

Reagan was a good president, but to focus on him alone is too fashion a Republican Party that is very narrow, when in reality there are many different forms of conservatism, that have had a place in the GOP at some point in the past. The real Reagan was more willing to widen the base to make the GOP a majority party, something that many his current devotees would find an anathema.

Maybe because I'm a pastor, I've been fascinated at how the GOP resembles the mainline Protestant congregations that I have been a member of or served at. Many of these congregations were great institutions in their day, but those days are now long gone. However, people look at the past with rose-colored glasses, ignoring all the shades of grey or all the things that might not have been so good during those so-called "good ole days." People in these congregations then end up holding on to the past, afraid to change in order to keep the church going. This road is a slow road to dying, as the old folks in the congregation die off and the new are never really allowed in.

In many ways, this is what the GOP is facing. We are in love with the past or more succinctly, the past when we were king. And many in the party have held on to a fictionalized past that they long for, afraid to let anyone in lest it changes their perceptions of the party.

But we hold on to the Reagan years at our peril. The America that Ronald Reagan faced in 1981 is not the America of 2009. The nation has changed, we have become more diverse, and more accepting of issues like homosexuality. But instead of trying to fashion a conservatism for the 21st century, it seems like time has not changed and that has caused people to walk away from the party. Here is what Massie says:

Witness, for instance, the party's hostility to gay marriage. That plays well with the base, but it's not something that's likely to endear it to the political future. It's a symbolic issue in some ways, but each year plenty of voters who agree with the GOP die while plenty more who don't are added to the electoral roll.

Style matters too. The Tory position on Europe in the 1990s (and on immigration and crime more recently) was more popular with the electorate than were Labour's policies, but the stridency and, to many, the ugly tone in which the Tories expressed themselves turned many voters off. Similarly, the GOP position on, say, immigration is not without its supporters but the manner in which a position is expressed matters almost as much as the position itself. And the GOP has seemed bitter and parochial - qualities with which the electorate is unlikely to wish to associate itself.

Another example? The Terri Schiavo affair: millions of Americans might have been conflicted as to what they felt in what was a horrid, ugly affair. But they knew they didn't like the spectacle of Congressional Republicans stomping all over the case in hob-nailed boots, abandoning any notion of Congressional restraint, let alone respect for States' Rights and due process. The party that says the other mob always want to interfere abandoned all pretence to principle to interfere itself. Voters can spot hypocrisy and while they may sometimes forgive it if its purusued with a modicum of subtlety or on grounds of expediency, more often they dislike it intensely when it seems a flagrant breach of promise or purpose.

He also goes on to chat about how the whole tax debate is still stuck in 1981. Of course, back then taxes were very high and were lowered. Today, taxes are much lower than 30 years ago, and I don't see Obama raising taxes back to the 70 percent top marginal tax rate it was back in the early 80s. It made sense to cut taxes for the upper income back then, but not anymore. But the answer to anything economic seems to be cut taxes as if time had not changed.

But as Massie notes, the worship of Reagan speaks to a very narrow interpretation of who is a Republican and who is not. Conservatism is not as much a philosopy as it is a checklist. There are some in the party who have a figurative list that determines who is in and who is out. If you don't have enough of checks then you aren't a conservative.

Witness a recent post by Robert Bluey at the conservative blog RedState who believes that former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele is not loyal enough to head the Republican National Committee. Steele, who running for RNC chair deemed "defective" because he dared affiliate with moderates:

Steele’s well-documented role with the Republican Leadership Council and association with co-founder Christie Todd Whitman is perhaps the most egregious political error he’s made. Any conservative who partners with the liberal Whitman must be viewed skeptically. Steele claims he was trying to broaden the party’s base by appealing to moderates. “We have to elect moderates in the party,” he told CBN’s David Brody.

One of those moderates Steele supported was former Rep. Wayne Gilchrist, a classic RINO if there ever was one. Gilchrist faced a primary challenge from conservative Andy Harris, a Maryland state senator with strong backing from the Club for Growth. It didn’t matter to Steele. He threw his support to Gilchrist. Harris went on to win the GOP primary, prompting Gilchrist to turn on the GOP and endorse Harris’ Democrat opponent.

Nevermind that former New Jersey Governor Whitman was a successful GOP governor in a "blue" state. She's a "liberal" and hanging around moderates makes you suspect among a true believer like Bluey.

The same goes with his trashing on Wayne Gilchrest, the a former Representative from Maryland. He was a moderate Republican in a blue area, which should be seen as a good thing. Not with these folks. He was a RINO, and the Club for Growth ran a candidate to unseat him in a primary, who was later trounced by a Democrat.

Political parties are always dealing with the tension between those who are the dogmatists and those who are pragmatists. In the 80s and 90s, the Democrats were fighting amongst themselves, with the New Deal dogmatists on the one side and the New Democrat pragmatists on the other. In the end, the pragmatists were able to win the day and elect one of their own, Bill Clinton, to the presidency.

