Today, a little break from politics to spread some holiday gaming cheer. Every gaming site in the world has to post their Top 10 games from that year around this time. Well, my time and budget don't allow me to buy and play all the latest new releases. However, digital distribution and the miracle of Steam sales have made it possible to play the best games from a year or two ago for peanuts. So that's where my gaming dollars and hours go. Without further ado, then, here are the top 10 games I played in 2012, in ranked order.
10. To the Moon (PC)
An indie darling that tells a story that is both heartwarming and disturbing in ways, about marriage, memories, living with someone that has a disability, and the long-lasting effects of the choices we make. All this in a 5-hour game that looks like a Super Nintendo RPG and has barely any gameplay other than some simple puzzles and a tiny bit of exploration/figuring out what to do next. But the story is beautiful, and the soundtrack is breathtaking.
9. Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria (PS2)
Japanese developer Tri-Ace is known for their incredibly hard RPGs, and Valkyrie Profile 2 is no exception. However, the tactical nature of the battles in VP2 make it much more thoughtful than the balls-out mess that typifies the Star Ocean games; this made it much more appealing to me. Combine that with gorgeous PS2-era graphics, an interesting story centered around Norse mythology, and unique 2D dungeon exploration, and you have one of the better PS2 RPGs.
8. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS)
I was a latecomer to this series, as I don't like many adventure games (this might change as adventure games become more about story and less about obtuse puzzle-solving). Decided to give this one a try, however, and was pleasantly surprised. Credit the strong localization that brings this very Japanese game to life for a Western audience. The characters and story are fun, and nothing beats the satisfaction you get when you poke holes in a witness' testimony, complete with Phoenix's trademark finger-pointing.
7. Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga (PS2)
They just don't make many good Japanese RPGs anymore. Thankfully the SMT series is still around to basically bear this burden all by itself. Of course, this one came out in 2005, but it's the spiritual predecessor to Personas 3 and 4, the best JRPGs of the past five years. Like other SMT games, it's all about a weird story involving demons in a modern setting (yay no Japanese-European fantasyland!) and challenging battles. Oh, the battles. They'll make you want to scream or rip your hair out. But the strength is that you want to try it again, because you just know you've got the winning strategy figured out for next time.
6. Torchlight 2 (PC)
This came out in 2012, holy crap! I was never a huge Diablo fan. But the original Torchlight caught my attention due to its steampunk-inspired setting (try dual-wielding pistols in Diablo) and conveniences such as sending your pet back to town to sell your excess crap. The sequel expands on the original in every way, with all-new character classes, a much larger world to explore, and cool post-main game ways to play. At the end of the main game I was a big, burly engineer who fought with giant wrenches and hand-carried cannons who could summon machine-gun and giant-sledgehammer robots to do his bidding. Now that's cool. The $20 price tag also gives it incredible value and is the main reason I got it on Day One.
5. The Witcher (PC)
Too many PC RPGs make the player character a "blank slate" upon which you project your own beliefs, attitudes, decisions, etc. The Witcher's biggest strength is that it makes the player a real character, Geralt of Rivia, who has a distinct personality and way of going about things. And yet you do get to make lots of meaningful decisions, many of which tend to be much more in the gray aera than the black vs. white options you get in other games. It gives what could be a fairly bland fantasy setting a shot of dark realism. It's held back by somewhat clunky combat and an overly long, sloggish second chapter, but I'm looking forward to exploring Geralt's continued adventures in The Witcher 2.
4. Dragon Age 2 (PC)
DA2 was rushed, and it shows. The biggest complaint (a justifiable one) was that identical areas are reused in different missions, just with different doors open or shut. That's annoying. But look past that flaw and you find an RPG that eschews the standard save-the-world story, instead focusing on one champion's life story in the city of Kirkwall. It's a story that you have a lot of choice over through your decisions and reactions. The party-based combat is complex and satisfying. And I actually prefer the smaller quest areas to DA1's dungeons that could drag on for hours. I want to return to this game and play as a different character, and I'm pretty sure I'd have a very different experience. That's a sign of a strong game.
3. Bioshock 2 (PC)
Contrary to many critics, I enjoyed the return to Rapture about as much as the first trip. It was great to play as a Big Daddy and drill some fools, while shocking them with plasmids at the same time. It's exciting, atmospheric, and thoughtful. For more on what makes Bioshock so great, see my Gaming and Politics article on it.
2. King's Bounty: The Legend (PC)
This was the surprise of the year. I had long tried to get into games like Heroes of Might and Magic - the Western equivalent of Final Fantasy Tactics - but just couldn't. King's Bounty took out the mundane city-building stuff from Heroes and boiled the gameplay down to exploration, questing, and great turn-based combat. Dozens of unique units to recruit, tons of maps to explore, skill trees to grow your character - there's a lot to this game and no filler. And the best part - I have the sequel Armored Princess and the expansion Crossworlds waiting in my Steam library.
1. Fallout: New Vegas (PC)
This is a bit of a cheat as I started playing it in 2011. Computer problems put it on hiatus for a few months, but I came back to it and dropped around 35 more hours into it, so I need to give it its due. I've never managed to really get sucked into Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games, I think due to the fantasy setting that I'm getting bored of and the lackluster combat (I do intend to give Skyrim a try at some point.) Fallout, however, has a much improved setting (the dark-humor filled post-apocalypse) and more interesting combat thanks to guns and the VATS system. And even though Fallout 3's DC setting was personally more appealing to me, in the end I wound up liking New Vegas better. The staff at Obsidian let their heritage from the original Fallout games show with the snappy writing that always kept me going. It was a slow buildup to journey to the Strip, and when I finally got there, the ensuing events paid off remarkably. It's an outstanding game, and I really hope there's more on the horizon.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Gaming and Politics: Don't Blame the Games
I waffled on writing about this. It's been so done to death that I didn't know if I had anything substantial to add. Then I saw this from Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV and NRA friend):
“Look at Grand Theft Auto, put out by Rockstar Games in New York City and see what it promotes,” Manchin said, adding later: “Shouldn’t that be looked into and maybe be banned?”
Give me a break.
I'm an adult gamer. And in 2012, I am average. The average gamer is now in his 30s (and I will keep saying "his" because it remains a largely male hobby, though that is changing - during some trips to GameStop I've seen only women working). A gamer in his 40s has spent his entire life around games. Games are mainstream. They are ubiquitous. You have them on your smartphone. Saying Adam Lanza was known to play video games is about the equivalent of saying he was known to drive a car. It's a billion-dollar industry that supports thousands of good-paying jobs right here in the USA. And yet certain older politicians - mostly conservatives but it extends to some Democrats as well - persist in their belief that only kids play games, who are subsequently driven to violent tendencies. Therefore they should be heavily regulated or even banned. Wrong.
The Right loves the free market. It's the basis of capitalism. People are free to make economic decisions based on their interests. Businesses succeed and fail purely based on their ability to offer appealing products and services to customers. Supply and demand determine the inherent worth of something. Sounds great, right? Well, conservatives forget about all that when it comes to Hollywood and video games. Suddenly consumers are mindless zombies forced to digest whatever filth those California libruls spew forth to pollute society and destroy traditional America. Well, guess what - there would be no Grand Theft Auto IV if the previous GTAs didn't sell well. Disney, Universal, Electronic Arts, and Activision are ultimately driven like any other company - by demand for their products. If you don't like them, don't buy them. Don't allow them in your house. You are the parents and you have the responsibility for your children's exposure to games. Don't conservatives want more parental and less governmental involvement in children's lives? Just don't interfere with the rights of adults to consume whatever media they so choose. Moreover, gamers are parents themselves now. They know how to regular their kids' content and play time. Trust them.
The last serious campaign against violence in games was in the mid-1990s in response to games like Mortal Kombat. As a result we got the Electronic Software Ratings Board, a voluntary system that the industry readily agreed to implement in order to avoid more direct government regulation. Given that games were pretty much unregulated at the time, most people generally accepted something that was akin to the movie ratings system, as it would preserve the right for game developers to make the games they want. And the ESRB has worked well. Most stores actively refuse to sell Mature-rated games to kids. The system may need to change a bit in response to more sales moving online - but a credit card is still needed for those and given time the industry will probably self-regulate again to preserve its independence.
Meanwhile there have been no credible studies showing that video games lead to violence. Many other countries have violent video games - the very same ones enjoyed by US gamers. They also have practically no mass shootings, and the overall violence level is lower. If video games caused violence, South Korea would be the deadliest country on earth. That country is obsessed with games. People there do die from playing games...but literally - they die from playing for days on end. Now, gaming addiction is a problem there, and the Korean government is working to combat it. But gun violence is a non-issue. Hardcore Korean Starcraft champs don't go on shooting rampages (and before you bring it up - the Virginia Tech killer was mentally disturbed from a young age).
The gaming community is diverse, intelligent, enthusiastic, and kind. To the game critics, every game is GTA, Call of Duty, or Doom. Far from it. There are myriad genres of games. And you know what genre a lot of gamers are sick of? Shooters! Some of the best-selling and highest-rated games of the past few years have barely contained any violence at all (See Braid, Flower, Journey, Fez, and To the Moon). Some involve brain-bending puzzles that I would certainly like to see Manchin try to solve. Amongst gamers the stereotype of a Call of Duty player is a "dude-bro" fratboy type who only plays CoD in order to preserve his non-gamer-nerd image. Easy to poke fun at, but not particularly dangerous. I listen to hours of intelligent and thoughtful discussion about games and gaming culture on podcasts every week. Gamers support charities like Child's Play.
Games can be as technically impressive as a Hollywood blockbuster. They can be as moving as a great novel or TV show. But their interactivity takes them to a level that for many people - myself included - is far greater than passive entertainment. We acknowledge the craft that goes into designing good games and want to support those artists in their careers. We are gamers. We know the difference between fantasy and reality. We are here to stay, and we have the right to enjoy gaming as we choose. I'm tired of having to justify my hobby more than somebody whose hobby is collecting a small arsenal of actual weapons.
Games have been protected as free speech by the Supreme Court. This means there's likely nothing the critics can do other than bloviate and try to scapegoat games in order to avoid talking about the real problems (detailed in my previous posts). Games are still a young medium and it's likely that eventually their harshest critics will literally die off (there's definitely a bit of old-fogeyness about them). Until then, I would advise anyone who wants to attack video games to do two things. First, they should watch the documentary Indie Game: The Movie, available on Netflix Instant now. It's the story of two independent game designers and the length they go through to accomplish their lifelong dream - publishing a successful game. Both games (Fez and Super Meat Boy) went on to be critical and commercial hits. If you want to make it harder for these artists and entrepreneurs to accomplish their life's work, you're just mean.
Second, any politician or media figure who wants to criticize a game should first have to answer some basic questions about it. For example, for Grand Theft Auto I would ask: When is the next GTA game coming out? What is it called? What is the general plot of any GTA game? Name one actual setting of a GTA game (hint - it's not New York). Name five things you can do in a GTA game other than killing people. (I say this and I don't even really like GTA.) If you're going to criticize video games, you should be expected to do as least as much research as would be required for a high school essay. If you don't, are you more concerned about the issue or about drawing attention to yourself and away from what really matters?
“Look at Grand Theft Auto, put out by Rockstar Games in New York City and see what it promotes,” Manchin said, adding later: “Shouldn’t that be looked into and maybe be banned?”
Give me a break.
I'm an adult gamer. And in 2012, I am average. The average gamer is now in his 30s (and I will keep saying "his" because it remains a largely male hobby, though that is changing - during some trips to GameStop I've seen only women working). A gamer in his 40s has spent his entire life around games. Games are mainstream. They are ubiquitous. You have them on your smartphone. Saying Adam Lanza was known to play video games is about the equivalent of saying he was known to drive a car. It's a billion-dollar industry that supports thousands of good-paying jobs right here in the USA. And yet certain older politicians - mostly conservatives but it extends to some Democrats as well - persist in their belief that only kids play games, who are subsequently driven to violent tendencies. Therefore they should be heavily regulated or even banned. Wrong.
The Right loves the free market. It's the basis of capitalism. People are free to make economic decisions based on their interests. Businesses succeed and fail purely based on their ability to offer appealing products and services to customers. Supply and demand determine the inherent worth of something. Sounds great, right? Well, conservatives forget about all that when it comes to Hollywood and video games. Suddenly consumers are mindless zombies forced to digest whatever filth those California libruls spew forth to pollute society and destroy traditional America. Well, guess what - there would be no Grand Theft Auto IV if the previous GTAs didn't sell well. Disney, Universal, Electronic Arts, and Activision are ultimately driven like any other company - by demand for their products. If you don't like them, don't buy them. Don't allow them in your house. You are the parents and you have the responsibility for your children's exposure to games. Don't conservatives want more parental and less governmental involvement in children's lives? Just don't interfere with the rights of adults to consume whatever media they so choose. Moreover, gamers are parents themselves now. They know how to regular their kids' content and play time. Trust them.