While this isn't a perfect analogy, (the New Democrats are not as strong as they once were and the New Dealers are back in power) it might explain the situation the GOP is in. The dogmatists are in control and looking for heretics to expell. But after several losses, people are going to want to win instead of just holding on to principle. For conservatism in the US to grow, it has to become more pragmatic, more willing to open itself up to differing strains (there is more than one way to be conservative). This doesn't mean becoming liberals, but trying to figure out how to be conservative in a different age.

Our conservatism is to small. It's time to dream big.

Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges (II)

Mike over at the Big Stick decided to respond to my recent post on torture and on the Bush Administration should be held accountable for lapses in human rights. Mike agrees that criminal investigations would be vindictive but has some reservations on a "truth commission." He gives his reason, using President-elect Obama as a guide:

As I have mentioned in comments on various blogs, when Obama received his first national intelligence briefing in November, he entered the most exclusive club in the world. He began to learn things that no doubt completely changed the way he would think about the world from that moment forward. The blunt realities of leading the most powerful nation in the world are no doubt eye opening. This is why foreign policy remains the least changed aspect of the federal government with each new President. There is more continuity there than in any other area and for good reason. Foreign policy is a very complicated thing and it can’t be subject to the whims of each new President.

When Obama began to receive executive-level intelligence he also began to see a very different picture than those of us who get our security briefings from CNN and MSNBC. He was probably informed about successes we have had using intelligence gained under duress. He probably learned about the use of torture in every administration since FDR. He probably learned about a lot of rule-breaking under previous administrations that resulted in a safer America. And that is why I don’t think he will pursue investigations of Bush’s administration. Because now he knows why they do what they do.

He then relies to a post by Ross Douthat that talks about terror and the Clinton Administration:

The first time [Richard Clarke] proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: “Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, ‘That’s a no-brainer. Of course it’s a violation of international law, that’s why it’s a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.’

Let's start with what I agree with here: I do understand and appreciate that once someone becomes President, they are made aware of all threats that the United States face. When someone is elected and asked to sit in the Oval Office, they are tasked with trying to protect a nation of 300 million. I can also understand that in some cases, Presidents have stretched the law in order to protect the nation. It would be foolhardy to believe that no other President has considered or even looked the other way while harsh methods were used. President Bush was caught allowing torture, but I don't doubt that others have done it in the past as well.

Presidents are not called to be Boy Scouts. But neither are they called to be some kind of modern day Machiavelli, cynical to the core.

While I tend to believe that other Presidents have been engaging in unethical practices, that doesn't mean that it should go unnoticed all in the name of national security. It's one thing to get ones hands dirty while in leadership, it is another to play in the mud.

The problem here is that by not allowing a reckoning, allows the CIA or the military to do what they please and what they need to do. It allows for no oversight, to allow things to happen under cover of night.

In a post back in 2007, Dyre Portents had this to say about torture:

Torture elicits false confessions and information from the innocent, it produces false information from the guilty/knowledgeable who have been properly trained or should either their loyalty or pain threshold be high. It does however provide actionable intelligence from those that lack loyalty and/or a high endurance for pain/discomfort. If I had the numbers to crunch I'd bet that the percentage of soldiers or terrorists that fall into that last group is really low. What we need to figure out is if the percentage of real information were getting from torture is worth the sacrifice of America's moral authority. I don't believe it is. We're supposed to be the good guys and it's high time we started acting like it.

I know there is a lot of grey in this issue of security. But I worry that allowing torture and other extreme measures will mean losing any authority to tell totalitarian regimes that they need to stop hurting detainees. As I said before, the law can't remain silent in the area of national security. It's one thing to allow for some flexibility, but we can't just try to gag the law. We are a nation of laws.

The whole torture debate is not so cut and dry. But even when life is grey, there has to be some standards, or we will lose any sense of authority.

The Year of the Moderate Republican? In Texas?

Over the year, the GOP in Texas has had the reputation of being a very hard Right party. But maybe that perception wasn't totally true. Alan Stewart Carl reports that a moderate Republican is likely to become Speaker of the House in the Texas Legislature:

Straus will almost certainly be elected Speaker later this month because he was able to assemble a coalition of Democrats and Republicans to support his candidacy. Most expect him to be a more inclusive and far less combative leader of the House, which Republicans control by a 76-74 vote margin.

Carl is pleased that Straus' predecessor is being shown the door:

I’m pleased to see (Tom)Craddick ousted. The man put partisanship and petty politics over the interests of the state. Straus, while relatively inexperienced, has a record of thinking for himself and not towing the party line just because that’s the easy thing to do.

I doubt that this is a trend, but maybe if Straus can pull it off, he might help the national party learn that to be a competative party, it needs to be able to welcome more than those on the hard right.

Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges

As the Bush Presidency winds down, the debate raging among folks, is if the President or his underlings should face prosecution for using torture. During the Christmas holiday, Mort Kondracke stated that for the sake of national unity, President-elect Obama should pass on prosecuting or investigating the Bush Adminstration for "war crimes" done in the name of the war on terror. His reasoning is that such activities are not done in the name of "justice" but in reality, done in the name of political vengance.

Kondracke says:

Republicans hated President Clinton and a GOP House impeached him. Many Democrats hate George W. Bush with equal or even greater passion, but they demurred on the idea of impeachment -- mainly because the action against Clinton hurt the GOP more than it hurt Clinton.