The last serious campaign against violence in games was in the mid-1990s in response to games like Mortal Kombat. As a result we got the Electronic Software Ratings Board, a voluntary system that the industry readily agreed to implement in order to avoid more direct government regulation. Given that games were pretty much unregulated at the time, most people generally accepted something that was akin to the movie ratings system, as it would preserve the right for game developers to make the games they want. And the ESRB has worked well. Most stores actively refuse to sell Mature-rated games to kids. The system may need to change a bit in response to more sales moving online - but a credit card is still needed for those and given time the industry will probably self-regulate again to preserve its independence.
Meanwhile there have been no credible studies showing that video games lead to violence. Many other countries have violent video games - the very same ones enjoyed by US gamers. They also have practically no mass shootings, and the overall violence level is lower. If video games caused violence, South Korea would be the deadliest country on earth. That country is obsessed with games. People there do die from playing games...but literally - they die from playing for days on end. Now, gaming addiction is a problem there, and the Korean government is working to combat it. But gun violence is a non-issue. Hardcore Korean Starcraft champs don't go on shooting rampages (and before you bring it up - the Virginia Tech killer was mentally disturbed from a young age).
The gaming community is diverse, intelligent, enthusiastic, and kind. To the game critics, every game is GTA, Call of Duty, or Doom. Far from it. There are myriad genres of games. And you know what genre a lot of gamers are sick of? Shooters! Some of the best-selling and highest-rated games of the past few years have barely contained any violence at all (See Braid, Flower, Journey, Fez, and To the Moon). Some involve brain-bending puzzles that I would certainly like to see Manchin try to solve. Amongst gamers the stereotype of a Call of Duty player is a "dude-bro" fratboy type who only plays CoD in order to preserve his non-gamer-nerd image. Easy to poke fun at, but not particularly dangerous. I listen to hours of intelligent and thoughtful discussion about games and gaming culture on podcasts every week. Gamers support charities like Child's Play.
Games can be as technically impressive as a Hollywood blockbuster. They can be as moving as a great novel or TV show. But their interactivity takes them to a level that for many people - myself included - is far greater than passive entertainment. We acknowledge the craft that goes into designing good games and want to support those artists in their careers. We are gamers. We know the difference between fantasy and reality. We are here to stay, and we have the right to enjoy gaming as we choose. I'm tired of having to justify my hobby more than somebody whose hobby is collecting a small arsenal of actual weapons.
Games have been protected as free speech by the Supreme Court. This means there's likely nothing the critics can do other than bloviate and try to scapegoat games in order to avoid talking about the real problems (detailed in my previous posts). Games are still a young medium and it's likely that eventually their harshest critics will literally die off (there's definitely a bit of old-fogeyness about them). Until then, I would advise anyone who wants to attack video games to do two things. First, they should watch the documentary Indie Game: The Movie, available on Netflix Instant now. It's the story of two independent game designers and the length they go through to accomplish their lifelong dream - publishing a successful game. Both games (Fez and Super Meat Boy) went on to be critical and commercial hits. If you want to make it harder for these artists and entrepreneurs to accomplish their life's work, you're just mean.
Second, any politician or media figure who wants to criticize a game should first have to answer some basic questions about it. For example, for Grand Theft Auto I would ask: When is the next GTA game coming out? What is it called? What is the general plot of any GTA game? Name one actual setting of a GTA game (hint - it's not New York). Name five things you can do in a GTA game other than killing people. (I say this and I don't even really like GTA.) If you're going to criticize video games, you should be expected to do as least as much research as would be required for a high school essay. If you don't, are you more concerned about the issue or about drawing attention to yourself and away from what really matters?
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
I Would Never Teach Again If Teachers Were Armed
I am a licensed teacher in two states, Kansas and New Mexico. I'm not currently teaching, but I wouldn't be opposed to reentering the field if a good opportunity arose. But I taught for a year at a fairly tough school in Albuquerque's South Valley, so I have a fairly good idea of what I'm talking about. More so, I dare say, than the majority of conservative politicians and media figures.
Prior to December 14 they rarely had a kind word for teachers. They're overglorified babysitters. They're lazy - they don't even work in summer! They're union thugs. They care about their pension, not kids. They're paid way too much. They teach our kids godless liberal propaganda like safe sex and evolution. If you doubt me, just do a simple search for comments uttered during the 2011 Wisconsin protests or 2012 Chicago teachers' strike. That all changed when teachers gave their lives in defense of their students in Newtown, Connecticut.
Before I get into that, I want to paint a clearer picture of what teaching is all about, from one who's been in the trenches. Besides teaching a full courseload, they are expected to: grade hundreds of assignments and tests, contact parents as necessary, attend staff meetings and training days, monitor the cafeteria and school grounds, identify students with special needs and participate in development of their Individualized Education Plans, write lesson plans, gather materials and prepare documents for evaluation, and attend parent-teacher conferences and other school-sponsored events. They must prepare students for rigorous standardized tests and are often held accountable for their performance. Depending on their duties and age of their students, in addition to teacher, they may serve as nanny, nurse, psychologist, coach, mentor, or confidant. They can be held criminally negligent if harm comes to students or criminally liable if they fail to report suspected abuse. They are trained to respond to all manner of different crises. They may have classrooms with more than 30 students, many of whom may not speak English that well or at all be used to a controlled, organized environment. They may have more meaningful contact with the students than the students have with their parents. And some have to pay for school supplies out of their own pocket.
So how much do these union thugs on Easy Street get paid? In New Mexico a newly licensed public school teacher with a BA and on a contract starts at $30,000 per year. A starting teacher with a Master's degree - requiring at least 2 more years of additional coursework and tuition - can command a salary of ... $30,002. I'm not joking. It's only after several years of experience (minimum) and two rigorous rounds of evaluation that a teacher can hope to make as much as $50,000. If you divided their salary by the number of hours they spend doing job-related duties and further subtract their own money they spend on their classrooms, many teachers would make minimum wage or less. And that's only if they're contracted - sometimes the best a teacher can hope for is a permanent substitute position, which generally carries no benefits whatsoever. Teachers don't do it for the money. Just ask Bill O'Reilly. But that's how we compensate these babysitters who also happen to be responsible for educating our country's most valuable resource. And now, apparently, we'll expect them to be expert marksmen as well.
In the wake of Newtown the calls for teachers and other school personnel to be armed has been truly disturbing, but it seemed mostly limited to Facebook posts and radical gun groups. Not anymore. A Tennessee state senator plans to introduce legislation that would arm certain school officials such as security guards and "secret" teachers. At least one would be required in every school. The proposal has the governor's interest. The governors of Virginia and Texas (Rick "oops" Perry) also want to consider it. Let me state this clearly: This. Is. Insane.
If guns had been allowed - required - at the school I taught at last year, it is rather likely somebody would have died. Maybe me. Many of our students had been kicked out of other Albuquerque schools; some had served time; some had probation officers. They could be disturbingly creative and enterprising in their malfeasance. Sometimes I felt like their only purpose in life, if they had to be at school, was to come up with new and creative ways to deceive me. They also had remarkably short tempers. One of my students responded to accidentally being kicked by punching a hole in a door. Fights were a common occurrence; one broke out in my room over a cell phone charger. Students were expelled for bringing switchblades and brass knuckles to campus. Perhaps worst of all, the administration was often MIA. On some days with fights there were zero administrators present to deal with the offending students. Purposely introducing guns into this environment would not make me feel safer. It would scare me shitless.
I would never serve in a school that required guns on campus, even if I didn't have to have one (and I don't see well enough to pass muster anyway - at least, I hope I don't). I don't care how secure the guns are or how well-trained the personnel are. Bringing guns within feet of students - or staff - who may snap at a moment's notice is BAD NEWS. Limited funding and the principle of inclusion means that students with rather severe mental health issues might be placed in a regular classroom right alongside other students. Some of these students could easily overpower a teacher; I taught several last year. Is an armed teacher supposed to draw and fire at the first sign of trouble? Rules of engagement are for law enforcement and battlefields. Not schools. The possibility of things that could go wrong is incalculable. Look, every school shooting is a tragedy and one too many. But the number of kids who die in school shootings each year is far less than the number that die at the hands of their own family members by one method or another. Are we going to send armed guards into children's homes? If the answer is no, then arming school staff is a "solution" far out of proportion to the problem that just opens the door for all sorts of new problems.
Forcing guns into schools would have a disastrous effect on an educational system that already lags behind most advanced countries. I know I am far from the only teacher who would refuse to serve in an environment filled with guns and unstable personalities. Teachers are willing to put up with low pay, long hours, hostile students and parents, and ineffective administration to do their job, because they love teaching. Don't ask them to put their own safety at unnecessary risk. We need good teachers, and our students desperately need them - perhaps now more than ever.
A note to responsible gun owners: I want to protect your rights, but you have to do your part. You need to stand up to those who can only think of the solution to these problems as being MOAR GUNZ! Trust me, the bigger the platform these people have, the harder it will be for you to make arguments for responsible gun ownership. They add nothing to the conversation. Silence them.
Prior to December 14 they rarely had a kind word for teachers. They're overglorified babysitters. They're lazy - they don't even work in summer! They're union thugs. They care about their pension, not kids. They're paid way too much. They teach our kids godless liberal propaganda like safe sex and evolution. If you doubt me, just do a simple search for comments uttered during the 2011 Wisconsin protests or 2012 Chicago teachers' strike. That all changed when teachers gave their lives in defense of their students in Newtown, Connecticut.
Before I get into that, I want to paint a clearer picture of what teaching is all about, from one who's been in the trenches. Besides teaching a full courseload, they are expected to: grade hundreds of assignments and tests, contact parents as necessary, attend staff meetings and training days, monitor the cafeteria and school grounds, identify students with special needs and participate in development of their Individualized Education Plans, write lesson plans, gather materials and prepare documents for evaluation, and attend parent-teacher conferences and other school-sponsored events. They must prepare students for rigorous standardized tests and are often held accountable for their performance. Depending on their duties and age of their students, in addition to teacher, they may serve as nanny, nurse, psychologist, coach, mentor, or confidant. They can be held criminally negligent if harm comes to students or criminally liable if they fail to report suspected abuse. They are trained to respond to all manner of different crises. They may have classrooms with more than 30 students, many of whom may not speak English that well or at all be used to a controlled, organized environment. They may have more meaningful contact with the students than the students have with their parents. And some have to pay for school supplies out of their own pocket.
So how much do these union thugs on Easy Street get paid? In New Mexico a newly licensed public school teacher with a BA and on a contract starts at $30,000 per year. A starting teacher with a Master's degree - requiring at least 2 more years of additional coursework and tuition - can command a salary of ... $30,002. I'm not joking. It's only after several years of experience (minimum) and two rigorous rounds of evaluation that a teacher can hope to make as much as $50,000. If you divided their salary by the number of hours they spend doing job-related duties and further subtract their own money they spend on their classrooms, many teachers would make minimum wage or less. And that's only if they're contracted - sometimes the best a teacher can hope for is a permanent substitute position, which generally carries no benefits whatsoever. Teachers don't do it for the money. Just ask Bill O'Reilly. But that's how we compensate these babysitters who also happen to be responsible for educating our country's most valuable resource. And now, apparently, we'll expect them to be expert marksmen as well.
In the wake of Newtown the calls for teachers and other school personnel to be armed has been truly disturbing, but it seemed mostly limited to Facebook posts and radical gun groups. Not anymore. A Tennessee state senator plans to introduce legislation that would arm certain school officials such as security guards and "secret" teachers. At least one would be required in every school. The proposal has the governor's interest. The governors of Virginia and Texas (Rick "oops" Perry) also want to consider it. Let me state this clearly: This. Is. Insane.
If guns had been allowed - required - at the school I taught at last year, it is rather likely somebody would have died. Maybe me. Many of our students had been kicked out of other Albuquerque schools; some had served time; some had probation officers. They could be disturbingly creative and enterprising in their malfeasance. Sometimes I felt like their only purpose in life, if they had to be at school, was to come up with new and creative ways to deceive me. They also had remarkably short tempers. One of my students responded to accidentally being kicked by punching a hole in a door. Fights were a common occurrence; one broke out in my room over a cell phone charger. Students were expelled for bringing switchblades and brass knuckles to campus. Perhaps worst of all, the administration was often MIA. On some days with fights there were zero administrators present to deal with the offending students. Purposely introducing guns into this environment would not make me feel safer. It would scare me shitless.
I would never serve in a school that required guns on campus, even if I didn't have to have one (and I don't see well enough to pass muster anyway - at least, I hope I don't). I don't care how secure the guns are or how well-trained the personnel are. Bringing guns within feet of students - or staff - who may snap at a moment's notice is BAD NEWS. Limited funding and the principle of inclusion means that students with rather severe mental health issues might be placed in a regular classroom right alongside other students. Some of these students could easily overpower a teacher; I taught several last year. Is an armed teacher supposed to draw and fire at the first sign of trouble? Rules of engagement are for law enforcement and battlefields. Not schools. The possibility of things that could go wrong is incalculable. Look, every school shooting is a tragedy and one too many. But the number of kids who die in school shootings each year is far less than the number that die at the hands of their own family members by one method or another. Are we going to send armed guards into children's homes? If the answer is no, then arming school staff is a "solution" far out of proportion to the problem that just opens the door for all sorts of new problems.
Forcing guns into schools would have a disastrous effect on an educational system that already lags behind most advanced countries. I know I am far from the only teacher who would refuse to serve in an environment filled with guns and unstable personalities. Teachers are willing to put up with low pay, long hours, hostile students and parents, and ineffective administration to do their job, because they love teaching. Don't ask them to put their own safety at unnecessary risk. We need good teachers, and our students desperately need them - perhaps now more than ever.
A note to responsible gun owners: I want to protect your rights, but you have to do your part. You need to stand up to those who can only think of the solution to these problems as being MOAR GUNZ! Trust me, the bigger the platform these people have, the harder it will be for you to make arguments for responsible gun ownership. They add nothing to the conversation. Silence them.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
You Can Keep Your Guns if You Support Universal Health Care
Another week, another massacre, another call for a conversation about gun violence that will likely go unanswered in any substantial way. Perhaps the horror of the events in Connecticut will make this one different. Perhaps not. But I felt the need to weigh in as a progressive who grew up around guns, though not often using them myself.
My dad is a hunter. I don't want to take away his ability to partake in his favorite hobby; if somebody told me I couldn't play board or video games anymore, I'd be mad as hell. I know that the vast majority of gun owners use them responsibly and safely. I also know that with around 300 million guns in the country (by some estimates) the odds of reducing them in a significant way are minimal. But you are in any way horrified by the fact that in 2012 America a deranged 20-year-old can use legally obtained weapons to gun down 26 people, most of them under 10, in a matter of minutes, then you are negligent if you don't want to participate in a discussion about gun violence in this country. Notice I said gun violence, not control. Hear me out.
First though, I have to object to two memes I've seen posted widely on Facebook since the shooting:
1. If you think the 2nd Amendment is necessary to protect you from the tyranny of the government, you are a bit delusional. If you think your handgun or semiautomatic rifle or whatever is going to protect you from stealth bombers, cruise missiles, and nukes, well, good luck with that. And if the military defects and joins whatever revolution you see coming, then what good is your comparative pea-shooter gonna do? The exact language of the 2nd Amendment is this: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Reading this closely (as conservatives supposedly like to do), you could argue that the amendment became obsolete the moment the US established a permanent, professional standing army. But I'm not here to make that argument. Guns are here to stay. Just don't plan on using them to overthrow the government whose military is stronger than the next 25 militaries combined.
2. I've seen a lot of messages about how if there were MORE guns in schools, i.e. if teachers or other school personnel were armed, such tragedies could be avoided. Give me a break. You have no way of knowing what would've happened. The shooter might've known to just take out the teacher first. More kids might've gotten hit in the crossfire. Who knows? No one. Moreover, do you really want to turn our schools into militarized zones with guns in ready reach of schoolchildren, even if they are supposedly secure (and what good do they do in a crisis moment if they are)? It's bad enough that our teachers now have to be trained in crisis response as a routine part of their job. They shouldn't have to also be trained in the proper use of firearms. You'd have a lot fewer good teachers if that were the case. If there were guns on campus, I never would've accepted a teaching position at a school with a student population that included many who had served time and who could be disturbingly enterprising. One student in my room reacted to accidentally being kicked by punching a hole in a door. No gun in a lockbox or whatever is truly secure in that situation. If a teacher has to replace their grading pen with a handgun, society has failed.
I've already addressed the third meme - the horrendous belief that this tragedy wouldn't have happened if (Christian) prayer and (Christian) religious instruction were allowed in public schools - in an earlier post. In short, if you have a picture like this on your Facebook wall:
You have no place at the table of a serious discussion about gun violence. If, however, you've passed that test, let's continue.
I'm well aware the problem's not just about the guns. Countries like Canada and Switzerland have roughly as many guns per person as we do. They are an important part of their history and culture. And gun violence is relatively nonexistent there. What has become a routine event here would be a national tragedy there - headlines for months. What sets us apart? Two factors that I can think of to highlight. First, certain of our politicians and media play strongly on peddling a culture of fear - of the government and of the "other." I blame the NRA for ginning up unreasonable and unfounded fears about Obama coming for your guns (they have a newsletter dedicated to such). Their influence showed when sales of guns and ammo spiked after both of Obama's elections. Well, Obama's done pretty much nothing so far to limit gun rights. He's caught a lot of flak from the left for that very reason. The NRA knee-jerk reactions and widespread influence restrict any meaningful discussion in the name of "cold dead hands."
Fear of the other has escalated dramatically since 9/11. Fearmongering causes people to feel the need to arm themselves against the terrorists. Well, unhinged young white males have killed a lot more people on American soil in the past ten years than foreign terrorists. I can only imagine the reaction had the Connecticut shooter's name happened to be something like Abdul Aziz. Somebody unsuccessfully tries to blow up a plane using a shoe bomb and now everyone has to take off their shoes in an airport. Somebody unsuccessfully tries to blow up a plane using liquid explosives and now everybody has to pack their liquids carefully in specifically sized containers. Somebody mass murders people in a movie theater, or a mall, or an elementary school...and nothing changes. We fear illusory threats from the government or foreign terrorism to the point where we are blind to address the real problems.
If moving beyond simple gun control, the most prevalent idea for improving the situation involves providing more comprehensive and effective mental health programs. I agree, but I am afraid that this is rapidly becoming a knee-jerk response from gun control opponents who want to say something other than "I want my guns" in the wake of a mass shooting. So I want them to carefully consider what they might be advocating, which brings me to the second difference between us and, say, Canada - universal health care. People here with children that have mental health needs have to fight for jobs that provide the benefits which will cover the services their children require. It's not always possible. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act only covers so much. Teachers and counselors might have dozens of special needs students on their plate. It's no wonder that so many tragic cases slip through the cracks.
So I'll make gun owners a deal. Keep your guns. They don't bother me. But give me universal health care. And I'm not talking the halfway solution that Obamacare is. I'm talking cradle-to-grave single-payer coverage like pretty much every other advanced country on the planet has. If you want your gun rights, I want a guarantee that every person with mental health needs will be treated to the maximum extent possible. And to address the vast majority of gun violence that occurs outside of media-captivating mass shootings, I want more and better programs designed to combat urban poverty. I'm not saying just throw money at cities; it has to be done smartly. But if you agree to give the urban poor better health care and better education and employment opportunities, I won't really care if you have a bazooka in your collection. How's that sound?
My dad is a hunter. I don't want to take away his ability to partake in his favorite hobby; if somebody told me I couldn't play board or video games anymore, I'd be mad as hell. I know that the vast majority of gun owners use them responsibly and safely. I also know that with around 300 million guns in the country (by some estimates) the odds of reducing them in a significant way are minimal. But you are in any way horrified by the fact that in 2012 America a deranged 20-year-old can use legally obtained weapons to gun down 26 people, most of them under 10, in a matter of minutes, then you are negligent if you don't want to participate in a discussion about gun violence in this country. Notice I said gun violence, not control. Hear me out.
First though, I have to object to two memes I've seen posted widely on Facebook since the shooting:
1. If you think the 2nd Amendment is necessary to protect you from the tyranny of the government, you are a bit delusional. If you think your handgun or semiautomatic rifle or whatever is going to protect you from stealth bombers, cruise missiles, and nukes, well, good luck with that. And if the military defects and joins whatever revolution you see coming, then what good is your comparative pea-shooter gonna do? The exact language of the 2nd Amendment is this: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Reading this closely (as conservatives supposedly like to do), you could argue that the amendment became obsolete the moment the US established a permanent, professional standing army. But I'm not here to make that argument. Guns are here to stay. Just don't plan on using them to overthrow the government whose military is stronger than the next 25 militaries combined.
2. I've seen a lot of messages about how if there were MORE guns in schools, i.e. if teachers or other school personnel were armed, such tragedies could be avoided. Give me a break. You have no way of knowing what would've happened. The shooter might've known to just take out the teacher first. More kids might've gotten hit in the crossfire. Who knows? No one. Moreover, do you really want to turn our schools into militarized zones with guns in ready reach of schoolchildren, even if they are supposedly secure (and what good do they do in a crisis moment if they are)? It's bad enough that our teachers now have to be trained in crisis response as a routine part of their job. They shouldn't have to also be trained in the proper use of firearms. You'd have a lot fewer good teachers if that were the case. If there were guns on campus, I never would've accepted a teaching position at a school with a student population that included many who had served time and who could be disturbingly enterprising. One student in my room reacted to accidentally being kicked by punching a hole in a door. No gun in a lockbox or whatever is truly secure in that situation. If a teacher has to replace their grading pen with a handgun, society has failed.
I've already addressed the third meme - the horrendous belief that this tragedy wouldn't have happened if (Christian) prayer and (Christian) religious instruction were allowed in public schools - in an earlier post. In short, if you have a picture like this on your Facebook wall:
You have no place at the table of a serious discussion about gun violence. If, however, you've passed that test, let's continue.
I'm well aware the problem's not just about the guns. Countries like Canada and Switzerland have roughly as many guns per person as we do. They are an important part of their history and culture. And gun violence is relatively nonexistent there. What has become a routine event here would be a national tragedy there - headlines for months. What sets us apart? Two factors that I can think of to highlight. First, certain of our politicians and media play strongly on peddling a culture of fear - of the government and of the "other." I blame the NRA for ginning up unreasonable and unfounded fears about Obama coming for your guns (they have a newsletter dedicated to such). Their influence showed when sales of guns and ammo spiked after both of Obama's elections. Well, Obama's done pretty much nothing so far to limit gun rights. He's caught a lot of flak from the left for that very reason. The NRA knee-jerk reactions and widespread influence restrict any meaningful discussion in the name of "cold dead hands."
Fear of the other has escalated dramatically since 9/11. Fearmongering causes people to feel the need to arm themselves against the terrorists. Well, unhinged young white males have killed a lot more people on American soil in the past ten years than foreign terrorists. I can only imagine the reaction had the Connecticut shooter's name happened to be something like Abdul Aziz. Somebody unsuccessfully tries to blow up a plane using a shoe bomb and now everyone has to take off their shoes in an airport. Somebody unsuccessfully tries to blow up a plane using liquid explosives and now everybody has to pack their liquids carefully in specifically sized containers. Somebody mass murders people in a movie theater, or a mall, or an elementary school...and nothing changes. We fear illusory threats from the government or foreign terrorism to the point where we are blind to address the real problems.
If moving beyond simple gun control, the most prevalent idea for improving the situation involves providing more comprehensive and effective mental health programs. I agree, but I am afraid that this is rapidly becoming a knee-jerk response from gun control opponents who want to say something other than "I want my guns" in the wake of a mass shooting. So I want them to carefully consider what they might be advocating, which brings me to the second difference between us and, say, Canada - universal health care. People here with children that have mental health needs have to fight for jobs that provide the benefits which will cover the services their children require. It's not always possible. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act only covers so much. Teachers and counselors might have dozens of special needs students on their plate. It's no wonder that so many tragic cases slip through the cracks.
So I'll make gun owners a deal. Keep your guns. They don't bother me. But give me universal health care. And I'm not talking the halfway solution that Obamacare is. I'm talking cradle-to-grave single-payer coverage like pretty much every other advanced country on the planet has. If you want your gun rights, I want a guarantee that every person with mental health needs will be treated to the maximum extent possible. And to address the vast majority of gun violence that occurs outside of media-captivating mass shootings, I want more and better programs designed to combat urban poverty. I'm not saying just throw money at cities; it has to be done smartly. But if you agree to give the urban poor better health care and better education and employment opportunities, I won't really care if you have a bazooka in your collection. How's that sound?