But now Bush haters are calling for the Obama administration to investigate Bush officials for alleged war crimes and other misdeeds connected with the war on terror.

Obama should make it clear right now that he opposes such action -- and also that he opposes the "compromise" idea of a "truth commission" to investigate alleged Bush-era wrongdoing.

The main reason has less to do with "turning the page," uniting the country and letting bygones be bygones -- all good Obama impulses -- than with preserving the morale of intelligence professionals in wartime.

He then goes on to say that any investigation or "truth commission" would case interrogators to be too cautious in the future.

I both agree and disagree with Kondracke on this issue. On the one hand, the calls for seeing Dick Cheney in chains are politically motivated, in my opinion. I'm not saying that Cheney isn't responsible for allowing the US to venture down a road it shouldn't have gone. I think he's a bad apple. But I also believe that those who are calling for arrests and the like are not as interested in righting the stain that torture has created on America's reputation, than they are in scoring partisan points. Many of those people never liked Bush and hated him with a passion. Any action that would seek to bring the President down would be seen by many as nothing more than taking down a Republican, and it would tear the nation apart.

But I disagree with Kondracke that we should not hold investigations or commissions to learn what went on. While Kondracke says this isn't about letting bygones be bygones, that's just what would happen if Obama allowed to happen. It would allow a future President to understand they could get by international law and other agreements all for the sake of national security.

The phrase "Inter arma enim silent leges" is a latin phrase that roughly translates to "In times of war, the law falls silent." The question for Obama and for all Americans is if this phrase is true. Does the law fall silent in times of war? Should it?

I can understand that it isn't easy to try to protect the nation from threats. But the values that make this nation great, can't simply be silent during times of stress. They have to mean something.

I think that we do need to have some sort of truth telling, to find out what happened, and to figure out ways to prevent such abuses from happening again. That's what matters, not seeing George Bush or Dick Cheney in chains.

Is it still a gamble? I guess. But to me Kondracke's gamble is bigger:it would cost America its soul.

New Republican Blog Looking for Co-Bloggers

From Travis Johnson, the founder of Progressive Republican:

Are you a writer who wants to keep the world informed about the Progressive Republican movement? If so, drop me a line (at travis@progressiverepublican.info). We're looking for a few good writers to contribute to progressiverepublican.info. If you're interested and think you have what it takes, drop me a line as soon as you are able.

Thanks!

Minnesota's Progressive Republican Tradition Explored on Public TV

Well, I guess someone thought it important to talk about the moderate wing of the GOP. I applaud it, even if it was put forward by liberals. Any port in the storm, as they say...

Anyway, Twin Cities Public Television has produced a documentary in conjunction with Growth and Justice a non-partisan think tank (in reality, it leans left). Here is what they say:

Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) will rebroadcast “Minnesota’s Progressive Republicans” Sunday, Jan. 4 at 6 p.m. on TPT-Channel 17 on most broadcast television, satellite and cable systems, and channel 13 on Comcast in Minneapolis.

Co-produced with Growth & Justice, the documentary explores the strong progressive Republican tradition that has contributed to state’s success. It features speeches made by Govs. Quie and Carlson and U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad at a symposium hosted in September by Growth & Justice.

Of course, there are already conservative wags that are putting this down because it's being produced by liberals. I may not agree everything Growth and Justice puts forth, but if they are speaking the truth, then I will listen.

Here is a clip of the documentary:



If you live in Minnesota, try to catch it.

Sunshine Conservatives No More and A Tragic President

If you want to read some of the best summaries on the current state of conservatism in the United States, you might want to read Mark Thompson's essays (here, here and here) over at Upturned Earth. He makes a good case for how the "sunny" conservatism of Ronald Reagan has given way to a more mean-spirited and dogmatic ideology.

There are many good thoughts, including the missed opportunities of President Bush. Liberals have painted him as a dunce or even evil, but I think that image is to simplistic. While there was a lot that he did do that was just wrong, the word that seems to mark the President to me is tragic. The tragedy is here is that Bush had several chances to help fashion the GOP into a more dynamic party and really make it a majority party. Instead, he ignored those opportunities and throw in a couple of stumbles like Hurricane Katrina, and we have a tragic presidency.

After the narrow and bitter victory that the President won in 2000, I had hoped he would chart a more moderate conservative course, one that would seek to heal the nation after the election and bring the GOP out of the vindictive Gingrich years of the 90s. But, sadly that didn't happen. Then came 9/11 and another chance to bring change. Instead, he followed a hard right course again.

After the 2004 election, he had another chance with his proposals to reform social security and immigration. But by this time, he had angered Democrats who blocked any talk of reform for Social Security, and his slowness in reforming immigration allowed time for conservatives in his own party to block that change.

I think President Bush is smarter than a lot of people give him credit for and I also think that he had it in him to change the tone of the Republican Party. But for some reason, he missed chances to do so, time and time again.

That's a tragedy...for us all.

"Dear Chip..."

An Open Letter to Mr. Chip Saltsman:

Hello, my name is Dennis Sanders. I'm not anyone special, just some guy in Minnesota who blogs from time to time. I wanted to write to you about your little storm that has been brewing since you sent a holiday CD with a little ditty called "Barack the Magic Negro."

I think the whole idea of sending out this CD was a major bad idea and isn't a good omen to what you might do as Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Yeah, I know: the idea came from an article by a liberal. But you know what? It doesn't matter. I'm not calling you a racist, I don't know you. But what you did was insensitive to African Americans and isn't going to help you if you want the party to grow and reach minorities...if that's something you really want to do.

You see, I'm African American. A lot of African Americans voted for Barack Obama and they really look up to him. For them, the impossible has happened: someone that looks like them, has been elected to the highest office in the land. After being basically second-class citizens for about three centuries, this is a big achievement even if you don't agree with Obama's politics.

So, calling Obama the "Magic Negro" isn't a good idea. Maybe you haven't noticed, but the GOP has a bit of a PR problem with blacks. Maybe that is not deserved, but when you have people like the late Jesse Helms, former Senator Trent Lott praising outgoing Senator Strom Thurmond in a way that seemed to support his anti-segregationist policies, and the whole Willie Horton thing have not helped your standing with African Americans.

There is nothing wrong with making fun of a president including the President Elect. That's a noble American tradition. But when the Commander in Chief is an African American, one must be sensitive in how make fun of someone. You weren't sensitive at all.

There used to be a time when African Americans largely casted their votes for Republicans. They did this because it was Republicans like Abe Lincoln that freed my ancestors. Overtime, the Democrats have become the party of civil rights, while the GOP has been considered- fairly or unfairly-the party of unreconstructed bigots.

If the GOP is to stay a national party, then it has to be more willing to reach out to people who aren't white. And that means being more sensitive to minorities, which means, stop sending silly CDs using race to make fun of the president.

So, if you really want to make the GOP strong, you should offer an apology. If you want the party to be a joke, then don't. Your choice, but I would hope you have the sense to know better.

Sincerely,

Dennis Sanders

"Government is the Problem" Is Only the Half of It

Wise words from the Ripon Society...

In recent weeks, several members of the more conservative wing of the GOP have stated that the reason the party failed so miserably this election is because it turned its back on fiscal discipline by turning toward the political center. Perhaps conservative stalwart L. Brent Bozell put it most succinctly when he said, “The liberal wing of the GOP has caused the collapse of the Republican Party.” Make no mistake — Republicans did fail to rein in spending over the past eight years. But the GOP did not lose this election because it abandoned its small-government philosophy. Rather, the party lost the election because its small-government philosophy was incomplete...For years, Republicans have extolled the virtues of getting government off our backs and out of our lives. In doing so, they were echoing the words of Ronald Reagan, who famously stated in his first inaugural address that, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” But even Reagan knew that government has a role in our society. He understood that in addition to promising to make government smaller, Republicans also had an obligation to make sure government operated efficiently and effectively. “Now, so there will be no misunderstanding,” Reagan declared in this same inaugural address, “it is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work.” For years, Republicans have had selective retention with regard to what Reagan espoused. They have embraced the small-government aspect of his philosophy at the expense of the smart government part of it. And for years, they have been able to get by with a message that promised tax relief and little else. But after the mismanagement of Iraq, the ineptitude of Katrina and the failure of Walter Reed, the chickens have come home to roost.

Read more.

Dissin' Detroit and It's Consequences for Conservatism

Now that President Bush has decided to go over Congress' head and provide General Motors and Chrysler bridge loans through March, I think now is the time to see how the GOP and conservatives in general handled the issue. This is only my view and it's the view of a crank living in Minnesota. However, in the glorious age that we live in, with handy little computers connected to the internet, one crank can share his views with the whole world and that's what I am about to do.

In my opinion, I think the GOP and conservatism in general failed the test. We were correct on the merits: private businesses should not run to the government for help and should succeed and fail on their own. However, we failed in really looking at the situation around us and seeing if this we could apply this principle at this time. I think we were intellectually lazy, not willing to get from behind our computers and see what was actually happening on the ground. In the end, this shows a problem with conservativism in America in general and has hurt the GOP's chances to make a convincing case in the Midwest.


I've read enough from bloggers at how we should not support a declining industry. For example, this is what David Brooks (a columnist that I normally agree with) said about the bailout back in November:

This (the auto bailout) is a different sort of endeavor than the $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. That money was used to save the financial system itself. It was used to save the capital markets on which the process of creative destruction depends.

Granting immortality to Detroit’s Big Three does not enhance creative destruction. It retards it. It crosses a line, a bright line. It is not about saving a system; there will still be cars made and sold in America. It is about saving politically powerful corporations. A Detroit bailout would set a precedent for every single politically connected corporation in America. There already is a long line of lobbyists bidding for federal money. If Detroit gets money, then everyone would have a case. After all, are the employees of Circuit City or the newspaper industry inferior to the employees of Chrysler?

Brooks is think the danger here is that the government is going to try to save every failing company, thereby threatening capitalism itself. Give the money to these aging dinosuars and they will just misspend it and make the same mistakes over and over.

But is that what's going on here? Are liberals rushing in to end capitalism and create some new People's Republic?