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Friendly Reminder: What the Right's Leaders Really Think About Teachers and Public Schools
I don't especially want to get into the details of the horrible tragedy in Connecticut yesterday, at least not now. But on a day when stories of heroic teachers saving the lives of children are emerging everywhere, I think it's important to reflect on the insane criticism they have received just in the past couple of years. Plus a couple of bonus idiotic comments about prayer and religion in public schools.
Former teacher Bill O'Reilly during the Feb. 2011 Wisconsin labor protests:
"The teachers in Wisconsin should be compensated to the best of the state’s ability. But, the gravy train is off the tracks. The taxpayer is tapped out. So, if you want to teach kids, you’ll have to take less to do it.
That may not be fair, but that’s the lesson Wisconsin is teaching: No more public money is on the way.
I left teaching because I understood the limitations of the job. I knew that my income would be restricted and that my life would be fairly predictable. I wanted more.
But, I respect immensely those who devote their lives to teaching. I want them to have as much as the market will bear. Sadly, that point has now been reached."
Translation: I left teaching because I realized the money sucked. But every other teacher should just suck it up and deal with it. Just don't ask me or the other rich to contribute more.
Rush Limbaugh in March 2011:
"Can we get rid of the myth once and for all that school teachers, anymore, are these average, ordinary (as Obama wants to say), next-door neighbors who are just doing everything they can to further the educational experience of your children?
That's not who they are. They are left-wing activists, active members of unions who are oriented first by a political agenda, second by their own well-being, and your kids come last."
Please, please tell this to the families of the teachers who died yesterday protecting their students. I'm sure it'll go over really well.
Mike Huckabee on the day of the shooting:
"We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage? We've made it a place where we don't want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability -- that we're not just going to have be accountable to the police if they catch us, but one day we stand before, you know, a holy God in judgment. If we don't believe that, then we don't fear that. Maybe we ought to let [God] in on the front end and we wouldn't have to call him to show up when it's all said and done at the back end."
Bryan Fischer, head of the American Family Association, on the day of the shooting:
"In 1962 we kicked prayer out of the schools. In 1963 we kicked God's word out of ours schools. In 1980 we kicked the Ten Commandments out of our schools. We've kicked God out of our public school system. And I think God would say to us, 'Hey, I'll be glad to protect your children, but you've got to invite me back into your world first. I'm not going to go where I'm not wanted. I am a gentlemen."
If the God of Huckabee and Fischer is so sensitive that he won't save the lives of 20 innocent children because there was no prayer said to him in that school, I don't want any part of Him. Separation of church and state is a fact. Deal with it. Christian dogma has no place in a public school Does that mean schools cannot teach good morals and ethics? No. Christianity is not the sole source of morality. You can be a good person without being a Christian - shock! - and religious instruction is not required to instill common human values in children. Matters of faith should be taught by parents and religious institutions. Not public schools. Period.
I didn't pick quotes from obscure figures here. These are the leaders of movement conservatism and have millions of adherents. Huckabee might make another run at the Presidency. And this is how they feel about the people responsible for educating children and protecting them when the worst happens. I only hope that the next time someone complains about overpaid teachers making $30,000/year and receiving disaster response raining as a routine part of their job, you'll remember the heroes of Connecticut.
Former teacher Bill O'Reilly during the Feb. 2011 Wisconsin labor protests:
"The teachers in Wisconsin should be compensated to the best of the state’s ability. But, the gravy train is off the tracks. The taxpayer is tapped out. So, if you want to teach kids, you’ll have to take less to do it.
That may not be fair, but that’s the lesson Wisconsin is teaching: No more public money is on the way.
I left teaching because I understood the limitations of the job. I knew that my income would be restricted and that my life would be fairly predictable. I wanted more.
But, I respect immensely those who devote their lives to teaching. I want them to have as much as the market will bear. Sadly, that point has now been reached."
Translation: I left teaching because I realized the money sucked. But every other teacher should just suck it up and deal with it. Just don't ask me or the other rich to contribute more.
Rush Limbaugh in March 2011:
"Can we get rid of the myth once and for all that school teachers, anymore, are these average, ordinary (as Obama wants to say), next-door neighbors who are just doing everything they can to further the educational experience of your children?
That's not who they are. They are left-wing activists, active members of unions who are oriented first by a political agenda, second by their own well-being, and your kids come last."
Please, please tell this to the families of the teachers who died yesterday protecting their students. I'm sure it'll go over really well.
Mike Huckabee on the day of the shooting:
"We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage? We've made it a place where we don't want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability -- that we're not just going to have be accountable to the police if they catch us, but one day we stand before, you know, a holy God in judgment. If we don't believe that, then we don't fear that. Maybe we ought to let [God] in on the front end and we wouldn't have to call him to show up when it's all said and done at the back end."
Bryan Fischer, head of the American Family Association, on the day of the shooting:
"In 1962 we kicked prayer out of the schools. In 1963 we kicked God's word out of ours schools. In 1980 we kicked the Ten Commandments out of our schools. We've kicked God out of our public school system. And I think God would say to us, 'Hey, I'll be glad to protect your children, but you've got to invite me back into your world first. I'm not going to go where I'm not wanted. I am a gentlemen."
If the God of Huckabee and Fischer is so sensitive that he won't save the lives of 20 innocent children because there was no prayer said to him in that school, I don't want any part of Him. Separation of church and state is a fact. Deal with it. Christian dogma has no place in a public school Does that mean schools cannot teach good morals and ethics? No. Christianity is not the sole source of morality. You can be a good person without being a Christian - shock! - and religious instruction is not required to instill common human values in children. Matters of faith should be taught by parents and religious institutions. Not public schools. Period.
I didn't pick quotes from obscure figures here. These are the leaders of movement conservatism and have millions of adherents. Huckabee might make another run at the Presidency. And this is how they feel about the people responsible for educating children and protecting them when the worst happens. I only hope that the next time someone complains about overpaid teachers making $30,000/year and receiving disaster response raining as a routine part of their job, you'll remember the heroes of Connecticut.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Auto Insurance and Strong Unions: Both Good for Society
This is a short follow-up to my post about unions and right-to-work laws yesterday. I came upon a great metaphor and wanted to expand on it as a way to explain the necessity of unions and paying for them.
Owning a car is technically a choice people can make. Yes, I understand that in many parts of the country driving is unavoidable for day-to-day work and activities. However, you could still compare the choice of owning a car vs. not owning a car to having a union job or non-union job. Sure, you could take the non-union job, but the union job might have better pay and benefits, which are necessary to support a family. In the end having a car and the better job, while technically choices, are de facto requirements.
There are, of course, associated costs of owning a car. One of these is insurance, which drivers in every state are required to have and, of course, pay for themselves. Now, does the government require you to get the full package, complete coverage for everything? No. It varies by state, but generally you're only required to get liability coverage. Why? Because it protects you and is good for society because it lowers the overall risk of driving a car (after all, managing risk is the basic purpose of insurance). Even non-drivers benefit; if they are injured or their property damaged in an accident, they know the offender's insurance will cover at least the legally required amounts.
Likewise, people with union jobs must pay the minimum fees associated with union representation. They don't have to become complete members and pay the full price of such. But in return for fees they get the collective benefit of a union that will fight for their interests. And in the end, even workers with non-union jobs benefit. I don't have a union job. But I have paid holidays, insurance benefits, pension possibilities, and other perks that unions struggled to bring to millions of Americans for decades. Even employees in states as alien to unions as Texas take such benefits for granted...until they're taken away. No union ever argued to raise health insurance premiums so one more CEO could get a golden parachute. I'm fortunate to have a good job with benefits. Put me on the side of solidarity with workers who deserve the same.
Owning a car is technically a choice people can make. Yes, I understand that in many parts of the country driving is unavoidable for day-to-day work and activities. However, you could still compare the choice of owning a car vs. not owning a car to having a union job or non-union job. Sure, you could take the non-union job, but the union job might have better pay and benefits, which are necessary to support a family. In the end having a car and the better job, while technically choices, are de facto requirements.
There are, of course, associated costs of owning a car. One of these is insurance, which drivers in every state are required to have and, of course, pay for themselves. Now, does the government require you to get the full package, complete coverage for everything? No. It varies by state, but generally you're only required to get liability coverage. Why? Because it protects you and is good for society because it lowers the overall risk of driving a car (after all, managing risk is the basic purpose of insurance). Even non-drivers benefit; if they are injured or their property damaged in an accident, they know the offender's insurance will cover at least the legally required amounts.
Likewise, people with union jobs must pay the minimum fees associated with union representation. They don't have to become complete members and pay the full price of such. But in return for fees they get the collective benefit of a union that will fight for their interests. And in the end, even workers with non-union jobs benefit. I don't have a union job. But I have paid holidays, insurance benefits, pension possibilities, and other perks that unions struggled to bring to millions of Americans for decades. Even employees in states as alien to unions as Texas take such benefits for granted...until they're taken away. No union ever argued to raise health insurance premiums so one more CEO could get a golden parachute. I'm fortunate to have a good job with benefits. Put me on the side of solidarity with workers who deserve the same.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
The Truth About "Right to Work"
David Koch, a Tea Partier, and a union teacher sit down at a table. The table has 12 cookies on it. David Koch immediately shoves 11 of the cookies into his pockets. Then he leans over to the Tea Partier and says, "Watch out! That union thug is gonna steal your cookie!"
The militant attacks on unions and union workers in this country really puzzle me. I'm not talking about the vitriol spewed by right-wing millionaires - that's to be expected - but rather the sympathy that average people, which would benefit greatly from increased union power, have towards such attacks. I'm not saying unions are perfect - they are, of course, made up of imperfect, corruptible human beings. But they have reaped enormous benefits for American workers in the past century, and their decline in influence is a major reason why middle-class median incomes have remained stagnant for 30 years. So let's take a look at the current war being waged on unions in Michigan and set the record straight.
On December 11 (happy anniversary to my wonderful wife) the Michigan legislature rammed through a "right-to-work" law in its lame-duck session, which was quickly signed by Governor Rick Snyder. It had to be done now because the votes won't exist to pass it in the new legislature that sits in January (a good argument for the abolition of lame-duck sessions). Michigan, a state with a proud history of union membership, became the 24th right-to-work state; almost all the others are in the South and West (Kansas is one). Its misnomer name makes the law sound great - everybody should have the right to work, right? Well, it has nothing to do with guaranteeing employment (that sounds awfully socialist). Instead, right-to-work laws prohibit a union contract that would require all members that are represented by the union to pay for such representation, whether or not they join a union. The law also expressly states that workers cannot be required to join a union.
I understand why to a lot of people this sounds like a good law - it's all about freedom, right? No one should be forced to join a union and pay for it if they don't want to. Well, it's a lot more complicated than that. First, federal law already forbids requiring union membership. Supreme Court cases and federal labor law establish that workers cannot be forced to join a union as part of a collective bargaining arrangement. What can be required is that non-union members pay only the portion of dues that is directly used for union representation and collective bargaining. This is because unions are legally required to represent all workers covered by their contract, regardless of whether they are full union members or not. This includes not only contract negotiations for salary, benefits, and the like, but also individually representing the non-member if they get into a dispute with the employer that is covered by the contract. Yes, they must pay some fees, but they get the associated benefits of representation.
The problem, then, with right-to-work laws is that they create what political scientists call a collective action problem. More simply put, it's a free-rider problem. Know how conservatives are always talking about how people should stop being dependent on government, reaping the benefits of others' hard work? Well, right-to-work laws instill this system of "moochery" in the union workplace. Non-union employees get all the benefits of union membership without paying a dime. This, in turn, discourages union membership (why pay the price if you'll get the benefit anyway - the essence of a collective action problem). Unions, however, don't have the massive resources of the federal government to mitigate the effects of free riders. As unions' resources and membership decline, they have less and less power to negotiate terms for their workers. And the results are telling. An Economic Policy Institute study from 2011 found that in right-to-work states wages are 3.2% lower, the rate of employee-sponsored health insurance plans is 2.6 percentage points lower, and the rate of employee-sponsored pensions is 4.8% lower. Curious findings for a law that Snyder declared was great for Michigan workers - so great that he signed it quietly and privately while thousands of protesters gathered outside the capitol building in Lansing.
Right-to-work laws are, in fact, all about politics and destroying the power of unions, whose members tend to be some of the strongest foot soldiers in Democratic campaigns. Michigan's law specifically excluded police and firefighter unions, who tend to be more Republican. But if right-to-work is so great for everybody, why exclude those groups? Because they are Republican, and because no one wants to be viewed as going after police officers and firefighters. Michigan's law contains verbatim language from a "model bill" drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization funded by the billionaire Koch brothers that pushes for conservative legislation nationwide. Most of Michigan's Republican lawmakers - many of whom will not face reelection - happily went along with their narrow-minded interests. It reflects Koch and company's amazing success at convincing millions of not-rich Americans that giving billionaires a tax break is better policy than helping the poor and middle classes earn a living wage. It's time our politicians stand up for 99% of our workers rather than the less-than-1% that can afford to donate millions to campaigns. The utter failure of the insanely-funded conservative SuperPACs to influence the 2012 election suggests that Americans are starting to get it. Hopefully a day of reckoning for politicians that kowtow to the interests of corporate billionaires is at hand.