No. Brooks and many others were looking at this from a philosophical standpoint and not a real time standpoint. They were talking about the vibrancy of the free market while at a time when the market is fragile and might not be able to mend so easily if one or more of the Big Three went down.

And that's been the problem here. I think conservatives have been more concerned about the letter of the law than its spirit. They have held fast to a rule and not noticed if the times warranted such close adherence.

In normal times, I think it would make sense to ignore the pleas of Detroit. In many ways, they got themselves into this mess. However, these are not normal times. The housing cum financial crisis has made this economy fragile. While I don't think we are rushing headlong into the Great Depression, Part II we are in a spot where doing the wrong thing could lead us down that road. Allowing the Big Three to fail would have created massive unemployment in states like Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and Missouri. Those states would have to use already tapped resources to provide unemployment insurance. And it would have spread to suppliers as well. In some cases, that is already happening. A blogger at Autoblog sums up what is happening at a former workplace:

I've recently been in contact some former colleagues at TRW's headquarters complex in Livonia, MI. Since the start of 2008 there have apparently been five rounds of layoffs at the technical center. In the most recent round in mid-November, one former co-worker with 32 years of experience as a skilled technician was laid off as were numerous other engineers and technicians many with 25-30 years or more of experience.

Much of my former department has been let go, as the work they were doing has been consolidated at another facility. The most recent publicly available information about TRW indicated that the company had over 66,000 employees worldwide with 4,000 in the Detroit area, including 1,200 at the Livonia technical center. It's estimated that as many as one-third of the people in Livonia lost their jobs in the most recent round of layoffs. These are mostly college graduates with bachelors and masters degrees, and many of these same people are having a tough time finding jobs because every other company in the field is also letting people go.

These engineers are technicians are being fired because the vehicle programs they were involved in have been delayed or canceled outright. Lack of a paycheck means these people will be spending less money in the community in coming months, leading to cascading business failures and job losses. This is the real cost of the financial mess on Main St.

Any potential demise would also hurt suppliers, which would in turn, hurt the foreign automakers that have plants in the U.S. since they get their parts from the same suppliers.

If the government did nothing and the Big Three collasped, would we enter a depression? I don't know, I'm a pastor not an economist. But I do think that with the economy has fragile as it is and with rising unemployment, I wasn't interested in testing out that hypothesis.

In the end, I think conservatives did not do anyone a favor for not even trying to provide a solution and as the old saying goes, ideas have consequences. Don't be surprised if come 2010, the Democrats use this failure during the elections. The Dems and Unions will run commercials about how the GOP was willing to put this economy at risk and many people will remember. They will not care that these bloggers and politicians were sticking to principle, they will remember that the GOP tried to stick it to them.

The sad thing is that 30 years ago, it was the autoworkers that Ronald Reagan went after to win the Presidency. Back then, those autoworkers were disatisfed with the Democratic Party and started voting for the Republicans. It was in Macomb County a suburban county of Detroit where the term "Reagan Democrats" was coined. Three decades later, the GOP has basically told these people to drop dead and forced back into the arms of the Democrats. It's yet another sign of how tone deaf the GOP has become and so willing to write off total sectors of the American populace for a thin slice that they think will carry them to victory.

Maybe a "bailout" was a great idea, but the GOP wasn't that interested in presenting anything new. Creative destruction, as they say. Nevermind if this time the destruction was the Apocalyspe.

Again, I am not an expert, but I am the son of two autoworkers and have seen the hard times in my home state. In the past, I would have said this was the result of the economy and Michigan hasn't moved forward. And I still think that is true. The Big Three have been slow to change and again, if it were normal times, I would say they should go hang. But we live in risky times and the GOP failed to see that and was willing to gamble with the lives of tens of millions of people. I believe in the free market, but I wasn't willing to let such a massive calamity happen that could bring down the rest of the economy. I'm a conservative, but I am also loyal to my parents.

I don't know what the answer is for conservatives here. But before we start throwing out that "elitist" charge at liberals, we might want to check ourselves.

Towards A Progressive Conservatism, Revisited

About four years ago, I wrote something in an old blog based on a David Brooks essay from 2004. I called the post, "Towards a Progressive Conservatism" and it went something like this:

I've been reading the new book by Jim Wallis called , God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It. In it, he talks about a essay written by New York Times columnist David Brooks last summer. I remember briefly looking at it, but not really getting around to reading it.

If you haven't read it, do so. Now. It's entitled, "How To Reinvent the GOP" and it's a provactive essay on how the Republican Party can reinvigorate itself. His basic argument is that the guiding principle of the GOP in recent decades, namely the size of government, is not an issue anymore. Socialism, which called for a big and interventionist government, is a spent force and the old conservative argument over the size of government is not the issue. Instead he argues for a limited and yet robust government that would spur empowerment among individuals who would in turn, empower the nation.

There's a lot more I should be saying, but it's close to eleven and time for bed. What I can say is that Brooks is advocating for a conservatism in the view of Teddy Roosevelt, a progressive conservatism. I think it's a great blueprint for the party and I could see it expressed in someone like Chuck Hagel.

Okay, so I was wrong on that whole Chuck Hagel thing, but having re-read the Brook's piece, I still think it is an great blueprint for the future of the GOP and it seems that some of these ideas were expressed in the book by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, called Grand New Party.