Update: After writing this I came across this excellent post from Eclectablog that echoes many of the same themes. I also recommend reading the "GOP is the Food Stamp Party" piece linked to in that article.
The militant attacks on unions and union workers in this country really puzzle me. I'm not talking about the vitriol spewed by right-wing millionaires - that's to be expected - but rather the sympathy that average people, which would benefit greatly from increased union power, have towards such attacks. I'm not saying unions are perfect - they are, of course, made up of imperfect, corruptible human beings. But they have reaped enormous benefits for American workers in the past century, and their decline in influence is a major reason why middle-class median incomes have remained stagnant for 30 years. So let's take a look at the current war being waged on unions in Michigan and set the record straight.
On December 11 (happy anniversary to my wonderful wife) the Michigan legislature rammed through a "right-to-work" law in its lame-duck session, which was quickly signed by Governor Rick Snyder. It had to be done now because the votes won't exist to pass it in the new legislature that sits in January (a good argument for the abolition of lame-duck sessions). Michigan, a state with a proud history of union membership, became the 24th right-to-work state; almost all the others are in the South and West (Kansas is one). Its misnomer name makes the law sound great - everybody should have the right to work, right? Well, it has nothing to do with guaranteeing employment (that sounds awfully socialist). Instead, right-to-work laws prohibit a union contract that would require all members that are represented by the union to pay for such representation, whether or not they join a union. The law also expressly states that workers cannot be required to join a union.
I understand why to a lot of people this sounds like a good law - it's all about freedom, right? No one should be forced to join a union and pay for it if they don't want to. Well, it's a lot more complicated than that. First, federal law already forbids requiring union membership. Supreme Court cases and federal labor law establish that workers cannot be forced to join a union as part of a collective bargaining arrangement. What can be required is that non-union members pay only the portion of dues that is directly used for union representation and collective bargaining. This is because unions are legally required to represent all workers covered by their contract, regardless of whether they are full union members or not. This includes not only contract negotiations for salary, benefits, and the like, but also individually representing the non-member if they get into a dispute with the employer that is covered by the contract. Yes, they must pay some fees, but they get the associated benefits of representation.
The problem, then, with right-to-work laws is that they create what political scientists call a collective action problem. More simply put, it's a free-rider problem. Know how conservatives are always talking about how people should stop being dependent on government, reaping the benefits of others' hard work? Well, right-to-work laws instill this system of "moochery" in the union workplace. Non-union employees get all the benefits of union membership without paying a dime. This, in turn, discourages union membership (why pay the price if you'll get the benefit anyway - the essence of a collective action problem). Unions, however, don't have the massive resources of the federal government to mitigate the effects of free riders. As unions' resources and membership decline, they have less and less power to negotiate terms for their workers. And the results are telling. An Economic Policy Institute study from 2011 found that in right-to-work states wages are 3.2% lower, the rate of employee-sponsored health insurance plans is 2.6 percentage points lower, and the rate of employee-sponsored pensions is 4.8% lower. Curious findings for a law that Snyder declared was great for Michigan workers - so great that he signed it quietly and privately while thousands of protesters gathered outside the capitol building in Lansing.
Right-to-work laws are, in fact, all about politics and destroying the power of unions, whose members tend to be some of the strongest foot soldiers in Democratic campaigns. Michigan's law specifically excluded police and firefighter unions, who tend to be more Republican. But if right-to-work is so great for everybody, why exclude those groups? Because they are Republican, and because no one wants to be viewed as going after police officers and firefighters. Michigan's law contains verbatim language from a "model bill" drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization funded by the billionaire Koch brothers that pushes for conservative legislation nationwide. Most of Michigan's Republican lawmakers - many of whom will not face reelection - happily went along with their narrow-minded interests. It reflects Koch and company's amazing success at convincing millions of not-rich Americans that giving billionaires a tax break is better policy than helping the poor and middle classes earn a living wage. It's time our politicians stand up for 99% of our workers rather than the less-than-1% that can afford to donate millions to campaigns. The utter failure of the insanely-funded conservative SuperPACs to influence the 2012 election suggests that Americans are starting to get it. Hopefully a day of reckoning for politicians that kowtow to the interests of corporate billionaires is at hand.
Update: After writing this I came across this excellent post from Eclectablog that echoes many of the same themes. I also recommend reading the "GOP is the Food Stamp Party" piece linked to in that article.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Gaming and Politics: BioShock
(Time for something a little different. I'd like this to become a somewhat regular feature on the blog, but I'm having trouble thinking of many more topics for it. Any suggestions would be welcome. Suffice to say this article contains massive spoilers for the video game BioShock.)
"Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well." - Andrew Ryan
In 2007 video game designer Ken Levine and his studio Irrational Games released BioShock to near universal praise. In an industry arguably more driven by sequels than even Hollywood, it won accolades for its original story, immersive setting, and incorporation of role-playing and survival elements into a first-person shooter. Both the original and its sequel (surprise!) are fantastic games, and any gamer worth their salt should play through them. But this is Gaming and Politics, so I'm here to discuss the interesting philosophical underpinnings of the city of Rapture. (Note - this is based on my experiences playing both games, a bit of web research, and reading the prequel novel Rapture by John Shirley, which unlike most books based on games is actually enjoyable.)
The man presented as the main antagonist in the game is Andrew Ryan, who is very obviously modeled after real-life objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand, down to the initials. Like Rand, Ryan immigrated as a child to the US from Russia after the Revolution. Instead of philosophy, however, Ryan was a man of action like a character from Rand's novels, launching a successful career in construction. He became increasingly appalled as what he saw as Marxist influences came over from the land he had escaped to shape New Deal policies. The ideological struggles of World War II further cemented his belief that all governments were hopelessly corrupt and only existed to constrain the potential of true achievers and sustain the "parasites." With the detonation of the atomic bomb and emergence of a global ideological clash that could obliterate human life, Ryan concluded that civilization had gone off the deep end. The only hope to succeed was to escape.
And so he launched an ambitious plan to create his own world under the waves of the North Atlantic. He utilized his massive resources to construct an underwater city and recruited who he believed were the best and brightest of society to populate it. He named the city Rapture, an obvious reference to the apocalyptic event that whisks away the true believers to heaven. An interesting choice given his hatred of religion.
In Rapture there were no government regulations and hardly any government at all. Can't afford the privately-run trash pickup service? Tough - deal with your own garbage. Capitalists were free of all constraints to make money however they were able. Artists and scientists could pursue whatever projects they wished, regardless of any pesky notions of morality, religiously-inspired or otherwise.
It was fairly smooth going at first. A miracle breakthrough came when Rapture's progress-driven scientists devised a way to use a substance from certain sea slugs to alter people's genetics at will, effectively giving them "magic powers" such as the ability to shoot lightning or move objects with their mind. These "plasmids" became all the rage in town, until it was discovered that abusing them turned users into insane addicts known as "splicers." With little government to do anything about it, the splicers kept on splicing, until a significantly portion of Rapture's population was running amok. Other problems tore at Rapture's societal seams. A very rigid class structure emerged. Those at the top lived in an elegant underwater paradise. On the low end, workers brought in for maintenance and other duties found they were forced to live in abject squalor with little opportunity for advancement, not being allowed to leave either. Ironically enough, a Marxist organizer started rallying this proletariat to her cause, and Ryan, as a firm believer in free speech and the hands-off exchange of ideas, was hesitant to do anything about it.
On the other hand, a career criminal named Frank Fontaine who had weaseled his way into Rapture was more than happy to take advantage of any discord he could to emerge as Ryan's nemesis in the fight for control of Rapture. Ryan was forced to implement more and more of the thing he hated most - government - and began to show signs of megalomania. Freedom of speech was restricted. Curfews were implemented. Rapture, once a libertarian utopia, became a police state. All to no avail. By New Year's Eve 1959, the city was in the midst of civil war.
The events of BioShock take place a year later and open with the protagonist Jack emerging from a plane crash in the North Atlantic. He is able to swim to a strange platform in the ocean and is lowered into the depths, thus to discover the wonders of Rapture, which by now has become a wrecked graveyard only populated by crazed splicers. Jack establishes radio contact with a nice Irish fellow named Atlas (a reference to Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged) who says he can help Jack escape if Jack will in turn help free Atlas and his family from Ryan's clutches. Jack agrees and performs a number of favors for Atlas all while working toward the end goal of escape.
What follows in the game is an exciting, breathtaking tour of the ruined underwater city. Jack acquires plasmids and employs them in his struggles against the splicer gangs. He finds audio logs in which various characters - Ryan, Fontaine, and others - reveal the backstory of what has transpired in Rapture. The city itself is a wonder of design. Having been isolated from the rest of the world since the 1940s, the culture and architecture is still immersed in that era - modified for underwater purpose, altered by plasmids and other technologies, and partially destroyed by civil war to create a place unknown to anyone on the surface.
The game reaches its climax in a confrontation between Jack and Ryan, in which it is revealed that Jack is actually Ryan's illegitimate son, genetically altered to perform any action requested by the phrase "Would you kindly...?" A flashback reminds the player that Atlas, who was in fact Fontaine, had been using this phrase to guide Jack's actions throughout the game. This is BioShock's masterful trick in playing with the conventions of player agency and choice. In this libertarian paradise, ultimately there was no freedom of choice. Ryan, apparently resigned to his fate, orders Jack to "kindly" kill him with a golf club. All that remains is a final confrontation with Fontaine and and ultimate escape from the city.
"In the end, what separates a man from a slave? Money? Power? No... A man chooses, a slave obeys." - Andrew Ryan
Ryan, Rand, and ... Ryan
Ryan's comparisons to Ayn Rand run even deeper than what I've detailed here. BioShock's writers were definitely up on their objectivism. Consider these two quotes:
What is the difference between a man and a parasite? A man builds. A parasite asks 'Where is my share?' A man creates. A parasite says, 'What will the neighbors think?' A man invents. A parasite says, 'Watch out, or you might tread on the toes of God... ' - Andrew Ryan
“The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality -- the man who lives to serve others -- is the slave. - Ayn Rand
Ryan's words are catchier, but the message is the same. Objectivism proudly declares that greed is good, altruism is evil, and anyone who dares to suggest otherwise is a parasite. Both government and religion are obstacles to progress and achievement by advancing phony ideas such as social justice and "helping thy neighbor." The only true help is freedom. How influential is Rand's school of thought? Thirty years after her death, it echoes from the mouths of leading libertarian and conservative politicians and publications. It is the philosophical underpinning for the argument to dismantle the New Deal.
In 2012 the most famous Randian ironically shared Andrew Ryan's surname - Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan. As recently as 2005 Ryan praised Rand's ideas and declared that her novels were required reading for his Congressional staff. This year he had to backpedal from such lofty words, mainly because Rand's atheism directly conflicts with his devout Catholicism. This is much more than "well, she just happens to be an atheist." Atheism is central to Rand's philosophy, as religion is a bogus force that promotes altruism and limits freedom. And while Ryan may have stopped paying lip service to objectivism, his budget policies advocating radical cuts to social welfare programs reveal Rand's invisible hand at work.
As for Rand, late in her life, lacking funds and in poor health, she went on Social Security and Medicare. In the end, perhaps, we are all parasites.
"Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well." - Andrew Ryan
In 2007 video game designer Ken Levine and his studio Irrational Games released BioShock to near universal praise. In an industry arguably more driven by sequels than even Hollywood, it won accolades for its original story, immersive setting, and incorporation of role-playing and survival elements into a first-person shooter. Both the original and its sequel (surprise!) are fantastic games, and any gamer worth their salt should play through them. But this is Gaming and Politics, so I'm here to discuss the interesting philosophical underpinnings of the city of Rapture. (Note - this is based on my experiences playing both games, a bit of web research, and reading the prequel novel Rapture by John Shirley, which unlike most books based on games is actually enjoyable.)
The man presented as the main antagonist in the game is Andrew Ryan, who is very obviously modeled after real-life objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand, down to the initials. Like Rand, Ryan immigrated as a child to the US from Russia after the Revolution. Instead of philosophy, however, Ryan was a man of action like a character from Rand's novels, launching a successful career in construction. He became increasingly appalled as what he saw as Marxist influences came over from the land he had escaped to shape New Deal policies. The ideological struggles of World War II further cemented his belief that all governments were hopelessly corrupt and only existed to constrain the potential of true achievers and sustain the "parasites." With the detonation of the atomic bomb and emergence of a global ideological clash that could obliterate human life, Ryan concluded that civilization had gone off the deep end. The only hope to succeed was to escape.
And so he launched an ambitious plan to create his own world under the waves of the North Atlantic. He utilized his massive resources to construct an underwater city and recruited who he believed were the best and brightest of society to populate it. He named the city Rapture, an obvious reference to the apocalyptic event that whisks away the true believers to heaven. An interesting choice given his hatred of religion.
In Rapture there were no government regulations and hardly any government at all. Can't afford the privately-run trash pickup service? Tough - deal with your own garbage. Capitalists were free of all constraints to make money however they were able. Artists and scientists could pursue whatever projects they wished, regardless of any pesky notions of morality, religiously-inspired or otherwise.
It was fairly smooth going at first. A miracle breakthrough came when Rapture's progress-driven scientists devised a way to use a substance from certain sea slugs to alter people's genetics at will, effectively giving them "magic powers" such as the ability to shoot lightning or move objects with their mind. These "plasmids" became all the rage in town, until it was discovered that abusing them turned users into insane addicts known as "splicers." With little government to do anything about it, the splicers kept on splicing, until a significantly portion of Rapture's population was running amok. Other problems tore at Rapture's societal seams. A very rigid class structure emerged. Those at the top lived in an elegant underwater paradise. On the low end, workers brought in for maintenance and other duties found they were forced to live in abject squalor with little opportunity for advancement, not being allowed to leave either. Ironically enough, a Marxist organizer started rallying this proletariat to her cause, and Ryan, as a firm believer in free speech and the hands-off exchange of ideas, was hesitant to do anything about it.
On the other hand, a career criminal named Frank Fontaine who had weaseled his way into Rapture was more than happy to take advantage of any discord he could to emerge as Ryan's nemesis in the fight for control of Rapture. Ryan was forced to implement more and more of the thing he hated most - government - and began to show signs of megalomania. Freedom of speech was restricted. Curfews were implemented. Rapture, once a libertarian utopia, became a police state. All to no avail. By New Year's Eve 1959, the city was in the midst of civil war.
The events of BioShock take place a year later and open with the protagonist Jack emerging from a plane crash in the North Atlantic. He is able to swim to a strange platform in the ocean and is lowered into the depths, thus to discover the wonders of Rapture, which by now has become a wrecked graveyard only populated by crazed splicers. Jack establishes radio contact with a nice Irish fellow named Atlas (a reference to Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged) who says he can help Jack escape if Jack will in turn help free Atlas and his family from Ryan's clutches. Jack agrees and performs a number of favors for Atlas all while working toward the end goal of escape.
What follows in the game is an exciting, breathtaking tour of the ruined underwater city. Jack acquires plasmids and employs them in his struggles against the splicer gangs. He finds audio logs in which various characters - Ryan, Fontaine, and others - reveal the backstory of what has transpired in Rapture. The city itself is a wonder of design. Having been isolated from the rest of the world since the 1940s, the culture and architecture is still immersed in that era - modified for underwater purpose, altered by plasmids and other technologies, and partially destroyed by civil war to create a place unknown to anyone on the surface.
The game reaches its climax in a confrontation between Jack and Ryan, in which it is revealed that Jack is actually Ryan's illegitimate son, genetically altered to perform any action requested by the phrase "Would you kindly...?" A flashback reminds the player that Atlas, who was in fact Fontaine, had been using this phrase to guide Jack's actions throughout the game. This is BioShock's masterful trick in playing with the conventions of player agency and choice. In this libertarian paradise, ultimately there was no freedom of choice. Ryan, apparently resigned to his fate, orders Jack to "kindly" kill him with a golf club. All that remains is a final confrontation with Fontaine and and ultimate escape from the city.
"In the end, what separates a man from a slave? Money? Power? No... A man chooses, a slave obeys." - Andrew Ryan
Ryan, Rand, and ... Ryan
Ryan's comparisons to Ayn Rand run even deeper than what I've detailed here. BioShock's writers were definitely up on their objectivism. Consider these two quotes:
What is the difference between a man and a parasite? A man builds. A parasite asks 'Where is my share?' A man creates. A parasite says, 'What will the neighbors think?' A man invents. A parasite says, 'Watch out, or you might tread on the toes of God... ' - Andrew Ryan
“The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality -- the man who lives to serve others -- is the slave. - Ayn Rand
Ryan's words are catchier, but the message is the same. Objectivism proudly declares that greed is good, altruism is evil, and anyone who dares to suggest otherwise is a parasite. Both government and religion are obstacles to progress and achievement by advancing phony ideas such as social justice and "helping thy neighbor." The only true help is freedom. How influential is Rand's school of thought? Thirty years after her death, it echoes from the mouths of leading libertarian and conservative politicians and publications. It is the philosophical underpinning for the argument to dismantle the New Deal.
In 2012 the most famous Randian ironically shared Andrew Ryan's surname - Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan. As recently as 2005 Ryan praised Rand's ideas and declared that her novels were required reading for his Congressional staff. This year he had to backpedal from such lofty words, mainly because Rand's atheism directly conflicts with his devout Catholicism. This is much more than "well, she just happens to be an atheist." Atheism is central to Rand's philosophy, as religion is a bogus force that promotes altruism and limits freedom. And while Ryan may have stopped paying lip service to objectivism, his budget policies advocating radical cuts to social welfare programs reveal Rand's invisible hand at work.
As for Rand, late in her life, lacking funds and in poor health, she went on Social Security and Medicare. In the end, perhaps, we are all parasites.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
My Journey to Progressivism, Part 3: The Miner Manifesto
I honestly wasn't that politically active during the early years of the Obama administration. Like many of his supporters, I grew complacent in the knowledge that the executive branch was once again being run by competent professionals. I had a lot of other important things going on in my personal life. I was back in school at KU and enjoying spending significant time with my friends in Lawrence and Kansas City. Like many, I don't think I realized the extent to which the Tea Party - which was quickly co-opted by the Republican Party as an attempt at rebranding - was prepared to obstruct anything put forward by the man they hated most in the world for crazy, irrational reasons. They were aided by the propagandists at Fox continuously beating the drumroll of Obama being the worst President ever, barely weeks into his first term. I and others who had largely stopped paying attention were punished for our complacency when the "Tea Party" swept the 2010 elections. Oops.
The Tea Party's first high-profile attempt at "governance" came in my former residence of Wisconsin. Newly elected Governor Scott Walker and the Republican-dominated Legislature tried to balance the state budget (something I was intimately familiar with) on the backs of state employees, trying to take away their collective bargaining rights in the process. The protests from employees and their supporters were admirable, and the vitriol from the Right was unbelievable. Teachers were labeled as overpaid, glorified babysitters. The "everyone" in "everyone should pay their fair share" really meant "middle class workers, Lordy no, not the rich." The rights of people to peacefully protest in and around the State Capitol - which I had admired for its openness - were severely curtailed. It was sickening, and I became more and more partisan as a result.
I didn't pay that much attention to the 2012 GOP primaries because all of the candidates seemed so weak that Obama would fairly easily defeat any of them, despite the challenges he faced with the economy. Then social conservatives started rearing their ugly heads to raise my ire in a way that would forecast the nastiness of the election. First there was the opposition to the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in NYC based on idiotic religious ignorance and hatred, quickly followed by the protests against the TLC show All-American Muslim for daring to portray Muslim Americans as average people. Then Sandra Fluke was called a slut for daring to speak about women's access to birth control and a member of the Michigan legislature was censured for speaking the word "vagina." Then in the summer came the Chick-Fil-A debacle and Mike Huckabee's "Appreciation Day" which was supposedly all about protecting the right to free speech. Bullshit. Free speech doesn't mean other people don't have the right to criticize what you say. It was about protesting gay marriage. There was no "Todd Akin Appreciation Day" when that guy surgically implanted his foot into his mouth by exercising his right to free speech a month later.
Then the attacks began on President Obama and his policies. The thinly veiled racist attacks were palpable. Even if they weren't coming directly from Mitt Romney, he did little to silence them and did joke about no one asking him to see his birth certificate. When Sean Hannity goes on and on about Obama "having the accent" when he speaks to a black audience, displaying no knowledge of code-switching, a natural part of language that everyone does, that is racist. It was around this time I had a bit of an epiphany - something that I know many progressives have known for a long time, but I always tried to give the benefit of the doubt to - not all Republicans are racist, but almost all racists are Republicans. Put another way, there are two kinds of Republicans - those who are racist and those who tacitly accept or openly court their votes. It is not symmetric. The Democrats do not have a base structure that automatically delivers dozens of electoral votes on Election Day due to an openly racist Southern Strategy (ironically enough, they used to...until the 1964 Civil Rights Act). If you remove the states of the Confederacy from the equation, the electoral result changes from 332 Obama vs. 206 Romney to 290 Obama vs. 88 Romney. Remove slave states Missouri and Kentucky and Romney's total drops to 70. It is impossible for a Republican to win the White House without the South. Moreover, Texas (38 electoral votes) is on the path to become a swing state by probably 2024. If that happens and Republicans do nothing to change their ways besides speak a few token words of Spanish, they are done. Unfortunately, the party is also tied at the hip to xenophobic bigots, radical theocratic Christians, and homophobes as well. The Tea Party movement has even elevated these people to serious positions of power. Until the Republicans purge these groups and declare they do not want or need their support, they are not worthy of a seat at the political roundtable.
Whew. Don't want this to drag on too long, but have to make one more major point - "socialism." The Right's attempts to label Obama as a socialist are laughable, but if you're going to redefine socialism as "anything the government does to help people," then I suppose they have a point. Their attempts to dismantle the New Deal and roll us back to the Gilded Age have driven me further into the progressive economic school of John Maynard Keynes and Paul Krugman, whom I read on a daily basis. I support capitalism and the free market. I do not want government to control everything. But government has a place in regulating the economy and providing for people who have fallen out of the system - market failures, if you will. This does not make people inherently dependent on government nor does it unfairly punish the "makers." I resent the efforts by movement conservative leaders to get the poor and middle classes to vote against their own economic interests through divisive wedge issues like abortion and gun control. To paraphrase Thomas Frank from What's the Matter with Kansas?, their goal is to create angry mobs who carry torches and pitchforks to the bastions of the elite political and media establishment, only to shout "We are here to lower your taxes!"
I am not a supply-side economist; I am a demand-side economist. Enabling the rich to produce a bunch of stuff does little good if everyone else has no money to buy it with. We now have the biggest gap between rich and poor in a century. So why won't the Kansas state government end the state sales tax on food instead of giving the Koch brothers a tax break? (which they did) Who needs it more? I want there to be universal health care like every other advanced country on the planet. Yeah, my taxes might go up, but I'd never pay an insurance premium again, and neither would my employer. And if it's a choice between paying taxes to kill brown people in a foreign country, subsidizing a tax cut for millionaires, or helping my fellow Americans to afford health care, I'll choose the latter every time. I proudly belong to the side that gives a shit about other people.
I'm now more politically active than ever, and I intend to remain that way. And yet no matter how liberal I may be, I do want there to be a solid and sound opposition to the Democratic Party. Such discourse is vital to our democracy. But the Republican Party as controlled by movement conservatism does not provide a reasonable ideological opponent. In 2012 they truly went off the deep end, and they must be squashed. Until such time as my ideal of pragmatic debate and compromise returns, I must remain partisan and a proud progressive. And if that time is never, then so be it.
The Tea Party's first high-profile attempt at "governance" came in my former residence of Wisconsin. Newly elected Governor Scott Walker and the Republican-dominated Legislature tried to balance the state budget (something I was intimately familiar with) on the backs of state employees, trying to take away their collective bargaining rights in the process. The protests from employees and their supporters were admirable, and the vitriol from the Right was unbelievable. Teachers were labeled as overpaid, glorified babysitters. The "everyone" in "everyone should pay their fair share" really meant "middle class workers, Lordy no, not the rich." The rights of people to peacefully protest in and around the State Capitol - which I had admired for its openness - were severely curtailed. It was sickening, and I became more and more partisan as a result.