Give the article a read. Here's a taste:

Nobody knows who the nominee will be that year. (He's referring to 2008.)It could be Bill Frist, Chuck Hagel, Rudy Giuliani, Gov. Bill Owens of Colorado or somebody else -- maybe even Arnold Schwarzenegger. But if the party is going to offer a positive, authoritative vision for the post-9/11 world, which is a world of conflict and anxiety, then it is going to have to develop a strong-government philosophy consistent with Republican principles. It will have to embrace a progressive conservative agenda more ambitious and fully developed than anything the Bush administration has so far articulated.

A candidate who does that would not need to launch an insurgency campaign against the Republican establishment, the way Goldwater did in 1964 or the way Reagan did in 1976. The fact is the Republican Party no longer has a coherent establishment left to inveigh against. Instead, a progressive conservative candidate would have to play a more constructive role. He would have to lay out a vision that would rebuild the bonds among free-market conservatives, who dream of liberty; social conservatives, who dream of decency; middle-class suburbanites, who dream of opportunity; and foreign-policy hawks, who dream of security and democracy. He would have to revive and update the governing philosophy that did bind these groups, and did offer such hope, in the early days of the G.O.P. Long before it was the party of Tom DeLay, the G.O.P. was a strong government/progressive conservative party. It was the party of Lincoln, and thus of Hamilton. Today, in other words, the Republican Party doesn't need another revolution. It just needs a revival. It needs to learn from the ideas that shaped the party when it was born.

Warren, Prayer and "Unity"

I know that as a gay man I should be joining like everyone else in condemning President-elect Obama in selecting Rick Warren to give a prayer at the inaugeration since he vigorously supported Prop 8 which banned same sex marriage in California, but I'm not.


I don't agree with Warren's views on this of course, but I'm not convinced that this is a fight we need to pick. Why? Well, I agree with Steven Waldman, Warren has done a lot to highlight and try to solve issues like global poverty and AIDS. He is trying to get other evangelical ministers to not focus so exclusively on gay marriage and abortion and really focus on "the least of these." He's still a social conservative, but he is one that takes the Biblical concern for the poor seriously. I can't ignore that and I think that is something that needs to be lifted up. The more people who are involved in try to solve poverty, the better and I don't care what their background is when dealing with an issue like poverty.

Second, many gays and lesbians seem to forget that Obama was about bringing people together. Let's go back to that speech that made him a household name in 2004:

It is that fundamental belief -- It is that fundamental belief: I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family.

E pluribus unum: "Out of many, one."

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us -- the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of "anything goes." Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an "awesome God" in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

Now, politicians always talk about "bringing the country together" and then govern as a pure partisan. While I still have my doubts, I think Obama really means what he says. I think he really wants unity, to find some way to get beyond the petty partisan bickering and towards some true American consensus.

Many who are now angry at the Warren selection talked a good talk about coming together and unity. But unity for them meant being in totally agreement. In essence, it meant politics as usual, except with a liberal face instead of a conservative one.

The fact is, the guy is living what he said four years ago. He is trying to build bridges, not create new chasms.

I don't agree with Warren on same sex marriage. However, his work has shown that while he might not appease some gays and liberal interest groups on this one issue, he is not a James Dobson.

Besides, we gay folk need to pick our battles and not go after everyone who supported Prop 8. Objecting to a guy that goes to the Third World and feed sick kids makes us, not Warren look bad. Gays need to be about making the case for gay marriage, not acting as some kind of 'star chamber' for those who disagree with us.

I'm not saying we can't criticize Warren or any other person for their role. But lets show a bit of class, shall we?

Putting the Bible Aside for a While

In my last year of seminary, I took a class where one of our assignments one evening was to debate the issue of slavery. Both sides used the Bible to justify their arguments. When the exercise was done, the professor told the side that was against slavery (the side I was on) that it was a losing battle to use the Bible in your argument since the other side could back up their argument with Scripture that indicated that slavery was "okay."

With that in mind, I thought this post by Adam Walker Cleaveland was instructive. He argues that maybe those who back up their opposition to homosexuality with the Holy Book put their Bibles aside for a while and actually meet a real live gay person. I'm familiar with Adam and have met him. What makes this argument so interesting is that Adam is himself a recent graduate of seminary, works at a church as a youth minister and is readying to become a minister. Here's a snippet of his post:

...presenting a coherent biblical argument for why homosexuality is not a sin and why our gay brothers and sisters should be fully welcomed into all areas of the church and ministry is not my point here. I think many people have done just that (Jack Rogers and Stacy Johnson come to mind), but they are easily dismissed by many because they apparently don’t have a “high enough view of scripture.”

Well - if that’s the problem - then I say, “Enough with the Bible already!”

Intrigued? Enraged? Delighted? Read more.

A Real 435 District Strategy

From former Governor Christine Todd Whitman:

To fully understand the importance of centrist Republican candidates in the 2008 elections, it is important to take a look at the results of this year’s hard fought Republican primaries and see how these candidates performed in the general election. It is in primaries, after all, where the voters must choose the candidate that best represents their own positions on the issues, the District at large, and the chances for victory in November. Their performance in the fall is, therefore, a good indication of the types of Republicans that can win tough campaigns...