I didn't pay that much attention to the 2012 GOP primaries because all of the candidates seemed so weak that Obama would fairly easily defeat any of them, despite the challenges he faced with the economy. Then social conservatives started rearing their ugly heads to raise my ire in a way that would forecast the nastiness of the election. First there was the opposition to the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in NYC based on idiotic religious ignorance and hatred, quickly followed by the protests against the TLC show All-American Muslim for daring to portray Muslim Americans as average people. Then Sandra Fluke was called a slut for daring to speak about women's access to birth control and a member of the Michigan legislature was censured for speaking the word "vagina." Then in the summer came the Chick-Fil-A debacle and Mike Huckabee's "Appreciation Day" which was supposedly all about protecting the right to free speech. Bullshit. Free speech doesn't mean other people don't have the right to criticize what you say. It was about protesting gay marriage. There was no "Todd Akin Appreciation Day" when that guy surgically implanted his foot into his mouth by exercising his right to free speech a month later.
Then the attacks began on President Obama and his policies. The thinly veiled racist attacks were palpable. Even if they weren't coming directly from Mitt Romney, he did little to silence them and did joke about no one asking him to see his birth certificate. When Sean Hannity goes on and on about Obama "having the accent" when he speaks to a black audience, displaying no knowledge of code-switching, a natural part of language that everyone does, that is racist. It was around this time I had a bit of an epiphany - something that I know many progressives have known for a long time, but I always tried to give the benefit of the doubt to - not all Republicans are racist, but almost all racists are Republicans. Put another way, there are two kinds of Republicans - those who are racist and those who tacitly accept or openly court their votes. It is not symmetric. The Democrats do not have a base structure that automatically delivers dozens of electoral votes on Election Day due to an openly racist Southern Strategy (ironically enough, they used to...until the 1964 Civil Rights Act). If you remove the states of the Confederacy from the equation, the electoral result changes from 332 Obama vs. 206 Romney to 290 Obama vs. 88 Romney. Remove slave states Missouri and Kentucky and Romney's total drops to 70. It is impossible for a Republican to win the White House without the South. Moreover, Texas (38 electoral votes) is on the path to become a swing state by probably 2024. If that happens and Republicans do nothing to change their ways besides speak a few token words of Spanish, they are done. Unfortunately, the party is also tied at the hip to xenophobic bigots, radical theocratic Christians, and homophobes as well. The Tea Party movement has even elevated these people to serious positions of power. Until the Republicans purge these groups and declare they do not want or need their support, they are not worthy of a seat at the political roundtable.
Whew. Don't want this to drag on too long, but have to make one more major point - "socialism." The Right's attempts to label Obama as a socialist are laughable, but if you're going to redefine socialism as "anything the government does to help people," then I suppose they have a point. Their attempts to dismantle the New Deal and roll us back to the Gilded Age have driven me further into the progressive economic school of John Maynard Keynes and Paul Krugman, whom I read on a daily basis. I support capitalism and the free market. I do not want government to control everything. But government has a place in regulating the economy and providing for people who have fallen out of the system - market failures, if you will. This does not make people inherently dependent on government nor does it unfairly punish the "makers." I resent the efforts by movement conservative leaders to get the poor and middle classes to vote against their own economic interests through divisive wedge issues like abortion and gun control. To paraphrase Thomas Frank from What's the Matter with Kansas?, their goal is to create angry mobs who carry torches and pitchforks to the bastions of the elite political and media establishment, only to shout "We are here to lower your taxes!"
I am not a supply-side economist; I am a demand-side economist. Enabling the rich to produce a bunch of stuff does little good if everyone else has no money to buy it with. We now have the biggest gap between rich and poor in a century. So why won't the Kansas state government end the state sales tax on food instead of giving the Koch brothers a tax break? (which they did) Who needs it more? I want there to be universal health care like every other advanced country on the planet. Yeah, my taxes might go up, but I'd never pay an insurance premium again, and neither would my employer. And if it's a choice between paying taxes to kill brown people in a foreign country, subsidizing a tax cut for millionaires, or helping my fellow Americans to afford health care, I'll choose the latter every time. I proudly belong to the side that gives a shit about other people.
I'm now more politically active than ever, and I intend to remain that way. And yet no matter how liberal I may be, I do want there to be a solid and sound opposition to the Democratic Party. Such discourse is vital to our democracy. But the Republican Party as controlled by movement conservatism does not provide a reasonable ideological opponent. In 2012 they truly went off the deep end, and they must be squashed. Until such time as my ideal of pragmatic debate and compromise returns, I must remain partisan and a proud progressive. And if that time is never, then so be it.
Sorry, Senator Dole - Your Party Doesn't Exist Anymore
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| Both men deserve better. |
(Here's a little more background on the ADA and this treaty. Feel free to skip to the next paragraph if you're familiar with them.) The Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted in 1990 to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities and extend to them many of the same protections in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They cannot be discriminated against in employment. With some exceptions, they must be guaranteed equal access to public places (you might remember a lot of wheelchair ramps being constructed in the '90s). Telecom companies must ensure equal access to their services through such devices as TTY and TDD. It was landmark legislation that greatly enhanced access and opportunities for Americans with disabilities. It was the first of its kind in the world and made the US a leader in disability rights and accomodations. It's not a big surprise, then, that the law serves as the basis for the UN's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This Convention basically takes the core concepts of the ADA and extends them to any country who becomes a party to the treaty; the US even helped draft it. And even though the treaty thus aligns exactly with US disability law, it's not exactly enforceable, like pretty much everything the UN does. The UN is not a one-world government and has no real power over sovereign nation-states. The treaty, then, really establishes recommended guidelines that signing countries can ascribe to.
Today 154 countries have signed the Convention. Both Presidents Bush and Obama signed the treaty, but in the US treaties must also be approved by a 2/3 vote in the Senate. The vote was 61 for vs. 38 against - just short. Nine Republicans joined every Democrat in voting for the treaty.
So why did most Senate Republicans stand against this Convention? In short, crazy UN conspiracy theories and baseless beliefs that it would harm home schoolers and religious schools. Bob Dole, fresh out of the hospital, appeared on the Senate floor in a wheelchair to advocate for the treaty. And all but nine of the Republican Senators looked at him and said, "Screw you, Bob. My insane knee-jerk reactions to anything coming from the UN are more important than standing up for people like you."
"People like you" here includes disabled war veterans who worked for months to get this treaty ratified. But just as they opposed the Veteran Jobs Act a couple months ago, this serves as further evidence that this current crop of Republicans has no problem turning people into disabled veterans but has no real interest in respecting them or supporting them once their purpose is served. Bob Dole worked tirelessly to pass the ADA in 1990, which enjoyed bipartisan support (it passed the Senate 76-8 and the House on a unanimous voice vote) and was signed into law by a Republican president. Today it would likely be labeled a socialist government takeover. Dole's efforts to get this treaty approved may very well be the last political crusade of Dole's storied career.
And not only did it fail in the face of ridiculous opposition, but it failed via Dole's former Senate Republican colleagues stabbing him in the back. Both of Kansas' Senators, Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran, voted against it after previously expressing support. Moran is my former Congressman from the Kansas Big First district, which includes Dole's hometown of Russell, where my parents now live. In May Moran issued a joint press release with John McCain praising the treaty. To his credit, McCain kept his word. Moran did not. He turned his back on his fellow Kansan, someone I'm sure he at one time saw as a mentor and inspiration.
Enough Republicans had promised their support that the treaty's defeat was a real surprise to observers. Here is a description of the reaction:
"The scene both inside and just outside the Senate chamber Tuesday before and during the vote was heart-wrenching, several observers said. Wounded war veterans and other disabled people filled the gallery above the floor and the hallways outside the chamber, expecting to celebrate months of effort, only to have those hopes shattered as the roll call vote was read aloud.
"That was one of most shameful moments I've witnessed during my time in Washington," one longtime senior Senate aide said. "I thought it was utterly appalling."
"The reaction was one of emotional hurt. There was weeping in the gallery," said Morrissey, who added that disability groups will remember the GOP senators who torpedoed the treaty ratification effort and groups have labeled the 38 the "wall of shame." " The full story is at Foreign Policy.
After voting against the treaty, 2016 presidential hopeful Marco Rubio went to accept the Jack Kemp Award (Dole's '96 running mate) and gave a speech about helping the less fortunate. No comment.
I may not agree with everything Bob Dole did in his political career. But I respect him as a war hero, a tireless crusader for people with disabilities (of which I am one), and a masterful negotiator who readily reached across the aisle to find compromises. To see the legacy of one of history's greatest Kansans tarnished in this way tears me apart. If today's Republicans will gladly throw one of their living icons under the bus to appease their John Birch Society trolls, what might they do to the rest of us?
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
My Journey to Progressivism, Part 2: The Bush Years
(Brief note: As I write these reflections I'm trying my best to describe how I reacted and felt at the time rather than projecting my current views back onto myself, but it can be difficult, especially because I think I'm now better able to detail exactly what I was witnessing and my evolution as a result. So be aware that there probably is a bit of ret-conning despite my best efforts otherwise.)
Eleven years later, it's becoming safer and safer to assume that 9/11 will stand as the definitive international political event of my generation. It's the Pearl Harbor, JFK assassination, or moon landing of Gen X and most of the Millennials. We all remember where we were. I usually turned on the news for a few minutes before heading out the door; for whatever reason, that morning (at about 8:45 Central time, well after it had begun) I didn't. I was on the bus to campus when a girl with a cell phone (I sure as hell didn't have one in 2001) started talking about how "they" had attacked the Pentagon. That was the first I heard. I continued on to campus in the pre-Twitter and smartphone era (to think how differently this would go down today) where confusion reigned and class continued somewhat normally, though discussion centered on the attacks as more details became clear. Then I went home and watched TV the rest of the day.
I felt a lot of emotions. Sadness, anger, confusion. I wanted justice, but as a junior majoring in political science, I knew that this wasn't going to be a simple "go kick that country's ass" kind of war. It was nice to see Americans dropping the stupid crap and uniting for at least a little bit. I felt bad knowing that Muslims in this country were going to get a lot of grief. But when President Bush gave his speech on the rubble, I was optimistic that he could see us through the tragedy and an appropriate response. The first sign of trouble came with the Patriot Act, the legacy of which (REAL ID) is going to cause me to have to get a new passport to fly out of New Mexico.
I spent the summer of 2002 abroad in Germany, where I was first seriously exposed to the European way of life. It was great. Not that I was giving up on America, mind you, but my love and respect for other cultures was deepened with this first true immersion in one. I was a bit taken aback when I returned and all the talk was about Saddam Hussein and WMDs. The countdown to the Iraq War had begun. Honestly, I didn't know what to think. I knew Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, that was obvious. I wanted to believe the WMD threat was real, though it seemed unlikely that the regime could pose a serious threat to the US. I was disgusted with the complete disregard for the international community and the renaming of French fries to "freedom fries." By the time shock and awe started in March 2003, I knew we were making a mistake. I just had no idea how big of a mistake it was.
Later that year I returned to Germany, this time for 10 months. I didn't stick a Canadian flag on my backpack, but I didn't exactly brag about being an American either. To their credit, I never met a German or other international student that made assumptions about me because of my country of origin. And I made friends from so many places - Germany, China, Estonia, India - that I was embarrassed that the leaders of my country seemed to not care about what these people thought if they dared disagree with the stance of 'MERICA, F YEAH! Meanwhile, things were going FUBAR in Iraq. It became readily apparent that the occupation was being run by incompetent cronies and thugs. Then came the Abu Ghraib torture pictures. I was mortified. It was not a few bad apples. It was a systematic failure and a national embarrassment to a great country. Neoconservatism as a foreign policy was dead to me.
Enter the 2004 presidential election. I was at a crossroads. I was severely upset with Bush about Iraq, but I wasn't quite ready to side with the Democrats. Kerry just didn't do it for me. (Unfortunately, at this time I still watched Fox News somewhat often, and was at least partially influenced by the crap they threw at him. Second mea culpa of this series - John, you gave a great speech at the DNC this year.) I ended up voting for the Libertarian. It was an absentee Kansas vote, so it didn't really matter.
At the time I was studying international affairs at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, a city that makes Lawrence look as red as rural Texas. Social conservatism had never been my thing. Iraq crushed my foreign policy conservatism. Now, thanks to the Bush policies and my graduate coursework in politics and economics, I abandoned conservatism altogether and became a pragmatic moderate. Surely the best way to solve problems in the economic and policy realms was to analyze all the options and figure out which one would work the best. Though I didn't realize it, I tacitly accepted what some liberals call the Big Lie of Centrism - both sides are just as bad. If we could just get the corrupt politicians out of it, we could really get things done.
Katrina removed whatever little faith I may have had left in the Bush administration; to screw up occupying a foreign country during an insurgency is one thing, to fail to adequately assist your own citizens when disaster strikes is inexcusable. The next year I entered government service as a budget analyst for the state of Wisconsin. For the first time I was directly exposed to how government works, albeit at the state level. And yes, there was some shenanigans on both sides, but the sheer obstinacy and pigheadedness with how the state Republicans acted (many of them currently in charge, sadly) gradually eroded my sense of Both Sides Suck Equally.