...For the purposes of building our Party, expanding the coalition, and winning elections, it is best for Republican candidates to fit the Districts they represent – often a centrist agenda - rather than conform to a rigid ideology that pleases only those on the fringe.

That makes a lot more sense than trying to run someone against gay marriage in a place like San Francisco.

Conservatives Lose Another Vote

But of course it doesn't matter, since he's gay...

I am a registered Republican in my Junior year of college .... I love my country, believe in limited government and low taxes. I am a strong and believing Christian. I am also gay. ... No one chooses to be like this, and the least that we deserve is a level of respect instead of a constant bashing. All that I want to do is be able to marry the person I love, adopt and raise children with him and live a life like any other American. I just want to be left alone, without a government that stands in my way of equality, be it from discrimination or be it from basic rights that heterosexuals have to protect their families that many take for granted. ...

I should be the perfect type of person that the Republican party can appeal to; I am a student of business, own a gun, watch football and understand and wish to help eliminate the threat of radical Islam to the West. Why does the party hate me? Why do conservatives want to make my life harder than it already has been? ...

On November 4th this year, I did something that two years ago I would never have dreamed of doing. I voted for a Democrat for President. ... I have a feeling that I will be doing it for a long time.

Sadly he will be until the Republicans wise up, which isn't likely anytime soon.

I Left My Brain in San Francisco

In the wake of the recent victory by Joseph Cao, the folks over at The Next Right envision what it might be to run a Cao type candidate in San Francisco. They name this guy, who is Korean, Rob Wong (I thought Wong was Chinese name).It's an interesting and even appealing read until you get to the last few paragaphs:

At the same time, this Gay Marriage stuff has gotten under Rob's skin. While he has gay friends, and doesn't really have a problem with Gay Marriage, he was appalled by the arrogance of the CA supreme court decision and quietly voted against Prop 8. He thought that was the end of it. He was wrong. Nothing prepared him for the circus following Prop 8.

All this has left Rob Wong livid and ready to take it out on the incumbant leadership in his home city. He's decided to run for the House and he needs your help.

So let me get this straight: a Republican is going to run for Congress in San Francisco, against gay marriage? San Francisco. Known for being a "gay mecca."

I'd like to know what planet or alternative universe are these folks living in.

Nevermind that Cao, who the fictional Wong is patterned after, has said that he doesn't like church and state mixing together, these folks somehow believe that a man who voted agaist Prop 8 has a fighting chance in an area that is about as gay as one can get.

How removed from reality can you be?

The fact is, no matter how much one might agree with his economic platform, the fictional Wong has a snowball's chance in hell to even be competative because of his stance on an issue like gay marriage.

The sad fact is, someone who was socially liberal, but also fiscally conservative would have a chance in the Bay Area. If you are going to run a candidate in Dem strongholds, you are going to have put up people who are more socially liberal since that is the premodominant ethos of the area. But that would be an anathema to those who hold fast to their socially conservative views. Here in Minneapolis, we have had socially conservative candidates run for Congress and get trounced everytime.

I think this shows how addicted some are to social conservatism in the GOP. Instead of trying to moderate those views in Democratic leaning areas to put forth competative candidates, they basically think they can just put forth and attractive package like being a minority and still have the same socially conservative views.

If people even think that someone opposed to gay marriage could have a shot in San Francisco, then it shows how out of touch conservatism has become.

Auto Bailout Fails in Senate

The Detroit News is reporting that the bailout deal has failed in the Senate.

In the weeks since this has become an issue, I've gone from saying let them hang, to doing what we can to help the Big Three, to thinking that maybe bankruptcy wouldn't be such a bad idea. In normal times, I would say, no to any government help, but then these aren't normal times.

Maybe my fellow conservatives are correct that giving the big three money is just throwing good money after bad. But I keep having this bad feeling that we might be ideologically correct at the wrong time. I keep wondering if one of the automakers goes under, what it will do to an already sinking economy.

But tonight I keep thinking about my native Michigan and all those families wondering what will happen next.

The GOP's "God Problem," Part Four

A reader responds to a post on Rod Dreher's blog:

I am that, which for many American conservative and or literalistic and or fundamentalist Christians, does not exist: A gay man who is a Christian.

And that is a big part of their problem. Beginning roughly in the late Nixon era and increasing by leaps and bounds, a very intolerant, totalitarian faction of Christians shouted down all other Christian voices in the republican party. Just as anyone who dared to argue that torture was not an American way to conduct war was screamed down as unpatriotic, just as anyone who dared suggest our enemies were the the people who declared war on us on 9/11 and not Irak, was labeled a traitor, so any Christian who dared to point out that the republican party was not God's Only Party was hastily shown the door.

I believe it was the sad Shiavao death in Florida which ultimately forced other genuine Christians to come out of their ecclesiastical closets, stop muttering "but they are only a very loud minority, they don't speak for my Christianity" and say: Enough.


It is not so much that the voters left the republicans, it is the republicans who left the voters. Look at the number of conservative thinkers who were tossed under the bus, fired from their editorial chairs and roundly reviled in the months leading up to the election. George Will was made out to be somewhere to the left of a Marxist-Leninist-Fascist-pinko-commie. Chris Buckley (not over fond of him personally, but I know good writing when I read it) was reviled as some sort of Trojan horse at best, a turncoat most likely. I could go on for hours, even Douthat got a pretty rough trouncing for daring to apply reasoned analysis to the mess.

Instead of seeking a dialog, these Christians have vilified everyone who does not share their goals exactly . I am gay, therefor any recognition of my civil rights must mandate that the church be forced to marry me. If someone suggests we could reduce abortion by providing teen-age girls with better sex-education, it is equated with opening a neighborhood brothel and making daddy's little girl put on those fish-net hose and stand on the corner.
When a vaccine is offered which will reduce a young woman's chances of dying a horrid death from cancer is brought to market, both the manufacturer and those who advocate saving women from cancer are typecast as the spawn of satan...

OK, I will stop there. Speaking directly to these fundamentalists, now:

I believe in monogamy, committed life-long marriage and find no-fault divorce a horribly bad idea. Abortion appalls me. Guess what? Instead of making me your ally, you strip me of my rights, equate me with the most debased of criminals and try to have children adopted by gays and lesbians stripped from them. You have made enemies of us, and done so in God's name. There's a pretty severe injunction on that...oops, forgot, it being OT, it no longer applies. Right, only those texts in the Bible which support your views count. And anyway, what is the word of God's son against Paul's Christianity? Goodness, in the end, Jesus was only God incarnate as a Jewish Rabbi who ran around offering salvation and the joy that comes of knowing God. What is that when you can push hatred and intolerance? They work, for a while. Eventually, they always fail. And that is exactly what has happened.

Fine, you say - but since I'm gay, who cares? Well, the republican party says only somewhere between 1.7 and 2 million of us gays voted republican this year. By their own estimate, at least 2/3 of us voted against you or stayed home. Now add in all the other Christians you booted out, all those who actually were awake and present in Macro and Micro Economics 101, all those who oppose torture and senseless wars...and there you have your problem.

In all honesty, if Sarah Palin is the future of the republican party in the eyes of fundamentalist and or literalistic and or conservative Christians, that alone should tell you it's time to read those parts of the Bible which talk about Jesus message of love. You have re-interpreted the Bible's message and Christianity to mean what you want it to mean. For the first time in quite a while, the Americans didn't fall for it.

I couldn't have said it better.

Michael Steele Shows Some...Steele

While I don't agree with him on every issue, I have like Michael Steele. The former Lt. Governor of Maryland is running for the leadership of the GOP. There have been rumblings from some "true believers" that because of his work in reviving the moderate Republican Leadership Council (a group I support) that he would make a bad leader for the Republican party. For a while, he was trying to distance himself from the RLC and all things moderate. Now he seems to be changing his tune:

“They have been beating me upside the head with it and let me give it to you straight on: Wake up people. I mean what are you going to do? Are you going to kick these folks out of the party? I have watched this party self disintegrate for the last four or five years. I’ve watched this party isolate itself from itself.”

“This may be a unique opportunity to build a relationship or a bridge between the conservatives and the moderates in our party and so she asked me to serve on her board and I said well this will be good. It’ll be a pro-life conservative voice on a board with a pro-choice leadership that is looking to elect moderates. We have to elect moderates in the party.”

I applaud Mr. Steele for showing some backbone and standing up to those who want to diss him because he dares to try to widen the party. But I have to sadly agree with Justin Gardner, I don't think the people who really control the party are in the mood to really expand the party and actually make a case. In the view of many, anyone that isn't sufficiently pro-life or incredibly anti-gay is not fit to be a proper Republican.

Social conservatives like to pretend that they have no power in the party. They love to play the part of victim (the right knows how to play victim politics as well as the left) even though they have this party by the you-know-what. Case in point, many think John McCain wanted to pick either Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge for veep, but the mere mention that he would consider a pro-choice candidate (both politicians from "blue states") brought howls of protest from the "so-cons." In the end he picked Sarah Palin, who was wonderful on their issues and fired up social conservatives, but did little to win the center.

Still, Steele is to be commended for his honesty. It might have doomed his candidacy, but he still has his pride.

Bravo, Mr. Steele.

Conservatives for Gay Marriage

There are conservatives out there that actually are for gay marriage and are also willing to call a spade a spade:

The supporters of traditional family values are afraid of giving same sex couples equal protection under the law because they wonder if the next law we’ll want will allow traditional family values people like Warren Jeffs to do what they do legally. Last time I checked, the bible (which I generally consider to be a fairly authoritative source for “traditional family values”) had many, many examples of righteous men who took multiple wives when they were as young as 13 years old.

You want to know if legalizing same sex marriage is going to lead to pedophilia and polygamy? It won’t. Traditional family values legislation might – but gay marriage won’t.

I don’t know about you, but I have some measure of self control. When my brain sees an issue of equal civil rights, it doesn’t think, “Dude, I would totally love to nail that goat! Let’s legalize it!” Does yours? No? Then can we drop this rediculous line of thought? Please?

Read the whole thing.