When the 2008 election came around, like many Americans I was ready for a change. I had respect for John McCain, at least until he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, but I tied my horse to Obama pretty early. When people like Colin Powell - my former hero - endorsed him, I became confident I was making the right choice. The Republican Party was trending steadily rightward at a time I was trending leftward. I hoped Obama would sweep away the detritus of the Bush years and begin things anew. Then the Great Recession hit and it became painfully obvious just how much BushCo had sunk us. I was elated when Obama won. Would I agree with everyone he did? No. But finally it seemed as if a grown-up was in charge again. Our standing in the world improved overnight - and I believe that's vitally important. When the Tea Party formed on, seemingly, January 21, 2009 and ushered in the Great Hypocrisy of Obama Caused the Debt (not to mention insane birth certificate conspiracy theories), I was revolted and gradually became less and less afraid to "come out" as a liberal. But I'll save that for Part 3, when I'll bring my tale to the present day.
Eleven years later, it's becoming safer and safer to assume that 9/11 will stand as the definitive international political event of my generation. It's the Pearl Harbor, JFK assassination, or moon landing of Gen X and most of the Millennials. We all remember where we were. I usually turned on the news for a few minutes before heading out the door; for whatever reason, that morning (at about 8:45 Central time, well after it had begun) I didn't. I was on the bus to campus when a girl with a cell phone (I sure as hell didn't have one in 2001) started talking about how "they" had attacked the Pentagon. That was the first I heard. I continued on to campus in the pre-Twitter and smartphone era (to think how differently this would go down today) where confusion reigned and class continued somewhat normally, though discussion centered on the attacks as more details became clear. Then I went home and watched TV the rest of the day.
I felt a lot of emotions. Sadness, anger, confusion. I wanted justice, but as a junior majoring in political science, I knew that this wasn't going to be a simple "go kick that country's ass" kind of war. It was nice to see Americans dropping the stupid crap and uniting for at least a little bit. I felt bad knowing that Muslims in this country were going to get a lot of grief. But when President Bush gave his speech on the rubble, I was optimistic that he could see us through the tragedy and an appropriate response. The first sign of trouble came with the Patriot Act, the legacy of which (REAL ID) is going to cause me to have to get a new passport to fly out of New Mexico.
I spent the summer of 2002 abroad in Germany, where I was first seriously exposed to the European way of life. It was great. Not that I was giving up on America, mind you, but my love and respect for other cultures was deepened with this first true immersion in one. I was a bit taken aback when I returned and all the talk was about Saddam Hussein and WMDs. The countdown to the Iraq War had begun. Honestly, I didn't know what to think. I knew Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, that was obvious. I wanted to believe the WMD threat was real, though it seemed unlikely that the regime could pose a serious threat to the US. I was disgusted with the complete disregard for the international community and the renaming of French fries to "freedom fries." By the time shock and awe started in March 2003, I knew we were making a mistake. I just had no idea how big of a mistake it was.
Later that year I returned to Germany, this time for 10 months. I didn't stick a Canadian flag on my backpack, but I didn't exactly brag about being an American either. To their credit, I never met a German or other international student that made assumptions about me because of my country of origin. And I made friends from so many places - Germany, China, Estonia, India - that I was embarrassed that the leaders of my country seemed to not care about what these people thought if they dared disagree with the stance of 'MERICA, F YEAH! Meanwhile, things were going FUBAR in Iraq. It became readily apparent that the occupation was being run by incompetent cronies and thugs. Then came the Abu Ghraib torture pictures. I was mortified. It was not a few bad apples. It was a systematic failure and a national embarrassment to a great country. Neoconservatism as a foreign policy was dead to me.
Enter the 2004 presidential election. I was at a crossroads. I was severely upset with Bush about Iraq, but I wasn't quite ready to side with the Democrats. Kerry just didn't do it for me. (Unfortunately, at this time I still watched Fox News somewhat often, and was at least partially influenced by the crap they threw at him. Second mea culpa of this series - John, you gave a great speech at the DNC this year.) I ended up voting for the Libertarian. It was an absentee Kansas vote, so it didn't really matter.
At the time I was studying international affairs at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, a city that makes Lawrence look as red as rural Texas. Social conservatism had never been my thing. Iraq crushed my foreign policy conservatism. Now, thanks to the Bush policies and my graduate coursework in politics and economics, I abandoned conservatism altogether and became a pragmatic moderate. Surely the best way to solve problems in the economic and policy realms was to analyze all the options and figure out which one would work the best. Though I didn't realize it, I tacitly accepted what some liberals call the Big Lie of Centrism - both sides are just as bad. If we could just get the corrupt politicians out of it, we could really get things done.
Katrina removed whatever little faith I may have had left in the Bush administration; to screw up occupying a foreign country during an insurgency is one thing, to fail to adequately assist your own citizens when disaster strikes is inexcusable. The next year I entered government service as a budget analyst for the state of Wisconsin. For the first time I was directly exposed to how government works, albeit at the state level. And yes, there was some shenanigans on both sides, but the sheer obstinacy and pigheadedness with how the state Republicans acted (many of them currently in charge, sadly) gradually eroded my sense of Both Sides Suck Equally.
When the 2008 election came around, like many Americans I was ready for a change. I had respect for John McCain, at least until he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, but I tied my horse to Obama pretty early. When people like Colin Powell - my former hero - endorsed him, I became confident I was making the right choice. The Republican Party was trending steadily rightward at a time I was trending leftward. I hoped Obama would sweep away the detritus of the Bush years and begin things anew. Then the Great Recession hit and it became painfully obvious just how much BushCo had sunk us. I was elated when Obama won. Would I agree with everyone he did? No. But finally it seemed as if a grown-up was in charge again. Our standing in the world improved overnight - and I believe that's vitally important. When the Tea Party formed on, seemingly, January 21, 2009 and ushered in the Great Hypocrisy of Obama Caused the Debt (not to mention insane birth certificate conspiracy theories), I was revolted and gradually became less and less afraid to "come out" as a liberal. But I'll save that for Part 3, when I'll bring my tale to the present day.
Thomas Jefferson Wasn't Born Again
I'm really tired of religious conservatives attempting to turn our Enlightenment philosophizing Founding Fathers into evangelical Christian theocrats. Here are some great examples of what those old white guys really had to say about religion:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/04/1166999/-The-Ten-Commandments-Of-Our-Founding-Fathers
I'll probably say more about this myself in the future. In the meantime, I'm glad others are ready and able to do it for me.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/04/1166999/-The-Ten-Commandments-Of-Our-Founding-Fathers
I'll probably say more about this myself in the future. In the meantime, I'm glad others are ready and able to do it for me.
Monday, December 3, 2012
My Journey to Progressivism, Part 1: In the Beginning...
Before I continue on too much farther with this blog, I think it's important to take a moment and establish where I'm coming from. How did I find myself in the progressive camp? Those who have known me for many years know that I haven't always been liberally minded. My journey leftward occurred over several years, and examining it reveals much in how I view the world and why I believe my goal of spreading progressive ideas to rural Americans is not only important but achievable.
My political awakening occurred around 1994 when I was in about 7th grade. Before that I was probably more interested in politics than the average kid (I was a nerd after all), but I really started to develop political ideas in the Clinton years. At the time we lived in Hays, Kansas, a town of about 18,000 on the High Plains of western Kansas - the largest town in about a 90 mile radius. Kansas was dominated then by moderate Republicans. Our senators were Bob Dole (from Russell, 30 miles east of Hays), and Nancy Kassebaum. We had our first female Democrat governor, Joan Finney, who was replaced in November 1994 by moderate Republican Bill Graves. Movement conservatism was rapidly growing in power in the state, however, especially in the aftermath of the 1991 Summer of Mercy abortion protests in Wichita.
It was in this climate that I was introduced to Rush Limbaugh. I read his two books. When I was home I watched his short-lived TV show; on road trips I would sometimes tune in to his radio show. His ideas made a lot of sense to me. When he talked about government punishing achievement, I listened as though government wanted to punish me, a young go-getter! Why should I pay high taxes? Why should I do anything to help other people? Out there on the Plains, we didn't need any federal government intervention. Some programs were ok, but socialized health care? Affirmative action? No thanks. I became a libertarian-leaning conservative, and proud of it. I believed everything lobbed at President Clinton. (I'm sorry, Bill. In retrospect, you're cool.)
I never became incredibly hardcore, however. Now lest you think I'm ret-conning my past (changing it to suit the present), hear me out. When Bob Dole became the Republican presidential nominee in 1996, I supported him enthusiastically, more so than Rush. My favorite Republicans were always moderates like Dole and Colin Powell, whom I desperately wanted to run for President. Something about the hardest right-wingers always put me off a bit. This was especially true with regards to social conservatism, which I never fully bought into. Here I think I can give some credit to my Catholic heritage; the militant evangelical Christianity I experienced both on a national level and in the small towns I lived in really turned me off. I had a deep respect for other cultures since a young age, and turning a blind eye to their contributions with a simple "they're wrong and evil" had no place in my worldview. I was especially conflicted during Clinton's impeachment; I was obviously not a Clinton fan, but impeaching him over a sex scandal seemed to fall short of "high crimes and misdemeanors."
Still, I remained a loyal "moderate" conservative. Upon reaching voting age I registered as a Republican and proudly voted for George W. Bush the following year. Concurrently I was getting my "blue state" education at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, the liberal bastion of the state. I fully supported W during the 2000 election debacle, believing those dirty Democrats were trying to change the rules. When the Supreme Court stopped the recount, I was excited. Now the country would be governed by a "compassionate conservative" who would really turn things around (ugh, it pains me to type this). Little did I know that the governance of the Bush administration, combined with my own personal life experiences, would eventually alter my political beliefs for good. But that's a story for Part 2.
My political awakening occurred around 1994 when I was in about 7th grade. Before that I was probably more interested in politics than the average kid (I was a nerd after all), but I really started to develop political ideas in the Clinton years. At the time we lived in Hays, Kansas, a town of about 18,000 on the High Plains of western Kansas - the largest town in about a 90 mile radius. Kansas was dominated then by moderate Republicans. Our senators were Bob Dole (from Russell, 30 miles east of Hays), and Nancy Kassebaum. We had our first female Democrat governor, Joan Finney, who was replaced in November 1994 by moderate Republican Bill Graves. Movement conservatism was rapidly growing in power in the state, however, especially in the aftermath of the 1991 Summer of Mercy abortion protests in Wichita.
It was in this climate that I was introduced to Rush Limbaugh. I read his two books. When I was home I watched his short-lived TV show; on road trips I would sometimes tune in to his radio show. His ideas made a lot of sense to me. When he talked about government punishing achievement, I listened as though government wanted to punish me, a young go-getter! Why should I pay high taxes? Why should I do anything to help other people? Out there on the Plains, we didn't need any federal government intervention. Some programs were ok, but socialized health care? Affirmative action? No thanks. I became a libertarian-leaning conservative, and proud of it. I believed everything lobbed at President Clinton. (I'm sorry, Bill. In retrospect, you're cool.)
I never became incredibly hardcore, however. Now lest you think I'm ret-conning my past (changing it to suit the present), hear me out. When Bob Dole became the Republican presidential nominee in 1996, I supported him enthusiastically, more so than Rush. My favorite Republicans were always moderates like Dole and Colin Powell, whom I desperately wanted to run for President. Something about the hardest right-wingers always put me off a bit. This was especially true with regards to social conservatism, which I never fully bought into. Here I think I can give some credit to my Catholic heritage; the militant evangelical Christianity I experienced both on a national level and in the small towns I lived in really turned me off. I had a deep respect for other cultures since a young age, and turning a blind eye to their contributions with a simple "they're wrong and evil" had no place in my worldview. I was especially conflicted during Clinton's impeachment; I was obviously not a Clinton fan, but impeaching him over a sex scandal seemed to fall short of "high crimes and misdemeanors."
Still, I remained a loyal "moderate" conservative. Upon reaching voting age I registered as a Republican and proudly voted for George W. Bush the following year. Concurrently I was getting my "blue state" education at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, the liberal bastion of the state. I fully supported W during the 2000 election debacle, believing those dirty Democrats were trying to change the rules. When the Supreme Court stopped the recount, I was excited. Now the country would be governed by a "compassionate conservative" who would really turn things around (ugh, it pains me to type this). Little did I know that the governance of the Bush administration, combined with my own personal life experiences, would eventually alter my political beliefs for good. But that's a story for Part 2.
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